FREEMASONRY
IN THE
HOLY LAND
Or,
Handmarks
of
Hiram's Builders
By Rob Morris
FOREWORD (2005)
By Ralph Omholt, PM
Most know Morris’ name as the founder of the Order of the Eastern Star, however, Morris contributed radically more to the “Blue Lodge;” as Grand Master of Kentucky and as a Masonic lecturer – add an impressive list of books.
“Freemasonry in the Holy Land” is a Masonic Saga which deserves preservation and renewal as a great piece of Masonic literature. Among other matters, Rob Morris makes valuable observations on history which deserve to be made available for ‘cut-‘n-paste’ research access.
Until recently, many of Freemasonry's finest books were approaching the ‘extinct” list. One of those was “Freemasonry in the Holy Land;” not just a book, but a true Masonic saga! Time had, unfortunately, rendered it amongst the ‘rare’ titles.
Given the ‘mysterious’ declining state of Freemasonry (as of 2005), Morris also serves as an important icon of the Craft; as in his time, great men did great things and received appropriate credit – in their own lifetime. Thus, Morris reminds the craft to pay ALL due wages.
Morris’ 1868 adventure and consequent book are not just an interesting collection of travel, history, geography, culture, archaeology and adventure; but also a sample of the thought processes and attitudes of the mid-1800s. Among other details, Morris’ book was supplemented by artists - not photography - given the budding science of photography – then a new technology and art.
Now, the wonders of computer technology have restored a great book to modern times. Again, this work was also produced as a page-by-page ‘photograph’ of the original book.
Thus, the reader may read from a computer screen, print the content, or manipulate the files, with a ‘text-to-speech’ conversion program.
By way of comment, Morris'“Poetry of Freemasonry” (400 pages) has been comparably restored, as was the 1878 biography of Morris, “The Well Spent Life.”
TO
HIS EXCELLENCY MOHAMMED RASCHID,
PASHA - GENERAL OF SYRIA
HONORED SIR AND BROTHER:
IN my first interview with the zealous band of Freemasons, lovingly at labor in their foyer maconnique at Smyrna, it was reported to me that the Governor‑General of Syria and Palestine, the brave, wise, and learned Mohammed Raschid, is one who delights to wear the Masonic apron, having shared joyfully in the mystic confidences of their fraternal group. And the brethren at Smyrna rejoiced to speak of the intelligence, urbanity, and Masonic skill of their renowned brother at Damascus, and favored me with letters of credence and introduction.
Early upon my arrival in Damascus, therefore, I hastened to pay my respects to your Excellency, and to present you the greetings of a half‑million American Masons, who are working (in more than six thousand lodges) the same principles of Divine truth, justice, and fraternity in which you, yourself, were inducted in your Masonic initiation at Smyrna. At the same time I laid before your Excellency the peculiar mission upon which I had embarked, and solicited your valued approval and patronage.
I have now to acknowledge the very hearty manner in which your Excellency responded to my request; you afforded me the wisest counsel, and extended to me such aid as none can give so effectually as yourself.
Finally, when the plan of the present volume was matured, and I solicited, by letter, the honor of dedicating it to him to whom I am so much indebted, your Excellency granted me the favor, with an urbanity which is in keeping with all I had previously known and enjoyed of your character.
4 DEDICATION.
Since my return home, I have spoken in more than six hundred lodges, and reported to them the results of my Oriental study and labor. Everywhere I have made grateful mention of our distinguished Brother, the Vali of Syria; of his bravery in war, his wisdom in council, the respect and love of his people, and particularly his kindness to the American brother who had journeyed so far in pursuit of Masonic light. Should you, at any period, honor our country with a visit, your Excellency will find that this story of your kindness to the strange brother has come here before you; that the lineaments of your countenance are well known to us, and that a welcome awaits you, such as but few visitors have ever received from the Masonic fraternity. Would that your Excellency might so favor us! Would that the mother‑land of Freemasonry might send such a representative to this great asylum of freedom, where the principles of the ancient Order have unrestricted sway, and every man feels that in his birth Ye is the equal of every other! May it please your Excellency: Our earthly lot differs most widely. Your name is spread afar as one to whom God has intrusted the government of a people. Our forms of faith are diverse. In language, customs, and modes of thought, we are cast in different moulds; but in Masonic UNITY we are one, and one in Masonic FAITH. As our hopes, and aims, and labors are one, we, trusting in one God, and doing, each of us, what we believe to be His expressed will, do humbly expect a common reward when we have passed that common lot which none can escape. To the Divine power, therefore, I tenderly commend your Excellency, both for this world and for that which is to come.
TO H. E. MOHAMMED RASCHID
This book, Freemasonry in the Holy Land, is, by permission, most respectfully and most fraternally
DEDICATED
PREFACE
I OFFER this book to the Masonic public, in redemption of my pledges to the generous friends who furnished me the means both for my expedition of 1868, and for publishing the book itself. That I have been more than three years getting it up, speaks, I think, for the thorough manner of its preparation.
Agreeably to original promise, "the book is adapted to the plainest reader; one that the owner will take home and read in his domestic circle, and afterwards lend to his neighbors to read; equally a reference‑book to the student, and a hand‑book to the traveller; large enough to embrace so great a subject, yet no effort has been spared to compress the information. The Common Gavel has been used remorselessly in striking off excrescences. Written in the spirit of the Holy Writings, French and German infidelity has not made sufficient inroads into American Masonry, that less than nineteen‑twentieths will welcome additional light upon the Divine authenticity of the Bible, and such light I have attempted freely to diffuse through this volume.
Let every subscriber, after reading the book, bear me testimony that I have kept the faith with him.
I have avoided the mysterious and romantic style so common amongst writers upon Palestine, and have cultivated the colloquial. One would think, to read standard accounts of the trees and birds in the Holy Land, that they are different from birds and trees in
6 PREFACE.
other countries. Not so. Making allowance for difference in climate, nature is the same everywhere, and so I have used every-day words in describing them. I have embodied as much practical information as possible; comparing things Oriental with things Occidental; things in the experience of patriarchs and prophets with things in the experience of an American observer. And yet I have endeavored to preserve the gravity and dignity due to a theme around which cluster all our hopes in life, in death, and in the world to come.
In the abundance of my preparations, and the acreage of my readings-up for this book, I have not unfrequently mingled others' thoughts with my own, and have entered them here often without special credit. In defence of this I can only say that such is the general usage of writers. If the reader, then, finds passages the property of other persons, he is at liberty to say so; I will not deny it; but, with the historian Rollin, I confess "that I do not scruple, nor am ashamed, to borrow that I may adorn and enrich my own history." My own credit, if any, shall consist in the skill with which I bind the beads of the chain together. In the thousands of notes and memorandums I have taken, it would be strange, indeed, if I could preserve the ear-marks of each.
In this book I have desired to popularize the study of the Scriptures, by removing some of the difficulties which the unlearned have found in reading them; by smoothing the way to obscure passages, so as to enable all to peruse the Sacred Book understandingly, and better to enjoy sermons and commentaries. Had the hundreds of thou-sands who make up the membership of our lodges this practical knowledge, how easy the teacher's task, in the coming generation, to diffuse the store of useful knowledge there is for mankind in this world!
If any object to the allusions and comparisons to American matters, so freely introduced through these pages, let me confess, old and
PREFACE. 7
cosmopolitan as I am, that patrics fumes igne alieno luculentior - the very smoke of my own native land seems brighter to me than the fire of any other. I trust, however, I have not exhibited this sentiment anywhere offensively.
As the narrative of Arculf's Pilgrimage to Palestine, in the eighth century, led to that passion for pilgrimage which has not yet died out, but has made the nineteenth the most illustrious century of all, so I earnestly hope the publication of this book, the first of its class, will inspire many a zealous tourist to visit those countries on Masonic errands, and many a penman in his closet to enlarge the literature of which I now make the commencement. To show that the web and woof of Masonic tradition are true, is, by an easy transition, to prove the figures of the pattern real and genuine.
In writing Arabic words I have endeavored, in general, to give such English letters as will express them to the ear rather than the eye For instance: instead of harem I write hareem, &c. Yet this rule is but imperfectly carried out, after all; for were I to adopt it rigidly Sultan would be Sooltarn; Koran, Korarn; Hassan, Hassarn, &c If the reader would learn the exact sound of Arabic words (a thing I never did), he must get an Arabic dictionary (and then he can't do it!) As so large a proportion of American Masons are professing Christians - the demonstration at Baltimore, Maryland, September, 1871, proving that our wisest and best members in very large numbers rejoice to bear the symbolical emblem of the MAN OF GOLGOTHA - I have not hesitated frequently "to name the name of Jesus" in this volume, although no one has so often and publicly demonstrated that Freemasonry was ten centuries old when the Star of Bethlehem arose. Nor can our Jewish brethren, many of whom have received a welcome into the American lodges, complain that I neglected the interests
8 PREFACE.
of their long‑persecuted but now emerging society while I was in the East. At the same time I have fully expressed my admiration for much of the character and many of the precepts of Mohammed, as embodied in the Koran. Avoiding the doctrinal points, and read in the spirit of fraternal love, as illustrated in the lectures of Freemasonry, that remarkable book, the Koran, might justly be taken as a comment upon the much older, far wiser, and most remarkable book ever written, THE OLD TESTAMENT of the Hebrew dispensation. To those who are accustomed, without the slightest examination, to denounce the Koran (as well as its author), I will simply say, with Isaiah (viii. 20), "To the law and to the testimony; if it speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in it." An unprejudiced mind will admit, not only that the Koran contains far more quotations from and references to the Bible, but is absolutely imbued more with the spirit of the inspired word than a dozen of the best "Saints' Books" found on the counter of any Catholic bookstore in New York. "To the testimony!"
In affixing the names of my Masonic countrymen freely to places renowned in history, I acknowledge, ubique patriam reminisci, that I remembered my native country in all places, and have attempted thus to join the West to the East by a new and more affecting tie. The Masons who raised nine thousand dollars and upwards to send me to Palestine, and enough, three years afterwards, to publish this volume, have earned the right to Masonic homes among the homes of the first Masons, and the allotment I have made may be yet very much more largely extended. Even though the idea be one strictly in the region of romance, I shall be greatly mistaken if it does not lead to larger explorations, freer offerings, and greater exertions in this direction on the part of generations yet to come.
To Professor A. L. Rawson, of New York, so well known as "The
PREFACE. 8
Oriental Artist," who has given his pencil exclusively, for a number of years, to Biblical illustration, I am indebted, not only for the maps and engravings in my volume, but for many practical and useful suggestions in the preparation of the work itself. Himself a thorough explorer in Eastern fields, he is giving his mature and experienced judgment to such works as Beecher's, Deems's, Crosby's, and other first‑class writers on Biblical themes; his own excellent "Hand‑Book of Bible Knowledge" meanwhile comparing favorably with the best of them.
Finally, if any one with dyspeptic tendencies feels to object to the attempt at humor that may possibly be detected in some of these pages, I bare my back to the lash. I did laugh while going, without guard or guide, through the once inspiring but now depressing lands of the tribes - laughed often and freely, and, even at the end of four years, my cachinations are renewed when I think of certain experiences connected with my journey. The ghost of old laughs thus haunting me so long and persistently, and giving its spirit to my ink, She reader is at liberty, without further dispensation, to laugh too.
THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY.
"A good land and a large . . . a land flowing with milk and honey." (Dent. vi. 3, xi. 9, etc.)
O land of wondrous story, old Canaan bright and fair,
Thou type of home celestial, where the saints and angels are!
In heartfelt admiration we address thy hills divine,
And gather consolation on the fields of Palestine.
In all our lamentations, in the hour of deepest ill,
When sorrow wraps the spirit as the storm‑clouds wrap the hill,
Some name comes up before us from thy bright immortal band,
As the shadow of a great rock falls upon a weary land.
The dew of Hermon falling yet, revives the golden days;
Sweet Sharon lends her roses still, to win the poet's lays;
In every vale the lily bends, while o'er them wing the birds
Whose cheerful notes so marvellously recall the Saviour's words.
From Bethlehem awake the songs of Rachel and of Ruth,
From Mizpah's mountain‑fastness mournful notes of filial truth;
Magdala gives narration of the Penitent thrice‑blest,
And Bethany of sister‑hosts who loved the gentle Guest.
Would we retrace the pilgrimage of Jesus Christ our Lord,
Behold his footsteps everywhere, on rocky knoll and sward;
From Bethlehem to Golgotha, his cradle and his tomb,
He sanctified old Canaan and accepted it his home.
He prayed upon thy mountain‑side, he rested in thy grove,
He walked upon thy Galilee, when winds with billows strove:
Thy land was full of happy homes, that loving hearts did own,
E'en foxes and the birds of air - but Jesus Christ had none.
Thou land of milk and honey, land of corn and oil and wine,
How longs my hungry spirit to enjoy thy food divine!
I hunger and I thirst afar, the Jordan rolls between,
I faintly see thy paradise all clothed in living green.
My day of life declineth, and my sun is sinking low;
I near the banks of Jordan, through whose waters I must go:
Oh, let me wake beyond the stream, in land celestial blest,
To be forever with the Lord in Canaan's promised rest.
DIVISION FIRST ‑ FACING THE EAST
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou gout. - Eccles. ix. 10.
Examine the condition of the Masonic institution, in the land of its nativity. Observe those unaltered customs of the Orientals, whose types are preserved in the rituals of our lodges.
Inspect the traditional sites of Tyre, Gebal, Lebanon, Joppa, Succoth, Jerusalem, etc.
Collect relics of ancient days and specimens of the natural productions cf the land. - Numbers, xiii. 21
CHAPTER I
CONCEPTION AND PREPARATIONS
EVERY one who has undertaken to instruct Freemasons, must many times have yearned to visit Palestine, the mother‑land of ancient affiliations, - the Orient, the home of Abraham and David, - of Solomon and Zerubbabel, - of Jesus and Mohammed, - the School of the Sacred Writings. So many references to that country are contained in the Masonic rituals, it is a marvel that no one of us had made explorations there prior to 1868.
In common with my fellows in Masonic work, I had keenly experienced the Crusader's impulse "to precipitate myself upon the Syrian shore;" and often cast about me for the means to gratify the yearning. In the autumn of 1854, I came so near accomplishing this wish, that, by the favor of a loan of $1,000 from the Grand Lodge of Kentucky, joined to the liberality of other friends, I reached New York, having my face earnestly "set towards Jerusalem." But here an unlucky accident frustrated my hopes, and turned me back to the Occident. Fire, which has so often proved my foe, consumed the Judson House, in which I was a lodger, and by destroying my papers and clothing, etc., so disarranged the scheme, that I could not carry it out successfully at that time.
Yet, for all that, though advancing years, and the res angustœ in domi, the hard realities of life, interposed with a purpose almost in‑exorable, I never once resigned my determination to go to Palestine, but always in my Masonic descriptions spoke of "those traditional localities which some day I am resolved to visit." In the mean‑time, I continued the practice, established long before, of reading whatever publications promised to shed light upon the Lands of the East; and in church, Sunday‑school, and elsewhere, lectured on the subject with a minuteness of detail that compelled me to study the theme in its various historical and scientific associations. This, in fact, served to educate me against the time when it might please the
CONCEPTION AND PREPARATIONS. 13
G. A. O. T. U. to grant me a furlough for the Oriental tour. In purchases of books for my Masonic collections, I gave prominence to those upon Oriental matters, as my old library, now in the keeping of the Grand Lodge of New York, will show. In brief, I sought to emulate the spirit of old Thomas a Kempis in his saying, homo fer vidus et diligens ad omnia paratur - the earnest and diligent man is prepared for all things - and in the meantime found comfort in the promise of Virgil:
Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit;
Durate et vosmet rebus servate secundis;
It may possibly be joyful some day to recall these trials; bear up against them, therefore, and be ready for better times when they come.
In 1867, circumstances proved somewhat encouraging to the fulfillment of my purpose. The opening of various lines of steamships from Europe to the Syrian coast was a favorable incident. The enlarged privileges granted by the Turkish government to foreigners sojourning in the Holy Land enabled a person in 1868 to explore twenty-fold more than he could have done in 1858, and forty-fold more than in 1848: The publication of scores and hundreds of books of travel in Palestine obviates the necessity of a man's wasting time in merely playing the tourist, and justifies me in beginning, the moment of arrival, the work of exploration. The invaluable aids afforded the Bible student by such publications as Robinson's, Barclay's, Thomson's, etc., are so much more than mere books of travel, that the reader may in effect transport himself, by their assistance, to the Land of the Bible, being enabled to see with their eyes and hear with their ears whatever is needed to illuminate the sacred pages. In my domestic circle, the growing up of the younger members of my family, and the marriage of the elder, rendered father's presence at home less a matter of necessity than heretofore.
One thing more: my labors in the various departments of Masonic history, rituals, poetry, etc., seemed measurably terminated. Having .no money‑capital of my own for purposes of publication, and the fields of Masonic literature affording little profit to authorship, I felt that in the issuance of seventy‑four Masonic publications I had given sufficient evidence of my devotion to the old institution, and might justly claim exemption from further labors and losses in that direction, and enter upon a new field. Finally, a reasonably vigorous constitution, never impaired by excessive living or intemperance,
14 CONCEPTION AND PREPARATIONS.
some knowledge of the Scriptures in their original and translated forms, a large course of reading in matters relating to Oriental countries, a circle of Masonic friends reaching round the globe, and a strong will to execute whatever I undertook - these formed the encouragements that bore me out, at the age of fifty, to begin the service of Masonic exploration of the Holy Land, conceived so many years ago, of which the present volume is the record.
But how a Masonic exploration? What has the Masonic institution to do with the Holy Land? These are no questions for Freemasons to ask; but as my work will fall into the hands of, and perhaps be read by, those who are not of the "mystic tie," the query may properly be answered here. I respond, then, that the Holy Scriptures are the instruction books of the Lodge; and that a perfect knowledge of the Holy Land is needful to a perfect knowledge of the Holy Scriptures.
In 1867, then, I set upon the following plan to secure the necessary funds for my enterprise; I made up a list of Holy Land specimens, such as the fraternity were most likely to value - such as I should most value, in the way of Biblical and Masonic illustrations, a catalogue embracing specimens of the woods, waters, earths, coins, fossils, etc., from Palestine, and proposed to supply them, at a specified rate, to those who would advance me money for the pilgrimage. The following extracts from my published proposals belong to the history of this enterprise: "Those contributors who advance ten dollars, each shall be supplied with one hundred and fifty objects from the Holy Land, including specimens of the ancient building‑stone of Jerusalem, Joppa, and Tyre; shells from the Sea of Galilee and Joppa; agates from the Arabian deserts; ancient coins; rock‑salt from Usdum; an herbarium of ten plants; the traditional corn, wine, and oil of Masonry; earth from the clay‑grounds near Succoth, etc., etc." Contributors of five dollars, three dollars, and two dollars, respectively, were promised smaller cabinets composed of similar objects; those of one dollar, the Journal of the Expedition. A map of the Holy Land, arranged for Masonic purposes, was also a portion of the premiums promised.
Having decided upon the plan of appeal, l visited one hundred and thirty lodges in Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Illinois, West Virginia, Nebraska, and New York, and addressed the fraternity. I began by occupying an hour or two with recitations of Masonic poems, such
CONCEPTION AND PREPARATIONS. 15
as the Level and the Square, the Letter G., the Holy Bible, Our Vows, the Drunkard's Grave, the Five Points of Fellowship, the Emblems of the Craft, etc., and then laid before them my propositions for a Masonic mission to the Holy Land. In general, the offer was favorably responded to. The season, unfortunately, was one of extreme closeness in the money market, and portions of the country visited were suffering from scanty harvests. Some of my hearers probably deemed my proposals Quixotic; many others contributed the lowest amount asked for, viz., one dollar; yet nearly four hundred of them gave me ten dollars each, trusting, as' they said, to my pluck to accomplish the end proposed, or willing to show their respect for an old and industrious laborer, who came before them with an appeal so reasonable and practical.
The whole number of contributors was 3,782; the aggregate of contributions was $9,631. Out of this, according to my proposals, provision was made for two years' support of my family; my own expenses, and those of my agent, Mr. G. W. Bartlett, while collecting the money; the expenses of the Oriental tour, for myself and Mr. Thomson; freights upon shipments of specimens; printing six issues of the Holy Land Journal for 3,782 contributors; printing catalogues, etc.; and preparing, labelling, packing, and forwarding nearly 70,000 specimens. It can readily be seen that the amount advanced me was short of my needs; the deficit, in fact, exceeded $1,200, and this I was compelled to make up out of the proceeds of lectures on my return home.
It is in evidence of the practicability of the plan upon which this money was collected, that a noted traveller is now (1872) before the public with proposals, borrowed from my programme, to furnish objects of natural history on South America " to those who will advance him the necessary outfit for the journey to that country." By way of encouragement, I commend to him the adage of Periander of Corinth, one of " the Seven Wise Men " of antiquity; industries nil impossibile, anything can be accomplished by an industrious man! In my addresses to the Lodges I proposed
1. To explore that remarkable plain - once the centre of intellectual light and the school of the seven liberal arts and sciences, also of commerce, religion, and letters - the Plain of Phoenicia.
2. To visit the secluded recesses, high among he Lebanons, where the remaining groves of cedar are found.
3. To search for those caves and bays at the base of Lebanon where the "flotes" of timber were made up for shipment to Joppa.
16 CONCEPTION AND PREPARATIONS.
4. To sail down the coast to Joppa, in the track of Hiram's mariners.
5. To examine the ancient port of Joppa with systematic care.
6. To follow diligently upon the tracks of the Syrian architects, journeying from Joppa to Jerusalem; and to seek for the highway by which they penetrated the precipitous cliffs and bore upward their ponderous burdens.
7. To make thorough inspection of everything relating to Solomonic times, in and about Jerusalem.
8. To visit the plain of Jordan, especially the clay‑ground between Succoth and Zarthan, where the brazen pillars and other holy vessels appertaining to the Temple were cast.
9. To explore the places named in Masonic lectures, such as Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Sodom, Jericho, Bethel, Hattin, Damascus, Bethany, Joppa, Tyre, Gebal, Lebanon, and others.
10. To make full collections of objects illustrating Masonic traditions and Biblical customs, these to be distributed generously to contributors on my return, upon plans previously arranged.
The following cuts of my Masonic flag are appropriate here:
The idea of this was suggested by the flag used in Dr. Kane's Arctic Explorations of 1853. His banner, the square and compass, still extant in the archives of Kane Lodge, No. 454, New York City, was displayed at his masthead while passing down New York Bay, and, at the extreme northern termination of his journey, it was set up in the snow‑drifts.
This little flag of mine accompanied me through all my wanderings.* The breeze that sighs across the granite reefs of Tyre blew out its silken folds, showing upon one side the initial‑symbol of him
* The emblem of The Broken Column is my "Mark‑Master's Mark," adopted at my exaltation in Lexington Chapter, No. 17, Lexington, Mississippi, in 1848.
CONCEPTION AND PREPARATIONS. 17
whose name was adored equally in Phœnician - and Jewish Lodges; on the other, the architect‑symbol of him whose noble end dignifies the purpose and the work of every Mason's Lodge. Fastened upon the boughs of one of Lebanon's grandest cedars, it suggested a mysterious meaning to the sturdy limbs and evergreen foliage of the tree. Waved before the entrance of a rock‑hewn tomb at Gebal, it seemed to call around me the spirits of those who, three thousand years ago, well understood its symbolical lessons. Fluttered in the gale that lifts the waters over the rocky ledge at Joppa, it recalled the days when the great fleets of Tyre came, "like doves to the windows," deep‑laden, into this harbor, the square and compass on their foresails. Fluttered over the walls of Jerusalem, and in the deep quarry that underlies the city, it spoke in prophetic tones of the good time coming, when the Mason‑craft shall yet build up Jerusalem, and the God we worship be worshipped there and everywhere.
The course pursued by the various Masonic journals in regard to this enterprise was almost uniformly generous in the extreme. Their columns were freely thrown open to my propositions; their editorial pens shaped words of encouragement and good counsel. It will not be deemed invidious if I mention by name the Evergreen (Dubuque, Iowa); the Masonic Review (Cincinnati, O.); the Voice of Masonry (Chicago, Illinois); the National Freemason (New York); the Masonic Monthly (Boston, Mass.); the Dispatch (New York), and the Freemason's Monthly Magazine (London, England), as taking the lead in brotherly encouragement and approval. Even Brother Findel, the German Masonic historian, whose theory of a modern origin of Freemasonry "does not recognize the importance of light from the East," still gave me "the brotherly word," and pledged me a cordial greeting in his own country. How truly has Sallust said: idem velle et idem nolle ea demum firma amicitia est; to possess the same likes and dislikes is, in point of fact, the foundation of lasting friendship. No words of mine can express my sense of all this kindness, and the friends of the Masonic Holy Land Mission of 1868 should bear in mind, what my own experience warned me of at the time, that an active opposition from either of those influential organs of Masonic sentiment might greatly have retarded the entire scheme.
No official expression was asked for from Grand Lodges, or other Masonic organizations; but it is proper to say that among the most generous supporters of my explorations were the Grand Masters of Iowa (Reuben Mickle); Nebraska (
O. H. Irish); Minnesota (C: W
2
18 CONCEPTION AND PREPARATIONS.
Nash); New York (S. H. Johnson); Canada (Wm. M. Wilson), and a large number of present and past Grand Lodge officers, of the first eminence, who forwarded me good words and material aid.
An assistant being deemed desirable, D. W. Thomson, of Illinois, formerly Grand Lecturer of that State, and a singularly zealous advocate of Ancient Craft Masonry, was accepted in that capacity. In the matter of collecting specimens, his services were of great utility; while his travelling experience, industry, and uniform good‑nature and honesty rendered him an agreeable companion upon the journey.
Prior to my departure for New York, the following lines were composed and extensively disseminated, as a farewell, by correspondence and through the press:
MIZPEH.
They took stones and made an heap. And Laban said: This heap is a witness between me and thee. Therefore was the name of it called Mizpeh: for he said, The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another. - Genesis xxxi. 46.
MIZPEH! well named the patriarchal stone,
Once fondly reared in Gilead's mountain‑pass;
Doubtless the EYE ALL‑SEEING did look down
Upon that token of fraternal grace:
And doubtless HE who reconciled those men,
Between them watched, until they met again.
So, looking eastward o'er the angry sea,
The wintry blast, inhospitably stern, -
Counting the scanty moments left to me
Till I go hence, - and haply not return, -
I would, oh! Brethren, rear a MIZPEH too,
Beseeching GOD to watch 'twixt me and you.
It was HIS providence that made us one,
Who otherwise " perpetual strangers " were:
HE joined our hands in amity alone,
And caused our hearts each other's woes to bear:
HE kindled in our souls fraternal fire,
Befitting children of a common SIRE.
In mutual labors we have spent our life;
In mutual joys sported at labor's close;
With mutual strength waned against human strife;
And soothed with mutual charity its woes:
So, sharing mutually what GOD hath given,
With common faith we seek a kindred Heaven.
CONCEPTION AND PREPARATIONS. 19
Bring stones, bring stones, and build the heap with me!
Rear up a MIZPEH, though with many tears: -
Before I trust me to you stormy sea,
Hither with memories of many years!
Come round me, mystic Laborers, once more,
With loving gifts, upon this wintry shore.
Bring Prayer: the WATCHER in the heavens will heed;
Bring Types significant of deathless hope:
Bring Words in whispers only to be said:
Bring Hand‑grasps strong to lift the helpless up:
Bring all those Reminiscences of light
That have inspired us many a wintry night.
Lay them on Mizpeh! and the names revered
Of those who've vanished from our mystic Band:
Are we not taught that, with the faithful dead,
In Lodge Celestial, we shall surely stand?
Oh, crown the pile with names of good and blest,
Whose memories linger, though they be at rest
Finished: and so I hope whate'er betide,
Though wandering far toward Oriental sun,
He who watched kindly on that mountain‑side
Will watch between us till the work is done:
LORD GOD ALMIGHTY! whence all blessings are,
Behold our 3/Wpm and regard our prayer!
Be my defender while in foreign lands;
Ward off the shafts of calumny accurst;
My labors vindicate, while MIZPEH stands,
And hold my family in sacred trust;
Should I no more behold them, fond and dear,
I leave them, Brethren, to Masonic care.
Finally, if in haste, or careless mood,
Forgetting pledge sealed in WORD DIVINE,
I've wounded any of the Brotherhood,
Impute it not, this parting hour, a sin:
Forgive: to! HE by whom all creatures live
Grants us forgiveness, e'en as we forgive!
