Touring in 1600

PART II

JERUSALEM AND THE WAY THITHER

From all points of view except that of geography Jerusalem was forming part of Europe; the spot where was localised what was recognised as the prime factor in their mental and spiritual ancestry, life, and future. What it is now to a convinced Zionist, it was then to the average Christian. But the idea of securing Jerusalem as an axiom, almost an incidental axiom, of practical politics requires, perhaps, a word or two of explanation, considering how far the modern habit of weeding out theology from all politics but party-politics has gone; and this the more so since little help is to be had from histories, written, as they naturally are, to defend, attack, or explain the present rather than the past, and dealing, consequently, with the past, only in so far as it throws light, not on itself, but on things current.

History having become specialised into accounts of the political events of the past in relation to to-day and to-morrow, the interest of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has come to be concentrated on the development of national and centralised governments. It is therefore left out of account that the ideas at the back of the average sixteenth century man's mind were such as assumed that the world, and Europe in particular, was under theocratic government; and consequently that what seem to us independent sovereigns developing national monarchies seemed to him so many deputies of the Almighty – "many," because of the sins of the world – ruling by permission until the appointed time should come for the unification of Europe under the one true head, the completion of whose work would be a final gigantic Crusade which would pulverise the Turk and secure Jerusalem for Christianity, world without end. In fact, the conquest of Jerusalem held much the same place in international politics as "disarmament" with us; just so far ideal as to make discussion of it interesting, and sufficiently impracticable to be common ground. If these ideas seem too mediæval to be attributed to the sixteenth century, it is because their more "modern" ideas have been disproportionately insisted on since; seven-eighths of their life was mediæval – and a large part of the remaining eighth the majority would have wished to disown.

Where the leaven of new ideas was showing itself was not in a cessation, but in a decrease, of pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The state of transition is definitely marked by the diversity of the preoccupations which men carried thither; the change itself by the discontinuance of the pilgrim galleys. This took place between 1581 and 1586. It had been usual for two galleys to sail to Jaffa and back each year specially for pilgrims, from Venice, starting on different dates between Ascension Day and early in July; the latter date being dictated by the weather, the former doubtless by everybody's desire to wait to witness the Espousal of the Sea. In 1581 a boat86 started on May 7 or 8 with fifty-six on board, all told; this was wrecked in the Adriatic, thirty persons only being saved. On July 14, another left, but the pilgrims by this had to change into a smaller vessel at Cyprus. In 1587, however, a guide-book writer,87 advising on the basis of his experiences the previous year, tells the pilgrim to take the first boat to Tripoli in the spring, before Easter if possible, otherwise there may be none towards Palestine till August, since the pilgrim-galleys have ceased sailing, although the procession is still kept up at Venice in which every intending pilgrim had the honour of walking on the right hand of a noble, bearing a lighted wax candle. That this discontinuance was sudden and recent may be assumed from the fact that a priest who was visiting the shrines of Christendom as the deputy of Philip II, who had vowed such a pilgrimage when his son was ill, hurried88 on his way to Italy in 1587, expecting to find a pilgrim-galley ready to start. But that this discontinuance was not merely temporary is clear enough from all subsequent writers.

The complement of a pilgrim-galley may be taken as about one hundred, although in 1561 one carried four hundred. After 1581 nobody mentions finding more than twenty-three "Franks" at Jerusalem together, not even at Easter, when "indulgences" were doubled. Possibly the attack on "indulgences" which prefaced the best-known schism of the century suggested, or testifies to, an incredulity concerning them which might be felt far outside the districts which persisted in schism. If felt, this would re-act on pilgrimages, the nominal object whereof was to secure "indulgences." On the other hand, there is no reason for assuming a decline in devotion; the non-Catholic point of view is well expressed by Moryson: – "I had no thought to expiate any least sin of mine; much less did I hope to merit any grace from God – yet I confess that through the grace of God the very places struck me with a religious horror and filled my mind with holy motions." One reason for the decrease is certain, however, and sufficient to account for it alone; the increase in the dangers and the cost of the journey through the stopping-places on the route falling into the hands of the Turks, and, still more, the changed attitude of the Turks towards Western Christians as a result of these victories.

