CHAPTER XXVI--IN THE HEART OF PALESTINE.

_Bathing in the Sea of Galilee--Standing on holy ground--How the “Doubter” was unhorsed--A second Absalom--Lunching on the summit of Tabor--Saracenic Vengeance--A Reminiscence of the Crusades--A magnificent Sight--Discussing “Backsheesh” with the natives--The “Doubter” as a Cashier--The Grotto of the Holy Family--Mary’s house--The house of Loretto--The story of the Miracle--The Monk and the “Doubter”--Dean Stanley’s explanation--Joseph’s Tool Chest--The “Doubter’s” demand--The Witch of Endor “at home”--Blood-Revenge--A pertinacious feud--Saul and the Witch._

WE have bathed in the Sea of Galilee and played with the pebbles on its sandy beach; we have visited places named in Holy Writ, and henceforth their mention will have for us an additional charm. And now we will fold our tents like the Arabs, (or let the Arabs fold them for us,) and as silently steal away. Our faces are turned towards Jerusalem.

Our horses toil slowly up the ascent--a long and weary one--which leads from the shore of the sea of Galilee. At Tiberias we are six hundred feet below the level of the Mediterranean. The plain which we are now approaching is five hundred feet above us, and consequently we must make an elevation of eleven hundred feet to gain it. The way is rough in many places, and we wonder how it has been allowed to remain so in all the thousands of years that it has been in use.

As we emerge from the deep basin which encloses the lake we see before us a mountain, like a huge mound or tumulus, rising out of the plain and dominating it in all directions. It is Mount {342}Tabor, and beyond it is the plain of Esdraelon. Between us and the base of the mountain lies an undulating plateau over which we find an easier road than the one we have just been climbing.

We are on the great route of the caravans, between Egypt and Damascus, and the first objects of interest are the ruins of “The Merchants’ Caravansary,” or--in the language of the country--_Khan-et-Tujar_; one of the pashas of Damascus built it about three hundred years ago, for the protection of the caravans which were often troubled by robbers in those days, but the buildings long ago ceased to be of any use, and have been allowed to go to decay.

They are worth an examination, as specimens of modern Saracenic architecture, and this is all.

We press forward toward Mount Tabor, and in an hour or more are at its base.

We ascend by a difficult path that winds among oaks and thickets of thorn bushes, and are brought to occasional halts by the slipping of saddles and other slight mishaps.

The “Doubter” while passing under an oak from which he has attempted to pluck a stick to serve as a whip. His hand has caught in the branches, his horse does not stop to ask what is the matter, and the next instant horse and rider have parted company. The horse goes on as if nothing had happened, and the “Doubter,” after hanging an instant, and reminding the per{343}son next behind him of the misfortune of Absalom, drops into the path below. The horse is caught by some one in advance; the “Doubter” is picked up and put together and after swallowing a dose of brandy is lifted into his saddle and enjoined to let the oak limbs alone in future. He bends so low for the rest of the ride, that his nose almost touches the mane of his steed. He is determined not to get into trouble again.

We reach the summit--fourteen hundred feet above the sea--and dismount from our panting horses. Lunch is served under one of the oak trees that invites us to rest beneath its foliage, and we endeavor to make ourselves comfortable. After lunch we devote a couple of hours to a ramble around the spot; we might camp here, but we prefer to pass the night at Nazareth, whither our camp was moved when we started from Tiberias.

We now find that Tabor is not circular in shape, but oval, the greatest measurement being from East to West. The summit is slightly rounded and is about a thousand yards long by half that in width. There are many ruins on the summit, or rather masses of ruins; the principal thing to attract the attention is a massive wall, or the remains of one, which enclose the most of the space. It was evidently a stronghold in its time, and was defended by bastions and towers, and gateways, one of which is still standing. There are the foundations of houses, some of them of considerable size, and we have no hesitation in accepting the statement that a strong and important town once stood here. There are cisterns hewn in the solid rock, and they have continued their uses down to the present time. We are permitted to slake our thirst with water, drawn from one of these cisterns--cisterns from which men have drank in all ages, from the days of Moses to the present time. Barak drank here when he assembled the hosts of Napthali to attack Sisera, the captain of Jabin’s army; Joshua and Gideon may have stood by this very well; here stood the Crusaders when they advanced upon Jerusalem, and here a few years later Saladin may have rested, as he exulted over the victory that expelled the hated Christian from the land. If we are imaginative, we can picture a kaleidoscope of warriors, who fill the pages of sacred and profane history and stalk before us like the line of Banquo’s Kings, which the witches {344}revealed to Macbeth, and if, like the “Doubter,” we are unimaginative and do not believe, or care for anything, we will eat our cold chicken and boiled eggs, and say nothing.

