William Nelson

by Sir Daniel Wilson

The controverted questions about the topography of Jerusalem, which have since received such abundant elucidation, were all familiar to him, and were discussed with keenest interest when he met with any one who had either visited the sacred city, or made its historical details a subject of research. The scenes of the nativity, the crucifixion, and the holy sepulchre, of the agony in the garden, and the ascension, were all investigated by him with critical care. Dr. Porter furnishes the following memoranda of their conversation on those subjects:—

“He asked me my views as to the true site of Calvary. Was I convinced that it was not—or, as Robinson affirms, could not have been—within the compass of the present walls? If not, then where was it? He several times said, as if by way of suggestion, that it was either on the north side of the modern city, or to the east, on the brow of the Kidron Valley. ‘Did you ever consider,’ he asked me, ‘the statement of the evangelist to the effect that the women, as if afraid to approach, viewed the awful tragedy from afar?’ He was pleased when I suggested that possibly the true site of Calvary was not far south of St. Stephen’s Gate, where two public roads passed a short distance off—one leading north to Samaria and Galilee, the other east, over the Kidron and Olivet, to Jericho and the Jordan. ‘Yes,’ he said; ‘and the women would then have a clear view of the whole scene, from a safe distance, on the side of the Mount of Olives, beyond the deep and narrow valley.’ ”

To this succeeded discussions on the value of the local traditions in reference to the scenes latterly associated with so much superstition and deceit; and the possibility of identifying them with the help of local topography and the sacred narrative. “ ‘Where,’ he asked me, ‘would you locate the scene of the ascension? Was it, or could it have been, on the traditional spot at the Church of the Ascension on the summit of Olivet? If you adopt this tradition, then how,’ he asked, ‘do you explain the words of the evangelist: “He led them out as far as to Bethany”?’ My reply was, ‘I do not admit the reality of the traditional site.’ He said this impressed himself very deeply when he crossed over the Mount of Olives to Bethany. He felt convinced that the scene of that wonderful last interview with the disciples was some spot near the village. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘our Lord took the disciples to a retired place, not in view either of Jerusalem or of the village of Bethany. Then,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘was there not some analogy between this scene and that of the transfiguration on a high mountain apart? Would not the solitude impress the disciples more forcibly with the glory of the appearance of the angels, and of his own close and immediate intercourse with the hosts of heaven?’ The thoughtfulness and depth of many of Mr. Nelson’s remarks upon the events of the life and death of Jesus often struck me. His visit to Palestine was brief; but he grasped in a very short time the most interesting and important points, and he connected them, with a kind of intuitive readiness and accuracy, with the events of the sacred narrative. He spoke on several occasions of the noble and yet very peculiar site of the Holy City, different in many respects from his previous ideas; but the moment he saw it, more deeply fixing in his mind the truth of the Psalmist’s words: ‘Beautiful for situation is Mount Zion.’ The view from the top of Olivet, and that from the old road which winds round and along its side from Bethany, was, he told me, to him by far the most instructive. ‘I read,’ he said, ‘the words of Jesus, when he looked on and wept over the city, with a feeling of their reality and wonderful vividness such as I had never experienced before.’ Another thing he observed more than once: ‘I was disappointed in the scenery of Palestine. I did not see, and I could not fully understand, the glowing descriptions in some parts of Scripture of its fertility and beauty. When I thought of England and Scotland, and compared their fertile lowlands and magnificent highlands with the bare plains and rocky hills of Judah, I felt much difficulty in divesting my mind of the idea that even the sacred writers indulged in exaggeration. But,’ he added, ‘I suppose my Western ideas were entirely different from theirs as to what are the elements of richness and grandeur.’ I reminded him of the words of Scripture: ‘A land of corn and wine and oil olive.’ ‘Yes,’ he said; ‘most probably an Eastern would despise even the best parts of Scotland because they want the vines and the olives,’ ”

