It was one Christmas. In the night snow had fallen; the morning promised more snow. Only one monk was found to act as guide; but Della Valle was ready, and his servants would go wherever he chose to lead them; two Arabs were bribed into carrying food. So a start was made; Della Valle in the pilgrim's tunic which he always wore in holy places, but tucked up high this time; and all with sticks cut from the tree whence Moses cut his rod. First went the monk, taking the rocks like a young deer; and he must have known his way well, for the stones which marked the way could not have been visible for snow. At first it was just wet; then they met the snow; higher up it came to mid-thigh; still higher, still deeper. Farther still, where in the best of weathers it was a place for hands and knees, it was all frozen; more snow was falling and the wind terrific. The interpreter gave himself up for dead, cursed the monk who encouraged the ascent, commended himself to God and St. Catherine, remembered his sins, and forswore meat on every Monday that he might live to see. However, they did reach the top, where, once upon a time, the angels laid St. Catherine's body for a while; and saw the hard stone which retained the imprint of her body where she had lain and of the angels' posteriors where they sat, one at each side of her head, and one at her feet. They prayed, eat, and forthwith started to descend, to reach the hospice that night. What with snow and mist they could often see but a foot or two before them, and their idea of descending under the conditions was to toboggan on their backs; the only risk being, he says, that of getting buried in snowdrifts, which was no real risk, because they never all got buried at the same time. However, once he found himself sitting on the edge of a precipice with his legs dangling; and yet, in the end, no casualties occurred except to one of Della Valle's shoes, and he and his servants, after buying some of the little rings the monks provided by way of souvenirs, made of gold, of silver, and of bone, went back to Cairo to prepare for the other journey across the desert, to Gaza and Rama.
Cairo to Gaza was twelve days' journey by caravan, but an Arab could do it in four days. A merchant-pilgrim who had to rejoin his ship at Alexandria by a certain date in 1601 could find no way of return except under the escort of the Arabs to whom a friendly Moor introduced him. They travelled on dromedaries at first, but he changed to horseback towards the end to save his life from death by jolting. One evening his dromedary ran away, and the two Arabs pursued it out of sight, and there were the Moor and the merchant alone in the desert with night descending on them, not to mention other Arabs who had taken no oaths to respect their lives and pockets, but who eventually postponed beheading them till their guides returned.
An Arab guide meant safety from the chief danger of the desert, that of the Arab bands who laid in wait for every caravan and attacked small ones; in 1611 a caravan of three hundred camels was carried off bodily. The average number of persons in a caravan seems to have been about one thousand and the number of camels three for every four persons, besides the extra ones that would be required for merchandise; a camel carried two persons, and one camel luggage for four,—no small load, for each one had to provide for himself as if he was about to set up housekeeping. The camel had this advantage over the horse, that the latter and his fodder were more coveted by the Arab than the former; and it was all one whether the Arab took horse and fodder or fodder only, for there was none to be bought and the horse would starve if left with the owner. The camels used for caravan purposes were not the small ones the Arabs were accustomed to, but the large ones, on which alone, at that time, at any rate, was it customary to travel in cradles, one cradle slung each side of the camel. They were comfortable, these cradles; comfortable enough to sleep in, hooded and lined to defend the traveller from sun and weather, with a secret pocket in the seat for valuables. The camels themselves were protected against the evil eye by charms written by dervishes slung round their necks in leathern bags; and on special occasions they were painted orange from head to foot, like the Polish horses.
Three of the halts were beside castles maintained by the Turks; elsewhere there was always the chance of an Arab chief enquiring if there were Franks in the caravan and then inviting himself to dinner; after dinner he would want a present, would probably name his needs, and lucky was one particular tourist whose guest only asked for some sugar and a pair of shoes. That the Arab was born to command and the Frank to obey, was an axiom with Franks and caravan-leaders, except to Della Valle, who always showed fight and always won; it is to be hoped that none of the other tourist-pilgrims came to know later how much money they would have saved had they known the effect of gunpowder, even minus the bullet, on an Arab.
