streams which nourished the teeming vegetation | do not think that they wore anything on the of this monastic garden. "I stood gazing and moralizing at these contrasted scenes for some time; but at length when I turned my eyes upon my companions and myself, it struck me that we also were somewhat remarkable in our way. First, there was the old blind grey-bearded abbot, leaning on his staff, surrounded with three or four dark-robed Coptic monks, holding in their hands the lighted candles with which we had explored the secret recesses of the oil-cellar; there was I, dressed in the long robes of a merchant of the East, with a small book in the breast of my gown and a big one under each arm; and there were my servants armed to the teeth and laden with old books; and one and all we were so covered with dirt and wax from top to toe, that we looked more as if we had been up the chimney than like quiet people engaged in literary researches."-p. 93. This is very good. Nor can we pass the subsequent discovery that within the strong wall of these Coptic fathers shelter had been found for the remnant of an Abyssinian brotherhood, whose own monastery far off in the desert had been sadly mauled by certain Ishmaelites, and was since fallen into utterly desperate dilapidation. Every spring these guests were recruited by one or two Abyssinian pilgrims on their way back from Jerusalem; and so for many years the little stranger community had pretty nearly kept up its original muster. His ear was suddenly invaded by the sound of a psalmody different in character from that of the Coptic choir, and accompanied by a most barbarous squeaking and grinding of hitherto unknown hurdigurdies. The story of the siege, the rapine, and the exile was told-and when the Abyssinian service was over, and the party filed out of their little chapelof-ease in a corner of the court, an introduction took place. He says: head, but this I do not distinctly remember. Their It Nevertheless, these black and odoriferous men of Habesh could do what their Coptic hosts could not "they could all read fluently out of their own books." (p. 98.) Their kitchen and refectory was also their library. All round the walls, just within arm's reach, were long wooden pegs, and on each peg hung one, two, or three of the leathern bags above-mentioned, some square, some oblong, all well strapped and buckled. These contained the Service-books, Evangelisteria, and Hagiologies, which constituted the library. In the middle of the floor was a hearth, on which one brother was busy with the lentile-soup. The table was ready for dinner close by-that is, a long board or tray placed flat on the ground; pots and pans-a very few--garnished low shelves behind the cook; beneath the important pegs long spears, and also some long pipes, rested against the wall. The stranger, if introduced without preface, would have fancied himself in the guard-room of some of Mehemet Ali's irregulars, surrounded suitably with their arms, knapsacks, and cartridge-boxes. But they could read, and would not sell their books; whereas the blind old abbot of the Copts was, as previ "These holy brethren were as black as crows; tall, thin, ascetic-looking men, of a most original aspect and costume. I have seen the natives of many strange nations, both before and since, but I do not know that I ever met with so singular a set of men, so completely the types of another age and of a state of things the opposite to European, as these Abyssinian Eremites. They were black, as I have already said, which is not the usual complexion of the natives of Habesh; and they were all clothed in tunics of wash-leather made, they told me, of gazelle-skins. This garment came down to their knees, and was confined round their waist with a leathern girdle. Over their shoulders they had a strap supporting a case like a cartridge-box, of thick brown leath-ously set down, easily seduced by a second er, containing a manuscript book; and above this bottle of rosoglio; and so much the better, they wore a large shapeless cloak or toga, of the not only for Parham but for the Museum. same light yellow wash-leather as the tunic; I On his way from one of these cœnobia to another, Mr. Curzon had the good fortune to be piloted by a Mussulman cobbler, who vilipended his last, addicted himself (like so many of his craft here) to poetry, and possessed a considerable knowledge of history; we are favored with this very desirable specimen of his information: "In the days of King Solomon, the son of David, who, by the virtue of his cabalistic seal, reigned supreme over genii as well as men, and who could speak the languages of animals of all kinds, all created beings were subservient to his will. Now when the king wanted to travel, he made use, for his conveyance, of a carpet of a square form. This carpet had the property of extending itself to a sufficient size to carry a whole army, with the tents and baggage; but at other times it could be reduced so as to be only large enough for the support of the royal throne, and of those ministers whose duty it was to attend upon the person of the sovereign. Four genii of the air then took the four corners of the carpet, and carried it with its contents wherever King Solomon desired. Once the king was on a journey in the air, carried upon his throne of ivory over the various nations of the earth. The rays of the sun poured down upon his head, and he had nothing to protect him from its heat. The fiery beams were beginning to scorch his neck and shoulders, when he saw a flock of vultures flying past. 