One of the journals alluded to (the National Freemason) said of these lines: " The sentiments are touching and appropriate, and strictly in accordance with the conciliatory character of their author. How‑
20 CONCEPTION AND PREPARATIONS.
ever much some of the Brotherhood may have differed with Brother Morris in regard to his plan for Uniformity of Work, none who know him but will accord to him a pure and disinterested purpose. The confidential friend of such men as William B. Hubbard, Philip C. Tucker, Charles Scott, Salem Town, Henry Wingate, and other choice spirits of the generation that is fast dropping into the grave; the man who has published seventy-four different volumes of a Ma-sonic character ; the admitted good fellow, ' genial, witty, and wise,' of Masonic circles, everywhere, and withal the man who, at the age of fifty, has yet to find anything in his pocket to compensate him for labors given to the best interests of Freemasonry,—he cannot leave our shores for a long and laborious tour into Oriental countries without bearing with him, the ' God bless the old enthusiast! may his return be blest !' "
So far as baggage, books, and introductions are concerned, I found it unnecessary to encumber myself inconveniently. Two suits of clothes and half a dozen books were quite sufficient. As to reading, a man going to Palestine must go carrying his reading in his head; he will get but little time to accumulate it there. Thomson's Land and Book; Osborne's Past and Present of Palestine, and a few others, amply sufficed me for reading on the journey. So far as clothing is concerned, the tailors in Beyrout will make you up suits quite as good and one half cheaper than New York tradesmen. I had written a few leading Brethren, B. B. French, J. W. B. McLeod Moore, and others, soliciting letters of general introduction, and the request was cordially granted; but I never found occasion to use them. Cosmopolitan Consistory, New York city, kindly presented me an elegant diploma of the thirty-second degree. My own diploma as a Master Mason and member of Fortitude Lodge, No. 47, LaGrange, Kentucky, was, however, the only document I ever found occasion to use. Even my passport, which I had taken the precaution to procure from Washington, with some trouble and expense, was of not the slightest service to me, although I would recommend every traveller to take one.
After these preliminaries, it suffices to say that I took passage from New York, Sunday morning, February 2, 1868, having some-thing in common with those of whom the poet long ago sang -
Bound for holy Palestine,
Nimbly we brushed the level brine,
21 CONCEPTION AND PREPARATIONS.
All in azure steel arrayed:
O'er the waves our banners played,
And made the dancing billows glow;
High upon the trophied prow
Many a warrior‑minstrel swung
His sounding harp, and boldly sung. - T. Wharton.
CHAPTER II CROSSING THE ATLANTIC
ELABORATE this chapter for the benefit of that large class of readers to whom " the ocean wave " is a romance, and who peruse the smaller incidents of travel with a relish. The critic may sneer at my title, " Crossing the Atlantic," ill‑naturedly affirming that a thousand voyagers have al‑ready described the occurrences of ocean‑life, and that nothing new can be said upon the subject. Very likely; yet to many of those who will peruse these "Hand‑marks," the pennings of other East‑ern travellers are as though they were never written. I have discovered, since my return, that nothing in a traveller's recollection is too trivial to interest those who do not travel, and that the most interesting facts in the tourist's journal are those which personally he may deem too trifling for publication. Hence I make this chapter of daily life upon the sea.
It was on the second day of February, 1868, and, of all the days in the year, a bright, cloudless "Lord's day," that I mounted the steps of the steamship "France," Captain Grace, to witness the casting‑off of lines and her departure from Pier No. 47, North River, New York. The ferruginous mass moved reluctantly from her bed, seemingly regretful of the necessity of leaving the cosy seat on which she had reposed for two weeks. If, as the feminine pronoun implies, our ship has the tastes of a woman, she may well prefer her quiet berth, and the praises of the admiring crowds who have been so loud in their approval of her fine bust, figure‑head, and form, to the icy waves of ocean, and the cold criticisms of sea monsters who await her coming yonder, during a winter‑voyage of twelve days.
The moment of departure is a solemn one to me; the act of ‑ severing the last tie that binds me to my native land makes me sad. I cannot join in the parting words exchanged between ship and shore, but withdraw myself to a solitary place and consider, in a spirit of
GOING DOWN THE BAY. 23
prayerful inquiry the questions, Shall I again tread those streets? Am I really justified in making this pilgrimage; or is it mere romance that is taking me, at my years, upon so long a journey? And may I expect the blessing of the GRAND MASTER upon an enterprise so much out of the accustomed routine of my profession? In that hour of self‑examination, I solemnly declare it, I stood self‑vindicated and supported by the feeling that something more than mere curiosity had moved me to the work I had undertaken, and that I could rely upon the same HAND which had untiringly led me up and down through an itinerancy of fifty years.
For myself, I can honestly aver that I look to nothing but hard labor, economical fare, and dhigent study, during the months before me. In my traielling bags I have a judicious selection of works upon Oriental themes, with an ample supply of paper to fix my own observations. Members of the Masonic fraternity and others have forwarded me letters and credentials in generous supply. The moral and material encouragement of nearly four thousand friends is the basis 'of my mission, and I feel that the Godspeed of half a million more is wafted on the breezes behind me. And so in that mood, in a solitary corner of the busy ship, my thoughts review the situation.
In going down the bay I occupied the hours in writing parting letters to the members of my family, the wife of twenty‑seven years, and the seven children who call me father; also to a number of devoted friends whose words and deeds clung to me in parting moments with a tenacity that nothing can loosen; and so I swung out upon that ocean which in Bible times no sailor dared even cross, but which now is underlaid by telegraphic wires, connecting my home at La Grange with the City of Jerusalem itself.
Out of three steamers announced to sail from New York across the Atlantic, February 1st, I chose this of the "National Line" of Liverpool boats. For one hundred dollars, American currency, a first‑class passage was given, while the same accommodations in the " Cunard" line would cost one hundred and sixty‑five dollars. Both are English lines, as all the American steamships were driven from the sea during the civil war. There is also a German line which stops at Havre, France, going, and at Southampton, England, coming. It was on this line that I returned in July, but I cannot recommend it to the reader.
The France is a fine new vessel, this being her fourth voyage. Her tonnage is 2,428 tons. In length she is 405 feet; in breadth of
34 DESCRIPTION OF THE STEAMER.
beam, 42 feet; in depth, from the upper deck to the keel, 30 feet. Like all the vessels of this line, she is a screw‑propeller, that is, her instrument of propulsion is a screw set up at the stern, which, in the most mysterious manner and "in solemn silence," moves these five thousand tons of boat, and freight, and passengers, at the rate of ten miles an hour. As I could never see the screw, nor the machinery that moved it, I was fain to compare the whole apparatus to the silent, mysterious power that keeps in motion a well‑disciplined Lodge of Masons. The analogy would be perfect were it not that a steamship is of the feminine gender, while a Masonic Lodge is usually the reverse!* The steering apparatus of the France is, British‑fashion, at the stern, placed in a small, cramped‑up crypt, which holds a half‑dozen sailors, who turn the spokes of the wheel in the same inartistic style that the Phoenicians practised in the days of Sesostris. When an order is sent from the foreship to the stern, it takes as many messengers to pass it from one to the other as for a general of division to move Company C of the 53d Regiment into line of battle, or as the W. M. requires to get his will and pleasure known to the Lodge. But it would never do for an Englishman to adopt a Yankee invention, and so steering‑lines to their steamers and check‑ropes to their railroad trains are postponed until after the millennium.
Our fine steamer is built of rolled iron plates, thirty inches wide and one inch thick, riveted together in the manner of steam‑boilers, stanch and tight. There is not the least danger of these seams ripping; indeed, if the sewing‑machine man who calls quarterly at my house to sell me a machine, will only invent such a lock‑stitch as this, his fortune is made. We have three masts, and when the wind is fair, as it was the greater part of my voyage, the sails afford considerable assistance in propulsion. A reasonable supply of long‑boats, and life‑boats, and jolly‑boats are stowed along the sides of the vessel, suggesting that ocean‑life is uncertain, and it is best to provide in fair weather for foul. The speed of the vessel may be seen from the following table of distances run for the first eight days, computed every day at HIGH XII:
* In all our Masonic communications on board the France we were never unmindful of the fact that a lady was present, even the good woman France herself, and we governed ourselves accordingly!
25
OFFICERS AND CREW.
Monday, February 3, 260 miles.
Tuesday, " 4,260 "
Wednesday, " 5, 268 "
Thursday, " 6, 259 "
Friday, " 7, 265 "
Saturday, " 8, 272 "
Sunday, " 9, 272 "
Monday, " 10, 271 "
The remarkable uniformity of these daily footings‑up will strike the reader; steamship travel, under a settled condition of weather, being almost as regular as life upon the rail.
Our ship is officered by a captain and four mates, or ship's officers, as they are termed; the latter being hearty, well‑educated men, kept in training for promotion in due time: for as no man can be Master who has not served in training as Warden, so no man can be captain who has not served as mate. All the working charges of the ship are apportioned among these four, according to fixed rules of naval service. Besides these, there is a purser, who acts as quartermaster of the ship; a surgeon, six engineers, and assistants in abundance. The whole crew, from captain to chambermaid, numbers 104. Of course everything is intensely British, officers, crew, slush‑buckets, &c., even down to the acceptable sirloins of beef served daily to the passengers. The only thing on board that I can name American is the coal, and if the captain's expressed (and profane) opinion may be relied upon, even that were better British too. Every passenger on board, except three, talks about " going home " whenever Great Britain is named. Money is reckoned in " tuppences," and I had not been a week aboard before I could compute a considerable sum in ú., s., and d., a thing which, it is said, none but a born Briton ever could do before me! That mythic animal, the British unicorn, I is marked on all the ship's linen and furniture; in fact, Commodore Wilkes himself couldn't mistake the nationality of this steamer. Captain Grace is a rough‑featured, rough‑mannered sailor of thirty, taciturn and gruff, and most ridiculously misnamed; but, it is claimed, a thorough sailor. At all hours, by day and night, he is on the alert, and wet‑nurses the ship, in nursery language, like a mother hovering over her babe. His pay is £600 per annum, a short $3,000. The only time I ever spoke to him was one Sunday morning, when I asked him if he would conduct the service of prayers, as is customary on ocean steamers. He declined in a single word, an extremely short one, and then the conversation flagged.
26 A PHENICIAN BARQUE.
Nowhere will this portion of the grand Psalm cvii. read with such vividness, as when you are lying, of a quiet Sunday hour, in your state‑room at sea: They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in the great waters; These see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep.
For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
They mount up to the heaven; they go down to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble.
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end.
Then they cry to the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.
Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth they to their desired haven.
After this description of a first‑class Atlantic steamer in the year of grace 1868, the following picture of a Phcenician vessel of B. C. 1000 will afford a forcible contrast. In one of my chapters I will describe the size, construction, and capacity of this old Tyrian barque, such as those invincible mariners sailed in, when they gathered up the treasures of the Roman world, passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, turning to the right as far as Scotland and the Baltic Sea, and to the left as far as the African coast trended south‑wards, and bringing from all quarters the gold, the tin, the copper, the marble, the ivory, the spices needed in the erection, adornment, and worship, of Solomon's Temple.
REFRESHMENTS ON BOARD. 27
The size and tonnage of one of these Phoenician vessels would scarcely compare now with a Lake Erie sloop. But hearts of oak controlled them, and coastiLg all the way round the northern shores of the Mediterranean they came out into the ocean between their own "Pillars of Hercules," and following the sinuous lines of Portugal, Spain, and France, struck finally into the mouth of the broad Channel, and reached the place of their destination. The importance of in in hardening the copper, of which their cutting tools and war‑like implements were made, justified all these pains, risks, and the twelve 1 months' journeys necessary to procure it.
The particular matter upon which my pen was engaged, through the four weeks' journey from New York to Beyrout, was that of making an alphabetical agenda of places to be visited, and things to be done at each place. This, written out in a blank‑book, was made o full, by the time I reached Palestine, as to afford me all the assistance that a company of guides could have rendered. Under the head of "Tyre," for instance, I had more than one hundred distinct facts and suggestions in alphabetical form, by which, when I visited that city, my researches were very greatly expedited.
Of Cabin, or first‑class passengers, we have twenty‑four, with room for nearly one hundred; of steerage, or second‑class passengers, there are sixty‑four. The latter pay only twenty‑five dollars each, for which they receive good, wholesome victuals, and the services of the ship's surgeon. To us of the cabin every possible convenience is, of course, afforded. An experienced surgeon is one of the regular officers of the ship, and his skill is ever at our command. Chambermaids are in attendance upon the ladies, and state‑room stewards upon the gen‑ tlemen, all without extra charge. Three regular meals per diem are spread, besides a luncheon, which in itself is a meal.* Let me recall the eating arrangements: Breakfast is announced at 8 A. M., a sub‑ stantial British meal, accompanied by the best of tea and tolerable coffee. Luncheon is at High XII, presenting soups, cold meats in large variety, bread, cheese, and pickles. Dinner appears at 4 P. M., Supper at 71/2, the latter being made up of coffee, toast, bread, and cheese.
Besides these, a passenger who, for any reason, fails to report him‑ self at the regular hours, can be accommodated through the steward with a special supply of provisions, at any hour. The bar (fluid, not forensic) is stocked with wines, ales, and spirits, of a character rarely
* On the Bill of Fare of Feb. 5, prairie chickens appeared among the items of dinner.
28 SEASICKNESS.
matched on the American side of the "great drink," and these are charged topassengers who order them, at moderate prices. With such arrangements for table comforts, a man must be harder to please than I am, who can discover grounds of complaint.
Does the reader inquire whether I was seasick? I was. I never go upon water without being seasick. Even a slight swell on Lake Erie has sent me to the dead‑level, incontinently. Was I not obliged to go ashore, on that little Cleveland fishing excursion which Peter Thatcher provided for me in 1863, and there, amidst the sneers of men and the laughter of women, settle my accounts in the most disgraceful manner? Yes; and in a sea voyage, therefore, I always make my calculations to give up ‑the first few days to the tergiversations of my stomach. This reconciles me in some degree to the motion of the vessel, and, by the assistance of four or five spells of vomiting per diem, I come, in the course of time, to a mariner's status. As to remedies, all that a seasick person wants is something to assist him through his unpleasant paroxysms. Brandy and other spirits make a good toddy to stay his stomach after nausea, but will not prevent it. Citrate of magnesia may be recommended as a good thing to neutralize the acidity produced in the earlier stages of seasickness, and 1 advise you to provide yourself with some bottles of it; also some Brandreth pills; a flask of pure cordial gin; a quart‑bottle of strong coffee, ready made; a few lemons, with white sugar, and some good sour apples. Dress warm; wear thick overshoes; walk a good deal in the fresh air; be regular in your habits; be sociable; rise with the sea‑gull, and go to bed with the cook. When seasickness passes off, then follows an appetite, accompanied with elasticity of spirits and digestion, such as go with my best reminiscences of childhood.
The worst sufferers from the mal de mer, as the French call it, are those who cannot vomit, or who vomit with great difficulty and pain. Some of this class have scarcely a moment's ease during the voyage. Nausea, want of appetite, indigestion, and costiveness, produce low sprits, ill‑temper, and a very hatred of existence. Such an one is reported to have said that the first day he went to sea he was afraid he should die; the third day he was afraid he should not! Ladies suffer more from seasickness than gentlemen. Pale, staggering, and wobegone, the gay and rosy damsels of our company were so transmogrified by the ungallant sea‑god, that their best friends could scarcely recognize them. That class of persons who boast that they are never seasick (and there are always some bores of the sort), suffer,
AMUSEMENTS AT BEA. 29
upon the whole, quite as much as the rest. For if they are never seasick, they are never seawell, but mope around during the voyage, the dullest of the company.
There is a piece of advice that I will offer you here: Don't suppose that anybody else cares a straw who you are, or where you are going. Travellers, like Freemasons, meet upon the level and part upon the square; and no one is valued a bawbee, except as he possesses powers of pleasing, .for the hour. Fine manners, dignity, genteel breeding and the like will pine in the corner, while a cheerful readiness of song and anecdote brings its possessor into social prominence, enabling him both to receive and impart pleasure during the tedium of the way.
The time of ocean travellers is variously and generally uselessly employed. Industrious persons play checkers and cards; the rest walk the deck, eat, smoke, and sleep. How about myself? I give 80 many hours a day to the study of Thomson (" Land and Book;") Barclay (" City of the Great King"); Osborne ( "Palestine, Past and Present"); the Holy Writings and other tomes bearing upon Oriental matters; so many to the composition of letters and memoranda; so many to checkers (my favorite vanity); and so many to refreshment and sleep. Everything on board conduces to regularity. The ship's bell at 122 strikes one, at 1 strikes two, at 1i strikes three, at 2 strikes four, at 22 strikes five, at 3 strikes six, at 3$ strikes seven, at 4 strikes eight, which being the extent of its striking powers, a second series begins at 4Q and extends to 8. Each of these periods of four hours is termed a watch - of which there are six in the twenty‑four. One of these intervals I am told is termed the Dog watch; but, although I listened attentively for canine indications, I could never detect them, and don't believe there was a dog on board. The traveller, when rendered sleepless by nausea and ennui, marks these solemn chimes of the ship's bell with feelings that he cannot analyze, but can never forget. How often they re‑called to me the lines I have sung in so many a lodge‑room and by so many a grave:
Solemn strikes the funeral chime,
Notes of our departing time;
While we journey here below,
Through a pilgrimage of wo.
I venture to say that the genus loci, the spirit that inhabits my old state‑room (No. 13) on board the ship France, will testify to
30 DINNER UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
having heard me sing it three score times and ten, as I lay there and mused upon the lessons of the ship's bell.
There was almost nothing visible to the eye during our voyage. Not a vessel, not an iceberg, not a whale. One traveller, indeed, declares he saw a whale; but it is finally conceded that he only saw the spout. Not a fragment of a wreck appeared in sight; in fact, nothing at all but a large following of sea‑gulls that took up with us at Sandy Hook, nor left us a moment until we sighted the Irish coast. How or when they rest, if indeed they ever do rest upon these long flights of twelve days, is a mystery more than Masonic. The sailors believe that when night comes on, the gulls settle down upon the water to ride and sleep. But this can scarcely be, for keen‑eyed and strong‑winged as they are, they could not see and overtake the ship again after twelve hours' sail. Their motive in pursuing us so closely is strictly mercenary, viz., to gather the fragments from the steward's pantry, which are being constantly thrown into the water. These the sea‑birds seize with great expertness. Cast anything overboard, a pill‑box, a cracker, a piece of soap, or even a bit of a Masonic Monitor, and fifty pairs of eyes detect it; fifty pairs of iron‑gray wings "go in" for it; then one strong fowl rises from the sea with it in his bill - all with a velocity that makes you giddy to observe. Among the various theories concerning the origin of sea‑gulls, I will venture my own, viz., that they are the ghosts of newspaper reporters, condemned, for a season, to follow in the wake of outward‑bound vessels, as an expiation for the innumerable lies they told during their earthly career 1 A cheerful mind will derive amusement from almost any combination of circumstances; and I gathered a fund of it in watching our family of twenty‑four passengers at their meals, during a three‑days' storm that came down on us about the middle of the trip. The reader shall have his share of the fun. Imagine everything fastened to the floor, tables, chair, etc., and the ladies and gentlemen fastened as tightly to their seats as human muscle can do it. The ship is swaying from side to side like a five‑second pendulum. Now she keels over to starboard to an angle of forty‑five degrees. Soup‑plate in the right hand, a convulsive grip upon the table with the left. Raise perpendiculars; the hot soup slops over upon your hand. Away goes the ship on the other side, forty‑five degrees to larboard. Lay levels; the soup spurts up your sleeve, in spite of all you can do. Bang goes the ship again to starboard. Try horizontals; now
FREEMASONRY AT SEA. 31
soup, plate and all are swashed into your bosom with a freedom, fervency, and zeal rarely equalled and never surpassed. And so for an hour the dinner is a running accompaniment of china, glasses, cut‑ lery, and spoons, laughable to witness.
At 2 F.M. on the 13th of February, 1868, " we of the mystic level," as poor Burns used to call the Masonic fraternity, stole quietly away from the crowd to the Purser's room, and there, having previously tested each other, by ancient and approved methods, we opened a moot lodge upon the First Degree, " for Special Purposes." The names of our temporary dignitaries were these:
1. Robert Morris, late Grand Master of Masons in Kentucky, as W. M.
2. David W. Thomson, late Grand Lecturer of Illinois, as S. W.
3. George Catchpole, Senior Warden of Rose Lodge No. 590, Rose, Wayne Co., New York, as J. W.
4. William Thomas, of St. John's Lodge, New Brunswick (first officer of the Steamship France), as Treasurer.
5. George Campbell, of British Oak Lodge No. 831, Stratford, En‑gland (fourth officer of the Steamship France), as Secretary.
6. W. G. Barrett, of Piatt Lodge No. 194, New York city (Purser of the Steamship France), as S. D.
7. James Wilson, of Mariners' Lodge, Liverpool, England (Chief‑Engineer of the Steamship France), as J. D.
8. Thomas Hughes, of Amity Lodge No. 323, of New York city (Chief Steward of the Steamship France), as 1st Master of Cer.
9. William Carroll, of Varick Lodge No. 31, Jersey City, N. J. (Chief Baker of the Steamship France), as 2d Master of Cer.
10. William Dempster, of Commonwealth Lodge No. 409, Brooklyn, N. Y., as Tyler.
This symposium was, in all respects, a notable one, and proceedings of a particularly pleasant character were had. Remarks were volunteered concerning the practical nature of a fraternity that, uniting the best elements of all societies, avoids the offensive peculiarities of any. The poem entitled The Checkered Pavement was recited by Mr. Thomson as the sequel to an address delivered by him in good style. My own share in the proceedings was made up of the following lines, composed the evening before, upon first beholding Skellig Revolving Light on the coast of Ireland:
32 FREEMAS0NRY AT BEA.
THE SKELLIG LIGHT.
When hastening eastward o'er the waste,
By ocean‑breakers rudely chased,
Our eager eye seeks for the smile
That marks the dangerous Skellig Isle,
We joy to catch the flashing ray
That guides, unerringly, our way.
What though in momentary gloom
Night may resume her sable plume,
What though the clouds may settle down,
And threaten ocean's stormiest frown,
Lo! flashing far across the main,
The Skellig Light beams out again!
So, wandering on life's stormy sea,
Oh, Craftsmen, by God's grace, may we
The tempest‑tost and weary find,
In gloomiest hour, in saddest mind,
Our Skellig Light, from heavenly sun,
To draw us safely, smoothly on.
Should He withdraw His smiling face,
'Tis but to try our faithfulness:
Should He our pilgrimage enshroud,
He stands behind the threatening cloud:
And though He smite us with a blow,
It is His gentle chastening too!
Craftsmen, draw nigh and learn with me
These lessons from Freemasonry!
Each implement in mystic hand
Bids us this precept understand:
They who would serve the Master's state,
Must work in Faith, in Patience wait!
We sighted the Irish coast at 3 P.M., Wednesday, February 12, ‑ and while I am writing this paragraph I see that on the Irish Grand Lodge Registry, 1872, are 327 lodges, landed passengers at Queens‑town the next morning; * were sailing up the Irish Channel all day
* This was in the middle of a Fenian scare, and every one of them, as I learned afterwards, was arrested, vigorously examined, and detained for twenty‑four hours, under the apprehension tl it they had come tt invade the land.
GRATEFUL MEMORIES. 33
Thursday, and finally reached the docks of Liverpool by daylight of Friday, the 14th, after a pleasant voyage of twelve days, grateful to God, who had brought me thus far not only in safety, but with a degree of contentment and satisfaction that I had not anticipated. I shall ever remember the period of my passage from New York to Liverpool as halcyonii dies, days of peaceful enjoyment.
3
CHAPTER III.
CROSSING ENGLAND AND THE CONTINENT.
I LANDED at Liverpool Friday morning, February 14, 1868, and proceeded to London, so as to arrive at 5 P.M. of the same day. Of course I could observe little or nothing of Liverpool during a morning's stay. An edifice designated as "Masonic Hall," stands, however, not far from the railway station, and naturally enough I saw that. I regretted the necessity of passing a city so noted for its attention to Masonic interests as Liverpool; but the Marseilles steamer for Beyrout was advertised for Tuesday, February 18, and the failure to secure a passage in her would entail the loss of ten days' time. Every hour's delay would abridge my stay in Palestine by so much.
Travellers' tales had led me to expect a severe examination of baggage in Liverpool; but I found John Bull much more complaisant than I had hoped for. The modus operandi of Custom‑House search was simple enough. The six travelling bags containing the effects of myself and assistant lying in a corner by themselves, a burly‑looking officer came up and asked: " Have you any tobacco?"
"A little for my own use," responded my friend, "only enough for my own use." The package being exhibited (two pounds of niggerhead), the officer continued, with this non sequitur: "Then I suppose you can give me a shilling to drink your health?"
At this unexpected suggestion - obstupui, tacitus sustinuique pedem - I stood astonished, and silently kept my feet. Recovering, however, in a moment, I passed the coin of the realm known by that denomination into his itching palm - without thinking of the violation of my vows as a Good Templar - and so covered the cost of the proposed imbibition. He may possibly have intended his remark as a joke, but it did not turn out so. This was my only examination. Not one of the five travelling‑bags was opened, although capacious enough to contain cigars to supply even the Prince of Wales for a
HASTY RIDE THROUGH ENGLAND. 35
twelvemonth. No other questions were asked, and I confess to have departed from Liverpool with most agreeable impressions.
The journey through England, in an express train making forty‑five miles an hour, affords but scanty opportunities for observation. The railway fare, first‑class, Liverpool to London, 210 miles, foots up about $9. Compare this with the Erie Railway, New York to Elmira, 270 miles, $8. The motion of cars on the Erie is smooth as oil; the English cars run like tin pans on wheel‑barrows. Reason is, they have but four wheels to a car, while the Erie has twelve. I do much of my reading and writing while travelling in American oars, but you can do no writing here; and reading and talking are performed under difficulties.
The swiftness and safety of railway‑travel in Great Britain, how‑ever, are proverbial. Accidents almost never occur. The carriages are awkwardly separated into small closets, transversely cut off from the main structure, each containing room for six passengers, three facing the front, three the rear. Into these little rooms you are locked by the conductor (styled the guard), and have no means of exit except through his key. Sleeping‑cars, water‑closets, fountains of drinking‑water, and means of, warming the vehicles, were alike unknown to railway travellers in England and Europe in the year of grace 1868. The weather seemed to me warm for the season; there was so little appearance of snow and ice that the plowmen were busy in hundreds of fields near the roadside.
Swiftly as we were drawn across this "right little, tight little" island of England, I gave thought to the subject alluded to in the last chapter - the voyages of the Phoenicians to these islands in the most ancient days.
Even before the Trojan war (B. C. 1184), and of course two centuries before Solomon's day, the sailors of Tyre came to the Isles of Tin (Cassiterides), lying between England and Ireland, to barter Oriental products for this metal, and to the Baltic for amber. The copper found abundantly in Asia Minor and Cyprus was alloyed at Tyre with tin, and so bronze was made, the proper material for arms, medals, statues, &c. All manner of tools were made of this alloy, bronze; the plowshare of the farmer, the pick of the miner, the hammer and compass of the architect, the burin of the engraver, arrowheads, lanceheads and javelins, swords, bucklers, helmets, cuirasses, &c. If tin is the Pythias, copper is the Dayton of this compound.
36 HOTEL IN LONDON.
Seeing so large a portion of the island covered by noblemen's parks reminds a man of his Horace: jam pauca aratro jugera regica, moles relinquent - the palaces of the great suffer scanty acreage to the plowman; and it does really puzzle the observer to set where the farms or the farmers are. Castles are distinct enough, and in numbers, but farm‑houses, few and far between.
Arriving in London 5 P. M., I drove to Anderton's Hotel, No. 162 Fleet‑street, a house which I had seen advertised, under a Masonic emblem, in a publication on board ship. It is an old establishment, and the rooms are dark and misty, but kept scrupulously clean. The waiters are attentive, and the "eating department" all that can be desired. The upper story of this hotel has long been used for Masonic meetings. Observing quite a pile of Wardens' stations lumbering up the stairs, it was explained that the lodge‑rooms up‑stairs are undergoing a course of cleansing and restoration, and the furniture removed for the purpose. At this hotel, I first remarked that on this side the Atlantic a traveller's name is not asked for. His entity is simply that of the number of his bedroom, and his bills are made out accordingly. I have no idea that " the gentlemanly clerk " of Anderton's Hotel knows my name even to this day.
I need not say that I felt it to be a real deprivation to pass through' London without calling upon the Masonic brethren there; but on my return I hoped to take more time, and give at least a sketch of Free Masonry as it exists in London, as well as in the three Grand Lodges of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
Saturday was spent in active pursuits. I visited St. Paul's Cathedral, to the top of which I climbed, only to look out through a fog so dense that the secretary of my lodge might write with it. It re‑minded me for all the world of ‑‑ 's oration before the Grand Lodge of . Disgusted with the fog, I descended, making a vow that I would never go up there again. And I never have. In the Whispering Gallery I tried a Masonic communication with a friend, and found it went through intact. Visited the tomb c." the honored builder of the cathedral, Christopher Wren, and read its appropriate epitaph, " Circumspice," &c., &c., so ridiculously applied on the seal of the State of Michigan.
Thence by the Thames river to Westminster; inspected the Parliament buildings, which I find already crumbling to dust as rapidly as the Court‑House in Louisville, Kentucky; then spent a glorion two hours in Westminster Abbey.