At Gaza the caravan would split. The tourist would accompany those who were for Damascus, whose way lay through Rama, where, as already mentioned, all pilgrim ways met. Then to Jerusalem. At the gate the pilgrim's weapons were taken from him and his name registered in a book, to assure that his tribute should not be overlooked. Then the resident representative of his sect took charge of him; if he was a Frank he went to the Roman Catholic monastery of San Salvatore, whether Protestant or not. There was one Calvinist at this time who preferred to deal direct with the Turks rather than endanger his soul; but this meant money to the monks and he found himself in prison, from which he was only released by influence. The fact was that none of the Protestant rulers contributed to the upkeep of any foundation at Jerusalem and all Western Europeans were consequently classed together as in days gone by. At the monastery he would be fairly certain to make the acquaintance of Giovanni Battista, the monastery guide, for by 1612 he had filled that post for twenty-five years; and he it was from whom pilgrims derived most of their information during their stay—in Italian; if their knowledge of Italian was hazy, it probably added one or two marvels to those he meant to tell them. And, indeed, this may be said of most of these tourists on most of their journeys; much of the information they retail, in their own books and in this, they acquired by word of mouth in a language they only half understood.
Of Jerusalem as a town they say that the walls were the best part of the building; that there were three Christians living there to every Turk; that the Christians dwelled there for devotion and the Turks for the income derived from the Christians, and that otherwise it would have been wholly deserted. Partially deserted it actually was, since for the scarcity of human beings in its streets it is compared to Padua, the emptiest city in Europe, by one Englishman. All the trades driven there were elementary ones, shoemakers, cooks, smiths, tailors; and Moryson, on being seen walking about with gloves and a shirt, was taken for a prince in spite of his being poorly dressed otherwise; although that did not prevent the natives egging on their children to leap on to his back from upper stories and snatch things from him.
But just consider the sights in these streets! Passing over the localisations of New Testament incidents (such as where the Apostles composed the Creed and Christ the Lord's prayer) so exact and frequent that one must have had to walk slowly to avoid missing them when the guide pointed them out, there were besides the houses of Annas, Zebedee, Caiaphas, Veronica, Dives, Mary Magdalen, Uriah the Hittite, Pilate, where nightly were heard noises and whippings and sighs, and of the school which Our Lady attended; the orchard where Bathsheba bathed and the terrace from which David beheld her; the fountain where Our Lady used to wash her baby-clothes; the stone on which the cock stood to crow at St. Peter's downfall, and another which had been the seat of the angel who told the Marys of Christ's resurrection, etc., etc.
These were every-day matters. To see Jerusalem at its best one had to go at Easter, when the concourse of pilgrims was greatest for two reasons: first, the only excursion to Jordan took place; secondly, the descent of the Holy Fire from heaven into the church of the Holy Sepulchre. The incidents of the season are described in detail by George Sandys, Lithgow, Coryat and Della Valle, who were there at Easter in the years 1611, 1612, 1614, and 1616 respectively. On Palm Sunday the warden of the monastery set out for Bethphage in the afternoon and returned riding on an ass, the people shouting "Hosanna, etc.," and strewing the way with boughs and garments. When Lithgow was there they made too much noise to please the Turks and therefore returned black with bruises and somewhat bloody, the warden not excepted. In the evening the warden had recovered far enough to give an address to the Frank pilgrims, entreating the Protestants to refrain from reviling what they did not agree with, and concluding with the advice that three things were preëminently needful for a Jerusalem pilgrim; Faith (to believe what was told him), Patience (with the Turks), and Money.
On Maundy Thursday came the ceremony of washing the pilgrims' feet by the warden, and great was his disgust if he found that he had washed and kissed the feet of a Protestant. Some spent the next three nights in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, some only Easter Eve; a survival of the pre-Christian idea of the healing influence of passing a night in a temple.[91] Those who could not afford, or borrow, the heavy entrance-fee, never entered but stood outside and wept, or looked through the round hole in the door through which food was passed. Inside, it made all the difference whether or no the Oriental Palm Sunday or Easter Day fell on the Frank Easter. If so, the Frank would find the number in the church of the Holy Sepulchre anything between one and two thousand, many belonging to nations he had never heard of, all frantic with excitement, dancing, leaping, and lamenting by torchlight, in garments that he had never dreamt of, to the sound of kettle-drums and horns and other instruments as strange to him as their languages and manner of singing; all combining, with their flags and banners, in a general cumulative effect of inexpressible weirdness, without a single touch to bring it into relation with ordinary life, except the Turks bringing to reason with sticks those who were really too outrageous even for the occasion. And so the pilgrims spent the three nights, on the floor, in as utter disregard of decency and sanitation, and sometimes of morality, as of silence.
The descent of the Holy Fire was no more than an interesting sight to the European tourist; Roman Catholic and Protestant alike expressed disbelief in its actuality as openly as the Turk.