THE day came to leave Jerusalem. Circumstances rendered it impossible for us to make the overland trip to Damascus or even to Haifa. Our regret that we should not see Bethel, Shechem, Samaria, Nazareth, and the Sea of Galilee was somewhat lessened by the thought that we knew the general character of the country and the villages, by what we had already seen, and that experience had taught us the inevitable disenchantment of seeing the historical and the sacred places of JudÆa. It is not that one visits a desert and a heap of ruins,—that would be endurable and even stimulating to the imagination; but every locality which is dear to the reader by some divine visitation, or wonderful by some achievement of hero or prophet, is degraded by the presence of sordid habitations, and a mixed, vicious, and unsavory population, or incrusted with the most puerile superstitions, so that the traveller is fain to content himself with a general view of the unchanged features of the country. It must be with a certain feeling of humiliation that at Nazareth, for instance, the object of his pilgrimage is belittled to the inspection of such inventions as the spot upon which the Virgin stood when she received the annunciation, and the carpenter-shop in which Joseph worked.

At any rate, we let such thoughts predominate, when we were obliged to relinquish the overland journey. And whatever we missed, I flatter myself that the readers of these desultory sketches will lose nothing. I should have indulged a certain curiosity in riding over a country as rich in memories as it is poor in aspect, but I should have been able to add nothing to the minute descriptions and vivid pictures with which the Christian world is familiar; and, if the reader will excuse an additional personal remark, I have not had the presumption to attempt a description of Palestine and Syria (which the volumes of Robinson and Thompson and Porter have abundantly given), but only to make a record of limited travel and observation. What I most regretted was that we could not see the green and fertile plain of Esdraelon, the flower-spangled meadow of Jezreel, and the forests of Tabor and Carmel,—seats of beauty and of verdure, and which, with the Plain of Sharon, might serve to mitigate the picture of grim desolation which the tourist cames away from the Holy Land.

Finally, it was with a feeling akin to regret that we looked our last upon gray and melancholy Jerusalem. We had grown a little familiar with its few objects of past or present grandeur, the Saracenic walls and towers, the Temple platform and its resplendent mosque, the agglomeration called the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the ruins of the palace and hospice of the Knights of St. John, the massive convents and hospices of various nations and sects that rise amid the indistinguishable huddle of wretched habitations, threaded by filthy streets and noisome gutters. And yet we confessed to the inevitable fascination which is always exercised upon the mind by antiquity; the mysterious attraction of association; the undefinable influence in decay and desolation which holds while it repels; the empire, one might say the tyranny, over the imagination and the will which an ancient city asserts, as if by force of an immortal personality, compelling first curiosity, then endurance, then sympathy, and finally love. Jerusalem has neither the art, the climate, the antiquities, nor the society which draw the world and hold it captive in Rome, but its associations enable it to exercise, in a degree, the same attraction. Its attraction is in its historic spell and name, and in spite of the modern city.

Jerusalem, in fact, is incrusted with layer upon layer of inventions, the product of credulity, cunning, and superstition, a monstrous growth always enlarging, so that already the simple facts of history are buried almost beyond recognition beneath this mass of rubbish. Perhaps it would have been better for the growth of Christianity in the world if Jerusalem had been abandoned, had become like Carthage and Memphis and Tadmor in the wilderness, and the modern pilgrim were free to choose his seat upon a fallen wall or mossy rock, and reconstruct for himself the pageant of the past, and recall that Living Presence, undisturbed by the impertinences which belittle the name of religion. It has always been held well that the place of the burial of Moses was unknown. It would perhaps have conduced to the purity of the Christian faith if no attempt had ever been made to break through the obscurity which rests upon the place of the sepulchre of Christ. Invention has grown upon invention, and we have the Jerusalem of to-day as a result of the exaggerated importance attached to the localization of the Divine manifestation. Whatever interest Jerusalem has for the antiquarian, or for the devout mind, it is undeniable that one must seek in other lands and among other peoples for the robust virtue, the hatred of shams and useless forms, the sweet charity, the invigorating principles, the high thinking, and the simple worship inculcated by the Founder of Christianity.

The horses were ready. Jerusalem had just begun to stir; an itinerant vender of coffee had set up his tray on the street, and was lustily calling to catch the attention of the early workmen, or the vagrants who pick themselves up from the doorsteps at dawn, and begin to reconnoitre for the necessary and cheap taste of coffee, with which the Oriental day opens; the sky was overcast, and a drop or two of rain fell as we were getting into the saddle, but “It is nothing,” said the stirrup-holder, “it goes to be a beautiful time”; and so it proved.

Scarcely were we outside the city when it cleared superbly, and we set forward on our long ride of thirty-six miles, to the sea-coast, in high spirits. We turned to catch the first sunlight upon the gray Tower of David, and then went gayly on over the cool free hills, inhaling the sparkling air and the perfume of wild-flowers, and exchanging greetings with the pilgrims, Moslem and Christian, who must have broken up their camps in the hills at the earliest light. There are all varieties of nationality and costume, and many of the peaceful pilgrims are armed as if going to a military rendezvous; perhaps our cavalcade, which is also an assorted one of horses, donkeys, and mules, is as amusing as any we meet. I am certain that the horse that one of the ladies rides is unique, a mere framework of bones which rattle as he agitates himself; a rear view of the animal, and his twisting and interlacing legs, when he moves briskly, suggest a Chinese puzzle.

We halted at the outlet of Wady 'Aly, where there is an inn, which has the appearance of a Den of Thieves, and took our lunch upon some giant rocks under a fig-tree, the fruit of which was already half grown. Here I discovered another black calla, and borrowed a pick of the landlord to endeavor to dig up its bulb. But it was impossible to extract it from the rocks, and when I returned the tool, the owner demanded pay for the use of it; I told him that if he would come to America, I would lend him a pick, and let him dig all day in the garden,—a liberality which he was unable to comprehend.

By four o'clock we were at Bamleh, and turned aside to inspect the so-called Saracen tower; it stands upon one side of a large enclosure of walls and arches, an extensive ruin; under ground are vaulted constructions apparently extending as far as the ruins above, reminding one of the remains of the Hospice of St. John at Jerusalem. In its form and treatment and feeling this noble tower is Gothic, and, taking it in connection with the remains about it, I should have said it was of Christian construction, in spite of the Arabic inscription over one of the doorways, which might have been added when the Saracens took possession of it; but I believe that antiquarians have decided that the tower was erected by Moslems. These are the most “rural” ruins we had seen in the East; they are time-stained and weather-colored, like the remains of an English abbey, and stand in the midst of a green and most lovely country; no sand, no nakedness, no beggars. Grass fills all the enclosure, and grain-fields press close about it. No view could be more enchanting than that of the tower and the rolling plain at that hour: the bloom on the wheat-fields, flecked with flaming poppies; the silver of the olive groves; the beds of scarlet anemones and yellow buttercups, blotching the meadows with brilliant colors like a picture of Turner; the soft gray hills of JudÆa; the steeples and minarets of the city. All Ramleh is built on and amid ruins, half-covered arches and vaults.

Twilight came upon us while we were yet in the interminable plain, but Jaffa announced itself by its orange-blossoms long before we entered its straggling suburbs; indeed, when we were three miles away, the odor of its gardens, weighted by the night-air, was too heavy to be agreeable. At a distance this odor was more perceptible than in the town itself; but next day, in the full heat of the sun, we found it so overpowering as to give a tendency to headache.