Kæmpfer may very justly be ranked among the most distinguished of modern travellers. To the most extensive learning he united an enterprising character, singular rectitude of judgment, great warmth of fancy, and a style of remarkable purity and elegance. His “Amœnitates” and “History of Japan” may, in fact, be reckoned among the most valuable and interesting works which have ever been written on the manners, customs, or natural history of the East.
HENRY MAUNDRELL.
Of the birth, education, and early life of this traveller little or nothing appears to be known with certainty. His friends, who were of genteel rank, since he calls Sir Charles Hodges, judge of the High Court of Admiralty, his uncle, seem to have resided in the neighbourhood of Richmond. Having completed his studies, and taken the degree of master of arts at Oxford, he was appointed chaplain to the English factory at Aleppo, and departed from England in the year 1695. Part of this journey was performed by land; but whether it passed off smoothly, or was diversified by incidents and adventures, we are left to conjecture, our traveller not having thought his movements of sufficient importance to be known to posterity. It is simply recorded that he passed through Germany, and made some short stay at Frankfort, where he conversed with the celebrated Job Ludolphus, who, learning his design of residing in Syria, and visiting the Holy Land, communicated to him several questions, the clearing up of which upon the spot might, it was hoped, tend to illustrate various passages in the Old and New Testaments.
Shortly after his arrival at Aleppo, he undertook, in company with a considerable number of his flock, that journey to Jerusalem which, short and unimportant as it was, has added his name to the list of celebrated travellers; so pleasantly, ingenuously, and delightfully is it described. The history of the short period of his life consumed in this excursion is all that remains to us; and this is just sufficient to excite our regret that we can know no more; for, from the moment of his introduction into our company until he quits us to carry on his pious and noiseless labours at Aleppo, diversified only by friendly dinners and rural promenades or hunting, we view his character with unmingled satisfaction. He was a learned, cheerful, able, conscientious man, who viewed with a pleasure which he has not sought either to exaggerate or disguise the spots rendered venerable by the footsteps or sufferings of Christ, and of the prophets, martyrs, and apostles.
Maundrell and his companions departed from Aleppo on the 26th of February, 1696, and crossing the plains of Kefteen, which are fruitful, well cultivated, and of immense extent, arriving in two days at Shogr, a large but dirty town on the banks of the Orontes, where there was a splendid khan erected by the celebrated Grand Vizier Kuperli, on the next day they entered the pashalic of Tripoli; travelling through a woody, mountainous country, beneath the shade of overarching trees, amused by the roar of torrents, or by the sight of valleys whose green turf was sprinkled with myrtles, oleanders, tulips, anemonies, and various other aromatic plants and flowers. In traversing a low valley they passed over a stream rolling through a narrow rocky channel ninety feet deep, which was called the Sheïkh’s Wife, an Arab princess having formerly perished in this dismal chasm.
Crossing Gebel Occaby, or the “Mountain of Difficulty,” which, according to our traveller, fully deserves its name, they arrived towards evening at Belulca, a village famous for its wretchedness, and for the extremely humble condition to which Christianity is there reduced,—Christ being, to use his own expressive words, once more laid in a manger in that place. The poorness of their entertainment urged them to quit Belulca as quickly as possible, though the weather, which during the preceding day had been extremely bad, was still far from being settled; and they had not proceeded far before they began to regret this miserable resting-place, the rains bursting out again with redoubled violence, breaking up the roads, and swelling the mountain torrents to overflowing. At length, however, they arrived opposite a small village, to reach which they had only to cross a little rivulet, dry in summer, but now increased by the rains to a considerable volume, and found upon trial to be impassable. In this dilemma, they had merely the choice of returning to the miserable, inhospitable den where they had passed the preceding night, or of pitching their tent where they were, and awaiting the falling of the stream. The latter appeared the preferable course, though the weather seemed to menace a second deluge, the most terrible thunder and lightning now mingling with and increasing the horrors of the storm; while their servants and horses, whom their single tent was too small to shelter, stood dripping, exposed to all the fury of the heavens. At length a small sheïkh’s house, or burying-place, was discovered in the distance, where they hoped to be allowed to take shelter along with the saints’ bones; but the difficulty was how to gain admittance, it being probable that the people of the village would regard the approach of so many infidels to the tomb of their holy men as a profanation not to be endured. To negotiate this matter, a Turk, whom they had brought along with them for such occasions, was despatched towards the villagers, to obtain permission peaceably, if possible; if not, to inform them that they would enter the edifice by force. It is possible that the Ottoman exceeded his instructions in his menaces; for the indignation of the villagers was roused, and declaring that it was their creed to detest and renounce Omar and Abubeer, while they honoured Ahmed and Ali, they informed the janizary that they would die upon the infidels’ swords rather than submit to have their faith defiled. The travellers on their part assured them that the opinion they entertained of Omar and Abubeer was in no respect better than their own; that they had no intention whatever to defile their holy places; and that their only object at present was to obtain somewhere or another a shelter from the inclemency of the weather. This apparent participation in their sectarian feelings somewhat mollified their disposition, and they at length consented to unlock the doors of the tomb, and allow the infidels to deposite their baggage in it; but with respect to themselves, it was decreed by the remorseless villagers that they were to pass the night sub Jove. When our travellers saw the door opened, however, they began secretly to laugh at the beards of the honest zealots, being resolved, as soon as sleep should have wrapped itself round these poor people like a cloak, as Sancho words it, to steal quietly into the tomb, and dream for once upon a holy grave. They did so; but either the anger of the sheïkh or their wet garments caused them to pass but a melancholy night.
