The Lands of the Messiah, Mahomet, and the Pope; as visited in 1851

Front matter

THE LANDS OF THE MESSIAH, MAHOMET, AND THE POPE JlffiUSALlEJI. tflHIIE LA NIB 8 OF THE Htotaij, Hiojjamtt, anh tjjt Hfinyt, AS VISITED IS 1851. ■"■'^.r.,,., (fJtnburab 'A <~ '■ * - * '■ / v THE LANDS OF THE MESSIAH, MAHOMET, AND THE POPE; AS VISITED IN 1851. BY JOHN Al TON, D.D minister or dolphinton. A. FULLARTON AND CO.: LONDON, DUBLIN, AND EDINBURGH. 1852. EDINBURGH: FL'LLARTON AND XACNAB, PRINTERS, LBITH WALK. THESE TRAVELS ARE DEDICATED WITH GRATITUDE AND RESPECT TO THE NEIGHBOURING CLERGYMEN WHO SO KINDLY PERFORMED ALL MY PAROCHIAL DUTIES DURING MY VISIT TO THE LAND OF THE MORNING, AND TO ANOTHER ESTEEMED CLERICAL FRIEND, THE ONLY SURVIVING SON OF MY FIRST PATRON, WHOSE ASSISTANT I WAS TILL HIS DEATH. Manse of Dolphinton, 18» May, 18-52.

Introduction

. Forty years since, a trip to Greece was esteemed not only to be difficult, but dangerous. Young men of fortune seldom ventured so far as Malta. The activity of Sterne has long been admired for undertaking a sentimental journey in France, and it required courage in the artist to enter Italy. These countries are now swarming with English tourists, and every year cartloads of travels are published till they have become stale and unprofitable as fetid fish. Morning-ward of Europe matters are still, somewhat as they were in France and Italy at the end of the last century. The distance is great, the intercourse limited, and the discomforts are formidable from the warmth of the climate, and even from the dangers of disease and robbery. Above all, the delay occasioned by the voyager being so often put into quarantine, and otherwise detained waiting for steamers, is rather vexatious.

But not withstanding these serious drawbacks, a few sturdy tourists are constantly traversing all the corners of Turkey, and more especially Egypt and Palestine ; and several works of very considerable merit have lately appeared as to these countries. The Author, in the spring of last year, was permitted by Divine Providence to accomplish what from his earliest recollections had been the desire of his heart — a journey into the Bible-Lands of the East, into the once stirring localities of Western Asia, and

INTRODUCTION.

. VIII homeward through the classic countries of Greece, Sicily, aed Italy. And having accomplished such a jaunt of about ten thousand miles in extent, he feels naturally desirous to record the memorials of a summer marked by such change of scenes and varieties of feeling, that he may share them with those who, from experience in this way, sympathize with them, — that he may recall them for his own satisfaction, — and that he may interest the reading public with some information, and several pious reflections. But the bilious critic says, really there is no use for another volume of travels in the East, when so very many have already fallen dead-born from the press. It is only to pour the liquid out of one bottle into another, to give it a stronger colouring a little different, then to shake it well, and set it up in the window before a newer light to attract the attention of novices.

Besides, we are told even in parliament, that not one book of a season pays the publisher, and that three hundred copies are not sold in one work of a thousand which are advertised; and I have heard of a worthy clergyman, who wrote a bulky commentary on the Reve lations, being compelled to sell a house for every thick folio volume he produced. Candid reader, and kind purchaser! my sagacity or consummate vanity brings me to a different conclusion. I think that I have travelled further to the East, and traversed more interesting countries in one trip, than many single tourists have hitherto done. Different men view even the same country with different eyes, and several cross lights are required to bring out the real state of matters. The countries referred to in the follow ing pages are at present in a state of rapid transition, which should be accurately noticed in detail, as often as travellers have the opportunity.

In Africa, on the banks of the Nile, in the Holy Land, down the Jordan, and along the shores of the Dead Sea, in Asia Minor, throughout European Turkey, and especially in Italy, the prophecies are in the act of being speedily fulfilled to a greater or

INTRODUCTION.

