On Easter Monday the monks journeyed to Emmaus, passing the house of Simeon and the spot where David slew Goliath, returning by another road past the valley where Joshua commanded the staying still of the sun, and the house of Samuel. It was on the Tuesday preceding the Oriental Easter that the great excursion of the year took place, to Jordan; the only one in the year because the danger from the Arabs was considered prohibitive unless an escort of Turkish soldiers accompanied the pilgrims, so strong that only the Easter concourse could pay them. It was more than a day's journey, so Tuesday night was spent in the open, starting again however before dawn at the pace set by the escort's horses; of the poorer pilgrims who could not afford a mount, many died either from exhaustion or from fear. So says Della Valle, and it is confirmed by Lithgow; the latter, who walked, sometimes was up to his middle in sand, and "true it is, in all my travels, I was never so sore fatigued, nor more fearfully endangered than that night." At dawn they arrived where Christ had been baptised, to see the medley of nationalities, all distinct from each other in some striking detail or other, once more in the highest state of excitement; some drinking, some being baptised by friends, some dipping their clothes, some renouncing clothes altogether, scores, perhaps hundreds, of men and women stark naked, there in the chilly spring morning, douching themselves till their teeth chattered and their bodies turned blue, while others who came to pray remained to laugh.
On the way back some diverged to visit Mt. Quarantana, the scene of the forty days' fast; very few ascended it. The way up was a narrow path along precipices; broken by forty-five steps, each from five to ten feet high, where there was little foothold and slipping meant death. This ended at the little cave where Christ was tempted by the Devil; the way thence to the summit, from which Christ had surveyed the kingdoms of the world, was not attempted by any one: Lithgow says he reached the top but proves that he did not; and Della Valle says that the only means of reaching it was that used by Christ, being carried up by the Devil.
Easter, too, gave a good opportunity for a visit to Hebron, for the largest caravan went thither at that time also. But this was as much a Mohammedan pilgrimage as Christian, and Abraham's house, another of the remarkably well-preserved buildings of Palestine, was shut against Christians and Jews. Of these latter there were many who journeyed to the Holy Land; how many cannot be guessed, but they certainly outnumbered the Christians of the West, and equally certainly were too many to be omitted from a record of Europeans then, though the only piece of direct evidence at hand is from the itinerary of one Samuel Jemsel[92] with whom, in 1641, one hundred sailed in one ship of the regular fleet from Constantinople to Egypt, some bound for Jerusalem, some for Safed. They come into notice chiefly when a caravan is on the move on their Sabbath, when they remain behind and make up the lost ground as best they can.
From other pilgrims they differed in this; the Christian was leaving home, the Jew was going home. When they reached Palestine, besides, some of the spots they visited were famous among Christians; but mostly they were not. In the best Jewish guide-book in use in 1600, are mentioned one hundred and sixty-eight of their famous ancestors whose tombs were localised. If a Christian visited Abraham's, his duty to the Old Testament was done with; and even then he invariably omitted to observe the stone on which the patriarch sat when he was circumcised. And as for the tomb of Adam and Eve, and of Jacob and Leah, and the prophet Hosea (may his memory be blessed), and of Isaiah (may Salvation be his), and of Rachel (with whom be peace), and of the Rabbi Jeremiah who was buried upright, and, at Ras-ben-Amis, of the wife of Moses our master, and of the wife of the high-priest Aaron, and, on Mt. Ephraim, of Joshua the son of Nun and of Caleb the son of Jephunneh (may God, in his mercy, be mindful of them and of all other righteous men)—why, of all these the Ishmaelites knew nothing, nor even that at Rama was to be seen the spot where the Messiah shall appear, nor that there should be rending of garments when Jerusalem is first seen and again on reaching the place where once stood the Temple, now, for our sins, destroyed.
Outside Palestine, too, was much that the uncircumcised knew not of. He passed through Cairo without hearing of the copy of the law of Moses, written by the hand of Esdras the scribe; though, indeed, no man might see it, not even, incredible as it may sound, if he offered the keeper thereof silver (partly because the holy volume had by now been stolen, and lost, with the thief, at sea). And Damascus Hebrew and Frank might equally remember as the city where fresh fruit was never lacking, but only the former remembered that hard by Esdras himself lay buried, any more than the merchant who reached Baghdad heard that there rested Ananias, Mizael, and Azarias, and also, with the river flowing over his head, Daniel, of glorious memory,—unless the merchant wished to catch some of the great fish which swam thereabouts, for fishing was prohibited at that spot lest harm might befall the greatest fish of all, Zelach by name, who had abided there since Daniel's own time and was fed from the royal table.
And if any of the twentieth-century uncircumcised hesitate to believe that so much could be satisfactorily identified, the twentieth-century Hebrew may answer that there are other tests of identification than those of the "research" that has achieved such wonders at Stratford-on-Avon and that tradition can be traced back, unvarying even in trifles, for centuries.
He might go on to point out that Christian tradition might well be more stable. It is curious how much that is mentioned by fifteenth-century Christians is habitually omitted by those who came after. That the taking of Rhodes by the Turks should cause the disappearance of the basin in which Christ washed his apostles' feet is intelligible; but why, e. g., should the table disappear from Bethany at which the disciples were sitting when the Holy Ghost descended? And why should it have dropped out of remembrance that the torrent of Cedron had been bridged with stone by St. Helen to replace the wooden one from which the wood for the Cross had been taken and over which the Queen of Sheba had refused to walk, saying in a spirit of prophecy, that the Saviour of the world was to die on it? It seems as though there had occurred a diminishment of devotion resulting in the concentration of what devotion remained on fewer objects; or else a widening of interests diverting the attention from minor objects. Sometimes, of course, transference took place; which may, or may not, account for one traveller being shown the pillar of salt which had once been Lot's wife at a monastery near Trapani in Sicily in 1639, whereas in 1613 Coryat was told that she existed on the farther side of "Lake Asphaltitis with her child in her arms and a pretty dog, also in salt, by her." Still, no doubt Giovanni Battista and the warden did their best, and the latter was willing, in addition, to confer knighthood of the Holy Sepulchre on all and sundry, with no questions asked as to lineage, not even of a Dutchman in the grocery business; and at least there was the certificate of the pilgrim's visit to Jerusalem to be received—and paid for.
ARMS OF A JERUSALEM PILGRIM