FREEMASONRY IN ENGLAND. 3
The rest of the day was occupied in making preparations for departure, and at 8.30 r.M. I took the Southeastern Railway, at Cannon‑street station, for Dover, which was reached at 10.30 r.M.
A visitor to Jerusalem is shown a spot, beneath the lantern in the Greek Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, styled the geographical centre of the earth. In a circle of pavement stands a short marble column to designate so remarkable a punctum! Traditions of various kinds cluster around the spot, one, particularly, that from here was taken the clay of which Adam was made! In the same light I view Lon‑don, the centre of Ancient York Masonry. From hence, in 1733, was sent the holy spark to our Western fields that has kindled into so goodly a blaze, one American lodge swelling (in 139 years) to nearly 9,000, and the four original lodges of London increasing, through England, Scotland, Ireland, the European nations, and the colonies in all quarters of the earth, to 4,000. Even the lodges of Mark Masters here (lodges whose rituals are based upon a mere allusion in the degree of fellow‑craft) number in 1872 about 100, governed by a Mark Grand Lodge of England, whose officers are the princes of the land. This, then, is the true Masonic Centre of the world; from this dust was our Masonic Adam moulded! The Grand Lodge of England' is composed substantially of the same officers as our own, adding a few not usually nominated on our side of the water, such as Grand Superintendent of Works, Grand Director of Ceremonies, Grand Organist, &c. But what is peculiar to this country, and plainly grows out of the autocratic character of Freemasonry in monarchical countries, is the fact that all or nearly all the officers of the Grand Lodge are appointed by the Grand Master. This is particularly the case with the Grand Secretary, who, in England, is simply clerk of the Grand Lodge, wielding and assuming none of the despotic powers often so offensively assumed and wielded in the American Grand Lodges by that functionary.
Apropos of this absolute subordination of the Grand Secretary to the Grand Master, this anecdote is related of the Grand Lodge of England in 1868: Complaints had been made against the Grand Secretary for his want of communicativeness and courtesy to those who call upon him, &c., &c. This was producing considerable ill feeling in the Grand Lodge; and as the Earl of Zetland, the Grand Master, declined to interfere, or perhaps was unable to apply a remedy, and as there was no way to reach the Grand Secretary ex‑
38 FREEMASONRY IN ENGLAND.
cept by displacing the Grand Master, a distinguished London brother arose in open Grand Lodge, and nominated himself for Grand Master, expressly stating that the reason for this unprecedented and apparently immodest act was that a Grand Secretary ought to be appointed who would attend to the business of the office and pay a decent respect to the feelings of his brethren! Of course the nomination failed; indeed, it was not even seconded; yet it may, for all that, have some of the intended effect.
In addressing the Grand Master of England, Masonic etiquette demands that all communications %hall pass through the hands of the Deputy Grand Master, the Grand Registrar, or the Grand Secretary; otherwise they will scarcely have attention. It is not likely, in point of fact, that such men as the Duke of Sussex, the Earl of Zetland, the Duke of Leinster, and noblemen of those high grades, give other consideration to the details of the Masonic institution than to preside at the ordinary and extraordinary communications of Grand Lodges, and the festivals that constitute the sequelce of those occasions. No questions upon Masonic Law are submitted to the Grand Master. No vexata questiones of usage, of lodge altercations, of irregularities in Masonic proceedings, and the like, are pushed into his lord‑ship's pocket to disturb the smooth digestion of his dinner. Ali these matters have a common direction here, that of the Board of General Purposes, as it is styled, a sort of imperium in imperio, happily unknown in the United States. This Board, I am told, so thoroughly digests the greater part of the business submitted to its charge, that it is never heard of again.
Neither does the Grand Master of England ever deliver formal addresses to his Grand Lodge. By this, it will be seen how easy is his berth, compared with that of an American Grand Master, who is often crowded with correspondence, sometimes tyrannized over by his own Grand Secretary, and scarcely ever allowed his little bill of "stationery and postage‑money" for his trouble. It is social position alone that qualifies a gentleman here for the high office of Grand Master. The most exalted nobleman who will accept it has it, of right. Quoting from an article from the pen of my old coadjutor, Bro. E. D. Cooke, " The election of Grand Master in this country is not due to any knowledge a man may possess of the institution, or any ability on his part to perform the duties of that exalted position, but simply to the social position he may occupy." All this, It cannot be denied, sounds queerly to those who are accustomed to
AMERICAN MASONS TRAVELLING. 39
view the Masonic fraternity as a band of men who "meet upon the level and who part upon the square." Americans visiting Europe are scarcely ever able to tell us any‑thing of Freemasonry in that country, when they come home, even though they may themselves be members of the craft. This used to strike me strangely. On being questioned, they would reply that they could not find out the time of lodge‑meetings; or that nobody could tell them where the lodge‑room was. These replies are based upon ignorance of the peculiarities of the Order in England. Most Lodges here have no halls; but few of them have even a room of their own. They meet for the greater part in the upper rooms of taverns rented by the season. Their Masonic furniture and paraphernalia, which are extremely scanty, are brought out of chests and wardrobes and arranged for the single occasion. The meeting being over, these sacred objects are again concealed from public sight, and the room restored to travellers' uses. Of course, then, when you inquire of your landlord, your banker, or your general correspondent, "where is the lodge‑hall?" he confesses his ignorance, and, if himself a non‑Mason, most likely volunteers the opinion that there is no Freemason's Lodge in the place! Again, nearly all travellers from our own country to Europe go abroad in the summer. But at that season the Masonic Lodges do not meet at all. From about the middle of June to October there is no life in European Masonry whatever. No wonder then that our countrymen come back to us as ignorant upon peculiarities of the Order in foreign countries as they left. The remedies. are twofold: First, to provide one's self with a Masonic Register of the foreign Lodges; Second, to go abroad in the fall or winter, when Freemasonry in all the Masonic countries of Europe is active.
Crossing the channel between Dover and Calais in a ferry‑boat, compared with which the one that connects Snooksborough with Pumpkinville, on the Tennessee river, is a gorgeous palace, I left Calais at 1.30 A. M., Sunday, February 16, and reached the capital of France in six hours. Just as I hand this page to the printer (February 1, 1872), I notice that "the project of a steam‑ferry across the Straits of Dover is approved by a commission of the French Assembly," and the editor of one of the New York papers comment‑mg upon the fact justly says, had the estuary of the Delaware been as broad as the English Channel at Dover, it would long ago have been bridged by magnificent ferry‑boats such as ply between New York I A ‑2 ~p0~ Consranr,no,(e 4 as a, Q ‑.As _‑ 1 , DI m a WI Wæ s * - t r. q k rt~drasi``~ == Ye A GIA us9 na '4. Q~V,FI ~ .> ~je~eca Ci l4i..
Co"~y,!'S S Yi' ~5 ~ '.~` oQ~ ~tffoc7r lCOn .1.░ = ‑ `LJ ‑ t i ?a,~eq ~ - ac Y/ S M4 - `~`l ^ ap, + P h a ░ 9ipns .
Lr‑ 1 m1~ Z1 ‑ = ‑‑. ‑ice ‑‑ ‑‑._ .‑‑‑ ~~~_~~'‑~r‑'‑‑~‑‑~ - ‑‑‑~_ SHD a ~_ äs - s _ OF THE ..''w era Yqh d ' ‑ ‑ f ~ ~ UA,y╡ ~ M ,c ~sert 7, i o Av.,, A.BRAHAI_I'S OAK AT ITEBRON.
ear STREET SCENES AT JERUSALEM. SEE PAGES 402, ETC.
CHAPTER IV.
COASTING THE MEDITERRANEAN.
passed too rapidly through Liverpool, London, Paris, and 8' '' Marseilles, as I have said, spending but a day in each. It r t was a temptation hardly to be resisted to devote at least a kk.
month to revive old friendships, and form new ones among the Masons of those cities. But I had a higher work before me - Moneys had been entrusted to me, a sacred deposit, to be expended in Syrian Explorations, so I listened not to the voice of the tempter, but turning my face sternly to The Orient I passed on.
I left Marseilles February 18th, on the French steamship L'Amerique (America), bound for Beyrout, via Palermo, Messina, Syra, Smyrna, Rhodes, Mersina, Alexandrette, Latakia, and Tripoli, and due at Beyrout March 3d. On L'Amerique, only one Masonic passenger was at first visible, Capt. E. H. Currey, of the brig C. F. Eaton, of New York, his membership being in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and one officer, Brother Le Maitre, first officer of the steamer L'Ameripe. He is a resident of Marseilles, and particularly well informed in the details of French Masonry. Before we reached Smyrna another Mason, a fellow‑passenger, came on board.
Passing southeastwardly, the Straits of Gibraltar, guarded by the Pillars of Hercules, were far on my right hand, and of course invisible. These pillars, named respectively Calpe and Abylo, stood, in the days when giants might be imagined, the twin, prodigious monoliths similar in purpose to the artificial pyramids.
They must have struck the gaze of the astonished and awed discoverers navigating this silent Mediterranean as the colossal pillars on which burned the double lights of Baal. So to the Phoenician sailors who first descried and then stemmed boldly through these peaked and majestic straits, - so to those men of Tyre, whose devices were the fire‑white horns of the globed Ashtaroth, appeared these monster rocks, pillar‑portals, fire‑topped as the last world‑beacon closing in that classic sea. - Jennings' Rosicrucians.
4l CORSICA AND NAPOLEON.
e 2 Z - COIN WITH PILLARS OF HERCULES, AND MAP OF CORSICA.
50 ms Passing the island of Corsica, I gave some hours of contemplation to that great man, our Masonic brother, born on this mountainous isle, Napoleon Bonaparte. It is about a century since his boyish eyes ooked forth from those snowy crags over the beautiful and memo‑table sea before me. We need not indorse all his actions to acknowledge him as a brother. A Masonic fraternity was founded at Paris in 1816, by the adherents of the then exiled Napoleon. Its ritual comprised three degrees: 1. Knight; 2. Commander; 3. Grand Elect. The third degree was divided into three classes: 1. Secret Judge; 2. Perfect Initiate; 3. Knight of the Oaken Crown, all having reference to Napoleon. Bertrand, then a voluntary exile with his imperial master at St. Helena, was chosen Grand Master, the single aim of the whole being the restoration of Napoleon. - Afacoy's Ma‑sonic Cyclopedia. (How perfect the parallel between this and the various Scotch and chapitral rites established to advance the restoration of the Pretender to the English crown.) Among the medals struck during the brilliant career of Napoleon, there are several that commemorate his Masonic affiliation; one, dated December 31, 1807, has for motto, Nova lux oculis effulsit et ingens - new and great light bursts upon our vision. On the obverse is a cabinet of Masonic emblems, below a star with five radiating cusps, and the words Lodge Ecossaise Napoleon (Scottish Napoleon Lodge). On the reverse we have in French the words Silence, Friendship, Beneficence, with the square and compass grouped in an oak crown, and the words (in French) Orient of Leghorn, 1807.
In memory of this wonderful man, whose patronage of the Masonic institution gave it an impetus in France and Europe which it never hcua lost, I begin at Corsica, marked " A " on the map, to locate the
TRACK OF ST. PAUL. 45
names of American Masons, and write here ten eminent in military as well as Masonic fame, viz.: - General Hancock, General Herron, General McClellan, General Hurlbut, General Wash‑burn, General Butler, General Manson, General Woodruff, General Zollicoffer, General Anderson. [The announcement of the death of this excellent man reaches me while, in 1871, I am conning over this chapter.] An excellent book upon Corsica is that of Hon. S. S. Cox, published in 1870, called, A Search for Winter Sunbeams. Before this, the island had been terra incognita, an unknown country. But Mr. Cox shows that it is the connecting link between the two continents, in the centre of the basin of the Western Mediterranean. Its mountains are midway between the Atlas range and the Alps, and unite the fruitful vigor of the former with the rugged grandeur of the latter, and the vegetable growth of each. Like the Holy Land, this broken region produces everything, from the lemon, orange, and date, to the pine, ilex, and oak.
Between Italy and Sicily I first struck the track, figuratively speaking, of the great Christian itinerant and martyr, St. Paul, of whom I shall have more to say in this work. Here I began to realize that I was entering upon Scriptural scenes and events. To the left, yonder, almost in sight, was Rome, then and now, for many hundred years, closed to Freemasonry,* the scene of Paul's martyrdom, the place from which his most wonderful epistles were dated. Nearer was the Island of Caprera, on which the Grand Master of Italian Masons, Garibaldi, was then a political prisoner. He might have been in his doorway looking out upon our steamer as we passed. On the right, as I sailed, lay in the distance Malta, the scene of chivalric exploits, the place of Paul's shipwreck. Before me were the straits, on the right and left of which stood those ancient terrors, Scylla and Charybdis.
Sailing near Crotona, on the eastern coast of Italy, I recalled the name and labors of Pythagoras, commemorated in the Freemason's Monitor in these words: " Our ancient friend and brother, the great Pythagoras, who, in his travels through Asia, Africa, and Europe, was initiated into several orders of priesthood and raised to - Since this page was written the Grand Lodge of Italy has been transferred to Rome, the Pope having lost all political power, and only remaining in Rome )n sufferance. Verily the whirligig of time makes wondrous changes!
0 46 PYTHAGORAS.
the sublime degree of a Master Mason." Here, at Crotona, his celebrated school of philosophy was established, about B.C. 539, in which the sciences enumerated in the Fellow‑Crafts Lecture were inculcated, viz., grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. From Pythagoras (often erroneously accented on the penult) many of our Masonic lodges are named, as for instance Crotona Lodge No. 339, Ky.; and any number of Pythagoras lodges.
Masonic honors are paid to Pythagoras as the reputed discoverer of the forty‑seventh problem of Euclid, thus acknowledged in the Monitor: " This wise philosopher enriched his mind abundantly in a general knowledge of things, and more especially in Geometry or Masonry; on this subject he drew out many problems and theorems, and among the most distinguished he erected this, which, in the joy of his heart, he called Eureka, in the Grecian language signifying 'I have found it! and upon the discovery of which he is said to have sacrificed a hecatomb. It teaches Masons to be general lovers of the arts and sciences." In the degree of Eureka Hiatus, however, this discovery is attributed to an aged brother, Iluramen, who lived four hundred years earlier. Damon and Pythias, whose friendship was modelled after that of David and Jonathan, were pupils of the Pythagorean school, and lived about B.C. 38'7. Out of their story some ingenious Americans have recently modelled a " secret order," surnamed Knights of Pythias.
In memory of this wonderful man, who perhaps did more to shape the philosophy and cultus of the ancient world than any other, not inspired author, I have located here, at Crotona, marked " B " upon the map, the names of ten Masonic authors of modern times whose labors run parallel with those of the sublime Pythagoras, viz., George W. Chase, James B. Taylor, Giles F. Yates, Wilkins Tannehill, George Gray, J. W. S. Mitchell, A. T. C. Pearson, G. W. Steinbrenner, William S. Rockwell, and Sidney Hayden.
Passing the island of Paros, I reflected upon that famous fabric "which was supported by fourteen hundred and fifty‑three columns and two thousand nine hundred and six pilasters, all hewn from the finest Parian marble." If this calculation is correct, the traffic between Joppa, the seaport of Jerusalem, and the quarries upon this island of Paros, must have been very extensive. With the small vessels employed in Phoenician commerce, it was a stupendous labor to convey such, and so many, columns and pilasters over the seas. 1 had no opportunity to see the quarries. The island itself is about
PAROS AND ATHENS. 47
thirty miles in length. The following outline cut will give an idea of it.
In memory of a place perpetuated in Masonic tradition, marked "C" upon the map, I locate the names of ten such " shafts of Parian marble" as King Solomon would have approved, viz., John Sheville, Jerome B. Borden, George W. Fleming, W. J. Millard, James Cruikshank, Elisha D. Cooke, James L. Enos, George D. Norris, Stillman Blanchard, and James Crooks.
It was a trial to my feelings to skirt thus rapidly the coasts of Greece; debarred for want of time from visiting scenes with which my studies have familiarized me from boyhood. Toward the Acropolis, at Athens, I directed a longing gaze. The pilot guided me in pointing my finger toward it. He says that, like the hill on which Solomon's Temple stood, it is most accessible from the northwest Robinson says that on the oblong area of its levelled surface were collected the noblest monuments of Grecian taste. It was the very sanctuary of the arts, the glory and the religion of ancient Athens. Here stood the sixth of the seven ancient wonders of the world, the ivory and gold statue of Jupiter Olympus, erected by Phidias, B.C. 440, which measured thirty‑nine feet in height.
To commemorate this ancient wonder, traditionally associated with Ancient Operative Masonry, at Athens, marked "D" on the map, I locate the names of ten Masonic characters as beautifully proportioned in their moral members as the statue of Jupiter was in the physical, viz., Daniel Sickels, J. L. Gould, George Babcock, John Robin McDaniel, Frank Darrow, Robert N. Brown, William Hacker, J. J. Rubottom, I. N. Stackhouse, and William S. Combs.
In conversation with our Greek pilot, when I told him that Solon, B.c. 600, laid it down, as the first essential condition of happiness, that a man should live in a well‑ordered country, he shrugged his shoulders Greek fashion, and replied: " Lucky for Solon he does not live here now I" At Syra we had taken in as a passenger Bro. R. Westfield, a member
MAP OF PAROS.
rty‑Bro.
- of - of nary I an can inrepwen - y S. r as for oyal for per‑that but and this pure oyal 1'ALMYRA: rAliuor. 4 Ma‑my . set ‑five ma. - lish;fish 'and The thor s are f the Tar‑ FREEMASONRY AT SMYRNA. 51 rituals are in the Greek language, but, as I understand, translated literally from the English. The Greek population of Smyrna is very large and respectable.
5. Decran Lodge No. 1,014. - Warranted by the Grand Lodge of England in 1864. This lodge has about sixty members. The rituals are the same as those of St. George, but the membership, is Armenian - a class here embracing many of the wealthiest people of the city., F. Stella Ionia Lodge No. - . - Warranted by the Grand Lodge of [tal^ in 1864. This lodge has about seventy‑five members. The rituals are Italian. I was unable to get much information concerning this lodge.
7. Jleusinian Lodge No. 987. - This was intended as a summer lodge at Ephesus, but its officers and members resided in Smyrna.
8. Sion's Lodge. - T his was organized at the close of the year 1870, if Jewish brethren.
9. St. John's Lodge No. 952. - Working under English authority.
All these Smyrna lodges hold their meetings in the same room; a commodious, well‑ventilated apartment, with handsome cornices, abundant ante‑chambers, etc., etc. The arrangements of an English lodge will doubtless be novel to many of my readers. There is no Altar, but a pedestal directly in front of the Worshipful Master serves the purpose of one. The emblems usually delineated on the Master's carpet, such as the Ashlars, Globes, Tokens of Service, and the like, are presented here in the form of tangible objects grouped around and in front of the Master's station, and form very attractive images to the eye; more so, indeed, than merely painted emblems. The stations of the officers are substantially the same as ours.
The form of notification sent out by the Worshipful Master waA this: "An Emergency General Meeting of Masons will be held to‑day, Tuesday, the 25th of February, at 81 P.M., which all members are requested punctually to attend. The business of the evening will b* to receive two American Masonic Brethren." Some of the names minuted for the Tyler's use on this Summons are: Thomas Janson, Secretary; F. Stano, F. W. Spiegelthal, W. Shotton, A. F. Raboly, James Rees, G. Perrin, T. Papworth, S. Papps, E. Parodis, J. O'Connor, N. Nubarian, G. Mollhausen, Louis Meyer, Arthur Lawson, Dr. Kossonis, Issigonis, St. Joly, Fres. Joly, Ed. Joly, Jo. Hadgi, C. R. Hefter, T. Hatton, L. Haco, E. Georganspula, J. Ganon, G. Fyfe, J. Fraser, Th. Franghia, F. Franghia, A. Fontrier, St. Dirutzuyan, J i, P The ibly red:en‑was ve" cried e of lip," 5.) nds, Jute the med ccuir C. efuler is the hose how what neriit in 'tine, sort tiga rand .rney .oved after Ely‑de pprot. I e reed be xi in THE KISS OF PEACE. 53 their hands. I told them that in my literary labors I had composed a number of poems, a few of which I would proceed to recite.
Then I gave them The Level and Square; Our Vows; One Hour with You; and The Gavel Song; all of which seemed to give them pleasure.
Responses were made by Bro. Carrere, Bro. Staab, and others in English, and one at considerable length in Greek by Bro..Dr. S. Karacoussis, a Greek physician of eminence here. This was interpreted to me by Bro. Carrere. The learned doctor takes the same view of the Oriental origin and antiquity of Freemasonry that we do. His theory of Masonic patriotism and benevolence is very lofty and grand. He encouraged me greatly in my Eastern researches, as indeed did they all. An invitation was tendered to me to spend some time here next summer, which I accepted, and we arranged for a Masonic Picnic to be held June 24th, 1868, at ancient Ephesus, about twenty‑five miles south of Smyrna. This plan, however, failed, owing to my adopting a different route on my return home in June.
A call was then made upon me to close the lodge strictly upon the American system, which I did. Then we adjourned to refreshments, from which I managed to withdraw so as to be on board the steamer by midnight. As I had spent the day mostly in visiting bazaars, climbing to the great castle in the rear of the city, and per‑ambulating it in all directions, it may readily be imagined that I was in a condition demanding repose.
As one evidence of the national variety that made up this meeting, I mention the names of Bro. Landon, an American; Westfield, a German; Franghia, Cassimarti, Dirutzuyan, Fontrier, Georganspula, Staab, Karacoussis, Hadji, Issigonis, Nubarian, Raboly, Stepham, Jedeschi, Jimoni, Thukides, and Venezeans, of the Greek, French, Armenian, and English. The only American brother resident here, whose acquaintance I formed, was Brother Landon, originally from Boston, Worshipful Master of the Lodge at Ephesus; more than forty years a Mason, and in whom the sacred fire was burning unimpaired. His death in 1870 left a wide hiatus in that Masonic and social circle.
I cannot leave the subject of my visit to Smyrna without recalling the truly Masonic earnestness manifested by all. The Oriental usage of meeting and parting with a kiss of peace (Romans xvi. 16), while it seems strange in others, appears strangely appropriate among these Levant Masons. When I mentioned casually, in the reception‑
64 HISTORY OF SMYRN ..
room, that the first money which, as a little boy, I ever possessed, I gave, in 1826, to the cause of suffering Greece, the Greek brethren present almost smothered me with kisses. And when I said farewell to the party who accompanied me to the ship on the 26th, the same salutations were exchanged. I confess that I never before felt the universality of Freemasonry as now, and never estimated so highly its mighty powers for good.
One ceremony they perform in these Smyrna lodges I may relate without a violation of confidence. Whenever in my remarks to the Lodge I used the name of Deity, all my auditors arose and stood before that " shadowed image " to which the sweet bard of Scottish Freemasonry refers, as "That hieroglyphic bright Which none but Craftsmen ever saw." As every reader can learn what he wants to know by looking for " Smyrna" in the Cyclopedia, I occupy but short space with a description. This city, styled the ornament of Asia (agalma tees Asias), was celebrated by the ancients as one of the fairest and noblest cities of Ionia. It was founded, probably, by a woman of the same name, an Amazon, of the Cuma/ans, about B.c. 1015, the period when King David was "preparing with all his might, for the house of his God, gold, silver, brass, iron, wood, onyx‑stones and all manner of precious stones and marble stones in abundance." (1 Chr. xxix. 2.) Although ten times destroyed by fierce throes of nature and fiercer men, Smyrna has ten times risen from her ruins, and is still the largest commercial city of Asia Minor, promising even to eclipse Constantinople. Herodotus, B.C. 444, says, "it has the finest sky and climate in the world, and a soil extremely productive." Great names are associated with Smyrna. Pythagoras was born about B.C. 570 at Samos, only a few miles south of Smyrna, and must have spent much of his early life here. Homer, about B.C. 962, was perhaps born here. St. Paul unquestionably had one of his preaching stations at Smyrna, and here was that one of the seven churches of Asia to which "the beloved Disciple," the good St. John the Evangelist, he who bare record of the word of God and the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw (Rev. i. 2), and whom all loving Masons claim as a brother, wrote this thrilling epistle: " These things saith the first and last, which was dead and is alive. I know thy works and tribulation and poverty
ANTIQUITIES OF ASIA MINOR. 55
(but thou art rich), and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer; behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days; be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life." (Rev. ii. 8‑10.) And here that grand old evangelist Polycarp (what an appropriate name, the seed‑abounding!) preached and labored for seventy‑four years, making good testimony of his faith by suffering death at the stake A.D. 167, under the reign of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. His tomb is still shown, designated by a fine old cypress‑tree.
Along the east side of the city is a beautiful plain full of villages. Two lines of railway run out in that direction; one finished to Aidin (Tralles) by way of Ephesus, eighty miles; the other to Magnesia and Kassaba, sixty miles. Trains run daily over these lines at the rate of twenty‑five miles an hour.
An account of the sieges this city has suffered, and the terrible disasters consequent upon its numerous captures and destruction, would fill a volume. Operative Masons will be interested to know that when Timour the Tartar (Taimour‑lang) captured Smyrna, A.D. 1402, after a blockade of fourteen days, he slew all the inhabitants and demolished the houses. In rebuilding a portion for military purposes, he ordered all the heads of the slain to be built into the walls with mortar and stone. History fails to say what sort of materials these proved to be.
Smyrna and the country around it abound in antiquities, the best description of which I have seen being that in "The Seven Churches of Asia," by A. Svoboda, 1869, with an introduction by our good Mason brother Prof. H. B. Tristam, of England. A copy of this, with twenty photographs pasted on the corresponding leaves, is in the possession of Col. H. J. Goodrich, Chicago, Illinois. Amongst these ruins the most remarkable is the sculpture made by Sesostris at Kara‑Bell, not long after those cut on the rocks near Beyrout, which I shall minutely describe in their place. These were only discovered in 1839, although described by Herodotus more than 2,300 years ago. It is sculptured in relief, sunk in a panel cut into the perpendicular surface of a massive, calcareous hard rock, in height about seven feet. The image is represented in profile, looking to the east. The inscription, as described by Herodotus, although now obliterated by the tooth of time in thirty‑four centuries, read thus: " I conquered this country by the might of my arms." 66
LEAVES FROM A DIARY.
In the vicinity of Smyrna, six miles from Sardis, are the remains of the largest tomb in the world, that of Algattes, father of the opulent Orcesus, to whom the adage " rich as Creesus" applies. This im mense monument is 3,800 feet in circumference and very lofty. The base is of very large stones, the rest earth. Herodotus says it was erected by tradesmen, mechanics, and strumpets, and rather oddly adds that the latter did the most of it! The far‑famed mausoleum of Mausolus, King of Caria, erected by Artemisia, his queen, and the second of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, was at Halicarnassus, not far from Smyrna. It was built B.C. 350. Artemisia invited all the literary men of the age to compete for the best elegiac panegyric upon the deceased, and ad‑judged the prize to Theopompus, B.C. 357. The statue of Mausolus, taken from these ruins, is now in the British Museum at London.
To commemorate this model of all funeral piles, I locate at this place, marked on the map "I," the names of ten eminent Masons, Grand Masters, and Past Grand Masters, viz.: Theodore S. Parvin, Samuel M. Todd, D. H. Wheeler, Hiram Bassett, J. M. S. McCorkle, John Scott, D. C. Cregier, Wm. M. Wilson, Thomas A. Doyle, William E. Pine, Philip C. Tucker, Jr.