. IX less amount in the different localities, and important events are turning on the wheel of fortune, which may, ere long, astonish the civilized world. Every movement therefore should be marked, the progress towards civilization and Christianity should be de tailed from time to time; and the working of the five great rival European powers, which are all quietly gaping for a slice of Turkey, when it is cut up, should be detected; and the manners and inclinations of a population so enormous should be sha dowed forth in every variety of light. In a word, no traveller who has the capacity of a hen, should traverse these distant regions without contributing some mites of information and devo tion to the public treasury of amusement and piety. The work may be abused in the periodicals and pamphlets of the day, or worse still, it may attract no notice whatever.

But at any rate, Tis pleasant sure, to see one's seisin print; A book's a book, although there's nothing in't. If no other human being ever peruses this work, the Author hereby pledges himself, whether or no, to take it up at a time, and thus to travel in his own easy chair all the parts mentioned over and over again, certainly with as much pleasure, and proba bly with less risk and expense than before. And whether the transaction may pay or not, I am not the man in such an affair to sell a house at this time, in respect that I possess no such heritable property in my own right. But this I know, that the enterprising publishers have bought the manuscript at a handsome sum, and all is stereotyped with the confident expectation of sell ing ten thousand copies of the work. It is hardly worth while to add, that readers who have never roughed it through thick and thin, either in Africa or Asia, may, in the simplicity of their hearts, startle at some of the oddities men tioned here and there, — and perfumed dandies, glittering in their X

INTRODUCTION.

. fine shirt new from Peter Scott's repositories, may turn up their nose at the frequent allusions to vermin in Egypt, or to the incident of travellers washing their own linens, and keeping their carcase under the water till their shirts were dried in the hot sun ; but still facts as dignified and important too are told by every tra veUer exactly as they occur. CONTENTS. i. Page ROUND THE PENINSULA AND UP THE MEDITERRANEAN, 1 II. EGYPT — ALEXANDRIA AND GRAND CAIRO, .... 40 III. THE PYRAMIDS, 60 IV. THE DESERT, .......... 75 V. THE RED SEA, AND THE PASSAGE OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL ACROSS IT, 103 VI. THE NILE BOAT, 134 VII. THE HOLY LAND — JAFFA, AND THE JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM, 151 VIII. JERUSALEM, . " . . . . . . . 176 IX. GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE, THE VALLEY OF JEHOSHAPHAT, THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, AND BETHANY, 202 X BETHLEHEM, CONTENTS.

XI. Pago JERICHO, JORDAN, AND THE DEAD SEA, ..... 233 XII. JOURNEY FROM JERUSALEM BACK TO THE COAST BY GIBEON, EMMAUS, BETH-HORON, AND LYDDA, .... 263 XIII. GALILEE — CÆSAREA, MOUNT CARMEL, NAZARETH, ACRE, TYRE, SIDON, BEYROUT, AND MOUNT LEBANON, .... 280 XIV. PRESENT STATE OF THE JEWS IN THEIR FATHERLAND, . 299 XV. PHŒNICIA, CILICIA, PISIDIA, LYCIA, CARIA, LYDIA, THE ISLANDS IN THE PAMPHYLIAN AND ÆGEAN SEAS, AND IN THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO, 341 XVI. THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA, 382 XVII. TROY, THE HELLESPONT, CONSTANTINOPLE, THE SEA OF MARMORA, THE BOSPORUS AND THE BLACK SEA, .... 413 XVIII. GREECE, 443 XIX. THE LAND OF THE POPE, 470 XX. ROME, ISLAND OF ELBA, LEGHORN. PISA, FLORENCE, CORSICA AND FRANCE, THE LANDS OF THE MESSIAH, MAHOMET, AND THE POPE.

Chapter I. Round The Peninsula And Up The Mediterranean

Had Julius Cæsar been permitted in 1851 to revisit this world, that we might show him how much Britain had ad vanced since he first invaded our shores, it would have been desirable that he had popped up his head through the pavement at the Wellington Statue, before the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England. Had he been guided by our own warrior, his equal in arms and in everything else, to some of the London lions; — had he been shown the Crystal Palace, and been conducted along the more crowded thoroughfares to the terminus of the South-Eastern Counties Railway, and seen the Electric Telegraph sending despatches to Paris in a minute ; — had he jumped into an express train, and gone to Southampton very smoothly at the rate of sixty miles an hour; — had he been taken on board of a man-of war carrying a hundred and twenty guns all sixty-eight pounders ; — had he been told that it required nine miles of canvass to make one set of sails, and an oak forest of five A CÆSAK'S GHOST. hundred acres in extent to furnish her timbers ; — had he next visited one of the Ocean Steamers belonging to the Peninsu lar and Oriental Steam Navigation Company; verily, the old Roman hero would in this way have seen more wonders in one day than he ever beheld in his life.

