Wanderings over Bible lands and seas

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Contents

CHAPTEE JPAGB

III— On the Mediterranean — Joppa —

Ramleh — Jerusalem, . . . 45

I

Thursday, off Media, k T seven on Tuesday morning we went on X-L shore and climbed the steep streets of Valetta. Immediately after breakfast in the Imperial Hotel we took a carriage with a pair of small Maltese horses, and drove to Citta Yecchia in the interior. Malta is the most dazzling, barren place you can conceive. Imagine Dartmoor without one stream, without gorse or heather, with the short grass io Wanderings over Bible Lands and Seas, burnt up, and dazzling, light brown earth showing through ; every hundred yards walls of loose stones of the same dazzling tint crossing each other. Occasionally you pass a field of barley looking a dry, dull green, with square stone buildings in the middle of the fields covering wells. Twice we crossed rocky hollows which looked like watercourses, and in these some dusty, thirstylooking trees and shrubs were growing, but not a drop of water trickled there. Every now and then we came to a high ground, and saw the intense blue sea, stretching from bay to bay, the low brown points of land running some miles out. In the stone walls there are no gates, only gaps filled up roughly with loose stones. Everywhere, in houses, soil, hedges, roads ; through the thin, dry vegetation, glares the same dazzling rock, the color of Maltese vases. The flat roofs of the houses made them at. a distance look like ruins, to our unaccustomed English eyes. # # # *

On Wednesday morning we drove to St.

Malta. i i

Paul's Bay, having satisfied ourselves from Mr. Smith's book that it really was the scene of St. Paul's shipwreck. Therefore we could quietly listen to the stories of our guides about the chapel built on the very spot where the barbarians lighted the fire, and St. Paul shook off the viper. It is at least refreshing to have traditions so near the truth as these, instead of legends of eleven thousand virgins and mediaeval nuns and monks. It does thrill one's heart to hear even the name of that noble apostle honored.

It is intensely interesting thus to come within the range of Bible history and geography with our bodily eyes, — to see the scenes apostles saw, to have all the sights and sounds, the very stars, and seas, and shores, which made their visible heavens and earth audibly and visibly around us. Superstition fondly treasures the dead relics of the past— some poor crumbling bone of the body. God watches over and will raise incorruptible, some spot of dust on which holy feet have trod. Faith revivifies the past by a iz Wanderings over Bible Lands and Seas 9

community of life with, those who lived in it; "they are not dead, but living, for all liver unto Him." To our faith Hudson's Bay, of which apostles never heard, is as holy as the Sea of Galilee ; and the streets of London, which Christians tread, as sacred as the streets of Jerusalem, " where our Lord, was crucified,"—- because the tread of those blessed feet has consecrated the whole earth, if any part of it, and the majesty of that living Presence fills the whole universe. The least blade of grass which pierces the clods to-day with its green tapering spear is sacred with the touch of His hand ; the waves of the Mediterranean are consecrated because His present power curves and crisps them to-day, not because St. "Paul was shipwrecked by them eighteen hundred years ago. But our religion is a religion of facts as well as truths, — a history of things which have been done, as well as a revelation of unseen realities which are eternal ; and it is this which gives the undying interest to Eastern travel. St. Paul, a man who suffered and rejoiced

Malta. 13

ns well as a prophet of immortal truth,— a man who, centuries since, was shipwrecked among the rocks at the entrance of this bay now called by his name, was drifted on a broken plank through those waves, then dashing wildly in the storm, to this low sandy, shelving beach at the head of the bay, and so escaped safe to this shore ; and it does help our imagination, and may strengthen our faith, to stand here and see and feel how his natural world — his body, with its dangers and wants— was the very same as ours, just as his heart, and the truths which warmed and fed it, were the same. The bay seems nearly to close at the entrance, which is sheltered by two rocky headlands which look like islands, but are joined by a low ridge to the shore. The shores are in some places precipitous, in others sloping, in all bare and rocky, except at the head of the bay, which is a sandy beach or " shore. 35 The rocky, almost isolated headland at the entrance breaks the currents and tides, and must cause eddies where the two seas— the divided and recoiling waves— rush round and " meet " again. There, near that headland, they had run the ship aground, and the waves were still dashing against the wreck and breaking it in pieces, while the shipwrecked men, tossed one by one on the beach, stood shivering on the wet sands, the rain pouring on them, and no shelter in sight.

