The Innocents Abroad

BY
Mark Twain

PREFACE

CHAPTER I CHAPTER XXII CHAPTER XLIII

CHAPTER II CHAPTER XXIII CHAPTER XLIV
CHAPTER III CHAPTER XXIV CHAPTER XLV
CHAPTER IV CHAPTER XXV CHAPTER XLVI
CHAPTER V CHAPTER XXVI CHAPTER XLVII
CHAPTER VI CHAPTER XXVII CHAPTER XLVIII
CHAPTER VII CHAPTER XXVIII CHAPTER XLIX
CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER XXIX CHAPTER L
CHAPTER IX CHAPTER XXX CHAPTER LI
CHAPTER X CHAPTER XXXI CHAPTER LII
CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XXXII CHAPTER LIII
CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XXXIII CHAPTER LIV
CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XXXIV CHAPTER LV
CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XXXV CHAPTER LVI
CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XXXVI CHAPTER LVII
CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XXXVII CHAPTER LVIII
CHAPTER XVII CHAPTER XXXVIII CHAPTER LIX
CHAPTER XVIII CHAPTER XXXIX CHAPTER LX
CHAPTER XIX CHAPTER XL CHAPTER LXI
CHAPTER XX CHAPTER XLI
CHAPTER XXI CHAPTER XLII

CONCLUSION
Preface

THIS book is a record of a pleasure trip. If it were a record of a

solemn scientific expedition, it would have about it that gravity,
that profundity, and that impressive incomprehensibility which are
so proper to works of that kind, and withal so attractive. Yet
notwithstanding it is only a record of a pic-nic, it has a purpose,
which is to suggest to the reader how he would be likely to see
Europe and the East if he looked at them with his own eyes instead
of the eyes of those who traveled in those countries before him. I
make small pretense of showing anyone how he ought to look at
objects of interest beyond the sea -- other books do that, and
therefore, even if I were competent to do it, there is no need.
I offer no apologies for any departures from the usual style of
travel-writing that may be charged against me -- for I think I have
seen with impartial eyes, and I am sure I have written at least
honestly, whether wisely or not.
In this volume I have used portions of letters which I wrote for the
Daily Alta California, of San Francisco, the proprietors of that
journal having waived their rights and given me the necessary
permission. I have also inserted portions of several letters written
for the New York Tribune and the New York Herald.
THE AUTHOR. SAN FRANCISCO.
CHAPTER I

FOR months the great pleasure excursion to Europe and the Holy Land
was chatted about in the newspapers everywhere in America and
discussed at countless firesides. It was a novelty in the way of
excursions -- its like had not been thought of before, and it
compelled that interest which attractive novelties always command.
It was to be a picnic on a gigantic scale. The participants in it,
instead of freighting an ungainly steam ferry-boat with youth and
beauty and pies and doughnuts, and paddling up some obscure creek to
disembark upon a grassy lawn and wear themselves out with a long
summer day's laborious frolicking under the impression that it was
fun, were to sail away in a great steamship with flags flying and
cannon pealing, and take a royal holiday beyond the broad ocean in
many a strange clime and in many a land renowned in history! They
were to sail for months over the breezy Atlantic and the sunny
Mediterranean; they were to scamper about the decks by day, filling
the ship with shouts and laughter -- or read novels and poetry in
the shade of the smokestacks, or watch for the jelly-fish and the
nautilus over the side, and the shark, the whale, and other strange
monsters of the deep; and at night they were to dance in the open
air, on the upper deck, in the midst of a ballroom that stretched
from horizon to horizon, and was domed by the bending heavens and
lighted by no meaner lamps than the stars and the magnificent
moon-dance, and promenade, and smoke, and sing, and make love, and
search the skies for constellations that never associate with the
"Big Dipper" they were so tired of; and they were to see the ships
of twenty navies -- the customs and costumes of twenty curious
peoples -- the great cities of half a world -- they were to hob-nob
with nobility and hold friendly converse with kings and princes,
grand moguls, and the anointed lords of mighty empires! It was a
brave conception; it was the offspring of a most ingenious brain. It
was well advertised, but it hardly needed it: the bold originality,
the extraordinary character, the seductive nature, and the vastness
of the enterprise provoked comment everywhere and advertised it in
every household in the land. Who could read the program of the
excursion without longing to make one of the party? I will insert it
here. It is almost as good as a map. As a text for this book,
nothing could be better:
EXCURSION TO THE HOLY LAND, EGYPT, THE CRIMEA, GREECE, AND
INTERMEDIATE
POINTS OF INTEREST.
BROOKLYN, February 1st, 1867
The undersigned will make an excursion as above during the coming
season, and begs to submit to you the following programme:
A first-class steamer, to be under his own command, and capable of
accommodating at least one hundred and fifty cabin passengers, will
be selected, in which will be taken a select company, numbering not
more than three-fourths of the ship's capacity. There is good reason
to believe that this company can be easily made up in this immediate
vicinity, of mutual friends and acquaintances.
The steamer will be provided with every necessary comfort, including
library and musical instruments.
An experienced physician will be on board.
Leaving New York about June 1st, a middle and pleasant route will be
taken across the Atlantic, and passing through the group of Azores,
St. Michael will be reached in about ten days. A day or two will be
spent here, enjoying the fruit and wild scenery of these islands,
and the voyage continued, and Gibraltar reached in three or four
days.
A day or two will be spent here in looking over the wonderful
subterraneous fortifications, permission to visit these galleries
being readily obtained.
From Gibraltar, running along the coasts of Spain and France,
Marseilles will be reached in three days. Here ample time will be
given not only to look over the city, which was founded six hundred
years before the Christian era, and its artificial port, the finest
of the kind in the Mediterranean, but to visit Paris during the
Great Exhibition; and the beautiful city of Lyons, lying
intermediate, from the heights of which, on a clear day, Mont Blanc
and the Alps can be distinctly seen.
Passengers who may wish to extend the time at Paris can do so, and,
passing down through Switzerland, rejoin the steamer at Genoa.
From Marseilles to Genoa is a run of one night. The excursionists
will have an opportunity to look over this, the "magnificent city of
palaces," and visit the birthplace of Columbus, twelve miles off,
over a beautiful road built by Napoleon I. From this point,
excursions may be made to Milan, Lakes Como and Maggiore, or to
Milan, Verona (famous for its extraordinary fortifications), Padua,
and Venice. Or, if passengers desire to visit Parma (famous for
Correggio's frescoes) and Bologna, they can by rail go on to
Florence, and rejoin the steamer at Leghorn, thus spending about
three weeks amid the cities most famous for art in Italy.
From Genoa the run to Leghorn will be made along the coast in one
night, and time appropriated to this point in which to visit
Florence, its palaces and galleries; Pisa, its cathedral and
"Leaning Tower," and Lucca and its baths, and Roman amphitheater;
Florence, the most remote, being distant by rail about sixty miles.
From Leghorn to Naples (calling at Civita Vecchia to land any who
may prefer to go to Rome from that point), the distance will be made
in about thirty-six hours; the route will lay along the coast of
Italy, close by Caprera, Elba, and Corsica. Arrangements have been
made to take on board at Leghorn a pilot for Caprera, and, if
practicable, a call will be made there to visit the home of
Garibaldi.
Rome [by rail], Herculaneum, Pompeii, Vesuvius, Vergil's tomb, and
possibly the ruins of Paestum can be visited, as well as the
beautiful surroundings of Naples and its charming bay.
The next point of interest will be Palermo, the most beautiful city
of Sicily, which will be reached in one night from Naples. A day
will be spent here, and leaving in the evening, the course will be
taken towards Athens.
Skirting along the north coast of Sicily, passing through the group
of Aeolian Isles, in sight of Stromboli and Vulcania, both active
volcanoes, through the Straits of Messina, with "Scylla" on the one
hand and "Charybdis" on the other, along the east coast of Sicily,
and in sight of Mount Etna, along the south coast of Italy, the west
and south coast of Greece, in sight of ancient Crete, up Athens
Gulf, and into the Piraeus, Athens will be reached in two and a half
or three days. After tarrying here awhile, the Bay of Salamis will
be crossed, and a day given to Corinth, whence the voyage will be
continued to Constantinople, passing on the way through the Grecian
Archipelago, the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmora, and the mouth of
the Golden Horn, and arriving in about forty-eight hours from
Athens.
After leaving Constantinople, the way will be taken out through the
beautiful Bosphorus, across the Black Sea to Sebastopol and
Balaklava, a run of about twenty-four hours. Here it is proposed to
remain two days, visiting the harbors, fortifications, and
battlefields of the Crimea; thence back through the Bosphorus,
touching at Constantinople to take in any who may have preferred to
remain there; down through the Sea of Marmora and the Dardanelles,
along the coasts of ancient Troy and Lydia in Asia, to Smyrna, which
will be reached in two or two and a half days from Constantinople. A
sufficient stay will be made here to give opportunity of visiting
Ephesus, fifty miles distant by rail.
From Smyrna towards the Holy Land the course will lay through the
Grecian Archipelago, close by the Isle of Patmos, along the coast of
Asia, ancient Pamphylia, and the Isle of Cyprus. Beirut will be
reached in three days. At Beirut time will be given to visit
Damascus; after which the steamer will proceed to Joppa.
From Joppa, Jerusalem, the River Jordan, the Sea of Tiberias,
Nazareth, Bethany, Bethlehem, and other points of interest in the
Holy Land can be visited, and here those who may have preferred to
make the journey from Beirut through the country, passing through
Damascus, Galilee, Capernaum, Samaria, and by the River Jordan and
Sea of Tiberias, can rejoin the steamer.
Leaving Joppa, the next point of interest to visit will be
Alexandria, which will be reached in twenty-four hours. The ruins of
Caesar's Palace, Pompey's Pillar, Cleopatra's Needle, the Catacombs,
and ruins of ancient Alexandria will be found worth the visit. The
journey to Cairo, one hundred and thirty miles by rail, can be made
in a few hours, and from which can be visited the site of ancient
Memphis, Joseph's Granaries, and the Pyramids.
From Alexandria the route will be taken homeward, calling at Malta,
Cagliari (in Sardinia), and Palma (in Majorca), all magnificent
harbors, with charming scenery, and abounding in fruits.
A day or two will be spent at each place, and leaving Parma in the
evening, Valencia in Spain will be reached the next morning. A few
days will be spent in this, the finest city of Spain.
From Valencia, the homeward course will be continued, skirting along
the coast of Spain. Alicant, Carthagena, Palos, and Malaga will be
passed but a mile or two distant, and Gibraltar reached in about
twenty-four hours.
A stay of one day will be made here, and the voyage continued to
Madeira, which will be reached in about three days. Captain Marryatt
writes: "I do not know a spot on the globe which so much astonishes
and delights upon first arrival as Madeira." A stay of one or two
days will be made here, which, if time permits, may be extended, and
passing on through the islands, and probably in sight of the Peak of
Teneriffe, a southern track will be taken, and the Atlantic crossed
within the latitudes of the northeast trade winds, where mild and
pleasant weather, and a smooth sea, can always be expected.
A call will be made at Bermuda, which lies directly in this route
homeward, and will be reached in about ten days from Madeira, and
after spending a short time with our friends the Bermudians, the
final departure will be made for home, which will be reached in
about three days.
Already, applications have been received from parties in Europe
wishing to join the Excursion there.
The ship will at all times be a home, where the excursionists, if
sick, will be surrounded by kind friends, and have all possible
comfort and sympathy.
Should contagious sickness exist in any of the ports named in the
program, such ports will be passed, and others of interest
substituted.
The price of passage is fixed at $1,250, currency, for each adult
passenger. Choice of rooms and of seats at the tables apportioned in
the order in which passages are engaged; and no passage considered
engaged until ten percent of the passage money is deposited with the
treasurer.
Passengers can remain on board of the steamer, at all ports, if they
desire, without additional expense, and all boating at the expense
of the ship.
All passages must be paid for when taken, in order that the most
perfect arrangements be made for starting at the appointed time.
Applications for passage must be approved by the committee before
tickets are issued, and can be made to the undersigned.
Articles of interest or curiosity, procured by the passengers during
the voyage, may be brought home in the steamer free of charge.
Five dollars per day, in gold, it is believed, will be a fair
calculation to make for all traveling expenses onshore and at the
various points where passengers may wish to leave the steamer for
days at a time.
The trip can be extended, and the route changed, by unanimous vote
of the passengers.

CHAS. C. DUNCAN,
117 WALL STREET, NEW YORK
R. R. G******, Treasurer
Committee on Applications
J. T. H*****, ESQ. R. R. G*****, ESQ. C. C. Duncan
Committee on Selecting Steamer
CAPT. W. W. S* * * *, Surveyor for Board of Underwriters
C. W. C******, Consulting Engineer for U.S. and Canada
J. T. H*****, Esq.
C. C. DUNCAN
P.S. -- The very beautiful and substantial side-wheel steamship
"Quaker City" has been chartered for the occasion, and will leave
New York June 8th.
Letters have been issued by the government commending the party to
courtesies abroad.
What was there lacking about that program to make it perfectly
irresistible? Nothing that any finite mind could discover. Paris,
England, Scotland, Switzerland, Italy -- Garibaldi! The Grecian
Archipelago! Vesuvius! Constantinople! Smyrna! The Holy Land! Egypt
and "our friends the Bermudians"! People in Europe desiring to join
the excursion -- contagious sickness to be avoided -- boating at the
expense of the ship -- physician on board -- the circuit of the
globe to be made if the passengers unanimously desired it -- the
company to be rigidly selected by a pitiless "Committee on
Applications" -- the vessel to be as rigidly selected by as pitiless
a "Committee on Selecting Steamer." Human nature could not withstand
these bewildering temptations. I hurried to the treasurer's office
and deposited my ten percent. I rejoiced to know that a few vacant
staterooms were still left. I did avoid a critical personal
examination into my character by that bowelless committee, but I
referred to all the people of high standing I could think of in the
community who would be least likely to know anything about me.
Shortly a supplementary program was issued which set forth that the
Plymouth Collection of Hymns would be used on board the ship. I then
paid the balance of my passage money.
I was provided with a receipt and duly and officially accepted as an
excursionist. There was happiness in that but it was tame compared
to the novelty of being "select."
This supplementary program also instructed the excursionists to
provide themselves with light musical instruments for amusement in
the ship, with saddles for Syrian travel, green spectacles and
umbrellas, veils for Egypt, and substantial clothing to use in rough
pilgrimizing in the Holy Land. Furthermore, it was suggested that
although the ship's library would afford a fair amount of reading
matter, it would still be well if each passenger would provide
himself with a few guidebooks, a Bible, and some standard works of
travel. A list was appended, which consisted chiefly of books
relating to the Holy Land, since the Holy Land was part of the
excursion and seemed to be its main feature.
Reverend Henry Ward Beecher was to have accompanied the expedition,
but urgent duties obliged him to give up the idea. There were other
passengers who could have been spared better and would have been
spared more willingly. Lieutenant General Sherman was to have been
of the party also, but the Indian war compelled his presence on the
plains. A popular actress had entered her name on the ship's books,
but something interfered and she couldn't go. The "Drummer Boy of
the Potomac" deserted, and lo, we had never a celebrity left!
However, we were to have a "battery of guns" from the Navy
Department (as per advertisement) to be used in answering royal
salutes; and the document furnished by the Secretary of the Navy,
which was to make "General Sherman and party" welcome guests in the
courts and camps of the old world, was still left to us, though both
document and battery, I think, were shorn of somewhat of their
original august proportions. However, had not we the seductive
program still, with its Paris, its Constantinople, Smyrna,
Jerusalem, Jericho, and "our friends the Bermudians?" What did we
care?
CHAPTER II

OCCASIONALLY, during the following month, I dropped in at 117 Wall

Street to inquire how the repairing and refurnishing of the vessel
was coming on, how additions to the passenger list were averaging,
how many people the committee were decreeing not "select" every day
and banishing in sorrow and tribulation. I was glad to know that we
were to have a little printing press on board and issue a daily
newspaper of our own. I was glad to learn that our piano, our parlor
organ, and our melodeon were to be the best instruments of the kind
that could be had in the market. I was proud to observe that among
our excursionists were three ministers of the gospel, eight doctors,
sixteen or eighteen ladies, several military and naval chieftains
with sounding titles, an ample crop of "Professors" of various
kinds, and a gentleman who had "COMMISSIONER OF THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA TO EUROPE, ASIA, AND AFRICA" thundering after his name in
one awful blast! I had carefully prepared myself to take rather a
back seat in that ship because of the uncommonly select material
that would alone be permitted to pass through the camel's eye of
that committee on credentials; I had schooled myself to expect an
imposing array of military and naval heroes and to have to set that
back seat still further back in consequence of it maybe; but I state
frankly that I was all unprepared for this crusher.
I fell under that titular avalanche a torn and blighted thing. I
said that if that potentate must go over in our ship, why, I
supposed he must -- but that to my thinking, when the United States
considered it necessary to send a dignitary of that tonnage across
the ocean, it would be in better taste, and safer, to take him apart
and cart him over in sections in several ships.
Ah, if I had only known then that he was only a common mortal, and
that his mission had nothing more overpowering about it than the
collecting of seeds and uncommon yams and extraordinary cabbages and
peculiar bullfrogs for that poor, useless, innocent, mildewed old
fossil the Smithsonian Institute, I would have felt so much
relieved.
During that memorable month I basked in the happiness of being for
once in my life drifting with the tide of a great popular movement.
Everybody was going to Europe -- I, too, was going to Europe.
Everybody was going to the famous Paris Exposition -- I, too, was
going to the Paris Exposition. The steamship lines were carrying
Americans out of the various ports of the country at the rate of
four or five thousand a week in the aggregate. If I met a dozen
individuals during that month who were not going to Europe shortly,
I have no distinct remembrance of it now. I walked about the city a
good deal with a young Mr. Blucher, who was booked for the
excursion. He was confiding, good-natured, unsophisticated,
companionable; but he was not a man to set the river on fire. He had
the most extraordinary notions about this European exodus and came
at last to consider the whole nation as packing up for emigration to
France. We stepped into a store on Broadway one day, where he bought
a handkerchief, and when the man could not make change, Mr. B. said:

"Never mind, I'll hand it to you in Paris."

"But I am not going to Paris."
"How is -- what did I understand you to say?"
"I said I am not going to Paris."
"Not going to Paris! Not g -- well, then, where in the nation are
you going to?"
"Nowhere at all."
"Not anywhere whatsoever? -- not any place on earth but this?"
"Not any place at all but just this -- stay here all summer."
My comrade took his purchase and walked out of the store without a
word -- walked out with an injured look upon his countenance. Up the
street apiece he broke silence and said impressively: "It was a lie
-- that is my opinion of it!"
In the fullness of time the ship was ready to receive her
passengers. I was introduced to the young gentleman who was to be my
roommate, and found him to be intelligent, cheerful of spirit,
unselfish, full of generous impulses, patient, considerate, and
wonderfully good-natured. Not any passenger that sailed in the
Quaker City will withhold his endorsement of what I have just said.
We selected a stateroom forward of the wheel, on the starboard side,
"below decks." It bad two berths in it, a dismal dead-light, a sink
with a washbowl in it, and a long, sumptuously cushioned locker,
which was to do service as a sofa -- partly -- and partly as a
hiding place for our things. Notwithstanding all this furniture,
there was still room to turn around in, but not to swing a cat in,
at least with entire security to the cat. However, the room was
large, for a ship's stateroom, and was in every way satisfactory.
The vessel was appointed to sail on a certain Saturday early in
June.
A little after noon on that distinguished Saturday I reached the
ship and went on board. All was bustle and confusion. [I have seen
that remark before somewhere.] The pier was crowded with carriages
and men; passengers were arriving and hurrying on board; the
vessel's decks were encumbered with trunks and valises; groups of
excursionists, arrayed in unattractive traveling costumes, were
moping about in a drizzling rain and looking as droopy and woebegone
as so many molting chickens. The gallant flag was up, but it was
under the spell, too, and hung limp and disheartened by the mast.
Altogether, it was the bluest, bluest spectacle! It was a pleasure
excursion -- there was no gainsaying that, because the program said
so -- it was so nominated in the bond -- but it surely hadn't the
general aspect of one.
Finally, above the banging, and rumbling, and shouting, and hissing
of steam rang the order to "cast off!" -- a sudden rush to the
gangways -- a scampering ashore of visitors-a revolution of the
wheels, and we were off -- the pic-nic was begun! Two very mild
cheers went up from the dripping crowd on the pier; we answered them
gently from the slippery decks; the flag made an effort to wave, and
failed; the "battery of guns" spake not -- the ammunition was out.
We steamed down to the foot of the harbor and came to anchor. It was
still raining. And not only raining, but storming. "Outside" we
could see, ourselves, that there was a tremendous sea on. We must
lie still, in the calm harbor, till the storm should abate. Our
passengers hailed from fifteen states; only a few of them had ever
been to sea before; manifestly it would not do to pit them against a
full-blown tempest until they had got their sea-legs on. Toward
evening the two steam tugs that had accompanied us with a rollicking
champagne-party of young New Yorkers on board who wished to bid
farewell to one of our number in due and ancient form departed, and
we were alone on the deep. On deep five fathoms, and anchored fast
to the bottom. And out in the solemn rain, at that. This was
pleasuring with a vengeance.
It was an appropriate relief when the gong sounded for prayer
meeting. The first Saturday night of any other pleasure excursion
might have been devoted to whist and dancing; but I submit it to the
unprejudiced mind if it would have been in good taste for us to
engage in such frivolities, considering what we had gone through and
the frame of mind we were in. We would have shone at a wake, but not
at anything more festive.
However, there is always a cheering influence about the sea; and in
my berth that night, rocked by the measured swell of the waves and
lulled by the murmur of the distant surf, I soon passed tranquilly
out of all consciousness of the dreary experiences of the day and
damaging premonitions of the future.
CHAPTER III

ALL day Sunday at anchor. The storm had gone down a great deal, but
the sea had not. It was still piling its frothy hills high in air
"outside," as we could plainly see with the glasses. We could not
properly begin a pleasure excursion on Sunday; we could not offer
untried stomachs to so pitiless a sea as that. We must lie still
till Monday. And we did. But we had repetitions of church and
prayer-meetings; and so, of course, we were just as eligibly
situated as we could have been any where.
I was up early that Sabbath morning and was early to breakfast. I
felt a perfectly natural desire to have a good, long, unprejudiced
look at the passengers at a time when they should be free from
self-consciousness -- which is at breakfast, when such a moment
occurs in the lives of human beings at all.
I was greatly surprised to see so many elderly people -- I might
almost say, so many venerable people. A glance at the long lines of
heads was apt to make one think it was all gray. But it was not.
There was a tolerably fair sprinkling of young folks, and another
fair sprinkling of gentlemen and ladies who were non-committal as to
age, being neither actually old or absolutely young.
The next morning we weighed anchor and went to sea. It was a great
happiness to get away after this dragging, dispiriting delay. I
thought there never was such gladness in the air before, such
brightness in the sun, such beauty in the sea. I was satisfied with
the picnic then and with all its belongings. All my malicious
instincts were dead within me; and as America faded out of sight, I
think a spirit of charity rose up in their place that was as
boundless, for the time being, as the broad ocean that was heaving
its billows about us. I wished to express my feelings -- I wished to
lift up my voice and sing; but I did not know anything to sing, and
so I was obliged to give up the idea. It was no loss to the ship,
though, perhaps.
It was breezy and pleasant, but the sea was still very rough. One
could not promenade without risking his neck; at one moment the
bowsprit was taking a deadly aim at the sun in midheaven, and at the
next it was trying to harpoon a shark in the bottom of the ocean.
What a weird sensation it is to feel the stem of a ship sinking
swiftly from under you and see the bow climbing high away among the
clouds! One's safest course that day was to clasp a railing and hang
on; walking was too precarious a pastime.
By some happy fortune I was not seasick. -- That was a thing to be
proud of. I had not always escaped before. If there is one thing in
the world that will make a man peculiarly and insufferably
self-conceited, it is to have his stomach behave itself, the first
day it sea, when nearly all his comrades are seasick. Soon a
venerable fossil, shawled to the chin and bandaged like a mummy,
appeared at the door of the after deck-house, and the next lurch of
the ship shot him into my arms. I said:
"Good-morning, Sir. It is a fine day."
He put his hand on his stomach and said, "Oh, my!" and then
staggered away and fell over the coop of a skylight.
Presently another old gentleman was projected from the same door
with great violence. I said:
"Calm yourself, Sir -- There is no hurry. It is a fine day, Sir."
He, also, put his hand on his stomach and said "Oh, my!" and reeled
away.
In a little while another veteran was discharged abruptly from the
same door, clawing at the air for a saving support. I said:
"Good morning, Sir. It is a fine day for pleasuring. You were about
to say -- "
"Oh, my!"
I thought so. I anticipated him, anyhow. I stayed there and was
bombarded with old gentlemen for an hour, perhaps; and all I got out
of any of them was "Oh, my!"
I went away then in a thoughtful mood. I said, this is a good
pleasure excursion. I like it. The passengers are not garrulous, but
still they are sociable. I like those old people, but somehow they
all seem to have the "Oh, my" rather bad.
I knew what was the matter with them. They were seasick. And I was
glad of it. We all like to see people seasick when we are not,
ourselves. Playing whist by the cabin lamps when it is storming
outside is pleasant; walking the quarterdeck in the moonlight is
pleasant; smoking in the breezy foretop is pleasant when one is not
afraid to go up there; but these are all feeble and commonplace
compared with the joy of seeing people suffering the miseries of
seasickness.
I picked up a good deal of information during the afternoon. At one
time I was climbing up the quarterdeck when the vessel's stem was in
the sky; I was smoking a cigar and feeling passably comfortable.
Somebody ejaculated:
"Come, now, that won't answer. Read the sign up there -- NO SMOKING
ABAFT THE WHEEL!"
It was Captain Duncan, chief of the expedition. I went forward, of
course. I saw a long spyglass lying on a desk in one of the
upper-deck state-rooms back of the pilot-house and reached after it
-- there was a ship in the distance.
"Ah, ah -- hands off! Come out of that!"
I came out of that. I said to a deck-sweep -- but in a low voice:
"Who is that overgrown pirate with the whiskers and the discordant
voice?"
"It's Captain Bursley -- executive officer -- sailing master."
I loitered about awhile, and then, for want of something better to
do, fell to carving a railing with my knife. Somebody said, in an
insinuating, admonitory voice:
"Now, say -- my friend -- don't you know any better than to be
whittling the ship all to pieces that way? You ought to know better
than that."
I went back and found the deck sweep.
"Who is that smooth-faced, animated outrage yonder in the fine
clothes?"
"That's Captain L****, the owner of the ship -- he's one of the main
bosses."
In the course of time I brought up on the starboard side of the
pilot-house and found a sextant lying on a bench. Now, I said, they
"take the sun" through this thing; I should think I might see that
vessel through it. I had hardly got it to my eye when someone
touched me on the shoulder and said deprecatingly:
"I'll have to get you to give that to me, Sir. If there's anything
you'd like to know about taking the sun, I'd as soon tell you as not
-- but I don't like to trust anybody with that instrument. If you
want any figuring done -- Aye, aye, sir!"
He was gone to answer a call from the other side. I sought the
deck-sweep.
"Who is that spider-legged gorilla yonder with the sanctimonious
countenance?"
"It's Captain Jones, sir -- the chief mate."
"Well. This goes clear away ahead of anything I ever heard of
before. Do you -- now I ask you as a man and a brother -- do you
think I could venture to throw a rock here in any given direction
without hitting a captain of this ship?"
"Well, sir, I don't know -- I think likely you'd fetch the captain
of the watch may be, because he's a-standing right yonder in the
way."
I went below -- meditating and a little downhearted. I thought, if
five cooks can spoil a broth, what may not five captains do with a
pleasure excursion.
CHAPTER IV

HE plowed along bravely for a week or more, and without any conflict
of jurisdiction among the captains worth mentioning. The passengers
soon learned to accommodate themselves to their new circumstances,
and life in the ship became nearly as systematically monotonous as
the routine of a barrack. I do not mean that it was dull, for it was
not entirely so by any means -- but there was a good deal of
sameness about it. As is always the fashion at sea, the passengers
shortly began to pick up sailor terms -- a sign that they were
beginning to feel at home. Half-past six was no longer half-past six
to these pilgrims from New England, the South, and the Mississippi
Valley, it was "seven bells"; eight, twelve, and four o'clock were
"eight bells"; the captain did not take the longitude at nine
o'clock, but at "two bells." They spoke glibly of the "after cabin,"
the "for'rard cabin," "port and starboard" and the "fo'castle."
At seven bells the first gong rang; at eight there was breakfast,
for such as were not too seasick to eat it. After that all the well
people walked arm-in-arm up and down the long promenade deck,
enjoying the fine summer mornings, and the seasick ones crawled out
and propped themselves up in the lee of the paddle-boxes and ate
their dismal tea and toast, and looked wretched. From eleven o'clock
until luncheon, and from luncheon until dinner at six in the
evening, the employments and amusements were various. Some reading
was done, and much smoking and sewing, though not by the same
parties; there were the monsters of the deep to be looked after and
wondered at; strange ships had to be scrutinized through
opera-glasses, and sage decisions arrived at concerning them; and
more than that, everybody took a personal interest in seeing that
the flag was run up and politely dipped three times in response to
the salutes of those strangers; in the smoking room there were
always parties of gentlemen playing euchre, draughts and dominoes,
especially dominoes, that delightfully harmless game; and down on
the main deck, "for'rard" -- for'rard of the chicken-coops and the
cattle -- we had what was called "horse billiards." Horse billiards
is a fine game. It affords good, active exercise, hilarity, and
consuming excitement. It is a mixture of "hop-scotch" and
shuffleboard played with a crutch. A large hop-scotch diagram is
marked out on the deck with chalk, and each compartment numbered.
You stand off three or four steps, with some broad wooden disks
before you on the deck, and these you send forward with a vigorous
thrust of a long crutch. If a disk stops on a chalk line, it does
not count anything. If it stops in division No. 7, it counts 7; in
5, it counts 5, and so on. The game is 100, and four can play at a
time. That game would be very simple played on a stationary floor,
but with us, to play it well required science. We had to allow for
the reeling of the ship to the right or the left. Very often one
made calculations for a heel to the right and the ship did not go
that way. The consequence was that that disk missed the whole
hopscotch plan a yard or two, and then there was humiliation on one
side and laughter on the other.
When it rained the passengers had to stay in the house, of course --
or at least the cabins -- and amuse themselves with games, reading,
looking out of the windows at the very familiar billows, and talking
gossip.
By 7 o'clock in the evening, dinner was about over; an hour's
promenade on the upper deck followed; then the gong sounded and a
large majority of the party repaired to the after cabin (upper), a
handsome saloon fifty or sixty feet long, for prayers. The
unregenerated called this saloon the "Synagogue." The devotions
consisted only of two hymns from the Plymouth Collection and a short
prayer, and seldom occupied more than fifteen minutes. The hymns
were accompanied by parlor-organ music when the sea was smooth
enough to allow a performer to sit at the instrument without being
lashed to his chair.
After prayers the Synagogue shortly took the semblance of a writing
school. The like of that picture was never seen in a ship before.
Behind the long dining tables on either side of the saloon, and
scattered from one end to the other of the latter, some twenty or
thirty gentlemen and ladies sat them down under the swaying lamps
and for two or three hours wrote diligently in their journals. Alas!
that journals so voluminously begun should come to so lame and
impotent a conclusion as most of them did! I doubt if there is a
single pilgrim of all that host but can show a hundred fair pages of
journal concerning the first twenty days' voyaging in the Quaker
City, and I am morally certain that not ten of the party can show
twenty pages of journal for the succeeding twenty thousand miles of
voyaging! At certain periods it becomes the dearest ambition of a
man to keep a faithful record of his performances in a book; and he
dashes at this work with an enthusiasm that imposes on him the
notion that keeping a journal is the veriest pastime in the world,
and the pleasantest. But if he only lives twenty-one days, he will
find out that only those rare natures that are made up of pluck,
endurance, devotion to duty for duty's sake, and invincible
determination may hope to venture upon so tremendous an enterprise
as the keeping of a journal and not sustain a shameful defeat.
One of our favorite youths, Jack, a splendid young fellow with a
head full of good sense, and a pair of legs that were a wonder to
look upon in the way of length and straightness and slimness, used
to report progress every morning in the most glowing and spirited
way, and say:
"Oh, I'm coming along bully!" (he was a little given to slang in his
happier moods.) "I wrote ten pages in my journal last night -- and
you know I wrote nine the night before and twelve the night before
that. Why, it's only fun!"
"What do you find to put in it, Jack?"
"Oh, everything. Latitude and longitude, noon every day; and how
many miles we made last twenty-four hours; and all the domino games
I beat and horse billiards; and whales and sharks and porpoises; and
the text of the sermon Sundays (because that'll tell at home, you
know); and the ships we saluted and what nation they were; and which
way the wind was, and whether there was a heavy sea, and what sail
we carried, though we don't ever carry any, principally, going
against a head wind always -- wonder what is the reason of that? --
and how many lies Moult has told -- Oh, every thing! I've got
everything down. My father told me to keep that journal. Father
wouldn't take a thousand dollars for it when I get it done."
"No, Jack; it will be worth more than a thousand dollars -- when you
get it done."
"Do you? -- no, but do you think it will, though?
"Yes, it will be worth at least as much as a thousand dollars --
when you get it done. May be more."
"Well, I about half think so, myself. It ain't no slouch of a
journal."
But it shortly became a most lamentable "slouch of a journal." One
night in Paris, after a hard day's toil in sightseeing, I said:
"Now I'll go and stroll around the cafes awhile, Jack, and give you
a chance to write up your journal, old fellow."
His countenance lost its fire. He said:
"Well, no, you needn't mind. I think I won't run that journal
anymore. It is awful tedious. Do you know -- I reckon I'm as much as
four thousand pages behind hand. I haven't got any France in it at
all. First I thought I'd leave France out and start fresh. But that
wouldn't do, would it? The governor would say, 'Hello, here --
didn't see anything in France? That cat wouldn't fight, you know.
First I thought I'd copy France out of the guide-book, like old
Badger in the for'rard cabin, who's writing a book, but there's more
than three hundred pages of it. Oh, I don't think a journal's any
use -- -do you? They're only a bother, ain't they?"
"Yes, a journal that is incomplete isn't of much use, but a journal
properly kept is worth a thousand dollars -- when you've got it
done."
"A thousand! -- well, I should think so. I wouldn't finish it for a
million."
His experience was only the experience of the majority of that
industrious night school in the cabin. If you wish to inflict a
heartless and malignant punishment upon a young person, pledge him
to keep a journal a year.
A good many expedients were resorted to to keep the excursionists
amused and satisfied. A club was formed, of all the passengers,
which met in the writing school after prayers and read aloud about
the countries we were approaching and discussed the information so
obtained.
Several times the photographer of the expedition brought out his
transparent pictures and gave us a handsome magic-lantern
exhibition. His views were nearly all of foreign scenes, but there
were one or two home pictures among them. He advertised that he
would "open his performance in the after cabin at 'two bells' (nine
P.M.) and show the passengers where they shall eventually arrive" --
which was all very well, but by a funny accident the first picture
that flamed out upon the canvas was a view of Greenwood Cemetery!
On several starlight nights we danced on the upper deck, under the
awnings, and made something of a ball-room display of brilliancy by
hanging a number of ship's lanterns to the stanchions. Our music
consisted of the well-mixed strains of a melodeon which was a little
asthmatic and apt to catch its breath where it ought to come out
strong, a clarinet which was a little unreliable on the high keys
and rather melancholy on the low ones, and a disreputable accordion
that had a leak somewhere and breathed louder than it squawked -- a
more elegant term does not occur to me just now. However, the
dancing was infinitely worse than the music. When the ship rolled to
starboard the whole platoon of dancers came charging down to
starboard with it, and brought up in mass at the rail; and when it
rolled to port they went floundering down to port with the same
unanimity of sentiment. Waltzers spun around precariously for a
matter of fifteen seconds and then went scurrying down to the rail
as if they meant to go overboard. The Virginia reel, as performed on
board the Quaker City, had more genuine reel about it than any reel
I ever saw before, and was as full of interest to the spectator as
it was full of desperate chances and hairbreadth escapes to the
participant. We gave up dancing, finally.
We celebrated a lady's birthday anniversary with toasts, speeches, a
poem, and so forth. We also had a mock trial. No ship ever went to
sea that hadn't a mock trial on board. The purser was accused of
stealing an overcoat from stateroom No. 10. A judge was appointed;
also clerks, a crier of the court, constables, sheriffs; counsel for
the State and for the defendant; witnesses were subpoenaed, and a
jury empaneled after much challenging. The witnesses were stupid and
unreliable and contradictory, as witnesses always are. The counsel
were eloquent, argumentative, and vindictively abusive of each
other, as was characteristic and proper. The case was at last
submitted and duly finished by the judge with an absurd decision and
a ridiculous sentence.
The acting of charades was tried on several evenings by the young
gentlemen and ladies, in the cabins, and proved the most
distinguished success of all the amusement experiments.
An attempt was made to organize a debating club, but it was a
failure. There was no oratorical talent in the ship.
We all enjoyed ourselves -- I think I can safely say that, but it
was in a rather quiet way. We very, very seldom played the piano; we
played the flute and the clarinet together, and made good music,
too, what there was of it, but we always played the same old tune;
it was a very pretty tune -- how well I remember it -- I wonder when
I shall ever get rid of it. We never played either the melodeon or
the organ except at devotions -- but I am too fast: young Albert did
know part of a tune something about "O Something-Or-Other How Sweet
It Is to Know That He's His What's-his-Name" (I do not remember the
exact title of it, but it was very plaintive and full of sentiment);
Albert played that pretty much all the time until we contracted with
him to restrain himself. But nobody ever sang by moonlight on the
upper deck, and the congregational singing at church and prayers was
not of a superior order of architecture. I put up with it as long as
I could and then joined in and tried to improve it, but this
encouraged young George to join in too, and that made a failure of
it; because George's voice was just "turning," and when he was
singing a dismal sort of bass it was apt to fly off the handle and
startle everybody with a most discordant cackle on the upper notes.
George didn't know the tunes, either, which was also a drawback to
his performances. I said:
"Come, now, George, don't improvise. It looks too egotistical. It
will provoke remark. Just stick to 'Coronation,' like the others. It
is a good tune -- you can't improve it any, just off-hand, in this
way."
"Why, I'm not trying to improve it -- and I am singing like the
others -- just as it is in the notes."
And he honestly thought he was, too; and so he had no one to blame
but himself when his voice caught on the center occasionally and
gave him the lockjaw.
There were those among the unregenerated who attributed the
unceasing head-winds to our distressing choir-music. There were
those who said openly that it was taking chances enough to have such
ghastly music going on, even when it was at its best; and that to
exaggerate the crime by letting George help was simply flying in the
face of Providence. These said that the choir would keep up their
lacerating attempts at melody until they would bring down a storm
some day that would sink the ship.
There were even grumblers at the prayers. The executive officer said
the pilgrims had no charity:
"There they are, down there every night at. eight bells, praying for
fair winds -- when they know as well as I do that this is the only
ship going east this time of the year, but there's a thousand coming
west -- what's a fair wind for us is a head wind to them -- the
Almighty's blowing a fair wind for a thousand vessels, and this
tribe wants him to turn it clear around so as to accommodate one --
and she a steamship at that! It ain't good sense, it ain't good
reason, it ain't good Christianity, it ain't common human charity.
Avast with such nonsense!"
CHAPTER V

TAKING it "by and large," as the sailors say, we had a pleasant ten
days' run from New York to the Azores islands -- not a fast run, for
the distance is only twenty-four hundred miles, but a right pleasant
one in the main. True, we had head winds all the time, and several
stormy experiences which sent fifty percent of the passengers to bed
sick and made the ship look dismal and deserted -- stormy
experiences that all will remember who weathered them on the
tumbling deck and caught the vast sheets of spray that every now and
then sprang high in air from the weather bow and swept the ship like
a thunder-shower; but for the most part we had balmy summer weather
and nights that were even finer than the days. We had the phenomenon
of a full moon located just in the same spot in the heavens at the
same hour every night. The reason of this singular conduct on the
part of the moon did not occur to us at first, but it did afterward
when we reflected that we were gaining about twenty minutes every
day because we were going east so fast -- we gained just about
enough every day to keep along with the moon. It was becoming an old
moon to the friends we had left behind us, but to us Joshuas it
stood still in the same place and remained always the same.
Young Mr. Blucher, who is from the Far West and is on his first
voyage, was a good deal worried by the constantly changing "ship
time." He was proud of his new watch at first and used to drag it
out promptly when eight bells struck at noon, but he came to look
after a while as if he were losing confidence in it. Seven days out
from New York he came on deck and said with great decision:
"This thing's a swindle!"
"What's a swindle?"
"Why, this watch. I bought her out in Illinois -- gave $150 for her
-- and I thought she was good. And, by George, she is good onshore,
but somehow she don't keep up her lick here on the water -- gets
seasick may be. She skips; she runs along regular enough till
half-past eleven, and then, all of a sudden, she lets down. I've set
that old regulator up faster and faster, till I've shoved it clear
around, but it don't do any good; she just distances every watch in
the ship, and clatters along in a way that's astonishing till it is
noon, but them eight bells always gets in about ten minutes ahead of
her anyway. I don't know what to do with her now. She's doing all
she can -- she's going her best gait, but it won't save her. Now,
don't you know, there ain't a watch in the ship that's making better
time than she is, but what does it signify? When you hear them eight
bells you'll find her just about ten minutes short of her score
sure."
The ship was gaining a full hour every three days, and this fellow
was trying to make his watch go fast enough to keep up to her. But,
as he had said, he had pushed the regulator up as far as it would
go, and the watch was "on its best gait," and so nothing was left
him but to fold his hands and see the ship beat the race. We sent
him to the captain, and he explained to him the mystery of "ship
time" and set his troubled mind at rest. This young man asked a
great many questions about seasickness before we left, and wanted to
know what its characteristics were and how he was to tell when he
had it. He found out.
We saw the usual sharks, blackfish, porpoises, &c., of course, and
by and by large schools of Portuguese men-of-war were added to the
regular list of sea wonders. Some of them were white and some of a
brilliant carmine color. The nautilus is nothing but a transparent
web of jelly that spreads itself to catch the wind, and has
fleshy-looking strings a foot or two long dangling from it to keep
it steady in the water. It is an accomplished sailor and has good
sailor judgment. It reefs its sail when a storm threatens or the
wind blows pretty hard, and furls it entirely and goes down when a
gale blows. Ordinarily it keeps its sail wet and in good sailing
order by turning over and dipping it in the water for a moment.
Seamen say the nautilus is only found in these waters between the
35th and 45th parallels of latitude.
At three o'clock on the morning of the twenty-first of June, we were
awakened and notified that the Azores islands were in sight. I said
I did not take any interest in islands at three o'clock in the
morning. But another persecutor came, and then another and another,
and finally believing that the general enthusiasm would permit no
one to slumber in peace, I got up and went sleepily on deck. It was
five and a half o'clock now, and a raw, blustering morning. The
passengers were huddled about the smoke-stacks and fortified behind
ventilators, and all were wrapped in wintry costumes and looking
sleepy and unhappy in the pitiless gale and the drenching spray.
The island in sight was Flores. It seemed only a mountain of mud
standing up out of the dull mists of the sea. But as we bore down
upon it the sun came out and made it a beautiful picture -- a mass
of green farms and meadows that swelled up to a height of fifteen
hundred feet and mingled its upper outlines with the clouds. It was
ribbed with sharp, steep ridges and cloven with narrow canyons, and
here and there on the heights, rocky upheavals shaped themselves
into mimic battlements and castles; and out of rifted clouds came
broad shafts of sunlight, that painted summit, and slope and glen,
with bands of fire, and left belts of somber shade between. It was
the aurora borealis of the frozen pole exiled to a summer land!
We skirted around two-thirds of the island, four miles from shore,
and all the opera glasses in the ship were called into requisition
to settle disputes as to whether mossy spots on the uplands were
groves of trees or groves of weeds, or whether the white villages
down by the sea were really villages or only the clustering
tombstones of cemeteries. Finally we stood to sea and bore away for
San Miguel, and Flores shortly became a dome of mud again and sank
down among the mists, and disappeared. But to many a seasick
passenger it was good to see the green hills again, and all were
more cheerful after this episode than anybody could have expected
them to be, considering how sinfully early they had gotten up.
But we had to change our purpose about San Miguel, for a storm came
up about noon that so tossed and pitched the vessel that common
sense dictated a run for shelter. Therefore we steered for the
nearest island of the group -- Fayal (the people there pronounce it
Fy-all, and put the accent on the first syllable). We anchored in
the open roadstead of Horta, half a mile from the shore. The town
has eight thousand to ten thousand inhabitants. Its snow-white
houses nestle cosily in a sea of fresh green vegetation, and no
village could look prettier or more attractive. It sits in the lap
of an amphitheater of hills which are three hundred to seven hundred
feet high, and carefully cultivated clear to their summits -- not a
foot of soil left idle. Every farm and every acre is cut up into
little square inclosures by stone walls, whose duty it is to protect
the growing products from the destructive gales that blow there.
These hundreds of green squares, marked by their black lava walls,
make the hills look like vast checkerboards.
The islands belong to Portugal, and everything in Fayal has
Portuguese characteristics about it. But more of that anon. A swarm
of swarthy, noisy, lying, shoulder-shrugging, gesticulating
Portuguese boatmen, with brass rings in their ears and fraud in
their hearts, climbed the ship's sides, and various parties of us
contracted with them to take us ashore at so much a head, silver
coin of any country. We landed under the walls of a little fort,
armed with batteries of twelve-and thirty-two-pounders, which Horta
considered a most formidable institution, but if we were ever to get
after it with one of our turreted monitors, they would have to move
it out in the country if they wanted it where they could go and find
it again when they needed it. The group on the pier was a rusty one
-- men and women, and boys and girls, all ragged and barefoot,
uncombed and unclean, and by instinct, education, and profession
beggars. They trooped after us, and never more while we tarried in
Fayal did we get rid of them. We walked up the middle of the
principal street, and these vermin surrounded us on all sides and
glared upon us; and every moment excited couples shot ahead of the
procession to get a good look back, just as village boys do when
they accompany the elephant on his advertising trip from street to
street. It was very flattering to me to be part of the material for
such a sensation. Here and there in the doorways we saw women with
fashionable Portuguese hoods on. This hood is of thick blue cloth,
attached to a cloak of the same stuff, and is a marvel of ugliness.
It stands up high and spreads far abroad, and is unfathomably deep.
It fits like a circus tent, and a woman's head is hidden away in it
like the man's who prompts the singers from his tin shed in the
stage of an opera. There is no particle of trimming about this
monstrous capote, as they call it -- it is just a plain, ugly
dead-blue mass of sail, and a woman can't go within eight points of
the wind with one of them on; she has to go before the wind or not
at all. The general style of the capote is the same in all the
islands, and will remain so for the next ten thousand years, but
each island shapes its capotes just enough differently from the
others to enable an observer to tell at a glance what particular
island a lady hails from.
The Portuguese pennies, or reis (pronounced rays), are prodigious.
It takes one thousand reis to make a dollar, and all financial
estimates are made in reis. We did not know this until after we had
found it out through Blucher. Blucher said he was so happy and so
grateful to be on solid land once more that he wanted to give a
feast -- said he had heard it was a cheap land, and he was bound to
have a grand banquet. He invited nine of us, and we ate an excellent
dinner at the principal hotel. In the midst of the jollity produced
by good cigars, good wine, and passable anecdotes, the landlord
presented his bill. Blucher glanced at it and his countenance fell.
He took another look to assure himself that his senses had not
deceived him and then read the items aloud, in a faltering voice,
while the roses in his cheeks turned to ashes:
"'Ten dinners, at 600 reis, 6,000 reis!' Ruin and desolation!
" 'Twenty-five cigars, at 100 reis, 2,500 reis!' Oh, my sainted
mother!
"'Eleven bottles of wine, at 1,200 reis, 13,200 reis!' Be with us
all!
"'TOTAL, TWENTY-ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED REIS!' The suffering
Moses! There ain't money enough in the ship to pay that bill! Go --
leave me to my misery, boys, I am a ruined community."
I think it was the blankest-looking party I ever saw. Nobody could
say a word. It was as if every soul had been stricken dumb. Wine
glasses descended slowly to the table, their contents untasted.
Cigars dropped unnoticed from nerveless fingers. Each man sought his
neighbor's eye, but found in it no ray of hope, no encouragement. At
last the fearful silence was broken. The shadow of a desperate
resolve settled upon Blucher's countenance like a cloud, and he rose
up and said:
"Landlord, this is a low, mean swindle, and I'll never, never stand
it. Here's a hundred and fifty dollars, Sir, and it's all you'll get
-- I'll swim in blood before I'll pay a cent more."
Our spirits rose and the landlord's fell -- at least we thought so;
he was confused, at any rate, notwithstanding he had not understood
a word that had been said. He glanced from the little pile of gold
pieces to Blucher several times and then went out. He must have
visited an American, for when he returned, he brought back his bill
translated into a language that a Christian could understand --
thus:
10 dinners, 6,000 reis, or . . . .$6.00 25 cigars, 2,500 reis, or .
. . .2.50 11 bottles wine, 13,200 reis, or . . . .13.20 Total 21,700
reis, or . . . .$21.70 Happiness reigned once more in Blucher's
dinner party. More refreshments were ordered.
CHAPTER VI

I THINK the Azores must be very little known in America. Out of our
whole ship's company there was not a solitary individual who knew
anything whatever about them. Some of the party, well read
concerning most other lands, had no other information about the
Azores than that they were a group of nine or ten small islands far
out in the Atlantic, something more than halfway between New York
and Gibraltar. That was all. These considerations move me to put in
a paragraph of dry facts just here.
The community is eminently Portuguese -- that is to say, it is slow,
poor, shiftless, sleepy, and lazy. There is a civil governor,
appointed by the King of Portugal, and also a military governor, who
can assume supreme control and suspend the civil government at his
pleasure. The islands contain a population of about 200,000, almost
entirely Portuguese. Everything is staid and settled, for the
country was one hundred years old when Columbus discovered America.
The principal crop is corn, and they raise it and grind it just as
their great-great-great-grandfathers did. They plow with a board
slightly shod with iron; their trifling little harrows are drawn by
men and women; small windmills grind the corn, ten bushels a day,
and there is one assistant superintendent to feed the mill and a
general superintendent to stand by and keep him from going to sleep.
When the wind changes they hitch on some donkeys and actually turn
the whole upper half of the mill around until the sails are in
proper position, instead of fixing the concern so that the sails
could be moved instead of the mill. Oxen tread the wheat from the
ear, after the fashion prevalent in the time of Methuselah. There is
not a wheelbarrow in the land -- they carry everything on their
heads, or on donkeys, or in a wicker-bodied cart, whose wheels are
solid blocks of wood and whose axles turn with the wheel. There is
not a modern plow in the islands or a threshing machine. All
attempts to introduce them have failed. The good Catholic Portuguese
crossed himself and prayed God to shield him from all blasphemous
desire to know more than his father did before him. The climate is
mild; they never have snow or ice, and I saw no chimneys in the
town. The donkeys and the men, women, and children of a family all
eat and sleep in the same room, and are unclean, are ravaged by
vermin, and are truly happy. The people lie, and cheat the stranger,
and are desperately ignorant, and have hardly any reverence for
their dead. The latter trait shows how little better they are than
the donkeys they eat and sleep with. The only well-dressed
Portuguese in the camp are the half a dozen well-to-do families, the
Jesuit priests, and the soldiers of the little garrison. The wages
of a laborer are twenty to twenty-four cents a day, and those of a
good mechanic about twice as much. They count it in reis at a
thousand to the dollar, and this makes them rich and contented. Fine
grapes used to grow in the islands, and an excellent wine was made
and exported. But a disease killed all the vines fifteen years ago,
and since that time no wine has been made. The islands being wholly
of volcanic origin, the soil is necessarily very rich. Nearly every
foot of ground is under cultivation, and two or three crops a year
of each article are produced, but nothing is exported save a few
oranges -- chiefly to England. Nobody comes here, and nobody goes
away. News is a thing unknown in Fayal. A thirst for it is a passion
equally unknown. A Portuguese of average intelligence inquired if
our civil war was over. Because, he said, somebody had told him it
was -- or at least it ran in his mind that somebody had told him
something like that! And when a passenger gave an officer of the
garrison copies of the Tribune, the Herald, and Times, he was
surprised to find later news in them from Lisbon than he had just
received by the little monthly steamer. He was told that it came by
cable. He said he knew they had tried to lay a cable ten years ago,
but it had been in his mind somehow that they hadn't succeeded!
It is in communities like this that Jesuit humbuggery flourishes. We
visited a Jesuit cathedral nearly two hundred years old and found in
it a piece of the veritable cross upon which our Saviour was
crucified. It was polished and hard, and in as excellent a state of
preservation as if the dread tragedy on Calvary had occurred
yesterday instead of eighteen centuries ago. But these confiding
people believe in that piece of wood unhesitatingly.
In a chapel of the cathedral is an altar with facings of solid
silver -- at least they call it so, and I think myself it would go a
couple of hundred to the ton (to speak after the fashion of the
silver miners) -- and before it is kept forever burning a small
lamp. A devout lady who died, left money and contracted for
unlimited masses for the repose of her soul, and also stipulated
that this lamp should be kept lighted always, day and night. She did
all this before she died, you understand. It is a very small lamp
and a very dim one, and it could not work her much damage, I think,
if it went out altogether.
The great altar of the cathedral and also three or four minor ones
are a perfect mass of gilt gimcracks and gingerbread. And they have
a swarm of rusty, dusty, battered apostles standing around the
filagree work, some on one leg and some with one eye out but a gamey
look in the other, and some with two or three fingers gone, and some
with not enough nose left to blow -- all of them crippled and
discouraged, and fitter subjects for the hospital than the
cathedral.
The walls of the chancel are of porcelain, all pictured over with
figures of almost life size, very elegantly wrought and dressed in
the fanciful costumes of two centuries ago. The design was a history
of something or somebody, but none of us were learned enough to read
the story. The old father, reposing under a stone close by, dated
1686, might have told us if he could have risen. But he didn't.
As we came down through the town we encountered a squad of little
donkeys ready saddled for use. The saddles were peculiar, to say the
least. They consisted of a sort of saw-buck with a small mattress on
it, and this furniture covered about half the donkey. There were no
stirrups, but really such supports were not needed -- to use such a
saddle was the next thing to riding a dinner table -- there was
ample support clear out to one's knee joints. A pack of ragged
Portuguese muleteers crowded around us, offering their beasts at
half a dollar an hour -- more rascality to the stranger, for the
market price is sixteen cents. Half a dozen of us mounted the
ungainly affairs and submitted to the indignity of making a
ridiculous spectacle of ourselves through the principal streets of a
town of 10,000 inhabitants.
We started. It was not a trot, a gallop, or a canter, but a
stampede, and made up of all possible or conceivable gaits. No spurs
were necessary. There was a muleteer to every donkey and a dozen
volunteers beside, and they banged the donkeys with their goad
sticks, and pricked them with their spikes, and shouted something
that sounded like "Sekki-yah!" and kept up a din and a racket that
was worse than Bedlam itself. These rascals were all on foot, but no
matter, they were always up to time -- they can outrun and outlast a
donkey. Altogether, ours was a lively and a picturesque procession,
and drew crowded audiences to the balconies wherever we went.
Blucher could do nothing at all with his donkey. The beast scampered
zigzag across the road and the others ran into him; he scraped
Blucher against carts and the corners of houses; the road was fenced
in with high stone walls, and the donkey gave him a polishing first
on one side and then on the other, but never once took the middle;
he finally came to the house he was born in and darted into the
parlor, scraping Blucher off at the doorway. After remounting,
Blucher said to the muleteer, "Now, that's enough, you know; you go
slow hereafter." But the fellow knew no English and did not
understand, so he simply said, "Sekki-yah!" and the donkey was off
again like a shot. He turned a comer suddenly, and Blucher went over
his head. And, to speak truly, every mule stumbled over the two, and
the whole cavalcade was piled up in a heap. No harm done. A fall
from one of those donkeys is of little more consequence than rolling
off a sofa. The donkeys all stood still after the catastrophe and
waited for their dismembered saddles to be patched up and put on by
the noisy muleteers. Blucher was pretty angry and wanted to swear,
but every time he opened his mouth his animal did so also and let
off a series of brays that drowned all other sounds.
It was fun, scurrying around the breezy hills and through the
beautiful canyons. There was that rare thing, novelty, about it; it
was a fresh, new, exhilarating sensation, this donkey riding, and
worth a hundred worn and threadbare home pleasures.
The roads were a wonder, and well they might be. Here was an island
with only a handful of people in it -- 25,000 -- and yet such fine
roads do not exist in the United States outside of Central Park.
Everywhere you go, in any direction, you find either a hard, smooth,
level thoroughfare, just sprinkled with black lava sand, and
bordered with little gutters neatly paved with small smooth pebbles,
or compactly paved ones like Broadway. They talk much of the Russ
pavement in New York, and call it a new invention -- yet here they
have been using it in this remote little isle of the sea for two
hundred years! Every street in Horta is handsomely paved with the
heavy Russ blocks, and the surface is neat and true as a floor --
not marred by holes like Broadway. And every road is fenced in by
tall, solid lava walls, which will last a thousand years in this
land where frost is unknown. They are very thick, and are often
plastered and whitewashed and capped with projecting slabs of cut
stone. Trees from gardens above hang their swaying tendrils down,
and contrast their bright green with the whitewash or the black lava
of the walls and make them beautiful. The trees and vines stretch
across these narrow roadways sometimes and so shut out the sun that
you seem to be riding through a tunnel. The pavements, the roads,
and the bridges are all government work.
The bridges are of a single span -- a single arch -- of cut stone,
without a support, and paved on top with flags of lava and
ornamental pebblework. Everywhere are walls, walls, walls, and all
of them tasteful and handsome -- and eternally substantial; and
everywhere are those marvelous pavements, so neat, so smooth, and so
indestructible. And if ever roads and streets and the outsides of
houses were perfectly free from any sign or semblance of dirt, or
dust, or mud, or uncleanliness of any kind, it is Horta, it is
Fayal. The lower classes of the people, in their persons and their
domiciles, are not clean -- but there it stops -- the town and the
island are miracles of cleanliness.
We arrived home again finally, after a ten-mile excursion, and the
irrepressible muleteers scampered at our heels through the main
street, goading the donkeys, shouting the everlasting "Sekki-yah,"
and singing "John Brown's Body" in ruinous English.
When we were dismounted and it came to settling, the shouting and
jawing and swearing and quarreling among the muleteers and with us
was nearly deafening. One fellow would demand a dollar an hour for
the use of his donkey; another claimed half a dollar for pricking
him up, another a quarter for helping in that service, and about
fourteen guides presented bills for showing us the way through the
town and its environs; and every vagrant of them was more
vociferous, and more vehement and more frantic in gesture than his
neighbor. We paid one guide and paid for one muleteer to each
donkey.
The mountains on some of the islands are very high. We sailed along
the shore of the island of Pico, under a stately green pyramid that
rose up with one unbroken sweep from our very feet to an altitude of
7,613 feet, and thrust its summit above the white clouds like an
island adrift in a fog!
We got plenty of fresh oranges, lemons, figs, apricots, etc., in
these Azores, of course. But I will desist. I am not here to write
Patent Office reports.
We are on our way to Gibraltar, and shall reach there five or six
days out from the Azores.
CHAPTER VII

A WEEK of buffeting a tempestuous and relentless sea; a week of

seasickness and deserted cabins; of lonely quarterdecks drenched
with spray -- spray so ambitious that it even coated the smokestacks
thick with a white crust of salt to their very tops; a week of
shivering in the shelter of the lifeboats and deckhouses by day and
blowing suffocating "clouds" and boisterously performing at dominoes
in the smoking room at night.
And the last night of the seven was the stormiest of all. There was
no thunder, no noise but the pounding bows of the ship, the keen
whistling of the gale through the cordage, and the rush of the
seething waters. But the vessel climbed aloft as if she would climb
to heaven -- then paused an instant that seemed a century and
plunged headlong down again, as from a precipice. The sheeted sprays
drenched the decks like rain. The blackness of darkness was
everywhere. At long intervals a flash of lightning clove it with a
quivering line of fire that revealed a heaving world of water where
was nothing before, kindled the dusky cordage to glittering silver,
and lit up the faces of the men with a ghastly luster!
Fear drove many on deck that were used to avoiding the night winds
and the spray. Some thought the vessel could not live through the
night, and it seemed less dreadful to stand out in the midst of the
wild tempest and see the peril that threatened than to be shut up in
the sepulchral cabins, under the dim lamps, and imagine the horrors
that were abroad on the ocean. And once out -- once where they could
see the ship struggling in the strong grasp of the storm -- once
where they could hear the shriek of the winds and face the driving
spray and look out upon the majestic picture the lightnings
disclosed, they were prisoners to a fierce fascination they could
not resist, and so remained. It was a wild night -- and a very, very
long one.
Everybody was sent scampering to the deck at seven o'clock this
lovely morning of the thirtieth of June with the glad news that land
was in sight! It was a rare thing and a joyful, to see all the
ship's family abroad once more, albeit the happiness that sat upon
every countenance could only partly conceal the ravages which that
long siege of storms had wrought there. But dull eyes soon sparkled
with pleasure, pallid cheeks flushed again, and frames weakened by
sickness gathered new life from the quickening influences of the
bright, fresh morning. Yea, and from a still more potent influence:
the worn castaways were to see the blessed land again! -- and to see
it was to bring back that motherland that was in all their thoughts.

Within the hour we were fairly within the Straits of Gibraltar, the
tall yellow-splotched hills of Africa on our right, with their bases
veiled in a blue haze and their summits swathed in clouds -- the
same being according to Scripture, which says that "clouds and
darkness are over the land." The words were spoken of this
particular portion of Africa, I believe. On our left were the
granite-ribbed domes of old Spain. The strait is only thirteen miles
wide in its narrowest part.
At short intervals along the Spanish shore were quaint-looking old
stone towers -- Moorish, we thought -- but learned better
afterwards. In former times the Morocco rascals used to coast along
the Spanish Main in their boats till a safe opportunity seemed to
present itself, and then dart in and capture a Spanish village and
carry off all the pretty women they could find. It was a pleasant
business, and was very popular. The Spaniards built these
watchtowers on the hills to enable them to keep a sharper lookout on
the Moroccan speculators.
The picture on the other hand was very beautiful to eyes weary of
the changeless sea, and by and by the ship's company
grew wonderfully cheerful. But while we stood admiring the
cloud-capped peaks and the lowlands robed in misty gloom a finer
picture burst upon us and chained every eye like a magnet -- a
stately ship, with canvas piled on canvas till she was one towering
mass of bellying sail! She came speeding over the sea like a great
bird. Africa and Spain were forgotten. All homage was for the
beautiful stranger. While everybody gazed she swept superbly by and
flung the Stars and Stripes to the breeze! Quicker than thought,
hats and handkerchiefs flashed in the air, and a cheer went up! She
was beautiful before -- she was radiant now. Many a one on our decks
knew then for the first time how tame a sight his country's flag is
at home compared to what it is in a foreign land. To see it is to
see a vision of home itself and all its idols, and feel a thrill
that would stir a very river of sluggish blood!
We were approaching the famed Pillars of Hercules, and already the
African one, "Ape's Hill," a grand old mountain with summit streaked
with granite ledges, was in sight. The other, the great Rock of
Gibraltar, was yet to come. The ancients considered the Pillars of
Hercules the head of navigation and the end of the world. The
information the ancients didn't have was very voluminous. Even the
prophets wrote book after book and epistle after epistle, yet never
once hinted at the existence of a great continent on our side of the
water; yet they must have known it was there, I should think.
In a few moments a lonely and enormous mass of rock, standing
seemingly in the center of the wide strait and apparently washed on
all sides by the sea, swung magnificently into view, and we needed
no tedious traveled parrot to tell us it was Gibraltar. There could
not be two rocks like that in one kingdom.
The Rock of Gibraltar is about a mile and a half long, I should say,
by 1,400 to 1,500 feet high, and a quarter of a mile wide at its
base. One side and one end of it come about as straight up out of
the sea as the side of a house, the other end is irregular and the
other side is a steep slant which an army would find very difficult
to climb. At the foot of this slant is the walled town of Gibraltar
-- or rather the town occupies part of the slant. Everywhere -- on
hillside, in the precipice, by the sea, on the heights -- everywhere
you choose to look, Gibraltar is clad with masonry and bristling
with guns. It makes a striking and lively picture from whatsoever
point you contemplate it. It is pushed out into the sea on the end
of a flat, narrow strip of land, and is suggestive of a "gob" of mud
on the end of a shingle. A few hundred yards of this flat ground at
its base belongs to the English, and then, extending across the
strip from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, a distance of a
quarter of a mile, comes the "Neutral Ground," a space two or three
hundred yards wide, which is free to both parties.
"Are you going through Spain to Paris?" That question was bandied
about the ship day and night from Fayal to Gibraltar, and I thought
I never could get so tired of hearing any one combination of words
again or more tired of answering, "I don't know." At the last moment
six or seven had sufficient decision of character to make up their
minds to go, and did go, and I felt a sense of relief at once -- it
was forever too late now and I could make up my mind at my leisure
not to go. I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as
much as a week sometimes to make it up.
But behold how annoyances repeat themselves. We had no sooner gotten
rid of the Spain distress than the Gibraltar guides started another
-- a tiresome repetition of a legend that had nothing very
astonishing about it, even in the first place: "That high hill
yonder is called the Queen's Chair; it is because one of the queens
of Spain placed her chair there when the French and Spanish troops
were besieging Gibraltar, and said she would never move from the
spot till the English flag was lowered from the fortresses. If the
English hadn't been gallant enough to lower the flag for a few hours
one day, she'd have had to break her oath or die up there."
We rode on asses and mules up the steep, narrow streets and entered
the subterranean galleries the English have blasted out in the rock.
These galleries are like spacious railway tunnels, and at short
intervals in them great guns frown out upon sea and town through
portholes five or six hundred feet above the ocean. There is a mile
or so of this subterranean work, and it must have cost a vast deal
of money and labor. The gallery guns command the peninsula and the
harbors of both oceans, but they might as well not be there, I
should think, for an army could hardly climb the perpendicular wall
of the rock anyhow. Those lofty portholes afford superb views of the
sea, though. At one place, where a jutting crag was hollowed out
into a great chamber whose furniture was huge cannon and whose
windows were portholes, a glimpse was caught of a hill not far away,
and a soldier said:
"That high hill yonder is called the Queen's Chair; it is because a
queen of Spain placed her chair there once when the French and
Spanish troops were besieging Gibraltar, and said she would never
move from the spot till the English flag was lowered from the
fortresses. If the English hadn't been gallant enough to lower the
flag for a few hours one day, she'd have had to break her oath or
die up there."
On the topmost pinnacle of Gibraltar we halted a good while, and no
doubt the mules were tired. They had a right to be. The military
road was good, but rather steep, and there was a good deal of it.
The view from the narrow ledge was magnificent; from it vessels
seeming like the tiniest little toy boats were turned into noble
ships by the telescopes, and other vessels that were fifty miles
away and even sixty, they said, and invisible to the naked eye,
could be clearly distinguished through those same telescopes. Below,
on one side, we looked down upon an endless mass of batteries and on
the other straight down to the sea.
While I was resting ever so comfortably on a rampart, and cooling my
baking head in the delicious breeze, an officious guide belonging to
another party came up and said:
"Señor, that high hill yonder is called the Queen's Chair -- "
"Sir, I am a helpless orphan in a foreign land. Have pity on me.
Don't -- now don't inflict that most in-FERNAL old legend on me
anymore today!"
There -- I had used strong language after promising I would never do
so again; but the provocation was more than human nature could bear.
If you had been bored so, when you had the noble panorama of Spain
and Africa and the blue Mediterranean spread abroad at your feet,
and wanted to gaze and enjoy and surfeit yourself in its beauty in
silence, you might have even burst into stronger language than I
did.
Gibraltar has stood several protracted sieges, one of them of nearly
four years' duration (it failed), and the English only captured it
by stratagem. The wonder is that anybody should ever dream of trying
so impossible a project as the taking it by assault -- and yet it
has been tried more than once.
The Moors held the place twelve hundred years ago, and a staunch old
castle of theirs of that date still frowns from the middle of the
town, with moss-grown battlements and sides well scarred by shots
fired in battles and sieges that are forgotten now. A secret chamber
in the rock behind it was discovered some time ago, which contained
a sword of exquisite workmanship, and some quaint old armor of a
fashion that antiquaries are not acquainted with, though it is
supposed to be Roman. Roman armor and Roman relics of various kinds
have been found in a cave in the sea extremity of Gibraltar; history
says Rome held this part of the country about the Christian era, and
these things seem to confirm the statement.
In that cave also are found human bones, crusted with a very thick,
stony coating, and wise men have ventured to say that those men not
only lived before the flood, but as much as ten thousand years
before it. It may be true -- it looks reasonable enough -- but as
long as those parties can't vote anymore, the matter can be of no
great public interest. In this cave likewise are found skeletons and
fossils of animals that exist in every part of Africa, yet within
memory and tradition have never existed in any portion of Spain save
this lone peak of Gibraltar! So the theory is that the channel
between Gibraltar and Africa was once dry land, and that the low,
neutral neck between Gibraltar and the Spanish hills behind it was
once ocean, and of course that these African animals, being over at
Gibraltar (after rock, perhaps -- there is plenty there), got closed
out when the great change occurred. The hills in Africa, across the
channel, are full of apes, and there are now and always have been
apes on the rock of Gibraltar -- but not elsewhere in Spain! The
subject is an interesting one.
There is an English garrison at Gibraltar of 6,000 or 7,000 men, and
so uniforms of flaming red are plenty; and red and blue, and undress
costumes of snowy white, and also the queer uniform of the
bare-kneed Highlander; and one sees soft-eyed Spanish girls from San
Roque, and veiled Moorish beauties (I suppose they are beauties)
from Tarifa, and turbaned, sashed, and trousered Moorish merchants
from Fez, and long-robed, bare-legged, ragged Muhammadan vagabonds
from Tetuán and Tangier, some brown, some yellow and some as black
as virgin ink -- and Jews from all around, in gabardine, skullcap,
and slippers, just as they are in pictures and theaters, and just as
they were three thousand years ago, no doubt. You can easily
understand that a tribe (somehow our pilgrims suggest that
expression, because they march in a straggling procession through
these foreign places with such an Indian-like air of complacency and
independence about them) like ours, made up from fifteen or sixteen
states of the Union, found enough to stare at in this shifting
panorama of fashion today.
Speaking of our pilgrims reminds me that we have one or two people
among us who are sometimes an annoyance. However, I do not count the
Oracle in that list. I will explain that the Oracle is an innocent
old ass who eats for four and looks wiser than the whole Academy of
France would have any right to look, and never uses a one-syllable
word when he can think of a longer one, and never by any possible
chance knows the meaning of any long word he uses or ever gets it in
the right place; yet he will serenely venture an opinion on the most
abstruse subject and back it up complacently with quotations from
authors who never existed, and finally when cornered will slide to
the other side of the question, say he has been there all the time,
and come back at you with your own spoken arguments, only with the
big words all tangled, and play them in your very teeth as original
with himself. He reads a chapter in the guidebooks, mixes the facts
all up, with his bad memory, and then goes off to inflict the whole
mess on somebody as wisdom which has been festering in his brain for
years and which he gathered in college from erudite authors who are
dead now and out of print. This morning at breakfast he pointed out
of the window and said:
"Do you see that there hill out there on that African coast? It's
one of them Pillows of Herkewls, I should say -- and there's the
ultimate one alongside of it."
"The ultimate one -- that is a good word -- but the pillars are not
both on the same side of the strait." (I saw he had been deceived by
a carelessly written sentence in the guidebook.)
"Well, it ain't for you to say, nor for me. Some authors states it
that way, and some states it different. Old Gibbons don't say
nothing about it -- just shirks it complete -- Gibbons always done
that when he got stuck -- but there is Rolampton, what does he say?
Why, be says that they was both on the same side, and Trinculian,
and Sobaster, and Syraccus, and Langomarganbl -- -- "
"Oh, that will do -- that's enough. If you have got your hand in for
inventing authors and testimony, I have nothing more to say -- let
them be on the same side."
We don't mind the Oracle. We rather like him. We can tolerate the
Oracle very easily, but we have a poet and a good-natured
enterprising idiot on board, and they do distress the company. The
one gives copies of his verses to consuls, commanders, hotel
keepers, Arabs, Dutch -- to anybody, in fact, who will submit to a
grievous infliction most kindly meant. His poetry is all very well
on shipboard, notwithstanding when he wrote an "Ode to the Ocean in
a Storm" in one half hour, and an "Apostrophe to the Rooster in the
Waist of the Ship" in the next, the transition was considered to be
rather abrupt; but when he sends an invoice of rhymes to the
Governor of Fayal and another to the commander in chief and other
dignitaries in Gibraltar with the compliments of the Laureate of the
Ship, it is not popular with the passengers.
The other personage I have mentioned is young and green, and not
bright, not learned, and not wise. He will be, though, someday if he
recollects the answers to all his questions. He is known about the
ship as the "Interrogation Point," and this by constant use has
become shortened to "Interrogation." He has distinguished himself
twice already. In Fayal they pointed out a hill and told him it was
800 feet high and 1,100 feet long. And they told him there was a
tunnel 2,000 feet long and 1,000 feet high running through the hill,
from end to end. He believed it. He repeated it to everybody,
discussed it, and read it from his notes. Finally, he took a useful
hint from this remark, which a thoughtful old pilgrim made:
"Well, yes, it is a little remarkable -- singular tunnel altogether
-- stands up out of the top of the hill about two hundred feet, and
one end of it sticks out of the hill about nine hundred!"
Here in Gibraltar he comers these educated British officers and
badgers them with braggadocio about America and the wonders she can
perform! He told one of them a couple of our gunboats could come
here and knock Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea!
At this present moment half a dozen of us are taking a private
pleasure excursion of our own devising. We form rather more than
half the list of white passengers on board a small steamer bound for
the venerable Moorish town of Tangier, Africa. Nothing could be more
absolutely certain than that we are enjoying ourselves. One can not
do otherwise who speeds over these sparkling waters and breathes the
soft atmosphere of this sunny land. Care cannot assail us here. We
are out of its jurisdiction.
We even steamed recklessly by the frowning fortress of Malabat (a
stronghold of the Emperor of Morocco) without a twinge of fear. The
whole garrison turned out under arms and assumed a threatening
attitude -- yet still we did not fear. The entire garrison marched
and counter-marched within the rampart, in full view -- yet
notwithstanding even this, we never flinched.
I suppose we really do not know what fear is. I inquired the name of
the garrison of the fortress of Malabat, and they said it was
Mehemet Ali Ben Sancom. I said it would be a good idea to get some
more garrisons to help him; but they said no, he had nothing to do
but hold the place, and he was competent to do that, had done it two
years already. That was evidence which one could not well refute.
There is nothing like reputation.
Every now and then my glove purchase in Gibraltar last night
intrudes itself upon me. Dan and the ship's surgeon and I had been
up to the great square, listening to the music of the fine military
bands and contemplating English and Spanish female loveliness and
fashion, and at nine o'clock were on our way to the theater, when we
met the General, the Judge, the Commodore, the Colonel, and the
Commissioner of the United States of America to Europe, Asia, and
Africa, who had been to the Club House to register their several
titles and impoverish the bill of fare; and they told us to go over
to the little variety store near the Hall of Justice and buy some
kid gloves. They said they were elegant and very moderate in price.
It seemed a stylish thing to go to the theater in kid gloves, and we
acted upon the hint. A very handsome young lady in the store offered
me a pair of blue gloves. I did not want blue, but she said they
would look very pretty on a hand like mine. The remark touched me
tenderly. I glanced furtively at my hand, and somehow it did seem
rather a comely member. I tried a glove on my left and blushed a
little. Manifestly the size was too small for me. But I felt
gratified when she said:
"Oh, it is just right!" Yet I knew it was no such thing.
I tugged at it diligently, but it was discouraging work. She said:
"Ah! I see you are accustomed to wearing kid gloves -- but some
gentlemen are so awkward about putting them on."
It was the last compliment I had expected. I only understand putting
on the buckskin article perfectly. I made another effort and tore
the glove from the base of the thumb into the palm of the hand --
and tried to hide the rent. She kept up her compliments, and I kept
up my determination to deserve them or die:
"Ah, you have had experience! [A rip down the back of the hand.]
They are just right for you -- your hand is very small -- if they
tear you need not pay for them. [A rent across the middle.] I can
always tell when a gentleman understands putting on kid gloves.
There is a grace about it that only comes with long practice." The
whole after-guard of the glove "fetched away," as the sailors say,
the fabric parted across the knuckles, and nothing was left but a
melancholy ruin.
I was too much flattered to make an exposure and throw the
merchandise on the angel's hands. I was hot, vexed, confused, but
still happy; but I hated the other boys for taking such an absorbing
interest in the proceedings. I wished they were in Jericho. I felt
exquisitely mean when I said cheerfully:
"This one does very well; it fits elegantly. I like a glove that
fits. No, never mind, ma'am, never mind; I'll put the other on in
the street. It is warm here."
It was warm. It was the warmest place I ever was in. I paid the
bill, and as I passed out with a fascinating bow I thought I
detected a light in the woman's eye that was gently ironical; and
when I looked back from the street, and she was laughing all to
herself about something or other, I said to myself with withering
sarcasm, "Oh, certainly; you know how to put on kid gloves, don't
you? A self-complacent ass, ready to be flattered out of your senses
by every petticoat that chooses to take the trouble to do it!"
The silence of the boys annoyed me. Finally Dan said musingly:
"Some gentlemen don't know how to put on kid gloves at all, but some
do."
And the doctor said (to the moon, I thought):
"But it is always easy to tell when a gentleman is used to putting
on kid gloves."
Dan soliloquized after a pause:
"Ah, yes; there is a grace about it that only comes with long, very
long practice."
"Yes, indeed, I've noticed that when a man hauls on a kid glove like
he was dragging a cat out of an ash hole by the tail, he understands
putting on kid gloves; he's had ex -- -- "
"Boys, enough of a thing's enough! You think you are very smart, I
suppose, but I don't. And if you go and tell any of those old
gossips in the ship about this thing, I'll never forgive you for it;
that's all."
They let me alone then for the time being. We always let each other
alone in time to prevent ill feeling from spoiling a joke. But they
had bought gloves, too, as I did. We threw all the purchases away
together this morning. They were coarse, unsubstantial, freckled all
over with broad yellow splotches, and could neither stand wear nor
public exhibition. We had entertained an angel unawares, but we did
not take her in. She did that for us.
Tangier! A tribe of stalwart Moors are wading into the sea to carry
us ashore on their backs from the small boats.
CHAPTER VIII

THIS is royal! Let those who went up through Spain make the best of
it -- these dominions of the Emperor of Morocco suit our little
party well enough. We have had enough of Spain at Gibraltar for the
present. Tangier is the spot we have been longing for all the time.
Elsewhere we have found foreign-looking things and foreign-looking
people, but always with things and people intermixed that we were
familiar with before, and so the novelty of the situation lost a
deal of its force. We wanted something thoroughly and
uncompromisingly foreign -- foreign from top to bottom -- foreign
from center to circumference -- foreign inside and outside and all
around -- nothing anywhere about it to dilute its foreignness --
nothing to remind us of any other people or any other land under the
sun. And lo! In Tangier we have found it. Here is not the slightest
thing that ever we have seen save in pictures -- and we always
mistrusted the pictures before. We cannot anymore. The pictures used
to seem exaggerations -- they seemed too weird and fanciful for
reality. But behold, they were not wild enough -- they were not
fanciful enough -- they have not told half the story. Tangier is a
foreign land if ever there was one, and the true spirit of it can
never be found in any book save The Arabian Nights. Here are no
white men visible, yet swarms of humanity are all about us. Here is
a packed and jammed city enclosed in a massive stone wall which is
more than a thousand years old. All the houses nearly are one-and
two-story, made of thick walls of stone, plastered outside, square
as a dry-goods box, flat as a floor on top, no cornices, whitewashed
all over -- a crowded city of snowy tombs! And the doors are arched
with the peculiar arch we see in Moorish pictures; the floors are
laid in varicolored diamond flags; in tesselated, many-colored
porcelain squares wrought in the furnaces of Fez; in red tiles and
broad bricks that time cannot wear; there is no furniture in the
rooms (of Jewish dwellings) save divans -- what there is in Moorish
ones no man may know; within their sacred walls no Christian dog can
enter. And the streets are oriental -- some of them three feet wide,
some six, but only two that are over a dozen; a man can blockade the
most of them by extending his body across them. Isn't it an oriental
picture?
There are stalwart Bedouins of the desert here, and stately Moors
proud of a history that goes back to the night of time; and Jews
whose fathers fled hither centuries upon centuries ago; and swarthy
Riffians from the mountains -- born cut- throats -- and original,
genuine Negroes as black as Moses; and howling dervishes and a
hundred breeds of Arabs -- all sorts and descriptions of people that
are foreign and curious to look upon.
And their dresses are strange beyond all description. Here is a
bronzed Moor in a prodigious white turban, curiously embroidered
jacket, gold and crimson sash, of many folds, wrapped round and
round his waist, trousers that only come a little below his knee and
yet have twenty yards of stuff in them, ornamented scimitar, bare
shins, stockingless feet, yellow slippers, and gun of preposterous
length -- a mere soldier! -- I thought he was the Emperor at least.
And here are aged Moors with flowing white beards and long white
robes with vast cowls; and Bedouins with long, cowled, striped
cloaks; and Negroes and Riffians with heads clean-shaven except a
kinky scalp lock back of the ear or, rather, upon the after corner
of the skull; and all sorts of barbarians in all sorts of weird
costumes, and all more or less ragged. And here are Moorish women
who are enveloped from head to foot in coarse white robes, and whose
sex can only be determined by the fact that they only leave one eye
visible and never look at men of their own race, or are looked at by
them in public. Here are five thousand Jews in blue gabardines,
sashes about their waists, slippers upon their feet, little
skullcaps upon the backs of their heads, hair combed down on the
forehead, and cut straight across the middle of it from side to side
-- the selfsame fashion their Tangier ancestors have worn for I
don't know how many bewildering centuries. Their feet and ankles are
bare. Their noses are all hooked, and hooked alike. They all
resemble each other so much that one could almost believe they were
of one family. Their women are plump and pretty, and do smile upon a
Christian in a way which is in the last degree comforting.
What a funny old town it is! It seems like profanation to laugh and
jest and bandy the frivolous chat of our day amid its hoary relics.
Only the stately phraseology and the measured speech of the sons of
the Prophet are suited to a venerable antiquity like this. Here is a
crumbling wall that was old when Columbus discovered America; was
old when Peter the Hermit roused the knightly men of the Middle Ages
to arm for the first Crusade; was old when Charlemagne and his
paladins beleaguered enchanted castles and battled with giants and
genii in the fabled days of the olden time; was old when Christ and
his disciples walked the earth; stood where it stands today when the
lips of Memnon were vocal and men bought and sold in the streets of
ancient Thebes!
The Phoenicians, the Carthagenians, the English, Moors, Romans, all
have battled for Tangier -- all have won it and lost it. Here is a
ragged, oriental-looking Negro from some desert place in interior
Africa, filling his goatskin with water from a stained and battered
fountain built by the Romans twelve hundred years ago. Yonder is a
ruined arch of a bridge built by Julius Caesar nineteen hundred
years ago. Men who had seen the infant Saviour in the Virgin's arms
have stood upon it, maybe.
Near it are the ruins of a dockyard where Caesar repaired his ships
and loaded them with grain when he invaded Britain, fifty years
before the Christian era.
Here, under the quiet stars, these old streets seem thronged with
the phantoms of forgotten ages. My eyes are resting upon a spot
where stood a monument which was seen and described by Roman
historians less than two thousand years ago, whereon was inscribed:

"WE ARE THE CANAANITES. WE ARE THEY THAT HAVE BEEN DRIVEN
OUT OF THE LAND OF CANAAN BY THE JEWISH ROBBER, JOSHUA."
Joshua drove them out, and they came here. Not many leagues from here
is a tribe of Jews whose ancestors fled thither after an unsuccessful revolt
against King David, and these their descendants are still under a ban and
keep to themselves.
Tangier has been mentioned in history for three thousand years. And
it was a town, though a queer one, when Hercules, clad in his lion
skin, landed here, four thousand years ago. In these streets he met
Anitus, the king of the country, and brained him with his club,
which was the fashion among gentlemen in those days. The people of
Tangier (called Tingis then) lived in the rudest possible huts and
dressed in skins and carried clubs, and were as savage as the wild
beasts they were constantly obliged to war with. But they were a
gentlemanly race and did no work. They lived on the natural products
of the land. Their king's country residence was at the famous Garden
of Hesperides, seventy miles down the coast from here. The garden,
with its golden apples (oranges), is gone now -- no vestige of it
remains. Antiquarians concede that such a personage as Hercules did
exist in ancient times and agree that he was an enterprising and
energetic man, but decline to believe him a good, bona-fide god,
because that would be unconstitutional.
Down here at Cape Spartel is the celebrated cave of Hercules, where
that hero took refuge when he was vanquished and driven out of the
Tangier country. It is full of inscriptions in the dead languages,
which fact makes me think Hercules could not have traveled much,
else he would not have kept a journal.
Five days' journey from here -- say two hundred miles -- are the
ruins of an ancient city, of whose history there is neither record
nor tradition. And yet its arches, its columns, and its statues
proclaim it to have been built by an enlightened race.
The general size of a store in Tangier is about that of an ordinary
shower bath in a civilized land. The Muhammadan merchant, tinman,
shoemaker, or vendor of trifles sits cross-legged on the floor and
reaches after any article you may want to buy. You can rent a whole
block of these pigeonholes for fifty dollars a month. The market
people crowd the marketplace with their baskets of figs, dates,
melons, apricots, etc., and among them file trains of laden asses,
not much larger, if any, than a Newfoundland dog. The scene is
lively, is picturesque, and smells like a police court. The Jewish
money-changers have their dens close at hand, and all day long are
counting bronze coins and transferring them from one bushel basket
to another. They don't coin much money nowadays, I think. I saw none
but what was dated four or five hundred years back, and was badly
worn and battered. These coins are not very valuable. Jack went out
to get a napoleon changed, so as to have money suited to the general
cheapness of things, and came back and said he bad "swamped the
bank, had bought eleven quarts of coin, and the head of the firm had
gone on the street to negotiate for the balance of the change." I
bought nearly half a pint of their money for a shilling myself. I am
not proud on account of having so much money, though. I care nothing
for wealth.
The Moors have some small silver coins and also some silver slugs
worth a dollar each. The latter are exceedingly scarce -- so much so
that when poor ragged Arabs see one they beg to be allowed to kiss
it.
They have also a small gold coin worth two dollars. And that reminds
me of something. When Morocco is in a state of war, Arab couriers
carry letters through the country and charge a liberal postage.
Every now and then they fall into the hands of marauding bands and
get robbed. Therefore, warned by experience, as soon as they have
collected two dollars' worth of money they exchange it for one of
those little gold pieces, and when robbers come upon them, swallow
it. The stratagem was good while it was unsuspected, but after that
the marauders simply gave the sagacious United States mail an emetic
and sat down to wait.
The Emperor of Morocco is a soulless despot, and the great officers
under him are despots on a smaller scale. There is no regular system
of taxation, but when the Emperor or the Bashaw want money, they
levy on some rich man, and he has to furnish the cash or go to
prison. Therefore, few men in Morocco dare to be rich. It is too
dangerous a luxury. Vanity occasionally leads a man to display
wealth, but sooner or later the Emperor trumps up a charge against
him -- any sort of one will do -- and confiscates his property. Of
course, there are many rich men in the empire, but their money is
buried, and they dress in rags and counterfeit poverty. Every now
and then the Emperor imprisons a man who is suspected of the crime
of being rich, and makes things so uncomfortable for him that he is
forced to discover where he has hidden his money.
Moors and Jews sometimes place themselves under the protection of
the foreign consuls, and then they can flout their riches in the
Emperor's face with impunity.
CHAPTER IX

ABOUT the first adventure we had yesterday afternoon, after landing

here, came near finishing that heedless Blucher. We had just mounted
some mules and asses and started out under the guardianship of the
stately, the princely, the magnificent Hadji Muhammad Lamarty (may
his tribe increase!) when we came upon a fine Moorish mosque, with
tall tower, rich with checker-work of many-colored porcelain, and
every part and portion of the edifice adorned with the quaint
architecture of the Alhambra, and Blucher started to ride into the
open doorway. A startling "Hi-hi!" from our camp followers and a
loud "Halt!" from an English gentleman in the party checked the
adventurer, and then we were informed that so dire a profanation is
it for a Christian dog to set foot upon the sacred threshold of a
Moorish mosque that no amount of purification can ever make it fit
for the faithful to pray in again. Had Blucher succeeded in entering
the place, he would no doubt have been chased through the town and
stoned; and the time has been, and not many years ago, either, when
a Christian would have been most ruthlessly slaughtered if captured
in a mosque. We caught a glimpse of the handsome tessellated
pavements within and of the devotees performing their ablutions at
the fountains, but even that we took that glimpse was a thing not
relished by the Moorish bystanders.
Some years ago the clock in the tower of the mosque got out of
order. The Moors of Tangier have so degenerated that it has been
long since there was an artificer among them capable of curing so
delicate a patient as a debilitated clock. The great men of the city
met in solemn conclave to consider how the difficulty was to be met.
They discussed the matter thoroughly but arrived at no solution.
Finally, a patriarch arose and said:
"Oh, children of the Prophet, it is known unto you that a Portuguee
dog of a Christian clock mender pollutes the city of Tangier with
his presence. Ye know, also, that when mosques are builded, asses
bear the stones and the cement, and cross the sacred threshold. Now,
therefore, send the Christian dog on all fours, and barefoot, into
the holy place to mend the clock, and let him go as an ass!"
And in that way it was done. Therefore, if Blucher ever sees the
inside of a mosque, he will have to cast aside his humanity and go
in his natural character. We visited the jail and found Moorish
prisoners making mats and baskets. (This thing of utilizing crime
savors of civilization.) Murder is punished with death. A short time
ago three murderers were taken beyond the city walls and shot.
Moorish guns are not good, and neither are Moorish marksmen. In this
instance they set up the poor criminals at long range, like so many
targets, and practiced on them -- kept them hopping about and
dodging bullets for half an hour before they managed to drive the
center.
When a man steals cattle, they cut off his right hand and left leg
and nail them up in the marketplace as a warning to everybody. Their
surgery is not artistic. They slice around the bone a little, then
break off the limb. Sometimes the patient gets well; but, as a
general thing, he don't. However, the Moorish heart is stout. The
Moors were always brave. These criminals undergo the fearful
operation without a wince, without a tremor of any kind, without a
groan! No amount of suffering can bring down the pride of a Moor or
make him shame his dignity with a cry.
Here, marriage is contracted by the parents of the parties to it.
There are no valentines, no stolen interviews, no riding out, no
courting in dim parlors, no lovers' quarrels and reconciliations --
no nothing that is proper to approaching matrimony. The young man
takes the girl his father selects for him, marries her, and after
that she is unveiled, and he sees her for the first time. If after
due acquaintance she suits him, he retains her; but if he suspects
her purity, he bundles her back to her father; if he finds her
diseased, the same; or if, after just and reasonable time is allowed
her, she neglects to bear children, back she goes to the home of her
childhood.
Muhammadans here who can afford it keep a good many wives on hand.
They are called wives, though I believe the Koran only allows four
genuine wives -- the rest are concubines. The Emperor of Morocco
don't know how many wives he has, but thinks he has five hundred.
However, that is near enough -- a dozen or so, one way or the other,
don't matter.
Even the Jews in the interior have a plurality of wives.
I have caught a glimpse of the faces of several Moorish women (for
they are only human, and will expose their faces for the admiration
of a Christian dog when no male Moor is by), and I am full of
veneration for the wisdom that leads them to cover up such atrocious
ugliness.
They carry their children at their backs, in a sack, like other
savages the world over.
Many of the Negroes are held in slavery by the Moors. But the moment
a female slave becomes her master's concubine her bonds are broken,
and as soon as a male slave can read the first chapter of the Koran
(which contains the creed) he can no longer be held in bondage.
They have three Sundays a week in Tangier. The Muhammadans' comes on
Friday, the Jews' on Saturday, and that of the Christian Consuls on
Sunday. The Jews are the most radical. The Moor goes to his mosque
about noon on his Sabbath, as on any other day, removes his shoes at
the door, performs his ablutions, makes his salaams, pressing his
forehead to the pavement time and again, says his prayers, and goes
back to his work.
But the Jew shuts up shop; will not touch copper or bronze money at
all; soils his fingers with nothing meaner than silver and gold;
attends the synagogue devoutly; will not cook or have anything to do
with fire; and religiously refrains from embarking in any
enterprise.
The Moor who has made a pilgrimage to Mecca is entitled to high
distinction. Men call him Hadji, and he is thenceforward a great
personage. Hundreds of Moors come to Tangier every year and embark
for Mecca. They go part of the way in English steamers, and the ten
or twelve dollars they pay for passage is about all the trip costs.
They take with them a quantity of food, and when the commissary
department fails they "skirmish," as Jack terms it in his sinful,
slangy way. From the time they leave till they get home again, they
never wash, either on land or sea. They are usually gone from five
to seven months, and as they do not change their clothes during all
that time, they are totally unfit for the drawing room when they get
back.
Many of them have to rake and scrape a long time to gather together
the ten dollars their steamer passage costs, and when one of them
gets back he is a bankrupt forever after. Few Moors can ever build
up their fortunes again in one short lifetime after so reckless an
outlay. In order to confine the dignity of Hadji to gentlemen of
patrician blood and possessions, the Emperor decreed that no man
should make the pilgrimage save bloated aristocrats who were worth a
hundred dollars in specie. But behold how iniquity can circumvent
the law! For a consideration, the Jewish money-changer lends the
pilgrim one hundred dollars long enough for him to swear himself
through, and then receives it back before the ship sails out of the
harbor!
Spain is the only nation the Moors fear. The reason is that Spain
sends her heaviest ships of war and her loudest guns to astonish
these Muslims, while America and other nations send only a little
contemptible tub of a gunboat occasionally. The Moors, like other
savages, learn by what they see, not what they hear or read. We have
great fleets in the Mediterranean, but they seldom touch at African
ports. The Moors have a small opinion of England, France, and
America, and put their representatives to a deal of red-tape
circumlocution before they grant them their common rights, let alone
a favor. But the moment the Spanish minister makes a demand, it is
acceded to at once, whether it be just or not.
Spain chastised the Moors five or six years ago, about a disputed
piece of property opposite Gibraltar, and captured the city of
Tetouan. She compromised on an augmentation of her territory, twenty
million dollars' indemnity in money, and peace. And then she gave up
the city. But she never gave it up until the Spanish soldiers had
eaten up all the cats. They would not compromise as long as the cats
held out. Spaniards are very fond of cats. On the contrary, the
Moors reverence cats as something sacred. So the Spaniards touched
them on a tender point that time. Their unfeline conduct in eating
up all the Tetouan cats aroused a hatred toward them in the breasts
of the Moors, to which even the driving them out of Spain was tame
and passionless. Moors and Spaniards are foes forever now. France
had a minister here once who embittered the nation against him in
the most innocent way. He killed a couple of battalions of cats
(Tangier is full of them) and made a parlor carpet out of their
hides. He made his carpet in circles -- first a circle of old gray
tomcats, with their tails all pointing toward the center; then a
circle of yellow cats; next a circle of black cats and a circle of
white ones; then a circle of all sorts of cats; and, finally, a
centerpiece of assorted kittens. It was very beautiful, but the
Moors curse his memory to this day.
When we went to call on our American Consul General today I noticed
that all possible games for parlor amusement seemed to be
represented on his center tables. I thought that hinted at
lonesomeness. The idea was correct. His is the only American family
in Tangier. There are many foreign consuls in this place, but much
visiting is not indulged in. Tangier is clear out of the world, and
what is the use of visiting when people have nothing on earth to
talk about? There is none. So each consul's family stays at home
chiefly and amuses itself as best it can. Tangier is full of
interest for one day, but after that it is a weary prison. The
Consul General has been here five years, and has got enough of it to
do him for a century, and is going home shortly. His family seize
upon their letters and papers when the mail arrives, read them over
and over again for two days or three, talk them over and over again
for two or three more till they wear them out, and after that for
days together they eat and drink and sleep, and ride out over the
same old road, and see the same old tiresome things that even
decades of centuries have scarcely changed, and say never a single
word! They have literally nothing whatever to talk about. The
arrival of an American man-of-war is a godsend to them. "O Solitude,
where are the charms which sages have seen in thy face?" It is the
completest exile that I can conceive of. I would seriously recommend
to the government of the United States that when a man commits a
crime so heinous that the law provides no adequate punishment for
it, they make him Consul General to Tangier.
I am glad to have seen Tangier -- the second-oldest town in the
world. But I am ready to bid it good-bye, I believe.
We shall go hence to Gibraltar this evening or in the morning, and
doubtless the Quaker City will sail from that port within the next
forty-eight hours.
CHAPTER X

WE passed the Fourth of July on board the Quaker City, in mid-ocean.

