It was not till 1868 that the time arrived for cheap excursions to Jerusalem. The credit of the idea is to be given to the late Mr. Thomas Cook. In the time of the Crusades the bands which visited Palestine did so under a leader. At a later date parties travelled in the form of a caravan. Before visiting the lands of the Bible Mr. Cook consulted that eminent traveller and at one time popular author and lecturer, Mr. James Silk Buckingham, as to the best route,—and collected information from every available quarter. Then he made the trip by himself in 1868. On his return home he advertised a tour in Palestine and the Nile in the following spring. Before a month had elapsed thirty-two ladies and gentlemen had taken tickets for the trip to the Nile and Palestine, and thirty to Palestine only; and now they come by the hundred at a time, so popular is the trip. From the year 1868 up to 1891, 1,200 persons had visited Palestine under Cook’s protection. Many of these travellers held high social positions, such as their Royal Highnesses the Duke of Edinburgh, the Duke of Clarence and Avondale, Prince George of Wales; their Imperial Highnesses the Grand Duke and Duchess Sergius, the Grand Duke Paul of Russia, the King of Servia, and other travellers of distinction. It is a part of the business of the firm much patronized by American tourists and the clergy of all denominations. Up to the time of the firm taking up the matter, travellers were at the mercy of savage chiefs, who made them pay dearly for the permission which they granted to pass through their districts. These chiefs were as fickle as they were avaricious, and as dilatory as they were exacting. All this vexatious delay has vanished. When you start you are certain of arrival at the day indicated, and of being able to return in a similar manner. Moreover, the element of danger has been eliminated. You are safe in Jerusalem as in London—perhaps safer; for as there is always danger in the streets of London from hardened criminals and careless drivers of cabs and omnibuses, and the ever-increasing multitude of men and women who have taken to the bicycle—and ‘rush in where angels fear to tread.’
Finally, after Omar and Saladin, Syria and Palestine were conquered by Selim, and since then, with the slight advent of the Crusaders, have formed part of the Turkish Empire. The inhabitants complain a good deal of the injustice and corruption of the Turkish tax-gatherers, and I fancy not without reason; but that the city is prosperous and flourishing now is evident to the most superficial observer, from the number of new buildings erected in every direction. I believe it is a fact that the number of people living outside the city is far greater than the population within. It is a fashion to build schools and churches and convents everywhere, Russia in this respect standing ahead of the rest. I don’t care to go into the city. What I see there is all fiction, hallowed, if you like, by the superstition of ages. In the daytime all is noise and confusion. The trader sits in his little shop in a narrow street, covered from the sun, and there the people collect in every variety of costume—some in rags and almost naked; others, like the cavass of some consulate, in a dark, showy dress, with a grand sword hanging from his thigh; but the prevailing fashion seems to be a brown or blue jacket hanging over a print skirt extending down to the feet. Some are almost as black as niggers.
Immense as is the traffic of the city and the noise and tumult by day, the silence by night is equally wonderful. There is no living soul or body to be seen in the streets by night—nor a light; not even the bark of a dog is heard. There is scarce a street in which you can walk comfortably either inside Jerusalem or outside. There are stones everywhere to throw you down, and then there is the dust. That deserves a chapter in itself. It is simply awful. There is a cartload of it inside me now. It is white as snow; it fills the air; you can see nothing. As we got out of the railway-station, and got into carriages to drive towards the hotel, we could not see an inch of the way on account of the dust. To make it worse, the drivers all set out at full speed, and in the race to get in first it seemed to me that a collision was inevitable; however, happily, no casualty occurred. A poor unfortunate donkey was run over—that was all.
