Reminiscences of pilgrimage to the holy places of Palestine, being the substance of three lectures delivered on the subject at the Sidmouth and Ottery St. Mary Literary Institutions

Front matter

f;

I

REMINISCENCES OF PILGRIMAGE

Preface

In submitting the following pages to the notice of the Public, their author feels that a few words of apology and explanation are necessary; as well for their design and object, as to account for their peculiarities of style and arrangement. They were originally written, as most of his readers are aware, with no view whatever to publication, but simply as Lectures to be delivered before the Literary Institution at Sidmouth. In this form they have been, under the following titles, and at the following times and places respectively delivered. —

L Modern Jerusalem and its Associations. A Lecture delivered at the Sidmouth Literary Institution, on Thursday evening, Nov. 15, 1855. At the Ottery St, Mary Institution, on Thursday evening, Jan. 3, 1856.

II. JuDiEA, its Modern Aspect, and Ancient Associations, A Lecture delivered at the Sidmouth Literary Institution, on Thursday evening, March 27, 1856. At the Ottery St. Mary Institution, Thursday evening, Dec. 21, 1856.

vm.

PREFACE.

III. Samakia and Gaeilee. Fast and Present. A Lecture delivered at the Sidmouth Literary Institution, on Tuesday evening, March 24, 1857. At the Ottery St. Mary Institution, Friday evening, April 17, 1857. Again at Sidmouth, hy special request, April 21, 1857.

The great and unexpected popularity which, when first thus delivered, these Lectures achieved, has induced their author to helieve that they would prove not uninteresting, (as well to the Public in general as to those who heard them,) if reproduced in the more permanent form in which he has now ventured to embody them.

He is, of course, aware that it is no new ground that he is traversing;— no new theme he is enlarging on, in describing the scenery and associations of the Holy Land. Much of his information has been, ( as whose is not?) derived from boohs on the subject, and the recorded experience of other travellers, who have passed over that ofttrodden ground before him. Yet, whilst acknowledging his obligations to them* he would claim for himself the merit, (if merit it be,) of having at least endeavoured to tell the truth about a country of which very few writers, (and specially few "religious" writers,) do tell the truth; and faithfully to depict the exact impressions which the scenery and associations of that country produced upon his own mind.

For absence of arrangement, and faults of style, he must plead, in apology, the original design of this work. At

* I may here mention as the principal sources of my information the works of Dr. Robinson, Miss Martineau, Mr. Kingslake, and Mr. Stanley, on the subject.

PREFACE.

ix.

the time when the first of these Lectures was composed, he had no idea of either committing it 1o print, or of continuing the subject further. It was, therefore, neither arranged with that care, or worded with that precision, which, with the latter objects in view, he should have felt it necessary to bestow upon it. And although he has, of course, done much since, towards revising all of them generally for publication, yet, as their chief interest must ever lie in the reminiscence of their original lecture-form, he has not thought it advisable to make alterations so freely as he otherwise might have done; nor beyond a few trifling alterations, the correction of verbal errors, and the arrangement of them into chapters, has he done much towards remodeling or reforming them. Had he been conscious at the time of writing either the first or second of these Lectures that they were destined to expand into a series, and that that series was to become a book,Jie would certainly have arranged them far otherwise ;— commencing the subject from a different point, and proceeding by a different course.— As it is, however, he feels it wiser to let well alone, and to leave them in that form and order in which they have already attracted popularity and interest.

Thus much in apology for many shortcomings and deficiencies. Little more remains for him to say on the subject. It may perhaps, however, be desirable before he concludes, to make some general mention of the tour which originally suggested the subject to his mind. In the month of August, 1852, the author, (having then just taken his degree) started from England with a friend, across Europe, and down the Danube to Constantinople, and

TKEFACE.

from thence sailed to Beyrout. From Beyrout they proceeded inland to visit the Cedars of Lebanon, the ruins of Baaibec, and the city of Damascus; of which preliminary Tour, he regrets having been unable at present to fulfil an intention he had formed of subjoining an account in a supplementary chapter. Less than six weeks amply sufficed for them to see the remainder of Palestine: and a month's journey across the desert enabled them to visit Petra and spend four days there; and brought them to Egypt by the end of the year.