The experiences of this visit to the sacred scenes of Bible story left an enduring impression on William Nelson’s mind; and their special character in association with his own early training justify some detail in reference to researches otherwise only possessed of personal interest. As a traveller, he made no pretension to geographical exploration or scientific research; and unless when in company with one from whom he could derive information, he rarely referred to his experiences while abroad. His longest journeys were regarded by himself as only extended holiday rambles. But they were carried out with characteristic zeal; and some of the incidents which may be gleaned from them have their biographical value in so far as they disclose traits of personal character. He made his way by the desert route from Palestine to Egypt, where he spent his Christmas in Grand Cairo, and commenced the ascent of the Nile early in the following January. His fellow-traveller in the latter country, Major MacEnery, furnishes some interesting reminiscences of their voyage up the Nile. “I preserve a lively memory,” he writes, “of the unvarying geniality of our companion, and of his spirit of exploration. In this respect he was truly remarkable; indefatigable in the pursuit of information concerning even the minutest object of interest within reach; never satisfied without a personal inspection, when at all possible; neither hunger, thirst, nor fatigue deterring him from the gratification of being able to say conscientiously, ‘I have seen it.’ ”

The impressions left on the traveller’s mind by the scenes of special interest in the Holy Land, and some of the incidents which their memory recalled, were a frequent source of pleasure to his friends in after years. Some of them indeed enjoyed more tangible memorials, in the shape of inscribed tablets of the wood of the Mount of Olives; a carved memento of the Dead Sea fashioned from its black volcanic rock; a gold shekel,—subsequently deposited by Mr. James Campbell in the Presbyterian Theological College at Montreal,—and other like gifts. Nor were the attractions of the land of the Pharaohs less keenly appreciated. It had its ancient memories, both sacred and profane, alike interesting to the intelligent explorer. There were the works of Pharaohs of older centuries than Moses or Joseph; the walls of Abu-Simbul, graven by the son of Theokles with their Hellenic record centuries before the Father of History began his task; the Thebes of the Hundred Gates, with its magnificent ruins authenticating Homer’s verse; and Ptolemaic and Roman remains, modern by comparison. For all this the traveller’s early training had unconsciously prepared him; and every feature was calculated to revive the archæological tastes which found so many votaries among the members of the “Juvenile Literary Society.” He ascended the Nile to the Second Cataract, and gleaned some choice antiques from the relics with which the poor fellaheen tempt the traveller in that cradle-land of the world’s civilization. Those included Osirian figures bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions, one especially with the cartouch of an early Pharaoh; a brick from Thebes, stamped with the cartouch of Thothmes III.; a porcelain stamp similarly inscribed; and other prized memorials. Above all, he had gazed with delight on the monuments of a long-vanished civilization, and explored with curious interest scenes associated with the Bible stories learned by him at his mother’s knee. His inquisitive research was constantly on the alert, and the same thorough-going energy characterized him as a traveller and a man of business. But along with all this, one exceptional trait may be noted, eminently characteristic of the man. A letter addressed to him from Cairo by Abdallah, his old Egyptian dragoman, which reached Edinburgh soon after his death, recalled the fact that his faithful servitor had been the annual recipient of a kindly remittance through all the years since they voyaged together up the Nile. Abdallah writes with a borrowed pen: “I have received your kind letter with the five pounds, and was very happy to hear that you are in perfect health, with your dearest family and with your friends. I always think of you, and beg God to be with you and spare you. All my friends are very thankful for your great kindness to me. I hope some day some gentleman of your friends come I shall have the honour to serve him.” For his remembrance of the faithful dragoman had been practically shown, not only by pecuniary remittances, but also by recommending him to other travellers, until poor Abdallah’s creditors pounced upon the baggage of Dr. Henry Field, to whose service he had been commended, and so his prospects as a dragoman were ruined. In writing to Major MacEnery in May 1886, Mr. Nelson says: “I had a letter not long ago from poor old Abdallah. It was just the old story of his being unable to do anything in the way of earning a livelihood. He sent me a letter addressed to the Lord Mare of London, an old fellow-traveller in the Holy Land, which I duly delivered to his lordship; but he did not take the hint and give me something for the poor dragoman.”

The experiences of the traveller were occasionally turned to account in unexpected ways in after years, when dealing with his own work-people. One instance was recalled in an address, already referred to, delivered at Parkside soon after his death. On the introduction of a greatly improved sewing-machine at Hope Park much opposition was excited among the girls, who unanimously protested in favour of the old-fashioned, familiar instrument. Thereupon Mr. Nelson humorously told them that they reminded him of the difficulties among the Arabs engaged in digging the Suez Canal. They had at first scooped out the sand into baskets, which they carried on their heads, and so transported the soil to the new embankments. This process was much too slow for the contractors, who accordingly provided them with shovels and wheel-barrows. But when the latter were filled, the Arabs could not be persuaded to trundle them in the ordinary way, but hoisted the wheel-barrows on their heads, and so trudged along to the place of deposit!

