Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885

On our way to the Sea of Galilee we passed through Cana, where they show you still some of the water-pots in which "the conscious water blushed" when it saw its Lord, and crossed the plain of Hattin, on one of whose round, horn-like acclivities the Sermon on the Mount is said to have been given. Here the Crusaders made their last stand against the victorious army of Saladin; and when at nightfall their bugles sounded the retreat, the Holy Land was given over to the unbeliever for centuries:—who is prophet enough to say for how many? As we first saw the lake that afternoon, with the sunlight on it, and the low Moabite hills rising lonely and sad against the blue sky, and Hermon, cold and regal, far away to the north, and yet standing out so prominently as to be the most striking feature in the scene, we felt that Gennesaret had been ruthlessly robbed of her rights by certain well-known critics who, professing to be her best friends, have denied her all claim to beauty except by association. Tiberias ranks with Jerusalem and Hebron and Safed as one of the four holy cities of the Jews, but its houses are filthy huts and its streets muddy lanes. Here we saw the Jew, down-trodden, oppressed, wretched, but still proud, the unhappiest creature, this Tiberian descendant of David, in all the Holy Land, with his long yellow cloak, his hair hanging upon his shoulders in corkscrew curls, and an expression on his wan, sallow face that would force tears from your eyes if you did not know that his life is ordinarily as contemptible as his condition is pitiable. We spent an hour or more in one of the two boats that to-day make up the entire fishing-fleet of Galilee, and then found hospitable shelter under the roof of the Latin monastery, the last that was to open its doors to us in Palestine; and when we rode away on Monday morning we made a vow in our hearts never to speak ill of that part of the Romish Church which presides over the convents of the Holy Land. As our muleteer confessed he was as ignorant as any dog of a European Christian of the route we wished to take from Tiberias to Banias and Deir Mimas, the monks advised us, to save time, and perhaps our purses, perhaps our lives, by taking a Turkish soldier as a combined guide and guard. We sent to the proper official, and two savage-looking fellows came to the monastery. They swore by the beard of Mohammed that our lives would be worth less than that of a Tiberian flea if we went alone, or even with one soldier; they talked our few remaining powers of resistance to death, and we took them at their own price, less one-half, which was conceded to be very liberal on our part. We felt we had a new lease of life, and spent the rest of the afternoon in sweet unconcern and content; but late that evening word was sent that one of the brave soldiers, in consideration of the great risk involved in the enterprise, had concluded to raise his price, and of course his companion, deeply as he regretted it, felt compelled to follow his example. We at once sent back word that our poverty would not permit us to accede to their most modest request, and threw ourselves on the Superior of the convent to extricate us from our dilemma. A guard had now become a necessity, for the poor muleteer was so badly frightened by all the terrible things he had heard, that if we had promised him his weight in gold to be delivered at Beirut he would not have stirred a step unprotected. A request was sent to the commandant of the city, and he was pleased to present us with a Kurdish cavalryman, who was to be our slave for the next four days, if on our part we would agree to pay him well and do as he said. We were now humble. We promised, and the Kurd came riding to the gates of the convent the next morning at the hour fixed for our departure. He was immensely long and lean. He looked hungry all over. Even his musket, longer by some inches than himself, had the appearance of existing on a very low diet of powder and ball. An awful doubt of its efficacy crept into my heart, but we gave him the matutinal greetings of the country, and our cavalcade followed at his heels.

We rode along the lake at a fairly rapid walk to the little mud village of Magdala, the home, it is supposed, of Mary Magdalene. We stopped to breathe our horses at Khan Minyeh, the site, some scholars assert, of the once beautiful city of Capernaum, and then rode along a rocky road to Tel Hun, at the end of the lake, chosen by the best judgment of the day as the actual spot where the city, exalted by her pride to heaven, rested lightly on the earth. We picked our way in and out among fluted marble columns, the very ruins, some insist, of the synagogue which the good centurion built for the city he loved. Here, then, may have been the home of our Lord during those earliest days of his public ministry, the happiest days of his earthly life, before baffled hate had begun to weave its net around him.

Our course now lay due north, away from the lake, across trackless fields covered with round basaltic stones. The Kurd's horse was a better one than ours, and it was all we could do to keep him in sight. The sun was hot. What would it have been on those hills in midsummer? We threw off our heavy coats, that had been more than comfortable in the early morning along the lake, and pushed doggedly on. To our left, higher even than the hill we climbed, was holy Safed, to which it is thought our Lord may have pointed when he spoke of a city set upon a hill, that cannot be hid; and straight before us, the object of our hopes and efforts, was snow-clad Hermon, as beautiful, we thought, as an Alp. We crossed the mountain at last, and, as our horses waded through a deep brook on the other side, the Kurd bent slightly in his saddle, and, reaching down, brought up great handfuls of water to stay his thirst, without stopping for an instant. There was a sly twinkle of pleasure in his eye when the muleteer told him we had admired his skill.