They must have begun to know St. Paul by this time ; he had encouraged them to take their last meal before the Egyptian wheat, which made their cargo, was thrown into the sea. They knew that he had a God in whom he trusted, and who spoke to him, and had told him the truth. They had seen him give thanks before any hope of safety appeared. The centurion had learned to value him, and preferred the risk of the escape of all the other prisoners to the risk of not saving Paul. And now, of all the soldiers and sailors, men inured to hardships, it was Paul—" Paul the aged " who gathered the bundle of sticks among those low bushes in

Malta. 15

tlio valley, and laid them on the fire. Fancy St. Paul stirring busily about in the rain, gathering firewood for that shivering, despondent crew In Its way, I would as soon have seen that as have heard him preach on the Areopagus. The faith which had made him sublimely courageous in the great peril made Mm cheerful and helpful in little difficulties ; and that faith makes him grander in a Christian's eyes than the miracle which so soon afterwards made him seem a gocL to those poor, kindly islanders. They had certainly never seen any so like God before, as he went in and out before them, healing rich and poor. Many races in their migration westward have paused on Malta since then, — Boman colonists, Arab and Crusading knights ; but the name of the shipwrecked Jewish prisoner is still honored there* Can we not feel how they must have clung to the stranger who brought such blessings with him ? free alike to the Koman colonists and the barbarous people. "What the religion of the islanders was we know not ; they certainly x6 Wanderings over Bible Lands and Seas* believed in an avenging power which pursued crime, and surely in his three months' sojourn the apostle taught them of the redeeming love which forgives sin, and of the atoning sacrifice which takes it away. They knew that sin brings misery ; surely he did not fail to tell them of Him whose precious blood and redeeming death blots out sin. They thought of crime as an indelible stain only to be outstained by a deeper stain of vengeance ; surely he told them of the precious blood which can wash out that indelible stain, and make the crimson white as snow.

One would like to know how the apostle, who met the Stoics and Epicureans on their own ground, and Pharisees on theirs, spoke to these barbarians. What a model for missionaries to the South Seas and all uncivilized tribes ! But the Bible does not give us model sermons ; it gives us living truths, to live first in our hearts, and thence be sown in those of others. No variety of models could suit our infinite variety of circumstances, but life adapts itself to alb And so after those

Malta. 17

three months of honors and courteous hospitality, with the whole crew laden with necessaries, (no doubt for his sake,) the apostle patiently left, in another Alexandrian ship, again a prisoner, calmly giving himself up to imprisonment and martyrdom, or rather, as we know from his own words, joyfully going forth to the crown of glory, and to the Lord who gives it.

After this the knights of Malta seem, very modern and secular, but their noble struggle with the Turks is the next event of worldwide interest in the history of Malta. In the afternoon, after seeing St. Paul's Bay, we took a boat and rowed across the Grand Harbor to the old city, which, from the brave and victorious defence the knights made of it, was called afterwards Vittoriosa. You remember Prescott's narrative of the siege in his Philip the Second. After the Turks were finally driven off, the Grand Master, La Yalette, the hero of the siege, built Yaletta on the opposite side, of the harbor to that on which the old city stood, on the tongue of iS Wanderings over Bible Lands and Seas* land between the Quarantine Harbor, where our ship lay, and the Grand Harbor. The old Fort of St. Elmo, so gallantly defended by its little isolated garrison of knights, stood on the point of this tongue of land, (then unpeopled, now the city of Yaletta,) and it was from that point that the messenger swam across the Grand Harbor, by the Turkish fleet, to the great Fort of St. Angelo, close to Vittoriosa. We went oyer the Fort of St. Angelo, saw the old chapel of the knights (now an armory,)- and the prison where the Turkish prisoners were kept. "We looked from the battlements where the

knights watched so often vainly for succor, * # * ■&

Now we are again at sea, — Malta vanishing into a faint haze in the distance. It is strange to look at it and think of the two points in its history which stand out illuminated from the obscurity or common place of the rest. The first gives us a brief glimpse of it in the light which the Bible throws around the infancy of the Church, and shows us its