'Oh, vultures!' cried King Solomon, come and fly between me and the sun, and make a shadow with your wings to protect me, for its rays are scorching my neck and face.' But the vultures answered, and said, We are flying to the north, and your face is turned towards the south. We desire to continue on our way; and be it known unto thee, O king! that we will not turn back on our flight, neither will we fly above your throne to protect you from the sun, although its rays may be scorching your neck and face. Then King Solomon lifted up his voice, and said, 'Cursed be ye, O vultures!-and because you will not obey the commands of your lord, who rules over the whole world, the feathers of your neck shall fall off; and the heat of the sun, and the cold of the winter, and the keenness of the wind, and the beating of the rain shall fall upon your rebellious necks, which shall not be protected with feathers like the necks of other birds. And whereas you have hitherto fared delicately, henceforward ye shall eat carrion and feed upon offal; and your race shall be impure till the end of the world.' And it was done unto the vultures as King Solomon had said. "Now it fell out that there was a flock of hoopoes flying past; and the king cried out to them, and said, 'O hoopoes! come and fly between me and the sun, that I may be protected from its rays by the shadow of your wings.' Whereupon the king of the hoopoes answered and said, 'O King, we are but little fowls, and we are not able to afford much shade; but we will gather our nation together, and by our numbers we will make up for our small size.' So the hoopoes gathered together, and flying in a cloud over the throne of the King, they sheltered him from the rays of the sun. "When the journey was over, and King Solomon sat upon his golden throne, in his palace of ivory, whereof the doors were emerald, and the windows of diamonds, larger even than the diamond of Jemshid, he commanded that the king of the hoopoes should stand before his feet. 'Now,' said King Solomon, for the service that thou and thy race have rendered, and the obedience thou hast shown to the king, thy lord and master, what shall be done unto thee, O hoopoe ! and what shall be given unto the hoopoes of thy race, for a memorial and a reward? Now the king of the hoopoes was confused with the great honor of standing before the feet of the king; and making his obeisance, and laying his right claw upon his heart, he said, 'O King, live for ever! Let a day be given to thy servant to consider with his queen and councillors what it shall be that the king shall give unto us for a reward.' And King Solomon said, 'Be it so.' And it was so. "But the king of the hoopoes flew away; and he went to his queen, who was a dainty hen, and he told her what had happened, and he desired her advice as to what they should ask of the king for a reward; and they called together his council, and they sat upon a tree, and they each of them desired a different thing. Some wished for a long tail; some wished for blue and green feathers; some wished to be as large as ostriches; some wished for one thing, and some for another; and they debated till the going down of the sun, but they could not agree together. Then the queen took the king of the hoopoes apart and said to him, My dear lord and husband, listen to my words; and as we have preserved the head of king Solomon, let us ask for crowns of gold on our heads, that we may be superior to all other birds.' And the words of the queen and the princesses her daughters prevailed; and the king of the hoopoes presented himself before the throne of Solomon, and desired of him that all the hoopoes should wear golden crowns upon their heads. Then Solomon said, 'Hast thou considered well what it is thou desirest?' And the hoopoe said, 'I have considered well, and we desire to have golden crowns upon our heads.' So Solomon replied, 'Crowns of gold shall ye have: but, behold, thou art a foolish bird; and when the, evil days shall come upon thee, and thou seest the folly of thine heart, return here to me, and I will give thee help.' So the king of the hoopoes left the presence of King Solomon, with a golden crown upon his head. And all the hoopoes had golden crowns; and they were exceeding proud and haughty. Moreover, they went down by the lakes and the pools, and walked by the margin of the water; that they might admire themselves as it were in a glass. And the queen of the hoopoes gave herself airs, and sat upon a twig; and she refused to speak to the merops her cousin, and the other birds who had been her friends, because they were but vulgar birds, and she wore a crown of gold upon her head. "Now there was a certain fowler who set traps 1849.] IN THE LEVANT. for birds; and he put a piece of a broken mirror into his trap, and a hoopoe that went in to admire itself was caught. And the fowler looked at it, and saw the shining crown upon its head; so he wrung off its head, and took the crown to Issachar, the son of Jacob, the worker in metal, and So Issachar, the son he asked him what it was. of Jacob, said, 'it is a crown of brass.' And he gave the fowler a quarter of a shekel for it, and desired him, if he found any more, to bring them to him, and to tell no man thereof. So the fowler caught some more hoopoes and sold their crowns to Issachar, the son of Jacob: until one day he met another man who was a jeweller, and he showed him several of the hoopoes' crowns. Whereupon the