Of all that beautiful Tour, the most delightful and interesting perhaps in the world, the memory still hangs over him, assuming as it fades off farther and farther into the distance, the hues and proportions of enchantment. He were ungrateful were he to neglect to acknowledge the vast debt of gratitude he owes to that Eastern vision of byegone days, casting, as it does, its glory over the work of life, and reminding him as it waxes fainter and fainter, how in another sense the poet's words are true, that

"The youth, who daily further from the East Must travel, still is Nature's priest; And by that vision splendid Is on his way attended : At length, the man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day !"

With these few remarks by way of explanation and apology he now ventures to submit his volume to the public; trusting that the consideration of the original form and intention of its contents, (which, as he before said, he has left unremodeled, and shaped as they are, because

PREFACE.

xi.

their principal interest must ever be as a reminiscence of their first appearance,) may suffice to excuse and gain allowance for that absence of arrangement and rawness of style which he fears may be only too apparent throughout it.

The illustrations which accompany this volume are from his own sketches taken on the spots which they represent: and he cannot better conclude than in acknowledging with much gratitude the kindness of those friends who have assisted him in the production of them in their present form.

CONTENTS,

LECTURE I.

Modern Jerusalem and its Associations.

Page.

CHAPTER III. Maritime Galilee 114

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

To face page.

I. Map of Palestine, (Frontispiece.)

II. Jerusalem prom the Mount op Olives 17

III. Jericho and the Dead Sea 59

IV. Bethlehem, looking Eastwards

V. Nazareth from the Mount of Precipitation .... 108

VI. Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee 115

LECTURE I.

MODERN JERUSALEM,

AND ITS

ASSOCIATIONS.

JERUSALEM.

Lecture I. Chapter I. Preliminary.

"Then waft me from the harbour mouth Wild winds ! I seek a milder sky, And I will see before I die The Palms and Temples of the South !"

Tennyson*

Introductory remarks on the general interest of the subject — Neglect it has met ivith — Causes and results of this — Pilgrimages ancient and modern — Various routes — Landing at Jaffa — First impressions of Palestine — Its towns — Figures — and Landscape — Scriptural associations — "En route" for Jerusalem — "Getting in sight"

The subject on which I propose to address you this evening is one of such peculiar and special interest, that I feel it will be necessary to say but little in order to commend it to your attention at the outset. Its mere name and title attracts at once, (as I rejoice to see,) an universal sympathy. For, if there is any spot in the world replete with interesting associations of every kind,— religious or historical, — it is surely the city of Jerusalem. Be our opinions what they may, — he our dispositions and feelings ever so various, — that name, familiar to us all from childhood, must needs recall to every mind a multitude of memories and impressions ,-^of associations and recollections,, — such as

b2

4 PRELIMINARY. [LECT. I.

possess in themselves something of a more than ordinary charm: and acts like a spell potent to reproduce before us the enchanted shadows of the past and of the s future, as well of the great world of history as of each individual life ' For Jerusalem has indeed, like other great cities, Athens or Rome, its place and its historical interest m the annals of this world; and that no mean one. Hut, unlike other cities, Jerusalem alone possesses that peculiar religious interest which is not of this world; and is invested with a mysterious glory, by its inseparable connection with those spiritual associations which are suggestive of a brighter and a better !

The day of Jerusalem's earthly greatness indeed is long gone by, and is only of the Past. The day of her spiritual greatness is yet, as we believe, to come, and is only of the Future.— It is not however the Jerusalem of the Past, or the Jerusalem of the Future, but the Jerusalem of the Present that it is my intention to speak of this evening. Not the Jerusalem of history and recollection; nor the Jerusalem of spiritual hope and unfulfilled revelation; but the neglected Jerusalem ot this our own day and our own times. Not the J erusalem flourishing, (as she once did and will perchance again,) the Queen of cities under the blessing of Heaven; but the Jerusalem lying, (as she is now,) with the denunciations of all her prophets fulfilled against her,- captive, and deserted, and mourning, and blighted beneath the

curse of God ! , . , *

And is it not a strange thing when we come to consider, how much, with all this interest and glory attaching to her Past and her Future, the present existence of Jerusalem seems to have been in modern times practically ignored or forgotten ?— Perhaps it is partly a fulfilment of those ancient prophecies, or perhaps it is from some sin of omission that lies nearer home, but, from whatever cause, the fact remains a curious one, that, until very recently, the mere existence of Modem Jerusalem attracted generally neither