In passing through Smyrna, the first Oriental city I had ever visited, I was struck, as all travellers are, with the unexpected variety of scenes, the people of so many colors and creeds, and the customs, so novel to an American. A few pages from my note‑book will serve to show how my mind was affected, and will exhibit my method of jotting down information during my whole journey through the East: Greek boatmen in pantalettes; they face the way they row; oars fastened to rowlocks, and weighted to accommodate feeble wrists; prices of labor, low; handkerchiefs around head; talk in strident tones as if quarreling; gesticulate like St. Vitus; merchandise; piles of madder on docks; cotton bales hooped with five iron bands; through whole day's ramble felt as if in lanes and by‑ways, and that I should presently come out into a broad street, but never did; streets only eight to twelve feet wide; Camel, solemn, stately‑stepping, silent, serious ship of the desert, clipper‑rigged, his spongy feet sprawling all over the wide paving‑stones, as though to grasp them and secure a footing; each wears a nose‑bag like a huge mouchoir; always five camels in a row, following a little donkey who carries a bigger one on his back: the procession of six is coupled by cords six feet, tying then neck to neck; number six wears a large cow‑bell, having inside of it a small bell with a clapper; un‑
LEAVES FROM A DIARY. 57
musical sounds; camels loaded with madder in bales; also with cot‑ton; each carryii_g two large round bags of cotton of about 300 lbs. each, not well compressed; these loads do not shorten the three‑feet steps or reduce the stately stepping, as regular as Mrs. M - 's clock that hangs over the fireplace at home; his long, snaky neck level as the Level of the Senior Warden; caravan of 500 of them just in from Persia, and whole city full of them scattered in followings of five; Turkish Carrier with wooden frame on his back supports a great load; a barrel of flour being strapped on it, he leans forward, nearly horizontal, grasps tightly a stick fastened by a string to his neck, and walks off with a long, quick stride as silently and solemnly as the camel himself; such a rheumatism as he will have when he gets to be sixty; the markets called bazaars; no sign‑boards; numbered in Arabic and English; every man's stock is open in front, with no counter or railing; you just sit down on the shop‑floor, in front of the merchant, and trade; each stock worth from $50 to $500 all told; nobody sells more than one line of goods; first is a tobacco‑store, then drygoods, thread, tobacco again, fruits, brass vessels (very bright and tasty too); jewelry, mostly of the cheap and nasty sort; fruits, tobacco, calico, woolen caps with silk tassels; small stock of drugs; hardware from Birmingham, England (such scissors! to cut your nails will take the edge off!,); tobacco, matches, confectionery, four in a row; - and so on with tobacco as a staple; only one butcher‑shop an hour; bread in loaves and rings, nice, and of good quality; confectioneries particularly well got up; no cakes nor pison things, as in American shops; every hundred yards or so an open court, mostly paved, with fountain in centre, and trees of orange, palm, etc.; in Armenian quarters, front doors open, display hall with settees, paved elaborately with pebbles; set mosaically in cement; Armenian Graveyard, with drawings on gravestones, to show dead men's business on earth, - barbers' tools, tools of carpenters, stone‑mason, blacksmith, etc., etc.; Turkish Mosque; at high twelve people pray; first washing feet, hands, arms, neck and head, and scouring mouth, ears, etc.; my servant Joseph, being a Jew, debarred admission, stayed outside and watched my boots while I went in; had to o in stocking feet (stockings had holes in them); worshipers bare‑footed; no furniture nor seats; matted with ragged mats; galleries, but nobody there; regular barn of a place; no preaching; no singing, no nothing; those who spoke to one another whispered; kept my hat on according to orders; the door was a quilted leather affair that hung tapestry‑fashion; no arrangements for warming or lighting; heard no muezzin; crescent on top of the church; Turkish School, all boys, no girls; noise startling, gesticulations marvellous, scholars all leave their shoes outside, perfectly safe, the fifty pairs not worth a .dime for the lot; sight of my fur cap delighted the boys; Women; Turkish women wear cloth over face, other women not; Armenian women expose breasts indecorously; Old Fort on hill; built by Genoese magnificent view from summit; Mt. Cybele with its snowy cap and
58 THE SHIP OF THE DESERT.
Many traditions; the fort a grand piece of labor and skill, but now entirely in ruins; looking southeast, imagine St. Paul coming to the top of the hill, to take a first view of Smyrna preparatory to preaching here; Turkish Graveyard; turban on gravestones of men; rose‑buds on women; inscriptions written from right to left, and slope upwards, a modern innovation, I am told; many epitaphs in gilt; none handsome; graveyard full of broken columns, once doubt‑less forming parts of ancient temples, etc.; six enormous ones lately exhumed by Exploration Society, curiously carved work upon them; had stones thrown at me here by schoolboys, but only because my guide was a Jew; Fountains; a Turkish hobby founding fountains, and one that excited my gratitude; the city is full of them; all free; Streets cleaner than I expected, and well paved, but the boulders are rude, and hurt the feet; Fruits, etc., figs, seedless raisins, pomegranates, carob pods, garlic, cauliflowers, shelled almonds, oranges, lemons, dates, fig‑paste, English walnuts, hazelnuts, dates, delicious prunes, and very many others; Costumes; everybody's nationality and religion recognized by his dress, handsomest race is the Armenian; but few beggars; group negroes playing cards; soldiers with French muskets, percussion locks, carried at half‑shoulder shift; but little importunity among merchants to get my custom; street‑brokers everywhere with a peck or two of money ready for exchange; in changing a twenty‑franc piece they only charged two cents premium; gave me a pint of native money in copper and alloyed silver, very base; only two tipsy men, and they "but just a drappy in the ee'," as poor Burns used to say.
Over the old Greek church, in which Polycarp is said to have preached, are the words (in ancient Greek), Polycarp the Divine Shepherd. * * * * * * And so on for a dozen pages for quantity.
The streets of Smyrna are ludicrous parodies on the word! More crooked than those of Boston, more filthy than those of Cairc (Illinois), they are so narrow that a loaded camel fills one up even Shakespeare must have had a description of them before penning that laughable thing in the Merchant of Venice (Act ii., Scene 2), where one of his characters gives these directions to a sorely‑puzzled traveller: " Turn upon your right hand at the next turning; but at the next turning of all, on your left. Marry, at the very next turning, turn of no hand, but turn down indirectly to the Jew's house!" No marvel at the answer: ░'Twill be a hard way to hit!" Seeing here the first caravan of camels I had ever beheld (some five hundred of them, just in from Persia, loaded with cotton), I am reminded of the Eastern legend commemorating the extreme homeliness of this beast. The first man who beheld a camel fainted with
FU &D PASHA, THE MASON. 59
dismay; the second one drew tremblingly near; the third roped him and put him to work!" In good sooth, he is a failure in animal architecture, reminding us, as compared with the other beasts, of the lodge‑tyler compared with the other officers.
To commemorate the Masonic spirit manifested in this ancient Masonic and ecclesiastical city of Smyrna, marked on the map "E," nine honored names of British craftsmen, whose names will survive them, are located here, viz., Hyde Clark, Stephen Barton Wilson, W. J. Hughan, D. Murray Lyon, Charles Purton Cooper, Matthew Cooke, Charles Warren, E. T. Rogers, and V. W. Bate.
It was not in my route to visit Constantinople; but I was assured by well‑informed gentlemen at Smyrna that some of the highest officials of the empire are acknowledged members of the Masonic fraternity there. Amongst these I name that distinguished officer, Fuad Pasha, who deceased the following year. The Sultan himself is an avowed friend to this society. A few years since he directed one of his secretaries to become a Mason, and the secretary's report upon the aims and principles of the institution was so favorable as to secure the imperial favor. Of this the great officers of the empire are well aware.
Constantinople is intimately associated in our minds with terrible conflagrations, especially that of 1870, which was one of a series that have devastated this devoted city for many generations. A traveller in 1610, referring to the sad fire of October 14, 1607, remarked that he did not know to what fate or misfortune this city was subject in suffering so much. At that time three thousand houses were burned to their foundations.
I left Smyrna, on Wednesday, the 26th February, still one week's journey from Holy Land. Passing the island of Samos, I again re‑call the history and labors of the sublime Pythagoras, born here B.c. 570.
Samos, says Anthon in his Classical Dictionary, is an island of the Egean, lying off the lower part of the coast of Ionia, and nearly opposite the Trogilian promontory. The intervening strait was about seven stadia in its narrowest part. (A stadium was the eighth of an English mile.) The first inhabitants were Carians and Leleges. The temple and worship of Juno contributed much to its fame and affiuence. A tunnel was carried through the mountain seven stadia, to convey water from a distant fountain to the city. A mole, twenty fathoms deep and two stadia long, defended the harbor.
60 SAMOS.
The circuit of Samos was 600 stadia, equal to 75 English miles. It yielded almost every kind of Levantine produce, except wine. The city of Samos was exactly opposite the Trogilian promontory and Mount Mycale. The port was secure and convenient for ships. The town stood chiefly in a plain rising gradually from the sea. The island, sailing north from Patmos, is very conspicuous, so much so that the ancients styled any very lofty place Samos. It is the most conspicuous object, not only in the Ionian Sea but the lEgean also. The following cut will give an idea of its shape.
At so appropriate a locality as Samos, marked " F " on the map, I place the names of Thomas J. Corson, Daniel B.
Bruen, W. B. Langridge, A. H. Cope‑ land, P. H. Taylor, John Leach, J. McCormick, Cornelius Moore, A. J. Wheeler, and John A. Morris.
MAP OF SAMOS.
Passing off the coast, a little ways west of Ephesus, I note the fact that Eleusi‑ nian Lodge No. 987, of which the vener‑ able Brother Landon is W. M., holds its sessions here, although the city at present is but a poor place. I had promised the Smyrna Masons to return to them in June next and spend the 24th, the anniversary of our patron‑saint John the Baptist, in a Masonic pie‑ate among the ruins of Ephesus. It would have been a rare experience indeed. Here at Ephesus were many of the most celebrated structures of antiquity, including that third " Won‑der of the World," the Temple of Diana. This noted edifice was erected B.C. 552, at the common charge of all the Asiatic States, its chief architect being Ctesiphon; two hundred and twenty years were expended in the work. The Temple was 425 feet by 225. It was supported by 127 marble columns 60 feet high, and thick in pro‑portion, each weighing 150 tons. Each column was a present from a separate king. This building was set on fire by Eratostratus the same night Alexander was born, viz., B.C. 356. It was rebuilt, but finally destroyed by the Goths A.D. 256 to 262.
The foundations of this Temple, like those of King Solomon's, were artificial, although for a very different reason. The soil being marshy, deep beds of charcoal and fleeces of wool were laid in trenches, and so a substantial base was formed. Pliny describes the difficulty en‑,;ountered in moving and raising the enormous blocks of stone EPHESUS. 61 wrought into this Temple, a problem which 'exercises the wits of all who traverse Egypt and the East, and to which I shall give attention further on. In the present instance he says: " The architect contrived to raise the architraves by means of' bags of sand piled upon an inchned plane to the height of the columns (60 feet) and by gradually emptying them the blocks fell to their assigned places." The roof of this Temple was of cedar, like Solomon's, the doors of cypress (Solomon's were of olive), and the stairway of vine‑wood. As the grapevines in the East are often twelve to' fifteen inches in diameter, this is credible. All the wood before using was glued together and left four years to season. So well was this seasoning executed that the wood of the Second Temple was found by Mucianus, B.C. 75, to be as good as new, although then 400 years old. So the wood in the old church at Bethlehem seems now as good as new, although more than 1,500 years old. Upon the whole, this Temple was so beautiful that Philon burst out in rapture concerning it, saying, " it is the only house of the gods; you will think when you see it that the gods have left heaven and come to live here!" Its position was at the head of the port facing me, as I sail past, and it shone there like a meteor. But now the sea has receded three miles eastward and left a reedy, miasmatic marsh between us. The very site of the Temple of Diana is in dispute, and the city itself is a vast and almost indistinguishable ruin.
The supply of marble for these works was of course immense. Three ancient quarries were open, those of Ctesiphon and Paros, to which reference has been made on preceding pages, and Proconessus. But the question of freight was the puzzle; the transport of so much stone would demand whole fleets of vessels, although the distance, as compared with that traversed by the fleets of Hiram, was insignificant. The difficulty was solved in the nick of time, by the discovery of a quarry of fine marble on Mount Prion, in the vicinity of Ephesus, brought to light by the butting off of a piece by the horns of a ram! At this ancient Queen City of the Levant Ephesus, marked on the map " H," I locate the following Masonic names: Charles W. Moore, H. G. Reynolds, David Clark, F. G. Tisdall, G. F. Gouley, Henry D. Palmer, James Fenton, S. D. Bayless, Joseph B. Hough, and E. S. Fitch.
And there the people believe our good December‑Saint John lies buried behind the high altar. But his tomb, when opened, was found to have lost its body; the pure flesh of the apostle of peace had
62 THE GOLDEN SABBATH AT PATMOS.
turned to manna, or the body itself had been translated to heaven, leaving that Celestial bread of the Royal Arch in its place. This grave had been made under his own instructions, while alive, and in his death‑day he walked there voluntarily and laid himself down in it.
Here, too, he led his adopted mother, Mary (John xix. 26, 27), who, at the age of seventy‑two years, followed Jesus to the celestial courts.
Passing along, on the 26th, by the island of Patmos, I read with uncommon interest that collection of imagery, thrilling and inimitable, which makes up the Apocalypse or Revelation of St. John, in which the Apostle saw " the spiritual city and all her spires and gateways in a glory like one pearl," and where on that celebrated Lord's day he was "in the spirit," his raptured soul dwelling in the midst of opal and amethyst and chalcedony and sardonyx and gold.
Much of these figures is embodied in various degrees of the Scotch Rite. Entering into the spirit of this strange book, it reads as though a woman were peeping into a lodge‑room, witnessing the ceremonies of Freemasonry, and trying, with raptured pen, to record them! How I should like to spend a week here and read it through. The aspect of the island is peculiarly rugged and bare, which explains why it was selected as a place of exile for St. John, as the practice was to choose rocky and desolate islands for such purposes. Only one palm‑tree remains upon it, although so numerous were they 1,000 years ago, that the name Palmosa was given to the island. So Jericho, anciently called "the city of palm‑trees" (Dent. xxxiv. 3), has now only one palm remaining. This island, now called Patino, in which God opened the pearly gates of paradise, is divided equally by a very narrow isthmus, making the whole something in the shape of an hour‑glass. The following engraving gives a correct idea of its appearance.
Here dwelt St. John the Evangelist, a prisoner "for the Ward of God and for the Testimony of Jesus Christ (Rev. i. 9), during part of the reign of Domitian, probably from A.D. 95 to 97, when he was nearly a hundred years old.
To commemorate a place so sacred in Masonic and Biblical, I locate at Patmos, ''" marked "G" on the map, the names of
MAP OF PATMOS.
ten clergymen, eminent both in Masonic and religious relations, viz., J. H. Fitch, r RHI)DES. 63 Hiram A. Hunter, D. H. Knickerbacker, Robert Collier, Charles Loshier, C. G. Bowdish, John Trimble, Jr., Robert McMurdy, J. S. Dennis, William S. Burney.
I arrived at Rhodes Feb. 27, and remained a few hours off the city, but not long enough to go on shore. I recalled some facts which commend the island particularly to the attention of Knights Templars. It was the refuge of the Christian Knights when they were finally driven from the Holy Land in the fifteenth century. Those gallant warriors fortified it so strongly and defended it so gallantly as to resist for a considerable period the utmost power of the Otto‑man Empire; and when at last, overborne with numbers, and weakened by famine and the unintermitting assaults of their enemies, they were compelled to surrender, they capitulated upon the most honorable conditions, being allowed to withdraw from the island with all their possessions, and to go to Malta.
Rhodes is specially worthy of Masonic study, as being the site of the fifth of the seven ancient wonders of the world, the vast brazen image of the sun, styled the Colossus of Rhodes. This was seventy cubits high (about sixty‑five feet). It was erected by Chores of Lindus, about B.C. 290, but only stood about sixty years, being thrown down by an earthquake, about B.C. 224. St. John doubtless saw this remarkable piece of art, and it may have suggested to his mind the allegory in the tenth chapter of his Revelation: " And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire; and he had in his hand a little book open; and he set his right foot upon the sea and his left foot upon the earth." The following engraving will give a clear idea of this island.
It is about forty miles long, and one‑third the same in breadth. Its population is about 25,000, largely Greeks and Jews. The modern city only covers one‑fourth the area of the ancient city, whose majestic ruins fill the vista as I gaze upon them from the deck of the ship; but few traces of the glory of ancient Rhodes are visible. Instead of the in‑
MAP OF RHODES.
numerable galleys that once swarmed out of yonder port, like pigeons from their cotes, and commanded all
64 TARSUS.
these seas by their numbers and daring, nothing has come forth during the four hours I have lain off this harbor, save a few skiffs seeking to take passengers ashore, a flat‑bottomed barge for our freight, and a custom‑house boat manned by ten red‑capped sailors, and commanded by an indolent Turk, which rows round and round us during our stay here to see that we do no smuggling. Probably his " fidelity to his trust" equals that of the custom‑house officer on the wharf at Smyrna, who lazily examined my box of figs and the roll of stationery which I had purchased in the bazaars, and compromised all informalities concerning them by accepting two piastres (eight cents) for his own pocket). I venture to say that that fat gentleman yonder would " pass " a whole cargo for a moderate compensation without a blush. The name of the island, Rhodes, was probably derived from Res, a rose, referring to the multitude and variety of that sweet blossom here.
Waiting upon the slow movements of the customs officers, I find time to read Acts xxi., where Paul, having parted the day before with the Christian brethren of Miletus and Ephesus, "came with a straight course unto Coos, and the day following Rhodes," and so on through his subsequent journey to Jerusalem, Cmesarea, Malta, and Rome! To commemorate a place so intimately associated with the glory of Christian Knighthood, I locate here at Rhodes, marked "K" upon the map, the names of ten Masons, eminent in the Christian Orders of Knighthood, viz.: J. Q. A. Fellows, William S. Gardner, William E. Lathrop, John A. Lefferts, G. Fred Wiltsie, Orrin Welch, A. V. H. Carpenter, E. D. B. Porter, Alfred E. Ames, and George L. Otis.
Remaining twelve hours at Mersina, February 29 (this being leap‑year), I am told that this town lies at the mouth of the river Cydnus, and is only six miles from ancient Tarsus, the birthplace of the great Paul, the man who was set to be a light to the Gentiles, that he should be for salvation unto the ends of the earth (Acts xiii. 47.) From childhood I have been accustomed to consider the Apostle Paul the man who, next to Moses, has exercised the greatest influence upon the minds of his race. Being thus within six miles of his birthplace, I cannot but follow, in imagination, his footsteps hence, to the theological school of Gamaliel at Jerusalem; thence on a fanatical errand to Damascus; thence miraculously confounded and
SAINT PAUL 65
converted to the Christian faith; thence on journeys hither and thither, establishing churches, bearing painful testimonials "in labors more abundant; in stripes above measure; in prisons more frequent; in deaths oft; of the Jews, five times, receiving forty stripes save one thrice beaten with rods; once stoned; thrice suffering shipwreck; a night and a day in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness; in watchings often; in hunger and thirst; in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." (2 Cor. xi.) Whatever one may think of the particular cause to which this man gave his learning, labor, and life, no one can help respecting him for the fidelity he evinced in the performance of duty. And surely no Mason who has dropped the tear over the martyred Hiram can refuse the sympathetic drop to the memory of Paul; or to share the triumphant glow which inspired him when he wrote in his old age to Timothy: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give in that day." (2 Tim. iv.) Mighty soul! hast thou not satisfied those immortal longings ere this! Gathered with the saints at the River of Life, is not thy weariness refreshed and thy thirst satisfied? I don't fancy Renan's views upon religious subjects, whatever he may know in science and literature, but I must say that his conception of St. Paul's character is fine and just. He describes his soul as growing great and expanding without ceasing; a man of boundless vigor, unlimited capacity, will, and action. His Life of St. Paul might be expurgated, and so made a,valuable book.
We sighted the Syrian shores on the first day of March, the opening hours,of spring, the day being but a few hours old. At Alexandrette, or Scandaroon, I was permitted to go on shore and remain for some hours. My first act was to fall upon my knees and praise T. G. A. O. T. U. that now at length, near the going down of my earthly sun, I am permitted to stand upon a portion of earth so hallowed by Biblical and classical recollections as this. At last my desires are gratified. One of the fixed purposes of my whole life, to visit the Holy Land, is fulfilled. Since I began to read with understanding the Sacred Writings, that purpose has been kindled into a longing desire.
66 THE NORTHEAST CORNER.
Upon my entrance into Freemasonry (March, 1846), I formed a resolution that, if the Grand Architect of the Universe would spare my life, and open a way for me, I would as surely set foot upon the sacred soil before my Masonic career should be closed.
Alexandrette is a good place at which to enter the Holy Land, being the "northeast corner" of the Mediterranean Sea, and contiguous to several localities of thrilling memory. Around yonder point, to the northwest, a short two days' journey, is Tarsus, the birth‑place of Paul. A little nearer is the battle‑field of Issus, wherein, B.C. 333, Alexander achieved that victory which, in effect, was the conquest of the world. South of this, and only thirty miles from me, is Antioch, " where the disciples were first called Christians." East of me, and about the same distance, is the purely Oriental city of Aleppo; beyond which is Baalbec, and beyond that, Damascus. The road over those mountains, now heavily banked in snow, has been trodden again and again by the conquerors of the earth, and by the Evangelists of Jesus. It is in every respect a good beginning point for my survey of the Holy Land.
There was once a pigeon‑express maintained between this place and Bagdad.
The literary history of the world - Masonic, scientific, religious, - moves toward the Orient, as the march of empires to the Occident. Unplowed lands are the search and prize of nations; destroyed lands, of scholars. In the spread and conquests of Grecian heroes,‑ He‑brew conception found fresh expression; the thoughts of the East were wedded to the words of the West.
To commemorate this northeast corner of the Mediterranean, marked "M" upon the map, I have placed the ten following names, all well‑known in the Masonic records as Past Grand Masters, viz.: Charles W. Nash, O. H. Irish, Jno. Adams Allen, Charles Scott, S. H. Johnson, John H. Brown, Thomas R. Austin, Reuben Mickel, James M. Howry, and John B. Fravel.
On Monday, the 2d March, we called successively at Latakia, the ancient Laodicea, the seaport of Antioch, a few miles in the interior, famous now, like Gebal, only for its tobacco, and Tripoli, where at this time (1872) is stationed, as Kamiakam, our good brother Noureddin Effendi, whose portrait adorns a subsequent page of this volume.
The terraced houses of Tripoli, bathed in bright Oriental sunshine, and viewed through the clear ethereal atmosphere peculiar to this classical and Biblical clime, are beautiful.
REFLECTIONS AT APPROACHING SYRIA. 67
The only available passage for a railroad eastward from this coast is said to lead out of Tripoli, and from here the line has been engineered to the East Indies by an English company. The highest point to be surmounted is only 1,500 feet, and the ascent is without very heavy grades.
Going southward here the Lebanon mountains rise higher and higher as we advance. We pass ancient Gebal, marked "0" on the map, from whence some of the most experienced Masons went, at the call of King Solomon, to build the Temple at Jerusalem. Going south I begin to wonder at the narrowness of the little shelf of level land, the vast and lofty Lebanon behind, the illimitable Mediterranean before it, which, under the name of Phcenicia, exercised such influence upon the minds and fortunes of the human race. This nation was here when Abram came down from Mesopotamia, B.C. 1921, and even at that early period was far advanced in the knowledge of the arts and sciences. This narrow shelf was then crowded with towns and cities.
The sky so pure and bright, the moon and stars shining with such celestial beauty, the morning air peculiarly bracing and tonic - this whole journey from Marseilles has been a delicious recreation.
My reflections on approaching the coast of Syria were colored by the expectations upon which my mission was founded. To trace up to their sources ancient habits, modes of thought, forms of speech, emblems whose original meaning is obscured in the lapse of thirty centuries; to tread upon the sites of ancient cities, from whence sprung all science and art, and even the knowledge of letters itself; to descend into rock‑hewn sepulchres, whose tenants 3,000 years ago were laid in their everlasting rest with the same symbolical rites that will some day accompany my own interment; and, above all, to read the Bible, the whole Bible, in the land of the Bible, and having and wanting no other Guide; to travel through the length and breadth of this country with this Guide in my hand; such was the work for which I girded up my loins on the 1st day of March, and invoked the blessing of the Most High that I might accomplish it, all of it, as I had proposed.
The night‑scenes on the Mediterranean are delightful to contemplate. One of them, in which I walked the steamer's deck till mid‑night, can never be forgotten. It is best described in the words of another: "Above a vast hemicircle of clouds shone a little crescent moon fading into her last quarter, and like a luminous summit to an it
68 ITINERARY
immense pyramid of shade. Over the waves she traced a path of trembling light." Early on Tuesday morning, the 3d of March, we cast anchor in the Bay of Beyrout (St. George's Bay), and so this first division of my volume ends. It only remains to add a sketch of the whole route, the chapters following not being arranged in chronological order.
ITINERARY.
Left New York February 2d.
Arrived at Liverpool " 14th.
London " 14th.
" Paris " 16th.
Marseilles " 17th.
Left " 18th.
Arrived at Palermo " 20th.
Messina " 21st.
- Syra " 23d.
Smyrna " 24th.
Left " 26th.
Arrived at Rhodes " 27th.
" Mersina " 28th.
Alexandrette March 1st.
- Latakia " 2d.
Tripoli " 2d.
Beyrout " 3d.
Whole distance from Marseilles to Beyrout, 2,093 miles. Reached Gebal March 17th.
" Damascus " 26th.
" Tyre April 14th.
" The Cedars " 26th.
" Joppa May 1st.
" Jerusalem " 3d.
" Nazareth " 17th.
" Tibnin " 21st.
" Alexandria June 15th.
- Cairo " 16th.
- Brindisi " 25th.
" Paris " 28th.
- London July 2d.
Southampton " 7th.
i EXPENSE AOCOIINT. 61
Reached New York July 18th.
La Grange, Kentucky.... " 21st.
A note of passage‑money paid for one passenger, New York to Beyrout, may be interesting to close the chapter: Steamer, New York to Liverpool, 1st class passage $100 00 Railway, Liverpool to London, 2d " 9 00 " London to Marseilles, 1st " 47 00 Steamer, Marseilles to Beyrout, 2d ‑ 125 00 $281 00 These fares being paid in gold, I have added such a premium ae makes the amounts equal to Federal currency, February, 1868.
,tiL.ciL3 THE ARABIC ALPHABET.
(Read/ro╗ right to le.) c ~~~~~A~~ ‑"\~ - O GJ ~A ~,~A ~~~~ c a> o f ~7, ai a _ .Q o VA ~~ A f a - ' F~ bird ~+ a m c3 O LiA~ - ~\~yO~ ' - +o ‑ O i O f O +o 132‑ ‑4s !‑ yOvy~~~yy~~~ y~ - P, O a) ░.~ a) ~░ o m~ m - cJ .‑r !':‑.' ...!!+= S.; : : '‑g o 14,fah"N:uSs''\11t' AI░ IOOEi ; 2 ‑4 ä., E, ; m4mæv ,:t yvgym a DIVISION SECOND.‑TYRE.
MI actum eredens, dum quid superesset agendum. - LucAx: Nothing is dons while anything is left undone.
Thus saith the Lord God, I am against thee, oh Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up.
And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her and make her like the top of a rock.
It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea. Ezekiel mii. 3 - 5.) Patriots were here in freedom's battle slain; Priests, whose long lives were closed without a stain; Bards, worthy him who breathed the poet's mind; Founders of arts that dignify mankind; And lovers of our race whose labors gave Their names a memory that defies the grave.
MOSLEM FORMS OF PRAYER.
CHAPTER V.
FROM BEYROUT TO TYRE.
y, N Deuteronomy, xxxiv., Moses is described as taking his panoramic view of the Land of Canaan,. from the southeast.
The sacred record affirms that he "went to the top of Pisgah, and the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead unto Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah unto the utmost sea." In a map lacing a subsequent chapter may be found this stand‑point of Moses, nearly east of the northeast corner of the Dead Sea, and about fifty miles east of Jerusalem.
My stand point for a first view of Palestine is in the extreme northwest of the Holy Land, at Beyrout, diagonally opposite that of Moses. Between the two lies the whole land of Canaan, our respective stand‑points being about one hundred and fifty miles apart.
This city of Beyrout, which constituted headquarters during my Oriental explorations, has no place in ancient Masonic history, al‑though it is now (1872) the site of the only lodges in this country. It is indeed scarcely mentioned, if at all, in the Bible. It is interesting to Freemasons, however, as lying on the south side of the beautiful sheet of water which I shall style the Bay of the Rafts. It is called here St. George's Bay, from the fabulous encounter of that hero with the dragon, said to have occurred at this place. In Spenser's Faerie Queen, the long‑drawn battle is graphically described. My name of "The Bay of Freemasonry, or Bay of the Rafts," is derived from its ancient use for making up the rafts or "Rotes" of cedars provided by King Hiram for Solomon's Temple. They were sent out from this place, as I shall show in subsequent pages, to the port of Tyre, one hundred miles south. My headquarters at Beyrout were in the hospitable mansion of Brother Samuel Hallock, a member of Lodge No. 9, Philadelphia, Pa., and as thorough and genuine a Mason as ever old Number Nine turned out from its busy Atelier. He accommodates me with a room, for which I supply myself with a few pieces of furniture; and so in all my sojourning threugh Holy
HEADQUARTER& ;5
Land I have an abode to which I can turn as home. Many a profit‑able hour did we two stranger Masons enjoy in mutual confidences and the interchange of useful thoughts. Brother Hallock is the electrotypist of the printing‑house connected with the American Protestant Mission, and a contributor to the New York Journal of Commerce. The condition of Freemasonry in Beyrout, and the elder lodge (Palestine Lodge No. 415), will be fully detailed in a subsequent chapter.