jeweller told him that they were of pure gold; and he gave the fowler a talent of gold for four of them. "Now when the value of these crowns was known, the fame of them got abroad, and in all the land of Israel was heard the twang of bows and the whirling of slings; bird-lime was made in every town; and the price of traps rose in the market, so that the fortunes of the trap-makers increased. Not a hoopoe could show its head but it was slain or taken captive, and the days of the hoopoes were numbered. Then their minds were filled with sorrow and dismay, and before long few were left to bewail their cruel destiny. At last, flying by stealth through the most unfrequented places, the unhappy king of the hoopoes went to the court of King Solomon, and stood again before the steps of the golden throne, and with tears and groans related the misfortunes that had happened to his race. 6 "So King Solomon looked kindly upon the king of the hoopoes, and said unto him, Behold, did I not warn thee of thy folly in desiring to have crowns of gold? Vanity and pride have been thy ruin. But now, that a memorial may remain of the service which thou didst render unto me, your crowns of gold shall be changed into crowns of feathers, that ye may walk unharmed upon the earth.' Now when the fowlers saw that the hoopoes no longer wore crowns of gold upon their heads, they ceased from the persecution of their race; and from that time forth the family of the hoopoes have flourished and increased, and have continued in peace even to the present day." -p. 152. Mr. Curzon, having finished his first visitation of the Natron monkeries (for he was there again in 1838), made his way to the Red Sea, and thence, via Sinai, to Jerusalem, where he wished to be present at the in grand ceremonies at Easter. He says, reference to all this part of his travels "In addition to the Bible, which almost sufficed us for a guide-book in these sacred regions, we had several books of travels with us, and I was struck with the superiority of old Maundrell's narrative over all the others, for he tells us plainly and clearly what he saw, whilst other travellers so encumber their narratives with opinions and disqui | sitions, that instead of describing the country, they The chapters on Palestine are among the best in the volume--without bigotry, without extravagance-a fair honest picture, including several touches (to us) of novelty. In a volume dedicated mainly to a particular taste and pursuit, such as Mr. Curzon's, it would in fact have been irreverent to expatiate on the feelings that give the chief color to Lord Lindsay's touching and pathetic portraitures of the same scenery, and intermingle largely and gracefully in the corresponding chapters of "The Crescent and the Cross;" but the genuine feeling is here, and you are made to sympathize with its depth, even where the writer seems most desirous of concealing it. Of Jerusalem, he says, the inhabitants, being of motley races, and tongues, and creeds, inwardly despise each other on the score of heterodoxy ; but still "As the Christians are very numerous, there reigns among the whole no small degree of complaisance, as well as an unrestrained intercourse in matters of business, amusement, and even of religion. The Mussulmans, for instance, pray in all the holy places consecrated to the memory of Christ and the Virgin, except the tomb of the Holy Sepulchre, the sanctity of which they do not acknowledge, for they believe that Jesus Christ did not die, but that he ascended alive into heaven, leaving the likeness of his face to Judas, who was condemned to die for him; and that as Judas was crucified, it was his body, and not that of Jesus, which was placed in the sepulchre. It is for this reason that the Mussulmans do not perform any act of devotion at the tomb of the Holy Sepulchre, and that they ridicule the Christians who visit and revere it. "The Jews-the children of the kingdom'have been cast out, and many have come from the east and the west to occupy their place in the desolate land promised to their fathers. Their quarter the foot of Mount Zion. Many are rich, but they is in the narrow valley between the Temple and are careful to conceal their wealth from the jealous eyes of their Mohammedan rulers, lest they should be subjected to extortion. "It is remarkable that the Jews who are born in Jerusalem are of a totally different caste from those we see in Europe. Here they are a fair race, very lightly made, and particularly effeminate in manner; the young men wear a lock of long hair on each side of the face, which, with their flowing silk robes, gives them the appearance of women. The Jews of both sexes are exceedingly fond of dress; and although they assume a dirty and squalid appearance when they walk abroad, in their own houses they are to be seen clothed in costly furs and the richest silks of Damascus. The women are covered with gold, and dressed in brocades stiff with embroidery. Some of them are beautiful; and a girl of about twelve years old, who was betrothed to the son of a rich old rabbi, was the prettiest little creature I ever saw; her skin was whiter than ivory, and her hair, which was as black as jet, and was plaited with strings of sequins, fell in tresses nearly to the ground. She was of a Spanish family, and the language usually spoken by the Jews among themselves is Spanish. The house of Rabbi A, with whom I was acquainted, answered exactly to Sir Walter Scott's description of the dwelling of Isaac of York. The outside