[FROM LONDON TO DAMASCUS.]
JERUSALEM.
TOWN LADY AND COUNTRY WOMEN.
All rights reserved.]
Elizabeth and I mounted a camel and took our last schimmel hauer, or airing, in Jaffa the beautiful. As our ungainly steed swung up the road with us on his back, and a peculiarly contemptuous expression on his face, we became objects of much curiosity to the natives, who stopped to gaze and point at us. We were amused to see the women in their excitement stand with unveiled faces unmindful of the men, who equally excited had joined them. Their remarks on our appearance were not exactly complimentary. "Look at the Frangi ladies, how they sit! How funny they look! The Frangis are all mad! See, they smile!" We did not understand Arabic, and our missionary friend was too kind to translate freely, otherwise we might not have smiled.
What a glorious morning it was! The remembrance of it now brings a delicious dreaminess over my senses. It must have been on such a day that Lothair and the radiant Mr. Phœbus journeyed from Jaffa to Jerusalem, when the lovely Euphrosyne "rode through lanes of date-bearing palm-trees, and sniffed with her almond-shaped nostrils the all-pervading fragrance." Sharon, the great maritime plain, once a huge forest, from which it takes its name, lay stretched before us. In the midst of its magnificent orange groves, its flower bedecked meadows, its peaceful cornfields, rose the stately palms, their plumed heads nodding in the faint breeze. Beyond, like an Arabian Nights Geni, the stagnant clouds rested on the peaks of the Judæan hills, while in sharp contrast the restless Mediterranean flashed a thousand brilliant lights. Even the dreaded black rocks at the entrance of the harbour were robbed of their terror by the soft sunshine. We were loath, indeed, to leave so lovely a scene, but we comforted ourselves with the thought of returning again some day.
An hour after midday we had said good-bye to our kind hostesses, and seated in a ramshackle old carriage which threatened to come to pieces at any moment, were driving—save the mark!—in all haste to the railway station. Our road lay through the market, whose odoriferous Asiatic smells are particularly unpleasing to English noses. We thought our driver divined this, for he wasted no time, but with terrific shouts and pistol-like cracks of an enormous whip, scattered to the right and left everything and everybody in the line of route, and brought us up to the station in dashing style but exhausted condition.
We had barely got on to the platform with our luggage when the booking office, as if by magic, was invaded by a howling screaming pack of men trying to force their way through a hastily closed door into the station. The voices of the officials demanding order were drowned by the noise, but the speedy arrival of a couple of stalwart Turkish soldiers armed with formidable-looking whips, which they applied impartially to the heads and shoulders of the unruly mob, soon created a dispersion, and peaceable passengers were allowed to take their tickets. This sudden raid on the railway station was made by a number of unauthorised porters, who had become a grave source of annoyance to travellers. The officials were determined to rid themselves of the nuisance, and the order of "No admittance" was being put into effect that day. The Arab seems incapable of learning obedience through any medium but that of corporal punishment. Whether he can be taught reason by less drastic treatment under a more reasonable form of government has yet to be proved. At present, the only law he condescends to understand is represented in tangible form by a powerful soldier armed with a weapon which he promptly uses, indifferent to life or limb of the offender. This measure, if not pleasing, is at any rate effectual.
The railroads from Jaffa to Jerusalem, and from Beirût to Damascus, are justly considered to be the most valuable innovation from the West. The primary idea of the French Company who work them was, that the thousands of pilgrims who visit the Holy Land every year would use the line as a shorter and less expensive mode of travelling. The original idea has developed, for the demands of commerce require goods trains, and merchants are not slow to avail themselves of these advantages. Besides this, the railways have proved a powerful means of breaking down ancient prejudice and bringing the larger culture and refinement of the West within reach of the more ignorant but intelligent East. We found the train service moderately good, the officials civil, and the route pleasant and full of interest. We travelled for the first few stages in the men's compartment which was large and airy, built like a modern tramcar, with an extra seat extending the whole length of the centre; windows and door were wide open, the former protected by blinds, so it was not to be wondered at that we should prefer this carriage to the narrow stifling compartment reserved for the women. The advent of three ladies excited no comment, for were we not "Frangis"? And "Frangis" did extraordinary things! Our fellow-passengers were nearly all Orientals. Magnificently turbaned and gorgeously dressed Moslem gentlemen sat side by side with dirty, travel-stained pilgrims, and dirtier pedlars from distant lands. Jewish and Armenian merchants held lively discussions about the price of stuffs, while two German colonists discoursed on the approaching visit of Kaiser William. A wretched, miserably clad soldier-boy occupied a corner; he was going to join his regiment, and looked sullen and downcast. I offered him an orange, which he accepted, for the day was hot. I felt sorry for him, poor fellow, for well he knew that a Turkish soldier's life "is not a happy one."