The best view of this part of Palestine is obtained from Mount Tabor. The plain of Esdraelon is before us, or rather below us, and we can contemplate its undulations, its stipples of villages, its dark dots of trees, its ravines and its bright verdure--if the season is propitious--as we contemplate from our easy chair the figures upon our carpet. On the East we see the valley of the Jordan and the mountains of Gilead, rising like a long and rugged wall from the deep clift where the river flows. Hermon and the range of Lebanon fill the north and the ruin-crowned summit of Safed--the holy mount of the Jews where was “the city set upon the hill,” is full before us. In the West is Mount Carmel, the scene of Elijah s sacrifice--reverenced alike by Jew, Christian, and Moslem through all ages down to the present day. No other place disputes the honor, and Carmel is destined to possess it for all time to come.

South of us we have the mountain of Little Hermon, with the villages of Nain and Endor and other villages not far away. On the plain below were fought the battles of Barak and Sisera, and the guide points out the spot where the hosts were assembled.

In another direction he points out the scene of the battle of Hattin where, nearly seven hundred years ago, the Crusaders were defeated, and their hold upon Palestine was broken. Both armies were in full force; that of the Christians was led by the King of Jerusalem, and that of the Moslems by the great Saladin. The Christian army came to this plain and encamped there without water and greatly fatigued by their march. The Moslem army attacked them at dawn, and all day the battle continued. At its end the Christians had been overpowered with a loss of thirty thousand men. The remnant of the army fled to Acre, but the King was captured, together with the Grand Master of the Templars and Raynauld of Chatillon.

Saladin had threatened to put to death, with his own hand, this Raynauld through whose treachery the war had been brought on. He treated the other captives with the respect which their rank deserved, but showed the utmost contempt for Raynauld,

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{347}towards whom he kept his word. Raynauld was executed; the other prisoners were liberated and allowed honorable escort out of the country. Saladin was a noble old warrior, and he had the instincts of a gentleman, though he never wore a dress-coat and kid gloves, and did not understand how to dance the German or escort a lady to the opera.

Mount Tabor disputes with Hermon the honor of the Transfiguration. The tradition which locates it here dates from the fourth century, and was then generally believed. Churches and convents were erected on the summit of Tabor, and many pilgrimages were made there, and when the Crusaders came to Palestine they established a monastery there, and gave its abbot the authority of a bishop. The Greek monks come here in procession from Nazareth, on the occasion of the Feast of the Virgin, and the Latin monks have a festival, once a year, in honor of the Transfiguration. The exact location which the monks give for the miraculous event is near the southeastern angle of the fortifications, where a vault has been fitted up as an altar.

We descend from Tabor in the direction of Nazareth, and a ride of two hours from the summit brings us to our camp. The road is crooked and narrow, and winds among forests of oaks and tangles of brush, until within a mile or more of Nazareth, when we get among bare hills. A little out of our way is the dirty village of Deburich, on the site of Dabareth, which is mentioned twice in the Old Testament. There is nothing attractive about the place; it has the repulsive features of most of the Syrian villages, and you wonder how the natives manage to live, or even wish to do so. They discuss the “backsheesh” question with us, and we have the whole perambulating mass of dirt, rags, and sores adhering to us from the moment we enter the place until we are a quarter of a mile away. We set them upon the “Doubter,” by giving them to understand that he is the cashier of the party, but unfortunately they don’t stick to him long enough to give the rest of us any peace.