and the court-yard indicated nothing but poverty and neglect; but on entering I was surprised at the magchandelier, and a great quantity of embossed plate was displayed on the top of the polished cupboards. Some of the windows were filled with painted glass; and the members of the family, covered with gold and jewels, were seated on divans of Damascus brocade. The Rabbi's little son was so covered with charms in gold cases to keep off the evil eye, that he jingled like a chime of bells when he walked along. nificence of the furniture. One room had a silver "The Jewish religion is now so much encumbered with superstition and the extraordinary explanations of the Bible in the Talmud, that little of the original creed remains. They interpret all the words of Scripture literally, and this leads them into most absurd mistakes. On the morning of the day of the Passover I went into the synagogue under the walls of the Temple, and found it crowded to the very door; all the congregation were standing up, with large white shawls over their heads with the fringes which they were commanded to wear by the Jewish law. They were reading the Psalms, and after I had been there a short time all the people began to hop about and to shake their heads and limbs in a most extraordinary manner; the whole congregation was in motion from the priest, who was dancing in the reading-desk, to the porter who capered at the door. All this was in consequence of a verse in the 35th Psalm, which says, 'All my bones shall say, Lord, who is like unto thee?" -pp. 185-188. Luckily for Mr. Curzon, Ibrahim Pasha, at that time in full sway over all Syria, had also the curiosity to make the pilgrimage of Jerusalem in the spring of 1834; and his courtesy afforded every facility for seeing the shows of the season to the best advantage. The portent of the Holy Fire was timed to suit the Pasha's convenience, and he gratified Mr. Curzon with a cushion in the reserved gallery. As soon as the great Turk was comfortable in his corner, the two Patriarchs, who once in the year condescend to act in the same piece, performed the mir acle, and the church was instantly a scene of the most hideous tumult: hundreds of the pilgrims, from every quarter-Greek, Armenian, Copt, and Abyssinian-rushing pellmell to light their lamps, with which all come provided, at the holy flame just descended from heaven at the prayer of those most reverend personages. Old Maundrell stands the test here as elsewhere. "The two miracle mongers," quoth he, “had not been above a minute in the Holy Sepulchre when the glimmering of the holy fire was seen, or imagined to appear: and certainly Bedlam never witnessed such an unruly transport as was produced in the mob at that sight." But though there always is great disturbance, and serious accidents have often occurred, the miracle of 1834 was followed by horrors on a scale wholly unexampled; and it is fortunate that for a scene so monstrous we have the complete and living evidence of an English gentleman: "Soon you saw the lights increasing in all diholy flame: the chapels, the galleries, and every rections, every one having lit his candle from the corner where a candle could possibly be displayed, immediately appeared to be in a blaze. The peo ple, in their frenzy, put the bunches of lighted tapers to their faces, hands, and breasts, to purify themselves from their sins. ... The Patriarch was carried out of the sepulchre in triumph, amid the cries and exclamations of joy which reon the shoulders of the people he had deceived, sounded from every nook of the immense pile of buildings. As he appeared in a fainting state. I supposed that he was ill; but I found that it is the uniform custom on these occasions to fain insen sibility, that the pilgrims may imagine he is overimmediate presence they believe him to have recome with the glory of the Almighty, from whose turned. "In a short time the smoke of the candles obrolling in great volumes out at the aperture at scured everything in the place, and I could see it the top of the dome. The smell was terrible; and three unhappy wretches, overcome by heat and bad air, fell from the upper range of galleries, and were dashed to pieces on the heads of the people below. One poor Armenian lady, seventeen years of age, died where she sat, of heat, thirst, and fatigue. "After a while, when he had seen all that was to be seen, Ibrahim Pasha got up and went away, his numerous guards making a line for him by main force through the dense mass of people which filled the body of the church. As the crowd was so immense, we waited for a little while, and then set out altogether to return to our convent. I went first, and my friends followed me, the soldiers making way for us across the church. I got as far as the place where the Virgin is said to have stood during the crucifixion, when I saw a number of people lying one on another all about this part of the church, and as far as I could see towards the door. I made my way between them as well as I could, till they were so thick that there was actually a great heap of bodies on which I trod. It then suddenly struck me they were all dead! I had not perceived this at first, for I thought they were only very much fatigued with the ceremonies and had lain down to rest themselves there; but when I came to so great a heap of bodies I looked down at them, and saw that sharp, hard appearance of the face which is never to be mistaken. Many of them were quite black with suffocation, and farther on were