As an illustration of what the natives have to suffer under Turkish rule, let me give the following account of a gossip with a driver I met with. His father had died and left him a little property in the fertile plain of Sharon. The man did all he could to improve it—fenced it with stones, dug it over and enriched the soil, planted olive-trees and dates, and then, when the crop was nearly ready, the Turkish taxpayer came and demanded a third of the estimated value, and got it. In a fortnight after he was visited by the Bedouins, who took another third, and in the end the poor man had to give up his little farm. The Turks are bad, but the lawless Bedouins who harry the land are infinitely worse. For instance, one of our party drove down to Jericho by himself. He got out to walk in one part of the road, and got ahead of his driver. Immediately he found himself surrounded by a crew of these ruffians. Happily, he had with him the American Consul’s cavass, who, seeing the position, came up with his
As most of us are sitting half asleep in the smoking-room after our mid-day meal, a wailing sound reaches my ears. I rush to the window and see a funeral procession. Someone has died in one of the houses above us, and they are bearing the dead body into the city for burial. About 100 men and women follow, wailing as they go, while on each side of the coffin—a very unsightly structure borne on a rude bier—walk the black-robed priests, evidently of the Greek Church. The sight is not particularly imposing as the procession makes its way, while the world goes on selling and buying much as usual. I pity the poor mourners and the priests as they move slowly along. I know not, but perhaps the presence of so many priests may indicate that the deceased was a person of some consequence in his community.
I resume my writing, and then a native comes in to rub off the white dust which has come in through the open window. It is impossible to keep out the fine white dust, and all day the flies are equally troublesome. I hear of some of the ladies being bitten by the mosquitoes, but the latter, happily, leave me alone. The courteous manners of the dragomans who fill the hall of the hotel are amusing. All of them seem much interested as to my health, and anxiously inquire how I slept. As I write, Mr. Howard’s nephew is arranging the papers in the smoking-room; a native enters, who kisses the back of his hand with effusion—a
As I chat with my dragoman, I ask him if he is married. His reply is that he cannot afford it; it would cost him £60 to get a wife. Perhaps it were as well that the cost of a wife in England were as much; we might have fewer marriages of the kind that tend to misery and want. The servants in the hotel seemed remarkably honest. There was a lock to my door, but I could not get it to act, so my room remained unlocked, and I missed nothing, even when one morning I left my purse on the table, containing all my money, when I went to breakfast. A breakfast consists of hot rolls, good coffee, and delicious honey. At lunch the first course consists of olives, radishes, lemons and vegetables, which are supposed to create an appetite. At dinner we have a wonderful lot of stewed flesh, and vegetables are often served up as a separate course. In the evening the hall is lighted up with many lamps, and the dealers come and turn it into a bazaar. They are not above making a considerable reduction. But really there is very little manufactured in Jerusalem—the Sacred City. Oh, how I loathe the term as I tread the church of the reputed Holy Sepulchre—its stones slippery with the tread of millions of pilgrims in all ages, its sacred shrines worn away by the kisses of the faithful. As I sit outside, a cripple comes to a pillar of the door, on which a cross has been rudely carved. He kisses that cross and stands there praying. Those poor devotees—how they kiss, and kneel, and crawl, and pray!
The most interesting man I have seen is the Rev. Ben Oliel. Born in Morocco in 1826, a man wonderfully active for his years, you would not take him to be more than sixty at the best. At Tangiers he attended the Rabbinical schools, learning Spanish at home, Arabic out of doors, and Hebrew and Chaldee at school. He speaks English with great readiness and fluency. When eighteen years of age he read the New Testament for the first time, but his father took it away from him—however, not before a spirit of inquiry was raised in his mind. In 1847, while visiting at Gibraltar, he became acquainted with a Christian friend, who gave him the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ and ‘Keith on Prophecy’ to read. From them he learnt that Jesus was the Messiah and the Saviour of men. He then resolved to come to England to prepare to preach the Gospel to the Jews. The committee of the Society for the Promotion of Christianity among the Jews accepted his services, and sent him to labour in Gibraltar and North Africa. During a visit to England in 1850 he translated the Gospel of St. Luke into Hebrew-Spanish, and also a number of tracts into Hebrew and Spanish. In 1852 he was ordained to the ministry in Orange Street Chapel, London, by twelve ministers representing Presbyterian, Congregational, Baptist, and Lutheran Churches. Shortly after he was recognised by the Presbytery of Edinburgh as a minister, and ordained a missionary of that church, and was sent to Thessalonica and Smyrna, where he established missions. Later on his old society—the British—sent him to Algiers, when he succeeded in inducing his relatives to become Christians, who are now usefully employed in Christian work. Mr. Ben Oliel has been twice married—first to a daughter of Rev. B. Lewis, a Baptist minister of London, and then, after a widowerhood of some years, to a sister of Mr. Seeley, Vicar of Clacton-on-Sea, and a cousin of Professor Seeley, author of ‘Ecce Homo.’