I commence this second division, therefore, at Beyrout, where I landed, March 3d, 1868. The place, as remarked above, has no particular mention in Biblical or Masonic history, yet its traditions imply that it is one of the oldest of Phoenician cities. Having the best harbor that exists along the coast (although at the best it is only third‑rate), Beyrout has been adopted as the seat of the general consulates of all the great powers. Being connected by a turnpike road eighty‑four miles long with Damascus, and by telegraph with points north, south, and east, it enjoys the best business of the coast, and has risen rapidly from a population of 10,000 to 60,00C. This growth more resembles one of our Western railroad towns than any‑thing in this old‑fogy land. Beyrout has outgrown gates and walls, and is spreading abroad into the suburbs on all sides. Spelled in the geography "Beirut," it is properly pronounced Bay‑root. Its latitude is 33░ 54' north, longitude 35░ 29' east of Greenwich. On the east runs the river Beyrout, called by Pliny, eighteen hundred years ago, the Mayoras - in dry seasons, however, a mere creek. The town stands, like Joppa, upon a head‑land, called in Arabic Ras, (meaning head), which projects about five miles into the sea from the foot of Mt. Lebanon.
This head‑land, with the mountains behind it, is that which would first strike the eye of Phcenician sailors coming, as I did, from the westward. For here the mighty Lebanons exhibit their vast proportions, five to ten thousand feet high, in the most impressive grandeur. I deubt whether all Syria affords another such view as these white‑capped heights, striking the clouds with their hoary tops and planting their roots deep at the earth's very centre.
My first work, upon landing at Beyrout, was to forward by mail, to each of several hundreds of old correspondents, a specimen of the "productions of the land" in the form of an Olive Leaf. I learned that it was gratifying to them, both as a veritable token from the Holy Land and anN appropriate tessera of brotherly remembrance. TT‑non my g. he;er he de a es th re
STARTING DOWN TO TYRE.
All this and more I fain would teach From this bright ancient verdant text; Take it with all the words annexed; Be yours the sermon that they preach! The " words annexed," in the last stanza, were quotations from Deut. viii. 8; 1 K. v. 11; Ps. lii. 8; cxxviii. 3, etc. A space was left in the printed copy to fasten the olive leaf upon, that so it might be framed and preserved.
At the conclusion of the last chapter I gave an itinerary of my entire trpvels while in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. In the making up of this volume, however, I follow the natural order of a Masonic narrative thus: DIVISION FIRST. - Tyre, the royal seat of King Hiram.
DrVIs ox SECOND. - Gebal, the home and school of Hiram the Architect, DIVISION THIRD. - Lebanon, the source of the cedars.
DIVISION FouRTH. - The Bay of the Rafts where the cedars were floated.
DIVISION FIFTH. - Joppa, the port of trans‑shipment.
DIVISION SIxTH. - The clay‑grounds, the site of Hiram's furnaces and foundries.
DIVISION SEVENTH. - Jerusalem, the site of the Temple. * * * Tyre and its surroundings therefore come foremost.
On the morning of April 13th, at 7 o'clock, I started, on horseback with an Arab servant, one Hassan Mardby, riding a second horse and carrying my impedimenta of blankets, overcoats, books, provisions, working tools, etc., etc., to visit the city of Tyre, now called Soor (or Tsoor). Having been nearly six weeks in the country, during which I had made four excursions, I felt posted upon the best method of travel, and the quantity of baggage, etc., essential to it. My plan, which I recommend to all travellers who do not fancy making them‑selves slaves to dragomans, is to hire two horses and their owner for a certain number of days (in this case, six); he to subsist himself and his horses and be his own quartermaster. The stipulated price with Hassan was twelve francs a day for the whole, equal at the then rates of gold to $3.25 per day. Besides this, my own board and lodging cost me about $2.00 per day.. So, for $5.00 per day, or thereabouts, I go as an independent traveller, stopping when I please and where I please, and as long as I please, with none to molest me or
JONAH'S TAVERN. 79
make me afraid. Hassan stipulates to collect specimens for me, do my interpreting, and serve me in every way that he is ordered.
The road from Beyrout to Sidon runs for five miles over singular red sand-hills, the only deposits of the sort on the coast. It is sug Bested by some that this sand is blown into the sea, near the mouth of the Nile, in Egypt, brought by the prevailing currents to this shore, where the wind seizes it when dry, and drifts it westward like snow, threatening some day to submerge the whole city of Beyrout. I took considerable quantities of this desert-sand, the only link now connecting Egypt and Phoenicia, once so nearly related in religion, symbology, and all the details of ancient Freemasonry.
This road over the sand-hills was described six centuries ago, as a good, deep road, and never was one better named. For miles the horses stepped fetlock deep in the sand.
I had already inaugurated the practice of naming the best-marked hays on this coast after Masonic emblems, and dedicating them to American lodges. There is one such at the distance of five hours (about fifteen miles) from Beyrout, shaped much like a Trowel. This, therefore, I dubbed The Bay of the Trowel, and dedicated to the genial and generous brethren of Manchester, Iowa; Indianapolis, Indiana; and La Grange, Kentucky, between whom there runs a line of Masonic similarity, closer than blood-relationship. This bay will be identified by travellers by the circumstance that, just south of it, as you rise the hill on the old Roman road, there is an ancient watch-tower of squared stone, by some attributed to Queen Helena, but probably Phoenician in its make. Here a great battle was fought, B.C. 218, between the Syrians under Antiochus the Great, and the Egyptians under Ptolemy. Coins of these two kings will be found figured in this book. The latter was defeated with fearful slaughter. The Bay of the Trowel is a charming little nook of water, its shores abounding in shells and sponges, and in every way worthy its dedication.
Not far from it is a Moslem tomb, called Neby Younas, the tomb of Jonah; and here, in a little bay close in front of the tomb, is the traditional disgorging place of the disobedient prophet, who went southwest when ordered to go northeast. Close by the tomb is a Khan, or tavern, more strictly a cafe, or coffee-house, where several times in passing I spent a quiet hour, sipping the native coffee, and writing up my notes. Shall I record the memorandums made of "what I resolved to do every day while in this country?" For four months, I acted upon the plan following, and fortes fortuna adjuvat,as Pliny Senior said, just before he was gobbled up by Mount Vesuvius: "A person visiting any strange country should possess practised powers of observation, or his travels can present no useful results. The ordinary grade of tourists' observations upon Holy Land is scarcely above an infant's. He should be skilled in trees, plants, rocks, customs, costumes, peoples; but those who have written upon this country seem to have known nothing of such things when they landed, and but little more when they sailed away. What drivel makes up their books! I have hundreds of them in my library, and it is enough to give one the dyspepsia to look through them. For my part, I am resolved to-day, and for my coming four months, to bring forty years of reading, study, and travel to bear on the scenes before me. I will examine the earth and rocks, and see what they are made of. I will consider this ancient country as a naturalist's museum, and get my money's worth out of it. As a French savant said, when congratulated upon his vast discoveries, I will simply look and see things as they are made, and tell the story as it is. But this Neby Younas' Khan (literally Jonah House) is vox prceterea nihil, only a sound. It is a local liquoring place. All it has is coffee and smoke, the coffee coming to you in Turkish cups, Liliputian indeed, the smoke through the great water-pipe styled . narghileh (nargeely), and the tomb itself recalls the old Barnum story of Captain Cook's war-club. Finding that every other museum had the club that. killed Captain Cooke, Barnum procured it also! For there are already five tombs where Jonah is buried, besides this one, viz.: at Sephoris, Hebron, Tyre, Alexandrette, and the one near Babylon, described by Layard. Were I opening a coffee-house, near the Dead Sea, for instance, I should build a Jonah's tomb too. It would pay. I forgot, after all, to mention Jonah's tomb at Raphiah, near Egypt, where the Mohammedans report a visit from this celebrated traveller.
At Neby Younas I saw the first truly sick person I had come in contact with in the Holy Land. His broken cough, sunken eye, hollow cheek, fetid breath, and despairing face, were so many indications of rapid approach to the grave, that recalled a thousand sad memories of dying friends. These people have a perfect passion for medicine, and he insisted on having some of me. I gave him half of the ginger-root I always carry in my pocket.
The hard, smooth beach around Jonah's Bay by Neby Younas tempts me for the first time to-day into a gallop. How invigorating
A NATIVE 1 EPAETEE. 81
the Western breeze, the solemn awash of the wave, the shriek of the gull, the flight of my sinewy horse. I am twenty years younger again. But no, my hat blows off. In dismounting to get it I turn my ankle. In remounting I break my pocket‑comb, and so the rest of the day's journey is done in a slow walk.
As I sat imbibing the coffee of Jonah's Tavern in a steady draught, for nothing less than the Fellow‑Craft's number will suffice a drinker from these cups in an Oriental cafe, I quietly asked the land‑lord: "ghanjee, where along this coast did the great fish discharge the prophet Jonah?" The Khanjee had learned this part of his lesson well. His fishy eyes brightened up. He took his hands, figuratively speaking, out of his pockets, scratched himself, and then pointing the dirtiest finger in the direction of a little bay a hundred yards in the southwest, answered, "Howadji, yonder is the spot." It was a suitable place, and showed a good taste of selection either in the whale or the Khanjee. So, after looking pleasingly towards it, and emptying a few more cups, I abandoned the examination in chief and began the cross‑examination: " But, Khanjee, how do you know that is the place? Here was a puzzler. The query had never before been propounded the stupid fellow. Dropping his head and returning his hands, figuratively speaking, into his pockets, he sat for a moment a monument of inanity. Then, with a spirit of repartee that I had not supposed was in him, he raised his head, and answered: "But, Howadji, if that is not the place, where is the place?" And so the subject dropped.
Continuing my journey, sometimes along the hard beach of this sea without tides, sometimes in the deep sands a little ways back, sometimes across the rocky points of the hills, I came, about 4 P.M., in sight of the crenulated battlements of the Gothic chateau of St. Lois, and then of the city of Sidon itself, surrounded on the land‑side by groves of fruit‑trees. Sidon abounded, of old, in citrons, oranges, pomegranates, saffron, figs, almonds, sugar‑cane, coriander, and other rare objects of desire. It was called of the Phoenicians Sidon, in regard to the abundance of fish. The neroli, or oil distilled from orange blossoms, made so abundantly here, is so far superior to that extracted from orange‑peel, that thousands of trees are stripped of blossoms every season, which never go to maturity of fruit, to supply the wants of the perfume‑makers.
The orange groves surrounding this ancient city are so charming
6
82 THE FRUITS OF SIDON.
as to make the poor old place look by contrast worse than it should. The fruit is abundant, large, and delicious. For four months they hang on the trees ripening, and the germ, the bud, the blossom, the green fruit and the ripe fruit cluster, side by side, as I have seen an old New‑England family on Thanksgiving‑day grouped together in the third and fourth generation; or, more graphically, as I have seen in an old and lively lodge of Masons, working on the First Degree, the bud, the flower, and the ripened fruit in the three classes of Craftsmen there assembled. An old author, Sandys, translates from the Odyssey (ii. 1) an appropriate passage, which I transcribe as follows:
These at no time do their rare fruits forego,
Still, breathing Zephyrus maketh some to grow,
Others to ripen; growing fruits supply
The gathered, and succeed so orderly.
Here, too, " the acacia waves her golden hair," large trees, ten w twelve inches in diameter, lining the avenues of' the city on the east. In a subsequent chapter I will describe this tree, famous in Masonic uses.
I reached Sidon about 4 P.I., and spent the night, by invitation, with Rev. Wm. M. Eddy, one of the American missionaries stationed here. The father of this hospitable gentleman was made a Mason, in company with Pliny Fisk, about the year 1824, preparatory to embarking for the Holy Land as a missionary. They united with our ancient Order under the hope that through its cosmopolitan character and influence their holy work might be expedited. The present Mr. Eddy is not a Mason, although possessing the general spirit of one. He made my stay at his house, both going and returning, home‑like and sweet.
In the bazaar may be seen oranges by the cargo, piled in huge heaps, figs, grapes, olives, pomegranates, dates, almonds, raisins, peaches, apricots, limes, lemons, plums, quinces, the most luxuriant bananas, and other fruits in variety and abundance.
On returning to Beyrout some days afterwards, I was conducted by a smart little son of Mr. Eddy, since sent to America to be educated, to the establishment of a potter, outside the gate. A view of this ancient art, esteemed honorable in 1 Chron. iv. 23, and made by Jeremiah (xviii.) and other Bible writers a subject of imagery, cleared up to my mind a number of Scriptural allusions. The work‑
THE HARD FORTUNES OF SIDON. 83
men, however, were an unsightly set; three Arabs with only four good eyes among them. I observed here that every man you meet is wearing the dress in which "he lieth down at night " - a fact that explains various things, entomological and otherwise, that at first glance puzzles you in the East. As I sat there watching the chief potter, I read Romans ix. 21: " Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?" and my answer was in the affirmative.
There is no lodge of Masons at Sidon, but quite a number of the craft live here, whom I met the following June at Beyrout. It is a city well adapted for a lodge, high and ample chambers being found in abundance, and a resident population that would afford an abundance of good " timbers " (materials) for Masonic work. I hope to learn that a lodge ere long will be established here. In the hope of such a desirable consummation, I locate here the following names of worthy and eminent Masons: O. H. Main, G. B. Van Saun, Henry Hitt, George W. Chaytor, A. R. Whitney, Jesse B. Anthony, Washington Galland, B. F. Simmons, Luke E. Barber, Elwood Evans.
Spending a Sabbath‑day here in the following June, I had some genial hours in that Christian family, remembering the days of old, meditating on all his works, musing on the work of God's hands, (Pa. cxliii. 5), and heard a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument (Ez. xxxiii. 32).
Sidon has been four times taken, plundered, and dismantled. On one occasion (most memorable) it was absolutely reduced to ashes and cinders, and the privilege of sifting out the debris for the precious metals found in them was sold to an enterprising pedlar for a considerable sum. One of these fearful conflagrations of Sidon may be compared in several points with that unparalleled fire which reduced Chicago, Oct. 8‑11, 1871, to dust and ashes, turned sandstone into sand and limestone into gas, and melting the most obdurate metals as wax. Alas, when I made notes of Sidon, I little thought that the city which Miss Bremer had styled in her admiration "the home of Loki and Thor, the supernatural powers," could become in any way a parallel in desolation. At 8 o'clock, Tuesday morning, April 14, I left Sidon for Tyre. In three hours I arrived at Sarepta, named in 2 Kings viii., and believed to be the city alluded to in Matthew xv., and Mark vii., where Jesus cast out a demon from the widow's child. This is the first ground sacred to Jesus upon which I had trodden, and
84 A BEDOUIN AND HIS HORSE.
I spent several hours at Sarepta, collecting specimens, and exploring the ruins. In my chapter on the Itinerary of Jesus I will refer to it again. There is not a house now standing at Sarepta, where was once a large city. I cut the Square and Compass with my chisel upon a huge ashlar belonging to some ancient temple, in the shadow of a tamarisk‑tree, and loaded my servant with a hundred weight of marble and granite fragments, shells, bits of glass, etc., representing this once famed city.
I took occasion while here to examine the spear of an Arab sheikh, one of the Bedouin persuasion, who stopped to drink water at Ain Kanterah. It was fourteen feet long, ornamented near the top with two large black tufts feathered. It was armed with a sharp iron ferule at the lower end, so as to enable its holder to strike it into the ground at an easy blow. This is truly a formidable weapon, but its owner handled it as gracefully as a Charleston dandy handles his cane. The Bedouin himself was of low stature, raw‑boned, tawny, having a feminine voice, and a swift and noiseless pace, like one of our moccasin‑shod Indians of the West.
His horse was a genuine specimen of the Arab stock. He was larger than ordinary American horses, had an eye full of fire and intelligence, head well set on, forehead rather straight, fine at the withers, quarters well turned, body round and good, legs clean, pas‑terns long; a serviceable‑looking animal. The following conversation gives a good idea of the rider: Howadji. Where would you rather live? Bedouin. In the desert.
Howadji. Why in the desert? Bedouin. Because I am the son of the desert, and not the son of the city.
He said the race of horses he was riding had been four hundred years in his family, and that no money could buy this one. He was broken to travel only at the walk and gallop, the unnatural and ungraceful movement of a trot being deemed unworthy of an Arab courser.
The life of this Arab is one of danger and distress from his youth. He wears upon his face the features of his ancestors, "wild men," who in the days of Moses, and of Mohammed, twenty‑one hundred years later, dwelt in tents and conducted their flocks to the same springs and pastures as their fathers of the earliest times.
At Sarepta I oaught a view of Jebel, old Jebel‑es‑Sheikh, Mount
HERMON, MOUNT OF DEWS. 86
Hermon, fifty miles in the southeast. His snowy cap gives him prominence in the clear blue sky. The mountain seems from this point like a pale blue snow‑capped peak peering over the intervening ranges of Lebanon. How often in Masonic lectures have I quoted the passage from David: "Like the dew of Hermon and like the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion; for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore." How often have I sung the paraphrase of the good Giles F. Yates, whom I knew so well in 1855û7: " Like Hermon's dew, so richly shed On Zion's sacred hills!" In a future chapter I will give a full description of this mountain, Freemasonry's grandest type of brotherly love. But here I remark that the amount of moisture the earth receives from this great water‑cooler and atmospheric regulator must be immense, when we consider the acknowledged fact that a single inch of water spread level over one acre of ground weighs one hundred tons! To this dewy thought the poet alludes: When the West Opens his golden bowers of rest, And a moist radiance from the skies Shoots trembling down.
I am loth to lay aside the theme. Hermon is the mountain that passeth into the clouds and joins to the upper air; one of "the eternal hills" raised to an elevation that cools, condenses, and returns the moisture ascending from the parched earth, sending it back in grateful dews, rains, and springs.
Sarepta, now without a winepress, a grapevine, or a winedrinker, was once celebrated for the quantity and quality of its wine. But a man hunting his morning dram in 1868 would be as badly off as at Grinnell, Iowa, where the " drummers " are said to carry full flasks with them, or do worse.
Along this dreary waste, where once there rung
The festal lay which smiling virgins sung;
Where rapture echoed from the warbling lute,
And the gay dance resounded - all is mute.
Macaulay.
My noontide at Sarepta did not pass without an appeal to the
BETWEEN BAREPTA AND TYRE. 87
No longer to restrain my tears,
Such gratitude these drops recount:
'Tis surely worth my fifty years,
This noontide at Sarepta's .fount!
Sing, murmuring waters, lulling streams;
Roar, foamy breakers, on the shore;
Broken Sarepta's fleeting dreams,
The vision will return no more.
Far o'er the western sea my heart
Wanders from lone Sarepta's shrine;
I rise, and on my way depart,
Never to view these scenes again.
( But I shall meet Him! yes, I know,
My inmost being this assures,
Where founts celestial smoothly flow,
And perfect blessedness allures.
Onward and onward moments fly,
My sands of life make haste to run;
Lord, grant me favor ere I die,
To leave no appointed task undone!
Leaving the sight of that mountain, along by whose base passed the man, 4,000 years ago, in'whom the whole Church was contained, and the sweet spring that to the latest hour of my life will be associated with romantic memories, I passed on southwards over Phcnnicia, a narrow strip of plain rarely extending more than a mile or two in width from the shore, backed by ranges of mountains, piled tier upon tier to the snow‑covered crests of Lebanon; remembering that between Sidon and Tyre, where there is now not only no city nor village, but not even a house, there were once sixteen prosperous towns! As the distance is a scant twenty‑five miles, the suburbs of these contiguous towns must have been very much restricted, the wall of one city almost meeting that of the next.
The sight of fishermen standing naked in the hot sunshine, waiting to cast their hand‑nets at the approach of schools of fish, interested me greatly. A basket of the Mediterranean fish had been shown me at Khan Younas. When I saw what severe labor the poor fellows undergo, I sung my favorite lines: God bless the laboring man, I pray; Make sure his wages every day;
88 ARRIVAL AT TYRE.
Afield, afloat, Afloat, afield, Make honest work its wages yield.
I think there is always a group of gazelles feeding in the meadow‑lands a few miles north of Tyre - meadows so rich that one of the old pilgrims declared that those bad roads were fully recompensed to him by the fragrant savors of rosemary, bay, hyssop, marjorum, and other perfumed plants. Altogether, I passed here three times, and always found gazelles. They are the Gazella Arabica, two feet high at the shoulder. The Scriptural names are Ariel, Dorcas, Tabitha, etc. Their airy and graceful forms are very attractive. The first group of them that I saw stood motionless, sharply defined against the background of the sky and hills. After a moment they threw their heads up, and bounded away like the flight of birds.
A few miles north of Tyre I crossed the "willful headlong river," called now Nahr‑el‑Kasimiyeh (but you will not pronounce it as the Arabs do in fifty times trying! I got a sore throat and wasted two miles trying to catch it from Hassan.) The words mean, " the Dividing River." It is, no doubt, the old Leontes, and a beautiful stream it is, closely resembling the Jordan, as I afterwards saw, and about thirty feet wide. The bridge is a single arch, very neat and strong. The current is so swift that, seeing a dead duck floating under the bridge, I ran to the other side, but the duck had got past me on its way to the sea.
The heavy load I had imposed upon Hassan necessitated the poor fellow's walking all the way from Sarepta to Tyre, some eighteen miles' distance. I named a charming little bay, distant about six miles south of Sidon, the Bay of the Square, from its peculiar form, and dedicated it to the Freemasons of Wheeling, Western Virginia; Omaha, Nebraska; and Waterloo, Iowa. This bay may be known from an ancient watch‑tower standing directly on the edge of the bay at its southwestern extremity.
Arrived at Tyre about six o'clock. Found accommodations in the house of a native family, who were extremely attentive to my wants, for a moderate price. In my visit to Damascus, two weeks before, I had procured from the Governor‑General, Mohammed Raschid, a document directed to all governors of towns and villages throughout Syria, commanding them to see that I was furnished with suitable accommodations for myself and servants, together with guards in going from place to place, etc.. and all at reasonable prices. This document, A. BIIYURIILDL 89 called a Buyuruldi, which was secured strictly through Masonic influence, was of service to me in every place I visited. I have also a Firman from the Sultan himself, at Constantinople, Abdul Axis, sent me through the kind influence of Brother John P. Brown, Secretary of the American Embassy there. The two together never failed to secure for me all the attentions I needed) for a reasonable considera‑ tion.
The following is a translation of the Firman referred to. It is written upon a thick and substantial sheet of paper, about twentyfqur by thirty inches in dimensions, at the top of which is the name of the Sultan, Abd‑ul‑Aziz, in a peculiarly complicated anagram, called a Toogra: "Imperial Travelling Firman of Sultan Abdul Aziz Khan, granted in favor, of Robert Morris, addressed to H. E. Mohammed Raschid, Pasha, Governor‑General of the Vilayet of Syria.
"To my Minister and very glorious Councillor, the model of the world; the regulator of the regulations of the universe; he who directs the public interests with rare wisdom, and settles all important affairs with singular judgment; he who strengthens the edifice of the Empire and secures its prosperity; who invigorates the columns of felicity and magnificence; in fine, who is the especial recipient of the power and favor of the Most High Sovereign of the universe; the Governor‑General of the Vilayet of Syria; wearer of the First Class of the Decoration of the Mejidiah, Mohammed Raschid, Pasha and Vizier; may the Most High prolong his grandeur! " When the present sublime Imperial Document reaches you, know that the American Legation at the Capital of my Empire, has re‑ported that an American citizen, Robert Morris, a traveller, is desirous of travelling from Constantinople to Syria, via Beyrout, Sham Shereef (Damascus), Khuds Shereef (Jerusalem), Yaffa (Joppa), and their vicinity, and asks that while on his way, or residing in any place, he be protected and aided. In earth point of view, I have therefore is‑sued the present Noble Order. You, therefore, the Governor‑General before mentioned, will see that the aforesaid traveller, wherever he may go or desire to stay on his journey, be treated with respect and regard; that he be provided with horses, according to the regulations, and receive guards to enable him to pass through all dangerous places. Be careful to provide for the execution of my present Sublime Command. Written on the 7th of moon of Zil, etc., etc., A. H. 1284." CHURNING BUTTER.
DANCING DERVISHES.
CHAPTER VI.
TEE CITY OF KING HIRAM.
RRIVED at the city of Tyre about sundown, I entered 4 through the opening where until recently a thick and tit strongly guarded gate stood, and I felt the force of the expression of Isaiah: "Her gates lament and mourn" (iii. 26). Many of her houses are desolate, even great and fair, 'without inhabitants (v. 9). Her fleets of richly burdened ships 'and ranges of strong forts were but so many incentives to the Grecian conqueror, Alexander, who, flushed with his conquest over Darius, came down here, B.C. 332, with that army well styled "Invincible," the rich and powerful city of Sidon surrendering to him without a struggle, and even joining her fleets to his to aid in the subjugation of sister cities, and these massive buttresses of Tyre and the hosts of gallant men behind them could not preserve her from her predicted doom. As Isaiah had written nearly four centuries before, "The day of the Lord was upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall, and upon all the ships of Tarshish" (H. 15). Gravis ira regum semper - the wrath of kings is always dreadful; and so this magnificent city proved under the hand of Alexander. She had been a stronghold, in which silver was heaped up as the dust and fine gold as the mire of streets; but the Lord cast her out and smote her power in the sea, and she was devoured with fire (Zech. ix. 2).
I was lodged, after vacillating between the military barracks, the room over the blacksmith's shop, and somebody's convent of male sisters, in the house of a very clever man, a Christian, who lived in his second story, to which you go up by stone steps on the out‑side, and divided the ground‑floor between stables for his asses and a drinking saloon, in which his oldest son sells arrack and brandy to the soldiers. It was a private house, but for a very moderate price he took me in and provided well for my wants.
Tyre is practically a city under ground. It lies, like Jerusalem, twenty to fifty feet beneath a debris of many centuries. Formerly as filled in 32', and so hat fearful md patri‑Dined by a 3░ 18' N., 1 " Tzur " a founded s planted, he ancient ie time of iufactures d by King ring Solo‑ e to Jeru‑ they have riving the to crowd m,nd v. 11; Amos i. id xxvii; .al lamps, vicinity. Ir. Jacob, Captain Lich I was facts and markable;he Foun‑The local )rk which of " corn,;itude for tilding, at;t, to con‑
THE GREAT GRANITE COLUMN. 93
vey the water in to the city. Sufficient portions of the aqueduct remain to prove that it was a magnificent structure. Amongst the rest, there is a fragment comprising three perfect arches, beautifully devised, and finely preserved, which stand at the eastern point of the isthmus that connects Tyre with the mainland, and attract the eye of every traveller approaching Tyre, either from the north or south. These three arches, erected according to tradition by the Masonic Pillar of Wisdom, King Solomon, for the Masonic Pillar of Strength, King Hiram, I have ventured to dedicate as follows: I. The Eastern Arch to De Witt Clinton, first G. G. High‑Priest of the G. G. Royal Arch Chapter of the United States.
II. The Middle Arch to Albert G. Mackey, in 1859û65 G. G. High‑Priest of the same body.
HL .The Western Arch to John L. Lewis, in 1865û8 G. G. High‑!riest of the same body.
The present population of this renowned city is between 3,000 and 4,000; about one‑half being Arabs of the Metawileh tribe, the other half Christians of various Roman Catholic sects, and a sprinkling of Protestants. The old wall is built across the isthmus, and its gate is still in use, more as a convenient military post than anything else, for the town is in no sense protected by it. Among the ruins is a block of stone bearing the unmistakable mark of the Phoenician architects (the bevel or rebate), which measures seventeen feet in length. A double column of red granite lies among the ruins of the ancient cathedral at Tyre, six feet in diameter and twenty‑six feet long! This is the largest single piece of stone, artificially wrought, that I saw in the Holy Land. One of the former governors of Acre, twenty‑five miles below here, about seventy years ago, undertook to have it removed there, but all the skill and machinery his engineers could apply to it failed to stir the monument. Don't let the visitor to Tyre fail to visit this pillar. .
Never, surely, was a country where money is worshipped as here. It is the true idol that Mohammed left after destroying the others. The poet Virgil, had he known it, would have located his auri sacra fames, the accursed greed of gold, in these Oriental parts; and we may well propound Virgil's inquiry, Quid non mortalia pectora cogis 9 - to what crimes dost thou not impel a mortal's breast? Propertius justly embodies the thought in the words, Auro pulsa fides, auro venalia jura, Aurum lex sequitur; for such is the condition of Syrian morals, as all writers, native and foreign, admit. Those who
THE AMERICAN VICE‑CONSUL 95
preach to S. B. Tristam's most readable work, " The Land of Israel," not tunciations republished in this country. It is full of allusions to birds, beasts, The dui‑ flowers, and reptiles. He has also published a " Natural History of rible, while Palestine," which I bought in Jerusalem.