Malta. ig

inhabitants, simple, courteous, kindly, suffering from various diseases, and in terror of avenging superhuman powers,— the shipwrecked apostle, out of weakness made strong, bringing healing and blessing with him because he had communion with superhuman redeeming love.

The next salient point in Maltese history, fifteen centuries after, shows us the ascetic misrepresentation of the Christianity St. Paul preached run to seed in the military monastic order of the Hospitallers, and yet, even in such decay, nobler than anything else the world had to offer, and strong enough by endurance and daring valor to keep at bay the whole Mohammedan power.

II. Egypt

Caiko, May 23.

EGYPT is not, as the old woman thought, a place somewhere between the earth and sky. We are treading its soil, and breathing its air, with no Lethe between us and you. God's parables are written on actual places, and in real histories. . . . .

It is Ramadan, the great Mohammedan fast, and numbers of Mussulmen were going through their prostrations in each mosque we visited, whilst many more were stretched out asleep in the shade. They are glad to forget the fast in sleep, until the sunset gun gives them permission to seek the happier oblivion of the pipe. How deeply this idea of self-denial for the sake of self-denial is in-

(XX)

grained in most false religions ! In Christianity only the true root is reached, and self-sacrifice is honored but as the fruit of love* " Who loved me and gave himself for me,' 3 is the keynote of Christian self-denial.

The mosque of the Sultan Hassan is the most interesting we saw ; the concave, shelllike Moorish carving of the roof and porch, and ornamental Arabic inscriptions, are really beautiful. But all is ruinous ; birds building nests in the decayed roof of the fountain, the richly carved wooden lattices and fret-work broken, and the delicate yet gorgeous painting and gilding worn off. Mohammedanism also had its golden age of art, contemporary with that of Gothic architecture, but its inspiration seems to have been rather from the genius of a race than the enthusiasm of a religion. Moslem art is not Mohammedan, but Moorish, and with the Moors and their caliphates it died away. Mohammedanism proclaimed a truth which gave it a temporary force ; it had no life to renew the impulse when its first force grew feeble. The mosques at Cairo are strangely typical of the religion. Contrasted with the dark, encumbered Greek and Coptic churches, with their narrow divisions between clergy and laity and their wretched ornaments, there is something very grand and impressive about the great spaces of the mosques. Ton feel they are built in honor of the Unseen and Eternal, and that the worship offered there at least recognises an invisible power. But it is only power- — irresistible, inaccessible power. The name of Allah is scarcely more than a personification of destiny ; and there is a melancholy appropriateness in the worship of destiny amidst ruined temples. What, indeed, is ruin but the impress of the Iron hand of their deity ? It is said that the Moslems think it sacrilege to repair what the hand of fate has stamped with decay. Therefore the beautiful old Moorish mosques, costly in materials, gorgeous in coloring, and delicate in workmanship, are left to decay, whilst, beside them, rises the tasteless modern building with its common materials, tinsel ornament, and coarse workmanship. • •

ANCIENT EGYPT.

