In The Levant 8
Just beyond this expanse, or rather in part of it, is a small plot of
ground surrounded by high whitewashed walls, the entrance to which is
secured by a heavy door. This is the American cemetery; and the stout
door and thick wall are, I suppose, necessary to secure its graves
from Moslem insult. It seems not to be visited often, for it was with
difficulty that we could turn the huge key in the rusty lock. There
are some half-dozen graves within; the graves are grass-grown and
flower-sprinkled, and the whole area is a tangle of unrestrained weeds
and grass. The high wall cuts off all view, but we did not for the time
miss it, rather liking for the moment to be secured from the sight of
the awful desolation, and to muse upon the strange fortune that had
drawn to be buried here upon Mount Zion, as a holy resting-place for
them, people alien in race, language, and customs to the house of David,
and removed from it by such spaces of time and distance; people to whom
the worship performed by David, if he could renew it in person on Zion,
would be as distasteful as is that of the Jews in yonder synagogue.
Only a short distance from this we came to the mosque which contains
the tomb of David and probably of Solomon and other Kings of Judah. No
historical monument in or about Jerusalem is better authenticated than
this. Although now for many centuries the Moslems have had possession of
it and forbidden access to it, there is a tolerably connected tradition
of its possession. It was twice opened and relieved of the enormous
treasure in gold and silver which Solomon deposited in it; once by
Hyrcanus Maccabæus, who took what he needed, and again by Herod,
who found very little. There are all sorts of stories told about the
splendor of this tomb and the state with which the Moslems surround it.
But they envelop it in so much mystery that no one can know the truth.
It is probable that the few who suppose they have seen it have seen only
a sort of cenotaph which is above the real tomb in the rock below. The
room which has been seen is embellished with some display of richness
in shawls and hangings of gold embroidery, and contains a sarcophagus of
rough stone, and lights are always burning there. If the royal tombs are
in this place, they are doubtless in the cave below.
Over this spot was built a church by the early Christians; and it is a
tradition that in this building was the Conaculum. This site may very
likely be that of the building where the Last Supper was laid, and it
may be that St. Stephen suffered martyrdom here, and that the Virgin
died here; the building may be as old as the fourth century, but the
chances of any building standing so long in this repeatedly destroyed
city are not good. There is a little house north of this mosque in which
the Virgin spent the last years of her life; if she did, she must have
lived to be over a thousand years old.
On the very brow of the hill, and overlooking the lower pool of Gibon,
is the English school, with its pretty garden and its cemetery. We
saw there some excavations, by which the bedrock had been laid bare,
disclosing some stone steps cut in it. Search is being made here for
the Seat of Solomon, but it does not seem to me a vital matter, for
I suppose he sat down all over this hill, which was covered with his
palaces and harems and other buildings of pleasure, built of stones that
"were of great value, such as are dug out of the earth for the ornaments
of temples and to make fine prospects in royal palaces, and which make
the mines whence they are dug famous." Solomon's palace was constructed
entirely of white stone, and cedar-wood, and gold and silver; in it
"were very long cloisters, and those situate in an agreeable place in
the palace, and among them a most glorious dining-room for feastings
and compotations"; indeed, Josephus finds it difficult to reckon up the
variety and the magnitude of the royal apartments,--"how many that were
subterraneous and invisible, the curiosity of those that enjoyed the
fresh air, and the groves for the most delightful prospect, for avoiding
the heat, and covering their bodies." If this most luxurious of monarchs
introduced here all the styles of architecture which would represent the
nationality of his wives, as he built temples to suit their different
religions, the hill of Zion must have resembled, on a small scale, the
Munich of King Ludwig I.
Opposite the English school, across the Valley of Hinnom, is a long
block of modern buildings which is one of the most conspicuous
objects outside the city. It was built by another rich Jew, Sir Moses
Montefiore, of London, and contains tenements for poor Jews. Sir Moses
is probably as rich as Solomon was in his own right, and he makes a most
charitable use of his money; but I do not suppose that if he had at his
command the public wealth that Solomon had, who made silver as plentiful
as stones in the streets of Jerusalem, he could materially alleviate the
lazy indigence of the Jewish exiles here. The aged philanthropist made
a journey hither in the summer of 1875, to ascertain for himself
the condition of the Jews. I believe he has a hope of establishing
manufactories in which they can support themselves; but the minds of the
Jews who are already restored are not set upon any sort of industry. It
seems to me that they could be maintained much more cheaply if they were
transported to a less barren land.