These steamers — the " Himalaya," for instance, now building — measure up wards of three thousand tons, and are propelled by engines of twelve hundred horses' power. They realise a rate of speed equal to that of eighteen miles in the hour; and in spite of both wind and tide, going upwards of four hundred and thirty miles daily, they reach Alexandria in a week. In one of these steamers, Cæsar would have found himself not merely in a floating hotel, but in something like an English royal borough with its carpenters, smiths, bakers, butchers with their live stock, grocers with three thou sand pounds of tea in their boxes, wine merchants with three thousand bottles of rich and rare wines and six thousand bottles of inferior liquids, spirit dealers with puncheons of rum and brandy, confectioners, and poulterers with their stock of game and fowls almost innumerable, — and all this for one outward and homeward voyage, notwithstanding that fresh provisions for the crew and passengers are taken on board at every foreign port which the steamer reaches.

Cæsar's ghost would have been above all things astonished at seeing the engine department, so powerful, majestic, and shining like silver. Although it combines and condenses within the space of a breakfast parlour the energies of twelve hundred horses, yet a boy with one hand can stop the vast movement in a moment, and a bucketful of coals and of water carries away the whole three thousand tons over the stormiest ocean like a thing of nothing. GOSSIP ON BOARD THE EIPON. The Ripon steamer skimmed down the Channel with us like a sea-gull. The day was bright, and the passengers were glittering in fine linen as yet nothing soiled by the weather. For a time family circles clubbed by themselves, and every body looked inquiringly at his neighbour, as if to take cautious observation of the longitude and latitude of his rank and respectability.

Gossip soon began its tittle tattle. This young lady, beautiful and handsome, was cer tainly taking the overland route to India on a matrimonial speculation; and that lady and her intelligent companion, going to Hong Kong were married last wreek. He with the brown wig and white whiskers is a popish priest, on his way to Jerusalem, desirous to bury his bones in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. But soon the company began to mingle on deck, and to drink wine with one another at dinner, and to be merry friends all till the last sight of England, and sea sickness, and the sleepless Bay of Biscay, made the lands men rather humdrum for a day or two. When more than two days out of the sight of land, and unmercifully tossed on the long rolling swell of the Atlantic, another sight of the shore becomes an interesting novelty to a passenger sea-sick and sick of the sea.

But the land is more welcome to an Englishman, should it be a corner of Europe hallowed by events memorable both by field and flood, with battles interesting from our boyish recollections. My son had spent two miserable days in bed, but on the morning of the 23d of April, he came down from the deck to tell me that the coast of Spain and Corunna were within sight. I ran up the cabin stairs, when lo! over the port-bow the high hills and sunny plains of the Peninsula were looming not far distant, and Cape Finisterre was seen lowering far ahead, SPAIN AND THE BATTLE-FIELD OF CORUNNA. mingling its dark outline with the blue wave below and the blue sky above. The battle-field about three miles above the harbour of Corunna was pointed out. The general face of this part of the country seemed to be composed of rock, with a scanty soil, and some small scattered clusters of pines like fox covers crowned the summit of the ridge.

The Bri tish lines were said to have been posted on the secondary range, and a height half-a-mile above it was occupied by the French. My heart sank within me when I noticed that Soult's position commanded a point blank range of Sir John Moore's. The hamlet of Elvina was pointed out, the sever est part of the battle-field, near which a battery was planted, which proved to be most destructive to our war-worn troops. I turned from the heart-rending scene with a tear in my eye, and chose rather to look at a solitary sea-fowl floating on the wave, and then flapping its wings through the shrouds. It gave me some satisfaction in my melancholy mood to observe crowds of majestic ships sweeping the horizon in every direction, and with the help of the captain's spyglass to read on their flags flying at the main that these were merchantmen belonging to my own country, or that this was a frigate the crew of which was paid partly out of my own pocket.

