In The Levant 4

In The Levant 4

"But what did you say at the convent in Jaffa when you applied for a

permit to lodge here?"

 

"Oh, I tell him my gentleman general American, but 'stinguish; mebbe he

done gone wrote 'em that you 'stinguish American general. Very nice man,

the superior, speak Italian beautiful; when I give him the letter, he

say he do all he can for the general and his suite; he sorry I not let

him know 'forehand."

 

The dinner was served in the long refectory, and there were some

twenty-five persons at table, mostly pilgrims to Jerusalem, and most of

them of the poorer class. One bright Italian had travelled alone with

her little boy all the way from Verona, only to see the Holy Sepulchre.

The monks waited at table and served a very good dinner. Travellers are

not permitted to enter the portion of the large convent which contains

the cells of the monks, nor to visit any part of the old building except

the chapel. I fancied that the jolly brothers who waited at table were

rather glad to come into contact with the world, even in this capacity.

 

In the dining-room hangs a notable picture. It is the Virgin, enthroned,

with a crown and aureole, holding the holy child, who is also crowned;

in the foreground is a choir of white boys or angels. The Virgin and

child are both _black_; it is the Virgin of Ethiopia. I could not learn

the origin of this picture; it was rude enough in execution to be the

work of a Greek artist of the present day; but it was said to come from

Ethiopia, where it is necessary to a proper respect for the Virgin

that she should be represented black. She seems to bear something the

relation to the Virgin of Judæa that Astarte did to the Grecian Venus.

And we are again reminded that the East has no prejudice of color: "I

am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem"; "Look not upon me

because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me."

 

The convent bells are ringing at early dawn, and though we are up

at half past five, nearly all the pilgrims have hastily departed

for Jerusalem. Upon the roof I find the morning fair. There are more

minarets than spires in sight, but they stand together in this pretty

little town without discord. The bells are ringing in melodious

persuasion, but at the same time, in voices as musical, the muezzins are

calling from their galleries; each summoning men to prayer in its own

way. From these walls spectators once looked down upon the battles of

cross and crescent raging in the lovely meadows,--battles of quite as

much pride as piety. A common interest always softens animosity, and

I fancy that monks and Moslems will not again resort to the foolish

practice of breaking each other's heads so long as they enjoy the

profitable stream of pilgrims to the Holy Land.

 

After breakfast and a gift to the treasury of the convent according

to our rank--I think if I were to stay there again it would be in the

character of a common soldier--we embarked again in the ark, and jolted

along behind the square-shouldered driver, who seemed to enjoy the

rattling and rumbling of his clumsy vehicle. But no minor infelicity

could destroy for us the freshness of the morning or the enjoyment of

the lovely country. Although, in the jolting, one could not utter a

remark about the beauty of the way without danger of biting his tongue

in two, we feasted our eyes and let our imaginations loose over the vast

ranges of the Old Testament story.

 

After passing through the fertile meadows of Ramleh, we came into a

more rolling country, destitute of houses, but clothed on with a most

brilliant bloom of wild-flowers, among which the papilionaceous flowers

were conspicuous for color and delicacy. I found by the roadside a

_black calla_ (which I should no more have believed in than in the

black Virgin, if I had not seen it). Its leaf is exactly that of our

calla-lily; its flower is similar to, but not so open and flaring, as

the white calla, and the pistil is large and very long, and of the color

of the interior of the flower. The corolla is green on the outside, but

the inside is incomparably rich, like velvet, black in some lights and

dark maroon in others. Nothing could be finer in color and texture

than this superb flower. Besides the blooms of yesterday we noticed

buttercups, various sorts of the ranunculus, among them the scarlet and

the shooting-star, a light purple flower with a dark purple centre, the

Star of Bethlehem, and the purple wind-flower. Scarlet poppies and the

still more brilliant scarlet anemones, dandelions, marguerites, filled

all the fields with masses of color.

 

Shortly we come into the hills, through which the road winds upward, and

the scenery is very much like that of the Adirondacks, or would be if

the rocky hills of the latter were denuded of trees. The way begins

to be lively with passengers, and it becomes us to be circumspect, for

almost every foot of ground has been consecrated or desecrated, or in

some manner made memorable. This heap of rubbish is the remains of a

fortress which the Saracens captured, built by the Crusaders to guard

the entrance of the pass, upon the site of an older fortification by the

Maccabees, or founded upon Roman substructions, and mentioned in Judges

as the spot where some very ancient Jew stayed overnight. It is also, no

doubt, one of the stations that help us to determine with the accuracy

of a surveyor the boundary between the territory of Benjamin and Judah.

I try to ascertain all these localities and to remember them all, but I

sometimes get Richard Cour de Lion mixed with Jonathan Maccabæus, and

I have no doubt I mistook "Job's convent" for the _Castellum boni

Latronis_, a place we were specially desirous to see as the birthplace

of the "penitent thief." But whatever we confounded, we are certain of

one thing: we looked over into the Valley of Ajalon. It was over this

valley that Joshua commanded the moon to tarry while he smote the

fugitive Amorites on the heights of Gibeon, there to the east.

