Jerusalem is the Mecca of millions of souls. It is to hundreds of millions the holiest spot on the face of the earth. Everywhere buildings have gone up both to accommodate pilgrims and to mark the most sacred places. On the very top of the Mount of Olives a great Russian church lifts its swelling domes toward heaven. In the Garden of Gethsemane, where Christ spent that night of “agony and bloody sweat” before His crucifixion, there is a resting place for pilgrims. The Roman Catholics have fifteen hundred brothers and sisters in their monasteries and convents, while the old Armenian church can accommodate a hundred and eighty monks and two thousand pilgrims. There are Greek Christians here by the thousands and Egyptian Copts by the hundreds. There are Abyssinian priests with faces as black as your hat. Indeed, among the worshippers who gather around the Holy Sepulchre you may see every costume and hear every language. Furthermore, the Jews are fast coming back into Palestine, and Jerusalem is again becoming a city of the Children of Israel.
THE HOLY LAND AND SYRIA
But let us come down from our housetop and take a walk through the crowd. We are at the Jaffa Gate, which leads to the railroad station a half mile from the walls. It is also at the end of the roads to Bethlehem, Hebron, and Jaffa, and is the main business gate of the city. It is always thronged, and the people who go in and out come from all parts of the world. They are of all colours—blacks, browns, yellows, and whites—and number a dozen different nationalities from the near-by parts of Asia, Europe, and Africa. Here comes a donkey led by a fat, bare-footed Turk in a yellow gown and red turban. His beast is loaded with wood which he is bringing into the city for sale. The wood is the roots of olive trees and his donkey load is worth twenty-five cents. He is stopped by the customs officer at the gate and pays a tax of three cents. Behind him comes a porter with a bag half as big as a hogshead fastened to the small of his back. Inside the bag is a basket filled with the flat cakes which form the bread of the city.
Now turn to the right and look at that Syrian Bedouin riding a gray Arabian pony. There is a gun on his back and he wears a black-and-white woollen blanket. His head is covered with a great yellow handkerchief bound about the crown with two strands of hair cord the size of your finger. Sitting as straight as a ramrod, he looks with fierce black eyes at the crowd about him. Behind him come three camels laden with the oranges of Jaffa. Each beast has a cartload of the great yellow balls in the two crates which hang over his back, and he grumbles and whines as his barefooted driver drags him along by a string tied to his nose.
As we look we see the figures of the Old and New Testaments crowding around us. There are peasants who might have been among the disciples, and gray-bearded men who would pass for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We see boys with coats of many colours, which remind us of Joseph, and shepherds driving sheep into market who probably came from the very plains near Bethlehem where similar shepherds were watching their flocks when the heavenly host appeared.
Let us take a seat with those Syrians on the porch of the coffee house outside the gate and make further sketches of those who go in. Here come two figures dressed all in white. They look like walking bed ticks bound around at the middle, or, better, like the ghosts of a sheet and pillow case party. They are Mohammedan women, and it is against their ironclad custom for them to go out unveiled. They have wrapped their bodies in sheets the folds of which they hold close together over their faces, leaving only a crack by which they may see to pick their way through the crowd.
Behind them is a girl with bare face. She wears a round cap which extends a foot above her rosy brown forehead, and she has a headdress of white cotton. Her gown is a gray chemise which falls almost to her feet, and which has a wide hem of red and blue silk embroidery. She is a Bethlehem maiden wearing the shawl made with her own hands for her wedding. Such shawls are much prized by tourists, and the best of them bring twenty-five dollars apiece in the stores.
But here are some women in long coats and high boots. They have calico gowns under their coats which reach half way down the calf. Their heads are covered with handkerchiefs, and their faces are bronzed by the sun. Each has a staff in her hand and a bag on her back, and is marching along at the rate of four miles an hour. They are dusty and dirty, and look weary and worn. Those are peasant women, pilgrims from Russia, who are making their way from shrine to shrine. They have tramped this morning out to Bethlehem, and to-morrow will probably be on their way to the Jordan.
But let us leave here and take a walk about the walls of the Holy City.