shirts, who came towards the boat, straddling through the water
with outstretched arms, grinning and yelling their Arab invitations
to mount their shoulders. I think these fellows frightened the
ladies still more than the rocks and the surf; but the poor
creatures were obliged to submit; and, trembling, were accommodated
somehow upon the mahogany backs of these ruffians, carried through
the shallows, and flung up to a ledge before the city gate, where
crowds more of dark people were swarming, howling after their
fashion. The gentlemen, meanwhile, were having arguments about the
eternal backsheesh with the roaring Arab boatmen; and I recall with
wonder and delight especially, the curses and screams of one small
and extremely loud-lunged fellow, who expressed discontent at
receiving a five, instead of a six-piastre piece. But how is one
to know, without possessing the language? Both coins are made of a
greasy pewtery sort of tin; and I thought the biggest was the most
valuable: but the fellow showed a sense of their value, and a
disposition seemingly to cut any man's throat who did not
understand it. Men's throats have been cut for a less difference
before now.
Being cast upon the ledge, the first care of our gallantry was to
look after the ladies, who were scared and astonished by the naked
savage brutes, who were shouldering the poor things to and fro; and
bearing them through these and a dark archway, we came into a
street crammed with donkeys and their packs and drivers, and
towering camels with leering eyes looking into the second-floor
rooms, and huge splay feet, through which mesdames et
mesdemoiselles were to be conducted. We made a rush at the first
open door, and passed comfortably under the heels of some horses
gathered under the arched court, and up a stone staircase, which
turned out to be that of the Russian consul's house. His people
welcomed us most cordially to his abode, and the ladies and the
luggage (objects of our solicitude) were led up many stairs and
across several terraces to a most comfortable little room, under a
dome of its own, where the representative of Russia sat. Women
with brown faces and draggle-tailed coats and turbans, and
wondering eyes, and no stays, and blue beads and gold coins hanging
round their necks, came to gaze, as they passed, upon the fair neat
Englishwomen. Blowsy black cooks puffing over fires and the
strangest pots and pans on the terraces, children paddling about in
long striped robes, interrupted their sports or labours to come and
stare; and the consul, in his cool domed chamber, with a lattice
overlooking the sea, with clean mats, and pictures of the Emperor,
the Virgin, and St. George, received the strangers with smiling
courtesies, regaling the ladies with pomegranates and sugar, the
gentlemen with pipes of tobacco, whereof the fragrant tubes were
three yards long.
The Russian amenities concluded, we left the ladies still under the
comfortable cool dome of the Russian consulate, and went to see our
own representative. The streets of the little town are neither
agreeable to horse nor foot travellers. Many of the streets are
mere flights of rough steps, leading abruptly into private houses:
you pass under archways and passages numberless; a steep dirty
labyrinth of stone-vaulted stables and sheds occupies the ground-
floor of the habitations; and you pass from flat to flat of the
terraces; at various irregular corners of which, little chambers,
with little private domes, are erected, and the people live
seemingly as much upon the terrace as in the room.
We found the English consul in a queer little arched chamber, with
a strange old picture of the King's arms to decorate one side of
it: and here the consul, a demure old man, dressed in red flowing
robes, with a feeble janissary bearing a shabby tin-mounted staff,
or mace, to denote his office, received such of our nation as came
to him for hospitality. He distributed pipes and coffee to all and
every one; he made us a present of his house and all his beds for
the night, and went himself to lie quietly on the terrace; and for
all this hospitality he declined to receive any reward from us, and
said he was but doing his duty in taking us in. This worthy man, I
thought, must doubtless be very well paid by our Government for
making such sacrifices; but it appears that he does not get one
single farthing, and that the greater number of our Levant consuls
are paid at a similar rate of easy remuneration. If we have bad
gentlemen cheat occasionally, can we reasonably be angry? But in
travelling through these countries, English people, who don't take
into consideration the miserable poverty and scanty resources of
their country, and are apt to brag and be proud of it, have their
vanity hurt by seeing the representatives of every nation but their
own well and decently maintained, and feel ashamed at sitting down
under the shabby protection of our mean consular flag.
The active young men of our party had been on shore long before us,
and seized upon all the available horses in the town; but we relied
upon a letter from Halil Pasha, enjoining all governors and pashas
to help us in all ways: and hearing we were the bearers of this
document, the cadi and vice-governor of Jaffa came to wait upon the
head of our party; declared that it was his delight and honour to
set eyes upon us; that he would do everything in the world to serve
us; that there were no horses, unluckily, but he would send and get
some in three hours; and so left us with a world of grinning bows
and many choice compliments from one side to the other, which came
to each filtered through an obsequious interpreter. But hours
passed, and the clatter of horses' hoofs was not heard. We had our
dinner of eggs and flaps of bread, and the sunset gun fired: we
had our pipes and coffee again, and the night fell. Is this man
throwing dirt upon us? we began to think. Is he laughing at our
beards, and are our mothers' graves ill-treated by this smiling
swindling cadi? We determined to go and seek in his own den this
shuffling dispenser of infidel justice. This time we would be no
more bamboozled by compliments; but we would use the language of
stern expostulation, and, being roused, would let the rascal hear
the roar of the indignant British lion; so we rose up in our wrath.