Yet this abolition of the direct and speedy route was not all loss to him who was as much tourist as pilgrim. He saw the more. There was a pleasant choice of routes, too; for, of course, thenceforth each one had to make his own arrangements. The main routes numbered three; on each of them further choice was possible. The three were viâ (1) Jaffa, (2) Damascus, (3) Cairo.

The starting-point was sometimes Marseilles, but rarely; almost invariably it would be Venice. Here, too, information was obtainable better than elsewhere. At the Franciscan monastery "Della Vigna" was a travel-bureau in charge of the "Padre Provisore di Gierusalemme" who survived the galleys: in 1609 he was a Venetian noble. The post had a semi-official character, since its holder was charged to view the permit to visit Jerusalem, the "Placet" as it was called, lacking which a Roman Catholic would incur excommunication; and also to assure himself that the pilgrim had one hundred zecchini to spend, in the absence of which the permit was cancelled. The respect in which this "Placet," which required eleven signatures, was held was immense; one soldier, even, who had touched at Tripoli and Jaffa in the course of serving Ferdinand de' Medici, came back to Leghorn to get leave before visiting Jerusalem. But the warden of the friars at Jerusalem had authority to absolve from the excommunication such as did not pass through Italy. No "Placets" were granted to women.

These preliminaries over, a start for Jaffa would be made by taking ship for one of the islands in the Levant on the chance of finding another ship thence to Jaffa itself, which extended the four-five weeks' voyage of earlier days into one of unknown duration. Arriving at Jaffa, past the rock from which St. Peter had his fishing-lesson, no city was to be seen; little but two towers.

In times gone by when the pilgrims arrived in bulk, word was sent to the warden of the monastery of San Salvatore at Jerusalem, and they did not start the land journey till he came to supervise it. But now the traveller had to arrange as best he could with Turk or Arab and reach Rama somehow or other; probably on an ass without saddle, bridle, or stirrups. At Rama he would find Sion House, built by Philip the Good on the site of the house of Nicodemus, and nominally a monastery; all the monks had gone, but it remained a lodging for pilgrims. At Rama dwelt the official Christian guide to Jerusalem, into whose charge you had no choice but to commit yourself; if any one tried to evade his control and charges, the dragoman could send word to the Arabs, and life passed the limit of barely endurable, which was the pilgrim's ordinary lot. The dragoman dwelt at Rama for the reason that the routes to Jerusalem, west, north, and south, converged there; and for that same reason we will go on to consider route No. 2, viâ Damascus.

There was at times the chance of approaching by the Damascus road, and yet going mainly by sea; that was when there was a ship bound for Acre or some port on the coast of the Holy Land other than Jaffa. But in practically all cases the Damascus route meant getting to Constantinople first, and this is equally true of route No. 3.