It was in all respects a characteristic Mediterranean day --
faultlessly beautiful. A cloudless sky; a refreshing summer wind; a
radiant sunshine that glinted cheerily from dancing wavelets instead
of crested mountains of water; a sea beneath us that was so
wonderfully blue, so richly, brilliantly blue, that it overcame the
dullest sensibilities with the spell of its fascination.
They even have fine sunsets on the Mediterranean -- a thing that is
certainly rare in most quarters of the globe. The evening we sailed
away from Gibraltar, that hard-featured rock was swimming in a
creamy mist so rich, so soft, so enchantingly vague and dreamy, that
even the Oracle, that serene, that inspired, that overpowering
humbug, scorned the dinner gong and tarried to worship!
He said: "Well, that's gorgis, ain't it! They don't have none of
them things in our parts, do they? I consider that them effects is
on account of the superior refragability, as you may say, of the
sun's diramic combination with the lymphatic forces of the
perihelion of Jubiter. What should you think?"
"Oh, go to bed!" Dan said that, and went away.
"Oh, yes, it's all very well to say go to bed when a man makes an
argument which another man can't answer. Dan don't never stand any
chance in an argument with me. And he knows it, too. What should you
say, Jack?"
"Now, Doctor, don't you come bothering around me with that
dictionary bosh. I don't do you any harm, do I? Then you let me
alone."
"He's gone, too. Well, them fellows have all tackled the old Oracle,
as they say, but the old man's most too many for 'em. Maybe the Poet
Lariat ain't satisfied with them deductions?"
The poet replied with a barbarous rhyme and went below.
"'Pears that he can't qualify, neither. Well, I didn't expect
nothing out of him. I never see one of them poets yet that knowed
anything. He'll go down now and grind out about four reams of the
awfullest slush about that old rock and give it to a consul, or a
pilot, or a nigger, or anybody he comes across first which he can
impose on. Pity but somebody'd take that poor old lunatic and dig
all that poetry rubbage out of him. Why can't a man put his
intellect onto things that's some value? Gibbons, and Hippocratus,
and Sarcophagus, and all them old ancient philosophers was down on
poets -- "
"Doctor," I said, "you are going to invent authorities now and I'll
leave you, too. I always enjoy your conversation, notwithstanding
the luxuriance of your syllables, when the philosophy you offer
rests on your own responsibility; but when you begin to soar -- when
you begin to support it with the evidence of authorities who are the
creations of your own fancy -- I lose confidence."
That was the way to flatter the doctor. He considered it a sort of
acknowledgment on my part of a fear to argue with him. He was always
persecuting the passengers with abstruse propositions framed in
language that no man could understand, and they endured the
exquisite torture a minute or two and then abandoned the field. A
triumph like this, over half a dozen antagonists was sufficient for
one day; from that time forward he would patrol the decks beaming
blandly upon all comers, and so tranquilly, blissfully happy!
But I digress. The thunder of our two brave cannon announced the
Fourth of July, at daylight, to all who were awake. But many of us
got our information at a later hour, from the almanac. All the flags
were sent aloft except half a dozen that were needed to decorate
portions of the ship below, and in a short time the vessel assumed a
holiday appearance. During the morning, meetings were held and all
manner of committees set to work on the celebration ceremonies. In
the afternoon the ship's company assembled aft, on deck, under the
awnings; the flute, the asthmatic melodeon, and the consumptive
clarinet crippled "The Star-Spangled Banner," the choir chased it to
cover, and George came in with a peculiarly lacerating screech on
the final note and slaughtered it. Nobody mourned.
We carried out the corpse on three cheers (that joke was not
intentional and I do not endorse it), and then the President,
throned behind a cable locker with a national flag spread over it,
announced the "Reader," who rose up and read that same old
Declaration of Independence which we have all listened to so often
without paying any attention to what it said; and after that the
President piped the Orator of the Day to quarters and he made that
same old speech about our national greatness which we so religiously
believe and so fervently applaud. Now came the choir into court
again, with the complaining instruments, and assaulted "Hail
Columbia"; and when victory hung wavering in the scale, George
returned with his dreadful wild-goose stop turned on and the choir
won, of course. A minister pronounced the benediction, and the
patriotic little gathering disbanded. The Fourth of July was safe,
as far as the Mediterranean was concerned.
At dinner in the evening, a well-written original poem was recited
with spirit by one of the ship's captains, and thirteen regular
toasts were washed down with several baskets of champagne. The
speeches were bad -- execrable almost without exception. In fact,
without any exception but one. Captain Duncan made a good speech; he
made the only good speech of the evening. He said:
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: -- May we all live to a green old age and be
prosperous and happy. Steward, bring up another basket of
champagne."
It was regarded as a very able effort.
The festivities, so to speak, closed with another of those
miraculous balls on the promenade deck. We were not used to dancing
on an even keel, though, and it was only a questionable success. But
take it all together, it was a bright, cheerful, pleasant Fourth.
Toward nightfall the next evening, we steamed into the great
artificial harbor of this noble city of Marseilles, and saw the
dying sunlight gild its clustering spires and ramparts, and flood
its leagues of environing verdure with a mellow radiance that
touched with an added charm the white villas that flecked the
landscape far and near. [Copyright secured according to law.]
There were no stages out, and we could not get on the pier from the
ship. It was annoying. We were full of enthusiasm -- we wanted to
see France! Just at nightfall our party of three contracted with a
waterman for the privilege of using his boat as a bridge -- its
stern was at our companion ladder and its bow touched the pier. We
got in and the fellow backed out into the harbor. I told him in
French that all we wanted was to walk over his thwarts and step
ashore, and asked him what he went away out there for. He said he
could not understand me. I repeated. Still he could not understand.
He appeared to be very ignorant of French. The doctor tried him, but
he could not understand the doctor. I asked this boatman to explain
his conduct, which he did; and then I couldn't understand him. Dan
said:
"Oh, go to the pier, you old fool -- that's where we want to go!"
We reasoned calmly with Dan that it was useless to speak to this
foreigner in English -- that he had better let us conduct this
business in the French language and not let the stranger see how
uncultivated he was.
"Well, go on, go on," he said, "don't mind me. I don't wish to
interfere. Only, if you go on telling him in your kind of French, he
never will find out where we want to go to. That is what I think
about it."
We rebuked him severely for this remark and said we never knew an
ignorant person yet but was prejudiced. The Frenchman spoke again,
and the doctor said:
"There now, Dan, he says he is going to allez to the douain. Means
he is going to the hotel. Oh, certainly -- we don't know the French
language."
This was a crusher, as Jack would say. It silenced further criticism
from the disaffected member. We coasted past the sharp bows of a
navy of great steamships and stopped at last at a government
building on a stone pier. It was easy to remember then that the
douain was the customhouse and not the hotel. We did not mention it,
however. With winning French politeness the officers merely opened
and closed our satchels, declined to examine our passports, and sent
us on our way. We stopped at the first café we came to and entered.
An old woman seated us at a table and waited for orders. The doctor
said:
"Avez-vous du vin?"
The dame looked perplexed. The doctor said again, with elaborate
distinctness of articulation:
"Avez-vous du -- vin!"
The dame looked more perplexed than before. I said:
"Doctor, there is a flaw in your pronunciation somewhere. Let me try
her. Madame, avez-vous du vin? It isn't any use, Doctor -- take the
witness."
"Madame, avez-vous du vin -- du fromage -- pain -- pickled pigs'
feet -- beurre -- des oeufs -- du boeuf -- horseradish, sauerkraut,
hog and hominy -- anything, anything in the world that can stay a
Christian stomach!"
She said:
"Bless you, why didn't you speak English before? I don't know
anything about your plagued French!"
The humiliating taunts of the disaffected member spoiled the supper,
and we dispatched it in angry silence and got away as soon as we
could. Here we were in beautiful France -- in a vast stone house of
quaint architecture -- surrounded by all manner of curiously worded
French signs -- stared at by strangely habited, bearded French
people -- everything gradually and surely forcing upon us the
coveted consciousness that at last, and beyond all question, we were
in beautiful France and absorbing its nature to the forgetfulness of
everything else, and coming to feel the happy romance of the thing
in all its enchanting delightfulness -- and to think of this skinny
veteran intruding with her vile English, at such a moment, to blow
the fair vision to the winds! It was exasperating.
We set out to find the centre of the city, inquiring the direction
every now and then. We never did succeed in making anybody
understand just exactly what we wanted, and neither did we ever
succeed in comprehending just exactly what they said in reply, but
then they always pointed -- they always did that -- and we bowed
politely and said, "Merci, monsieur," and so it was a blighting
triumph over the disaffected member anyway. He was restive under
these victories and often asked:
"What did that pirate say?"
"Why, he told us which way to go to find the Grand Casino."
"Yes, but what did he say?"
"Oh, it don't matter what he said -- we understood him. These are
educated people -- not like that absurd boatman."
"Well, I wish they were educated enough to tell a man a direction
that goes some where -- for we've been going around in a circle for
an hour. I've passed this same old drugstore seven times."
We said it was a low, disreputable falsehood (but we knew it was
not). It was plain that it would not do to pass that drugstore
again, though -- we might go on asking directions, but we must cease
from following finger-pointings if we hoped to check the suspicions
of the disaffected member.
A long walk through smooth, asphaltum-paved streets bordered by
blocks of vast new mercantile houses of cream-colored stone every
house and every block precisely like all the other houses and all
the other blocks for a mile, and all brilliantly lighted -- brought
us at last to the principal thoroughfare. On every hand were bright
colors, flashing constellations of gas burners, gaily dressed men
and women thronging the sidewalks -- hurry, life, activity,
cheerfulness, conversation, and laughter everywhere! We found the
Grand Hotel du Louvre et de la Paix, and wrote down who we were,
where we were born, what our occupations were, the place we came
from last, whether we were married or single, how we liked it, how
old we were, where we were bound for and when we expected to get
there, and a great deal of information of similar importance -- all
for the benefit of the landlord and the secret police. We hired a
guide and began the business of sightseeing immediately. That first
night on French soil was a stirring one. I cannot think of half the
places we went to or what we particularly saw; we had no disposition
to examine carefully into anything at all -- we only wanted to
glance and go -- to move, keep moving! The spirit of the country was
upon us. We sat down, finally, at a late hour, in the great Casino,
and called for unstinted champagne. It is so easy to be bloated
aristocrats where it costs nothing of consequence! There were about
five hundred people in that dazzling place, I suppose, though the
walls being papered entirely with mirrors, so to speak, one could
not really tell but that there were a hundred thousand. Young,
daintily dressed exquisites and young, stylishly dressed women, and
also old gentlemen and old ladies, sat in couples and groups about
innumerable marble-topped tables and ate fancy suppers, drank wine,
and kept up a chattering din of conversation that was dazing to the
senses. There was a stage at the far end and a large orchestra; and
every now and then actors and actresses in preposterous comic
dresses came out and sang the most extravagantly funny songs, to
judge by their absurd actions; but that audience merely suspended
its chatter, stared cynically, and never once smiled, never once
applauded! I had always thought that Frenchmen were ready to laugh
at any thing.
CHAPTER XI

WE are getting foreignized rapidly and with facility. We are getting

reconciled to halls and bedchambers with unhomelike stone floors and
no carpets -- floors that ring to the tread of one's heels with a
sharpness that is death to sentimental musing. We are getting used
to tidy, noiseless waiters, who glide hither and thither, and hover
about your back and your elbows like butterflies, quick to
comprehend orders, quick to fill them; thankful for a gratuity
without regard to the amount; and always polite -- never otherwise
than polite. That is the strangest curiosity yet -- a really polite
hotel waiter who isn't an idiot. We are getting used to driving
right into the central court of the hotel, in the midst of a
fragrant circle of vines and flowers, and in the midst also of
parties of gentlemen sitting quietly reading the paper and smoking.
We are getting used to ice frozen by artificial process in ordinary
bottles -- the only kind of ice they have here. We are getting used
to all these things, but we are not getting used to carrying our own
soap. We are sufficiently civilized to carry our own combs and
toothbrushes, but this thing of having to ring for soap every time
we wash is new to us and not pleasant at all. We think of it just
after we get our heads and faces thoroughly wet or just when we
think we have been in the bathtub long enough, and then, of course,
an annoying delay follows. These Marseillaises make Marseillaise
hymns and Marseilles vests and Marseilles soap for all the world,
but they never sing their hymns or wear their vests or wash with
their soap themselves.
We have learned to go through the lingering routine of the table
d'hote with patience, with serenity, with satisfaction. We take
soup, then wait a few minutes for the fish; a few minutes more and
the plates are changed, and the roast beef comes; another change and
we take peas; change again and take lentils; change and take snail
patties (I prefer grasshoppers); change and take roast chicken and
salad; then strawberry pie and ice cream; then green figs, pears,
oranges, green almonds, etc.; finally coffee. Wine with every
course, of course, being in France. With such a cargo on board,
digestion is a slow process, and we must sit long in the cool
chambers and smoke -- and read French newspapers, which have a
strange fashion of telling a perfectly straight story till you get
to the "nub" of it, and then a word drops in that no man can
translate, and that story is ruined. An embankment fell on some
Frenchmen yesterday, and the papers are full of it today -- but
whether those sufferers were killed, or crippled, or bruised, or
only scared is more than I can possibly make out, and yet I would
just give anything to know.
We were troubled a little at dinner today by the conduct of an
American, who talked very loudly and coarsely and laughed
boisterously where all others were so quiet and well behaved. He
ordered wine with a royal flourish and said: "I never dine without
wine, sir" (which was a pitiful falsehood), and looked around upon
the company to bask in the admiration he expected to find in their
faces. All these airs in a land where they would as soon expect to
leave the soup out of the bill of fare as the wine! -- in a land
where wine is nearly as common among all ranks as water! This fellow
said: "I am a free-born sovereign, sir, an American, sir, and I want
everybody to know it!" He did not mention that he was a lineal
descendant of Balaam's ass, but everybody knew that without his
telling it.
We have driven in the Prado -- that superb avenue bordered with
patrician mansions and noble shade trees -- and have visited the
château Boarely and its curious museum. They showed us a miniature
cemetery there -- a copy of the first graveyard that was ever in
Marseilles, no doubt. The delicate little skeletons were lying in
broken vaults and had their household gods and kitchen utensils with
them. The original of this cemetery was dug up in the principal
street of the city a few years ago. It had remained there, only
twelve feet underground, for a matter of twenty-five hundred years
or thereabouts. Romulus was here before he built Rome, and thought
something of founding a city on this spot, but gave up the idea. He
may have been personally acquainted with some of these Phoenicians
whose skeletons we have been examining.
In the great Zoological Gardens we found specimens of all the
animals the world produces, I think, including a dromedary, a monkey
ornamented with tufts of brilliant blue and carmine hair -- a very
gorgeous monkey he was -- a hippopotamus from the Nile, and a sort
of tall, long-legged bird with a beak like a powder horn and
close-fitting wings like the tails of a dress coat. This fellow
stood up with his eyes shut and his shoulders stooped forward a
little, and looked as if he had his hands under his coat tails. Such
tranquil stupidity, such supernatural gravity, such
self-righteousness, and such ineffable self-complacency as were in
the countenance and attitude of that gray-bodied, dark-winged,
bald-headed, and preposterously uncomely bird! He was so ungainly,
so pimply about the head, so scaly about the legs, yet so serene, so
unspeakably satisfied! He was the most comical-looking creature that
can be imagined. It was good to hear Dan and the doctor laugh --
such natural and such enjoyable laughter had not been heard among
our excursionists since our ship sailed away from America. This bird
was a godsend to us, and I should be an ingrate if I forgot to make
honorable mention of him in these pages. Ours was a pleasure
excursion; therefore we stayed with that bird an hour and made the
most of him. We stirred him up occasionally, but he only unclosed an
eye and slowly closed it again, abating no jot of his stately piety
of demeanor or his tremendous seriousness. He only seemed to say,
"Defile not Heaven's anointed with unsanctified hands." We did not
know his name, and so we called him "The Pilgrim." Dan said:
"All he wants now is a Plymouth Collection."
The boon companion of the colossal elephant was a common cat! This
cat had a fashion of climbing up the elephant's hind legs and
roosting on his back. She would sit up there, with her paws curved
under her breast, and sleep in the sun half the afternoon. It used
to annoy the elephant at first, and he would reach up and take her
down, but she would go aft and climb up again. She persisted until
she finally conquered the elephant's prejudices, and now they are
inseparable friends. The cat plays about her comrade's forefeet or
his trunk often, until dogs approach, and then she goes aloft out of
danger. The elephant has annihilated several dogs lately that
pressed his companion too closely.
We hired a sailboat and a guide and made an excursion to one of the
small islands in the harbor to visit the Castle d'If. This ancient
fortress has a melancholy history. It has been used as a prison for
political offenders for two or three hundred years, and its dungeon
walls are scarred with the rudely carved names of many and many a
captive who fretted his life away here and left no record of himself
but these sad epitaphs wrought with his own hands. How thick the
names were! And their long-departed owners seemed to throng the
gloomy cells and corridors with their phantom shapes. We loitered
through dungeon after dungeon, away down into the living rock below
the level of the sea, it seemed. Names everywhere! -- some plebeian,
some noble, some even princely. Plebeian, prince, and noble had one
solicitude in common -- they would not be forgotten! They could
suffer solitude, inactivity, and the horrors of a silence that no
sound ever disturbed, but they could not bear the thought of being
utterly forgotten by the world. Hence the carved names. In one cell,
where a little light penetrated, a man had lived twenty-seven years
without seeing the face of a human being -- lived in filth and
wretchedness, with no companionship but his own thoughts, and they
were sorrowful enough and hopeless enough, no doubt. Whatever his
jailers considered that he needed was conveyed to his cell by night
through a wicket. This man carved the walls of his prison house from
floor to roof with all manner of figures of men and animals grouped
in intricate designs. He had toiled there year after year, at his
self-appointed task, while infants grew to boyhood -- to vigorous
youth -- idled through school and college -- acquired a profession
-- claimed man's mature estate -- married and looked back to infancy
as to a thing of some vague, ancient time, almost. But who shall
tell how many ages it seemed to this prisoner? With the one, time
flew sometimes; with the other, never -- it crawled always. To the
one, nights spent in dancing had seemed made of minutes instead of
hours; to the other, those selfsame nights had been like all other
nights of dungeon life and seemed made of slow, dragging weeks
instead of hours and minutes.
One prisoner of fifteen years had scratched verses upon his walls,
and brief prose sentences -- brief, but full of pathos. These spoke
not of himself and his hard estate, but only of the shrine where his
spirit fled the prison to worship -- of home and the idols that were
templed there. He never lived to see them.
The walls of these dungeons are as thick as some bed-chambers at
home are wide -- fifteen feet. We saw the damp, dismal cells in
which two of Dumas' heroes passed their confinement -- heroes of
"Monte Cristo." It was here that the brave Abbé wrote a book with
his own blood, with a pen made of a piece of iron hoop, and by the
light of a lamp made out of shreds of cloth soaked in grease
obtained from his food; and then dug through the thick wall with
some trifling instrument which he wrought himself out of a stray
piece of iron or table cutlery and freed Dantés from his chains. It
was a pity that so many weeks of dreary labor should have come to
naught at last.
They showed us the noisome cell where the celebrated "Iron Mask" --
that ill-starred brother of a hardhearted king of France -- was
confined for a season before he was sent to hide the strange mystery
of his life from the curious in the dungeons of Ste. Marguerite. The
place had a far greater interest for us than it could have had if we
had known beyond all question who the Iron Mask was, and what his
history had been, and why this most unusual punishment had been
meted out to him. Mystery! That was the charm. That speechless
tongue, those prisoned features, that heart so freighted with
unspoken troubles, and that breast so oppressed with its piteous
secret had been here. These dank walls had known the man whose
dolorous story is a sealed book forever! There was fascination in
the spot.
CHAPTER XII

WE have come five hundred miles by rail through the heart of France.
What a bewitching land it is! What a garden! Surely the leagues of
bright green lawns are swept and brushed and watered every day and
their grasses trimmed by the barber. Surely the hedges are shaped
and measured and their symmetry preserved by the most architectural
of gardeners. Surely the long straight rows of stately poplars that
divide the beautiful landscape like the squares of a checker-board
are set with line and plummet, and their uniform height determined
with a spirit level. Surely the straight, smooth, pure white
turnpikes are jack-planed and sandpapered every day. How else are
these marvels of symmetry, cleanliness, and order attained? It is
wonderful. There are no unsightly stone walls and never a fence of
any kind. There is no dirt, no decay, no rubbish anywhere -- nothing
that even hints at untidiness -- nothing that ever suggests neglect.
All is orderly and beautiful -- every thing is charming to the eye.
We had such glimpses of the Rhone gliding along between its grassy
banks; of cosy cottages buried in flowers and shrubbery; of quaint
old red-tiled villages with mossy medieval cathedrals looming out of
their midst; of wooded hills with ivy-grown towers and turrets of
feudal castles projecting above the foliage; such glimpses of
Paradise, it seemed to us, such visions of fabled fairyland!
We knew then what the poet meant when he sang of:
" -- thy cornfields green, and sunny vines,
O pleasant land of France!"
And it is a pleasant land. No word describes it so felicitously as
that one. They say there is no word for "home" in the French
language. Well, considering that they have the article itself in
such an attractive aspect, they ought to manage to get along without
the word. Let us not waste too much pity on "homeless" France. I
have observed that Frenchmen abroad seldom wholly give up the idea
of going back to France some time or other. I am not surprised at it
now.
We are not infatuated with these French railway cars, though. We
took first-class passage, not because we wished to attract attention
by doing a thing which is uncommon in Europe but because we could
make our journey quicker by so doing. It is hard to make railroading
pleasant in any country. It is too tedious. Stagecoaching is
infinitely more delightful. Once I crossed the plains and deserts
and mountains of the West in a stagecoach, from the Missouri line to
California, and since then all my pleasure trips must be measured to
that rare holiday frolic. Two thousand miles of ceaseless rush and
rattle and clatter, by night and by day, and never a weary moment,
never a lapse of interest! The first seven hundred miles a level
continent, its grassy carpet greener and softer and smoother than
any sea and figured with designs fitted to its magnitude -- the
shadows of the clouds. Here were no scenes but summer scenes, and no
disposition inspired by them but to lie at full length on the mail
sacks in the grateful breeze and dreamily smoke the pipe of peace --
what other, where all was repose and contentment? In cool mornings,
before the sun was fairly up, it was worth a lifetime of city
toiling and moiling to perch in the foretop with the driver and see
the six mustangs scamper under the sharp snapping of the whip that
never touched them; to scan the blue distances of a world that knew
no lords but us; to cleave the wind with uncovered head and feel the
sluggish pulses rousing to the spirit of a speed that pretended to
the resistless rush of a typhoon! Then thirteen hundred miles of
desert solitudes; of limitless panoramas of bewildering perspective;
of mimic cities, of pinnacled cathedrals, of massive fortresses,
counterfeited in the eternal rocks and splendid with the crimson and
gold of the setting sun; of dizzy altitudes among fog-wreathed peaks
and never-melting snows, where thunders and lightnings and tempests
warred magnificently at our feet and the storm clouds above swung
their shredded banners in our very faces! But I forgot. I am in
elegant France now, and not scurrying through the great South Pass
and the Wind River Mountains, among antelopes and buffaloes and
painted Indians on the warpath. It is not meet that I should make
too disparaging comparisons between humdrum travel on a railway and
that royal summer flight across a continent in a stagecoach. I meant
in the beginning to say that railway journeying is tedious and
tiresome, and so it is -- though at the time I was thinking
particularly of a dismal fifty-hour pilgrimage between New York and
St. Louis. Of course our trip through France was not really tedious
because all its scenes and experiences were new and strange; but as
Dan says, it had its "discrepancies."
The cars are built in compartments that hold eight persons each.
Each compartment is partially subdivided, and so there are two
tolerably distinct parties of four in it. Four face the other four.
The seats and backs are thickly padded and cushioned and are very
comfortable; you can smoke if you wish; there are no bothersome
peddlers; you are saved the infliction of a multitude of
disagreeable fellow passengers. So far, so well. But then the
conductor locks you in when the train starts; there is no water to
drink in the car; there is no heating apparatus for night travel; if
a drunken rowdy should get in, you could not remove a matter of
twenty seats from him or enter another car; but above all, if you
are worn out and must sleep, you must sit up and do it in naps, with
cramped legs and in a torturing misery that leaves you withered and
lifeless the next day -- for behold they have not that culmination
of all charity and human kindness, a sleeping car, in all France. I
prefer the American system. It has not so many grievous
"discrepancies."
In France, all is clockwork, all is order. They make no mistakes.
Every third man wears a uniform, and whether he be a marshal of the
empire or a brakeman, he is ready and perfectly willing to answer
all your questions with tireless politeness, ready to tell you which
car to take, yea, and ready to go and put you into it to make sure
that you shall not go astray. You cannot pass into the waiting room
of the depot till you have secured your ticket, and you cannot pass
from its only exit till the train is at its threshold to receive
you. Once on board, the train will not start till your ticket has
been examined -- till every passenger's ticket has been inspected.
This is chiefly for your own good. If by any possibility you have
managed to take the wrong train, you will be handed over to a polite
official who will take you whither you belong and bestow you with
many an affable bow. Your ticket will be inspected every now and
then along the route, and when it is time to change cars you will
know it. You are in the hands of officials who zealously study your
welfare and your interest, instead of turning their talents to the
invention of new methods of discommoding and snubbing you, as is
very often the main employment of that exceedingly self-satisfied
monarch, the railroad conductor of America.
But the happiest regulation in French railway government is --
thirty minutes to dinner! No five-minute boltings of flabby rolls,
muddy coffee, questionable eggs, gutta-percha beef, and pies whose
conception and execution are a dark and bloody mystery to all save
the cook that created them! No, we sat calmly down -- it was in old
Dijon, which is so easy to spell and so impossible to pronounce
except when you civilize it and call it Demijohn -- and poured out
rich Burgundian wines and munched calmly through a long table d'hôte
bill of fare, snail patties, delicious fruits and all, then paid the
trifle it cost and stepped happily aboard the train again, without
once cursing the railroad company. A rare experience and one to be
treasured forever.
They say they do not have accidents on these French roads, and I
think it must be true. If I remember rightly, we passed high above
wagon roads or through tunnels under them, but never crossed them on
their own level. About every quarter of a mile, it seemed to me, a
man came out and held up a club till the train went by, to signify
that everything was safe ahead. Switches were changed a mile in
advance by pulling a wire rope that passed along the ground by the
rail, from station to station. Signals for the day and signals for
the night gave constant and timely notice of the position of
switches.
No, they have no railroad accidents to speak of in France. But why?
Because when one occurs, somebody has to hang for it! 12.1 Not hang,
maybe, but be punished at least with such vigor of emphasis as to
make negligence a thing to be shuddered at by railroad officials for
many a day thereafter. "No blame attached to the officers" -- that
lying and disaster-breeding verdict so common to our softhearted
juries is seldom rendered in France. If the trouble occurred in the
conductor's department, that officer must suffer if his subordinate
cannot be proven guilty; if in the engineer's department and the
case be similar, the engineer must answer.
The Old Travelers -- those delightful parrots who have "been here
before" and know more about the country than Louis Napoleon knows
now or ever will know -- tell us these things, and we believe them
because they are pleasant things to believe and because they are
plausible and savor of the rigid subjection to law and order which
we behold about us everywhere.
But we love the Old Travelers. We love to hear them prate and drivel
and lie. We can tell them the moment we see them. They always throw
out a few feelers; they never cast themselves adrift till they have
sounded every individual and know that he has not traveled. Then
they open their throttle valves, and how they do brag, and sneer,
and swell, and soar, and blaspheme the sacred name of Truth! Their
central idea, their grand aim, is to subjugate you, keep you down,
make you feel insignificant and humble in the blaze of their
cosmopolitan glory! They will not let you know anything. They sneer
at your most inoffensive suggestions; they laugh unfeelingly at your
treasured dreams of foreign lands; they brand the statements of your
traveled aunts and uncles as the stupidest absurdities; they deride
your most trusted authors and demolish the fair images they have set
up for your willing worship with the pitiless ferocity of the
fanatic iconoclast! But still I love the Old Travelers. I love them
for their witless platitudes, for their supernatural ability to
bore, for their delightful asinine vanity, for their luxuriant
fertility of imagination, for their startling, their brilliant,
their overwhelming mendacity!
By Lyons and the Saone (where we saw the lady of Lyons and thought
little of her comeliness), by Villa Franca, Tonnere, venerable Sens,
Melun, Fontainebleau, and scores of other beautiful cities, we
swept, always noting the absence of hog wallows, broken fences, cow
lots, unpainted houses, and mud, and always noting, as well, the
presence of cleanliness, grace, taste in adorning and beautifying,
even to the disposition of a tree or the turning of a hedge, the
marvel of roads in perfect repair, void of ruts and guiltless of
even an inequality of surface -- we bowled along, hour after hour,
that brilliant summer day, and as nightfall approached we entered a
wilderness of odorous flowers and shrubbery, sped through it, and
then, excited, delighted, and half persuaded that we were only the
sport of a beautiful dream, lo, we stood in magnificent Paris!
What excellent order they kept about that vast depot! There was no
frantic crowding and jostling, no shouting and swearing, and no
swaggering intrusion of services by rowdy hackmen. These latter
gentry stood outside -- stood quietly by their long line of vehicles
and said never a word. A kind of hackman general seemed to have the
whole matter of transportation in his hands. He politely received
the passengers and ushered them to the kind of conveyance they
wanted, and told the driver where to deliver them. There was no
"talking back," no dissatisfaction about overcharging, no grumbling
about anything. In a little while we were speeding through the
streets of Paris and delightfully recognizing certain names and
places with which books had long ago made us familiar. It was like
meeting an old friend when we read Rue de Rivoli on the street
corner; we knew the genuine vast palace of the Louvre as well as we
knew its picture; when we passed by the Column of July we needed no
one to tell us what it was or to remind us that on its site once
stood the grim Bastille, that grave of human hopes and happiness,
that dismal prison house within whose dungeons so many young faces
put on the wrinkles of age, so many proud spirits grew humble, so
many brave hearts broke.
We secured rooms at the hotel, or rather, we had three beds put into
one room, so that we might be together, and then we went out to a
restaurant, just after lamplighting, and ate a comfortable,
satisfactory, lingering dinner. It was a pleasure to eat where
everything was so tidy, the food so well cooked, the waiters so
polite, and the coming and departing company so moustached, so
frisky, so affable, so fearfully and wonderfully Frenchy! All the
surroundings were gay and enlivening. Two hundred people sat at
little tables on the sidewalk, sipping wine and coffee; the streets
were thronged with light vehicles and with joyous pleasure-seekers;
there was music in the air, life and action all about us, and a
conflagration of gaslight everywhere!
After dinner we felt like seeing such Parisian specialties as we
might see without distressing exertion, and so we sauntered through
the brilliant streets and looked at the dainty trifles in variety
stores and jewelry shops. Occasionally, merely for the pleasure of
being cruel, we put unoffending Frenchmen on the rack with questions
framed in the incomprehensible jargon of their native language, and
while they writhed we impaled them, we peppered them, we scarified
them, with their own vile verbs and participles.
We noticed that in the jewelry stores they had some of the articles
marked "gold" and some labeled "imitation." We wondered at this
extravagance of honesty and inquired into the matter. We were
informed that inasmuch as most people are not able to tell false
gold from the genuine article, the government compels jewelers to
have their gold work assayed and stamped officially according to its
fineness and their imitation work duly labeled with the sign of its
falsity. They told us the jewelers would not dare to violate this
law, and that whatever a stranger bought in one of their stores
might be depended upon as being strictly what it was represented to
be. Verily, a wonderful land is France!
Then we hunted for a barber-shop. From earliest infancy it had been
a cherished ambition of mine to be shaved some day in a palatial
barber-shop in Paris. I wished to recline at full length in a
cushioned invalid chair, with pictures about me and sumptuous
furniture; with frescoed walls and gilded arches above me and vistas
of Corinthian columns stretching far before me; with perfumes of
Araby to intoxicate my senses and the slumbrous drone of distant
noises to soothe me to sleep. At the end of an hour I would wake up
regretfully and find my face as smooth and as soft as an infant's.
Departing, I would lift my hands above that barber's head and say,
"Heaven bless you, my son!"
So we searched high and low, for a matter of two hours, but never a
barber-shop could we see. We saw only wig-making establishments,
with shocks of dead and repulsive hair bound upon the heads of
painted waxen brigands who stared out from glass boxes upon the
passer-by with their stony eyes and scared him with the ghostly
white of their countenances. We shunned these signs for a time, but
finally we concluded that the wig-makers must of necessity be the
barbers as well, since we could find no single legitimate
representative of the fraternity. We entered and asked, and found
that it was even so.
I said I wanted to be shaved. The barber inquired where my room was.
I said never mind where my room was, I wanted to be shaved -- there,
on the spot. The doctor said he would be shaved also. Then there was
an excitement among those two barbers! There was a wild
consultation, and afterwards a hurrying to and fro and a feverish
gathering up of razors from obscure places and a ransacking for
soap. Next they took us into a little mean, shabby back room; they
got two ordinary sitting-room chairs and placed us in them with our
coats on. My old, old dream of bliss vanished into thin air!
I sat bolt upright, silent, sad, and solemn. One of the wig-making
villains lathered my face for ten terrible minutes and finished by
plastering a mass of suds into my mouth. I expelled the nasty stuff
with a strong English expletive and said, "Foreigner, beware!" Then
this outlaw strapped his razor on his boot, hovered over me
ominously for six fearful seconds, and then swooped down upon me
like the genius of destruction. The first rake of his razor loosened
the very hide from my face and lifted me out of the chair. I stormed
and raved, and the other boys enjoyed it. Their beards are not
strong and thick. Let us draw the curtain over this harrowing scene.
Suffice it that I submitted and went through with the cruel
infliction of a shave by a French barber; tears of exquisite agony
coursed down my cheeks now and then, but I survived. Then the
incipient assassin held a basin of water under my chin and slopped
its contents over my face, and into my bosom, and down the back of
my neck, with a mean pretense of washing away the soap and blood. He
dried my features with a towel and was going to comb my hair, but I
asked to be excused. I said, with withering irony, that it was
sufficient to be skinned -- I declined to be scalped.
I went away from there with my handkerchief about my face, and
never, never, never desired to dream of palatial Parisian
barber-shops anymore. The truth is, as I believe I have since found
out, that they have no barber shops worthy of the name in Paris --
and no barbers, either, for that matter. The impostor who does duty
as a barber brings his pans and napkins and implements of torture to
your residence and deliberately skins you in your private
apartments. Ah, I have suffered, suffered, suffered, here in Paris,
but never mind -- the time is coming when I shall have a dark and
bloody revenge. Someday a Parisian barber will come to my room to
skin me, and from that day forth that barber will never be heard of
more.
At eleven o'clock we alighted upon a sign which manifestly referred
to billiards. Joy! We had played billiards in the Azores with balls
that were not round and on an ancient table that was very little
smoother than a brick pavement -- one of those wretched old things
with dead cushions, and with patches in the faded cloth and
invisible obstructions that made the balls describe the most
astonishing and unsuspected angles and perform feats in the way of
unlooked-for and almost impossible "scratches" that were perfectly
bewildering. We had played at Gibraltar with balls the size of a
walnut, on a table like a public square -- and in both instances we
achieved far more aggravation than amusement. We expected to fare
better here, but we were mistaken. The cushions were a good deal
higher than the balls, and as the balls had a fashion of always
stopping under the cushions, we accomplished very little in the way
of caroms. The cushions were hard and unelastic, and the cues were
so crooked that in making a shot you had to allow for the curve or
you would infallibly put the "English" on the wrong side of the
hall. Dan was to mark while the doctor and I played. At the end of
an hour neither of us had made a count, and so Dan was tired of
keeping tally with nothing to tally, and we were heated and angry
and disgusted. We paid the heavy bill -- about six cents -- and said
we would call around sometime when we had a week to spend, and
finish the game.
We adjourned to one of those pretty cafés and took supper and tested
the wines of the country, as we had been instructed to do, and found
them harmless and unexciting. They might have been exciting,
however, if we had chosen to drink a sufficiency of them.
To close our first day in Paris cheerfully and pleasantly, we now
sought our grand room in the Grand Hotel du Louvre and climbed into
our sumptuous bed to read and smoke -- but alas!
It was pitiful,
In a whole city-full,
Gas we had none.
No gas to read by -- nothing but dismal candles. It was a shame. We
tried to map out excursions for the morrow; we puzzled over French
"guides to Paris"; we talked disjointedly in a vain endeavor to make
head or tail of the wild chaos of the day's sights and experiences;
we subsided to indolent smoking; we gaped and yawned and stretched
-- then feebly wondered if we were really and truly in renowned
Paris, and drifted drowsily away into that vast mysterious void
which men call sleep.
12.1 They go on the principle that it is better that one innocent
man should suffer than five hundred. Note: 12.2: Running header
reads: "Gastly Experience" Footnote: "Joke by the Doctor"
CHAPTER XIII

THE next morning we were up and dressed at ten o'clock. We went to

the commissionaire of the hotel -- I don't know what a
commissionaire is, but that is the man we went to -- and told him we
wanted a guide. He said the national Exposition had drawn such
multitudes of Englishmen and Americans to Paris that it would be
next to impossible to find a good guide unemployed. He said he
usually kept a dozen or two on hand, but he only had three now. He
called them. One looked so like a very pirate that we let him go at
once. The next one spoke with a simpering precision of pronunciation
that was irritating and said:
"If ze zhentlemans will to me make ze grande honneur to me rattain
in hees serveece, I shall show to him every sing zat is magnifique
to look upon in ze beautiful Parree. I speaky ze Angleesh
pairfaitemaw."
He would have done well to have stopped there, because he had that
much by heart and said it right off without making a mistake. But
his self-complacency seduced him into attempting a flight into
regions of unexplored English, and the reckless experiment was his
ruin. Within ten seconds he was so tangled up in a maze of mutilated
verbs and torn and bleeding forms of speech that no human ingenuity
could ever have gotten him out of it with credit. It was plain
enough that he could not "speaky" the English quite as
"pairfaitemaw" as he had pretended he could.
The third man captured us. He was plainly dressed, but he had a
noticeable air of neatness about him. He wore a high silk hat which
was a little old, but had been carefully brushed. He wore
second-hand kid gloves, in good repair, and carried a small rattan
cane with a curved handle -- a female leg -- of ivory. He stepped as
gently and as daintily as a cat crossing a muddy street; and oh, he
was urbanity; he was quiet, unobtrusive self-possession; he was
deference itself! He spoke softly and guardedly; and when he was
about to make a statement on his sole responsibility or offer a
suggestion, he weighed it by drachms and scruples first, with the
crook of his little stick placed meditatively to his teeth. His
opening speech was perfect. It was perfect in construction, in
phraseology, in grammar, in emphasis, in pronunciation --
everything. He spoke little and guardedly after that. We were
charmed. We were more than charmed -- we were overjoyed. We hired
him at once. We never even asked him his price. This man -- our
lackey, our servant, our unquestioning slave though he was -- was
still a gentleman -- we could see that -- while of the other two one
was coarse and awkward and the other was a born pirate. We asked our
man Friday's name. He drew from his pocketbook a snowy little card
and passed it to us with a profound bow:

A. BILLFINGER,
Guide to Paris, France, Germany,
Spain, &c., &c.
Grande Hotel du Louvre.
"Billfinger! Oh, carry me home to die!"
That was an "aside" from Dan. The atrocious name grated harshly on
my ear, too. The most of us can learn to forgive, and even to like,
a countenance that strikes us unpleasantly at first, but few of us,
I fancy, become reconciled to a jarring name so easily. I was almost
sorry we had hired this man, his name was so unbearable. However, no
matter. We were impatient to start. Billfinger stepped to the door
to call a carriage, and then the doctor said:
"Well, the guide goes with the barbershop, with the billiard-table,
with the gasless room, and may be with many another pretty romance
of Paris. I expected to have a guide named Henri de Montmorency, or
Armand de la Chartreuse, or something that would sound grand in
letters to the villagers at home, but to think of a Frenchman by the
name of Billfinger! Oh! This is absurd, you know. This will never
do. We can't say Billfinger; it is nauseating. Name him over again;
what had we better call him? Alexis du Caulaincourt?"
"Alphonse Henri Gustave de Hauteville," I suggested.
"Call him Ferguson," said Dan.
That was practical, unromantic good sense. Without debate, we
expunged Billfinger as Billfinger, and called him Ferguson.
The carriage -- an open barouche -- was ready. Ferguson mounted
beside the driver, and we whirled away to breakfast. As was proper,
Mr. Ferguson stood by to transmit our orders and answer questions.
By and by, he mentioned casually -- the artful adventurer -- that he
would go and get his breakfast as soon as we had finished ours. He
knew we could not get along without him and that we would not want
to loiter about and wait for him. We asked him to sit down and eat
with us. He begged, with many a bow, to be excused. It was not
proper, he said; he would sit at another table. We ordered him
peremptorily to sit down with us.
Here endeth the first lesson. It was a mistake.
As long as we had that fellow after that, he was always hungry; he
was always thirsty. He came early; he stayed late; he could not pass
a restaurant; he looked with a lecherous eye upon every wineshop.
Suggestions to stop, excuses to eat and to drink, were forever on
his lips. We tried all we could to fill him so full that he would
have no room to spare for a fortnight, but it was a failure. He did
not hold enough to smother the cravings of his superhuman appetite.
He had another "discrepancy" about him. He was always wanting us to
buy things. On the shallowest pretenses he would inveigle us into
shirt stores, boot stores, tailor shops, glove shops -- anywhere
under the broad sweep of the heavens that there seemed a chance of
our buying anything. Anyone could have guessed that the shopkeepers
paid him a percentage on the sales, but in our blessed innocence we
didn't until this feature of his conduct grew unbearably prominent.
One day Dan happened to mention that he thought of buying three or
four silk dress patterns for presents. Ferguson's hungry eye was
upon him in an instant. In the course of twenty minutes the carriage
stopped.
"What's this?"
"Zis is ze finest silk magazin in Paris -- ze most celebrate."
"What did you come here for? We told you to take us to the palace of
the Louvre."
"I suppose ze gentleman say he wish to buy some silk."
"You are not required to 'suppose' things for the party, Ferguson.
We do not wish to tax your energies too much. We will bear some of
the burden and heat of the day ourselves. We will endeavor to do
such 'supposing' as is really necessary to be done. Drive on." So
spake the doctor.
Within fifteen minutes the carriage halted again, and before another
silk store. The doctor said:
"Ah, the palace of the Louvre -- beautiful, beautiful edifice! Does
the Emperor Napoleon live here now, Ferguson?"
"Ah, Doctor! You do jest; zis is not ze palace; we come there
directly. But since we pass right by zis store, where is such
beautiful silk -- "
"Ah! I see, I see. I meant to have told you that we did not wish to
purchase any silks to-day, but in my absent-mindedness I forgot it.
I also meant to tell you we wished to go directly to the Louvre, but
I forgot that also. However, we will go there now. Pardon my seeming
carelessness, Ferguson. Drive on."
Within the half hour we stopped again -- in front of another silk
store. We were angry; but the doctor was always serene, always
smooth-voiced. He said:
"At last! How imposing the Louvre is, and yet how small! How
exquisitely fashioned! How charmingly situated! -- Venerable,
venerable pile -- "
"Pairdon, Doctor, zis is not ze Louvre -- it is -- "
"What is it?"
"I have ze idea -- it come to me in a moment -- zat ze silk in zis
magazin -- "
"Ferguson, how heedless I am. I fully intended to tell you that we
did not wish to buy any silks to-day, and I also intended to tell
you that we yearned to go immediately to the palace of the Louvre,
but enjoying the happiness of seeing you devour four breakfasts this
morning has so filled me with pleasurable emotions that I neglect
the commonest interests of the time. However, we will proceed now to
the Louvre, Ferguson."
"But, doctor," (excitedly,) "it will take not a minute -- not but
one small minute! Ze gentleman need not to buy if he not wish to --
but only look at ze silk -- look at ze beautiful fabric. [Then
pleadingly.] Sair -- just only one leetle moment!"
Dan said, "Confound the idiot! I don't want to see any silks today,
and I won't look at them. Drive on."
And the doctor: "We need no silks now, Ferguson. Our hearts yearn
for the Louvre. Let us journey on -- let us journey on."
"But doctor! It is only one moment -- one leetle moment. And ze time
will be save -- entirely save! Because zere is nothing to see now --
it is too late. It want ten minute to four and ze Louvre close at
four -- only one leetle moment, Doctor!"
The treacherous miscreant! After four breakfasts and a gallon of
champagne, to serve us such a scurvy trick. We got no sight of the
countless treasures of art in the Louvre galleries that day, and our
only poor little satisfaction was in the reflection that Ferguson
sold not a solitary silk dress pattern.
I am writing this chapter partly for the satisfaction of abusing
that accomplished knave Billfinger, and partly to show whosoever
shall read this how Americans fare at the hands of the Paris guides
and what sort of people Paris guides are. It need not be supposed
that we were a stupider or an easier prey than our countrymen
generally are, for we were not. The guides deceive and defraud every
American who goes to Paris for the first time and sees its sights
alone or in company with others as little experienced as himself. I
shall visit Paris again someday, and then let the guides beware! I
shall go in my war paint -- I shall carry my tomahawk along.
I think we have lost but little time in Paris. We have gone to bed
every night tired out. Of course we visited the renowned
International Exposition. All the world did that. We went there on
our third day in Paris -- and we stayed there nearly two hours. That
was our first and last visit. To tell the truth, we saw at a glance
that one would have to spend weeks -- yea, even months -- in that
monstrous establishment to get an intelligible idea of it. It was a
wonderful show, but the moving masses of people of all nations we
saw there were a still more wonderful show. I discovered that if I
were to stay there a month, I should still find myself looking at
the people instead of the inanimate objects on exhibition. I got a
little interested in some curious old tapestries of the thirteenth
century, but a party of Arabs came by, and their dusky faces and
quaint costumes called my attention away at once. I watched a silver
swan, which had a living grace about his movements and a living
intelligence in his eyes -- watched him swimming about as
comfortably and as unconcernedly as if he had been born in a morass
instead of a jeweler's shop -- watched him seize a silver fish from
under the water and hold up his head and go through all the
customary and elaborate motions of swallowing it -- but the moment
it disappeared down his throat some tattooed South Sea Islanders
approached and I yielded to their attractions. Presently I found a
revolving pistol several hundred years old which looked strangely
like a modern Colt, but just then I heard that the Empress of the
French was in another part of the building, and hastened away to see
what she might look like. We heard martial music -- we saw an
unusual number of soldiers walking hurriedly about -- there was a
general movement among the people. We inquired what it was all about
and learned that the Emperor of the French and the Sultan of Turkey
were about to review twenty-five thousand troops at the Arc de
l'Etoile. We immediately departed. I had a greater anxiety to see
these men than I could have had to see twenty expositions.
We drove away and took up a position in an open space opposite the
American minister's house. A speculator bridged a couple of barrels
with a board and we hired standing places on it. Presently there was
a sound of distant music; in another minute a pillar of dust came
moving slowly toward us; a moment more and then, with colors flying
and a grand crash of military music, a gallant array of cavalrymen
emerged from the dust and came down the street on a gentle trot.
After them came a long line of artillery; then more cavalry, in
splendid uniforms; and then their imperial majesties Napoleon III
and Abdul Aziz. The vast concourse of people swung their hats and
shouted -- the windows and housetops in the wide vicinity burst into
a snowstorm of waving handkerchiefs, and the wavers of the same
mingled their cheers with those of the masses below. It was a
stirring spectacle.
But the two central figures claimed all my attention. Was ever such
a contrast set up before a multitude till then? Napoleon in military
uniform -- a long-bodied, short-legged man, fiercely moustached,
old, wrinkled, with eyes half closed, and such a deep, crafty,
scheming expression about them! -- Napoleon, bowing ever so gently
to the loud plaudits, and watching everything and everybody with his
cat eyes from under his depressed hat brim, as if to discover any
sign that those cheers were not heartfelt and cordial.
Abdul Aziz, absolute lord of the Ottoman empire -- clad in dark
green European clothes, almost without ornament or insignia of rank;
a red Turkish fez on his head; a short, stout, dark man,
black-bearded, black-eyed, stupid, unprepossessing -- a man whose
whole appearance somehow suggested that if he only had a cleaver in
his hand and a white apron on, one would not be at all surprised to
hear him say: "A mutton roast today, or will you have a nice
porterhouse steak?"
Napoleon III, the representative of the highest modern civilization,
progress, and refinement; Abdul-Aziz, the representative of a people
by nature and training filthy, brutish, ignorant, unprogressive,
superstitious -- and a government whose Three Graces are Tyranny,
Rapacity, Blood. Here in brilliant Paris, under this majestic Arch
of Triumph, the First Century greets the Nineteenth!
NAPOLEON III., Emperor of France! Surrounded by shouting thousands,
by military pomp, by the splendors of his capital city, and
companioned by kings and princes -- this is the man who was sneered
at and reviled and called Bastard -- yet who was dreaming of a crown
and an empire all the while; who was driven into exile -- but
carried his dreams with him; who associated with the common herd in
America and ran foot races for a wager -- but still sat upon a
throne in fancy; who braved every danger to go to his dying mother
-- and grieved that she could not be spared to see him cast aside
his plebeian vestments for the purple of royalty; who kept his
faithful watch and walked his weary beat a common policeman of
London -- but dreamed the while of a coming night when he should
tread the long-drawn corridors of the Tuileries; who made the
miserable fiasco of Strasbourg; saw his poor, shabby eagle,
forgetful of its lesson, refuse to perch upon his shoulder;
delivered his carefully prepared, sententious burst of eloquence
upon unsympathetic ears; found himself a prisoner, the butt of small
wits, a mark for the pitiless ridicule of all the world -- yet went
on dreaming of coronations and splendid pageants as before; who lay
a forgotten captive in the dungeons of Ham -- and still schemed and
planned and pondered over future glory and future power; President
of France at last! a coup d'etat, and surrounded by applauding
armies, welcomed by the thunders of cannon, he mounts a throne and
waves before an astounded world the sceptre of a mighty empire! Who
talks of the marvels of fiction? Who speaks of the wonders of
romance? Who prates of the tame achievements of Aladdin and the
Magii of Arabia?
ABDUL-AZIZ, Sultan of Turkey, Lord of the Ottoman Empire! Born to a
throne; weak, stupid, ignorant, almost, as his meanest slave; chief
of a vast royalty, yet the puppet of his Premier and the obedient
child of a tyrannical mother; a man who sits upon a throne -- the
beck of whose finger moves navies and armies -- who holds in his
hands the power of life and death over millions -- yet who sleeps,
sleeps, eats, eats, idles with his eight hundred concubines, and
when he is surfeited with eating and sleeping and idling, and would
rouse up and take the reins of government and threaten to be a
sultan, is charmed from his purpose by wary Fuad Pacha with a pretty
plan for a new palace or a new ship -- charmed away with a new toy,
like any other restless child; a man who sees his people robbed and
oppressed by soulless tax-gatherers, but speaks no word to save
them; who believes in gnomes and genii and the wild fables of The
Arabian Nights, but has small regard for the mighty magicians of
to-day, and is nervous in the presence of their mysterious railroads
and steamboats and telegraphs; who would see undone in Egypt all
that great Mehemet Ali achieved, and would prefer rather to forget
than emulate him; a man who found his great empire a blot upon the
earth -- a degraded, poverty-stricken, miserable, infamous
agglomeration of ignorance, crime, and brutality -- and will idle
away the allotted days of his trivial life and then pass to the dust
and the worms and leave it so!
Napoleon has augmented the commercial prosperity of France in ten
years to such a degree that figures can hardly compute it. He has
rebuilt Paris and has partly rebuilt every city in the state. He
condemns a whole street at a time, assesses the damages, pays them,
and rebuilds superbly. Then speculators buy up the ground and sell,
but the original owner is given the first choice by the government
at a stated price before the speculator is permitted to purchase.
But above all things, he has taken the sole control of the empire of
France into his hands and made it a tolerably free land -- for
people who will not attempt to go too far in meddling with
government affairs. No country offers greater security to life and
property than France, and one has all the freedom he wants, but no
license -- no license to interfere with anybody or make anyone
uncomfortable.
As for the Sultan, one could set a trap any where and catch a dozen
abler men in a night.
The bands struck up, and the brilliant adventurer, Napoleon III.,
the genius of Energy, Persistence, Enterprise; and the feeble
Abdul-Aziz, the genius of Ignorance, Bigotry, and Indolence,
prepared for the Forward -- March!
We saw the splendid review, we saw the white-moustached old Crimean
soldier, Canrobert, Marshal of France, we saw -- well, we saw every
thing, and then we went home satisfied.
CHAPTER XIV

WE went to see the Cathedral of Notre Dame. We had heard of it

before. It surprises me sometimes to think how much we do know and
how intelligent we are. We recognized the brown old Gothic pile in a
moment; it was like the pictures. We stood at a little distance and
changed from one point of observation to another and gazed long at
its lofty square towers and its rich front, clustered thick with
stony, mutilated saints who had been looking calmly down from their
perches for ages. The Patriarch of Jerusalem stood under them in the
old days of chivalry and romance, and preached the third Crusade,
more than six hundred years ago; and since that day they have stood
there and looked quietly down upon the most thrilling scenes, the
grandest pageants, the most extraordinary spectacles that have
grieved or delighted Paris. These battered and broken-nosed old
fellows saw many and many a cavalcade of mail-clad knights come
marching home from Holy Land; they heard the bells above them toll
the signal for the St. Bartholomew's Massacre, and they saw the
slaughter that followed; later they saw the Reign of Terror, the
carnage of the Revolution, the overthrow of a king, the coronation
of two Napoleons, the christening of the young prince that lords it
over a regiment of servants in the Tuileries to-day -- and they may
possibly continue to stand there until they see the Napoleon dynasty
swept away and the banners of a great republic floating above its
ruins. I wish these old parties could speak. They could tell a tale
worth the listening to.
They say that a pagan temple stood where Notre Dame now stands, in
the old Roman days, eighteen or twenty centuries ago -- remains of
it are still preserved in Paris; and that a Christian church took
its place about A.D. 300; another took the place of that in A.D.
500; and that the foundations of the present cathedral were laid
about A.D. 1100. The ground ought to be measurably sacred by this
time, one would think. One portion of this noble old edifice is
suggestive of the quaint fashions of ancient times. It was built by
Jean Sans-Peur, Duke of Burgundy, to set his conscience at rest --
he had assassinated the Duke of Orleans. Alas! Those good old times
are gone when a murderer could wipe the stain from his name and
soothe his troubles to sleep simply by getting out his bricks and
mortar and building an addition to a church.
The portals of the great western front are bisected by square
pillars. They took the central one away in 1852, on the occasion of
thanksgivings for the reinstitution of the presidential power -- but
precious soon they had occasion to reconsider that motion and put it
back again! And they did.
We loitered through the grand aisles for an hour or two, staring up
at the rich stained-glass windows embellished with blue and yellow
and crimson saints and martyrs, and trying to admire the numberless
great pictures in the chapels, and then we were admitted to the
sacristy and shown the magnificent robes which the Pope wore when he
crowned Napoleon I; a wagon-load of solid gold and silver utensils
used in the great public processions and ceremonies of the church;
some nails of the true cross, a fragment of the cross itself, a part
of the crown of thorns. We had already seen a large piece of the
true cross in a church in the Azores, but no nails. They showed us
likewise the bloody robe which that archbishop of Paris wore who
exposed his sacred person and braved the wrath of the insurgents of
1848, to mount the barricades and hold aloft the olive branch of
peace in the hope of stopping the slaughter. His noble effort cost
him his life. He was shot dead. They showed us a cast of his face
taken after death, the bullet that killed him, and the two vertebrae
in which it lodged. These people have a somewhat singular taste in
the matter of relics. Ferguson told us that the silver cross which
the good archbishop wore at his girdle was seized and thrown into
the Seine, where it lay embedded in the mud for fifteen years, and
then an angel appeared to a priest and told him where to dive for
it; he did dive for it and got it, and now it is there on exhibition
at Notre Dame, to be inspected by anybody who feels an interest in
inanimate objects of miraculous intervention.
Next we went to visit the Morgue, that horrible receptacle for the
dead who die mysteriously and leave the manner of their taking off a
dismal secret. We stood before a grating and looked through into a
room which was hung all about with the clothing of dead men; coarse
blouses, water-soaked; the delicate garments of women and children;
patrician vestments, hacked and stabbed and stained with red; a hat
that was crushed and bloody. On a slanting stone lay a drowned man,
naked, swollen, purple; clasping the fragment of a broken bush with
a grip which death had so petrified that human strength could not
unloose it -- mute witness of the last despairing effort to save the
life that was doomed beyond all help. A stream of water trickled
ceaselessly over the hideous face. We knew that the body and the
clothing were there for identification by friends, but still we
wondered if anybody could love that repulsive object or grieve for
its loss. We grew meditative and wondered if, some forty years ago,
when the mother of that ghastly thing was dandling it upon her knee,
and kissing it and petting it and displaying it with satisfied pride
to the passers-by, a prophetic vision of this dread ending ever
flitted through her brain. I half feared that the mother, or the
wife or a brother of the dead man might come while we stood there,
but nothing of the kind occurred. Men and women came, and some
looked eagerly in and pressed their faces against the bars; others
glanced carelessly at the body and turned away with a disappointed
look -- people, I thought, who live upon strong excitements and who
attend the exhibitions of the Morgue regularly, just as other people
go to see theatrical spectacles every night. When one of these
looked in and passed on, I could not help thinking --
"Now this don't afford you any satisfaction -- a party with his head
shot off is what you need."
One night we went to the celebrated Jardin Mabille, but only staid a
little while. We wanted to see some of this kind of Paris life,
however, and therefore the next night we went to a similar place of
entertainment in a great garden in the suburb of Asnières. We went
to the railroad depot, toward evening, and Ferguson got tickets for
a second-class carriage. Such a perfect jam of people I have not
often seen -- but there was no noise, no disorder, no rowdyism. Some
of the women and young girls that entered the train we knew to be of
the demi-monde, but others we were not at all sure about.
The girls and women in our carriage behaved themselves modestly and
becomingly all the way out, except that they smoked. When we arrived
at the garden in Asnières, we paid a franc or two admission and
entered a place which had flower beds in it, and grass plots, and
long, curving rows of ornamental shrubbery, with here and there a
secluded bower convenient for eating ice cream in. We moved along
the sinuous gravel walks, with the great concourse of girls and
young men, and suddenly a domed and filigreed white temple, starred
over and over and over again with brilliant gas jets, burst upon us
like a fallen sun. Nearby was a large, handsome house with its ample
front illuminated in the same way, and above its roof floated the
Star-Spangled Banner of America.
"Well!" I said. "How is this?" It nearly took my breath away.
Ferguson said an American -- a New Yorker -- kept the place, and was
carrying on quite a stirring opposition to the Jardin Mabille.
Crowds composed of both sexes and nearly all ages were frisking
about the garden or sitting in the open air in front of the
flagstaff and the temple, drinking wine and coffee or smoking. The
dancing had not begun yet. Ferguson said there was to be an
exhibition. The famous Blondin was going to perform on a tightrope
in another part of the garden. We went thither. Here the light was
dim, and the masses of people were pretty closely packed together.
And now I made a mistake which any donkey might make, but a sensible
man never. I committed an error which I find myself repeating every
day of my life. Standing right before a young lady, I said:
"Dan, just look at this girl, how beautiful she is!"
"I thank you more for the evident sincerity of the compliment, sir,
than for the extraordinary publicity you have given to it!" This in
good, pure English.
We took a walk, but my spirits were very, very sadly dampened. I did
not feel right comfortable for some time afterward. Why will people
be so stupid as to suppose themselves the only foreigners among a
crowd of ten thousand persons?
But Blondin came out shortly. He appeared on a stretched cable, far
away above the sea of tossing hats and handkerchiefs, and in the
glare of the hundreds of rockets that whizzed heavenward by him he
looked like a wee insect. He balanced his pole and walked the length
of his rope -- two or three hundred feet; he came back and got a man
and carried him across; he returned to the center and danced a jig;
next he performed some gymnastic and balancing feats too perilous to
afford a pleasant spectacle; and he finished by fastening to his
person a thousand Roman candies, Catherine wheels, serpents and
rockets of all manner of brilliant colors, setting them on fire all
at once and walking and waltzing across his rope again in a blinding
blaze of glory that lit up the garden and the people's faces like a
great conflagration at midnight.
The dance had begun, and we adjourned to the temple. Within it was a
drinking saloon, and all around it was a broad circular platform for
the dancers. I backed up against the wall of the temple, and waited.
Twenty sets formed, the music struck up, and then -- I placed my
hands before my face for very shame. But I looked through my
fingers. They were dancing the renowned "Can-can." A handsome girl
in the set before me tripped forward lightly to meet the opposite
gentleman, tripped back again, grasped her dresses vigorously on
both sides with her hands, raised them pretty high, danced an
extraordinary jig that had more activity and exposure about it than
any jig I ever saw before, and then, drawing her clothes still
higher, she advanced gaily to the center and launched a vicious kick
full at her vis-a-vis that must infallibly have removed his nose if
he had been seven feet high. It was a mercy he was only six.
That is the can-can. The idea of it is to dance as wildly, as
noisily, as furiously as you can; expose yourself as much as
possible if you are a woman; and kick as high as you can, no matter
which sex you belong to. There is no word of exaggeration in this.
Any of the staid, respectable, aged people who were there that night
can testify to the truth of that statement. There were a good many
such people present. I suppose French morality is not of that
straight-laced description which is shocked at trifles.
I moved aside and took a general view of the can-can. Shouts,
laughter, furious music, a bewildering chaos of darting and
intermingling forms, stormy jerking and snatching of gay dresses,
bobbing beads, flying arms, lightning flashes of white-stockinged
calves and dainty slippers in the air, and then a grand final rush,
riot, a terrific hubbub, and a wild stampede! Heavens! Nothing like
it has been seen on earth since trembling Tam O'Shanter saw the
devil and the witches at their orgies that stormy night in
"Alloway's auld haunted kirk."
We visited the Louvre, at a time when we had no silk purchases in
view, and looked at its miles of paintings by the old masters. Some
of them were beautiful, but at the same time they carried such
evidences about them of the cringing spirit of those great men that
we found small pleasure in examining them. Their nauseous adulation
of princely patrons was more prominent to me and chained my
attention more surely than the charms of color and expression which
are claimed to be in the pictures. Gratitude for kindnesses is well,
but it seems to me that some of those artists carried it so far that
it ceased to be gratitude and became worship. If there is a
plausible excuse for the worship of men, then by all means let us
forgive Rubens and his brethren.
But I will drop the subject, lest I say something about the old
masters that might as well be left unsaid.
Of course we drove in the Bois de Boulogne, that limitless park,
with its forests, its lakes, its cascades, and its broad avenues.
There were thousands upon thousands of vehicles abroad, and the
scene was full of life and gaiety. There were very common hacks,
with father and mother and all the children in them; conspicuous
little open carriages with celebrated ladies of questionable
reputation in them; there were Dukes and Duchesses abroad, with
gorgeous footmen perched behind, and equally gorgeous outriders
perched on each of the six horses; there were blue and silver, and
green and gold, and pink and black, and all sorts and descriptions
of stunning and startling liveries out, and I almost yearned to be a
flunkey myself, for the sake of the fine clothes.
But presently the Emperor came along and he outshone them all. He
was preceded by a bodyguard of gentlemen on horseback in showy
uniforms, his carriage-horses (there appeared to be somewhere in the
remote neighborhood of a thousand of them,) were bestridden by
gallant-looking fellows, also in stylish uniforms, and after the
carriage followed another detachment of bodyguards. Everybody got
out of the way; everybody bowed to the Emperor and his friend the
Sultan; and they went by on a swinging trot and disappeared.
I will not describe the Bois de Boulogne. I can not do it. It is
simply a beautiful, cultivated, endless, wonderful wilderness. It is
an enchanting place. It is in Paris now, one may say, but a
crumbling old cross in one portion of it reminds one that it was not
always so. The cross marks the spot where a celebrated troubadour
was waylaid and murdered in the fourteenth century. It was in this
park that that fellow with an unpronounceable name made the attempt
upon the Russian Czar's life last spring with a pistol. The bullet
struck a tree. Ferguson showed us the place. Now in America that
interesting tree would be chopped down or forgotten within the next
five years, but it will be treasured here. The guides will point it
out to visitors for the next eight hundred years, and when it decays
and falls down they will put up another there and go on with the
same old story just the same.
CHAPTER XV

ONE of our pleasantest visits was to Père la Chaise, the national

burying-ground of France, the honored resting-place of some of her
greatest and best children, the last home of scores of illustrious
men and women who were born to no titles, but achieved fame by their
own energy and their own genius. It is a solemn city of winding
streets and of miniature marble temples and mansions of the dead
gleaming white from out a wilderness of foliage and fresh flowers.
Not every city is so well peopled as this, or has so ample an area
within its walls. Few palaces exist in any city that are so
exquisite in design, so rich in art, so costly in material, so
graceful, so beautiful.
We had stood in the ancient church of St. Denis, where the marble
effigies of thirty generations of kings and queens lay stretched at
length upon the tombs, and the sensations invoked were startling and
novel; the curious armor, the obsolete costumes, the placid faces,
the hands placed palm to palm in eloquent supplication -- it was a
vision of gray antiquity. It seemed curious enough to be standing
face to face, as it were, with old Dagobert I., and Clovis and
Charlemagne, those vague, colossal heroes, those shadows, those
myths of a thousand years ago! I touched their dust-covered faces
with my finger, but Dagobert was deader than the sixteen centuries
that have passed over him, Clovis slept well after his labor for
Christ, and old Charlemagne went on dreaming of his paladins, of
bloody Roncesvalles, and gave no heed to me.
The great names of Père la Chaise impress one, too, but differently.
There the suggestion brought constantly to his mind is, that this
place is sacred to a nobler royalty -- the royalty of heart and
brain. Every faculty of mind, every noble trait of human nature,
every high occupation which men engage in, seems represented by a
famous name. The effect is a curious medley. Davoust and Massena,
who wrought in many a battle tragedy, are here, and so also is
Rachel, of equal renown in mimic tragedy on the stage. The Abbé
Sicard sleeps here -- the first great teacher of the deaf and dumb
-- a man whose heart went out to every unfortunate, and whose life
was given to kindly offices in their service; and not far off, in
repose and peace at last, lies Marshal Ney, whose stormy spirit knew
no music like the bugle call to arms. The man who originated public
gas-lighting, and that other benefactor who introduced the
cultivation of the potato and thus blessed millions of his starving
countrymen, lie with the Prince of Masserano, and with exiled queens
and princes of Further India. Gay-Lussac the chemist, Laplace the
astronomer, Larrey the surgeon, de Séze the advocate, are here, and
with them are Talma, Bellini, Rubini; de Balzac, Beaumarchais,
Beranger; Molière and Lafontaine, and scores of other men whose
names and whose worthy labors are as familiar in the remote
by-places of civilization as are the historic deeds of the kings and
princes that sleep in the marble vaults of St. Denis.
But among the thousands and thousands of tombs in Père la Chaise,
there is one that no man, no woman, no youth of either sex, ever
passes by without stopping to examine. Every visitor has a sort of
indistinct idea of the history of its dead and comprehends that
homage is due there, but not one in twenty thousand clearly
remembers the story of that tomb and its romantic occupants. This is
the grave of Abelard and Heloise -- a grave which has been more
revered, more widely known, more written and sung about and wept
over, for seven hundred years, than any other in Christendom save
only that of the Saviour. All visitors linger pensively about it;
all young people capture and carry away keepsakes and mementoes of
it; all Parisian youths and maidens who are disappointed in love
come there to bail out when they are full of tears; yea, many
stricken lovers make pilgrimages to this shrine from distant
provinces to weep and wail and "grit" their teeth over their heavy
sorrows, and to purchase the sympathies of the chastened spirits of
that tomb with offerings of immortelles and budding flowers.
Go when you will, you find somebody snuffling over that tomb. Go
when you will, you find it furnished with those bouquets and
immortelles. Go when you will, you find a gravel-train from
Marseilles arriving to supply the deficiencies caused by
memento-cabbaging vandals whose affections have miscarried.
Yet who really knows the story of Abelard and Heloise? Precious few
people. The names are perfectly familiar to every body, and that is
about all. With infinite pains I have acquired a knowledge of that
history, and I propose to narrate it here, partly for the honest
information of the public and partly to show that public that they
have been wasting a good deal of marketable sentiment very
unnecessarily.
STORY OF ABELARD AND HELOISE
Heloise was born seven hundred and sixty-six years ago. She may have
had parents. There is no telling. She lived with her uncle Fulbert,
a canon of the cathedral of Paris. I do not know what a canon of a
cathedral is, but that is what he was. He was nothing more than a
sort of a mountain howitzer, likely, because they had no heavy
artillery in those days. Suffice it, then, that Heloise lived with
her uncle the howitzer and was happy. She spent the most of her
childhood in the convent of Argenteuil -- never heard of Argenteuil
before, but suppose there was really such a place. She then returned
to her uncle, the old gun, or son of a gun, as the case may be, and
he taught her to write and speak Latin, which was the language of
literature and polite society at that period.
Just at this time, Pierre Abelard, who had already made himself
widely famous as a rhetorician, came to found a school of rhetoric
in Paris. The originality of his principles, his eloquence, and his
great physical strength and beauty created a profound sensation. He
saw Heloise, and was captivated by her blooming youth, her beauty,
and her charming disposition. He wrote to her; she answered. He
wrote again; she answered again. He was now in love. He longed to
know her -- to speak to her face to face.
His school was near Fulbert's house. He asked Fulbert to allow him
to call. The good old swivel saw here a rare opportunity: his niece,
whom he so much loved, would absorb knowledge from this man, and it
would not cost him a cent. Such was Fulbert -- penurious.
Fulbert's first name is not mentioned by any author, which is
unfortunate. However, George W. Fulbert will answer for him as well
as any other. We will let him go at that. He asked Abelard to teach
her.
Abelard was glad enough of the opportunity. He came often and staid
long. A letter of his shows in its very first sentence that he came
under that friendly roof like a cold-hearted villain as he was, with
the deliberate intention of debauching a confiding, innocent girl.
This is the letter:
"I cannot cease to be astonished at the simplicity of Fulbert; I was
as much
surprised as if he had placed a lamb in the power of a hungry wolf.
Heloise
and I, under pretext of study, gave ourselves up wholly to love, and
the
solitude that love seeks our studies procured for us. Books were
open before
us, but we spoke oftener of love than philosophy, and kisses came
more readily
from our lips than words."
And so, exulting over an honorable confidence which to his degraded
instinct was a ludicrous "simplicity," this unmanly Abelard seduced
the niece of the man whose guest he was. Paris found it out. Fulbert
was told of it -- told often -- but refused to believe it. He could
not comprehend how a man could be so depraved as to use the sacred
protection and security of hospitality as a means for the commission
of such a crime as that. But when he heard the rowdies in the
streets singing the love-songs of Abelard to Heloise, the case was
too plain -- love-songs come not properly within the teachings of
rhetoric and philosophy.
He drove Abelard from his house. Abelard returned secretly and
carried Heloise away to Palais, in Brittany, his native country.
Here, shortly afterward, she bore a son, who, from his rare beauty,
was surnamed Astrolabe -- William G. The girl's flight enraged
Fulbert, and he longed for vengeance, but feared to strike lest
retaliation visit Heloise -- for he still loved her tenderly. At
length Abelard offered to marry Heloise -- but on a shameful
condition: that the marriage should be kept secret from the world,
to the end that (while her good name remained a wreck, as before,)
his priestly reputation might be kept untarnished. It was like that
miscreant. Fulbert saw his opportunity and consented. He would see
the parties married, and then violate the confidence of the man who
had taught him that trick; he would divulge the secret and so remove
somewhat of the obloquy that attached to his niece's fame. But the
niece suspected his scheme. She refused the marriage at first; she
said Fulbert would betray the secret to save her, and besides, she
did not wish to drag down a lover who was so gifted, so honored by
the world, and who had such a splendid career before him. It was
noble, self-sacrificing love, and characteristic of the pure-souled
Heloise, but it was not good sense.
But she was overruled, and the private marriage took place. Now for
Fulbert! The heart so wounded should be healed at last; the proud
spirit so tortured should find rest again; the humbled head should
be lifted up once more. He proclaimed the marriage in the high
places of the city and rejoiced that dishonor had departed from his
house. But lo! Abelard denied the marriage! Heloise denied it! The
people, knowing the former circumstances, might have believed
Fulbert had only Abelard denied it, but when the person chiefly
interested -- the girl herself -- denied it, they laughed,
despairing Fulbert to scorn.
The poor canon of the cathedral of Paris was spiked again. The last
hope of repairing the wrong that had been done his house was gone.
What next? Human nature suggested revenge. He compassed it. The
historian says:
"Ruffians, hired by Fulbert, fell upon Abelard by night, and
inflicted upon
him a terrible and nameless mutilation."
I am seeking the last resting place of those "ruffians." When I find
it I shall shed some tears on it, and stack up some bouquets and
immortelles, and cart away from it some gravel whereby to remember
that howsoever blotted by crime their lives may have been, these
ruffians did one just deed, at any rate, albeit it was not warranted
by the strict letter of the law.
Heloise entered a convent and gave good-bye to the world and its
pleasures for all time. For twelve years she never heard of Abelard
-- never even heard his name mentioned. She had become prioress of
Argenteuil and led a life of complete seclusion. She happened one
day to see a letter written by him, in which he narrated his own
history. She cried over it and wrote him. He answered, addressing
her as his "sister in Christ." They continued to correspond, she in
the unweighed language of unwavering affection, he in the chilly
phraseology of the polished rhetorician. She poured out her heart in
passionate, disjointed sentences; he replied with finished essays,
divided deliberately into heads and sub-heads, premises and
argument. She showered upon him the tenderest epithets that love
could devise, he addressed her from the North Pole of his frozen
heart as the "Spouse of Christ!" The abandoned villain!
On account of her too easy government of her nuns, some disreputable
irregularities were discovered among them, and the Abbot of St.
Denis broke up her establishment. Abelard was the official head of
the monastery of St. Gildas de Ruys, at that time, and when he heard
of her homeless condition a sentiment of pity was aroused in his
breast (it is a wonder the unfamiliar emotion did not blow his head
off,) and he placed her and her troop in the little oratory of the
Paraclete, a religious establishment which he had founded. She had
many privations and sufferings to undergo at first, but her worth
and her gentle disposition won influential friends for her, and she
built up a wealthy and flourishing nunnery. She became a great
favorite with the heads of the church, and also the people, though
she seldom appeared in public. She rapidly advanced in esteem, in
good report, and in usefulness, and Abelard as rapidly lost ground.
The Pope so honored her that he made her the head of her order.
Abelard, a man of splendid talents, and ranking as the first debater
of his time, became timid, irresolute, and distrustful of his
powers. He only needed a great misfortune to topple him from the
high position he held in the world of intellectual excellence, and
it came. Urged by kings and princes to meet the subtle St. Bernard
in debate and crush him, he stood up in the presence of a royal and
illustrious assemblage, and when his antagonist had finished he
looked about him and stammered a commencement; but his courage
failed him, the cunning of his tongue was gone: with his speech
unspoken, he trembled and sat down, a disgraced and vanquished
champion.
He died a nobody, and was buried at Cluny, A.D., 1144. They removed
his body to the Paraclete afterward, and when Heloise died, twenty
years later, they buried her with him, in accordance with her last
wish. He died at the ripe age of 64, and she at 63. After the bodies
had remained entombed three hundred years, they were removed once
more. They were removed again in 1800, and finally, seventeen years
afterward, they were taken up and transferred to Pére la Chaise,
where they will remain in peace and quiet until it comes time for
them to get up and move again.
History is silent concerning the last acts of the mountain howitzer.
Let the world say what it will about him, I, at least, shall always
respect the memory and sorrow for the abused trust and the broken
heart and the troubled spirit of the old smooth-bore. Rest and
repose be his!
Such is the story of Abelard and Heloise. Such is the history that
Lamartine has shed such cataracts of tears over. But that man never
could come within the influence of a subject in the least pathetic
without overflowing his banks. He ought to be dammed -- or leveed, I
should more properly say. Such is the history -- not as it is
usually told, but as it is when stripped of the nauseous
sentimentality that would enshrine for our loving worship a
dastardly seducer like Pierre Abelard. I have not a word to say
against the misused, faithful girl, and would not withhold from her
grave a single one of those simple tributes which blighted youths
and maidens offer to her memory, but I am sorry enough that I have
not time and opportunity to write four or five volumes of my opinion
of her friend the founder of the Parachute, or the Paraclete, or
whatever it was.
The tons of sentiment I have wasted on that unprincipled humbug in
my ignorance! I shall throttle down my emotions hereafter, about
this sort of people, until I have read them up and know whether they
are entitled to any tearful attentions or not. I wish I had my
immortelles back, now, and that bunch of radishes.
In Paris we often saw in shop windows the sign "English Spoken
Here," just as one sees in the windows at home the sign "Ici on
parle francaise." We always invaded these places at once -- and
invariably received the information, framed in faultless French,
that the clerk who did the English for the establishment had just
gone to dinner and would be back in an hour -- would Monsieur buy
something? We wondered why those parties happened to take their
dinners at such erratic and extraordinary hours, for we never called
at a time when an exemplary Christian would be in the least likely
to be abroad on such an errand. The truth was, it was a base fraud
-- a snare to trap the unwary -- chaff to catch fledglings with.
They had no English-murdering clerk. They trusted to the sign to
inveigle foreigners into their lairs, and trusted to their own
blandishments to keep them there till they bought something.
We ferreted out another French imposition -- a frequent sign to this
effect: "ALL MANNER OF AMERICAN DRINKS ARTISTICALLY
PREPARED HERE."
We procured the services of a gentleman experienced in the
nomenclature of the American bar, and moved upon the works of one of
these impostors. A bowing, aproned Frenchman skipped forward and
said:
"Que voulez les messieurs?" I do not know what "Que voulez les
messieurs?" means, but such was his remark.
Our general said, "We will take a whiskey straight."
[A stare from the Frenchman.]
"Well, if you don't know what that is, give us a champagne
cock-tail."
[A stare and a shrug.]
"Well, then, give us a sherry cobbler."
The Frenchman was checkmated. This was all Greek to him.
"Give us a brandy smash!"
The Frenchman began to back away, suspicious of the ominous vigor of
the last order -- began to back away, shrugging his shoulders and
spreading his hands apologetically.
The General followed him up and gained a complete victory. The
uneducated foreigner could not even furnish a Santa Cruz Punch, an
Eye-Opener, a Stone-Fence, or an Earthquake. It was plain that he
was a wicked impostor.
An acquaintance of mine said the other day that he was doubtless the
only American visitor to the Exposition who had had the high honor
of being escorted by the Emperor's bodyguard. I said with
unobtrusive frankness that I was astonished that such a long-legged,
lantern-jawed, unprepossessing-looking specter as he should be
singled out for a distinction like that, and asked how it came
about. He said he had attended a great military review in the Champ
de Mars some time ago, and while the multitude about him was growing
thicker and thicker every moment he observed an open space inside
the railing. He left his carriage and went into it. He was the only
person there, and so he had plenty of room, and the situation being
central, he could see all the preparations going on about the field.
By and by there was a sound of music, and soon the Emperor of the
French and the Emperor of Austria, escorted by the famous Cent
Gardes, entered the enclosure. They seemed not to observe him, but
directly, in response to a sign from the commander of the guard, a
young lieutenant came toward him with a file of his men following,
halted, raised his hand, and gave the military salute, and then said
in a low voice that he was sorry to have to disturb a stranger and a
gentleman, but the place was sacred to royalty. Then this New Jersey
phantom rose up and bowed and begged pardon, then with the officer
beside him, the file of men marching behind him, and with every mark
of respect, he was escorted to his carriage by the imperial Cent
Gardes! The officer saluted again and fell back, the New Jersey
sprite bowed in return and had presence of mind enough to pretend
that he had simply called on a matter of private business with those
emperors, and so waved them an adieu and drove from the field!
Imagine a poor Frenchman ignorantly intruding upon a public rostrum
sacred to some six-penny dignitary in America. The police would
scare him to death first with a storm of their elegant blasphemy,
and then pull him to pieces getting him away from there. We are
measurably superior to the French in some things, but they are
immeasurably our betters in others.
Enough of Paris for the present. We have done our whole duty by it.
We have seen the Tuileries, the Napoleon Column, the Madeleine, that
wonder of wonders the tomb of Napoleon, all the great churches and
museums, libraries, imperial palaces, and sculpture and picture
galleries, the Pantheon, Jardin des Plantes, the opera, the circus,
the legislative body, the billiard rooms, the barbers, the grisettes
--
Ah, the grisettes! I had almost forgotten. They are another romantic
fraud. They were (if you let the books of travel tell it) always so
beautiful -- so neat and trim, so graceful -- so naive and trusting
-- so gentle, so winning -- so faithful to their shop duties, so
irresistible to buyers in their prattling importunity -- so devoted
to their poverty-stricken students of the Latin Quarter -- so
lighthearted and happy on their Sunday picnics in the suburbs -- and
oh, so charmingly, so delightfully immoral!
Stuff! For three or four days I was constantly saying:
"Quick, Ferguson! Is that a grisette?"
And he always said, "No."
He comprehended at last that I wanted to see a grisette. Then he
showed me dozens of them. They were like nearly all the Frenchwomen
I ever saw -- homely. They had large hands, large feet, large
mouths; they had pug noses as a general thing, and moustaches that
not even good breeding could overlook; they combed their hair
straight back without parting; they were ill-shaped, they were not
winning, they were not graceful; I knew by their looks that they ate
garlic and onions; and lastly and finally, to my thinking it would
be base flattery to call them immoral.
Aroint thee, wench! I sorrow for the vagabond student of the Latin
Quarter now, even more than formerly I envied him. Thus topples to
earth another idol of my infancy.
We have seen every thing, and tomorrow we go to Versailles. We shall
see Paris only for a little while as we come back to take up our
line of march for the ship, and so I may as well bid the beautiful
city a regretful farewell. We shall travel many thousands of miles
after we leave here and visit many great cities, but we shall find
none so enchanting as this.
Some of our party have gone to England, intending to take a
roundabout course and rejoin the vessel at Leghorn or Naples several
weeks hence. We came near going to Geneva, but have concluded to
return to Marseilles and go up through Italy from Genoa.
I will conclude this chapter with a remark that I am sincerely proud
to be able to make -- and glad, as well, that my comrades cordially
endorse it, to wit: by far the handsomest women we have seen in
France were born and reared in America.
I feel now like a man who has redeemed a failing reputation and shed
luster upon a dimmed escutcheon, by a single just deed done at the
eleventh hour.
Let the curtain fall, to slow music.
CHAPTER XVI

VERSAILLES! It is wonderfully beautiful! You gaze and stare and try

to understand that it is real, that it is on the earth, that it is
not the Garden of Eden -- but your brain grows giddy, stupefied by
the world of beauty around you, and you half believe you are the
dupe of an exquisite dream. The scene thrills one like military
music! A noble palace, stretching its ornamented front, block upon
block away, till it seemed that it would never end; a grand
promenade before it, whereon the armies of an empire might parade;
all about it rainbows of flowers, and colossal statues that were
almost numberless and yet seemed only scattered over the ample
space; broad flights of stone steps leading down from the promenade
to lower grounds of the park -- stairways that whole regiments might
stand to arms upon and have room to spare; vast fountains whose
great bronze effigies discharged rivers of sparkling water into the
air and mingled a hundred curving jets together in forms of
matchless beauty; wide grass-carpeted avenues that branched hither
and thither in every direction and wandered to seemingly
interminable distances, walled all the way on either side with
compact ranks of leafy trees whose branches met above and formed
arches as faultless and as symmetrical as ever were carved in stone;
and here and there were glimpses of sylvan lakes with miniature
ships glassed in their surfaces. And every where -- on the palace
steps, and the great promenade, around the fountains, among the
trees, and far under the arches of the endless avenues -- hundreds
and hundreds of people in gay costumes walked or ran or danced, and
gave to the fairy picture the life and animation which was all of
perfection it could have lacked.
It was worth a pilgrimage to see. Everything is on so gigantic a
scale. Nothing is small -- nothing is cheap. The statues are all
large; the palace is grand; the park covers a fair-sized county; the
avenues are interminable. All the distances and all the dimensions
about Versailles are vast. I used to think the pictures exaggerated
these distances and these dimensions beyond all reason, and that
they made Versailles more beautiful than it was possible for any
place in the world to be. I know now that the pictures never came up
to the subject in any respect, and that no painter could represent
Versailles on canvas as beautiful as it is in reality. I used to
abuse Louis XIV for spending two hundred millions of dollars in
creating this marvelous park, when bread was so scarce with some of
his subjects; but I have forgiven him now. He took a tract of land
sixty miles in circumference and set to work to make this park and
build this palace and a road to it from Paris. He kept 36,000 men
employed daily on it, and the labor was so unhealthy that they used
to die and be hauled off by cartloads every night. The wife of a
nobleman of the time speaks of this as an "inconvenience," but
naively remarks that "it does not seem worthy of attention in the
happy state of tranquillity we now enjoy."
I always thought ill of people at home who trimmed their shrubbery
into pyramids and squares and spires and all manner of unnatural
shapes, and when I saw the same thing being practiced in this great
park I began to feel dissatisfied. But I soon saw the idea of the
thing and the wisdom of it. They seek the general effect. We distort
a dozen sickly trees into unaccustomed shapes in a little yard no
bigger than a dining room, and then surely they look absurd enough.
But here they take two hundred thousand tall forest trees and set
them in a double row; allow no sign of leaf or branch to grow on the
trunk lower down than six feet above the ground; from that point the
boughs begin to project, and very gradually they extend outward
further and further till they meet overhead, and a faultless tunnel
of foliage is formed. The arch is mathematically precise. The effect
is then very fine. They make trees take fifty different shapes, and
so these quaint effects are infinitely varied and picturesque. The
trees in no two avenues are shaped alike, and consequently the eye
is not fatigued with anything in the nature of monotonous
uniformity. I will drop this subject now, leaving it to others to
determine how these people manage to make endless ranks of lofty
forest trees grow to just a certain thickness of trunk (say a foot
and two-thirds); how they make them spring to precisely the same
height for miles; how they make them grow so close together; how
they compel one huge limb to spring from the same identical spot on
each tree and form the main sweep of the arch; and how all these
things are kept exactly in the same condition and in the same
exquisite shapeliness and symmetry month after month and year after
year -- for I have tried to reason out the problem and have failed.
We walked through the great hall of sculpture and the one hundred
and fifty galleries of paintings in the palace of Versailles, and
felt that to be in such a place was useless unless one had a whole
year at his disposal. These pictures are all battle scenes, and only
one solitary little canvas among them all treats of anything but
great French victories. We wandered, also, through the Grand Trianon
and the Petit Trianon, those monuments of royal prodigality, and
with histories so mournful -- filled, as it is, with souvenirs of
Napoleon the First, and three dead kings and as many queens. In one
sumptuous bed they had all slept in succession, but no one occupies
it now. In a large dining room stood the table at which Louis XIV
and his mistress Madame Maintenon, and after them Louis XV, and
Pompadour, had sat at their meals naked and unattended -- for the
table stood upon a trapdoor, which descended with it to regions
below when it was necessary to replenish its dishes. In a room of
the Petit Trianon stood the furniture, just as poor Marie Antoinette
left it when the mob came and dragged her and the King to Paris,
never to return. Near at hand, in the stables, were prodigious
carriages that showed no color but gold -- carriages used by former
kings of France on state occasions, and never used now save when a
kingly head is to be crowned or an imperial infant christened. And
with them were some curious sleighs, whose bodies were shaped like
lions, swans, tigers, etc. -- vehicles that had once been handsome
with pictured designs and fine workmanship, but were dusty and
decaying now. They had their history. When Louis XIV had finished
the Grand Trianon, he told Maintenon he had created a Paradise for
her, and asked if she could think of anything now to wish for. He
said he wished the Trianon to be perfection -- nothing less. She
said she could think of but one thing -- it was summer, and it was
balmy France -- yet she would like well to sleigh ride in the leafy
avenues of Versailles! The next morning found miles and miles of
grassy avenues spread thick with snowy salt and sugar, and a
procession of those quaint sleighs waiting to receive the chief
concubine of the gaiest and most unprincipled court that France has
ever seen!
From sumptuous Versailles, with its palaces, its statues, its
gardens, and its fountains, we journeyed back to Paris and sought
its antipodes -- the Faubourg St. Antoine. Little, narrow streets;
dirty children blockading them; greasy, slovenly women capturing and
spanking them; filthy dens on first floors, with rag stores in them
(the heaviest business in the Faubourg is the chiffonier's); other
filthy dens where whole suits of second and third-hand clothing are
sold at prices that would ruin any proprietor who did not steal his
stock; still other filthy dens where they sold groceries -- sold
them by the half-pennyworth -- five dollars would buy the man out,
goodwill and all. Up these little crooked streets they will murder a
man for seven dollars and dump the body in the Seine. And up some
other of these streets -- most of them, I should say -- live
lorettes.
All through this Faubourg St. Antoine, misery, poverty, vice, and
crime go hand in hand, and the evidences of it stare one in the face
from every side. Here the people live who begin the revolutions.
Whenever there is anything of that kind to be done, they are always
ready. They take as much genuine pleasure in building a barricade as
they do in cutting a throat or shoving a friend into the Seine. It
is these savage-looking ruffians who storm the splendid halls of the
Tuileries occasionally, and swarm into Versailles when a king is to
be called to account.
But they will build no more barricades, they will break no more
soldiers' heads with paving-stones. Louis Napoleon has taken care of
all that. He is annihilating the crooked streets and building in
their stead noble boulevards as straight as an arrow -- avenues
which a cannon ball could traverse from end to end without meeting
an obstruction more irresistible than the flesh and bones of men --
boulevards whose stately edifices will never afford refuges and
plotting places for starving, discontented revolution breeders. Five
of these great thoroughfares radiate from one ample centre -- a
centre which is exceedingly well adapted to the accommodation of
heavy artillery. The mobs used to riot there, but they must seek
another rallying-place in future. And this ingenious Napoleon paves
the streets of his great cities with a smooth, compact composition
of asphaltum and sand. No more barricades of flagstones -- no more
assaulting his Majesty's troops with cobbles. I cannot feel friendly
toward my quondam fellow-American, Napoleon III., especially at this
time,16.1 when in fancy I see his credulous victim, Maximilian,
lying stark and stiff in Mexico, and his maniac widow watching
eagerly from her French asylum for the form that will never come --
but I do admire his nerve, his calm self-reliance, his shrewd good
sense.
16.1 July, 1867.
CHAPTER XVII

WE had a pleasant journey of it seaward again. We found that for the

three past nights our ship had been in a state of war. The first
night the sailors of a British ship, being happy with grog, came
down on the pier and challenged our sailors to a free fight. They
accepted with alacrity, repaired to the pier, and gained -- their
share of a drawn battle. Several bruised and bloody members of both
parties were carried off by the police and imprisoned until the
following morning. The next night the British boys came again to
renew the fight, but our men had had strict orders to remain on
board and out of sight. They did so, and the besieging party grew
noisy and more and more abusive as the fact became apparent (to
them) that our men were afraid to come out. They went away finally
with a closing burst of ridicule and offensive epithets. The third
night they came again and were more obstreperous than ever. They
swaggered up and down the almost deserted pier, and hurled curses,
obscenity, and stinging sarcasms at our crew. It was more than human
nature could bear. The executive officer ordered our men ashore --
with instructions not to fight. They charged the British and gained
a brilliant victory. I probably would not have mentioned this war
had it ended differently. But I travel to learn, and I still
remember that they picture no French defeats in the battle-galleries
of Versailles.
It was like home to us to step on board the comfortable ship again
and smoke and lounge about her breezy decks. And yet it was not
altogether like home, either, because so many members of the family
were away. We missed some pleasant faces which we would rather have
found at dinner, and at night there were gaps in the euchre-parties
which could not be satisfactorily filled. "Moult." was in England,
Jack in Switzerland, Charley in Spain. Blucher was gone, none could
tell where. But we were at sea again, and we had the stars and the
ocean to look at, and plenty of room to meditate in.
In due time the shores of Italy were sighted, and as we stood gazing
from the decks, early in the bright summer morning, the stately city
of Genoa rose up out of the sea and flung back the sunlight from her
hundred palaces.
Here we rest for the present -- or rather, here we have been trying
to rest, for some little time, but we run about too much to
accomplish a great deal in that line.
I would like to remain here. I had rather not go any further. There
may be prettier women in Europe, but I doubt it. The population of
Genoa is 120,000; two-thirds of these are women, I think, and at
least two-thirds of the women are beautiful. They are as dressy and
as tasteful and as graceful as they could possibly be without being
angels. However, angels are not very dressy, I believe. At least the
angels in pictures are not -- they wear nothing but wings. But these
Genoese women do look so charming. Most of the young demoiselles are
robed in a cloud of white from head to foot, though many trick
themselves out more elaborately. Nine-tenths of them wear nothing on
their heads but a filmy sort of veil, which falls down their backs
like a white mist. They are very fair, and many of them have blue
eyes, but black and dreamy dark brown ones are met with oftenest.
The ladies and gentlemen of Genoa have a pleasant fashion of
promenading in a large park on the top of a hill in the center of
the city, from six till nine in the evening, and then eating ices in
a neighboring garden an hour or two longer. We went to the park on
Sunday evening. Two thousand persons were present, chiefly young
ladies and gentlemen. The gentlemen were dressed in the very latest
Paris fashions, and the robes of the ladies glinted among the trees
like so many snowflakes. The multitude moved round and round the
park in a great procession. The bands played, and so did the
fountains; the moon and the gas lamps lit up the scene, and
altogether it was a brilliant and an animated picture. I scanned
every female face that passed, and it seemed to me that all were
handsome. I never saw such a freshet of loveliness before. I did not
see how a man of only ordinary decision of character could marry
here, because before he could get his mind made up he would fall in
love with somebody else.
Never smoke any Italian tobacco. Never do it on any account. It
makes me shudder to think what it must be made of. You cannot throw
an old cigar "stub" down anywhere, but some vagabond will pounce
upon it on the instant. I like to smoke a good deal, but it wounds
my sensibilities to see one of these stub-hunters watching me out of
the corners of his hungry eyes and calculating how long my cigar
will be likely to last. It reminded me too painfully of that San
Francisco undertaker who used to go to sick-beds with his watch in
his hand and time the corpse. One of these stub-hunters followed us
all over the park last night, and we never had a smoke that was
worth anything. We were always moved to appease him with the stub
before the cigar was half gone, because he looked so viciously
anxious. He regarded us as his own legitimate prey, by right of
discovery, I think, because he drove off several other professionals
who wanted to take stock in us.
Now, they surely must chew up those old stubs, and dry and sell them
for smoking-tobacco. Therefore, give your custom to other than
Italian brands of the article.
"The Superb" and the "City of Palaces" are names which Genoa has
held for centuries. She is full of palaces, certainly, and the
palaces are sumptuous inside, but they are very rusty without and
make no pretensions to architectural magnificence. "Genoa the
Superb" would be a felicitous title if it referred to the women.
We have visited several of the palaces -- immense thick-walled
piles, with great stone staircases, tesselated marble pavements on
the floors, (sometimes they make a mosaic work, of intricate
designs, wrought in pebbles or little fragments of marble laid in
cement,) and grand salons hung with pictures by Rubens, Guido,
Titian, Paul Veronese, and so on, and portraits of heads of the
family, in plumed helmets and gallant coats of mail, and patrician
ladies in stunning costumes of centuries ago. But, of course, the
folks were all out in the country for the summer, and might not have
known enough to ask us to dinner if they had been at home, and so
all the grand empty salons, with their resounding pavements, their
grim pictures of dead ancestors, and tattered banners with the dust
of bygone centuries upon them, seemed to brood solemnly of death and
the grave, and our spirits ebbed away, and our cheerfulness passed
from us. We never went up to the eleventh story. We always began to
suspect ghosts. There was always an undertaker-looking servant
along, too, who handed us a program, pointed to the picture that
began the list of the salon he was in, and then stood stiff and
stark and unsmiling in his petrified livery till we were ready to
move on to the next chamber, whereupon he marched sadly ahead and
took up another malignantly respectful position as before. I wasted
so much time praying that the roof would fall in on these
dispiriting flunkies that I had but little left to bestow upon
palace and pictures.
And besides, as in Paris, we had a guide. Perdition catch all the
guides. This one said he was the most gifted linguist in Genoa, as
far as English was concerned, and that only two persons in the city
beside himself could talk the language at all. He showed us the
birthplace of Christopher Columbus, and after we had reflected in
silent awe before it for fifteen minutes, he said it was not the
birthplace of Columbus, but of Columbus' grandmother! When we
demanded an explanation of his conduct he only shrugged his
shoulders and answered in barbarous Italian. I shall speak further
of this guide in a future chapter. All the information we got out of
him we shall be able to carry along with us, I think.
I have not been to church so often in a long time as I have in the
last few weeks. The people in these old lands seem to make churches
their specialty. Especially does this seem to be the case with the
citizens of Genoa. I think there is a church every three or four
hundred yards all over town. The streets are sprinkled from end to
end with shovel-hatted, long-robed, well-fed priests, and the church
bells by dozens are pealing all the day long, nearly. Every now and
then one comes across a friar of orders gray, with shaven head,
long, coarse robe, rope girdle and beads, and with feet cased in
sandals or entirely bare. These worthies suffer in the flesh and do
penance all their lives, I suppose, but they look like consummate
famine-breeders. They are all fat and serene.
The old Cathedral of San Lorenzo is about as notable a building as
we have found in Genoa. It is vast, and has colonnades of noble
pillars, and a great organ, and the customary pomp of gilded
moldings, pictures, frescoed ceilings, and so forth. I cannot
describe it, of course -- it would require a good many pages to do
that. But it is a curious place. They said that half of it -- from
the front door halfway down to the altar -- was a Jewish synagogue
before the Saviour was born, and that no alteration had been made in
it since that time. We doubted the statement, but did it
reluctantly. We would much rather have believed it. The place looked
in too perfect repair to be so ancient.
The main point of interest about the cathedral is the little Chapel
of St. John the Baptist. They only allow women to enter it on one
day in the year, on account of the animosity they still cherish
against the sex because of the murder of the Saint to gratify a
caprice of Herodias. In this Chapel is a marble chest, in which,
they told us, were the ashes of St. John; and around it was wound a
chain, which, they said, had confined him when he was in prison. We
did not desire to disbelieve these statements, and yet we could not
feel certain that they were correct -- partly because we could have
broken that chain, and so could St. John, and partly because we had
seen St. John's ashes before, in another church. We could not bring
ourselves to think St. John had two sets of ashes.
They also showed us a portrait of the Madonna which was painted by
St. Luke, and it did not look half as old and smoky as some of the
pictures by Rubens. We could not help admiring the Apostle's modesty
in never once mentioning in his writings that he could paint.
But isn't this relic matter a little overdone? We find a piece of
the true cross in every old church we go into, and some of the nails
that held it together. I would not like to be positive, but I think
we have seen as much as a keg of these nails. Then there is the
crown of thorns; they have part of one in Sainte Chapelle, in Paris,
and part of one also in Notre Dame. And as for bones of St. Denis, I
feel certain we have seen enough of them to duplicate him if
necessary.
I only meant to write about the churches, but I keep wandering from
the subject. I could say that the Church of the Annunciation is a
wilderness of beautiful columns, of statues, gilded moldings, and
pictures almost countless, but that would give no one an entirely
perfect idea of the thing, and so where is the use? One family built
the whole edifice, and have got money left. There is where the
mystery lies. We had an idea at first that only a mint could have
survived the expense.
These people here live in the heaviest, highest, broadest, darkest,
solidest houses one can imagine. Each one might "laugh a siege to
scorn." A hundred feet front and a hundred high is about the style,
and you go up three flights of stairs before you begin to come upon
signs of occupancy. Everything is stone, and stone of the heaviest
-- floors, stairways, mantels, benches -- everything. The walls are
four to five feet thick. The streets generally are four or five to
eight feet wide and as crooked as a corkscrew. You go along one of
these gloomy cracks, and look up and behold the sky like a mere
ribbon of light, far above your head, where the tops of the tall
houses on either side of the street bend almost together. You feel
as if you were at the bottom of some tremendous abyss, with all the
world far above you. You wind in and out and here and there, in the
most mysterious way, and have no more idea of the points of the
compass than if you were a blind man. You can never persuade
yourself that these are actually streets, and the frowning, dingy,
monstrous houses dwellings, till you see one of these beautiful,
prettily dressed women emerge from them -- see her emerge from a
dark, dreary-looking den that looks dungeon all over, from the
ground away halfway up to heaven. And then you wonder that such a
charming moth could come from such a forbidding shell as that. The
streets are wisely made narrow and the houses heavy and thick and
stony, in order that the people may be cool in this roasting
climate. And they are cool, and stay so. And while I think of it --
the men wear hats and have very dark complexions, but the women wear
no headgear but a flimsy veil like a gossamer's web, and yet are
exceedingly fair as a general thing. Singular, isn't it?
The huge palaces of Genoa are each supposed to be occupied by one
family, but they could accommodate a hundred, I should think. They
are relics of the grandeur of Genoa's palmy days -- the days when
she was a great commercial and maritime power several centuries ago.
These houses, solid marble palaces though they be, are in many cases
of a dull pinkish color, outside, and from pavement to eaves are
pictured with Genoese battle scenes, with monstrous Jupiters and
Cupids, and with familiar illustrations from Grecian mythology.
Where the paint has yielded to age and exposure and is peeling off
in flakes and patches, the effect is not happy. A noseless Cupid or
a Jupiter with an eye out or a Venus with a fly-blister on her
breast, are not attractive features in a picture. Some of these
painted walls reminded me somewhat of the tall van, plastered with
fanciful bills and posters, that follows the bandwagon of a circus
about a country village. I have not read or heard that the outsides
of the houses of any other European city are frescoed in this way.
I can not conceive of such a thing as Genoa in ruins. Such massive
arches, such ponderous substructions as support these towering
broad-winged edifices, we have seldom seen before; and surely the
great blocks of stone of which these edifices are built can never
decay; walls that are as thick as an ordinary American doorway is
high cannot crumble.
The republics of Genoa and Pisa were very powerful in the Middle
Ages. Their ships filled the Mediterranean, and they carried on an
extensive commerce with Constantinople and Syria. Their warehouses
were the great distributing depots from whence the costly
merchandise of the East was sent abroad over Europe. They were
warlike little nations and defied, in those days, governments that
overshadow them now as mountains overshadow molehills. The Saracens
captured and pillaged Genoa nine hundred years ago, but during the
following century Genoa and Pisa entered into an offensive and
defensive alliance and besieged the Saracen colonies in Sardinia and
the Balearic Isles with an obstinacy that maintained its pristine
vigor and held to its purpose for forty long years. They were
victorious at last and divided their conquests equably among their
great patrician families. Descendants of some of those proud
families still inhabit the palaces of Genoa, and trace in their own
features a resemblance to the grim knights whose portraits hang in
their stately halls, and to pictured beauties with pouting lips and
merry eyes whose originals have been dust and ashes for many a dead
and forgotten century.
The hotel we live in belonged to one of those great orders of
knights of the Cross in the times of the Crusades, and its mailed
sentinels once kept watch and ward in its massive turrets and woke
the echoes of these halls and corridors with their iron heels.
But Genoa's greatness has degenerated into an unostentatious
commerce in velvets and silver filagreework. They say that each
European town has its specialty. These filagree things are Genoa's
specialty. Her smiths take silver ingots and work them up into all
manner of graceful and beautiful forms. They make bunches of
flowers, from flakes and wires of silver, that counterfeit the
delicate creations the frost weaves upon a windowpane; and we were
shown a miniature silver temple whose fluted columns, whose
Corinthian capitals and rich entablatures, whose spire, statues,
bells, and ornate lavishness of sculpture were wrought in polished
silver, and with such matchless art that every detail was a
fascinating study and the finished edifice a wonder of beauty.
We are ready to move again, though we are not really tired yet of
the narrow passages of this old marble cave. Cave is a good word --
when speaking of Genoa under the stars. When we have been prowling
at midnight through the gloomy crevices they call streets, where no
footfalls but ours were echoing, where only ourselves were abroad,
and lights appeared only at long intervals and at a distance, and
mysteriously disappeared again, and the houses at our elbows seemed
to stretch upward farther than ever toward the heavens, the memory
of a cave I used to know at home was always in my mind, with its
lofty passages, its silence and solitude, its shrouding gloom, its
sepulchral echoes, its flitting lights, and more than all, its
sudden revelations of branching crevices and corridors where we
least expected them.
We are not tired of the endless processions of cheerful, chattering
gossipers that throng these courts and streets all day long, either;
nor of the coarse-robed monks; nor of the "Asti" wines, which that
old doctor (whom we call the Oracle,) with customary felicity in the
matter of getting everything wrong, misterms "nasty." But we must
go, nevertheless.
Our last sight was the cemetery (a burial place intended to
accommodate 60,000 bodies,) and we shall continue to remember it
after we shall have forgotten the palaces. It is a vast marble
collonaded corridor extending around a great unoccupied square of
ground; its broad floor is marble, and on every slab is an
inscription -- for every slab covers a corpse. On either side, as
one walks down the middle of the passage, are monuments, tombs, and
sculptured figures that are exquisitely wrought and are full of
grace and beauty. They are new and snowy; every outline is perfect,
every feature guiltless of mutilation, flaw, or blemish; and
therefore, to us these far-reaching ranks of bewitching forms are a
hundred fold more lovely than the damaged and dingy statuary they
have saved from the wreck of ancient art and set up in the galleries
of Paris for the worship of the world.
Well provided with cigars and other necessaries of life, we are now
ready to take the cars for Milan.
CHAPTER XVIII

ALL day long we sped through a mountainous country whose peaks were
bright with sunshine, whose hillsides were dotted with pretty villas
sitting in the midst of gardens and shrubbery, and whose deep
ravines were cool and shady and looked ever so inviting from where
we and the birds were winging our flight through the sultry upper
air.
We had plenty of chilly tunnels wherein to check our perspiration,
though. We timed one of them. We were twenty minutes passing through
it, going at the rate of thirty to thirty-five miles an hour.
Beyond Alessandria we passed the battle-field of Marengo.
Toward dusk we drew near Milan and caught glimpses of the city and
the blue mountain peaks beyond. But we were not caring for these
things -- they did not interest us in the least. We were in a fever
of impatience; we were dying to see the renowned cathedral! We
watched -- in this direction and that -- all around -- everywhere.
We needed no one to point it out -- we did not wish any one to point
it out -- we would recognize it even in the desert of the great
Sahara.
At last, a forest of graceful needles, shimmering in the amber
sunlight, rose slowly above the pygmy housetops, as one sometimes
sees, in the far horizon, a gilded and pinnacled mass of cloud lift
itself above the waste of waves, at sea, -- the Cathedral! We knew
it in a moment.
Half of that night, and all of the next day, this architectural
autocrat was our sole object of interest.
What a wonder it is! So grand, so solemn, so vast! And yet so
delicate, so airy, so graceful! A very world of solid weight, and
yet it seems in the soft moonlight only a fairy delusion of
frost-work that might vanish with a breath! How sharply its
pinnacled angles and its wilderness of spires were cut against the
sky, and how richly their shadows fell upon its snowy roof! It was a
vision! -- a miracle! -- an anthem sung in stone, a poem wrought in
marble!
Howsoever you look at the great cathedral, it is noble, it is
beautiful! Wherever you stand in Milan or within seven miles of
Milan, it is visible and when it is visible, no other object can
chain your whole attention. Leave your eyes unfettered by your will
but a single instant and they will surely turn to seek it. It is the
first thing you look for when you rise in the morning, and the last
your lingering gaze rests upon at night. Surely it must be the
princeliest creation that ever brain of man conceived.
At nine o'clock in the morning we went and stood before this marble
colossus. The central one of its five great doors is bordered with a
bas-relief of birds and fruits and beasts and insects, which have
been so ingeniously carved out of the marble that they seem like
living creatures -- and the figures are so numerous and the design
so complex that one might study it a week without exhausting its
interest. On the great steeple -- surmounting the myriad of spires
-- inside of the spires -- over the doors, the windows -- in nooks
and corners -- every where that a niche or a perch can be found
about the enormous building, from summit to base, there is a marble
statue, and every statue is a study in itself! Raphael, Angelo,
Canova -- giants like these gave birth to the designs, and their own
pupils carved them. Every face is eloquent with expression, and
every attitude is full of grace. Away above, on the lofty roof, rank
on rank of carved and fretted spires spring high in the air, and
through their rich tracery one sees the sky beyond. In their midst
the central steeple towers proudly up like the mainmast of some
great Indiaman among a fleet of coasters.
We wished to go aloft. The sacristan showed us a marble stairway (of
course it was marble, and of the purest and whitest -- there is no
other stone, no brick, no wood, among its building materials) and
told us to go up one hundred and eighty-two steps and stop till he
came. It was not necessary to say stop -- we should have done that
any how. We were tired by the time we got there. This was the roof.
Here, springing from its broad marble flagstones, were the long
files of spires, looking very tall close at hand, but diminishing in
the distance like the pipes of an organ. We could see now that the
statue on the top of each was the size of a large man, though they
all looked like dolls from the street. We could see, also, that from
the inside of each and every one of these hollow spires, from
sixteen to thirty-one beautiful marble statues looked out upon the
world below.
From the eaves to the comb of the roof stretched in endless
succession great curved marble beams, like the fore-and-aft braces
of a steamboat, and along each beam from end to end stood up a row
of richly carved flowers and fruits -- each separate and distinct in
kind, and over 15,000 species represented. At a little distance
these rows seem to close together like the ties of a railroad track,
and then the mingling together of the buds and blossoms of this
marble garden forms a picture that is very charming to the eye.
We descended and entered. Within the church, long rows of fluted
columns, like huge monuments, divided the building into broad
aisles, and on the figured pavement fell many a soft blush from the
painted windows above. I knew the church was very large, but I could
not fully appreciate its great size until I noticed that the men
standing far down by the altar looked like boys, and seemed to
glide, rather than walk. We loitered about gazing aloft at the
monster windows all aglow with brilliantly colored scenes in the
lives of the Saviour and his followers. Some of these pictures are
mosaics, and so artistically are their thousand particles of tinted
glass or stone put together that the work has all the smoothness and
finish of a painting. We counted sixty panes of glass in one window,
and each pane was adorned with one of these master achievements of
genius and patience.
The guide showed us a coffee-colored piece of sculpture which he
said was considered to have come from the hand of Phidias, since it
was not possible that any other artist, of any epoch, could have
copied nature with such faultless accuracy. The figure was that of a
man without a skin; with every vein, artery, muscle, every fiber and
tendon and tissue of the human frame represented in minute detail.
It looked natural, because somehow it looked as if it were in pain.
A skinned man would be likely to look that way unless his attention
were occupied with some other matter. It was a hideous thing, and
yet there was a fascination about it some where. I am very sorry I
saw it, because I shall always see it now. I shall dream of it
sometimes. I shall dream that it is resting its corded arms on the
bed's head and looking down on me with its dead eyes; I shall dream
that it is stretched between the sheets with me and touching me with
its exposed muscles and its stringy cold legs.
It is hard to forget repulsive things. I remember yet how I ran off
from school once, when I was a boy, and then, pretty late at night,
concluded to climb into the window of my father's office and sleep
on a lounge, because I had a delicacy about going home and getting
thrashed. As I lay on the lounge and my eyes grew accustomed to the
darkness, I fancied I could see a long, dusky, shapeless thing
stretched upon the floor. A cold shiver went through me. I turned my
face to the wall. That did not answer. I was afraid that that thing
would creep over and seize me in the dark. I turned back and stared
at it for minutes and minutes -- they seemed hours. It appeared to
me that the lagging moonlight never, never would get to it. I turned
to the wall and counted twenty, to pass the feverish time away. I
looked -- the pale square was nearer. I turned again and counted
fifty -- it was almost touching it. With desperate will I turned
again and counted one hundred, and faced about, all in a tremble. A
white human hand lay in the moonlight! Such an awful sinking at the
heart -- such a sudden gasp for breath! I felt -- I cannot tell what
I felt. When I recovered strength enough, I faced the wall again.
But no boy could have remained so with that mysterious hand behind
him. I counted again and looked -- the most of a naked arm was
exposed. I put my hands over my eyes and counted till I could stand
it no longer, and then -- the pallid face of a man was there, with
the corners of the mouth drawn down, and the eyes fixed and glassy
in death! I raised to a sitting posture and glowered on that corpse
till the light crept down the bare breastline by line -- inch by
inch -- past the nipple -- and then it disclosed a ghastly stab!
I went away from there. I do not say that I went away in any sort of
a hurry, but I simply went -- that is sufficient. I went out at the
window, and I carried the sash along with me. I did not need the
sash, but it was handier to take it than it was to leave it, and so
I took it. -- I was not scared, but I was considerably agitated.
When I reached home, they whipped me, but I enjoyed it. It seemed
perfectly delightful. That man had been stabbed near the office that
afternoon, and they carried him in there to doctor him, but he only
lived an hour. I have slept in the same room with him often since
then -- in my dreams.
Now we will descend into the crypt, under the grand altar of Milan
Cathedral, and receive an impressive sermon from lips that have been
silent and hands that have been gestureless for three hundred years.

The priest stopped in a small dungeon and held up his candle. This
was the last resting-place of a good man, a warm-hearted, unselfish
man; a man whose whole life was given to succoring the poor,
encouraging the faint-hearted, visiting the sick; in relieving
distress, whenever and wherever he found it. His heart, his hand,
and his purse were always open. With his story in one's mind he can
almost see his benignant countenance moving calmly among the haggard
faces of Milan in the days when the plague swept the city, brave
where all others were cowards, full of compassion where pity had
been crushed out of all other breasts by the instinct of
self-preservation gone mad with terror, cheering all, praying with
all, helping all, with hand and brain and purse, at a time when
parents forsook their children, the friend deserted the friend, and
the brother turned away from the sister while her pleadings were
still wailing in his ears.
This was good St. Charles Borroméo, Bishop of Milan. The people
idolized him; princes lavished uncounted treasures upon him. We
stood in his tomb. Near by was the sarcophagus, lighted by the
dripping candles. The walls were faced with bas-reliefs representing
scenes in his life done in massive silver. The priest put on a short
white lace garment over his black robe, crossed himself, bowed
reverently, and began to turn a windlass slowly. The sarcophagus
separated in two parts, lengthwise, and the lower part sank down and
disclosed a coffin of rock crystal as clear as the atmosphere.
Within lay the body, robed in costly habiliments covered with gold
embroidery and starred with scintillating gems. The decaying head
was black with age, the dry skin was drawn tight to the bones, the
eyes were gone, there was a hole in the temple and another in the
cheek, and the skinny lips were parted as in a ghastly smile! Over
this dreadful face, its dust and decay and its mocking grin, hung a
crown sown thick with flashing brilliants; and upon the breast lay
crosses and croziers of solid gold that were splendid with emeralds
and diamonds.
How poor, and cheap, and trivial these gew-gaws seemed in presence
of the solemnity, the grandeur, the awful majesty of Death! Think of
Milton, Shakspeare, Washington, standing before a reverent world
tricked out in the glass beads, the brass ear-rings and tin trumpery
of the savages of the plains!
Dead Bartoloméo preached his pregnant sermon, and its burden was:
You that worship the vanities of earth -- you that long for worldly
honor, worldly wealth, worldly fame -- behold their worth!
To us it seemed that so good a man, so kind a heart, so simple a
nature, deserved rest and peace in a grave sacred from the intrusion
of prying eyes, and believed that he himself would have preferred to
have it so, but peradventure our wisdom was at fault in this regard.

As we came out upon the floor of the church again, another priest
volunteered to show us the treasures of the church. What, more? The
furniture of the narrow chamber of death we had just visited weighed
six millions of francs in ounces and carats alone, without a penny
thrown into the account for the costly workmanship bestowed upon
them! But we followed into a large room filled with tall wooden
presses like wardrobes. He threw them open, and behold, the cargoes
of "crude bullion" of the assay offices of Nevada faded out of my
memory. There were Virgins and bishops there, above their natural
size, made of solid silver, each worth, by weight, from eight
hundred thousand to two millions of francs, and bearing gemmed books
in their hands worth eighty thousand; there were bas-reliefs that
weighed six hundred pounds, carved in solid silver; croziers and
crosses, and candlesticks six and eight feet high, all of virgin
gold, and brilliant with precious stones; and beside these were all
manner of cups and vases, and such things, rich in proportion. It
was an Aladdin's palace. The treasures here, by simple weight,
without counting workmanship, were valued at fifty millions of
francs! If I could get the custody of them for a while, I fear me
the market price of silver bishops would advance shortly, on account
of their exceeding scarcity in the Cathedral of Milan.
The priests showed us two of St. Paul's fingers, and one of St.
Peter's; a bone of Judas Iscariot, (it was black,) and also bones of
all the other disciples; a handkerchief in which the Saviour had
left the impression of his face. Among the most precious of the
relics were a stone from the Holy Sepulchre, part of the crown of
thorns, (they have a whole one at Notre Dame,) a fragment of the
purple robe worn by the Saviour, a nail from the Cross, and a
picture of the Virgin and Child painted by the veritable hand of St.
Luke. This is the second of St. Luke's Virgins we have seen. Once a
year all these holy relics are carried in procession through the
streets of Milan.
I like to revel in the dryest details of the great cathedral. The
building is five hundred feet long by one hundred and eighty wide,
and the principal steeple is in the neighborhood of four hundred
feet high. It has 7,148 marble statues, and will have upwards of
three thousand more when it is finished. In addition it has one
thousand five hundred bas-reliefs. It has one hundred and thirty-six
spires -- twenty-one more are to be added. Each spire is surmounted
by a statue six and a half feet high. Every thing about the church
is marble, and all from the same quarry; it was bequeathed to the
Archbishopric for this purpose centuries ago. So nothing but the
mere workmanship costs; still that is expensive -- the bill foots up
six hundred and eighty-four millions of francs thus far
(considerably over a hundred millions of dollars,) and it is
estimated that it will take a hundred and twenty years yet to finish
the cathedral. It looks complete, but is far from being so. We saw a
new statue put in its niche yesterday, alongside of one which had
been standing these four hundred years, they said. There are four
staircases leading up to the main steeple, each of which cost a
hundred thousand dollars, with the four hundred and eight statues
which adorn them. Marco Compioni was the architect who designed the
wonderful structure more than five hundred years ago, and it took
him forty-six years to work out the plan and get it ready to hand
over to the builders. He is dead now. The building was begun a
little less than five hundred years ago, and the third generation
hence will not see it completed.
The building looks best by moonlight, because the older portions of
it, being stained with age, contrast unpleasantly with the newer and
whiter portions. It seems somewhat too broad for its height, but may
be familiarity with it might dissipate this impression.
They say that the Cathedral of Milan is second only to St. Peter's
at Rome. I cannot understand how it can be second to anything made
by human hands.
We bid it good-bye, now -- possibly for all time. How surely, in
some future day, when the memory of it shall have lost its
vividness, shall we half believe we have seen it in a wonderful
dream, but never with waking eyes!
CHAPTER XIX

"ZO you wis zo haut can be?"

