The horses were driven through the stream, while we walked or were carried on men’s backs along the aqueduct, which was a foot wide, with sides eighteen inches high, while the elevation was about fifty feet above the torrent.
I removed my boots and waded over, as I thought it rather ticklish to be carried. The “Doubter” was half way? over, when his bearer, who knew his burden’s views on the “backsheesh” question, I doubted his ability to carry him further. The “Doubter,” much to his disgust, was put down where the water of the aqueduct was deepest, and had to pass the rest of the day with wet feet.
We climbed the hills along the way to Jerusalem, and at several points saw the remains of the old Roman road. The route has the same condition of safety that it had when a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves. Robberies are not unfrequent, and the treatment of the victim is the same as it was eighteen hundred years ago. A couple of years ago, an English gentleman, on his way to the Jordan, fell into the hands of the Arabs, close to the ruined Khan, which is said to be the site of the inn to which the good Samaritan carried the traveller whom he found by the wayside. The treatment of this Englishman is exactly described in these words: “They stripped him of his raiment and wounded him and departed, leaving him half dead.”
While in the valley of the Jordan, we saw no other traveller than ourselves. Had we happened there at Easter time, we might have witnessed an interesting spectacle.
On Monday of Passion Week occurs the ceremony of the bathing of the Pilgrims. The devotees gather in Jerusalem to the number of several thousand, some of them having come hundreds of leagues in order to be present on this occasion. In a disorderly array, they march out of the Holy City and down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. The Turkish governor of Jerusalem sends an escort, under command of an officer, to protect the pilgrims from robbers, and also to preserve a sort of discipline among them, and prevent overcrowding and loss of life, at the banks of the Jordan. A camp, or rather a bivouac, is formed on the Plain of Gilgal, and long before daybreak on the following morning, the whole party is roused.
The scene at this moment is said to be wildly picturesque, and strikingly similar to that which some authorities describe as presented at the “baptism of John.”
Tom-toms are beaten, with no attempt at harmony, and thousands of torches flash out and lighten up the wide space covered by the bivouac. In a few moments the noise is hushed, and the torches are extinguished; then the host moves in silence towards the river, to the spot where tradition has located the baptism of’ our Saviour.
The departure from the bivouac is timed, so that the party shall reach the bathing place about dawn. The eastern horizon displays a belt of light that reveals the sharp outlines of the mountain of the Land of Moab, and the ruddy tinge increases as the Pilgrims descend into the fringe of foliage that masks the banks of the river. At the broad opening that marks the bathing place, they congregate and prepare to wash in Jordan.
The whole river is speedily filled with people of both sexes and all ages; the bath is not conducted according to Occidental notions of etiquette. Prayers and blessings are uttered, and all are too intent upon the observance of their religious duty to pay any heed to ideas of propriety.