From Europe to Constantinople there were several main routes. Two tourists took the trade route from Danzig through Lemberg to Kamenetz, the frontier town of Poland, then down the river Pruth to Reni, a centre of the caviare trade, and so down the Danube to its mouth and by sea to Constantinople, which last part coincided with the route of the Russian pilgrims who sailed down the Dnieper or the Don and coasted along the Black Sea shore. A weird crew on a weird journey, in boats which, big or little, were used to being mounted on wheels, through country where nothing living was to be seen but wild beasts and nothing to mark distances save the mouths of tributary streams. Then there was Busbecq's way, who used the Danube, but not to the mouth; leaving it soon after Belgrade had been passed and travelling by the great road through Sofia and Adrianople along which the Grand Signor marched to bring war and Christian ambassadors came to buy peace. From this road, going westward, diverged the roads to Spalato and to Ragusa, the two most direct ways to Venice. Yet but few tourists travelled by these two roads. It was not that they were little used. Besides the ambassadors to Constantinople from Ragusa itself, which meant at least two journeys each year on account of the tribute, Della Valle speaks of the ordinary post taking that direction and the Venetian representative at Constantinople keeping forty Schiavonians for post work, who travelled on foot. The mountain passes were terrible, and the danger from wolves and dogs in Servia considerable; also from robbers. At certain points on Mount Rhodope, for instance, men were stationed to beat drums when the road was supposed to be clear of them, and a feature of the district was the "Palangha," a roughly fortified enclosure large enough for sixty or seventy Turks to live within and to serve as a temporary shelter to those who lived roundabout; for the robber bands sometimes numbered three hundred. Except at the regular stopping places few people were seen, for the Christians established their villages off the main road for fear of the Turks, who were so far uncertain of their control over them as to use continual severities. A French ambassador, whose guide led him astray near one of these villages, saw all the inhabitants making off to the mountains, mistaking him for a Turkish official. And their houses he says were no better than "gabions couverts." But with these, as with all people who live under a despotism, especially a foreign military one, their chief protection consisted in appearing more miserable than they were; there was no part of Europe where food was better or cheaper; neither did the people treat strangers with the ferocity produced by extreme wretchedness, and at Sofia, in fact, Blount found the opposite extreme – "nor hath it yet lost the old Grecian civility, for of all the cities I ever passed, either in Christendom or without, I never saw anywhere where a stranger is less troubled either with affronts or with gaping."

Still, it was borderland, and mainly Mohammedan; the sea route was common ground and frequented by Christians. But there was a compromise which was often in use – to travel by sea to Zante and thence through Greece, finishing the journey either by sea or land. It might seem that this direction would appeal to a considerable proportion of tourists during the period that is called "Renascence," but the extent to which the acquaintance with, and interest in, Greek thought, first-hand, at this time has been exaggerated may be accurately estimated by the fact that not a single one of these travellers visited Athens except by accident. It must be admitted, however, that things were not made easy for them; one of those who traversed Greece was Dallam, in company with seven others; part of the journey they were stalked by natives trying to arrange with their guide to cut their throats: and every time they slept but once it was in their clothes, either on the ground or on the floor. One of the most interesting places that might be visited on this route was Salonica, a Jew republic under the suzerainty of the Grand Signor, with a training-school for priests; here and Safed near Galilee were the only places where Hebrew was supposed to be spoken.

All these ways to Constantinople have been mentioned in the order into which they fall according to the extent to which they were used by European tourists, the least frequented first. Last comes the most usual, by sea all the way from Venice. And here, however different might be the experiences of this one and that one, two points of interest were invariable. First, they passed Abydos and Sestos, where out must come the note-book, and Leander must be dragged into it. Secondly, Troy. The learned say that these tourists located Troy on the south, instead of on the north, bank of the river, but the more important point is that what they did see stirred their feelings: it was no mere mild interest. The Trojan heroes were as real to them as Barbarossa and Don Juan, not only because no doubts had blurred their individuality, much less darkened their existence, but because there was less competition for the position of hero owing to the narrower range of their knowledge. Another characteristic of theirs, was that Virgil was clearer in their association of ideas, Homer dimmer, at the moment of seeing Troy's ruins, than would be the case with a modern tourist: the quotation that arises most naturally in the mind of the finest scholar of them all was

And so to Constantinople. But not the pilgrims' Constantinople of former days, as marvellous a centre, perhaps, of ecclesiastical civilisation and dignity, and of relics, as has been seen. St. Sophia was still there and its doors still of the wood of Noah's ark, but it was a mosque where the inquisitive Christian was allowed to look round on sufferance. Only two churches in the city were allowed to remain in Western Christian hands, St. Nicholas and Our Lady of Constantinople, the latter still a place of pilgrimage though served by one solitary Dominican friar. Gone was Moses' rod; gone from the neighbouring village of Is Pigas was the fresco of St. John from whose head, in the first week of each Lent, had blossomed a milk-white rose; gone was the trumpet that sounded at the fall of Jericho and the horn of Abraham's ram. But the last two must be safe somewhere, for they are to be used by the summoning angel on Judgment Day.

