.Eothen, or, Traces of Travel Brought Home from the East / Kinglake, Alexander William, 1809-1891

………I crossed the plain of Esdraelon and entered amongst the hills o beautiful Galilee.  It was at sunset …  There was one only shining point still touched with the light of the sun, ; a brave sign this to ”holy” Shereef and the rest of my Moslem men, for the one glittering summit was the head of a minaret, and the rest of the seeming village that had veiled itself so meekly under the shades of evening was Christian Nazareth!

…..I was left all alone to be taught and swayed by the beautiful circumstances of Palestine travelling- by the clime, and the land, and the name of the land, with all its mighty import; by the glittering freshness of the sward, and the bounding masses of flowers …; by the bracing and fragrant air …..

….. the Virgin’s home.  The mystic air was so burnt

with the consuming flames of the altar, .. laden with incense,

..  The hill was lofty enough to show me the fairness of the land on all sides, ….I looked away eagerly to the eastward.  There she lay, the Sea of Galilee.  .. she caught from the smiling heavens unceasing  light and changeful phases of beauty, and with all this brightness on her face, she yet clung so fondly to the dull he-looking mountain ather side, as though she would

“Soothe him with her finer fancies,

Touch him with her lighter thought.”

………I crossed the plain of Esdraelon and entered amongst the hills of beautiful Galilee.  It was at sunset …  There was one only shining point still touched with thelight of the sun, ; a brave sign this to”holy” Shereef and the rest of my Moslem men, for the one glittering summit was the head of a minaret, and the rest of theseeming village that had veiled itself so meekly under the shadesof evening was Christian Nazareth!…..I was left all alone to be taught and swayed by the beautiful circumstances of Palestine travelling–by the clime, and the land, and the name of the land, with all its mighty import; by the glittering freshness of the sward, and the abounding masses of flowers …; by the bracing and fragrant air

………. the Virgin’s home.  The mystic air was so  burnt with the consuming flames of the altar, .. laden with incense,..  The hill was lofty enough to show me the fairness of the land on all sides, ….I looked away eagerly to the eastward…there  she lay, the Sea of Galilee.  .. she caught from the smiling heavens  unceasing light and changeful phases of beauty, and with all this brightness on herface, she yet clung so fondly to the dull looking he- mountain at her side, as though she would “Soothe him with her finer fancies, touch him with her lighter thought.”

…One of old Shereef’s helpers was an enthusiastic Catholic, and was greatly delighted at having so sacred a lodging.  He lit up the altar with a number of tapers, and when his preparations were complete, he began to perform his orisons in the strangest manner imaginable.  His lips muttered the prayers of the Latin Church, but he bowed himself down and laid his forehead to the stones beneath him after the manner of a Mussulman. …

…. Jerusalem, never think of attempting to sleep in a “holy city.”  ……Old Jews from all parts of the  world go to lay their bones upon the sacred soil………. Jerusalem.  In the stead of the solemn gloom and the deep stillness that of right belonged to theHoly City, there was the hum and the bustle of active life.  It was the “height of the season.”  The Easter ceremonies drew near.  The pilgrims were flocking in from all quarters; and although their objects were partly at least of a religious character, yet their ”arrivals” brought as much stir and liveliness to the city as if they had come up to marry their daughters.

…..The votaries who every year crowd to the Holy Sepulchre are chiefly of the Greek and Armenian Churches…they perform the pilgrimage as a plain duty strongly inculcated by their religion.  A very great proportion of those who belong to the Greek Church contrive at some time or other in the course of their lives to achieve the enterprise. .. .

…The authority exercised by the Mussulman Government in relation to the holy sites is in one view somewhat humbling to the Christians, for it is almost as an arbitrator between the contending sects … that the Mussulman lends his contemptuous aid; he not only grants, but enforces toleration.  All persons, of whatever religion, are allowed to go as they will into every part of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, ……, the Turkish Government assigns the peculiar care of each sacred spot to one of the ecclesiastic bodies.

…..The Turks have a maxim which, like most cynical apophthegms, carries with it the buzzing trumpet of falsehood as well as the small, fine “sting of truth.”  ”If your friend has made the pilgrimage once, distrust him; if he has made the pilgrimage twice, cut him dead!”  The caution is said to be as applicable to the visitants of Jerusalem as to those of Mecca, but I cannot help believing that the frailties of all the hadjis,  whether Christian or Mahometan, are greatly exaggerated.

…the village of Bethlehem lies prettily couched on the slope of a hill.  The sanctuary is a subterranean grotto, and is committed to the joint-guardianship of the Romans, Greeks, and Armenians, who vie with each other in adorning it.  Beneath an altar gorgeously decorated, and lit with everlasting fires, there stands the low slab of stone which marks the holy site of the Nativity; and near to this is a hollow scooped out of the living rock.  Here the infant Jesus was laid.  Near the spot of the Nativity is the rock against which the Blessed Virgin was leaning when she presented her babe to the adoring shepherds.