That was what the guide asked when we were looking up at the bronze
horses on the Arch of Peace. It meant, do you wish to go up there? I
give it as a specimen of guide-English. These are the people that
make life a burthen to the tourist. Their tongues are never still.
They talk forever and forever, and that is the kind of billingsgate
they use. Inspiration itself could hardly comprehend them. If they
would only show you a masterpiece of art, or a venerable tomb, or a
prison-house, or a battle-field, hallowed by touching memories or
historical reminiscences, or grand traditions, and then step aside
and hold still for ten minutes and let you think, it would not be so
bad. But they interrupt every dream, every pleasant train of
thought, with their tiresome cackling. Sometimes when I have been
standing before some cherished old idol of mine that I remembered
years and years ago in pictures in the geography at school, I have
thought I would give a whole world if the human parrot at my side
would suddenly perish where he stood and leave me to gaze, and
ponder, and worship.
No, we did not "wis zo haut can be." We wished to go to La Scala,
the largest theater in the world, I think they call it. We did so.
It was a large place. Seven separate and distinct masses of humanity
-- six great circles and a monster parquette.
We wished to go to the Ambrosian Library, and we did that also. We
saw a manuscript of Virgil, with annotations in the handwriting of
Petrarch, the gentleman who loved another man's Laura, and lavished
upon her all through life a love which was a clear waste of the raw
material. It was sound sentiment, but bad judgment. It brought both
parties fame, and created a fountain of commiseration for them in
sentimental breasts that is running yet. But who says a word in
behalf of poor Mr. Laura? (I do not know his other name.) Who
glorifies him? Who bedews him with tears? Who writes poetry about
him? Nobody. How do you suppose he liked the state of things that
has given the world so much pleasure? How did he enjoy having
another man following his wife every where and making her name a
familiar word in every garlic-exterminating mouth in Italy with his
sonnets to her pre-empted eyebrows? They got fame and sympathy -- he
got neither. This is a peculiarly felicitous instance of what is
called poetical justice. It is all very fine; but it does not chime
with my notions of right. It is too one-sided -- too ungenerous. Let
the world go on fretting about Laura and Petrarch if it will; but as
for me, my tears and my lamentations shall be lavished upon the
unsung defendant.
We saw also an autograph letter of Lucrezia Borgia, a lady for whom
I have always entertained the highest respect, on account of her
rare histrionic capabilities, her opulence in solid gold goblets
made of gilded wood, her high distinction as an operatic screamer,
and the facility with which she could order a sextuple funeral and
get the corpses ready for it. We saw one single coarse yellow hair
from Lucrezia's head, likewise. It awoke emotions, but we still
live. In this same library we saw some drawings by Michael Angelo
(these Italians call him Mickel Angelo,) and Leonardo da Vinci.
(They spell it Vinci and pronounce it Vinchy; foreigners always
spell better than they pronounce.) We reserve our opinion of these
sketches.
In another building they showed us a fresco representing some lions
and other beasts drawing chariots; and they seemed to project so far
from the wall that we took them to be sculptures. The artist had
shrewdly heightened the delusion by painting dust on the creatures'
backs, as if it had fallen there naturally and properly. Smart
fellow -- if it be smart to deceive strangers.
Elsewhere we saw a huge Roman amphitheatre, with its stone seats
still in good preservation. Modernized, it is now the scene of more
peaceful recreations than the exhibition of a party of wild beasts
with Christians for dinner. Part of the time, the Milanese use it
for a race track, and at other seasons they flood it with water and
have spirited yachting regattas there. The guide told us these
things, and he would hardly try so hazardous an experiment as the
telling of a falsehood, when it is all he can do to speak the truth
in English without getting the lock-jaw.
In another place we were shown a sort of summer arbor, with a fence
before it. We said that was nothing. We looked again, and saw,
through the arbor, an endless stretch of garden, and shrubbery, and
grassy lawn. We were perfectly willing to go in there and rest, but
it could not be done. It was only another delusion -- a painting by
some ingenious artist with little charity in his heart for tired
folk. The deception was perfect. No one could have imagined the park
was not real. We even thought we smelled the flowers at first.
We got a carriage at twilight and drove in the shaded avenues with
the other nobility, and after dinner we took wine and ices in a fine
garden with the great public. The music was excellent, the flowers
and shrubbery were pleasant to the eye, the scene was vivacious,
everybody was genteel and well-behaved, and the ladies were slightly
moustached, and handsomely dressed, but very homely.
We adjourned to a café and played billiards an hour, and I made six
or seven points by the doctor pocketing his ball, and he made as
many by my pocketing my ball. We came near making a carom sometimes,
but not the one we were trying to make. The table was of the usual
European style -- cushions dead and twice as high as the balls; the
cues in bad repair. The natives play only a sort of pool on them. We
have never seen any body playing the French three-ball game yet, and
I doubt if there is any such game known in France, or that there
lives any man mad enough to try to play it on one of these European
tables. We bad to stop playing finally because Dan got to sleeping
fifteen minutes between the counts and paying no attention to his
marking.
Afterward we walked up and down one of the most popular streets for
some time, enjoying other people's comfort and wishing we could
export some of it to our restless, driving, vitality-consuming marts
at home. Just in this one matter lies the main charm of life in
Europe -- comfort. In America, we hurry -- which is well; but when
the day's work is done, we go on thinking of losses and gains, we
plan for the morrow, we even carry our business cares to bed with
us, and toss and worry over them when we ought to be restoring our
racked bodies and brains with sleep. We burn up our energies with
these excitements, and either die early or drop into a lean and mean
old age at a time of life which they call a man's prime in Europe.
When an acre of ground has produced long and well, we let it lie
fallow and rest for a season; we take no man clear across the
continent in the same coach he started in -- the coach is stabled
somewhere on the plains and its heated machinery allowed to cool for
a few days; when a razor has seen long service and refuses to hold
an edge, the barber lays it away for a few weeks, and the edge comes
back of its own accord. We bestow thoughtful care upon inanimate
objects, but none upon ourselves. What a robust people, what a
nation of thinkers we might be, if we would only lay ourselves on
the shelf occasionally and renew our edges!
I do envy these Europeans the comfort they take. When the work of
the day is done, they forget it. Some of them go, with wife and
children, to a beer hall and sit quietly and genteelly drinking a
mug or two of ale and listening to music; others walk the streets,
others drive in the avenues; others assemble in the great ornamental
squares in the early evening to enjoy the sight and the fragrance of
flowers and to hear the military bands play -- no European city
being without its fine military music at eventide; and yet others of
the populace sit in the open air in front of the refreshment houses
and eat ices and drink mild beverages that could not harm a child.
They go to bed moderately early, and sleep well. They are always
quiet, always orderly, always cheerful, comfortable, and
appreciative of life and its manifold blessings. One never sees a
drunken man among them. The change that has come over our little
party is surprising. Day by day we lose some of our restlessness and
absorb some of the spirit of quietude and ease that is in the
tranquil atmosphere about us and in the demeanor of the people. We
grow wise apace. We begin to comprehend what life is for.
We have had a bath in Milan, in a public bath-house. They were going
to put all three of us in one bath-tub, but we objected. Each of us
had an Italian farm on his back. We could have felt affluent if we
had been officially surveyed and fenced in. We chose to have three
bathtubs, and large ones -- tubs suited to the dignity of
aristocrats who had real estate, and brought it with them. After we
were stripped and had taken the first chilly dash, we discovered
that haunting atrocity that has embittered our lives in so many
cities and villages of Italy and France -- there was no soap. I
called. A woman answered, and I barely had time to throw myself
against the door -- she would have been in, in another second. I
said:
"Beware, woman! Go away from here -- go away, now, or it will be the
worse for you. I am an unprotected male, but I will preserve my
honor at the peril of my life!"
These words must have frightened her, for she skurried away very
fast.
Dan's voice rose on the air:
"Oh, bring some soap, why don't you!"
The reply was Italian. Dan resumed:
"Soap, you know -- soap. That is what I want -- soap. S-o-a-p, soap;
s-o-p-e, soap; s-o-u-p, soap. Hurry up! I don't know how you Irish
spell it, but I want it. Spell it to suit yourself, but fetch it.
I'm freezing."
I heard the doctor say impressively:
"Dan, how often have we told you that these foreigners cannot
understand English? Why will you not depend upon us? Why will you
not tell us what you want, and let us ask for it in the language of
the country? It would save us a great deal of the humiliation your
reprehensible ignorance causes us. I will address this person in his
mother tongue: 'Here, cospetto! corpo di Bacco! Sacramento!
Solferino! -- Soap, you son of a gun!' Dan, if you would let ustalk
for you, you would never expose your ignorant vulgarity."
Even this fluent discharge of Italian did not bring the soap at
once, but there was a good reason for it. There was not such an
article about the establishment. It is my belief that there never
had been. They had to send far up town, and to several different
places before they finally got it, so they said. We had to wait
twenty or thirty minutes. The same thing had occurred the evening
before, at the hotel. I think I have divined the reason for this
state of things at last. The English know how to travel comfortably,
and they carry soap with them; other foreigners do not use the
article.
At every hotel we stop at we always have to send out for soap, at
the last moment, when we are grooming ourselves for dinner, and they
put it in the bill along with the candles and other nonsense. In
Marseilles they make half the fancy toilet soap we consume in
America, but the Marseillaise only have a vague theoretical idea of
its use, which they have obtained from books of travel, just as they
have acquired an uncertain notion of clean shirts, and the
peculiarities of the gorilla, and other curious matters. This
reminds me of poor Blucher's note to the landlord in Paris:
PARIS, le 7 Juillet.
Monsieur le Landlord -- Sir: Pourquoi don't you mettez some savon in
your
bed-chambers? Est-ce que vous pensez I will steal it? La nuit passée
you
charged me pour deux chandelles when I only had one; hier vous avez
charged me
avec glace when I had none at all; tout les jours you are coming
some fresh
game or other on me, mais vous ne pouvez pas play this savon dodge
on me
twice. Savon is a necessary de la vie to any body but a Frenchman,
et je
l'aurai hors de cet hôtel or make trouble. You hear me. Allons.
BLUCHER.
I remonstrated against the sending of this note, because it was so
mixed up that the landlord would never be able to make head or tail
of it; but Blucher said he guessed the old man could read the French
of it and average the rest.
Blucher's French is bad enough, but it is not much worse than the
English one finds in advertisements all over Italy every day. For
instance, observe the printed card of the hotel we shall probably
stop at on the shores of Lake Como:
"NOTISH."
"This hotel which the best it is in Italy and most superb, is
handsome
locate on the best situation of the lake, with the most splendid
view near the
Villas Melzy, to the King of Belgian, and Serbelloni. This hotel
have recently
enlarge, do offer all commodities on moderate price, at the
strangers
gentlemen who whish spend the seasons on the Lake Come."
How is that, for a specimen? In the hotel is a handsome little
chapel where an English clergyman is employed to preach to such of
the guests of the house as hail from England and America, and this
fact is also set forth in barbarous English in the same
advertisement. Wouldn't you have supposed that the adventurous
linguist who framed the card would have known enough to submit it to
that clergyman before he sent it to the printer?
Here in Milan, in an ancient tumble-down ruin of a church, is the
mournful wreck of the most celebrated painting in the world -- "The
Last Supper," by Leonardo da Vinci. We are not infallible judges of
pictures, but of course we went there to see this wonderful
painting, once so beautiful, always so worshipped by masters in art,
and forever to be famous in song and story. And the first thing that
occurred was the infliction on us of a placard fairly reeking with
wretched English. Take a morsel of it:
"Bartholomew (that is the first figure on the left hand side at the
spectator,) uncertain and doubtful about what he thinks to have
heard, and
upon which he wants to be assured by himself at Christ and by no
others."
Good, isn't it? And then Peter is described as "argumenting in a
threatening and angrily condition at Judas Iscariot."
This paragraph recalls the picture. "The Last Supper" is painted on
the dilapidated wall of what was a little chapel attached to the
main church in ancient times, I suppose. It is battered and scarred
in every direction, and stained and discolored by time, and
Napoleon's horses kicked the legs off most the disciples when they
(the horses, not the disciples,) were stabled there more than half a
century ago.
I recognized the old picture in a moment -- the Saviour with bowed
head seated at the centre of a long, rough table with scattering
fruits and dishes upon it, and six disciples on either side in their
long robes, talking to each other -- the picture from which all
engravings and all copies have been made for three centuries.
Perhaps no living man has ever known an attempt to paint the Lord's
Supper differently. The world seems to have become settled in the
belief, long ago, that it is not possible for human genius to outdo
this creation of da Vinci's. I suppose painters will go on copying
it as long as any of the original is left visible to the eye. There
were a dozen easels in the room, and as many artists transferring
the great picture to their canvases. Fifty proofs of steel
engravings and lithographs were scattered around, too. And as usual,
I could not help noticing how superior the copies were to the
original, that is, to my inexperienced eye. Wherever you find a
Raphael, a Rubens, a Michelangelo, a Carracci, or a da Vinci (and we
see them every day,) you find artists copying them, and the copies
are always the handsomest. Maybe the originals were handsome when
they were new, but they are not now.
This picture is about thirty feet long, and ten or twelve high, I
should think, and the figures are at least life size. It is one of
the largest paintings in Europe.
The colors are dimmed with age; the countenances are scaled and
marred, and nearly all expression is gone from them; the hair is a
dead blur upon the wall, and there is no life in the eyes. Only the
attitudes are certain.
People come here from all parts of the world, and glorify this
masterpiece. They stand entranced before it with bated breath and
parted lips, and when they speak, it is only in the catchy
ejaculations of rapture:
"Oh, wonderful!"
"Such expression!"
"Such grace of attitude!"
"Such dignity!"
"Such faultless drawing!"
"Such matchless coloring!"
"Such feeling!"
"What delicacy of touch!"
"What sublimity of conception!"
"A vision! A vision!"
I only envy these people; I envy them their honest admiration, if it
be honest -- their delight, if they feel delight. I harbor no
animosity toward any of them. But at the same time the thought will
intrude itself upon me, How can they see what is not visible? What
would you think of a man who looked at some decayed, blind,
toothless, pock-marked Cleopatra, and said: "What matchless beauty!
What soul! What expression!" What would you think of a man who gazed
upon a dingy, foggy sunset, and said: "What sublimity! What feeling!
What richness of coloring!" What would you think of a man who stared
in ecstasy upon a desert of stumps and said: "Oh, my soul, my
beating heart, what a noble forest is here!"
You would think that those men had an astonishing talent for seeing
things that had already passed away. It was what I thought when I
stood before "The Last Supper" and heard men apostrophizing wonders,
and beauties and perfections which had faded out of the picture and
gone, a hundred years before they were born. We can imagine the
beauty that was once in an aged face; we can imagine the forest if
we see the stumps; but we can not absolutely see these things when
they are not there. I am willing to believe that the eye of the
practiced artist can rest upon the Last Supper and renew a lustre
where only a hint of it is left, supply a tint that has faded away,
restore an expression that is gone; patch, and color, and add, to
the dull canvas until at last its figures shall stand before him
aglow with the life, the feeling, the freshness, yea, with all the
noble beauty that was theirs when first they came from the hand of
the master. But I can not work this miracle. Can those other
uninspired visitors do it, or do they only happily imagine they do?
After reading so much about it, I am satisfied that the Last Supper
was a very miracle of art once. But it was three hundred years ago.
It vexes me to hear people talk so glibly of "feeling,"
"expression," "tone," and those other easily acquired and
inexpensive technicalities of art that make such a fine show in
conversations concerning pictures. There is not one man in
seventy-five hundred that can tell what a pictured face is intended
to express. There is not one man in five hundred that can go into a
court-room and be sure that he will not mistake some harmless
innocent of a juryman for the black-hearted assassin on trial. Yet
such people talk of "character" and presume to interpret
"expression" in pictures. There is an old story that Matthews, the
actor, was once lauding the ability of the human face to express the
passions and emotions hidden in the breast. He said the countenance
could disclose what was passing in the heart plainer than the tongue
could.
"Now," he said, "observe my face -- what does it express?"
"Despair!"
"Bah, it expresses peaceful resignation! What does this express?"
"Rage!"
"Stuff! It means terror! This!"
"Imbecility!"
"Fool! It is smothered ferocity! Now this!"
"Joy!"
"Oh, perdition! Any ass can see it means insanity!"
Expression! People coolly pretend to read it who would think
themselves presumptuous if they pretended to interpret the
hieroglyphics on the obelisks of Luxor -- yet they are fully as
competent to do the one thing as the other. I have heard two very
intelligent critics speak of Murillo's Immaculate Conception (now in
the museum at Seville,) within the past few days. One said:
"Oh, the Virgin's face is full of the ecstasy of a joy that is
complete -- that leaves nothing more to be desired on earth!"
The other said:
"Ah, that wonderful face is so humble, so pleading -- it says as
plainly as words could say it: 'I fear; I tremble; I am unworthy.
But Thy will be done; sustain Thou Thy servant!'"
The reader can see the picture in any drawing-room; it can be easily
recognized: the Virgin (the only young and really beautiful Virgin
that was ever painted by one of the old masters, some of us think,)
stands in the crescent of the new moon, with a multitude of cherubs
hovering about her, and more coming; her hands are crossed upon her
breast, and upon her uplifted countenance falls a glory out of the
heavens. The reader may amuse himself, if he chooses, in trying to
determine which of these gentlemen read the Virgin's "expression"
aright, or if either of them did it.
Any one who is acquainted with the old masters will comprehend how
much "The Last Supper" is damaged when I say that the spectator can
not really tell, now, whether the disciples are Hebrews or Italians.
These ancient painters never succeeded in denationalizing
themselves. The Italian artists painted Italian Virgins, the Dutch
painted Dutch Virgins, the Virgins of the French painters were
Frenchwomen -- none of them ever put into the face of the Madonna
that indescribable something which proclaims the Jewess, whether you
find her in New York, in Constantinople, in Paris, Jerusalem, or in
the empire of Morocco. I saw in the Sandwich Islands, once, a
picture copied by a talented German artist from an engraving in one
of the American illustrated papers. It was an allegory, representing
Mr. Davis in the act of signing a secession act or some such
document. Over him hovered the ghost of Washington in warning
attitude, and in the background a troop of shadowy soldiers in
Continental uniform were limping with shoeless, bandaged feet
through a driving snow-storm. Valley Forge was suggested, of course.
The copy seemed accurate, and yet there was a discrepancy somewhere.
After a long examination I discovered what it was -- the shadowy
soldiers were all Germans! Jeff Davis was a German! even the
hovering ghost was a German ghost! The artist had unconsciously
worked his nationality into the picture. To tell the truth, I am
getting a little perplexed about John the Baptist and his portraits.
In France I finally grew reconciled to him as a Frenchman; here he
is unquestionably an Italian. What next? Can it be possible that the
painters make John the Baptist a Spaniard in Madrid and an Irishman
in Dublin?
We took an open barouche and drove two miles out of Milan to "see ze
echo," as the guide expressed it. The road was smooth, it was
bordered by trees, fields, and grassy meadows, and the soft air was
filled with the odor of flowers. Troops of picturesque peasant
girls, coming from work, hooted at us, shouted at us, made all
manner of game of us, and entirely delighted me. My long-cherished
judgment was confirmed. I always did think those frowsy, romantic,
unwashed peasant girls I had read so much about in poetry were a
glaring fraud.
We enjoyed our jaunt. It was an exhilarating relief from tiresome
sight-seeing.
We distressed ourselves very little about the astonishing echo the
guide talked so much about. We were growing accustomed to encomiums
on wonders that too often proved no wonders at all. And so we were
most happily disappointed to find in the sequel that the guide had
even failed to rise to the magnitude of his subject.
We arrived at a tumble-down old rookery called the Palazzo Simonetti
-- a massive hewn-stone affair occupied by a family of ragged
Italians. A good-looking young girl conducted us to a window on the
second floor which looked out on a court walled on three sides by
tall buildings. She put her head out at the window and shouted. The
echo answered more times than we could count. She took a speaking
trumpet and through it she shouted, sharp and quick, a single "Ha!"
The echo answered:
"Ha! -- -- -- ha! -- -- -ha! -- -ha! -- ha!-ha! ha! h-a-a-a-a-a!"
and finally went off into a rollicking convulsion of the jolliest
laughter that could be imagined. It was so joyful -- so long
continued -- so perfectly cordial and hearty, that every body was
forced to join in. There was no resisting it.
Then the girl took a gun and fired it. We stood ready to count the
astonishing clatter of reverberations. We could not say one, two,
three, fast enough, but we could dot our notebooks with our pencil
points almost rapidly enough to take down a sort of short-hand
report of the result. My page revealed the following account. I
could not keep up, but I did as well as I could:
Fifty-two Distinct Repetitions.
I set down fifty-two distinct repetitions, and then the echo got the
advantage of me. The doctor set down sixty-four, and thenceforth the
echo moved too fast for him, also. After the separate concussions
could no longer be noted, the reverberations dwindled to a wild,
long-sustained clatter of sounds such as a watchman's rattle
produces. It is likely that this is the most remarkable echo in the
world.
The doctor, in jest, offered to kiss the young girl, and was taken a
little aback when she said he might for a franc! The commonest
gallantry compelled him to stand by his offer, and so he paid the
franc and took the kiss. She was a philosopher. She said a franc was
a good thing to have, and she did not care any thing for one paltry
kiss, because she had a million left. Then our comrade, always a
shrewd businessman, offered to take the whole cargo at thirty days,
but that little financial scheme was a failure.
CHAPTER XX

WE left Milan by rail. The Cathedral six or seven miles behind us;
vast, dreamy, bluish, snow-clad mountains twenty miles in front of
us, -- these were the accented points in the scenery. The more
immediate scenery consisted of fields and farm-houses outside the
car and a monster-headed dwarf and a moustached woman inside it.
These latter were not show-people. Alas, deformity and female beards
are too common in Italy to attract attention.
We passed through a range of wild, picturesque hills, steep, wooded,
cone-shaped, with rugged crags projecting here and there, and with
dwellings and ruinous castles perched away up toward the drifting
clouds. We lunched at the curious old town of Como, at the foot of
the lake, and then took the small steamer and had an afternoon's
pleasure excursion to this place, -- Bellaggio.
When we walked ashore, a party of policemen (people whose cocked
hats and showy uniforms would shame the finest uniform in the
military service of the United States,) put us into a little stone
cell and locked us in. We had the whole passenger list for company,
but their room would have been preferable, for there was no light,
there were no windows, no ventilation. It was close and hot. We were
much crowded. It was the Black Hole of Calcutta on a small scale.
Presently a smoke rose about our feet -- a smoke that smelled of all
the dead things of earth, of all the putrefaction and corruption
imaginable.
We were there five minutes, and when we got out it was hard to tell
which of us carried the vilest fragrance.
These miserable outcasts called that "fumigating" us, and the term
was a tame one indeed. They fumigated us to guard themselves against
the cholera, though we hailed from no infected port. We had left the
cholera far behind us all the time. However, they must keep
epidemics away somehow or other, and fumigation is cheaper than
soap. They must either wash themselves or fumigate other people.
Some of the lower classes had rather die than wash, but the
fumigation of strangers causes them no pangs. They need no
fumigation themselves. Their habits make it unnecessary. They carry
their preventive with them; they sweat and fumigate all the day
long. I trust I am a humble and a consistent Christian. I try to do
what is right. I know it is my duty to "pray for them that
despitefully use me;" and therefore, hard as it is, I shall still
try to pray for these fumigating, maccaroni-stuffing organ-grinders.

Our hotel sits at the water's edge -- at least its front garden does
-- and we walk among the shrubbery and smoke at twilight; we look
afar off at Switzerland and the Alps, and feel an indolent
willingness to look no closer; we go down the steps and swim in the
lake; we take a shapely little boat and sail abroad among the
reflections of the stars; lie on the thwarts and listen to the
distant laughter, the singing, the soft melody of flutes and guitars
that comes floating across the water from pleasuring gondolas; we
close the evening with exasperating billiards on one of those same
old execrable tables. A midnight luncheon in our ample bed-chamber;
a final smoke in its contracted veranda facing the water, the
gardens, and the mountains; a summing up of the day's events. Then
to bed, with drowsy brains harassed with a mad panorama that mixes
up pictures of France, of Italy, of the ship, of the ocean, of home,
in grotesque and bewildering disorder. Then a melting away of
familiar faces, of cities, and of tossing waves, into a great calm
of forgetfulness and peace.
After which, the nightmare.
Breakfast in the morning, and then the lake.
I did not like it yesterday. I thought Lake Tahoe was much finer. I
have to confess now, however, that my judgment erred somewhat,
though not extravagantly. I always had an idea that Como was a vast
basin of water, like Tahoe, shut in by great mountains. Well, the
border of huge mountains is here, but the lake itself is not a
basin. It is as crooked as any brook, and only from one-quarter to
two-thirds as wide as the Mississippi. There is not a yard of low
ground on either side of it -- nothing but endless chains of
mountains that spring abruptly from the water's edge and tower to
altitudes varying from a thousand to two thousand feet. Their craggy
sides are clothed with vegetation, and white specks of houses peep
out from the luxuriant foliage everywhere; they are even perched
upon jutting and picturesque pinnacles a thousand feet above your
head.
Again, for miles along the shores, handsome country seats,
surrounded by gardens and groves, sit fairly in the water, sometimes
in nooks carved by Nature out of the vine-hung precipices, and with
no ingress or egress save by boats. Some have great broad stone
staircases leading down to the water, with heavy stone balustrades
ornamented with statuary and fancifully adorned with creeping vines
and bright-colored flowers -- for all the world like a drop curtain
in a theatre, and lacking nothing but long-waisted, high-heeled
women and plumed gallants in silken tights coming down to go
serenading in the splendid gondola in waiting.
A great feature of Como's attractiveness is the multitude of pretty
houses and gardens that cluster upon its shores and on its mountain
sides. They look so snug and so homelike, and at eventide when every
thing seems to slumber, and the music of the vesper bells comes
stealing over the water, one almost believes that nowhere else than
on the lake of Como can there be found such a paradise of tranquil
repose.
From my window here in Bellaggio, I have a view of the other side of
the lake now, which is as beautiful as a picture. A scarred and
wrinkled precipice rises to a height of eighteen hundred feet; on a
tiny bench half way up its vast wall, sits a little snowflake of a
church, no bigger than a martin-box, apparently; skirting the base
of the cliff are a hundred orange groves and gardens, flecked with
glimpses of the white dwellings that are buried in them; in front,
three or four gondolas lie idle upon the water -- and in the
burnished mirror of the lake, mountain, chapel, houses, groves and
boats are counterfeited so brightly and so clearly that one scarce
knows where the reality leaves off and the reflection begins!
The surroundings of this picture are fine. A mile away, a
grove-plumed promontory juts far into the lake and glasses its
palace in the blue depths; in midstream a boat is cutting the
shining surface and leaving a long track behind, like a ray of
light; the mountains beyond are veiled in a dreamy purple haze; far
in the opposite direction a tumbled mass of domes and verdant slopes
and valleys bars the lake, and here indeed does distance lend
enchantment to the view -- for on this broad canvas, sun and clouds
and the richest of atmospheres have blended a thousand tints
together, and over its surface the filmy lights and shadows drift,
hour after hour, and glorify it with a beauty that seems reflected
out of Heaven itself. Beyond all question, this is the most
voluptuous scene we have yet looked upon.
Last night the scenery was striking and picturesque. On the other
side crags and trees and snowy houses were reflected in the lake
with a wonderful distinctness, and streams of light from many a
distant window shot far abroad over the still waters. On this side,
near at hand, great mansions, white with moonlight, glared out from
the midst of masses of foliage that lay black and shapeless in the
shadows that fell from the cliff above -- and down in the margin of
the lake every feature of the weird vision was faithfully repeated.
Today we have idled through a wonder of a garden attached to a ducal
estate -- but enough of description is enough, I judge. I suspect
that this was the same place the gardener's son deceived the Lady of
Lyons with, but I do not know. You may have heard of the passage
somewhere:
"A deep vale,
Shut out by Alpine hills from the rude world,
Near a clear lake margined by fruits of gold
And whispering myrtles:
Glassing softest skies, cloudless,
Save with rare and roseate shadows;
A palace, lifting to eternal heaven its marbled walls,
From out a glossy bower of coolest foliage musical with birds."
That is all very well, except the "clear" part of the lake. It
certainly is clearer than a great many lakes, but how dull its
waters are compared with the wonderful transparence of Lake Tahoe! I
speak of the north shore of Tahoe, where one can count the scales on
a trout at a depth of a hundred and eighty feet. I have tried to get
this statement off at par here, but with no success; so I have been
obliged to negotiate it at fifty percent discount. At this rate I
find some takers; perhaps the reader will receive it on the same
terms -- ninety feet instead of one hundred and eighty. But let it
be remembered that those are forced terms -- Sheriff's sale prices.
As far as I am privately concerned, I abate not a jot of the
original assertion that in those strangely magnifying waters one may
count the scales on a trout (a trout of the large kind,) at a depth
of a hundred and eighty feet -- may see every pebble on the bottom
-- might even count a paper of dray-pins. People talk of the
transparent waters of the Mexican Bay of Acapulco, but in my own
experience I know they cannot compare with those I am speaking of. I
have fished for trout, in Tahoe, and at a measured depth of
eighty-four feet I have seen them put their noses to the bait and I
could see their gills open and shut. I could hardly have seen the
trout themselves at that distance in the open air.
As I go back in spirit and recall that noble sea, reposing among the
snow-peaks six thousand feet above the ocean, the conviction comes
strong upon me again that Como would only seem a bedizened little
courtier in that august presence.
Sorrow and misfortune overtake the legislature that still from year
to year permits Tahoe to retain its unmusical cognomen! Tahoe! It
suggests no crystal waters, no picturesque shores, no sublimity.
Tahoe for a sea in the clouds: a sea that has character and asserts
it in solemn calms at times, at times in savage storms; a sea whose
royal seclusion is guarded by a cordon of sentinel peaks that lift
their frosty fronts nine thousand feet above the level world; a sea
whose every aspect is impressive, whose belongings are all
beautiful, whose lonely majesty types the Deity!
Tahoe means grasshoppers. It means grasshopper soup. It is Indian,
and suggestive of Indians. They say it is Pi-ute -- possibly it is
Digger. I am satisfied it was named by the Diggers -- those degraded
savages who roast their dead relatives, then mix the human grease
and ashes of bones with tar, and "gaum" it thick all over their
heads and foreheads and ears, and go caterwauling about the hills
and call it mourning. These are the gentry that named the Lake.
People say that Tahoe means "Silver Lake" -- "Limpid Water" --
"Falling Leaf." Bosh. It means grasshopper soup, the favorite dish
of the Digger tribe, -- and of the Pi-utes as well. It isn't worth
while, in these practical times, for people to talk about Indian
poetry -- there never was any in them -- except in the Fenimore
Cooper Indians. But they are an extinct tribe that never existed. I
know the Noble Red Man. I have camped with the Indians; I have been
on the warpath with them, taken part in the chase with them -- for
grasshoppers; helped them steal cattle; I have roamed with them,
scalped them, had them for breakfast. I would gladly eat the whole
race if I had a chance.
But I am growing unreliable. I will return to my comparison of the
lakes. Como is a little deeper than Tahoe, if people here tell the
truth. They say it is eighteen hundred feet deep at this point, but
it does not look a dead enough blue for that. Tahoe is one thousand
five hundred and twenty-five feet deep in the centre, by the state
geologist's measurement. They say the great peak opposite this town
is five thousand feet high: but I feel sure that three thousand feet
of that statement is a good honest lie. The lake is a mile wide,
here, and maintains about that width from this point to its northern
extremity -- which is distant sixteen miles: from here to its
southern extremity -- say fifteen miles -- it is not over half a
mile wide in any place, I should think. Its snow-clad mountains one
hears so much about are only seen occasionally, and then in the
distance, the Alps. Tahoe is from ten to eighteen miles wide, and
its mountains shut it in like a wall. Their summits are never free
from snow the year round. One thing about it is very strange: it
never has even a skim of ice upon its surface, although lakes in the
same range of mountains, lying in a lower and warmer temperature,
freeze over in winter.
It is cheerful to meet a shipmate in these out-of-the-way places and
compare notes with him. We have found one of ours here -- an old
soldier of the war, who is seeking bloodless adventures and rest
from his campaigns in these sunny lands.20.1
20.1 Colonel J. HERON FOSTER, editor of a Pittsburgh journal, and a
most estimable gentleman. As these sheets are being prepared for the
press I am pained to learn of his decease shortly after his return
home -- M.T.
CHAPTER XXI

WE voyaged by steamer down the Lago di Lecco, through wild mountain

scenery, and by hamlets and villas, and disembarked at the town of
Lecco. They said it was two hours, by carriage to the ancient city
of Bergamo, and that we would arrive there in good season for the
railway train. We got an open barouche and a wild, boisterous
driver, and set out. It was delightful. We had a fast team and a
perfectly smooth road. There were towering cliffs on our left, and
the pretty Lago di Lecco on our right, and every now and then it
rained on us. Just before starting, the driver picked up, in the
street, a stump of a cigar an inch long, and put it in his mouth.
When he had carried it thus about an hour, I thought it would be
only Christian charity to give him a light. I handed him my cigar,
which I had just lit, and he put it in his mouth and returned his
stump to his pocket! I never saw a more sociable man. At least I
never saw a man who was more sociable on a short acquaintance.
We saw interior Italy, now. The houses were of solid stone, and not
often in good repair. The peasants and their children were idle, as
a general thing, and the donkeys and chickens made themselves at
home in drawing-room and bed-chamber and were not molested. The
drivers of each and every one of the slow-moving market-carts we met
were stretched in the sun upon their merchandise, sound a sleep.
Every three or four hundred yards, it seemed to me, we came upon the
shrine of some saint or other -- a rude picture of him built into a
huge cross or a stone pillar by the road-side. -- Some of the
pictures of the Saviour were curiosities in their way. They
represented him stretched upon the cross, his countenance distorted
with agony. From the wounds of the crown of thorns; from the pierced
side; from the mutilated hands and feet; from the scourged body --
from every hand-breadth of his person streams of blood were flowing!
Such a gory, ghastly spectacle would frighten the children out of
their senses, I should think. There were some unique auxiliaries to
the painting which added to its spirited effect. These were genuine
wooden and iron implements, and were prominently disposed round
about the figure: a bundle of nails; the hammer to drive them; the
sponge; the reed that supported it; the cup of vinegar; the ladder
for the ascent of the cross; the spear that pierced the Saviour's
side. The crown of thorns was made of real thorns, and was nailed to
the sacred head. In some Italian church-paintings, even by the old
masters, the Saviour and the Virgin wear silver or gilded crowns
that are fastened to the pictured head with nails. The effect is as
grotesque as it is incongruous.
Here and there, on the fronts of roadside inns, we found huge,
coarse frescoes of suffering martyrs like those in the shrines. It
could not have diminished their sufferings any to be so uncouthly
represented. We were in the heart and home of priest craft -- of a
happy, cheerful, contented ignorance, superstition, degradation,
poverty, indolence, and everlasting unaspiring worthlessness. And we
said fervently, It suits these people precisely; let them enjoy it,
along with the other animals, and Heaven forbid that they be
molested. We feel no malice toward these fumigators.
We passed through the strangest, funniest, undreampt-of old towns,
wedded to the customs and steeped in the dreams of the elder ages,
and perfectly unaware that the world turns round! And perfectly
indifferent, too, as to whether it turns around or stands still.
They have nothing to do but eat and sleep and sleep and eat, and
toil a little when they can get a friend to stand by and keep them
awake. They are not paid for thinking -- they are not paid to fret
about the world's concerns. They were were not respectable people --
they were not worthy people -- they were not learned and wise and
brilliant people -- but in their breasts, all their stupid lives
long, resteth a peace that passeth understanding! How can men,
calling themselves men, consent to be so degraded and happy.
We whisked by many a gray old medieval castle, clad thick with ivy
that swung its green banners down from towers and turrets where once
some old Crusader's flag had floated. The driver pointed to one of
these ancient fortresses, and said, (I translate):
"Do you see that great iron hook that projects from the wall just
under the highest window in the ruined tower?"
We said we could not see it at such a distance, but had no doubt it
was there.
"Well," he said; "there is a legend connected with that iron hook.
Nearly seven hundred years ago, that castle was the property of the
noble Count Luigi Gennaro Guido Alphonso di Genova -- "
"What was his other name?" said Dan.
"He had no other name. The name I have spoken was all the name he
had. He was the son of -- "
"Poor but honest parents -- that is all right -- never mind the
particulars -- go on with the legend."
THE LEGEND.
Well, then, all the world, at that time, was in a wild excitement
about the Holy Sepulchre. All the great feudal lords in Europe were
pledging their lands and pawning their plate to fit out men-at-arms
so that they might join the grand armies of Christendom and win
renown in the Holy Wars. The Count Luigi raised money, like the
rest, and one mild September morning, armed with battle-ax,
portcullis and thundering culverin, he rode through the greaves and
bucklers of his donjon-keep with as gallant a troop of Christian
bandits as ever stepped in Italy. He had his sword, Excalibur, with
him. His beautiful countess and her young daughter waved him a
tearful adieu from the battering-rams and buttresses of the
fortress, and he galloped away with a happy heart.
He made a raid on a neighboring baron and completed his outfit with
the booty secured. He then razed the castle to the ground, massacred
the family and moved on. They were hardy fellows in the grand old
days of chivalry. Alas! Those days will never come again.
Count Luigi grew high in fame in Holy Land. He plunged into the
carnage of a hundred battles, but his good Excalibur always brought
him out alive, albeit often sorely wounded. His face became browned
by exposure to the Syrian sun in long marches; he suffered hunger
and thirst; he pined in prisons, he languished in loathsome
plague-hospitals. And many and many a time he thought of his loved
ones at home, and wondered if all was well with them. But his heart
said, Peace, is not thy brother watching over thy household?
*******
Forty-two years waxed and waned; the good fight was won; Godfrey
reigned in Jerusalem -- the Christian hosts reared the banner of the
cross above the Holy Sepulchre!
Twilight was approaching. Fifty harlequins, in flowing robes,
approached this castle wearily, for they were on foot, and the dust
upon their garments betokened that they had traveled far. They
overtook a peasant, and asked him if it were likely they could get
food and a hospitable bed there, for love of Christian charity, and
if perchance, a moral parlor entertainment might meet with generous
countenance -- "for," said they, "this exhibition hath no feature
that could offend the most fastidious taste."
"Marry," quoth the peasant, "an' it please your worships, ye had
better journey many a good rood hence with your juggling circus than
trust your bones in yonder castle."
"How now, sirrah!" exclaimed the chief monk, "explain thy ribald
speech, or by'r Lady it shall go hard with thee."
"Peace, good mountebank, I did but utter the truth that was in my
heart. San Paolo be my witness that did ye but find the stout Count
Leonardo in his cups, sheer from the castle's topmost battlements
would he hurl ye all! Alack-a-day, the good Lord Luigi reigns not
here in these sad times."
"The good Lord Luigi?"
"Aye, none other, please your worship. In his day, the poor rejoiced
in plenty and the rich he did oppress; taxes were not known, the
fathers of the church waxed fat upon his bounty; travelers went and
came, with none to interfere; and whosoever would, might tarry in
his halls in cordial welcome, and eat his bread and drink his wine,
withal. But woe is me! some two and forty years agone the good count
rode hence to fight for Holy Cross, and many a year hath flown since
word or token have we had of him. Men say his bones lie bleaching in
the fields of Palestine."
"And now?"
"Now! God 'a mercy, the cruel Leonardo lords it in the castle. He
wrings taxes from the poor; he robs all travelers that journey by
his gates; he spends his days in feuds and murders, and his nights
in revel and debauch; he roasts the fathers of the church upon his
kitchen spits, and enjoyeth the same, calling it pastime. These
thirty years Luigi's countess hath not been seen by any he in all
this land, and many whisper that she pines in the dungeons of the
castle for that she will not wed with Leonardo, saying her dear lord
still liveth and that she will die ere she prove false to him. They
whisper likewise that her daughter is a prisoner as well. Nay, good
jugglers, seek ye refreshment other wheres. 'Twere better that ye
perished in a Christian way than that ye plunged from off yon dizzy
tower. Give ye good-day."
"God keep ye, gentle knave -- farewell."
But heedless of the peasant's warning, the players moved straightway
toward the castle.
Word was brought to Count Leonardo that a company of mountebanks
besought his hospitality.
"'Tis well. Dispose of them in the customary manner. Yet stay! I
have need of them. Let them come hither. Later, cast them from the
battlements -- or -- how many priests have ye on hand?"
"The day's results are meagre, good my lord. An abbot and a dozen
beggarly friars is all we have."
"Hell and furies! Is the estate going to seed? Send hither the
mountebanks. Afterward, broil them with the priests."
The robed and close-cowled harlequins entered. The grim Leonardo
sate in state at the head of his council board. Ranged up and down
the hall on either hand stood near a hundred men-at-arms.
"Ha, villains!" quoth the count, "What can ye do to earn the
hospitality ye crave."
"Dread lord and mighty, crowded audiences have greeted our humble
efforts with rapturous applause. Among our body count we the
versatile and talented Ugolino; the justly celebrated Rodolpho; the
gifted and accomplished Roderigo; the management have spared neither
pains nor expense -- "
"S'death! What can ye do? Curb thy prating tongue."
"Good my lord, in acrobatic feats, in practice with the dumb-bells,
in balancing and ground and lofty tumbling are we versed -- and sith
your highness asketh me, I venture here to publish that in the truly
marvelous and entertaining Zampillaerostation -- "
"Gag him! throttle him! Body of Bacchus! am I a dog that I am to be
assailed with polysyllabled blasphemy like to this? But hold!
Lucretia, Isabel, stand forth! Sirrah, behold this dame, this
weeping wench. The first I marry, within the hour; the other shall
dry her tears or feed the vultures. Thou and thy vagabonds shall
crown the wedding with thy merry-makings. Fetch hither the priest!"
The dame sprang toward the chief player.
"O, save me!" she cried; "save me from a fate far worse than death!
Behold these sad eyes, these sunken cheeks, this withered frame! See
thou the wreck this fiend hath made, and let thy heart be moved with
pity! Look upon this damosel; note her wasted form, her halting
step, her bloomless cheeks where youth should blush and happiness
exult in smiles! Hear us and have compassion. This monster was my
husband's brother. He who should have been our shield against all
harm, hath kept us shut within the noisome caverns of his
donjon-keep for lo these thirty years. And for what crime? None
other than that I would not belie my troth, root out my strong love
for him who marches with the legions of the cross in Holy Land, (for
O, he is not dead!) and wed wit h him! Save us, O, save thy
persecuted suppliants!"
She flung herself at his feet and clasped his knees.
"Ha!-ha!-ha!" shouted the brutal Leonardo. "Priest, to thy work!"
and he dragged the weeping dame from her refuge. "Say, once for all,
will you be mine? -- for by my halidome, that breath that uttereth
thy refusal shall be thy last on earth!"
"NE-VER?"
"Then die!" and the sword leaped from its scabbard.
Quicker than thought, quicker than the lightning's flash, fifty
monkish habits disappeared, and fifty knights in splendid armor
stood revealed! fifty falchions gleamed in air above the
men-at-arms, and brighter, fiercer than them all, flamed Excalibur
aloft, and cleaving downward struck the brutal Leonardo's weapon
from his grasp!
"A Luigi to the rescue! Whoop!"
"A Leonardo! tare an ouns!"
"Oh, God, Oh, God, my husband!"
"Oh, God, Oh, God, my wife!"
"My father!"
"My precious!" [Tableau.]
Count Luigi bound his usurping brother hand and foot. The practiced
knights from Palestine made holyday sport of carving the awkward
men-at-arms into chops and steaks. The victory was complete.
Happiness reigned. The knights all married the daughter. Joy!
wassail! finis!
"But what did they do with the wicked brother?"
"Oh nothing -- only hanged him on that iron hook I was speaking of.
By the chin."
"As how?"
"Passed it up through his gills into his mouth."
"Leave him there?"
"Couple of years."
"Ah -- is -- is he dead?"
"Six hundred and fifty years ago, or such a matter."
"Splendid legend -- splendid lie -- drive on."
We reached the quaint old fortified city of Bergamo, the renowned in
history, some three-quarters of an hour before the train was ready
to start. The place has thirty or forty thousand inhabitants and is
remarkable for being the birthplace of harlequin. When we discovered
that, that legend of our driver took to itself a new interest in our
eyes.
Rested and refreshed, we took the rail happy and contented. I shall
not tarry to speak of the handsome Lago di Gardi; its stately castle
that holds in its stony bosom the secrets of an age so remote that
even tradition goeth not back to it; the imposing mountain scenery
that ennobles the landscape thereabouts; nor yet of ancient Padua or
haughty Verona; nor of their Montagues and Capulets, their famous
balconies and tombs of Juliet and Romeo et al., but hurry straight
to the ancient city of the sea, the widowed bride of the Adriatic.
It was a long, long ride. But toward evening, as we sat silent and
hardly conscious of where we were -- subdued into that meditative
calm that comes so surely after a conversational storm -- some one
shouted --
"VENICE!"
And sure enough, afloat on the placid sea a league away, lay a great
city, with its towers and domes and steeples drowsing in a golden
mist of sunset
CHAPTER XXII

THIS Venice, which was a haughty, invincible, magnificent Republic

for nearly fourteen hundred years; whose armies compelled the
world's applause whenever and wherever they battled; whose navies
well nigh held dominion of the seas, and whose merchant fleets
whitened the remotest oceans with their sails and loaded these piers
with the products of every clime, is fallen a prey to poverty,
neglect and melancholy decay. Six hundred years ago, Venice was the
Autocrat of Commerce; her mart was the great commercial centre, the
distributing-house from whence the enormous trade of the Orient was
spread abroad over the Western world. To-day her piers are deserted,
her warehouses are empty, her merchant fleets are vanished, her
armies and her navies are but memories. Her glory is departed, and
with her crumbling grandeur of wharves and palaces about her she
sits among her stagnant lagoons, forlorn and beggared, forgotten of
the world. She that in her palmy days commanded the commerce of a
hemisphere and made the weal or woe of nations with a beck of her
puissant finger, is become the humblest among the peoples of the
earth, -- a peddler of glass beads for women, and trifling toys and
trinkets for school-girls and children.
The venerable Mother of the Republics is scarce a fit subject for
flippant speech or the idle gossipping of tourists. It seems a sort
of sacrilege to disturb the glamour of old romance that pictures her
to us softly from afar off as through a tinted mist, and curtains
her ruin and her desolation from our view. One ought, indeed, to
turn away from her rags, her poverty and her humiliation, and think
of her only as she was when she sunk the fleets of Charlemagne; when
she humbled Frederick Barbarossa or waved her victorious banners
above the battlements of Constantinople.
We reached Venice at eight in the evening, and entered a hearse
belonging to the Grand Hotel d'Europe. At any rate, it was more like
a hearse than any thing else, though to speak by the card, it was a
gondola. And this was the storied gondola of Venice! -- the fairy
boat in which the princely cavaliers of the olden time were wont to
cleave the waters of the moonlit canals and look the eloquence of
love into the soft eyes of patrician beauties, while the gay
gondolier in silken doublet touched his guitar and sang as only
gondoliers can sing! This the famed gondola and this the gorgeous
gondolier! -- the one an inky, rusty old canoe with a sable
hearse-body clapped on to the middle of it, and the other a mangy,
barefooted guttersnipe with a portion of his raiment on exhibition
which should have been sacred from public scrutiny. Presently, as he
turned a corner and shot his hearse into a dismal ditch between two
long rows of towering, untenanted buildings, the gay gondolier began
to sing, true to the traditions of his race. I stood it a little
while. Then I said:
"Now, here, Roderigo Gonzales Michael Angelo, I'm a pilgrim, and I'm
a stranger, but I am not going to have my feelings lacerated by any
such caterwauling as that. If that goes on, one of us has got to
take water. It is enough that my cherished dreams of Venice have
been blighted forever as to the romantic gondola and the gorgeous
gondolier; this system of destruction shall go no farther; I will
accept the hearse, under protest, and you may fly your flag of truce
in peace, but here I register a dark and bloody oath that you shan't
sing. Another yelp, and overboard you go."
I began to feel that the old Venice of song and story had departed
forever. But I was too hasty. In a few minutes we swept gracefully
out into the Grand Canal, and under the mellow moonlight the Venice
of poetry and romance stood revealed. Right from the water's edge
rose long lines of stately palaces of marble; gondolas were gliding
swiftly hither and thither and disappearing suddenly through
unsuspected gates and alleys; ponderous stone bridges threw their
shadows athwart the glittering waves. There was life and motion
everywhere, and yet everywhere there was a hush, a stealthy sort of
stillness, that was suggestive of secret enterprises of bravoes and
of lovers; and clad half in moonbeams and half in mysterious
shadows, the grim old mansions of the Republic seemed to have an
expression about them of having an eye out for just such enterprises
as these at that same moment. Music came floating over the waters --
Venice was complete.
It was a beautiful picture -- very soft and dreamy and beautiful.
But what was this Venice to compare with the Venice of midnight?
Nothing. There was a fête -- a grand fête in honor of some saint who
had been instrumental in checking the cholera three hundred years
ago, and all Venice was abroad on the water. It was no common
affair, for the Venetians did not know how soon they might need the
saint's services again, now that the cholera was spreading every
where. So in one vast space -- say a third of a mile wide and two
miles long -- were collected two thousand gondolas, and every one of
them had from two to ten, twenty and even thirty colored lanterns
suspended about it, and from four to a dozen occupants. Just as far
as the eye could reach, these painted lights were massed together --
like a vast garden of many-colored flowers, except that these
blossoms were never still; they were ceaselessly gliding in and out,
and mingling together, and seducing you into bewildering attempts to
follow their mazy evolutions. Here and there a strong red, green, or
blue glare from a rocket that was struggling to get away, splendidly
illuminated all the boats around it. Every gondola that swam by us,
with its crescents and pyramids and circles of colored lamps hung
aloft, and lighting up the faces of the young and the sweet-scented
and lovely below, was a picture; and the reflections of those
lights, so long, so slender, so numberless, so many-colored and so
distorted and wrinkled by the waves, was a picture likewise, and one
that was enchantingly beautiful. Many and many a party of young
ladies and gentlemen had their state gondolas handsomely decorated,
and ate supper on board, bringing their swallow-tailed,
white-cravatted varlets to wait upon them, and having their tables
tricked out as if for a bridal supper. They had brought along the
costly globe lamps from their drawing-rooms, and the lace and silken
curtains from the same places, I suppose. And they had also brought
pianos and guitars, and they played and sang operas, while the
plebeian paper-lanterned gondolas from the suburbs and the back
alleys crowded around to stare and listen.
There was music every where -- chorusses, string bands, brass bands,
flutes, every thing. I was so surrounded, walled in, with music,
magnificence and loveliness, that I became inspired with the spirit
of the scene, and sang one tune myself. However, when I observed
that the other gondolas had sailed away, and my gondolier was
preparing to go overboard, I stopped.
The fête was magnificent. They kept it up the whole night long, and
I never enjoyed myself better than I did while it lasted.
What a funny old city this Queen of the Adriatic is! Narrow streets,
vast, gloomy marble palaces, black with the corroding damps of
centuries, and all partly submerged; no dry land visible any where,
and no sidewalks worth mentioning; if you want to go to church, to
the theatre, or to the restaurant, you must call a gondola. It must
be a paradise for cripples, for verily a man has no use for legs
here.
For a day or two the place looked so like an overflowed Arkansas
town, because of its currentless waters laving the very doorsteps of
all the houses, and the cluster of boats made fast under the
windows, or skimming in and out of the alleys and by-ways, that I
could not get rid of the impression that there was nothing the
matter here but a spring freshet, and that the river would fall in a
few weeks and leave a dirty high-water mark on the houses, and the
streets full of mud and rubbish.
In the glare of day, there is little poetry about Venice, but under
the charitable moon her stained palaces are white again, their
battered sculptures are hidden in shadows, and the old city seems
crowned once more with the grandeur that was hers five hundred years
ago. It is easy, then, in fancy, to people these silent canals with
plumed gallants and fair ladies -- with Shylocks in gaberdine and
sandals, venturing loans upon the rich argosies of Venetian commerce
-- with Othellos and Desdemonas, with Iagos and Roderigos -- with
noble fleets and victorious legions returning from the wars. In the
treacherous sunlight we see Venice decayed, forlorn,
poverty-stricken, and commerceless -- forgotten and utterly
insignificant. But in the moonlight, her fourteen centuries of
greatness fling their glories about her, and once more is she the
princeliest among the nations of the earth.
"There is a glorious city in the sea;
The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets,
Ebbing and flowing;
and the salt-sea weed
Clings to the marble of her palaces.
No track of men, no footsteps to and fro,
Lead to her gates! The path lies o'er the sea,
Invisible: and from the land we went,
to a floating city -- steering in,
And gliding up her streets, as in a dream,
So smoothly, silently -- by many a dome,
Mosque-like, and many a stately portico,
The statues ranged along an azure sky;
By many a pile, in more than Eastern pride,
Of old the residence of merchant kings;
The fronts of some, tho' time had shatter'd them,
Still glowing with the richest hues of art,
As tho' the wealth within them had run o'er."
What would one naturally wish to see first in Venice? The Bridge of
Sighs, of course -- and next the Church and the Great Square of St.
Mark, the Bronze Horses, and the famous Lion of St. Mark.
We intended to go to the Bridge of Sighs, but happened into the
Ducal Palace first -- a building which necessarily figures largely
in Venetian poetry and tradition. In the Senate Chamber of the
ancient Republic we wearied our eyes with staring at acres of
historical paintings by Tintoretto and Paul Veronese, but nothing
struck us forcibly except the one thing that strikes all strangers
forcibly -- a black square in the midst of a gallery of portraits.
In one long row, around the great hall, were painted the portraits
of the Doges of Venice (venerable fellows, with flowing white
beards, for of the three hundred Senators eligible to the office,
the oldest was usually chosen Doge,) and each had its complimentary
inscription attached -- till you came to the place that should have
had Marino Faliero's picture in it, and that was blank and black --
blank, except that it bore a terse inscription, saying that the
conspirator had died for his crime. It seemed cruel to keep that
pitiless inscription still staring from the walls after the unhappy
wretch had been in his grave five hundred years.
At the head of the Giant's Staircase, where Marino Faliero was
beheaded, and where the Doges were crowned in ancient times, two
small slits in the stone wall were pointed out -- two harmless,
insignificant orifices that would never attract a stranger's
attention -- yet these were the terrible Lions' Mouths! The heads
were gone (knocked off by the French during their occupation of
Venice,) but these were the throats, down which went the anonymous
accusation, thrust in secretly at dead of night by an enemy, that
doomed many an innocent man to walk the Bridge of Sighs and descend
into the dungeon which none entered and hoped to see the sun again.
This was in the old days when the Patricians alone governed Venice
-- the common herd had no vote and no voice. There were one thousand
five hundred Patricians; from these, three hundred Senators were
chosen; from the Senators a Doge and a Council of Ten were selected,
and by secret ballot the Ten chose from their own number a Council
of Three. All these were Government spies, then, and every spy was
under surveillance himself -- men spoke in whispers in Venice, and
no man trusted his neighbor -- not always his own brother. No man
knew who the Council of Three were -- not even the Senate, not even
the Doge; the members of that dread tribunal met at night in a
chamber to themselves, masked, and robed from head to foot in
scarlet cloaks, and did not even know each other, unless by voice.
It was their duty to judge heinous political crimes, and from their
sentence there was no appeal. A nod to the executioner was
sufficient. The doomed man was marched down a hall and out at a
door-way into the covered Bridge of Sighs, through it and into the
dungeon and unto his death. At no time in his transit was he visible
to any save his conductor. If a man had an enemy in those old days,
the cleverest thing he could do was to slip a note for the Council
of Three into the Lion's mouth, saying "This man is plotting against
the Government." If the awful Three found no proof, ten to one they
would drown him anyhow, because he was a deep rascal, since his
plots were unsolvable. Masked judges and masked executioners, with
unlimited power, and no appeal from their judgements, in that hard,
cruel age, were not likely to be lenient with men they suspected yet
could not convict.
We walked through the hall of the Council of Ten, and presently
entered the infernal den of the Council of Three.
The table around which they had sat was there still, and likewise
the stations where the masked inquisitors and executioners formerly
stood, frozen, upright and silent, till they received a bloody
order, and then, without a word, moved off like the inexorable
machines they were, to carry it out. The frescoes on the walls were
startlingly suited to the place. In all the other saloons, the
halls, the great state chambers of the palace, the walls and
ceilings were bright with gilding, rich with elaborate carving, and
resplendent with gallant pictures of Venetian victories in war, and
Venetian display in foreign courts, and hallowed with portraits of
the Virgin, the Saviour of men, and the holy saints that preached
the Gospel of Peace upon earth -- but here, in dismal contrast, were
none but pictures of death and dreadful suffering! -- not a living
figure but was writhing in torture, not a dead one but was smeared
with blood, gashed with wounds, and distorted with the agonies that
had taken away its life!
From the palace to the gloomy prison is but a step -- one might
almost jump across the narrow canal that intervenes. The ponderous
stone Bridge of Sighs crosses it at the second story -- a bridge
that is a covered tunnel -- you can not be seen when you walk in it.
It is partitioned lengthwise, and through one compartment walked
such as bore light sentences in ancient times, and through the other
marched sadly the wretches whom the Three had doomed to lingering
misery and utter oblivion in the dungeons, or to sudden and
mysterious death. Down below the level of the water, by the light of
smoking torches, we were shown the damp, thick-walled cells where
many a proud patrician's life was eaten away by the long-drawn
miseries of solitary imprisonment -- without light, air, books;
naked, unshaven, uncombed, covered with vermin; his useless tongue
forgetting its office, with none to speak to; the days and nights of
his life no longer marked, but merged into one eternal eventless
night; far away from all cheerful sounds, buried in the silence of a
tomb; forgotten by his helpless friends, and his fate a dark mystery
to them forever; losing his own memory at last, and knowing no more
who he was or how he came there; devouring the loaf of bread and
drinking the water that were thrust into the cell by unseen hands,
and troubling his worn spirit no more with hopes and fears and
doubts and longings to be free; ceasing to scratch vain prayers and
complainings on walls where none, not even himself, could see them,
and resigning himself to hopeless apathy, driveling childishness,
lunacy! Many and many a sorrowful story like this these stony walls
could tell if they could but speak.
In a little narrow corridor, near by, they showed us where many a
prisoner, after lying in the dungeons until he was forgotten by all
save his persecutors, was brought by masked executioners and
garroted, or sewed up in a sack, passed through a little window to a
boat, at dead of night, and taken to some remote spot and drowned.
They used to show to visitors the implements of torture wherewith
the Three were wont to worm secrets out of the accused -- villainous
machines for crushing thumbs; the stocks where a prisoner sat
immovable while water fell drop by drop upon his head till the
torture was more than humanity could bear; and a devilish
contrivance of steel, which inclosed a prisoner's head like a shell,
and crushed it slowly by means of a screw. It bore the stains of
blood that had trickled through its joints long ago, and on one side
it had a projection whereon the torturer rested his elbow
comfortably and bent down his ear to catch the moanings of the
sufferer perishing within.
Of course we went to see the venerable relic of the ancient glory of
Venice, with its pavements worn and broken by the passing feet of a
thousand years of plebeians and patricians -- The Cathedral of St.
Mark. It is built entirely of precious marbles, brought from the
Orient -- nothing in its composition is domestic. Its hoary
traditions make it an object of absorbing interest to even the most
careless stranger, and thus far it had interest for me; but no
further. I could not go into ecstacies over its coarse mosaics, its
unlovely Byzantine architecture, or its five hundred curious
interior columns from as many distant quarries. Every thing was worn
out -- every block of stone was smooth and almost shapeless with the
polishing hands and shoulders of loungers who devoutly idled here in
by-gone centuries and have died and gone to the dev -- no, simply
died, I mean.
Under the altar repose the ashes of St. Mark -- and Matthew, Luke
and John, too, for all I know. Venice reveres those relics above all
things earthly. For fourteen hundred years St. Mark has been her
patron saint. Every thing about the city seems to be named after him
or so named as to refer to him in some way -- so named, or some
purchase rigged in some way to scrape a sort of hurrahing
acquaintance with him. That seems to be the idea. To be on good
terms with St. Mark, seems to be the very summit of Venetian
ambition. They say St. Mark had a tame lion, and used to travel with
him -- and every where that St. Mark went, the lion was sure to go.
It was his protector, his friend, his librarian. And so the Winged
Lion of St. Mark, with the open Bible under his paw, is a favorite
emblem in the grand old city. It casts its shadow from the most
ancient pillar in Venice, in the Grand Square of St. Mark, upon the
throngs of free citizens below, and has so done for many a long
century. The winged lion is found every where -- and doubtless here,
where the winged lion is, no harm can come.
St. Mark died at Alexandria, in Egypt. He was martyred, I think.
However, that has nothing to do with my legend. About the founding
of the city of Venice -- say four hundred and fifty years after
Christ -- (for Venice is much younger than any other Italian city,)
a priest dreamed that an angel told him that until the remains of
St. Mark were brought to Venice, the city could never rise to high
distinction among the nations; that the body must be captured,
brought to the city, and a magnificent church built over it; and
that if ever the Venetians allowed the Saint to be removed from his
new resting-place, in that day Venice would perish from off the face
of the the earth. The priest proclaimed his dream, and forthwith
Venice set about procuring the corpse of St. Mark. One expedition
after another tried and failed, but the project was never abandoned
during four hundred years. At last it was secured by stratagem, in
the year eight hundred and something. The commander of a Venetian
expedition disguised himself, stole the bones, separated them, and
packed them in vessels filled with lard. The religion of Mahomet
causes its devotees to abhor anything that is in the nature of pork,
and so when the Christian was stopped by the officers at the gates
of the city, they only glanced once into his precious baskets, then
turned up their noses at the unholy lard, and let him go. The bones
were buried in the vaults of the grand cathedral, which had been
waiting long years to receive them, and thus the safety and the
greatness of Venice were secured. And to this day there be those in
Venice who believe that if those holy ashes were stolen away, the
ancient city would vanish like a dream, and its foundations be
buried forever in the unremembering sea.
CHAPTER XXIII

THE Venetian gondola is as free and graceful, in its gliding

movement, as a serpent. It is twenty or thirty feet long, and is
narrow and deep, like a canoe; its sharp bow and stern sweep upward
from the water like the horns of a crescent with the abruptness of
the curve slightly modified.
The bow is ornamented with a steel comb with a battle-ax attachment
which threatens to cut passing boats in two occasionally, but never
does. The gondola is painted black because in the zenith of Venetian
magnificence the gondolas became too gorgeous altogether, and the
Senate decreed that all such display must cease, and a solemn,
unembellished black be substituted. If the truth were known, it
would doubtless appear that rich plebeians grew too prominent in
their affectation of patrician show on the Grand Canal, and required
a wholesome snubbing. Reverence for the hallowed Past and its
traditions keeps the dismal fashion in force now that the compulsion
exists no longer. So let it remain. It is the color of mourning.
Venice mourns. The stern of the boat is decked over and the
gondolier stands there. He uses a single oar -- a long blade, of
course, for he stands nearly erect. A wooden peg, a foot and a half
high, with two slight crooks or curves in one side of it and one in
the other, projects above the starboard gunwale. Against that peg
the gondolier takes a purchase with his oar, changing it at
intervals to the other side of the peg or dropping it into another
of the crooks, as the steering of the craft may demand -- and how in
the world he can back and fill, shoot straight ahead, or flirt
suddenly around a corner, and make the oar stay in those
insignificant notches, is a problem to me and a never diminishing
matter of interest. I am afraid I study the gondolier's marvelous
skill more than I do the sculptured palaces we glide among. He cuts
a corner so closely, now and then, or misses another gondola by such
an imperceptible hair-breadth that I feel myself "scrooching," as
the children say, just as one does when a buggy wheel grazes his
elbow. But he makes all his calculations with the nicest precision,
and goes darting in and out among a Broadway confusion of busy craft
with the easy confidence of the educated hackman. He never makes a
mistake.
Sometimes we go flying down the great canals at such a gait that we
can get only the merest glimpses into front doors, and again, in
obscure alleys in the suburbs, we put on a solemnity suited to the
silence, the mildew, the stagnant waters, the clinging weeds, the
deserted houses and the general lifelessness of the place, and move
to the spirit of grave meditation.
The gondolier is a picturesque rascal for all he wears no satin
harness, no plumed bonnet, no silken tights. His attitude is
stately; he is lithe and supple; all his movements are full of
grace. When his long canoe, and his fine figure, towering from its
high perch on the stern, are cut against the evening sky, they make
a picture that is very novel and striking to a foreign eye.
We sit in the cushioned carriage-body of a cabin, with the curtains
drawn, and smoke, or read, or look out upon the passing boats, the
houses, the bridges, the people, and enjoy ourselves much more than
we could in a buggy jolting over our cobble-stone pavements at home.
This is the gentlest, pleasantest locomotion we have ever known.
But it seems queer -- ever so queer -- to see a boat doing duty as a
private carriage. We see business men come to the front door, step
into a gondola, instead of a street car, and go off down town to the
counting-room.
We see visiting young ladies stand on the stoop, and laugh, and kiss
good-bye, and flirt their fans and say "Come soon -- now do --
you've been just as mean as ever you can be -- mother's dying to see
you -- and we've moved into the new house, O such a love of a place!
-- so convenient to the post office and the church, and the Young
Men's Christian Association; and we do have such fishing, and such
carrying on, and such swimming-matches in the back yard -- Oh, you
must come -- no distance at all, and if you go down through by St.
Mark's and the Bridge of Sighs, and cut through the alley and come
up by the church of Santa Maria dei Frari, and into the Grand Canal,
there isn't a bit of current -- now do come, Sally Maria -- by-bye!"
and then the little humbug trips down the steps, jumps into the
gondola, says, under her breath, "Disagreeable old thing, I hope she
won't!" goes skimming away, round the corner; and the other girl
slams the street door and says, "Well, that infliction's over, any
way, -- but I suppose I've got to go and see her -- tiresome
stuck-up thing!" Human nature appears to be just the same, all over
the world. We see the diffident young man, mild of moustache,
affluent of hair, indigent of brain, elegant of costume, drive up to
her father's mansion, tell his hackman to bail out and wait, start
fearfully up the steps and meet "the old gentleman" right on the
threshold! -- hear him ask what street the new British Bank is in --
as if that were what he came for -- and then bounce into his boat
and skurry away with his coward heart in his boots! -- see him come
sneaking around the corner again, directly, with a crack of the
curtain open toward the old gentleman's disappearing gondola, and
out scampers his Susan with a flock of little Italian endearments
fluttering from her lips, and goes to drive with him in the watery
avenues down toward the Rialto.
We see the ladies go out shopping, in the most natural way, and flit
from street to street and from store to store, just in the good old
fashion, except that they leave the gondola, instead of a private
carriage, waiting at the curbstone a couple of hours for them, --
waiting while they make the nice young clerks pull down tons and
tons of silks and velvets and moire antiques and those things; and
then they buy a paper of pins and go paddling away to confer the
rest of their disastrous patronage on some other firm. And they
always have their purchases sent home just in the good old way.
Human nature is very much the same all over the world; and it is so
like my dear native home to see a Venetian lady go into a store and
buy ten cents' worth of blue ribbon and have it sent home in a scow.
Ah, it is these little touches of nature that move one to tears in
these far-off foreign lands.
We see little girls and boys go out in gondolas with their nurses,
for an airing. We see staid families, with prayer-book and beads,
enter the gondola dressed in their Sunday best, and float away to
church. And at midnight we see the theatre break up and discharge
its swarm of hilarious youth and beauty; we hear the cries of the
hackman-gondoliers, and behold the struggling crowd jump aboard, and
the black multitude of boats go skimming down the moonlit avenues;
we see them separate here and there, and disappear up divergent
streets; we hear the faint sounds of laughter and of shouted
farewells floating up out of the distance; and then, the strange
pageant being gone, we have lonely stretches of glittering water --
of stately buildings -- of blotting shadows -- of weird stone faces
creeping into the moonlight -- of deserted bridges -- of motionless
boats at anchor. And over all broods that mysterious stillness, that
stealthy quiet, that befits so well this old dreaming Venice.
We have been pretty much every where in our gondola. We have bought
beads and photographs in the stores, and wax matches in the Great
Square of St. Mark. The last remark suggests a digression. Every
body goes to this vast square in the evening. The military bands
play in the centre of it and countless couples of ladies and
gentlemen promenade up and down on either side, and platoons of them
are constantly drifting away toward the old Cathedral, and by the
venerable column with the Winged Lion of St . Mark on its top, and
out to where the boats lie moored; and other platoons are as
constantly arriving from the gondolas and joining the great throng.
Between the promenaders and the side-walks are seated hundreds and
hundreds of people at small tables, smoking and taking granita, (a
first cousin to ice-cream;) on the side-walks are more employing
themselves in the same way. The shops in the first floor of the tall
rows of buildings that wall in three sides of the square are
brilliantly lighted, the air is filled with music and merry voices,
and altogether the scene is as bright and spirited and full of
cheerfulness as any man could desire. We enjoy it thoroughly. Very
many of the young women are exceedingly pretty and dress with rare
good taste. We are gradually and laboriously learning the
ill-manners of staring them unflinchingly in the face -- not because
such conduct is agreeable to us, but because it is the custom of the
country and they say the girls like it. We wish to learn all the
curious, outlandish ways of all the different countries, so that we
can "show off" and astonish people when we get home. We wish to
excite the envy of our untraveled friends with our strange foreign
fashions which we can't shake off. All our passengers are paying
strict attention to this thing, with the end in view which I have
mentioned. The gentle reader will never, never know what a
consummate ass he can become, until he goes abroad. I speak now, of
course, in the supposition that the gentle reader has not been
abroad, and therefore is not already a consummate ass. If the case
be otherwise, I beg his pardon and extend to him the cordial hand of
fellowship and call him brother. I shall always delight to meet an
ass after my own heart when I shall have finished my travels.
On this subject let me remark that there are Americans abroad in
Italy who have actually forgotten their mother tongue in three
months -- forgot it in France. They can not even write their address
in English in a hotel register. I append these evidences, which I
copied verbatim from the register of a hotel in a certain Italian
city:
"John P. Whitcomb, Etats Unis.
"Wm. L. Ainsworth, travailleur (he meant traveler, I suppose,) Etats
Unis.
"George P. Morton et fils, d'Amerique.
"Lloyd B. Williams, et trois amis, ville de Boston, Amerique.
"J. Ellsworth Baker, tout de suite de France, place de naissance
Amerique,
destination la Grand Bretagne."
I love this sort of people. A lady passenger of ours tells of a
fellow-citizen of hers who spent eight weeks in Paris and then
returned home and addressed his dearest old bosom friend Herbert as
Mr. "Er-bare!" He apologized, though, and said, "'Pon my soul it is
aggravating, but I cahn't help it -- I have got so used to speaking
nothing but French, my dear Erbare -- damme there it goes again! --
got so used to French pronunciation that I cahn't get rid of it --
it is positively annoying, I assure you." This entertaining idiot,
whose name was Gordon, allowed himself to be hailed three times in
the street before he paid any attention, and then begged a thousand
pardons and said he had grown so accustomed to hearing himself
addressed as M'sieu Gor-r-dong," with a roll to the r, that he had
forgotten the legitimate sound of his name! He wore a rose in his
button-hole; he gave the French salutation -- two flips of the hand
in front of the face; he called Paris Pairree in ordinary English
conversation; he carried envelopes bearing foreign postmarks
protruding from his breast-pocket; he cultivated a moustache and
imperial, and did what else he could to suggest to the beholder his
pet fancy that he resembled Louis Napoleon -- and in a spirit of
thankfulness which is entirely unaccountable, considering the slim
foundation there was for it, he praised his Maker that he was as he
was, and went on enjoying his little life just the same as if he
really had been deliberately designed and erected by the great
Architect of the Universe.
Think of our Whitcombs, and our Ainsworths and our Williamses
writing themselves down in dilapidated French in foreign hotel
registers! We laugh at Englishmen, when we are at home, for sticking
so sturdily to their national ways and customs, but we look back
upon it from abroad very forgivingly. It is not pleasant to see an
American thrusting his nationality forward obtrusively in a foreign
land, but Oh, it is pitiable to see him making of himself a thing
that is neither male nor female, neither fish, flesh, nor fowl -- a
poor, miserable, hermaphrodite Frenchman!
Among a long list of churches, art galleries, and such things,
visited by us in Venice, I shall mention only one -- the church of
Santa Maria dei Frari. It is about five hundred years old, I
believe, and stands on twelve hundred thousand piles. In it lie the
body of Canova and the heart of Titian, under magnificent monuments.
Titian died at the age of almost one hundred years. A plague which
swept away fifty thousand lives was raging at the time, and there is
notable evidence of the reverence in which the great painter was
held, in the fact that to him alone the state permitted a public
funeral in all that season of terror and death.
In this church, also, is a monument to the doge Foscari, whose name
a once resident of Venice, Lord Byron, has made permanently famous.
The monument to the doge Giovanni Pesaro, in this church, is a
curiosity in the way of mortuary adornment. It is eighty feet high
and is fronted like some fantastic pagan temple. Against it stand
four colossal Nubians, as black as night, dressed in white marble
garments. The black legs are bare, and through rents in sleeves and
breeches, the skin, of shiny black marble, shows. The artist was as
ingenious as his funeral designs were absurd. There are two bronze
skeletons bearing scrolls, and two great dragons uphold the
sarcophagus. On high, amid all this grotesqueness, sits the departed
doge.
In the conventual buildings attached to this church are the state
archives of Venice. We did not see them, but they are said to number
millions of documents. "They are the records of centuries of the
most watchful, observant and suspicious government that ever existed
-- in which every thing was written down and nothing spoken out."
They fill nearly three hundred rooms. Among them are manuscripts
from the archives of nearly two thousand families, monasteries and
convents. The secret history of Venice for a thousand years is here
-- its plots, its hidden trials, its assassinations, its commissions
of hireling spies and masked bravoes -- food, ready to hand, for a
world of dark and mysterious romances.
Yes, I think we have seen all of Venice. We have seen, in these old
churches, a profusion of costly and elaborate sepulchre
ornamentation such as we never dreampt of before. We have stood in
the dim religious light of these hoary sanctuaries, in the midst of
long ranks of dusty monuments and effigies of the great dead of
Venice, until we seemed drifting back, back, back, into the solemn
past, and looking upon the scenes and mingling with the peoples of a
remote antiquity. We have been in a half-waking sort of dream all
the time. I do not know how else to describe the feeling. A part of
our being has remained still in the nineteenth century, while
another part of it has seemed in some unaccountable way walking
among the phantoms of the tenth.
We have seen famous pictures until our eyes are weary with looking
at them and refuse to find interest in them any longer. And what
wonder, when there are twelve hundred pictures by Palma the Younger
in Venice and fifteen hundred by Tintoretto? And behold there are
Titians and the works of other artists in proportion. We have seen
Titian's celebrated Cain and Abel, his David and Goliah, his
Abraham's Sacrifice. We have seen Tintoretto's monster picture,
which is seventy-four feet long and I do not know how many feet
high, and thought it a very commodious picture. We have seen
pictures of martyrs enough, and saints enough, to regenerate the
world. I ought not to confess it, but still, since one has no
opportunity in America to acquire a critical judgment in art, and
since I could not hope to become educated in it in Europe in a few
short weeks, I may therefore as well acknowledge with such apologies
as may be due, that to me it seemed that when I had seen one of
these martyrs I had seen them all. They all have a marked family
resemblance to each other, they dress alike, in coarse monkish robes
and sandals, they are all bald headed, they all stand in about the
same attitude, and without exception they are gazing heavenward with
countenances which the Ainsworths, the Mortons and the Williamses,
et fils, inform me are full of "expression." To me there is nothing
tangible about these imaginary portraits, nothing that I can grasp
and take a living interest in. If great Titian had only been gifted
with prophecy, and had skipped a martyr, and gone over to England
and painted a portrait of Shakspeare, even as a youth, which we
could all have confidence in now, the world down to the latest
generations would have forgiven him the lost martyr in the rescued
seer. I think posterity could have spared one more martyr for the
sake of a great historical picture of Titian's time and painted by
his brush -- such as Columbus returning in chains from the discovery
of a world, for instance. The old masters did paint some Venetian
historical pictures, and these we did not tire of looking at,
notwithstanding representations of the formal introduction of
defunct doges to the Virgin Mary in regions beyond the clouds
clashed rather harshly with the proprieties, it seemed to us.
But humble as we are, and unpretending, in the matter of art, our
researches among the painted monks and martyrs have not been wholly
in vain. We have striven hard to learn. We have had some success. We
have mastered some things, possibly of trifling import in the eyes
of the learned, but to us they give pleasure, and we take as much
pride in our little acquirements as do others who have learned far
more, and we love to display them full as well. When we see a monk
going about with a lion and looking tranquilly up to heaven, we know
that that is St. Mark. When we see a monk with a book and a pen,
looking tranquilly up to heaven, trying to think of a word, we know
that that is St. Matthew. When we see a monk sitting on a rock,
looking tranquilly up to heaven, with a human skull beside him, and
without other baggage, we know that that is St. Jerome. Because we
know that he always went flying light in the matter of baggage. When
we see a party looking tranquilly up to heaven, unconscious that his
body is shot through and through with arrows, we know that that is
St. Sebastian. When we see other monks looking tranquilly up to
heaven, but having no trade-mark, we always ask who those parties
are. We do this because we humbly wish to learn. We have seen
thirteen thousand St. Jeromes, and twenty-two thousand St. Marks,
and sixteen thousand St. Matthews, and sixty thousand St.
Sebastians, and four millions of assorted monks, undesignated, and
we feel encouraged to believe that when we have seen some more of
these various pictures, and had a larger experience, we shall begin
to take an absorbing interest in them like our cultivated countrymen
from Amerique.
Now it does give me real pain to speak in this almost unappreciative
way of the old masters and their martyrs, because good friends of
mine in the ship -- friends who do thoroughly and conscientiously
appreciate them and are in every way competent to discriminate
between good pictures and inferior ones -- have urged me for my own
sake not to make public the fact that I lack this appreciation and
this critical discrimination myself. I believe that what I have
written and may still write about pictures will give them pain, and
I am honestly sorry for it. I even promised that I would hide my
uncouth sentiments in my own breast. But alas! I never could keep a
promise. I do not blame myself for this weakness, because the fault
must lie in my physical organization. It is likely that such a very
liberal amount of space was given to the organ which enables me to
make promises, that the organ which should enable me to keep them
was crowded out. But I grieve not. I like no half-way things. I had
rather have one faculty nobly developed than two faculties of mere
ordinary capacity. I certainly meant to keep that promise, but I
find I can not do it. It is impossible to travel through Italy
without speaking of pictures, and can I see them through others'
eyes?
If I did not so delight in the grand pictures that are spread before
me every day of my life by that monarch of all the old masters,
Nature, I should come to believe, sometimes, that I had in me no
appreciation of the beautiful, whatsoever.
It seems to me that whenever I glory to think that for once I have
discovered an ancient painting that is beautiful and worthy of all
praise, the pleasure it gives me is an infallible proof that it is
not a beautiful picture and not in any wise worthy of commendation.
This very thing has occurred more times than I can mention, in
Venice. In every single instance the guide has crushed out my
swelling enthusiasm with the remark:
" It is nothing -- it is of the Renaissance."
I did not know what in the mischief the Renaissance was, and so
always I had to simply say,
"Ah! so it is -- I had not observed it before."
I could not bear to be ignorant before a cultivated negro, the
offspring of a South Carolina slave. But it occurred too often for
even my self-complacency, did that exasperating "It is nothing -- it
is of the Renaissance." I said at last:
"Who is this Renaissance? Where did he come from? Who gave him
permission to cram the Republic with his execrable daubs?"
We learned, then, that Renaissance was not a man; that renaissance
was a term used to signify what was at best but an imperfect
rejuvenation of art. The guide said that after Titian's time and the
time of the other great names we had grown so familiar with, high
art declined; then it partially rose again -- an inferior sort of
painters sprang up, and these shabby pictures were the work of their
hands. Then I said, in my heat, that I "wished to goodness high art
had declined five hundred years sooner." The Renaissance pictures
suit me very well, though sooth to say its school were too much
given to painting real men and did not indulge enough in martyrs.
The guide I have spoken of is the only one we have had yet who knew
any thing. He was born in South Carolina, of slave parents. They
came to Venice while he was an infant. He has grown up here. He is
well educated. He reads, writes, and speaks English, Italian,
Spanish, and French, with perfect facility; is a worshipper of art
and thoroughly conversant with it; knows the history of Venice by
heart and never tires of talking of her illustrious career. He
dresses better than any of us, I think, and is daintily polite.
Negroes are deemed as good as white people, in Venice, and so this
man feels no desire to go back to his native land. His judgment is
correct.
I have had another shave. I was writing in our front room this
afternoon and trying hard to keep my attention on my work and
refrain from looking out upon the canal. I was resisting the soft
influences of the climate as well as I could, and endeavoring to
overcome the desire to be indolent and happy. The boys sent for a
barber. They asked me if I would be shaved. I reminded them of my
tortures in Genoa, Milan, Como; of my declaration that I would
suffer no more on Italian soil. I said "Not any for me, if you
please."
I wrote on. The barber began on the doctor. I heard him say:
"Dan, this is the easiest shave I have had since we left the ship."
He said again, presently:
"Why Dan, a man could go to sleep with this man shaving him."
Dan took the chair. Then he said:
"Why this is Titian. This is one of the old masters."
I wrote on. Directly Dan said:
"Doctor, it is perfect luxury. The ship's barber isn't any thing to
him."
My rough beard wee distressing me beyond measure. The barber was
rolling up his apparatus. The temptation was too strong. I said:
"Hold on, please. Shave me also."
I sat down in the chair and closed my eyes. The barber soaped my
face, and then took his razor and gave me a rake that well nigh
threw me into convulsions. I jumped out of the chair: Dan and the
doctor were both wiping blood off their faces and laughing.
I said it was a mean, disgraceful fraud.
They said that the misery of this shave had gone so far beyond any
thing they had ever experienced before, that they could not bear the
idea of losing such a chance of hearing a cordial opinion from me on
the subject.
It was shameful. But there was no help for it. The skinning was
begun and had to be finished. The tears flowed with every rake, and
so did the fervent execrations. The barber grew confused, and
brought blood every time. I think the boys enjoyed it better than
any thing they have seen or heard since they left home.
We have seen the Campanile, and Byron's house and Balbi's the
geographer, and the palaces of all the ancient dukes and doges of
Venice, and we have seen their effeminate descendants airing their
nobility in fashionable French attire in the Grand Square of St.
Mark, and eating ices and drinking cheap wines, instead of wearing
gallant coats of mail and destroying fleets and armies as their
great ancestors did in the days of Venetian glory. We have seen no
bravoes with poisoned stilettos, no masks, no wild carnival; but we
have seen the ancient pride of Venice, the grim Bronze Horses that
figure in a thousand legends. Venice may well cherish them, for they
are the only horses she ever had. It is said there are hundreds of
people in this curious city who never have seen a living horse in
their lives. It is entirely true, no doubt.
And so, having satisfied ourselves, we depart to-morrow, and leave
the venerable Queen of the Republics to summon her vanished ships,
and marshal her shadowy armies, and know again in dreams the pride
of her old renown.
CHAPTER XXIV

SOME of the Quaker City's passengers had arrived in Venice from

Switzerland and other lands before we left there, and others were
expected every day. We heard of no casualties among them, and no
sickness.
We were a little fatigued with sight seeing, and so we rattled
through a good deal of country by rail without caring to stop. I
took few notes. I find no mention of Bologna in my memorandum book,
except that we arrived there in good season, but saw none of the
sausages for which the place is so justly celebrated.
Pistoia awoke but a passing interest.
Florence pleased us for a while. I think we appreciated the great
figure of David in the grand square, and the sculptured group they
call the Rape of the Sabines. We wandered through the endless
collections of paintings and statues of the Pitti and Ufizzi
galleries, of course. I make that statement in self-defense; there
let it stop. I could not rest under the imputation that I visited
Florence and did not traverse its weary miles of picture galleries.
We tried indolently to recollect something about the Guelphs and
Ghibelines and the other historical cut-throats whose quarrels and
assassinations make up so large a share of Florentine history, but
the subject was not attractive. We had been robbed of all the fine
mountain scenery on our little journey by a system of railroading
that had three miles of tunnel to a hundred yards of daylight, and
we were not inclined to be sociable with Florence. We had seen the
spot, outside the city somewhere, where these people had allowed the
bones of Galileo to rest in unconsecrated ground for an age because
his great discovery that the world turned around was regarded as a
damning heresy by the church; and we know that long after the world
had accepted his theory and raised h is name high in the list of its
great men, they had still let him rot there. That we had lived to
see his dust in honored sepulture in the church of Santa Croce we
owed to a society of literati, and not to Florence or her rulers. We
saw Danté's tomb in that church, also, but we were glad to know that
his body was not in it; that the ungrateful city that had exiled him
and persecuted him would give much to have it there, but need not
hope to ever secure that high honor to herself. Medicis are good
enough for Florence. Let her plant Medicis and build grand monuments
over them to testify how gratefully she was wont to lick the hand
that scourged her.
Magnanimous Florence! Her jewelry marts are filled with artists in
mosaic. Florentine mosaics are the choicest in all the world.
Florence loves to have that said. Florence is proud of it. Florence
would foster this specialty of hers. She is grateful to the artists
that bring to her this high credit and fill her coffers with foreign
money, and so she encourages them with pensions. With pensions!
Think of the lavishness of it. She knows that people who piece
together the beautiful trifles die early, because the labor is so
confining, and so exhausting to hand and brain, and so she has
decreed that all these people who reach the age of sixty shall have
a pension after that! I have not heard that any of them have called
for their dividends yet. One man did fight along till he was sixty,
and started after his pension, but it appeared that there had been a
mistake of a year in his family record, and so he gave it up and
died.
These artists will take particles of stone or glass no larger than a
mustard seed, and piece them together on a sleeve button or a shirt
stud, so smoothly and with such nice adjustment of the delicate
shades of color the pieces bear, as to form a pigmy rose with stem,
thorn, leaves, petals complete, and all as softly and as truthfully
tinted as though Nature had builded it herself. They will
counterfeit a fly, or a high-toned bug, or the ruined Coliseum,
within the cramped circle of a breastpin, and do it so deftly and so
neatly that any man might think a master painted it.
I saw a little table in the great mosaic school in Florence -- a
little trifle of a centre table -- whose top was made of some sort
of precious polished stone, and in the stone was inlaid the figure
of a flute, with bell-mouth and a mazy complication of keys. No
painting in the world could have been softer or richer; no shading
out of one tint into another could have been more perfect; no work
of art of any kind could have been more faultless than this flute,
and yet to count the multitude of little fragments of stone of which
they swore it was formed would bankrupt any man's arithmetic! I do
not think one could have seen where two particles joined each other
with eyes of ordinary shrewdness. Certainly we could detect no such
blemish. This table-top cost the labor of one man for ten long
years, so they said, and it was for sale for thirty-five thousand
dollars.
We went to the Church of Santa Croce, from time to time, in
Florence, to weep over the tombs of Michael Angelo, Raphael and
Machiavelli, (I suppose they are buried there, but it may be that
they reside elsewhere and rent their tombs to other parties -- such
being the fashion in Italy,) and between times we used to go and
stand on the bridges and admire the Arno. It is popular to admire
the Arno. It is a great historical creek with four feet in the
channel and some scows floating around. It would be a very plausible
river if they would pump some water into it. They all call it a
river, and they honestly think it is a river, do these dark and
bloody Florentines. They even help out the delusion by building
bridges over it. I do not see why they are too good to wade.
How the fatigues and annoyances of travel fill one with bitter
prejudices sometimes! I might enter Florence under happier auspices
a month hence and find it all beautiful, all attractive. But I do
not care to think of it now, at all, nor of its roomy shops filled
to the ceiling with snowy marble and alabaster copies of all the
celebrated sculptures in Europe -- copies so enchanting to the eye
that I wonder how they can really be shaped like the dingy petrified
nightmares they are the portraits of. I got lost in Florence at nine
o'clock, one night, and staid lost in that labyrinth of narrow
streets and long rows of vast buildings that look all alike, until
toward three o'clock in the morning. It was a pleasant night and at
first there were a good many people abroad, and there were cheerful
lights about. Later, I grew accustomed to prowling about mysterious
drifts and tunnels and astonishing and interesting myself with
coming around corners expecting to find the hotel staring me in the
face, and not finding it doing any thing of the kind. Later still, I
felt tired. I soon felt remarkably tired. But there was no one
abroad, now -- not even a policeman. I walked till I was out of all
patience, and very hot and thirsty. At last, somewhere after one
o'clock, I came unexpectedly to one of the city gates. I knew then
that I was very far from the hotel. The soldiers thought I wanted to
leave the city, and they sprang up and barred the way with their
muskets. I said:
"Hotel d'Europe!"
It was all the Italian I knew, and I was not certain whether that
was Italian or French. The soldiers looked stupidly at each other
and at me, and shook their heads and took me into custody. I said I
wanted to go home. They did not understand me. They took me into the
guard-house and searched me, but they found no sedition on me. They
found a small piece of soap (we carry soap with us, now,) and I made
them a present of it, seeing that they regarded it as a curiosity. I
continued to say Hotel d'Europe, and they continued to shake their
heads, until at last a young soldier nodding in the corner roused up
and said something. He said he knew where the hotel was, I suppose,
for the officer of the guard sent him away with me. We walked a
hundred or a hundred and fifty miles, it appeared to me, and then he
got lost. He turned this way and that, and finally gave it up and
signified that he was going to spend the remainder of the morning
trying to find the city gate again. At that moment it struck me that
there was something familiar about the house over the way. It was
the hotel!
It was a happy thing for me that there happened to be a soldier
there that knew even as much as he did; for they say that the policy
of the government is to change the soldiery from one place to
another constantly and from country to city, so that they can not
become acquainted with the people and grow lax in their duties and
enter into plots and conspiracies with friends. My experiences of
Florence were chiefly unpleasant. I will change the subject.
At Pisa we climbed up to the top of the strangest structure the
world has any knowledge of -- the Leaning Tower. As every one knows,
it is in the neighborhood of one hundred and eighty feet high -- and
I beg to observe that one hundred and eighty feet reach to about the
hight of four ordinary three-story buildings piled one on top of the
other, and is a very considerable altitude for a tower of uniform
thickness to aspire to, even when it stands upright -- yet this one
leans more than thirteen feet out of the perpendicular. It is seven
hundred years old, but neither history or tradition say whether it
was built as it is, purposely, or whether one of its sides has
settled. There is no record that it ever stood straight up. It is
built of marble. It is an airy and a beautiful structure, and each
of its eight stories is encircled by fluted columns, some of marble
and some of granite, with Corinthian capitals that were handsome
when they were new. It is a bell tower, and in its top hangs a chime
of ancient bells. The winding staircase within is dark, but one
always knows which side of the tower he is on because of his
naturally gravitating from one side to the other of the staircase
with the rise or dip of the tower. Some of the stone steps are
foot-worn only on one end; others only on the other end; others only
in the middle. To look down into the tower from the top is like
looking down into a tilted well. A rope that hangs from the centre
of the top touches the wall before it reaches the bottom. Standing
on the summit, one does not feel altogether comfortable when he
looks down from the high side; but to crawl on your breast to the
verge on the lower side and try to stretch your neck out far enough
to see the base of the tower, makes your flesh creep, and convinces
you for a single moment in spite of all your philosophy, that the
building is falling. You handle yourself very carefully, all the
time, under the silly impression that if it is not falling, your
trifling weight will start it unless you are particular not to "bear
down" on it.
The Duomo, close at hand, is one of the finest cathedrals in Europe.
It is eight hundred years old. Its grandeur has outlived the high
commercial prosperity and the political importance that made it a
necessity, or rather a possibility. Surrounded by poverty, decay and
ruin, it conveys to us a more tangible impression of the former
greatness of Pisa than books could give us.
The Baptistery, which is a few years older than the Leaning Tower,
is a stately rotunda, of huge dimensions, and was a costly
structure. In it hangs the lamp whose measured swing suggested to
Galileo the pendulum. It looked an insignificant thing to have
conferred upon the world of science and mechanics such a mighty
extension of their dominions as it has. Pondering, in its suggestive
presence, I seemed to see a crazy universe of swinging disks, the
toiling children of this sedate parent. He appeared to have an
intelligent expression about him of knowing that he was not a lamp
at all; that he was a Pendulum; a pendulum disguised, for prodigious
and inscrutable purposes of his own deep devising, and not a common
pendulum either, but the old original patriarchal Pendulum -- the
Abraham Pendulum of the world.
This Baptistery is endowed with the most pleasing echo of all the
echoes we have read of. The guide sounded two sonorous notes, about
half an octave apart; the echo answered with the most enchanting,
the most melodious, the richest blending of sweet sounds that one
can imagine. It was like a long-drawn chord of a church organ,
infinitely softened by distance. I may be extravagant in this
matter, but if this be the case my ear is to blame -- not my pen. I
am describing a memory -- and one that will remain long with me.
The peculiar devotional spirit of the olden time, which placed a
higher confidence in outward forms of worship than in the watchful
guarding of the heart against sinful thoughts and the hands against
sinful deeds, and which believed in the protecting virtues of
inanimate objects made holy by contact with holy things, is
illustrated in a striking manner in one of the cemeteries of Pisa.
The tombs are set in soil brought in ships from the Holy Land ages
ago. To be buried in such ground was regarded b y the ancient Pisans
as being more potent for salvation than many masses purchased of the
church and the vowing of many candles to the Virgin.
Pisa is believed to be about three thousand years old. It was one of
the twelve great cities of ancient Etruria, that commonwealth which
has left so many monuments in testimony of its extraordinary
advancement, and so little history of itself that is tangible and
comprehensible. A Pisan antiquarian gave me an ancient tear-jug
which he averred was full four thousand years old. It was found
among the ruins of one of the oldest of the Etruscan cities. He said
it came from a tomb, and was used by some bereaved family in that
remote age when even the Pyramids of Egypt were young, Damascus a
village, Abraham a prattling infant and ancient Troy not yet dreampt
of, to receive the tears wept for some lost idol of a household. It
spoke to us in a language of its own; and with a pathos more tender
than any words might bring, its mute eloquence swept down the long
roll of the centuries with its tale of a vacant chair, a familiar
footstep missed from the threshold, a pleasant voice gone from the
chorus, a vanished form! -- a tale which is always so new to us, so
startling, so terrible, so benumbing to the senses, and behold how
threadbare and old it is! No shrewdly-worded history could have
brought the myths and shadows of that old dreamy age before us
clothed with human flesh and warmed with human sympathies so vividly
as did this poor little unsentient vessel of pottery.
Pisa was a republic in the middle ages, with a government of her
own, armies and navies of her own and a great commerce. She was a
warlike power, and inscribed upon her banners many a brilliant fight
with Genoese and Turks. It is said that the city once numbered a
population of four hundred thousand; but her sceptre has passed from
her grasp, now, her ships and her armies are gone, her commerce is
dead. Her battle-flags bear the mold and the dust of centuries, her
marts are deserted, she has shrunk en far within her crumbling
walls, and her great population has diminished to twenty thousand
souls. She has but one thing left to boast of, and that is not much,
viz: she is the second city of Tuscany.
We reached Leghorn in time to see all we wished to see of it long
before the city gates were closed for the evening, and then came on
board the ship.
We felt as though we had been away from home an age. We never
entirely appreciated, before, what a very pleasant den our
state-room is; nor how jolly it is to sit at dinner in one's own
seat in one's own cabin, and hold familiar conversation with friends
in one's own language. Oh, the rare happiness of comprehending every
single word that is said, and knowing that every word one says in
return will be understood as well! We would talk ourselves to death,
now, only there are only about ten passengers out of the sixty-five
to talk to. The others are wandering, we hardly know where. We shall
not go ashore in Leghorn. We are surfeited with Italian cities for
the present, and much prefer to walk the familiar quarterdeck and
view this one from a distance.
The stupid magnates of this Leghorn government can not understand
that so large a steamer as ours could cross the broad Atlantic with
no other purpose than to indulge a party of ladies and gentlemen in
a pleasure excursion. It looks too improbable. It is suspicious,
they think. Something more important must be hidden behind it all.
They can not understand it, and they scorn the evidence of the
ship's papers. They have decided at last that we are a battalion of
incendiary, blood-thirsty Garibaldians in disguise! And in all
seriousness they have set a gun-boat to watch the vessel night and
day, with orders to close down on any revolutionary movement in a
twinkling! Police boats are on patrol duty about us all the time,
and it is as much as a sailor's liberty is worth to show himself in
a red shirt. These policemen follow the executive officer's boat
from shore to ship and from ship to shore and watch his dark
maneuvres with a vigilant eye. They will arrest him yet unless he
assumes an expression of countenance that shall have less of
carnage, insurrection and sedition in it. A visit paid in a friendly
way to General Garibaldi yesterday (by cordial invitation,) by some
of our passengers, has gone far to confirm the dread suspicions the
government harbors toward us. It is thought the friendly visit was
only the cloak of a bloody conspiracy. These people draw near and
watch us when we bathe in the sea from the ship's side. Do they
think we are communing with a reserve force of rascals at the
bottom?
It is said that we shall probably be quarantined at Naples. Two or
three of us prefer not to run this risk. Therefore, when we are
rested, we propose to go in a French steamer to Civita and from
thence to Rome, and by rail to Naples. They do not quarantine the
cars, no matter where they got their passengers from.
CHAPTER XXV

THERE are a good many things about this Italy which I do not
understand -- and more especially I can not understand how a
bankrupt Government can have such palatial railroad depots and such
marvels of turnpikes. Why, these latter are as hard as adamant, as
straight as a line, as smooth as a floor, and as white as snow. When
it is too dark to see any other object, one can still see the white
turnpikes of France and Italy; and they are clean enough to eat
from, without a table-cloth. And yet no tolls are charged.
As for the railways -- we have none like them. The cars slide as
smoothly along as if they were on runners. The depots are vast
palaces of cut marble, with stately colonnades of the same royal
stone traversing them from end to end, and with ample walls and
ceilings richly decorated with frescoes. The lofty gateways are
graced with statues, and the broad floors are all laid in polished
flags of marble.
These things win me more than Italy's hundred galleries of priceless
art treasures, because I can understand the one and am not competent
to appreciate the other. In the turnpikes, the railways, the depots,
and the new boulevards of uniform houses in Florence and other
cities here, I see the genius of Louis Napoleon, or rather, I see
the works of that statesman imitated. But Louis has taken care that
in France there shall be a foundation for these improvements --
money. He has always the wherewithal to back up his projects; they
strengthen France and never weaken her. Her material prosperity is
genuine. But here the case is different. This country is bankrupt.
There is no real foundation for these great works. The prosperity
they would seem to indicate is a pretence. There is no money in the
treasury, and so they enfeeble her instead of strengthening. Italy
has achieved the dearest wish of her heart and become an independent
State -- and in so doing she has drawn an elephant in the political
lottery. She has nothing to feed it on. Inexperienced in government,
she plunged into all manner of useless expenditure, and swamped her
treasury almost in a day. She squandered millions of francs on a
navy which she did not need, and the first time she took her new toy
into action she got it knocked higher than Gilderoy's kite -- to use
the language of the Pilgrims.
But it is an ill-wind that blows nobody good. A year ago, when Italy
saw utter ruin staring her in the face and her greenbacks hardly
worth the paper they were printed on, her Parliament ventured upon a
coup de main that would have appalled the stoutest of her statesmen
under less desperate circumstances. They, in a manner, confiscated
the domains of the Church! This in priest-ridden Italy! This in a
land which has groped in the midnight of priestly superstition for
sixteen hundred years! It was a rare good fortune for Italy, the
stress of weather that drove her to break from this prison-house.
They do not call it confiscating the church property. That would
sound too harshly yet. But it amounts to that. There are thousands
of churches in Italy, each with untold millions of treasures stored
away in its closets, and each with its battalion of priests to be
supported. And then there are the estates of the Church -- league on
league of the richest lands and the noblest forests in all Italy --
all yielding immense revenues to the Church, and none paying a cent
in taxes to the State. In some great districts the Church owns all
the property -- lands, watercourses, woods, mills and factories.
They buy, they sell, they manufacture, and since they pay no taxes,
who can hope to compete with them?
Well, the Government has seized all this in effect, and will yet
seize it in rigid and unpoetical reality, no doubt. Something must
be done to feed a starving treasury, and there is no other resource
in all Italy -- none but the riches of the Church. So the Government
intends to take to itself a great portion of the revenues arising
from priestly farms, factories, etc., and also intends to take
possession of the churches and carry them on, after its own fashion
and upon its own responsibility. In a few instances it will leave
the establishments of great pet churches undisturbed, but in all
others only a handful of priests will be retained to preach and
pray, a few will be pensioned, and the balance turned adrift.
Pray glance at some of these churches and their embellishments, and
see whether the Government is doing a righteous thing or not. In
Venice, to-day, a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants, there are
twelve hundred priests. Heaven only knows how many there were before
the Parliament reduced their numbers. There was the great Jesuit
Church. Under the old regime it required sixty priests to engineer
it -- the Government does it with five, now, and the others are
discharged from service. All about that church wretchedness and
poverty abound. At its door a dozen hats and bonnets were doffed to
us, as many heads were humbly bowed, and as many hands extended,
appealing for pennies -- appealing with foreign words we could not
understand, but appealing mutely, with sad eyes, and sunken cheeks,
and ragged raiment, that no words were needed to translate. Then we
passed within the great doors, and it seemed that the riches of the
world were before us! Huge columns carved out of single masses of
marble, and inlaid from top to bottom with a hundred intricate
figures wrought in costly verde antique; pulpits of the same rich
materials, whose draperies hung down in many a pictured fold, the
stony fabric counterfeiting the delicate work of the loom; the grand
altar brilliant with polished facings and balustrades of oriental
agate, jasper, verde antique, and other precious stones, whose
names, even, we seldom hear -- and slabs of priceless lapis lazuli
lavished every where as recklessly as if the church had owned a
quarry of it. In the midst of all this magnificence, the solid gold
and silver furniture of the altar seemed cheap and trivial. Even the
floors and ceilings cost a princely fortune.
Now, where is the use of allowing all those riches to lie idle,
while half of that community hardly know, from day to day, how they
are going to keep body and soul together? And, where is the wisdom
in permitting hundreds upon hundreds of millions of francs to be
locked up in the useless trumpery of churches all over Italy, and
the people ground to death with taxation to uphold a perishing
Government?
As far as I can see, Italy, for fifteen hundred years, has turned
all her energies, all her finances, and all her industry to the
building up of a vast array of wonderful church edifices, and
starving half her citizens to accomplish it. She is to-day one vast
museum of magnificence and misery. All the churches in an ordinary
American city put together could hardly buy the jeweled frippery in
one of her hundred cathedrals. And for every beggar in America,
Italy can show a hundred -- and rags and vermin to match. It is the
wretchedest, princeliest land on earth.
Look at the grand Duomo of Florence -- a vast pile that has been
sapping the purses of her citizens for five hundred years, and is
not nearly finished yet. Like all other men, I fell down and
worshipped it, but when the filthy beggars swarmed around me the
contrast was too striking, too suggestive, and I said, "O, sons of
classic Italy, is the spirit of enterprise, of self-reliance, of
noble endeavor, utterly dead within ye? Curse your indolent
worthlessness, why don't you rob your church?"
Three hundred happy, comfortable priests are employed in that
Cathedral.
And now that my temper is up, I may as well go on and abuse every
body I can think of. They have a grand mausoleum in Florence, which
they built to bury our Lord and Saviour and the Medici family in. It
sounds blasphemous, but it is true, and here they act blasphemy. The
dead and damned Medicis who cruelly tyrannized over Florence and
were her curse for over two hundred years, are salted away in a
circle of costly vaults, and in their midst the Holy Sepulchre was
to have been set up. The expedition sent to Jerusalem to seize it
got into trouble and could not accomplish the burglary, and so the
centre of the mausoleum is vacant now. They say the entire mausoleum
was intended for the Holy Sepulchre, and was only turned into a
family burying place after the Jerusalem expedition failed -- but
you will excuse me. Some of those Medicis would have smuggled
themselves in sure. -- What they had not the effrontery to do, was
not worth doing. Why, they had their trivial, forgotten exploits on
land and sea pictured out in grand frescoes (as did also the ancient
Doges of Venice) with the Saviour and the Virgin throwing bouquets
to them out of the clouds, and the Deity himself applauding from his
throne in Heaven! And who painted these things? Why, Titian,
Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, Raphael -- none other than the world's
idols, the "old masters."
Andrea del Sarto glorified his princes in pictures that must save
them for ever from the oblivion they merited, and they let him
starve. Served him right. Raphael pictured such infernal villains as
Catherine and Marie de Medicis seated in heaven and conversing
familiarly with the Virgin Mary and the angels, (to say nothing of
higher personages,) and yet my friends abuse me because I am a
little prejudiced against the old masters -- because I fail
sometimes to see the beauty that is in their productions . I can not
help but see it, now and then, but I keep on protesting against the
groveling spirit that could persuade those masters to prostitute
their noble talents to the adulation of such monsters as the French,
Venetian and Florentine Princes of two an d three hundred years ago,
all the same.
I am told that the old masters had to do these shameful things for
bread, the princes and potentates being the only patrons of art. If
a grandly gifted man may drag his pride and his manhood in the dirt
for bread rather than starve with the nobility that is in him
untainted, the excuse is a valid one. It would excuse theft in
Washingtons and Wellingtons, and unchastity in women as well.
But somehow, I can not keep that Medici mausoleum out of my memory.
It is as large as a church; its pavement is rich enough for the
pavement of a King's palace; its great dome is gorgeous with
frescoes; its walls are made of -- what? Marble? -- plaster? --
wood? -- paper? No. Red porphyry -- verde antique -- jasper --
oriental agate -- alabaster -- mother-of-pearl -- chalcedony -- red
coral -- lapis lazuli! All the vast walls are made wholly of these
precious stones, worked in, and in and in together in elaborate
pattern s and figures, and polished till they glow like great
mirrors with the pictured splendors reflected from the dome
overhead. And before a statue of one of those dead Medicis reposes a
crown that blazes with diamonds and emeralds enough to buy a
ship-of-the-line, almost. These are the things the Government has
its evil eye upon, and a happy thing it will be for Italy when they
melt away in the public treasury.
And now -- . However, another beggar approaches. I will go out and
destroy him, and then come back and write another chapter of
vituperation.
Having eaten the friendless orphan -- having driven away his
comrades -- having grown calm and reflective at length -- I now feel
in a kindlier mood. I feel that after talking so freely about the
priests and the churches, justice demands that if I know any thing
good about either I ought to say it. I have heard of many things
that redound to the credit of the priesthood, but the most notable
matter that occurs to me now is the devotion one of the mendicant
orders showed during the prevalence of the cholera last year. I
speak of the Dominican friars -- men who wear a coarse, heavy brown
robe and a cowl, in this hot climate, and go barefoot. They live on
alms altogether, I believe. They must unquestionably love their
religion, to suffer so much for it. When the cholera was raging in
Naples; when the people were dying by hundreds and hundreds every
day; when every concern for the public welfare was swallowed up in
selfish private interest, and every citizen made the taking care of
himself his sole object, these men banded themselves together and
went about nursing the sick and burying the dead. Their noble
efforts cost many of them their lives. They laid them down
cheerfully, and well they might. Creeds mathematically precise, and
hair-splitting niceties of doctrine, are absolutely necessary for
the salvation of some kinds of souls, but surely the charity, the
purity, the unselfishness that are in the hearts of men like these
would save their souls though they were bankrupt in the true
religion -- which is ours.
One of these fat bare-footed rascals came here to Civita Vecchia
with us in the little French steamer. There were only half a dozen
of us in the cabin. He belonged in the steerage. He was the life of
the ship, the bloody-minded son of the Inquisition! He and the
leader of the marine band of a French man-of-war played on the piano
and sang opera turn about; they sang duets together; they rigged
impromptu theatrical costumes and gave us extravagant farces and
pantomimes. We got along first-rate with the friar, and were
excessively conversational, albeit he could not understand what we
said, and certainly he never uttered a word that we could guess the
meaning of.
This Civita Vecchia is the finest nest of dirt, vermin and ignorance
we have found yet, except that African perdition they call Tangier,
which is just like it. The people here live in alleys two yards
wide, which have a smell about them which is peculiar but not
entertaining. It is well the alleys are not wider, because they hold
as much smell now as a person can stand, and of course, if they were
wider they would hold more, and then the people would die. These
alleys are paved with stone, and carpeted with deceased cats, and
decayed rags, and decomposed vegetable-tops, and remnants of old
boots, all soaked with dish-water, and the people sit around on
stools and enjoy it. They are indolent, as a general thing, and yet
have few pastimes. They work two or three hours at a time, but not
hard, and then they knock off and catch flies. This does not require
any talent, because they only have to grab -- if they do not get the
one they are after, they get another. It is all the same to them.
They have no partialities. Whichever one they get is the one they
want.
They have other kinds of insects, but it does not make them
arrogant. They are very quiet, unpretending people. They have more
of these kind of things than other communities, but they do not
boast.
They are very uncleanly -- these people -- in face, in person and
dress. When they see any body with a clean shirt on, it arouses
their scorn. The women wash clothes, half the day, at the public
tanks in the streets, but they are probably somebody else's. Or may
be they keep one set to wear and another to wash; because they never
put on any that have ever been washed. When they get done washing,
they sit in the alleys and nurse their cubs. They nurse one ash-cat
at a time, and the others scratch their backs against the door-post
and are happy.
All this country belongs to the Papal States. They do not appear to
have any schools here, and only one billiard table. Their education
is at a very low stage. One portion of the men go into the military,
another into the priesthood, and the rest into the shoe-making
business.
They keep up the passport system here, but so they do in Turkey.
This shows that the Papal States are as far advanced as Turkey. This
fact will be alone sufficient to silence the tongues of malignant
calumniators. I had to get my passport vised for Rome in Florence,
and then they would not let me come ashore here until a policeman
had examined it on the wharf and sent me a permit. They did not even
dare to let me take my passport in my hands for twelve hours, I
looked so formidable. They judged it best to let me cool down. They
thought I wanted to take the town, likely. Little did they know me.
I wouldn't have it. They examined my baggage at the depot. They took
one of my ablest jokes and read it over carefully twice and then
read it backwards. But it was too deep for them. They passed it
around, and every body speculated on it awhile, but it mastered them
all.
It was no common joke. At length a veteran officer spelled it over
deliberately and shook his head three or four times and said that in
his opinion it was seditious. That was the first time I felt
alarmed. I immediately said I would explain the document, and they
crowded around. And so I explained and explained and explained, and
they took notes of all I said, but the more I explained the more
they could not understand it, and when they desisted at last, I
could not even understand it myself. They said they believed it was
an incendiary document, leveled at the government. I declared
solemnly that it was not, but they only shook their heads and would
not be satisfied. Then they consulted a good while; and finally they
confiscated it. I was very sorry for this, because I had worked a
long time on that joke, and took a good deal of pride in it, and now
I suppose I shall never see it any more. I suppose it will be sent
up and filed away among the criminal archives of Rome, and will
always be regarded as a mysterious infernal machine which would have
blown up like a mine and scattered the good Pope all around, but for
a miraculous providential interference. And I suppose that all the
time I am in Rome the police will dog me about from place to place
because they think I am a dangerous character.
It is fearfully hot in Civita Vecchia. The streets are made very
narrow and the houses built very solid and heavy and high, as a
protection against the heat. This is the first Italian town I have
seen which does not appear to have a patron saint. I suppose no
saint but the one that went up in the chariot of fire could stand
the climate.
There is nothing here to see. They have not even a cathedral, with
eleven tons of solid silver archbishops in the back room; and they
do not show you any moldy buildings that are seven thousand years
old; nor any smoke-dried old fire-screens which are chef d'oeuvres
of Reubens or Simpson, or Titian or Ferguson, or any of those
parties; and they haven't any bottled fragments of saints, and not
even a nail from the true cross. We are going to Rome. There is
nothing to see here.
CHAPTER XXVI