Late in the afternoon we came to the marshy lakes, "the waters of Merom," where Joshua smote the kings of the north, who made a final stand here with their united armies, "like the sands of the sea in number." We should have been glad to find one of their royal palaces in tolerable repair, for we were tired and wanted to stop for the night, but there were no ruined regal mansions in sight, not even a mud hut such as had given us shelter and hunting at Jenin. The sun had gone down, and our horses shivered in the night air. The prospect was gloomy, and grew no brighter as we went on. At last we saw some long black tents across the plain sheltered by the hills; and, while we were wondering what the chances might be of escaping robbery by the Bedawin at this late hour of the night, the Kurd turned his horse out of the bridle-path and headed for the largest tent. The probabilities seemed now about equal that the Kurd was in league with these wild, wandering tribes, and that they would pluck us, and torture us, and bury us without the aid of undertaker or parson, or, on the other hand, that they might welcome us to the few comforts within their command. The sheik was standing, with a half-dozen of his leading men, at the door of his tent, and, as we dismounted, he came forward with much grace and dignity and embraced my friend, kissing him on each cheek. He only waved his hand to me, as a younger and less important personage, and led us into his tent. Cushions were thrown down for us on the bare earth, and we were told to be seated. A little fire was burning just in front of the tent, and around that the privileged persons of the tribe squatted, only the chief and some of his great warriors being under the tent with ourselves. They were as curious as civilized people to know where we were going, and why; and they concealed with difficulty their surprise and suspicion when they were told that our only object was to see the country. No Oriental, much less a Bedawin, ranks that among possible reasons for passing from one place to another. After more conversation than we thought necessary before supper, a dish of rice was brought in, and with it two wooden spoons; but how these came to be in a sheik's tent we thought it wise not to ask. They looked on while we ate, refusing all our entreaties to join with us; but when we had finished, they thrust their hands into the bowl, and, with a deft movement, made round balls as large as a lemon, and shot these with great skill into their mouths. While they ate, my friend asked if he might read them a story. They consented eagerly; and, taking out his Arabic Testament, he read them the parable of the Prodigal Son. A more appreciative company never listened to it. At each crisis of the narrative the sheik looked around and said, "Fayib ketir,"—"Very good,"—and then, as if devoutly making the responses, they all said, "Fayib ketir" I thought I saw one of them brush away a tear as the story was finished: perhaps he was a father with a prodigal son, or something in his heart may have told him that he was a prodigal himself.

They all rose at a signal, and left us to our slumbers. We were to share the tent with the sheik; and when we had laid ourselves down on the cushions and covered ourselves with our overcoats, the sheik came anxiously to my friend and asked "if we would not be very cold with nothing over our heads." The Oriental lets his feet take care of themselves if only his head is warm. The flap of the tent was not lowered, and we could look from where we were lying on the Eastern hills and the stars above them. It was long before I could sleep in such surroundings. We were unprotected in the tent of a Bedawin sheik on the waters of Merom, and all the past faded away: for the moment I did not believe that there were such cities as New York and London and Paris,—they were buried deep under the streets of Jerusalem and Tiberias and Safed. I was no longer an American, but the son of this sheik, destined to be the ruler of all the tribes that dwell in black tents of hair-cloth. My friend lying at my side groaned in his sleep, and the baseless fabric of my dream crumbled. I was myself again, and felt a sharp blow from my own familiar conscience when I found myself smiling with vengeful satisfaction at certain movements of my sleeping friend that made it apparent he was being visited by certain inhabitants of the night that find their way to Bedawin tents as well as peasants' huts. He had been almost untouched when I suffered so at Jenin; and I found my confidence increased in the law of compensation as I watched his struggles, wholly unscathed myself.

Our next day's work was the longest and hardest we had yet had. We were to crowd two days into one. We were well on our way before it was fairly light. We crossed the Jordan on a little stone bridge, and rode straight over the plain to Banias, the Caesarea Philippi of apostolic times. We left our horses in the little village near which the Jordan comes pouring out of a rocky opening in the hills, and, with an Arab boy, hurried at our best pace up the mountain to the magnificent ruins of a mediaeval castle, the finest of its class in the Holy Land. Our Kurd and muleteer were waiting for us as we came down the hill like veritable mountain-goats, and the latter pointed triumphantly to something wrapped in an Arab newspaper under his arm. As soon as we were out of sight of the village he stopped and displayed his prize: it was a chicken, cooked in some unknown but most savory way. It was long since we had eaten anything of the sort, and, leaping to the ground, with the help of a clasp-knife bought in Nablous, the only eating-utensil our party could boast, we bisected our dinner, and, sitting under a gray old gnarled olive, ate it with such expressions of satisfaction as would not be honest, even if allowable, at the grandest civilized banquets.

We sprang again into our saddles, crossed again the plain and the bridge over the Jordan, and pushed over the hills toward Deir Mimas. Our horses were used up even more completely than ourselves; and when the Kurd lost the way, and took us a long and unnecessary détour, we felt it so keenly that we said nothing. It was long after nightfall when we dismounted at the door of a native Christian preacher's house at Deir Mimas. But the struggles of the day were not ended. The Kurd stalked in, and, saying that here his duties ended, demanded a sum at least a third greater than that agreed upon. We fought him with everything but weapons, and, when we separated, the Kurd's pockets were heavier and his heart lighter than was consistent with the eternal fitness of things. We had only to follow a well-made road the next day to Sidon; and there, as we sat at a table spread with a clean, white cloth, on which were plates, and knives and forks, and cups and saucers, and spoons, we concluded that our roughing it in Palestine had at least convinced us that civilized man makes himself want many convenient if not wholly necessary things.

CHARLES WOOD.

* * * * *