The unfamiliar scenes and incidents of Eastern life, both in Egypt and Palestine, had made a deep impression on William Nelson’s mind, and were frequently recalled. The letter to Major MacEnery, his old fellow-voyager on the Nile, in which he refers to his dragoman, Abdallah, was written at a time when the first news of the troubles in the Soudan was awakening attention at home; and, recalling his old experiences, he remarks: “How strange it is that the Arabs in the Soudan should be troubling our troops there at Koshi, our most advanced post from Wady Halfi. I was under the impression that it would have been impossible for them to have advanced in anything like a formidable body so far north. But those wild sons of the desert can live almost upon air, and go about like clouds of locusts; and as they are not troubled with artillery or other impediments, they may cause us some trouble, more especially as they are animated with fanatical zeal against the infidels, and they do not know when they are beaten.”

The traveller brought back with him a duly attested document bearing the seal of the Holy Sepulchre (a cross potence and crosslets), furnished to Gulielmus Nelson by the prior of the Latin convent in Jerusalem, in his quality of guardian of the Holy Sepulchre, attesting that he had in an edifying spirit visited the sacred places around the Holy City; and had indeed conformed to the requirements of a devout pilgrim to an extent which, if literally true, would have been in strange antagonism to all his early training. For the veracious prior of the Convent of St. Salvator certifies over his official seal that the aforesaid Gulielmus Nelson had not only visited the principal sanctuaries, but that “with great devotion he had heard mass in them all”!

A more genuine reminiscence of travel, with which the pilgrim surprised his friends, was the novel feature of a fine black beard, the imposing effect of which probably had its share in the opinion formed by the Syrian peasants that he was a learned leech. Commenting long after on the reputed virtues of some much-vaunted pills, he said they were no doubt as efficacious as those he used to make in Palestine. The villagers flocked to his tent, importuning him and his companions for medicine. With much gravity he distributed among them the pills he had fashioned out of the spare breakfast loaf; and, with the faith of the recipients in his prescriptions, supplemented as they doubtless were in cases of actual suffering by a liberal backshish, he had no doubt that he effected as many cures as some of the patent-medicine vendors. As to the black beard, the custom in that respect has so entirely changed since then that it is difficult for the present generation to realize the astonishment which the strange appendage excited. To some grave elders it almost appeared as if he had literally cast in his lot with the followers of the false prophet. The idea of even a moustache as the possible appendage of a civilian first dawned on the English mind when Prince Albert set the fashion in society. But this innovation was viewed with suspicion among all sober denizens of the mart. As to the wearing of a beard, it would have been sufficient to ruin the credit of the most reputable trader. There is a report in “The Dial,” from the pen of Emerson, of a grand convention of enthusiasts held at Boston a few years before. “If,” says he, “the assembly was disorderly, it was picturesque. Mad men, mad women, men with beards, Dunkers, Muggeltonians, Come-outers!”—and so the enumeration of the eccentric medley proceeds. The beard, as is obvious, was an innovation beyond all tolerance. But the art of photography, in its earlier form of ambrotype, was in vogue. The traveller accordingly had his portrait taken in his Eastern dress, with moustache, beard, and long pipe. Some time after, when showing to a friend the relics he had brought from the East, he produced along with them the portrait, and asked what he thought of the Egyptian pasha. To his extreme amusement, his friend exclaimed, “What a bloodthirsty look that fellow has in his face!”

It is abundantly manifest that at that date, whatever might be thought of the beard, it could not be worn in the Hope Park counting-house during business hours. Before, however, its sacrifice to the prudery of that decorous, clean-shaven generation, a party of old schoolmates, of whom the present writer was one, assembled at his dinner-table. The host received us in the flowing robes of an Arab sheik; and with his turban and fine beard, looked as though he might have sat with Abraham at the tent door. In the course of the evening a tempting-looking bottle was produced, with the announcement that it had been brought from the Holy Land; and this he commended so zealously as to put some of the knowing ones on the alert. Each filled his glass as the bottle passed round, took a sip, and then watched its progress; till a rash young toper swallowed the major contents of his glass at a gulp, and then, amid roars of laughter, began coughing, sputtering, and anathematizing the potation. For the seductive bottle was filled with water brought by our host from the Dead Sea: a sulphureous, briny draught fit only for the revellers of Gomorrah.