The road to the Pyramids, sandy and dry ? led between stubbly fields, and was bordered by ditches, overgrown with, tall reeds and flags — so tall as to throw quite a shadow across the road, yet so slender that the lightest wind might shake them, so as to "bruise " them, and it must indeed be a gentle touch which would not break one so " bruised," Every now and then we passed through large groves, or rather forests of palms ; their beautiful queenly plumes waved high above us in the breeze which did not descend to us 5 and their symmetrical giant stems were regularly knotted like the sculpture of a Moorish roof. For miles after we first caught sight of the Pyramids, we rode directly towards them, keeping them full in yiew along all that straight road across the level land, watching them gradually enlarge until they filled the field of vision, and so, slowly, we grew to feel their size

From the top of the Pyramids the whole

Bible land of Egypt lay spread before us,-— Goshen, On (the buried priestly city where Moses studied), the fields where the Hebrews toiled despairingly, the river where the babe lay among the bulrushes,— all that strange^ familiar land of the Great River, between the glowing sands of the Arabian desert, and the Libyan desert, on the edge of which, we stood, We looked over the sand-wastes, over the tombs partly disinterred from among them, over the Great Sphinx at our feet, across the green valley of the Wile with its palm-forests, and across white Cairo with its pearly minarets, to the sand wastes on the other side of Egypt, and the Mokattam hills which bound the Eastern horizon — the hills through a pass of which Israel went forth to their miraculous crossing of the Red Sea. All this lay far beneath us, silent as the dead generations who had dwelt there, or as if it had been a vision evoked from the past to illustrate the Scripture history

To-day (Friday), after a day's rest ? we started at five on our donkeys, and breakfasted on cold tea, bread, and apricots, in a fruit garden at the foot of the solitary obelisk which is all that remains of Ileliopolis, the sacred city, the On, where Joseph's wife, Asenath, lived. A few scattered blocks, one in the form of a trough, another of an altar of libation, one of which is covered with hieroglyphics, clear as if cut yesterday— these, with some mounds of sand and rubbish, are all the traces of the magnificent priestly city now left to mark its site.

ISTear this obelisk is a very large ancient well, from which two oxen were drawing up the water by means of wheels and ropes with, buckets attached to them. The water which poured from these buckets formed quite a copious stream, and was beautifully clear and sweet. This is called the Well of Sitti Mariana (my Lady Mary.) The tradition of the native Christians is that the Yirgin mother drank of it in the flight into Egypt, and from a bitter fountain it at once became sweet. Close to this well, in a garden of pomegranz6 Wanderings over Bible Lands and Seas, ateSj roses, syringa, and fruit trees, is a magnificent old sycamore, under the shade of which they say the Virgin rested with the infant Saviour. Precise places are of little moment to us, or they would have been precisely revealed, but it did seem to bring Him very near, the ever-living Lord, who was once indeed a little child, to think that on these very scenes his infant eyes did really rest. For this part of Egypt — the same undoubtedly where Joseph lived, where the Israelites toiled in hard bondage, and where Moses was found by Pharaoh's daughter on the river — contained long after the Christian era, a colony of Jews, and would most probably have been the district Joseph and Mary would have chosen for a refuge. This very district is, they say, unquestionably the scene of the various Scripture narratives about Egypt ; that is, the region round Cairo, and from Cairo to Alexandria and the sea s interlaced with the mouths of the Nile. To Memphis, the Scriptural Noph, we are going tomorrow ; in Heliopolis ? Joseph's On 5 we rested to-day, and on the Pyramids probably Abraham looked. After these, the tombs of the Mameluke kings, with their rich Mosaic marbles, sculptured roofs and porches, Moorish arches, ornamented domes, and delicately fretted minarets, had a very cold interest for us, in spite of the impress of Mohammed's foot in marble exhibited there. But it was interesting to hear the muezzin call from the minaret to noon-day prayer, "Allah el Allah—God is God, and Mohammed is the prophet of God." That solitary voice on high, amidst these silent deserts, or piercing the din of the city at mid-day, has a strangely solemn sound. Amongst the people, however, the name of God seems little more than an emphatic particle; in calling one another, scolding, unlading waggons, driving donkeys, it is perpetually " Allah, 35 " Meshallah," "Inshallah," "Wallah." We passed the Turkish cemetery on our way back to Cairo, a dreary, hopeless looking place, white headstones scattered about it, and occasionally a turban sculptured on thenu zS Wanderings over Bible Lands and Seas,