We soon came up to the bold headland of Cape Finisterre, off which Sir Robert Calder captured the remaining French ships, which under Admiral Linois had escaped from the battle of Trafalgar. On doubling the Cape, the town and harbour of Vigo rose into view. It was from this spot that the Spanish Armada sailed to fill Great Britain with Popery. But a wind arose, and sank their fleets. It was to Vigo that the English transports were sent to bring home the troops under the VIGO AND SPANISH ARMADA. command of Sir John Moore. But when it became apparent that Sir John could not reach Vigo, despatches were sent to have the transports brought round to Corunna. The important duty of carrying these was intrusted to a single dragoon, who got drunk by the way and lost his let ter. Hence when the retreating army, wearied, hungry, and heart-broken, came within sight of the sea, there were no transports to be seen, and nothing else for it but to fight a severe battle with a proud foe, merely to gain a few hours existence on shore, and then to proclaim the miserable affair as a great victory.

Just at the time when the despatches reached Vigo, a snoring breeze rose in the right direction, which brought the transports to Corunna with singular rapidity. And thus it was that on these seas the Almighty has twice favoured our country by the blowing of his mighty breath. Had these transports arrived in time, everybody would have got safe on board before the French came up. As it unfortunately happened, the delay served to add lustre to the British arms, and to restore whatever discipline might have been awanting among our troops from the extreme hardships of so long a forced march. But even this was bought too dear at the expense of the immortal Moore. After a terrible night of wind and rain, thunder and lightning, daylight brought us to the skirts of Mondego Bay. Here the English troops landed on their second expedition to the Peninsula- Near this Vimeiro was pointed out, where Wellington fought his first battle, and -above it along the ridge the famous lines of Torres Vedras were distinctly traced by the naked eye.

And then Cintra, on the side of a sunny hill, presented every variety of the beautiful both in nature and in art. Rocks, cataracts, precipices, convents, and VIMEIRO, TORRES VEDRAS, AND CINTRA. palaces, were seen and admired all around. Well might Byron speak in raptures of Cintra, because the bold moun tain scenery, the lemon and orange groves, the waving rows of cane and cork trees, the picturesque village itself, the old Moorish castle on the hill above crowned by the Penha Con vent and the lofty domes of the Royal Palace, would make this a very pretty place even in Asia Minor. Besides, tra vellers going to the East are here for the first time charmed with the novelty of scenes which they afterwards see every day. In doubling the Rock of Lisbon, we happened to dash into the midst of the squadron of English war ships cruising off the mouth of the Tagus.

And the question naturally arose, What right have our ships to be there? And how would England act were the Portuguese to blockade the mouth of the Thames? But after all, this feeling is merely ideal. Our protection is useful to Portugal, and this locality is centrical and safe for English purposes. For from this position a fleet can sail rapidly into the Mediterranean, if need be, or across the Atlantic, or up the French Coast; and at any rate, the ships and crew are better afloat certainly than rot ting in a harbour. I was called up from bed at four o'clock in the morning to take a passing squint at Cape St. Vincent. It is a long romantic promontory, with some broken masses of rock at its base, and standing out into the ocean, having a lighthouse of course on its summit. This spot was held sacred by the Romans, and on it there was a Druidical circle in which, as Ford tells us, on the authority of Strabo, the Iberians be lieved the gods were wont to assemble at night.

There is also a convent on its summit, which is called the Church of e i a i r. * . CAPE ST. VINCENT AND NELSON, the Crows: the mount still bearing the name of these birds who watched, as tradition affirms, over the corpse of St. Vincent after his execution by Dacian at Valencia. But this locality is more memorable as having been the scene of our victories in 1797, when fifteen of our ships under Sir John Jarvis out-manœuvred and captured twenty-five be longing to Spain. It was on this occasion that a young commodore leaped in the heat of the action through the cabin window of the San Nicholas, one of the Spanish ships, and took it. But in an instant San Joseph discharged a broad side on the captors, when the youth boarded her also from the deck of the San Nicholas, and then he cheered on his crew, and captured both the vessels, which were first-rates.