THAT is it that confers the noblest delight? What is that which

swells a man's breast with pride above that which any other
experience can bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are walking
where none others have walked; that you are beholding what human eye
has not seen before; that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere. To
give birth to an idea -- to discover a great thought -- an
intellectual nugget, right under the dust of a field that many a
brain -- plow had gone over before. To find a new planet, to invent
a new hinge, to find the way to make the lightnings carry your
messages. To be the first -- that is the idea. To do something, say
something, see something, before any body else -- these are the
things that confer a pleasure compared with which other pleasures
are tame and commonplace, other ecstasies cheap and trivial. Morse,
with his first message, brought by his servant, the lightning;
Fulton, in that long-drawn century of suspense, when he placed his
hand upon the throttle-valve and lo, the steamboat moved; Jenner,
when his patient with the cow's virus in his blood, walked through
the smallpox hospitals unscathed; Howe, when the idea shot through
his brain that for a hundred and twenty generations the eye had been
bored through the wrong end of the needle; the nameless lord of art
who laid down his chisel in some old age that is forgotten, now, and
gloated upon the finished Laocoon; Daguerre, when he commanded the
sun, riding in the zenith, to print the landscape upon his insignifi
cant silvered plate, and he obeyed; Columbus, in the Pinta's
shrouds, when he swung his hat above a fabled sea and gazed abroad
upon an unknown world! These are the men who have really lived --
who have actually comprehended what pleasure is -- who have crowded
long lifetimes of ecstasy into a single moment.
What is there in Rome for me to see that others have not seen before
me? What is there for me to touch that others have not touched? What
is there for me to feel, to learn, to hear, to know, that shall
thrill me before it pass to others? What can I discover? -- Nothing.
Nothing whatsoever. One charm of travel dies here. But if I were
only a Roman! -- If, added to my own I could be gifted with modern
Roman sloth, modern Roman superstition, and modern Roman
boundlessness of ignorance, what bewildering worlds of unsuspected
wonders I would discover! Ah, if I were only a habitant of the
Campagna five and twenty miles from Rome! Then I would travel.
I would go to America, and see, and learn, and return to the
Campagna and stand before my countrymen an illustrious discoverer. I
would say:
"I saw there a country which has no overshadowing Mother Church, and
yet the people survive. I saw a government which never was protected
by foreign soldiers at a cost greater than that required to carry on
the government itself. I saw common men and common women who could
read; I even saw small children of common country people reading
from books; if I dared think you would believe it, I would say they
could write, also. In the cities I saw people drinking a delicious
beverage made of chalk and water, but never once saw goats driven
through their Broadway or their Pennsylvania Avenue or their
Montgomery street and milked at the doors of the houses. I saw real
glass windows in the houses of even the commonest people. Some of
the houses are not of stone, nor yet of bricks; I solemnly swear
they are made of wood. Houses there will take fire and burn,
sometimes -- actually burn entirely down, and not leave a single
vestige behind. I could state that for a truth, upon my death-bed.
And as a proof that the circumstance is not rare, I aver that they
have a thing which they call a fire-engine, which vomits forth great
streams of water, and is kept always in readiness, by night and by
day, to rush to houses that are burning. You would think one engine
would be sufficient, but some great cities have a hundred; they keep
men hired, and pay them by the month to do nothing but put out
fires. For a certain sum of money other men will insure that your
house shall not burn down; and if it burns they will pay you for it.
There are hundreds and thousands of schools, and any body may go and
learn to be wise, like a priest. In that singular country if a rich
man dies a sinner, he is damned; he can not buy salvation with money
for masses. There is really not much use in being rich, there. Not
much use as far as the other world is concerned, but much, very much
use, as concerns this; because there, if a man be rich, he is very
greatly honored, and can become a legislator, a governor, a general,
a senator, no matter how ignorant an ass he is -- just as in our
beloved Italy the nobles hold all the great places, even though
sometimes they are born noble idiots. There, if a man be rich, they
give him costly presents, they ask him to feasts, they invite him to
drink complicated beverages; but if he be poor and in debt, they
require him to do that which they term to "settle." The women put on
a different dress almost every day; the dress is usually fine, but
absurd in shape; the very shape and fashion of it changes twice in a
hundred years; and did I but covet to be called an extravagant
falsifier, I would say it changed even oftener. Hair does not grow
upon the American women's heads; it is made for them by cunning
workmen in the shops, and is curled and frizzled into scandalous and
ungodly forms. Some persons wear eyes of glass which they see
through with facility perhaps, else they would not use them; and in
the mouths of some are teeth made by the sacrilegious hand of man.
The dress of the men is laughably grotesque. They carry no musket in
ordinary life, nor no long-pointed pole; they wear no wide
green-lined cloak; they wear no peaked black felt hat, no leathern
gaiters reaching to the knee, no goat-skin breeches with the hair
side out, no hob-nailed shoes, no prodigious spurs. They wear a
conical hat termed a "nail-kag;" a coat of saddest black; a shirt
which s hows dirt so easily that it has to be changed every month,
and is very troublesome; things called pantaloons, which are held up
by shoulder straps, and on their feet they wear boots which are
ridiculous in pattern and can stand no wear. Yet dressed in this
fantastic garb, these people laughed at my costume. In that country,
books are so common that it is really no curiosity to see one.
Newspapers also. They have a great machine which prints such things
by thousands every hour.
"I saw common men, there -- men who were neither priests nor princes
-- who yet absolutely owned the land they tilled. It was not rented
from the church, nor from the nobles. I am ready to take my oath of
this. In that country you might fall from a third story window three
several times, and not mash either a soldier or a priest. -- The
scarcity of such people is astonishing. In the cities you will see a
dozen civilians for every soldier, and as many for every priest or
preacher. Jews, there, are treated just like human beings, instead
of dogs. They can work at any business they please; they can sell
brand new goods if they want to; they can keep drug-stores; they can
practice medicine among Christians; they can even shake hands with
Christians if they choose; they can associate with them, just the
same as one human being does with another human being; they don't
have to stay shut up in one corner of the towns; they can live in
any part of a town they like best; it is said they even have the
privilege of buying land and houses, and owning them themselves,
though I doubt that, myself; they never have had to run races naked
through the public streets, against jackasses, to please the people
in carnival time; there they never have been driven by the soldiers
into a church every Sunday for hundreds of years to hear themselves
and their religion especially and particularly cursed; at this very
day, in that curious country, a Jew is allowed to vote , hold
office, yea, get up on a rostrum in the public street and express
his opinion of the government if the government don't suit him! Ah,
it is wonderful. The common people there know a great deal; they
even have the effrontery to complain if they are not properly
governed, and to take hold and help conduct the government
themselves; if they had laws like ours, which give one dollar of
every three a crop produces to the government for taxes, they would
have that law altered: instead of paying thirty-three dollars in
taxes, out of every one hundred they receive, they complain if they
have to pay seven. They are curious people. They do not know when
they are well off. Mendicant priests do not prowl among them with
baskets begging for the church and eating up their substance. One
hardly ever sees a minister of the gospel going around there in his
bare feet, with a basket, begging for subsistence. In that country
the preachers are not like our mendicant orders of friars -- they
have two or three suits of clothing, and they wash sometimes. In
that land are mountains far higher than the Alban mountains; the
vast Roman Campagna, a hundred miles long and full forty broad, is
really small compared to the United States of America; the Tiber,
that celebrated river of ours, which stretches its mighty course
almost two hundred miles, and which a lad can scarcely throw a stone
across at Rome, is not so long, nor yet so wide, as the American
Mississippi -- nor yet the Ohio, nor even the Hudson. In America the
people are absolutely wiser and know much more than their
grandfathers did. They do not plow with a sharpened stick, nor yet
with a three-cornered block of wood that merely scratches the top of
the ground. We do that because our fathers did, three thousand years
ago, I suppose. But those people have no holy reverence for their
ancestors. They plow with a plow that is a sharp, curved blade of
iron, and it cuts into the earth full five inches. And this is not
all. They cut their grain with a horrid machine that mows down whole
fields in a day. If I dared, I would say that sometimes they use a
blasphemous plow that works by fire and vapor and tears up an acre
of ground in a single hour -- but -- but -- I see by your looks that
you do not believe the things I am telling you. Alas, my character
is ruined, and I am a branded speaker of untruths!"
Of course we have been to the monster Church of St. Peter,
frequently. I knew its dimensions. I knew it was a prodigious
structure. I knew it was just about the length of the capitol at
Washington -- say seven hundred and thirty feet. I knew it was three
hundred and sixty-four feet wide, and consequently wider than the
capitol. I knew that the cross on the top of the dome of the church
was four hundred and thirty-eight feet above the ground, and
therefore about a hundred or may be a hundred and twenty-five feet
higher than the dome of the capitol. -- Thus I had one gauge. I
wished to come as near forming a correct idea of how it was going to
look, as possible; I had a curiosity to see how much I would err. I
erred considerably. St. Peter's did not look nearly so large as the
capitol, and certainly not a twentieth part as beautiful, from the
outside.
When we reached the door, and stood fairly within the church, it was
impossible to comprehend that it was a very large building. I had to
cipher a comprehension of it. I had to ransack my memory for some
more similes. St. Peter's is bulky. Its height and size would
represent two of the Washington capitol set one on top of the other
-- if the capitol were wider; or two blocks or two blocks and a half
of ordinary buildings set one on top of the other. St. Peter's was
that large, but it could and would not look so. The trouble was that
every thing in it and about it was on such a scale of uniform
vastness that there were no contrasts to judge by -- none but the
people, and I had not noticed them. They were insects. The statues
of children holding vases of holy water were immense, according to
the tables of figures, but so was every thing else around them. The
mosaic pictures in the dome were huge, and were made of thousands
and thousands of cubes of glass as large as the end of my little
finger, but those pictures looked smooth, and gaudy of color, and in
good proportion to the dome. Evidently they would not answer to
measure by. Away down toward the far end of the church (I thought it
was really clear at the far end, but discovered afterward that it
was in the centre, under the dome,) stood the thing they call the
baldacchino -- a great bronze pyramidal frame-work like that which
upholds a mosquito bar. It only looked like a considerably magnified
bedstead -- nothing more. Yet I knew it was a good deal more than
half as high as Niagara Falls. It was overshadowed by a dome so
mighty that its own height was snubbed. The four great square piers
or pillars that stand equidistant from each other in the church, and
support the roof, I could not work up to their real dimensions by
any method of comparison. I knew that the faces of each were about
the width of a very large dwelling-house front, (fifty or sixty
feet,) and that they were twice as high as an ordinary three-story
dwelling, but still they looked small. I tried all the different
ways I could think of to compel myself to understand how large St.
Peter's was, but with small success. The mosaic portrait of an
Apostle who was writing with a pen six feet long seemed only an
ordinary Apostle.
But the people attracted my attention after a while. To stand in the
door of St. Peter's and look at men down toward its further
extremity, two blocks away, has a diminishing effect on them;
surrounded by the prodigious pictures and statues, and lost in the
vast spaces, they look very much smaller than they would if they
stood two blocks away in the open air. I "averaged" a man as he
passed me and watched him as he drifted far down by the baldacchino
and beyond -- watched him dwindle to an insignificant school-boy,
and then, in the midst of the silent throng of human pigmies gliding
about him, I lost him. The church had lately been decorated, on the
occasion of a great ceremony in honor of St. Peter, and men were
engaged, now, in removing the flowers and gilt paper from the walls
and pillars. As no ladders could reach the great heights, the men
swung themselves down from balustrades and the capitals of pilasters
by ropes, to do this work. The upper gallery which encircles the
inner sweep of the dome is two hundred and forty feet above the
floor of the church -- very few steeples in America could reach up
to it. Visitors always go up there to look down into the church
because one gets the best idea of some of the heights and distances
from that point. While we stood on the floor one of the workmen
swung loose from that gallery at the end of a long rope. I had not
supposed, before, that a man could look so much like a spider. He
was insignificant in size, and his rope seemed only a thread. Seeing
that he took up so little space, I could believe the story, then,
that ten thousand troops went to St. Pete r's, once, to hear mass,
and their commanding officer came afterward, and not finding them,
supposed they had not yet arrived. But they were in the church,
nevertheless -- they were in one of the transepts. Nearly fifty
thousand persons assembled in St. Peter's to hear the publishing of
the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. It is estimated that the
floor of the church affords standing room for -- for a large number
of people; I have forgotten the exact figures. But it is no matter
-- it is near enough.
They have twelve small pillars, in St. Peter's, which came from
Solomon's Temple. They have, also -- which was far more interesting
to me -- a piece of the true cross, and some nails, and a part of
the crown of thorns.
Of course we ascended to the summit of the dome, and of course we
also went up into the gilt copper ball which is above it. -- There
was room there for a dozen persons, with a little crowding, and it
was as close and hot as an oven. Some of those people who are so
fond of writing their names in prominent places had been there
before us -- a million or two, I should think. From the dome of St.
Peter's one can see every notable object in Rome, from the Castle of
St. Angelo to the Coliseum. He can discern the seven hills upon
which Rome is built. He can see the Tiber, and the locality of the
bridge which Horatius kept "in the brave days of old" when Lars
Porsena attempted to cross it with his invading host. He can see the
spot where the Horatii and the Curatii fought their famous battle.
He can see the broad green Campagna, stretching away toward the
mountains, with its scattered arches and broken aqueducts of the
olden time, so picturesque in their gray ruin, and so daintily
festooned with vines. He can see the Alban Mountains, the Appenines,
the Sabine Hills, and the blue Mediterranean. He can see a panorama
that is varied, extensive, beautiful to the eye, and more
illustrious in history than any other in Europe. -- About his feet
is spread the remnant of a city that once had a population of four
million souls; and among its massed edifices stand the ruins of
temples, columns, and triumphal arches that knew the Cæsars, and the
noonday of Roman splendor; and close by them, in unimpaired
strength, is a drain of arched and heavy masonry that belonged to
that older city which stood here before Romulus and Remus were born
or Rome thought of. The Appian Way is here yet, and looking much as
it did, perhaps, when the triumphal processions of the Emperors
moved over it in other days bringing fettered princes from the
confines of the earth. We can not see the long array of chariots and
mail-clad men laden with the spoils of conquest, but we can imagine
the pageant, after a fashion. We look out upon many objects of
interest from the dome of St. Peter's; and last of all, almost at
our feet, our eyes rest upon the building which was once the
Inquisition. How times changed, between the older ages and the new!
Some seventeen or eighteen centuries ago, the ignorant men of Rome
were wont to put Christians in the arena of the Coliseum yonder, and
turn the wild beasts in upon them for a show. It was for a lesson as
well. It was to teach the people to abhor and fear the new doctrine
the followers of Christ were teaching. The beasts tore the victims
limb from limb and made poor mangled corpses of them in the
twinkling of an eye. But when the Christians came into power, when
the holy Mother Church became mistress of the barbarians, she taught
them the error of their ways by no such means. No, she put them in
this pleasant Inquisition and pointed to the Blessed Redeemer, who
was so gentle and so merciful toward all men, and they urged the
barbarians to love him; and they did all they could to persuade them
to love and honor him -- first by twisting their thumbs out of joint
with a screw; then by nipping their flesh with pincers -- red-hot
ones, because they are the most comfortable in cold weather; then by
skinning them alive a little, and finally by roasting them in
public. They always convinced those barbarians. The true religion,
properly administered, as the good Mother Church used to administer
it, is very, very soothing. It is wonderfully persuasive, also.
There is a great difference between feeding parties to wild beasts
and stirring up their finer feelings in an Inquisition. One is the
system of degraded barbarians, the other of enlightened, civilized
people. It is a great pity the playful Inquisition is no more.
I prefer not to describe St. Peter's. It has been done before. The
ashes of Peter, the disciple of the Saviour, repose in a crypt under
the baldacchino. We stood reverently in that place; so did we also
in the Mamertine Prison, where he was confined, where he converted
the soldiers, and where tradition says he caused a spring of water
to flow in order that he might baptize them. But when they showed us
the print of Peter's face in the hard stone of the prison wall and
said he made that by falling up against it, we doubted. And when,
also, the monk at the church of San Sebastian showed us a
paving-stone with two great footprints in it and said that Peter's
feet made those, we lacked confidence again. Such things do not
impress one. The monk s aid that angels came and liberated Peter
from prison by night, and he started away from Rome by the Appian
Way. The Saviour met him and told him to go back, which he did.
Peter left those footprints in the stone upon which he stood at the
time. It was not stated how it was ever discovered whose footprints
they were, seeing the interview occurred secretly and at night. The
print of the face in the prison was that of a man of common size;
the footprints were those of a man ten or twelve feet high. The
discrepancy confirmed our unbelief.
We necessarily visited the Forum, where Cæsar was assassinated, and
also the Tarpeian Rock. We saw the Dying Gladiator at the Capitol,
and I think that even we appreciated that wonder of art; as much,
perhaps, as we did that fearful story wrought in marble, in the
Vatican -- the Laocoon. And then the Coliseum.
Every body knows the picture of the Coliseum; every body recognizes
at once that "looped and windowed" band-box with a side bitten out.
Being rather isolated, it shows to better advantage than any other
of the monuments of ancient Rome. Even the beautiful Pantheon, whose
pagan altars uphold the cross, now, and whose Venus, tricked out in
consecrated gimcracks, does reluctant duty as a Virgin Mary to-day,
is built about with shabby houses and its stateliness sadly marred.
But the monarch of all European ruins, the Coliseum, maintains that
reserve and that royal seclusion which is proper to majesty. Weeds
and flowers spring from its massy arches and its circling seats, and
vines hang their fringes from its lofty walls. An impressive silence
broods over the monstrous structure where such multitudes of men and
women were wont to assemble in other days. The butterflies have
taken the places of the queens of fashion and beauty of eighteen
centuries ago, and the lizards sun themselves in the sacred seat of
the Emperor. More vividly than all the written histories, the
Coliseum tells the story of Rome's grandeur and Rome's decay. It is
the worthiest type of both that exists. Moving about the Rome of
to-day, we might find it hard to believe in her old magnificence and
her millions of population; but with this stubborn evidence before
us that she was obliged to have a theatre with sitting room for
eighty thousand persons and standing room for twenty thousand more,
to accommodate such of her citizens as required amusement, we find
belief less difficult. The Coliseum is over one thousand six hundred
feet long, seven hundred and fifty wide, and one hundred and
sixty-five high. Its shape is oval.
In America we make convicts useful at the same time that we punish
them for their crimes. We farm them out and compel them to earn
money for the State by making barrels and building roads. Thus we
combine business with retribution, and all things are lovely. But in
ancient Rome they combined religious duty with pleasure. Since it
was necessary that the new sect called Christians should be
exterminated, the people judged it wise to make this work profitable
to the State at the same time, and entertaining to the public. In
addition to the gladiatorial combats and other shows, they sometimes
threw members of the hated sect into the arena of the Coliseum and
turned wild beasts in upon them. It is estimated that seventy
thousand Christians suffered martyrdom in this place. This has made
the Coliseum holy ground, in the eyes of the followers of the
Saviour. And well it might; for if the chain that bound a saint, and
the footprints a saint has left upon a stone he chanced to stand
upon, be holy, surely the spot where a man gave up his life for his
faith is holy.
Seventeen or eighteen centuries ago this Coliseum was the theatre of
Rome, and Rome was mistress of the world. Splendid pageants were
exhibited here, in presence of the Emperor, the great ministers of
State, the nobles, and vast audiences of citizens of smaller
consequence. Gladiators fought with gladiators and at times with
warrior prisoners from many a distant land. It was the theatre of
Rome -- of the world -- and the man of fashion who could not let
fall in a casual and unintentional manner something about "my
private box at the Coliseum" could not move in the first circles.
When the clothing-store merchant wished to consume the corner
grocery man with envy, he bought secured seats in the front row and
let the thing be known. When the irresistible dry goods clerk wished
to blight and destroy, according to his native instinct, he got
himself up regardless of expense and took some other fellow's young
lady to the Coliseum, and then accented the affront by cramming her
with ice cream between the acts, or by approaching the cage and
stirring up the martyrs with his whalebone cane for her edification.
The Roman swell was in his true element only when he stood up
against a pillar and fingered his moustache unconscious of the
ladies; when he viewed the bloody combats through an opera-glass two
inches long; when he excited the envy of provincials by criticisms
which showed that he had been to the Coliseum many and many a time
and was long ago over the novelty of it; when he turned away with a
yawn at last and said,
"He a star! handles his sword like an apprentice brigand! he'll do
for the country, may be, but he don't answer for the metropolis!"
Glad was the contraband that had a seat in the pit at the Saturday
matinee, and happy the Roman street-boy who ate his peanuts and
guyed the gladiators from the dizzy gallery.
For me was reserved the high honor of discovering among the rubbish
of the ruined Coliseum the only playbill of that establishment now
extant. There was a suggestive smell of mint-drops about it still, a
corner of it had evidently been chewed, and on the margin, in choice
Latin, these words were written in a delicate female hand:

"Meet me on the Tarpeian Rock tomorrow evening, dear, at sharp

seven. Mother
will be absent on a visit to her friends in the Sabine Hills.
CLAUDIA."
Ah, where is that lucky youth to-day, and where the little hand that
wrote those dainty lines? Dust and ashes these seventeen hundred
years!
Thus reads the bill:
ROMAN COLISEUM.
UNPARALLELED ATTRACTION!
NEW PROPERTIES! NEW LIONS! NEW GLADIATORS!
Engagement of the renowned
MARCUS MARCELLUS VALERIAN!
FOR SIX NIGHTS ONLY!
The management beg leave to offer to the public an entertainment
surpassing in
magnificence any thing that has heretofore been attempted on any
stage. No
expense has been spared to make the opening season one which shall
be worthy
the generous patronage which the management feel sure will crown
their
efforts. The management beg leave to state that they have succeeded
in
securing the services of a
GALAXY OF TALENT!
such as has not been beheld in Rome before.
The performance will commence this evening with a
GRAND BROADSWORD COMBAT!
between two young and promising amateurs and a celebrated Parthian
gladiator
who has just arrived a prisoner from the Camp of Verus.
This will be followed by a grand moral
BATTLE-AX ENGAGEMENT!
between the renowned Valerian (with one hand tied behind him,) and
two
gigantic savages from Britain.
After which the renowned Valerian (if he survive,) will fight with
the
broad-sword,
LEFT HANDED!
against six Sophomores and a Freshman from the Gladiatorial College!

A long series of brilliant engagements will follow, in which the

finest talent
of the Empire will take part
After which the celebrated Infant Prodigy known as
"THE YOUNG ACHILLES,"
will engage four tiger whelps in combat, armed with no other weapon
than his
little spear!
The whole to conclude with a chaste and elegant
GENERAL SLAUGHTER!
In which thirteen African Lions and twenty-two Barbarian Prisoners
will war
with each other until all are exterminated.
BOX OFFICE NOW OPEN.
Dress Circle One Dollar; Children and Servants half price.
An efficient police force will be on hand to preserve order and keep
the wild
beasts from leaping the railings and discommoding the audience.
Doors open at 7; performance begins at 8.
POSITIVELY NO FREE LIST.
Diodorus Job Press.
It was as singular as it was gratifying that I was also so fortunate
as to find among the rubbish of the arena, a stained and mutilated
copy of the Roman Daily Battle-Ax, containing a critique upon this
very performance. It comes to hand too late by many centuries to
rank as news, and therefore I translate and publish it simply to
show how very little the general style and phraseology of dramatic
criticism has altered in the ages that have dragged their slow
length along since the carriers laid this one damp and fresh before
their Roman patrons:
"THE OPENING SEASON. -- COLISEUM. -- Notwithstanding the inclemency
of the
weather, quite a respectable number of the rank and fashion of the
city
assembled last night to witness the debut upon metropolitan boards
of the
young tragedian who has of late been winning such golden opinions in
the amphitheatres of the
provinces. Some sixty thousand persons were present, and but for the
fact that
the streets were almost impassable, it is fair to presume that the
house would
have been full. His august Majesty, the Emperor Aurelius, occupied
the
imperial box, and was the cynosure of all eyes. Many illustrious
nobles and
generals of the Empire graced the occasion with their presence, and
not the
least among them was the young patrician lieutenant whose laurels,
won in the
ranks of the "Thundering Legion," are still so green upon his brow.
The cheer
which greeted his entrance was heard beyond the Tiber!
"The late repairs and decorations add both to the comeliness and the

comfort of the Coliseum. The new cushions are a great improvement

upon the
hard marble seats we have been so long accustomed to. The present
management
deserve well of the public. They have restored to the Coliseum the
gilding,
the rich upholstery and the uniform magnificence which old Coliseum
frequenters tell us Rome was so proud of fifty years ago. "The
opening scene last night -- the broadsword combat between two young
amateurs and a famous Parthian gladiator who was sent here a
prisoner -- was
very fine. The elder of the two young gentlemen handled his weapon
with a
grace that marked the possession of extraordinary talent. His feint
of
thrusting, followed instantly by a happily delivered blow which
unhelmeted the
Parthian, was received with hearty applause. He was not thoroughly
up in the
backhanded stroke, but it was very gratifying to his numerous
friends to know
that, in time, practice would have overcome this defect. However, he
was
killed. His sisters, who were present, expressed considerable
regret. His
mother left the Coliseum. The other youth maintained the contest
with such
spirit as to call forth enthusiastic bursts of applause. When at
last he fell
a corpse, his aged mother ran screaming, with hair disheveled and
tears
streaming from her eyes, and swooned away just as her hands were
clutching at
the railings of the arena. She was promptly removed by the police.
Under the
circumstances the woman's conduct was pardonable, perhaps, but we
suggest that
such exhibitions interfere with the decorum which should be
preserved during
the performances, and are highly improper in the presence of the
Emperor. The
Parthian prisoner fought bravely and well; and well he might, for he
was
fighting for both life and liberty. His wife and children were there
to nerve
his arm with their love, and to remind him of the old home he should
see again
if h e conquered. When his second assailant fell, the woman clasped
her
children to her breast and wept for joy. But it was only a transient

happiness. The captive staggered toward her and she saw that the
liberty he
had earned was earned too late. He was wounded unto death. Thus the
first act
closed in a manner which was entirely satisfactory. The manager was
called
before the curtain and returned his thanks for the honor done him,
in a speech
which was replete with wit and humor, and closed by hoping that his
humble
efforts to afford cheerful and instructive entertainment would
continue to
meet with the approbation of the Roman public
"The star now appeared, and was received with vociferous applause
and the
simultaneous waving of sixty thousand handkerchiefs. Marcus
Marcellus Valerian
(stage name -- his real name is Smith,) is a splendid specimen of
physical
development, and an artist of rare merit. His management of the
battle-ax is
wonderful. His gayety and his playfulness are irresistible, in his
comic
parts, and yet they are inferior to his sublime conceptions in the
grave realm
of tragedy. When his ax was describing fiery circles about the heads
of the
bewildered barbarians, in exact time with his springing body and his
prancing
legs, the audience gave way to uncontrollable bursts of laughter;
but when the
back of his weapon broke the skull of one and almost in the same
instant its
edge clove the other's body in twain, the howl of enthusiastic
applause that
shook the building, was the acknowledgment of a critical assemblage
that he
was a master of the noblest department of his profession. If he has
a fault,
(and we are sorry to even intimate that he has,) it is that of
glancing at the
audience, in the midst of the most exciting moments of the
performance, as if
seeking admiration. The pausing in a fight to bow when bouquets are
thrown to
him is also in bad taste. In the great left-handed combat he
appeared to be
looking at the audience half the time, instead of carving his
adversaries; and
when he had slain all the sophomores and was dallying with the
freshman. he stooped and snatched a bouquet as it fell, and offered
it to his adversary at
a time when a blow was descending which promised favorably to be his

death-warrant. Such levity is proper enough in the provinces, we

make no
doubt, but it ill suits the dignity of the metropolis. We trust our
young
friend will take these remarks in good part, for we mean them solely
for his
benefit. All who know us are aware that although we are at times
justly severe
upon tigers and martyrs, we never intentionally offend gladiators.
"The Infant Prodigy performed wonders. He overcame his four tiger
whelps
with ease, and with no other hurt than the loss of a portion of his
scalp. The
General Slaughter was rendered with a faithfulness to details which
reflects
the highest credit upon the late participants in it.
"Upon the whole, last night's performances shed honor not only upon
the
management but upon the city that encourages and sustains such
wholesome and
instructive entertainments. We would simply suggest that the
practice of
vulgar young boys in the gallery of shying peanuts and paper pellets
at the
tigers, and saying "Hi-yi!" and manifesting approbation or
dissatisfaction by
such observations as "Bully for the lion!" "Go it, Gladdy!" "Boots!"
"Speech!"
"Take a walk round the block!" and so on, are extremely
reprehensible, when
the Emperor is present, and ought to be stopped by the police.
Several times
last night, when the supernumeraries entered the arena to drag out
the bodies,
the young ruffians in the gallery shouted, "Supe! supe!" and also,
"Oh, what a
coat!" and "Why don't you pad them shanks?" and made use of various
other
remarks expressive of derision. These things are very annoying to
the
audience.
"A matinee for the little folks is promised for this afternoon, on
which
occasion several martyrs will be eaten by the tigers. The regular
performance
will continue every night till further notice. Material change of
programme
every evening. Benefit of Valerian, Tuesday, 29th, if he lives."
I have been a dramatic critic myself, in my time, and I was often
surprised to notice how much more I knew about Hamlet than Forrest
did; and it gratifies me to observe, now, how much better my
brethren of ancient times knew how a broad sword battle ought to be
fought than the gladiators.
CHAPTER XXVII

SO far, good. If any man has a right to feel proud of himself, and
satisfied, surely it is I. For I have written about the Coliseum,
and the gladiators, the martyrs, and the lions, and yet have never
once used the phrase "butchered to make a Roman holiday." I am the
only free white man of mature age, who has accomplished this since
Byron originated the expression.
Butchered to make a Roman holiday sounds well for the first
seventeen or eighteen hundred thousand times one sees it in print,
but after that it begins to grow tiresome. I find it in all the
books concerning Rome -- and here latterly it reminds me of Judge
Oliver. Oliver was a young lawyer, fresh from the schools, who had
gone out to the deserts of Nevada to begin life. He found that
country, and our ways of life, there, in those early days, different
from life in New England or Paris. But he put on a woollen shirt and
strapped a navy revolver to his person, took to the bacon and beans
of the country, and determined to do in Nevada as Nevada did. Oliver
accepted the situation so completely that although he must have
sorrowed over many of his trials, he never complained -- that is, he
never complained but once. He, two others, and myself, started to
the new silver mines in the Humboldt mountains -- he to be Probate
Judge of Humboldt county, and we to mine. The distance was two
hundred miles. It was dead of winter. We bought a two-horse wagon
and put eighteen hundred pounds of bacon, flour, beans,
blasting-powder, picks and shovels in it; we bought two
sorry-looking Mexican "plugs," with the hair turned the wrong way
and more corners on their bodies than there are on the mosque of
Omar; we hitched up and started. It was a dreadful trip. But Oliver
did not complain. The horses dragged the wagon two miles from town
and then gave out. Then we three pushed the wagon seven miles, and
Oliver moved ahead and pulled the horses after him by the bits. We
complained, but Oliver did not. The ground was frozen, and it froze
our backs while we slept; the wind swept across our faces and froze
our noses. Oliver did not complain. Five days of pushing the wagon
by day and freezing by night brought us to the bad part of the
journey -- the Forty Mile Desert, or the Great American Desert, if
you please. Still, this mildest-mannered man that ever was, had not
complained. We started across at eight in the morning, pushing
through sand that had no bottom; toiling all day long by the wrecks
of a thousand wagons, the skeletons of ten thousand oxen; by
wagon-tires enough to hoop the Washington Monument to the top, and
ox-chains enough to girdle Long Island; by human graves; with our
throats parched always, with thirst; lips bleeding from the alkali
dust; hungry, perspiring, and very, very weary -- so weary that when
we dropped in the sand every fifty yards to rest the horses, we
could hardly keep from going to sleep -- no complaints from Oliver:
none the next morning at three o'clock, when we got across, tired to
death.
Awakened two or three nights afterward at midnight, in a narrow
canon, by the snow falling on our faces, and appalled at the
imminent danger of being "snowed in," we harnessed up and pushed on
till eight in the morning, passed the "Divide" and knew we were
saved. No complaints. Fifteen days of hardship and fatigue brought
us to the end of the two hundred miles, and the Judge had not
complained. We wondered if any thing could exasperate him. We built
a Humboldt house. It is done in this way. You dig a square in the
steep base of the mountain, and set up two uprights and top them
with two joists. Then you stretch a great sheet of "cotton domestic"
from the point where the joists join the hill-side down over the
joists to the ground; this makes the roof and the front of the
mansion; the sides and back are the dirt walls your digging has
left. A chimney is easily made by turning up one corner of the roof.
Oliver was sitting alone in this dismal den, one night, by a
sage-brush fire, writing poetry; he was very fond of digging poetry
out of himself -- or blasting it out when it came hard. He heard an
animal's footsteps close to the roof; a stone or two and some dirt
came through and fell by him. He grew uneasy and said "Hi! -- clear
out from there, can't you!" -- from time to time. But by and by he
fell asleep where he sat, and pretty soon a mule fell down the
chimney! The fire flew in every direction, and Oliver went over
backwards. About ten nights after that, he recovered confidence
enough to go to writing poetry again. Again he dozed off to sleep,
and again a mule fell down the chimney. This time, about half of
that side of the house came in with the mule. Struggling to get up,
the mule kicked the candle out and smashed most of the kitchen
furniture, and raised considerable dust. These violent awakenings
must have been annoying to Oliver, but he never complained. He moved
to a mansion on the opposite side of the canon, because he had
noticed the mules did not go there. One night about eight o'clock he
was endeavoring to finish his poem, when a stone rolled in -- then a
hoof appeared below the canvas -- then part of a cow -- the after
part. He leaned back in dread, and shouted "Hooy! hooy! get out of
this!" and the cow struggled manfully -- lost ground steadily --
dirt and dust streamed down, and before Oliver could get well away,
the entire cow crashed through on to the table and made a shapeless
wreck of every thing!
Then, for the first time in his life, I think, Oliver complained. He
said,
"This thing is growing monotonous!"
Then he resigned his judgeship and left Humboldt county. "Butchered
to make a Roman holyday" has grown monotonous to me.
In this connection I wish to say one word about Michael Angelo
Buonarotti. I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo --
that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture
-- great in every thing he undertook. But I do not want Michael
Angelo for breakfast -- for luncheon -- for dinner -- for tea -- for
supper -- for between meals. I like a change, occasionally. In
Genoa, he designed every thing; in Milan he or his pupils designed
every thing; he designed the Lake of Como; in Padua, Verona, Venice,
Bologna, who did we ever hear of, from guides, but Michael Angelo?
In Florence, he painted every thing, designed every thing, nearly,
and what he did not design he used to sit on a favorite stone and
look at, and they showed us the stone. In Pisa he designed every
thing but the old shot-tower, and they would have attributed that to
him if it had not been so awfully out of the perpendicular. He
designed the piers of Leghorn and the custom house regulations of
Civita Vecchia. But, here -- here it is frightful. He designed St.
Peter's; he designed the Pope; he designed the Pantheon, the uniform
of the Pope's soldiers, the Tiber, the Vatican, the Coliseum, the
Capitol, the Tarpeian Rock, the Barberini Palace, St. John Lateran,
the Campagna, the Appian Way, the Seven Hills, the Baths of
Caracalla, the Claudian Aqueduct, the Cloaca Maxima -- the eternal
bore designed the Eternal City, and unless all men and books do lie,
he painted every thing in it! Dan said the other day to the guide,
"Enough, enough, enough! Say no more! Lump the whole thing! say that
the Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo!"
I never felt so fervently thankful, so soothed, so tranquil, so
filled with a blessed peace, as I did yesterday when I learned that
Michael Angelo was dead.
But we have taken it out of this guide. He has marched us through
miles of pictures and sculpture in the vast corridors of the
Vatican; and through miles of pictures and sculpture in twenty other
palaces; he has shown us the great picture in the Sistine Chapel,
and frescoes enough to frescoe the heavens -- pretty much all done
by Michael Angelo. So with him we have played that game which has
vanquished so many guides for us -- imbecility and idiotic
questions. These creatures never suspect -- they have no idea of a
sarcasm.
He shows us a figure and says: "Statoo brunzo." (Bronze statue.)
We look at it indifferently and the doctor asks: "By Michael
Angelo?"
"No -- not know who."
Then he shows us the ancient Roman Forum. The doctor asks: "Michael
Angelo?"
A stare from the guide. "No -- thousan' year before he is born."
Then an Egyptian obelisk. Again: "Michael Angelo?"
"Oh, mon dieu, genteelmen! Zis is two thousan' year before he is
born!"
He grows so tired of that unceasing question sometimes, that he
dreads to show us any thing at all. The wretch has tried all the
ways he can think of to make us comprehend that Michael Angelo is
only responsible for the creation of a part of the world, but
somehow he has not succeeded yet. Relief for overtasked eyes and
brain from study and sightseeing is necessary, or we shall become
idiotic sure enough. Therefore this guide must continue to suffer.
If he does not enjoy it, so much the worse for him. We do.
In this place I may as well jot down a chapter concerning those
necessary nuisances, European guides. Many a man has wished in his
heart he could do without his guide; but knowing he could not, has
wished he could get some amusement out of him as a remuneration for
the affliction of his society. We accomplished this latter matter,
and if our experience can be made useful to others they are welcome
to it.
Guides know about enough English to tangle every thing up so that a
man can make neither head or tail of it. They know their story by
heart -- the history of every statue, painting, cathedral or other
wonder they show you. They know it and tell it as a parrot would --
and if you interrupt, and throw them off the track, they have to go
back and begin over again. All their lives long, they are employed
in showing strange things to foreigners and listening to their
bursts of admiration. It is human nature to take delight in exciting
admiration. It is what prompts children to say "smart" things, and
do absurd ones, and in other ways "show off" when company is
present. It is what makes gossips turn out in rain and storm to go
and be the first to tell a startling bit of news. Think, then, what
a passion it becomes with a guide, whose privilege it is, every day,
to show to strangers wonders that throw them into perfect ecstasies
of admiration! He gets so that he could not by any possibility live
in a soberer atmosphere. After we discovered this, we never went
into ecstacies any more -- we never admired any thing -- we never
showed any but impassible faces and stupid indifference in the
presence of the sublimest wonders a guide had to display. We had
found their weak point. We have made good use of it ever since. We
have made some of those people savage, at times, but we have never
lost our own serenity.
The doctor asks the questions, generally, because he can keep his
countenance, and look more like an inspired idiot, and throw more
imbecility into the tone of his voice than any man that lives. It
comes natural to him.
The guides in Genoa are delighted to secure an American party,
because Americans so much wonder, and deal so much in sentiment and
emotion before any relic of Columbus. Our guide there fidgeted about
as if he had swallowed a spring mattress. He was full of animation
-- full of impatience. He said:
"Come wis me, genteelmen! -- come! I show you ze letter writing by
Christopher Colombo! -- write it himself! -- write it wis his own
hand! -- come!"
He took us to the municipal palace. After much impressive fumbling
of keys and opening of locks, the stained and aged document was
spread before us. The guide's eyes sparkled. He danced about us and
tapped the parchment with his finger:
"What I tell you, genteelmen! Is it not so? See! handwriting
Christopher Colombo! -- write it himself!"
We looked indifferent -- unconcerned. The doctor examined the
document very deliberately, during a painful pause. -- Then he said,
without any show of interest:
"Ah -- Ferguson -- what -- what did you say was the name of the
party who wrote this?"
"Christopher Colombo! ze great Christopher Colombo!"
Another deliberate examination.
"Ah -- did he write it himself; or -- or how?"
"He write it himself! -- Christopher Colombo! He's own hand-writing,
write by himself!"
Then the doctor laid the document down and said:
"Why, I have seen boys in America only fourteen years old that could
write better than that."
"But zis is ze great Christo -- "
"I don't care who it is! It's the worst writing I ever saw. Now you
musn't think you can impose on us because we are strangers. We are
not fools, by a good deal. If you have got any specimens of
penmanship of real merit, trot them out! -- and if you haven't,
drive on!"
We drove on. The guide was considerably shaken up, but he made one
more venture. He had something which he thought would overcome us.
He said:
"Ah, genteelmen, you come wis me! I show you beautiful, O,
magnificent bust Christopher Colombo! -- splendid, grand,
magnificent!"
He brought us before the beautiful bust -- for it was beautiful --
and sprang back and struck an attitude:
"Ah, look, genteelmen! -- beautiful, grand, -- bust Christopher
Colombo! -- beautiful bust, beautiful pedestal!"
The doctor put up his eye-glass -- procured for such occasions:
"Ah -- what did you say this gentleman's name was?"
"Christopher Colombo! -- ze great Christopher Colombo!"
"Christopher Colombo -- the great Christopher Colombo. Well, what
did he do?"
"Discover America! -- discover America, Oh, ze devil!"
"Discover America. No -- that statement will hardly wash. We are
just from America ourselves. We heard nothing about it. Christopher
Colombo -- pleasant name -- is -- is he dead?"
"Oh, corpo di Baccho! -- three hundred year!"
"What did he die of?"
"I do not know! -- I can not tell."
"Small-pox, think?"
"I do not know, genteelmen! -- I do not know what he die of!"
"Measles, likely?"
"May be -- may be -- I do not know -- I think he die of somethings."

"Parents living?"
"Im-poseeeble!"
"Ah -- which is the bust and which is the pedestal?"
"Santa Maria! -- zis ze bust! -- zis ze pedestal!"
"Ah, I see, I see -- happy combination -- very happy combination,
indeed. Is -- is this the first time this gentleman was ever on a
bust?"
That joke was lost on the foreigner -- guides can not master the
subtleties of the American joke.
We have made it interesting for this Roman guide. Yesterday we spent
three or four hours in the Vatican, again, that wonderful world of
curiosities. We came very near expressing interest, sometimes --
even admiration -- it was very hard to keep from it. We succeeded
though. Nobody else ever did, in the Vatican museums. The guide was
bewildered -- non-plussed. He walked his legs off, nearly, hunting
up extraordinary things, and exhausted all his ingenuity on us, but
it was a failure; we never showed any interest in any thing. He had
reserved what he considered to be his greatest wonder till the last
-- a royal Egyptian mummy, the best preserved in the world, perhaps.
He took us there. He felt so sure, this time, that some of his old
enthusiasm came back to him:
"See, genteelmen! -- Mummy! Mummy!"
The eye-glass came up as calmly, as deliberately as ever.
"Ah, -- Ferguson -- what did I understand you to say the gentleman's
name was?"
"Name? -- he got no name! -- Mummy! -- 'Gyptian mummy!"
" Yes, yes. Born here?"
" No! 'Gyptian mummy!"
"Ah, just so. Frenchman, I presume?"
"No! -- not Frenchman, not Roman! -- born in Egypta!"
"Born in Egypta. Never heard of Egypta before. Foreign locality,
likely. Mummy -- mummy. How calm he is -- how self-possessed. Is, ah
-- is he dead?"
"Oh, sacre bleu, been dead three thousan' year!"
The doctor turned on him savagely:
"Here, now, what do you mean by such conduct as this! Playing us for
Chinamen because we are strangers and trying to learn! Trying to
impose your vile second-hand carcasses on us! -- thunder and
lightning, I've a notion to -- to -- if you've got a nice fresh
corpse, fetch him out! -- or by George we'll brain you!"
We make it exceedingly interesting for this Frenchman. However, he
has paid us back, partly, without knowing it. He came to the hotel
this morning to ask if we were up, and he endeavored as well as he
could to describe us, so that the landlord would know which persons
he meant. He finished with the casual remark that we were lunatics.
The observation was so innocent and so honest that it amounted to a
very good thing for a guide to say.
There is one remark (already mentioned,) which never yet has failed
to disgust these guides. We use it always, when we can think of
nothing else to say. After they have exhausted their enthusiasm
pointing out to us and praising the beauties of some ancient bronze
image or broken-legged statue, we look at it stupidly and in silence
for five, ten, fifteen minutes -- as long as we can hold out, in
fact -- and then ask:
"Is -- is he dead?"
That conquers the serenest of them. It is not what they are looking
for -- especially a new guide. Our Roman Ferguson is the most
patient, unsuspecting, long-suffering subject we have had yet. We
shall be sorry to part with him. We have enjoyed his society very
much. We trust he has enjoyed ours, but we are harassed with doubts.

We have been in the catacombs. It was like going down into a very
deep cellar, only it was a cellar which had no end to it. The narrow
passages are roughly hewn in the rock, and on each hand as you pass
along, the hollowed shelves are carved out, from three to fourteen
deep; each held a corpse once. There are names, and Christian
symbols, and prayers, or sentences expressive of Christian hopes,
carved upon nearly every sarcophagus. The dates belong away back in
the dawn of the Christian era, of course. Here, in these holes in
the ground, the first Christians sometimes burrowed to escape
persecution. They crawled out at night to get food, but remained
under cover in the day time. The priest told us that St. Sebastian
lived under ground for some time while he was being hunted; he went
out one day, and the soldiery discovered and shot him to death with
arrows. Five or six of the early Popes -- those who reigned about
sixteen hundred years ago -- held their papal courts and advised
with their clergy in the bowels of the earth. During seventeen years
-- from A. D. 235 to A. D. 252 -- the Popes did not appear above
ground. Four were raised to the great office during that period.
Four years apiece, or thereabouts. It is very suggestive of the
unhealthiness of underground graveyards as places of residence. One
Pope afterward spent his entire pontificate in the catacombs --
eight years. Another was discovered in them and murdered in the
episcopal chair. There was no satisfaction in being a Pope in those
days. There were too many annoyances. There are one hundred and
sixty catacombs under Rome, each with its maze of narrow passages
crossing and recrossing each other and each passage walled to the
top with scooped graves its entire length. A careful estimate makes
the length of the passages of all the catacombs combined foot up
nine hundred miles, and their graves number seven millions. We did
not go through all the passages of all the catacombs. We were very
anxious to do it, and made the necessary arrangements, but our too
limited time obliged us to give up the idea. So we only groped
through the dismal labyrinth of St. Callixtus, under the Church of
St. Sebastian. In the various catacombs are small chapels rudely
hewn in the stones, and here the early Christians often held their
religious services by dim, ghostly lights. Think of mass and a
sermon away down in those tangled caverns under ground!
In the catacombs were buried St. Cecilia, St. Agnes, and several
other of the most celebrated of the saints. In the catacomb of St.
Callixtus, St. Bridget used to remain long hours in holy
contemplation, and St. Charles Borromeo was wont to spend whole
nights in prayer there. It was also the scene of a very marvelous
thing.

"Here the heart of St. Philip Neri was so inflamed with divine love
as to
burst his ribs."
I find that grave statement in a book published in New York in 1808,
and written by "Rev. William H. Neligan, LL.D., M. A., Trinity
College, Dublin; Member of the Archaeological Society of Great
Britain." Therefore, I believe it. Otherwise, I could not. Under
other circumstances I should have felt a curiosity to know what
Philip had for dinner.
This author puts my credulity on its mettle every now and then. He
tells of one St. Joseph Calasanctius whose house in Rome he visited;
he visited only the house -- the priest has been dead two hundred
years. He says the Virgin Mary appeared to this saint. Then he
continues:

"His tongue and his heart, which were found after nearly a century
to be
whole, when the body was disinterred before his canonization, are
still
preserved in a glass case, and after two centuries the heart is
still whole.
When the French troops came to Rome, and when Pius VII. was carried
away
prisoner, blood dropped from it."
To read that in a book written by a monk far back in the Middle
Ages, would surprise no one; it would sound natural and proper; but
when it is seriously stated in the middle of the nineteenth century,
by a man of finished education, an LL.D., M. A., and an
Archaeological magnate, it sounds strangely enough. Still, I would
gladly change my unbelief for Neligan's faith, and let him make the
conditions as hard as he pleased.
The old gentleman's undoubting, unquestioning simplicity has a rare
freshness about it in these matter-of-fact railroading and
telegraphing days. Hear him, concerning the church of Ara Coeli:

"In the roof of the church, directly above the high altar, is
engraved,
'Regina Coeli laetare Alleluia." In the sixth century Rome was
visited by a
fearful pestilence. Gregory the Great urged the people to do
penance, and a
general procession was formed. It was to proceed from Ara Coeli to
St.
Peter's. As it passed before the mole of Adrian, now the Castle of
St. Angelo,
the sound of heavenly voices was heard singing (it was Easter morn,)
Regina
Coeli, laetare! alleluia! quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia!
resurrexit
sicut dixit; alleluia!" The Pontiff, carrying in his hands the
portrait of the
Virgin, (which is over the high altar and is said to have been
painted by St.
Luke,) answered, with the astonished people, 'Ora pro nobis Deum,
alleluia!'
At the same time an angel was seen to put up a sword in a scabbard,
and the
pestilence ceased on the same day. There are four circumstances
which confirm this miracle: the annual procession which takes place
in the western church on the feast of St Mark; the statue of St.
Michael, placed on the mole of Adrian, which has since that time
been called the Castle of St. Angelo; the antiphon Regina Coeli
which the Catholic church sings during paschal time; and the
inscription in the church."
CHAPTER XXVIII

FROM the sanguinary sports of the Holy Inquisition; the slaughter of

the Coliseum; and the dismal tombs of the Catacombs, I naturally
pass to the picturesque horrors of the Capuchin Convent. We stopped
a moment in a small chapel in the church to admire a picture of St.
Michael vanquishing Satan -- a picture which is so beautiful that I
can not but think it belongs to the reviled "Renaissance,"
notwithstanding I believe they told us one of the ancient old
masters painted it -- and then we descended into the vast vault
underneath.
Here was a spectacle for sensitive nerves! Evidently the old masters
had been at work in this place. There were six divisions in the
apartment, and each division was ornamented with a style of
decoration peculiar to itself -- and these decorations we re in
every instance formed of human bones! There were shapely arches,
built wholly of thigh bones; there were startling pyramids, built
wholly of grinning skulls; there were quaint architectural
structures of various kinds, built of shin bones and the bones of
the arm; on the wall were elaborate frescoes, whose curving vines
were made of knotted human vertebræ; whose delicate tendrils were
made of sinews and tendons; whose flowers were formed of knee-caps
and toe-nails. Every lasting portion of the human frame was
represented in these intricate designs (they were by Michael Angelo,
I think,) and there was a careful finish about the work, and an
attention to details that betrayed the artist's love of his labors
as well as his schooled ability. I asked the good-natured monk who
accompanied us, who did this? And he said, "We did it" -- meaning
himself and his brethren up stairs. I could see that the old friar
took a high pride in his curious show. We made him talkative by
exhibiting an interest we never betrayed to guides.
"Who were these people?"
"We -- up stairs -- Monks of the Capuchin order -- my brethren."
"How many departed monks were required to upholster these six
parlors?"
"These are the bones of four thousand."
"It took a long time to get enough?"
"Many, many centuries."
"Their different parts are well separated -- skulls in one room,
legs in another, ribs in another -- there would be stirring times
here for a while if the last trump should blow. Some of the brethren
might get hold of the wrong leg, in the confusion, and the wrong
skull, and find themselves limping, and looking through eyes that
were wider apart or closer together than they were used to. You can
not tell any of these parties apart, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes, I know many of them."
He put his finger on a skull. "This was Brother Anselmo -- dead
three hundred years -- a good man."
He touched another. "This was Brother Alexander -- dead two hundred
and eighty years. This was Brother Carlo -- dead about as long."
Then he took a skull and held it in his hand, and looked
reflectively upon it, after the manner of the grave-digger when he
discourses of Yorick.
"This," he said, "was Brother Thomas. He was a young prince, the
scion of a proud house that traced its lineage back to the grand old
days of Rome well nigh two thousand years ago. He loved beneath his
estate. His family persecuted him; persecuted the girl, as well.
They drove her from Rome; he followed; he sought her far and wide;
he found no trace of her. He came back and offered his broken heart
at our altar and his weary life to the service of God. But look you.
Shortly his father died, and likewise his mother. The girl returned,
rejoicing. She sought every where for him whose eyes had used to
look tenderly into hers out of this poor skull, but she could not
find him. At last, in this coarse garb we wear, she recognized him
in the street. He knew her. It was too late. He fell where he stood.
They took him up and brought him here. He never spoke afterward.
Within the week he died. You can see the color of his hair -- faded,
somewhat -- by this thin shred that clings still to the temple.
"This," [taking up a thigh bone,] "was his. The veins of this leaf
in the decorations over your head, were his finger-joints, a hundred
and fifty years ago."
This business-like way of illustrating a touching story of the heart
by laying the several fragments of the lover before us and naming
them, was as grotesque a performance, and as ghastly, as any I ever
witnessed. I hardly knew whether to smile or shudder. There are
nerves and muscles in our frames whose functions and whose methods
of working it seems a sort of sacrilege to describe by cold
physiological names and surgical technicalities, and the monk's talk
suggested to me something of this kind. Fancy a surgeon, with his
nippers lifting tendons, muscles and such things into view, out of
the complex machinery of a corpse, and observing, "Now this little
nerve quivers -- the vibration is imparted to this muscle -- from
here it is passed to this fibrous substance; here its ingredients
are separated by the chemical action of the blood -- one part goes
to the heart and thrills it with what is popularly termed emotion,
another part follows this nerve to the brain and communicates
intelligence of a startling character -- the third part glides along
this passage and touches the spring connected with the fluid
receptacles that lie in the rear of the eye. Thus, by this simple
and beautiful process, the party is informed that his mother is
dead, and he weeps." Horrible!
I asked the monk if all the brethren up stairs expected to be put in
this place when they died. He answered quietly:
"We must all lie here at last."
See what one can accustom himself to. -- The reflection that he must
some day be taken apart like an engine or a clock, or like a house
whose owner is gone, and worked up into arches and pyramids and
hideous frescoes, did not distress this monk in the least. I thought
he even looked as if he were thinking, with complacent vanity, that
his own skull would look well on top of the heap and his own ribs
add a charm to the frescoes which possibly they lacked at present.
Here and there, in ornamental alcoves, stretched upon beds of bones,
lay dead and dried-up monks, with lank frames dressed in the black
robes one sees ordinarily upon priests. We examined one closely. The
skinny hands were clasped upon the breast; two lustreless tufts of
hair stuck to the skull; the skin was brown and sunken; it stretched
tightly over the cheek bones and made them stand out sharply; the
crisp dead eyes were deep in the sockets; the nostrils were
painfully prominent, the end of the nose being gone; the lips had
shriveled away from the yellow teeth: and brought down to us through
the circling years, and petrified there, was a weird laugh a full
century old!
It was the jolliest laugh, but yet the most dreadful, that one can
imagine. Surely, I thought, it must have been a most extraordinary
joke this veteran produced with his latest breath, that he has not
got done laughing at it yet. At this moment I saw that the old
instinct was strong upon the boys, and I said we had better hurry to
St. Peter's. They were trying to keep from asking, "Is -- is he
dead?"
It makes me dizzy, to think of the Vatican -- of its wilderness of
statues, paintings, and curiosities of every description and every
age. The "old masters" (especially in sculpture,) fairly swarm,
there. I can not write about the Vatican. I think I shall never
remember any thing I saw there distinctly but the mummies, and the
Transfiguration, by Raphael, and some other things it is not
necessary to mention now. I shall remember the Transfiguration
partly because it was placed in a room almost by its elf; partly
because it is acknowledged by all to be the first oil painting in
the world; and partly because it was wonderfully beautiful. The
colors are fresh and rich, the "expression," I am told, is fine, the
"feeling" is lively, the "tone" is good, the "depth" is profound,
and the width is about four and a half feet, I should judge. It is a
picture that really holds one's attention; its beauty is
fascinating. It is fine enough to be a Renaissance. A remark I made
a while ago suggests a thought -- and a hope. Is it not possible
that the reason I find such charms in this picture is because it is
out of the crazy chaos of the galleries? If some of the others were
set apart, might not they be beautiful? If this were set in the
midst of the tempest of pictures one finds in the vast galleries of
the Roman palaces, would I think it so handsome? If, up to this
time, I had seen only one "old master" in each palace, instead of
acres and acres of walls and ceilings fairly papered with them,
might I not have a more civilized opinion of the old master s than I
have now? I think so. When I was a school-boy and was to have a new
knife, I could not make up my mind as to which was the prettiest in
the show-case, and I did not think any of them were particularly
pretty; and so I chose with a heavy heart. But when I looked at my
purchase, at home, where no glittering blades came into competition
with it, I was astonished to see how handsome it was. To this day my
new hats look better out of the shop than they did in it with other
new hats. It begins to dawn upon me, now, that possibly, what I have
been taking for uniform ugliness in the galleries may be uniform
beauty after all. I honestly hope it is, to others, but certainly it
is not to me. Perhaps the reason I used to enjoy going to the
Academy of Fine Arts in New York was because there were but a few
hundred paintings in it, and it did not surfeit me to go through the
list. I suppose the Academy was bacon and beans in the Forty-Mile
Desert, and a European gallery is a state dinner of thirteen
courses. One leaves no sign after him of the one dish, but the
thirteen frighten away his appetite and give him no satisfaction.
There is one thing I am certain of, though. With all the Michael
Angelos, the Raphaels, the Guidos and the other old masters, the
sublime history of Rome remains unpainted! They painted Virgins
enough, and popes enough and saintly scarecrows enough, to people
Paradise, almost, and these things are all they did paint. "Nero
fiddling o'er burning Rome," the assassination of Cæsar, the
stirring spectacle of a hundred thousand people bending forward with
rapt interest, in the coliseum, to see two skillful gladiators
hacking away each others' lives, a tiger springing upon a kneeling
martyr -- these and a thousand other matters which we read of with a
living interest, must be sought for only in books -- not among the
rubbish left by the old masters -- who are no more, I have the
satisfaction of informing the public.
They did paint, and they did carve in marble, one historical scene,
and one only, (of any great historical consequence.) And what was it
and why did they choose it, particularly? It was the Rape of the
Sabines, and they chose it for the legs and busts.
I like to look at statues, however, and I like to look at pictures,
also -- even of monks looking up in sacred ecstacy, and monks
looking down in meditation, and monks skirmishing for something to
eat -- and therefore I drop ill nature to thank the papal government
for so jealously guarding and so industriously gathering up these
things; and for permitting me, a stranger and not an entirely
friendly one, to roam at will and unmolested among them, charging me
nothing, and only requiring that I shall behave myself simply as
well as I ought to behave in any other man's house. I thank the Holy
Father right heartily, and I wish him long life and plenty of
happiness.
The Popes have long been the patrons and preservers of art, just as
our new, practical Republic is the encourager and upholder of
mechanics. In their Vatican is stored up all that is curious and
beautiful in art; in our Patent Office is hoarded all that is
curious or useful in mechanics. When a man invents a new style of
horse-collar or discovers a new and superior method of telegraphing,
our government issues a patent to him that is worth a fortune; when
a man digs up an ancient statue in the Campagna, the Pope gives him
a fortune in gold coin. We can make something of a guess at a man's
character by the style of nose he carries on his face. The Vatican
and the Patent Office are governmental noses, and they bear a deal
of character about them.
The guide showed us a colossal statue of Jupiter, in the Vatican,
which he said looked so damaged and rusty -- so like the God of the
Vagabonds -- because it had but recently been dug up in the
Campagna. He asked how much we supposed this Jupiter was worth? I
replied, with intelligent promptness, that he was probably worth
about four dollars -- may be four and a half. "A hundred thousand
dollars!" Ferguson said. Ferguson said, further, that the Pope
permits no ancient work of this kind to leave his dominions. He
appoints a commission to examine discoveries like this and report
upon the value; then the Pope pays the discoverer one-half of that
assessed value and takes the statue. He said this Jupiter was dug
from a field which had just been bought for thirty-six thousand
dollars, so the first crop was a good one for the new farmer. I do
not know whether Ferguson always tells the truth or not, but I
suppose he does. I know that an exorbitant export duty is exacted
upon all pictures painted by the old masters, in order to discourage
the sale of those in the private collections. I am satisfied, also,
that genuine old masters hardly exist at all, in America, because
the cheapest and most insignificant of them are valued at the price
of a fine farm. I proposed to buy a small trifle of a Raphael,
myself, but the price of it was eighty thousand dollars, the export
duty would have made it considerably over a hundred, and so I
studied on it awhile and concluded not to take it.
I wish here to mention an inscription I have seen, before I forget
it:
"Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth TO MEN OF GOOD WILL!"
It is not good scripture, but it is sound Catholic and human nature.

This is in letters of gold around the apsis of a mosaic group at the

side of the scala santa, church of St. John Lateran, the Mother and
Mistress of all the Catholic churches of the world. The group
represents the Saviour, St. Peter, Pope Leo, St. Silvester,
Constantine and Charlemagne. Peter is giving the pallium to the
Pope, and a standard to Charlemagne. The Saviour is giving the keys
to St. Silvester, and a standard to Constantine. No prayer is
offered to the Saviour, who seems to be of little importance any
where in Rome; but an inscription below says, "Blessed Peter, give
life to Pope Leo and victory to king Charles." It does not say,
"Intercede for us, through the Saviour, with the Father, for this
boon," but "Blessed Peter, give it us."
In all seriousness -- without meaning to be frivolous -- without
meaning to be irreverent, and more than all, without meaning to be
blasphemous, -- I state as my simple deduction from the things I
have seen and the things I have heard, that the Holy Personages rank
thus in Rome:
First -- "The Mother of God" -- otherwise the Virgin Mary.
Second -- The Deity.
Third -- Peter.
Fourth -- Some twelve or fifteen canonized Popes and martyrs.
Fifth -- Jesus Christ the Saviour -- (but always as an infant in
arms.)
I may be wrong in this -- my judgment errs often, just as is the
case with other men's -- but it is my judgment, be it good or bad.
Just here I will mention something that seems curious to me. There
are no "Christ's Churches" in Rome, and no "Churches of the Holy
Ghost," that I can discover. There are some four hundred churches,
but about a fourth of them seem to be named for t he Madonna and St.
Peter. There are so many named for Mary that they have to be
distinguished by all sorts of affixes, if I understand the matter
rightly. Then we have churches of St. Louis; St. Augustine; St.
Agnes; St. Calixtus; St. Lorenzo in Lucina; St. Lorenzo in Damaso;
St. Cecilia; St. Athanasius; St. Philip Neri; St. Catherine, St.
Dominico, and a multitude of lesser saints whose names are not
familiar in the world -- and away down, clear out of the list of the
churches, comes a couple of hospitals: one of them is named for the
Saviour and the other for the Holy Ghost!
Day after day and night after night we have wandered among the
crumbling wonders of Rome; day after day and night after night we
have fed upon the dust and decay of five-and-twenty centuries --
have brooded over them by day and dreampt of them by night till
sometimes we seemed moldering away ourselves, and growing defaced
and cornerless, and liable at any moment to fall a prey to some
antiquary and be patched in the legs, and "restored" with an
unseemly nose, and labeled wrong and dated wrong, and set up in the
Vatican for poets to drivel about and vandals to scribble their
names on forever and forevermore.
But the surest way to stop writing about Rome is to stop. I wished
to write a real "guide-book" chapter on this fascinating city, but I
could not do it, because I have felt all the time like a boy in a
candy-shop -- there was every thing to choose from, and yet no
choice. I have drifted along hopelessly for a hundred pages of
manuscript without knowing where to commence. I will not commence at
all. Our passports have been examined. We will go to Naples.
CHAPTER XXIX

THE ship is lying here in the harbor of Naples -- quarantined. She

has been here several days and will remain several more. We that
came by rail from Rome have escaped this misfortune. Of course no
one is allowed to go on board the ship, or come ashore from her. She
is a prison, now. The passengers probably spend the long, blazing
days looking out from under the awnings at Vesuvius and the
beautiful city -- and in swearing. Think of ten days of this sort of
pastime! -- We go out every day in a boat and request them to come
ashore. It soothes them. We lie ten steps from the ship and tell
them how splendid the city is; and how much better the hotel fare is
here than any where else in Europe; and how cool it is; and what
frozen continents of ice cream there are; and what a time we are
having cavorting about the country and sailing to the islands in the
Bay. This tranquilizes them.
ASCENT OF VESUVIUS.
I shall remember our trip to Vesuvius for many a day -- partly
because of its sight-seeing experiences, but chiefly on account of
the fatigue of the journey. Two or three of us had been resting
ourselves among the tranquil and beautiful scenery of the island of
Ischia, eighteen miles out in the harbor, for two days; we called it
"resting," but I do not remember now what the resting consisted of,
for when we got back to Naples we had not slept for forty-eight
hours. We were just about to go to bed early in the evening, and
catch up on some of the sleep we had lost, when we heard of this
Vesuvius expedition. There was to be eight of us in the party, and
we were to leave Naples at midnight. We laid in some provisions for
the trip, engaged carriages to take us to Annunciation, and then
moved about the city, to keep awake, till twelve. We got away
punctually, and in the course of an hour and a half arrived at the
town of Annunciation. Annunciation is the very last place under the
sun. In other towns in Italy the people lie around quietly and wait
for you to ask them a question or do some overt act that can be
charged for -- but in Annunciation they have lost even that fragment
of delicacy; they seize a lady's shawl from a chair and hand it to
her and charge a penny; they open a carriage door, and charge for it
-- shut it when you get out, and charge for it; they help you to
take off a duster -- two cents; brush your clothes and make them
worse than they were before -- two cents; smile upon you -- two
cents; bow, with a lick-spittle smirk, hat in hand -- two cents;
they volunteer all information, such as that the mules will arrive
presently -- two cents -- warm day, sir -- two cents -- take you
four hours to make the ascent -- two cents. And so they go. They
crowd you -- infest you -- swarm about you, and sweat and smell
offensively, and look sneaking and mean, and obsequious. There is no
office too degrading for them to perform, for money. I have had no
opportunity to find out any thing about the upper classes by my own
observation, but from what I hear said about them I judge that what
they lack in one or two of the bad traits the canaille have, they
make up in one or two others that are worse. How the people beg! --
many of them very well dressed, too.
I said I knew nothing against the upper classes by personal
observation. I must recall it! I had forgotten. What I saw their
bravest and their fairest do last night, the lowest multitude that
could be scraped up out of the purlieus of Christendom would blush
to do, I think. They assembled by hundreds, and even thousands, in
the great Theatre of San Carlo, to do -- what? Why, simply, to make
fun of an old woman -- to deride, to hiss, to jeer at an actress
they once worshipped, but whose beauty is faded now and whose voice
has lost its former richness. Every body spoke of the rare sport
there was to be. They said the theatre would be crammed, because
Frezzolini was going to sing. It was said she could not sing well,
now, but then the people liked to see her, anyhow. And so we went.
And every time the woman sang they hissed and laughed -- the whole
magnificent house -- and as soon as she left the stage they called
her on again with applause. Once or twice she was encored five and
six times in succession, and received with hisses when she appeared,
and discharged with hisses and laughter when she had finished --
then instantly encored and insulted again! And how the high-born
knaves enjoyed it! White-kidded gentlemen and ladies laughed till
the tears came, and clapped their hands in very ecstacy when that
unhappy old woman would come meekly out for the sixth time, with
uncomplaining patience, to meet a storm of hisses! It was the
cruelest exhibition -- the most wanton, the most unfeeling. The
singer would have conquered an audience of American rowdies by her
brave, unflinching tranquillity (for she answered encore after
encore, and smiled and bowed pleasantly, and sang the best she
possibly could, and went bowing off, through all the jeers and
hisses, without ever losing countenance or temper:) and surely in
any other land than Italy her sex and her helplessness must have
been an ample protection to her -- she could have needed no other.
Think what a multitude of small souls were crowded into that theatre
last night. If the manager could have filled his theatre with
Neapolitan souls alone, without the bodies, he could not have
cleared less than ninety millions of dollars. What traits of
character must a man have to enable him to help three thousand
miscreants to hiss, and jeer, and laugh at one friendless old woman,
and shamefully humiliate her? He must have all the vile, mean traits
there are. My observation persuades me (I do not like to venture
beyond my own personal observation,) that the upper classes of
Naples possess those traits of character. Otherwise they may be very
good people; I can not say.
ASCENT OF VESUVIUS -- CONTINUED.
In this city of Naples, they believe in and support one of the
wretchedest of all the religious impostures one can find in Italy --
the miraculous liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius. Twice a
year the priests assemble all the people at the Cathedral, and get
out this vial of clotted blood and let them see it slowly dissolve
and become liquid -- and every day for eight days, this dismal farce
is repeated, while the priests go among the crowd and collect money
for the exhibition. The first day, the blood liquefies in
forty-seven minutes -- the church is crammed, then, and time must be
allowed the collectors to get around: after that it liquefies a
little quicker and a little quicker, every day, as the houses grow
smaller, till on the eighth day, with only a few dozens present to
see the miracle, it liquefies in four minutes.
And here, also, they used to have a grand procession, of priests,
citizens, soldiers, sailors, and the high dignitaries of the City
Government, once a year, to shave the head of a made-up Madonna -- a
stuffed and painted image, like a milliner's dummy -- whose hair
miraculously grew and restored itself every twelve months. They
still kept up this shaving procession as late as four or five years
ago. It was a source of great profit to the church that possessed
the remarkable effigy, and the ceremony of the public barbering of
her was always carried out with the greatest possible eclat and
display -- the more the better, because the more excitement there
was about it the larger the crowds it drew and the heavier the
revenues it produced -- but at last a day came when the Pope and his
servants were unpopular in Naples, and the City Government stopped
the Madonna's annual show.
There we have two specimens of these Neapolitans -- two of the
silliest possible frauds, which half the population religiously and
faithfully believed, and the other half either believed also or else
said nothing about, and thus lent themselves to the support of the
imposture. I am very well satisfied to think the whole population
believed in those poor, cheap miracles -- a people who want two
cents every time they bow to you, and who abuse a woman, are capable
of it, I think.
ASCENT OF VESUVIUS -- CONTINUED.
These Neapolitans always ask four times as much money as they intend
to take, but if you give them what they first demand, they feel
ashamed of themselves for aiming so low, and immediately ask more.
When money is to be paid and received, there is always some vehement
jawing and gesticulating about it. One can not buy and pay for two
cents' worth of clams without trouble and a quarrel. One "course,"
in a two-horse carriage, costs a franc -- that is law -- but the
hackman always demands more, on some pretence or other, and if he
gets it he makes a new demand. It is said that a stranger took a
one-horse carriage for a course -- tariff, half a franc. He gave the
man five francs, by way of experiment. He demanded more, and
received another franc. Again he demanded more, and got a franc --
demanded more, and it was refused. He grew vehement -- was again
refused, and became noisy. The stranger said, "Well, give me the
seven francs again, and I will see what I can do" -- and when he got
them, he handed the hackman half a franc, and he immediately asked
for two cents to buy a drink with. It may be thought that I am
prejudiced. Perhaps I am. I would be ashamed of myself if I were
not.
ASCENT OF VESUVIUS -- CONTINUED.
Well, as I was saying, we got our mules and horses, after an hour
and a half of bargaining with the population of Annunciation, and
started sleepily up the mountain, with a vagrant at each mule's tail
who pretended to be driving the brute along, but was really holding
on and getting himself dragged up instead. I made slow headway at
first, but I began to get dissatisfied at the idea of paying my
minion five francs to hold my mule back by the tail and keep him
from going up the hill, and so I discharged him. I got along faster
then.
We had one magnificent picture of Naples from a high point on the
mountain side. We saw nothing but the gas lamps, of course --
two-thirds of a circle, skirting the great Bay -- a necklace of
diamonds glinting up through the darkness from the remote distance
-- less brilliant than the stars overhead, but more softly, richly
beautiful -- and over all the great city the lights crossed and
recrossed each other in many and many a sparkling line and curve.
And back of the town, far around and abroad over the miles of level
campagna, were scattered rows, and circles, and clusters of lights,
all glowing like so many gems, and marking where a score of villages
were sleeping. About this time, the fellow who was hanging on to the
tail of the horse in front of me and practicing all sorts of
unnecessary cruelty upon the animal, got kicked some fourteen rods,
and this incident, together with the fairy spectacle of the lights
far in the distance, made me serenely happy, and I was glad I
started to Vesuvius.
ASCENT OF MOUNT VESUVIUS -- CONTINUED.
This subject will be excellent matter for a chapter, and tomorrow or
next day I will write it.
CHAPTER XXX

ASCENT OF VESUVIUS -- CONTINUED.

SEE Naples and die." Well, I do not know that one would necessarily
die after merely seeing it, but to attempt to live there might turn
out a little differently. To see Naples as we saw it in the early
dawn from far up on the side of Vesuvius, is to see a picture of
wonderful beauty. At that distance its dingy buildings looked white
-- and so, rank on rank of balconies, windows and roofs, they piled
themselves up from the blue ocean till the colossal castle of St.
Elmo topped the grand white pyramid and gave the picture symmetry,
emphasis and completeness. And when its lilies turned to roses --
when it blushed under the sun's first kiss -- it was beautiful
beyond all description. One might well say, then, "See Naples and
die." The frame of the picture was charming, itself. In front, the
smooth sea -- a vast mosaic of many colors; the lofty islands
swimming in a dreamy haze in the distance; at our end of the city
the stately double peak of Vesuvius, and its strong black ribs and
seams of lava stretching down to the limitless level campagna -- a
green carpet that enchants the eye and leads it on and on, past
clusters of trees, and isolated houses, and snowy villages, until it
shreds out in a fringe of mist and general vagueness far away. It is
from the Hermitage, there on the side of Vesuvius, that one should
"see Naples and die."
But do not go within the walls and look at it in detail. That takes
away some of the romance of the thing. The people are filthy in
their habits, and this makes filthy streets and breeds disagreeable
sights and smells. There never was a community so prejudiced against
the cholera as these Neapolitans are. But they have good reason to
be. The cholera generally vanquishes a Neapolitan when it seizes
him, because, you understand, before the doctor can dig through the
dirt and get at the disease the man dies. The upper classes take a
sea-bath every day, and are pretty decent.
The streets are generally about wide enough for one wagon, and how
they do swarm with people! It is Broadway repeated in every street,
in every court, in every alley! Such masses, such throngs, such
multitudes of hurrying, bustling, struggling humanity! We never saw
the like of it, hardly even in New York, I think. There are seldom
any sidewalks, and when there are, they are not often wide enough to
pass a man on without caroming on him. So everybody walks in the
street -- and where the street is wide enough, carriages are forever
dashing along. Why a thousand people are not run over and crippled
every day is a mystery that no man can solve. But if there is an
eighth wonder in the world, it must be the dwelling-houses of
Naples. I honestly believe a good majority of them are a hundred
feet high! And the solid brick walls are seven feet through. You go
up nine flights of stairs before you get to the "first" floor. No,
not nine, but there or thereabouts. There is a little bird-cage of
an iron railing in front of every window clear away up, up, up,
among the eternal clouds, where the roof is, and there is always
somebody looking out of every window -- people of ordinary size
looking out from the first floor, people a shade smaller from the
second, people that look a little smaller yet from the third -- and
from thence upward they grow smaller and smaller by a regularly
graduated diminution, till the folks in the topmost windows seem
more like birds in an uncommonly tall martin-box than any thing
else. The perspective of one of these narrow cracks of streets, with
its rows of tall houses stretching away till they come together in
the distance like railway tracks; its clothes-lines crossing over at
all altitudes and waving their bannered raggedness over the swarms
of people below; and the white-dressed women perched in balcony
railings all the way from the pavement up to the heavens -- a
perspective like that is really worth going into Neapolitan details
to see.
ASCENT OF VESUVIUS -- CONTINUED.
Naples, with its immediate suburbs, contains six hundred and
twenty-five thousand inhabitants, but I am satisfied it covers no
more ground than an American city of one hundred and fifty thousand.
It reaches up into the air infinitely higher than three American
cities, though, and there is where the secret of it lies. I will
observe here, in passing, that the contrasts between opulence and
poverty, and magnificence and misery, are more frequent and more
striking in Naples than in Paris even. One must go to the Bois de
Boulogne to see fashionable dressing, splendid equipages and
stunning liveries, and to the Faubourg St. Antoine to see vice,
misery, hunger, rags, dirt -- but in the thoroughfares of Naples
these things are all mixed together. Naked boys of nine years and
the fancy-dressed children of luxury; shreds and tatters, and
brilliant uniforms; jackass-carts and state-carriages; beggars,
Princes and Bishops, jostle each other in every street. At six
o'clock every evening, all Naples turns out to drive on the Riviere
di Chiaja, (whatever that may mean;) and for two hours one may stand
there and see the motliest and the worst mixed procession go by that
ever eyes beheld. Princes (there are more Princes than policemen in
Naples -- the city is infested with them) -- Princes who live up
seven flights of stairs and don't own any principalities, will keep
a carriage and go hungry; and clerks, mechanics, milliners and
strumpets will go without their dinners and squander the money on a
hack-ride in the Chiaja; the rag-tag and rubbish of the city stack
themselves up, to the number of twenty or thirty, on a rickety
little go-cart hauled by a donkey not much bigger than a cat, and
they drive in the Chiaja; Dukes and bankers, in sumptuous carriages
and with gorgeous drivers and footmen, turn out, also, and so the
furious procession goes. For two hours rank and wealth, and
obscurity and poverty clatter along side by side in the wild
procession, and then go home serene, happy, covered with glory!
I was looking at a magnificent marble staircase in the King's
palace, the other day, which, it was said, cost five million francs,
and I suppose it did cost half a million, may be. I felt as if it
must be a fine thing to live in a country where there was such
comfort and such luxury as this. And then I stepped out musing, and
almost walked over a vagabond who was eating his dinner on the
curbstone -- a piece of bread and a bunch of grapes. When I found
that this mustang was clerking in a fruit establishment (he had the
establishment along with him in a basket,) at two cents a day, and
that he had no palace at home where he lived, I lost some of my
enthusiasm concerning the happiness of living in Italy.
This naturally suggests to me a thought about wages here.
Lieutenants in the army get about a dollar a day, and common
soldiers a couple of cents. I only know one clerk -- he gets four
dollars a month. Printers get six dollars and a half a month, but I
have heard of a foreman who gets thirteen. To be growing suddenly
and violently rich, as this man is, naturally makes him a bloated
aristocrat. The airs he puts on are insufferable.
And, speaking of wages, reminds me of prices of merchandise. In
Paris you pay twelve dollars a dozen for Jouvin's best kid gloves;
gloves of about as good quality sell here at three or four dollars a
dozen. You pay five and six dollars apiece for fine linen shirts in
Paris; here and in Leghorn you pay two and a half. In Marseilles you
pay forty dollars for a first-class dress coat made by a good
tailor, but in Leghorn you can get a full dress suit for the same
money. Here you get handsome business suits at from ten to twenty
dollars, and in Leghorn you can get an overcoat for fifteen dollars
that would cost you seventy in New York. Fine kid boots are worth
eight dollars in Marseilles and four dollars here. Lyons velvets
rank higher in America than those of Genoa. Yet the bulk of Lyons
velvets you buy in the States are made in Genoa and imported into
Lyons, where they receive the Lyons stamp and are then exported to
America. You can buy enough velvet in Genoa for twenty-five dollars
to make a five hundred dollar cloak in New York -- so the ladies
tell me. Of course these things bring me back, by a natural and easy
transition, to the
ASCENT OF VESUVIUS -- CONTINUED.
And thus the wonderful Blue Grotto is suggested to me. It is
situated on the Island of Capri, twenty-two miles from Naples. We
chartered a little steamer and went out there. Of course, the police
boarded us and put us through a health examination, and inquired
into our politics, before they would let us land. The airs these
little insect Governments put on are in the last degree ridiculous.
They even put a policeman on board of our boat to keep an eye on us
as long as we were in the Capri dominions. They thought we wanted to
steal the grotto, I suppose. It was worth stealing. The entrance to
the cave is four feet high and four feet wide, and is in the face of
a lofty perpendicular cliff -- the sea-wall. You enter in small
boats -- and a tight squeeze it is, too. You can not go in at all
when the tide is up. Once within, you find yourself in an arched
cavern about one hundred and sixty feet long, one hundred and twenty
wide, and about seventy high. How deep it is no man knows. It goes
down to the bottom of the ocean. The waters of this placid
subterranean lake are the brightest, loveliest blue that can be
imagined. They are as transparent as plate glass, and their coloring
would shame the richest sky that ever bent over Italy. No tint could
be more ravishing, no lustre more superb. Throw a stone into the
water, and the myriad of tiny bubbles that are created flash out a
brilliant glare like blue theatrical fires. Dip an oar, and its
blade turns to splendid frosted silver, tinted with blue. Let a man
jump in, and instantly he is cased in an armor more gorgeous than
ever kingly Crusader wore.
Then we went to Ischia, but I had already been to that island and
tired myself to death "resting" a couple of days and studying human
villainy, with the landlord of the Grande Sentinelle for a model. So
we went to Procida, and from thence to Pozzuoli, where St. Paul
landed after he sailed from Samos. I landed at precisely the same
spot where St. Paul landed, and so did Dan and the others. It was a
remarkable coincidence. St. Paul preached to these people seven days
before he started to Rome.
Nero's Baths, the ruins of Baiæ, the Temple of Serapis; Cumæ, where
the Cumæn Sybil interpreted the oracles, the Lake Agnano, with its
ancient submerged city still visible far down in its depths -- these
and a hundred other points of interest we examined with critical
imbecility, but the Grotto of the Dog claimed our chief attention,
because we had heard and read so much about it. Every body has
written about the Grotto del Cane and its poisonous vapors, from
Pliny down to Smith, and every tourist has held a dog over its floor
by the legs to test the capabilities of the place. The dog dies in a
minute and a half -- a chicken instantly. As a general thing,
strangers who crawl in there to sleep do not get up until they are
called. And then they don't either. The stranger that ventures to
sleep there takes a permanent contract. I longed to see this grotto.
I resolved to take a dog and hold him myself'; suffocate him a
little, and time him; suffocate him some more and then finish him.
We reached the grotto at about three in the afternoon, and proceeded
at once to make the experiments. But now, an important difficulty
presented itself. We had no dog.
ASCENT OF VESUVIUS -- CONTINUED.
At the Hermitage we were about fifteen or eighteen hundred feet
above the sea, and thus far a portion of the ascent had been pretty
abrupt. For the next two miles the road was a mixture -- sometimes
the ascent was abrupt and sometimes it was not: but one
characteristic it possessed all the time, without failure -- without
modification -- it was all uncompromisingly and unspeakably
infamous. It was a rough, narrow trail, and led over an old lava
flow -- a black ocean which was tumbled into a thousand fantastic
shapes -- a wild chaos of ruin, desolation, and barrenness -- a
wilderness of billowy upheavals, of furious whirlpools, of miniature
mountains rent asunder -- of gnarled and knotted, wrinkled and
twisted masses of blackness that mimicked branching roots, great
vines, trunks of trees, all interlaced and mingled together: and all
these weird shapes, all this turbulent panorama, all this stormy,
far-stretching waste of blackness, with its thrilling suggestiveness
of life, of action, of boiling, surging, furious motion, was
petrified! -- all stricken dead and cold in the instant of its
maddest rioting! -- fettered, paralyzed, and left to glower at
heaven in impotent rage for evermore!
Finally we stood in a level, narrow valley (a valley that had been
created by the terrific march of some old time irruption) and on
either hand towered the two steep peaks of Vesuvius. The one we had
to climb -- the one that contains the active volcano -- seemed about
eight hundred or one thousand feet high, and looked almost too
straight-up-and-down for any man to climb, and certainly no mule
could climb it with a man on his back. Four of these native pirates
will carry you to the top in a sedan chair, if you wish it, but
suppose they were to slip and let you fall, -- is it likely that you
would ever stop rolling? Not this side of eternity, perhaps. We left
the mules, sharpened our finger-nails, and began the ascent I have
been writing about so long, at twenty minutes to six in the morning.
The path led straight up a rugged sweep of loose chunks of
pumice-stone, and for about every two steps forward we took, we slid
back one. It was so excessively steep that we had to stop, every
fifty or sixty steps, and rest a moment. To see our comrades, we had
to look very nearly straight up at those above us, and very nearly
straight down at those below. We stood on the summit at last -- it
had taken an hour and fifteen minutes to make the trip.
What we saw there was simply a circular crater -- a circular ditch,
if you please -- about two hundred feet deep, and four or five
hundred feet wide, whose inner wall was about half a mile in
circumference. In the centre of the great circus ring thus formed,
was a torn and ragged upheaval a hundred feet high, all snowed over
with a sulphur crust of many and many a brilliant and beautiful
color, and the ditch inclosed this like the moat of a castle, or
surrounded it as a little river does a little island, if the simile
is better. The sulphur coating of that island was gaudy in the
extreme -- all mingled together in the richest confusion were red,
blue, brown, black, yellow, white -- I do not know that there was a
color, or shade of a color, or combination of colors, unrepresented
-- and when the sun burst through the morning mists and fired this
tinted magnificence, it topped imperial Vesuvius like a jeweled
crown!
The crater itself -- the ditch -- was not so variegated in coloring,
but yet, in its softness, richness, and unpretentious elegance, it
was more charming, more fascinating to the eye. There was nothing
"loud" about its well-bred and well-creased look. Beautiful? One
could stand and look down upon it for a week without getting tired
of it. It had the semblance of a pleasant meadow, whose slender
grasses and whose velvety mosses were frosted with a shining dust,
and tinted with palest green that deepened gradually to the darkest
hue of the orange leaf, and deepened yet again into gravest brown,
then faded into orange, then into brightest gold, and culminated in
the delicate pink of a new-blown rose. Where portions of the meadow
had sunk, and where other portions had been broken up like an
ice-floe, the cavernous openings of the one, and the ragged upturned
edges exposed by the other, were hung with a lace-work of
soft-tinted crystals of sulphur that changed their deformities into
quaint shapes and figures that were full of grace and beauty.
The walls of the ditch were brilliant with yellow banks of sulphur
and with lava and pumice-stone of many colors. No fire was visible
any where, but gusts of sulphurous steam issued silently and
invisibly from a thousand little cracks and fissures in the crater,
and were wafted to our noses with every breeze. But so long as we
kept our nostrils buried in our handkerchiefs, there was small
danger of suffocation.
Some of the boys thrust long slips of paper down into holes and set
them on fire, and so achieved the glory of lighting their cigars by
the flames of Vesuvius, and others cooked eggs over fissures in the
rocks and were happy.
The view from the summit would have been superb but for the fact
that the sun could only pierce the mists at long intervals. Thus the
glimpses we had of the grand panorama below were only fitful and
unsatisfactory.
THE DESCENT.
The descent of the mountain was a labor of only four minutes.
Instead of stalking down the rugged path we ascended, we chose one
which was bedded knee-deep in loose ashes, and ploughed our way with
prodigious strides that would almost have shamed the performance of
him of the seven-league boots.
The Vesuvius of today is a very poor affair compared to the mighty
volcano of Kilauea, in the Sandwich Islands, but I am glad I visited
it. It was well worth it.
It is said that during one of the grand eruptions of Vesuvius it
discharged massy rocks weighing many tons a thousand feet into the
air, its vast jets of smoke and steam ascended thirty miles toward
the firmament, and clouds of its ashes were wafted abroad and fell
upon the decks of ships seven hundred and fifty miles at sea! I will
take the ashes at a moderate discount, if any one will take the
thirty miles of smoke, but I do not feel able to take a commanding
interest in the whole story by myself.
CHAPTER XXXI

THE BURIED CITY OF POMPEII

THEY pronounce it Pom-pay-e. I always had an idea that you went down
into Pompeii with torches, by the way of damp, dark stairways, just
as you do in silver mines, and traversed gloomy tunnels with lava
overhead and something on either hand like dilapidated prisons
gouged out of the solid earth, that faintly resembled houses. But
you do nothing the kind. Fully one-half of the buried city, perhaps,
is completely exhumed and thrown open freely to the light of day;
and there stand the long rows of solidly-built brick houses
(roofless) just as they stood eighteen hundred years ago, hot with
the flaming sun; and there lie their floors, clean-swept, and not a
bright fragment tarnished or waiting of the labored mosaics that
pictured them with the beasts, and birds, and flowers which we copy
in perishable carpets to-day; and here are the Venuses, and
Bacchuses, and Adonises, making love and getting drunk in many-hued
frescoes on the walls of saloon and bed-chamber; and there are the
narrow streets and narrower sidewalks, paved with flags of good hard
lava, the one deeply rutted with the chariot-wheels, and the other
with the passing feet of the Pompeiians of by-gone centuries; and
there are the bake-shops, the temples, the halls of justice, the
baths, the theatres -- all clean-scraped and neat, and suggesting
nothing of the nature of a silver mine away down in the bowels of
the earth. The broken pillars lying about, the doorless doorways and
the crumbled tops of the wilderness of walls, were wonderfully
suggestive of the "burnt district" in one of our cities, and if
there had been any charred timbers, shattered windows, heaps of
debris, and general blackness and smokiness about the place, the
resemblance would have been perfect. But no -- the sun shines as
brightly down on old Pompeii to-day as it did when Christ was born
in Bethlehem, and its streets are cleaner a hundred times than ever
Pompeiian saw them in her prime. I know whereof I speak -- for in
the great, chief thoroughfares (Merchant street and the Street of
Fortune) have I not seen with my own eyes how for two hundred years
at least the pavements were not repaired! -- bow ruts five and even
ten inches deep were worn into the thick flagstones by the
chariot-wheels of generations of swindled tax-payers? And do I not
know by these signs that Street Commissioners of Pompeii never
attended to their business, and that if they never mended the
pavements they never cleaned them? And, besides, is it not the
inborn nature of Street Commissioners to avoid their duty whenever
they get a chance? I wish I knew the name of the last one that held
office in Pompeii so that I could give him a blast. I speak with
feeling on this subject, because I caught my foot in one of those
ruts, and the sadness that came over me when I saw the first poor
skeleton, with ashes and lava sticking to it, was tempered by the
reflection that may be that party was the Street Commissioner.
No -- Pompeii is no longer a buried city. It is a city of hundreds
and hundreds of roofless houses, and a tangled maze of streets where
one could easily get lost, without a guide, and have to sleep in
some ghostly palace that had known no living tenant since that awful
November night of eighteen centuries ago.
We passed through the gate which faces the Mediterranean, (called
the "Marine Gate,") and by the rusty, broken image of Minerva, still
keeping tireless watch and ward over the possessions it was
powerless to save, and went up a long street and stood in the broad
court of the Forum of Justice. The floor was level and clean, and up
and down either side was a noble colonnade of broken pillars, with
their beautiful Ionic and Corinthian columns scattered about them.
At the upper end were the vacant seats of the Judges, and behind
them we descended into a dungeon where the ashes and cinders had
found two prisoners chained on that memorable November night, and
tortured them to death. How they must have tugged at the pitiless
fetters as the fierce fires surged around them!
Then we lounged through many and many a sumptuous private mansion
which we could not have entered without a formal invitation in
incomprehensible Latin, in the olden time, when the owners lived
there -- and we probably wouldn't have got it. These people built
their houses a good deal alike. The floors were laid in fanciful
figures wrought in mosaics of many-colored marbles. At the threshold
your eyes fall upon a Latin sentence of welcome, sometimes, or a
picture of a dog, with the legend "Beware of the Dog," and sometimes
a picture of a bear or a faun with no inscription at all. Then you
enter a sort of vestibule, where they used to keep the hat-rack, I
suppose; next a room with a large marble basin in the midst and the
pipes of a fountain; on either side are bedrooms; beyond the
fountain is a reception-room, then a little garden, dining-room, and
so forth and so on. The floors were all mosaic, the walls were
stuccoed, or frescoed, or ornamented with bas-reliefs, and here and
there were statues, large and small, and little fish-pools, and
cascades of sparkling water that sprang from secret places in the
colonnade of handsome pillars that surrounded the court, and kept
the flower-beds fresh and the air cool. Those Pompeiians were very
luxurious in their tastes and habits. The most exquisite bronzes we
have seen in Europe, came from the exhumed cities of Herculaneum and
Pompeii, and also the finest cameos and the most delicate engravings
on precious stones; their pictures, eighteen or nineteen centuries
old, are often much more pleasing than the celebrated rubbish of the
old masters of three centuries ago. They were well up in art. From
the creation of these works of the first, clear up to the eleventh
century, art seems hardly to have existed at all -- at least no
remnants of it are left -- and it was curious to see how far (in
some things, at any rate,) these old time pagans excelled the remote
generations of masters that came after them. The pride of the world
in sculptures seem to be the Laocoon and the Dying Gladiator, in
Rome. They are as old as Pompeii, were dug from the earth like
Pompeii; but their exact age or who made them can only be
conjectured. But worn, and cracked, without a history, and with the
blemishing stains of numberless centuries upon them, they still
mutely mock at all efforts to rival their perfections.
It was a quaint and curious pastime, wandering through this old
silent city of the dead -- lounging through utterly deserted streets
where thousands and thousands of human beings once bought and sold,
and walked and rode, and made the place resound with the noise and
confusion of traffic and pleasure. They were not lazy. They hurried
in those days. We had evidence of that. There was a temple on one
corner, and it was a shorter cut to go between the columns of that
temple from one street to the other than to go around -- and behold
that pathway had been worn deep into the heavy flagstone floor of
the building by generations of time-saving feet! They would not go
around when it was quicker to go through. We do that way in our
cities.
Every where, you see things that make you wonder how old these old
houses were before the night of destruction came -- things, too,
which bring back those long dead inhabitants and place the living
before your eyes. For instance: The steps (two feet thick -- lava
blocks) that lead up out of the school, and the same kind of steps
that lead up into the dress circle of the principal theatre, are
almost worn through! For ages the boys hurried out of that school,
and for ages their parents hurried into that theatre, and the
nervous feet that have been dust and ashes for eighteen centuries
have left their record for us to read to-day. I imagined I could see
crowds of gentlemen and ladies thronging into the theatre, with
tickets for secured seats in their hands, and on the wall, I read
the imaginary placard, in infamous grammar, "POSITIVELY NO FREE
LIST, EXCEPT MEMBERS OF THE PRESS!" Hanging about the doorway
(I fancied,) were slouchy Pompeiian street-boys uttering slang and
profanity, and keeping a wary eye out for checks. I entered the
theatre, and sat down in one of the long rows of stone benches in
the dress circle, and looked at the place for the orchestra, and the
ruined stage, and around at the wide sweep of empty boxes, and
thought to myself, "This house won't pay." I tried to imagine the
music in full blast, the leader of the orchestra beating time, and
the "versatile" So-and-So (who had "just returned from a most
successful tour in the provinces to play his last and farewell
engagement of positively six nights only, in Pompeii, previous to
his departure for Herculaneum,") charging around the stage and
piling the agony mountains high -- but I could not do it with such a
"house" as that; those empty benches tied my fancy down to dull
reality. I said, these people that ought to be here have been dead,
and still, and moldering to dust for ages and ages, and will never
care for the trifles and follies of life any more for ever -- "Owing
to circumstances, etc., etc., there will not be any performance
to-night." Close down the curtain. Put out the lights.
And so I turned away and went through shop after shop and store
after store, far down the long street of the merchants, and called
for the wares of Rome and the East, but the tradesmen were gone, the
marts were silent, and nothing was left but the broken jars all set
in cement of cinders and ashes: the wine and the oil that once had
filled them were gone with their owners.
In a bake-shop was a mill for grinding the grain, and the furnaces
for baking the bread: and they say that here, in the same furnaces,
the exhumers of Pompeii found nice, well baked loaves which the
baker had not found time to remove from the ovens the last time he
left his shop, because circumstances compelled him to leave in such
a hurry.
In one house (the only building in Pompeii which no woman is now
allowed to enter,) were the small rooms and short beds of solid
masonry, just as they were in the old times, and on the walls were
pictures which looked almost as fresh as if they were painted
yesterday, but which no pen could have the hardihood to describe;
and here and there were Latin inscriptions -- obscene scintillations
of wit, scratched by hands that possibly were uplifted to Heaven for
succor in the midst of a driving storm of fire before the night was
done.
In one of the principal streets was a ponderous stone tank, and a
water-spout that supplied it, and where the tired, heated toilers
from the Campagna used to rest their right hands when they bent over
to put their lips to the spout, the thick stone was worn down to a
broad groove an inch or two deep. Think of the countless thousands
of hands that had pressed that spot in the ages that are gone, to so
reduce a stone that is as hard as iron!
They had a great public bulletin board in Pompeii -- a place where
announcements for gladiatorial combats, elections, and such things,
were posted -- not on perishable paper, but carved in enduring
stone. One lady, who, I take it, was rich and well brought up,
advertised a dwelling or so to rent, with baths and all the modern
improvements, and several hundred shops, stipulating that the
dwellings should not be put to immoral purposes. You can find out
who lived in many a house in Pompeii by the carved stone door-plates
affixed to them: and in the same way you can tell who they were that
occupy the tombs. Every where around are things that reveal to you
something of the customs and history of this forgotten people. But
what would a volcano leave of an American city, if it once rained
its cinders on it? Hardly a sign or a symbol to tell its story.
In one of these long Pompeiian halls the skeleton of a man was
found, with ten pieces of gold in one hand and a large key in the
other. He had seized his money and started toward the door, but the
fiery tempest caught him at the very threshold, and he sank down and
died. One more minute of precious time would have saved him. I saw
the skeletons of a man, a woman, and two young girls. The woman had
her hands spread wide apart, as if in mortal terror, and I imagined
I could still trace upon her shapeless face something of the
expression of wild despair that distorted it when the heavens rained
fire in these streets, so many ages ago. The girls and the man lay
with their faces upon their arms, as if they had tried to shield
them from the enveloping cinders. In one apartment eighteen
skeletons were found, all in sitting postures, and blackened places
on the walls still mark their shapes and show their attitudes, like
shadows. One of them, a woman, still wore upon her skeleton throat a
necklace, with her name engraved upon it -- JULIE DI DIOMEDE.
But perhaps the most poetical thing Pompeii has yielded to modern
research, was that grand figure of a Roman soldier, clad in complete
armor; who, true to his duty, true to his proud name of a soldier of
Rome, and full of the stern courage which had given to that name its
glory, stood to his post by the city gate, erect and unflinching,
till the hell that raged around him burned out the dauntless spirit
it could not conquer.
We never read of Pompeii but we think of that soldier; we can not
write of Pompeii without the natural impulse to grant to him the
mention he so well deserves. Let us remember that he was a soldier
-- not a policeman -- and so, praise him. Being a soldier, he staid,
-- because the warrior instinct forbade him to fly. Had he been a
policeman he would have staid, also -- because he would have been
asleep.
There are not half a dozen flights of stairs in Pompeii, and no
other evidences that the houses were more than one story high. The
people did not live in the clouds, as do the Venetians, the Genoese
and Neapolitans of to-day.
We came out from under the solemn mysteries of this city of the
Venerable Past -- this city which perished, with all its old ways
and its quaint old fashions about it, remote centuries ago, when the
Disciples were preaching the new religion, which is as old as the
hills to us now -- and went dreaming among the trees that grow over
acres and acres of its still buried streets and squares, till a
shrill whistle and the cry of "All aboard -- last train for Naples!"
woke me up and reminded me that I belonged in the nineteenth
century, and was not a dusty mummy, caked with ashes and cinders,
eighteen hundred years old. The transition was startling. The idea
of a railroad train actually running to old dead Pompeii, and
whistling irreverently, and calling for passengers in the most
bustling and business-like way, was as strange a thing as one could
imagine, and as unpoetical and disagreeable as it was strange.
Compare the cheerful life and the sunshine of this day with the
horrors the younger Pliny saw here, the 9th of November, A.D. 79,
when he was so bravely striving to remove his mother out of reach of
harm, while she begged him, with all a mother's unselfishness, to
leave her to perish and save himself.
'By this time the murky darkness had so increased that one might
have
believed himself abroad in a black and moonless night, or in a
chamber where
all the lights had been extinguished. On every hand was heard the
complaints
of women, the wailing of children, and the cries of men. One called
his
father, another his son, and another his wife, and only by their
voices could
they know each other. Many in their despair begged that death would
come and
end their distress.
"Some implored the gods to succor them, and some believed that this
night
was the last, the eternal night which should engulf the universe!
"Even so it seemed to me -- and I consoled myself for the coming
death with
the reflection: BEHOLD, THE WORLD IS PASSING AWAY!"
********
After browsing among the stately ruins of Rome, of Baiæ, of Pompeii,
and after glancing down the long marble ranks of battered and
nameless imperial heads that stretch down the corridors of the
Vatican, one thing strikes me with a force it never had before: the
unsubstantial, unlasting character of fame. Men lived long lives, in
the olden time, and struggled feverishly through them, toiling like
slaves, in oratory, in generalship, or in literature, and then laid
them down and died, happy in the possession of an enduring history
and a deathless name. Well, twenty little centuries flutter away,
and what is left of these things? A crazy inscription on a block of
stone, which snuffy antiquaries bother over and tangle up and make
nothing out of but a bare name (which they spell wrong) -- no
history, no tradition, no poetry -- nothing that can give it even a
passing interest. What may be left of General Grant's great name
forty centuries hence? This -- in the Encyclopedia for A. D. 5868,
possibly:

"URIAH S. (or Z.) GRAUNT -- popular poet of ancient times in the

Aztec provinces of the United States of British America. Some
authors say flourished about A. D. 742; but the learned Ah-ah
Foo-foo states that he was a cotemporary of Scharkspyre, the English
poet, and flourished about A. D. 1328, some three centuries after
the Trojan war instead of before it. He wrote 'Rock me to Sleep,
Mother.'"
These thoughts sadden me. I will to bed.
CHAPTER XXXII