Ali by the About a century ago, Tyre was destroyed, with its inhabitants, by tsonry. an earthquake. In the rebuilding, the houses are mean, both in ished here style and composition; low, built of rough stones, arched within, flat r; and the on the roof, and inclosing a quadrangle. The walls surmounting or so much the roof for battlements are wrought through with pottery tubes to Christian catch and strike down the refreshing winds, at the same time they conceal the persons on the roof from neighboring eyes. Often the ipsides are roofs are covered with mats and hurdles. Since the awful convul‑ Viltiana of lion of the last century, the houses are built smaller and lower than iated with formerly, recalling forcibly the passage relative to Zacynthus, "The ore worthy streets unpaved, the buildings low, by reason of the often earthquakes aebius, and whereunto the town is miserably subject." is like the S Somebody had presented an Arab here with a phrenological bust I myself (or may‑be he stole it), indorsed on the back, "Description of charac‑ ter, with advice as to best pursuit, self‑improvement," etc., and had 7e moulder told him it was a likeness of Jeff. Davis, leader in the American 'did career rebellion, and it was pleasant to see the fellow's awe as he pointed it .ent. The out to me. But it was useless to explain the "sell" to him, although arsus, past I, who have known Mr. Davis ever since 1848, could enjoy it.
rust have Esculapius was associated with the city of Tyre, and so every .er funeral barber's pole in the universe is in some sense a Masonic,emblem referring to this place. The god of medicine and patron of the med eyes, barber's pole had listened to the rustling of leaves, the tones of he sharp, water‑fall and wave, the songs of birds, and the hum of insects, in;ing from this then beautiful land, until he learned to make music for himself.
Lt are dug I thought of him as I sat on the rocks one twilight evening, the sea than I see and sky of such even and utter blueness that any visible horizon is out of the question.
of Tyre: Among my pleasant memories of the days spent in Tyre was a ounds of visit to the good Jacob Akkad, for very many years United States Vice‑Consul of Tyre. He signalized my call upon him by,raising filled tern the flag of our country upon the staff that dominates the roof of his nd in its two‑story house. As in all these dwellings, his family reside in the - iatic gull second story, the lower being used for stables, etc. In a neighboring?,rceptible house a woman was having that sorrow in travail because her time I Brother had come (John xv. 21), which so moves the sensibility of every
A PRACTICAL JOKE. 97
In times of old, Tyre was the metropolis, the New York of the Alediterraneau coast. Everything to be shipped was shipped from this poet, and what they could not purchase they made. Commerce, tor ages, could only be done by these people; they were truly what the British for some centuries claimed to be, lords of the seas. The perusal of the 27th chapter of Ezekiel illustrates this point thor‑ oughly. Written about B.C. 590, it is as minute as a Philadelphia merchant's invoice of goods shipped, and, had I space here, I would insert it entire. It was from Tyre that the ilinera nzercatorum - the roads of the traders, all diverged, and in the oldest atlas they are marked in red ink. They ran from Tyre into the heart of Africa, skirted the Mediterranean coast, wound through the Straits of Gibraltar along by Portugal and France, penetrated Arabia; in short, searched. out every place in the world where products could be exchanged for products, and profits made.
As a fitting group of American Craftsmen to associate with this illustrious locality, I `enroll the ten following: John J. Crane, Robert D. Holmes (deceased), Robert Macoy, C. M. Hatch, H: J: Goodrich, H. D. Hosmer, Albert G. Hodges, James R. Hartsock, Rev. C. F. Deems, R. F. Bower.
I ought to be sorry to record that I gave utter and irreconcilable offence to a Roman priest here, a man with both feet bare, a cable‑tow four times round his unwashed body, and his head shaved, by asking him why it was that he was called Father' when he had no children. The disgust with which he contemplated my question prevented him from waiting for the backsheesh which I was about to give him.
A story more modern and better established than that I have just given, illustrates the biography of a former governor of this district, whose name, I am sorry to say, I have forgotten. He had orders from the Vali (Pasha) at Damascus, to secure a certain number of con‑scripts for the army, but could contrive no ordinary way to catch them. So he gave out that he was opening the old water‑channels that connect the city with Ras‑el‑Ain, and offered large wages to all who would cone and dig. In this way the unsuspecting and hard‑fisted fanners of the locality were deluded. They came in a hundred strong, and just as they got fairly into the trenches digging, a detachment of troops surrounded them, seized, bound, and brought them before the Regimental Surgeon for inspection. To his credit, it is said, he passed them all except two, who had but one leg each, and .y; the latter;ed into the a joke, was column, six ent Basilica. roken Shaft ther to those and equally n the Great thought of unite. The aereafter.
yunj ih, near on which is fishes, a man ess.
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A PAGE FROM A DIARY. 9$
Durmg my stay here, I experienced a touch of the Kliamseen, that celebrated desert‑wind known in its perfection as the Simoom and Sirocco. Afterwards, at Beyrout, I felt its effects more severely. It excited nervous irritation, made me dyspeptic, shortened my sleep, and gave me slow fever. Its name, denoting fifty, implies the length of time it usually traverses the desert. The amount of dust carried before it is suggested by a storm December 24, 1870, in Clinton County, Indiana, in which 600 tons of dust fell within a radius of twenty miles; so says Prof. J. Twigley, before the American Association for Advancement of Science, at its session in 1871.
The custom of keeping a lamp burning all night in the house is universal throughout the East, and to me quite disagreeable; so I - blew mine out at Tyre every time. Stevens describes a man living in a tomb on the banks of the Nile, who keeps his night‑lamp going as steadily as the one in the lighthouse on the Skellig rock. An irreverent friend has suggested, in view of the buggy condition of the native houses, that may‑be this lamp is burned to deceive the insects as to the time. If so, it was a failure.
An hour's nooning, seated upon the tradition‑stone I have named, in the shade of the fountain outside the town, was spent in making notes, some of which I group together here for want of space.
. An old man coming for water, so very ancient that, in Tennyson's words: " The man was no more than a voice in the white winter of his age." The sight of the prostrate columns yonder covered with nets placed there to dry, recalls the lines: Like the stained web that whitens in the sun, And purer grows by being shone upon.
The extremely fine work I see upon the ancient gems exhumed here every day, cornelian, jasper, emerald, chalcedony, etc., remind me that recent researches at Konyunjih show the use of the microscope in ancient times. Minute lens and specula of magnifying lens have been found. A cone engraved with a table of cubes, too small to be visible by the naked eye, is now in the British Museum, found in Persia, and attributed to a very ancient date. Some of the lodges in America are named after those Oriental gems, viz., Cornelian, 40, ‑ Minn., etc., far more appropriate than that of High Log Lodge, Grass‑hopper Falls Lodge, Bear Wallow Lodge, and the like. Maundeville, A.D. 1322, wrote that here, at Tyre, was once a great and good city of the Christians; on the sea‑side many rubies were found, and the well is here of which Solomon wrote, "a fountain of gardens and a well of living waters." (Song iv. 15). The great use made of blue dye in this country, in coloring the cotton and woolen fabrics so
ST. PAUL'S VISIT. 101
" landed at Tyre, for there the ship was to unlade her burden." He remained here seven days, and as he departed all the Christian people followed him out of the city with their wives and children, and kneeled down on the shore and prayed. To peruse the account on the spot gives it a reality.
In closing this chapter, I would say that, while there are no members of the Masonic society resident here, quite a number of native gentlemen, civil and military, and some foreigners, " have long entertained" the necessary "opinion," and were a lodge opened, either in Sidon, twenty‑five miles north, or Acre (or Caifa), the same distance south, these would become petitioners. And while Tyre is scarcely adapted, by the character of its population, for a permanent lodge, those who, like myself, feel that the home of Hiram should not be entirely overlooked, could unite in the plan in regard to Ephesus, which resembles Tyre in the same particular. There, while the lodge is nominally located at Ephesus, the members all live at Smyrna, twenty‑five miles north, and go together, by day, on the regular occasions, to open the lodge at Ephesus and do its regular work. SO the brethren at Sidon, Acre or Caifa, might have a lodge at Tyre without being residents here.
COIN OF ALEXANDER. STRUCK AT 'PYRE.
CHAPTER VII.
THE TOMB OF HIRAM.
On Tuesday, April 14th, as I have said, I arrived at Tyre, after two days' hard horseback exercise from Beyrout, and early next morning, April 15th, went out five miles east, to view the celebrated monument of antiquity, called by the natives Habr Hairan, meaning Iliram's Tomb. In the survey of this old relic I spent the day, returning late in the afternoon to Tyre, and made a second visit to it a month later.
The way thither is through the only gate of Tyre now in use. There all day long a group of men sit smoking, chatting and enjoying their dolce .far nzenle, as the Italians have it. Nobody reads newspapers in Tyre; this group of observant idlers is so thoroughly posted in all Tyrian news, that what they.don't know isn't worth knowing. They discussed me for several days in, all my bearings, and I hope came to favorable conclusions. A splendidly carved marble sarcophagus, once of large cost and rare beauty, lies a hundred yards in front of the gate, degraded now to the uses of a horse‑trough! On its four corners are rams' heads beautifully carved. It much resembles a sarcophagus that I saw at Gebal a few weeks since.
Everybody I meet here has a welcome word and sign for me, except those ill‑conditioned brutes, the Afelawelies. They are on a par with the publicans, of whom the Great Teacher said, " if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? " (Matt. v. 47), for they pay no sort of attention to my most graceful of salaams, or my cheeriest of " how are ye, my bully boys? " with which I greet them day after day, with unwearying patience.
I crossed the isthmus connecting the island, on which Tyre was originally built, with the mainland, now only a dreary waste of white sand, drift upon drift. This isthmus seems to have been crowded as
L04 CAMELS AND CHARCOAL.
far into the water as it can be. I do not think that even the display of fishers' nets spread over the costly marble and granite ruins of Tyre ‑fl'ect me so much as this cheerless waste of sand. If a man would lave a lesson of the mutuability of earthly things, let him stand ‑pen the eminence where the sand‑billows have drifted the highest, .nd read from the twenty‑seventh and twenty‑eighth chapters of Ezekiel such passages as these: "Thou sealest up the sum, full of risdom and perfect beauty. Thy borders are in the midst of the eas, thy builders have perfected thy beauty," and other paragraphs f this nature; then cast his eye over yonder poor crumbling ruins ailed Tyre, its magnificent church reduced to fragments of walls those inclosures are used for the vilest purposes, its triple walls bro‑:en down, its incalculable traffic comprised now in a few small boats. lilt the theme is too painful to contemplate this charming April ay, so I turn my back upon it and ride eastward, cheerily whistling Over the hills and far away." I have nowhere seen such a number of camels as throng this road. ley are loaded chiefly with charcoal from the mountains, each of he huge beasts carrying two immense hampers filled with it. Fuel 5 so scarce in this country that no one thinks of making a fire for ny purpose save cooking, and for that charcoal is the cheapest. It 3 shipped from here, up and down the coast in considerable quantifies by the small coasting‑boats. Many of these camels, however, are Jaded with millstones, made of the hard, black, indestructible basalt hat lies heaped 'in petrified billows east of the Sea of Galilee. These re also shipped in different directions, and form one of the leading artiles of Tyrian traffic. As the daily " Prices‑Current" of Tyre are not ublished, I could not find out the ruling prices of millstones.
The plain of Tyre, after I passed the sand‑drifts, is extremely beauiful. The barley, the principal grain raised upon it at the present ay, is at this time about a foot high, and looks promising. Doubtss a good system of farming would develop immense crops here; but ae native plows only tickle the ground; no manure is used, the seed I scantily sown, and everything is done in a barbarous way. Many roves of mulberry‑trees attract the eye, and I learn upon inquiry at an attempt is making to raise silk here. I apprehend, however, rat the unhealthiness of the neighborhood will always make against lat. They have the "chills and fever" around Tyre as bad as in the lrabash swamps of Indiana.
In about one hour's ride I begin to ascend the hills, the snow
MOSAIC PAVEMENT. 105
capped Lebanons seeming to rise just before me, though I know very well that a day's hard riding will not more than reach them. This is one of the most charming days I have seen in Palestine, and my very soul and lungs expand as I draw in this invigorating breeze from Lebanon. The mountain‑sides are black with goats, the valleys are white with sheep; the voices of their keepers, calling to each other, reach my ears, mellowed in the distance; and as I observe the little lambs tenderly cared for by their rude Arab keepers, I feel involuntarily to burst forth, as the shepherd‑poet at Bethlehem: "The Lord is MY shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh ME to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth ME beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul." May I never be less submissive to HIM than these poor creatures are to their shepherd.
Seeing a large upright stone on the top of a high hill on the left, I leave my horse with Hassan, and scramble up to it through a field of barley. It is an immense block, having a chiselled groove down the side, and, as I afterwards learned from the well‑posted missionary, Dr. W. M. Thomson, at Beyrout, author of Land and Book, it is part of an olive press. But the very olive‑trees that supplied the fruit for this press have disappeared; even their stumps are gone, and the press has been, perhaps, a thousand years out of use. Near it is a large cistern cut in the solid rock, well cemented on the sides and bottom. A few steps lower down are the remains of a house in which, to my delight, I found large patches of a Mosaic pavement, so interesting to a Freemason. This led me to call for my chisel and hammer, and I soon collected enough of the lessens from this checker‑work to fill my carpet‑bag. I afterwards collected stores of similar objects from Mount Zion at Jerusalem, Mount Olivet, and other places. There are no remains of Hebrew, Greek and Roman periods so numerous as patches of the Mosaic pavement.
Going on eastward I open my eyes widely to catch the first view of Hiram's Tomb. I make my two servants fall behind me in the road. No one shall point it out to me. I press on, having two eagles a mile or so overhead, leaving on my right and left great fragments of pillars, and chapiters, and sarcophagi, and deep pits cat in the solid rock for the reception of water for Hiram's men in the older times. I pass by groves of olives and figs, my kingly birds watch ing me keenly. I see, upon a steep hill to the right, the town of Hanaweigh, built, as Dr. Thomson informs me, out of the ruins of the country seats and summer residences of Tyre's merchant‑prince.
06 FIRST VIEW OF THE BABE. DESCRIPTION OF THE TOMB. 107
that once crowned these hills. I meet caravan after caravan of rmels, with their loads of charcoal, so suggestive of that Masonic?rvency on which I have so often expatiated. But I have no eyes t these things; I am watching out for Kabr Hairan, the sepulchre Hiram.
Yonder it is! It is worth coming all the way from the United tates to see it. There is no mistaking it. Nowhere in all the orld have my eyes beheld anything like it. A little to the right the hill I have been ascending, and a little beyond its apex, the gal fowls looking down upon it so knowingly, it stands out clear id sharp against the mountains beyond; its grand sepulchral stone .owning the structure with a massiveness proportioned to the whole. t last I see the burial‑place of the great lluram, who was ever a ver of David (1 Kings v. 1), and who rejoiced greatly when he and the words of Solomon, and who wrote generously in acknowllgment of the royal missive announcing Solomon's intention to nid an house unto the name of the Lord his God: " Because the Ord hath loved his people, he bath made thee king over them. lessed be the Lord God of Israel that made the Heaven and the rth, who bath given to David the king a wise son, endued with ‑udence and understanding, that might build an house for the )rd, and an house for his kingdom" (2 Chronicles ii. 11, 12). Here s the Master of the Widow's Son, whose tragic history seasons ery instruction of the Freemason's lodge.
Riding more slowly towards the resting‑place of " this friend of domon," my legionary birds drawing still nearer to me, I love to ink that the Phoenician monarch selected his burial‑spot in his rn lifetime, in accordance with the customs of his country; that e plan of the structure itself was drawn by the pencil of Hiram, e Widow's Son; and that the munificence of King Solomon bore e expense of its erection. Thus our first three Grand Masters re united in this as in other matters interesting to all Masons.
Kabr Hairan bears about it unmistakable marks of extreme tiquity! So says Dr. Thomson, and so say I. It is impossible disprove the local tradition which assigns this tomb to the great Tian King. So says Prof. H. B. Tristam, and so say I. Much )re will be felt than uttered by a Masonic visitor. Standing on the - thest point eastward, from which a clear view of the sea‑coast is tained, and at a spot where the brightest Orient rays come down ^m the Lebanon ranges, it is the place of all others for the Tomb of Hiram. The genus loci, the spirit of the locality, is worth a hundred cold arguments based upon tape‑lines and parchment recorda This is the monument of Hiram; yonder eagles know it, and I know it.
This remarkable structure consists of fifteen stones arranged in five layers of the ordinary hard cretaceous limestone, solid, firm, and durable, without any marked lines of stratification, and inclining to a crystalline structure. As I know very well from having cut into it with my chisel, it is very hard, the outer surface blunting the edge of the chisel much like glass.
I. There is a layer of stones, about fifteen feet by ten, resting upon a bed of grout (that is, small pebbles intermixed with mortar) six or eight inches deep. There is only one stone (near the northwest corner) belonging to this foundation exposed; but I take it for granted that this layer extends equally under the whole monument. This one stone is thirty‑four inches in height, and four feet long. No one would have supposed that this underground layer existed but for the fact of there being a deep‑arched well. or cistern on the north side of the monument, in digging which a part of the sub‑structure was exposed, together with the bed of grout on which that first tier of stones rested. Not finding any accurate measurements of Hiram's Tomb in the books, I took them myself, and verified them on my second visit here.
II. The first layer of the monument aboveground consists of four stones, numbered in my plan A, B, C, D. This tier is four feet high.
III. The second tier consists of five stones. These exactly cover the lower tier, breaking the joints, as will be seen in the plan, in an artistic manner. They are numbered in my plan E, F, G, H, I. This tier is two feet ten inches high.
IV. The third tier consists of four stones. These extend in every direction several inches outside the tier below, forming a pleasing sort of ledge or cornice. These are numbered K, L, M, N, in my plan. This tier is two feet eleven inches high.
V. The fourth tier is monolithal, consisting of one great block of stone. It is numbered 0 in my plan. Out of the centre of this, in the top, was hewn a huge cavity for the reception of the corpse, Elevated as this sarcophagus is - more than ten feet from the ground - it presents a majestic appearance. I climbed up to it by the help of an Arab, who mounted before me, gave me his'
[08 DESCRIPTION OF THE TOMB.
109 DIMENSIONS.
hand, and by nature's own grip assisted me to rise, my two eagles looking curiously down upon the effort. Walking round to the?astern end of it, upon the cornice already described, I found that he burial‑place had been burst open and was empty.
VI. The fifth tier aboveground is also monolithal, making the lid )f the sarcophagus. This lid was made with a tenon on the under;ide, which fitted into the cavity or coffin of the sarcophagus. I;ould not tell whether cement was used in fastening down the lid, but )resume that it was. The dead body was reached by those who rifled t by going to the top of this lid, bursting down a large piece at the iortheast corner, then breaking out the end of the sarcophagus mmediately below it; so an entrance was effected. By this hole I ooked immediately into the place where once lay the body of King 3iram, empty, no doubt, more than two thousand years. Afterwards crept into the coffin itself, and measured it.
The great stones of this monument being considerably shattered, )robably by earthquakes, I found it easy to procure pieces of them, and did so abundantly. I cut the Square and Compass deeply on the nonument, on the second tier, eastern end, near the northeast corner. try Arab servant, Ilassan, having seen me do this at other places, abors under the impression that it is my name, and tells everybody o. I also exposed my Masonic flag there. I sum up in the followng tables all my measurements of this curious relic of antiquity:
SIZES OF THE FIFTEEN ASHLARS IN KABR HAIRAN.
[See Drawings.] Fnox FROM HEIGHT.
EAST TO WEST. NORTH TO SOUTH. HEIGHT.
First Tier. A 3 ft. 0 in. 8 ft. 8 in. 4 ft. 0 in.
B 7 ft. 1 in. 4 ft. 4 in. 4 ft. 0 in.
C 3 ft. 11 in. 8 ft. 8 in. 4 ft. 0 in.
D 7 ft. 1 in. 4 ft. 4 in. 4 ft. 0 in.
Second Tier. E 5 ft. 0 in. 6 ft. 0 in. 2 ft. 10 in.
F 6 ft. 4 in. 2 ft. 10 in. 2 ft. 10 in.
G 7 ft. 8 in. 2 ft. 11 in. 2 ft. 10 in.
II 4 ft. 1 in. 5 ft. 9 in. 2 ft. 10 in.
I 4 ft. 9 in. 5 ft. 9 in. 2 ft. 10 in.
Third Tier K 3 ft. 9 in. 9 ft. 11 in. 2 ft. 11 in.
L 4 ft. 0 in. 9 ft. 11 in. 2 ft. 11 in.Fnox FRox EAST TO WEST. NORTH TO SOUTH. HEIGHT.
M 3 ft. 9 in. 9 ft. 11 in. 2 ft. 11 in.
N 3 ft. 7 in. 9 ft. 11 in. 2 ft. 11 in.
Sarcophagus. 0 ‑ 12 ft. 11 in. 7 ft. 8 in. 6 ft. 0 in.
Lid. P ‑ 12 ft. 11 in. 7 ft. 8 in. 3 ft. 6 in.
DIMENSIONS OF THE RESPECTIVE TIERS. Fnox Fnox EAST TO WEST. NORTH TO SOUTH. HEIGHT.
First Tier. 14 ft. 0 in. 8 ft. 8 in. 4 ft. 0 In.
Second Tier. 14 ft. 0 in. 8 ft. 8 in. 2 ft. 10 in.
Third Tier. 15 ft. 1 in. 9 ft. 11 in. 2 ft. 11 in.
Fourth Tier. 12 ft. 11 in. 7 ft. 8 in. 6 ft. 5 in.
Fifth Tier. 12 ft. 11 in. 7 ft. 8 in. 3 ft. 6 in.
Total height 19 ft. 8 in.
CONDITION OF THE RESPECTIVE BLOCKS.
A, considerable piece out of the upper and northeast corner. B, piece out of upper and southwest corner. C, piece out of the upper and southwest corner, and lower and northeast corner. D, in good condition. E, northeast and southwest corners much shattered. F, cracked through by earthquake. G, broken at upper and northwest corner. II, best condition of all. I, cracked 'by earthquake. K, very large piece gone at north end under side. L and M, in good condition. N, shattered at south end. 0, broken open at east end. P, large piece burst off northeast corner. My chiselling of the Square and Compass was done on block E, on the east face.
The coffin or cavity in the great sepulchral stone is in length 6 ft.
8 in.; width, 1 ft.' 10 in.; depth, 2 ft. 2 in.
DEDICATIONS OF THE FIFTEEN ASHLARS.
A William Preston, of England, Masonic Ritualist.
B William Hutchinson, of England, Masonic Moralist. C Thaddeus Mason Harris, of United States, Masonic Moralist.
D Thomas Smith Webb, of United States, Masonic Ritualist.
E George Washington.
11) MASONIC PICNIC.
F Benjamin Franklin.
G The Duke of Sussex, long Grand Master of England. II Pliny Fisk, first (Masonic) Protestant Missionary to Palestine. I Wellins Calcott, of England, Masonic Moralist.
K Edward A. Guilbert, of United States, Masonic Journalist.
L John W. Simons, of United States, Masonic Jurist.
M D. Murray Lyon, of Scotland, Masonic Journalist.
N The Earl of Zetland, long Grand Master of England.
^ The Illustrious Dead of the Masonic Craft.
P The Zealous Living Workers of the Masonic Craft.
The honor of these dedications has, I think, been fairly earned y their respective recipients, as the history of Freemasonry, in arlier and later times, abundantly proves. The workmen themilves are such as the Royal Grand Master would have hailed 'orthy associates, and "their works do follow them." Will it not ring many Masonic pilgrims to this sacred locality, when there fay be grouped together around the great pile so many of the .chest associations in our history? I am confident of having the approving sentiment of every Mason f intelligence in adopting Kabr Hairan as the best remaining ionument of the most ancient Masonic period. Here, I think, was,id the body of our Grand Master, Hiram, King of Tyre. The sting=place of Solomon is lost; that of the Widow's Son (like that 'Moses) "no man knoweth;" but here, in these fifteen huge stones, we we the burial‑place of the Pillar of Strength! Surely it was good r me that I came here; and I cannot but approve the enthusiasm that thoroughly good Mason, Brother E. T. Rogers, Master (in iCS) of the Palestine Lodge, No. 415, at Beyrout, who projected, urs ago, a Masonic visit and pic‑nic to this memorable fane.
I lump together a number of notes of measurements and descripins made on the spot. The accumulations of earth and debris from e field on the north have been walled up around the monument a w feet distant, leaving an alley on the three sides of it. Otherwise e tomb would be concealed (as the great wall of Mount Moriah is) Le‑half its height. The object of this extraordinary care, so differ‑t from what we generally observe in this country, was to preserve e water‑cistern for use. This cistern is six feet north of the monu‑3nt, and reached by stone steps from the northwest corner of the nib. Go down eastward by four narrow steps to a platform, six by
VIEW FROM THE SUMMIT. 111
four feet; continue eastward by four broad steps, six feet long; then turn northward and go down five narrow steps to the water, two feet deep. Arched entrance to the cistern is four by ten feet. Cistern itself is nearly hemispherical in shape, fifteen feet from north to south, by ten feet. It is plastered with gravel‑stones, set in cement and sherds of old pottery. Water cool and good, much liked by the villagers of Hanaweigh. No signs of tools can be seen where the break was made into the sepulchre. The sides of the coffin or cavity have three notches on the north side and one on the south, but none overhead. I readily crept in there, through the break made by the robbers, perhaps of Sennacherib, B.C. 715, or thereabouts. No hieroglyphics of any kind are on the monument, so far as I could discover. From the top of the monument there is a fine view of Tyre, the plain of Phcenicia almost to Sidon, and the Great Sea beyond. A steamer was passing southward, bound for Egypt, and quite a number of sail‑vessels. Lizards abound in the tomb, and Brother II. B. Tristam (in Land of Israel) killed a large adder that lay asleep, with its head exposed, at the joinings of the tiers. But I saw no snakes around here. Hyssop grows abundantly in the cracks, and makes quite a green and tufted appearance for old Hiram.
Khbr Hairan is usually described as standing due east and west, but by the aid of the compass furnished me by my olcl friend, Brother Edward Jewell, of Louisville, Ky., I conclude, either that the variation here is fifteen or twenty degrees from the true meridian, or that the monument is not oriented to face the four points of the com‑ pass.
While taking measurements and making notes, an old man, head of a party of camel‑drivers, stopped and looking on for a few minutes, asked, through my servant, " what for all my writing? " I told him [ had come six thousand miles over yonder blue sea, pointing to the Mediterranean, which stretched out majestically at our feet, and that when I return home I shall tell my friends all about the great and curious Kabr Hairan. This pleased him, and he cried out, with the accompanying gesticulation, " Tyeeb, Tyeeb" (good), and went on his way to tell his companions of the Melican Howadji who had come so far over the sea to look at Kabr Hairan.
In the hot hour, at high twelve, I sat in the shadow of the tomb and wrote these lines:
ll2 POEM AT HIGH XIL POEM AT HIGH %IL 1I;‑t KABR HAIRAN.
(Written April 15th, 1868, at the Tomb of Hiram.) Eastward from Tyre, where the sun First gleams above gray Hernion's side, They brought thee, when thy work was done, And laid thee here in royal pride: They brought thee with the noblest rites The wisest of our Craft enjoined; (1) Before thee soared the mountain heights, And thy loved ocean‑isle behind.
The Cedars bowed their kingly tops As Hiram, Chief of Masons, passed: (2) O'er Lebanon's all‑snowy slopes The eagle screamed upon the blast: (3) Westward the foaming sea was crowned With snow‑white sails returning home: Their Sea‑Queen (4) glorious they found, Where thou, their King, should no more come. .
'Where in thy lifetime thou hadst reared This Tomb, befitting one so great, (5) They bore thee, Monarch loved and feared, And'l,id thee in thy bed of state: (G) (1) See note 10 for an explanation of this. King Hiram was traditionally buried with the Masonic Honors, as prepared by the pen of King Solomon.
(2) Formerly all these offshoots and spurs of the Lebanon Mountains were probably covered with cedars, though now the nearest grove of which I have any knowledge is thirty or forty miles north of Hiram's Tomb.
(3) As I write these lines, two of those noble birds are soaring in the clear sky above me.
(4) For many centuries the City of Tyre was the commercial metropolis of the world. The title " Sea‑Queen " is therefore highly appropriate.
(5) It was the custom of the princes and rulers of Phoenicia to prepare for them‑selves great and costly sepulchres, even while living; the hills around Kenn Mutsu are full of these, but all shattered and empty.
(6) To comprehend the splendor of Hiram's burial procession, read that of Alexan ier the Great, as detailed in Rollin's Ancient History.
They closed thee in with cunning art And left thee to thy well‑earned fame: 'Twas all the living can impart, A tomb, a pageant, and a name.
Loud was the wail on Zidon's hill, Her Sages mourned thee as their own: (7) Loud the lament on far Jebale Her wisest Son of Light was gone: (8) The ships of Tyre bore the word On every wind across the main, And white‑robed craftsmen wept their lord And strewed the mystic leaves again. (9) Nor these alone; - on Zion too A Brother joins his tears with theirs: King Solomon, to friendship true, The grief of Tyre fitly shares: His matchless pen such words indites Of true report and sacred woe, That to this hour, Freemasons' rites Within his wise direction go. (10) The centuries wore apace; and changed The kingdom of each royal Sire: Ephraim from Judah was estranged, And Zidon separate from Tyre: (11) (7) At the period of IIiram's reign, the city of Zidon, which lies about twenty‑five miles north of Tyre, was under his ride.
(8) Jebale (styled in the Scriptures Gebal) is about seventy‑five miles north of Tyre, and once marked the boundary of IIiram's possessions. It was the seat of the Architectural and Philosophical Schools of early ages.