…..Gaza is upon the verge of the Desert, to which it stands in the same relation as a seaport to the sea.  It is there that you CHARTER your camels (“the ships of the Desert”), and lay in your stores for the voyage….

..A caravanserai is not ill adapted to the purposes for which it is meant.  It forms the four sides of a large quadrangular court.  The ground floor is used for warehouses, the first floor for guests, and the open court for the temporary reception of the camels, as well as for the  loading and unloading of their burdens, and the transaction of mercantile business generally.  The apartments used for the guests are small cells opening into a corridor, which runs round the four sides of the court.

..The camel kneels to receive her load, and for a while she will allow the packing to go on with silent resignation; but when she begins to suspect that her master is putting more than a just burthen upon her poor hump she turns round her supple neck and looks sadly upon the increasing load, and then gently remonstrates against the wrong with the sigh of a patient wife.  If sighs will not move you, she can weep.  You soon learn to pity, and soon to love, her for the sake of her gentle and womanish ways…… The camel, like the elephant, is one of the old-fashioned sort of animals that still walk along upon the (now nearly exploded) plan of the ancient beasts that lived before the Flood.  She moves forward both her near legs at the same time, and then awkwardly swings round her off shoulder and haunch so as to repeat the manoeuvre on that side.  Her pace, therefore, is an odd, disjointed and disjoining, sort of movement that is rather disagreeable at first, but you soon grow reconciled to it.  The height to which you are raised is of great advantage to you in passing the burning sands of the Desert, for the air at such a distance from the ground is much cooler and more lively than that which circulates beneath.

…..For several miles beyond Gaza the land, which had been plentifully watered by the rains of the last week, was covered with rich verdure, and thickly jewelled with meadow flowers so fresh and fragrant, ….. But as I advanced the true character of the country began to display itself …… I was surrounded on all sides by a tract of real sand, and had nothing at all to complain of except that there peeped forth at intervals a few isolated blades of grass, and many of those stunted shrubs which are the accustomed food of the camel.

….Before sunset I came up with an encampment of Arabs (the encampment from which my camels had been brought), and my tent was pitched amongst theirs.  I was now amongst the true Bedouins.  Almost every man of this race closely resembles his brethren.  Almost every man has large and finely-formed features; …..    His gait is strangely majestic, and he marches

along with his simple blanket as though he were wearing the purple.

…….The Bedouin women are not treasured up like the wives and daughters of other Orientals, and indeed they seemed almost entirely free from the restraints imposed by jealousy.  The feint which they made of concealing their faces from me was always slight.  They never, I think, wore the yashmak properly fixed.  When they first saw me they used to hold up a part of their drapery with one hand across their faces, but they seldom persevered very steadily in subjecting me to this privation

…..They (the Bedouin) were always courteous, however,

and were never backward in offering me the youart, a kind of whey, which is the principal delicacy to be found amongst the wandering tribes…

….In passing the Desert you will find your Arabs wanting to start and to rest at all sorts of odd times.  They like, for instance, to be

off at one in the morning, and to rest during the whole of the

afternoon.

……The Arabs adhere to those ancestral principles of bread-baking

which have been sanctioned by the experience of ages.  The very

first baker of bread that ever lived must have done his work

exactly as the Arab does at this day.  He takes some meal and holds

it out in the hollow of his hands, whilst his comrade pours over it

a few drops of water; he then mashes up the moistened flour into a

paste, which he pulls into small pieces, and thrusts into the

embers…..

……The same day we fell inwith a Sheik, the head of a family, that actually dwells at no great distance from this part of the Desert during nine months of the year.  The man carried a matchlock, of which he was very proud. We stopped and sat down and rested awhile for the sake of a little talk.  . … that this man and his family lived habitually for nine months of the year without touching or seeing either bread or water.  The stunted shrub growing at intervals through the sand in this part of the Desert enables the camel mares to yield a little milk, which furnishes the sole food and drink of their owner and his people.  During the other three months (the hottest of the months, I suppose) even this resource fails, and then the Sheik and his people are forced to pass into another district……..  The Sheik was not a good specimen of the effect produced by the diet to which he is subjected.  He was very small, very spare, and sadly shriveled, ……., a mere cinder of a man.  I made him sit down by my side, and gave him a piece of bread and a cup of water from out of my goat-skins.  This was not very tempting drink to look at, for it had become turbid, and was deeply reddened by some colouring matter contained in the skins, but it kept its sweetness, and tasted like a strong decoction of russia leather. The Sheik sipped this, drop by drop, with ineffable relish, and rolled his eyes solemnly round between every draught, as though the drink were the drink of the Prophet, and had come from the seventh heaven.

http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/etext95/eothn10.htm

As well as the beautiful desriptions of Palestine, what fascinates me about this book is the comparison made between Islam and Christianity….the Pilgrimages, the style of  Christian prayer that so closely resembled the way Muslims pray…

Old Jews from all parts of the world go to lay their bones

upon the sacred soil…. (Jerusalem)

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