CHAP, i]

JERUSALEM.

interest or notice, and was perhaps not very commonly realized or thought of. One would naturally have imagined that to Christians, — (and especially to Protestant Christians, so familiar with and interested in Bible history, — with scriptural expressions constantly on their lips, and such accurate knowledge of Scripture narrative as Protestants undoubtedly do acquire, — ) no foreign city in the world could have possessed nearly so great an interest. — Yet, strange to say, travellers from Protestant countries, (till within the last five-andtwenty years,) have very seldom bent their steps thither. The difficulties, — the dangers, — and the expenses of the journey are, comparatively speaking by no means great. A Tour in Spain is I believe a far more perilous and troublesome business than a Tour in the Holy Land. And yet, though the interest of the former cannot be compared with that of the latter, (which is incomparable,) Palestine remained for centuries unvisited save by very few, whilst Spain and other parts of the Continent were overrun with Tourists. — From the age of the Crusades, when every Christian country of the Western world sent forth its thousands of devoted men to fight for the possession of the sacred soil, the spirit of Pilgrimage has been gradually declining all over Europe. In our own country, the Reformation gave a death-blow to this not altogether unprofitable enthusiasm. The reaction that followed raised perhaps rather a prejudice than otherwise against a practice which superstition had enjoined. And thus a counter-superstition grew up and prevailed, which rendered Palestine a "terra incognita," "a region that was but is not," to the mass of our own ancestors for many generations.^

And, I really believe, partly in consequence of this, that many well-meaning people, even of our own day, quite forget that the Land of the Bible is still in existence. They seem to have a sort of vague idea that the events of Scripture narrative occurred in some remote region or other, — whether on earth ox not they can

PRELIMINARY.

[LECT. I.

scarcely determine,— and that the sites thereiii mentioned have quite passed away * It enhances, they fancy, the sanctity with which the sacred story is invested, to regard it thus through an atmosphere of mystery, and increase its importance by removing it farther from themselves into a more distant region of awe and marvel. And of course when people have got any tendency in their heads towards this notion, (which is in its degree only too common,) it sounds startling and almost profane to them to hear the familiarity with which modern travellers speak and write about spots and scenes in the Holy Land, which they have thus exalted in their own imaginations to an unearthly sanctity. They are simply shocked when you tell them the common incidents of every-day life in close connection with a sacred name. — Yet travellers must eat, and drink, and sleep, and chatter, and gallop about, and amuse themselves in Galilee or Judaea,— at Nazareth or Jerusalem,— as surely as they must in Devonshire or London. — It is the law of their being, equally applicable all the world over. — And if they tell the truth about their travels, and draw true pictures of their wanderings, they will not scruple, in spite of being thought profane, to describe the landscape, (be it the holiest in the world,) exactly as they saw it, with tents pitching, and dinners cooking, and Arabs screaming in the foreground of the view. — For these after all are facts ;— and the profanity, (if any there be,) lies entirely with those who choose to be shocked by them,— because they have fallen into the fatal error of disconnecting the Bible and its names and associations, from all that belongs to this present, common-place, familiar life of ours ; thus doing away with much of its reality, and force, and truth, (just as men do sometimes

*I remember an answer I received once in a Sunday School strongly illustrative of this tendency.— I had asked the simple question « 'In what country did most of the events related in Scripture take place?" And the answer I received was "The Heavenly Canaan," an answer^ evidently implying that the land in question had no connection with earth.

Chap I.] Jerusalem. 7

with their religion too,) by regarding it not as it was, part of, but rather distinct from, the world they live in.

And I feel sure that there is one great permanent advantage to be derived from familiarizing Scripture names and objects with the commonest details of every-day life, (even at the risk of its sounding or being thought profane,) viz, that it enables us to realize them as something belonging to ourselves ; and to know when we read our Bibles, that we are reading, not the events and characters of a book made for the purpose, but the genuine record of what real men and women, like ourselves, really said and did; giving us examples and warnings, not by invented instances or the deeds of beings of another sphere, — but by the actual familiar experiences of the men of our own !