Next morning, the waters of the river, which rose and fell with equal rapidity, having sunk to their ordinary level, they issued forth from their sacred apartments, and proceeding westward for some time, they at length ascended a lofty eminence, from whence, across a wide and fertile plain, they discovered the city of Latichen, founded by Seleucus Nicator on the margin of the sea. Leaving this city and the Mediterranean on the right-hand, and a high ridge of mountains on the left, they proceeded through the plain towards Gibili, the ancient Gabala, where they arrived in the evening, and remained one day to recruit themselves. In the hills near this city were found the extraordinary sect of the Nessariah, which still subsists, and are supposed to be a remnant of the ancient pagan population, worshippers of Venus-Mylitta and the sun.
Proceeding southward along the seacoast they crossed the Nahrel-Melek, or King’s River, passed through Baneas, the ancient Balanea, and arrived towards sunset at Tortosa, the Orthosia of antiquity, erected on the edge of a fertile plain so close to the sea that the spray still dashes among its crumbling monuments. Continuing their journey towards Tripoli, they beheld on their right, at about three miles’ distance from the shore, the little island of Ruad, the Arvad or Alphad of the Scriptures, and the Andus of the Greeks and Romans, a place which, though not above two or three furlongs in length, was once renowned for its distant naval expeditions and immense commerce, in which it maintained for a time a rivalry even with Tyre and Sidon themselves. Having travelled thus far by forced marches, as it were, they determined to remain a whole week at Tripoli, to repose their “wearied virtue,” and by eating good dinners and making merry with their friends, prepare themselves for the enduring of those “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” which all flesh, but especially travelling flesh, is heir to. But the more fortunate and happy the hero of the narrative happens to be, the more unfortunate and melancholy is his biographer, for happiness is extremely dull and insipid to every one except the individual who tastes it. For this reason we hurry as fast as possible over all the bright passages of a man’s life, but dwell with delight on his sufferings, his perils, his hair-breadth escapes, not, as some shallow reasoners would have it, because we rejoice at the misfortunes of another, but because our sympathies can be awakened by nothing but manifestations of intellectual energy and virtue, which shine forth most gloriously, not on the calm waves of enjoyment, but amid the storms and tempests of human affairs.
We therefore snatch our traveller from the rural parties and cool valleys of Tripoli, in order to expose him to toil and the spears of the Arabs. The week of pleasure being expired, the party set forward towards the south, and proceeding for five hours along the coast, arrived at a high rocky promontory, intersecting the road, and looking with a smooth, towering, and almost perpendicular face upon the sea. This appears to be the promontory called by Strabo, but wherefore is not known, τὸ του Θεου Προσώπον, or the Face of God. Near this strangely-named spot they encamped for the night under the shade of a cluster of olive-trees. Surmounting this steep and difficult barrier in the morning, they pursued their way along the shore until they arrived at Gabail, the ancient Byblus, a place once famous for the birth and worship of Adonis. In this place they made little or no stay, pushing hastily forward to the Nahr Ibrahim, the river Adonis of antiquity, the shadows of Grecian fable crowding thicker and thicker upon their minds as they advanced, and bringing along with them sweet schoolboy recollections, sunny dreams, which the colder phenomena of real life never wholly expel from ardent and imaginative minds. Here they pitched their tent, on the banks of the stream, and prepared to pass the night amid those fields where of old the virgins of the country assembled to unite with the goddess of beauty, in lamentations for Adonis,