The poor consul got a lamp for us with a bit of wax-candle, such as
I wonder his means could afford; the shabby janissary marched ahead
with his tin mace; the two laquais-de-place, that two of our
company had hired, stepped forward, each with an old sabre, and we
went clattering and stumbling down the streets of the town, in
order to seize upon this cadi in his own divan. I was glad, for my
part (though outwardly majestic and indignant in demeanour), that
the horses had not come, and that we had a chance of seeing this
l
ittle queer glimpse of Oriental life, which the magistrate's
faithlessness procured for us.
As piety forbids the Turks to eat during the weary daylight hours
of the Ramazan, they spend their time profitably in sleeping until
the welcome sunset, when the town wakens: all the lanterns are
lighted up; all the pipes begin to puff, and the narghiles to
bubble; all the sour-milk-and-sherbet-men begin to yell out the
excellence of their wares; all the frying-pans in the little dirty
cookshops begin to friz, and the pots to send forth a steam: and
through this dingy, ragged, bustling, beggarly, cheerful scene, we
began now to march towards the Bow Street of Jaffa. We bustled
through a crowded narrow archway which led to the cadi's police-
office, entered the little room, atrociously perfumed with musk,
and passing by the rail-board, where the common sort stood, mounted
the stage upon which his worship and friends sat, and squatted down
on the divans in stern and silent dignity. His honour ordered us
coffee, his countenance evidently showing considerable alarm. A
black slave, whose duty seemed to be to prepare this beverage in a
side-room with a furnace, prepared for each of us about a
teaspoonful of the liquor: his worship's clerk, I presume, a tall
Turk of a noble aspect, presented it to us; and having lapped up
the little modicum of drink, the British lion began to speak.
All the other travellers (said the lion with perfect reason) have
good horses and are gone; the Russians have got horses, the
Spaniards have horses, the English have horses, but we, we vizirs
in our country, coming with letters of Halil Pasha, are laughed at,
spit upon! Are Halil Pasha's letters dirt, that you attend to them
in this way? Are British lions dogs that you treat them so?--and
so on. This speech with many variations was made on our side for a
quarter of an hour; and we finally swore that unless the horses
were forthcoming we would write to Halil Pasha the next morning,
and to His Excellency the English Minister at the Sublime Porte.
Then you should have heard the chorus of Turks in reply: a dozen
expectorating (the Arabic spoken language seems to require a great
employment of the two latter oratorical methods), and uttering what
the meek interpreter did not translate to us, but what I dare say
were by no means complimentary phrases towards us and our nation.
Finally, the palaver concluded by the cadi declaring that by the
will of Heaven horses should be forthcoming at three o'clock in the
morning; and that if not, why, then, we might write to Halil Pasha.
This posed us, and we rose up and haughtily took leave. I should
like to know that fellow's real opinion of us lions very much: and
especially to have had the translation of the speeches of a huge-
breeched turbaned roaring infidel, who looked and spoke as if he
would have liked to fling us all into the sea, which was hoarsely
murmuring under our windows an accompaniment to the concert within.
We then marched through the bazaars, that were lofty and grim, and
pretty full of people. In a desolate broken building, some
hundreds of children were playing and singing; in many corners sat
parties over their water-pipes, one of whom every now and then
would begin twanging out a most queer chant; others there were
playing at casino--a crowd squatted around the squalling gamblers,
and talking and looking on with eager interest. In one place of
the bazaar we found a hundred people at least listening to a story-
teller who delivered his tale with excellent action, voice, and
volubility: in another they were playing a sort of thimble-rig
with coffee-cups, all intent upon the game, and the player himself
very wild lest one of our party, who had discovered where the pea
lay, should tell the company. The devotion and energy with which
all these pastimes were pursued, struck me as much as anything.
These people have been playing thimble-rig and casino; that story-
teller has been shouting his tale of Antar for forty years; and
they are just as happy with this amusement now as when first they
tried it. Is there no ennui in the Eastern countries, and are
blue-devils not allowed to go abroad there?
From the bazaars we went to see the house of Mustapha, said to be
the best house and the greatest man of Jaffa. But the great man
had absconded suddenly, and had fled into Egypt. The Sultan had
made a demand upon him for sixteen thousand purses, 80,000l.--
Mustapha retired--the Sultan pounced down upon his house, and his
goods, his horses and his mules. His harem was desolate. Mr.
Milnes could have written six affecting poems, had he been with us,
on the dark loneliness of that violated sanctuary. We passed from
hall to hall, terrace to terrace--a few fellows were slumbering on
the naked floors, and scarce turned as we went by them. We entered
Mustapha's particular divan--there was the raised floor, but no
bearded friends squatting away the night of Ramazan; there was the
little coffee furnace, but where was the slave and the coffee and
the glowing embers of the pipes? Mustapha's favourite passages
from the Koran were still painted up on the walls, but nobody was
the wiser for them. We walked over a sleeping negro, and opened
the windows which looked into his gardens. The horses and donkeys,
the camels and mules were picketed there below, but where is the
said Mustapha? From the frying-pan of the Porte, has he not fallen
into the fire of Mehemet Ali? And which is best, to broil or to
fry? If it be but to read the "Arabian Nights" again on getting
home, it is good to have made this little voyage and seen these
strange places and faces.
