Near the Greek convent I found, in ruins, the tombs of two English officers, who fell in a sortie in 1799, Major Oldfield and Colonel Walker, of the Marines. The name-plate of the second had been stolen, and the whole monument was in a disgraceful condition. I afterwards had these two tombs repaired, and a new title and head-stone made by Mr. Shumacher for that of Colonel Walker, whose name I obtained from the English Consular agent. I had them railed in, and thus protected from insult, and public proclamation was made by the Governor to cause them to be respected. Unfortunately, I have never been able to revisit them since they were repaired, though I believe they are still in good order.
The walls of Acre are of masonry, drafted after the fashion used by the Crusaders, and they probably date in part from that period. The powder magazine, blown up in 1840 by the English, is still in ruins; rusty guns are pointed in the embrasures. On the north and east are bastions with a very slight projection, a glacis, and ravelin. Two mortars were shown as left behind by Napoleon, and English cannon-balls are visible sticking in the walls of the castle.
The great mosque of Jezzar Pacha is built of materials brought from ’Athlît, Cæsarea, and Haifa. The north entrance, from the rudely-paved street leading to the castle, is flanked by a beautiful little fountain with rich lattice-work of marble. The square yard within is paved with black and white marble in bands; lofty palms grow between the paved walks, and a colonnade runs round, supported on shafts of marble and red granite, with rude capitals not originally made for the pillars. In the centre is an octagonal fountain of marble, some five feet high, surmounted by a wooden dome, once beautifully painted. The mosque within has a porch, with lofty granite columns, capped with marble. It is a large square building, cased in coloured marble, with little cloisters on three sides, the dome above painted and whitewashed, with a gallery round the drum. The fresco-painting is much worn. An English clock is placed at each side of the door, set to Arabic time (six o’clock being noon), and standing in a high case of walnut. The Mihrab, or prayer-niche, on the south wall, is handsomely adorned with flagging of marble, and is high enough to stand in.
The Moslems were at prayer. A peasant, in a gorgeous head-shawl, a dark blue jacket, and a robe (kumbâz) of pink and white stripes, was performing the usual genuflections and prostrations. A wooden torch, six feet high, in imitation of the wax torches brought from Mecca (such as exist at Jerusalem in the mosque), is placed on either side of the Mihrab, and to the right is a handsome marble pulpit. A long inscription in yellow letters on a blue ground runs round the walls of the mosque. Two beautifully carved stone tombs are shown in the courtyard near the minaret; but the tomb of the founder is in the north-east corner of the town.
Passing through the crooked, narrow, ill-paved lanes of Acre, where huge camels jostle the crowd of bright-coloured peasants and Bedawin, we visited the “galères,” or convict prison, so much dreaded by the natives, because hard labour is enforced on the prisoners. The dark vaults are entered by a wooden door, from between the bars of which heads and arms were stuck out, the convicts shouting for charity—the whole scene a perfect pandemonium.
There were no less than 300 cavalry in Acre, well mounted on fine half-bred horses; but the place has no real strength, and its fortifications could not resist the attacks of modern warfare.
Acre is not a city famous in Scripture. It is noticed, indeed, under the names Accho and Ptolemais; but the Jews were not a maritime people, and it had not, therefore, in their eyes, the importance which afterwards made it “the key to Syria.”
The Crusaders recognised at once the value of its position, and Baldwin I. besieged it in 1103, as soon as Jerusalem was secured. The garrison were relieved by a fleet from Tyre; but, in the following year, it fell into the hands of the Christians, after twenty-five days’ siege. In the disastrous year, 1187, Saladin took it without a blow; but the place was too important to be lost, and the Christians again took it in 1191. In 1229, the Knights Hospitallers settled here, whence its modern title, St. Jean d’Acre; but it was finally lost, in 1291, when the son of Kalawûn levelled it to the ground.
In its palmy days, the town contained a church to St. Andrew, of which a few arches still remain near the sea; a second of St. Michael, now destroyed; a third of St. John, possibly now a mosque; a castle, where the modern barrack stands; a hospital of the Knights of St. John, now the military hospital; and a patriarchate, now perhaps a monastery. On the south the mole ran out south-east and east, closing in the port, and terminated by the rock and tower of El Manâra. There were two lines of wall on the north and east, and in the angle was the famous tower called “Tower of Flies,” or “Maledictum,” which long resisted King Richard, when besieging the town from the great mound called Turon, on the east, where also Napoleon made his attack.
There was a sort of suburb on the north, with a double wall, which now seems to have disappeared entirely, though the sea-rampart is, in all probability, Crusading work. The southern quarter of the town belonged to the Venetians, and north of them the Germans had several streets. The Templars and Hospitallers had each their Custodia; and, in the thirteenth century, the Teutonic knights had wide possessions, in the plains round Acre, and among the villages, or “casales,” as they called them, of Lower Galilee.