(9) The various colonies of Tyre were established at all the prominent points on the Mediterranean Sea.
(10) According to Masonic tradition, the funeral rites under which King Hiram was untied were composed by King Solomon: they were substantially the same as those in use at the present day.
(I1) It was but a few years after Hiram's death that his own kingdom, as well as bat of his royal friend Solomon, was rent in twain by internal convulsions. 8 Then swept the deluge over all; And from each pilgrim this be heard, The Conqueror came with sword and flame, As from one humble voice to‑day: And templed shrine and kingly hall " Honor to Hiram, - Masons' lord, Are but the shadow of a name. (12) " Honor and gratitude we pay!" Yet here thy burial‑place is kept, - Sitting on the north side of this old structure, " the place of dark‑ Still this MEMORIAL appears, rcess," and what is better just now, of coolness, my eye is again attract‑ Though shadows of old time have crept ed by that pair of mountain eagles who started across the isthmus Along these stones three thousand years. of Tyre with me this morning, and have been watching me with un‑ The frost and rain have gently seared; wearying patience, while I examined olive‑presses, collected mosaic tes‑ The Orient‑sun bath kindly blest: seree, culled anemones and poppies, and browsed generally along the And earthquakes shattering have spared way. Grand old fellows! how they hang up there in the sky on Our habl - Ifziran, IIiram's rest. their broad wings, extended sail‑like six or eight feet horizontally! Whatever their intentions in thus following me, their patience is Still warm thine eastern front the rays most praiseworthy; and I feel it to be a good omen that King Hi‑ That call the Craftsmen to the wall: ram's Lebanon has sent down two of its aquilce aura', its gold‑ Here let me chisel this device, en eagles, to guard my way by old Hiram's sarcophagus, And The oldest, holiest of all! (13) now is my best time to embody Scriptural references to the Eagle And as the western sun goes down in these pages. Come, ye inspired prophets, around me, and let us To give the wearied Craft release, study the bird of,Jove together. Roman cohorts and Roman le‑ His latest gleam, in smile or frown, gions have often enough displayed their eagles along this rocky road, These time‑stained ashlars still doth kiss. running eastward from Tyre, and the Germans, a thousand years later, exhibited theirs, the double‑headed one, as they came down from The lizard darts within thy walls, Antioch, A.D. 1099, to the capture of Jerusalem. But what use did The Arab stalks indifferent by, you prophets make of the eagle when "inquiring and searching dili‑ Vast relics once of lordly halls gently, and prophesying of the grace that should come" to fallen Around in mute suggestion lie: men? The hyssop springs between the stones, Who of you all have made the " unclean bird" (Lev. xi. 18) your The daisy blossoms at the foot, emblem? The olive its peace lessons owns, Moses: I used it in threatenings against my people, in case they Best moral where all else is mute. should refuse to hearken unto the voice of the LORD their God. Ob‑ serving its swiftness'of flight, I declared that the nation whom God Stand thou, till time shall be no more, should send against Israel, from the end of the earth, should come Great type of Masonry divine! "as swift as the eagle flieth." (Debt. xxviii. 49.) From eastern height, from western shore, Habakkuk: I took up the figure of Moses 885 years afterward, Let Craftsmen seek this ancient shrine and compared that bitter and hasty nation, the Chaldeans, to yonder (12) Referring to the Chaldean monarch Nebuchadnezzar, who conquered the king bird, saying "{;hey shall fly (against Israel) as the eagle hasteth to dams of Phoenicia, Israel, and Judah, about four hundred years after Iliram's death. eat." (i. 8.) This prophet had doubtless seen the swoop by which (I31 I chiselled the Square and Compass deeply on the tomb near the nonneas - the eagle descends upon its prey, so graphically described by W. M.
uorne‑ Thomson. " They poise themselves for a moment, then, like a bolt
114 POEM AT HIGH %II. THE EAGLES OF LEBANON. 11 116 THE EAGLES OF LEBANON.
from the clear sky, down they come, head foremost, with wings collapsed," and snatch the defenceless Iamb from under the very eye of the shepherd.
Jeremiah: I denounced the pride and self‑confidence of the Edomites at Mt. Seir, and declared that, though they should make their nest on high, as the eagle that has established his eyrie in yonder inaccessible crag of Lebanon, yet the Lord will bring him down. (xlix. 16.) David: I sung of God's bounty, declaring that he renews the youth of his saints as the moulting eagle renews his glorious pinions. (Ps. ciii. 5.) Noses: In promising the tender mercies of God to an obedient race, I reminded them of the eagle's care for her young: "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings, so the Lord alone did lead him." (Dent. xxxii. 11.) EAGLE AND P1tEY.
The voice of Jehovah, showing his almighty power to Job, condescends to introduce this bird into the lesson. in these grand words
EARTHQUAKE OF 1837. 117 K
Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high? She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place. From thence she seeketh the prey, and her eyes behold afar off. Her young ones also suck up blood, and where the slain are, there is she." (Job xxxix. 27.) But my hour is exhausted, and I must to my measurements, al‑though my Scriptural references to the eagle are not half exhausted. I have left out " mounting up on wings as eagles " (Is. xl. 31), and a score of passages. I imagine the imperial bird descending from these heights upon the sceptre in the left hand of the statue of Jupiter Olympus, on the Acropolis, far in the northwest.
And I must not forget what Mrs. Ellet says: "Imperial wanderer I the storms that shake Earth's towers, and bid her rooted mountains quake, Are never felt by thee I" Gould I question the mighty bird, it would be an interesting tn‑ - quiry with what sentiments he viewed the dreadful earthquake that racked all this country, on New Year's day, 1837; when Sated was shaken together as a heap; when El dish was totally destroyed; Tiberias cracked and shattered; and the death‑cries of three thousand souls went up to heal/en from yonder eastern range; when every hand was faint and every heart melted, and pangs and sorrows took hold of them, and they were amazed one at another (Isaiah xiii. 8); when the earth reeled to and fro as a drunkard, and was removed like a cottage (xxiv. 20); when the great house was smitten with breaches and the little house with clefts (Joel vi. 11). A number of our American lodges are named Eagle Loelge.
To compare my measurements and descriptions with those of other writers, I have looked up Van der Velde's, and copy what he says: "h iram's tomb stands on an oblong, four‑sided pedestal, of two layers of huge stones, 14 feet long, 8 feet 9 inches broad, 6 feet high. The third layer is 15 feet long, 10 broad, 3 feet 9 inches high. Above this is a truncated pyramid, hewn out of a single rock, 12 feet 1 inch long, 8 feet 6 inches wide, 6 feet high. This is surmounted by an oblong stone of the same dimensions, 5 feet high. The entire tomb is about 21 feet high. There is nothing to prevent passengers from approaching the monument, no peculiar sanctity being ascribed to it, as in the numerous welies (tombs) of the Moslems." Van der Velde admits the tradition that claims this as the monu‑
118 PAGES FROM MY DIARY.
went of Hiram, Solomon's friend and ally, and thinks the popular belief well founded. No heathen king, he says, was ever in such close relationship with Israel as the King of Tyre, and nowhere else in this country, except at Jerusalem, is there so large a monument as this, or one so appropriate to such a king. IIe sees in this remembrance of Tyre's great monarch, thus visibly preserved in this monument, a confirmation of the Lord's words, in 1 Sam. xi. 30, "Them that honor me, I will honor." Brother Capt. Charles Warren, so long in charge of the Jerusalem Explorations, makes a note of Iliram's Tomb, under date July, 1869, as follows: " We passed out of our way to visit Iliram's Tomb, as I was anxious to see if there were any masons' marks on the stone. I could only see two, - one is a Christian Cross, of the Byzantine type, at the western end; it appears to be ancient. The other consists of a square and compass, very recently cut." As I saw nothing of this " Christian Cross," I fancy it must have been put there since May, 1868.
Some sort of a fair, I think, was going on at Tyre the day I first visited Kabr Mairan, something like the one at Bint Jebale, which I shall describe in another chapter, and the number and variety of travellers was no doubt beyond the ordinary. I took down a score or two of notes, sitting in my stocking‑feet on the cornice at the east end of the monument, and here are specimens of them: A party of Arab charcoal‑dealers, all mounted 'on camels, eighteen in all. As the wind blew in their faces they had all turned them‑selves to the rear, except the leader, and so avoided the draft. These Arab saddles are just like a sawhorse, an old‑fashioned Vii, on which you can face either way, and suffer, I should think, excruciating pain, no matter which way you sit. I was never on a camel in my life, but I have sat for ten minutes at a time on a sharp‑edged fence‑rail, and I remember it. The sheikh of the little village has come over to ask Hassan what I am doing up there. I told Hassan (sarcastically) to say that I had bought this tomb from the Pasha, and was going to ship it to America, but he evidently told him something else. The sheikh is a short man, with the darkest shade of bronze; eyes keen, roving, and unsettled; teeth white; skin so dried and withered it seems cleaving from the bones. Here passes a man in, or just out of, an ague fit. Ilow well I know how he feels. He may say as the prophet of Anathoth did: All my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, a man whom wine overcometh (Jer. xxiii. 9). And the word wine reminds me to offer him some arrack from my leather bottle. But he loathes it, and (1 judge by the sound) curses me inwardly (Ps. Ixii. 4). Truth is, all Moslems are R,echabmtes Oer.
PAGES FROM MY DIARY. 119 xxxv. 2).
Some cows pass by from the pastures of Kanah, just over the hill yonder. One is what Jeremiah calls (xl. 20) a very fair heifer. Some are fat as heifers at grass, and bellow as bulls (Jer. L 11). The long line of telegraph poles between me and Tyre yonder, suggests how differently certain passages of Scripture would read had Morse only appeared 3,000 years sooner. Jonah need never have gone personally to Nineveh; Joseph need not have come to Palestine before finding that Archelaus did reign in place of his father Herod; the movements of invading armies would have been telegraphed, and time given the natives to prepare for defence; and so all through the sacred pages. And here, on a certain day l lessed in all the history of this country. if the miserable people only knew it, there passed one who, though rich, vet for our sakes became poor.. On his way to Sarepta, as I will show in a corning chapter, Jesus and his disciples passed this monument, doubtless looking up to it and passing comments upon it, even as travellers do now. It is easy to recognize a Christian village, both by the unveiled faces and black, sparkling eyes of the females, and the neater houses and cleaner streets. How truly that city of Tyre, live miles yonder in the west, was said tc have been planted in a pleasant place! (llos. ix. 13.) A sheikh is passing by, gorgeously apparelled, as the Scripture expresses it, and doubtless as "full of all subtlety" (Acts xiii. 10) as his progenitor in the days of Peter. The purity of the atmosphere and gentle freshness of the air, as it. conies down from the hills in the east. high, broken, and rugged, makes everything delightful up here. That old camel‑sheikh, with his eye like a hawk's, can see ten miles off. But he cannot reverse the telescope; the pencil‑marks on my note‑book are invisible to him; the copy of my Arabic newspaper, El!lade/chat, is a sheet of white paper. A chap climbed up side of' me for purposes of instruction. Ile told me a great deal; and when I had paid him for his information and dismissed him with thanks, he remembered a great deal more and came back again. Like the eccentric Wors. Master, L. O. B., - who, having told the candidate " all he knew" and closed the lodge, summoned them together again " in called communication " a few minutes afterwards, explaining that he had just then remembered something else, and was afraid he would forget it if not promptly disbursed! As the body of King Cheops is probably resting, not in the King's Chamber, nor Queen's Chamber, nor Chamber of Projection '(subterranean), but in a vault far below the last, so I suggested the theory to Capt. Warren that the body of the great_ Hiram was never laid in this sarcophagus, but underneath, perhaps far underneath, and when the time for great explorations in this locality arrives, it may be found there. To bring to light the remains of Abraham from Hebron, David and Solomon from Sion, Hiram from this hill, and Cheops from that subterranean chamber "forever flowed about by water," are among the works reserved for Masonic explorers. An ungainly, wabbling creature, with a withered hand, as in the story of the miracle at Capernauni. The next is 'a party of Ii
120 PAGES FROM MY DIARY.
Swedes, judging from dress, eyes, and hair. One of them recalls the portrait of Gustavus Adolphus, tall, vigorous, graceful, yellow hair flowing thick and plentiful, expression mild, manners singularly engaging. I was sorry he knew so little English, for what little he did know did him good. Now come two men with silver beards, walking staff in hand, who do not even deign me a nod. The next is a grave, patient‑looking Rabbi, whose philosophy is good enough for Socrates. Replying to my remark, that the oppression the Jews had received from the world would naturally sour them against their tyrants, he said, "Hakeem, but it is noble and god‑like to bear with calmness and observe with pity the failings of others." Whereupon I (figuratively) gave him my hat. Next there comes a fine, comely girl, in the beautiful costume of the Lebanons, with bracelets round her arms and ankles. The trees that I observed this morning are the olive, palm, orange, lemon, cypress, oleander, tamarisk, etc.; the flowers (as I gather the class‑names from other authors), Ranun‑;ulus myriophyllus, Draba verne, Reseda su f ruticosa, Zizyphus suigaris, /'eaecie vernalis, Ancleusa Hallett, Parietaria ojficinalis, end the like. The little Scops owl, called here 111aroof, stares it me from an olive‑tree close by. in his own inquisitive style; and he lazy people, by a stare equally persistent, but not half so wise, Drove that, however they may value money, they have no real appre‑;iation of that which money only represents - time. And now a whole party, of divers ages and sexes, gather on the bank in front, dmost level with my face, and take a long stare at me. Klan‑Der can't make a photograph of me half so accurate as they will. ['he old man, with "childish treble," leads off in the hated dissyllable iackslaeesh.. He is followed in coarser tones by another and another )f the crowd, until every gullet is croaking with that abhorrent rassword of beggary. In this vicinity this morning, looking up the almost illegible carvings on old stones, I stirred up a number of )artridges, larger than ours at home, and of different color. Their xaks and feet are red, and plumes ashy gray, like the color of he dust. The country around is rocky and inrluacticable, and much rvergrown with thorn. The caravans that go by kick up a dreadful lust. The dust of these roads, powdering the thee, irritating the yes, and leaving a taste of hyd. cum Greta in the mouth, recalls a host If Scripture passages, showing that Holy Land was always Dusty Land. [''hat we were made of " dust," according to the expression (Genesis i. 7), " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,",nd other passages, seems plain enough this morning, and that " unto lust" all the generations of this country have, literally, returned, ierhaps explains the peculiarly acrid and unpleasant flavor to which have referred. Jesus told his disciples to shake the dust off their set at the doors of inhospitable men as a testimony against them. t may be that explains the dust‑heaps I have seen at so many hresholdsi In the fourteenth century the English government nstituted a court styled The Court of Dusty Feet (pie‑poudre), to
THE CHURCH BELL. 121
be held at markets, to settle difficulties between buyers and sellers on the spot. I should think Raschid Pasha might introduce it here with equal regularity and propriety. A fakir, or native beggar‑priest, of the class that subsists on charity. A wild‑looking man, naked to the waist, having in fact no clothing save a sheepskin tied around his hips, long, matted hair, shading a wild, haggard face; he is, in al the uses, that occur of to the me in my survey of old Kabr Ila ran? wrote these lines As if time had been to it all sunlight and soft dew, As if upon its freshness the cold rime Of decay should never fall.
Gathering up my effects at 4 n.M., I started to return to Tyre, taking upon my way the celebrated fountains called Ras‑el‑Ain, or "Head of the Spring," four miles from Tyre, and said, in the native traditions, to have been erected at the expense of King Solomon, as a present to his royal friend Hiram. These fountains are the finest I saw in Syria. Originally there was a large spring broke out here. This was inclosed by immense stone walls until the water rose about twenty feet, in one great reservoir, from which it was carried off by aqueducts towards the city. This abundance of sweet water makes everything around a mass of vegetation, recalling the beautiful expression, " Whereupon there grow roses and lilies, flowers of unchangeable color, from which are emitted odors of wonderful smell." (2 Esdras vi. 44.) At the top of this fountain, I was accosted by one of the officers of the Protestant Church at Kanah, six miles east, with a subscription paper, asking aid towards purchasing a church‑bell. I was glad to give my mejeedia (ninety‑four cents) to this desirable end, and I hope the echoes of Lebanon have, ere this, been stirred by the suggestive sound. It is but a late thing that the Turkish government has permitted the use of bells in churches; a timber of heavy, porous wood, struck with a setting‑maul, having heretofore answered the purpose of a bell in calling God's people together. In all Asia Minor there is only one Christian church supplied with a bell, viz., the old city of Philadelphia. The Turks themselves employ men with loud voices, styled muezzins, who station themselves in the minarets (steeples) of the mosques and roar out the holy news with incredible force. The last association, therefore, connected in my mind with these abounding waters of Ras‑el‑Ain, is the presenting that man with a Turkish dollar for the purpose of buying that church‑bell at K.anah. And so I quietly go back to Tyre, to dinner and to bed.
DIVISION THIRD.‑GERAL.
Loud wind, strong wind, blowing from the mountains. Fresh wind, free wind, sweeping o'er the sea, Pour forth thy vials like torrents from air‑fountains, Draughts of life to me.
A field of ruins, a scene of unutterable desolation.
Thorns coming up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses theto of, a habitation of dragons and a court of owls.
There is a tongue in every rock, a voice from every leaf, which witnesses, to all who visit here, of the eternal truth and majesty of _Him who is working, here the melancholy penalty of sin, in the sorrow and degradation which surround aim.
Sacred land by blood and tears of God, Instinct with thrills of consecrated life.
The quaint, enamelled eyes That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers, The ground all purpled with the vernal flowers: These bells and flowerets of a thousand hues.
Here rest the great and good; here they repose, After their generous toil; a sacred band, They take their sleep together, while the year Comes with its early flowers to deck their graves, And gather them again as winter frowns; Theirs is no vulgar sepulchre; green sods Are all their monument; and yet it tells A nobler history than pillared piles Or the eternal pyramids. They need No statue nor inspiration to reveal Their greatness .
CHAPTER VIII.
GOING UP TO GEBAI..
'HE Second of the Seven Grand Masonic Localities that my rW visit to the Holy Land enables me to identify and describe, is Gebal (pronounced Jebale, accent on the last syllable) I went there from Beyrout, a distance of about twenty‑four miles, March 17, and remained three days, returning on the 21st. My expeditionary force consisted of one )nhn. Hassan, a stout, good‑natured Arab, described in Chapter V., who knows considerable English of the hassauic quality (the joke here consists in the fact that the word hassan means a horse); one boy, Yasoof (meaning Joseph, I am told), two horses and a donkey; the latter (whom I had named Boanerges, because I don't remember the singular form of the word), addicted to lying down without the slightest warning, and to making the most excruciating noises that organized nostrils ever projected. These three persons and animals bore with them all needful supplies of blankets, overcoats, working‑tools, such as chisel, mallet, etc., and a good quantity of provisions for my personal use, for five days.
In view of this five days' trip I had consulted a professional dragoman, who generously offered to convey me to Gebal, reed, lodge, and find me for five days, and all for the insignificant sum of $125! When I asked him what sort of accommodation he could afford for that trifling remuneration, he replied that he should take nine horses and mules, twelve servants, a cook, three tents, one for me, one for himself and servants, and one for the kitchen, and that my dinner should consist of five courses. I asked him if he thought I had come all the way from Kentucky to eat dinners of five courses. The conundrum remains unanswered to this day.
This was the third visit I had made up the coast from Beyrout, as;ter as the mouth of Nahr‑el‑Kelb (Dog River), a place all travellers visit, to inspect the ancient inscriptions on the rocks there. These wilt be fully described in my account of the Masonic Bay, or Bay of
THUNDER‑STORM IN LEBANON. 12'1
the Rafts, in Division Fourth. But I shall not find so good a place as this to describe a thunder‑storm in which I was caught, the first visit I made to the place. It was on the 5th of March, 1868 (the twenty‑second anniversary of my Masonic Initiation), and my purpose was to inspect those ancient proofs of human pride and grandeur. I had scarcely got out of Beyrout. on the sea‑shore, when the bay became lashed into fury by a gale. A tremendous thunder‑storm swept grandly a little way before, and as I was congratulating myself on escaping its fury, I was startled by the roar of thunder in the rear. Looking back, I saw myself pursued by one of Mount Lebanon's blackest clouds, that bellowed a thousand times worse than Spenser makes the dragon bellow who was killed right at this spot, if report is true, by St. George. I was riding a donkey a trifle larger than the conventional goat of the Masonic lodge, and my prospects of escaping a drenching and a pelting were solely based on his speed. Capricornus did his utmost, and I reached a native khan, or tavern (like the one described at Neby Younas), and entered, thanks to my goat and a gum‑coat, not all wet. A dozen people with their beasts were in there before me, the old khan proving to them, as to me, a place of refuge and covert from storm and from rain (Isa. v. 6). The storm being over, I went on to the inscriptions, a mile or more further north, and while making notes there a second cloud swept through the passes of old Lebanon and poured its contents, true as the plumb‑line, on me, as I cowered under shelter of the overhanging rocks. This convulsion of nature was inconceivably grand and awful. I have nothing parallel to it in all my memory. The gorge through which Dog River runs separates two mountains, a thousand feet in height, by an interval of about 300 feet. The sides of these tremendous heights gave back the awful thunder‑peals in countless reverberations. The lightnings flashed across the defile with a vividness blasting to the eyeballs. I could conceive that the spirits of 'the mighty dead were revisiting these scenes of their earthly grandeur, and speaking, as they once addressed the world, in tempest and fire. In these terrific passages of sound I learned the propriety of the Hebrew name for echo, "the daughter of the voice." I was so impressed with the unparalleled sublimity of this scene, that, on my return that night to the shelter of Hallock's hospitable (flat) roof, I was unable to sleep, but spent the hours composing the folic wing verses, together with music to them: 128 THE ROAD TO GEBAL.
THE GLORY OF LEBANON.
That goodly mountain, Lebanon (Deut. iii. 25). He maketh Lebanon to skip like a calf (Ps. xxix. 6). The fruit shall shake like Lebanon (Ps. lxxii. 16). The righteous shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon (Ps. xcii. 12). Like the smell of Lebanon (Cant. iv. 11). Lebanon shall fall like a mighty one (Is. x. 34). The glory of Lebanon (Is. xxxv. 2 and lx. 13). The head of Lebanon (Jer. xxii. 6). His smell as Lebanon; the wine of Lebanon (Hosea xiv. 6 and 7). The flower of Lebanon (Nahum i. 4). The violence of Lebanon (Hal]. ii. 17). Open thy doors, 0 Lebanon ('Lech. i. 10).
Oh charming Mount! thy flowery sides, Thy heights with cedars crowned, Thy gushing springs, and painted wings, And birds of sweetest sound! Oh Lebanon! oh roseate throne, The church of God shall be, In days to come, a flowery home, A roseate mount like thee! Oh fearful Mount! thy stormy Crown, Thy echofng tongues of flame, Whose awful word proclaims its God, And bids adore His name! Oh Lebanon! oh darkened throne, The church of God shall be, In days to come, an anchored home, A solid mount like thee! Oh mighty Mount! thy stony gates, Thy heights in walls secure, Thy dizzy hills, and sheltered dales, And guardians tried and sure! Oh Lebanon! oh guarded throne, The church of God shall be, In days to come, a castled home, A forted mount like thee! The road to Gebal is fearfully bad. You go a few miles pain‑fully through deep sand, strewed with boulders, until you look longingly up the mountain‑slopes on your right, and wish you were ascending the steepest of them. Then you come to a spur of the stony hills, so rough and difficult that the heaviest sand‑banks appear as green meadows in the comparison. One of these rocky passes, about six miles from Beyrout, occurred to me as a capital place to work the Royal Arch degree! It presents a regular sue‑
THE BROKEN COLUMN. 129,
cession of difficult passages, increasing in roughness every step, and ending in a frightful climax, delicious to the heart of a Principal Sojourner. The Chapter room at Akron, Ohio, reminds me of it.
Yet this is one of the most noted highways in the world. It has passed great men along this way, north or south, going to conquest, or going to defeat. I cannot even sum up those great names; but Rameses came here from the south about B.c. 1500, and Sennacherib from the north, 700 years latter. It was equally the turnpike‑, way of Alexander, B.C. 332, and of Vespasian, 400 years later; of Sesostris, and Saladin. It was the apostolical highway, all the missionary apostles traversing it again and again, as they went to and from Antioch, and up and down, preaching to a sinful world. By this highway, about A.D. 320, came the venerable mother of Constantine the Great, Hellena, at an extremely old age, yearning to behold the places that Christ had sanctified by His corporal presence. By this route had come the Assyrian with his shadowy shroud and high stature (Ez. xxxi.), and along this road, in the summer of A.D. 1099, the armies of the Cross slowly worked their way southward towards Jerusalem, yet 200 miles in the distance.
About‑half way between Beyrout and Gebal, and close to the road, there is a beautiful sheet of water styled Junia Bay (the word Junia meaning a plain). Near the middle of the curve of this bay stands a large Stone Column, broken in the midst, the lower part about ten feet long, yet standing erect, originally erected probably as a Roman milestone. Upon this I engraved with my chisel the memorial Square and Compass, cutting it in the sea‑ward side, so that ordinary travelers may not observe it, and dedicated it to the lodges at Dea Moines, Iowa, who gave me such a royal reception, Thanksgiving night, 1867; Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and Dubuque, Iowa. If even those members come along this way, as I hope some of them will let them stop and see how upon the face of the everlasting rock here I imprinted this mark of loving remembrance. I also locate, at this fitting place, the following names of Masons who have emulated the fortitude of him whose emblem was the Broken Column: W. W. Goodwin, Charles Marsh, Solon Thornton, George R. Fearn, B. Perley Poore, N. P. Langford, R. W. Furnas, Alex. H. Newcomb, Richard Vaux, and J. P. Almond.
Walking aside from this great milestone, I see something fluttering among the rocks, and on strict examination discover, nor lizard nor make, but a wounded dove, its sweet love‑notes changed to piteous 9
130 TUBAL CAIN.
moans, a regular Jonath elem‑verhobim, as the ancient Hebrew would have called it, " a dumb dove in distant places." The best I can do for this poor Noah's messenger, with its great flutter of wings, is to put it out of its misery; a broken side and a useless wing being very far above my powers of surgery. Am I mistaken in thinking there is a passage in David's life recalling this incident? No; here it is, in the caption of the 56th Psalm, " When the Philistines took him in Gath." At the distance of about three miles south of Gebal, I crossed the Nahr Ibrahim, or River of Abraham, famous in mythology as "the River of Adonis," which, according to tradition, annually ran blood, in commemoration of the death of Adonis, which occurred on the heights near the head‑waters of this stream. I will refer to the subject again. The waters of Nahr Ibrahim were unquestionably tinged with red the day I crossed it, as I presume they always are after such a severe rain‑storm as we had had the night before. The river was quite full, about one hundred and fifty feet wide, ten or twelve deep, and fringed with the usual willow, cane, and oleander‑growth of the country. Just beyond the bridge, and on the right hand side of the road, I observed a handsome piece of Mosaic Pavement, part of a splendid edifice once standing there. This is the first I had seen. Travellers also describe the remains of an ancient aqueduct, running from this river towards Gebal, by which the old city was supplied with water; but I did not observe this.
On my way I stopped frequently to rest and refresh myself, studying human nature, of which there is a great deal existing in this country. At a blacksmith‑shop I had a good time. To say it was the dirtiest house I had ever seen before, but imperfectly describes the loathsome squalor in which that Tubal‑Cain, with Mrs. Cain, and a number of juvenile Cains, existed. (They raised cain at the rate of seven every ten years!) To say that this atelier was more infested with fleas and lice than other places in Holy Land, might be considered invidious; but I am sure I counted five species of lice on my coat‑sleeve as I came out, and of each species, varieties. They asked me questions and questions. I answered through Hassan. I showed them my pistol, eighteen‑bladed jack‑knife, the portrait of my wife, my India‑rubber bottle full of coffee, my self‑folding measuring tape (a startling piece of ingenuity to them; they never wearied of it), and Bien pulled out my Firman, a dreadful piece of Arabic writing, large as a table‑cloth, of which I gave a translation in a preceding chapter. A Syrian gentleman, who sat with us, amused at my efforts
BLACKSMITH‑SHOP. 131
to please the blacksmith and his family, recalls the description of such, with which I am familiar: manner, alert, easy, graceful, cordial, insinuating; smile, ready and sultry as the Syrian sunlight; quite a young man, but life comes early under the sun which fondles the fig, olive, vine, and palm.
Another of the company was a tall, thin man, with dark face, almost covered with a black beard. He went barefoot usually. He had really a fine beard, and an expression of earnestness and simplicity of character. But his ignorance was startling. He actually seemed to know less than the blacksmith, and but little more than the blacksmith's wife.
In this blacksmith's shop, the exceedingly loquacious natives all talked at once. Either they possess the faculty of talking and hearing at the same time (a thing I cannot do), or they are so disposed to garrulity as to talk without caring to be heard. I had noticed this same peculiarity among the French officers of my steamer, L'Amerique, in Marseilles. As we came out, Hassan stigmatized the whole crowd to me in an undertone as Slaaitan, meaning devils.