Commodore Nelson thus received the swords of the two conquered Spaniards, which he coolly handed to William Feary, one of his bargemen, who as coolly put them under his arm; and in a few minutes Nelson and old Feary were as active as ever somewhere else in the hurry of the battle, all as if nothing remarkable had happened. Bearing up towards Cadiz, which we saw in the glowing sunset, with its superb cathedral and convents and its long ridge of white Spanish buildings, I passed at a distance the little fishing town of Palos, as memorable in its own way as most of places. From this port Columbus set sail over the unexplored solitude of the broad Atlantic, for the dis covery of the Western world, and to this same insignificant place he returned after having found America. But all the while Cape Trafalgar and its bay and battle were uppermost in my mind.

As our course lay over the whole scene of action, soon after dinner everybody was on deck to witness the spot, where every man in the English CAPE TRAFALGAR. fleet did his duty, and where Nelson fell, at the very place which was stained by the blood of his Secretary, who had fallen early in the action. " They have done for me at last, Hardy," he exclaimed. " I hope not," replied his Captain. "Yes," said Nelson, "my back is shot through." An hour and a half after, but not till the opposing ship had struck her colours, Hardy ran down into the cockpit to the dying Admiral. He found him in intense agony, but look ing up, Nelson said, " Well, Hardy, how goes the battle?" " Very well, my lord, fourteen or fifteen of the enemy's ships are ours." " I had bargained for twenty," said Nelson. " I hope none of ours have struck."

His energy survived to the last; and when told that Collingwood would probably as sume the command, he said impatiently — " Not while I live." — Then he added, "Anchor, Hardy, anchor." Before his death the navy of England's enemies had ceased to exist. We entered the Straits of Gibraltar in the dark, and after firing guns, and sending up rockets, and returning a variety of flaming signals, we dropped anchor in the bay. But be fore sunrise next morning, everybody was astir, and boats were alongside to carry us on shore. I landed at the Old Mole under the Moorish fort, and alongside of a battery called the Devil's Tongue. Not a cloud was in the calm and glowing sky, nor a ripple on the whole of the silver sea, which yet seemed to sleep in its dignified repose. What an amphitheatre swept along the surrounding scenery!

On the one hand was a range of high undulated hills glittering in the morning sun, but without a particle of mist, — the moun tains of Grenada and the Sierra Nevada being in the back ground. These romantic shores of Spain seemed rising from green and corn-covered slopes into brown hills, and purple GIBRALTAR. 9 mountains capped with snow, and eleven thousand feet in height. On the African side, more dimly seen were the rocks and fortress of Ceuta backed by the bold precipices of Abyla, forming with the Rock of Gibraltar the two pillars of Hercules, the entrance of the Strait connecting the Mediter ranean with the Atlantic ocean. Beyond were the stupendous atlas range of mountains of the Modina Sidonia, cutting the canopy, and covered with snow. But the great object of interest was the Rock of Gibraltar itself, which struck my heart with awe.

From the position I first saw it in, it brought Arthur's Seat to my recollection. There was the lion couchant formed as distinctly as our own at Edinburgh, and looking with secure complacency over the neutral ground, connecting this fortification with Spain. I remarked that the paws were awanting, and was told the reason, namely, that every bulk or boulder on the rock had been carefully smoothed down, to render its face as plain and perpendicu lar as a stone wall. The whole rock seemed to be a huge and indistinct mysterious monster, rising boldly to the height of twelve or fourteen hundred feet — one lofty precipice being overhung by another still loftier and more perpendicular. It was literally bound round and round, above and below, within and without, with barracks, and forts, and batteries, and curtains, and ravelings, and ramparts, and confined ter races, and esplanades.

Here, there, and everywhere, in straight and in zigzag lines and crescents, were cannons mounted in eveiy variety of bristling batteries— some point ing downwards, others up, and all in every direction. And then what a mingled mass of houses, and hill, and rock, and verandahs, and green gardens, and vines, and orange and Mediterranean trees, and shrubs, and luxuriant hedges of INHABITANTS AND ITS FLAG. geranium, and varieties of flowing aloe, and shelving banks of green grass, — everything edged by the blue bay. When we landed everything seemed to be solid, and heavy, and bomb proof at all points. And what a mixture along the narrow and steep streets, of countenances and countries, creeds and costumes ! There were from Tangiers creeping cringing creatures, with remarkably low foreheads, and little faces, less intelligent than those of the monkeys jumping on the rocks.