In the evening we started at eight o'clock for Boulac on the Nile, on our way to the ancient Memphis. It was dark when we reached Boulac. The minarets were illuminated, and the Ramadan fast being over for the day, picturesque groups were sitting in the streets, smoking, drinking sherbet and coffee, listening to singers or musicians playing monotonous minor airs, gathering attentively round a story-teller, or playing chess ; but no family groups, nothing to indicate the existence of homes. For picturesqueness of costume there is nothing like the East, the flow of the drapery so simple and natural,, the coloring so deep and brilliant, the attitudes so calm and dignified — no vulgarity because no pretence. If these human beings were only figures in the landscape, the harmony of man and nature would certainly be more complete here than anywhere ; but since the landscape is only an accessory to human life, and those picturesque figures are human and immortal, the thought of their life does weigh often very heavily on the heart

Our Nile boat was ready for us when we reached the river; the Rais welcomed us courteously. There was a long, narrow, half-deck, with chairs on it, and three rooms opening from it, the two outer on. s with sofas on each side, the inner one all one cushioned divan, into which, (having heard that the Mecca pilgrims often use these boats,) we did not venture to enter. We watched the glorious clear stars till late from the deck, and then retired to sleep on the sofas. Once w r e looked out through the Venetian shutters, and saw the moonlight on the Nile. About two in the morning we reached Bedrasheen, and at daybreak w r e started on donkeys for the Sakhara Pyramids.

We reached Memphis, after a delicious cool breezy ride among the green maize fields and palm forests. An Arab w^oman, strange to say, showed us over the pits and mounds which mark the ruins, all the men of the village being absent. The fallen colossus of Eameses the king is most impressive ; it lies on its side among the great weeds as if reposing, the placid giant face quietly smiling at fate. From the chin to the top of the forehead it measures seven feet ; complete, it stood fifty feet high. Many smaller fragments and remains lie around, one or two perfect sitting figures, a few heads and feet, and some blocks covered with hieroglyphics. But the ruin is indeed most utter, the desolation complete. The ruins of two wretched Arab mud villages close at hand make more show than those of that great city. These Lybian Bedouin abandon their mud huts, and retire with their herds and flocks to the desert on the slightest disturbance. Indeed, their huts are scarcely more settled habitations than tents.

From Memphis we rode to the Sakhara Pyramids on' the Lybian sand desert, close to the village of Abousir. We were not in the least prepared for what we saw there. The Seraphim, the great crypt or vault of the bull-god Apis, is most wonderful ; an enormous subterranean vaulted nave with forty side chambers (like the side chapels of a cathedral), each containing a colossal sarcophagus of granite or black marble for the body of the dead Apis. The lids have been pushed back, and every tomb rifled. Each sarcophagus, with the lid, is about twelve feet high, and of great thickness. The Bedouin guide and Gabriel, our dragoman, carried two candles each ; and the effects of light and shade on the vaulted rock-roof, and the black arched recesses with their enormous sarcophaguses 9 each of which was once walled in, were most weird and strange. Neither drawing nor description can give an idea of it. The great characteristic is size ? and the mysterious depths of the recesses even Bernbrandt could only give in fragments. But the whole of these gigantic traces of the animal worship, under whose shadow the Israelites had groaned so long, enable one better to understand Aaron's golden calf 3 and the " these be thy gods, G Israel ; 9? and Moses 5 dread of sacrificing in their sight the abomination of the Egyptians.

The temple of Phtha (the Egypt Vulcan) was another subterranean wonder. Irregular rock pillars support the cavernous roof, the outer chambers lead you to the inner shrine, whose walls are covered with hieroglyphics. A painted altar stands at the inmost end, and pits, which were tombs, lie rifled around.

