God had interposed on behalf of “the meanest of His servants and the company of pilgrims”; and Sæwulf renders praise, with the manner of the Psalms of David in his mind. But yet another danger from wind and wave awaits him. He got warning from some weather-wise friends who knew the badness of the harbour. But he shall tell his own tale: “The same day that we anchored, someone, directed by God, as I believe, said to me, ‘Master, go ashore this very day, for it may hap that to-night, at dawn, a storm shall come on and stop you from landing.’ When I heard this, the desire to land seized me. I got a boat and wrent ashore with all my party. Even whilst I was landing the sea was vexed; the waves became more troubled, and a tempest came on; yet by Divine Mercy, I landed unharmed. What happened then? We entered the city to find a lodging. Weary and overdone by our long labours, we fed ourselves and went to rest. And then? In the morning, when we came out of church, we heard the roaring of the sea and the populace shouting, and everybody was running in a crowd to the shore, marvelling at such sounds as they had never heard aforetime. And, when we got there, we beheld the waves higher than hills, a countless number of bodies of men and women lying in wretched-wise on the beach; and ships were crashed against each other and broken into small bits. Could anyone hear a sound save that of roaring breakers and splintering ships? For this drowned the outcry of the crowd and the shouting in the ships. Our ship, however, being a big one and strongly built, and some others, laden with corn and other goods and with pilgrims going or returning, held to their anchors still. Yet how were they tossed about? Into what terror were they plunged! How their ladings were cast into the sea! What onlooker so hard and strong as to keep a dry eye! Not long did we gaze when, through the violence of the waves and currents, the anchors parted, the ropes were broken asunder, and the ships abandoned to the fierceness of the billows. All hope of safety was gone. Now they were cast high; now flung down, and hurled by degrees upon beach or rock. There were they dashed against one another in wretched plight, and, little by little, torn to bits by the tempest. Neither would the savage blasts allow of their getting back to the sea whole, nor the steepness of the shore admit of their gaining safety there. But what gain in telling how dismally sailors and pilgrims hung on; every hope gone, some to ships, some to masts, some to spars, some to cross-tenders? What more shall I tell? Some, overwhelmed with fright, are drowned. It may seem unbelievable to many, yet I beheld with my own eyes the heads of some separated from their bodies by the timbers of their own ship. Some, washed from the decks, are borne away again into the deep. Some, who can swim, leap into the sea. So, very many find their end. But just a very few, relying on their strength, gain the land. Thus, of 30 ships of largest size, of which some were Dromonds” (that is to say, having two tiers of double oars), “Gulafri” (a sort of galley) “and Catts” (vessels narrowing to the stern, with overhanging quarters and a deep waist)—“all full of pilgrims and goods—of all these barely seven were still unwrecked when I left the shore. That day more than a thousand folk, of both sexes, perished. Never did eye behold greater horrors in a single day. But the Lord, to whom be honour and glory, world without end, delivered me from all this of His grace. Amen.”
The little company had escaped a great peril, but another lay ahead. Two days later they set forth to Jerusalem, and found the way “hilly, very rough, and very perilous. For the Saracens are constantly devising traps for Christians; they lie hidden in the hollows of the hills and in rocky holes, and by day and night remain ever sharply on the look-out for those whom they may pounce upon, by reason of their being few in numbers, or so jaded as to lag behind their band. Suddenly, the Saracens are all round about; the next moment they are gone. Anyone who does that journey, may make trial of this. How many human bodies, torn by wild beasts, lie along the way and beside it! Perchance, some one may marvel how the bodies of Christians should lie unburied. But there is nothing to wonder at; for there is very little earth, and the rocks are not easy to dig, and, even if there were soil, who would be so unwise as to leave his band and dig his companion a grave all by himself? He who should do so would dig his own grave rather than one for his companion. On that wayside, not only the poor and weak, but the rich and strong also, are in peril. If men are cut off by the Saracens, yet more in number die from heat and thirst; many through want of drink; more by drinking inordinately. Nonetheless we and all our company came scatheless to the place we longed for.” Sæwulf’s account of the dangers which beset the pilgrim is confirmed by that of Daniel, Abbot of Kief, who made his pilgrimage four years later (1106, A.D.) North of the pilgrim’s way lay Acre; south of it Ascalon, strong fortresses, still held by the Saracen.
