While we are rejoicing, in steps an Arab and says: “Solimat neharicsiade emborak.” Joy departs at these words. With a look of surprise and a feeling of regret I say, “Sir?” He responds, “Solimat neharicsiade emborak.” Rising to my feet I say, “Repeat that remark, please.” Gesticulating wildly, the Arab repeats with great emphasis, “Solimat neharicsiade emborak!” I thought he said my horse was loose. But after a while, however, the Arab, by means of signs, gives me to understand that nothing serious has occurred; that he came in only to let me know supper is ready. I feel relieved and delighted. After a long ride over a rough country, we all have good appetites, and the announcement of supper is therefore joyful news. The evening meal being over, the pilgrims draw their chairs close together and sit for an hour or more talking about friends at home, about the past history and present condition of this country, and about Him whose footsteps have hallowed its soil. The prospect of traveling through this country thrills us all. Substituting the word Hill, for Grail, I can appropriate the language of Tennyson:
“Never yet has the sky appeared so blue, nor earth so green,
For all my blood dances in me, and I know
That I shall light upon the Holy Grail.”
Night brings sweet rest to our tired bodies. Early in the morning, bright rays of cheerful sunshine steal into our tents and drive sleep away. We awake to find a bright, beautiful Sabbath day; and while with our bodies it is to be a day of rest, we pray that with our souls it may be a Sabbath day’s journey towards the New Jerusalem. Stillness pervades the air. The solemn silence is broken only by the mournful music of yonder restless sea. All the pilgrims except Johnson spend the day reading and meditating. He occupies the time in writing to his—to his—grandmother.
Late in the afternoon our attention is attracted by an unheard of medley of sound. The noise that falls upon our ears is not more strange than the sight that greets our eyes is curious. The dragoman tells us not to be alarmed, and says it is only a wedding procession. Johnson is glad of that. I stand it for his sake. The procession consists of about a hundred persons, ninety-eight on foot and two riding grey horses, all singing and dancing as they come. Ten or twelve of the footmen are in front of the horses, while the others are behind. The leader of the van is an Arab of unusual length and gracefulness, clad in the most fantastic robes imaginable. In his two hands he holds a stick about six feet long, wrapped around with gay and fancy colors. The leader is coming backward, facing the advancing throng and keeps about ten paces in front of them. He is first on one side of the road and then on the other. He leaps; he bobs up and down: he bows and bends. At one moment his face is almost on the ground, and the next his head is tossed high in the air. The stick is waved like a magician’s wand. The man is active as a cat and every movement is graceful. As he leads, the others follow his example. They all hop and skip and bow and bend and rise and fall together. Some sing while others blow or knock discordant sounds out of their rude instruments of music.
Never before did Johnson behold a sight like this, nor until now did such a babbling confusion ever strike his ears. The procession draws close. The two persons on horseback are riding side by side. One is the bride, decked in colors gay and wreathed with flowers many. There are two tall men walking, one on either side of the horse, with their arms locked around the bride; I suppose to keep her from falling. Johnson touches me in the side and says: “Whittle, if that were my bride, I wouldn’t let those fellows do that.” The bride’s face, according to the custom of the country, is covered by a long, flowing veil. The man by her side is not the groom. A man in this country will not condescend to go after a woman—not even after his bride! Woman is an inferior creature—she must humble herself and go to the man. The groom sends his friend or his servant for her, and I understand she is always willing to come. Johnson says it is very different in America. He says one refused to go with him when he went after her in person.
Brides are bought and sold here now as they were in olden times, though there has been a great increase in price. Hebrews are good traders and always have been. In Bible times they bought wives for twenty-five dollars, but now brides in this country sell for from seventy-five to one hundred dollars. I believe the men would buy them even if the price should be still higher. Of course they would buy them. Women are slaves. They are man’s burden-bearers and nothing more! The Mohammedans have two, four or a half dozen wives. The Sultan has five hundred, and the people follow his example as far as possible.
The wedding festivities, consisting of music, songs and dancing, last for a week, and then the bride is converted into a slave for her husband. In a few months she will probably be a slave for his next wife!
Monday morning bright and early, we fold our tents and renew our pilgrimage. Lebanon continues steep, rocky, rough and bare. Not a bush, not a blade of green grass, nothing but a long mountain range covered with loose stones, is to be seen. The hills are very productive—of rocks. Now and then we come to large camel pastures. As these long-legged, high-headed, two-storied animals are fat and flourishing, I conclude that they live on wind and stones. In the road we meet hundreds and hundreds of big camels and little camels, dun-colored, mouse-colored, white and black camels, laden with all kinds of oriental merchandise. Late in the afternoon, we for the first time catch a glimpse of snow-capped Hermon, some fifty miles away to the southwest. We take off our hats to this mountain monarch, promising him a visit later on. We now descend into the green valley, sixteen and a half miles wide and some sixty miles long, lying between Lebanon and anti-Lebanon. We want to see the Cedars of Lebanon; and in order to do this we are compelled just here to quit the Damascus road, and travel for three days up this beautiful valley, keeping close to the Lebanon side.
On the second day, traveling up this valley, we come to what tradition says is Noah’s tomb. Strange to say this tomb is eighty-five feet long. It is built of stone and is eight feet wide, seven feet high and eighty-five feet long! Seeing this, I am at once reminded of an incident that is said to have occurred with an American preacher. At the close of the Saturday service, the clergyman announced that he would preach again on Sunday, after reading a certain portion of scripture. Before the hour for Sunday service, some mischievous boys slipped into the church with a bottle of glue and pasted two leaves of the Bible together, so that in reading the minister would miss connection. Eleven o’clock came, and with it came also a large concourse of people. Ascending the pulpit, the reverend gentleman opened the sacred book and began to read. On the bottom of one page he read: “And Noah, when he was an hundred and twenty years old, took unto himself a wife who was”—and then turning over the leaf and missing connection, he continued, “who was an hundred and eighty-six cubits long, forty-seven cubits wide, built of gopher wood, stuck with pitch inside and out.” With trembling knees and confused head, the minister, with stammering tongue said: “Brethren, I have been preaching twenty years and yet I confess that I have never seen this in the Bible before. But it is here and I accept it. Yes, brethren, I accept it as an undying evidence of the fact that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.” So, since I find that Noah’s tomb is eighty-five feet long, I am not much surprised to learn that Mrs. Noah was one hundred and eighty-six cubits long.