COME, again! For the first time, in many weeks, the ship's entire
family met and shook hands on the quarter-deck. They had gathered
from many points of the compass and from many lands, but not one was
missing; there was no tale of sickness or death among the flock to
dampen the pleasure of the reunion. Once more there was a full
audience on deck to listen to the sailors' chorus as they got the
anchor up, and to wave an adieu to the land as we sped away from
Naples. The seats were full at dinner again, the domino parties were
complete, and the life and bustle on the upper deck in the fine
moonlight at night was like old times -- old times that had been
gone weeks only, but yet they were weeks so crowded with incident,
adventure and excitement, that they seemed almost like years. There
was no lack of cheerfulness on board the Quaker City. For once, her
title was a misnomer.
At seven in the evening, with the western horizon all golden from
the sunken sun, and specked with distant ships, the full moon
sailing high over head, the dark blue of the sea under foot, and a
strange sort of twilight affected by all these different lights and
colors around us and about us, we sighted superb Stromboli. With
what majesty the monarch held his lonely state above the level sea!
Distance clothed him in a purple gloom, and added a veil of
shimmering mist that so softened his rugged features that we seemed
to see him through a a web of silver gauze. His torch was out; his
fires were smoldering; a tall column of smoke that rose up and lost
itself in the growing moonlight was all the sign he gave that he was
a living Autocrat of the Sea and not the spectre of a dead one.
At two in the morning we swept through the Straits of Messina, and
so bright was the moonlight that Italy on the one hand and Sicily on
the other seemed almost as distinctly visible as though we looked at
them from the middle of a street we were traversing. The city of
Messina, milk-white, and starred and spangled all over with
gaslights, was a fairy spectacle. A great party of us were on deck
smoking and making a noise, and waiting to see famous Scylla and
Charybdis. And presently the Oracle stepped out with his eternal
spy-glass and squared himself on the deck like another Colossus of
Rhodes. It was a surprise to see him abroad at such an hour. Nobody
supposed he cared anything about an old fable like that of Scylla
and Charybdis. One of the boys said:
" Hello, doctor, what are you doing up here at this time of night ?
-- What do you want to see this place for?"
" What do I want to see this place for? Young man, little do you
know me, or you wouldn't ask such a question. I wish to see all the
places that's mentioned in the Bible."
"Stuff -- this place isn't mentioned in the Bible."
"It ain't mentioned in the Bible! -- this place ain't -- well now,
what place is this, since you know so much about it?"
"Why it's Scylla and Charybdis."
"Scylla and Cha -- confound it, I thought it was Sodom and
Gomorrah!"
And he closed up his glass and went below. The above is the ship
story. Its plausibility is marred a little by the fact that the
Oracle was not a biblical student, and did not spend much of his
time instructing himself about Scriptural localities. -- They say
the Oracle complains, in this hot weather, lately, that the only
beverage in the ship that is passable, is the butter. He did not
mean butter, of course, but inasmuch as that article remains in a
melted state now since we are out of ice, it is fair to give him the
credit of getting one long word in the right place, anyhow, for once
in his life. He said, in Rome, that the Pope was a noble-looking old
man, but he never did think much of his Iliad.
We spent one pleasant day skirting along the Isles of Greece. They
are very mountainous. Their prevailing tints are gray and brown,
approaching to red. Little white villages surrounded by trees,
nestle in the valleys or roost upon the lofty perpendicular
sea-walls.
We had one fine sunset -- a rich carmine flush that suffused the
western sky and cast a ruddy glow far over the sea. -- Fine sunsets
seem to be rare in this part of the world -- or at least, striking
ones. They are soft, sensuous, lovely -- they are exquisite refined,
effeminate, but we have seen no sunsets here yet like the gorgeous
conflagrations that flame in the track of the sinking sun in our
high northern latitudes.
But what were sunsets to us, with the wild excitement upon us of
approaching the most renowned of cities! What cared we for outward
visions, when Agamemnon, Achilles, and a thousand other heroes of
the great Past were marching in ghostly procession through our
fancies? What were sunsets to us, who were about to live and breathe
and walk in actual Athens; yea, and go far down into the dead
centuries and bid in person for the slaves, Diogenes and Plato, in
the public market-place, or gossip with the neighbors about the
siege of Troy or the splendid deeds of Marathon? We scorned to
consider sunsets.
We arrived, and entered the ancient harbor of the Piræus at last. We
dropped anchor within half a mile of the village. Away off, across
the undulating Plain of Attica, could be seen a little square-topped
hill with a something on it, which our glasses soon discovered to be
the ruined edifices of the citadel of the Athenians, and most
prominent among them loomed the venerable Parthenon. So exquisitely
clear and pure is this wonderful atmosphere that every column of the
noble structure was discernible through the telescope, and even the
smaller ruins about it assumed some semblance of shape. This at a
distance of five or six miles. In the valley, near the Acropolis,
(the square-topped hill before spoken of,) Athens itself could be
vaguely made out with an ordinary lorgnette. Every body was anxious
to get ashore and visit these classic localities as quickly as
possible. No land we had yet seen had aroused such universal
interest among the passengers.
But bad news came. The commandant of the Piræus came in his boat,
and said we must either depart or else get outside the harbor and
remain imprisoned in our ship, under rigid quarantine, for eleven
days! So we took up the anchor and moved outside, to lie a dozen
hours or so, taking in supplies, and then sail for Constantinople.
It was the bitterest disappointment we had yet experienced. To lie a
whole day in sight of the Acropolis, and yet be obliged to go away
without visiting Athens! Disappointment was hardly a strong enough
word to describe the circumstances.
All hands were on deck, all the afternoon, with books and maps and
glasses, trying to determine which "narrow rocky ridge" was the
Areopagus, which sloping hill the Pnyx, which elevation the Museum
Hill, and so on. And we got things confused. Discussion became
heated, and party spirit ran high. Church members were gazing with
emotion upon a hill which they said was the one St. Paul preached
from, and another faction claimed that that hill was Hymettus, and
another that it was Pentelicon! After all the trouble, we could be
certain of only one thing -- the square-topped hill was the
Acropolis, and the grand ruin that crowned it was the Parthenon,
whose picture we knew in infancy in the school books.
We inquired of every body who came near the ship, whether there were
guards in the Piræus, whether they were strict, what the chances
were of capture should any of us slip ashore, and in case any of us
made the venture and were caught, what would be probably done to us?
The answers were discouraging: There was a strong guard or police
force; the Piræus was a small town, and any stranger seen in it
would surely attract attention -- capture would be certain. The
commandant said the punishment would be "heavy;" when asked "how
heavy?" he said it would be "very severe" -- that was all we could
get out of him.
At eleven o'clock at night, when most of the ship's company were
abed, four of us stole softly ashore in a small boat, a clouded moon
favoring the enterprise, and started two and two, and far apart,
over a low hill, intending to go clear around the Piræus, out of the
range of its police. Picking our way so stealthily over that rocky,
nettle-grown eminence, made me feel a good deal as if I were on my
way somewhere to steal something. My immediate comrade and I talked
in an undertone about quarantine laws and their penalties, but we
found nothing cheering in the subject. I was posted. Only a few days
before, I was talking with our captain, and he mentioned the case of
a man who swam ashore from a quarantined ship somewhere, and got
imprisoned six months for it; and when he was in Genoa a few years
ago, a captain of a quarantined ship went in his boat to a departing
ship, which was already outside of the harbor, and put a letter on
board to be taken to his family, and the authorities imprisoned him
three months for it, and then conducted him and his ship fairly to
sea, and warned him never to show himself in that port again while
he lived. This kind of conversation did no good, further than to
give a sort of dismal interest to our quarantine-breaking
expedition, and so we dropped it. We made the entire circuit of the
town without seeing any body but one man, who stared at us
curiously, but said nothing, and a dozen persons asleep on the
ground before their doors, whom we walked among and never woke --
but we woke up dogs enough, in all conscience -- we always had one
or two barking at our heels, and several times we had as many as ten
and twelve at once. They made such a preposterous din that persons
aboard our ship said they could tell how we were progressing for a
long time, and where we were, by the barking of the dogs. The
clouded moon still favored us. When we had made the whole circuit,
and were passing among the houses on the further side of the town,
the moon came out splendidly, but we no longer feared the light. As
we approached a well, near a house, to get a drink, the owner merely
glanced at us and went within. He left the quiet, slumbering town at
our mercy. I record it here proudly, that we didn't do any thing to
it.
Seeing no road, we took a tall hill to the left of the distant
Acropolis for a mark, and steered straight for it over all
obstructions, and over a little rougher piece of country than exists
any where else outside of the State of Nevada, perhaps. Part of the
way it was covered with small, loose stones -- we trod on six at a
time, and they all rolled. Another part of it was dry, loose,
newly-ploughed ground. Still another part of it was a long stretch
of low grape-vines, which were tanglesome and troublesome, and which
we took to be brambles. The Attic Plain, barring the grape-vines,
was a barren, desolate, unpoetical waste -- I wonder what it was in
Greece's Age of Glory, five hundred years before Christ?
In the neighborhood of one o'clock in the morning, when we were
heated with fast walking and parched with thirst, Denny exclaimed,
"Why, these weeds are grape-vines!" and in five minutes we had a
score of bunches of large, white, delicious grapes, and were
reaching down for more when a dark shape rose mysteriously up out of
the shadows beside us and said "Ho!" And so we left.
In ten minutes more we struck into a beautiful road, and unlike some
others we had stumbled upon at intervals, it led in the right
direction. We followed it. It was broad, and smooth, and white --
handsome and in perfect repair, and shaded on both sides for a mile
or so with single ranks of trees, and also with luxuriant vineyards.
Twice we entered and stole grapes, and the second time somebody
shouted at us from some invisible place. Whereupon we left again. We
speculated in grapes no more on that side of Athens.
Shortly we came upon an ancient stone aqueduct, built upon arches,
and from that time forth we had ruins all about us -- we were
approaching our journey's end. We could not see the Acropolis now or
the high hill, either, and I wanted to follow the road till we were
abreast of them, but the others overruled me, and we toiled
laboriously up the stony hill immediately in our front -- and from
its summit saw another -- climbed it and saw another! It was an hour
of exhausting work. Soon we came upon a row of open graves, cut in
the solid rock -- (for a while one of them served Socrates for a
prison) -- we passed around the shoulder of the hill, and the
citadel, in all its ruined magnificence, burst upon us! We hurried
across the ravine and up a winding road, and stood on the old
Acropolis, with the prodigious walls of the citadel towering above
our heads. We did not stop to inspect their massive blocks of
marble, or measure their height, or guess at their extraordinary
thickness, but passed at once through a great arched passage like a
railway tunnel, and went straight to the gate that leads to the
ancient temples. It was locked! So, after all, it seemed that we
were not to see the great Parthenon face to face. We sat down and
held a council of war. Result: the gate was only a flimsy structure
of wood -- we would break it down. It seemed like desecration, but
then we had traveled far, and our necessities were urgent. We could
not hunt up guides and keepers -- we must be on the ship before
daylight. So we argued. This was all very fine, but when we came to
break the gate, we could not do it. We moved around an angle of the
wall and found a low bastion -- eight feet high without -- ten or
twelve within. Denny prepared to scale it, and we got ready to
follow. By dint of hard scrambling he finally straddled the top, but
some loose stones crumbled away and fell with a crash into the court
within. There was instantly a banging of doors and a shout. Denny
dropped from the wall in a twinkling, and we retreated in disorder
to the gate. Xerxes took that mighty citadel four hundred and eighty
years before Christ, when his five millions of soldiers and
camp-followers followed him to Greece, and if we four Americans
could have remained unmolested five minutes longer, we would have
taken it too.
The garrison had turned out -- four Greeks. We clamored at the gate,
and they admitted us. [Bribery and corruption.]
We crossed a large court, entered a great door, and stood upon a
pavement of purest white marble, deeply worn by footprints. Before
us, in the flooding moonlight, rose the noblest ruins we had ever
looked upon -- the Propylæ; a small Temple of Minerva; the Temple of
Hercules, and the grand Parthenon. [We got these names from the
Greek guide, who didn't seem to know more than seven men ought to
know.] These edifices were all built of the whitest Pentelic marble,
but have a pinkish stain upon them now. Where any part is broken,
however, the fracture looks like fine loaf sugar. Six caryatides, or
marble women, clad in flowing robes, support the portico of the
Temple of Hercules, but the porticos and colonnades of the other
structures are formed of massive Doric and Ionic pillars, whose
flutings and capitals are still measurably perfect, notwithstanding
the centuries that have gone over them and the sieges they have
suffered. The Parthenon, originally, was two hundred and twenty-six
feet long, one hundred wide, and seventy high, and had two rows of
great columns, eight in each, at either end, and single rows of
seventeen each down the sides, and was one of the most graceful and
beautiful edifices ever erected.
Most of the Parthenon's imposing columns are still standing, but the
roof is gone. It was a perfect building two hundred and fifty years
ago, when a shell dropped into the Venetian magazine stored here,
and the explosion which followed wrecked and unroofed it. I remember
but little about the Parthenon, and I have put in one or two facts
and figures for the use of other people with short memories. Got
them from the guide-book.
As we wandered thoughtfully down the marble-paved length of this
stately temple, the scene about us was strangely impressive. Here
and there, in lavish profusion, were gleaming white statues of men
and women, propped against blocks of marble, some of them armless,
some without legs, others headless -- but all looking mournful in
the moonlight, and startlingly human! They rose up and confronted
the midnight intruder on every side -- they stared at him with stony
eyes from unlooked-for nooks and recesses; they peered at him over
fragmentary heaps far down the desolate corridors; they barred his
way in the midst of the broad forum, and solemnly pointed with
handless arms the way from the sacred fane; and through the roofless
temple the moon looked down, and banded the floor and darkened the
scattered fragments and broken statues with the slanting shadows of
the columns.
What a world of ruined sculpture was about us! Set up in rows --
stacked up in piles -- scattered broadcast over the wide area of the
Acropolis -- were hundreds of crippled statues of all sizes and of
the most exquisite workmanship; and vast fragments of marble that
once belonged to the entablatures, covered with bas-reliefs
representing battles and sieges, ships of war with three and four
tiers of oars, pageants and processions -- every thing one could
think of. History says that the temples of the Acropolis were filled
with the noblest works of Praxiteles and Phidias, and of many a
great master in sculpture besides -- and surely these elegant
fragments attest it.
We walked out into the grass-grown, fragment-strewn court beyond the
Parthenon. It startled us, every now and then, to see a stony white
face stare suddenly up at us out of the grass with its dead eyes.
The place seemed alive with ghosts. I half expected to see the
Athenian heroes of twenty centuries ago glide out of the shadows and
steal into the old temple they knew so well and regarded with such
boundless pride.
The full moon wag riding high in the cloudless heavens, now. We
sauntered carelessly and unthinkingly to the edge of the lofty
battlements of the citadel, and looked down -- a vision! And such a
vision! Athens by moonlight! The prophet that thought the splendors
of the New Jerusalem were revealed to him, surely saw this instead!
It lay in the level plain right under our feet -- all spread abroad
like a picture -- and we looked down upon it as we might have looked
from a balloon. We saw no semblance of a street, but every house,
every window, every clinging vine, every projection was as distinct
and sharply marked as if the time were noon-day; and yet there was
no glare, no glitter, nothing harsh or repulsive -- the noiseless
city was flooded with the mellowest light that ever streamed from
the moon, and seemed like some living creature wrapped in peaceful
slumber. On its further side was a little temple, whose delicate
pillars and ornate front glowed with a rich lustre that chained the
eye like a spell; and nearer by, the palace of the king reared its
creamy walls out of the midst of a great garden of shrubbery that
was flecked all over with a random shower of amber lights -- a spray
of golden sparks that lost their brightness in the glory of the
moon, and glinted softly upon the sea of dark foliage like the
pallid stars of the milky-way. Overhead the stately columns,
majestic still in their ruin -- under foot the dreaming city -- in
the distance the silver sea -- not on the broad earth is there an
other picture half so beautiful!
As we turned and moved again through the temple, I wished that the
illustrious men who had sat in it in the remote ages could visit it
again and reveal themselves to our curious eyes -- Plato, Aristotle,
Demosthenes, Socrates, Phocion, Pythagoras, Euclid, Pindar,
Xenophon, Herodotus, Praxiteles and Phidias, Zeuxis the painter.
What a constellation of celebrated names! But more than all, I
wished that old Diogenes, groping so patiently with his lantern,
searching so zealously for one solitary honest man in all the world,
might meander along and stumble on our party. I ought not to say it,
may be, but still I suppose he would have put out his light.
We left the Parthenon to keep its watch over old Athens, as it had
kept it for twenty-three hundred years, and went and stood outside
the walls of the citadel. In the distance was the ancient, but still
almost perfect Temple of Theseus, and close by, looking to the west,
was the Bema, from whence Demosthenes thundered his philippics and
fired the wavering patriotism of his countrymen. To the right was
Mars Hill, where the Areopagus sat in ancient times. and where St.
Paul defined his position, and below was the market-place where he
"disputed daily" with the gossip-loving Athenians. We climbed the
stone steps St. Paul ascended, and stood in the square-cut place he
stood in, and tried to recollect the Bible account of the matter --
but for certain reasons, I could not recall the words. I have found
them since:
"Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in
him, when
he saw the city wholly given up to idolatry.
"Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the
devout
persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.
*********
"And they took him and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we
know what
this new doctrine whereof thou speakest is?
*********
"Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars hill, and said, Ye men of
Athens, I
perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious;
"For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with
this
inscription: To THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly
worship, him
declare I unto you." -- Acts, ch. xvii."
It occurred to us, after a while, that if we wanted to get home
before daylight betrayed us, we had better be moving. So we hurried
away. When far on our road, we had a parting view of the Parthenon,
with the moonlight streaming through its open colonnades and
touching its capitals with silver. As it looked then, solemn, grand,
and beautiful it will always remain in our memories.
As we marched along, we began to get over our fears, and ceased to
care much about quarantine scouts or any body else. We grew bold and
reckless; and once, in a sudden burst of courage, I even threw a
stone at a dog. It was a pleasant reflection, though, that I did not
hit him, because his master might just possibly have been a
policeman. Inspired by this happy failure, my valor became utterly
uncontrollable, and at intervals I absolutely whistled, though on a
moderate key. But boldness breeds boldness, and shortly I plunged
into a Vineyard, in the full light of the moon, and captured a
gallon of superb grapes, not even minding the presence of a peasant
who rode by on a mule. Denny and Birch followed my example. Now I
had grapes enough for a dozen, but then Jackson was all swollen up
with courage, too, and he was obliged to enter a vineyard presently.
The first bunch he seized brought trouble. A frowsy, bearded brigand
sprang into the road with a shout, and flourished a musket in the
light of the moon! We sidled toward the Piræus -- not running you
understand, but only advancing with celerity. The brigand shouted
again, but still we advanced. It was getting late, and we had no
time to fool away on every ass that wanted to drivel Greek
platitudes to us. We would just as soon have talked with him as not
if we had not been in a hurry. Presently Denny said, "Those fellows
are following us!"
We turned, and, sure enough, there they were -- three fantastic
pirates armed with guns. We slackened our pace to let them come up,
and in the meantime I got out my cargo of grapes and dropped them
firmly but reluctantly into the shadows by the wayside. But I was
not afraid. I only felt that it was not right to steal grapes. And
all the more so when the owner was around -- and not only around,
but with his friends around also. The villains came up and searched
a bundle Dr. Birch had in his hand, and scowled upon him when they
found it had nothing in it but some holy rocks from Mars Hill, and
these were not contraband. They evidently suspected him of playing
some wretched fraud upon them, and seemed half inclined to scalp the
party. But finally they dismissed us with a warning, couched in
excellent Greek, I suppose, and dropped tranquilly in our wake. When
they had gone three hundred yards they stopped, and we went on
rejoiced. But behold, another armed rascal came out of the shadows
and took their place, and followed us two hundred yards. Then he
delivered us over to another miscreant, who emerged from some
mysterious place, and he in turn to another! For a mile and a half
our rear was guarded all the while by armed men. I never traveled in
so much state before in all my life.
It was a good while after that before we ventured to steal any more
grapes, and when we did we stirred up another troublesome brigand,
and then we ceased all further speculation in that line. I suppose
that fellow that rode by on the mule posted all the sentinels, from
Athens to the Piræus, about us.
Every field on that long route was watched by an armed sentinel,
some of whom had fallen asleep, no doubt, but were on hand,
nevertheless. This shows what sort of a country modern Attica is --
a community of questionable characters. These men were not there to
guard their possessions against strangers, but against each other;
for strangers seldom visit Athens and the Piræus, and when they do,
they go in daylight, and can buy all the grapes they want for a
trifle. The modern inhabitants are confiscators and falsifiers of
high repute, if gossip speaks truly concerning them, and I freely
believe it does.
Just as the earliest tinges of the dawn flushed the eastern sky and
turned the pillared Parthenon to a broken harp hung in the pearly
horizon, we closed our thirteenth mile of weary, round-about
marching, and emerged upon the sea-shore abreast the ships, with our
usual escort of fifteen hundred Piræan dogs howling at our heels. We
hailed a boat that was two or three hundred yards from shore, and
discovered in a moment that it was a police-boat on the lookout for
any quarantine-breakers that might chance to be abroad. So we dodged
-- we were used to that by this time -- and when the scouts reached
the spot we had so lately occupied, we were absent. They cruised
along the shore, but in the wrong direction, and shortly our own
boat issued from the gloom and took us aboard. They had heard our
signal on the ship. We rowed noiselessly away, and before the
police-boat came in sight again, we were safe at home once more.
Four more of our passengers were anxious to visit Athens, and
started half an hour after we returned; but they had not been ashore
five minutes till the police discovered and chased them so hotly
that they barely escaped to their boat again, and that was all. They
pursued the enterprise no further.
We set sail for Constantinople to-day, but some of us little care
for that. We have seen all there was to see in the old city that had
its birth sixteen hundred years before Christ was born, and was an
old town before the foundations of Troy were laid -- and saw it in
its most attractive aspect. Wherefore, why should we worry ?
Two other passengers ran the blockade successfully last night. So we
learned this morning. They slipped away so quietly that they were
not missed from the ship for several hours. They had the hardihood
to march into the Piræus in the early dusk and hire a carriage. They
ran some danger of adding two or three months' imprisonment to the
other novelties of their Holy Land Pleasure Excursion. I admire
"cheek." 32.1 But they went and came safely, and never walked a
step.
32.1 Quotation from the Pilgrims.
CHAPTER XXXIII

From Athens all through the islands of the Grecian Archipelago, we

saw little but forbidding sea-walls and barren hills, sometimes
surmounted by three or four graceful columns of some ancient temple,
lonely and deserted -- a fitting symbol of the desolation that has
come upon all Greece in these latter ages. We saw no ploughed
fields, very few villages, no trees or grass or vegetation of any
kind, scarcely, and hardly ever an isolated house. Greece is a
bleak, unsmiling desert, without agriculture, manufactures or
commerce, apparently. What supports its poverty-stricken people or
its Government, is a mystery.
I suppose that ancient Greece and modern Greece compared, furnish
the most extravagant contrast to be found in history. George I., an
infant of eighteen, and a scraggy nest of foreign office holders,
sit in the places of Themistocles, Pericles, and the illustrious
scholars and generals of the Golden Age of Greece. The fleets that
were the wonder of the world when the Parthenon was new, are a
beggarly handful of fishing-smacks now, and the manly people that
performed such miracles of valor at Marathon are only a tribe of
unconsidered slaves to-day. The classic Illyssus has gone dry, and
so have all the sources of Grecian wealth and greatness. The nation
numbers only eight hundred thousand souls, and there is poverty and
misery and mendacity enough among them to furnish forty millions and
be liberal about it. Under King Otho the revenues of the State were
five millions of dollars -- raised from a tax of one-tenth of all
the agricultural products of the land (which tenth the farmer had to
bring to the royal granaries on pack-mules any distance not
exceeding six leagues) and from extravagant taxes on trade and
commerce. Out of that five millions the small tyrant tried to keep
an army of ten thousand men, pay all the hundreds of useless Grand
Equerries in Waiting, First Grooms of the Bedchamber, Lord High
Chancellors of the Exploded Exchequer, and all the other absurdities
which these puppy-kingdoms indulge in, in imitation of the great
monarchies; and in addition he set about building a white marble
palace to cost about five millions itself. The result was, simply:
ten into five goes no times and none over. All these things could
not be done with five millions, and Otho fell into trouble.
The Greek throne, with its unpromising adjuncts of a ragged
population of ingenious rascals who were out of employment eight
months in the year because there was little for them to borrow and
less to confiscate, and a waste of barren hills and weed-grown
deserts, went begging for a good while. It was offered to one of
Victoria's sons, and afterwards to various other younger sons of
royalty who had no thrones and were out of business, but they all
had the charity to decline the dreary honor, and veneration enough
for Greece's ancient greatness to refuse to mock her sorrowful rags
and dirt with a tinsel throne in this day of her humiliation -- till
they came to this young Danish George, and he took it. He has
finished the splendid palace I saw in the radiant moonlight the
other night, and is doing many other things for the salvation of
Greece, they say.
We sailed through the barren Archipelago, and into the narrow
channel they sometimes call the Dardanelles and sometimes the
Hellespont. This part of the country is rich in historic
reminiscences, and poor as Sahara in every thing else. For instance,
as we approached the Dardanelles, we coasted along the Plains of
Troy and past the mouth of the Scamander; we saw where Troy had
stood (in the distance,) and where it does not stand now -- a city
that perished when the world was young. The poor Trojans are all
dead, now. They were born too late to see Noah's ark, and died too
soon to see our menagerie. We saw where Agamemnon's fleets
rendezvoused, and away inland a mountain which the map said was
Mount Ida. Within the Hellespont we saw where the original first
shoddy contract mentioned in history was carried out, and the
"parties of the second part " gently rebuked by Xerxes. I speak of
the famous bridge of boats which Xerxes ordered to be built over the
narrowest part of the Hellespont (where it is only two or three
miles wide.) A moderate gale destroyed the flimsy structure, and the
King, thinking that to publicly rebuke the contractors might have a
good effect on the next set, called them out before the army and had
them beheaded. In the next ten minutes he let a new contract for the
bridge. It has been observed by ancient writers that the second
bridge was a very good bridge. Xerxes crossed his host of five
millions of men on it, and if it had not been purposely destroyed,
it would probably have been there yet. If our Government would
rebuke some of our shoddy contractors occasionally, it might work
much good. In the Hellespont we saw where Leander and Lord Byron
swam across, the one to see her upon whom his soul's affections were
fixed with a devotion that only death could impair, and the other
merely for a flyer, as Jack says. We had two noted tombs near us,
too. On one shore slept Ajax, and on the other Hecuba.
We had water batteries and forts on both sides of the Hellespont,
flying the crimson flag of Turkey, with its white crescent, and
occasionally a village, and sometimes a train of camels; we had all
these to look at till we entered the broad sea of Marmora, and then
the land soon fading from view, we resumed euchre and whist once
more.
We dropped anchor in the mouth of the Golden Horn at daylight in the
morning. Only three or four of us were up to see the great Ottoman
capital. The passengers do not turn out at unseasonable hours, as
they used to, to get the earliest possible glimpse of strange
foreign cities. They are well over that. If we were lying in sight
of the Pyramids of Egypt, they would not come on deck until after
breakfast, now-a-days.
The Golden Horn is a narrow arm of the sea, which branches from the
Bosporus (a sort of broad river which connects the Marmora and Black
Seas,) and, curving around, divides the city in the middle. Galata
and Pera are on one side of the Bosporus, and the Golden Horn;
Stamboul (ancient Byzantium) is upon the other. On the other bank of
the Bosporus is Scutari and other suburbs of Constantinople. This
great city contains a million inhabitants, but so narrow are its
streets, and so crowded together are its houses, that it does not
cover much more than half as much ground as New York City. Seen from
the anchorage or from a mile or so up the Bosporus, it is by far the
handsomest city we have seen. Its dense array of houses swells
upward from the water's edge, and spreads over the domes of many
hills; and the gardens that peep out here and there, the great
globes of the mosques, and the countless minarets that meet the eye
every where, invest the metropolis with the quaint Oriental aspect
one dreams of when he reads books of eastern travel. Constantinople
makes a noble picture.
But its attractiveness begins and ends with its picturesqueness.
From the time one starts ashore till he gets back again, he
execrates it. The boat he goes in is admirably miscalculated for the
service it is built for. It is handsomely and neatly fitted up, but
no man could handle it well in the turbulent currents that sweep
down the Bosporus from the Black Sea, and few men could row it
satisfactorily even in still water. It is a long, light canoe
(caique,) large at one end and tapering to a knife blade at the
other. They make that long sharp end the bow, and you can imagine
how these boiling currents spin it about. It has two oars, and
sometimes four, and no rudder. You start to go to a given point and
you run in fifty different directions before you get there. First
one oar is backing water, and then the other; it is seldom that both
are going ahead at once. This kind of boating is calculated to drive
an impatient man mad in a week. The boatmen are the awkwardest, the
stupidest, and the most unscientific on earth, without question.
Ashore, it was -- well, it was an eternal circus. People were
thicker than bees, in those narrow streets, and the men were dressed
in all the outrageous, outlandish, idolatrous, extravagant,
thunder-and-lightning costumes that ever a tailor with the delirium
tremens and seven devils could conceive of. There was no freak in
dress too crazy to be indulged in; no absurdity too absurd to be
tolerated; no frenzy in ragged diabolism too fantastic to be
attempted. No two men were dressed alike. It was a wild masquerade
of all imaginable costumes -- every struggling throng in every
street was a dissolving view of stunning contrasts. Some patriarchs
wore awful turbans, but the grand mass of the infidel horde wore the
fiery red skull-cap they call a fez. All the remainder of the
raiment they indulged in was utterly indescribable.
The shops here are mere coops, mere boxes, bath-rooms, closets --
any thing you please to call them -- on the first floor. The Turks
sit cross-legged in them, and work and trade and smoke long pipes,
and smell like -- like Turks. That covers the ground. Crowding the
narrow streets in front of them are beggars, who beg forever, yet
never collect any thing; and wonderful cripples, distorted out of
all semblance of humanity, almost; vagabonds driving laden asses;
porters carrying dry-goods boxes as large as cottages on their
backs; peddlers of grapes, hot corn, pumpkin seeds, and a hundred
other things, yelling like fiends; and sleeping happily,
comfortably, serenely, among the hurrying feet, are the famed dogs
of Constantinople; drifting noiselessly about are squads of Turkish
women, draped from chin to feet in flowing robes, and with snowy
veils bound about their heads, that disclose only the eyes and a
vague, shadowy notion of their features. Seen moving about, far away
in the dim, arched aisles of the Great Bazaar, they look as the
shrouded dead must have looked when they walked forth from their
graves amid the storms and thunders and earthquakes that burst upon
Calvary that awful night of the Crucifixion. A street in
Constantinople is a picture which one ought to see once -- not
oftener.
And then there was the goose-rancher -- a fellow who drove a hundred
geese before him about the city, and tried to sell them. He had a
pole ten feet long, with a crook in the end of it, and occasionally
a goose would branch out from the flock and make a lively break
around the corner, with wings half lifted and neck stretched to its
utmost. Did the goose-merchant get excited? No. He took his pole and
reached after that goose with unspeakable sang froid -- took a hitch
round his neck, and "yanked" him back to his place in the flock
without an effort. He steered his geese with that stick as easily as
another man would steer a yawl. A few hours afterward we saw him
sitting on a stone at a corner, in the midst of the turmoil, sound
asleep in the sun, with his geese squatting around him, or dodging
out of the way of asses and men. We came by again, within the hour,
and he was taking account of stock, to see whether any of his flock
had strayed or been stolen. The way he did it was unique. He put the
end of his stick within six or eight inches of a stone wall, and
made the geese march in single file between it and the wall. He
counted them as they went by. There was no dodging that arrangement.

If you want dwarfs -- I mean just a few dwarfs for a curiosity -- go

to Genoa. If you wish to buy them by the gross, for retail, go to
Milan. There are plenty of dwarfs all over Italy, but it did seem to
me that in Milan the crop was luxuriant. If you would see a fair
average style of assorted cripples, go to Naples, or travel through
the Roman States. But if you would see the very heart and home of
cripples and human monsters, both, go straight to Constantinople. A
beggar in Naples who can show a foot which has all run into one
horrible toe, with one shapeless nail on it, has a fortune -- but
such an exhibition as that would not provoke any notice in
Constantinople. The man would starve. Who would pay any attention to
attractions like his among the rare monsters that throng the bridges
of the Golden Horn and display their deformities in the gutters of
Stamboul? O, wretched impostor! How could he stand against the
three-legged woman, and the man with his eye in his cheek? How would
he blush in presence of the man with fingers on his elbow? Where
would he hide himself when the dwarf with seven fingers on each
hand, no upper lip, and his under-jaw gone, came down in his
majesty? Bismillah! The cripples of Europe are a delusion and a
fraud. The truly gifted flourish only in the by-ways of Pera and
Stamboul.
That three-legged woman lay on the bridge, with her stock in trade
so disposed as to command the most striking effect -- one natural
leg, and two long, slender, twisted ones with feet on them like
somebody else's fore-arm. Then there was a man further along who had
no eyes, and whose face was the color of a fly-blown beefsteak, and
wrinkled and twisted like a lava-flow -- and verily so tumbled and
distorted were his features that no man could tell the wart that
served him for a nose from hischeek-bones. In Stamboul was a man
with a prodigious head, anuncommonly long body, legs eight inches
long and feet like snow-shoes.He traveled on those feet and his
hands, and was as sway-backed as ifthe Colossus of Rhodes had been
riding him. Ah, a beggar has to haveexceedingly good points to make
a living in Constantinople. Ablue-faced man, who had nothing to
offer except that he had been blownup in a mine, would be regarded
as a rank impostor, and a mere damagedsoldier on crutches would
never make a cent. It would pay him to get apiece of his head taken
off, and cultivate a wen like a carpet sack.
The Mosque of St. Sophia is the chief lion of Constantinople. You
must get a firman and hurry there the first thing. We did that. We
did not get a firman, but we took along four or five francs apiece,
which is much the same thing.
I do not think much of the Mosque of St. Sophia. I suppose I lack
appreciation. We will let it go at that. It is the rustiest old barn
in heathendom. I believe all the interest that attaches to it comes
from the fact that it was built for a Christian church and then
turned into a mosque, without much alteration, by the Mohammedan
conquerors of the land. They made me take off my boots and walk into
the place in my stocking-feet. I caught cold, and got myself so
stuck up with a complication of gums, slime and general corruption,
that I wore out more than two thousand pair of boot-jacks getting my
boots off that night, and even then some Christian hide peeled off
with them. I abate not a single boot-jack.
St. Sophia is a colossal church, thirteen or fourteen hundred years
old, and unsightly enough to be very, very much older. Its immense
dome is said to be more wonderful than St. Peter's, but its dirt is
much more wonderful than its dome, though they never mention it. The
church has a hundred and seventy pillars in it, each a single piece,
and all of costly marbles of various kinds, but they came from
ancient temples at Baalbec, Heliopolis, Athens and Ephesus, and are
battered, ugly and repulsive. They were a thousand years old when
this church was new, and then the contrast must have been ghastly --
if Justinian's architects did not trim them any. The inside of the
dome is figured all over with a monstrous inscription in Turkish
characters, wrought in gold mosaic, that looks as glaring as a
circus bill; the pavements and the marble balustrades are all
battered and dirty; the perspective is marred every where by a web
of ropes that depend from the dizzy height of the dome, and suspend
countless dingy, coarse oil lamps, and ostrich-eggs, six or seven
feet above the floor. Squatting and sitting in groups, here and
there and far and near, were ragged Turks reading books, hearing
sermons, or receiving lessons like children. and in fifty places
were more of the same sort bowing and straightening up, bowing again
and getting down to kiss the earth, muttering prayers the while, and
keeping up their gymnastics till they ought to have been tired, if
they were not.
Every where was dirt, and dust, and dinginess, and gloom; every
where were signs of a hoary antiquity, but with nothing touching or
beautiful about it; every where were those groups of fantastic
pagans; overhead the gaudy mosaics and the web of lamp-ropes --
nowhere was there any thing to win one's love or challenge his
admiration.
The people who go into ecstacies over St. Sophia must surely get
them out of the guide-book (where every church is spoken of as being
"considered by good judges to be the most marvelous structure, in
many respects, that the world has ever seen.") Or else they are
those old connoisseurs from the wilds of New Jersey who laboriously
learn the difference between a fresco and a fire-plug and from that
day forward feel privileged to void their critical bathos on
painting, sculpture and architecture forever more.
We visited the Dancing Dervishes. There were twenty-one of them.
They wore a long, light-colored loose robe that hung to their heels.
Each in his turn went up to the priest (they were all within a large
circular railing) and bowed profoundly and then went spinning away
deliriously and took his appointed place in the circle, and
continued to spin. When all had spun themselves to their places,
they were about five or six feet apart -- and so situated, the
entire circle of spinning pagans spun itself three separate times
around the room. It took twenty-five minutes to do it. They spun on
the left foot, and kept themselves going by passing the right
rapidly before it and digging it against the waxed floor. Some of
them made incredible " time." Most of them spun around forty times
in a minute, and one artist averaged about sixty-one times a minute,
and kept it up during the whole twenty-five. His robe filled with
air and stood out all around him like a balloon.
They made no noise of any kind, and most of them tilted their heads
back and closed their eyes, entranced with a sort of devotional
ecstacy. There was a rude kind of music, part of the time, but the
musicians were not visible. None but spinners were allowed within
the circle. A man had to either spin or stay outside. It was about
as barbarous an exhibition as we have witnessed yet. Then sick
persons came and lay down, and beside them women laid their sick
children (one a babe at the breast,) and the patriarch of the
Dervishes walked upon their bodies. He was supposed to cure their
diseases by trampling upon their breasts or backs or standing on the
back of their necks. This is well enough for a people who think all
their affairs are made or marred by viewless spirits of the air --
by giants, gnomes, and genii -- and who still believe, to this day,
all the wild tales in the Arabian Nights. Even so an intelligent
missionary tells me.
We visited the Thousand and One Columns. I do not know what it was
originally intended for, but they said it was built for a reservoir.
It is situated in the centre of Constantinople. You go down a flight
of stone steps in the middle of a barren place, and there you are.
You are forty feet under ground, and in the midst of a perfect
wilderness of tall, slender, granite columns, of Byzantine
architecture. Stand where you would, or change your position as
often as you pleased, you were always a centre from which radiated a
dozen long archways and colonnades that lost themselves in distance
and the sombre twilight of the place. This old dried-up reservoir is
occupied by a few ghostly silk-spinners now, and one of them showed
me a cross cut high up in one of the pillars. I suppose he meant me
to understand that the institution was there before the Turkish
occupation, and I thought he made a remark to that effect; but he
must have had an impediment in his speech, for I did not understand
him.
We took off our shoes and went into the marble mausoleum of the
Sultan Mahmoud, the neatest piece of architecture, inside, that I
have seen lately. Mahmoud's tomb was covered with a black velvet
pall, which was elaborately embroidered with silver; it stood within
a fancy silver railing; at the sides and corners were silver
candlesticks that would weigh more than a hundred pounds, and they
supported candles as large as a man's leg; on the top of the
sarcophagus was a fez, with a handsome diamond ornament upon it,
which an attendant said cost a hundred thousand pounds, and lied
like a Turk when he said it. Mahmoud's whole family were comfortably
planted around him.
We went to the great Bazaar in Stamboul, of course, and I shall not
describe it further than to say it is a monstrous hive of little
shops -- thousands, I should say -- all under one roof, and cut up
into innumerable little blocks by narrow streets which are arched
overhead. One street is devoted to a particular kind of merchandise,
another to another, and so on. When you wish to buy a pair of shoes
you have the swing of the whole street -- you do not have to walk
yourself down hunting stores in different localities. It is the same
with silks, antiquities, shawls, etc. The place is crowded with
people all the time, and as the gay-colored Eastern fabrics are
lavishly displayed before every shop, the great Bazaar of Stamboul
is one of the sights that are worth seeing. It is full of life, and
stir, and business, dirt, beggars, asses, yelling peddlers, porters,
dervishes, high-born Turkish female shoppers, Greeks, and
weird-looking and weirdly dressed Mohammedans from the mountains and
the far provinces -- and the only solitary thing one does not smell
when he is in the Great Bazaar, is something which smells good.
CHAPTER XXXIV

MOSQUES are plenty, churches are plenty, graveyards are plenty, but
morals and whiskey are scarce. The Koran does not permit Mohammedans
to drink. Their natural instincts do not permit them to be moral.
They say the Sultan has eight hundred wives. This almost amounts to
bigamy. It makes our cheeks burn with shame to see such a thing
permitted here in Turkey. We do not mind it so much in Salt Lake,
however.
Circassian and Georgian girls are still sold in Constantinople by
their parents, but not publicly. The great slave marts we have all
read so much about -- where tender young girls were stripped for
inspection, and criticised and discussed just as if they were horses
at an agricultural fair -- no longer exist. The exhibition and the
sales are private now. Stocks are up, just at present, partly
because of a brisk demand created by the recent return of the
Sultan's suite from the courts of Europe; partly on account of an
unusual abundance of bread-stuffs, which leaves holders untortured
by hunger and enables them to hold back for high prices; and partly
because buyers are too weak to bear the market, while sellers are
amply prepared to bull it. Under these circumstances, if the
American metropolitan newspapers were published here in
Constantinople, their next commercial report would read about as
follows, I suppose:
SLAVE GIRL MARKET REPORT.
"Best brands Circassians, crop of 1850, £200; 1852, £250; 1854,
£300. Best
brands Georgian, none in market; second quality, 1851, £180.
Nineteen fair to middling Wallachian girls offered at £130 @ 150,
but no takers; sixteen prime
A 1 sold in small lots to close out -- terms private.
"Sales of one lot Circassians, prime to good, 1852 to 1854, at £240
@ 242 1/2,
buyer 30; one forty-niner -- damaged -- at £23, seller ten, no
deposit.
Several Georgians, fancy brands, 1852, changed hands to fill orders.
The
Georgians now on hand are mostly last year's crop, which was
unusually poor.
The new crop is a little backward, but will be coming in shortly. As
regards
its quantity and quality, the accounts are most encouraging. In this

connection we can safely say, also, that the new crop of Circassians
is
looking extremely well. His Majesty the Sultan has already sent in
large
orders for his new harem, which will be finished within a fortnight,
and this
has naturally strengthened the market and given Circassian stock a
strong
upward tendency. Taking advantage of the inflated market, many of
our
shrewdest operators are selling short. There are hints of a "corner"
on
Wallachians.
"There is nothing new in Nubians. Slow sale.
"Eunuchs -- None offering; however, large cargoes are expected from
Egypt
today."
I think the above would be about the style of the commercial report.
Prices are pretty high now, and holders firm; but, two or three
years ago, parents in a starving condition brought their young
daughters down here and sold them for even twenty and thirty
dollars, when they could do no better, simply to save themselves and
the girls from dying of want. It is sad to think of so distressing a
thing as this, and I for one am sincerely glad the prices are up
again.
Commercial morals, especially, are bad. There is no gainsaying that.
Greek, Turkish and Armenian morals consist only in attending church
regularly on the appointed Sabbaths, and in breaking the ten
commandments all the balance of the week. It comes natural to them
to lie and cheat in the first place, and then they go on and improve
on nature until they arrive at perfection. In recommending his son
to a merchant as a valuable salesman, a father does not say he is a
nice, moral, upright boy, and goes to Sunday School and is honest,
but he says, "This boy is worth his weight in broad pieces of a
hundred -- for behold, he will cheat whomsoever hath dealings with
him, and from the Euxine to the waters of Marmora there abideth not
so gifted a liar!" How is that for a recommendation? The
Missionaries tell me that they hear encomiums like that passed upon
people every day. They say of a person they admire, "Ah, he is a
charming swindler, and a most exquisite liar!"
Every body lies and cheats -- every body who is in business, at any
rate. Even foreigners soon have to come down to the custom of the
country, and they do not buy and sell long in Constantinople till
they lie and cheat like a Greek. I say like a Greek, because the
Greeks are called the worst transgressors in this line. Several
Americans long resident in Constantinople contend that most Turks
are pretty trustworthy, but few claim that the Greeks have any
virtues that a man can discover -- at least without a fire assay.
I am half willing to believe that the celebrated dogs of
Constantinople have been misrepresented -- slandered. I have always
been led to suppose that they were so thick in the streets that they
blocked the way; that they moved about in organized companies,
platoons and regiments, and took what they wanted by determined and
ferocious assault; and that at night they drowned all other sounds
with their terrible howlings. The dogs I see here can not be those I
have read of.
I find them every where, but not in strong force. The most I have
found together has been about ten or twenty. And night or day a fair
proportion of them were sound asleep. Those that were not asleep
always looked as if they wanted to be. I never saw such utterly
wretched, starving, sad-visaged, broken-hearted looking curs in my
life. It seemed a grim satire to accuse such brutes as these of
taking things by force of arms. They hardly seemed to have strength
enough or ambition enough to walk across the street -- I do not know
that I have seen one walk that far yet. They are mangy and bruised
and mutilated, and often you see one with the hair singed off him in
such wide and well defined tracts that he looks like a map of the
new Territories. They are the sorriest beasts that breathe -- the
most abject -- the most pitiful. In their faces is a settled
expression of melancholy, an air of hopeless despondency. The
hairless patches on a scalded dog are preferred by the fleas of
Constantinople to a wider range on a healthier dog; and the exposed
places suit the fleas exactly. I saw a dog of this kind start to
nibble at a flea -- a fly attracted his attention, and he made a
snatch at him; the flea called for him once more, and that forever
unsettled him; he looked sadly at his flea-pasture, then sadly
looked at his bald spot. Then he heaved a sigh and dropped his head
resignedly upon his paws. He was not equal to the situation.
The dogs sleep in the streets, all over the city. From one end of
the street to the other, I suppose they will average about eight or
ten to a block. Sometimes, of course, there are fifteen or twenty to
a block. They do not belong to any body, and they seem to have no
close personal friendships among each other. But they district the
city themselves, and the dogs of each district, whether it be half a
block in extent, or ten blocks, have to remain within its bounds.
Woe to a dog if he crosses the line! His neighbors would snatch the
balance of his hair off in a second. So it is said. But they don't
look it.
They sleep in the streets these days. They are my compass -- my
guide. When I see the dogs sleep placidly on, while men, sheep,
geese, and all moving things turn out and go around them, I know I
am not in the great street where the hotel is, and must go further.
In the Grand Rue the dogs have a sort of air of being on the lookout
-- an air born of being obliged to get out of the way of many
carriages every day -- and that expression one recognizes in a
moment. It does not exist upon the face of any dog without the
confines of that street. All others sleep placidly and keep no
watch. They would not move, though the Sultan himself passed by.
In one narrow street (but none of them are wide) I saw three dogs
lying coiled up, about a foot or two apart. End to end they lay, and
so they just bridged the street neatly, from gutter to gutter. A
drove of a hundred sheep came along. They stepped right over the
dogs, the rear crowding the front, impatient to get on. The dogs
looked lazily up, flinched a little when the impatient feet of the
sheep touched their raw backs -- sighed, and lay peacefully down
again. No talk could be plainer than that. So some of the sheep
jumped over them and others scrambled between, occasionally chipping
a leg with their sharp hoofs, and when the whole flock had made the
trip, the dogs sneezed a little, in the cloud of dust, but never
budged their bodies an inch. I thought I was lazy, but I am a
steam-engine compared to a Constantinople dog. But was not that a
singular scene for a city of a million inhabitants?
These dogs are the scavengers of the city. That is their official
position, and a hard one it is. However, it is their protection. But
for their usefulness in partially cleansing these terrible streets,
they would not be tolerated long. They eat any thing and every thing
that comes in their way, from melon rinds and spoiled grapes up
through all the grades and species of dirt and refuse to their own
dead friends and relatives -- and yet they are always lean, always
hungry, always despondent. The people are loath to kill them -- do
not kill them, in fact. The Turks have an innate antipathy to taking
the life of any dumb animal, it is said. But they do worse. They
hang and kick and stone and scald these wretched creatures to the
very verge of death, and then leave them to live and suffer.
Once a Sultan proposed to kill off all the dogs here, and did begin
the work -- but the populace raised such a howl of horror about it
that the massacre was stayed. After a while, he proposed to remove
them all to an island in the Sea of Marmora. No objection was
offered, and a ship-load or so was taken away. But when it came to
be known that somehow or other the dogs never got to the island, but
always fell overboard in the night and perished, another howl was
raised and the transportation scheme was dropped.
So the dogs remain in peaceable possession of the streets. I do not
say that they do not howl at night, nor that they do not attack
people who have not a red fez on their heads. I only say that it
would be mean for me to accuse them of these unseemly things who
have not seen them do them with my own eyes or heard them with my
own ears.
I was a little surprised to see Turks and Greeks playing newsboy
right here in the mysterious land where the giants and genii of the
Arabian Nights once dwelt -- where winged horses and hydra-headed
dragons guarded enchanted castles -- where Princes and Princesses
flew through the air on carpets that obeyed a mystic talisman --
where cities whose houses were made of precious stones sprang up in
a night under the hand of the magician, and where busy marts were
suddenly stricken with a spell and each citizen lay or sat, or stood
with weapon raised or foot advanced, just as he was, speechless and
motionless, till time had told a hundred years!
It was curious to see newsboys selling papers in so dreamy a land as
that. And, to say truly, it is comparatively a new thing here. The
selling of newspapers had its birth in Constantinople about a year
ago, and was a child of the Prussian and Austrian war.
There is one paper published here in the English language -- The
Levant Herald -- and there are generally a number of Greek and a few
French papers rising and falling, struggling up and falling again.
Newspapers are not popular with the Sultan's Government. They do not
understand journalism. The proverb says, "The unknown is always
great." To the court, the newspaper is a mysterious and rascally
institution. They know what a pestilence is, because they have one
occasionally that thins the people out at the rate of two thousand a
day, and they regard a newspaper as a mild form of pestilence. When
it goes astray, they suppress it -- pounce upon it without warning,
and throttle it. When it don't go astray for a long time, they get
suspicious and throttle it anyhow, because they think it is hatching
deviltry. Imagine the Grand Vizier in solemn council with the
magnates of the realm, spelling his way through the hated newspaper,
and finally delivering his profound decision: "This thing means
mischief -- it is too darkly, too suspiciously inoffensive --
suppress it! Warn the publisher that we can not have this sort of
thing: put the editor in prison!"
The newspaper business has its inconveniences in Constantinople. Two
Greek papers and one French one were suppressed here within a few
days of each other. No victories of the Cretans are allowed to be
printed. From time to time the Grand Vizier sends a notice to the
various editors that the Cretan insurrection is entirely suppressed,
and although that editor knows better, he still has to print the
notice. The Levant Herald is too fond of speaking praisefully of
Americans to be popular with the Sultan, who does not relish our
sympathy with the Cretans, and therefore that paper has to be
particularly circumspect in order to keep out of trouble. Once the
editor, forgetting the official notice in his paper that the Cretans
were crushed out, printed a letter of a very different tenor, from
the American Consul in Crete, and was fined two hundred and fifty
dollars for it. Shortly he printed another from the same source and
was imprisoned three months for his pains. I think I could get the
assistant editorship of the Levant Herald, but I am going to try to
worry along without it.
To suppress a paper here involves the ruin of the publisher, almost.
But in Naples I think they speculate on misfortunes of that kind.
Papers are suppressed there every day, and spring up the next day
under a new name. During the ten days or a fortnight we staid there
one paper was murdered and resurrected twice. The newsboys are smart
there, just as they are elsewhere. They take advantage of popular
weaknesses. When they find they are not likely to sell out, they
approach a citizen mysteriously, and say in a low voice -- "Last
copy, sir: double price; paper just been suppressed!" The man buys
it, of course, and finds nothing in it. They do say -- I do not
vouch for it -- but they do say that men sometimes print a vast
edition of a paper, with a ferociously seditious article in it,
distribute it quickly among the newsboys, and clear out till the
Government's indignation cools. It pays well. Confiscation don't
amount to any thing. The type and presses are not worth taking care
of.
There is only one English newspaper in Naples. It has seventy
subscribers. The publisher is getting rich very deliberately -- very
deliberately indeed.
I never shall want another Turkish lunch. The cooking apparatus was
in the little lunch room, near the bazaar, and it was all open to
the street. The cook was slovenly, and so was the table, and it had
no cloth on it. The fellow took a mass of sausage meat and coated it
round a wire and laid it on a charcoal fire to cook. When it was
done, he laid it aside and a dog walked sadly in and nipped it. He
smelt it first, and probably recognized the remains of a friend. The
cook took it away from him and laid it before us. Jack said, "I
pass" -- he plays euchre sometimes -- and we all passed in turn.
Then the cook baked a broad, flat, wheaten cake, greased it well
with the sausage, and started towards us with it. It dropped in the
dirt, and he picked it up and polished it on his breeches, and laid
it before u s. Jack said, "I pass." We all passed. He put some eggs
in a frying pan, and stood pensively prying slabs of meat from
between his teeth with a fork. Then he used the fork to turn the
eggs with -- and brought them along. Jack said "Pass again." All
followed suit. We did not know what to do, and so we ordered a new
ration of sausage. The cook got out his wire, apportioned a proper
amount of sausage-meat, spat it on his hands and fell to work! This
time, with one accord, we all passed out. We paid and left . That is
all I learned about Turkish lunches. A Turkish lunch is good, no
doubt, but it has its little drawbacks.
When I think how I have been swindled by books of Oriental travel, I
want a tourist for breakfast. For years and years I have dreamed of
the wonders of the Turkish bath; for years and years I have promised
myself that I would yet enjoy one. Many and many a time, in fancy, I
have lain in the marble bath, and breathed the slumbrous fragrance
of Eastern spices that filled the air; then passed through a weird
and complicated system of pulling and hauling, and drenching and
scrubbing, by a gang of naked savages who loomed vast and vaguely
through the steaming mists, like demons; then rested for a while on
a divan fit for a king; then passed through another complex ordeal,
and one more fearful than the first; and, finally, swathed in soft
fabrics, been conveyed to a princely saloon and laid on a bed of
eider down, where eunuchs, gorgeous of costume, fanned me while I
drowsed and dreamed, or contentedly gazed at the rich hangings of
the apartment, the soft carpets, the sumptuous furniture, the
pictures, and drank delicious coffee, smoked the soothing narghili,
and dropped, at the last, into tranquil repose, lulled by sensuous
odors from unseen censers, by the gentle influence of the narghili's
Persian tobacco, and by the music of fountains that counterfeited
the pattering of summer rain.
That was the picture, just as I got it from incendiary books of
travel. It was a poor, miserable imposture. The reality is no more
like it than the Five Points are like the Garden of Eden. They
received me in a great court, paved with marble slabs; around it
were broad galleries, one above another, carpeted with seedy
matting, railed with unpainted balustrades, and furnished with huge
rickety chairs, cushioned with rusty old mattresses, indented with
impressions left by the forms of nine successive generations of men
who had reposed upon them. The place was vast, naked, dreary; its
court a barn, its galleries stalls for human horses. The cadaverous,
half nude varlets that served in the establishment had nothing of
poetry in their appearance, nothing of romance, nothing of Oriental
splendor. They shed no entrancing odors -- just the contrary. Their
hungry eyes and their lank forms continually suggested one glaring,
unsentimental fact -- they wanted what they term in California "a
square meal."
I went into one of the racks and undressed. An unclean starveling
wrapped a gaudy table-cloth about his loins, and hung a white rag
over my shoulders. If I had had a tub then, it would have come
natural to me to take in washing. I was then conducted down stairs
into the wet, slippery court, and the first things that attracted my
attention were my heels. My fall excited no comment. They expected
it, no doubt. It belonged in the list of softening, sensuous
influences peculiar to this home of Eastern luxury. It was softening
enough, certainly, but its application was not happy. They now gave
me a pair of wooden clogs -- benches in miniature, with leather
straps over them to confine my feet (which they would have done,
only I do not wear No. 13s.) These things dangled uncomfortably by
the straps when I lifted up my feet, and came down in awkward and
unexpected places when I put them on the floor again, and sometimes
turned sideways and wrenched my ankles out of joint. However, it was
all Oriental luxury, and I did what I could to enjoy it.
They put me in another part of the barn and laid me on a stuffy sort
of pallet, which was not made of cloth of gold, or Persian shawls,
but was merely the unpretending sort of thing I have seen in the
negro quarters of Arkansas. There was nothing whatever in this dim
marble prison but five more of these biers. It was a very solemn
place. I expected that the spiced odors of Araby were going to steal
over my senses now, but they did not. A copper-colored skeleton,
with a rag around him, brought me a glass decanter of water, with a
lighted tobacco pipe in the top of it, and a pliant stem a yard
long, with a brass mouth-piece to it.
It was the famous "narghili" of the East -- the thing the Grand Turk
smokes in the pictures. This began to look like luxury. I took one
blast at it, and it was sufficient; the smoke went in a great volume
down into my stomach, my lungs, even into the uttermost parts of my
frame. I exploded one mighty cough, and it was as if Vesuvius had
let go. For the next five minutes I smoked at every pore, like a
frame house that is on fire on the inside. Not any more narghili for
me. The smoke had a vile taste, and the taste of a thousand infidel
tongues that remained on that brass mouthpiece was viler still. I
was getting discouraged. Whenever, hereafter, I see the cross-legged
Grand Turk smoking his narghili, in pretended bliss, on the outside
of a paper of Connecticut tobacco, I shall know him for the
shameless humbug he is.
This prison was filled with hot air. When I had got warmed up
sufficiently to prepare me for a still warmer temperature, they took
me where it was -- into a marble room, wet, slippery and steamy, and
laid me out on a raised platform in the centre. It was very warm.
Presently my man sat me down by a tank of hot water, drenched me
well, gloved his hand with a coarse mitten, and began to polish me
all over with it. I began to smell disgreeably. Note: correct
spelling should be: disagreeably The more he polished the worse I
smelt. It was alarming. I said to him:
"I perceive that I am pretty far gone. It is plain that I ought to
be buried without any unnecessary delay. Perhaps you had better go
after my friends at once, because the weather is warm, and I can not
'keep' long."'
He went on scrubbing, and paid no attention. I soon saw that he was
reducing my size. He bore hard on his mitten, and from under it
rolled little cylinders, like maccaroni. It could not be dirt, for
it was too white. He pared me down in this way for a long time.
Finally I said:
"It is a tedious process. It will take hours to trim me to the size
you want me; I will wait; go and borrow a jack-plane."
He paid no attention at all.
After a while he brought a basin, some soap, and something that
seemed to be the tail of a horse. He made up a prodigious quantity
of soap-suds, deluged me with them from head to foot, without
warning me to shut my eyes, and then swabbed me viciously with the
horse-tail. Then he left me there, a snowy statue of lather, and
went away. When I got tired of waiting I went and hunted him up. He
was propped against the wall, in another room, asleep. I woke him.
He was not disconcerted. He took me back and flooded me with hot
water, then turbaned my head, swathed me with dry table-cloths, and
conducted me to a latticed chicken-coop in one of the galleries, and
pointed to one of those Arkansas beds. I mounted it, and vaguely
expected the odors of Araby a gain. They did not come.
The blank, unornamented coop had nothing about it of that oriental
voluptuousness one reads of so much. It was more suggestive of the
county hospital than any thing else. The skinny servitor brought a
narghili, and I got him to take it out again without wasting any
time about it. Then he brought the world-renowned Turkish coffee
that poets have sung so rapturously for many generations, and I
seized upon it as the last hope that was left of my old dreams of
Eastern luxury. It was another fraud. Of all the unchristian
beverages that ever passed my lips, Turkish coffee is the worst. The
cup is small, it is smeared with grounds; the coffee is black,
thick, unsavory of smell, and execrable in taste. The bottom of the
cup has a muddy sediment in it half an inch deep. This goes down
your throat, and portions of it lodge by the way, and produce a
tickling aggravation that keeps you barking and coughing for an
hour.
Here endeth my experience of the celebrated Turkish bath, and here
also endeth my dream of the bliss the mortal revels in who passes
through it. It is a malignant swindle. The man who enjoys it is
qualified to enjoy any thing that is repulsive to sight or sense,
and he that can invest it with a charm of poetry is able to do the
same with any thing else in the world that is tedious, and wretched,
and dismal, and nasty.
CHAPTER XXXV

WE left a dozen passengers in Constantinople, and sailed through the

beautiful Bosporus and far up into the Black Sea. We left them in
the clutches of the celebrated Turkish guide, "FAR-AWAY MOSES," who
will seduce them into buying a ship-load of ottar of roses, splendid
Turkish vestments, and ail manner of curious things they can never
have any use for. Murray's invaluable guide-books have mentioned
Far-away Moses' name, and he is a made man. He rejoices daily in the
fact that he is a recognized celebrity. However, we can not alter
our established customs to please the whims of guides; we can not
show partialities this late in the day. Therefore, ignoring this
fellow's brilliant fame, and ignoring the fanciful name he takes
such pride in, we called him Ferguson, just as we had done with all
other guides. It has kept him in a state of smothered exasperation
all the time. Yet we meant him no harm. After he has gotten himself
up regardless of expense, in showy, baggy trowsers, yellow, pointed
slippers, fiery fez, silken jacket of blue, voluminous waist-sash of
fancy Persian stuff filled with a battery of silver-mounted
horse-pistols, and has strapped on his terrible scimetar, he
considers it an unspeakable humiliation to be called Ferguson. It
can not be helped. All guides are Fergusons to us. We can not master
their dreadful foreign names.
Sebastopol is probably the worst battered town in Russia or any
where else. But we ought to be pleased with it, nevertheless, for we
have been in no country yet where we have been so kindly received,
and where we felt that to be Americans was a sufficient visé for our
passports. The moment the anchor was down, the Governor of the town
immediately dispatched an officer on board to inquire if he could be
of any assistance to us, and to invite us to make ourselves at home
in Sebastopol! If you know Russia, you know that this was a wild
stretch of hospitality. They are usually so suspicious of strangers
that they worry them excessively with the delays and aggravations
incident to a complicated passport system. Had we come from any
other country we could not have had permission to enter Sebastopol
and leave again under three days -- but as it was, we were at
liberty to go and come when and where we pleased. Every body in
Constantinople warned us to be very careful about our passports, see
that they were strictly en regle, and never to mislay them for a
moment: and they told us of numerous instances of Englishmen and
others who were delayed days, weeks, and even months, in Sebastopol,
on account of trifling informalities in their passports, and for
which they were not to blame. I had lost my passport, and was
traveling under my room-mate's, who stayed behind in Constantinople
to await our return. To read the description of him in that passport
and then look at me, any man could see that I was no more like him
than I am like Hercules. So I went into the harbor of Sebastopol
with fear and trembling -- full of a vague, horrible apprehension
that I was going to be found out and hanged. But all that time my
true passport had been floating gallantly overhead -- and behold it
was only our flag. They never asked us for any other.
We have had a great many Russian and English gentlemen and ladies on
board to-day, and the time has passed cheerfully away. They were all
happy-spirited people, and I never heard our mother tongue sound so
pleasantly as it did when it fell from those English lips in this
far-off land. I talked to the Russians a good deal, just to be
friendly, and they talked to me from the same motive; I am sure that
both enjoyed the conversation, but never a word of it either of us
understood. I did most of my talking to those English people though,
and I am sorry we can not carry some of them along with us.
We have gone whithersoever we chose, to-day, and have met with
nothing but the kindest attentions. Nobody inquired whether we had
any passports or not.
Several of the officers of the Government have suggested that we
take the ship to a little watering-place thirty miles from here, and
pay the Emperor of Russia a visit. He is rusticating there. These
officers said they would take it upon themselves to insure us a
cordial reception. They said if we would go, they would not only
telegraph the Emperor, but send a special courier overland to
announce our coming. Our time is so short, though, and more
especially our coal is so nearly out, that we judged it best to
forego the rare pleasure of holding social intercourse with an
Emperor.
Ruined Pompeii is in good condition compared to Sebastopol. Here,
you may look in whatsoever direction you please, and your eye
encounters scarcely any thing but ruin, ruin, ruin! -- fragments of
houses, crumbled walls, torn and ragged hills, devastation every
where! It is as if a mighty earthquake had spent all its terrible
forces upon this one little spot. For eighteen long months the
storms of war beat upon the helpless town, and left it at last the
saddest wreck that ever the sun has looked upon. Not one solitary
house escaped unscathed -- not one remained habitable, even. Such
utter and complete ruin one could hardly conceive of. The houses had
all been solid, dressed stone structures; most of them were ploughed
through and through by cannon balls -- unroofed and sliced down from
eaves to foundation -- and now a row of them, half a mile long,
looks merely like an endless procession of battered chimneys. No
semblance of a house remains in such as these. Some of the larger
buildings had corners knocked off; pillars cut in two; cornices
smashed; holes driven straight through the walls. Many of these
holes are as round and as cleanly cut as if they had been made with
an auger. Others are half pierced through, and the clean impression
is there in the rock, as smooth and as shapely as if it were done in
putty. Here and there a ball still sticks in a wall, and from it
iron tears trickle down and discolor the stone.
The battle-fields were pretty close together. The Malakoff tower is
on a hill which is right in the edge of the town. The Redan was
within rifle-shot of the Malakoff; Inkerman was a mile away; and
Balaklava removed but an hour's ride. The French trenches, by which
they approached and invested the Malakoff were carried so close
under its sloping sides that one might have stood by the Russian
guns and tossed a stone into them. Repeatedly, during three terrible
days, they swarmed up the little Malakoff hill, and were beaten back
with terrible slaughter. Finally, they captured the place, and drove
the Russians out, who then tried to retreat into the town, but the
English had taken the Redan, and shut them off with a wall of flame;
there was nothing for them to do but go back and retake the Malakoff
or die under its guns. They did go back; they took the Malakoff and
retook it two or three times, but their desperate valor could not
avail, and they had to give up at last.
These fearful fields, where such tempests of death used to rage, are
peaceful enough now; no sound is heard, hardly a living thing moves
about them, they are lonely and silent -- their desolation is
complete.
There was nothing else to do, and so every body went to hunting
relics. They have stocked the ship with them. They brought them from
the Malakoff, from the Redan, Inkerman, Balaklava -- every where.
They have brought cannon balls, broken ramrods, fragments of shell
-- iron enough to freight a sloop. Some have even brought bones --
brought them laboriously from great distances, and were grieved to
hear the surgeon pronounce them only bones of mules and oxen. I knew
Blucher would not lose an opportunity like this. He brought a sack
full on board and was going for another. I prevailed upon him not to
go. He has already turned his state-room into a museum of worthless
trumpery, which he has gathered up in his travels. He is labeling
his trophies, now. I picked up one a while ago, and found it marked
"Fragment of a Russian General." I carried it out to get a better
light upon it -- it was nothing but a couple of teeth and part of
the jaw-bone of a horse. I said with some asperity:
"Fragment of a Russian General! This is absurd. Are you never going
to learn any sense?"
He only said: "Go slow -- the old woman won't know any different."
[His aunt.]
This person gathers mementoes with a perfect recklessness,
now-a-days; mixes them all up together, and then serenely labels
them without any regard to truth, propriety, or even plausibility. I
have found him breaking a stone in two, and labeling half of it
"Chunk busted from the pulpit of Demosthenes," and the other half
"Darnick from the Tomb of Abelard and Heloise." I have known him to
gather up a handful of pebbles by the roadside, and bring them on
board ship and label them as coming from twenty celebrated
localities five hundred miles apart. I remonstrate against these
outrages upon reason and truth, of course, but it does no good. I
get the same tranquil, unanswerable reply every time:
"It don't signify -- the old woman won't know any different."
Ever since we three or four fortunate ones made the midnight trip to
Athens, it has afforded him genuine satisfaction to give every body
in the ship a pebble from the Mars-hill where St. Paul preached. He
got all those pebbles on the sea shore, abreast the ship, but
professes to have gathered them from one of our party. However, it
is not of any use for me to expose the deception -- it affords him
pleasure, and does no harm to any body. He says he never expects to
run out of mementoes of St. Paul as long as he is in reach of a
sand-bank. Well, he is no worse than others. I notice that all
travelers supply deficiencies in their collections in the same way.
I shall never have any confidence in such things again while I live.
CHAPTER XXXVI

WE have got so far east, now -- a hundred and fifty-five degrees of

longitude from San Francisco -- that my watch can not "keep the
hang" of the time any more. It has grown discouraged, and stopped. I
think it did a wise thing. The difference in time between Sebastopol
and the Pacific coast is enormous. When it is six o'clock in the
morning here, it is somewhere about week before last in California.
We are excusable for getting a little tangled as to time. These
distractions and distresses about the time have worried me so much
that I was afraid my mind was so much affected that I never would
have any appreciation of time again; but when I noticed how handy I
was yet about comprehending when it was dinner-time, a blessed
tranquillity settled down upon me, and I am tortured with doubts and
fears no more.
Odessa is about twenty hours' run from Sebastopol, and is the most
northerly port in the Black Sea. We came here to get coal,
principally. The city has a population of one hundred and
thirty-three thousand, and is growing faster than any other small
city out of America. It is a free port, and is the great grain mart
of this particular part of the world. Its roadstead is full of
ships. Engineers are at work, now, turning the open roadstead into a
spacious artificial harbor. It is to be almost inclosed by massive
stone piers, one of which will extend into the sea over three
thousand feet in a straight line.
I have not felt so much at home for a long time as I did when I
"raised the hill" and stood in Odessa for the first time. It looked
just like an American city; fine, broad streets, and straight as
well; low houses, (two or three stories,) wide, neat, and free from
any quaintness of architectural ornamentation; locust trees
bordering the sidewalks (they call them acacias;) a stirring,
business-look about the streets and the stores; fast walkers; a
familiar new look about the houses and every thing; yea, and a
driving and smothering cloud of dust that was so like a message from
our own dear native land that we could hardly refrain from shedding
a few grateful tears and execrations in the old time-honored
American way. Look up the street or down the street, this way or
that way, we saw only America! There was not one thing to remind us
that we were in Russia. We walked for some little distance, reveling
in this home vision, and then we came upon a church and a
hack-driver, and presto! the illusion vanished! The church had a
slender-spired dome that rounded inward at its base, and looked like
a turnip turned upside down, and the hackman seemed to be dressed in
a long petticoat with out any hoops. These things were essentially
foreign, and so were the carriages -- but every body knows about
these things, and there is no occasion for my describing them.
We were only to stay here a day and a night and take in coal; we
consulted the guide-books and were rejoiced to know that there were
no sights in Odessa to see; and so we had one good, untrammeled
holyday on our hands, with nothing to do but idle about the city and
enjoy ourselves. We sauntered through the markets and criticised the
fearful and wonderful costumes from the back country; examined the
populace as far as eyes could do it; and closed the entertainment
with an ice-cream debauch. We do not get ice-cream every where, and
so, when we do, we are apt to dissipate to excess. We never cared
any thing about ice-cream at home, but we look upon it with a sort
of idolatry now that it is so scarce in these red-hot climates of
the East.
We only found two pieces of statuary, and this was another blessing.
One was a bronze image of the Duc de Richelieu, grand-nephew of the
splendid Cardinal. It stood in a spacious, handsome promenade,
overlooking the sea, and from its base a vast flight of stone steps
led down to the harbor -- two hundred of them, fifty feet long, and
a wide landing at the bottom of every twenty. It is a noble
staircase, and from a distance the people toiling up it looked like
insects. I mention this statue and this stairway because they have
their story. Richelieu founded Odessa -- watched over it with
paternal care -- labored with a fertile brain and a wise
understanding for its best interests -- spent his fortune freely to
the same end -- endowed it with a sound prosperity, and one which
will yet make it one of the great cities of the Old World -- built
this noble stairway with money from his own private purse -- and --
. Well, the people for whom he had done so much, let him walk down
these same steps, one day, unattended, old, poor, without a second
coat to his back; and when, years afterwards, he died in Sebastopol
in poverty and neglect, they called a meeting, subscribed liberally,
and immediately erected this tasteful monument to his memory, and
named a great street after him. It reminds me of what Robert Burns'
mother said when they erected a stately monument to his memory: "Ah,
Robbie, ye asked them for bread and they hae gi'en ye a stane."
The people of Odessa have warmly recommended us to go and call on
the Emperor, as did the Sebastopolians. They have telegraphed his
Majesty, and he has signified his willingness to grant us an
audience. So we are getting up the anchors and preparing to sail to
his watering-place. What a scratching around there will be, now!
what a holding of important meetings and appointing of solemn
committees! -- and what a furbishing up of claw-hammer coats and
white silk neck-ties! As this fearful ordeal we are about to pass
through pictures itself to my fancy in all its dread sublimity, I
begin to feel my fierce desire to converse with a genuine Emperor
cooling down and passing away. What am I to do with my hands? What
am I to do with my feet? What in the world am I to do with myself?
CHAPTER XXXVII

WE anchored here at Yalta, Russia, two or three days ago. To me the

place was a vision of the Sierras. The tall, gray mountains that
back it, their sides bristling with pines -- cloven with ravines --
here and there a hoary rock towering into view -- long, straight
streaks sweeping down from the summit to the sea, marking the
passage of some avalanche of former times -- all these were as like
what one sees in the Sierras as if the one were a portrait of the
other. The little village of Yalta nestles at the foot of an
amphitheatre which slopes backward and upward to the wall of hills,
and looks as if it might have sunk quietly down to its present
position from a higher elevation. This depression is covered with
the great parks and gardens of noblemen, and through the mass of
green foliage the bright colors of their palaces bud out here and
there like flowers. It is a beautiful spot.
We had the United States Consul on board -- the Odessa Consul. We
assembled in the cabin and commanded him to tell us what we must do
to be saved, and tell us quickly. He made a speech. The first thing
he said fell like a blight on every hopeful spirit: he had never
seen a court reception. (Three groans for the Consul.) But he said
he had seen receptions at the GovernorGeneral's in Odessa, and had
often listened to people's experiences of receptions at the Russian
and other courts, and believed he knew very well what sort of ordeal
we were about to essay. (Hope budded again.) He said we were many;
the summerpalace was small -- a mere mansion; doubtless we should
be received in summer fashion -- in the garden; we would stand in a
row, all the gentlemen in swallowtail coats, white kids, and white
neckties, and the ladies in lightcolored silks, or something of
that kind; at the proper moment -- 12 meridian -- the Emperor,
attended by his suite arrayed in splendid uniforms, would appear and
walk slowly along the line, bowing to some, and saying two or three
words to others. At the moment his Majesty appeared, a universal,
delighted, enthusiastic smile ought to break out like a rash among
the passengers -- a smile of love, of gratification, of admiration
-- and with one accord, the party must begin to bow -- not
obsequiously, but respectfully, and with dignity; at the end of
fifteen minutes the Emperor would go in the house, and we could run
along home again. We felt immensely relieved. It seemed, in a
manner, easy. There was not a man in the party but believed that
with a little practice he could stand in a row, especially if there
were others along; there was not a man but believed he could bow
without tripping on his coat tail and breaking his neck; in a word,
we came to believe we were equal to any item in the performance
except that complicated smile. The Consul also said we ought to
draft a little address to the Emperor, and present it to one of his
aidesdecamp, who would forward it to him at the proper time.
Therefore, five gentlemen were appointed to prepare the document,
and the fifty others went sadly smiling about the ship --
practicing. During the next twelve hours we had the general
appearance, somehow, of being at a funeral, where every body was
sorry the death had occurred, but glad it was over -- where every
body was smiling, and yet broken-hearted.
A committee went ashore to wait on his Excellency the
GovernorGeneral, and learn our fate. At the end of three hours of
boding suspense, they came back and said the Emperor would receive
us at noon the next day -- would send carriages for us -- would hear
the address in person. The Grand Duke Michael had sent to invite us
to his palace also. Any man could see that there was an intention
here to show that Russia's friendship for America was so genuine as
to render even her private citizens objects worthy of kindly
attentions.
At the appointed hour we drove out three miles, and assembled in the
handsome garden in front of the Emperor's palace.
We formed a circle under the trees before the door, for there was no
one room in the house able to accommodate our three. score persons
comfortably, and in a few minutes the imperial family came out
bowing and smiling, and stood in our midst. A number of great
dignitaries of the Empire, in undress unit forms, came with them.
With every bow, his Majesty said a word of welcome. I copy these
speeches. There is character in them -- Russian character -- which
is politeness itself, and the genuine article. The French are
polite, but it is often mere ceremonious politeness. A Russian
imbues his polite things with a heartiness, both of phrase and
expression, that compels belief in their sincerity. As I was saying,
the Czar punctuated his speeches with bows:
" Good morning -- I am glad to see you -- I am gratified -- I am
delighted -- I am happy to receive you!"
All took off their hats, and the Consul inflicted the address on
him. He bore it with unflinching fortitude; then took the
rustylooking document and handed it to some great officer or other,
to be filed away among the archives of Russia -- in the stove. He
thanked us for the address, and said he was very much pleased to see
us, especially as such friendly relations existed between Russia and
the United States. The Empress said the Americans were favorites in
Russia, and she hoped the Russians were similarly regarded in
America. These were all the speeches that were made, and I recommend
them to parties who present policemen with gold watches, as models
of brevity and point. After this the Empress went and talked
sociably (for an Empress) with various ladies around the circle;
several gentlemen entered into a disjointed general conversation
with the Emperor; the Dukes and Princes, Admirals and Maids of Honor
dropped into free-andeasy chat with first one and then another of
our party, and whoever chose stepped forward and spoke with the
modest little Grand Duchess Marie, the Czar's daughter. She is
fourteen years old, lighthaired, blueeyed, unassuming and pretty.
Every body talks English.
The Emperor wore a cap, frock coat and pantaloons, all of some kind
of plain white drilling -- cotton or linen and sported no jewelry or
any insignia whatever of rank. No costume could be less
ostentatious. He is very tall and spare, and a determinedlooking
man, though a very pleasantlooking one nevertheless. It is easy to
see that he is kind and affectionate There is something very noble
in his expression when his cap is off. There is none of that cunning
in his eye that all of us noticed in Louis Napoleon's.
The Empress and the little Grand Duchess wore simple suits of
foulard (or foulard silk, I don't know which is proper,) with a
small blue spot in it; the dresses were trimmed with blue; both
ladies wore broad blue sashes about their waists; linen collars and
clerical ties of muslin; lowcrowned strawhats trimmed with blue
velvet; parasols and fleshcolored gloves The Grand Duchess had no
heels on her shoes. I do not know this of my own knowledge, but one
of our ladies told me so. I was not looking at her shoes. I was glad
to observe that she wore her own hair, plaited in thick braids
against the back of her head, instead of the uncomely thing they
call a waterfall, which is about as much like a waterfall as a
canvascovered ham is Like a cataract. Taking the kind expression
that is in the Emperor's face and the gentleness that is in his
young daughter's into consideration, I wondered if it would not tax
the Czar's firmness to the utmost to condemn a supplicating wretch
to misery in the wastes of Siberia if she pleaded for him. Every
time their eyes met, I saw more and more what a tremendous power
that weak, diffident schoolgirl could wield if she chose to do it.
Many and many a time she might rule the Autocrat of Russia, whose
lightest word is law to seventy millions of human beings She was
only a girl, and she looked like a thousand others I have seen, but
never a girl provoked such a novel and peculiar interest in me
before. A strange, new sensation is a rare thing in this humdrum
life, and I had it here. There was nothing stale or worn out about
the thoughts and feelings the situation and the circumstances
created. It seemed strange -- stranger than I can tell -- to think
that the central figure in the cluster of men and women, chatting
here under the trees like the most ordinary individual in the land,
was a man who could open his lips and ships would fly through the
waves, locomotives would speed over the plains, couriers would hurry
from village to village, a hundred telegraphs would flash the word
to the four corners of an Empire that stretches its vast proportions
over a seventh part of the habitable globe, and a countless
multitude of men would spring to do his bidding. I had a sort of
vague desire to examine his hands and see if they were of flesh and
blood, like other men's. Here was a man who could do this wonderful
thing, and yet if I chose I could knock him down. The case was
plain, but it seemed preposterous, nevertheless -- as preposterous
as trying to knock down a mountain or wipe out a continent. If this
man sprained his ankle, a million miles of telegraph would carry the
news over mountains -- valleys -- uninhabited deserts -- under the
trackless sea -- and ten thousand newspapers would prate of it; if
he were grievously ill, all the nations would know it before the sun
rose again; if he dropped lifeless where he stood, his fall might
shake the thrones of half a world ! If I could have stolen his coat,
I would have done it. When I meet a man like that, I want something
to remember him by.
As a general thing, we have been shown through palaces by some
plushlegged filagreed flunkey or other, who charged a franc for it;
but after talking with the company half an hour, the Emperor of
Russia and his family conducted us all through their mansion
themselves. They made no charge. They seemed to take a real pleasure
in it.
We spent half an hour idling through the palace, admiring the cosy
apartments and the rich but eminently homelike appointments of the
place, and then the Imperial family bade our party a kind goodbye,
and proceeded to count the spoons.
An invitation was extended to us to visit the palace of the eldest
son, the Crown Prince of Russia, which was near at hand. The young
man was absent, but the Dukes and Countesses and Princes went over
the premises with us as leisurely as was the case at the Emperor's,
and conversation continued as lively as ever.
It was a little after one o'clock, now. We drove to the Grand Duke
Michael's, a mile away, in response to his invitation, previously
given.
We arrived in twenty minutes from the Emperor's. It is a lovely
place. The beautiful palace nestles among the grand old groves of
the park, the park sits in the lap of the picturesque crags and
hills, and both look out upon the breezy ocean. In the park are
rustic seats, here and there, in secluded nooks that are dark with
shade; there are rivulets of crystal water; there are lakelets, with
inviting, grassy banks; there are glimpses of sparkling cascades
through openings in the wilderness of foliage; there are streams of
clear water gushing from mimic knots on the trunks of forest trees;
there are miniature marble temples perched upon gray old crags;
there are airy lookouts whence one may gaze upon a broad expanse of
landscape and ocean. The palace is modeled after the choicest forms
of Grecian architecture, and its wide colonnades surround a central
court that is banked with rare flowers that fill the place with
their fragrance, and in their midst springs a fountain that cools
the summer air, and may possibly breed mosquitoes, but I do not
think it does.
The Grand Duke and his Duchess came out, and the presentation
ceremonies were as simple as they had been at the Emperor's. In a
few minutes, conversation was under way, as before. The Empress
appeared in the verandah, and the little Grand Duchess came out into
the crowd. They had beaten us there. In a few minutes, the Emperor
came himself on horseback. It was very pleasant. You can appreciate
it if you have ever visited royalty and felt occasionally that
possibly you might be wearing out your welcome -- though as a
general thing, I believe, royalty is not scrupulous about
discharging you when it is done with you.
The Grand Duke is the third brother of the Emperor, is about
thirtyseven years old, perhaps, and is the princeliest figure in
Russia. He is even taller than the Czar, as straight as an Indian,
and bears himself like one of those gorgeous knights we read about
in romances of the Crusades. He looks like a greathearted fellow
who would pitch an enemy into the river in a moment, and then jump
in and risk his life fishing him out again. The stories they tell of
him show him to be of a brave and generous nature. He must have been
desirous of proving that Americans were welcome guests in the
imperial palaces of Russia, because he rode all the way to Yalta and
escorted our procession to the Emperor¹s himself, and kept his aids
scurrying about, clearing the road and offering assistance wherever
it could be needed. We were rather familiar with him then, because
we did not know who he was. We recognized him now, and appreciated
the friendly spirit that prompted him to do us a favor that any
other Grand Duke in the world would have doubtless declined to do.
He had plenty of servitors whom he could have sent, but he chose to
attend to the matter himself.
The Grand Duke was dressed in the handsome and showy uniform of a
Cossack officer. The Grand Duchess had on a white alpaca robe, with
the seams and gores trimmed with black barb lace, and a little gray
hat with a feather of the same color. She is young, rather pretty
modest and unpretending, and full of winning politeness.
Our party walked all through the house, and then the nobility
escorted them all over the grounds, and finally brought them back to
the palace about halfpast two o'clock to breakfast. They called it
breakfast, but we would have called it luncheon. It consisted of two
kinds of wine; tea, bread, cheese, and cold meats, and was served on
the centretables in the reception room and the verandahs --
anywhere that was convenient; there was no ceremony. It was a sort
of picnic. I had heard before that we were to breakfast there, but
Blucher said he believed Baker's boy had suggested it to his
Imperial Highness. I think not -- though it would be like him.
Baker's boy is the faminebreeder of the ship. He is always hungry.
They say he goes about the staterooms when the passengers are out,
and eats up all the soap. And they say he eats oakum. They say he
will eat any thing he can get between meals, but he prefers oakum.
He does not like oakum for dinner, but he likes it for a lunch, at
odd hours, or any thing that way. It makes him very disagreeable,
because it makes his breath bad, and keeps his teeth all stuck up
with tar. Baker's boy may have suggested the breakfast, but I hope
he did not. It went off well, anyhow. The illustrious host moved
about from place to place, and helped to destroy the provisions and
keep the conversation lively, and the Grand Duchess talked with the
verandah parties and such as had satisfied their appetites and
straggled out from the reception room.
The Grand Duke's tea was delicious. They give one a lemon to squeeze
into it, or iced milk, if he prefers it. The former is best. This
tea is brought overland from China. It injures the article to
transport it by sea.
When it was time to go, we bade our distinguished hosts goodbye,
and they retired happy and contented to their apartments to count
their spoons.
We had spent the best part of half a day in the home of royalty, and
had been as cheerful and comfortable all the time as we could have
been in the ship. I would as soon have thought of being cheerful in
Abraham's bosom as in the palace of an Emperor. I supposed that
Emperors were terrible people. I thought they never did any thing
but wear magnificent crowns and red velvet dressinggowns with dabs
of wool sewed on them in spots, and sit on thrones and scowl at the
flunkies and the people in the parquette, and order Dukes and
Duchesses off to execution. I find, however, that when one is so
fortunate as to get behind the scenes and see them at home and in
the privacy of their firesides, they are strangely like common
mortals. They are pleasanter to look upon then than they are in
their theatrical aspect. It seems to come as natural to them to
dress and act like other people as it is to put a friend's cedar
pencil in your pocket when you are done using it. But I can never
have any confidence in the tinsel kings of the theatre after this.
It will be a great loss. I used to take such a thrilling pleasure in
them. But, hereafter, I will turn me sadly away and say;
"This does not answer -- this isn't the style of king that I am
acquainted with."
When they swagger around the stage in jeweled crowns and splendid
robes, I shall feel bound to observe that all the Emperors that ever
I was personally acquainted with wore the commonest sort of clothes,
and did not swagger. And when they come on the stage attended by a
vast body-guard of supes in helmets and tin breastplates, it will be
my duty as well as my pleasure to inform the ignorant that no
crowned head of my acquaintance has a soldier any where about his
house or his person.
Possibly it may be thought that our party tarried too long, or did
other improper things, but such was not the case. The company felt
that they were occupying an unusually responsible position -- they
were representing the people of America, not the Government -- and
therefore they were careful to do their best to perform their high
mission with credit.
On the other hand, the Imperial families, no doubt, considered that
in entertaining us they were more especially entertaining the people
of America than they could by showering attentions on a whole
platoon of ministers plenipotentiary and therefore they gave to the
event its fullest significance, as an expression of good will and
friendly feeling toward the entire country. We took the kindnesses
we received as attentions thus directed, of course, and not to
ourselves as a party. That we felt a personal pride in being
received as the representatives of a nation, we do not deny; that we
felt a national pride in the warm cordiality of that reception, can
not be doubted.
Our poet has been rigidly suppressed, from the time we let go the
anchor. When it was announced that we were going to visit the
Emperor of Russia, the fountains of his great deep were broken up,
and he rained ineffable bosh for fourand-twenty hours. Our original
anxiety as to what we were going to do with ourselves, was suddenly
transformed into anxiety about what we were going to do with our
poet. The problem was solved at last. Two alternatives were offered
him -- he must either swear a dreadful oath that he would not issue
a line of his poetry while he was in the Czar's dominions, or else
remain under guard on board the ship until we were safe at
Constantinople again. He fought the dilemma long, but yielded at
last. It was a great deliverance. Perhaps the savage reader would
like a specimen of his style. I do not mean this term to be
offensive. I only use it because " the gentle reader" has been used
so often that any change from it can not but be refreshing:
"Save us and sanctify us, and finally, then,
See good provisions we enjoy while we journey to Jerusalem.
For so man proposes, which it is most true
And time will wait for none, nor for us too."
The sea has been unusually rough all day. However, we have had a
lively time of it, anyhow. We have had quite a run of visitors. The
GovernorGeneral came, and we received him with a salute of nine
guns. He brought his family with him. I observed that carpets were
spread from the pierhead to his carriage for him to walk on, though
I have seen him walk there without any carpet when he was not on
business. I thought may be he had what the accidental insurance
people might call an extrahazardous polish ("policy" joke, but not
above mediocrity,) on his boots, and wished to protect them, but I
examined and could not see that they were blacked any better than
usual. It may have been that he had forgotten his carpet, before,
but he did not have it with him, anyhow. He was an exceedingly
pleasant old gentleman; we all liked him, especially Blucher. When
he went away, Blucher invited him to come again and fetch his carpet
along.
Prince Dolgorouki and a Grand Admiral or two, whom we had seen
yesterday at the reception, came on board also. I was a little
distant with these parties, at first, because when I have been
visiting Emperors I do not like to be too familiar with people I
only know by reputation, and whose moral characters and standing in
society I can not be thoroughly acquainted with. I judged it best to
be a little offish, at first. I said to myself, Princes and Counts
and Grand Admirals are very well, but they are not Emperors, and one
can not be too particular about who he associates with.
Baron Wrangel came, also. He used to be Russian Ambassador at
Washington. I told him I had an uncle who fell down a shaft and
broke himself in two, as much as a year before that. That was a
falsehood, but then I was not going to let any man eclipse me on
surprising adventures, merely for the want of a little invention.
The Baron is a fine man, and is said to stand high in the Emperor's
confidence and esteem.
Baron UngernSternberg, a boisterous, wholesouled old nobleman,
came with the rest. He is a man of progress and enterprise -- a
representative man of the age. He is the Chief Director of the
railway system of Russia -- a sort of railroad king. In his line he
is making things move along in this country He has traveled
extensively in America. He says he has tried convict labor on his
railroads, and with perfect success. He says the convict" work well,
and are quiet and peaceable. He observed that he employs nearly ten
thousand of them now. This appeared to be another call on my
resources. I was equal to the emergency. I said we had eighty
thousand convicts employed on the railways in America -- all of them
under sentence of death for murder in the first degree. That closed
him out.
We had General Todtleben (the famous defender of Sebastopol, during
the siege,) and many inferior army and also navy officers, and a
number of unofficial Russian ladies and gentlemen. Naturally, a
champagne luncheon was in order, and was accomplished without loss
of life. Toasts and jokes were discharged freely, but no speeches
were made save one thanking the Emperor and the Grand Duke, through
the Governor-General, for our hospitable reception, and one by the
GovernorGeneral in reply, in which he returned the Emperor's thanks
for the speech, etc., etc.
CHAPTER XXXVIII

WE returned to Constantinople, and after a day or two spent in

exhausting marches about the city and voyages up the Golden Horn in
caiques, we steamed away again. We passed through the Sea of Marmora
and the Dardanelles, and steered for a new land -- a new one to us,
at least -- Asia. We had as yet only acquired a bowing acquaintance
with it, through pleasure excursions to Scutari and the regions
round about.
We passed between Lemnos and Mytilene, and saw them as we had seen
Elba and the Balearic Isles -- mere bulky shapes, with the softening
mists of distance upon them -- whales in a fog, as it were. Then we
held our course southward, and began to "read up" celebrated Smyrna.

At all hours of the day and night the sailors in the forecastle
amused themselves and aggravated us by burlesquing our visit to
royalty. The opening paragraph of our Address to the Emperor was
framed as follows:
"We are a handful of private citizens of America, traveling simply
for recreation -- and unostentatiously, as becomes our unofficial
state -- and, therefore, we have no excuse to tender for presenting
ourselves before your Majesty, save the desire of offering our
grateful acknowledgments to the lord of a realm, which, through good
and through evil report, has been the steadfast friend of the land
we love so well."
The third cook, crowned with a resplendent tin basin and wrapped
royally in a table-cloth mottled with grease-spots and coffee
stains, and bearing a sceptre that looked strangely like a
belaying-pin, walked upon a dilapidated carpet and perched himself
on the capstan, careless of the flying spray; his tarred and
weather-beaten Chamberlains, Dukes and Lord High Admirals surrounded
him, arrayed in all the pomp that spare tarpaulins and remnants of
old sails could furnish. Then the visiting "watch below,"
transformed into graceless ladies and uncouth pilgrims, by rude
travesties upon waterfalls, hoopskirts, white kid gloves and
swallow-tail coats, moved solemnly up the companion way, and bowing
low, began a system of complicated and extraordinary smiling which
few monarchs could look upon and live. Then the mock consul, a
slush-plastered deck-sweep, drew out a soiled fragment of paper and
proceeded to read, laboriously
"To His Imperial Majesty, Alexander II., Emperor of Russia:
"We are a handful of private citizens of America, traveling simply
for recreation, -- and unostentatiously, as becomes our unofficial
state -- and therefore, we have no excuse to tender for presenting
ourselves before your Majesty -- "
The Emperor -- "Then what the devil did you come for?"
-- "Save the desire of offering our grateful acknowledgments to the
lord of a realm which -- "
The Emperor -- " Oh, d -- n the Address! -- read it to the police.
Chamberlain, take these people over to my brother, the Grand Duke's,
and give them a square meal. Adieu! I am happy -- I am gratified --
I am delighted -- I am bored. Adieu, adieu -- vamos the ranch! The
First Groom of the Palace will proceed to count the portable
articles of value belonging to the premises."
The farce then closed, to be repeated again with every change of the
watches, and embellished with new and still more extravagant
inventions of pomp and conversation.
At all times of the day and night the phraseology of that tiresome
address fell upon our ears. Grimy sailors came down out of the
foretop placidly announcing themselves as "a handful of private
citizens of America, traveling simply for recreation and
unostentatiously," etc.; the coal passers moved to their duties in
the profound depths of the ship, explaining the blackness of their
faces and their uncouthness of dress, with the reminder that they
were "a handful of private citizens, traveling simply for
recreation," etc., and when the cry rang through the vessel at
midnight: "EIGHT BELLS! -- LARBOARD WATCH, TURN OUT!" the larboard
watch came gaping and stretching out of their den, with the
everlasting formula: "Aye- aye, sir! We are a handful of private
citizens of America, traveling simply for recreation, and
unostentatiously, as becomes our unofficial state!"
As I was a member of the committee, and helped to frame the Address,
these sarcasms came home to me. I never heard a sailor proclaiming
himself as a handful of American citizens traveling for recreation,
but I wished he might trip and fall overboar d, and so reduce his
handful by one individual, at least. I never was so tired of any one
phrase as the sailors made me of the opening sentence of the Address
to the Emperor of Russia.
This seaport of Smyrna, our first notable acquaintance in Asia, is a
closely packed city of one hundred and thirty thousand inhabitants,
and, like Constantinople, it has no outskirts. It is as closely
packed at its outer edges as it is in the centre, and then the
habitations leave suddenly off and the plain beyond seems houseless.
It is just like any other Oriental city. That is to say, its Moslem
houses are heavy and dark, and as comfortless as so many tombs; its
streets are crooked, rudely and roughly paved, and as narrow as an
ordinary staircase; the streets uniformly carry a man to any other
place than the one he wants to go to, and surprise him by landing
him in the most unexpected localities; business is chiefly carried
on in great covered bazaars, celled like a honeycomb with
innumerable shops no larger than a common closet, and the whole hive
cut up into a maze of alleys about wide enough to accommodate a
laden camel, and well calculated to confuse a stranger and
eventually lose him; every where there is dirt, every where there
are fleas, every where there are lean, broken-hearted dogs; every
alley is thronged with people; wherever you look, your eye rests
upon a wild masquerade of extravagant costumes; the workshops are
all open to the streets, and the workmen visible; all manner of
sounds assail the ear, and over them all rings out the muezzin's cry
from some tall minaret, calling the faithful vagabonds to prayer;
and superior to the call to prayer, the noises in the streets, the
interest of the costumes -- superior to every thing, and claiming
the bulk of attention first, last, and all the time -- is a
combination of Mohammedan stenches, to which the smell of even a
Chinese quarter would be as pleasant as the roasting odors of the
fatted calf to the nostrils of the returning Prodigal. Such is
Oriental luxury -- such is Oriental splendor! We read about it all
our days, but we comprehend it not until we see it. Smyrna is a very
old city. Its name occurs several times in the Bible, one or two of
the disciples of Christ visited it, and here was located one of the
original seven apocalyptic churches spoken of in Revelations. These
churches were symbolized in the Scriptures as candlesticks, and on
certain conditions there was a sort of implied promise that Smyrna
should be endowed with a "crown of life." She was to "be faithful
unto death" -- those were the terms. She has not kept up her faith
straight along, but the pilgrims that wander hither consider that
she has come near enough to it to save her, and so they point to the
fact that Smyrna to-day wears her crown of life, and is a great
city, with a great commerce and full of energy, while the cities
wherein were located the other six churches, and to which no crown
of life was promised, have vanished from the earth. So Smyrna really
still possesses her crown of life, in a business point of view. Her
career, for eighteen centuries, has been a chequered one, and she
has been under the rule of princes of many creeds, yet there has
been no season during all that time, as far as we know, (and during
such seasons as she was inhabited at all,) that she has been without
her little community of Christians "faithful unto death." Hers was
the only church against which no threats were implied in the
Revelations, and the only one which survived.
With Ephesus, forty miles from here, where was located another of
the seven churches, the case was different. The "candlestick" has
been removed from Ephesus. Her light has been put out. Pilgrims,
always prone to find prophecies in the Bible, and often where none
exist, speak cheerfully and complacently of poor, ruined Ephesus as
the victim of prophecy. And yet there is no sentence that promises,
without due qualification, the destruction of the city. The words
are:

"Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and
do the
first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove
thy
candlestick out of his place, except thou repent."
That is all; the other verses are singularly complimentary to
Ephesus. The threat is qualified. There is no history to show that
she did not repent. But the cruelest habit the modern
prophecy-savans have, is that one of coolly and arbitrarily fitting
the prophetic shirt on to the wrong man. They do it without regard
to rhyme or reason. Both the cases I have just mentioned are
instances in point. Those "prophecies" are distinctly leveled at the
"churches of Ephesus, Smyrna," etc., and yet the pilgrims invariably
make them refer to the cities instead. No crown of life is promised
to the town of Smyrna and its commerce, but to the handful of
Christians who formed its "church." If they were "faithful unto
death," they have t heir crown now -- but no amount of faithfulness
and legal shrewdness combined could legitimately drag the city into
a participation in the promises of the prophecy. The stately
language of the Bible refers to a crown of life whose lustre will
reflect the day-beams of the endless ages of eternity, not the
butterfly existence of a city built by men's hands, which must pass
to dust with the builders and be forgotten even in the mere handful
of centuries vouchsafed to the solid world itself between its cradle
and its grave.
The fashion of delving out fulfillments of prophecy where that
prophecy consists of mere "ifs," trenches upon the absurd. Suppose,
a thousand years from now, a malarious swamp builds itself up in the
shallow harbor of Smyrna, or something else kills the town; and
suppose, also, that within that time the swamp that has filled the
renowned harbor of Ephesus and rendered her ancient site deadly and
uninhabitable to-day, becomes hard and healthy ground; suppose the
natural consequence ensues, to wit: that Smyrna becomes a melancholy
ruin, and Ephesus is rebuilt. What would the prophecy-savans say?
They would coolly skip over our age of the world, and say: "Smyrna
was not faithful unto death, and so her crown of life was denied
her; Ephesus repented, and lo! her candle- stick was not removed.
Behold these evidences! How wonderful is prophecy!"
Smyrna has been utterly destroyed six times. If her crown of life
had been an insurance policy, she would have had an opportunity to
collect on it the first time she fell. But she holds it on
sufferance and by a complimentary construction of language which
does not refer to her. Six different times, however, I suppose some
infatuated prophecy-enthusiast blundered along and said, to the
infinite disgust of Smyrna and the Smyrniotes: "In sooth, here is
astounding fulfillment of prophecy! Smyrna hath not been faithful
unto death, and behold her crown of life is vanished from her head.
Verily, these things be astonishing!"
Such things have a bad influence. They provoke worldly men into
using light conversation concerning sacred subjects. Thick-headed
commentators upon the Bible, and stupid preachers and teachers, work
more damage to religion than sensible, cool-brained clergymen can
fight away again, toil as they may. It is not good judgment to fit a
crown of life upon a city which has been destroyed six times. That
other class of wiseacres who twist prophecy in such a manner as to
make it promise the destruction and desolation of the same city, use
judgment just as bad, since the city is in a very flourishing
condition now, unhappily for them. These things put arguments into
the mouth of infidelity.
A portion of the city is pretty exclusively Turkish; the Jews have a
quarter to themselves; the Franks another quarter; so, also, with
the Armenians. The Armenians, of course, are Christians. Their
houses are large, clean, airy, handsomely paved with black and white
squares of marble, and in the centre of many of them is a square
court, which has in it a luxuriant flower-garden and a sparkling
fountain; the doors of all the rooms open on this. A very wide hall
leads to the street door, and in this the women sit, the most of the
day. In the cool of the evening they dress up in their best raiment
and show themselves at the door. They are all comely of countenance,
and exceedingly neat and cleanly; they look as if they were just out
of a band-box. Some of the young ladies -- many of them, I may say
-- are even very beautiful; they average a shade better than
American girls -- which treasonable words I pray may be forgiven me.
They are very sociable, and will smile back when a stranger smiles
at them, bow back when he bows, and talk back if he speaks to them.
No introduction is required. An hour's chat at the door with a
pretty girl one never saw before, is easily obtained, and is very
pleasant. I have tried it. I could not talk anything but English,
and the girl knew nothing but Greek, or Armenian, or some such
barbarous tongue, but we got along very well. I find that in cases
like these, the fact that you can not comprehend each other isn't
much of a drawback. In that Russia n town of Yalta I danced an
astonishing sort of dance an hour long, and one I had not heard of
before, with a very pretty girl, and we talked incessantly, and
laughed exhaustingly, and neither one ever knew what the other was
driving at. But it was splendid. There were twenty people in the
set, and the dance was very lively and complicated. It was
complicated enough without me -- with me it was more so. I threw in
a figure now and then that surprised those Russians. But I have
never ceased to think of that girl. I have written to her, but I can
not direct the epistle because her name is one of those nine-jointed
Russian affairs, and there are not letters enough in our alphabet to
hold out. I am not reckless enough to try to pronounce it when I am
awake, but I make a stagger at it in my dreams, and get up with the
lockjaw in the morning. I am fading. I do not take my meals now,
with any sort of regularity. Her dear name haunts me still in my
dreams. It is awful on teeth. It never comes out of my mouth but it
fetches an old snag along with it. And then the lockjaw closes down
and nips off a couple of the last syllables -- but they taste good.
Coming through the Dardanelles, we saw camel trains on shore with
the glasses, but we were never close to one till we got to Smyrna.
These camels are very much larger than the scrawny specimens one
sees in the menagerie. They stride along these streets, in single
file, a dozen in a train, with heavy loads on their backs, and a
fancy-looking negro in Turkish costume, or an Arab, preceding them
on a little donkey and completely overshadowed and rendered
insignificant by the huge beasts. To see a camel train laden with
the spices of Arabia and the rare fabrics of Persia come marching
through the narrow alleys of the bazaar, among porters with their
burdens, money-changers, lamp-merchants, Al-naschars in the
glassware business, portly cross-legged Turks smoking the famous
narghili; and the crowds drifting to and fro in the fanciful
costumes of the East, is a genuine revelation of the Orient. The
picture lacks nothing. It casts you back at once into your forgotten
boyhood, and again you dream over the wonders of the Arabian Nights;
again your companions are princes, your lord is the Caliph Haroun Al
Raschid, and your servants are terrific giants and genii that come
with smoke and lightning and thunder, and go as a storm goes when
they depart!
CHAPTER XXXIX

WE inquired, and learned that the lions of Smyrna consisted of the

ruins of the ancient citadel, whose broken and prodigious
battlements frown upon the city from a lofty hill just in the edge
of the town -- the Mount Pagus of Scripture, they call it; the site
of that one of the Seven Apocalyptic Churches of Asia which was
located here in the first century of the Christian era; and the
grave and the place of martyrdom of the venerable Polycarp, who
suffered in Smyrna for his religion some eighteen hundred years ago.