Then we went out through the arched lowering gateway of the town
into the plain beyond, and that was another famous and brilliant
scene of the "Arabian Nights." The heaven shone with a marvellous
brilliancy--the plain disappeared far in the haze--the towers and
battlements of the town rose black against the sky--old outlandish
trees rose up here and there--clumps of camels were couched in the
rare herbage--dogs were baying about--groups of men lay sleeping
under their haicks round about--round about the tall gates many
lights were twinkling--and they brought us water-pipes and sherbet-
-and we wondered to think that London was only three weeks off.
Then came the night at the consul's. The poor demure old gentleman
brought out his mattresses; and the ladies sleeping round on the
divans, we lay down quite happy; and I for my part intended to make
as delightful dreams as Alnaschar; but--lo, the delicate mosquito
sounded his horn: the active flea jumped up, and came to feast on
Christian flesh (the Eastern flea bites more bitterly than the most
savage bug in Christendom), and the bug--oh, the accursed! Why was
he made? What duty has that infamous ruffian to perform in the
world, save to make people wretched? On
ly Bulwer in his most
pathetic style could describe the miseries of that night--the
moaning, the groaning, the cursing, the tumbling, the blistering,
the infamous despair and degradation! I heard all the cocks in
Jaffa crow; the children crying, and the mothers hushing them; the
donkeys braying fitfully in the moonlight; at last I heard the
clatter of hoofs below, and the hailing of men. It was three
o'clock, the horses were actually come; nay, there were camels
likewise; asses and mules, pack-saddles and drivers, all bustling
together under the moonlight in the cheerful street--and the first
night in Syria was over.
CHAPTER XII: FROM JAFFA TO JERUSALEM
It took an hour or more to get our little caravan into marching
order, to accommodate all the packs to the horses, the horses to
the riders; to see the ladies comfortably placed in their litter,
with a sleek and large black mule fore and aft, a groom to each
mule, and a tall and exceedingly good-natured and mahogany-coloured
infidel to walk by the side of the carriage, to balance it as it
swayed to and fro, and to offer his back as a step to the inmates
whenever they were minded to ascend or alight. These three
fellows, fasting through the Ramazan, and over as rough a road, for
the greater part, as ever shook mortal bones, performed their
fourteen hours' walk of near forty miles with the most admirable
courage, alacrity, and good-humour. They once or twice drank water
on the march, and so far infringed the rule; but they refused all
bread or edible refreshment offered to them, and tugged on with an
energy that the best camel, and I am sure the best Christian, might
envy. What a lesson of good-humoured endurance it was to certain
Pall Mall Sardanapaluses, who grumble if club sofa cushions are not
soft enough!
If I could write sonnets at leisure, I would like to chronicle in
fourteen lines my sensations on finding myself on a high Turkish
saddle, with a pair of fire-shovel stirrups and worsted reins, red
padded saddle-cloth, and innumerable tags, fringes, glass-beads,
ends of rope, to decorate the harness of the horse, the gallant
steed on which I was about to gallop into Syrian life. What a
figure we cut in the moonlight, and how they would have stared in
the Strand! Ay, or in Leicestershire, where I warrant such a horse
and rider are not often visible! The shovel stirrups are deucedly
short; the clumsy leathers cut the shins of some equestrians
abominably; you sit over your horse as it were on a tower, from
which the descent would be very easy, but for the big peak of the
saddle. A good way for the inexperienced is to put a stick or
umbrella across the saddle peak again, so that it is next to
impossible to go over your horse's neck. I found this a vast
comfort in going down the hills, and recommend it conscientiously
to other dear simple brethren of the city.
Peaceful men, we did not ornament our girdles with pistols,
yataghans, &c., such as some pilgrims appeared to bristle all over
with; and as a lesson to such rash people, a story may be told
which was narrated to us at Jerusalem, and carries a wholesome
moral. The Honourable Hoggin Armer, who was lately travelling in
the East, wore about his stomach two brace of pistols, of such
exquisite finish and make, that a Sheikh, in the Jericho country,
robbed him merely for the sake of the pistols. I don't know
whether he has told the story to his friends at home.
Another story about Sheikhs may here be told a propos. That
celebrated Irish Peer, Lord Oldgent (who was distinguished in the
Buckinghamshire Dragoons), having paid a sort of black mail to the
Sheikh of Jericho country, was suddenly set upon by another Sheikh,
who claimed to be the real Jerichonian governor; and these twins
quarrelled over the body of Lord Oldgent, as the widows for the
innocent baby before Solomon. There was enough for both--but these
digressions are interminable.
The party got under way at near four o'clock: the ladies in the