My Itinerary.
"When one travels in Judæa, at first the heart is seized with a great sense of tediousness; but when, as you pass from solitude to solitude, space stretches limitless before your eyes, that feeling gradually wears away, and you experience a secret terror which, far from casting down the soul, gives courage and raises the spirit. Extraordinary views discover on every side a land laboured by miracles: the burning sun, the swooping eagle, the barren fig-tree, all the poetry, all the scenes of the Scriptures are there. Every name contains a mystery; every grotto declares the future; every summit resounds with a prophet's accents. God Himself has spoken on those shores: the dried-up torrents, the cleft rocks, the half-open tombs testify to the working of wonders; the desert appears to be still mute with terror, and it is as though it had not ventured to break the silence since it heard the voice of the Almighty.
"We descended from the brow of the mountain, in order to go to spend the night on the shore of the Dead Sea, and next to go up to the Jordan[696].
. . . . . . . . . .
"We broke up our camp, and made our way for an hour and a half with excessive difficulty through a fine white dust. We were proceeding towards a small wood of balsam-trees and tamarinds, which I saw to my great astonishment rising from the midst of a sterile soil. Suddenly the Bethlemites stopped and pointed to something which I had not perceived, at the bottom of a ravine. Without being able to say what it was, I caught a glimpse as though of a kind of sand moving over the immobility of the soil. I approached this singular object, and I saw a yellow river which I had some difficulty in distinguishing from the sand of its two banks. It was deeply embanked, and flowed slowly in a thick stream: it was the Jordan....
"The Bethlemites stripped and plunged into the Jordan. I did not dare to follow their lead, because of the fever which still troubled me."
Jerusalem.
We returned to Jerusalem; Julien was not much struck with the sacred places: like a true philosopher, he was dry[697].
I left Jerusalem, arrived at Jaffa, and took ship for Alexandria. From Alexandria I went to Cairo, and I left Julien with M. Drovetti, who had the kindness to charter an Austrian vessel for me for Tunis. Julien continued his journal at Alexandria:
"There are Jews here," he says, "who gamble in stocks, as they do wherever they are. Half a league from the city stands Pompey's Column, which is in reddish granite, mounted on a block of hewn stone."
My Itinerary.
"On the 23rd of November, at midday, the wind having become favourable, I went on board the vessel. I embraced M. Drovetti on the shore, and we made mutual promises of friendship and remembrance: I am paying my debt to-day.
"We heaved the anchor at two o'clock. A pilot brought us out of harbour. The wind was faint and southerly. We kept for three days within sight of Pompey's Column, which we discovered on the horizon. On the evening of the third day we heard the evening gun of the port of Alexandria. This was as it were the signal for our definite departure, for the north wind rose and we made sail for the west.
"On the 1st of December, the wind, veering due west, stopped our way. Gradually it fell to the south-west and turned into a tempest which did not cease until we reached Tunis. To occupy my time, I copied out and set in order my notes on this voyage and my descriptions for the Martyrs. At night, I walked the deck with the mate, Captain Dinelli. Nights spent amid the waves, on a vessel beaten by the storm, are not barren; the uncertainty of our future gives objects their true value: the land, contemplated from the midst of a tempestuous sea, resembles life as it presents itself to a man about to die[698]."
We continued our voyage and anchored before the Kerkenna Isles.
My Itinerary.
"A gale rose, to our great delight, from the south-east, and in five days we arrived in the waters of the island of Malta. We came into sight of it on Christmas Eve; but, on Christmas Day, the wind, shifting to west-north-west, drove us to the south of Lampedusa. We remained for eighteen days off the east coast of the Kingdom of Tunis, between life and death. I shall never in my life forget the day of the 28th.
"We cast anchor before the Kerkenna Isles. For eight days we lay at anchor in the Gulf of Cabes, where I saw the commencement of the year 1807. Under how many planets and amid what varied fortunes had I already seen the years renew for me, years which pass so quickly or which are so long! How far away from me were those times of my childhood in which, with a heart beating with joy, I received the paternal blessing and the paternal gifts! How I used to look forward to New Year's Day! And now, on a foreign vessel, in the middle of the sea, within sight of a barbarous land, that New Year's Day sped for me without witnesses, without pleasures, without the kisses of my family, without the fond wishes of happiness which a mother shapes with such sincerity for her sons! That day, born in the womb of the tempests, let fall on my head nought but cares, regrets and silver hairs."
The Kerkenna Isles.
Julien is exposed to the same fate, and he rebukes me for one of those fits of impatience of which I have, fortunately, corrected myself.