“We drove on to another noble mosque at Tchékirgué, about two miles from Broussa, with more tombs and relics. Amongst the latter is shown a prayer, inscribed on wood and enclosed in a bottle. ‘When the bottle breaks, Broussa will become christian,’ is the tradition—suggesting an easy and cheap enterprise for missionaries. In front of this mosque (Ghazy-Hounkiar) is a fountain surrounded by cold and hot springs alternately, and a little below the village, on the edge of the valley, are the picturesque old domed baths, the strong sulphuric springs of which are famous throughout Turkey. All around Broussa is rich soil and vegetation; hollyhocks grow wild along the hedges: it is a glorious climate: only justice and government are needed.
“I am sorry to go away without seeing more of the Bosphorus, but I have just been to Therapia, where the villeggiatura life in summer must be delightful.”
“May 23.—My last hours at Constantinople were spent in an expedition with the Whites in their picturesque state barge to the Sweet Waters of Europe. I believe I have said nothing of Sir William White, though he is the ambassador in whose house I have been living so long. His simple manners are full of bluff humour. He is said to understand the Turk perfectly, and rose entirely by his own merits, with the help of a lucky appointment to the Conference of 1876-77.”
To Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford.
“Ober-Ammergau, June 2.—We have seen the Passion-Play. It is a day to have lived for: nothing can be more sublimely devotional, more indescribably pathetic.
“Our journey from Constantinople was accomplished very easily. We stayed to see Buda-Pesth, a very handsome modern city, and then had two days of perfect enjoyment at Halstadt and the exquisite Gosau Lake. On Friday night we slept at Oberau, and drove here early on Saturday morning, finding the Lowthers at once in the village street, and spending most of that day in drawing with them. We went at once to the house of the Burgomaster to inquire where we were billeted. All the material part of life is most comfortably and economically arranged for visitors. I am quartered with St. Thomas, and all through the day one meets peasants with long hair, recalling Biblical figures. The Burgomaster’s beautiful daughter is the Virgin Mary. In a gracious and touching spirit of unselfish love all these villagers live together for mutual help and comfort. They have been trained under their late pastor, Aloys Daisemberger, to regard the Passions-Spiel, which is the great event of their quiet lives, not only as a religious service of thanksgiving to which every talent and energy must be contributed for the glory of God, and a manifestation of gratitude for His preservation of them, but they are also taught to look upon it as an instrument which God’s grace has placed in their hands for the calling back of Europe to Christianity, through the dark mists of infidelity which have been creeping over it in the nineteenth century. And truly in this the actual visit to Ober-Ammergau may be as full of teaching as the great representation itself—the simple contact with such men as ‘Christus Maier,’[488] as he is called, whose life’s work is ‘to endeavour to do God’s will aufs innersten, and to be helpful to those around him.’ Here, in Ober-Ammergau—perhaps here alone—religion takes no heed of Roman Catholic or Protestant vagaries; the will of God, the example of Christ, those are the only guidance of life. In the five sermons of Daisemberger preparatory to the Passion-Play of 1871,[489] there is not a single word which indicates Romanism. ‘Look, O disciples of Christ,’ says Daisemberger to his people; ‘see your Master, how gentle, how kind He is, how mild in His intercourse with those around Him, how full of heartiest sympathy for their joys and sorrows. Then can you, in your intercourse with those around you, be grumbling, rough, discourteous, self-asserting, repellent, and wanting in sympathy? Oh no! you could never endure to be so unlike your Master.’
“It is a beautiful place, a high upland mountain valley, covered with rich pastures and enamelled with flowers. A long street, or rather road, lined by comfortable detached timber houses, leads to the handsome church, around which the older part of the village groups itself above the clear rushing Ammer, and is highly picturesque. Beyond the village, in the meadows overlooked by the peak of the Kofel, is the theatre where the great drama of the Passion is enacted, which, ever since 1634, has commemorated every tenth year the then deliverance of Ammergau from the plague which was devastating the neighbouring villages.
“All through Friday it was curious to meet a succession of London acquaintances, and most unexpected ones, but from all being here with one object, no one was uncongenial. And all is so perfectly managed, there is no fuss or hurry; comfortable accommodation, good seats, excellent food are provided for all who are permitted to come, for the visitors for every performance are limited to the 2000 for whom there is room; no unexpected persons, no excursionists are ever admitted. No thought of gain has ever the slightest influence upon the villagers, and the prices are only such as pay what is absolutely due.
“Yesterday morning, I imagine, no visitor could sleep after four, when their peasant hosts began to tramp overhead and clatter down their narrow oak staircases. Then, after an excellent breakfast of hot coffee, cream, eggs, and toast, many visitors and all the people of Ober-Ammergau hurried to the six-o’clock service in the church, where all the five hundred actors knelt with their pastor in silent prayer, and many of them received the Sacrament. At eight all were comfortably placed in their seats in the open-air theatre, and the soft wild music of Schutzgeister, which seems to come from behind the hills, preluded the performance.