As a pilgrim, then, the tourist reached Constantinople only by the way. And setting out thence for Jerusalem, viâ Damascus, he might go by land in one of three ways, either by trading caravan, in which case he should contract with some one in it for all expenses and necessaries by the way, besides engaging a Janizary, necessary under every possible condition, who is to report his passenger's safe arrival to an ambassador or some merchant residing at the point of departure; or he might accompany a governor on his way to take up his duties (and changes were very frequent), in which case the governor had better be required to swear by his head to see the pilgrim safely through; or for the third, and quickest way, on the return journey, accompany the carriers of revenue to Constantinople. But it was far commoner to make a sea-journey of it, which meant taking ship to "Scanderoon" and thence by land, viâ Aleppo, to Damascus. Nobody ever went to Scanderoon except to get to Aleppo; sometimes not even then, for during this period the port of Aleppo was as often as not Tripoli. The objection to Scanderoon was its unhealthiness, lying, as it did, as Peter Mundy says, "in a great marsh full of boggs, foggs, and froggs"; of the English who went there as apprentices scarcely five per cent lived to go into business for themselves. Aleppo was worth seeing: a pleasant town with its approaches all gardens, like Damascus, and the medley of nations must have been marvellous to watch; a sign of its cosmopolitanism was that Christians were allowed to ride horses there, an unusual privilege in Mohammedan dominion; probably nowhere outside Venice were so many sects represented, whose churches were in what was called the new suburb; two Armenian, a Greek, and a Catholic Maronite were actually side by side, with a Syrian Jacobite church just near. It is not out of place to add that at the Jews' synagogue there was not the usual division of sexes, but that the only separation was that one side was reserved for the families who had been long resident there, the other for strangers: because although the repulsion felt for the Jews was greater at this time than at present, the interest in them was likewise greater, and any information concerning their customs was regarded by the tourist as matter for his readers – a surprising number of these tourists give eye-witness accounts of circumcisions of Jewish babies.

To return to Aleppo; it was equally remarkable for its trade. Dealings to the extent of 40,000 to 100,000 crowns were ordinary, and this implied frequency of caravans to take the pilgrim on to Damascus. On the way he would pass the district in which Job was supposed to have lived, which may well have been so, says Moryson, for no spot possessed such conveniences for getting robbed, even of 100,000 head of cattle, nor any better suited to develop patience.

It was here the pilgrim became acquainted with the Arabs. How far the latter were independent of the Turks was left an unsettled question, but it is fairly certain that on many, perhaps most, of the occasions when a European traveller of the time relates an encounter with the Arabs, the latter were not the robbers he thought them but keepers of the roads demanding not more than treble what they were entitled to. But it is equally clear that hostilities were perpetual. In 1601 a caravan guide told an Englishman at one defile that he had never passed by there without seeing bodies of murdered men; and from Damascus to Jacob's bridge – so called because just by was the spot where Jacob wrestled with the Angel – the caravan travelled by night for fear of the Arabs and no talking was allowed without the captain's special permission. But there was much to divert the attention of the faithful from their trials. At Damascus was Ananias' house, and soon after starting an ill-informed tourist would be surprised to see all his fellow travellers fall on their knees for prayers: it would be the spot where the conversion of St. Paul took place. Before reaching the Sea of Galilee they came upon a field with a little well in it, at which all dismounted for worship as well as for a drink; there had Joseph been hidden by his brethren. Between Cana and Mt. Tabor was a little chapel to call at, built on the spot where Christ had multiplied the loaves and fishes, and after this the road turned westwards to Nazareth and the church on the site where the Virgin Mary's house had stood before it had been spirited away to Loreto; two porphyry columns were standing on the places occupied respectively by the Archangel and by the Virgin at the moment of the Annunciation. For those who were not Roman Catholics there was the actual house there to be identified on its original site, so far as it had been left intact by previous pilgrims; Lithgow, the only Western Christian in the caravan he travelled with, asserts that his companies carried away above five thousand pounds' weight of the house in remembrance. Then southward, joining the road from Tripoli, more frequented, but not by pilgrims, who chose this Damascus road as passing through Galilee. And so to Rama, where they may await such as journey by route 3 from Constantinople viâ Cairo.

