The Holy Land and Syria

by Frank G. Carpenter

Where Christ rested when carrying the Cross to Calvary pilgrims now stop to pray in the Via Dolorosa

I doubt whether there is a town of five hundred population in the United States which is built upon three hundred acres of land. Here there are over one hundred times that many people, and the Easter visitors swell the number to as many more. During Holy Week the bulk of this mass of humanity crowds into the section of the city surrounding the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. There seem to be scores of thousands of worshippers in an area less than that of a city block, and the two or three narrow streets leading to the sanctuary become so crowded that Moslem soldiers must be constantly on guard to keep them in order. The gay colours of the clothes of the Orient turn the streets into a flowing mass of broken rainbows, and the jabber of a score of languages makes a noise quite as remarkable as that heard at the Tower of Babel.

Let me show you David Street as it looked to me the day after Palm Sunday. David Street is the narrow way leading from Jaffa Gate down into the city. It is about ten feet wide, and we go through it into the Christian Street, which, by a second turn, brings us to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. At the top is the Tower of David, a square stone structure one hundred feet high, a part of which was in existence before the Christian Era. In the large square in front of this is the vegetable market of Jerusalem, where pedlars from Bethlehem and elsewhere sit on the stones with their baskets about them. Standing with our backs to the tower, as far as we can see, we look upon a moving mass of pilgrims and natives of all ages and colours and costumes.

Twenty different nations are represented in the faces which look toward us. Here is an Ethiopian priest, in a tall black cap and a long black gown, whose black eyes are set in features as shiny as oiled ebony. He is one of the Abyssinian fathers and has his place in the ceremonies at Easter. That mahogany-faced man in a yellow gown is a Persian, and the fierce-looking Ishmaelite behind him, in a blanket of black-and-white stripes, his bronzed face crowned by a yellow silk handkerchief, is a Bedouin; he is of the Moslem faith, and is on his way to worship at the mosque. Behind him comes a woman in a white sheet. Her features are covered with a yellow gauze cloth with red leaves printed upon it; she is the wife of a Mohammedan merchant, and her face is not to be seen outside the harem. That slender, black-eyed girl, with the dark roses in her cheeks, is the daughter of a Polish Jew. Her cap is black, and, like all of her sisters, she wears a little silk flowered shawl.

Some of the prettiest women in the world are peddling vegetables about you. As you note their complexions you can hardly realize that they live under the fierce sun of the tropics. Their skins are as fair as the cheeks of the girls of Dublin, and their regular features would make them beauties in America. They wear high caps bound round with silver coins, row after row rising up from their foreheads against a background of black velvet.

Here is a crowd of Russian peasants. The honest bronzed faces of the women look out under the brown handkerchiefs tied about their heads in place of bonnets, and their short dresses of cheap cotton or wool come half way down over their high-topped boots. The men have tall fur caps, and their coats are made with skirts as full as the petticoats of the women. The faces of both sexes are strong, with honesty and industry showing in every line. They cross themselves as two Greek priests pass them.

Let us push our way through the crowd. That tall soldier in red fez and European uniform breaks the way for us. We pass good-natured Moslems and Jews; we are jostled by Bedouin girls in gypsy dress, and by Bethlehem shepherds clad in sheep-skins. Going by the market women squatting at the turning, we follow the crowd and pass on to the entrance of one of the tunnel-like bazaars. Leaving this, we turn into another arch at the right, and diving through vaulted, twisting caves of stores, we go down some steps, past the money-changers, who sit at the street corners with little glass-covered boxes of gold and silver coins before them. Brushing by dozens of beggars we arrive at last in the court in front of the great Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Now we are in the heart of the Jerusalem of Easter.

This court is where the multitude stood to see the crucifixion of our Lord. On the opposite side from the entrance, in a corner of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, is the Rock of Calvary, and the buildings which surround it are the convents and monasteries of the various Christian sects.

A stream of worshippers of all nations passes continuously among the hordes of beggars and pedlars squatting on the stones. Here a young Syrian is selling candles of all kinds and sizes, from tapers no bigger than your little finger to great cylinders as thick as your arm, to pilgrims who go to burn them before the altars within the sepulchre.