With this object in view therefore, it will be my endeavour to reproduce before you and enable you to realize as clearly as I can, the present condition of this city of Jerusalem, the memory of whose Past, and the anticipation of whose Future, are matters of such engrossing interest to us all.

And first, I would say a few words respecting the character of the journey thither. I spoke just now of the spirit of Pilgrimage having been, for several centuries, extinct in our own country, and on the wane all over Europe ; I might however have added that, within the last few years, strong indications of its revival have been discernible amongst ourselves. But, like everything else in this changeful world, its characteristic features have, in the lapse of ages, undergone considerable alteration. Pilgrimages now-a-days form a strange contrast, (at least in external aspect,) to the pilgrimages of olden time. Our ancestors, you know, were wont to set forth to visit the Holy Land, in the true spirit of self-denial, with a stern rejection of convenience or comfort, regarding the journey simply as a penance, the rather salutary to the soul in proportion as it was made the more ungrateful to the body: a solemn pain and peril it was to this

PRELIMINARY.

[lect. I.

life, undergone "with, a view to salvation in the next.— • Not so however with ourselves. We no longer believe that the soul is advantaged by the hurt of the body, or undertake the Tour with any such motives. Recognizing no obligations of discomfort or inconvenience, and regarding the journey not as a penance but as a pleasure, our modern pilgrim starts from home, not to traverse Continents afoot, and court privation and hardship after the painful fashion of his ancestors, but to improve his mind, and refresh his body, and enlarge his experience, and "temper his metal," and see and learn and know as much as possible, and thus in fact make more of himself. — He has therefore discarded the oldfashioned scallop-shell and staff of his forefathers for instruments better suited to his purpose, — well-filled portmanteaus, guide-books, and revolvers. By the wonder-working aid of steam and the appliances of modern civilization, he is enabled to achieve the journey in a tithe of the time, and with less than a tithe of the trouble and danger, that it cost in days of old. And with far more visible result. That garb of easy credulity too, in which our pilgrim-fathers traversed the -Holy Land, which made them accept tradition for truth, and credit any local tale, (however foolish or idle,) originated by the inventive brains and repeated by the lying lips of monks and hermits, the palmer of modern days has exchanged for the broad-cloth of sober reason and sound criticism ; — and in such altered guise he is enabled to sift truth from falsehood, with calm and cautious discrimination. In short the "Pilgrim's Progress" is now a rapid, useful, pleasant, practical, modern piece of progress, as unlike as possible to the slow and painful struggle that it used to be ! Yet, though thus altered in external aspect, the underlying truth remains the same; under vastly different forms we may recognise the same fact; — each is Pilgrimage, coloured by the spirit of its own age ! It boots not now to pause and enquire which fashion was best,— the ancient or the

CHAP. I.] JERUSALEM. ^

modern; — we needs must follow that of our own time, and perform our pilgrim's progress with comfort and speed accordingly.

There are of course several routes by which the journey from England to Jerusalem may be accomplished. You may, like the majority of travellers, following the track of Moses and the Israelites across the desert from Egypt, approach it from the South: — or you may, as I myself did, travel across Europe and down the Danube to Constantinople, and thence sail to Beyrout, and so approach it through Palestine from the North: — or you may take ship straight to the port of Jaffa, and, there landing, approach it directly from the West. As the last-mentioned, though the least interesting, is the shortest route, and our present object is to get to Jerusalem as quickly as we can, I should propose our adopting it now, in preference to the other two. I will therefore, as I have already detained you so long on the road, omit all further mention of the journey out, as irrelevant to our subject; and, passing over all intermediate obstacles, request you to imagine the room in which you are seated to be a large steampacket, on board of which we all embarked, just a fortnight ago, from Southampton; and that we have reached, (as we should by that time have done,) the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. There^ is land in sight ahead, for which we are making with all due speed. That rocky coast-line before you, is the coast of Palestine ; those grey hills that rise in the distance against the horizon are, the hills of Judaea; the desolate land that greets your sight, is the Holy Land ; — "the land flowing with milk and honey; 55 — " the glory of all lands; 55 — the land of Jesus Christ and his apostles; — the land of David and Solomon;— the land of the chosen people of God ! — Looking for the first time in amongst those grey hills of Palestine, you feel as though you were looking in upon enchanted ground* at a region that is like no other region in this world 1

PRELIMINARY.