We took little donkeys and started. We saw Polycarp's tomb, and then
hurried on.
The "Seven Churches" -- thus they abbreviate it -- came next on the
list. We rode there -- about a mile and a half in the sweltering sun
-- and visited a little Greek church which they said was built upon
the ancient site; and we paid a small fee, and the holy attendant
gave each of us a little wax candle as a remembrancer of the place,
and I put mine in my hat and the sun melted it and the grease all
ran down the back of my neck; and so now I have not any thing left
but the wick, and it is a sorry and a wilted-looking wick at that.
Several of us argued as well as we could that the "church" mentioned
in the Bible meant a party of Christians, and not a building; that
the Bible spoke of them as being very poor -- so poor, I thought,
and so subject to persecution (as per Polycarp's martyrdom) that in
the first place they probably could not have afforded a church
edifice, and in the second would not have dared to build it in the
open light of day if they could; and finally, that if they had had
the privilege of building it, common judgment would have suggested
that they build it somewhere near the town. But the elders of the
ship's family ruled us down and scouted our evidences. However,
retribution came to them afterward. They found that they had been
led astray and had gone to the wrong place; they discovered that the
accepted site is in the city.
Riding through the town, we could see marks of the six Smyrnas that
have existed here and been burned up by fire or knocked down by
earthquakes. The hills and the rocks are rent asunder in places,
excavations expose great blocks of building-stone that have lain
buried for ages, and all the mean houses and walls of modern Smyrna
along the way are spotted white with broken pillars, capitals and
fragments of sculptured marble that once adorned the lordly palaces
that were the glory of the city in the olden time.
The ascent of the hill of the citadel is very steep, and we
proceeded rather slowly. But there were matters of interest about
us. In one place, five hundred feet above the sea, the perpendicular
bank on the upper side of the road was ten or fifteen feet high, and
the cut exposed three veins of oyster shells, just as we have seen
quartz veins exposed in the cutting of a road in Nevada or Montana.
The veins were about eighteen inches thick and two or three feet
apart, and they slanted along downward for a distance of thirty feet
or more, and then disappeared where the cut joined the road. Heaven
only knows how far a man might trace them by "stripping." They were
clean, nice oyster shells, large, and just like any other oyster
shells. They were thickly massed together, and none were scattered
above or below the veins. Each one was a well-defined lead by
itself, and without a spur. My first instinct was to set up the
usual --

NOTICE:
"We, the undersigned, claim five claims of two hundred feet each,
(and one
for discovery,) on this ledge or lode of oyster-shells, with all its
dips,
spurs, angles, variations and sinuosities, and fifty feet on each
side of the
same, to work it, etc., etc., according to the mining laws of
Smyrna."
They were such perfectly natural-looking leads that I could hardly
keep from "taking them up." Among the oyster-shells were mixed many
fragments of ancient, broken crockery ware. Now how did those masses
of oyster-shells get there? I can not determine. Broken crockery and
oyster-shells are suggestive of restaurants -- but then they could
have had no such places away up there on that mountain side in our
time, because nobody has lived up there. A restaurant would not pay
in such a stony, forbidding, desolate place. And besides, there were
no champagne corks among the shells. If there ever was a restaurant
there, it must have been in Smyrna's palmy days, when the hills were
covered with palaces. I could believe in one restaurant, on those
terms; but then how about the three? Did they have restaurants there
at three different periods of the world? -- because there are two or
three feet of solid earth between the oyster leads. Evidently, the
restaurant solution will not answer.
The hill might have been the bottom of the sea, once, and been
lifted up, with its oyster-beds, by an earthquake -- but, then, how
about the crockery? And moreover, how about three oyster beds, one
above another, and thick strata of good honest earth between?
That theory will not do. It is just possible that this hill is Mount
Ararat, and that Noah's Ark rested here, and he ate oysters and
threw the shells overboard. But that will not do, either. There are
the three layers again and the solid earth between -- and, besides,
there were only eight in Noah's family, and they could not have
eaten all these oysters in the two or three months they staid on top
of that mountain. The beasts -- however, it is simply absurd to
suppose he did not know any more than to feed the beasts on oyster
suppers.
It is painful -- it is even humiliating -- but I am reduced at last
to one slender theory: that the oysters climbed up there of their
own accord. But what object could they have had in view? -- what did
they want up there? What could any oyster want to climb a hill for?
To climb a hill must necessarily be fatiguing and annoying exercise
for an oyster. The most natural conclusion would be that the oysters
climbed up there to look at the scenery. Yet when one comes to
reflect upon the nature of an oyster, it seems plain that he does
not care for scenery. An oyster has no taste for such things; he
cares nothing for the beautiful. An oyster is of a retiring
disposition, and not lively -- not even cheerful above the average,
and never enterprising. But above all, an oyster does not take any
interest in scenery -- he scorns it. What have I arrived at now?
Simply at the point I started from, namely, those oyster shells are
there, in regular layers, five hundred feet above the sea, and no
man knows how they got there. I have hunted up the guide-books, and
the gist of what they say is this: "They are there, but how they got
there is a mystery."
Twenty-five years ago, a multitude of people in America put on their
ascension robes, took a tearful leave of their friends, and made
ready to fly up into heaven at the first blast of the trumpet. But
the angel did not blow it. Miller's resurrection day was a failure.
The Millerites were disgusted. I did not suspect that there were
Millers in Asia Minor, but a gentleman tells me that they had it all
set for the world to come to an end in Smyrna one day about three
years ago. There was much buzzing and preparation for a long time
previously, and it culminated in a wild excitement at the appointed
time. A vast number of the populace ascended the citadel hill early
in the morning, to get out of the way of the general destruction,
and many of the infatuated closed up their shops and retired from
all earthly business. But the strange part of it was that about
three in the afternoon, while this gentleman and his friends were at
dinner in the hotel, a terrific storm of rain, accompanied by
thunder and lightning, broke forth and continued with dire fury for
two or three hours. It was a thing unprecedented in Smyrna at that
time of the year, and scared some of the most skeptical. The streets
ran rivers and the hotel floor was flooded with water. The dinner
had to be suspended. When the storm finished and left every body
drenched through and through, and melancholy and half-drowned, the
ascensionists came down from the mountain as dry as so many
charity-sermons! They had been looking down upon the fearful storm
going on below, and really believed that their proposed destruction
of the world was proving a grand success.
A railway here in Asia -- in the dreamy realm of the Orient -- in
the fabled land of the Arabian Nights -- is a strange thing to think
of. And yet they have one already, and are building another. The
present one is well built and well conducted, by an English Company,
but is not doing an immense amount of business. The first year it
carried a good many passengers, but its freight list only comprised
eight hundred pounds of figs!
It runs almost to the very gates of Ephesus -- a town great in all
ages of the world -- a city familiar to readers of the Bible, and
one which was as old as the very hills when the disciples of Christ
preached in its streets. It dates back to the shadowy ages of
tradition, and was the birthplace of gods renowned in Grecian
mythology. The idea of a locomotive tearing through such a place as
this, and waking the phantoms of its old days of romance out of
their dreams of dead and gone centuries, is curious enough.
We journey thither tomorrow to see the celebrated ruins.
CHAPTER XL

THIS has been a stirring day. The Superintendent of the railway put
a train at our disposal, and did us the further kindness of
accompanying us to Ephesus and giving to us his watchful care. We
brought sixty scarcely perceptible donkeys in the freight cars, for
we had much ground to go over. We have seen some of the most
grotesque costumes, along the line of the railroad, that can be
imagined. I am glad that no possible combination of words could
describe them, for I might then be foolish enough to attempt it.
At ancient Ayassalook, in the midst of a forbidding desert, we came
upon long lines of ruined aqueducts, and other remnants of
architectural grandeur, that told us plainly enough we were nearing
what had been a metropolis, once. We left the train and mounted the
donkeys, along with our invited guests -- pleasant young gentlemen
from the officers' list of an American man-of-war.
The little donkeys had saddles upon them which were made very high
in order that the rider's feet might not drag the ground. The
preventative did not work well in the cases of our tallest pilgrims,
however. There were no bridles -- nothing but a single rope, tied to
the bit. It was purely ornamental, for the donkey cared nothing for
it. If he were drifting to starboard, you might put your helm down
hard the other way, if it were any satisfaction to you to do it, but
he would continue to drift to starboard all the same. There was only
one process which could be depended on, and it was to get down and
lift his rear around until his head pointed in the right direction,
or take him under your arm and carry him to a part of the road which
he could not get out of without climbing. The sun flamed down as hot
as a furnace, and neck-scarfs, veils and umbrellas seemed hardly any
protection; they served only to make the long procession look more
than ever fantastic -- for be it known the ladies were all riding
astride because they could not stay on the shapeless saddles
sidewise, the men were perspiring and out of temper, their feet were
banging against the rocks, the donkeys were capering in every
direction but the right one and being belabored with clubs for it,
and every Dow and then a broad umbrella would suddenly go down out
of the cavalcade, announcing to all that one more pilgrim had bitten
the dust. It was a wilder picture than those solitudes had seen for
many a day. No donkeys ever existed that were as hard to navigate as
these, I think, or that had so many vile, exasperating instincts.
Occasionally signally we grew so tired and breathless with fighting
them that we had to desist, -- and immediately the donkey would come
down to a deliberate walk. This, with the fatigue, and the sun,
would put a man asleep; and soon as the man was asleep, the donkey
would lie down. My donkey shall never see his boyhood's home again.
He has lain down once too often. We all stood in the vast theatre of
ancient Epllesus, -- the stone-benched amphitheatre I mean -- and
had our picture taken. We looked as proper there as we would look
any where, I suppose. We do not embellish the general desolation of
a desert much. We add what dignity we can to a stately ruin with our
green umbrellas and jackasses, but it is little. However, we mean
well.
I wish to say a brief word of the aspect of Ephesus.
On a high, steep hill, toward the sea, is a gray ruin of ponderous
blocks of marble, wherein, tradition says, St. Paul was imprisoned
eighteen centuries ago. From these old walls you have the finest
view of the desolate scene where once stood Ephesus, the proudest
city of ancient times, and whose Temple of Diana was so noble in
design, and so exquisite of workmanship, that it ranked high in the
list of the Seven Wonders of the World.
Behind you is the sea; in front is a level green valley, (a marsh,
in fact,) extending far away among the mountains; to the right of
the front view is the old citadel of Ayassalook, on a high hill; the
ruined Mosque of the Sultan Selim stands near it in the plain, (this
is built over the grave of St. John, and was formerly Christian
Church ;) further toward you is the hill of Pion, around whose front
is clustered all that remains of the ruins of Ephesus that still
stand; divided from it by a narrow valley is the long, rocky, rugged
mountain of Coressus. The scene is a pretty one, and yet desolate --
for in that wide plain no man can live, and in it is no human
habitation. But for the crumbling arches and monstrous piers and
broken walls that rise from the foot of the hill of Pion, one could
not believe that in this place once stood a city whose renown is
older than tradition itself. It is incredible to reflect that things
as familiar all over the world to-day as household words, belong in
the history and in the shadowy legends of this silent, mournful
solitude. We speak of Apollo and of Diana -- they were born here; of
the metamorphosis of Syrinx into a reed -- it was done here; of the
great god Pan -- he dwelt in the caves of this hill of Coressus; of
the Amazons -- this was their best prized home; of Bacchus and
Hercules both fought the warlike women here; of the Cyclops -- they
laid the ponderous marble blocks of some of the ruins yonder; of
Homer -- this was one of his many birthplaces; of Cirmon of Athens;
of Alcibiades, Lysander, Agesilaus -- they visited here; so did
Alexander the Great; so did Hannibal and Antiochus, Scipio, Lucullus
and Sylla; Brutus, Cassius, Pompey, Cicero, and Augustus; Antony was
a judge in this place, and left his seat in the open court, while
the advocates were speaking, to run after Cleopatra, who passed the
door; from this city these two sailed on pleasure excursions, in
galleys with silver oars and perfumed sails, and with companies of
beautiful girls to serve them, and actors and musicians to amuse
them; in days that seem almost modern, so remote are they from the
early history of this city, Paul the Apostle preached the new
religion here, and so did John, and here it is supposed the former
was pitted against wild beasts, for in 1 Corinthians, xv. 32 he
says:
"If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus,"
&c., when many men still lived who had seen the Christ; here Mary
Magdalen died, and here the Virgin Mary ended her days with John,
albeit Rome has since judged it best to locate her grave elsewhere;
six or seven hundred years ago -- almost yesterday, as it were --
troops of mail-clad Crusaders thronged the streets; and to come down
to trifles, we speak of meandering streams, and find a new interest
in a common word when we discover that the crooked river Meander, in
yonder valley, gave it to our dictionary. It makes me feel as old as
these dreary hills to look down upon these moss-hung ruins, this
historic desolation. One may read the Scriptures and believe, but he
can not go and stand yonder in the ruined theatre and in imagination
people it again with the vanished multitudes who mobbed Paul's
comrades there and shouted, with one voice, "Great is Diana of the
Ephesians!" The idea of a shout in such a solitude as this almost
makes one shudder.
It was a wonderful city, this Ephesus. Go where you will about these
broad plains, you find the most exquisitely sculptured marble
fragments scattered thick among the dust and weeds; and protruding
from the ground, or lying prone upon it, are beautiful fluted
columns of porphyry and all precious marbles; and at every step you
find elegantly carved capitals and massive bases, and polished
tablets engraved with Greek inscriptions. It is a world of precious
relics, a wilderness of marred and mutilated gems. And yet what are
these things to the wonders that lie buried here under the ground ?
At Constantinople, at Pisa, in the cities of Spain, are great
mosques and cathedrals, whose grandest columns came from the temples
and palaces of Ephesus, and yet one has only to scratch the ground
here to match them. We shall never know what magnificence is, until
this imperial city is laid bare to the sun.
The finest piece of sculpture we have yet seen and the one that
impressed us most, (for we do not know much about art and can not
easily work up ourselves into ecstacies over it,) is one that lies
in this old theatre of Ephesus which St. Paul's riot has made so
celebrated. It is only the headless body of a man, clad in a coat of
mail, with a Medusa head upon the breast-plate, but we feel
persuaded that such dignity and such majesty were never thrown into
a form of stone before.
What builders they were, these men of antiquity! The massive arches
of some of these ruins rest upon piers that are fifteen feet square
and built entirely of solid blocks of marble, some of which are as
large as a Saratoga trunk, and some the size of a boarding-house
sofa. They are not shells or shafts of stone filled inside with
rubbish, but the whole pier is a mass of solid masonry. Vast arches,
that may have been the gates of the city, are built in the same way.
They have braved the storms and sieges of three thousand years, and
have been shaken by many an earthquake, but still they stand. When
they dig alongside of them, they find ranges of ponderous masonry
that are as perfect in every detail as they were the day those old
Cyclopian giants finished them. An English Company is going to
excavate Ephesus -- and then!
And now am I reminded of --
THE LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SLEEPERS.
In the Mount of Pion, yonder, is the Cave of the Seven Sleepers.
Once upon a time, about fifteen hundred years ago, seven young men
lived near each other in Ephesus, who belonged to the despised sect
of the Christians. It came to pass that the good King Maximilianus,
(I am telling this story for nice little boys and girls,) it came to
pass, I say, that the good King Maximilianus fell to persecuting the
Christians, and as time rolled on he made it very warm for them. So
the seven young men said one to the other, let us get up and travel.
And they got up and traveled. They tarried not to bid their fathers
and mothers good-bye, or any friend they knew. They only took
certain moneys which their parents had, and garments that belonged
unto their friends, whereby they might remember them when far away;
and they took also the dog Ketmehr, which was the property of their
neighbor Malchus, because the beast did run his head into a noose
which one of the young men was carrying carelessly, and they had not
time to release him; and they took also certain chickens that seemed
lonely in the neighboring coops, and likewise some bottles of
curious liquors that stood near the grocer's window; and then they
departed from the city. By-and-by they came to a marvelous cave in
the Hill of Pion and entered into it and feasted, and presently they
hurried on again. But they forgot the bottles of curious liquors,
and left them behind. They traveled in many lands, and had many
strange adventures. They were virtuous young men, and lost no
opportunity that fell in their way to make their livelihood. Their
motto was in these words, namely, "Procrastination is the thief of
time." And so, whenever they did come upon a man who was alone, they
said, Behold, this person hath the wherewithal -- let us go through
him. And they went through him. At the end of five years they had
waxed tired of travel and adventure, and longed to revisit their old
home again and hear the voices and see the faces that were dear unto
their youth. Therefore they went through such parties as fell in
their way where they sojourned at that time, and journeyed back
toward Ephesus again. For the good King Maximilianus was become
converted unto the new faith, and the Christians rejoiced because
they were no longer persecuted. One day as the sun went down, they
came to the cave in the Mount of Pion, and they said, each to his
fellow, Let us sleep here, and go and feast and make merry with our
friends when the morning cometh. And each of the seven lifted up his
voice and said, It is a whiz. So they went in, and lo, where they
had put them, there lay the bottles of strange liquors, and they
judged that age had not impaired their excellence. Wherein the
wanderers were right, and the heads of the same were level. So each
of the young men drank six bottles, and behold they felt very tired,
then, and lay down and slept soundly.
When they awoke, one of them, Johannes -- surnamed Smithianus --
said, We are naked. And it was so. Their raiment was all gone, and
the money which they had gotten from a stranger whom they had
proceeded through as they approached the city, was lying upon the
ground, corroded and rusted and defaced. Likewise the dog Ketmehr
was gone, and nothing save the brass that was upon his collar
remained. They wondered much at these things. But they took the
money, and they wrapped about their bodies some leaves, and came up
to the top of the hill. Then were they perplexed. The wonderful
temple of Diana was gone; many grand edifices they had never seen
before stood in the city; men in strange garbs moved about the
streets, and every thing was changed.
Johannes said, It hardly seems like Ephesus. Yet here is the great
gymnasium; here is the mighty theatre, wherein I have seen seventy
thousand men assembled; here is the Agora; there is the font where
the sainted John the Baptist immersed the converts; yonder is the
prison of the good St. Paul, where we all did use to go to touch the
ancient chains that bound him and be cured of our distempers; I see
the tomb of the disciple Luke, and afar off is the church wherein
repose the ashes of the holy John, where the Christians of Ephesus
go twice a year to gather the dust from the tomb, which is able to
make bodies whole again that are corrupted by disease, and cleanse
the soul from sin; but see how the wharves encroach upon the sea,
and what multitudes of ships are anchored in the bay; see, also, how
the city hath stretched abroad, far over the valley behind Pion, and
even unto the walls of Ayassalook; and lo, all the hills are white
with palaces and ribbed with colonnades of marble. How mighty is
Ephesus become !
And wondering at what their eyes had seen, they went down into the
city and purchased garments and clothed themselves. And when they
would have passed on, the merchant bit the coins which they had
given him, with his teeth, and turned them about and looked
curiously upon them, and cast them upon his counter, and listened if
they rang; and then he said, These be bogus. And they said, Depart
thou to Hades, and went their way. When they were come to their
houses, they recognized them, albeit they seemed old and mean; and
they rejoiced, and were glad. They ran to the doors, and knocked,
and strangers opened, and looked inquiringly upon them. And they
said, with great excitement, while their hearts beat high, and the
color in their faces came and went, Where is my father? Where is my
mother? Where are Dionysius and Serapion, and Pericles, and Decius?
And the strangers that opened said, We know not these. The Seven
said, How, you know them not? How long have ye dwelt here, and
whither are they gone that dwelt here before ye ? And the strangers
said, Ye play upon us with a jest, young men; we and our fathers
have sojourned under these roofs these six generations; the names ye
utter rot upon the tombs, and they that bore them have run their
brief race, have laughed and sung, have borne the sorrows and the
weariness that were allotted them, and are at rest; for nine-score
years the summers have come and gone, and the autumn leaves have
fallen, since the roses faded out of their cheeks and they laid them
to sleep with the dead.
Then the seven young men turned them away from their homes, and the
strangers shut the doors upon them. The wanderers marveled greatly,
and looked into the faces of all they met, as hoping to find one
that they knew; but all were strange, and passed them by and spake
no friendly word. They were sore distressed and sad. Presently they
spake unto a citizen and said, Who is King in Ephesus ? And the
citizen answered and said, Whence come ye that ye know not that
great Laertius reigns in Ephesus ? They looked one at the other,
greatly perplexed, and presently asked again, Where, then, is the
good King Maximilianus ? The citizen moved him apart, as one who is
afraid, and said, Verily these men be mad, and dream dreams, else
would they know that the King whereof they speak is dead above two
hundred years agone.
Then the scales fell from the eyes of the Seven, and one said, Alas,
that we drank of the curious liquors. They have made us weary, and
in dreamless sleep these two long centuries have we lain. Our homes
are desolate, our friends are dead. Behold, the jig is up -- let us
die. And that same day went they forth and laid them down and died.
And in that self-same day, likewise, the Seven-up did cease in
Ephesus, for that the Seven that were up were down again, and
departed and dead withal. And the names that be upon their tombs,
even unto this time, are Johannes Smithianus, Trumps, Gift, High,
and Low, Jack, and The Game. And with the sleepers lie also the
bottles wherein were once the curious liquors: and upon them is
writ, in ancient letters, such words as these -- Dames of heathen
gods of olden time, perchance: Rumpunch, Jinsling, Egnog.
Such is the story of the Seven Sleepers, (with slight variations,)
and I know it is true, because I have seen the cave myself.
Really, so firm a faith had the ancients this legend, that as late
as eight or nine hundred years ago, learned travelers held it in
superstitious fear. Two of them record that they ventured into it,
but ran quickly out again, not daring to tarry lest they should fall
asleep and outlive their great grand-children a century or so. Even
at this day the ignorant denizens of the neighboring country prefer
not to sleep in it.
CHAPTER XLI

WHEN I last made a memorandum, we were at Ephesus. We are in Syria,

now, encamped in the mountains of Lebanon. The interregnum has been
long, both as to time and distance. We brought not a relic from
Ephesus! After gathering up fragments of sculptured marbles and
breaking ornaments from the interior work of the Mosques; and after
bringing them at a cost of infinite trouble and fatigue, five miles
on muleback to the railway depot, a government officer compelled all
who had such things to disgorge! He had an order from Constantinople
to look out for our party, and see that we carried nothing off. It
was a wise, a just, and a well-deserved rebuke, but it created a
sensation. I never resist a temptation to plunder a stranger's
premises without feeling insufferably vain about it. This time I
felt proud beyond expression. I was serene in the midst of the
scoldings that were heaped upon the Ottoman government for its
affront offered to a pleasuring party of entirely respectable
gentlemen and ladies I said, "We that have free souls, it touches us
not." The shoe not only pinched our party, but it pinched hard; a
principal sufferer discovered that the imperial order was inclosed
in an envelop bearing the seal of the British Embassy at
Constantinople, and therefore must have been inspired by the
representative of the Queen. This was bad -- very bad. Coming solely
from the Ottomans, it might have signified only Ottoman hatred of
Christians, and a vulgar ignorance as to genteel methods of
expressing it; but coming from the Christianized, educated, politic
British legation, it simply intimated that we were a sort of
gentlemen and ladies who would bear watching! So the party regarded
it, and were incensed accordingly. The truth doubtless was, that the
same precautions would have been taken against any travelers,
because the English Company who have acquired the right to excavate
Ephesus, and have paid a great sum for that right, need to be
protected, and deserve to be. They can not afford to run the risk of
having their hospitality abused by travelers, especially since
travelers are such notorious scorners of honest behavior.
We sailed from Smyrna, in the wildest spirit of expectancy, for the
chief feature, the grand goal of the expedition, was near at hand --
we were approaching the Holy Land ! Such a burrowing into the hold
for trunks that had lain buried for weeks, yes for months; such a
hurrying to and fro above decks and below; such a riotous system of
packing and unpacking; such a littering up of the cabins with shirts
and skirts, and indescribable and unclassable odds and ends; such a
making up of bundles, and setting apart of umbrellas, green
spectacles and thick veils; such a critical inspection of saddles
and bridles that had never yet touched horses; such a cleaning and
loading of revolvers and examining of bowie-knives; such a
half-soling of the seats of pantaloons with serviceable buckskin;
then such a poring over ancient maps; such a reading up of Bibles
and Palestine travels; such a marking out of routes; such
exasperating efforts to divide up the company into little bands of
congenial spirits who might make the long and arduous Journey
without quarreling; and morning, noon and night, such mass-meetings
in the cabins, such speech-making, such sage suggesting, such
worrying and quarreling, and such a general raising of the very
mischief, was never seen in the ship before!
But it is all over now. We are cut up into parties of six or eight,
and by this time are scattered far and wide. Ours is the only one,
however, that is venturing on what is called " the long trip " --
that is, out into Syria, by Baalbec to Damascus, and thence down
through the full length of Palestine. It would be a tedious, and
also a too risky journey, at this hot season of the year, for any
but strong, healthy men, accustomed somewhat to fatigue and rough
life in the open air. The other parties will take shorter journeys.
For the last two months we have been in a worry about one portion of
this Holy Land pilgrimage. I refer to transportation service. We
knew very well that Palestine was a country which did not do a large
passenger business, and every man we came across who knew any thing
about it gave us to understand that not half of our party would be
able to get dragomen and animals. At Constantinople every body fell
to telegraphing the American Consuls at Alexandria and Beirout to
give notice that we wanted dragomen and transportation. We were
desperate -- would take horses, jackasses, cameleopards, kangaroos
-- any thing. At Smyrna, more telegraphing was done, to the same
end. Alsa fearing for the worst, we telegraphed for a large number
of seats in the diligence for Damascus, and horses for the ruins of
Baalbec.
As might have been expected, a notion got abroad in Syria and Egypt
that the whole population of the Province of America (the Turks
consider us a trifling little province in some unvisited corner of
the world,) were coming to the Holy Land -- and so, when we got to
Beirout yesterday, we found the place full of dragomen and their
outfits. We had all intended to go by diligence to Damascus, and
switch off to Baalbec as we went along -- because we expected to
rejoin the ship, go to Mount Carmel, and take to the woods from
there. However, when our own private party of eight found that it
was possible, and proper enough, to make the "long trip," we adopted
that programme. We have never been much trouble to a Consul before,
but we have been a fearful nuisance to our Consul at Beirout. I
mention this because I can not help admiring his patience, his
industry, and his accommodating spirit. I mention it also, because I
think some of our ship's company did not give him as full credit for
his excellent services as he deserved.
Well, out of our eight, three were selected to attend to all
business connected with the expedition. The rest of us had nothing
to do but look at the beautiful city of Beirout, with its bright,
new houses nestled among a wilderness of green shrubbery spread
abroad over an upland that sloped gently down to the sea; and also
at the mountains of Lebanon that environ it; and likewise to bathe
in the transparent blue water that rolled its billows about the ship
(we did not know there were sharks there.) We had also to range up
and down through the town and look at the costumes. These are
picturesque and fanciful, but not so varied as at Constantinople and
Smyrna; the women of Beirout add an agony -- in the two former
cities the sex wear a thin veil which one can see through (and they
often expose their ancles, note: modern spelling is ankles ) but at
Beirout they cover their entire faces with dark-colored or black
veils, so that they look like mummies, and then expose their breasts
to the public. A young gentleman (I believe he was a Greek,)
volunteered to show us around the city, and said it would afford him
great pleasure, because he was studying English and wanted practice
in that language. When we had finished the rounds, however, he
called for remuneration -- said he hoped the gentlemen would give
him a trifle in the way of a few piastres (equivalent to a few five
cent pieces.) We did so. The Consul was surprised when he heard it,
and said he knew the young fellow's family very well, and that they
were an old and highly respectable family and worth a hundred and
fifty thousand dollars! Some people, so situated, would have been
ashamed of the berth he had with us and his manner of crawling into
it.
At the appointed time our business committee reported, and said all
things were in readdress -- that we were to start to-day, with
horses, pack animals, and tents, and go to Baalbec, Damascus, the
Sea of Tiberias, and thence southward by the way of the scene of
Jacob's Dream and other notable Bible localities to Jerusalem --
from thence probably to the Dead Sea, but possibly not -- and then
strike for the ocean and rejoin the ship three or four weeks hence
at Joppa; terms, five dollars a day apiece, in gold, and every thing
to be furnished by the dragoman. They said we would lie as well as
at a hotel. I had read something like that before, and did not shame
my judgment by believing a word of it. I said nothing, however, but
packed up a blanket and a shawl to sleep in, pipes and tobacco, two
or three woollen shirts, a portfolio, a guide-book, and a Bible. I
also took along a towel and a cake of soap, to inspire respect in
the Arabs, who would take me for a king in disguise.
We were to select our horses at 3 P.M. At that hour Abraham, the
dragoman, marshaled them before us. With all solemnity I set it down
here, that those horses were the hardest lot I ever did come across,
and their accoutrements were in exquisite keeping with their style.
One brute had an eye out; another had his tail sawed off close, like
a rabbit, and was proud of it; another had a bony ridge running from
his neck to his tail, like one of those ruined aqueducts one sees
about Rome, and had a neck on him like a bowsprit; they all limped,
and had sore backs, and likewise raw places and old scales scattered
about their persons like brass nails in a hair trunk; their gaits
were marvelous to contemplate, and replete with variety under way
the procession looked like a fleet in a storm. It was fearful.
Blucher shook his head and said: "That dragon is going to get
himself into trouble fetching these old crates out of the hospital
the way they are, unless he has got a permit."
I said nothing. The display was exactly according to the guide-book,
and were we not traveling by the guide-book ? I selected a certain
horse because I thought I saw him shy, and I thought that a horse
that had spirit enough to shy was not to be despised.
At 6 o'clock P.M., we came to a halt here on the breezy summit of a
shapely mountain overlooking the sea, and the handsome valley where
dwelt some of those enterprising Phoenicians of ancient times we
read so much about; all around us are what were once the dominions
of Hiram, King of Tyre, who furnished timber from the cedars of
these Lebanon hills to build portions of King Solomon's Temple with.

Shortly after six, our pack train arrived. I had not seen it before,
and a good right I had to be astonished. We had nineteen serving men
and twenty-six pack mules! It was a perfect caravan. It looked like
one, too, as it wound among the rocks. I wondered what in the very
mischief we wanted with such a vast turn-out as that, for eight men.
I wondered awhile, but soon I began to long for a tin plate, and
some bacon and beans. I had camped out many and many a time before,
and knew just what was coming. I went off, without waiting for
serving men, and unsaddled my horse, and washed such portions of his
ribs and his spine as projected through his hide, and when I came
back, behold five stately circus tents were up -- tents that were
brilliant, within, with blue, and gold, and crimson, and all manner
of splendid adornment! I was speechless. Then they brought eight
little iron bedsteads, and set them up in the tents; they put a soft
mattress and pillows and good blankets and two snow-white sheets on
each bed. Next, they rigged a table about the centre-pole, and on it
placed pewter pitchers, basins, soap, and the whitest of towels --
one set for each man; they pointed to pockets in the tent, and said
we could put our small trifles in them for convenience, and if we
needed pins or such things, they were sticking every where. Then
came the finishing touch -- they spread carpets on the floor! I
simply said, "If you call this camping out, all right -- but it
isn't the style I am used to; my little baggage that I brought along
is at a discount."
It grew dark, and they put candles on the tables -- candles set in
bright, new, brazen candlesticks. And soon the bell -- a genuine,
simon-pure bell -- rang, and we were invited to " the saloon." I had
thought before that we had a tent or so too many, but now here was
one, at least, provided for; it was to be used for nothing but an
eating-saloon. Like the others, it was high enough for a family of
giraffes to live in, and was very handsome and clean and
bright-colored within. It was a gem of a place. A table for eight,
and eight canvas chairs; a table-cloth and napkins whose whiteness
and whose fineness laughed to scorn the things we were used to in
the great excursion steamer; knives and forks, soup-plates,
dinner-plates -- every thing, in the handsomest kind of style. It
was wonderful! And they call this camping out. Those stately fellows
in baggy trowsers and turbaned fezzes brought in a dinner which
consisted of roast mutton, roast chicken, roast goose, potatoes,
bread, tea, pudding, apples, and delicious grapes; the viands were
better cooked than any we had eaten for weeks, and the table made a
finer appearance, with its large German silver candlesticks and
other finery, than any table we had sat down to for a good while,
and yet that polite dragoman, Abraham, came bowing in and
apologizing for the whole affair, on account of the unavoidable
confusion of getting under way for a very long trip, and promising
to do a great deal better in future!
It is midnight, now, and we break camp at six in the morning.
They call this camping out. At this rate it is a glorious privilege
to be a pilgrim to the Holy Land.
CHAPTER XLII

WE are camped near Temnin-el-Foka -- a name which the boys have

simplified a good deal, for the sake of convenience in spelling.
They call it Jacksonville. It sounds a little strangely, here in the
Valley of Lebanon, but it has the merit of being easier to remember
than the Arabic name.
"COME LIKE SPIRITS, SO DEPART."
"The night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away."
I slept very soundly last night, yet when the dragoman's bell rang
at half-past five this morning and the cry went abroad of "Ten
minutes to dress for breakfast!" I heard both. It surprised me,
because I have not heard the breakfast gong in the ship for a month,
and whenever we have had occasion to fire a salute at daylight, I
have only found it out in the course of conversation afterward.
However, camping out, even though it be in a gorgeous tent, makes
one fresh and lively in the morning -- especially if the air you are
breathing is the cool, fresh air of the mountains.
I was dressed within the ten minutes, and came out. The saloon tent
had been stripped of its sides, and had nothing left but its roof;
so when we sat down to table we could look out over a noble panorama
of mountain, sea and hazy valley. And sitting thus, the sun rose
slowly up and suffused the picture with a world of rich coloring.
Hot mutton chops, fried chicken, omelettes, fried potatoes and
coffee -- all excellent. This was the bill of fare. It was sauced
with a savage appetite purchased by hard riding the day before, and
refreshing sleep in a pure atmosphere. As I called for a second cup
of coffee, I glanced over my shoulder, and behold our white village
was gone -- the splendid tents had vanished like magic! It was
wonderful how quickly those Arabs had "folded their tents;" and it
was wonderful, also, how quickly they had gathered the thousand odds
and ends of the camp together and disappeared with them.
By half-past six we were under way, and all the Syrian world seemed
to be under way also. The road was filled with mule trains and long
processions of camels. This reminds me that we have been trying for
some time to think what a camel looks like, and now we have made it
out. When he is down on all his knees, flat on his breast to receive
his load, he looks something like a goose swimming; and when he is
upright he looks like an ostrich with an extra set of legs. Camels
are not beautiful, and their long under lip gives them an
exceedingly "gallus" 42.1 expression. They have immense, flat,
forked cushions of feet, that make a track in the dust like a pie
with a slice cut out of it. They are not particular about their
diet. They would eat a tombstone if they could bite it. A thistle
grows about here which has needles on it that would pierce through
leather, I think; if one touches you, you can find relief in nothing
but profanity. The camels eat these. They show by their actions that
they enjoy them. I suppose it would be a real treat to a camel to
have a keg of nails for supper.
While I am speaking of animals, I will mention that I have a horse
now by the name of "Jericho." He is a mare. I have seen remarkable
horses before, but none so remarkable as this. I wanted a horse that
could shy, and this one fills the bill. I had an idea that shying
indicated spirit. If I was correct, I have got the most spirited
horse on earth. He shies at every thing he comes across, with the
utmost impartiality. He appears to have a mortal dread of telegraph
poles, especially; and it is fortunate that these are on both sides
of the road, because as it is now, I never fall off twice in
succession on the same side. If I fell on the same side always, it
would get to be monotonous after a while. This creature has scared
at every thing he has seen to-day, except a haystack. He walked up
to that with an intrepidity and a recklessness that were
astonishing. And it would fill any one with admiration to see how he
preserves his self-possession in the presence of a barley sack. This
dare-devil bravery will be the death of this horse some day.
He is not particularly fast, but I think he will get me through the
Holy Land. He has only one fault. His tail has been chopped off or
else he has sat down on it too hard, some time or other, and he has
to fight the flies with his heels. This is all very well, but when
he tries to kick a fly off the top of his head with his hind foot,
it is too much variety. He is going to get himself into trouble that
way some day. He reaches around and bites my legs too. I do not care
particularly about that, only I do not like to see a horse too
sociable.
I think the owner of this prize had a wrong opinion about him. He
had an idea that he was one of those fiery, untamed steeds, but he
is not of that character. I know the Arab had this idea, because
when he brought the horse out for inspection in Beirout, he kept
jerking at the bridle and shouting in Arabic, "Ho! will you? Do you
want to run away, you ferocious beast, and break your neck?" when
all the time the horse was not doing anything in the world, and only
looked like he wanted to lean up against something and think.
Whenever he is not shying at things, or reaching after a fly, he
wants to do that yet. How it would surprise his owner to know this.
We have been in a historical section of country all day. At noon we
camped three hours and took luncheon at Mekseh, near the junction of
the Lebanon Mountains and the Jebel el Kuneiyiseh, and looked down
into the immense, level, garden-like Valley of Lebanon. To-night we
are camping near the same valley, and have a very wide sweep of it
in view. We can see the long, whale-backed ridge of Mount Hermon
projecting above the eastern hills. The "dews of Hermon" are falling
upon us now, and the tents are almost soaked with them.
Over the way from us, and higher up the valley, we can discern,
through the glasses, the faint outlines of the wonderful ruins of
Baalbec, the supposed Baal-Gad of Scripture. Joshua, and another
person, were the two spies who were sent into this land of Canaan by
the children of Israel to report upon its character -- I mean they
were the spies who reported favorably. They took back with them some
specimens of the grapes of this country, and in the children's
picture-books they are always represented as bearing one monstrous
bunch swung to a pole between them, a respectable load for a
pack-train. The Sunday-school books exaggerated it a little. The
grapes are most excellent to this day, but the bunches are not as
large as those in the pictures. I was surprised and hurt when I saw
them, because those colossal bunches of grapes were one of my most
cherished juvenile traditions.
Joshua reported favorably, and the children of Israel journeyed on,
with Moses at the head of the general government, and Joshua in
command of the army of six hundred thousand fighting men. Of women
and children and civilians there was a countless swarm. Of all that
mighty host, none but the two faithful spies ever lived to set their
feet in the Promised Land. They and their descendants wandered forty
years in the desert, and then Moses, the gifted warrior, poet,
statesman and philosopher, went up into Pisgah and met his
mysterious fate. Where he was buried no man knows -- for

"* * * no man dug that sepulchre,

And no man saw it e'er --
For the Sons of God upturned the sod
And laid the dead man there!"
Then Joshua began his terrible raid, and from Jericho clear to this
Baal-Gad, he swept the land like the Genius of Destruction. He
slaughtered the people, laid waste their soil, and razed their
cities to the ground. He wasted thirty-one kings also. One may call
it that, though really it can hardly be called wasting them, because
there were always plenty of kings in those days, and to spare. At
any rate, he destroyed thirty-one kings, and divided up their realms
among his Israelites. He divided up this valley stretched out here
before us, and so it was once Jewish territory. The Jews have long
since disappeared from it, however.
Back yonder, an hour's journey from here, we passed through an Arab
village of stone dry-goods boxes (they look like that,) where Noah's
tomb lies under lock and key. [Noah built the ark.] Over these old
hills and valleys the ark that contained all that was left of a
vanished world once floated.
I make no apology for detailing the above information. It will be
news to some of my readers, at any rate.
Noah's tomb is built of stone, and is covered with a long stone
building. Bucksheesh let us in. The building had to be long, because
the grave of the honored old navigator is two hundred and ten feet
long itself! It is only about four feet high, though. He must have
cast a shadow like a lightning-rod. The proof that this is the
genuine spot where Noah was buried can only be doubted by uncommonly
incredulous people. The evidence is pretty straight. Shem, the son
of Noah, was present at the burial, and showed the place to his
descendants, who transmitted the knowledge to their descendants, and
the lineal descendants of these introduced themselves to us to-day.
It was pleasant to make the acquaintance of members of so
respectable a family. It was a thing to be proud of. It was the next
thing to being acquainted with Noah himself.
Noah's memorable voyage will always possess a living interest for
me, henceforward.
If ever an oppressed race existed, it is this one we see fettered
around us under the inhuman tyranny of the Ottoman Empire. I wish
Europe would let Russia annihilate Turkey a little -- not much, but
enough to make it difficult to find the place again without a
divining-rod or a diving-bell. The Syrians are very poor, and yet
they are ground down by a system of taxation that would drive any
other nation frantic. Last year their taxes were heavy enough, in
all conscience -- but this year they have been increased by the
addition of taxes that were forgiven them in times of famine in
former years. On top of this the Government has levied a tax of
one-tenth of the whole proceeds of the land. This is only half the
story. The Pacha of a Pachalic does not trouble himself with
appointing tax-collectors. He figures up what all these taxes ought
to amount to in a certain district. Then he farms the collection
out. He calls the rich men together, the highest bidder gets the
speculation, pays the Pacha on the spot, and then sells out to
smaller fry, who sell in turn to a piratical horde of still smaller
fry. These latter compel the peasant to bring his little trifle of
grain to the village, at his own cost. It must be weighed, the
various taxes set apart, and the remainder returned to the producer.
But the collector delays this duty day after day, while the
producer's family are perishing for bread; at last the poor wretch,
who can not but understand the game, says, "Take a quarter -- take
half -- take two-thirds if you will, and let me go!" It is a most
outrageous state of things.
These people are naturally good-hearted and intelligent, and with
education and liberty, would be a happy and contented race. They
often appeal to the stranger to know if the great world will not
some day come to their relief and save them. The Sultan has been
lavishing money like water in England and Paris, but his subjects
are suffering for it now.
This fashion of camping out bewilders me. We have boot-jacks and a
bath-tub, now, and yet all the mysteries the pack-mules carry are
not revealed. What next?
42.1 Excuse the slang -- no other word will describe it.
CHAPTER XLIII

WE had a tedious ride of about five hours, in the sun, across the
Valley of Lebanon. It proved to be not quite so much of a garden as
it had seemed from the hill-sides. It was a desert, weed-grown
waste, littered thickly with stones the size of a man's fist. Here
and there the natives had scratched the ground and reared a sickly
crop of grain, but for the most part the valley was given up to a
handful of shepherds, whose flocks were doing what they honestly
could to get a living, but the chances were against them. We saw
rude piles of stones standing near the roadside, at intervals, and
recognized the custom of marking boundaries which obtained in
Jacob's time. There were no walls, no fences, no hedges -- nothing
to secure a man's possessions but these random heaps of stones. The
Israelites held them sacred in the old patriarchal times, and these
other Arabs, their lineal descendants, do so likewise. An American,
of ordinary intelligence, would soon widely extend his property, at
an outlay of mere manual labor, performed at night, under so loose a
system of fencing as this.
The plows these people use are simply a sharpened stick, such as
Abraham plowed with, and they still winnow their wheat as he did --
they pile it on the house-top, and then toss it by shovel-fulls into
the air until the wind has blown all the chaff away. They never
invent any thing, never learn any thing.
We had a fine race, of a mile, with an Arab perched on a camel. Some
of the horses were fast, and made very good time, but the camel
scampered by them without any very great effort. The yelling and
shouting, and whipping and galloping, of all parties interested,
made it an exhilarating, exciting, and particularly boisterous race.

At eleven o'clock, our eyes fell upon the walls and columns of
Baalbec, a noble ruin whose history is a sealed book. It has stood
there for thousands of years, the wonder and admiration of
travelers; but who built it, or when it was built, are questions
that may never be answered. One thing is very sure, though. Such
grandeur of design, and such grace of execution, as one sees in the
temples of Baalbec, have not been equaled or even approached in any
work of men's hands that has been built within twenty centuries
past.
The great Temple of the Sun, the Temple of Jupiter, and several
smaller temples, are clustered together in the midst of one of these
miserable Syrian villages, and look strangely enough in such
plebeian company. These temples are built upon massive substructions
that might support a world, almost; the materials used are blocks of
stone as large as an omnibus -- very few, if any of them, are
smaller than a carpenter's tool chest -- and these substructions are
traversed by tunnels of masonry through which a train of cars might
pass. With such foundations as these, it is little wonder that
Baalbec has lasted so long. The Temple of the Sun is nearly three
hundred feet long and one hundred and sixty feet wide. It had
fifty-four columns around it, but only six are standing now -- the
others lie broken at its base, a confused and picturesque heap. The
six columns are their bases, Corinthian capitals and entablature --
and six more shapely columns do not exist. The columns and the
entablature together are ninety feet high -- a prodigious altitude
for shafts of stone to reach, truly -- and yet one only thinks of
their beauty and symmetry when looking at them; the pillars look
slender and delicate, the entablature, with its elaborate sculpture,
looks like rich stucco-work. But when you have gazed aloft till your
eyes are weary, you glance at the great fragments of pillars among
which you are standing, and find that they are eight feet through;
and with them lie beautiful capitals apparently as large as a small
cottage; and also single slabs of stone, superbly sculptured, that
are four or five feet thick, and would completely cover the floor of
any ordinary parlor. You wonder where these monstrous things came
from, and it takes some little time to satisfy yourself that the
airy and graceful fabric that towers above your head is made up of
their mates. It seems too preposterous.
The Temple of Jupiter is a smaller ruin than the one I have been
speaking of, and yet is immense. It is in a tolerable state of
preservation. One row of nine columns stands almost uninjured. They
are sixty-five feet high and support a sort of porch or roof, which
connects them with the roof of the building. This porch-roof is
composed of tremendous slabs of stone, which are so finely
sculptured on the under side that the work looks like a fresco from
below. One or two of these slabs had fallen, and again I wondered if
the gigantic masses of carved stone that lay about me were no larger
than those above my head. Within the temple, the ornamentation was
elaborate and colossal. What a wonder of architectural beauty and
grandeur this edifice must have been when it was new! And what a
noble picture it and its statelier companion, with the chaos of
mighty fragments scattered about them, yet makes in the moonlight!
I can not conceive how those immense blocks of stone were ever
hauled from the quarries, or how they were ever raised to the dizzy
heights they occupy in the temples. And yet these sculptured blocks
are trifles in size compared with the rough-hewn blocks that form
the wide verandah or platform which surrounds the Great Temple. One
stretch of that platform, two hundred feet long, is composed of
blocks of stone as large, and some of them larger, than a
street-car. They surmount a wall about ten or twelve feet high. I
thought those were large rocks, but they sank into insignificance
compared with those which formed another section of the platform.
These were three in number, and I thought that each of them was
about as long as three street cars placed end to end, though of
course they are a third wider and a third higher than a street car.
Perhaps two railway freight cars of the largest pattern, placed end
to end, might better represent their size. In combined length these
three stones stretch nearly two hundred feet; they are thirteen feet
square; two of them are sixty-four feet long each, and the third is
sixty-nine. They are built into the massive wall some twenty feet
above the ground. They are there, but how they got there is the
question. I have seen the hull of a steamboat that was smaller than
one of those stones. All these great walls are as exact and shapely
as the flimsy things we build of bricks in these days. A race of
gods or of giants must have inhabited Baalbec many a century ago.
Men like the men of our day could hardly rear such temples as these.

We went to the quarry from whence the stones of Baalbec were taken.
It was about a quarter of a mile off, and down hill. In a great pit
lay the mate of the largest stone in the ruins. It lay there just as
the giants of that old forgotten time had left it when they were
called hence -- just as they had left it, to remain for thousands of
years, an eloquent rebuke unto such as are prone to think
slightingly of the men who lived before them. This enormous block
lies there, squared and ready for the builders' hands -- a solid
mass fourteen feet by seventeen, and but a few inches less than
seventy feet long! Two buggies could be driven abreast of each
other, on its surface, from one end of it to the other, and leave
room enough for a man or two to walk on either side.
One might swear that all the John Smiths and George Wilkinsons, and
all the other pitiful nobodies between Kingdom Come and Baalbec
would inscribe their poor little names upon the walls of Baalbec's
magnificent ruins, and would add the town, the county and the State
they came from -- and swearing thus, be infallibly correct. It is a
pity some great ruin does not fall in and flatten out some of these
reptiles, and scare their kind out of ever giving their names to
fame upon any walls or monuments again, forever.
Properly, with the sorry relics we bestrode, it was a three days'
journey to Damascus. It was necessary that we should do it in less
than two. It was necessary because our three pilgrims would not
travel on the Sabbath day. We were all perfectly willing to keep the
Sabbath day, but there are times when to keep the letter of a sacred
law whose spirit is righteous, becomes a sin, and this was a case in
point. We pleaded for the tired, ill-treated horses, and tried to
show that their faithful service deserved kindness in return, and
their hard lot compassion. But when did ever self-righteousness know
the sentiment of pity? What were a few long hours added to the
hardships of some over-taxed brutes when weighed against the peril
of those human souls? It was not the most promising party to travel
with and hope to gain a higher veneration for religion through the
example of its devotees. We said the Saviour who pitied dumb beasts
and taught that the ox must be rescued from the mire even on the
Sabbath day, would not have counseled a forced march like this. We
said the "long trip" was exhausting and therefore dangerous in the
blistering heats of summer, even when the ordinary days' stages were
traversed, and if we persisted in this hard march, some of us might
be stricken down with the fevers of the country in consequence of
it. Nothing could move the pilgrims. They must press on. Men might
die, horses might die, but they must enter upon holy soil next week,
with no Sabbath-breaking stain upon them. Thus they were willing to
commit a sin against the spirit of religious law, in order that they
might preserve the letter of it. It was not worth while to tell them
"the letter kills." I am talking now about personal friends; men
whom I like; men who are good citizens; who are honorable, upright,
conscientious; but whose idea of the Saviour's religion seems to me
distorted. They lecture our shortcomings unsparingly, and every
night they call us together and read to us chapters from the
Testament that are full of gentleness, of charity, and of tender
mercy; and then all the next day they stick to their saddles clear
up to the summits of these rugged mountains, and clear down again.
Apply the Testament's gentleness, and charity, and tender mercy to a
toiling, worn and weary horse? -- Nonsense -- these are for God's
human creatures, not His dumb ones. What the pilgrims choose to do,
respect for their almost sacred character demands that I should
allow to pass -- but I would so like to catch any other member of
the party riding his horse up one of these exhausting hills once!
We have given the pilgrims a good many examples that might benefit
them, but it is virtue thrown away. They have never heard a cross
word out of our lips toward each other -- but they have quarreled
once or twice. We love to hear them at it, after they have been
lecturing us. The very first thing they did, coming ashore at
Beirout, was to quarrel in the boat. I have said I like them, and I
do like them -- but every time they read me a scorcher of a lecture
I mean to talk back in print.
Not content with doubling the legitimate stages, they switched ofœf
the main road and went away out of the way to visit an absurd
fountain called Figia, because Baalam's ass had drank there once. So
we journeyed on, through the terrible hills and deserts and the
roasting sun, and then far into the night, seeking the honored pool
of Baalam's ass, the patron saint of all pilgrims like us. I find no
entry but this in my note-book:

"Rode to-day, altogether, thirteen hours, through deserts, partly,

and partly
over barren, unsightly hills, and latterly through wild, rocky
scenery, and
camped at about eleven o'clock at night on the banks of a limpid
stream, near
a Syrian village. Do not know its name -- do not wish to know it --
want to go
to bed. Two horses lame (mine and Jack's) and the others worn out.
Jack and I
walked three or four miles, over the hills, and led the horses. Fun
-- but of
a mild type."
Twelve or thirteen hours in the saddle, even in a Christian land and
a Christian climate, and on a good horse, is a tiresome journey; but
in an oven like Syria, in a ragged spoon of a saddle that slips
fore-and-aft, and "thort-ships," and every way, and on a horse that
is tired and lame, and yet must be whipped and spurred with hardly a
moment's cessation all day long, till the blood comes from his side,
and your conscience hurts you every time you strike if you are half
a man, -- it is a journey to be remembered in bitterness of spirit
and execrated with emphasis for a liberal division of a man's
lifetime.
CHAPTER XLIV

THE next day was an outrage upon men and horses both. It was another
thirteen-hour stretch (including an hour's "nooning.") It was over
the barrenest chalk-hills and through the baldest canons that even
Syria can show. The heat quivered in the air ever y where. In the
canons we almost smothered in the baking atmosphere. On high ground,
the reflection from the chalk-hills was blinding. It was cruel to
urge the crippled horses, but it had to be done in order to make
Damascus Saturday night. We saw ancient tombs and temples of
fanciful architecture carved out of the solid rock high up in the
face of precipices above our heads, but we had neither time nor
strength to climb up there and examine them. The terse language of
my note-book will answer for the rest of this day's experiences:
Broke camp at 7 A.M., and made a ghastly trip through the Zeb Dana
valley and the rough mountains -- horses limping and that Arab
screech-owl that does most
of the singing and carries the water-skins, always a thousand miles
ahead, of
course, and no water to drink -- will he never die? Beautiful stream
in a
chasm, lined thick with pomegranate, fig, olive and quince orchards,
and
nooned an hour at the celebrated Baalam's Ass Fountain of Figia,
second in
size in Syria, and the coldest water out of Siberia -- guide-books
do not say
Baalam's ass ever drank there -- somebody been imposing on the
pilgrims, may
be. Bathed in it -- Jack and I. Only a second -- ice-water. It is
the
principal source of the Abana river -- only one-half mile down to
where it
joins. Beautiful place -- giant trees all around -- so shady and
cool, if one
could keep awake -- vast stream gushes straight out from under the
mountain in
a torrent. Over it is a very ancient ruin, with no known history --
supposed
to have been for the worship of the deity of the fountain or
Baalam's ass or
somebody. Wretched nest of human vermin about the fountain -- rags,
dirt,
sunken cheeks, pallor of sickness, sores, projecting bones, dull,
aching
misery in
their eyes and ravenous hunger speaking from every eloquent fibre
and muscle
from head to foot. How they sprang upon a bone, how they crunched
the bread we
gave them! Such as these to swarm about one and watch every bite he
takes,
with greedy looks, and s wallow unconsciously every time he
swallows, as if
they half fancied the precious morsel went down their own throats --
hurry up
the caravan! -- I never shall enjoy a meal in this distressful
country. To
think of eating three times every day under such circumstances for
three weeks
yet -- it is worse punishment than riding all day in the sun. There
are
sixteen starving babies from one to six years old in the party, and
their legs
are no larger than broom handles. Left the fountain at 1 P.M. (the
fountain
took us at least two hours out of our way,) and reached Mahomet's
lookout
perch, over Damascus, in time to get a good long look before it was
necessary
to move on. Tired? Ask of the winds that far away with fragments
strewed the
sea."
As the glare of day mellowed into twilight, we looked down upon a
picture which is celebrated all over the world. I think I have read
about four hundred times that when Mahomet was a simple camel-driver
he reached this point and looked down upon Damascus for the first
time, and then made a certain renowned remark. He said man could
enter only one paradise; he preferred to go to the one above. So he
sat down there and feasted his eyes upon the earthly paradise of
Damascus, and then went away without entering its gates. They have
erected a tower on the hill to mark the spot where he stood.
Damascus is beautiful from the mountain. It is beautiful even to
foreigners accustomed to luxuriant vegetation, and I can easily
understand how unspeakably beautiful it must be to eyes that are
only used to the God-forsaken barrenness and desolation of Syria. I
should think a Syrian would go wild with ecstacy when such a picture
bursts upon him for the first time.
From his high perch, one sees before him and below him, a wall of
dreary mountains, shorn of vegetation, glaring fiercely in the sun;
it fences in a level desert of yellow sand, smooth as velvet and
threaded far away with fine lines that stand for roads, and dotted
with creeping mites we know are camel-trains and journeying men;
right in the midst of the desert is spread a billowy expanse of
green foliage; and nestling in its heart sits the great white city,
like an island of pearls and opals gleaming out of a sea of
emeralds. This is the picture you see spread far below you, with
distance to soften it, the sun to glorify it , strong contrasts to
heighten the effects, and over it and about it a drowsing air of
repose to spiritualize it and make it seem rather a beautiful estray
from the mysterious worlds we visit in dreams than a substantial
tenant of our coarse, dull globe. And when you think of the leagues
of blighted, blasted, sandy, rocky, sun-burnt, ugly, dreary,
infamous country you have ridden over to get here, you think it is
the most beautiful, beautiful picture that ever human eyes rested
upon in all the broad universe! If I were to go to Damascus again, I
would camp on Mahomet's hill about a week, and then go away. There
is no need to go inside the walls. The Prophet was wise without
knowing it when he decided not to go down into the paradise of
Damascus.
There is an honored old tradition that the immense garden which
Damascus stands in was the Garden of Eden, and modern writers have
gathered up many chapters of evidence tending to show that it really
was the Garden of Eden, and that the rivers Pharpar and Abana are
the "two rivers" that watered Adam's Paradise. It may be so, but it
is not paradise now, and one would be as happy outside of it as he
would be likely to be within. It is so crooked and cramped and dirty
that one can not realize that he is in the splendid city he saw from
the hill-top. The gardens are hidden by high mud-walls, and the
paradise is become a very sink of pollution and uncomeliness.
Damascus has plenty of clear, pure water in it, though, and this is
enough, of itself, to make an Arab think it beautiful and blessed.
Water is scarce in blistered Syria. We run railways by our large
cities in America; in Syria they curve the roads so as to make them
run by the meagre little puddles they call "fountains," and which
are not found oftener on a journey than every four hours. But the
"rivers" of Pharpar and Abana of Scripture (mere creeks,) run
through Damascus, and so every house and every garden have their
sparkling fountains and rivulets of water. With her forest of
foliage and her abundance of water, Damascus must be a wonder of
wonders to the Bedouin from the deserts. Damascus is simply an oasis
-- that is what it is. For four thousand years its waters have not
gone dry or its fertility failed. Now we can understand why the city
has existed so long. It could not die. So long as its waters remain
to it away out there in the midst of that howling desert, so long
will Damascus live to bless the sight of the tired and thirsty
wayfarer.

"Though old as history itself, thou art fresh as the breath of

spring,
blooming as thine own rose-bud, and fragrant as thine own orange
flower, O
Damascus, pearl of the East!"
Damascus dates back anterior to the days of Abraham, and is the
oldest city in the world. It was founded by Uz, the grandson of
Noah. "The early history of Damascus is shrouded in the mists of a
hoary antiquity." Leave the matters written of in the first eleven
chapters of the Old Testament out, and no recorded event has
occurred in the world but Damascus was in existence to receive the
news of it. Go back as far as you will into the vague past, there
was always a Damascus. In the writings of every century for more
than four thousand years, its name has been mentioned and its
praises sung. To Damascus, years are only moments, decades are only
flitting trifles of time. She measures time, not by days and months
and years, but by the empires she has seen rise, and prosper and
crumble to ruin. She is a type of immortality. She saw the
foundations of Baalbec, and Thebes, and Ephesus laid; she saw these
villages grow into mighty cities, and amaze the world with their
grandeur -- and she has lived to see them desolate, deserted, and
given over to the owls and the bats. She saw the Israelitish empire
exalted, and she saw it annihilated. She saw Greece rise, and
flourish two thousand years, and die. In her old age she saw Rome
built; she saw it overshadow the world with its power; she saw it
perish. The few hundreds of years of Genoese and Venetian might and
splendor were, to grave old Damascus, only a trifling scintillation
hardly worth remembering. Damascus has seen all that has ever
occurred on earth, and still she lives. She has looked upon the dry
bones of a thousand empires, and will see the tombs of a thousand
more before she dies. Though another claims the name, old Damascus
is by right the Eternal City.
We reached the city gates just at sundown. They do say that one can
get into any walled city of Syria, after night, for bucksheesh,
except Damascus. But Damascus, with its four thousand years of
respectability in the world, has many old fogy notions. There are no
street lamps there, and the law compels all who go abroad at night
to carry lanterns, just as was the case in old days, when heroes and
heroines of the Arabian Nights walked the streets of Damascus, or
flew away toward Bagdad on enchanted carpets.
It was fairly dark a few minutes after we got within the wall, and
we rode long distances through wonderfully crooked streets, eight to
ten feet wide, and shut in on either aide by the high mud-walls of
the gardens. At last we got to where lanterns could be seen flitting
about here and there, and knew we were in the midst of the curious
old city. In a little narrow street, crowded with our pack-mules and
with a swarm of uncouth Arabs, we alighted, and through a kind of a
hole in the wall entered the hotel. We stood in a great flagged
court, with flowers and citron trees about us, and a huge tank in
the centre that was receiving the waters of many pipes. We crossed
the court and entered the rooms prepared to receive four of us. In a
large marble-paved recess between the two rooms was a tank of clear,
cool water, which was kept running over all the time by the streams
that were pouring into it from half a dozen pipes. Nothing, in this
scorching, desolate land could look so refreshing as this pure water
flashing in the lamp-light; nothing could look so beautiful, nothing
could sound so delicious as this mimic rain to ears long
unaccustomed to sounds of such a nature. Our rooms were large,
comfortably furnished, and even had their floors clothed with soft,
cheerful-tinted carpets. It was a pleasant thing to see a carpet
again, for if there is any thing drearier than the tomb-like,
stone-paved parlors and bed-rooms of Europe and Asia, I do not know
what it is. They make one think of the grave all the time. A very
broad, gaily caparisoned divan, some twelve or fourteen feet long,
extended across one side of each room, and opposite were single beds
with spring mattresses. There were great looking-glasses and
marble-top tables. All this luxury was as grateful to systems and
senses worn out with an exhausting day's travel, as it was
unexpected -- for one can not tell what to expect in a Turkish city
of even a quarter of a million inhabitants.
I do not know, but I think they used that tank between the rooms to
draw drinking water from; that did not occur to me, however, until I
had dipped my baking head far down into its cool depths. I thought
of it then, and superb as the bath was, I was sorry I had taken it,
and was about to go and explain to the landlord. But a finely curled
and scented poodle dog frisked up and nipped the calf of my leg just
then, and before I had time to think, I had soused him to the bottom
of the tank, and when I saw a servant coming with a pitcher I went
off and left the pup trying to climb out and not succeeding very
well. Satisfied revenge was all I needed to make me perfectly happy,
and when I walked in to supper that first night in Damascus I was in
that condition. We lay on those divans a long time, after supper,
smoking narghilies and long-stemmed chibouks, and talking about the
dreadful ride of the day, and I knew then what I had sometimes known
before -- that it is worth while to get tired out, because one so
enjoys resting afterward.
In the morning we sent for donkeys. It is worthy of note that we had
to send for these things. I said Damascus was an old fossil, and she
is. Any where else we would have been assailed by a clamorous army
of donkey-drivers, guides, peddlers and beggars -- but in Damascus
they so hate the very sight of a foreign Christian that they want no
intercourse whatever with him; only a year or two ago, his person
was not always safe in Damascus streets. It is the most fanatical
Mohammedan purgatory out of Arabia. Where you see one green turban
of a Hadji elsewhere (the honored sign that my lord has made the
pilgrimage to Mecca,) I think you will see a dozen in Damascus. The
Damascenes are the ugliest, wickedest looking villains we have seen.
Al l the veiled women we had seen yet, nearly, left their eyes
exposed, but numbers of these in Damascus completely hid the face
under a close-drawn black veil that made the woman look like a
mummy. If ever we caught an eye exposed it was quickly hidden from
our contaminating Christian vision; the beggars actually passed us
by without demanding bucksheesh; the merchants in the bazaars did
not hold up their goods and cry out eagerly, "Hey, John!" or " Look
this, Howajji!" On the contrary, they only scowled at us and said
never a word.
The narrow streets swarmed like a hive with men and women in strange
Oriental costumes, and our small donkeys knocked them right and left
as we plowed through them, urged on by the merciless donkey-boys.
These persecutors run after the animals, shouting and goading them
for hours together; they keep the donkey in a gallop always, yet
never get tired themselves or fall behind. The donkeys fell down and
spilt us over their heads occasionally, but there was nothing for it
but to mount and hurry on again. We were banged against sharp
corners, loaded porters, camels, and citizens generally; and we were
so taken up with looking out for collisions and casualties that we
had no chance to look about us at all. We rode half through the city
and through the famous "street which is called Straight" without
seeing any thing, hardly. Our bones were nearly knocked out of
joint, we were wild with excitement, and our sides ached with the
jolting we had suffered. I do not like riding in the Damascus
street-cars.
We were on our way to the reputed houses of Judas and Ananias. About
eighteen or nineteen hundred years ago, Saul, a native of Tarsus,
was particularly bitter against the new sect called Christians, and
he left Jerusalem and started across the country on a furious
crusade against them. He went forth "breathing threatenings and
slaughter against the disciples of the Lord."
"And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there
shined round
about him a light from heaven:
"And he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, 'Saul,
Saul, why
persecutest thou me?'
"And when he knew that it was Jesus that spoke to him he trembled,
and was
astonished, and said, 'Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?'"
He was told to arise and go into the ancient city and one would tell
him what to do. In the meantime his soldiers stood speechless and
awe-stricken, for they heard the mysterious voice but saw no man.
Saul rose up and found that that fierce supernatural light had
destroyed his sight, and he was blind, so "they led him by the hand
and brought him to Damascus." He was converted.
Paul lay three days, blind, in the house of Judas, and during that
time he neither ate nor drank.
There came a voice to a citizen of Damascus, named Ananias, saying,
"Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and inquire
at the house of Judas, for one called Saul, of Tarsus; for behold,
he prayeth."
Ananias did not wish to go at first, for he had heard of Saul
before, and he had his doubts about that style of a "chosen vessel"
to preach the gospel of peace. However, in obedience to orders, he
went into the "street called Straight" (how he found his way into
it, and after he did, how he ever found his way out of it again, are
mysteries only to be accounted for by the fact that he was acting
under Divine inspiration.) He found Paul and restored him, and
ordained him a preacher; and from this old house we had hunted up in
the street which is miscalled Straight, he had started out on that
bold missionary career which he prosecuted till his death. It was
not the house of the disciple who sold the Master for thirty pieces
of silver. I make this explanation in justice to Judas, who was a
far different sort of man from the person just referred to. A very
different style of man, and lived in a very good house. It is a pity
we do not know more about him.
I have given, in the above paragraphs, some more information for
people who will not read Bible history until they are defrauded into
it by some such method as this. I hope that no friend of progress
and education will obstruct or interfere with my peculiar mission.
The street called Straight is straighter than a corkscrew, but not
as straight as a rainbow. St. Luke is careful not to commit himself;
he does not say it is the street which is straight, but the "street
which is called Straight." It is a fine piece of irony; it is the
only facetious remark in the Bible, I believe. We traversed the
street called Straight a good way, and then turned off and called at
the reputed house of Ananias. There is small question that a part of
the original house is there still; it is an old room twelve or
fifteen feet under ground, and its masonry is evidently ancient. If
Ananias did not live there in St. Paul's time, somebody else did,
which is just as well. I took a drink out of Ananias' well, and
singularly enough, the water was just as fresh as if the well had
been dug yesterday.
We went out toward the north end of the city to see the place where
the disciples let Paul down over the Damascus wall at dead of night
-- for he preached Christ so fearlessly in Damascus that the people
sought to kill him, just as they would to-day for the same offense,
and he had to escape and flee to Jerusalem.
Then we called at the tomb of Mahomet's children and at a tomb which
purported to be that of St. George who killed the dragon, and so on
out to the hollow place under a rock where Paul hid during his
flight till his pursuers gave him up; and to the mausoleum of the
five thousand Christians who were massacred in Damascus in 1861 by
the Turks. They say those narrow streets ran blood for several days,
and that men, women and children were butchered indiscriminately and
left to rot by hundreds all through the Christian quarter; they say,
further, that the stench was dreadful. All the Christians who could
get away fled from the city, and the Mohammedans would not defile
their hands by burying the "infidel dogs." The thirst for blood
extended to the high lands of Hermon and Anti-Lebanon, and in a
short time twenty-five thousand more Christians were massacred and
their possessions laid waste. How they hate a Christian in Damascus!
-- and pretty much all over Turkeydom as well. And how they will pay
for it w hen Russia turns her guns upon them again!
It is soothing to the heart to abuse England and France for
interposing to save the Ottoman Empire from the destruction it has
so richly deserved for a thousand years. It hurts my vanity to see
these pagans refuse to eat of food that has been cooked for us; or
to eat from a dish we have eaten from; or to drink from a goatskin
which we have polluted with our Christian lips, except by filtering
the water through a rag which they put over the mouth of it or
through a sponge! I never disliked a Chinaman as I do these degraded
Turks and Arabs, and when Russia is ready to war with them again, I
hope England and France will not find it good breeding or good
judgment to interfere.
In Damascus they think there are no such rivers in all the world as
their little Abana and Pharpar. The Damascenes have always thought
that way. In 2 Kings, chapter v., Naaman boasts extravagantly about
them. That was three thousand years ago. He says: "Are not Abana and
Pharpar rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?
May I not wash in them and be clean?" But some of my readers have
forgotten who Naaman was, long ago. Naaman was the commander of the
Syrian armies. He was the favorite of the king and lived in great
state. "He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper." Strangely
enough, the house they point out to you now as his, has been turned
into a leper hospital, and the inmates expose their horrid
deformities and hold up their hands and beg for bucksheesh when a
stranger enters.
One can not appreciate the horror of this disease until he looks
upon it in all its ghastliness, in Naaman's ancient dwelling in
Damascus. Bones all twisted out of shape, great knots protruding
from face and body, joints decaying and dropping away -- horrible!
CHAPTER XLV

THE last twenty-four hours we staid in Damascus I lay prostrate with

a violent attack of cholera, or cholera morbus, and therefore had a
good chance and a good excuse to lie there on that wide divan and
take an honest rest. I had nothing to do but listen to the pattering
of the fountains and take medicine and throw it up again. It was
dangerous recreation, but it was pleasanter than traveling in Syria.
I had plenty of snow from Mount Hermon, and as it would not stay on
my stomach, there was nothing to interfere with my eating it --
there was always room for more. I enjoyed myself very well. Syrian
travel has its interesting features, like travel in any other part
of the world, and yet to break your leg or have the cholera adds a
welcome variety to it.
We left Damascus at noon and rode across the plain a couple of
hours, and then the party stopped a while in the shade of some
fig-trees to give me a chance to rest. It was the hottest day we had
seen yet -- the sun-flames shot down like the shafts of fire that
stream out before a blow-pipe -- the rays seemed to fall in a steady
deluge on the head and pass downward like rain from a roof. I
imagined I could distinguish between the floods of rays -- I thought
I could tell when each flood struck my head, when it reached my
shoulders, and when the next one came. It was terrible. All the
desert glared so fiercely that my eyes were swimming in tears all
the time. The boys had white umbrellas heavily lined with dark
green. They were a priceless blessing. I thanked fortune that I had
one, too, notwithstanding it was packed up with the baggage and was
ten miles ahead. It is madness to travel in Syria without an
umbrella. They told me in Beirout (these people who always gorge you
with advice) that it was madness to travel in Syria without an
umbrella. It was on this account that I got one.
But, honestly, I think an umbrella is a nuisance any where when its
business is to keep the sun off. No Arab wears a brim to his fez, or
uses an umbrella, or any thing to shade his eyes or his face, and he
always looks comfortable and proper in the sun. But of all the
ridiculous sights I ever have seen, our party of eight is the most
so -- they do cut such an outlandish figure. They travel single
file; they all wear the endless white rag of Constantinople wrapped
round and round their hats and dangling down their backs; they all
wear thick green spectacles, with side-glasses to them; they all
hold white umbrellas, lined with green, over their heads; without
exception their stirrups are too short -- they are the very worst
gang of horsemen on earth, their animals to a horse trot fearfully
hard -- and when they get strung out one after the other; glaring
straight ahead and breathless; bouncing high and out of turn, all
along the line; knees well up and stiff, elbows flapping like a
rooster's that is going to crow, and the long file of umbrellas
popping convulsively up and down -- when one sees this outrageous
picture exposed to the light of day, he is amazed that the gods
don't get out their thunderbolts and destroy them off the face of
the earth! I do -- I wonder at it. I wouldn't let any such caravan
go through a country of mine.
And when the sun drops below the horizon and the boys close their
umbrellas and put them under their arms, it is only a variation of
the picture, not a modification of its absurdity.
But may be you can not see the wild extravagance of my panorama. You
could if you were here. Here, you feel all the time just as if you
were living about the year 1200 before Christ -- or back to the
patriarchs -- or forward to the New Era. The scenery of the Bible is
about you -- the customs of the patriarchs are around you -- the
same people, in the same flowing robes, and in sandals, cross your
path -- the same long trains of stately camels go and come -- the
same impressive religious solemnity and silence rest upon the desert
and the mountains that were upon them in the remote ages of
antiquity, and behold, intruding upon a scene like this, comes this
fantastic mob of green-spectacled Yanks, with their flapping elbows
and bobbing umbrellas! It is Daniel in the lion's den with a green
cotton umbrella under his arm, all over again.
My umbrella is with the baggage, and so are my green spectacles --
and there they shall stay. I will not use them. I will show some
respect for the eternal fitness of things. It will be bad enough to
get sun-struck, without looking ridiculous into the bargain. If I
fall, let me fall bearing about me the semblance of a Christina, at
least.
Three or four hours out from Damascus we passed the spot where Saul
was so abruptly converted, and from this place we looked back over
the scorching desert, and had our last glimpse of beautiful
Damascus, decked in its robes of shining green. After nightfall we
reached our tents, just outside of the nasty Arab village of
Jonesborough. Of course the real name of the place is El something
or other, but the boys still refuse to recognize the Arab names or
try to pronounce them. When I say that that village is of the usual
style, I mean to insinuate that all Syrian villages within fifty
miles of Damascus are alike -- so much alike that it would require
more than human intelligence to tell wherein one differed from
another. A Syrian village is a hive of huts one story high (the
height of a man,) and as square as a dry-goods box; it is
mud-plastered all over, flat roof and all, and generally whitewashed
after a fashion. The same roof often extends over half the town,
covering many of the streets, which are generally about a yard wide.
When you ride through one of these villages at noon-day, you first
meet a melancholy dog, that looks up at you and silently begs that
you won't run over him, but he does not offer to get out of the way;
next you meet a young boy without any clothes on, and he holds out
his hand and says "Bucksheesh!" -- he don't really expect a cent,
but then he learned to say that before he learned to say mother, and
now he can not break himself of it; next you meet a woman with a
black veil drawn closely over her face, and her bust exposed;
finally, you come to several sore-eyed children and children in all
stages of mutilation and decay; and sitting humbly in the dust, and
all fringed with filthy rags, is a poor devil whose arms and legs
are gnarled and twisted like grape-vines. These are all the people
you are likely to see. The balance of the population are asleep
within doors, or abroad tending goats in the plains and on the
hill-sides. The village is built on some consumptive little
water-course, and about it is a little fresh-looking vegetation.
Beyond this charmed circle, for miles on every side, stretches a
weary desert of sand and gravel, which produces a gray bunchy shrub
like sage-brush. A Syrian village is the sorriest sight in the
world, and its surroundings are eminently in keeping with it.
I would not have gone into this dissertation upon Syrian villages
but for the fact that Nimrod, the Mighty Hunter of Scriptural
notoriety, is buried in Jonesborough, and I wished the public to
know about how he is located. Like Homer, he is said to be buried in
many other places, but this is the only true and genuine place his
ashes inhabit.
When the original tribes were dispersed, more than four thousand
years ago, Nimrod and a large party traveled three or four hundred
miles, and settled where the great city of Babylon afterwards stood.
Nimrod built that city. He also began to build the famous Tower of
Babel, but circumstances over which he had no control put it out of
his power to finish it. He ran it up eight stories high, however,
and two of them still stand, at this day -- a colossal mass of
brickwork, rent down the centre by earthquakes, and seared and
vitrified by the lightnings of an angry God. But the vast ruin will
still stand for ages, to shame the puny labors of these modern
generations of men. Its huge compartments are tenanted by owls and
lions, and old Nimrod lies neglected in this wretched village, far
from the scene of his grand enterprise.
We left Jonesborough very early in the morning, and rode forever and
forever and forever, it seemed to me, over parched deserts and rocky
hills, hungry, and with no water to drink. We had drained the
goat-skins dry in a little while. At noon we halted before the
wretched Arab town of El Yuba Dam, perched on the side of a
mountain, but the dragoman said if we applied there for water we
would be attacked by the whole tribe, for they did not love
Christians. We had to journey on. Two hours later we reached the
foot of a tall isolated mountain, which is crowned by the crumbling
castle of Banias, the stateliest ruin of that kind on earth, no
doubt. It is a thousand feet long and two hundred wide, all of the
most symmetrical, and at the same time the most ponderous masonry.
The massive towers and bastions are more than thirty feet high, and
have been sixty. From the mountain's peak its broken turrets rise
above the groves of ancient oaks and olives, and look wonderfully
picturesque. It is of such high antiquity that no man knows who
built it or when it was built. It is utterly inaccessible, except in
one place, where a bridle-path winds upward among the solid rocks to
the old portcullis. The horses' hoofs have bored holes in these
rocks to the depth of six inches during the hundreds and hundreds of
years that the castle was garrisoned. We wandered for three hours
among the chambers and crypts and dungeons of the fortress, and trod
where the mailed heels of many a knightly Crusader had rang, and
where Phenician heroes had walked ages before them.
We wondered how such a solid mass of masonry could be affected even
by an earthquake, and could not understand what agency had made
Banias a ruin; but we found the destroyer, after a while, and then
our wonder was increased tenfold. Seeds had fallen in crevices in
the vast walls; the seeds had sprouted; the tender, insignificant
sprouts had hardened; they grew larger and larger, and by a steady,
imperceptible pressure forced the great stones apart, and now are
bringing sure destruction upon a giant work that has even mocked the
earthquakes to scorn! Gnarled and twisted trees spring from the old
walls every where, and beautify and overshadow the gray battlements
with a wild luxuriance of foliage.
From these old towers we looked down upon a broad, far-reaching
green plain, glittering with the pools and rivulets which are the
sources of the sacred river Jordan. It was a grateful vision, after
so much desert.
And as the evening drew near, we clambered down the mountain,
through groves of the Biblical oaks of Bashan, (for we were just
stepping over the border and entering the long-sought Holy Land,)
and at its extreme foot, toward the wide valley, we entered this
little execrable village of Banias and camped in a great grove of
olive trees near a torrent of sparkling water whose banks are
arrayed in fig-trees, pomegranates and oleanders in full leaf.
Barring the proximity of the village, it is a sort of paradise.
The very first thing one feels like doing when he gets into camp,
all burning up and dusty, is to hunt up a bath. We followed the
stream up to where it gushes out of the mountain side, three hundred
yards from the tents, and took a bath that was so icy that if I did
not know this was the main source of the sacred river, I would
expect harm to come of it. It was bathing at noonday in the chilly
source of the Abana, "River of Damascus," that gave me the cholera,
so Dr. B. said. However, it generally does give me the cholera to
take a bath.
The incorrigible pilgrims have come in with their pockets full of
specimens broken from the ruins. I wish this vandalism could be
stopped. They broke off fragments from Noah's tomb; from the
exquisite sculptures of the temples of Baalbec; from the houses of
Judas and Ananias, in Damascus; from the tomb of Nimrod the Mighty
Hunter in Jonesborough; from the worn Greek and Roman inscriptions
set in the hoary walls of the Castle of Banias; and now they have
been hacking and chipping these old arches here that Jesus looked
upon in the flesh. Heaven protect the Sepulchre when this tribe
invades Jerusalem!
The ruins here are not very interesting. There are the massive walls
of a great square building that was once the citadel; there are many
ponderous old arches that are so smothered with debris that they
barely project above the ground; there are heavy-walled sewers
through which the crystal brook of which Jordan is born still runs;
in the hill-side are the substructions of a costly marble temple
that Herod the Great built here -- patches of its handsome mosaic
floors still remain; there is a quaint old stone bridge that was
here before Herod's time, may be; scattered every where, in the
paths and in the woods, are Corinthian capitals, broken porphyry
pillars, and little fragments of sculpture; and up yonder in the
precipice where the fountain gushes out, are well-worn Greek
inscriptions over niches in the rock where in ancient times the
Greeks, and after them the Romans, worshipped the sylvan god Pan.
But trees and bushes grow above many of these ruins now; the
miserable huts of a little crew of filthy Arabs are perched upon the
broken masonry of antiquity, the whole place has a sleepy, stupid,
rural look about it, and one can hardly bring himself to believe
that a busy, substantially built city once existed here, even two
thousand years ago. The place was nevertheless the scene of an event
whose effects have added page after page and volume after volume to
the world's history. For in this place Christ stood when he said to
Peter:
"Thou art Peter; and upon this rock will I build my church, and the
gates of
hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the
keys of the
Kingdom of Heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be
bound in heaven,
and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

On those little sentences have been built up the mighty edifice of

the Church of Rome; in them lie the authority for the imperial power
of the Popes over temporal affairs, and their godlike power to curse
a soul or wash it white from sin. To sustain the position of "the
only true Church," which Rome claims was thus conferred upon her,
she has fought and labored and struggled for many a century, and
will continue to keep herself busy in the same work to the end of
time. The memorable words I have quoted give to this ruined city
about all the interest it possesses to people of the present day.
It seems curious enough to us to be standing on ground that was once
actually pressed by the feet of the Saviour. The situation is
suggestive of a reality and a tangibility that seem at variance with
the vagueness and mystery and ghostliness that one naturally
attaches to the character of a god. I can not comprehend yet that I
am sitting where a god has stood, and looking upon the brook and the
mountains which that god looked upon, and am surrounded by dusky men
and women whose ancestors saw him, and even talked with him, face to
face, and carelessly, just as they would have done with any other
stranger. I can not comprehend this; the gods of my understanding
have been always hidden in clouds and very far away.
This morning, during breakfast, the usual assemblage of squalid
humanity sat patiently without the charmed circle of the camp and
waited for such crumbs as pity might bestow upon their misery. There
were old and young, brown-skinned and yellow. Some of the men were
tall and stalwart, (for one hardly sees any where such
splendid-looking men as here in the East,) but all the women and
children looked worn and sad, and distressed with hunger. They
reminded me much of Indians, did these people. They had but little
clothing, but such as they had was fanciful in character and
fantastic in its arrangement. Any little absurd gewgaw or gimcrack
they had they disposed in such a way as to make it attract attention
most readily. They sat in silence, and with tireless patience
watched our every motion with that vile, uncomplaining impoliteness
which is so truly Indian, and which makes a white man so nervous and
uncomfortable and savage that he wants to exterminate the whole
tribe.
These people about us had other peculiarities, which I have noticed
in the noble red man, too: they were infested with vermin, and the
dirt had caked on them till it amounted to bark.
The little children were in a pitiable condition -- they all had
sore eyes, and were otherwise afflicted in various ways. They say
that hardly a native child in all the East is free from sore eyes,
and that thousands of them go blind of one eye or both every year. I
think this must be so, for I see plenty of blind people every day,
and I do not remember seeing any children that hadn't sore eyes.
And, would you suppose that an American mother could sit for an
hour, with her child in her arms, and let a hundred flies roost upon
its eyes all that time undisturbed? I see that every day. It makes
my flesh creep. Yesterday we met a woman riding on a little jackass,
and she had a little child in her arms -- honestly, I thought the
child had goggles on as we approached, and I wondered how its mother
could afford so much style. But when we drew near, we saw that the
goggles were nothing but a camp meeting of flies assembled around
each of the child's eyes, and at the same time there was a
detachment prospecting its nose. The flies were happy, the child was
contented, and so the mother did not interfere.
As soon as the tribe found out that we had a doctor in our party,
they began to flock in from all quarters. Dr. B., in the charity of
his nature, had taken a child from a woman who sat near by, and put
some sort of a wash upon its diseased eyes. That woman went off and
started the whole nation, and it was a sight to see them swarm! The
lame, the halt, the blind, the leprous -- all the distempers that
are bred of indolence, dirt, and iniquity -- were represented in the
Congress in ten minutes, and still they came! Every woman that had a
sick baby brought it along, and every woman that hadn't, borrowed
one. What reverent and what worshiping looks they bent upon that
dread, mysterious power, the Doctor! They watched him take his
phials out; they watched him measure the particles of white powder;
they watched him add drops of one precious liquid, and drops of
another; they lost not the slightest movement; their eyes were
riveted upon him with a fascination that nothing could distract. I
believe they thought he was gifted like a god. When each individual
got his portion of medicine, his eyes were radiant with joy --
notwithstanding by nature they are a thankless and impassive race --
and upon his face was written the unquestioning faith that nothing
on earth could prevent the patient from getting well now.
Christ knew how to preach to these simple, superstitious,
disease-tortured creatures: He healed the sick. They flocked to our
poor human doctor this morning when the fame of what he had done to
the sick child went abroad in the land, and they worshiped him with
their eyes while they did not know as yet whether there was virtue
in his simples or not. The ancestors of these -- people precisely
like them in color, dress, manners, customs, simplicity -- flocked
in vast multitudes after Christ, and when they saw Him make the
afflicted whole with a word, it is no wonder they worshiped Him. No
wonder His deeds were the talk of the nation. No wonder the
multitude that followed Him was so great that at one time -- thirty
miles from here -- they had to let a sick man down through the roof
because no approach could be made to the door; no wonder His
audiences were so great at Galilee that He had to preach from a ship
removed a little distance from the shore; no wonder that even in the
desert places about Bethsaida, five thousand invaded His solitude,
and He had to feed them by a miracle or else see them suffer for
their confiding faith and devotion; no wonder when there was a great
commotion in a city in those days, one neighbor explained it to
another in words to this effect: "They say that Jesus of Nazareth is
come!"
Well, as I was saying, the doctor distributed medicine as long as he
had any to distribute, and his reputation is mighty in Galilee this
day. Among his patients was the child of the Shiek's daughter -- for
even this poor, ragged handful of sores and sin has its royal Shiek
-- a poor old mummy that looked as if he would be more at home in a
poor-house than in the Chief Magistracy of this tribe of hopeless,
shirtless savages. The princess -- I mean the Shiek's daughter --
was only thirteen or fourteen years old, and had a very sweet face
and a pretty one. She was the only Syrian female we have seen yet
who was not so sinfully ugly that she couldn't smile after ten
o'clock Saturday night without breaking the Sabbath. Her child was a
hard specimen, though -- there wasn't enough of it to make a pie,
and the poor little thing looked so pleadingly up at all who came
near it (as if it had an idea that now was its chance or never,)
that we were filled with compassion which was genuine and not put
on.
But this last new horse I have got is trying to break his neck over
the tent-ropes, and I shall have to go out and anchor him. Jericho
and I have parted company. The new horse is not much to boast of, I
think. One of his hind legs bends the wrong way, and the other one
is as straight and stiff as a tent-pole. Most of his teeth are gone,
and he is as blind as bat. His nose has been broken at some time or
other, and is arched like a culvert now. His under lip hangs down
like a camel's, and his ears are chopped off close to his head. I
had some trouble at first to find a name for him, but I finally
concluded to call him Baalbec, because he is such a magnificent
ruin. I can not keep from talking about my horses, because I have a
very long and tedious journey before me, and they naturally occupy
my thoughts about as much as matters of apparently much greater
importance.
We satisfied our pilgrims by making those hard rides from Baalbec to
Damascus, but Dan's horse and Jack's were so crippled we had to
leave them behind and get fresh animals for them. The dragoman says
Jack's horse died. I swapped horses with Mohammed, the
kingly-looking Egyptian who is our Ferguson's lieutenant. By
Ferguson I mean our dragoman Abraham, of course. I did not take this
horse on account of his personal appearance, but because I have not
seen his back. I do not wish to see it. I have seen the backs of all
the other horses, and found most of them covered with dreadful
saddle-boils which I know have not been washed or doctored for
years. The idea of riding all day long over such ghastly
inquisitions of torture is sickening. My horse must be like the
others, but I have at least the consolation of not knowing it to be
so.
I hope that in future I may be spared any more sentimental praises
of the Arab's idolatry of his horse. In boyhood I longed to be an
Arab of the desert and have a beautiful mare, and call her Selim or
Benjamin or Mohammed, and feed her with my own hands, and let her
come into the tent, and teach her to caress me and look fondly upon
me with her great tender eyes; and I wished that a stranger might
come at such a time and offer me a hundred thousand dollars for her,
so that I could do like the other Arabs -- hesitate, yearn for the
money, but overcome by my love for my mare, at last say, "Part with
thee, my beautiful one! Never with my life! Away, tempter, I scorn
thy gold!" and then bound into the saddle and speed over the desert
like the wind!
But I recall those aspirations. If these Arabs be like the other
Arabs, their love for their beautiful mares is a fraud. These of my
acquaintance have no love for their horses, no sentiment of pity for
them, and no knowledge of how to treat them or care for them. The
Syrian saddle-blanket is a quilted mattress two or three inches
thick. It is never removed from the horse, day or night. It gets
full of dirt and hair, and becomes soaked with sweat. It is bound to
breed sores. These pirates never think of washing a horse's back.
They do not shelter the horses in the tents, either -- they must
stay out and take the weather as it comes. Look at poor cropped and
dilapidated "Baalbec," and weep for the sentiment that has been
wasted upon the Selims of romance!
CHAPTER XLVI

ABOUT an hour's ride over a rough, rocky road, half flooded with
water, and through a forest of oaks of Bashan, brought us to Dan.
From a little mound here in the plain issues a broad stream of
limpid water and forms a large shallow pool, and then rushes
furiously onward, augmented in volume. This puddle is an important
source of the Jordan. Its banks, and those of the brook are
respectably adorned with blooming oleanders, but the unutterable
beauty of the spot will not throw a well-balanced man into
convulsions, as the Syrian books of travel would lead one to
suppose.
From the spot I am speaking of, a cannon-ball would carry beyond the
confines of Holy Land and light upon profane ground three miles
away. We were only one little hour's travel within the borders of
Holy Land -- we had hardly begun to appreciate yet that we were
standing upon any different sort of earth than that we had always
been used to, and see how the historic names began already to
cluster! Dan -- Bashan -- Lake Huleh -- the Sources of Jordan -- the
Sea of Galilee. They were all in sight but the last, and it was not
far away. The little township of Bashan was once the kingdom so
famous in Scripture for its bulls and its oaks. Lake Huleh is the
Biblical "Waters of Merom." Dan was the northern and Beersheba the
southern limit of Palestine -- hence the expression "from Dan to
Beersheba." It is equivalent to our phrases "from Maine to Texas" --
"from Baltimore to San Francisco." Our expression and that of the
Israelites both mean the same -- great distance. With their slow
camels and asses, it was about a seven days' journey from Dan to
Beersheba -- -say a hundred and fifty or sixty miles -- it was the
entire length of their country, and was not to be undertaken without
great preparation and much ceremony. When the Prodigal traveled to "
a far country," it is not likely that he went more than eighty or
ninety miles. Palestine is only from forty to sixty miles wide. The
State of Missouri could be split into three Palestines, and there
would then be enough material left for part of another -- possibly a
whole one. From Baltimore to San Francisco is several thousand
miles, but it will be only a seven days' journey in the cars when I
am two or three years older.46.1 If I live I shall necessarily have
to go across the continent every now and then in those cars, but one
journey from Dan to Beersheba will be sufficient, no doubt. It must
be the most trying of the two. Therefore, if we chance to discover
that from Dan to Beersheba seemed a mighty stretch of country to the
Israelites, let us not be airy with them, but reflect that it was
and is a mighty stretch when one can not traverse it by rail.
The small mound I have mentioned a while ago was once occupied by
the Phenician city of Laish. A party of filibusters from Zorah and
Eschol captured the place, and lived there
in a free and easy way, worshiping gods of their own manufacture and
stealing idols from their neighbors whenever they wore their own
out. Jeroboam set up a golden calf here to fascinate his people and
keep them from making dangerous trips to Jerusalem to worship, which
might result in a return to their rightful allegiance. With all
respect for those ancient Israelites, I can not overlook the fact
that they were not always virtuous enough to withstand the
seductions of a golden calf. Human nature has not changed much since
then.
Some forty centuries ago the city of Sodom was pillaged by the Arab
princes of Mesopotamia, and among other prisoners they seized upon
the patriarch Lot and brought him here on their way to their own
possessions. They brought him to Dan, and father Abraham, who was
pursuing them, crept softly in at dead of night, among the
whispering oleanders and under the shadows of the stately oaks, and
fell upon the slumbering victors and startled them from their dreams
with the clash of steel. He recaptured Lot and all the other
plunder.
We moved on. We were now in a green valley, five or six miles wide
and fifteen long. The streams which are called the sources of the
Jordan flow through it to Lake Huleh, a shallow pond three miles in
diameter, and from the southern extremity of the Lake the
concentrated Jordan flows out. The Lake is surrounded by a broad
marsh, grown with reeds. Between the marsh and the mountains which
wall the valley is a respectable strip of fertile land; at the end
of the valley, toward Dan , as much as half the land is solid and
fertile, and watered by Jordan's sources. There is enough of it to
make a farm. It almost warrants the enthusiasm of the spies of that
rabble of adventurers who captured Dan. They said: "We have seen the
land, and behold it is very good. * * * A place where there is no
want of any thing that is in the earth."
Their enthusiasm was at least warranted by the fact that they had
never seen a country as good as this. There was enough of it for the
ample support of their six hundred men and their families, too.
When we got fairly down on the level part of the Danite farm, we
came to places where we could actually run our horses. It was a
notable circumstance.
We had been painfully clambering over interminable hills and rocks
for days together, and when we suddenly came upon this astonishing
piece of rockless plain, every man drove the spurs into his horse
and sped away with a velocity he could surely enjoy to the utmost,
but could never hope to comprehend in Syria.
Here were evidences of cultivation -- a rare sight in this country
-- an acre or two of rich soil studded with last season's dead
corn-stalks of the thickness of your thumb and very wide apart. But
in such a land it was a thrilling spectacle. Close to it was a
stream, and on its banks a great herd of curious-looking Syrian
goats and sheep were gratefully eating gravel. I do not state this
as a petrified fact -- I only suppose they were eating gravel,
because there did not appear to be any thing else for them to eat.
The shepherds that tended them were the very pictures of Joseph and
his brethren I have no doubt in the world. They were tall, muscular,
and very dark-skinned Bedouins, with inky black beards. They had
firm lips, unquailing eyes, and a kingly stateliness of bearing.
They wore the parti-colored half bonnet, half hood, with fringed
ends falling upon their shoulders, and the full, flowing robe barred
with broad black stripes -- the dress one sees in all pictures of
the swarthy sons of the desert. These chaps would sell their younger
brothers if they had a chance, I think. They have the manners, the
customs, the dress, the occupation and the loose principles of the
ancient stock. [They attacked our camp last night, and I bear them
no good will.] They had with them the pigmy jackasses one sees all
over Syria and remembers in all pictures of the "Flight into Egypt,"
where Mary and the Young Child are riding and Joseph is walking
alongside, towering high above the little donkey's shoulders.
But really, here the man rides and carries the child, as a general
thing, and the woman walks. The customs have not changed since
Joseph's time. We would not have in our houses a picture
representing Joseph riding and Mary walking; we would see
profanation in it, but a Syrian Christian would not. I know that
hereafter the picture I first spoke of will look odd to me.
We could not stop to rest two or three hours out from our camp, of
course, albeit the brook was beside us. So we went on an hour
longer. We saw water, then, but nowhere in all the waste around was
there a foot of shade, and we were scorching to death. "Like unto
the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Nothing in the Bible is
more beautiful than that, and surely there is no place we have
wandered to that is able to give it such touching expression as this
blistering, naked, treeless land.
Here you do not stop just when you please, but when you can. We
found water, but no shade. We traveled on and found a tree at last,
but no water. We rested and lunched, and came on to this place, Ain
Mellahah (the boys call it Baldwinsville.) It was a very short day's
run, but the dragoman does not want to go further, and has invented
a plausible lie about the country beyond this being infested by
ferocious Arabs, who would make sleeping in their midst a dangerous
pastime. Well, they ought to be dangerous. They carry a rusty old
weather-beaten flint-lock gun, with a barrel that is longer than
themselves; it has no sights on it, it will not carry farther than a
brickbat, and is not half so certain. And the great sash they wear
in many a fold around their waists has two or three absurd old
horse-pistols in it that are rusty from eternal disuse -- weapons
that would hang fire just about long enough for you to walk out of
range, and then burst and blow the Arab's head off. Exceedingly
dangerous these sons of the desert are.
It used to make my blood run cold to read Wm. C. Grimes' hairbreadth
escapes from Bedouins, but I think I could read them now without a
tremor. He never said he was attacked by Bedouins, I believe, or was
ever treated uncivilly, but then in about every other chapter he
discovered them approaching, any how, and he had a blood-curdling
fashion of working up the peril; and of wondering how his relations
far away would feel could they see their poor wandering boy, with
his weary feet and his dim eyes, in such fearful danger; and of
thinking for the last time of the old homestead, and the dear old
church, and the cow, and those things; and of finally straightening
his form to its utmost height in the saddle, drawing his trusty
revolver, and then dashing the spurs into "Mohammed" and sweeping
down upon the ferocious enemy determined to sell his life as dearly
as possible. True the Bedouins never did any thing to him when he
arrived, and never had any intention of doing any thing to him in
the first place, and wondered what in the mischief he was making all
that to-do about; but still I could not divest myself of the idea,
somehow, that a frightful peril had been escaped through that man's
dare-devil bravery, and so I never could read about Wm. C. Grimes'
Bedouins and sleep comfortably afterward. But I believe the Bedouins
to be a fraud, now. I have seen the monster, and I can outrun him. I
shall never be afraid of his daring to stand behind his own gun and
discharge it.
About fifteen hundred years before Christ, this camp-ground of ours
by the Waters of Merom was the scene of one of Joshua's
exterminating battles. Jabin, King of Hazor, (up yonder above Dan,)
called all the sheiks about him together, with their hosts, to make
ready for Israel's terrible General who was approaching.
"And when all these Kings were met together, they came and pitched
together by
the Waters of Merom, to fight against Israel.
"And they went out, they and all their hosts with them, much people,
even as
the sand that is upon the sea-shore for multitude," etc.
But Joshua fell upon them and utterly destroyed them, root and
branch. That was his usual policy in war. He never left any chance
for newspaper controversies about who won the battle. He made this
valley, so quiet now, a reeking slaughter-pen.
Somewhere in this part of the country -- I do not know exactly where
-- Israel fought another bloody battle a hundred years later.
Deborah, the prophetess, told Barak to take ten thousand men and
sally forth against another King Jabin who had been doing something.
Barak came down from Mount Tabor, twenty or twenty-five miles from
here, and gave battle to Jabin's forces, who were in command of
Sisera. Barak won the fight, and while he was making the victory
complete by the usual method of exterminating the remnant of the
defeated host, Sisera fled away on foot, and when he was nearly
exhausted by fatigue and thirst, one Jael, a woman he seems to have
been acquainted with, invited him to come into her tent and rest
himself. The weary soldier acceded readily enough, and Jael put him
to bed. He said he was very thirsty, and asked his generous
preserver to get him a cup of water. She brought him some milk, and
he drank of it gratefully and lay down again, to forget in pleasant
dreams his lost battle and his humbled pride. Presently when he was
asleep she came softly in with a hammer and drove a hideous tent-pen
down through his brain!
"For he was fast asleep and weary. So he died." Such is the touching
language of the Bible. "The Song of Deborah and Barak" praises Jael
for the memorable service she had rendered, in an exultant strain:
"Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be,
blessed shall
she be above women in the tent.
"He asked for water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter
in a
lordly dish.
"She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman's
hammer; and
with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head when she
had pierced
and stricken through his temples.
"At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed,
he fell:
where he bowed, there he fell down dead."
Stirring scenes like these occur in this valley no more. There is
not a solitary village throughout its whole extent -- not for thirty
miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of
Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride
ten miles, hereabouts, and not see ten human beings.
To this region one of the prophecies is applied:
I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies which dwell
therein
shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen,
and I
will draw out a sword after you; and your land shall be desolate and
your
cities waste."
No man can stand here by deserted Ain Mellahah and say the prophecy
has not been fulfilled.
In a verse from the Bible which I have quoted above, occurs the
phrase "all these kings." It attracted my attention in a moment,
because it carries to my mind such a vastly different significance
from what it always did at home. I can see easily enough that if I
wish to profit by this tour and come to a correct understanding of
the matters of interest connected with it, I must studiously and
faithfully unlearn a great many things I have somehow absorbed
concerning Palestine. I must begin a system of reduction. Like my
grapes which the spies bore out of the Promised Land, I have got
every thing in Palestine on too large a scale. Some of my ideas were
wild enough. The word Palestine always brought to my mind a vague
suggestion of a country as large as the United States. I do not know
why, but such was the case. I suppose it was because I could not
conceive of a small country having so large a history. I think I was
a little surprised to find that the grand Sultan of Turkey was a man
of only ordinary size. I must try to reduce my ideas of Palestine to
a more reasonable shape. One gets large impressions in boyhood,
sometimes, which he has to fight against all his life. "All these
kings." When I used to read that in Sunday School, it suggested to
me the several kings of such countries as England, France, Spain,
Germany, Russia, etc., arrayed in splendid robes ablaze with jewels,
marching in grave procession, with sceptres of gold in their hands
and flashing crowns upon their heads. But here in Ain Mellahah,
after coming through Syria, and after giving serious study to the
character and customs of the country, the phrase "all these kings"
loses its grandeur. It suggests only a parcel of petty chiefs --
ill-clad and ill-conditioned savages much like our Indians, who
lived in full sight of each other and whose "kingdoms" were large
when they were five miles square and contained two thousand souls.
The combined monarchies of the thirty "kings" destroyed by Joshua on
one of his famous campaigns, only covered an area about equal to
four of our counties of ordinary size. The poor old sheik we saw at
Cesarea Philippi with his ragged band of a hundred followers, would
have been called a "king " in those ancient times.
It is seven in the morning, and as we are in the country, the grass
ought to be sparkling with dew, the flowers enriching the air with
their fragrance, and the birds singing in the trees. But alas, there
is no dew here, nor flowers, nor birds, nor trees. There is a plain
and an unshaded lake, and beyond them some barren mountains. The
tents are tumbling, the Arabs are quarreling like dogs and cats, as
usual, the campground is strewn with packages and bundles, the labor
of packing them upon the backs of the mules is progressing with
great activity, the horses are saddled, the umbrellas are out, and
in ten minutes we shall mount and the long procession will move
again. The white city of the Mellahah, resurrected for a moment out
of the dead centuries, will have disappeared again and left no sign.

46.1 The railroad has been completed, since the above was written.
CHAPTER XLVII

WE traversed some miles of desolate country whose soil is rich

enough, but is given over wholly to weeds -- a silent, mournful
expanse, wherein we saw only three persons -- Arabs, with nothing on
but a long coarse shirt like the "tow-linen" shirts which used to
form the only summer garment of little negro boys on Southern
plantations. Shepherds they were, and they charmed their flocks with
the traditional shepherd's pipe -- a reed instrument that made music
as exquisitely infernal as these same Arabs create when they sing.
In their pipes lingered no echo of the wonderful music the shepherd
forefathers heard in the Plains of Bethlehem what time the angels
sang "Peace on earth, good will to men."
Part of the ground we came over was not ground at all, but rocks --
cream-colored rocks, worn smooth, as if by water; with seldom an
edge or a corner on them, but scooped out, honey-combed, bored out
with eye-holes, and thus wrought into all manner of quaint shapes,
among which the uncouth imitation of skulls was frequent. Over this
part of the route were occasional remains of an old Roman road like
the Appian Way, whose paving-stones still clung to their places with
Roman tenacity.
Gray lizards, those heirs of ruin, of sepulchres and desolation,
glided in and out among the rocks or lay still and sunned
themselves. Where prosperity has reigned, and fallen; where glory
has flamed, and gone out; where beauty has dwelt, and passed away;
where gladness was, and sorrow is; where the pomp of life has been,
and silence and death brood in its high places, there this reptile
makes his home, and mocks at human vanity. His coat is the color of
ashes: and ashes are the symbol of hopes that have perished, of
aspirations that came to nought, of loves that are buried. If he
could speak, he would say, Build temples: I will lord it in their
ruins; build palaces: I will inhabit them; erect empires: I will
inherit them; bury your beautiful: I will watch the worms at their
work; and you, who stand here and moralize over me: I will crawl
over your corpse at the last.
A few ants were in this desert place, but merely to spend the
summer. They brought their provisions from Ain Mellahah -- eleven
miles.
Jack is not very well to-day, it is easy to see; but boy as he is,
he is too much of a man to speak of it. He exposed himself to the
sun too much yesterday, but since it came of his earnest desire to
learn, and to make this journey as useful as the opportunities will
allow, no one seeks to discourage him by fault-finding. We missed
him an hour from the camp, and then found him some distance away, by
the edge of a brook, and with no umbrella to protect him from the
fierce sun. If he had been used to going without his umbrella, it
would have been well enough, of course; but he was not. He was just
in the act of throwing a clod at a mud-turtle which was sunning
itself on a small log in the brook. We said:
"Don't do that, Jack. What do you want to harm him for? What has he
done?"
"Well, then, I won't kill him, but I ought to, because he is a
fraud."
We asked him why, but he said it was no matter. We asked him why,
once or twice, as we walked back to the camp but he still said it
was no matter. But late at night, when he was sitting in a
thoughtful mood on the bed, we asked him again and he said:
"Well, it don't matter; I don't mind it now, but I did not like it
to-day, you know, because I don't tell any thing that isn't so, and
I don't think the Colonel ought to, either. But he did; he told us
at prayers in the Pilgrims' tent, last night, and he seemed as if he
was reading it out of the Bible, too, about this country flowing
with milk and honey, and about the voice of the turtle being heard
in the land. I thought that was drawing it a little strong, about
the turtles, any how, but I asked Mr. Church if it was so, and he
said it was, and what Mr. Church tells me, I believe. But I sat
there and watched that turtle nearly an hour to-day, and I almost
burned up in the sun; but I never heard him sing. I believe I
sweated a double handful of sweat -- - I know I did -- because it
got in my eyes, and it was running down over my nose all the time;
and you know my pants are tighter than any body else's -- Paris
foolishness -- and the buckskin seat of them got wet with sweat, and
then got dry again and began to draw up and pinch and tear loose --
it was awful -- but I never heard him sing. Finally I said, This is
a fraud -- that is what it is, it is a fraud -- and if I had had any
sense I might have known a cursed mud-turtle couldn't sing. And then
I said, I don't wish to be hard on this fellow, and I will just give
him ten minutes to commence; ten minutes -- and then if he don't,
down goes his building. But he didn't commence, you know. I had
staid there all that time, thinking may be he might, pretty soon,
because he kept on raising his head up and letting it down, and
drawing the skin over his eyes for a minute and then opening them
out again, as if he was trying to study up something to sing, but
just as the ten minutes were up and I was all beat out and
blistered, he laid his blamed head down on a knot and went fast
asleep."
"It was a little hard, after you had waited so long."
"I should think so. I said, Well, if you won't sing, you shan't
sleep, any way; and if you fellows had let me alone I would have
made him shin out of Galilee quicker than any turtle ever did yet.
But it isn't any matter now -- let it go. The skin is all off the
back of my neck."
About ten in the morning we halted at Joseph's Pit. This is a ruined
Khan of the Middle Ages, in one of whose side courts is a great
walled and arched pit with water in it, and this pit, one tradition
says, is the one Joseph's brethren cast him into. A more authentic
tradition, aided by the geography of the country, places the pit in
Dothan, some two days' journey from here. However, since there are
many who believe in this present pit as the true one, it has its
interest.
It is hard to make a choice of the most beautiful passage in a book
which is so gemmed with beautiful passages as the Bible; but it is
certain that not many things within its lids may take rank above the
exquisite story of Joseph. Who taught those ancient writers their
simplicity of language, their felicity of expression, their pathos,
and above all, their faculty of sinking themselves entirely out of
sight of the reader and making the narrative stand out alone and
seem to tell itself? Shakspeare is always present when one reads his
book; Macaulay is present when we follow the march of his stately
sentences; but the Old Testament writers are hidden from view.
If the pit I have been speaking of is the right one, a scene
transpired there, long ages ago, which is familiar to us all in
pictures. The sons of Jacob had been pasturing their flocks near
there. Their father grew uneasy at their long absence, and sent
Joseph, his favorite, to see if any thing had gone wrong with them.
He traveled six or seven days' journey; he was only seventeen years
old, and, boy like, he toiled through that long stretch of the
vilest, rockiest, dustiest country in Asia, arrayed in the pride of
his heart, his beautiful claw-hammer coat of many colors. Joseph was
the favorite, and that was one crime in the eyes of his brethren; he
had dreamed dreams, and interpreted them to foreshadow his elevation
far above all his family in the far future, and that was another; he
was dressed well and had doubtless displayed the harmless vanity of
youth in keeping the fact prominently before his brothers. These
were crimes his elders fretted over among themselves and proposed to
punish when the opportunity should offer. When they saw him coming
up from the Sea of Galilee, they recognized him and were glad. They
said, "Lo, here is this dreamer -- let us kill him." But Reuben
pleaded for his life, and they spared it. But they seized the boy,
and stripped the hated coat from his back and pushed him into the
pit. They intended to let him die there, but Reuben intended to
liberate him secretly. However, while Reuben was away for a little
while, the brethren sold Joseph to some Ishmaelitish merchants who
were journeying towards Egypt. Such is the history of the pit. And
the self-same pit is there in that place, even to this day; and
there it will remain until the next detachment of image-breakers and
tomb desecraters arrives from the Quaker City excursion, and they
will infallibly dig it up and carry it away with them. For behold in
them is no reverence for the solemn monuments of the past, and
whithersoever they go they destroy and spare not.
Joseph became rich, distinguished, powerful -- as the Bible
expresses it, "lord over all the land of Egypt." Joseph was the real
king, the strength, the brain of the monarchy, though Pharaoh held
the title. Joseph is one of the truly great men of the Old
Testament. And he was the noblest and the manliest, save Esau. Why
shall we not say a good word for the princely Bedouin? The only
crime that can be brought against him is that he was unfortunate.
Why must every body praise Joseph's great-hearted generosity to his
cruel brethren, without stint of fervent language, and fling only a
reluctant bone of praise to Esau for his still sublimer generosity
to the brother who had wronged him? Jacob took advantage of Esau's
consuming hunger to rob him of his birthright and the great honor
and consideration that belonged to the position; by treachery and
falsehood he robbed him of his father's blessing; he made of him a
stranger in his home, and a wanderer. Yet after twenty years had
passed away and Jacob met Esau and fell at his feet quaking with
fear and begging piteously to be spared the punishment he knew he
deserved, what did that magnificent savage do? He fell upon his neck
and embraced him! When Jacob -- who was incapable of comprehending
nobility of character -- still doubting, still fearing, insisted
upon "finding grace with my lord" by the bribe of a present of
cattle, what did the gorgeous son of the desert say?
"Nay, I have enough, my brother; keep that thou hast unto thyself!"
Esau found Jacob rich, beloved by wives and children, and traveling
in state, with servants, herds of cattle and trains of camels -- but
he himself was still the uncourted outcast this brother had made
him. After thirteen years of romantic mystery, the brethren who had
wronged Joseph, came, strangers in a strange land, hungry and
humble, to buy "a little food"; and being summoned to a palace,
charged with crime, they beheld in its owner their wronged brother;
they were trembling beggars -- he, the lord of a mighty empire !
What Joseph that ever lived would have thrown away such a chance to
"show off?" Who stands first -- outcast Esau forgiving Jacob in
prosperity, or Joseph on a king's throne forgiving the ragged
tremblers whose happy rascality placed him there?
Just before we came to Joseph's Pit, we had "raised" a hill, and
there, a few miles before us, with not a tree or a shrub to
interrupt the view, lay a vision which millions of worshipers in the
far lands of the earth would give half their possessions to see --
the sacred Sea of Galilee!
Therefore we tarried only a short time at the pit. We rested the
horses and ourselves, and felt for a few minutes the blessed shade
of the ancient buildings. We were out of water, but the two or three
scowling Arabs, with their long guns, who were idling about the
place, said they had none and that there was none in the vicinity.
They knew there was a little brackish water in the pit, but they
venerated a place made sacred by their ancestor's imprisonment too
much to be willing to see Christian dogs drink from it. But Ferguson
tied rags and handkerchiefs together till he made a rope long enough
to lower a vessel to the bottom, and we drank and then rode on; and
in a short time we dismounted on those shores which the feet of the
Saviour have made holy ground.
At noon we took a swim in the Sea of Galilee -- a blessed privilege
in this roasting climate -- and then lunched under a neglected old
fig-tree at the fountain they call Ain-et-Tin, a hundred yards from
ruined Capernaum. Every rivulet that gurgles out of the rocks and
sands of this part of the world is dubbed with the title of
"fountain," and people familiar with the Hudson, the great lakes and
the Mississippi fall into transports of admiration over them, and
exhaust their powers of composition in writing their praises. If all
the poetry and nonsense that have been discharged upon the fountains
and the bland scenery of this region were collected in a book, it
would make a most valuable volume to burn.
During luncheon, the pilgrim enthusiasts of our party, who had been
so light-hearted and so happy ever since they touched holy ground
that they did little but mutter incoherent rhapsodies, could
scarcely eat, so anxious were they to "take shipping" and sail in
very person upon the waters that had borne the vessels of the
Apostles. Their anxiety grew and their excitement augmented with
every fleeting moment, until my fears were aroused and I began to
have misgivings that in their present condition they might break
recklessly loose from all considerations of prudence and buy a whole
fleet of ships to sail in instead of hiring a single one for an
hour, as quiet folk are wont to do. I trembled to think of the
ruined purses this day's performances might result in. I could not
help reflecting bodingly upon the intemperate zeal with which
middle-aged men are apt to surfeit themselves upon a seductive folly
which they have tasted for the first time. And yet I did not feel
that I had a right to be surprised at the state of things which was
giving me so much concern. These men had been taught from infancy to
revere, almost to worship, the holy places whereon their happy eyes
were resting now. For many and many a year this very picture had
visited their thoughts by day and floated through their dreams by
night. To stand before it in the flesh -- to see it as they saw it
now -- to sail upon the hallowed sea, and kiss the holy soil that
compassed it about: these were aspirations they had cherished while
a generation dragged its lagging seasons by and left its furrows in
their faces and its frosts upon their hair. To look upon this
picture, and sail upon this sea, they had forsaken home and its
idols and journeyed thousands and thousands of miles, in weariness
and tribulation. What wonder that the sordid lights of work-day
prudence should pale before the glory of a hope like theirs in the
full splendor of its fruition? Let them squander millions! I said --
who speaks of money at a time like this?
In this frame of mind I followed, as fast as I could, the eager
footsteps of the pilgrims, and stood upon the shore of the lake, and
swelled, with hat and voice, the frantic hail they sent after the
"ship" that was speeding by. It was a success. The toilers of the
sea ran in and beached their barque. Joy sat upon every countenance.