There are several objects of interest here connected with the life of Christ. The guide takes us to the Virgin’s Fountain, and to the church and convent erected over the grotto which is said to have been the dwelling place of the Holy Family. The town {348}is situated in some ravines and along some ridges on the side of a hill overlooking the plain of Esdraelon, and the buildings appear to have been dropped down higgledy-piggledy, without any regard for regularity. The houses are better than those of many Syrian villages, as they are built of stone and are kept clean in all the places where dirt cannot accumulate. But they are repulsive enough inside, and one needs a pair of stilts to enable him to walk through the streets without soiling his boots.

The population is variously estimated--no census is ever taken--at from three to four thousand. Only about seven hundred of these are Moslems; the rest are Christians of three or four kinds, with the addition of a few Jews, who must be very unhappy among so many people of a different faith. But, taken altogether, the inhabitants are not a pleasing lot, and as you look at them, you do not wonder that the question was once asked, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”

Nazareth was unknown in history until the Annunciation. The event has been commemorated by the erection of a Latin convent, where a Greek church once stood over the site of the house of Mary.

The convent is of considerable extent, and has a massive exterior, followed by equal massiveness within. The church is about seventy feet square in its interior dimensions, and the roof is supported by strong piers, which are covered, as are also the walls, with paintings representing scriptural scenes. A flight of steps, fifteen in number, leads down to the chapel beneath the church, and in this chapel the scene of the Annunciation is located.

You first enter a vestibule about twenty-five feet by ten, and from this we enter the sanctum, which is of about the same dimensions. It contains a marble altar and a marble slab, with a cross upon it, which marks the spot where the Virgin stood at the time of the Annunciation. They show us a marble column cut in two, one part apparently suspended from the roof and the other a little way below it, and resting on the floor. The monks solemnly tell us, that the invading infidels cut through this column, in the hope of bringing down the roof, but a miracle interposed to uphold the column and has kept it there to this day.

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{351}Then they take us into a grotto back of the altar and up a staircase into the Virgin’s kitchen, which is only a small cave, and must have been a very poor sort of kitchen at best. The monks manifest much veneration for the Sacred Grotto, and pious people from Christian lands have made handsome donations for the support of the church at Nazareth. As the church stands over the site of the house of Mary, the “Doubter” demands to see the house. The guide tells him that it is gone, and while he is trying to make his statement understood, one of the English speaking monks puts in a word:

“You should understand,” he says, “that the house is at Loretta, in Italy, and that Loretto is called the Nazareth of Italy. It is the house that was here once, the real house of the Virgin Mary.”

“Yes, but how did it get there?” asked the “Doubter.”

“Who moved it, and how was it done? I don’t believe you could move one of these stone houses all the way to Italy.”

“Ah, there is the miracle, and I will tell you,” says the monk, and he begins to rattle away as though he had committed the story to memory from a guide book.

“The house stood here for hundreds of years, and then it happened that the Moslems defeated the Christians in battle, and threatened to destroy everything in Nazareth. They were camped in the plain, and sent an army up here. Just as the army came to the edge of the town, some angels came down and took the house away. They carried it to Europe, and set it down on a hill near Fiume, in Dalmatia, and then, when it was found that the place wasn’t safe, they took it away to Loretto, and there it is now.”

“Very strange,” says the “Doubter,” “very strange. And do they do this sort of thing often?”

“Not often,” replies the monk. “You see it was a miracle; and if they performed miracles every day they wouldn’t be miracles.”

The “Doubter” says he doesn’t believe a word of it, and turns away. The monk continues his account, and says:

“There can be no doubt that the house is in Italy, and that it was moved by a miracle. It was known to be there more than {352}four hundred years ago, and the Pope, Leo X, told all about it in a papal bull, in the year 1518, and authenticated it so that there could be no chance for any body to disbelieve.”