The track from Jaffa led to the gate of David, and, entering the city, Sæwulf visited its holiest place first—the Martyrium or Holy Sepulchre. The tomb was under cover, because the Church above was so built as to be open to the skies. He tells us that Titus and Vespasian destroyed the whole of Jerusalem to fulfil the prophesy of Christ, and that the city has undergone the same fate seven times since Titus. He has for guides native Syrians, a people whom he confuses with the Assyrians and calls by that name. The guides told him that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built in the time of Constantine the Great. Now, the existing Church was only about 80 years old, and there had been two previous buildings, of which the earlier was destroyed by Chosroes II, early in the Seventh Century, and the second by Mohammedans, early in the Eleventh Century.
He was then taken to see the place where Christ was imprisoned, the spot where His Cross and the crosses of the two thieves were found, the column to which Christ was bound (the thong with which He is said to have been bound is still to be seen at Aix-la-Chapelle); all these sacred objects of pilgrimage being near the Holy Sepulchre. He was shown the “navel of the earth,” a spot which a contemporary of Sæwulf tells us was in the outside wall of the Martyrium, beyond the altar. Sæwulf assures us that Christ marked it out with His own hand, and declared it to be the centre of the world. This tradition dates from the Sixth Century. Readers of Dante will recall that the poet makes Jerusalem and the Earthly Paradise the Antipodes of our globe; and, indeed, the Holy City was at the middle of the circumscribed world known to the Middle Ages. And had not David sung “God is my King of old, working Salvation in the midst of the earth?”
Thence to Calvary; “Which is the very same place where Abraham built an altar to sacrifice Isaac.” Traces of the Earthquake which rent the rock, “for that it could not endure the death of its Maker without breaking asunder,” were pointed out to him. The guides also took him to Golgotha, the very place where a stream of the Saviour’s blood reached the bones of Adam, “and he and the bodies of many saints arose.” Again readers of Dante will think of the passage where the shade of Virgil tells him how, some time after the Roman poet’s own death, Christ took from Hades the souls of Adam and Moses and other Scriptural personages of distinction, with many others “e fecegli beati,” “and made them blessed.” Sæwulf has perfect trust in any information conveyed to him by his “Assyrian” guides. Indeed, who so likely to know the truth about this wonderful land as its natives?
Close by the Holy Sepulchre was a little monastery which merchants of Amalfi had founded 54 years before Sæwulf saw it. It was the abode of the Knights Hospitalers, who became so famous; but they had not yet become that military order of which, after so singular a history, England possesses traces in St. John’s Gate, Clerkenwell, and a memorial in the beneficent work of which that building is the official centre.
He saw the “Gate Beautiful,” through which Heraclius, triumphant bearer of the Cross, entered after his defeat of the Persians; and heard how “the stones fell down and closed the way, until an angel reproved him; and he descended from his horse, and a passage was opened up to him.” The guides took the pilgrim to see that stone which was the pillow of Jacob when angels ascended and descended a celestial ladder “and the Lord stood above it” at Bethel. It was now at Jerusalem, and, traditionally, is the very stone which was transported to Scone, whereon the Kings of Scotland sat to be crowned, and is to be seen at the present day, placed below the Coronation Chair at Westminster Abbey.
He was taken to Bethlehem; and complains that there, as at every holy place, the Saracen had destroyed everything. Yet the Convent of the Virgin still stood, and within it he saw the very manger where the infant Jesus lay; the very stone on which His head reposed in the tomb, and which St. Jerome had brought hither from Jerusalem; the marble table at which the Mother of our Lord sat at meat with the Magi; a well which received their guiding star into its waters; and the burial-place of the Innocents. The story of the Star falling into a well is also told by that fraudulent Fleming who adopted the name of Sir John Mandeville, in his “Voiage and travaile.”
As much of Palestine as had been conquered was still the scene of unceasing disorder, brigandage, revolt and warfare; so pilgrims were conducted to the holy places under military escort. Sæwulf went to Hebron, and tells us of the tombs of the Patriarchs, ornamented by the men of old and emitting sweet odours. The tombs were inside a strong protecting fortress. Here, at Hebron, he found, still standing, an ancient Ilex tree, under the shadow of which the Lord had appeared to Abraham and promised that Sara should bear him a son. Apparently, his friends, the “Assyrians,” during many centuries of experience, had found what profit accrued to them in tacking on some Biblical association to every available object.
Travelling Northward, he visited Nazareth and Cana of Galilee, whence he beheld Mount Tabor, clad in refreshing green and sprinkled with flowers. Still advancing to the North, he saw the glory of Lebanon above him, and the springs which give birth to the milky waters of Jordan.