 

The road is thronged with pilgrims to Jerusalem, and with travellers and

their attendants,--gay cavalcades scattered all along the winding way

over the rolling plain, as in the picture of the Pilgrims to Canterbury.

All the transport of freight as well as passengers is by the backs of

beasts of burden. There are long files of horses and mules staggering

under enormous loads of trunks, tents, and bags. Dragomans, some of them

got up in fierce style, with baggy yellow trousers, yellow kuffias bound

about the head with a twisted fillet, armed with long Damascus swords,

their belts stuck full of pistols, and a rifle slung on the back, gallop

furiously along the line, the signs of danger but the assurances of

protection. Camp boys and waiters dash along also, on the pack-horses,

with a great clatter of kitchen furniture; even a scullion has an air of

adventure as he pounds his rack-a-bone steed into a vicious gallop. And

there are the Cook's tourists, called by everybody "Cookies," men and

women struggling on according to the pace of their horses,

conspicuous in hats with white muslin drapery hanging over the neck.

Villanous-looking fellows with or without long guns, coming and going

on the highway, have the air of being neither pilgrims nor strangers. We

meet women returning from Jerusalem clad in white, seated astride their

horses, or upon beds which top their multifarious baggage.

 

We are leaving behind us on the right the country of Samson, in which he

passed his playful and engaging boyhood, and we look wistfully towards

it. Of Zorah, where he was born, nothing is left but a cistern, and

there is only a wretched hamlet to mark the site of Timnath, where he

got his Philistine wife. "Get her for me, for she pleaseth me well," was

his only reply to the entreaty of his father that he would be content

with a maid of his own people.

 

The country gets wilder and more rocky as we ascend. Down the ragged

side paths come wretched women and girls, staggering under the loads of

brushwood which they have cut in the high ravines; loads borne upon the

head that would tax the strength of a strong man. I found it no easy

task to lift one of the bundles. The poor creatures were scantily clad

in a single garment of coarse brown cloth, but most of them wore a

profusion of ornaments; strings of coins, Turkish and Arabic, on the

head and breast, and uncouth rings and bracelets. Farther on a rabble of

boys besets us, begging for backsheesh in piteous and whining tones, and

throwing up their arms in theatrical gestures of despair.

 

All the hills bear marks of having once been terraced to the very tops,

for vines and olives. The natural ledges seem to have been humored into

terraces and occasionally built up and broadened by stone walls; but

where the hill was smooth, traces of terraces are yet visible. The grape

is still cultivated low down the steeps, and the olives straggle over

some of the hills to the very top; but these feeble efforts of culture

or of nature do little to relieve the deserted aspect of the scene.

 

We lunch in a pretty olive grove, upon a slope long ago terraced and now

grass-grown and flower-sown; lovely vistas open into cool glades, and

paths lead upward among the rocks to inviting retreats. From this high

perch in the bosom of the hills we look off upon Ramleh, Jaffa, the

broad Plain of Sharon, and the sea. A strip of sand between the sea

and the plain produces the effect of a mirage, giving to the plain the

appearance of the sea. It would be a charming spot for a country-seat

for a resident of Jerusalem, although Jerusalem itself is rural enough

at present; and David and Solomon may have had summer pavilions in

these cool shades in sight of the Mediterranean. David himself, however,

perhaps had enough of this region--when he dodged about in these

fastnesses between Ramah and Gath, from the pursuit of Saul--to make him

content with a city life. There is nothing to hinder our believing that

he often enjoyed this prospect; and we do believe it, for it is already

evident that the imagination must be called in to create an enjoyment

of this deserted land. David no doubt loved this spot. For David was

a poet, even at this early period when his occupation was that of a

successful guerilla; and he had all the true poet's adaptability, as

witness the exquisite ode he composed on the death of his enemy Saul. I

have no doubt that he enjoyed this lovely prospect often, for he was a

man who enjoyed heartily everything lovely. He was in this as in all he

did a _thorough_ man; when he made a raid on an Amorite city, he left

neither man, woman, nor child alive to spread the news.

 

We have already mounted over two thousand feet. The rocks are silicious

limestone, crumbling and gray with ages of exposure; they give the

landscape an ashy appearance. But there is always a little verdure

amid the rocks, and now and then an olive-tree, perhaps a very old one,

decrepit and twisted into the most fantastic form, as if distorted by

a vegetable rheumatism, casting abroad its withered arms as if the tree

writhed in pain. On such ghostly trees I have no doubt the five kings

were hanged. Another tree or rather shrub is abundant, the dwarf-oak;

and the hawthorn, now in blossom, is frequently seen. The rock-rose--a

delicate white single flower--blooms by the wayside and amid the ledges,

and the scarlet anemone flames out more brilliantly than ever. Nothing

indeed could be more beautiful than the contrast of the clusters of

scarlet anemones and white roses with the gray rocks.

 

We soon descend into a valley and reach the site of Kirjath-Jearim,

which has not much ancient interest for me, except that the name is