"How much? -- ask him how much, Ferguson! -- how much to take us all
-- eight of us, and you -- to Bethsaida, yonder, and to the mouth of
Jordan, and to the place where the swine ran down into the sea --
quick! -- and we want to coast around every where -- every where! --
all day long! -- I could sail a year in these waters! -- and tell
him we'll stop at Magdala and finish at Tiberias! -- ask him how
much? -- any thing -- any thing whatever! -- tell him we don't care
what the expense is!" [I said to myself, I knew how it would be.]
Ferguson -- (interpreting) -- "He says two Napoleons -- eight
dollars."
One or two countenances fell. Then a pause.
"Too much! -- we'll give him one!"
I never shall know how it was -- I shudder yet when I think how the
place is given to miracles -- but in a single instant of time, as it
seemed to me, that ship was twenty paces from the shore, and
speeding away like a frightened thing! Eight crestfallen creatures
stood upon the shore, and O, to think of it! this -- this -- after
all that overmastering ecstacy! Oh, shameful, shameful ending, after
such unseemly boasting! It was too much like "Ho! let me at him!"
followed by a prudent "Two of you hold him -- one can hold me!"
Instantly there was wailing and gnashing of teeth in the camp.The
two Napoleons were offered -- more if necessary -- andpilgrims and
dragoman shouted themselves hoarse with pleadings to theretreating
boatmen to come back. But they sailed serenely away andpaid no
further heed to pilgrims who had dreamed all their lives ofsome day
skimming over the sacred waters of Galilee and listening toits
hallowed story in the whisperings of its waves, and had
journeyedcountless leagues to do it, and -- and then concluded that
the farewas too high. Impertinent Mohammedan Arabs, to think such
things ofgentlemen of another faith!
Well, there was nothing to do but just submit and forego the
privilege of voyaging on Genessaret, after coming half around the
globe to taste that pleasure. There was a time, when the Saviour
taught here, that boats were plenty among the fishermen of the
coasts -- but boats and fishermen both are gone, now; and old
Josephus had a fleet of men-of-war in these waters eighteen
centuries ago -- a hundred and thirty bold canoes -- but they, also,
have passed away and left no sign. They battle here no more by sea,
and the commercial marine of Galilee numbers only two small ships,
just of a pattern with the little skiffs the disciples knew. One was
lost to us for good -- the other was miles away and far out of hail.
So we mounted the horses and rode grimly on toward Magdala,
cantering along in the edge of the water for want of the means of
passing over it
How the pilgrims abused each other! Each said it was the other's
fault, and each in turn denied it. No word was spoken by the sinners
-- even the mildest sarcasm might have been dangerous at such a
time. Sinners that have been kept down and had examples held up to
them, and suffered frequent lectures, and been so put upon in a
moral way and in the matter of going slow and being serious and
bottling up slang, and so crowded in regard to the matter of being
proper and always and forever behaving, that their lives have become
a burden to them, would not lag behind pilgrims at such a time as
this, and wink furtively, and be joyful, and commit other such
crimes -- because it would not occur to them to do it. Otherwise
they would. But they did do it, though -- and it did them a world of
good to hear the pilgrims abuse each other, too. We took an unworthy
satisfaction in seeing them fall out, now and then, because it
showed that they were only poor human people like us, after all.
So we all rode down to Magdala, while the gnashing of teeth waxed
and waned by turns, and harsh words troubled the holy calm of
Galilee.
Lest any man think I mean to be ill-natured when I talk about our
pilgrims as I have been talking, I wish to say in all sincerity that
I do not. I would not listen to lectures from men I did not like and
could not respect; and none of these can say I ever took their
lectures unkindly, or was restive under the infliction, or failed to
try to profit by what they said to me. They are better men than I
am; I can say that honestly; they are good friends of mine, too --
and besides, if they did not wish to be stirred up occasionally in
print, why in the mischief did they travel with me? They knew me.
They knew my liberal way -- that I like to give and take -- when it
is for me to give and other people to take. When one of them
threatened to leave me in Damascus when I had the cholera, he had no
real idea of doing it -- I know his passionate nature and the good
impulses that underlie it. And did I not overhear Church, another
pilgrim, say he did not care who went or who staid, he would stand
by me till I walked out of Damascus on my own feet or was carried
out in a coffin, if it was a year? And do I not include Church every
time I abuse the pilgrims -- and would I be likely to speak
ill-naturedly of him ? I wish to stir them up and make them healthy;
that is all.
We had left Capernaum behind us. It was only a shapeless ruin. It
bore no semblance to a town, and had nothing about it to suggest
that it had ever been a town. But all desolate and unpeopled as it
was, it was illustrious ground. From it sprang that tree of
Christianity whose broad arms overshadow so many distant lands
to-day. After Christ was tempted of the devil in the desert, he came
here and began his teachings; and during the three or four years he
lived afterward, this place was his home almost altogether. He began
to heal the sick, and his fame soon spread so widely that sufferers
came from Syria and beyond Jordan, and even from Jerusalem, several
days' journey away, to be cured of their diseases. Here he healed
the centurion's servant and Peter's mother-in-law, and multitudes of
the lame and the blind and persons possessed of devils; and here,
also, he raised Jairus's daughter from the dead. He went into a ship
with his disciples, and when they roused him from sleep in the midst
of a storm, he quieted the winds and lulled the troubled sea to rest
with his voice. He passed over to the other side, a few miles away
and relieved two men of devils, which passed into some swine. After
his return he called Matthew from the receipt of customs, performed
some cures, and created scandal by eating with publicans and
sinners. Then he went healing and teaching through Galilee, and even
journeyed to Tyre and Sidon. He chose the twelve disciples, and sent
them abroad to preach the new gospel. He worked miracles in
Bethsaida and Chorazin -- villages two or three miles from
Capernaum. It was near one of them that the miraculous draft of
fishes is supposed to have been taken, and it was in the desert
places near the other that he fed the thousands by the miracles of
the loaves and fishes. He cursed them both, and Capernaum also, for
not repenting, after all the great works he had done in their midst,
and prophesied against them. They are all in ruins, now -- which is
gratifying to the pilgrims, for, as usual, they fit the eternal
words of gods to the evanescent things of this earth; Christ, it is
more probable, referred to the people, not their shabby villages of
wigwams: he said it would be sad for them at "the day of judgment"
-- and what business have mud-hovels at the Day of Judgment? It
would not affect the prophecy in the least -- it would neither prove
it or disprove it -- if these towns were splendid cities now instead
of the almost vanished ruins they are. Christ visited Magdala, which
is near by Capernaum, and he also visited Cesarea Philippi. He went
up to his old home at Nazareth, and saw his brothers Joses, and
Judas, and James, and Simon -- those persons who, being own brothers
to Jesus Christ, one would expect to hear mentioned sometimes, yet
who ever saw their names in a newspaper or heard them from a pulpit?
Who ever inquires what manner of youths they were; and whether they
slept with Jesus, played with him and romped about him; quarreled
with him concerning toys and trifles; struck him in anger, not
suspecting what he was? Who ever wonders what they thought when they
saw him come back to Nazareth a celebrity, and looked long at his
unfamiliar face to make sure, and then said, "It is Jesus?" Who
wonders what passed in their minds when they saw this brother, (who
was only a brother to them, however much he might be to others a
mysterious stranger who was a god and had stood face to face with
God above the clouds,) doing strange miracles with crowds of
astonished people for witnesses? Who wonders if the brothers of
Jesus asked him to come home with them, and said his mother and his
sisters were grieved at his long absence, and would be wild with
delight to see his face again ? Who ever gives a thought to the
sisters of Jesus at all ? -- yet he had sisters; and memories of
them must have stolen into his mind often when he was ill-treated
among strangers; when he was homeless and said he had not where to
lay his head; when all deserted him, even Peter, and he stood alone
among his enemies.
Christ did few miracles in Nazareth, and staid but a little while.
The people said, "This the Son of God! Why, his father is nothing
but a carpenter. We know the family. We see them every day. Are not
his brothers named so and so, and his sisters so and so, and is not
his mother the person they call Mary ? This is absurd." He did not
curse his home, but he shook its dust from his feet and went away.
Capernaum lies close to the edge of the little sea, in a small plain
some five miles long and a mile or two wide, which is mildly adorned
with oleanders which look all the better contrasted with the bald
hills and the howling deserts which surround them, but they are not
as deliriously beautiful as the books paint them. If one be calm and
resolute he can look upon their comeliness and live.
One of the most astonishing things that have yet fallen under our
observation is the exceedingly small portion of the earth from which
sprang the now flourishing plant of Christianity. The longest
journey our Saviour ever performed was from here to Jerusalem --
about one hundred to one hundred and twenty miles. The next longest
was from here to Sidon -- say about sixty or seventy miles. Instead
of being wide apart -- as American appreciation of distances would
naturally suggest -- the places made most particularly celebrated by
the presence of Christ are nearly all right here in full view, and
within cannon-shot of Capernaum. Leaving out two or three short
journeys of the Saviour, he spent his life, preached his gospel, and
performed his miracles within a compass no larger than an ordinary
county in the United States. It is as much as I can do to comprehend
this stupefying fact. How it wears a man out to have to read up a
hundred pages of history every two or three miles -- for verily the
celebrated localities of Palestine occur that close together. How
wearily, how bewilderingly they swarm about your path!
In due time we reached the ancient village of Magdala.
CHAPTER XLVIII

MAGDALA is not a beautiful place. It is thoroughly Syrian, and that

is to say that it is thoroughly ugly, and cramped, squalid,
uncomfortable, and filthy -- just the style of cities that have
adorned the country since Adam's time, as all writers have labored
hard to prove, and have succeeded. The streets of Magdala are any
where from three to six feet wide, and reeking with uncleanliness.
The houses are from five to seven feet high, and all built upon one
arbitrary plan -- the ungraceful form of a dry-goods box. The sides
are daubed with a smooth white plaster, and tastefully frescoed
aloft and alow with disks of camel-dung placed there to dry. This
gives the edifice the romantic appearance of having been riddled
with cannon-balls, and imparts to it a very warlike aspect. When the
artist has arranged his materials with an eye to just proportion --
the small and the large flakes in alternate rows, and separated by
carefully-considered intervals -- I know of nothing more cheerful to
look upon than a spirited Syrian fresco. The flat, plastered roof is
garnished by picturesque stacks of fresco materials, which, having
become thoroughly dried and cured, are placed there where it will be
convenient. It is used for fuel. There is no timber of any
consequence in Palestine -- none at all to waste upon fires -- and
neither are there any mines of coal. If my description has been
intelligible, you will perceive, now, that a square, flat-roofed
hovel, neatly frescoed, with its wall-tops gallantly bastioned and
turreted with dried camel-refuse, gives to a landscape a feature
that is exceedingly festive and picturesque, especially if one is
careful to remember to stick in a cat wherever, about the premises,
there is room for a cat to sit. There are no windows to a Syrian
hut, and no chimneys. When I used to read that they let a bed-ridden
man down through the roof of a house in Capernaum to get him into
the presence of the Saviour, I generally had a three-story brick in
my mind, and marveled that they did not break his neck with the
strange experiment. I perceive now, however, that they might have
taken him by the heels and thrown him clear over the house without
discommoding him very much. Palestine is not changed any since those
days, in manners, customs, architecture, or people.
As we rode into Magdala not a soul was visible. But the ring of the
horses' hoofs roused the stupid population, and they all came
trooping out -- old men and old women, boys and girls, the blind,
the crazy, and the crippled, all in ragged, soiled and scanty
raiment, and all abject beggars by nature, instinct and education.
How the vermin-tortured vagabonds did swarm! How they showed their
scars and sores, and piteously pointed to their maimed and crooked
limbs, and begged with their pleading eyes for charity! We had
invoked a spirit we could not lay. They hung to the horses's tails,
clung to their manes and the stirrups, closed in on every aide in
scorn of dangerous hoofs -- and out of their infidel throats, with
one accord, burst an agonizing and most infernal chorus: "Howajji,
bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh! bucksheesh!
bucksheesh!" I never was in a storm like that before.
As we paid the bucksheesh out to sore-eyed children and brown, buxom
girls with repulsively tattooed lips and chins, we filed through the
town and by many an exquisite fresco, till we came to a
bramble-infested inclosure and a Roman-looking ruin which had been
the veritable dwelling of St. Mary Magdalene, the friend and
follower of Jesus. The guide believed it, and so did I. I could not
well do otherwise, with the house right there before my eyes as
plain as day. The pilgrims took down portions of the front wall for
specimens, as is their honored custom, and then we departed.
We are camped in this place, now, just within the city walls of
Tiberias. We went into the town before nightfall and looked at its
people -- we cared nothing about its houses. Its people are best
examined at a distance. They are particularly uncomely Jews, Arabs,
and negroes. Squalor and poverty are the pride of Tiberias. The
young women wear their dower strung upon a strong wire that curves
downward from the top of the head to the jaw -- Turkish silver coins
which they have raked together or inherited. Most of these maidens
were not wealthy, but some few had been very kindly dealt with by
fortune. I saw heiresses there worth, in their own right -- worth,
well, I suppose I might venture to say, as much as nine dollars and
a half. But such cases are rare. When you come across one of these,
she naturally puts on airs. She will not ask for bucksheesh. She
will not even permit of undue familiarity. She assumes a crushing
dignity and goes on serenely practicing with her fine-tooth comb and
quoting poetry just the same as if you were not present at all. Some
people can not stand prosperity.
They say that the long-nosed, lanky, dyspeptic-looking
body-snatchers, with the indescribable hats on, and a long curl
dangling down in front of each ear, are the old, familiar,
self-righteous Pharisees we read of in the Scriptures. Verily, they
look it. Judging merely by their general style, and without other
evidence, one might easily suspect that self-righteousness was their
specialty.
From various authorities I have culled information concerning
Tiberias. It was built by Herod Antipas, the murderer of John the
Baptist, and named after the Emperor Tiberius. It is believed that
it stands upon the site of what must have been, ages ago, a city of
considerable architectural pretensions, judging by the fine porphyry
pillars that are scattered through Tiberias and down the lake shore
southward. These were fluted, once, and yet, although the stone is
about as hard as iron, the flutings are almost worn away. These
pillars are small, and doubtless the edifices they adorned were
distinguished more for elegance than grandeur. This modern town --
Tiberias -- is only mentioned in the New Testament; never in the
Old.
The Sanhedrim met here last, and for three hundred years Tiberias
was the metropolis of the Jews in Palestine. It is one of the four
holy cities of the Israelites, and is to them what Mecca is to the
Mohammedan and Jerusalem to the Christian. It has been the abiding
place of many learned and famous Jewish rabbins. They lie buried
here, and near them lie also twenty-five thousand of their faith who
traveled far to be near them while they lived and lie with them when
they died. The great Rabbi Ben Israel spent three years here in the
early part of the third century. He is dead, now.
The celebrated Sea of Galilee is not so large a sea as Lake
Tahoe48.1 by a good deal -- it is just about two-thirds as large.
And when we come to speak of beauty, this sea is no more to be
compared to Tahoe than a meridian of longitude is to a rainbow. The
dim waters of this pool can not suggest the limpid brilliancy of
Tahoe; these low, shaven, yellow hillocks of rocks and sand, so
devoid of perspective, can not suggest the grand peaks that compass
Tahoe like a wall, and whose ribbed and chasmed fronts are clad with
stately pines that seem to grow small and smaller as they climb,
till one might fancy them reduced to weeds and shrubs far upward,
where they join the everlasting snows. Silence and solitude brood
over Tahoe; and silence and solitude brood also over this lake of
Genessaret. But the solitude of the one is as cheerful and
fascinating as the solitude of the other is dismal and repellant.
In the early morning one watches the silent battle of dawn and
darkness upon the waters of Tahoe with a placid interest; but when
the shadows sulk away and one by one the hidden beauties of the
shore unfold themselves in the full splendor of noon; when the still
surface is belted like a rainbow with broad bars of blue and green
and white, half the distance from circumference to centre; when, in
the lazy summer afternoon, he lies in a boat, far out to where the
dead blue of the deep water begins, and smokes the pipe of peace and
idly winks at the distant crags and patches of snow from under his
cap-brim; when the boat drifts shoreward to the white water, and he
lolls over the gunwale and gazes by the hour down through the
crystal depths and notes the colors of the pebbles and reviews the
finny armies gliding in procession a hundred feet below; when at
night he sees moon and stars, mountain ridges feathered with pines,
jutting white capes, bold promontories, grand sweeps of rugged
scenery topped with bald, glimmering peaks, all magnificently
pictured in the polished mirror of the lake, in richest, softest
detail, the tranquil interest that was born with the morning deepens
and deepens, by sure degrees, till it culminates at last in
resistless fascination!
It is solitude, for birds and squirrels on the shore and fishes in
the water are all the creatures that are near to make it otherwise,
but it is not the sort of solitude to make one dreary. Come to
Galilee for that. If these unpeopled deserts, these rusty mounds of
barrenness, that never, never, never do shake the glare from their
harsh outlines, and fade and faint into vague perspective; that
melancholy ruin of Capernaum; this stupid village of Tiberias,
slumbering under its six funereal plumes of palms; yonder desolate
declivity where the swine of the miracle ran down into the sea, and
doubtless thought it was better to swallow a devil or two and get
drowned into the bargain than have to live longer in such a place;
this cloudless, blistering sky; this solemn, sailless, tintless
lake, reposing within its rim of yellow hills and low, steep banks,
and looking just as expressionless and unpoetical (when we leave its
sublime history out of the question,) as any metropolitan reservoir
in Christendom -- if these things are not food for rock me to sleep,
mother, none exist, I think.
But I should not offer the evidence for the prosecution and leave
the defense unheard. Wm. C. Grimes deposes as follows: --
"We had taken ship to go over to the other side. The sea was not
more than six
miles wide. Of the beauty of the scene, however, I can not say
enough, nor can
I imagine where those travelers carried their eyes who have
described the
scenery of the lake as tame or uninteresting. The first great
characteristic
of it is

the deep basin in which it lies. This is from three to four hundred
feet deep
on all sides except at the lower end, and the sharp slope of the
banks, which
are all of the richest green, is broken and diversified by the wâdys
and
water-courses which work their way down through the sides of the
basin,
forming dark chasms or light sunny valleys. Near Tiberias these
banks are
rocky, and ancient sepulchres open in them, with their doors toward
the water.
They selected grand spots, as did the Egyptians of old, for burial
places, as
if they designed that when the voice of God should reach the
sleepers, they
should walk forth and open their eyes on scenes of glorious beauty.
On the
east, the wild and desolate mountains contrast finely with the deep
blue lake;
and toward the north, sublime and majestic, Hermon looks down on the
sea,
lifting his white crown to heaven with the pride of a hill that has
seen the
departing footsteps of a hundred generations. On the north-east
shore of the
sea was a single tree, and this is the only tree of any size visible
from the
water of the lake, except a few lonely palms in the city of
Tiberias, and by
its solitary position attracts more attention than would a forest.
The whole
appearance of the scene is precisely what we would expect and desire
the
scenery of Genessaret to be, grand beauty, but quiet calm. The very
mountains
are calm."
It is an ingeniously written description, and well calculated to
deceive. But if the paint and the ribbons and the flowers be
stripped from it, a skeleton will be found beneath.
So stripped, there remains a lake six miles wide and neutral in
color; with steep green banks, unrelieved by shrubbery; at one end
bare, unsightly rocks, with (almost invisible) holes in them of no
consequence to the picture; eastward, "wild and desolate mountains;"
(low, desolate hills, he should have said;) in the north, a mountain
called Hermon, with snow on it; peculiarity of the picture,
"calmness;" its prominent feature, one tree.
No ingenuity could make such a picture beautiful -- to one's actual
vision.
I claim the right to correct misstatements, and have so corrected
the color of the water in the above recapitulation. The waters of
Genessaret are of an exceedingly mild blue, even from a high
elevation and a distance of five miles. Close at hand (the witness
was sailing on the lake,) it is hardly proper to call them blue at
all, much less "deep" blue. I wish to state, also, not as a
correction, but as matter of opinion, that Mount Hermon is not a
striking or picturesque mountain by any means, being too near the
height of its immediate neighbors to be so. That is all. I do not
object to the witness dragging a mountain forty-five miles to help
the scenery under consideration, because it is entirely proper to do
it, and besides, the picture needs it.
"C. W. E.," (of " Life in the Holy Land,") deposes as follows: --

"A beautiful sea lies unbosomed among the Galilean hills, in the
midst of that
land once possessed by Zebulon and Naphtali, Asher and Dan. The
azure of the
sky penetrates the depths of the lake, and the waters are sweet and
cool. On
the west, stretch broad fertile plains; on the north the rocky
shores rise
step by step until in the far distance tower the snowy heights of
Hermon; on
the east through a misty veil are seen the high plains of Perea,
which stretch
away in rugged mountains leading the mind by varied paths toward
Jerusalem the
Holy. Flowers bloom in this terrestrial paradise, once beautiful and
verdant
with waving trees; singing birds enchant the ear; the turtle-dove
soothes with
its soft note; the crested lark sends up its song toward heaven, and
the grave
and stately stork inspires the mind with thought, and leads it on to

meditation and repose. Life here was once idyllic, charming; here
were once no
rich, no poor, no high, no low. It was a world of ease, simplicity,
and
beauty; now it is a scene of desolation and misery."
This is not an ingenious picture. It is the worst I ever saw. It
describes in elaborate detail what it terms a "terrestrial
paradise," and closes with the startling information that this
paradise is "a scene of desolation and misery."
I have given two fair, average specimens of the character of the
testimony offered by the majority of the writers who visit this
region. One says, "Of the beauty of the scene I can not say enough,"
and then proceeds to cover up with a woof of glittering sentences a
thing which, when stripped for inspection, proves to be only an
unobtrusive basin of water, some mountainous desolation, and one
tree. The other, after a conscientious effort to build a terrestrial
paradise out of the same materials, with the addition of a "grave
and stately stork," spoils it all by blundering upon the ghastly
truth at the last.
Nearly every book concerning Galilee and its lake describes the
scenery as beautiful. No -- not always so straightforward as that.
Sometimes the impression intentionally conveyed is that it is
beautiful, at the same time that the author is careful not to say
that it is, in plain Saxon. But a careful analysis of these
descriptions will show that the materials of which they are formed
are not individually beautiful and can not be wrought into
combinations that are beautiful. The veneration and the affection
which some of these men felt for the scenes they were speaking of,
heated their fancies and biased their judgment; but the pleasant
falsities they wrote were full of honest sincerity, at any rate.
Others wrote as they did, because they feared it would be unpopular
to write otherwise. Others were hypocrites and deliberately meant to
deceive. Any of them would say in a moment, if asked, that it was
always right and always best to tell the truth. They would say that,
at any rate, if they did not perceive the drift of the question.
But why should not the truth be spoken of this region? Is the truth
harmful? Has it ever needed to hide its face? God made the Sea of
Galilee and its surroundings as they are. Is it the province of Mr.
Grimes to improve upon the work?
I am sure, from the tenor of books I have read, that many who have
visited this land in years gone by, were Presbyterians, and came
seeking evidences in support of their particular creed; they found a
Presbyterian Palestine, and they had already made up their minds to
find no other, though possibly they did not know it, being blinded
by their zeal. Others were Baptists, seeking Baptist evidences and a
Baptist Palestine. Others were Catholics, Methodists, Episcopalians,
seeking evidences indorsing their several creeds, and a Catholic, a
Methodist, an Episcopalian Palestine. Honest as these men's
intentions may have been, they were full of partialities and
prejudices, they entered the country with their verdicts already
prepared, and they could no more write dispassionately and
impartially about it than they could about their own wives and
children. Our pilgrims have brought their verdicts with them. They
have shown it in their conversation ever since we left Beirout. I
can almost tell, in set phrase, what they will say when they see
Tabor, Nazareth, Jericho and Jerusalem -- because I have the books
they will "smouch" their ideas from. These authors write pictures
and frame rhapsodies, and lesser men follow and see with the
author's eyes instead of their own, and speak with his tongue. What
the pilgrims said at Cesarea Philippi surprised me with its wisdom.
I found it afterwards in Robinson. What they said when Genessaret
burst upon their vision, charmed me with its grace. I find it in Mr.
Thompson's "Land and the Book." They have spoken often, in happily
worded language which never varied, of how they mean to lay their
weary heads upon a stone at Bethel, as Jacob did, and close their
dim eyes, and dream, perchance, of angels descending out of heaven
on a ladder. It was very pretty. But I have recognized the weary
head and the dim eyes, finally. They borrowed the idea -- and the
words -- and the construction -- and the punctuation -- from Grimes.
The pilgrims will tell of Palestine, when they get home, not as it
appeared to them, but as it appeared to Thompson and Robinson and
Grimes -- with the tints varied to suit each pilgrim's creed.
Pilgrims, sinners and Arabs are all abed, now, and the camp is
still. Labor in loneliness is irksome. Since I made my last few
notes, I have been sitting outside the tent for half an hour. Night
is the time to see Galilee. Genessaret under these lustrous stars
has nothing repulsive about it. Genessaret with the glittering
reflections of the constellations flecking its surface, almost makes
me regret that I ever saw the rude glare of the day upon it. Its
history and its associations are its chiefest charm, in any eyes,
and the spells they weave are feeble in the searching light of the
sun. Then, we scarcely feel the fetters. Our thoughts wander
constantly to the practical concerns of life, and refuse to dwell
upon things that seem vague and unreal. But when the day is done,
even the most unimpressible must yield to the dreamy influences of
this tranquil starlight. The old traditions of the place steal upon
his memory and haunt his reveries, and then his fancy clothes all
sights and sounds with the supernatural. In the lapping of the waves
upon the beach, he hears the dip of ghostly oars; in the secret
noises of the night he hears spirit voices; in the soft sweep of the
breeze, the rush of invisible wings. Phantom ships are on the sea,
the dead of twenty centuries come forth from the tombs, and in the
dirges of the night wind the songs of old forgotten ages find
utterance again.
In the starlight, Galilee has no boundaries but the broad compass of
the heavens, and is a theatre meet for great events; meet for the
birth of a religion able to save a world; and meet for the stately
Figure appointed to stand upon its stage and proclaim its high
decrees. But in the sunlight, one says: Is it for the deeds which
were done and the words which were spoken in this little acre of
rocks and sand eighteen centuries gone, that the bells are ringing
to-day in the remote islands of the sea and far and wide over
continents that clasp the circumference of the huge globe?
One can comprehend it only when night has hidden all incongruities
and created a theatre proper for so grand a drama.
48.1 I measure all lakes by Tahoe, partly because I am far more
familiar with it than with any other, and partly because I have such
a high admiration for it and such a world of pleasant recollections
of it, that it is very nearly impossible for me to speak of lakes
and not mention it.
CHAPTER XLIX

WE took another swim in the Sea of Galilee at twilight yesterday,

and another at sunrise this morning. We have not sailed, but three
swims are equal to a sail, are they not? There were plenty of fish
visible in the water, but we have no outside aids in this pilgrimage
but "Tent Life in the Holy Land," "The Land and the Book," and other
literature of like description -- no fishing-tackle. There were no
fish to be had in the village of Tiberias. True, we saw two or three
vagabonds mending their nets, but never trying to catch any thing
with them.
We did not go to the ancient warm baths two miles below Tiberias. I
had no desire in the world to go there. This seemed a little
strange, and prompted me to try to discover what the cause of this
unreasonable indifference was. It turned out to be simply because
Pliny mentions them. I have conceived a sort of unwarrantable
unfriendliness toward Pliny and St. Paul, because it seems as if I
can never ferret out a place that I can have to myself. It always
and eternally transpires that St. Paul has been to that place, and
Pliny has "mentioned" it.
In the early morning we mounted and started. And then a weird
apparition marched forth at the head of the procession -- a pirate,
I thought, if ever a pirate dwelt upon land. It was a tall Arab, as
swarthy as an Indian; young-say thirty years of age. On his head he
had closely bound a gorgeous yellow and red striped silk scarf,
whose ends, lavishly fringed with tassels, hung down between his
shoulders and dallied with the wind. From his neck to his knees, in
ample folds, a robe swept down that was a very star-spangled banner
of curved and sinuous bars of black and white. Out of his back,
somewhere, apparently, the long stem of a chibouk projected, and
reached far above his right shoulder. Athwart his back, diagonally,
and extending high above his left shoulder, was an Arab gum of
Saladin's time, that was splendid with silver plating from stock
clear up to the end of its measureless stretch of barrel. About his
waist was bound many and many a yard of elaborately figured but
sadly tarnished stuff that came from sumptuous Persia, and among the
baggy folds in front the sunbeams glinted from a formidable battery
of old brass-mounted horse-pistols and the gilded hilts of
blood-thirsty knives. There were holsters for more pistols appended
to the wonderful stack of long-haired goat-skins and Persian
carpets, which the man had been taught to regard in the light of a
saddle; and down among the pendulous rank of vast tassels that swung
from that saddle, and clanging against the iron shovel of a stirrup
that propped the warrior's knees up toward his chin, was a crooked,
silver-clad scimitar of such awful dimensions and such implacable
expression that no man might hope to look upon it and not shudder.
The fringed and bedizened prince whose privilege it is to ride the
pony and lead the elephant into a country village is poor and naked
compared to this chaos of paraphernalia, and the happy vanity of the
one is the very poverty of satisfaction compared to the majestic
serenity, the overwhelming complacency of the other.
"Who is this? What is this?" That was the trembling inquiry all down
the line.
"Our guard! From Galilee to the birthplace of the Savior, the
country is infested with fierce Bedouins, whose sole happiness it
is, in this life, to cut and stab and mangle and murder unoffending
Christians. Allah be with us!"
"Then hire a regiment! Would you send us out among these desperate
hordes, with no salvation in our utmost need but this old turret?"
The dragoman laughed-not at the facetiousness of the simile, for
verily, that guide or that courier or that dragoman never yet lived
upon earth who had in him the faintest appreciation of a joke, even
though that joke were so broad and so ponderous that if it fell on
him it would flatten him out like a postage stamp-the dragoman
laughed, and then, emboldened by some thought that was in his brain,
no doubt, proceeded to extremities and winked.
In straits like these, when a man laughs, it is encouraging when he
winks, it is positively reassuring. He finally intimated that one
guard would be sufficient to protect us, but that that one was an
absolute necessity. It was because of the moral weight his awful
panoply would have with the Bedouins. Then I said we didn't want any
guard at all. If one fantastic vagabond could protect eight armed
Christians and a pack of Arab servants from all harm, surely that
detachment could protect themselves. He shook his head doubtfully.
Then I said, just think of how it looks -- think of how it would
read, to self-reliant Americans, that we went sneaking through this
deserted wilderness under the protection of this masquerading Arab,
who would break his neck getting out of the country if a man that
was a man ever started after him. It was a mean, low, degrading
position. Why were we ever told to bring navy revolvers with us if
we had to be protected at last by this infamous star-spangled scum
of the desert? These appeals were vain-the dragoman only smiled and
shook his head.
I rode to the front and struck up an acquaintance with King
Solomon-in-all-his-glory, and got him to show me his lingering
eternity of a gun. It had a rusty dint lock; it was ringed and
barred and plated with silver from end to end, but it was as
desperately out of the perpendicular as are the billiard cues of '49
that one finds yet in service in the ancient mining camps of
California. The muzzle was eaten by the rust of centuries into a
ragged filigree-work, like the end of a burnt-out stove-pipe. I shut
one eye and peered within -- it was flaked with iron rust like an
old steamboat boiler. I borrowed the ponderous pistols and snapped
them. They were rusty inside, too -- had not been loaded for a
generation. I went back, full of encouragement, and reported to the
guide, and asked him to discharge this dismantled fortress. It came
out, then. This fellow was a retainer of the Sheik of Tiberias. He
was a source of Government revenue. He was to the Empire of Tiberias
what the customs are to America. The Sheik imposed guards upon
travelers and charged them for it. It is a lucrative source of
emolument, and sometimes brings into the national treasury as much
as thirty-five or forty dollars a year.
I knew the warrior's secret now; I knew the hollow vanity of his
rusty trumpery, and despised his asinine complacency. I told on him,
and with reckless daring the cavalcade straight ahead into the
perilous solitudes of the desert, and scorned his frantic warnings
of the mutilation and death that hovered about them on every side.
Arrived at an elevation of twelve hundred feet above the lake, (I
ought to mention that the lake lies six hundred feet below the level
of the Mediterranean-no traveler ever neglects to flourish that
fragment of news in his letters,) as bald and unthrilling a panorama
as any land can afford, perhaps, was spread out before us. Yet it
was so crowded with historical interest, that if all the pages that
have been written about it were spread upon its surface, they would
flag it from horizon to horizon like a pavement. Among the
localities comprised in this view, were Mount Hermon; the hills that
border Cesarea Philippi, Dan, the Sources of the Jordan and the
Waters of Merom; Tiberias; the Sea of Galilee; Joseph's Pit;
Capernaum; Bethsaida; the supposed scenes of the Sermon on the
Mount, the feeding of the multitudes and the miraculous draught of
fishes; the declivity down which the swine ran to the sea; the
entrance and the exit of the Jordan; Safed, "the city set upon a
hill," one of the four holy cities of the Jews, and the place where
they believe the real Messiah will appear when he comes to redeem
the world; part of the battle-field of Hattin, where the knightly
Crusaders fought their last fight, and in a blaze of glory passed
from the stage and ended their splendid career forever; Mount Tabor,
the traditional scene of the Lord's Transfiguration. And down toward
the southeast lay a landscape that suggested to my mind a quotation
(imperfectly remembered, no doubt:)
"The Ephraimites, not being called upon to share in the rich spoils
of the
Ammonitish war, assembled a mighty host to fight against Jeptha,
Judge of
Israel; who, being apprised of their approach, gathered together the
men of
Israel and gave them battle and put them to flight. To make his
victory the
more secure, he stationed guards at the different fords and passages
of the
Jordan, with instructions to let none pass who could not say
Shibboleth. The
Ephraimites, being of a different tribe, could not frame to
pronounce the word
right, but called it Sibboleth, which proved them enemies and cost
them their
lives; wherefore, forty and two thousand fell at the different fords
and
passages of the Jordan that day."
We jogged along peacefully over the great caravan route from
Damascus to Jerusalem and Egypt, past Lubia and other Syrian
hamlets, perched, in the unvarying style, upon the summit of steep
mounds and hills, and fenced round about with giant cactuses, (the
sign of worthless land,) with prickly pears upon them like hams, and
came at last to the battle-field of Hattin.
It is a grand, irregular plateau, and looks as if it might have been
created for a battle-field. Here the peerless Saladin met the
Christian host some seven hundred years ago, and broke their power
in Palestine for all time to come. There had long been a truce
between the opposing forces, but according to the Guide-Book,
Raynauld of Chatillon, Lord of Kerak, broke it by plundering a
Damascus caravan, and refusing to give up either the merchants or
their goods when Saladin demanded them. This conduct of an insolent
petty chieftain stung the Sultan to the quick, and he swore that he
would slaughter Raynauld with his own hand, no matter how, or when,
or where he found him. Both armies prepared for war. Under the weak
King of Jerusalem was the very flower of the Christian chivalry. He
foolishly compelled them to undergo a long, exhausting march, in the
scorching sun, and then, without water or other refreshment, ordered
them to encamp in this open plain. The splendidly mounted masses of
Moslem soldiers swept round the north end of Genessaret, burning and
destroying as they came, and pitched their camp in front of the
opposing lines. At dawn the terrific fight began. Surrounded on all
sides by the Sultan's swarming battalions, the Christian Knights
fought on without a hope for their lives. They fought with desperate
valor, but to no purpose; the odds of heat and numbers, and
consuming thirst, were too great against them. Towards the middle of
the day the bravest of their band cut their way through the Moslem
ranks and gained the summit of a little hill, and there, hour after
hour, they closed around the banner of the Cross, and beat back the
charging squadrons of the enemy.
But the doom of the Christian power was sealed. Sunset found Salad
in Lord of Palestine, the Christian chivalry strewn in heaps upon
the field, and the King of Jerusalem, the Grand Master of the
Templars, and Raynauld of Chatillon, captives in the Sultan's tent.
Salad in treated two of the prisoners with princely courtesy, and
ordered refreshments to be set before them. When the King handed an
iced Sherbet to Chatillon, the Sultan said," It is thou that givest
it to him, not I." He remembered his oath, and slaughtered the
hapless Knight of Chatillon with his own hand.
It was hard to realize that this silent plain had once resounded
with martial music and trembled to the tramp of armed men. It was
hard to people this solitude with rushing columns of cavalry, and
stir its torpid pulses with the shouts of victors, the shrieks of
the wounded, and the flash of banner and steel above the surging
billows of war. A desolation is here that not even imagination can
grace with the pomp of life and action.
We reached Tabor safely, and considerably in advance of that old
iron-clad swindle of a guard. We never saw a human being on the
whole route, much less lawless hordes of Bedouins. Tabor stands
solitary and alone, a giant sentinel above the Plain of Esdraelon.
It rises some fourteen hundred feet above the surrounding level, a
green, wooden cone, symmetrical and full of grace -- a prominent
landmark, and one that is exceedingly pleasant to eyes surfeited
with the repulsive monotony of desert Syria. We climbed the steep
path to its summit, through breezy glades of thorn and oak. The view
presented from its highest peak was almost beautiful. Below, was the
broad, level plain of Esdraelon, checkered with fields like a
chess-board, and full as smooth and level, seemingly; dotted about
its borders with white, compact villages, and faintly penciled, far
and near, with the curving lines of roads and trails. When it is
robed in the fresh verdure of spring, it must form a charming
picture, even by itself. Skirting its southern border rises "Little
Hermon," over whose summit a glimpse of Gilboa is caught. Nain,
famous for the raising of the widow's son, and Endor, as famous for
the performances of her witch are in view. To the eastward lies the
Valley of the Jordan and beyond it the mountains of Gilead. Westward
is Mount Carmel. Hermon in the north -- the table-lands of Bashan --
Safed, the holy city, gleaming white upon a tall spur of the
mountains of Lebanon -- a steel-blue corner of the Sea of Galilee --
saddle-peaked Hattin, traditional "Mount of Beatitudes" and mute
witness brave fights of the Crusading host for Holy Cross -- these
fill up the picture.
To glance at the salient features of this landscape through the
picturesque framework of a ragged and ruined stone window -- arch of
the time of Christ, thus hiding from sight all that is unattractive,
is to secure to yourself a pleasure worth climbing the mountain to
enjoy. One must stand on his head to get the best effect in a fine
sunset, and set a landscape in a bold, strong framework that is very
close at hand, to bring out all its beauty. One learns this latter
truth never more to forget it, in that mimic land of enchantment,
the wonderful garden of my lord the Count Pallavicini, near Genoa.
You go wandering for hours among hills and wooded glens, artfully
contrived to leave the impression that Nature shaped them and not
man; following winding paths and coming suddenly upon leaping
cascades and rustic bridges; finding sylvan lakes where you expected
them not; loitering through battered mediæval castles in miniature
that seem hoary with age and yet were built a dozen years ago;
meditating over ancient crumbling tombs, whose marble columns were
marred and broken purposely by the modern artist that made them;
stumbling unawares upon toy palaces, wrought of rare and costly
materials, and again upon a peasant's hut, whose dilapidated
furniture would never suggest that it was made so to order; sweeping
round and round in the midst of a forest on an enchanted wooden
horse that is moved by some invisible agency; traversing Roman roads
and passing under majestic triumphal arches; resting in quaint
bowers where unseen spirits discharge jets of water on you from
every possible direction, and where even the flowers you touch
assail you with a shower; boating on a subterranean lake among
caverns and arches royally draped with clustering stalactites, and
passing out into open day upon another lake, which is bordered with
sloping banks of grass and gay with patrician barges that swim at
anchor in the shadow of a miniature marble temple that rises out of
the clear water and glasses its white statues, its rich capitals and
fluted columns in the tranquil depths. So, from marvel to marvel you
have drifted on, thinking all the time that the one last seen must
be the chiefest. And, verily, the chiefest wonder is reserved until
the last, but you do not see it until you step ashore, and passing
through a wilderness of rare flowers, collected from every corner of
the earth, you stand at the door of one more mimic temple. Right in
this place the artist taxed his genius to the utmost, and fairly
opened the gates of fairy land. You look through an unpretending
pane of glass, stained yellow the first thing you see is a mass of
quivering foliage, ten short steps before you, in the midst of which
is a ragged opening like a gateway-a thing that is common enough in
nature, and not apt to excite suspicions of a deep human design-and
above the bottom of the gateway, project, in the most careless way!
a few broad tropic leaves and brilliant flowers. All of a sudden,
through this bright, bold gateway, you catch a glimpse of the
faintest, softest, richest picture that ever graced the dream of a
dying Saint, since John saw the New Jerusalem glimmering above the
clouds of Heaven. A broad sweep of sea, flecked with careening
sails; a sharp, jutting cape, and a lofty lighthouse on it; a
sloping lawn behind it; beyond, a portion of the old "city of
palaces," with its parks and hills and stately mansions; beyond
these, a prodigious mountain, with its strong outlines sharply cut
against ocean and sky; and over all, vagrant shreds and flakes of
cloud, floating in a sea of gold. The ocean is gold, the city is
gold, the meadow, the mountain, the sky -- every thing is
golden-rich, and mellow, and dreamy as a vision of Paradise. No
artist could put upon canvas, its entrancing beauty, and yet,
without the yellow glass, and the carefully contrived accident of a
framework that cast it into enchanted distance and shut out from it
all unattractive features, it was not a picture to fall into
ecstacies over. Such is life, and the trail of the serpent is over
us all.
There is nothing for it now but to come back to old Tabor, though
the subject is tiresome enough, and I can not stick to it for
wandering off to scenes that are pleasanter to remember. I think I
will skip, any how. There is nothing about Tabor (except we concede
that it was the scene of the Transfiguration,) but some gray old
ruins, stacked up there in all ages of the world from the days of
stout Gideon and parties that flourished thirty centuries ago to the
fresh yesterday of Crusading times. It has its Greek Convent, and
the coffee there is good, but never a splinter of the true cross or
bone of a hallowed saint to arrest the idle thoughts of worldlings
and turn them into graver channels. Catholic church is nothing to me
that has no relics.
The plain of Esdraelon -- "the battle-field of the nations" -- only
sets one to dreaming of Joshua, and Benhadad, and Saul, and Gideon;
Tamerlane, Tancred, Coeur de Lion, and Saladin; the warrior Kings of
Persia, Egypt's heroes, and Napoleon -- for they all fought here. If
the magic of the moonlight could summon from the graves of forgotten
centuries and many lands the countless myriads that have battled on
this wide, far-reaching floor, and array them in the thousand
strange Costumes of their hundred nationalities, and send the vast
host sweeping down the plain, splendid with plumes and banners and
glittering lances, I could stay here an age to see the phantom
pageant. But the magic of the moonlight is a vanity and a fraud; and
whoso putteth his trust in it shall suffer sorrow and
disappointment.
Down at the foot of Tabor, and just at the edge of the storied Plain
of Esdraelon, is the insignificant village of Deburieh, where
Deborah, prophetess of Israel, lived. It is just like Magdala.
CHAPTER L

WE descended from Mount Tabor, crossed a deep ravine, followed a

hilly, rocky road to Nazareth -- distant two hours. All distances in
the East are measured by hours, not miles. A good horse will walk
three miles an hour over nearly any kind of a road; therefore, an
hour, here, always stands for three miles. This method of
computation is bothersome and annoying; and until one gets
thoroughly accustomed to it, it carries no intelligence to his mind
until he has stopped and translated the pagan hours into Christian
miles, just as people do with the spoken words of a foreign language
they are acquainted with, but not familiarly enough to catch the
meaning in a moment. Distances traveled by human feet are also
estimated by hours and minutes, though I do not know what the base
of the calculation is. In Constantinople you ask, "How far is it to
the Consulate?" and they answer, "About ten minutes." "How far is it
to the Lloyds' Agency?" "Quarter of an hour." "How far is it to the
lower bridge?" "Four minutes." I can not be positive about it, but I
think that there, when a man orders a pair of pantaloons, he says he
wants them a quarter of a minute in the legs and nine seconds around
the waist.
Two hours from Tabor to Nazareth -- and as it was an uncommonly
narrow, crooked trail, we necessarily met all the camel trains and
jackass caravans between Jericho and Jacksonville in that particular
place and nowhere else. The donkeys do not matter so much, because
they are so small that you can jump your horse over them if he is an
animal of spirit, but a camel is not jumpable. A camel is as tall as
any ordinary dwellinghouse in Syria -- which is to say a camel is
from one to two, and sometimes nearly three feet taller than a
good-sized man. In this part of the country his load is oftenest in
the shape of colossal sacks -- one on each side. He and his cargo
take up as much room as a carriage. Think of meeting this style of
obstruction in a narrow trail. The camel would not turn out for a
king. He stalks serenely along, bringing his cushioned stilts
forward with the long, regular swing of a pendulum, and whatever is
in the way must get out of the way peaceably, or be wiped out
forcibly by the bulky sacks. It was a tiresome ride to us, and
perfectly exhausting to the horses. We were compelled to jump over
upwards of eighteen hundred donkeys, and only one person in the
party was unseated less than sixty times by the camels. This seems
like a powerful statement, but the poet has said, "Things are not
what they seem." I can not think of any thing, now, more certain to
make one shudder, than to have a softfooted camel sneak up behind
him and touch him on the ear with its cold, flabby underlip. A
camel did this for one of the boys, who was drooping over his saddle
in a brown study. He glanced up and saw the majestic apparition
hovering above him, and made frantic efforts to get out of the way,
but the camel reached out and bit him on the shoulder before he
accomplished it. This was the only pleasant incident of the journey.
At Nazareth we camped in an olive grove near the Virgin Mary's
fountain, and that wonderful Arab "guard" came to collect some
bucksheesh for his "services" in following us from Tiberias and
warding off invisible dangers with the terrors of his armament. The
dragoman had paid his master, but that counted as nothing -- if you
hire a man to sneeze for you, here, and another man chooses to help
him, you have got to pay both. They do nothing whatever without pay.
How it must have surprised these people to hear the way of salvation
offered to them "without money and without price." If the manners,
the people or the customs of this country have changed since the
Saviour's time, the figures and metaphors of the Bible are not the
evidences to prove it by.
We entered the great Latin Convent which is built over the
traditional dwellingplace of the Holy Family. We went down a flight
of fifteen steps below the ground level, and stood in a small chapel
tricked out with tapestry hangings, silver lamps, and oil paintings.
A spot marked by a cross, in the marble floor, under the altar, was
exhibited as the place made forever holy by the feet of the Virgin
when she stood up to receive the message of the angel. So simple, so
unpretending a locality, to be the scene of so mighty an event ! The
very scene of the Annunciation -- an event which has been
commemorated by splendid shrines and august temples all over the
civilized world, and one which the princes of art have made it their
loftiest ambition to picture worthily on their canvas; a spot whose
history is familiar to the very children of every house, and city,
and obscure hamlet of the furthest lands of Christendom; a spot
which myriads of men would toil across the breadth of a world to
see, would consider it a priceless privilege to look upon. It was
easy to think these thoughts. But it was not easy to bring myself up
to the magnitude of the situation. I could sit off several thousand
miles and imagine the angel appearing, with shadowy wings and
lustrous countenance, and note the glory that streamed downward upon
the Virgin's head while the message from the Throne of God fell upon
her ears -- any one can do that, beyond the ocean, but few can do it
here. I saw the little recess from which the angel stepped, but
could not fill its void. The angels that I know are creatures of
unstable fancy -- they will not fit in niches of substantial stone.
Imagination labors best in distant fields. I doubt if any man can
stand in the Grotto of the Annunciation and people with the phantom
images of his mind its too tangible walls of stone.
They showed us a broken granite pillar, depending from the roof,
which they said was hacked in two by the Moslem conquerors of
Nazareth, in the vain hope of pulling down the sanctuary. But the
pillar remained miraculously suspended in the air, and, unsupported
itself, supported then and still supports the roof. By dividing this
statement up among eight, it was found not difficult to believe it.
These gifted Latin monks never do any thing by halves. If they were
to show you the Brazen Serpent that was elevated in the wilderness,
you could depend upon it that they had on hand the pole it was
elevated on also, and even the hole it stood in. They have got the
"Grotto" of the Annunciation here; and just as convenient to it as
one's throat is to his mouth, they have also the Virgin's Kitchen,
and even her sittingroom, where she and Joseph watched the infant
Saviour play with Hebrew toys eighteen hundred years ago. All under
one roof, and all clean, spacious, comfortable "grottoes." It seems
curious that personages intimately connected with the Holy Family
always lived in grottoes -- in Nazareth, in Bethlehem, in imperial
Ephesus -- and yet nobody else in their day and generation thought
of doing any thing of the kind. If they ever did, their grottoes are
all gone, and I suppose we ought to wonder at the peculiar marvel of
the preservation of these I speak of When the Virgin fled from
Herod's wrath, she hid in a grotto in Bethlehem, and the same is
there to this day. The slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem was
done in a grotto; the Saviour was born in a grotto -- both are shown
to pilgrims yet. It is exceedingly strange that these tremendous
events all happened in grottoes -- and exceedingly fortunate,
likewise, because the strongest houses must crumble to ruin in time,
but a grotto in the diving rock will last forever. It is an
imposture -- this grotto stuff -- but it is one that all men ought
to thank the Catholics for. Wherever they ferret out a lost locality
made holy by some Scriptural event, they straightway build a massive
-- almost imperishable -- church there, and preserve the memory of
that locality for the gratification of future generations. If it had
been left to Protestants to do this most worthy work, we would not
even know where Jerusalem is today, and the man who could go and
put his finger on Nazareth would be too wise for this world. The
world owes the Catholics its good will even for the happy rascality
of hewing out these bogus grottoes in the rock; for it is infinitely
more satisfactory to look at a grotto, where people have faithfully
believed for centuries that the Virgin once lived, than to have to
imagine a dwellingplace for her somewhere, any where, nowhere,
loose and at large all over this town of Nazareth. There is too
large a scope of country. The imagination can not work. There is no
one particular spot to chain your eye, rivet your interest, and make
you think. The memory of the Pilgrims can not perish while Plymouth
Rock remains to us. The old monks are wise. They know how to drive a
stake through a pleasant tradition that will hold it to its place
forever.
We visited the places where Jesus worked for fifteen years as a
carpenter, and where he attempted to teach in the synagogue and was
driven out by a mob. Catholic chapels stand upon these sites and
protect the little fragments of the ancient walls which remain. Our
pilgrims broke off specimens. We visited, also, a new chapel, in the
midst of the town, which is built around a boulder some twelve feet
long by four feet thick; the priests discovered, a few years ago,
that the disciples had sat upon this rock to rest, once, when they
had walked up from Capernaum. They hastened to preserve the relic.
Relics are very good property. Travelers are expected to pay for
seeing them, and they do it cheerfully. We like the idea. One's
conscience can never be the worse for the knowledge that he has paid
his way like a man. Our pilgrims would have liked very well to get
out their lampblack and stencilplates and paint their names on that
rock, together with the names of the villages they hail from in
America, but the priests permit nothing of that kind. To speak the
strict truth, however, our party seldom offend in that way, though
we have men in the ship who never lose an opportunity to do it. Our
pilgrims' chief sin is their lust for "specimens." I suppose that by
this time they know the dimensions of that rock to an inch, and its
weight to a ton; and I do not hesitate to charge that they will go
back there tonight and try to carry it off.
This "Fountain of the Virgin" is the one which tradition says Mary
used to get water from, twenty times a day, when she was a girl, and
bear it away in a jar upon her head. The water streams through
faucets in the face of a wall of ancient masonry which stands
removed from the houses of the village. The young girls of Nazareth
still collect about it by the dozen and keep up a riotous laughter
and skylarking. The Nazarene girls are homely. Some of them have
large, lustrous eyes, but none of them have pretty faces. These
girls wear a single garment, usually, and it is loose, shapeless, of
undecided color ; it is generally out of repair, too. They wear,
from crown to jaw, curious strings of old coins, after the manner of
the belles of Tiberias, and brass jewelry upon their wrists and in
their ears. They wear no shoes and stockings. They are the most
human girls we have found in the country yet, and the best natured.
But there is no question that these picturesque maidens sadly lack
comeliness.
A pilgrim -- the "Enthusiast" -- said: "See that tall, graceful
girl! look at the Madonna-like beauty of her countenance!"
Another pilgrim came along presently and said: "Observe that tall,
graceful girl; what queenly Madonna-like gracefulness of beauty is
in her countenance."
I said: "She is not tall, she is short; she is not beautiful, she is
homely; she is graceful enough, I grant, but she is rather
boisterous."
The third and last pilgrim moved by, before long, and he said: "Ah,
what a tall, graceful girl! what Madonna-like gracefulness of
queenly beauty!"
The verdicts were all in. It was time, now, to look up the
authorities for all these opinions. I found this paragraph, which
follows. Written by whom? Wm. C. Grimes:
"After we were in the saddle, we rode down to the spring to have a
last look at the women of Nazareth, who were, as a class, much the
prettiest that we had seen in the East. As we approached the crowd a
tall girl of nineteen advanced toward Miriam and offered her a cup
of water. Her movement was graceful and queenly.
We exclaimed on the spot at the Madonna-like beauty of her
countenance.
Whitely was suddenly thirsty, and begged for water, and drank it
slowly, with his eyes over the top of the cup, fixed on her large
black eyes, which gazed on him quite as curiously as he on her. Then
Moreright wanted water. She gave it to him and he managed to spill
it so as to ask for another cup, and by the time she came to me she
saw through the operation; her eyes were full of fun as she looked
at me. I laughed outright, and she joined me in as gay a shout as
ever country maiden in old Orange county. I wished for a picture of
her. A Madonna, whose face was a portrait of that beautiful Nazareth
girl, would be a 'thing of beauty' and 'a joy forever.'"
That is the kind of gruel which has been served out from Palestine
for ages. Commend me to Fennimore Cooper to find beauty in the
Indians, and to Grimes to find it in the Arabs. Arab men are often
fine looking, but Arab women are not. We can all believe that the
Virgin Mary was beautiful; it is not natural to think otherwise; but
does it follow that it is our duty to find beauty in these present
women of Nazareth?
I love to quote from Grimes, because he is so dramatic. And because
he is so romantic. And because he seems to care but little whether
he tells the truth or not, so he scares the reader or excites his
envy or his admiration.
He went through this peaceful land with one hand forever on his
revolver, and the other on his pocket-handkerchief. Always, when he
was not on the point of crying over a holy place, he was on the
point of killing an Arab. More surprising things happened to him in
Palestine than ever happened to any traveler here or elsewhere since
Munchausen died.
At Beitin, where nobody had interfered with him, he crept out of his
tent at dead of night and shot at what he took to be an Arab lying
on a rock, some distance away, planning evil. The ball killed a
wolf. Just before he fired, he makes a dramatic picture of himself
-- as usual, to scare the reader:
"Was it imagination, or did I see a moving object on the surface of
the rock? If it were a man, why did he not now drop me ? He had a
beautiful shot as I stood out in my black boornoose against the
white tent. I had the sensation of an entering bullet in my throat,
breast, brain."
Reckless creature!
Riding toward Genessaret, they saw two Bedouins, and "we looked to
our pistols and loosened them quietly in our shawls," etc. Always
cool.
In Samaria, he charged up a hill, in the face of a volley of stones;
he fired into the crowd of men who threw them. He says:
"I never lost an opportunity of impressing the Arabs with the
perfection of American and English weapons, and the danger of
attacking any one of the armed Franks. I think the lesson of that
ball not lost."
At Beitin he gave his whole band of Arab muleteers a piece of his
mind, and then --
"I contented myself with a solemn assurance that if there occurred
another instance of disobedience to orders I would thrash the
responsible party as he never dreamed of being thrashed, and if I
could not find who was responsible, I would whip them all, from
first to last, whether there was a governor at hand to do it or I
had to do it myself"
Perfectly fearless, this man.
He rode down the perpendicular path in the rocks, from the Castle of
Banias to the oak grove, at a flying gallop, his horse striding
"thirty feet" at every bound. I stand prepared to bring thirty
reliable witnesses to prove that Putnam's famous feat at Horseneck
was insignificant compared to this.
Behold him -- always theatrical -- looking at Jerusalem -- this
time, by an oversight, with his hand off his pistol for once. "I
stood in the road, my hand on my horse's neck, and with my dim eyes
sought to trace the outlines of the holy places which I had long
before fixed in my mind, but the fastflowing tears forbade my
succeeding. There were our Mohammedan servants, a Latin monk, two
Armenians and a Jew in our cortege, and all alike gazed with
overflowing eyes."
If Latin monks and Arabs cried, I know to a moral certainty that the
horses cried also, and so the picture is complete.
But when necessity demanded, he could be firm as adamant. In the
Lebanon Valley an Arab youth -- a Christian; he is particular to
explain that Mohammedans do not steal -- robbed him of a paltry ten
dollars' worth of powder and shot. He convicted him before a sheik
and looked on while he was punished by the terrible bastinado. Hear
him:
"He (Mousa) was on his back in a twinkling, howling, shouting,
screaming, but he was carried out to the piazza before the door,
where we could see the operation, and laid face down. One man sat on
his back and one on his legs, the latter holding up his feet, while
a third laid on the bare soles a rhinoceros-hide koorbash50.1 that
whizzed through the air at every stroke. Poor Moreright was in
agony, and Nama and Nama the Second (mother and sister of Mousa,)
were on their faces begging and wailing, now embracing my knees and
now Whitely's, while the brother, outside, made the air ring with
cries louder than Mousa's. Even Yusef came and asked me on his knees
to relent, and last of all, Betuni -- the rascal had lost a feed-bag
in their house and had been loudest in his denunciations that
morning -- besought the Howajji to have mercy on the fellow."
But not he! The punishment was "suspended," at the fifteenth blow to
hear the confession. Then Grimes and his party rode away, and left
the entire Christian family to be fined and as severely punished as
the Mohammedan sheik should deem proper.

"As I mounted, Yusef once more begged me to interfere and have mercy
on them, but I looked around at the dark faces of the crowd, and I
couldn't find one drop of pity in my heart for them."
He closes his picture with a rollicking burst of humor which
contrasts finely with the grief of the mother and her children.
One more paragraph:
"Then once more I bowed my head. It is no shame to have wept in
Palestine. I wept, when I saw Jerusalem, I wept when I lay in the
starlight at Bethlehem. I wept on the blessed shores of Galilee. My
hand was no less firm on the rein, my anger did not tremble on the
trigger of my pistol when I rode with it in my right hand along the
shore of the blue sea" (weeping.) "My eye was not dimmed by those
tears nor my heart in aught weakened. Let him who would sneer at my
emotion close this volume here, for he will find little to his taste
in my journeyings through Holy Land."
He never bored but he struck water.
I am aware that this is a pretty voluminous notice of Mr. Grimes'
book. However, it is proper and legitimate to speak of it, for
"Nomadic Life in Palestine" is a representative book -- the
representative of a class of Palestine books -- and a criticism upon
it will serve for a criticism upon them all. And since I am treating
it in the comprehensive capacity of a representative book, I have
taken the liberty of giving to both book and author fictitious
names. Perhaps it is in better taste, any how, to do this.
50.1 "A Koorbash is Arabic for cowhide, the cow being a rhinoceros.
It is the most cruel whip known to fame. Heavy as lead, and flexible
as India-rubber, usually about forty inches long and tapering
gradually from an inch in diameter to a point, it administers a blow
which leaves its mark for time." -- Scow Life in Egypt, by the same
author.
CHAPTER LI

NAZARETH is wonderfully interesting because the town has an air

about it of being precisely as Jesus left it, and one finds himself
saying, all the time, "The boy Jesus has stood in this doorway --
has played in that street -- has touched these stones with his hands
-- has rambled over these chalky hills." Whoever shall write the
boyhood of Jesus ingeniously will make a book which will possess a
vivid interest for young and old alike. I judge so from the greater
interest we found in Nazareth than any of our speculations upon
Capernaum and the Sea of Galilee gave rise to. It was not possible,
standing by the Sea of Galilee, to frame more than a vague, far-away
idea of the majestic Personage who walked upon the crested waves as
if they had been solid earth, and who touched the dead and they rose
up and spoke. I read among my notes, now, with a new interest, some
sentences from an edition of 1621 of the Apocryphal New Testament.
[Extract.]
"Christ, kissed by a bride made dumb by sorcerers, cures her. A
leprous girl cured by the water in which the infant Christ was
washed, and becomes the servant of Joseph and Mary. The leprous son
of a Prince cured in like manner.
"A young man who had been bewitched and turned into a mule,
miraculously cured by the infant Savior being put on his back, and
is married to the girl who had been cured of leprosy. Whereupon the
bystanders praise God.
"Chapter 16. Christ miraculously widens or contracts gates,
milk-pails, sieves or boxes, not properly made by Joseph, he not
being skillful at his carpenter's trade. The King of Jerusalem gives
Joseph an order for a throne. Joseph works on it for two years and
makes it two spans too short. The King being angry with him, Jesus
comforts him -- commands him to pull one side of the throne while he
pulls the other, and brings it to its proper dimensions.
"Chapter 19. Jesus, charged with throwing a boy from the roof of a
house, miraculously causes the dead boy to speak and acquit him;
fetches water for his mother, breaks the pitcher and miraculously
gathers the water in his mantle and brings it home.
"Sent to a schoolmaster, refuses to tell his letters, and the
schoolmaster going to whip him, his hand withers."
Further on in this quaint volume of rejected gospels is an epistle
of St. Clement to the Corinthians, which was used in the churches
and considered genuine fourteen or fifteen hundred years ago. In it
this account of the fabled phoenix occurs:
"1. Let us consider that wonderful type of the resurrection, which
is seen in the Eastern countries, that is to say, in Arabia.
"2. There is a certain bird called a phoenix. Of this there is never
but one at a time, and that lives five hundred years. And when the
time of its dissolution draws near, that it must die, it makes
itself a nest of frankincense, and myrrh, and other spices, into
which, when its time is fulfilled, it enters and dies.
"3. But its flesh, putrefying, breeds a certain worm, which, being
nourished by the juice of the dead bird, brings forth feathers; and
when it is grown to a perfect state, it takes up the nest in which
the bones of its parent lie, and carries it from Arabia into Egypt,
to a city called Heliopolis:
"4. And flying in open day in the sight of all men, lays it upon the
altar of the sun, and so returns from whence it came.
"5. The priests then search into the records of the time, and find
that it returned precisely at the end of five hundred years."
Business is business, and there is nothing like punctuality,
especially in a phoenix.
The few chapters relating to the infancy of the Saviour contain many
things which seem frivolous and not worth preserving. A large part
of the remaining portions of the book read like good Scripture,
however. There is one verse that ought not to have been rejected,
because it so evidently prophetically refers to the general run of
Congresses of the United States:
"199. They carry themselves high, and as prudent men; and though
they are fools, yet would seem to be teachers."
I have set these extracts down, as I found them. Everywhere among
the cathedrals of France and Italy, one finds traditions of
personages that do not figure in the Bible, and of miracles that are
not mentioned in its pages. But they are all in this Apocryphal New
Testament, and though they have been ruled out of our modern Bible,
it is claimed that they were accepted gospel twelve or fifteen
centuries ago, and ranked as high in credit as any. One needs to
read this book before he visits those venerable cathedrals, with
their treasures of tabooed and forgotten tradition.
They imposed another pirate upon us at Nazareth -- another
invincible Arab guard. We took our last look at the city, clinging
like a whitewashed wasp's nest to the hill-side, and at eight
o'clock in the morning departed. We dismounted and drove the horses
down a bridle-path which I think was fully as crooked as a
corkscrew, which I know to be as steep as the downward sweep of a
rainbow, and which I believe to be the worst piece of road in the
geography, except one in the Sandwich Islands, which I remember
painfully, and possibly one or two mountain trails in the Sierra
Nevadas. Often, in this narrow path the horse had to poise himself
nicely on a rude stone step and then drop his fore-feet over the
edge and down something more than half his own height. This brought
his nose near the ground, while his tail pointed up toward the sky
somewhere, and gave him the appearance of preparing to stand on his
head. A horse cannot look dignified in this position. We
accomplished the long descent at last, and trotted across the great
Plain of Esdraelon.
Some of us will be shot before we finish this pilgrimage. The
pilgrims read "Nomadic Life" and keep themselves in a constant state
of Quixotic heroism. They have their hands on their pistols all the
time, and every now and then, when you least expect it, they snatch
them out and take aim at Bedouins who are not visible, and draw
their knives and make savage passes at other Bedouins who do not
exist. I am in deadly peril always, for these spasms are sudden and
irregular, and of course I cannot tell when to be getting out of the
way. If I am accidentally murdered, some time, during one of these
romantic frenzies of the pilgrims, Mr. Grimes must be rigidly held
to answer as an accessory before the fact. If the pilgrims would
take deliberate aim and shoot at a man, it would be all right and
proper -- because that man would not be in any danger; but these
random assaults are what I object to. I do not wish to see any more
places like Esdraelon, where the ground is level and people can
gallop. It puts melodramatic nonsense into the pilgrims' heads. All
at once, when one is jogging along stupidly in the sun, and thinking
about something ever so far away, here they come, at a stormy
gallop, spurring and whooping at those ridgy old sore-backed plugs
till their heels fly higher than their heads, and as they whiz by,
out comes a little potato-gum of a revolver, there is a startling
little pop, and a small pellet goes singing through the air. Now
that I have begun this pilgrimage, I intend to go through with it,
though sooth to say, nothing but the most desperate valor has kept
me to my purpose up to the present time. I do not mind Bedouins, --
I am not afraid of them; because neither Bedouins nor ordinary Arabs
have shown any disposition to harm us, but I do feel afraid of my
own comrades.
Arriving at the furthest verge of the Plain, we rode a little way up
a hill and found ourselves at Endor, famous for its witch. Her
descendants are there yet. They were the wildest horde of half-naked
savages we have found thus far. They swarmed out of mud bee-hives;
out of hovels of the dry-goods box pattern; out of gaping caves
under shelving rocks; out of crevices in the earth. In five minutes
the dead solitude and silence of the place were no more, and a
begging, screeching, shouting mob were struggling about the horses'
feet and blocking the way. ''Bucksheesh! bucksheesh ! bucksheesh!
howajji, bucksheesh !" It was Magdala over again, only here the
glare from the infidel eyes was fierce and full of hate. The
population numbers two hundred and fifty, and more than half the
citizens live in caves in the rock. Dirt, degradation and savagery
are Endor's specialty. We say no more about Magdala and Deburieh
now. Endor heads the list. It is worse than any Indian campoodie.
The hill is barren, rocky, and forbidding. No sprig of grass is
visible, and only one tree. This is a fig-tree, which maintains a
precarious footing among the rocks at the mouth of the dismal cavern
once occupied by the veritable Witch of Endor. In this cavern,
tradition says, Saul, the king, sat at midnight, and stared and
trembled, while the earth shook, the thunders crashed among the
hills, and out of the midst of fire and smoke the spirit of the dead
prophet rose up and confronted him. Saul had crept to this place in
the darkness, while his army slept, to learn what fate awaited him
in the morrow's battle. He went away a sad man, to meet disgrace and
death.
A spring trickles out of the rock in the gloomy recesses of the
cavern, and we were thirsty. The citizens of Endor objected to our
going in there. They do not mind dirt; they do not mind rags; they
do not mind vermin; they do not mind barbarous ignorance and
savagery; they do not mind a reasonable degree of starvation, but
they do like to be pure and holy before their god, whoever he may
be, and therefore they shudder and grow almost pale at the idea of
Christian lips polluting a spring whose waters must descend into
their sanctified gullets. We had no wanton desire to wound even
their feelings or trample upon their prejudices, but we were out of
water, thus early in the day, and were burning up with thirst. It
was at this time, and under these circumstances, that I framed an
aphorism which has already become celebrated. I said: "Necessity
knows no law." We went in and drank.
We got away from the noisy wretches, finally, dropping them in
squads and couples as we filed over the hills -- the aged first, the
infants next, the young girls further on; the strong men ran beside
us a mile, and only left when they had secured the last possible
piastre in the way of bucksheesh.
In an hour, we reached Nain, where Christ raised the widow's son to
life. Nain is Magdala on a small scale. It has no population of any
consequence. Within a hundred yards of it is the original graveyard,
for aught I know; the tombstones lie flat on the ground, which is
Jewish fashion in Syria. I believe the Moslems do not allow them to
have upright tombstones. A Moslem grave is usually roughly plastered
over and whitewashed, and has at one end an upright projection which
is shaped into exceedingly rude attempts at ornamentation. In the
cities, there is often no appearance of a grave at all; a tall,
slender marble tombstone, elaborately lettred, gilded and painted,
marks the burial place, and this is surmounted by a turban, so
carved and shaped as to signify the dead man's rank in life.
They showed a fragment of ancient wall which they said was one side
of the gate out of which the widow's dead son was being brought so
many centuries ago when Jesus met the procession:
"Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold there was a
dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a
widow: and much people of the city was with her.
"And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said, Weep
not.
"And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood
still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, arise.
"And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered
him to his mother.
"And there came a fear on all. And they glorified God, saying, That
a great prophet is risen up among us; and That God hath visited his
people."
A little mosque stands upon the spot which tradition says was
occupied by the widow's dwelling. Two or three aged Arabs sat about
its door. We entered, and the pilgrims broke specimens from the
foundation walls, though they had to touch, and even step, upon the
"praying carpets" to do it. It was almost the same as breaking
pieces from the hearts of those old Arabs. To step rudely upon the
sacred praying mats, with booted feet -- a thing not done by any
Arab -- was to inflict pain upon men who had not offended us in any
way. Suppose a party of armed foreigners were to enter a village
church in America and break ornaments from the altar railings for
curiosities, and climb up and walk upon the Bible and the pulpit
cushions? However, the cases are different. One is the profanation
of a temple of our faith -- the other only the profanation of a
pagan one.
We descended to the Plain again, and halted a moment at a well -- of
Abraham's time, no doubt. It was in a desert place. It was walled
three feet above ground with squared and heavy blocks of stone,
after the manner of Bible pictures. Around it some camels stood, and
others knelt. There was a group of sober little donkeys with naked,
dusky children clambering about them, or sitting astride their
rumps, or pulling their tails. Tawny, black-eyed, barefooted maids,
arrayed in rags and adorned with brazen armlets and pinchbeck
ear-rings, were poising water-jars upon their heads, or drawing
water from the well. A flock of sheep stood by, waiting for the
shepherds to fill the hollowed stones with water, so that they might
drink -- stones which, like those that walled the well, were worn
smooth and deeply creased by the chafing chins of a hundred
generations of thirsty animals. Picturesque Arabs sat upon the
ground, in groups, and solemnly smoked their long-stemmed chibouks.
Other Arabs were filling black hog-skins with water -- skins which,
well filled, and distended with water till the short legs projected
painfully out of the proper line, looked like the corpses of hogs
bloated by drowning. Here was a grand Oriental picture which I had
worshiped a thousand times in soft, rich steel engravings! But in
the engraving there was no desolation; no dirt; no rags; no fleas;
no ugly features; no sore eyes; no feasting flies; no besotted
ignorance in the countenances; no raw places on the donkeys' backs;
no disagreeable jabbering in unknown tongues; no stench of camels;
no suggestion that a couple of tons of powder placed under the party
and touched off would heighten the effect and give to the scene a
genuine interest and a charm which it would always be pleasant to
recall, even though a man lived a thousand years. Oriental scenes
look best in steel engravings. I cannot be imposed upon any more by
that picture of the Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon. I shall say to
myself, You look fine, Madam but your feet are not clean and you
smell like a camel.
Presently a wild Arab in charge of a camel train recognized an old
friend in Ferguson, and they ran and fell upon each other's necks
and kissed each other's grimy, bearded faces upon both cheeks. It
explained instantly a something which had always seemed to me only a
farfetched Oriental figure of speech. I refer to the circumstance of
Christ's rebuking a Pharisee, or some such character, and reminding
him that from him he had received no "kiss of welcome." It did not
seem reasonable to me that men should kiss each other, but I am
aware, now, that they did. There was reason in it, too. The custom
was natural and proper; because people must kiss, and a man would
not be likely to kiss one of the women of this country of his own
free will and accord. One must travel, to learn. Every day, now, old
Scriptural phrases that never possessed any significance for me
before, take to themselves a meaning.
We journeyed around the base of the mountain -- "Little Hermon," --
past the old Crusaders' castle of El Fuleh, and arrived at Shunem.
This was another Magdala, to a fraction, frescoes and all. Here,
tradition says, the prophet Samuel was born, and here the Shunamite
woman built a little house upon the city wall for the accommodation
of the prophet Elisha. Elisha asked her what she expected in return.
It was a perfectly natural question, for these people are and were
in the habit of proffering favors and services and then expecting
and begging for pay. Elisha knew them well. He could not comprehend
that any body should build for him that humble little chamber for
the mere sake of old friendship, and with no selfish motive
whatever. It used to seem a very impolite, not to say a rude,
question, for Elisha to ask the woman, but it does not seem so to me
now. The woman said she expected nothing Then for her goodness and
her unselfishness, he rejoiced her heart with the news that she
should bear a son. It was a high reward -- but she would not have
thanked him for a daughter -- daughters have always been unpopular
here. The son was born, grew, waxed strong, died. Elisha restored
him to life in Shunem.
We found here a grove of lemon trees -- cool, shady, hung with
fruit. One is apt to overestimate beauty when it is rare, but to me
this grove seemed very beautiful. It was beautiful. I do not
overestimate it. I must always remember Shunem gratefully, as a
place which gave to us this leafy shelter after our long, hot ride.
We lunched, rested, chatted, smoked our pipes an hour, and then
mounted and moved on.
As we trotted across the Plain of Jezreel, we met half a dozen
Digger Indians (Bedouins) with very long spears in their hands,
cavorting around on old crowbait horses, and spearing imaginary
enemies; whooping, and fluttering their rags in the wind, and
carrying on in every respect like a pack of hopeless lunatics. At
last, here were the "wild, free sons of the desert, speeding over
the plain like the wind, on their beautiful Arabian mares" we had
read so much about and longed so much to see! Here were the
"picturesque costumes!" This was the "gallant spectacle!"
Tatterdemalion vagrants -- cheap braggadocio -- "Arabian mares"
spined and necked like the ichthyosaurus in the museum, and humped
and cornered like a dromedary! To glance at the genuine son of the
desert is to take the romance out of him forever -- to behold his
steed is to long in charity to strip his harness off and let him
fall to pieces.
Presently we came to a ruinous old town on a hill, the same being
the ancient Jezreel.
Ahab, King of Samaria, (this was a very vast kingdom, for those
days, and was very nearly half as large as Rhode Island) dwelt in
the city of Jezreel, which was his capital. Near him lived a man by
the name of Naboth, who had a vineyard. The King asked him for it,
and when he would not give it, offered to buy it. But Naboth refused
to sell it. In those days it was considered a sort of crime to part
with one's inheritance at any price -- and even if a man did part
with it, it reverted to himself or his heirs again at the next
jubilee year. So this spoiled child of a King went and lay down on
the bed with his face to the wall, and grieved sorely. The Queen, a
notorious character in those days, and whose name is a by-word and a
reproach even in these, came in and asked him wherefore he sorrowed,
and he told her. Jezebel said she could secure the vineyard; and she
went forth and forged letters to the nobles and wise men, in the
King's name, and ordered them to proclaim a fast and set Naboth on
high before the people, and suborn two witnesses to swear that he
had blasphemed. They did it, and the people stoned the accused by
the city wall, and he died. Then Jezebel came and told the King, and
said, Behold, Naboth is no more -- rise up and seize the vineyard.
So Ahab seized the vineyard, and went into it to possess it. But the
Prophet Elijah came to him there and read his fate to him, and the
fate of Jezebel; and said that in the place where dogs licked the
blood of Naboth, dogs should also lick his blood -- and he said,
likewise, the dogs should eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. In the
course of time, the King was killed in battle, and when his chariot
wheels were washed in the pool of Samaria, the dogs licked the
blood. In after years, Jehu, who was King of Israel, marched down
against Jezreel, by order of one of the Prophets, and administered
one of those convincing rebukes so common among the people of those
days: he killed many kings and their subjects, and as he came along
he saw Jezebel, painted and finely dressed, looking out of a window,
and ordered that she be thrown down to him. A servant did it, and
Jehu's horse trampled her under foot. Then Jehu went in and sat down
to dinner; and presently he said, Go and bury this cursed woman, for
she is a King's daughter. The spirit of charity came upon him too
late, however, for the prophecy had already been fulfilled -- the
dogs had eaten her, and they "found no more of her than the skull,
and the feet, and the palms of her hands."
Ahab, the late King, had left a helpless family behind him, and Jehu
killed seventy of the orphan sons. Then he killed all the relatives,
and teachers, and servants and friends of the family, and rested
from his labors, until he was come near to Samaria, where he met
forty-two persons and asked them who they were; they said they were
brothers of the King of Judah. He killed them. When he got to
Samaria, he said he would show his zeal for the Lord; so he gathered
all the priests and people together that worshiped Baal, pretending
that he was going to adopt that worship and offer up a great
sacrifice; and when they were all shut up where they could not
defend themselves, he caused every person of them to be killed. Then
Jehu, the good missionary, rested from his labors once more.
We went back to the valley, and rode to the Fountain of Ain Jelud.
They call it the Fountain of Jezreel, usually. It is a pond about
one hundred feet square and four feet deep, with a stream of water
trickling into it from under an overhanging ledge of rocks. It is in
the midst of a great solitude. Here Gideon pitched his camp in the
old times; behind Shunem lay the "Midianites, the Amalekites, and
the Children of the East," who were "as grasshoppers for multitude;
both they and their camels were without number, as the sand by the
sea-side for multitude." Which means that there were one hundred and
thirty-five thousand men, and that they had transportation service
accordingly.
Gideon, with only three hundred men, surprised them in the night,
and stood by and looked on while they butchered each other until a
hundred and twenty thousand lay dead on the field.
We camped at Jenin before night, and got up and started again at one
o'clock in the morning. Somewhere towards daylight we passed the
locality where the best authenticated tradition locates the pit into
which Joseph's brethren threw him, and about noon, after passing
over a succession of mountain tops, clad with groves of fig and
olive trees, with the Mediterranean in sight some forty miles away,
and going by many ancient Biblical cities whose inhabitants glowered
savagely upon our Christian procession, and were seemingly inclined
to practice on it with stones, we came to the singularly terraced
and unlovely hills that betrayed that we were out of Galilee and
into Samaria at last.
We climbed a high hill to visit the city of Samaria, where the woman
may have hailed from who conversed with Christ at Jacob's Well, and
from whence, no doubt, came also the celebrated Good Samaritan.
Herod the Great is said to have made a magnificent city of this
place, and a great number of coarse 1imestone columns, twenty feet
high and two feet through, that are almost guiltless of
architectural grace of shape and ornament, are pointed out by many
authors as evidence of the fact. They would not have been considered
handsome in ancient Greece, however.
The inhabitants of this camp are particularly vicious, and stoned
two parties of our pilgrims a day or two ago who brought about the
difficulty by showing their revolvers when they did not intend to
use them -- a thing which is deemed bad judgment in the Far West,
and ought certainly to be so considered any where. In the new
Territories, when a man puts his hand on a weapon, he knows that he
must use it; he must use it instantly or expect to be shot down
where he stands. Those pilgrims had been reading Grimes.
There was nothing for us to do in Samaria but buy handfuls of old
Roman coins at a franc a dozen, and look at a dilapidated church of
the Crusaders and a vault in it which once contained the body of
John the Baptist. This relic was long ago carried away to Genoa.
Samaria stood a disastrous siege, once, in the days of Elisha, at
the hands of the King of Syria. Provisions reached such a figure
that "an ass' head was sold for eighty pieces of silver and the
fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver."
An incident recorded of that heavy time will give one a very good
idea of the distress that prevailed within these crumbling walls. As
the King was walking upon the battlements one day, "a woman cried
out, saying, Help, my lord, O King ! And the King said, What aileth
thee? and she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that
we may eat him to-day, and we will eat my son to-morrow. So we
boiled my son, and did eat him; and I said unto her on the next day,
Give thy son that we may eat him; and she hath hid her son."
The prophet Elisha declared that within four and twenty hours the
prices of food should go down to nothing, almost, and it was so. The
Syrian army broke camp and fled, for some cause or other, the famine
was relieved from without, and many a shoddy speculator in dove's
dung and ass's meat was ruined.
We were glad to leave this hot and dusty old village and hurry on.
At two o'clock we stopped to lunch and rest at ancient Shechem,
between the historic Mounts of Gerizim and Ebal, where in the old
times the books of the law, the curses and the blessings, were read
from the heights to the Jewish multitudes below.
CHAPTER LII

THE narrow canon in which Nablous, or Shechem, is situated, is under

high cultivation, and the soil is exceedingly black and fertile. It
is well watered, and its affluent vegetation gains effect by
contrast with the barren hills that tower on either side. One of
these hills is the ancient Mount of Blessings and the other the
Mount of Curses and wise men who seek for fulfillments of prophecy
think they find here a wonder of this kind -- to wit, that the Mount
of Blessings is strangely fertile and its mate as strangely
unproductive. We could not see that there was really much difference
between them in this respect, however.
Shechem is distinguished as one of the residences of the patriarch
Jacob, and as the seat of those tribes that cut themselves loose
from their brethren of Israel and propagated doctrines not in
conformity with those of the original Jewish creed. For thousands of
years this clan have dwelt in Shechem under strict tabu, and having
little commerce or fellowship with their fellow men of any religion
or nationality. For generations they have not numbered more than one
or two hundred, but they still adhere to their ancient faith and
maintain their ancient rites and ceremonies. Talk of family and old
descent ! Princes and nobles pride themselves upon lineages they can
trace back some hundreds of years. What is this trifle to this
handful of old first families of Shechem who can name their fathers
straight back without a flaw for thousands -- straight back to a
period so remote that men reared in a country where the days of two
hundred years ago are called "ancient" times grow dazed and
bewildered when they try to comprehend it! Here is respectability
for you -- here is "family" -- here is high descent worth talking
about. This sad, proud remnant of a once mighty community still hold
themselves aloof from all the world; they still live as their
fathers lived, labor as their fathers labored, think as they did,
feel as they did, worship in the same place, in sight of the same
landmarks, and in the same quaint, patriarchal way their ancestors
did more than thirty centuries ago. I found myself gazing at any
straggling scion of this strange race with a riveted fascination,
just as one would stare at a living mastodon, or a megatherium that
had moved in the grey dawn of creation and seen the wonders of that
mysterious world that was before the flood.
Carefully preserved among the sacred archives of this curious
community is a MSS. copy of the ancient Jewish law, which is said to
be the oldest document on earth. It is written on vellum, and is
some four or five thousand years old. Nothing but bucksheesh can
purchase a sight. Its fame is somewhat dimmed in these latter days,
because of the doubts so many authors of Palestine travels have felt
themselves privileged to cast upon it. Speaking of this MSS. reminds
me that I procured from the highpriest of this ancient Samaritan
community, at great expense, a secret document of still higher
antiquity and far more extraordinary interest, which I propose to
publish as soon as I have finished translating it.
Joshua gave his dying injunction to the children of Israel at
Shechem, and buried a valuable treasure secretly under an oak tree
there about the same time. The superstitious Samaritans have always
been afraid to hunt for it. They believe it is guarded by fierce
spirits invisible to men.
About a mile and a half from Shechem we halted at the base of Mount
Ebal before a little square area, inclosed by a high stone wall,
neatly whitewashed. Across one end of this inclosure is a tomb built
after the manner of the Moslems. It is the tomb of Joseph. No truth
is better authenticated than this.
When Joseph was dying he prophesied that exodus of the Israelites
from Egypt which occurred four hundred years afterwards. At the same
time he exacted of his people an oath that when they journeyed to
the land of Canaan they would bear his bones with them and bury them
in the ancient inheritance of his fathers. The oath was kept.
"And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up
out of
Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob
bought of the
sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred pieces of silver."

Few tombs on earth command the veneration of so many races and men
of divers creeds as this of Joseph. "Samaritan and Jew, Moslem and
Christian alike, revere it, and honor it with their visits. The tomb
of Joseph, the dutiful son, the affectionate, forgiving brother, the
virtuous man, the wise Prince and ruler. Egypt felt his influence --
the world knows his history."
In this same "parcel of ground" which Jacob bought of the sons of
Hamor for a hundred pieces of silver, is Jacob's celebrated well. It
is cut in the solid rock, and is nine feet square and ninety feet
deep. The name of this unpretending hole in the ground, which one
might pass by and take no notice of, is as familiar as household
words to even the children and the peasants of many a faroff
country. It is more famous than the Parthenon; it is older than the
Pyramids.
It was by this well that Jesus sat and talked with a woman of that
strange, antiquated Samaritan community I have been speaking of, and
told her of the mysterious water of life. As descendants of old
English nobles still cherish in the traditions of their houses how
that this king or that king tarried a day with some favored ancestor
three hundred years ago, no doubt the descendants of the woman of
Samaria, living there in Shechem, still refer with pardonable vanity
to this conversation of their ancestor, held some little time gone
by, with the Messiah of the Christians. It is not likely that they
undervalue a distinction such as this. Samaritan nature is human
nature, and human nature remembers contact with the illustrious,
always.
For an offense done to the family honor, the sons of Jacob
exterminated all Shechem once.
We left Jacob's Well and traveled till eight in the evening, but
rather slowly, for we had been in the saddle nineteen hours, and the
horses were cruelly tired. We got so far ahead of the tents that we
had to camp in an Arab village, and sleep on the ground. We could
have slept in the largest of the houses; but there were some little
drawbacks: it was populous with vermin, it had a dirt floor, it was
in no respect cleanly, and there was a family of goats in the only
bedroom, and two donkeys in the parlor. Outside there were no
inconveniences, except that the dusky, ragged, earnesteyed
villagers of both sexes and all ages grouped themselves on their
haunches all around us, and discussed us and criticised us with
noisy tongues till midnight. We did not mind the noise, being tired,
but, doubtless, the reader is aware that it is almost an impossible
thing to go to sleep when you know that people are looking at you.
We went to bed at ten, and got up again at two and started once
more. Thus are people persecuted by dragomen, whose sole ambition in
life is to get ahead of each other.
About daylight we passed Shiloh, where the Ark of the Covenant
rested three hundred years, and at whose gates good old Eli fell
down and "brake his neck" when the messenger, riding hard from the
battle, told him of the defeat of his people, the death of his sons,
and, more than all, the capture of Israel's pride, her hope, her
refuge, the ancient Ark her forefathers brought with them out of
Egypt. It is little wonder that under circumstances like these he
fell down and brake his neck. But Shiloh had no charms for us. We
were so cold that there was no comfort but in motion, and so drowsy
we could hardly sit upon the horses.
After a while we came to a shapeless mass of ruins, which still
bears the name of Bethel. It was here that Jacob lay down and had
that superb vision of angels flitting up and down a ladder that
reached from the clouds to earth, and caught glimpses of their
blessed home through the open gates of Heaven
The pilgrims took what was left of the hallowed ruin, and we pressed
on toward the goal of our crusade, renowned Jerusalem.
The further we went the hotter the sun got, and the more rocky and
bare, repulsive and dreary the landscape became. There could not
have been more fragments of stone strewn broadcast over this part of
the world, if every ten square feet of the land had been occupied by
a separate and distinct stonecutter's establishment for an age.
There was hardly a tree or a shrub any where. Even the olive and the
cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted
the country. No landscape exists that is more tiresome to the eye
than that which bounds the approaches to Jerusalem. The only
difference between the roads and the surrounding country, perhaps,
is that there are rather more rocks in the roads than in the
surrounding country.
We passed Ramah, and Beroth, and on the right saw the tomb of the
prophet Samuel, perched high upon a commanding eminence. Still no
Jerusalem came in sight. We hurried on impatiently. We halted a
moment at the ancient Fountain of Beira, but its stones, worn deeply
by the chins of thirsty animals that are dead and gone centuries
ago, had no interest for us -- we longed to see Jerusalem. We
spurred up hill after hill, and usually began to stretch our necks
minutes before we got to the top -- but disappointment always
followed: -- more stupid hills beyond -- more unsightly landscape --
no Holy City.
At last, away in the middle of the day, ancient bite of wall and
crumbling arches began to line the way -- we toiled up one more
hill, and every pilgrim and every sinner swung his hat on high!
Jerusalem !
Perched on its eternal hills, white and domed and solid, massed
together and hooped with high gray walls, the venerable city gleamed
in the sun. So small! Why, it was no larger than an American village
of four thousand inhabitants, and no larger than an ordinary Syrian
city of thirty thousand. Jerusalem numbers only fourteen thousand
people
We dismounted and looked, without speaking a dozen sentences, across
the wide intervening valley for an hour or more; and noted those
prominent features of the city that pictures make familiar to all
men from their school days till their death. We could recognize the
Tower of Hippicus, the Mosque of Omar, the Damascus Gate, the Mount
of Olives, the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the Tower of David, and the
Garden of Gethsemaneand dating from these landmarks could tell
very nearly the localities of many others we were not able to
distinguish.
I record it here as a notable but not discreditable fact that not
even our pilgrims wept. I think there was no individual in the party
whose brain was not teeming with thoughts and images and memories
invoked by the grand history of the venerable city that lay before
us, but still among them all was no "voice of them that wept."
There was no call for tears. Tears would have been out of place. The
thoughts Jerusalem suggests are full of poetry, sublimity, and more
than all, dignity. Such thoughts do not find their appropriate
expression in the emotions of the nursery.
Just after noon we entered these narrow, crooked streets, by the
ancient and the famed Damascus Gate, and now for several hours I
have been trying to comprehend that I am actually in the illustrious
old city where Solomon dwelt, where Abraham held converse with the
Deity, and where walls still stand that witnessed the spectacle of
the Crucifixion.
CHAPTER LIII

A FAST walker could go outside the walls of Jerusalem and walk

entirely around the city in an hour. I do not know how else to make
one understand how small it is. The appearance of the city is
peculiar. It is as knobby with countless little domes as a prison
door is with bolt-heads. Every house has from one to half a dozen of
these white plastered domes of stone, broad and low, sitting in the
centre of, or in a cluster upon, the flat roof. Wherefore, when one
looks down from an eminence, upon the compact mass of houses (so
closely crowded together, in fact, that there is no appearance of
streets at all, and so the city looks solid,) he sees the knobbiest
town in the world, except Constantinople. It looks as if it might be
roofed, from centre to circumference, with inverted saucers. The
monotony of the view is interrupted only by the great Mosque of
Omar, the Tower of Hippicus, and one or two other buildings that
rise into commanding prominence.
The houses are generally two stories high, built strongly of
masonry, whitewashed or plastered outside, and have a cage of wooden
lattice-work projecting in front of every window. To reproduce a
Jerusalem street, it would only be necessary to up-end a
chicken-coop and hang it before each window in an alley of American
houses.
The streets are roughly and badly paved with stone, and are
tolerably crooked -- enough so to make each street appear to close
together constantly and come to an end about a hundred yards ahead
of a pilgrim as long as he chooses to walk in it. Projecting from
the top of the lower story of many of the houses is a very narrow
porch-roof or shed, without supports from below; and I have several
times seen cats jump across the street from one shed to the other
when they were out calling. The cats could have jumped double the
distance without extraordinary exertion. I mention these things to
give an idea of how narrow the streets are. Since a cat can jump
across them without the least inconvenience, it is hardly necessary
to state that such streets are too narrow for carriages. These
vehicles cannot navigate the Holy City.
The population of Jerusalem is composed [Emendation: in the book,
"composed" was printed as "compose", with an extra space following.
This seemed like an obvious printer's error, so it was changed to
"composed" in the electronic text.] of Moslems, Jews, Greeks,
Latins, Armenians, Syrians, Copts, Abyssinians, Greek Catholics, and
a handful of Protestants. One hundred of the latter sect are all
that dwell now in this birthplace of Christianity. The nice shades
of nationality comprised in the above list, and the languages spoken
by them, are altogether too numerous to mention. It seems to me that
all the races and colors and tongues of the earth must be
represented among the fourteen thousand souls that dwell in
Jerusalem. Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt, those signs and
symbols that indicate the presence of Moslem rule more surely than
the crescent-flag itself, abound. Lepers, cripples, the blind, and
the idiotic, assail you on every hand, and they know but one word of
but one language apparently -- the eternal "bucksheesh." To see the
numbers of maimed, malformed and diseased humanity that throng the
holy places and obstruct the gates, one might suppose that the
ancient days had come again, and that the angel of the Lord was
expected to descend at any moment to stir the waters of Bethesda.
Jerusalem is mournful, and dreary, and lifeless. I would not desire
to live here.
One naturally goes first to the Holy Sepulchre. It is right in the
city, near the western gate; it and the place of the Crucifixion,
and, in fact, every other place intimately connected with that
tremendous event, are ingeniously massed together and covered by one
roof -- the dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Entering the building, through the midst of the usual assemblage of
beggars, one sees on his left a few Turkish guards -- for Christians
of different sects will not only quarrel, but fight, also, in this
sacred place, if allowed to do it. Before you is a marble slab,
which covers the Stone of Unction, whereon the Saviour's body was
laid to prepare it for burial. It was found necessary to conceal the
real stone in this way in order to save it from destruction.
Pilgrims were too much given to chipping off pieces of it to carry
home. Near by is a circular railing which marks the spot where the
Virgin stood when the Lord's body was anointed.
Entering the great Rotunda, we stand before the most sacred locality
in Christendom -- the grave of Jesus. It is in the centre of the
church, and immediately under the great dome. It is inclosed in a
sort of little temple of yellow and white stone, of fanciful design.
Within the little temple is a portion of the very stone which was
rolled away from the door of the Sepulchre, and on which the angel
was sitting when Mary came thither "at early dawn." Stooping low, we
enter the vault -- the Sepulchre itself. It is only about six feet
by seven, and the stone couch on which the dead Saviour lay extends
from end to end of the apartment and occupies half its width. It is
covered with a marble slab which has been much worn by the lips of
pilgrims. This slab serves as an altar, now. Over it hang some fifty
gold and silver lamps, which are kept always burning, and the place
is otherwise scandalized by trumpery, gewgaws, and tawdry
ornamentation.
All sects of Christians (except Protestants,) have chapels under the
roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and each must keep to
itself and not venture upon another's ground. It has been proven
conclusively that they can not worship together around the grave of
the Saviour of the World in peace. The chapel of the Syrians is not
handsome; that of the Copts is the humblest of them all. It is
nothing but a dismal cavern, roughly hewn in the living rock of the
Hill of Calvary. In one side of it two ancient tombs are hewn, which
are claimed to be those in which Nicodemus and Joseph of Aramathea
were buried.
As we moved among the great piers and pillars of another part of the
church, we came upon a party of black-robed, animal-looking Italian
monks, with candles in their hands, who were chanting something in
Latin, and going through some kind of religious performance around a
disk of white marble let into the floor. It was there that the risen
Saviour appeared to Mary Magdalen in the likeness of a gardener.
Near by was a similar stone, shaped like a star -- here the Magdalen
herself stood, at the same time. Monks were performing in this place
also. They perform everywhere -- all over the vast building, and at
all hours. Their candles are always flitting about in the gloom, and
making the dim old church more dismal than there is any necessity
that it should be, even though it is a tomb.
We were shown the place where our Lord appeared to His mother after
the Resurrection. Here, also, a marble slab marks the place where
St. Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, found the crosses
about three hundred years after the Crucifixion. According to the
legend, this great discovery elicited extravagant demonstrations of
joy. But they were of short duration. The question intruded itself:
"Which bore the blessed Saviour, and which the thieves?" To be in
doubt, in so mighty a matter as this -- to be uncertain which one to
adore -- was a grievous misfortune. It turned the public joy to
sorrow. But when lived there a holy priest who could not set to
simple a trouble as this at rest? One of these soon hit upon a plan
that would be a certain test. A noble lady lay very ill in
Jerusalem. The wise priests ordered that the three crosses be taken
to her bedside one at a time. It was done. When her eyes fell upon
the first one, she uttered a scream that was heard beyond the
Damascus Gate, and even upon the Mount of Olives, it was said, and
then fell back in a deadly swoon. They recovered her and brought the
second cross. Instantly she went into fearful convulsions, and it
was with the greatest difficulty that six strong men could hold her.
They were afraid, now, to bring in the third cross. They began to
fear that possibly they had fallen upon the wrong crosses, and that
the true cross was not with this number at all. However, as the
woman seemed likely to die with the convulsions that were tearing
her, they concluded that the third could do no more than put her out
of her misery with a happy dispatch. So they brought it, and behold,
a miracle! The woman sprang from her bed, smiling and joyful, and
perfectly restored to health. When we listen to evidence like this,
we cannot but believe. We would be ashamed to doubt, and properly,
too. Even the very part of Jerusalem where this all occurred is
there yet. So there is really no room for doubt.
The priests tried to show us, through a small screen, a fragment of
the genuine Pillar of Flagellation, to which Christ was bound when
they scourged him. But we could not see it, because it was dark
inside the screen. However, a baton is kept here, which the pilgrim
thrusts through a hole in the screen, and then he no longer doubts
that the true Pillar of Flagellation is in there. He can not have
any excuse to doubt it, for he can feel it with the stick. He can
feel it as distinctly as he could feel any thing.
Not far from here was a niche where they used to preserve a piece of
the True Cross, but it is gone, now. This piece of the cross was
discovered in the sixteenth century. The Latin priests say it was
stolen away, long ago, by priests of another sect. That seems like a
hard statement to make, but we know very well that it was stolen,
because we have seen it ourselves in several of the cathedrals of
Italy and France.
But the relic that touched us most was the plain old sword of that
stout Crusader, Godfrey of Bulloigne -- King Godfrey of Jerusalem.
No blade in Christendom wields such enchantment as this -- no blade
of all that rust in the ancestral halls of Europe is able to invoke
such visions of romance in the brain of him who looks upon it --
none that can prate of such chivalric deeds or tell such brave tales
of the warrior days of old. It stirs within a man every memory of
the Holy Wars that has been sleeping in his brain for years, and
peoples his thoughts with mail-clad images, with marching armies,
with battles and with sieges. It speaks to him of Baldwin, and
Tancred, the princely Saladin, and great Richard of the Lion Heart.
It was with just such blades as these that these splendid heroes of
romance used to segregate a man, so to speak, and leave the half of
him to fall one way and the other half the other. This very sword
has cloven hundreds of Saracen Knights from crown to chin in those
old times when Godfrey wielded it. It was enchanted, then, by a
genius that was under the command of King Solomon. When danger
approached its master's tent it always struck the shield and clanged
out a fierce alarm upon the startled ear of night. In times of
doubt, or in fog or darkness, if it were drawn from its sheath it
would point instantly toward the foe, and thus reveal the way -- and
it would also attempt to start after them of its own accord. A
Christian could not be so disguised that it would not know him and
refuse to hurt him -- nor a Moslem so disguised that it would not
leap from its scabbard and take his life. These statements are all
well authenticated in many legends that are among the most
trustworthy legends the good old Catholic monks preserve. I can
never forget old Godfrey's sword, now. I tried it on a Moslem, and
clove him in twain like a doughnut. The spirit of Grimes was upon
me, and if I had had a graveyard I would have destroyed all the
infidels in Jerusalem. I wiped the blood off the old sword and
handed it back to the priest -- I did not want the fresh gore to
obliterate those sacred spots that crimsoned its brightness one day
six hundred years ago and thus gave Godfrey warning that before the
sun went down his journey of life would end.
Still moving through the gloom of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
we came to a small chapel, hewn out of the rock -- a place which has
been known as "The Prison of Our Lord" for many centuries. Tradition
says that here the Saviour was confined just previously to the
crucifixion. Under an altar by the door was a pair of stone stocks
for human legs. These things are called the "Bonds of Christ," and
the use they were once put to has given them the name they now bear.

The Greek Chapel is the most roomy, the richest and the showiest
chapel in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Its altar, like that of
all the Greek churches, is a lofty screen that extends clear across
the chapel, and is gorgeous with gilding and pictures. The numerous
lamps that hang before it are of gold and silver, and cost great
sums.
But the feature of the place is a short column that rises from the
middle of the marble pavement of the chapel, and marks the exact
centre of the earth. The most reliable traditions tell us that this
was known to be the earth's centre, ages ago, and that when Christ
was upon earth he set all doubts upon the subject at rest forever,
by stating with his own lips that the tradition was correct.
Remember, He said that that particular column stood upon the centre
of the world. If the centre of the world changes, the column changes
its position accordingly. This column has moved three different
times of its own accord. This is because, in great convulsions of
nature, at three different times, masses of the earth -- whole
ranges of mountains, probably -- have flown off into space, thus
lessening the diameter of the earth, and changing the exact locality
of its centre by a point or two. This is a very curious and
interesting circumstance, and is a withering rebuke to those
philosophers who would make us believe that it is not possible for
any portion of the earth to fly off into space.
To satisfy himself that this spot was really the centre of the
earth, a sceptic once paid well for the privilege of ascending to
the dome of the church to see if the sun gave him a shadow at noon.
He came down perfectly convinced. The day was very cloudy and the
sun threw no shadows at all; but the man was satisfied that if the
sun had come out and made shadows it could not have made any for
him. Proofs like these are not to be set aside by the idle tongues
of cavilers. To such as are not bigoted, and are willing to be
convinced, they carry a conviction that nothing can ever shake.
If even greater proofs than those I have mentioned are wanted, to
satisfy the headstrong and the foolish that this is the genuine
centre of the earth, they are here. The greatest of them lies in the
fact that from under this very column was taken the dust from which
Adam was made. This can surely be regarded in the light of a
settler. It is not likely that the original first man would have
been made from an inferior quality of earth when it was entirely
convenient to get first quality from the world's centre. This will
strike any reflecting mind forcibly. That Adam was formed of dirt
procured in this very spot is amply proven by the fact that in six
thousand years no man has ever been able to prove that the dirt was
not procured here whereof he was made.
It is a singular circumstance that right under the roof of this same
great church, and not far away from that illustrious column, Adam
himself, the father of the human race, lies buried. There is no
question that he is actually buried in the grave which is pointed
out as his -- there can be none -- because it has never yet been
proven that that grave is not the grave in which he is buried.
The tomb of Adam! How touching it was, here in a land of strangers,
far away from home, and friends, and all who cared for me, thus to
discover the grave of a blood relation. True, a distant one, but
still a relation. The unerring instinct of nature thrilled its
recognition. The fountain of my filial affection was stirred to its
profoundest depths, and I gave way to tumultuous emotion. I leaned
upon a pillar and burst into tears. I deem it no shame to have wept
over the grave of my poor dead relative. Let him who would sneer at
my emotion close this volume here, for he will find little to his
taste in my journeyings through Holy Land. Noble old man -- he did
not live to see me -- he did not live to see his child. And I -- I
-- alas, I did not live to see him. Weighed down by sorrow and
disappointment, he died before I was born -- six thousand brief
summers before I was born. But let us try to bear it with fortitude.
Let us trust that he is better off where he is. Let us take comfort
in the thought that his loss is our eternal gain.
The next place the guide took us to in the holy church was an altar
dedicated to the Roman soldier who was of the military guard that
attended at the Crucifixion to keep order, and who -- when the vail
of the Temple was rent in the awful darkness that followed; when the
rock of Golgotha was split asunder by an earthquake; when the
artillery of heaven thundered, and in the baleful glare of the
lightnings the shrouded dead flitted about the streets of Jerusalem
-- shook with fear and said, "Surely this was the Son of God!" Where
this altar stands now, that Roman soldier stood then, in full view
of the crucified Saviour -- in full sight and hearing of all the
marvels that were transpiring far and wide about the circumference
of the Hill of Calvary. And in this self-same spot the priests of
the Temple beheaded him for those blasphemous words he had spoken.
In this altar they used to keep one of the most curious relics that
human eyes ever looked upon -- a thing that had power to fascinate
the beholder in some mysterious way and keep him gazing for hours
together. It was nothing less than the copper plate Pilate put upon
the Saviour's cross, and upon which he wrote, "THIS IS THE KING OF
THE JEWS." I think St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, found this
wonderful memento when she was here in the third century. She
traveled all over Palestine, and was always fortunate. Whenever the
good old enthusiast found a thing mentioned in her Bible, Old or
New, she would go and search for that thing, and never stop until
she found it. If it was Adam, she would find Adam; if it was the
Ark, she would find the Ark; if it was Goliath, or Joshua, she would
find them. She found the inscription here that I was speaking of, I
think. She found it in this very spot, close to where the martyred
Roman soldier stood. That copper plate is in one of the churches in
Rome, now. Any one can see it there. The inscription is very
distinct.
We passed along a few steps and saw the altar built over the very
spot where the good Catholic priests say the soldiers divided the
raiment of the Saviour.
Then we went down into a cavern which cavilers say was once a
cistern. It is a chapel, now, however -- the Chapel of St. Helena.
It is fifty-one feet long by forty-three wide. In it is a marble
chair which Helena used to sit in while she superintended her
workmen when they were digging and delving for the True Cross. In
this place is an altar dedicated to St. Dimas, the penitent thief. A
new bronze statue is here -- a statue of St. Helena. It reminded us
of poor Maximilian, so lately shot. He presented it to this chapel
when he was about to leave for his throne in Mexico.
From the cistern we descended twelve steps into a large
roughly-shaped grotto, carved wholly out of the living rock. Helena
blasted it out when she was searching for the true Cross. She had a
laborious piece of work, here, but it was richly rewarded. Out of
this place she got the crown of thorns, the nails of the cross, the
true Cross itself, and the cross of the penitent thief. When she
thought she had found every thing and was about to stop, she was
told in a dream to continue a day longer. It was very fortunate. She
did so, and found the cross of the other thief.
The walls and roof of this grotto still weep bitter tears in memory
of the event that transpired on Calvary, and devout pilgrims groan
and sob when these sad tears fall upon them from the dripping rock.
The monks call this apartment the "Chapel of the Invention of the
Cross" -- a name which is unfortunate, because it leads the ignorant
to imagine that a tacit acknowledgment is thus made that the
tradition that Helena found the true Cross here is a fiction -- an
invention. It is a happiness to know, however, that intelligent
people do not doubt the story in any of its particulars.
Priests of any of the chapels and denominations in the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre can visit this sacred grotto to weep and pray and
worship the gentle Redeemer. Two different congregations are not
allowed to enter at the same time, however, because they always
fight.
Still marching through the venerable Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
among chanting priests in coarse long robes and sandals; pilgrims of
all colors and many nationalities, in all sorts of strange costumes;
under dusky arches and by dingy piers and columns; through a sombre
cathedral gloom freighted with smoke and incense, and faintly
starred with scores of candles that appeared suddenly and as
suddenly disappeared, or drifted mysteriously hither and thither
about the distant aisles like ghostly jack-o'-lanterns -- we came at
last to a small chapel which is called the "Chapel of the Mocking."
Under the altar was a fragment of a marble column; this was the seat
Christ sat on when he was reviled, and mockingly made King, crowned
with a crown of thorns and sceptred with a reed. It was here that
they blindfolded him and struck him, and said in derision, "Prophesy
who it is that smote thee." The tradition that this is the identical
spot of the mocking is a very ancient one. The guide said that
Saewulf was the first to mention it. I do not know Saewulf, but
still, I cannot well refuse to receive his evidence -- none of us
can.
They showed us where the great Godfrey and his brother Baldwin, the
first Christian Kings of Jerusalem, once lay buried by that sacred
sepulchre they had fought so long and so valiantly to wrest from the
hands of the infidel. But the niches that had contained the ashes of
these renowned crusaders were empty. Even the coverings of their
tombs were gone -- destroyed by devout members of the Greek Church,
because Godfrey and Baldwin were Latin princes, and had been reared
in a Christian faith whose creed differed in some unimportant
respects from theirs.
We passed on, and halted before the tomb of Melchisedek! You will
remember Melchisedek, no doubt; he was the King who came out and
levied a tribute on Abraham the time that he pursued Lot's captors
to Dan, and took all their property from them. That was about four
thousand years ago, and Melchisedek died shortly afterward. However,
his tomb is in a good state of preservation.
When one enters the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Sepulchre
itself is the first thing he desires to see, and really is almost
the first thing he does see. The next thing he has a strong yearning
to see is the spot where the Saviour was crucified. But this they
exhibit last. It is the crowning glory of the place. One is grave
and thoughtful when he stands in the little Tomb of the Saviour --
he could not well be otherwise in such a place -- but he has not the
slightest possible belief that ever the Lord lay there, and so the
interest he feels in the spot is very, very greatly marred by that
reflection. He looks at the place where Mary stood, in another part
of the church, and where John stood, and Mary Magdalen; where the
mob derided the Lord; where the angel sat; where the crown of thorns
was found, and the true Cross; where the risen Saviour appeared --
he looks at all these places with interest, but with the same
conviction he felt in the case of the Sepulchre, that there is
nothing genuine about them, and that they are imaginary holy places
created by the monks. But the place of the Crucifixion affects him
differently. He fully believes that he is looking upon the very spot
where the Savior gave up his life. He remembers that Christ was very
celebrated, long before he came to Jerusalem; he knows that his fame
was so great that crowds followed him all the time; he is aware that
his entry into the city produced a stirring sensation, and that his
reception was a kind of ovation; he can not overlook the fact that
when he was crucified there were very many in Jerusalem who believed
that he was the true Son of God. To publicly execute such a
personage was sufficient in itself to make the locality of the
execution a memorable place for ages; added to this, the storm, the
darkness, the earthquake, the rending of the vail of the Temple, and
the untimely waking of the dead, were events calculated to fix the
execution and the scene of it in the memory of even the most
thoughtless witness. Fathers would tell their sons about the strange
affair, and point out the spot; the sons would transmit the story to
their children, and thus a period of three hundred years would
easily be spanned53.1 -- at which time Helena came and built a
church upon Calvary to commemorate the death and burial of the Lord
and preserve the sacred place in the memories of men; since that
time there has always been a church there. It is not possible that
there can be any mistake about the locality of the Crucifixion. Not
half a dozen persons knew where they buried the Saviour, perhaps,
and a burial is not a startling event, any how; therefore, we can be
pardoned for unbelief in the Sepulchre, but not in the place of the
Crucifixion. Five hundred years hence there will be no vestige of
Bunker Hill Monument left, but America will still know where the
battle was fought and where Warren fell. The crucifixion of Christ
was too notable an event in Jerusalem, and the Hill of Calvary made
too celebrated by it, to be forgotten in the short space of three
hundred years. I climbed the stairway in the church which brings one
to the top of the small inclosed pinnacle of rock, and looked upon
the place where the true cross once stood, with a far more absorbing
interest than I had ever felt in any thing earthly before. I could
not believe that the
three holes in the top of the rock were the actual ones the crosses
stood in, but I felt satisfied that those crosses had stood so near
the place now occupied by them, that the few feet of possible
difference were a matter of no consequence.
When one stands where the Saviour was crucified, he finds it all he
can do to keep it strictly before his mind that Christ was not
crucified in a Catholic Church. He must remind himself every now and
then that the great event transpired in the open air, and not in a
gloomy, candle-lighted cell in a little corner of a vast church,
up-stairs -- a small cell all bejeweled and bespangled with flashy
ornamentation, in execrable taste.
Under a marble altar like a table, is a circular hole in the marble
floor, corresponding with the one just under it in which the true
Cross stood. The first thing every one does is to kneel down and
take a candle and examine this hole. He does this strange
prospecting with an amount of gravity that can never be estimated or
appreciated by a man who has not seen the operation. Then he holds
his candle before a richly engraved picture of the Saviour, done on
a messy slab of gold, and wonderfully rayed and starred with
diamonds, which hangs above the hole within the altar, and his
solemnity changes to lively admiration. He rises and faces the
finely wrought figures of the Saviour and the malefactors uplifted
upon their crosses behind the altar, and bright with a metallic
lustre of many colors. He turns next to the figures close to them of
the Virgin and Mary Magdalen; next to the rift in the living rock
made by the earthquake at the time of the Crucifixion, and an
extension of which he had seen before in the wall of one of the
grottoes below; he looks next at the show-case with a figure of the
Virgin in it, and is amazed at the princely fortune in precious gems
and jewelry that hangs so thickly about the form as to hide it like
a garment almost. All about the apartment the gaudy trappings of the
Greek Church offend the eye and keep the mind on the rack to
remember that this is the Place of the Crucifixion -- Golgotha --
the Mount of Calvary. And the last thing he looks at is that which
was also the first -- the place where the true Cross stood. That
will chain him to the spot and compel him to look once more, and
once again, after he has satisfied all curiosity and lost all
interest concerning the other matters pertaining to the locality.
And so I close my chapter on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre -- the
most sacred locality on earth to millions and millions of men, and
women, and children, the noble and the humble, bond and free. In its
history from the first, and in its tremendous associations, it is
the most illustrious edifice in Christendom. With all its clap-trap
side-shows and unseemly impostures of every kind, it is still grand,
reverend, venerable -- for a god died there; for fifteen hundred
years its shrines have been wet with the tears of pilgrims from the
earth's remotest confines; for more than two hundred, the most
gallant knights that ever wielded sword wasted their lives away in a
struggle to seize it and hold it sacred from infidel pollution. Even
in our own day a war, that cost millions of treasure and rivers of
blood, was fought because two rival nations claimed the sole right
to put a new dome upon it. History is full of this old Church of the
Holy Sepulchre -- full of blood that was shed because of the respect
and the veneration in which men held the last resting-place of the
meek and lowly, the mild and gentle, Prince of Peace!
53.1 The thought is Mr. Prime's, not mine, and is full of good
sense. I borrowed it from his "Tent Life." -- M. T.
CHAPTER LIV