Of course, there could be no chance after this. Dean Stanley thus explains this matter:

“Nazareth was taken by Sultan Kalil in 1291, when he stormed the last refuge of the Crusaders in the neighboring city of Acre. From that time, not Nazareth only, but’ the whole of Palestine, was closed to the devotions of Europe. The Crusaders were expelled from Asia, and in Europe the spirit of the Crusades was extinct. But the natural longing to see the scenes of the events of the sacred history--the superstitious craving to win for prayer the favor of consecrated localities--did not expire with the Crusades. Can we wonder that, under such circumstances, there should have arisen the feeling, the desire, the belief, that if Mahomet could not go to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mahomet? The House of Loretto is the petrifaction, so to speak, of the ‘last sigh of the Crusades.’”

From the Church of the Annunciation we are taken through some of the dirty streets and alleys, to Joseph’s workshop--a modern building fitted up as a chapel and held by the Latin monks. The structure is modern, but they show an old wall, or a fragment of it, in the interior, and this is quite sufficient.

The “Doubter” asks for Joseph’s tool-chest, and insists upon seeing it. They compromise the matter by bringing an axe of a very modern pattern, and bearing the word ‘Birmingham’ on the helve. This might do for one of the faithful, but the “Doubter” won’t swallow it, (not the axe, but the story,) in spite of the urgent assurance of the rest of us that it is all right.

Then they take us to “the Table of Christ,” where, according to tradition, our Saviour sat frequently with his disciples, both before and after the resurrection. It is only a table-shaped rock, about three feet high, and a chapel has been built over it.

The rivalry between the Greek and Latin churches is very bitter, and the monks at Nazareth tell some hard stories about each other. Their traditions do not agree in many points, and they are very tenacious about them. Thus, the Greeks claim that the angel’s first salutation to Mary was at the fountain, on {353}the eastern side of the village, where she went often to draw water. It is called the Fountain of the Virgin, and the Greeks have erected a church over it and called it the Church of the Annunciation. In order to be impartial to the Greeks and Latins, every traveller should visit both churches.

The fountain is interesting, as affording a study of the habits of the people. The young women, and old ones too, come there to draw water and gossip and make eyes at the young men, tell all the late scandals, discuss the fashions, and display their pride, envy, friendliness, humility, and all the other sentiments and emotions that can be exhibited at such a place. How the gossiping tongues must have wagged at this fountain eighteen hundred years ago! and didn’t they criticise Mary and her family? The pretty, bare-footed girl who came daily to the fountain, to fill her jar, which she poised on her head before tripping gracefully home{354}ward, little dreaming that she was to be the mother of one who should preach salvation to the world and found a religion to be embraced by all the civilized nations on the globe.

But we will leave Nazareth and wend our way southward.

We ride to Endor over a rough and rather dreary road, that winds over hills and through glens where robbers might waylay us, and where men have been waylaid on many occasions. In this part of the country murders are not infrequent, and are caused chiefly by feuds between tribes and families. Some of these feuds date back hundreds of years, and are based on the Scriptural theory of blood-revenge. Centuries ago there may have been a quarrel between two men, about some trivial matter, and the quarrel may have gone on till one of the men killed the other. Then a relative of the murdered man killed the murderer or one of his family, then this killing was avenged, then this, and then this; so it has gone and will go on, until one family is annihilated, and possibly both, and very often the feud extends to the different tribes. It is for this reason so many men go about with guns and pistols and eye each other so cautiously.

Nearly everybody, to use the vernacular of California, is “hunting for a man,” and sooner or later he finds him, or is found. It is rather respectable than otherwise to die with one’s boots on, here, just as it used to be in Arizona; and it is currently reported that when a man thinks he has had about enough of his native Syria, and has no row on his hands, he goes and kills somebody, so that this somebody’s relatives will turn to and kill _him_. He is thus able to accomplish two things--he can die like a gentleman, with the satisfaction of knowing that he has put somebody else out of the world in an equally gentlemanly way. And moreover, he bequeaths a legacy of blood-revenge to his descendants, that will give them something to occupy their minds with, and prevents the country becoming peopled too densely for comfort.

Endor is an uninteresting village, of not more than twenty-five houses, and it is the same thing over again--dirt, rags, and wretchedness--such as we have seen all the way along. We have had enough of it--let us move on.

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