[LECT. I.

But, as you get fiearer and nearer, yon distinguish a cluster of buildings heaped on a hill close upon the else desolate shore ; and soon reach a small harbour, where, if Jerusalem be your destination, you must disembark. A little mass of grey or white houses all with flat roofs, oftentimes with little domes like beehives upon them, — intersected by rough and dirty lanes, — with a few stout domes and slender minarets rising above them, — and a castle or citadel overtopping the whole mass of habitations ; — this is J affa the sea-port of Judaea: — the same Joppa whence Jonah topk ship to escape the bidding of God; the same Joppa where afterwards Simon the tanner lived, from the flat roof of whose house, (which must have been very like the houses of the modern town I have just described,) overlooking the broad blue expanse of the great Western Sea, St. Peter was taught his first great lesson of Christian toleration, by the vision of things he fancied were "common or unclean ! 55

As you step to shore, you begin to realize that you are indeed in another quarter of the globe. Everything is different from what you are accustomed to.— Take any object that first meets your eye; that group of idlers, for instance, round you on the shore, in their long loose brilliant-coloured garments, with their handsome sun-burnt faces dignified with flowing beard and majestic turban, look more like prophets and apostles than the ordinary inhabitants of a little modern fishing-town. You feel almost awed at first at the condescension of such venerable-looking beings when they begin to shoulder your portmanteaus, and have quite a delicacy in offering them a few pence for their trouble, as if they were mere ticket-porters. — Yet so it is ! In the East even ticket-porters are picturesque ! But if this oriental costume improves the appearance of the men, how sad and ghastly is that of the few women you see lingering there. — Dark muffled forms clumsily crippled with drapery and cruelly bandaged,

CHAP. I.] JERUSALEM. 11

and with faces shrouded from view and excluded from God's light and air, their appearance is ghastly and horrible, and suggestive rather of corpses moving with the cerements of the grave clinging to them!— There too are monks or priests loitering on the shore, and assisting the inhabitants to perform what appears to be the principal business of the place, viz, to look picturesque and do nothing— Last not least there will meet you on the shore a troop of half-starved wolfish-looking dogs prowling about for food, not very successfully to judge from their personal appearance. These are the only scavengers that Eastern Towns possess, and supply the place of drainage commissioners, and sewerage commissioners, and drains and sewers too. There are thousands of them in most of the large Asiatic cities ; they hunt in packs, each keeping strictly to the bounds of its own beat; and all night long they howl in a fearful chorus, so that it is no easy matter to get any sleep at all, for the first night or two of your arrival in an Eastern Town.

The appearance of the houses moreover, is not such as an English eye is accustomed to. They are square white buildings, usually enclosing a court, principally remarkable for the apparent scarcity of windows, and for their flat tops. The house-top is, as you probably know, used by the inhabitants of hot climates as a sort of drawing-room in the evening when the sun is low; or sometimes, when the nights are oppresively hot, for a sleeping-apartment. Frequently there is a flight of steps outside these houses, leading right from the street to the roof without communicating with the interior. And these aptly illustrate the meaning of our Saviour's advice to his disciples, when, in speaking of the coming dangers of the siege of Jerusalem, he says, "Let him that is on the house-top not come down to take anything out of his house," evidently meaning, "Let him escape as quickly as possible from the city, by the nearest way

PRELIMINARY.

[LECT. I.

he can find." — Now these exterior flights of steps would just afford him such a means of escape. Otherwise, one cannot imagine how a person on a house-top could find any other mode of egress but by coming down through his house, which our Lord recommends him in escaping not to tarry to do.