WE were standing in a narrow street, by the Tower of Antonio. "On

these stones that are crumbling away," the guide said, "the Saviour
sat and rested before taking up the cross. This is the beginning of
the Sorrowful Way, or the Way of Grief." The party took note of the
sacred spot, and moved on. We passed under the "Ecce Homo Arch," and
saw the very window from which Pilate's wife warned her husband to
have nothing to do with the persecution of the Just Man. This window
is in an excellent state of preservation, considering its great age.
They showed us where Jesus rested the second time, and where the mob
refused to give him up, and said, "Let his blood be upon our heads,
and upon our children's children forever." The French Catholics are
building a church on this spot, and with their usual veneration for
historical relics, are incorporating into the new such scraps of
ancient walls as they have found there. Further on, we saw the spot
where the fainting Saviour fell under the weight of his cross. A
great granite column of some ancient temple lay there at the time,
and the heavy cross struck it such a blow that it broke in two in
the middle. Such was the guide's story when he halted us before the
broken column.
We crossed a street, and came presently to the former residence of
St. Veronica. When the Saviour passed there, she came out, full of
womanly compassion, and spoke pitying words to him, undaunted by the
hootings and the threatenings of the mob, and wiped the perspiration
from his face with her handkerchief. We had heard so much of St.
Veronica, and seen her picture by so many masters, that it was like
meeting an old friend unexpectedly to come upon her ancient home in
Jerusalem. The strangest thing about the incident that has made her
name so famous, is, that when she wiped the perspiration away, the
print of the Saviour's face remained upon the handkerchief, a
perfect portrait, and so remains unto this day. We knew this,
because we saw this handkerchief in a cathedral in Paris, in another
in Spain, and in two others in Italy. In the Milan cathedral it
costs five francs to see it, and at St. Peter's, at Rome, it is
almost impossible to see it at any price. No tradition is so amply
verified as this of St. Veronica and her handkerchief.
At the next corner we saw a deep indention in the hard stone masonry
of the corner of a house, but might have gone heedlessly by it but
that the guide said it was made by the elbow of the Saviour, who
stumbled here and fell. Presently we came to just such another
indention in a stone wall. The guide said the Saviour fell here,
also, and made this depression with his elbow.
There were other places where the Lord fell, and others where he
rested; but one of the most curious landmarks of ancient history we
found on this morning walk through the crooked lanes that lead
toward Calvary, was a certain stone built into a house -- a stone
that was so seamed and scarred that it bore a sort of grotesque
resemblance to the human face. The projections that answered for
cheeks were worn smooth by the passionate kisses of generations of
pilgrims from distant lands. We asked "Why ?" The guide said it was
because this was one of "the very stones of Jerusalem " that Christ
mentioned when he was reproved for permitting the people to cry
"Hosannah !" when he made his memorable entry into the city upon an
ass. One of the pilgrims said, "But there is no evidence that the
stones did cry out -- Christ said that if the people stopped from
shouting Hosannah, the very stones would do it." The guide was
perfectly serene. He said, calmly, "This is one of the stones that
would have cried out. "It was of little use to try to shake this
fellow's simple faith -- it was easy to see that.
And so we came at last to another wonder, of deep and abiding
interest -- the veritable house where the unhappy wretch once lived
who has been celebrated in song and story for more than eighteen
hundred years as the Wandering Jew. On the memorable day of the
Crucifixion he stood in this old doorway with his arms akimbo,
looking out upon the struggling mob that was approaching, and when
the weary Saviour would have sat down and rested him a moment,
pushed him rudely away and said, "Move on!" The Lord said, "Move on,
thou, likewise," and the command has never been revoked from that
day to this. All men know how that the miscreant upon whose head
that just curse fell has roamed up and down the wide world, for ages
and ages, seeking rest and never finding it -- courting death but
always in vain -- longing to stop, in city, in wilderness, in desert
solitudes, yet hearing always that relentless warning to march --
march on! They say -- do these hoary traditions -- that when Titus
sacked Jerusalem and slaughtered eleven hundred thousand Jews in her
streets and byways, the Wandering Jew was seen always in the
thickest of the fight, and that when battleaxes gleamed in the air,
he bowed his head beneath them; when swords flashed their deadly
lightnings, he sprang in their way; he bared his breast to whizzing
javelins, to hissing arrows, to any and to every weapon that
promised death and forgetfulness, and rest. But it was useless -- he
walked forth out of the carnage without a wound. And it is said that
five hundred years afterward he followed Mahomet when he carried
destruction to the cities of Arabia, and then turned against him,
hoping in this way to win the death of a traitor. His calculations
were wrong again. No quarter was given to any living creature but
one, and that was the only one of all the host that did not want it.
He sought death five hundred years later, in the wars of the
Crusades, and offered himself to famine and pestilence at Ascalon.
He escaped again -- he could not die. These repeated annoyances
could have at last but one effect -- they shook his confidence.
Since then the Wandering Jew has carried on a kind of desultory
toying with the most promising of the aids and implements of
destruction, but with small hope, as a general thing. He has
speculated some in cholera and railroads, and has taken almost a
lively interest in infernal machines and patent medicines. He is
old, now, and grave, as becomes an age like his; he indulges in no
light amusements save that he goes sometimes to executions, and is
fond of funerals.
There is one thing he can not avoid; go where he will about the
world, he must never fail to report in Jerusalem every fiftieth
year. Only a year or two ago he was here for the thirtyseventh time
since Jesus was crucified on Calvary. They say that many old people,
who are here now, saw him then, and had seen him before. He looks
always the same -- old, and withered, and holloweyed, and listless,
save that there is about him something which seems to suggest that
he is looking for some one, expecting some one -- the friends of his
youth, perhaps. But the most of them are dead, now. He always pokes
about the old streets looking lonesome, making his mark on a wall
here and there, and eyeing the oldest buildings with a sort of
friendly half interest; and he sheds a few tears at the threshold of
his ancient dwelling, and bitter, bitter tears they are. Then he
collects his rent and leaves again. He has been seen standing near
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on many a starlight night, for he
has cherished an idea for many centuries that if he could only enter
there, he could rest. But when he approaches, the doors slam to with
a crash, the earth trembles, and all the lights in Jerusalem burn a
ghastly blue! He does this every fifty years, just the same. It is
hopeless, but then it is hard to break habits one has been eighteen
hundred years accustomed to. The old tourist is far away on his
wanderings, now. How he must smile to see a pack of blockheads like
us, galloping about the world, and looking wise, and imagining we
are finding out a good deal about it! He must have a consuming
contempt for the ignorant, complacent asses that go skurrying about
the world in these railroading days and call it traveling.
When the guide pointed out where the Wandering Jew had left his
familiar mark upon a wall, I was filled with astonishment. It read:
"S T. -- 1860 -- X."
All I have revealed about the Wandering Jew can be amply proven by
reference to our guide.
The mighty Mosque of Omar, and the paved court around it, occupy a
fourth part of Jerusalem. They are upon Mount Moriah, where King
Solomon's Temple stood. This Mosque is the holiest place the
Mohammedan knows, outside of Mecca. Up to within a year or two past,
no Christian could gain admission to it or its court for love or
money. But the prohibition has been removed, and we entered freely
for bucksheesh.
I need not speak of the wonderful beauty and the exquisite grace and
symmetry that have made this Mosque so celebrated -- because I did
not see them. One can not see such things at an instant glance --
one frequently only finds out how really beautiful a really
beautiful woman is after considerable acquaintance with her; and the
rule applies to Niagara Falls, to majestic mountains and to mosques
-- especially to mosques.
The great feature of the Mosque of Omar is the prodigious rock in
the centre of its rotunda. It was upon this rock that Abraham came
so near offering up his son Isaac -- this, at least, is
authenticit is very much more to be relied on than most of the
traditions, at any rate. On this rock, also, the angel stood and
threatened Jerusalem, and David persuaded him to spare the city.
Mahomet was well acquainted with this stone. From it he ascended to
heaven. The stone tried to follow him, and if the angel Gabriel had
not happened by the merest good luck to be there to seize it, it
would have done it. Very few people have a grip like Gabriel -- the
prints of his monstrous fingers, two inches deep, are to be seen in
that rock to-day.
This rock, large as it is, is suspended in the air. It does not
touch any thing at all. The guide said so. This is very wonderful.
In the place on it where Mahomet stood, he left his footprints in
the solid stone. I should judge that he wore about eighteens. But
what I was going to say, when I spoke of the rock being suspended,
was, that in the floor of the cavern under it they showed us a slab
which they said covered a hole which was a thing of extraordinary
interest to all Mohammedans, because that hole leads down to
perdition, and every soul that is transferred from thence to Heaven
must pass up through this orifice. Mahomet stands there and lifts
them out by the hair. All Mohammedans shave their heads, but they
are careful to leave a lock of hair for the Prophet to take hold of.
Our guide observed that a good Mohammedan would consider himself
doomed to stay with the damned forever if he were to lose his
scalplock and die before it grew again. The most of them that I
have seen ought to stay with the damned, any how, without reference
to how they were barbered.
For several ages no woman has been allowed to enter the cavern where
that important hole is. The reason is that one of the sex was once
caught there blabbing every thing she knew about what was going on
above ground, to the rapscallions in the infernal regions down
below. She carried her gossiping to such an extreme that nothing
could be kept private -- nothing could be done or said on earth but
every body in perdition knew all about it before the sun went down.
It was about time to suppress this woman's telegraph, and it was
promptly done. Her breath subsided about the same time.
The inside of the great mosque is very showy with variegated marble
walls and with windows and inscriptions of elaborate mosaic. The
Turks have their sacred relics, like the Catholics. The guide showed
us the veritable armor worn by the great son-in-law and successor of
Mahomet, and also the buckler of Mahomet's uncle. The great iron
railing which surrounds the rock was ornamented in one place with a
thousand rags tied to its open work. These are to remind Mahomet not
to forget the worshipers who placed them there. It is considered the
next best thing to tying threads around his finger by way of
reminders.
Just outside the mosque is a miniature temple, which marks the spot
where David and Goliah used to sit and judge the people. 54.1
Every where about the Mosque of Omar are portions of pillars,
curiously wrought altars, and fragments of elegantly carved marble
-- precious remains of Solomon's Temple. These have been dug from
all depths in the soil and rubbish of Mount Moriah, and the Moslems
have always shown a disposition to preserve them with the utmost
care. At that portion of the ancient wall of Solomon's Temple which
is called the Jew's Place of Wailing, and where the Hebrews assemble
every Friday to kiss the venerated stones and weep over the fallen
greatness of Zion, any one can see a part of the unquestioned and
undisputed Temple of Solomon, the same consisting of three or four
stones lying one upon the other, each of which is about twice as
long as a seven-octave piano, and about as thick as such a piano is
high. But, as I have remarked before, it is only a year or two ago
that the ancient edict prohibiting Christian rubbish like ourselves
to enter the Mosque of Omar and see the costly marbles that once
adorned the inner Temple was annulled. The designs wrought upon
these fragments are all quaint and peculiar, and so the charm of
novelty is added to the deep interest they naturally inspire. One
meets with these venerable scraps at every turn, especially in the
neighboring Mosque el Aksa, into whose inner walls a very large
number of them are carefully built for preservation. These pieces of
stone, stained and dusty with age, dimly hint at a grandeur we have
all been taught to regard as the princeliest ever seen on earth; and
they call up pictures of a pageant that is familiar to all
imaginations -- camels laden with spices and treasure -- beautiful
slaves, presents for Solomon's harem -- a long cavalcade of richly
caparisoned beasts and warriors -- and Sheba's Queen in the van of
this vision of "Oriental magnificence." These elegant fragments bear
a richer interest than the solemn vastness of the stones the Jews
kiss in the Place of Wailing can ever have for the heedless sinner.
Down in the hollow ground, underneath the olives and the
orangetrees that flourish in the court of the great Mosque, is a
wilderness of pillars -- remains of the ancient Temple; they
supported it. There are ponderous archways down there, also, over
which the destroying "plough" of prophecy passed harmless. It is
pleasant to know we are disappointed, in that we never dreamed we
might see portions of the actual Temple of Solomon, and yet
experience no shadow of suspicion that they were a monkish humbug
and a fraud.
We are surfeited with sights. Nothing has any fascination for us,
now, but the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We have been there every
day, and have not grown tired of it; but we are weary of every thing
else. The sights are too many. They swarm about you at every step;
no single foot of ground in all Jerusalem or within its neighborhood
seems to be without a stirring and important history of its own. It
is a very relief to steal a walk of a hundred yards without a guide
along to talk unceasingly about every stone you step upon and drag
you back ages and ages to the day when it achieved celebrity.
It seems hardly real when I find myself leaning for a moment on a
ruined wall and looking listlessly down into the historic pool of
Bethesda. I did not think such things could be so crowded together
as to diminish their interest. But in serious truth, we have been
drifting about, for several days, using our eyes and our ears more
from a sense of duty than any higher and worthier reason. And too
often we have been glad when it was time to go home and be
distressed no more about illustrious localities.
Our pilgrims compress too much into one day. One can gorge sights to
repletion as well as sweetmeats. Since we breakfasted, this morning,
we have seen enough to have furnished us food for a year's
reflection if we could have seen the various objects in comfort and
looked upon them deliberately. We visited the pool of Hezekiah,
where David saw Uriah's wife coming from the bath and fell in love
with her.
We went out of the city by the Jaffa gate, and of course were told
many things about its Tower of Hippicus.
We rode across the Valley of Hinnom, between two of the Pools of
Gihon, and by an aqueduct built by Solomon, which still conveys
water to the city. We ascended the Hill of Evil Counsel, where Judas
received his thirty pieces of silver, and we also lingered a moment
under the tree a venerable tradition says he hanged himself on.
We descended to the canon again, and then the guide began to give
name and history to every bank and boulder we came to: "This was the
Field of Blood; these cuttings in the rocks were shrines and temples
of Moloch; here they sacrificed children; yonder is the Zion Gate;
the Tyropean Valley, the Hill of Ophel; here is the junction of the
Valley of Jehoshaphat -- on your right is the Well of Job." We
turned up Jehoshaphat. The recital went on. "This is the Mount of
Olives; this is the Hill of Offense; the nest of huts is the Village
of Siloam; here, yonder, every where, is the King's Garden; under
this great tree Zacharias, the high priest, was murdered; yonder is
Mount Moriah and the Temple wall; the tomb of Absalom; the tomb of
St. James; the tomb of Zacharias; beyond, are the Garden of
Gethsemane and the tomb of the Virgin Mary; here is the Pool of
Siloam, and -- "
We said we would dismount, and quench our thirst, and rest. We were
burning up with the heat. We were failing under the accumulated
fatigue of days and days of ceaseless marching. All were willing.
The Pool is a deep, walled ditch, through which a clear stream of
water runs, that comes from under Jerusalem somewhere, and passing
through the Fountain of the Virgin, or being supplied from it,
reaches this place by way of a tunnel of heavy masonry. The famous
pool looked exactly as it looked in Solomon's time, no doubt, and
the same dusky, Oriental women, came down in their old Oriental way,
and carried off jars of the water on their heads, just as they did
three thousand years ago, and just as they will do fifty thousand
years hence if any of them are still left on earth.
We went away from there and stopped at the Fountain of the Virgin.
But the water was not good, and there was no comfort or peace any
where, on account of the regiment of boys and girls and beggars that
persecuted us all the time for bucksheesh. The guide wanted us to
give them some money, and we did it; but when he went on to say that
they were starving to death we could not but feel that we had done a
great sin in throwing obstacles in the way of such a desirable
consummation, and so we tried to collect it back, but it could not
be done.
We entered the Garden of Gethsemane, and we visited the Tomb of the
Virgin, both of which we had seen before. It is not meet that I
should speak of them now. A more fitting time will come.
I can not speak now of the Mount of Olives or its view of Jerusalem,
the Dead Sea and the mountains of Moab; nor of the Damascus Gate or
the tree that was planted by King Godfrey of Jerusalem. One ought to
feel pleasantly when he talks of these things. I can not say any
thing about the stone column that projects over Jehoshaphat from the
Temple wall like a cannon, except that the Moslems believe Mahomet
will sit astride of it when he comes to judge the world. It is a
pity he could not judge it from some roost of his own in Mecca,
without trespassing on our holy ground. Close by is the Golden Gate,
in the Temple wall -- a gate that was an elegant piece of sculpture
in the time of the Temple, and is even so yet. From it, in ancient
times, the Jewish High Priest turned loose the scapegoat and let him
flee to the wilderness and bear away his twelvemonth load of the
sins of the people. If they were to turn one loose now, he would not
get as far as the Garden of Gethsemane, till these miserable
vagabonds here would gobble him up, 54.2 sins and all. They wouldn't
care. Muttonchops and sin is good enough living for them. The
Moslems watch the Golden Gate with a jealous eye, and an anxious
one, for they have an honored tradition that when it falls, Islamism
will fall and with it the Ottoman Empire. It did not grieve me any
to notice that the old gate was getting a little shaky.
We are at home again. We are exhausted. The sun has roasted us,
almost.
We have full comfort in one reflection, however. Our experiences in
Europe have taught us that in time this fatigue will be forgotten;
the heat will be forgotten; the thirst, the tiresome volubility of
the guide, the persecutions of the beggars -- and then, all that
will be left will be pleasant memories of Jerusalem, memories we
shall call up with always increasing interest as the years go by,
memories which some day will become all beautiful when the last
annoyance that incumbers them shall have faded out of our minds
never again to return. Schoolboy days are no happier than the days
of after life, but we look back upon them regretfully because we
have forgotten our punishments at school, and how we grieved when
our marbles were lost and our kites destroyed -- because we have
forgotten all the sorrows and privations of that canonized epoch and
remember only its orchard robberies, its wooden sword pageants and
its fishing holydays. We are satisfied. We can wait. Our reward will
come. To us, Jerusalem and today's experiences will be an enchanted
memory a year hence -- memory which money could not buy from us.
54.1 A pilgrim informs me that it was not David and Goliah, but
David and Saul. I stick to my own statement -- the guide told me,
and he ought to know. 54.2 Favorite pilgrim expression.
CHAPTER LV

WE cast up the account. It footed up pretty fairly. There was

nothing more at Jerusalem to be seen, except the traditional houses
of Dives and Lazarus of the parable, the Tombs of the Kings, and
those of the Judges; the spot where they stoned one of the disciples
to death, and beheaded another; the room and the table made
celebrated by the Last Supper; the fig-tree that Jesus withered; a
number of historical places about Gethsemane and the Mount of
Olives, and fifteen or twenty others in different portions of the
city itself.
We were approaching the end. Human nature asserted itself, now.
Overwork and consequent exhaustion began to have their natural
effect. They began to master the energies and dull the ardor of the
party. Perfectly secure now, against failing to accomplish any
detail of the pilgrimage, they felt like drawing in advance upon the
holiday soon to be placed to their credit. They grew a little lazy.
They were late to breakfast and sat long at dinner. Thirty or forty
pilgrims had arrived from the ship, by the short routes, and much
swapping of gossip had to be indulged in. And in hot afternoons,
they showed a strong disposition to lie on the cool divans in the
hotel and smoke and talk about pleasant experiences of a month or so
gone by -- for even thus early do episodes of travel which were
sometimes annoying, sometimes exasperating and full as often of no
consequence at all when they transpired, begin to rise above the
dead level of monotonous reminiscences and become shapely landmarks
in one's memory. The fog- whistle, smothered among a million of
trifling sounds, is not noticed a block away, in the city, but the
sailor hears it far at sea, whither none of those thousands of
trifling sounds can reach. When one is in Rome, all the domes are
alike; but when he has gone away twelve miles, the city fades
utterly from sight and leaves St. Peter's swelling above the level
plain like an anchored balloon. When one is traveling in Europe, the
daily incidents seem all alike; but when he has placed them all two
months and two thousand miles behind him, those that were worthy of
being remembered are prominent, and those that were really
insignificant have vanished. This disposition to smoke, and idle and
talk, was not well. It was plain that it must not be allowed to gain
ground. A diversion must be tried, or demoralization would ensue.
The Jordan, Jericho and the Dead Sea were suggested. The remainder
of Jerusalem must be left unvisited, for a little while. The journey
was approved at once. New life stirred in every pulse. In the saddle
-- abroad on the plains -- sleeping in beds bounded only by the
horizon: fancy was at work with these things in a moment. -- It was
painful to note how readily these town-bred men had taken to the
free life of the camp and the desert The nomadic instinct is a human
instinct; it was born with Adam and transmitted through the
patriarchs, and after thirty centuries of steady effort,
civilization has not educated it entirely out of us yet. It has a
charm which, once tasted, a man will yearn to taste again. The
nomadic instinct can not be educated out of an Indian at all.
The Jordan journey being approved, our dragoman was notified.
At nine in the morning the caravan was before the hotel door and we
were at breakfast. There was a commotion about the place. Rumors of
war and bloodshed were flying every where. The lawless Bedouins in
the Valley of the Jordan and the deserts down by the Dead Sea were
up in arms, and were going to destroy all comers. They had had a
battle with a troop of Turkish cavalry and defeated them; several
men killed. They had shut up the inhabitants of a village and a
Turkish garrison in an old fort near Jericho, and were besieging
them. They had marched upon a camp of our excursionists by the
Jordan, and the pilgrims only saved their lives by stealing away and
flying to Jerusalem under whip and spur in the darkness of the
night. Another of our parties had been fired on from an ambush and
then attacked in the open day. Shots were fired on both sides.
Fortunately there was no bloodshed. We spoke with the very pilgrim
who had fired one of the shots, and learned from his own lips how,
in this imminent deadly peril, only the cool courage of the
pilgrims, their strength of numbers and imposing display of war
material, had saved them from utter destruction. It was reported
that the Consul had requested that no more of our pilgrims should go
to the Jordan while this state of things lasted; and further, that
he was unwilling that any more should go, at least without an
unusually strong military guard. Here was trouble. But with the
horses at the door and every body aware of what they were there for,
what would you have done? Acknowledged that you were afraid, and
backed shamefully out? Hardly. It would not be human nature, where
there were so many women. You would have done as we did: said you
were not afraid of a million Bedouins -- and made your will and
proposed quietly to yourself to take up an unostentatious position
in the rear of the procession.
I think we must all have determined upon the same line of tactics,
for it did seem as if we never would get to Jericho. I had a
notoriously slow horse, but somehow I could not keep him in the
rear, to save my neck. He was forever turning up in the lead. In
such cases I trembled a little, and got down to fix my saddle. But
it was not of any use. The others all got down to fix their saddles,
too. I never saw such a time with saddles. It was the first time any
of them had got out of order in three weeks, and now they had all
broken down at once. I tried walking, for exercise -- I had not had
enough in Jerusalem searching for holy places. But it was a failure.
The whole mob were suffering for exercise, and it was not fifteen
minutes till they were all on foot and I had the lead again. It was
very discouraging.
This was all after we got beyond Bethany. We stopped at the village
of Bethany, an hour out from Jerusalem. They showed us the tomb of
Lazarus. I had rather live in it than in any house in the town. And
they showed us also a large "Fountain of Lazarus," and in the centre
of the village the ancient dwelling of Lazarus. Lazarus appears to
have been a man of property. The legends of the Sunday Schools do
him great injustice; they give one the impression that he was poor.
It is because they get him confused with that Lazarus who had no
merit but his virtue, and virtue never has been as respectable as
money. The house of Lazarus is a three-story edifice, of stone
masonry, but the accumulated rubbish of ages has buried all of it
but the upper story. We took candles and descended to the dismal
cell-like chambers where Jesus sat at meat with Martha and Mary, and
conversed with them about their brother. We could not but look upon
these old dingy apartments with a more than common interest.
We had had a glimpse, from a mountain top, of the Dead Sea, lying
like a blue shield in the plain of the Jordan, and now we were
marching down a close, flaming, rugged, desolate defile, where no
living creature could enjoy life, except, perhaps, a salamander. It
was such a dreary, repulsive, horrible solitude! It was the
"wilderness" where John preached, with camel's hair about his loins
-- raiment enough -- but he never could have got his locusts and
wild honey here. We were moping along down through this dreadful
place, every man in the rear. Our guards -- two gorgeous young Arab
sheiks, with cargoes of swords, guns, pistols and daggers on board
-- were loafing ahead.
"Bedouins!"
Every man shrunk up and disappeared in his clothes like a
mud-turtle. My first impulse was to dash forward and destroy the
Bedouins. My second was to dash to the rear to see if there were any
coming in that direction. I acted on the latter impulse. So did all
the others. If any Bedouins had approached us, then, from that point
of the compass, they would have paid dearly for their rashness. We
all remarked that, afterwards. There would have been scenes of riot
and bloodshed there that no pen could describe. I know that, because
each man told what he would have done, individually; and such a
medley of strange and unheard-of inventions of cruelty you could not
conceive of. One man said he had calmly made up his mind to perish
where he stood, if need be, but never yield an inch; he was going to
wait, with deadly patience, till he could count the stripes upon the
first Bedouin's jacket, and then count them and let him have it.
Another was going to sit still till the first lance reached within
an inch of his breast, and then dodge it and seize it. I forbear to
tell what he was going to do to that Bedouin that owned it. It makes
my blood run cold to think of it. Another was going to scalp such
Bedouins as fell to his share, and take his bald-headed sons of the
desert home with him alive for trophies. But the wild-eyed pilgrim
rhapsodist was silent. His orbs gleamed with a deadly light, but his
lips moved not. Anxiety grew, and he was questioned. If he had got a
Bedouin, what would he have done with him -- shot him? He smiled a
smile of grim contempt and shook his head. Would he have stabbed
him? Another shake. Would he have quartered him -- flayed him? More
shakes. Oh! horror what would he have done?
"Eat him!"
Such was the awful sentence that thundered from his lips. What was
grammar to a desperado like that ? I was glad in my heart that I had
been spared these scenes of malignant carnage. No Bedouins attacked
our terrible rear. And none attacked the front. The new-comers were
only a reinforcement of cadaverous Arabs, in shirts and bare legs,
sent far ahead of us to brandish rusty guns, and shout and brag, and
carry on like lunatics, and thus scare away all bands of marauding
Bedouins that might lurk about our path. What a shame it is that
armed white Christians must travel under guard of vermin like this
as a protection against the prowling vagabonds of the desert --
those sanguinary outlaws who are always going to do something
desperate, but never do it. I may as well mention here that on our
whole trip we saw no Bedouins, and had no more use for an Arab guard
than we could have had for patent leather boots and white kid
gloves. The Bedouins that attacked the other parties of pilgrims so
fiercely were provided for the occasion by the Arab guards of those
parties, and shipped from Jerusalem for temporary service as
Bedouins. They met together in full view of the pilgrims, after the
battle, and took lunch, divided the bucksheesh extorted in the
season of danger, and then accompanied the cavalcade home to the
city! The nuisance of an Arab guard is one which is created by the
Sheiks and the Bedouins together, for mutual profit, it is said, and
no doubt there is a good deal of truth in it.
We visited the fountain the prophet Elisha sweetened (it is sweet
yet,) where he remained some time and was fed by the ravens.
Ancient Jericho is not very picturesque as a ruin. When Joshua
marched around it seven times, some three thousand years ago, and
blew it down with his trumpet, he did the work so well and so
completely that he hardly left enough of the city to cast a shadow.
The curse pronounced against the rebuilding of it, has never been
removed. One King, holding the curse in light estimation, made the
attempt, but was stricken sorely for his presumption. Its site will
always remain unoccupied; and yet it is one of the very best
locations for a town we have seen in all Palestine.
At two in the morning they routed us out of bed -- another piece of
unwarranted cruelty -- another stupid effort of our dragoman to get
ahead of a rival. It was not two hours to the Jordan. However, we
were dressed and under way before any one thought of looking to see
what time it was, and so we drowsed on through the chill night air
and dreamed of camp fires, warm beds, and other comfortable things.
There was no conversation. People do not talk when they are cold,
and wretched, and sleepy. We nodded in the saddle, at times, and
woke up with a start to find that the procession had disappeared in
the gloom. Then there was energy and attention to business until its
dusky outlines came in sight again. Occasionally the order was
passed in a low voice down the line: "Close up -- close up! Bedouins
lurk here, every where!" What an exquisite shudder it sent shivering
along one's spine!
We reached the famous river before four o'clock, and the night was
so black that we could have ridden into it without seeing it. Some
of us were in an unhappy frame of mind. We waited and waited for
daylight, but it did not come. Finally we went away in the dark and
slept an hour on the ground, in the bushes, and caught cold. It was
a costly nap, on that account, but otherwise it was a paying
investment because it brought unconsciousness of the dreary minutes
and put us in a somewhat fitter mood for a first glimpse of the
sacred river.
With the first suspicion of dawn, every pilgrim took off his clothes
and waded into the dark torrent, singing
"On Jordan's stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wistful eye
To Canaan's fair and happy land,
Where my possessions lie."
But they did not sing long. The water was so fearfully cold that
they were obliged to stop singing and scamper out again. Then they
stood on the bank shivering, and so chagrined and so grieved, that
they merited holiest compassion. Because another dream, another
cherished hope, had failed. They had promised themselves all along
that they would cross the Jordan where the Israelites crossed it
when they entered Canaan from their long pilgrimage in the desert.
They would cross where the twelve stones were placed in memory of
that great event. While they did it they would picture to themselves
that vast army of pilgrims marching through the cloven waters,
bearing the hallowed ark of the covenant and shouting hosannahs, and
singing songs of thanksgiving and praise. Each had promised himself
that he would be the first to cross. They were at the goal of their
hopes at last, but the current was too swift, the water was too
cold!
It was then that Jack did them a service. With that engaging
recklessness of consequences which is natural to youth, and so
proper and so seemly, as well, he went and led the way across the
Jordan, and all was happiness again. Every individual waded over,
then, and stood upon the further bank. The water was not quite
breast deep, any where. If it had been more, we could hardly have
accomplished the feat, for the strong current would have swept us
down the stream, and we would have been exhausted and drowned before
reaching a place where we could make a landing. The main object
compassed, the drooping, miserable party sat down to wait for the
sun again, for all wanted to see the water as well as feel it. But
it was too cold a pastime. Some cans were filled from the holy
river, some canes cut from its banks, and then we mounted and rode
reluctantly away to keep from freezing to death. So we saw the
Jordan very dimly. The thickets of bushes that bordered its banks
threw their shadows across its shallow, turbulent waters ("stormy,"
the hymn makes them, which is rather a complimentary stretch of
fancy,) and we could not judge of the width of the stream by the
eye. We knew by our wading experience, however, that many streets in
America are double as wide as the Jordan.
Daylight came, soon after we got under way, and in the course of an
hour or two we reached the Dead Sea. Nothing grows in the flat,
burning desert around it but weeds and the Dead Sea apple the poets
say is beautiful to the eye, but crumbles to ashes and dust when you
break it. Such as we found were not handsome, but they were bitter
to the taste. They yielded no dust. It was because they were not
ripe, perhaps.
The desert and the barren hills gleam painfully in the sun, around
the Dead Sea, and there is no pleasant thing or living creature upon
it or about its borders to cheer the eye. It is a scorching, arid,
repulsive solitude. A silence broods over the scene that is
depressing to the spirits. It makes one think of funerals and death.

The Dead Sea is small. Its waters are very clear, and it has a
pebbly bottom and is shallow for some distance out from the shores.
It yields quantities of asphaltum; fragments of it lie all about its
banks; this stuff gives the place something of an unpleasant smell.
All our reading had taught us to expect that the first plunge into
the Dead Sea would be attended with distressing results -- our
bodies would feel as if they were suddenly pierced by millions of
red-hot needles; the dreadful smarting would continue for hours; we
might even look to be blistered from head to foot, and suffer
miserably for many days. We were disappointed. Our eight sprang in
at the same time that another party of pilgrims did, and nobody
screamed once. None of them ever did complain of any thing more than
a slight pricking sensation in places where their skin was abraded,
and then only for a short time. My face smarted for a couple of
hours, but it was partly because I got it badly sun-burned while I
was bathing, and staid in so long that it became plastered over with
salt.
No, the water did not blister us; it did not cover us with a slimy
ooze and confer upon us an atrocious fragrance; it was not very
slimy; and I could not discover that we smelt really any worse than
we have always smelt since we have been in Palestine. It was only a
different kind of smell, but not conspicuous on that account,
because we have a great deal of variety in that respect. We didn't
smell, there on the Jordan, the same as we do in Jerusalem; and we
don't smell in Jerusalem just as we did in Nazareth, or Tiberias, or
Cesarea Philippi, or any of those other ruinous ancient towns in
Galilee. No, we change all the time, and generally for the worse. We
do our own washing.
It was a funny bath. We could not sink. One could stretch himself at
full length on his back, with his arms on his breast, and all of his
body above a line drawn from the corner of his jaw past the middle
of his side, the middle of his leg and through his ancle bone, would
remain out of water. He could lift his head clear out, if he chose.
No position can be retained long; you lose your balance and whirl
over, first on your back and then on your face, and so on. You can
lie comfortably, on your back, with your head out, and your legs out
from your knees down, by steadying yourself with your hands. You can
sit, with your knees drawn up to your chin and your arms clasped
around them, but you are bound to turn over presently, because you
are top-heavy in that position. You can stand up straight in water
that is over your head, and from the middle of your breast upward
you will not be wet. But you can not remain so. The water will soon
float your feet to the surface. You can not swim on your back and
make any progress of any consequence, because your feet stick away
above the surface, and there is nothing to propel yourself with but
your heels. If you swim on your face, you kick up the water like a
stern-wheel boat. You make no headway. A horse is so top-heavy that
he can neither swim nor stand up in the Dead Sea. He turns over on
his side at once. Some of us bathed for more than an hour, and then
came out coated with salt till we shone like icicles. We scrubbed it
off with a coarse towel and rode off with a splendid brand-new
smell, though it was one which was not any more disagreeable than
those we have been for several weeks enjoying. It was the variegated
villainy and novelty of it that charmed us. Salt crystals glitter in
the sun about the shores of the lake. In places they coat the ground
like a brilliant crust of ice.
When I was a boy I somehow got the impression that the river Jordan
was four thousand miles long and thirty-five miles wide. It is only
ninety miles long, and so crooked that a man does not know which
side of it he is on half the time. In going ninety miles it does not
get over more than fifty miles of ground. It is not any wider than
Broadway in New York. There is the Sea of Galilee and this Dead Sea
-- neither of them twenty miles long or thirteen wide. And yet when
I was in Sunday School I thought they were sixty thousand miles in
diameter.
Travel and experience mar the grandest pictures and rob us of the
most cherished traditions of our boyhood. Well, let them go. I have
already seen the Empire of King Solomon diminish to the size of the
State of Pennsylvania; I suppose I can bear the reduction of the
seas and the river.
We looked every where, as we passed along, but never saw grain or
crystal of Lot's wife. It was a great disappointment. For many and
many a year we had known her sad story, and taken that interest in
her which misfortune always inspires. But she was gone. Her
picturesque form no longer looms above the desert of the Dead Sea to
remind the tourist of the doom that fell upon the lost cities.
I can not describe the hideous afternoon's ride from the Dead Sea to
Mars Saba. It oppresses me yet, to think of it. The sun so pelted us
that the tears ran down our cheeks once or twice. The ghastly,
treeless, grassless, breathless canons smothered us as if we had
been in an oven. The sun had positive weight to it, I think. Not a
man could sit erect under it. All drooped low in the saddles. John
preached in this "Wilderness!" It must have been exhausting work.
What a very heaven the messy towers and ramparts of vast Mars Saba
looked to us when we caught a first glimpse of them!
We staid at this great convent all night, guests of the hospitable
priests. Mars Saba, perched upon a crag, a human nest stock high up
against a perpendicular mountain wall, is a world of grand masonry
that rises, terrace upon terrace away above your head, like the
terraced and retreating colonnades one sees in fanciful pictures of
Belshazzar's Feast and the palaces of the ancient Pharaohs. No other
human dwelling is near. It was founded many ages ago by a holy
recluse who lived at first in a cave in the rock -- a cave which is
inclosed in the convent walls, now, and was reverently shown to us
by the priests. This recluse, by his rigorous torturing of his
flesh, his diet of bread and water, his utter withdrawal from all
society and from the vanities of the world, and his constant prayer
and saintly contemplation of a skull, inspired an emulation that
brought about him many disciples. The precipice on the opposite side
of the canyon is well perforated with the small holes they dug in
the rock to live in. The present occupants of Mars Saba, about
seventy in number, are all hermits. They wear a coarse robe, an
ugly, brimless stove-pipe of a hat, and go without shoes. They eat
nothing whatever but bread and salt; they drink nothing but water.
As long as they live they can never go outside the walls, or look
upon a woman -- for no woman is permitted to enter Mars Saba, upon
any pretext whatsoever.
Some of those men have been shut up there for thirty years. In all
that dreary time they have not heard the laughter of a child or the
blessed voice of a woman; they have seen no human tears, no human
smiles; they have known no human joys, no wholesome human sorrows.
In their hearts are no memories of the past, in their brains no
dreams of the future. All that is lovable, beautiful, worthy, they
have put far away from them; against all things that are pleasant to
look upon, and all sounds that are music to the ear, they have
barred their massive doors and reared their relentless walls of
stone forever. They have banished the tender grace of life and left
only the sapped and skinny mockery. Their lips are lips that never
kiss and never sing; their hearts are hearts that never hate and
never love; their breasts are breasts that never swell with the
sentiment, "I have a country and a flag." They are dead men who
walk.
I set down these first thoughts because they are natural -- not
because they are just or because it is right to set them down. It is
easy for book-makers to say "I thought so and so as I looked upon
such and such a scene" -- when the truth is, they thought all those
fine things afterwards. One's first thought is not likely to be
strictly accurate, yet it is no crime to think it and none to write
it down, subject to modification by later experience. These hermits
are dead men, in several respects, but not in all; and it is not
proper, that, thinking ill of them at first, I should go on doing
so, or, speaking ill of them I should reiterate the words and stick
to them. No, they treated us too kindly for that. There is something
human about them somewhere. They knew we were foreigners and
Protestants, and not likely to feel admiration or much friendliness
toward them. But their large charity was above considering such
things. They simply saw in us men who were hungry, and thirsty, and
tired, and that was sufficient. They opened their doors and gave us
welcome. They asked no questions, and they made no self-righteous
display of their hospipitality. They fished for no compliments. They
moved quietly about, setting the table for us, making the beds, and
bringing water to wash in, and paid no heed when we said it was
wrong for them to do that when we had men whose business it was to
perform such offices. We fared most comfortably, and sat late at
dinner. We walked all over the building with the hermits afterward,
and then sat on the lofty battlements and smoked while we enjoyed
the cool air, the wild scenery and the sunset. One or two chose cosy
bed-rooms to sleep in, but the nomadic instinct prompted the rest to
sleep on the broad divan that extended around the great hall,
because it seemed like sleeping out of doors, and so was more cheery
and inviting. It was a royal rest we had.
When we got up to breakfast in the morning, we were new men. For all
this hospitality no strict charge was made. We could give something
if we chose; we need give nothing, if we were poor or if we were
stingy. The pauper and the miser are as free as any in the Catholic
Convents of Palestine. I have been educated to enmity toward every
thing that is Catholic, and sometimes, in consequence of this, I
find it much easier to discover Catholic faults than Catholic
merits. But there is one thing I feel no disposition to overlook,
and no disposition to forget: and that is, the honest gratitude I
and all pilgrims owe, to the Convent Fathers in Palestine. Their
doors are always open, and there is always a welcome for any worthy
man who comes, whether he comes in rags or clad in purple. The
Catholic Convents are a priceless blessing to the poor. A pilgrim
without money, whether he be a Protestant or a Catholic, can travel
the length and breadth of Palestine, and in the midst of her desert
wastes find wholesome food and a clean bed every night, in these
buildings. Pilgrims in better circumstances are often stricken down
by the sun and the fevers of the country, and then their saving
refuge is the Convent. Without these hospitable retreats, travel in
Palestine would be a pleasure which none but the strongest men could
dare to undertake. Our party, pilgrims and all, will always be ready
and always willing, to touch glasses and drink health, prosperity
and long life to the Convent Fathers of Palestine.
So, rested and refreshed, we fell into line and filed away over the
barren mountains of Judea, and along rocky ridges and through
sterile gorges, where eternal silence and solitude reigned. Even the
scattering groups of armed shepherds we met the afternoon before,
tending their flocks of long-haired goats, were wanting here. We saw
but two living creatures. They were gazelles, of "soft-eyed"
notoriety. They looked like very young kids, but they annihilated
distance like an express train. I have not seen animals that moved
faster, unless I might say it of the antelopes of our own great
plains.
At nine or ten in the morning we reached the Plain of the Shepherds,
and stood in a walled garden of olives where the shepherds were
watching their flocks by night, eighteen centuries ago, when the
multitude of angels brought them the tidings that the Saviour was
born. A quarter of a mile away was Bethlehem of Judea, and the
pilgrims took some of the stone wall and hurried on.
The Plain of the Shepherds is a desert, paved with loose stones,
void of vegetation, glaring in the fierce sun. Only the music of the
angels it knew once could charm its shrubs and flowers to life again
and restore its vanished beauty. No less potent enchantment could
avail to work this miracle.
In the huge Church of the Nativity, in Bethlehem, built fifteen
hundred years ago by the inveterate St. Helena, they took us below
ground, and into a grotto cut in the living rock. This was the
"manger" where Christ was born. A silver star set in the floor bears
a Latin inscription to that effect. It is polished with the kisses
of many generations of worshiping pilgrims. The grotto was tricked
out in the usual tasteless style observable in all the holy places
of Palestine. As in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, envy and
uncharitableness were apparent here. The priests and the members of
the Greek and Latin churches can not come by the same corridor to
kneel in the sacred birthplace of the Redeemer, but are compelled to
approach and retire by different avenues, lest they quarrel and
fight on this holiest ground on earth.
I have no "meditations," suggested by this spot where the very first
"Merry Christmas!" was uttered in all the world, and from whence the
friend of my childhood, Santa Claus, departed on his first journey,
to gladden and continue to gladden roaring firesides on wintry
mornings in many a distant land forever and forever. I touch, with
reverent finger, the actual spot where the infant Jesus lay, but I
think -- nothing.
You can not think in this place any more than you can in any other
in Palestine that would be likely to inspire reflection. Beggars,
cripples and monks compass you about, and make you think only of
bucksheesh when you would rather think of something more in keeping
with the character of the spot.
I was glad to get away, and glad when we had walked through the
grottoes where Eusebius wrote, and Jerome fasted, and Joseph
prepared for the flight into Egypt, and the dozen other
distinguished grottoes, and knew we were done. The Church of the
Nativity is almost as well packed with exceeding holy places as the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre itself. They even have in it a grotto
wherein twenty thousand children were slaughtered by Herod when he
was seeking the life of the infant Saviour.
We went to the Milk Grotto, of course -- a cavern where Mary hid
herself for a while before the flight into Egypt. Its walls were
black before she entered, but in suckling the Child, a drop of her
milk fell upon the floor and instantly changed the darkness of the
walls to its own snowy hue. We took many little fragments of stone
from here, because it is well known in all the East that a barren
woman hath need only to touch her lips to one of these and her
failing will depart from her. We took many specimens, to the end
that we might confer happiness upon certain households that we wot
of.
We got away from Bethlehem and its troops of beggars and
relic-peddlers in the afternoon, and after spending some little time
at Rachel's tomb, hurried to Jerusalem as fast as possible. I never
was so glad to get home again before. I never have enjoyed rest as I
have enjoyed it during these last few hours. The journey to the Dead
Sea, the Jordan and Bethlehem was short, but it was an exhausting
one. Such roasting heat, such oppressive solitude, and such dismal
desolation can not surely exist elsewhere on earth. And such
fatigue!
The commonest sagacity warns me that I ought to tell the customary
pleasant lie, and say I tore myself reluctantly away from every
noted place in Palestine. Every body tells that, but with as little
ostentation as I may, I doubt the word of every he who tells it. I
could take a dreadful oath that I have never heard any one of our
forty pilgrims say any thing of the sort, and they are as worthy and
as sincerely devout as any that come here. They will say it when
they get home, fast enough, but why should they not? They do not
wish to array themselves against all the Lamartines and Grimeses in
the world. It does not stand to reason that men are reluctant to
leave places where the very life is almost badgered out of them by
importunate swarms of beggars and peddlers who hang in strings to
one's sleeves and coat-tails and shriek and shout in his ears and
horrify his vision with the ghastly sores and malformations they
exhibit. One is glad to get away. I have heard shameless people say
they were glad to get away from Ladies' Festivals where they were
importuned to buy by bevies of lovely young ladies. Transform those
houris into dusky hags and ragged savages, and replace their rounded
forms with shrunken and knotted distortions, their soft hands with
scarred and hideous deformities, and the persuasive music of their
voices with the discordant din of a hated language, and then see how
much lingering reluctance to leave could be mustered. No, it is the
neat thing to say you were reluctant, and then append the profound
thoughts that "struggled for utterance," in your brain; but it is
the true thing to say you were not reluctant, and found it
impossible to think at all -- though in good sooth it is not
respectable to say it, and not poetical, either.
We do not think, in the holy places; we think in bed, afterwards,
when the glare, and the noise, and the confusion are gone, and in
fancy we revisit alone, the solemn monuments of the past, and summon
the phantom pageants of an age that has passed away.
CHAPTER LVI

WE visited all the holy places about Jerusalem which we had left
unvisited when we journeyed to the Jordan and then, about three
o'clock one afternoon, we fell into procession and marched out at
the stately Damascus gate, and the walls of Jerusalem shut us out
forever. We paused on the summit of a distant hill and took a final
look and made a final farewell to the venerable city which had been
such a good home to us.
For about four hours we traveled down hill constantly. We followed a
narrow bridle-path which traversed the beds of the mountain gorges,
and when we could we got out of the way of the long trains of laden
camels and asses, and when we could not we suffered the misery of
being mashed up against perpendicular walls of rock and having our
legs bruised by the passing freight. Jack was caught two or three
times, and Dan and Moult as often. One horse had a heavy fall on the
slippery rocks, and the others had narrow escapes. However, this was
as good a road as we had found in Palestine, and possibly even the
best, and so there was not much grumbling.
Sometimes, in the glens, we came upon luxuriant orchards of figs,
apricots, pomegranates, and such things, but oftener the scenery was
rugged, mountainous, verdureless and forbidding. Here and there,
towers were perched high up on acclivities which seemed almost
inaccessible. This fashion is as old as Palestine itself and was
adopted in ancient times for security against enemies.
We crossed the brook which furnished David the stone that killed
Goliah, and no doubt we looked upon the very ground whereon that
noted battle was fought. We passed by a picturesque old gothic ruin
whose stone pavements had rung to the armed heels of many a valorous
Crusader, and we rode through a piece of country which we were told
once knew Samson as a citizen.
We staid all night with the good monks at the convent of Ramleh, and
in the morning got up and galloped the horses a good part of the
distance from there to Jaffa, or Joppa, for the plain was as level
as a floor and free from stones, and besides this was our last march
in Holy Land. These two or three hours finished, we and the tired
horses could have rest and sleep as long as we wanted it. This was
the plain of which Joshua spoke when he said, "Sun, stand thou still
on Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon." As we drew near
to Jaffa, the boys spurred up the horses and indulged in the
excitement of an actual race -- an experience we had hardly had
since we raced on donkeys in the Azores islands.
We came finally to the noble grove of orange-trees in which the
Oriental city of Jaffa lies buried; we passed through the walls, and
rode again down narrow streets and among swarms of animated rags,
and saw other sights and had other experiences we had long been
familiar with. We dismounted, for the last time, and out in the
offing, riding at anchor, we saw the ship! I put an exclamation
point there because we felt one when we saw the vessel. The long
pilgrimage was ended, and somehow we seemed to feel glad of it.
[For description of Jaffa, see Universal Gazetteer.] Simon the
Tanner formerly lived here. We went to his house. All the pilgrims
visit Simon the Tanner's house. Peter saw the vision of the beasts
let down in a sheet when he lay upon the roof of Simon the Tanner's
house. It was from Jaffa that Jonah sailed when he was told to go
and prophesy against Nineveh, and no doubt it was not far from the
town that the whale threw him up when he discovered that he had no
ticket. Jonah was disobedient, and of a fault-finding, complaining
disposition, and deserves to be lightly spoken of, almost. The
timbers used in the construction of Solomon's Temple were floated to
Jaffa in rafts, and the narrow opening in the reef through which
they passed to the shore is not an inch wider or a shade less
dangerous to navigate than it was then. Such is the sleepy nature of
the population Palestine's only good seaport has now and always had.
Jaffa has a history and a stirring one. It will not be discovered
any where in this book. If the reader will call at the circulating
library and mention my name, he will be furnished with books which
will afford him the fullest information concerning Jaffa.
So ends the pilgrimage. We ought to be glad that we did not make it
for the purpose of feasting our eyes upon fascinating aspects of
nature, for we should have been disappointed -- at least at this
season of the year. A writer in "Life in the Holy Land" observes:

"Monotonous and uninviting as much of the Holy Land will appear to

persons
accustomed to the almost constant verdure of flowers, ample streams
and varied
surface of our own country, we must remember that its aspect to the
Israelites
after the weary march of forty years through the desert must have
been very
different."
Which all of us will freely grant. But it truly is "monotonous and
uninviting," and there is no sufficient reason for describing it as
being otherwise.
Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine
must be the prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color,
they are unpicturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts
fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of
being sorrowful and despondent. The Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee
sleep in the midst of a vast stretch of hill and plain wherein the
eye rests upon no pleasant tint, no striking object, no soft picture
dreaming in a purple haze or mottled with the shadows of the clouds.
Every outline is harsh, every feature is distinct, there is no
perspective -- distance works no enchantment here. It is a hopeless,
dreary, heart-broken land.
Small shreds and patches of it must be very beautiful in the full
flush of spring, however, and all the more beautiful by contrast
with the far-reaching desolation that surrounds them on every side.
I would like much to see the fringes of the Jordan in spring-time,
and Shechem, Esdraelon, Ajalon and the borders of Galilee -- but
even then these spots would seem mere toy gardens set at wide
intervals in the waste of a limitless desolation.
Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a
curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies. Where
Sodom and Gomorrah reared their domes and towers, that solemn sea
now floods the plain, in whose bitter waters no living thing exists
-- over whose waveless surface the blistering air hangs motionless
and dead -- about whose borders nothing grows but weeds, and
scattering tufts of cane, and that treacherous fruit that promises
refreshment to parching lips, but turns to ashes at the touch.
Nazareth is forlorn; about that ford of Jordan where the hosts of
Israel entered the Promised Land with songs of rejoicing, one finds
only a squalid camp of fantastic Bedouins of the desert; Jericho the
accursed, lies a moldering ruin, to-day, even as Joshua's miracle
left it more than three thousand years ago; Bethlehem and Bethany,
in their poverty and their humiliation, have nothing about them now
to remind one that they once knew the high honor of the Saviour's
presence; the hallowed spot where the shepherds watched their flocks
by night, and where the angels sang Peace on earth, good will to
men, is untenanted by any living creature, and unblessed by any
feature that is pleasant to the eye. Renowned Jerusalem itself, the
stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and
is become a pauper village; the riches of Solomon are no longer
there to compel the admiration of visiting Oriental queens; the
wonderful temple which was the pride and the glory of Israel, is
gone, and the Ottoman crescent is lifted above the spot where, on
that most memorable day in the annals of the world, they reared the
Holy Cross. The noted Sea of Galilee, where Roman fleets once rode
at anchor and the disciples of the Saviour sailed in their ships,
was long ago deserted by the devotees of war and commerce, and its
borders are a silent wilderness; Capernaum is a shapeless ruin;
Magdala is the home of beggared Arabs; Bethsaida and Chorazin have
vanished from the earth, and the "desert places" round about them
where thousands of men once listened to the Saviour's voice and ate
the miraculous bread, sleep in the hush of a solitude that is
inhabited only by birds of prey and skulking foxes.
Palestine is desolate and unlovely. And why should it be otherwise?
Can the curse of the Deity beautify a land?
Palestine is no more of this work-day world. It is sacred to poetry
and tradition -- it is dream-land.
CHAPTER LVII

IT was worth a kingdom to be at sea again. It was a relief to drop

all anxiety whatsoever -- all questions as to where we should go;
how long we should stay; whether it were worth while to go or not;
all anxieties about the condition of the horses; all such questions
as "Shall we ever get to water?" "Shall we ever lunch?" "Ferguson,
how many more million miles have we got to creep under this awful
sun before we camp?" It was a relief to cast all these torturing
little anxieties far away -- ropes of steel they were, and every one
with a separate and distinct strain on it -- and feel the temporary
contentment that is born of the banishment of all care and
responsibility. We did not look at the compass: we did not care,
now, where the ship went to, so that she went out of sight of land
as quickly as possible. When I travel again, I wish to go in a
pleasure ship. No amount of money could have purchased for us, in a
strange vessel and among unfamiliar faces, the perfect satisfaction
and the sense of being at home again which we experienced when we
stepped on board the "Quaker City," -- our own ship -- after this
wearisome pilgrimage. It is a something we have felt always when we
returned to her, and a something we had no desire to sell.
We took off our blue woollen shirts, our spurs, and heavy boots, our
sanguinary revolvers and our buckskin-seated pantaloons, and got
shaved and came out in Christian costume once more. All but Jack,
who changed all other articles of his dress, but clung to his
traveling pantaloons. They still preserved their ample buckskin seat
intact; and so his short pea jacket and his long, thin legs assisted
to make him a picturesque object whenever he stood on the forecastle
looking abroad upon the ocean over the bows. At such times his
father's last injunction suggested itself to me. He said:
"Jack, my boy, you are about to go among a brilliant company of
gentlemen and ladies, who are refined and cultivated, and thoroughly
accomplished in the manners and customs of good society. Listen to
their conversation, study their habits of life, and learn. Be polite
and obliging to all, and considerate towards every one's opinions,
failings and prejudices. Command the just respect of all your
fellow-voyagers, even though you fail to win their friendly regard.
And Jack -- don't you ever dare, while you live, appear in public on
those decks in fair weather, in a costume unbecoming your mother's
drawing-room!"
It would have been worth any price if the father of this hopeful
youth could have stepped on board some time, and seen him standing
high on the fore-castle, pea jacket, tasseled red fez, buckskin
patch and all, placidly contemplating the ocean -- a rare spectacle
for any body's drawing-room.
After a pleasant voyage and a good rest, we drew near to Egypt and
out of the mellowest of sunsets we saw the domes and minarets of
Alexandria rise into view. As soon as the anchor was down, Jack and
I got a boat and went ashore. It was night by this time, and the
other passengers were content to remain at home and visit ancient
Egypt after breakfast. It was the way they did at Constantinople.
They took a lively interest in new countries, but their school-boy
impatience had worn off, and they had learned that it was wisdom to
take things easy and go along comfortably -- these old countries do
not go away in the night; they stay till after breakfast.
When we reached the pier we found an army of Egyptian boys with
donkeys no larger than themselves, waiting for passengers -- for
donkeys are the omnibuses of Egypt. We preferred to walk, but we
could not have our own way. The boys crowded about us, clamored
around us, and slewed their donkeys exactly across our path, no
matter which way we turned. They were good-natured rascals, and so
were the donkeys. We mounted, and the boys ran behind us and kept
the donkeys in a furious gallop, as is the fashion at Damascus. I
believe I would rather ride a donkey than any beast in the world. He
goes briskly, he puts on no airs, he is docile, though opinionated.
Satan himself could not scare him, and he is convenient -- very
convenient. When you are tired riding you can rest your feet on the
ground and let him gallop from under you.
We found the hotel and secured rooms, and were happy to know that
the Prince of Wales had stopped there once. They had it every where
on signs. No other princes had stopped there since, till Jack and I
came. We went abroad through the town, then, and found it a city of
huge commercial buildings, and broad, handsome streets brilliant
with gas-light. By night it was a sort of reminiscence of Paris. But
finally Jack found an ice-cream saloon, and that closed
investigations for that evening. The weather was very hot, it had
been many a day since Jack had seen ice-cream, and so it was useless
to talk of leaving the saloon till it shut up.
In the morning the lost tribes of America came ashore and infested
the hotels and took possession of all the donkeys and other open
barouches that offered. They went in picturesque procession to the
American Consul's; to the great gardens; to Cleopatra's Needles; to
Pompey's Pillar; to the palace of the Viceroy of Egypt; to the Nile;
to the superb groves of date-palms. One of our most inveterate
relic-hunters had his hammer with him, and tried to break a fragment
off the upright Needle and could not do it; he tried the prostrate
one and failed; he borrowed a heavy sledge hammer from a mason and
tried again. He tried Pompey's Pillar, and this baffled him.
Scattered all about the mighty monolith were sphinxes of noble
countenance, carved out of Egyptian granite as hard as blue steel,
and whose shapely features the wear of five thousand years had
failed to mark or mar. The relic-hunter battered at these
persistently, and sweated profusely over his work. He might as well
have attempted to deface the moon. They regarded him serenely with
the stately smile they had worn so long, and which seemed to say,
"Peck away, poor insect; we were not made to fear such as you; in
ten-score dragging ages we have seen more of your kind than there
are sands at your feet: have they left a blemish upon us?"
But I am forgetting the Jaffa Colonists. At Jaffa we had taken on
board some forty members of a very celebrated community. They were
male and female; babies, young boys and young girls; young married
people, and some who had passed a shade beyond the prime of life. I
refer to the "Adams Jaffa Colony." Others had deserted before. We
left in Jaffa Mr. Adams, his wife, and fifteen unfortunates who not
only had no money but did not know where to turn or whither to go.
Such was the statement made to us. Our forty were miserable enough
in the first place, and they lay about the decks seasick all the
voyage, which about completed their misery, I take it. However, one
or two young men remained upright, and by constant persecution we
wormed out of them some little information. They gave it reluctantly
and in a very fragmentary condition, for, having been shamefully
humbugged by their prophet, they felt humiliated and unhappy. In
such circumstances people do not like to talk.
The colony was a complete fiasco. I have already said that such as
could get away did so, from time to time. The prophet Adams -- once
an actor, then several other things, afterward a Mormon and a
missionary, always an adventurer -- remains at Jaffa with his
handful of sorrowful subjects. The forty we brought away with us
were chiefly destitute, though not all of them. They wished to get
to Egypt. What might become of them then they did not know and
probably did not care -- any thing to get away from hated Jaffa.
They had little to hope for. Because after many appeals to the
sympathies of New England, made by strangers of Boston, through the
newspapers, and after the establishment of an office there for the
reception of moneyed contributions for the Jaffa colonists, One
Dollar was subscribed. The consul-general for Egypt showed me the
newspaper paragraph which mentioned the circumstance and mentioned
also the discontinuance of the effort and the closing of the office.
It was evident that practical New England was not sorry to be rid of
such visionaries and was not in the least inclined to hire any body
to bring them back to her. Still, to get to Egypt, was something, in
the eyes of the unfortunate colonists, hopeless as the prospect
seemed of ever getting further.
Thus circumstanced, they landed at Alexandria from our ship. One of
our passengers, Mr. Moses S. Beach, of the New York Sun, inquired of
the consul-general what it would cost to send these people to their
home in Maine by the way of Liverpool, and he said fifteen hundred
dollars in gold would do it. Mr. Beach gave his check for the money
and so the troubles of the Jaffa colonists were at an end.57.1
Alexandria was too much like a European city to be novel, and we
soon tired of it. We took the cars and came up here to ancient
Cairo, which is an Oriental city and of the completest pattern.
There is little about it to disabuse one's mind of the error if he
should take it into his head that he was in the heart of Arabia.
Stately camels and dromedaries, swarthy Egyptians, and likewise
Turks and black Ethiopians, turbaned, sashed, and blazing in a rich
variety of Oriental costumes of all shades of flashy colors, are
what one sees on every hand crowding the narrow streets and the
honeycombed bazaars. We are stopping at Shepherd's Hotel, which is
the worst on earth except the one I stopped at once in a small town
in the United States. It is pleasant to read this sketch in my
note-book, now, and know that I can stand Shepherd's Hotel, sure,
because I have been in one just like it in America and survived:
I stopped at the Benton House. It used to be a good hotel, but that
proves nothing -- I used to be a good boy, for that matter. Both of
us have lost character of late years. The Benton is not a good
hotel. The Benton lacks a very great deal of being a good hotel.
Perdition is full of better hotels than the Benton.
It was late at night when I got there, and I told the clerk I would
like plenty of lights, because I wanted to read an hour or two. When
I reached No. 15 with the porter (we came along a dim hall that was
clad in ancient carpeting, faded, worn out in many places, and
patched with old scraps of oil cloth -- a hall that sank under one's
feet, and creaked dismally to every footstep,) he struck a light --
two inches of sallow, sorrowful, consumptive tallow candle, that
burned blue, and sputtered, and got discouraged and went out. The
porter lit it again, and I asked if that was all the light the clerk
sent. He said, "Oh no, I've got another one here," and he produced
another couple of inches of tallow candle. I said, "Light them both
-- I'll have to have one to see the other by." He did it, but the
result was drearier than darkness itself. He was a cheery,
accommodating rascal. He said he would go "somewheres" and steal a
lamp. I abetted and encouraged him in his criminal design. I heard
the landlord get after him in the hall ten minutes afterward.
"Where are you going with that lamp?"
"Fifteen wants it, sir."
"Fifteen! why he's got a double lot of candles -- does the man want
to illuminate the house? -- does he want to get up a torch-light
procession? -- what is he up to, any how?"
"He don't like them candles -- says he wants a lamp."
"Why what in the nation does -- why I never heard of such a thing?
What on earth can he want with that lamp?"
"Well, he only wants to read -- that's what he says."
"Wants to read, does he? -- ain't satisfied with a thousand candles,
but has to have a lamp! -- I do wonder what the devil that fellow
wants that lamp for? Take him another candle, and then if -- "
"But he wants the lamp -- says he'll burn the d -- d old house down
if he don't get a lamp!" (a remark which I never made.)
"I'd like to see him at it once. Well, you take it along -- but I
swear it beats my time, though -- and see if you can't find out what
in the very nation he wants with that lamp."
And he went off growling to himself and still wondering and
wondering over the unaccountable conduct of No. 15. The lamp was a
good one, but it revealed some disagreeable things -- a bed in the
suburbs of a desert of room -- a bed that had hills and valleys in
it, and you'd have to accommodate your body to the impression left
in it by the man that slept there last, before you could lie
comfortably; a carpet that had seen better days; a melancholy
washstand in a remote corner, and a dejected pitcher on it sorrowing
over a broken nose; a
looking-glass split across the centre, which chopped your head off
at the chin and made you look like some dreadful unfinished monster
or other; the paper peeling in shreds from the walls.
I sighed and said: "This is charming; and now don't you think you
could get me something to read?"
The porter said, "Oh, certainly; the old man's got dead loads of
books;" and he was gone before I could tell him what sort of
literature I would rather have. And yet his countenance expressed
the utmost confidence in his ability to execute the commission with
credit to himself. The old man made a descent on him.
"What are you going to do with that pile of books?"
"Fifteen wants 'em, sir."
"Fifteen, is it? He'll want a warming-pan, next -- he'll want a
nurse! Take him every thing there is in the house -- take him the
bar-keeper -- take him the baggage-wagon -- take him a chamber-maid!
Confound me, I never saw any thing like it. What did he say he wants
with those books?"
"Wants to read 'em, like enough; it ain't likely he wants to eat
'em, I don't reckon."
"Wants to read 'em -- wants to read 'em this time of night, the
infernal lunatic! Well, he can't have them."
"But he says he's mor'ly bound to have 'em; he says he'll just go
a-rairin' and a-chargin' through this house and raise more -- well,
there's no tellin' what he won't do if he don't get 'em; because
he's drunk and crazy and desperate, and nothing'll soothe him down
but them cussed books." [I had not made any threats, and was not in
the condition ascribed to me by the porter.]
"Well, go on; but I will be around when he goes to rairing and
charging, and the first rair he makes I'll make him rair out of the
window." And then the old gentleman went off, growling as before.
The genius of that porter was something wonderful. He put an armful
of books on the bed and said "Good night" as confidently as if he
knew perfectly well that those books were exactly my style of
reading matter. And well he might. His selection covered the whole
range of legitimate literature. It comprised "The Great
Consummation," by Rev. Dr. Cummings -- theology; "Revised Statutes
of the State of Missouri" -- law; "The Complete Horse-Doctor" --
medicine; "The Toilers of the Sea," by Victor Hugo -- romance; "The
works of William Shakspeare" -- poetry. I shall never cease to
admire the tact and the intelligence of that gifted porter.
But all the donkeys in Christendom, and most of the Egyptian boys, I
think, are at the door, and there is some noise going on, not to put
it in stronger language. -- We are about starting to the illustrious
Pyramids of Egypt, and the donkeys for the voyage are under
inspection. I will go and select one before the choice animals are
all taken.
57.1 It was an unselfish act of benevolence; it was done without any
ostentation, and has never been mentioned in any newspaper, I think.
Therefore it is refreshing to learn now, several months after the
above narrative was written, that another man received all the
credit of this rescue of the colonists. Such is life.
CHAPTER LVIII

THE donkeys were all good, all handsome, all strong and in good
condition, all fast and all willing to prove it. They were the best
we had found any where, and the most recherche. I do not know what
recherche is, but that is what these donkeys were, anyhow. Some were
of a soft mouse-color, and the others were white, black, and
vari-colored. Some were close-shaven, all over, except that a tuft
like a paint-brush was left on the end of the tail. Others were so
shaven in fanciful landscape garden patterns, as to mark their
bodies with curving lines, which were bounded on one side by hair
and on the other by the close plush left by the shears. They had all
been newly barbered, and were exceedingly stylish. Several of the
white ones were barred like zebras with rainbow stripes of blue and
red and yellow paint. These were indescribably gorgeous. Dan and
Jack selected from this lot because they brought back Italian
reminiscences of the "old masters." The saddles were the high,
stuffy, frog-shaped things we had known in Ephesus and Smyrna. The
donkey-boys were lively young Egyptian rascals who could follow a
donkey and keep him in a canter half a day without tiring. We had
plenty of spectators when we mounted, for the hotel was full of
English people bound overland to India and officers getting ready
for the African campaign against the Abyssinian King Theodorus. We
were not a very large party, but as we charged through the streets
of the great metropolis, we made noise for five hundred, and
displayed activity and created excitement in proportion. Nobody can
steer a donkey, and some collided with camels, dervishes, effendis,
asses, beggars and every thing else that offered to the donkeys a
reasonable chance for a collision. When we turned into the broad
avenue that leads out of the city toward Old Cairo, there was plenty
of room. The walls of stately date-palms that fenced the gardens and
bordered the way, threw their shadows down and made the air cool and
bracing. We rose to the spirit of the time and the race became a
wild rout, a stampede, a terrific panic. I wish to live to enjoy it
again.
Somewhere along this route we had a few startling exhibitions of
Oriental simplicity. A girl apparently thirteen years of age came
along the great thoroughfare dressed like Eve before the fall. We
would have called her thirteen at home; but here girls who look
thirteen are often not more than nine, in reality. Occasionally we
saw stark-naked men of superb build, bathing, and making no attempt
at concealment. However, an hour's acquaintance with this cheerful
custom reconciled the pilgrims to it, and then it ceased to occasion
remark. Thus easily do even the most startling novelties grow tame
and spiritless to these sight-surfeited wanderers.
Arrived at Old Cairo, the camp-followers took up the donkeys and
tumbled them bodily aboard a small boat with a lateen sail, and we
followed and got under way. The deck was closely packed with donkeys
and men; the two sailors had to climb over and under and through the
wedged mass to work the sails, and the steersman had to crowd four
or five donkeys out of the way when he wished to swing his tiller
and put his helm hard-down. But what were their troubles to us? We
had nothing to do; nothing to do but enjoy the trip; nothing to do
but shove the donkeys off our corns and look at the charming scenery
of the Nile.
On the island at our right was the machine they call the Nilometer,
a stone-column whose business it is to mark the rise of the river
and prophecy whether it will reach only thirty-two feet and produce
a famine, or whether it will properly flood the land at forty and
produce plenty, or whether it will rise to forty-three and bring
death and destruction to flocks and crops -- but how it does all
this they could not explain to us so that we could understand. On
the same island is still shown the spot where Pharaoh's daughter
found Moses in the bulrushes. Near the spot we sailed from, the Holy
Family dwelt when they sojourned in Egypt till Herod should complete
his slaughter of the innocents. The same tree they rested under when
they first arrived, was there a short time ago, but the Viceroy of
Egypt sent it to the Empress Eugenie lately. He was just in time,
otherwise our pilgrims would have had it.
The Nile at this point is muddy, swift and turbid, and does not lack
a great deal of being as wide as the Mississippi.
We scrambled up the steep bank at the shabby town of Ghizeh, mounted
the donkeys again, and scampered away. For four or five miles the
route lay along a high embankment which they say is to be the bed of
a railway the Sultan means to build for no other reason than that
when the Empress of the French comes to visit him she can go to the
Pyramids in comfort. This is true Oriental hospitality. I am very
glad it is our privilege to have donkeys instead of cars.
At the distance of a few miles the Pyramids rising above the palms,
looked very clean-cut, very grand and imposing, and very soft and
filmy, as well. They swam in a rich haze that took from them all
suggestions of unfeeling stone, and made them seem only the airy
nothings of a dream -- structures which might blossom into tiers of
vague arches, or ornate colonnades, may be, and change and change
again, into all graceful forms of architecture, while we looked, and
then melt deliciously away and blend with the tremulous atmosphere.
At the end of the levee we left the mules and went in a sailboat
across an arm of the Nile or an overflow, and landed where the sands
of the Great Sahara left their embankment, as straight as a wall,
along the verge of the alluvial plain of the river. A laborious walk
in the flaming sun brought us to the foot of the great Pyramid of
Cheops. It was a fairy vision no longer. It was a corrugated,
unsightly mountain of stone. Each of its monstrous sides was a wide
stairway which rose upward, step above step, narrowing as it went,
till it tapered to a point far aloft in the air. Insect men and
women -- pilgrims from the Quaker City -- were creeping about its
dizzy perches, and one little black swarm were waving postage stamps
from the airy summit -- handkerchiefs will be understood.
Of course we were besieged by a rabble of muscular Egyptians and
Arabs who wanted the contract of dragging us to the top -- all
tourists are. Of course you could not hear your own voice for the
din that was around you. Of course the Sheiks said they were the
only responsible parties; that all contracts must be made with them,
all moneys paid over to them, and none exacted from us by any but
themselves alone. Of course they contracted that the varlets who
dragged us up should not mention bucksheesh once. For such is the
usual routine. Of course we contracted with them, paid them, were
delivered into the hands of the draggers, dragged up the Pyramids,
and harried and be-deviled for bucksheesh from the foundation clear
to the summit. We paid it, too, for we were purposely spread very
far apart over the vast side of the Pyramid. There was no help near
if we called, and the Herculeses who dragged us had a way of asking
sweetly and flatteringly for bucksheesh, which was seductive, and of
looking fierce and threatening to throw us down the precipice, which
was persuasive and convincing.
Each step being full as high as a dinner-table; there being very,
very many of the steps; an Arab having hold of each of our arms and
springing upward from step to step and snatching us with them,
forcing us to lift our feet as high as our breasts every time, and
do it rapidly and keep it up till we were ready to faint, who shall
say it is not lively, exhilarating, lacerating, muscle-straining,
bone-wrenching and perfectly excruciating and exhausting pastime,
climbing the Pyramids? I beseeched the varlets not to twist all my
joints asunder; I iterated, reiterated, even swore to them that I
did not wish to beat any body to the top; did all I could to
convince them that if I got there the last of all I would feel
blessed above men and grateful to them forever; I begged them,
prayed them, pleaded with them to let me stop and rest a moment --
only one little moment: and they only answered with some more
frightful springs, and an unenlisted volunteer behind opened a
bombardment of determined boosts with his head which threatened to
batter my whole political economy to wreck and ruin.
Twice, for one minute, they let me rest while they extorted
bucksheesh, and then continued their maniac flight up the Pyramid.
They wished to beat the other parties. It was nothing to them that
I, a stranger, must be sacrificed upon the altar of their unholy
ambition. But in the midst of sorrow, joy blooms. Even in this dark
hour I had a sweet consolation. For I knew that except these
Mohammedans repented they would go straight to perdition some day.
And they never repent -- they never forsake their paganism. This
thought calmed me, cheered me, and I sank down, limp and exhausted,
upon the summit, but happy, so happy and serene within.
On the one hand, a mighty sea of yellow sand stretched away toward
the ends of the earth, solemn, silent, shorn of vegetation, its
solitude uncheered by any forms of creature life; on the other, the
Eden of Egypt was spread below us -- a broad green floor, cloven by
the sinuous river, dotted with villages, its vast distances measured
and marked by the diminishing stature of receding clusters of palms.
It lay asleep in an enchanted atmosphere. There was no sound, no
motion. Above the date-plumes in the middle distance, swelled a
domed and pinnacled mass, glimmering through a tinted, exquisite
mist; away toward the horizon a dozen shapely pyramids watched over
ruined Memphis: and at our feet the bland impassible Sphynx looked
out upon the picture from her throne in the sands as placidly and
pensively as she had looked upon its like full fifty lagging
centuries ago.
We suffered torture no pen can describe from the hungry appeals for
bucksheesh that gleamed from Arab eyes and poured incessantly from
Arab lips. Why try to call up the traditions of vanished Egyptian
grandeur; why try to fancy Egypt following dead Rameses to his tomb
in the Pyramid, or the long multitude of Israel departing over the
desert yonder? Why try to think at all? The thing was impossible.
One must bring his meditations cut and dried, or else cut and dry
them afterward.
The traditional Arab proposed, in the traditional way, to run down
Cheops, cross the eighth of a mile of sand intervening between it
and the tall pyramid of Cephron, ascend to Cephron's summit and
return to us on the top of Cheops -- all in nine minutes by the
watch, and the whole service to be rendered for a single dollar. In
the first flush of irritation, I said let the Arab and his exploits
go to the mischief. But stay. The upper third of Cephron was coated
with dressed marble, smooth as glass. A blessed thought entered my
brain. He must infallibly break his neck. Close the contract with
dispatch, I said, and let him go. He started. We watched. He went
bounding down the vast broadside, spring after spring, like an ibex.
He grew small and smaller till he became a bobbing pigmy, away down
toward the bottom -- then disappeared. We turned and peered over the
other side -- forty seconds -- eighty seconds -- a hundred --
happiness, he is dead already! -- two minutes -- and a quarter --
"There he goes!" Too true -- it was too true. He was very small,
now. Gradually, but surely, he overcame the level ground. He began
to spring and climb again. Up, up, up -- at last he reached the
smooth coating -- now for it. But he clung to it with toes and
fingers, like a fly. He crawled this way and that -- away to the
right, slanting upward -- away to the left, still slanting upward --
and stood at last, a black peg on the summit, and waved his pigmy
scarf! Then he crept downward to the raw steps again, then picked up
his agile heels and flew. We lost him presently. But presently again
we saw him under us, mounting with undiminished energy. Shortly he
bounded into our midst with a gallant war-whoop. Time, eight
minutes, forty-one seconds. He had won. His bones were intact. It
was a failure. I reflected. I said to myself, he is tired, and must
grow dizzy. I will risk another dollar on him.
He started again. Made the trip again. Slipped on the smooth coating
-- I almost had him. But an infamous crevice saved him. He was with
us once more -- perfectly sound. Time, eight minutes, forty-six
seconds.
I said to Dan, "Lend me a dollar -- I can beat this game, yet."
Worse and worse. He won again. Time, eight minutes, forty-eight
seconds. I was out of all patience, now. I was desperate. -- Money
was no longer of any consequence. I said, "Sirrah, I will give you a
hundred dollars to jump off this pyramid head first. If you do not
like the terms, name your bet. I scorn to stand on expenses now. I
will stay right here and risk money on you as long as Dan has got a
cent."
I was in a fair way to win, now, for it was a dazzling opportunity
for an Arab. He pondered a moment, and would have done it, I think,
but his mother arrived, then, and interfered. Her tears moved me --
I never can look upon the tears of woman with indifference -- and I
said I would give her a hundred to jump off, too.
But it was a failure. The Arabs are too high-priced in Egypt. They
put on airs unbecoming to such savages.
We descended, hot and out of humor. The dragoman lit candles, and we
all entered a hole near the base of the pyramid, attended by a crazy
rabble of Arabs who thrust their services upon us uninvited. They
dragged us up a long inclined chute, and dripped candle-grease all
over us. This chute was not more than twice as wide and high as a
Saratoga trunk, and was walled, roofed and floored with solid blocks
of Egyptian granite as wide as a wardrobe, twice as thick and three
times as long. We kept on climbing, through the oppressive gloom,
till I thought we ought to be nearing the top of the pyramid again,
and then came to the "Queen's Chamber," and shortly to the Chamber
of the King. These large apartments were tombs. The walls were built
of monstrous masses of smoothed granite, neatly joined together.
Some of them were nearly as large square as an ordinary parlor. A
great stone sarcophagus like a bath-tub stood in the centre of the
King's Chamber. Around it were gathered a picturesque group of Arab
savages and soiled and tattered pilgrims, who held their candles
aloft in the gloom while they chattered, and the winking blurs of
light shed a dim glory down upon one of the irrepressible
memento-seekers who was pecking at the venerable sarcophagus with
his sacrilegious hammer.
We struggled out to the open air and the bright sunshine, and for
the space of thirty minutes received ragged Arabs by couples, dozens
and platoons, and paid them bucksheesh for services they swore and
proved by each other that they had rendered, but which we had not
been aware of before -- and as each party was paid, they dropped
into the rear of the procession and in due time arrived again with a
newly-invented delinquent list for liquidation.
We lunched in the shade of the pyramid, and in the midst of this
encroaching and unwelcome company, and then Dan and Jack and I
started away for a walk. A howling swarm of beggars followed us --
surrounded us -- almost headed us off. A sheik, in flowing white
bournous and gaudy head-gear, was with them. He wanted more
bucksheesh. But we had adopted a new code -- it was millions for
defense, but not a cent for bucksheesh. I asked him if he could
persuade the others to depart if we paid him. He said yes -- for ten
francs. We accepted the contract, and said --
"Now persuade your vassals to fall back."
He swung his long staff round his head and three Arabs bit the dust.
He capered among the mob like a very maniac. His blows fell like
hail, and wherever one fell a subject went down. We had to hurry to
the rescue and tell him it was only necessary to damage them a
little, he need not kill them. -- In two minutes we were alone with
the sheik, and remained so. The persuasive powers of this illiterate
savage were remarkable.
Each side of the Pyramid of Cheops is about as long as the Capitol
at Washington, or the Sultan's new palace on the Bosporus, and is
longer than the greatest depth of St. Peter's at Rome -- which is to
say that each side of Cheops extends seven hundred and some odd
feet. It is about seventy-five feet higher than the cross on St.
Peter's. The first time I ever went down the Mississippi, I thought
the highest bluff on the river between St. Louis and New Orleans --
it was near Selma, Missouri -- was probably the highest mountain in
the world. It is four hundred and thirteen feet high. It still looms
in my memory with undiminished grandeur. I can still see the trees
and bushes growing smaller and smaller as I followed them up its
huge slant with my eye, till they became a feathery fringe on the
distant summit. This symmetrical Pyramid of Cheops -- this solid
mountain of stone reared by the patient hands of men -- this mighty
tomb of a forgotten monarch -- dwarfs my cherished mountain. For it
is four hundred and eighty feet high. In still earlier years than
those I have been recalling, Holliday's Hill, in our town, was to me
the noblest work of God. It appeared to pierce the skies. It was
nearly three hundred feet high. In those days I pondered the subject
much, but I never could understand why it did not swathe its summit
with never-failing clouds, and crown its majestic brow with
everlasting snows. I had heard that such was the custom of great
mountains in other parts of the world. I remembered how I worked
with another boy, at odd afternoons stolen from study and paid for
with stripes, to undermine and start from its bed an immense boulder
that rested upon the edge of that hilltop; I remembered how, one
Saturday afternoon, we gave three hours of honest effort to the
task, and saw at last that our reward was at hand; I remembered how
we sat down, then, and wiped the perspiration away, and waited to
let a picnic party get out of the way in the road below -- and then
we started the boulder. It was splendid. It went crashing down the
hillside, tearing up saplings, mowing bushes down like grass,
ripping and crushing and smashing every thing in its path --
eternally splintered and scattered a wood pile at the foot of the
hill, and then sprang from the high bank clear over a dray in the
road -- the negro glanced up once and dodged -- and the next second
it made infinitesimal mince-meat of a frame cooper-shop, and the
coopers swarmed out like bees. Then we said it was perfectly
magnificent, and left. Because the coopers were starting up the hill
to inquire.
Still, that mountain, prodigious as it was, was nothing to the
Pyramid of Cheops. I could conjure up no comparison that would
convey to my mind a satisfactory comprehension of the magnitude of a
pile of monstrous stones that covered thirteen acres of ground and
stretched upward four hundred and eighty tiresome feet, and so I
gave it up and walked down to the Sphynx.
After years of waiting, it was before me at last. The great face was
so sad, so earnest, so longing, so patient. There was a dignity not
of earth in its mien, and in its countenance a benignity such as
never any thing human wore. It was stone, but it seemed sentient. If
ever image of stone thought, it was thinking. It was looking toward
the verge of the landscape, yet looking at nothing -- nothing but
distance and vacancy. It was looking over and beyond every thing of
the present, and far into the past. It was gazing out over the ocean
of Time -- over lines of century-waves which, further and further
receding, closed nearer and nearer together, and blended at last
into one unbroken tide, away toward the horizon of remote antiquity.
It was thinking of the wars of departed ages; of the empires it had
seen created and destroyed; of the nations whose birth it had
witnessed, whose progress it had watched, whose annihilation it had
noted; of the joy and sorrow, the life and death, the grandeur and
decay, of five thousand slow revolving years. It was the type of an
attribute of man -- of a faculty of his heart and brain. It was
MEMORY -- RETROSPECTION -- wrought into visible, tangible form. All
who know what pathos there is in memories of days that are
accomplished and faces that have vanished -- albeit only a trifling
score of years gone by -- will have some appreciation of the pathos
that dwells in these grave eyes that look so steadfastly back upon
the things they knew before History was born -- before Tradition had
being -- things that were, and forms that moved, in a vague era
which even Poetry and Romance scarce know of -- and passed one by
one away and left the stony dreamer solitary in the midst of a
strange new age, and uncomprehended scenes.
The Sphynx is grand in its loneliness; it is imposing in its
magnitude; it is impressive in the mystery that hangs over its
story. And there is that in the overshadowing majesty of this
eternal figure of stone, with its accusing memory of the deeds of
all ages, which reveals to one something of what he shall feel when
he shall stand at last in the awful presence of God.
There are some things which, for the credit of America, should be
left unsaid, perhaps; but these very things happen sometimes to be
the very things which, for the real benefit of Americans, ought to
have prominent notice. While we stood looking, a wart, or an
excrescence of some kind, appeared on the jaw of the Sphynx. We
heard the familiar clink of a hammer, and understood the case at
once. One of our well meaning reptiles -- I mean relic-hunters --
had crawled up there and was trying to break a "specimen " from the
face of this the most majestic creation the hand of man has wrought.
But the great image contemplated the dead ages as calmly as ever,
unconscious of the small insect that was fretting at its jaw.
Egyptian granite that has defied the storms and earthquakes of all
time has nothing to fear from the tack-hammers of ignorant
excursionists -- highwaymen like this specimen. He failed in his
enterprise. We sent a sheik to arrest him if he had the authority,
or to warn him, if he had not, that by the laws of Egypt the crime
he was attempting to commit was punishable with imprisonment or the
bastinado. Then he desisted and went away.
The Sphynx: a hundred and twenty-five feet long, sixty feet high,
and a hundred and two feet around the head, if I remember rightly --
carved out of one solid block of stone harder than any iron. The
block must have been as large as the Fifth Avenue Hotel before the
usual waste (by the necessities of sculpture) of a fourth or a half
of the original mass was begun. I only set down these figures and
these remarks to suggest the prodigious labor the carving of it so
elegantly, so symmetrically, so faultlessly, must have cost. This
species of stone is so hard that figures cut in it remain sharp and
unmarred after exposure to the weather for two or three thousand
years. Now did it take a hundred years of patient toil to carve the
Sphynx? It seems probable.
Something interfered, and we did not visit the Red Sea and walk upon
the sands of Arabia. I shall not describe the great mosque of
Mehemet Ali, whose entire inner walls are built of polished and
glistening alabaster; I shall not tell how the little birds have
built their nests in the globes of the great chandeliers that hang
in the mosque, and how they fill the whole place with their music
and are not afraid of any body because their audacity is pardoned,
their rights are respected, and nobody is allowed to interfere with
them, even though the mosque be thus doomed to go unlighted; I
certainly shall not tell the hackneyed story of the massacre of the
Mamelukes, because I am glad the lawless rascals were massacred, and
I do not wish to get up any sympathy in their behalf; I shall not
tell how that one solitary Mameluke jumped his horse a hundred feet
down from the battlements of the citadel and escaped, because I do
not think much of that -- I could have done it myself; I shall not
tell of Joseph's well which he dug in the solid rock of the citadel
hill and which is still as good as new, nor how the same mules he
bought to draw up the water (with an endless chain) are still at it
yet and are getting tired of it, too; I shall not tell about
Joseph's granaries which he built to store the grain in, what time
the Egyptian brokers were "selling short," unwitting that there
would be no corn in all the land when it should be time for them to
deliver; I shall not tell any thing about the strange, strange city
of Cairo, because it is only a repetition, a good deal intensified
and exaggerated, of the Oriental cities I have already spoken of; I
shall not tell of the Great Caravan which leaves for Mecca every
year, for I did not see it; nor of the fashion the people have of
prostrating themselves and so forming a long human pavement to be
ridden over by the chief of the expedition on its return, to the end
that their salvation may be thus secured, for I did not see that
either; I shall not speak of the railway, for it is like any other
railway -- I shall only say that the fuel they use for the
locomotive is composed of mummies three thousand years old,
purchased by the ton or by the graveyard for that purpose, and that
sometimes one hears the profane engineer call out pettishly, "D -- n
these plebeians, they don't burn worth a cent -- pass out a
King;"58.1 I shall not tell of the groups of mud cones stuck like
wasps' nests upon a thousand mounds above high water-mark the length
and breadth of Egypt -- villages of the lower classes; I shall not
speak of the boundless sweep of level plain, green with luxuriant
grain, that gladdens the eye as far as it can pierce through the
soft, rich atmosphere of Egypt; I shall not speak of the vision of
the Pyramids seen at a distance of five and twenty miles, for the
picture is too ethereal to be limned by an uninspired pen; I shall
not tell of the crowds of dusky women who flocked to the cars when
they stopped a moment at a station, to sell us a drink of water or a
ruddy, juicy pomegranate; I shall not tell of the motley multitudes
and wild costumes that graced a fair we found in full blast at
another barbarous station; I shall not tell how we feasted on fresh
dates and enjoyed the pleasant landscape all through the flying
journey; nor how we thundered into Alexandria, at last, swarmed out
of the cars, rowed aboard the ship, left a comrade behind, (who was
to return to Europe, thence home,) raised the anchor, and turned our
bows homeward finally and forever from the long voyage; nor how, as
the mellow sun went down upon the oldest land on earth, Jack and
Moult assembled in solemn state in the smoking-room and mourned over
the lost comrade the whole night long, and would not be comforted. I
shall not speak a word of any of these things, or write a line. They
shall be as a sealed book. I do not know what a sealed book is,
because I never saw one, but a sealed book is the expression to use
in this connection, because it is popular.
We were glad to have seen the land which was the mother of
civilization -- which taught Greece her letters, and through Greece
Rome, and through Rome the world; the land which could have
humanized and civilized the hapless children of Israel, but allowed
them to depart out of her borders little better than savages. We
were glad to have seen that land which had an enlightened religion
with future eternal rewards and punishment in it, while even
Israel's religion contained no promise of a hereafter. We were glad
to have seen that land which had glass three thousand years before
England had it, and could paint upon it as none of us can paint now;
that land which knew, three thousand years ago, well nigh all of
medicine and surgery which science has discovered lately; which had
all those curious surgical instruments which science has invented
recently; which had in high excellence a thousand luxuries and
necessities of an advanced civilization which we have gradually
contrived and accumulated in modern times and claimed as things that
were new under the sun; that had paper untold centuries before we
dreampt of it -- and waterfalls before our women thought of them;
that had a perfect system of common schools so long before we
boasted of our achievements in that direction that it seems forever
and forever ago; that so embalmed the dead that flesh was made
almost immortal -- which we can not do; that built temples which
mock at destroying time and smile grimly upon our lauded little
prodigies of architecture; that old land that knew all which we know
now, perchance, and more; that walked in the broad highway of
civilization in the gray dawn of creation, ages and ages before we
were born; that left the impress of exalted, cultivated Mind upon
the eternal front of the Sphynx to confound all scoffers who, when
all her other proofs had passed away, might seek to persuade the
world that imperial Egypt, in the days of her high renown, had
groped in darkness.
58.1 Stated to me for a fact. I only tell it as I got it. I am
willing to believe it. I can believe any thing.
CHAPTER LIX

WE were at sea now, for a very long voyage -- we were to pass

through the entire length of the Levant; through the entire length
of the Mediterranean proper, also, and then cross the full width of
the Atlantic -- a voyage of several weeks. We naturally settled down
into a very slow, stay-at-home manner of life, and resolved to be
quiet, exemplary people, and roam no more for twenty or thirty days.
No more, at least, than from stem to stern of the ship. It was a
very comfortable prospect, though, for we were tired and needed a
long rest.
We were all lazy and satisfied, now, as the meager entries in my
note-book (that sure index, to me, of my condition,) prove. What a
stupid thing a note-book gets to be at sea, any way. Please observe
the style:

"Sunday -- Services, as usual, at four bells. Services at night,

also. No cards.
"Monday -- Beautiful day, but rained hard. The cattle purchased at
Alexandria for beef ought to be shingled. Or else fattened. The
water stands in deep puddles in the depressions forward of their
after shoulders. Also here and there all over their backs. It is
well they are not cows -- it would soak in and ruin the milk. The
poor devil eagle59.1 from Syria looks miserable and droopy in the
rain, perched on the forward capstan. He appears to have his own
opinion of a sea voyage, and if it were put into language and the
language solidified, it would probably essentially dam the widest
river in the world.
"Tuesday -- Somewhere in the neighborhood of the island of Malta.
Can not stop there. Cholera. Weather very stormy. Many passengers
seasick and invisible.
"Wednesday -- Weather still very savage. Storm blew two land birds
to sea, and they came on board. A hawk was blown off, also. He
circled round and round the ship, wanting to light, but afraid of
the people. He was so tired, though, that he had to light, at last,
or perish. He stopped in the foretop, repeatedly, and was as often
blown away by the wind. At last Harry caught him.
Sea full of flying-fish. They rise in flocks of three hundred and
flash along above the tops of the waves a distance of two or three
hundred feet, then fall and disappear.
"Thursday -- Anchored off Algiers, Africa. Beautiful city, beautiful
green hilly landscape behind it. Staid half a day and left. Not
permitted to land, though we showed a clean bill of health. They
were afraid of Egyptian plague and cholera.
"Friday -- Morning, dominoes. Afternoon, dominoes. Evening,
promenading the deck. Afterwards, charades.
"Saturday -- Morning, dominoes. Afternoon, dominoes. Evening,
promenading the decks. Afterwards, dominoes.
"Sunday -- Morning service, four bells. Evening service, eight
bells. Monotony till midnight. -- Whereupon, dominoes.
"Monday -- Morning, dominoes. Afternoon, dominoes. Evening,
promenading the decks. Afterward, charades and a lecture from Dr. C.
Dominoes.
"No date -- Anchored off the picturesque city of Cagliari, Sardinia.
Staid till midnight, but not permitted to land by these infamous
foreigners. They smell inodorously -- they do not wash -- they dare
not risk cholera.
"Thursday -- Anchored off the beautiful cathedral city of Malaga,
Spain. -- Went ashore in the captain's boat -- not ashore, either,
for they would not let us land. Quarantine. Shipped my newspaper
correspondence, which they took with tongs, dipped it in sea water,
clipped it full of holes, and then fumigated it with villainous
vapors till it smelt like a Spaniard. Inquired about chances to run
to blockade and visit the Alhambra at Granada. Too risky -- they
might hang a body. Set sail -- middle of afternoon. "And so on, and
so on, and so forth, for several days. Finally, anchored off
Gibraltar, which looks familiar and home-like."
It reminds me of the journal I opened with the New Year, once, when
I was a boy and a confiding and a willing prey to those impossible
schemes of reform which well-meaning old maids and grandmothers set
for the feet of unwary youths at that season of the year -- setting
oversized tasks for them, which, necessarily failing, as infallibly
weaken the boy's strength of will, diminish his confidence in
himself and injure his chances of success in life. Please accept of
an extract:

"Monday -- Got up, washed, went to bed.

"Tuesday -- Got up, washed, went to bed.
"Wednesday -- Got up, washed, went to bed.
"Thursday -- Got up, washed, went to bed.
"Friday -- Got up, washed, went to bed.
"Next Friday -- Got up, washed, went to bed.
"Friday fortnight -- Got up, washed, went to bed.
"Following month -- Got up, washed, went to bed."
I stopped, then, discouraged. Startling events appeared to be too
rare, in my career, to render a diary necessary. I still reflect
with pride, however, that even at that early age I washed when I got
up. That journal finished me. I never have had the nerve to keep one
since. My loss of confidence in myself in that line was permanent.
The ship had to stay a week or more at Gibraltar to take in coal for
the home voyage.
It would be very tiresome staying here, and so four of us ran the
quarantine blockade and spent seven delightful days in Seville,
Cordova, Cadiz, and wandering through the pleasant rural scenery of
Andalusia, the garden of Old Spain. The experiences of that cheery
week were too varied and numerous for a short chapter and I have not
room for a long one. Therefore I shall leave them all out.
59.1 Afterwards presented to the Central Park.
CHAPTER LX

TEN or eleven o'clock found us coming down to breakfast one morning

in Cadiz. They told us the ship had been lying at anchor in the
harbor two or three hours. It was time for us to bestir ourselves.
The ship could wait only a little while because of the quarantine.
We were soon on board, and within the hour the white city and the
pleasant shores of Spain sank down behind the waves and passed out
of sight. We had seen no land fade from view so regretfully.
It had long ago been decided in a noisy public meeting in the main
cabin that we could not go to Lisbon, because we must surely be
quarantined there. We did every thing by mass-meeting, in the good
old national way, from swapping off one empire for another on the
programme of the voyage down to complaining of the cookery and the
scarcity of napkins. I am reminded, now, of one of these complaints
of the cookery made by a passenger. The coffee had been steadily
growing more and more execrable for the space of three weeks, till
at last it had ceased to be coffee altogether and had assumed the
nature of mere discolored water -- so this person said. He said it
was so weak that it was transparent an inch in depth around the edge
of the cup. As he approached the table one morning he saw the
transparent edge -- by means of his extraordinary vision long before
he got to his seat. He went back and complained in a high-handed way
to Capt. Duncan. He said the coffee was disgraceful. The Captain
showed his. It seemed tolerably good. The incipient mutineer was
more outraged than ever, then, at what he denounced as the
partiality shown the captain's table over the other tables in the
ship. He flourished back and got his cup and set it down
triumphantly, and said:
"Just try that mixture once, Captain Duncan."
He smelt it -- tasted it -- smiled benignantly -- then said:
"It is inferior -- for coffee -- but it is pretty fair tea."
The humbled mutineer smelt it, tasted it, and returned to his seat.
He had made an egregious ass of himself before the whole ship. He
did it no more. After that he took things as they came. That was me.

The old-fashioned ship-life had returned, now that we were no longer

in sight of land. For days and days it continued just the same, one
day being exactly like another, and, to me, every one of them
pleasant. At last we anchored in the open roadstead of Funchal, in
the beautiful islands we call the Madeiras.
The mountains looked surpassingly lovely, clad as they were in
living, green; ribbed with lava ridges; flecked with white cottages;
riven by deep chasms purple with shade; the great slopes dashed with
sunshine and mottled with shadows flung from the drifting squadrons
of the sky, and the superb picture fitly crowned by towering peaks
whose fronts were swept by the trailing fringes of the clouds.
But we could not land. We staid all day and looked, we abused the
man who invented quarantine, we held half a dozen mass-meetings and
crammed them full of interrupted speeches, motions that fell
still-born, amendments that came to nought and resolutions that died
from sheer exhaustion in trying to get before the house. At night we
set sail.
We averaged four mass-meetings a week for the voyage -- we seemed
always in labor in this way, and yet so often fallaciously that
whenever at long intervals we were safely delivered of a resolution,
it was cause for public rejoicing, and we hoisted the flag and fired
a salute.
Days passed -- and nights; and then the beautiful Bermudas rose out
of the sea, we entered the tortuous channel, steamed hither and
thither among the bright summer islands, and rested at last under
the flag of England and were welcome. We were not a nightmare here,
where were civilization and intelligence in place of Spanish and
Italian superstition, dirt and dread of cholera. A few days among
the breezy groves, the flower gardens, the coral caves, and the
lovely vistas of blue water that went curving in and out,
disappearing and anon again appearing through jungle walls of
brilliant foliage, restored the energies dulled by long drowsing on
the ocean, and fitted us for our final cruise -- our little run of a
thousand miles to New York -- America -- HOME.
We bade good-bye to "our friends the Bermudians," as our programme
hath it -- the majority of those we were most intimate with were
negroes -- and courted the great deep again. I said the majority. We
knew more negroes than white people, because we had a deal of
washing to be done, but we made some most excellent friends among
the whites, whom it will be a pleasant duty to hold long in grateful
remembrance.
We sailed, and from that hour all idling ceased. Such another system
of overhauling, general littering of cabins and packing of trunks we
had not seen since we let go the anchor in the harbor of Beirout.
Every body was busy. Lists of all purchases had to be made out, and
values attached, to facilitate matters at the custom-house.
Purchases bought by bulk in partnership had to be equitably divided,
outstanding debts canceled, accounts compared, and trunks, boxes and
packages labeled. All day long the bustle and confusion continued.
And now came our first accident. A passenger was running through a
gangway, between decks, one stormy night, when he caught his foot in
the iron staple of a door that had been heedlessly left off a
hatchway, and the bones of his leg broke at the ancle. It was our
first serious misfortune. We had traveled much more than twenty
thousand miles, by land and sea, in many trying climates, without a
single hurt, without a serious case of sickness and without a death
among five and sixty passengers. Our good fortune had been
wonderful. A sailor had jumped overboard at Constantinople one
night, and was seen no more, but it was suspected that his object
was to desert, and there was a slim chance, at least, that he
reached the shore. But the passenger list was complete. There was no
name missing from the register.
At last, one pleasant morning, we steamed up the harbor of New York,
all on deck, all dressed in Christian garb -- by special order, for
there was a latent disposition in some quarters to come out as Turks
-- and amid a waving of handkerchiefs from welcoming friends, the
glad pilgrims noted the shiver of the decks that told that ship and
pier had joined hands again and the long, strange cruise was over.
Amen.
CHAPTER LXI

IN this place I will print an article which I wrote for the New York
Herald the night we arrived. I do it partly because my contract with
my publishers makes it compulsory; partly because it is a proper,
tolerably accurate, and exhaustive summing up of the cruise of the
ship and the performances of the pilgrims in foreign lands; and
partly because some of the passengers have abused me for writing it,
and I wish the public to see how thankless a task it is to put one's
self to trouble to glorify unappreciative people. I was charged with
"rushing into print" with these compliments. I did not rush. I had
written news letters to the Herald sometimes, but yet when I visited
the office that day I did not say any thing about writing a
valedictory. I did go to the Tribune office to see if such an
article was wanted, because I belonged on the regular staff of that
paper and it was simply a duty to do it. The managing editor was
absent, and so I thought no more about it. At night when the
Herald's request came for an article, I did not "rush." In fact, I
demurred for a while, because I did not feel like writing
compliments then, and therefore was afraid to speak of the cruise
lest I might be betrayed into using other than complimentary
language. However, I reflected that it would be a just and righteous
thing to go down and write a kind word for the Hadjis -- Hadjis are
people who have made the pilgrimage -- because parties not
interested could not do it so feelingly as I, a fellow-Hadji, and so
I penned the valedictory. I have read it, and read it again; and if
there is a sentence in it that is not fulsomely complimentary to
captain, ship and passengers, I can not find it. If it is not a
chapter that any company might be proud to have a body write about
them, my judgment is fit for nothing. With these remarks I
confidently submit it to the unprejudiced judgment of the reader:
RETURN OF THE HOLY LANDEXCURSIONISTS -- THE STORY OF THE CRUISE.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD:
The steamer Quaker City has accomplished at last her extraordinary
voyage and returned to her old pier at the foot of Wall street. The
expedition was a success in some respects, in some it was not.
Originally it was advertised as a "pleasure excursion." Well,
perhaps, it was a pleasure excursion, but certainly it did not look
like one; certainly it did not act like one. Any body's and every
body's notion of a pleasure excursion is that the parties to it will
of a necessity be young and giddy and somewhat boisterous. They will
dance a good deal, sing a good deal, make love, but sermonize very
little. Any body's and every body's notion of a well conducted
funeral is that there must be a hearse and a corpse, and chief
mourners and mourners by courtesy , many old people, much solemnity,
no levity, and a prayer and a sermon withal. Three-fourths of the
Quaker City's passengers were between forty and seventy years of
age! There was a picnic crowd for you! It may be supposed that the
other fourth was composed of young girls. But it was not. It was
chiefly composed of rusty old bachelors and a child of six years.
Let us average the ages of the Quaker City's pilgrims and set the
figure down as fifty years. Is any man insane enough to imagine that
this picnic of patriarchs sang, made love, danced, laughed, told
anecdotes, dealt in ungodly levity? In my experience they sinned
little in these matters. No doubt it was presumed here at home that
these frolicsome veterans laughed and sang and romped all day, and
day after day, and kept up a noisy excitement from one end of the
ship to the other; and that they played blind-man's buff or danced
quadrilles and waltzes on moonlight evenings on the quarter-deck;
and that at odd moments of unoccupied time they jotted a laconic
item or two in the journals they opened on such an elaborate plan
when they left home, and then skurried off to their whist and euchre
labors under the cabin lamps. If these things were presumed, the
presumption was at fault. The venerable excursionists were not gay
and frisky. They played no blind-man's buff; they dealt not in
whist; they shirked not the irksome journal, for alas! most of them
were even writing books. They never romped, they talked but little,
they never sang, save in the nightly prayer-meeting. The pleasure
ship was a synagogue, and the pleasure trip was a funeral excursion
without a corpse. (There is nothing exhilarating about a funeral
excursion without a corpse.) A free, hearty laugh was a sound that
was not heard oftener than once in seven days about those decks or
in those cabins, and when it was heard it met with precious little
sympathy. The excursionists danced, on three separate evenings,
long, long ago, (it seems an age.) quadrilles, of a single set, made
up of three ladies and five gentlemen, (the latter with
handkerchiefs around their arms to signify their sex.) who timed
their feet to the solemn wheezing of a melodeon; but even this
melancholy orgie was voted to be sinful, and dancing was
discontinued.
The pilgrims played dominoes when too much Josephus or Robinson's
Holy Land Researches, or book-writing, made recreation necessary --
for dominoes is about as mild and sinless a game as any in the
world, perhaps, excepting always the ineffably insipid diversion
they call croquet, which is a game where you don't pocket any balls
and don't carom on any thing of any consequence, and when you are
done nobody has to pay, and there are no refreshments to saw off,
and, consequently, there isn't any satisfaction whatever about it --
they played dominoes till they were rested, and then they
blackguarded each other privately till prayer-time. When they were
not seasick they were uncommonly prompt when the dinner-gong
sounded. Such was our daily life on board the ship -- solemnity,
decorum, dinner, dominoes, devotions, slander. It was not lively
enough for a pleasure trip; but if we had only had a corpse it would
have made a noble funeral excursion. It is all over now; but when I
look back, the idea of these venerable fossils skipping forth on a
six months' picnic, seems exquisitely refreshing. The advertised
title of the expedition -- "The Grand Holy Land Pleasure Excursion"
-- was a misnomer. "The Grand Holy Land Funeral Procession" would
have been better -- much better.
Wherever we went, in Europe, Asia, or Africa, we made a sensation,
and, I suppose I may add, created a famine. None of us had ever been
any where before; we all hailed from the interior; travel was a wild
novelty to us, and we conducted ourselves i n accordance with the
natural instincts that were in us, and trammeled ourselves with no
ceremonies, no conventionalities. We always took care to make it
understood that we were Americans -- Americans! When we found that a
good many foreigners had hardly ever heard of America, and that a
good many more knew it only as a barbarous province away off
somewhere, that had lately been at war with somebody, we pitied the
ignorance of the Old World, but abated no jot of our importance.
Many and many a simple community in the Eastern hemisphere will
remember for years the incursion of the strange horde in the year of
our Lord 1867, that called themselves Americans, and seemed to
imagine in some unaccountable way that they had a right to be proud
of it. We generally created a famine, partly because the coffee on
the Quaker City was unendurable, and sometimes the more substantial
fare was not strictly first class; and partly because one naturally
tires of sitting long at the same board and eating from the same
dishes.
The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They
looked curiously at the costumes we had brought from the wilds of
America. They observed that we talked loudly at table sometimes.
They noticed that we looked out for expenses, and got what we
conveniently could out of a franc, and wondered where in the
mischief we came from. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes
and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in
making those idiots understand their own language. One of our
passengers said to a shopkeeper, in reference to a proposed return
to buy a pair of gloves, "Allong restay trankeel -- may be ve coom
Moonday;" and would you believe it, that shopkeeper, a born
Frenchman, had to ask what it was that had been said. Sometimes it
seems to me, somehow, that there must be a difference between
Parisian French and Quaker City French.
The people stared at us every where, and we stared at them. We
generally made them feel rather small, too, before we got done with
them, because we bore down on them with America's greatness until we
crushed them. And yet we took kindly to the manners and customs, and
especially to the fashions of the various people we visited. When we
left the Azores, we wore awful capotes and used fine tooth combs --
successfully. When we came back from Tangier, in Africa, we were
topped with fezzes of the bloodies t hue, hung with tassels like an
Indian's scalp-lock. In France and Spain we attracted some attention
in these costumes. In Italy they naturally took us for distempered
Garibaldians, and set a gunboat to look for any thing significant in
our changes of uniform. We made Rome howl. We could have made any
place howl when we had all our clothes on. We got no fresh raiment
in Greece -- they had but little there of any kind. But at
Constantinople, how we turned out! Turbans, scimetars, fezzes,
horse-pistols, tunics, sashes, baggy trowsers, yellow slippers --
Oh, we were gorgeous! The illustrious dogs of Constantinople barked
their under jaws off, and even then failed to do us justice. They
are all dead by this time. They could not go through such a run of
business as we gave them and survive.
And then we went to see the Emperor of Russia. We just called on him
as comfortably as if we had known him a century or so, and when we
had finished our visit we variegated ourselves with selections from
Russian costumes and sailed away again more picturesque than ever.
In Smyrna we picked up camel's hair shawls and other dressy things
from Persia; but in Palestine -- ah, in Palestine -- our splendid
career ended. They didn't wear any clothes there to speak of. We
were satisfied, and stopped. We made no experiments. We did not try
their costume. But we astonished the natives of that country. We
astonished them with such eccentricities of dress as we could
muster. We prowled through the Holy Land, from Cesarea Philippi to
Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, a weird procession of pilgrims, gotten
up regardless of expense, solemn, gorgeous, green-spectacled,
drowsing under blue umbrellas, and astride of a sorrier lot of
horses, camels and asses than those that came out of Noah's ark,
after eleven months of seasickness and short rations. If ever those
children of Israel in Palestine forget when Gideon's Band went
through there from America, they ought to be cursed once more and
finished. It was the rarest spectacle that ever astounded mortal
eyes, perhaps.
Well, we were at home in Palestine. It was easy to see that that was
the grand feature of the expedition. We had cared nothing much about
Europe. We galloped through the Louvre, the Pitti, the Ufizzi, the
Vatican -- all the galleries -- and through the pictured and
frescoed churches of Venice, Naples, and the cathedrals of Spain;
some of us said that certain of the great works of the old masters
were glorious creations of genius, (we found it out in the
guide-book, though we got hold of the wrong picture sometimes,) and
the others said they were disgraceful old daubs. We examined modern
and ancient statuary with a critical eye in Florence, Rome, or any
where we found it, and praised it if we saw fit, and if we didn't we
said we preferred the wooden Indians in front of the cigar stores of
America. But the Holy Land brought out all our enthusiasm. We fell
into raptures by the barren shores of Galilee; we pondered at Tabor
and at Nazareth; we exploded into poetry over the questionable
loveliness of Esdraelon; we meditated at Jezreel and Samaria over
the missionary zeal of Jehu; we rioted -- fairly rioted among the
holy places of Jerusalem; we bathed in Jordan and the Dead Sea,
reckless whether our accident-insurance policies were
extra-hazardous or not, and brought away so many jugs of precious
water from both places that all the country from Jericho to the
mountains of Moab will suffer from drouth this year, I think. Yet,
the pilgrimage part of the excursion was its pet feature -- there is
no question about that. After dismal, smileless Palestine, beautiful
Egypt had few charms for us. We merely glanced at it and were ready
for home.
They wouldn't let us land at Malta -- quarantine; they would not let
us land in Sardinia; nor at Algiers, Africa; nor at Malaga, Spain,
nor Cadiz, nor at the Madeira islands. So we got offended at all
foreigners and turned our backs upon them and cam e home. I suppose
we only stopped at the Bermudas because they were in the programme.
We did not care any thing about any place at all. We wanted to go
home. Homesickness was abroad in the ship -- it was epidemic. If the
authorities of New York had known how badly we had it, they would
have quarantined us here.
The grand pilgrimage is over. Good-bye to it, and a pleasant memory
to it, I am able to say in all kindness. I bear no malice, no
ill-will toward any individual that was connected with it, either as
passenger or officer. Things I did not like at all yesterday I like
very well to-day, now that I am at home, and always hereafter I
shall be able to poke fun at the whole gang if the spirit so moves
me to do, without ever saying a malicious word. The expedition
accomplished all that its programme promised that it should
accomplish, and we ought all to be satisfied with the management of
the matter, certainly. Bye-bye!
MARK TWAIN.
I call that complimentary. It is complimentary; and yet I never have
received a word of thanks for it from the Hadjis; on the contrary I
speak nothing but the serious truth when I say that many of them
even took exceptions to the article. In endeavoring to please them I
slaved over that sketch for two hours, and had my labor for my
pains. I never will do a generous deed again.
CONCLUSION

NEARLY one year has flown since this notable pilgrimage was ended;
and as I sit here at home in San Francisco thinking, I am moved to
confess that day by day the mass of my memories of the excursion
have grown more and more pleasant as the disagreeable incidents of
travel which encumbered them flitted one by one out of my mind --
and now, if the Quaker City were weighing her anchor to sail away on
the very same cruise again, nothing could gratify me more than to be
a passenger. With the same captain and even the same pilgrims, the
same sinners. I was on excellent terms with eight or nine of the
excursionists (they are my staunch friends yet,) and was even on
speaking terms with the rest of the sixty-five. I have been at sea
quite enough to know that that was a very good average. Because a
long sea-voyage not only brings out all the mean traits one has, and
exaggerates them, but raises up others which he never suspected he
possessed, and even creates new ones. A twelve months' voyage at sea
would make of an ordinary man a very miracle of meanness. On the
other hand, if a man has good qualities, the spirit seldom moves him
to exhibit them on shipboard, at least with any sort of emphasis.
Now I am satisfied that our pilgrims are pleasant old people on
shore; I am also satisfied that at sea on a second voyage they would
be pleasanter, somewhat, than they were on our grand excursion, and
so I say without hesitation that I would be glad enough to sail with
them again. I could at least enjoy life with my handful of old
friends. They could enjoy life with their cliques as well --
passengers invariably divide up into cliques, on all ships.
And I will say, here, that I would rather travel with an excursion
party of Methuselahs than have to be changing ships and comrades
constantly, as people do who travel in the ordinary way. Those
latter are always grieving over some other ship they have known and
lost, and over other comrades whom diverging routes have separated
from them. They learn to love a ship just in time to change it for
another, and they become attached to a pleasant traveling companion
only to lose him. They have that most dismal experience of being in
a strange vessel, among strange people who care nothing about them,
and of undergoing the customary bullying by strange officers and the
insolence of strange servants, repeated over and over again within
the compass of every month. They have also that other misery of
packing and unpacking trunks -- of running the distressing gauntlet
of custom-houses -- of the anxieties attendant upon getting a mass
of baggage from point to point on land in safety. I had rasher sail
with a whole brigade of patriarchs than suffer so. We never packed
our trunks but twice -- when we sailed from New York, and when we
returned to it. Whenever we made a land journey, we estimated how
many days we should be gone and what amount of clothing w e should
need, figured it down to a mathematical nicety, packed a valise or
two accordingly, and left the trunks on board. We chose our comrades
from among our old, tried friends, and started. We were never
dependent upon strangers for companionship. We often had occasion to
pity Americans whom we found traveling drearily among strangers with
no friends to exchange pains and pleasures with. Whenever we were
coming back from a land journey, our eyes sought one thing in the
distance first -- the ship -- and when we saw it riding at anchor
with the flag apeak, we felt as a returning wanderer feels when he
sees his home. When we stepped on board, our cares vanished, our
troubles were at an end -- for the ship was home to us. We always
had the same familiar old state-room to go to, and feel safe and at
peace and comfortable again.
I have no fault to find with the manner in which our excursion was
conducted. Its programme was faithfully carried out -- a thing which
surprised me, for great enterprises usually promise vastly more than
they perform. It would be well if such an excursion could be gotten
up every year and the system regularly inaugurated. Travel is fatal
to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people
need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views
of men and things can not be acquired by vegetating in one little
corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
The Excursion is ended, and has passed to its place among the things
that were. But its varied scenes and its manifold incidents will
linger pleasantly in our memories for many a year to come. Always on
the wing, as we were, and merely pausing a moment to catch fitful
glimpses of the wonders of half a world, we could not hope to
receive or retain vivid impressions of all it was our fortune to
see. Yet our holyday flight has not been in vain -- for above the
confusion of vague recollections, certain o f its best prized
pictures lift themselves and will still continue perfect in tint and
outline after their surroundings shall have faded away.
We shall remember something of pleasant France; and something also
of Paris, though it flashed upon us a splendid meteor, and was gone
again, we hardly knew how or where. We shall remember, always, how
we saw majestic Gibraltar glorified with the rich coloring of a
Spanish sunset and swimming in a sea of rainbows. In fancy we shall
see Milan again, and her stately Cathedral with its marble
wilderness of graceful spires. And Padua -- Verona -- Como, jeweled
with stars; and patrician Venice, afloat on her stagnant flood --
silent, desolate, haughty -- scornful of her humbled state --
wrapping herself in memories of her lost fleets, of battle and
triumph, and all the pageantry of a glory that is departed.
We can not forget Florence -- Naples -- nor the foretaste of heaven
that is in the delicious atmosphere of Greece -- and surely not
Athens and the broken temples of the Acropolis. Surely not venerable
Rome -- nor the green plain that compasses her round about,
contrasting its brightness with her gray decay -- nor the ruined
arches that stand apart in the plain and clothe their looped and
windowed raggedness with vines. We shall remember St. Peter's: not
as one sees it when he walks the streets of Rome and fancies all her
domes are just alike, but a s he sees it leagues away, when every
meaner edifice has faded out of sight and that one dome looms
superbly up in the flush of sunset, full of dignity and grace,
strongly outlined as a mountain.
We shall remember Constantinople and the Bosporus -- the colossal
magnificence of Baalbec -- the Pyramids of Egypt -- the prodigious
form, the benignant countenance of the Sphynx -- Oriental Smyrna --
sacred Jerusalem -- Damascus, the "Pearl of the East," the pride of
Syria, the fabled Garden of Eden, the home of princes and genii of
the Arabian Nights, the oldest metropolis on earth, the one city in
all the world that has kept its name and held its place and looked
serenely on while the Kingdoms and Empires of four thousand years
have risen to life, enjoyed their little season of pride and pomp,
and then vanished and been forgotten!