After this we visited the ibis-pits, long winding galleries excavated in the rock, honeycombing the hills. They contain earthen jars by thousands, each one protecting its ibis mummy, although now you must penetrate very far to find one. Our Bedouin guide dived into the far recesses and extracted one for us. We broke it open and discovered the mummy in its linen wrappings, which we intend to bring home. The whole region is honeycombed with tombs of the sacred beasts. Sakhara was the quarter for the tombs of the gods, as

Ghizeh was for the tombs of the kings. W« saw a hyena prowling about among the sand hills, and, soon after, we set out homewards or boatwards under the burning sun, dismounting from our donkeys on the way, to rest and take luncheon under the shade of a twin palm-tree.

The wind was quite against us on our way back; our boatmen, therefore, had to row, and as one of them was twice as strong as the other, and kept pulling him round, the voyage was performed in a series of zigzags. When we could keep sufficiently near the shore, one of the men waded in the mud and dragged us on by a rope. They encouraged each other with strange, wild, monotonous songs ; invocations to Allah, and strings of his titles continually recurring in the same constantly repeated, mournful nasal minor chant. When the sunset gun from the citadel of Cairo announced that the day's fast was over, they laid aside their oars, washed their hands and faces in the river (muttering, we thought, some prayers as 2

Wandeiings oyer Bible Lands and Seas, they did so), ate some bread, and began to smoke. It was indeed most impressive to see the power maintained for centuries by the word and will of a dead man. For ns, then, what should be the power of the word of a living God.- — God manifest in the flesh ?

o ;

The journey was not wearisome, intense as the heat was ; and it was worth lingering to see the sunset from the Nile. From our low boat from the low state of the river wo could see nothing but the high mud banks, marked by the terraces made by the Nile as it rises, that is, we could see nothing of the nearer shores—the middle distance was entirely lost — but on one side, in the further distance, the pyramids of Ghizeh rose like conical hills against the sunset, and on the bank itself we saw a troop of camels, donkeys, sheep, and goats, each figure pencilled as if with the most delicate miniature brush against the golden sky. Beyond these at times rose a palm grove, each tree in the same delicate and exquisite relief ; .whilst on the other side the benutiful

Egypt 3S

rose and violet tints colored the hills and quarries of Masara, throwing out in perfect distinctness the square cuttings from which the stones of the buried and desolate Koph and On were taken,

Sunday.-— We had a pleasant English service at the missionary church. Mr. Lieder gave us a beautiful meditation on the sufferings of our Lord in his humanity to enable him to sympathize with us. Mr. and Mrs, Lieder are very kind to us. I believe many travelers have much reason to be grateful to them. Mr. Lieder has every evening a class of young men and boys who come to read the Arabic Bible. Mrs. Lieder lias a school for Coptic, Armenian, Syrian, and Turkish girls. I saw them last week. Their costumes and countenances were very varied and interesting ; some were just like those on the old Egyptian tombs, the braided silk head-pendent twisted with gold coins,- the eyelids dyed black with kohl, and the nails and palms of the hands stained pink with henna. It was strange to see the forms so familiar in stone translated into hair, and silk, and flesh. Many of these girls had intelligent, nice faces; but until the harem system is broken clown, the missionaries seem to think little or nothing can be done. The native Christians, Copts, &c, copy the Mussulmen in the seclusion of the women. For instance, a bright, intelligent, wellinstructed girl from this school married a Copt the other day, and she must not leave her two upper rooms for a year at least! Meantime, what' becomes of what she has learned? In the evening we had a refreshing, quiet service at the American mission house. This mission is but recently commenced, but here also there is a school.

I shall always be most thankful for this journey. It has given us such a glimpse into Oriental customs and into missionary life, its dangers and temptations, as well as its work. One is so apt to think of missionaries as of men necessarily on a higher level than ordinary Christians. The step of voluntary exile for Christ's sate seems to carry them into a higher sphere. But we should remember that the Christian race is not accomplished in great steps. The great enemy goes with the missionaries ; the old man is within them ; the world meets them everywhere in new disguises; the terrible deadening shadow of absolute heathenism or antichristianism is around them ; and what the chill of that is, one must feel to know. Their temptations are perhaps greater than those of ordinary Christians, and their external aids certainly less. It is well to realize these truths, that we may turn them into prayers.