It is a long day's ride from Jaffa to Jerusalem, a distance of some thirty miles, across for the most part a rocky and impracticable country. — The way lies first across the maritime plain, — the southern portion of the plain of Sharon, — and then among the rocks of the hill-country of Judsea. Of the means and mode of Syrian travel I need say little at present. Suffice it to remark that there are no roads, and no conveyances in the country, so you must either ride or walk r- — that there are plenty of robbers and rascals, and no police, so that you must go well armed ; though it is some consolation to know that these robbers are likewise very great cowards, and would only attack you if they saw you had no means of resisting them. There is moreover no local accommodation on this or any other line of travel in Syria, so that you must have with you a tent, and provisions, and a cook, and a dragoman or interpreter, besides baggage, mules, and muleteers. In order therefore to travel with comfort, (which as I said before is one of the desiderata of our modern pilgrim's progress,) a rather numerous cavalcade must be made up : owing however to the marvellous cheapness of every thing in the East, this is attended with no great expense.

On these details however I will not now dwell, but suppose that we have already started on the way from Jaffa to Jerusalem, — that same way that has been trodden by countless pilgrim feet for now well-nigh two thousand years, and has echoed the various tongues of the denizens of almost every nation under Heaven ! — A mere track it is, over rocky hills, among straggling olives, and fig-trees, and stunted

CHAP. I ] JERUSALEM. 13

oaks. Here again, everything is different from what you are accustomed to see, (that is if you come straight from England.) — Everything reminds you that it is Asia and not Europe that surrounds you. — The air you breathe,— the sun that shines upon you, — the ground you tread on, — are not like the air, and sun, and ground of England. — No rich turf meadows, — no trim fences, — no square fields, — no snug country-houses, or churchtowers, "bosomed high in tufted trees, 55 greet the sight. Instead of elms, and oaks, and thorn-hedges, there are grey olives, and fig-trees, and vines terraced on the rocty hill-sides; and fences of prickly cacti run riot over the sandy soil; and everywhere the dark rock peeps out from the thin covering of earth that is upon it ; — and to an eye fresh from English scenery, this Asian landscape looks sadly bare, and parched, and desolate. Notwithstanding this, it will be lovely and pleasant to your sight; for, as you ride through the land, you may see on every side a regular illustrated commentary on Scripture-scenes familiar to your ear, now first presented to the experience of your eye. Here and there are vineyards, and each vineyard has its watch-tower built of the rough stones about, where the agricultural implements are kept and the watchman as of old keeps guard, — suggesting the parable of him, "who digged a wine-press and built a tower: 55 — or herdsmen are watering their flocks at a well, which, like the patriarchs of old, they jealously guard from the intrusions of their neighbours: — or shepherds are watching their flocks, well-armed to guard against the incursions, (not now indeed like David, of the lion and the bear,) but of wolves and other beasts of prey that still infest the land, — recalling the memory of a "good shepherd who gave his life for his sheep! 55

Sights and associations such as these are not uncongenial to attune the mind to a mood meet for the greater sight which is to crown your pilgrimage : and, as the day wears on, you must needs be longing with eager

PRELIMINARY.

[LECT. I.

expectation for tlie moment when the first view of the Holy City will greet your anxious gaze. It can scarcely be without emotion, that the most phlegmatic of travellers would cast his eyes for the first time in his life on such a city as Jerusalem. No one probably ever read the Bible with any interest, without forming some conjecture in his own mind as to what Jerusalem must probably be like: whereabouts this event happened, or that? where Gethsemane was ? — where Olivet ? — where Calvary ?— A hundred spots dear to Christian remembrance, which have hitherto existed only in imagination or conjecture, will, from the moment you behold it, take form and shape, and exist in your mind as realities henceforth and for ever ! Everything that one sees and learns,— every new experience and acquisition, — becomes not only an event in one's own life, but as it were a part of oneself. It will be something to have added Jerusalem to oneself ! — That view which you will see when Jerusalem first bursts upon your sight, will be an experience you have shared in common with Hebrew prophets and Christian apostles ! The outline and shape of those eternal hills that "stand about Jerusalem" was familiar to the eyes of Abraham, and Samuel, and David, and, above all, of Jesus Christ himself! A sight Moses desired to see, and was not permitted! A sight you have dreamt of, and thought of, and conjectured about all your life, as the most interesting, — the holiest, — the most desirable, perhaps, in the world !