others all bloody and covered with the brains and entrails of those who had been trodden to pieces by the crowd. "At this time there was no crowd in this part of the church; but a little farther on, round the corner towards the great door, the people, who were quite panic-struck, continued to press forward, and every one was doing his utmost to escape. The guards outside, frightened at the rush from within, thought that the Christians wished to attack them, and the confusion soon grew into a battle. The soldiers with their bayonets killed numbers of fainting wretches, and the walls were spattered with blood and brains of men who had been felled, like oxen, with the buttends of the soldiers' muskets. Every one struggled to defend himself, or to get away, and all who fell were immediately trampled to death by the rest. So desperate and savage did the fight become, that even the panic-struck pilgrims appear at last to have been more intent upon the destruction of each other than desirous to save themselves. "For my part, as soon as I perceived the danger, I had cried out to my companions to turn back, which they had done; but I myself was carried on by the press till I came near the door, where all were fighting for their lives. Here, seeing certain destruction before me, I made every endeavor to get back. An officer of the Pasha's, who by his star was a colonel or bin bashee, equally alarmed with myself, was also trying to return: he caught hold of my cloak, or bournouse, and pulled me down on the body of an old man who was breathing out his last sigh. As the officer was pressing me to the ground we wrestled together among the dying and the dead with the energy of despair. I struggled with this man till I pulled him down, and happily got again upon my legs-(I afterwards found that he never rose again) and scrambling over a pile of corpses, I made my way back into the body of the church, where I found my friends, and we succeeded in reaching the sacristy of the Catholics, and thence the room which had been assigned to us by the monks. The dead were lying in heaps, even upon the stone of unction; and I saw full four hundred wretched people, dead and living, heaped promiscuously one upon another, in some places above five feet high. Ibrahim Pasha had left the church only a few minutes before me, and very narrowly escaped with his life; he was so pressed upon by the crowd on all sides, and it was said attacked by several of them, that it was only by the greatest exertions of his suite, several of whom were killed, that he gained the outer court. He fainted more than once in the struggle, and I was told that some of his attendants at last had to cut a way for him with their swords through the dense ranks of the frantic pilgrims. He remained outside, giving orders for the removal of the corpses, and making his men drag out the bodies of those who appeared to be still alive from the heaps of the dead. He sent word to us to remain in the convent till all the bodies had been removed, and that when we could come out in safety he would again send to us. "We stayed in our room two hours before we ventured to make another attempt to escape from this scene of horror; and then, walking close together, with all our servants round us, we made a bold push, and got out of the door of the church. By this time most of the bodies were removed; but twenty or thirty were still lying in distorted attitudes at the foot of Mount Calvary; and fragments of clothes, turbans, shoes, and handkerchiefs, clotted with blood and dirt, were strewed all over the pavement. In the court in the front of the church the sight was pitiable; mothers weeping over their children-the sons bending over the dead bodies of their fathers-and one poor woman was clinging to the hand of her husband, whose body was fearfully mangled. Most of the sufferers were pilgrims and strangers. The Pasha was greatly moved by this scene of woe; and he again and again commanded his officers to give the poor people every assistance in their power, and very many by his humane efforts were rescued from death. "I was much struck by the sight of two old men with white beards, who had been seeking for each other among the dead; they met as I was passing by, and it was affecting to see them kiss and shake hands, and congratulate each other on having escaped from death. "When the bodies were removed, many were discovered standing upright, quite dead; and near the church door one of the soldiers was found thus standing, with his musket shouldered, among the bodies, which reached nearly as high as his head; this was in a corner near the great door on the right side as you come in. It seems that this door had been shut, so that many who stood near it were suffocated in the crowd; and when it was opened, the rush was so great that numbers were thrown down and never rose again, being trampled to death by the press behind them. The whole court before the entrance of the church was covered with bodies laid in rows, by the Pasha's orders, so that their friends might find them and carry them away. As we walked home we saw numbers of people carried out, some dead, some horribly wounded and in a dying state, for they had fought with their heavy silver inkstands and daggers."-p. 214. The description of the moaning and lamenting of the ensuing night, with the rows of dead people stretched on the pavement of the court under the traveller's window, is very striking; but we must pass on to his interview next day with Ibrahim Pasha: |