Reaching Alexandria it was found to be about the size of Paris; besides the ruins, the greatness of which was attested by the intolerable dust which was all that remained of much of the building materials of the past.

Leaving Alexandria for Cairo, it was a matter of course to go by river, passing an attractive town every four miles or so, a very pleasant journey except when the Nile was low, which made it more practicable for the Arabs to attack. On landing at Bulak, the port, there would be asses ready, the wonderful asses of the East celebrated of old in Western Europe, as the canticle witnesses which used to be sung at Beauvais cathedral at the feast of the Circumcision when the ass enters in the procession.89

The asses of Bulak fortified tradition by carrying passengers into the city, unattended by any boy, and taking their way back as soon as the ride was over.

The characteristics of Cairo which impressed themselves most on the seventeenth-century traveller were its size, and, notwithstanding its size, its populousness, so great that it was difficult to move for the press of people. Allowances must be made, however, for their standard regarding streets; a large proportion of the ten thousand streets were in reality passages built over, dark and dangerous to an extent which probably exists in few European slums nowadays. The number ten thousand sounds suspicious as a statement of fact, but there was a certain check on it, inasmuch as each "street" was shut at each end by a gate at night and each gate had a guardian as well as a lantern burning; and the number of guardians was twenty thousand besides the four thousand soldiers who patrolled inside the city at night. For the antiquities, there were still to be seen many houses bearing a chalice and two lighted candles, witnesses of Louis IX's captivity in Egypt and the tale of his leaving the sacrament as security for the payment of his ransom on his release; for the rest, knowledge was not in a very advanced state; everything that was not credited to "Pharaoh" was put down to Joseph.

The interest to the tourist centred equally in the excursions. It was but a few miles to Matarea – to use the Italian spelling, preferable with many of the names that occur, especially in this chapter, as a sign of the times – and no Roman Catholic omitted it, seeing that there stood the house where Our Lady dwelt for some years after her flight from Palestine; at Cairo itself was preserved some of the water in which she washed her baby-clothes. Neither, naturally, was any one inclined to pass on without a visit to the Pyramids; no doubt Della Valle's name is still to be found cut on the top of the Great Pyramid on the facet that looks towards Italy. He entered the Great Pyramid, the only one into which entrance was effected at this date; but had no opportunity of saying anything regarding it out of the ordinary; it is when he moved on to what were known as the "Pyramids of the Mummies" that his account of his doings again becomes one of the most remarkable, as well as one of the best written, of research in Egypt. He made a halt at "Abusir," and then after entering one of these minor Pyramids, moved on to "Saccara," the centre for mummy-hunting, which formed the occupation of the boys of the village. On Della Valle's arrival they had a stand-up fight for the privilege of taking him home, and the next morning about fifty were at his door. A procession having been formed, all were set to work in different places probing for tombs, for Della Valle was bent on examining such as had never been opened hitherto. His trouble and expense were well rewarded, for the two mummies he brought away intact were pronounced at Cairo to be the most remarkable that any one there remembered seeing. They cost him three piastri – less than five pounds in our money at present values – each, and are now in Dresden Museum. It was rare for any to be seen intact, for hunting for mummies was not carried on for museums, but because of their supposed medicinal value, greatest, it was thought, in virgin-mummies; one of the rare qualities of Othello's handkerchief consisted in its having been