These might make an Englishman almost ashamed that he belonged to the human species. There were short, full-faced, and fat men, with dark com plexions, and red flowing garments, white turbans, yellow slippers, and bare feet and legs ; these were Moors. That man with the dry distressed parchment-like countenance, keen eye, and restless gait, is a Jew clad in gaberdine, and probably a native from Barbary. Those with coarse dirty flannels covering over the trunk of their body, are Arabs from the African Deserts. And that tall, well-proportioned, copper-coloured man, with a black scanty beard, is a native of Morocco. There were plenty of merchants with their sombrero, and Turks with their tamboosh. To my mind the most interesting object at Gibraltar was the flag of Great and unconquered Britain flying free as the wind, or flapping playfully around the staff; fixed firm on the top of the rock so well fortified: but securer far even than this in the brave-hearted courage and caution both of our soldiers and sailors.

See, I remarked to my boy, how it spreads on the wings of the four winds of heaven, affording an interesting emblem of the extent and security of our dominions abroad, and of the sacred and civil rights of our people at home. Perpendicular rocks mounted with can- LEAVE GIBRALTAR. non, armies and navies, may afford protection to the English flag, but its main security rests firmer than Gibraltar itself in the liberty every Englishman enjoys both in Church and State. Mounting the hill at once, and meeting a Spaniard driving his goats into the town, our party breakfasted thankfully in five minutes on rich milk and brown bread, and went through the galleries and up to the summit. Here I had a rich reward for the toil I encountered in climbing the steep ascent. I had a bird's-eye view of the works beneath, of the coasts of Europe and Africa, of the Mediterranean, of the town of St. Roque, of the eyrie-placed city of Ronda, of the plains of Andalusia, and of the mountains of Grenada.

As w-e were only allowed six hours on shore, and as the last mail steamer had left some of the overland passengers at Gib raltar, I was put to the push in going through the streets, into the shops, and on to the batteries, and through the crowded markets and gardens, which were also guarded by twelve pounders in plenty. All the passengers having gone on board, the anchor was heaved about noon. The excitement was kept keenly up till long after the Ripon turned Europa point, and steamed direct up the Mediterranean. There, cried one, is a transport leaving Gibraltar with troops; she has taken the Straits for the Atlantic, and may be bound for the West Indies. Nay, says another, she is bound more likely for the Cape and Caffre war. There is a first-rate man-of war with every inch of canvass spread to the wind and a band of music playing, what a fine sight!

She is from Malta. Yonder is the steamer from Liverpool we passed off Cape St. Vincent, and here is a French frigate, really a clean and a clever ship; but she would have catched a mistake had she come half as near the rock forty years ago. SHORES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN. " The grand object of all travelling," says Dr. Johnson, " is to see the shores of the Mediterranean." On these shores were the four great empires of the world — the Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman. All our religion, almost all our law, all our arts, almost all "that sets us above savages have come to us from the shores of the Mediterranean." These remarks are true, but they were trite even at this earlier period of James Boswell, General Paoli, and Dr. Johnson. They seem to have been pilfered from the works of honest George Sandys, who wrote about the year 1612 ; and who, for anything I know, may have borrowed them from some other writer of an earlier period.

What a fist of memorable cities is furnished from these shores— Carthage, Alexandria, Je rusalem, and Tyre, — Damascus, Antioch, Aleppo, Rhodes, Smyrna, Troy, Constantinople, Athens, and Corinth, Ve nice, Rome, Naples, Palerma, Syracuse, Florence, Pisa, and Leghorn — what scenes of monumental grandeur, memorials of race upon race; — the intellectual harmony of the Grecian temple, the colossal magnificence of the Roman amphitheatre, the solemn gloom of the Gothic cathedral, and the fairy ele gance of the Arabian palace. What a variety of warriors fought and fell on these shores,-— Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, Alex ander, Hannibal, Scipio, Marius, Cæsar, Pompey, and the other heroes of Rome ; Agamemnon, Achilles, Patroclus, Mil* tiades, Themistocles, and all the heroes of Greece. What poets, philosophers, historians have written on the shores of that sea!