We made, one day, an exploration of the Jews' quarter, which enjoys the
reputation of being more filthy than the Christian. The approach to it
is down a gutter which has the sounding name of the Street of David; it
was bad enough, but when we entered the Jews' part of the city we found
ourselves in lanes and gutters of incomparable unpleasantness, and
almost impassable, with nothing whatever in them interesting or
picturesque, except the inhabitants. We had a curiosity to see if there
were here any real Jews of the type that inhabited the city in the
time of our Lord, and we saw many with fair skin and light hair, with
straight nose and regular features. The persons whom we are accustomed
to call Jews, and who were found dispersed about Europe at a very early
period of modern history, have the Assyrian features, the hook nose, dark
hair and eyes, and not at all the faces of the fair-haired race from
which our Saviour is supposed to have sprung. The kingdom of Israel,
which contained the ten tribes, was gobbled up by the Assyrians about
the time Rome was founded, and from that date these tribes do not appear
historically. They may have entirely amalgamated with their conquerors,
and the modified race subsequently have passed into Europe; for the
Jews claim to have been in Europe before the destruction of Jerusalem by
Titus, in which nearly all the people of the kingdom of Judah perished.
Some scholars, who have investigated the problem offered by the two
types above mentioned, think that the Jew as we know him in Europe and
America is not the direct descendant of the Jews of Jerusalem of the
time of Herod, and that the true offspring of the latter is the person
of the light hair and straight nose who is occasionally to be found in
Jerusalem to-day. Until this ethnological problem is settled, I shall
most certainly withhold my feeble contributions for the "restoration" of
the persons at present doing business under the name of Jews among the
Western nations.
But we saw another type of Jew, or rather another variety, in this
quarter. He called himself of the tribe of Benjamin, and is, I think,
the most unpleasant human being I have ever encountered. Every man who
supposes himself of this tribe wears a dark, corkscrew, stringy
curl hanging down each side of his face, and the appearance of nasty
effeminacy which this gives cannot be described. The tribe of Benjamin
does not figure well in sacred history,--it was left-handed; it was
pretty much exterminated by the other tribes once for an awful crime; it
was held from going into the settled idolatry of the kingdom of
Israel only by its contiguity to Judah,--but it was better than its
descendants, if these are its descendants.
More than half of the eight thousand Jews in Jerusalem speak Spanish as
their native tongue, and are the offspring of those expelled from Spain
by Ferdinand. Now and then, I do not know whether it was Spanish or
Arabic, we saw a good face, a noble countenance, a fine Oriental and
venerable type, and occasionally, looking from a window, a Jewish
beauty; but the most whom we met were debased, mis-begotten, the
remnants of sin, squalor, and bad living.
We went into two of the best synagogues,--one new, with a conspicuous
green dome. They are not fine; on the contrary, they are slatternly
places and very ill-kept. On the benches near the windows sat squalid
men and boys reading, the latter, no doubt, students of the law; all the
passages, stairs, and by-rooms were dirty and disorderly, as if it were
always Monday morning there, but never washing-day; rags and heaps of
ancient garments were strewn about; and occasionally we nearly stumbled
over a Jew, indistinguishable from a bundle of old clothes, and asleep
on the floor. Even the sanctuary is full of unkempt people, and of the
evidences of the squalor of the quarter. If this is a specimen of the
restoration of the Jews, they had better not be restored any more.
The thing to do (if the worldliness of the __EXPRESSION__ will be
pardoned) Friday is to go and see the Jews wail, as in Constantinople
it is to see the Sultan go to prayer, and in Cairo to hear the darwishes
howl. The performance, being an open-air one, is sometimes prevented by
rain or snow, but otherwise it has not failed for many centuries. This
ancient practice is probably not what it once was, having in our modern
days, by becoming a sort of fashion, lost its spontaneity; it will,
however, doubtless be long kept up, as everything of this sort endures
in the East, even if it should become necessary to hire people to wail.
The Friday morning of the day chosen for our visit to the wailing place
was rainy, following a rainy night. The rough-paved open alleys were
gutters of mud, the streets under arches (for there are shops in
subterranean constructions and old vaulted passages) were damper and
darker than usual; the whole city, with its narrow lanes, and thick
walls, and no sewers, was clammy and uncomfortable. We loitered for a
time in the dark and grave-like gold bazaars, where there is but a poor
display of attractions. Pilgrims from all lands were sopping about in
the streets; conspicuous among them were Persians wearing high,
conical frieze hats, and short-legged, big-calfed Russian peasant
women,--animated meal-bags.
We walked across to the Zion Gate, and mounting the city wall there--an
uneven and somewhat broken, but sightly promenade--followed it round to
its junction with the Temple wall, and to Robinson's Arch. Underneath
the wall by Zion Gate dwell, in low stone huts and burrows, a
considerable number of lepers, who form a horrid community by
themselves. These poor creatures, with toeless feet and fingerless
hands, came out of their dens and assailed us with piteous cries for
charity. What could be done? It was impossible to give to all. The
little we threw them they fought for, and the unsuccessful followed us
with whetted eagerness. We could do nothing but flee, and we climbed the
wall and ran down it, leaving Demetrius behind as a rear-guard. I
should have had more pity for them if they had not exhibited so
much maliciousness. They knew their power, and brought all their
loathsomeness after us, thinking that we would be forced to buy their
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