Everybody who visits this country notices the dogs, so often and so much in the way. The blacksmith had nine of them. Strange that the Bible‑writers, from first to last, have made the dog the image of scorn and contempt. Moses in the Pentateuch; Job in his noble allegory; David in his matchless psalms; our Saviour in His parables; Paul in his Epistles; John in his Apocalypse, uniformly agree in this; and the Koran of Mohammed fully confirms the Oriental idea of the dog. And yet, if the tradition is true, it was a dog that discovered the use of the celebrated Tyrian dye that be‑came so world‑renowned. And Dr. Barclay gives to his dog the credit of discovering the great quarry under Jerusalem. However, I mustn't say too much in favor of the dog, as the Masonic word Cowan is probably derived from it; and what is worse than a .rowan! At parting I gave the good fellow several paras (a para is one‑fourth of a cent), and promised to call again. He has some fine fig‑trees around his house; a tree which flourishes best in stony, 'barren places, where " there is not much depth of earth." It does not like the companionship of other trees; nothing but the olive is congenial company to the fig on these stony hills. The shade produced by its succulent, five‑lobed leaves and spreading branches is
132 STUDYING ARABIC.
very fine. I noticed to‑day that while the earth under my feet was really hot, and made the soles of my shoes uncomfortably warm, the ground under this large fig‑tree was cool and pleasant; I felt the force of the expression in 1 Kings iv. 25: " And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig‑tree. " In this verse the fig‑tree is named as a symbol of peace and plenty, for which it is elegantly adapted. So in Micah iv. 4; Zech. iii. 10; John 1. 49, etc.
1 shq,ll have so much advice to give to Masonic travellers all through this volume, that it will be politic to scatter it along in chunks. A few chunks, then, right here. As to the difficulty or danger in traversing this country, the mere tourist who only wants to see and pass along will find not the least. Ile can ride over the sacred hills, and rest himself under the offered shelters of Palestine, with as much security as at home. The fanaticism of the Mohammedan has given way to the craving for gold; the cry of backsheesh drowns the old clamor of Allah it Allah. It is the explorer only who experiences any difficulty in pursuing his aims. To excavate, to pull down, to expose the ancient foundations, where alone can anything valuable be looked for; it is this that revives the ancient hatred, and exposes the seeker for light to delays, extortions, and sometimes worse. For this reason it is best, in general, for several to go in company, both for mutual protection in digging, etc., and encouragement.
The most careless traveller in the East is constantly reminded that he is in the land of the Bible, and it is in poor taste to make such tours as Browne and Clements did for the sole purpose of making sport. The latter (" Mark Twain," as he likes to call himself ), facile humorist as he is, might have recalled the school‑day adage, ludere cum sacris, not to jest on holy themes. It is the easiest as well as the least praiseworthy effort of wit, and every admirer of Mark Twain must regret that "Pilgrims Abroad" did not terminate their journey where they began it, in Europe.
In regard to the Arabic language, I really wouldn't advise any American to learn it, unless he is qualifying himself for a Professor, a Dragoman, a Consul, or a Missionary. If, in spite of my warnings, you undertake it, I am afraid you will say, as an irreverent friend did under the same circumstances, that when "God created the fruit of the lips" (Isaiah lvii. 19) it was only for Arab lips that he created this particular fruit! And yet, you might learn enough of it (some travellers don't) to call the plural of dragoman dragomans, and of
IRON GRIP OF DESPOTISM. 133
Moslem Moslems. Dragomen is as near right as pen is the plural of,pan. About one hundred words in Arabic are enough for any one to travel on here. If you wish to talk to respectable people, learn French.
Don't disparage too much the race who now inhabit this country. See what they have produced when temporarily released from the iron .grip of despotism, and consider that in the minds of many a peasant here, whose every moment is bestowed in wringing from the soil a scanty subsistence, there slumber powers which might have elevated their possessors to the head of armies, to thrones, to the rule of literary coteries, to the guidance of religious sects whose debates shake the world, had fortune been more propitious to them.
It is a merit in an Oriental traveller to have muscle - bodily vigor. Our good Masonic brother, Belzoni, who became one of the most famous of Egyptian explorers, began as a circus‑rider, for which his .great size and muscular developments well adapted him. His Egyptian travels began in 1815; his death occurred in 1823.
The natives say there is a plant grows here which, when powdered, is grim death to fleas. But I think they never powder it. Costar's Exterminators (cat, rat, and roach) have never been invroduced into 'Syria! The flea, in fact, reigns here, unsubdued as yet. The very earth teems with them. Is it possible, asks a pious lady over her Bible, that it was so in ancient times? Did Deborah, Miriam, Abigail - but the theme becomes too affecting! I will say, how‑ever, that if the plowmen here would only scratch the earth as 'deeply, vigorously, and persistently as they do their calloused bodies, their granaries would enjoy the results of it. ‑ Make a point of comparing daily objects with those Scriptural facts that enter into our prayers and sermons; see how bread is made "daily;" how the native salt "loses its savor;" how the goaded cattle "kick against the pricks;" how the south wind blows heat and the west wind rain; - but there is no end to these analogies.
The indolence of these people is like the offence of contumacy in the Masonic code; it is unpardonable, because embracing all other faults. To give an instance of native laziness which annoyed me greatly: I hired a man in Beyrout, at daily wages, to saw up a lot of seasoned olive‑wood which I had purchased. By the third day he had gathered round him all the idlers in the place, and I venture the assertion that the eight hours' work for which I paid him, done, too, with his miserable little back‑action hand‑saw, seated on the ground,
134 THE LOW, MEAN VICES.
and holding the wood with his toes, could all have been done in one hour by an American competitor.
They are, generally, an incurious race, and, of course, an ignorant one; they have yet to understand the first principles embodied in the degree of " Grand Inquisitor Commander," as the old translators rendered it .
You must not be disappointed, in a country so unfortunate in its history as this, to find the low, mean vices of lying, swearing, petty theft, and vulgarity, extremely common. But the better opening remains for you to teach them a better way. An American Mason, who is not addicted to these degrading habits, becomes an effective missionary of morality to these heathen, reflecting honor upon the craft, his country, himself, and his God.
That experienced Masonic traveller, Dr. Livingstone, fittingly rebukes that class of tourists who hurry over the ground, abuse and look ferocious at their companions, merely to show how fast they can travel. He styles such characters " combinations of silliness and absurdity." This is a good field to disseminate Sunday‑School ideas. Anything so practical and fruitful in good results as the American Sunday‑School system is bound to succeed among such people as these. I met a man in England who appreciated it. He was from Stockport, England, where the largest Sunday‑School in the world is maintained (300 teachers, 1,500 scholars), and he admitted to me, in confidence, that the Americans are far ahead of them in this department of instruction. I had an agreeable hour describing to him my old "Berean Bible‑Class" in the First Presbyterian Church at Chicago, Illinois.
Those who have read Robinson's Biblical Researches, three large volumes, with a fourth volume of maps, must suppose Robinson had spent the years of an active life travelling and making all those discoveries. No such thing. He was here only a few weeks! but his companion, Dr. Smith, had spent very many years here, was perfectly familiar with the people, the country, and the language, and it was his knowledge, sifted and crystallized by Robinson, that made up those valuable books. That which gave the books their real value was, there was nothing in the field before them except works written by Catholic travellers, who only know what "the Church" tells them, or small sketch‑books not worth shelf‑room in a library.
CHAPTER IX.
GEBAL.
ARRIVED at Gebal a little before night and was lodged in the Bachelors' Hall of some Maronite (Roman Catholic) priests, who have charge of an ancient church here, which is considered a curiosity by all lovers of ecclesiastical archi‑ tecture. It was built about 800 years ago, and, except for exhibiting the marks of old age, given by King Solomon in the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes, is none the worse for its years. The roof, floor, walls, and supports are all of stone. In fact, there is nothing w9oden about it. I was so much interested in this ancient relic that I gave a Napoleon ($4.00) of Masonic money towards its conservation and repair.
The town of Gebal lies about twenty‑five miles up the coast (north) from Beyrout. It stands upon an easy a id regular slope from the sea eastward, the slope extending about two miles along the coast, and from one to two miles back. All this space and more was once thronged with temples, palaces, and other splendid erections, the re‑mains of which, in granite, marble, and Lebanon limestone, are visible in every stone‑fence upon the surface, and appear in excavations at depths varying from ten to thirty feet. But now Gebal is a poor and forlorn little village of five hundred inhabitants. There is not one edifice standing now that has the least attractions, unless it be the old Maronite - Church, already alluded to, and that does not date beyond the Crusades. There is a force of about one hundred and fifty soldiers, red‑legged Turkish Zouaves, who live in some new buildings, the remnants of more costly structures, while the grand old castle next the sea is suffered to fall into irreparable decay. Desolation and neglect are written upon all the remains of Gebal.
My time during three days at this place was spent between visiting the more prominent localities, purchasing coins and antiquities, and 136 STONE‑SQUARERS OF GEBAL.
writing up my notes for preservation. It is one of my peculiarities that I cannot think freely unless I have pencil in hand; hence m, large use of white paper upon occasions like these. The Oriental custom of crowding the traveller's room by day and night with guests, bidden or unbidden, made it so well‑nigh impossible for me to write by daylight that I soon took to the free use of candles, purchased in the bazaars, and so wrought out my plans in ink after all Gebal had succumbed to the dominion of slumber. The objects collected here are numerous and varied, such as coins in great numbers; sea‑shells; specimens of the red and gray granites and porphyry, imported here at incalculable expense in the olden times; funeral lamps; tear‑bottles and beads from the Phoenician tombs, etc., etc. I longed to make good collections of the early spring‑flowers that paint this beautiful site of Gebal; but this is a matter requiring a longer stay, more active limbs and flexible spine than I can boast of at the age of fifty. I found I was not able personally to make many botanical collections in the Holy Land.
Gebal derived its name originally from the hill on which it stood. 'The Greeks changed the name to Byblos, but in this case, as in many others, the title imposed by the conquerors fell into oblivion, while the original name was retained. Gebal also gave its name to the country around it, which, in Joshua xiii. 5, is termed "the land of the Giblites." This, it will be remembered, was more than fourteen centuries before Christ, or 3,300 years ago. In the days of Solomon, the people of Gebal were the most skillful sailors and artists under the dominion of King Hiram. So eminent were they in architecture, that the word Giblites, in Hebrew, is translated stone‑squarers, a most remarkable circumstance (1 Kings v. 18). In the tremendous denunciations by Ezekiel against all Phoenicia, he says "the ancients of Gebal and the wise men thereof were in thee thy calkers" (Ez. xxvii. 9). This was written about 400 years after the building of Solomon's Temple, and refers to the city I am now describing.
My visit to Gebal, as it was the first of my more extended Masonic explorations, has impressed itself more deeply upon my mind than any future visit could be expected to do. Here I find upon the monstrous ashlars of Phoenician ages (hewn stones eighteen feet long and upwards) the distinguishing mark, the rebate or bevel, of which I have so much read, but now for the first time in my life I see. This is the Masonic mark of ancient‑craft Masonry. As I have told the thou‑sands of brothers and fellows who will read these pages, all stones
THE MIGHTY SHAFTS. 131
having this mark upon them belong to us! Our fathers wrought them, and set them up in useful places in great edifices, and we, their lineal descendants in the mystical line, must not forget our inheritance therein. The stones themselves strike an American, unused to such architectural prodigies, as enormous. They are twice as heavy as any wrought ashlars I had ever before seen, but of course do not compare with some at Baalbec and Jerusalem.
And this deep‑plowed furrow upon their edges - what a hopeful thought does this convey to a Freemason! So long as that mark remains - so long as the main surface of the wall stands out far enough to protect and shield that mystic device of the Phcenician, so long the institution of Freemasonry will survive! This is the lesson they inculcate to me as I turn away silently from them and draw my breath with amazement. Let the Blanclaardites note it with dismay.
Gebal is full of the " Handmarks of Hiram." Hundreds and thou‑sands of granite columns are here, both of' the red and white varieties, taken from the quarries of Egypt, with all the enormous labor which the working of that primitive stone requires; brought a thousand miles down the Nile; shipped thence on Phcenician vessels or rafts to this coast, landed here, drawn up this steep hill by human hands, and finally reared up, doubtless with shoutings and rejoicings Thousands of them, I say, are here, from twelve to thirty inches in diameter, and from ten to forty feet in length, their surfaces often as smooth and unaffected by the weather as on the day they left Egypt, two, three, or four thousand years ago. They prop up the stalls in the bazaars; they sustain the filthy roofs of stables; they are built into the military castle, and other public edifices in numbers; they are worked into stone walls; in short, they are used with a profuseness that shows the inexhaustible quantities of' them that now lie concealed among the ruins.
It is but a brief seven miles east of this place that Aphaca, the principal seat of the worship of Adonis, or Tammuz, stood. This worship was the Freemasonry of' the heathen, and the system upon which King Solomon engrafted the revealed precepts given his fathers upon Sinai. As the wild stock into which the inspired Word was engrafted, these Rites of Tammuz deserve the attention of Masonic writers. This is not the place to enlarge upon the theme; but I must t )e permitted to say that a system which had the favor and support of the wisest and best‑cultivated of the human race for two thousand years; that led to the cultivation of the fine arts as they haN e never
TWENTY‑TWO FROM GEBAL. 13:'
Gone, gone thy glories, city of the wise; Extinguished all thy lamps above, below; But from this dust a viewless spirit cries, Announcing to the ages as they go, Life from the tombs and light in Heaven's perpetual glow I Did he who prepared the rituals of the Select Master's Degree have in mind that exquisite passage from an English poet Silence and darkness, solemn sisters, twins From ancient night, who'mark the tender thought, To reason, and on reason build resolve, That column of true majesty in man.
The "twenty‑two from Gebal," who constituted so large a portion of the mystic number twenty‑seven in a Lodge of Select Masters, were, of course, drafted from this city, and each of them must have seen, as I see to‑day, this enormous ashlar that forms the base of the old castle‑wall near the seashore. It is nearly twenty feet long, and broad and deep in proportion. To whom can I dedicate it with so great propriety as to King Solomon himself, who, it is said, ordered a number of stones cut upon this model, beveled as this is, and built on this the foundation of the Temple‑wall in Mount Moriah, as is seen to this day.
And here at Gebal I am insensibly reminded of the reflection made by a distinguished poet (Lamartine), while visiting another spot famous in history. Let me quote it: "I pass delicious hours, recumbent beneath the shade, my eyes fixed on the falling pediment of that Parthenon. Its aspect displays, better than history, the colossal grandeur of a people. What superhuman civilization was that which supplied a great man to command, an architect to conceive, a sculptor to decorate, statuaries to execute, workmen to cut, a people to pay, and eyes to comprehend and admire such an edifice as this! Where again shall we find such a people, or such a period? Nowhere! " The same poetical writer records his impressions of Gebal in these words - (he was here April 13, 1833): " I slept at Gebal, in a khan (tavern) outside the city, on a rising ground overlooking the sea. Gebal is supposed to be the country of the ancient Giblites, who sup‑plied King Hiram with squares of stone for the building of the Temple of Solomon. The father of Adonis had a palace here. The worship of the sun constituted the religion of all the neighboring
140 MARK OF THE CRAFT.
countries of Tyre." My readers will readily correct the mistake into which our French brother, or his translator, has fallen, in writing squares of stone for squarers of stone.
Before leaving Gebal, I sought out the entrance of one of the great Phoenician tombs, carved out of the face of the cliffs high above the town, and there cut deeply with my chisel the Square and Compass, dedicating it to a number of active working and renowned members of the Craft, named below. There, too, I waved aloft my Masonic banner in the strong breeze blowing from the sea.
On this cliff, in the pure air of this mountain region, sounds move with the greatest freedom. I hear the muezzin in the minaret of the mosque, a mile away, with perfect ease: Il Allah - ah - ah - ah, "No God but God," and my heart answers: "Amen: So mote it be!" So the trumpets of the Crusaders sounded as they came down this coast from Antioch, A.D. 1099, on their way to the Holy City. So the "procul, procul" of the priests of Adonis rang through this clear air, many centuries before.
In selecting appropriate names of Masons worthy to be associated with this School of Hiram's builders, I anticipate the general approval of the following: L. E. Hunt, John S. Perry, A. G. Abell, Winslow Lewis, John Augustus Williams, J. Emmet Blackshear, William M. Cunningham, Thomas H. Logan, A. R. Cotton, James Gibson.
I found no member of the Masonic fraternity here, but among the officers in the garrison several, who have probably since united with the lodge at Beyront. In the nomenclature of American lodges some are named Hiram Ably Lodge, as, for instance, No. 90, Maine, etc.
In my preface I alluded to the provocations to laughter that meet the traveller here. Will my readers accept a little nonsense that I wrote from Gebal for that genial brother, Robert D. Holmes (now, alas! silent in the grave), to publish in the New York Sunday Dispatch? "1 would fain disport me in this exceedingly solemn and unhilarious country, where the only thing that ever seems to smile is the camel; and this is only a pretence, as I verified to‑day, when, attracted by the pleasing manner in which he threw his lower jaw around his upper one, I went up to pat him and he bit me. Such is life. I haven't had a good laugh since I landed on the Syrian coast.
THE ANTEEK‑HUNTER. 141
"I came from Beyrout to Gebal the other day, chiefly to collect relics. I was also slightly in hopes of finding the remains of the Christian tribes of Israel, long lost, and probably the murderer of Helen Jewett. Nobody seems to have been here before, at least I couldn't find anybody that knew anything about it, and the only guide‑book that speaks of it is the Holy Writings - good authority, but rather ancient as a book of travels. However, I got here easy enough, because all you have to do is to follow the coast. If you undertake to turn to the right you go over Jebel Sunnin, some eight thousand feet high (one thousand of it solid snow‑banks), and if you would deviate even slightly to the left, you experience Jonah's fate, without the intervention of Jonah's whale. I came in eight hours, and took lodgings in a house kept by three priests, who, no doubt, would have been extremely shocked had they understood my question when I politely inquired as to the health of their wives and children.
"My arrival was the signal for all Gebal to gather at my quarters with what they call 'anteeks.' And such antics as the bare‑legged fellows do cut when they call on you! Try to realize the condition of the American Howadji trading for 'anteeks.' Poor, but proud, as you know, I rigged up a seat upon an upright stone by covering it with all my overcoats and blankets, and upon that I sat in state. Dignity is not wasted even on Arabs. Intelligence of expression, firmness mingled with suavity (suaviter in modo, etc., you have the rest); the strictest honor in dealing out small change, yet the severest decision in requiring an honest compensation; these are the true principles for traffic in ' anteeks,' and these the American Howadji (if the court knows herself) has displayed, as all Gebal will testify.
" My first purchases of 'anteeks' were curious. A number of decanter stoppers, avowedly from Phoenician tombs, cost me quite a handful of ten‑para pieces. Buckles, cast off by the military, I secured in' good supply. I think I should have gone on purchasing buckles to the last had I not found the trade‑mark " Smith & Brown" on one, and this made me skeptical. Broken crockery, several crates full. This, I felt, I was getting cheap, viz., one para for ten pieces (now, one pant is one‑fortieth part of ten cents); I, therefore, secured the golden opportunity, and if I can get it all shipped to America, you must advertise for me, for I shall open a wholesale establishment of Syrian sherds. The next day, however, I took an extensive walk
142 BARE‑LEGGED BARNACLE.
across, around, and under Gebal, and I should testify, if upon oath, that one‑half the soil is broken crockery. Query: Did the ancient Phoenicians slosh around and break things as they do in Alabama? If not, why so many broken vessels? But this discovery stopped further purchases of sherds.
" Having bought up all the buckles, tops of pewter buttons, brass tacks, glass beads, etc., together with a considerable quantity of musket‑flints, which I was assured had curious inscriptions on them, I saw that I was making no headway, and began to inquire for ancient coins. At this, the modern Giblites sneered. Coins? Why, they told Hassan the very earth was old coins, in various stages of dilapidation! Still, I insisted that, salable as the articles they had been furnishing me admittedly were, yet the old coins of Phoenicia and her conquerors were what I had come for. Then they went out for a few hours, and brought them in. I must honestly aver that I didn't know there was so much specie of the copper coinage in the whole world as there is here among the ruins of Gebal. Every object in nature, and a great many objects out of nature, are stamped on them. Names, portraits, inscriptions, and emblems abound, often in the best state of preservation. The Howadji was amazed, and began to ask himself what conveyance, under the elephants of Antiochus, that used to come down this road some 2,300 years ago, could convey such burdens, if I bought them all. I bought, and bought, anI bought, until nature and my small change were exhausted, and then I closed my purchases.
" Of genuine relics and antiques (let me be serious for a moment) I procured a good supply, in the form of tear‑bottles, funeral lamps, cornelian scarabai, seals of various devices, and several elegant carvings in marble, but sadly mutilated.
"In making my daily tour around and beneath the place (I mean the tombs so wonderfully excoriated beneath the surface), I was guided by an old, bare‑legged barnacle, who clung to me from first to last with unwearying devotion. Had the mainspring of his zeal been the love of science, Agassiz himself might well defer to him, but alas, it was the love of backsheesh. It was the funniest sight in the world to look at my procession, and I wonder that even that fellow who goes out on the top of the Mohammedan mosque every little while to scream out 'Hu Mah!' didn't stop to laugh as he saw it. First went the bare‑legged old gray‑beard, in his right hand a long‑stemmed pipe. He had but two passions, one to get me to the
BLUNDERS OF HASSAN. 143
Interesting localities, the other to get me away from them before I could see anything. This Howadji never did so much tall walking to so little purpose in his life, as in following old Backsheesh the first day. Afterward, however, he took matters more into his own hands. Next to the guide came the subscriber. He was ornamented with a red cap, which he bought at Smyrna, because everybody buys one of them for his sins; he wore it five days in succession. That sunstroke, or at the least ophthalmia, did not supervene, is a subject of gratitude. Next came Hassan, my interpreter, who was all the time interpreting Arabic into hassanic English. This dialect of our common tongue is formed chiefly out of nouns, with a few adjectives. It has every element of sublimity near to profundity; and certainly no living man can beat it. Let me give you a specimen. Hassan is telling me how to smuggle a few okes of Gebal tobacco into Beyrout. Ile says, 'Sojer man come to me - say, you tobakky got? Me say no. Then he irons, big irons on my leg. He say to you, you tobakky got? You tell him go way dam fool‑‑‑go hell - he go.' And all this the fellow tells me with perfect gravity, not having the least idea but that the language is eminently chaste and proper.
".Next to Hassan come the rabble. I dare not tell you how many persons have followed me about Gebal, people are so skeptical of travellers' tales. But as there are only six hundred people here, you can easily make the estimate. I fear that some of my company were disreputable characters, but as there is no Sunday paper published at Gebal (nor for that matter any other), and as no strangers ever visit the place, it is of less importance. You will, of course, make no mention of it to the discredit of the American Howadji. So from ruin to ruin we wandered - iiow looking sadly at a group of sarcophagi wherein once lay the beloved dead, broken to pieces, or, still worse, used only for water‑troughs and baser purposes; now plucking an extraordinary specimen of the anemone, which crimsons all these hills as with the blood of Adonis; now chaffering for an ' anteek - ' now twisting my lame ankle round a boulder until I seem to have more than the usual number of joints in it; now creeping into an excavation lined with loculi or places for the dead, all cut into the solid rock; now sipping coffee with some Giblite gentleman, who invites me to his house, courteously excuses me from taking off my boots, and seats me in the Lewan, the place of honor; now standing by some high wall anathematizing the barbarism of its builders, who destroyed chapiters, pillars, and sarcophagi, with ruthless hand, to 144 HUNTING THE HOWADJI.
build it, undoing in a day what years of labor was necessary to construct; now from some high place looking over the blue sea and heaving a homesick sigh after that steamer whose prow points west‑ward; now walking over the piles of granite columns in the harbor; now sitting, to relieve aching foot, and conning over the past and the glories of Gebal till the sun goes down and the jackal begins his cry, and I return to my room to write out the adventures of the American Howadji for the New York Dispatch and its million readers.
"As you or some friend may desire to call on me while I am domiciled here, I will give you explicit directions for finding my boarding‑house. Let us suppose you starting out at some well‑marked locality in the city - say at the corner where the blind beggar sits, near the three granite columns, a little east of the narghileh establishment half‑wav up the hill. Now you will have no difficulty in tracing the way to my residence, if you will only ' follow the directions.' The embarrassment experienced by some people in getting round cur Oriental city is greatly exaggerated by their neglect 'to follow directions.' " Well, then, take the blind beggar on your left shoulder, and come round the new barracks, avoiding as far as you can those eight donkeys that are always coming round that particular corner with their loads of stone from the quarry. So far you have made a good start. Now enter that street - don't call it a mere drain; it is a good six feet wide - until you meet the camel with his two bales of cotton. Avoid that camel; he snapped at me one morning. On now to where the boys are playing marbles. If they throw stones at you, smile and pass on. The darlings; their little arms are not strong enough to hurt you much, though they may break your spectacles, as they did mine. Look back. They are saying something in Arabic that is doubtless a blessing on the stranger's head. On again to the second or third turning to the right - usually you will find there a man who sells bread. Ask him (in Arabic) to direct you to my house." While I was at Gebal, a native musician of some note was favoring the people with his performances, and I took advantage of the opportunity to increase my stock of knowledge. He was evidently in partnership with a coffee‑seller, who had a little dark cellar near the castle; for while the audience enjoyed the music they were naturally
FIDDLER AND HIS FIDDLE. 145
stimulated to buy tobacco and coffee. I stumbled on the establishment one morning, and was so entertained thereby as to return to it frequently. It was rather expensive to me; for in the spirit of Kentucky hospitality I always "treated the crowd" with cigarettes and coffee, and this involved an outlay, sometimes as high as fifteen or twenty cents for the lot. But I didn't begrudge it. It was a real treat to watch that fellow and his proceedings. He at on an earthen platform, raised about four feet from the floor. A stool was always brought for me, and I sat facing him. The rest of the company squatted on the ground, and sipped and smoked at my expense. Just such men had sat and sung and listened here ages before Romulus with his copper plowshare drew the boundaries of Rome.
He had a sort of fiddle with one string. But such a string! It was an inch or two wide. And such a bow! the wooden part of it like an opt‑bow; and such hairs with which it was strung! From a donkey's mane and tail every one of them; else whence the hideous bray that fiddle made? The man had one eye, front teeth missing, a shirt on - only this and nothing more. On his knees, as he at, lay an Arabic book, folio, on which his blind eye was steadily fixed; the good one watching me. He would sing a minute or two (I shall describe Arabic music in future chapters) at the top of his voice, until he turned purple in the face, and I had hopes he was going off into an epileptic fit, when he would suddenly stop, smile, and rasp that broad string. Then my hands went up ns my ears. Then I thought of all the bad things I had ever done, and repented of them.
Hassan translated for me. One of the songs, of which I made notes, I found afterwards in Brother W. R. Alger's poetical version of Eastern poems.* He gives it thus - but I must say it didn't sound at all like it: My God once mixed a harsh cup, for me to drink from it, And it was full of acrid bitterness intensest; The black and nauseating draught did make me shrink from it, And cry, " 0 Thou who every draught alike dispensest, This cup of anguish sore, bid me not to quaff of it, Or pour away the dregs and the deadliest half of it! " But still the cup He held; and seeing He ordained it, One glance at Him, it turned to sweetness as I drained it! * The news that comes to me in November, 1871, that this amiable gentleman and marvellous scholar has gone deranged through excessive study, has excited the sympathies of a great circle of friends and brethren.
10 146 CEMETERY OF GEBAL.
The subjects selected were more usually amatory, and, I suspect, from the leering and sensuous smiles of Hassan and the other auditors, were such as a married man ought not to hear. Yet this is characteristic of Eastern verse, and the dirty sans‑culotte who thus afforded merriment connected us by a simple tie with El Mamoun and the Pyramid of Cheops on the one hand, and Haroun‑al‑Raschid and his Nights' Entertainment on the other. For El Mamoun was the son and (unworthy) successor of Aaron the Great (Haroun‑al‑Raschid).
I spent a good many hours in the old Church of St. George, to which I have before alluded. When I explore one of these ancient churches, I am affected by the thought that it presents a parallel to the Scriptures in this: the thought it embodies is divine, though the materials of which it is composed are of the coarsest, only stone And wood, fastened together with lime and iron. So the material facts making up the inspired narrative are but commonplace, but the theory is divine.
In this venerable fane have stood the feet of Godfrey, first King of Jerusalem; he who "increased the glory of his people when like a giant he put on his arms for the fight;" and Tancred, and Gerard the Crusader, who chose rather to die than inflict dishonor on the holy cause he professed. Glory gilds their sepulchres and embalms their memories. Into this church has entered Salah‑ed‑deen (Saladin), chief of the Saracens (born at Takreet, on the Tigris, A.D. 1137), of whose death‑dealing arm we shall read when we come to the field of slaughter, Hattin - fatal Friday of July, 1187, never to be obliterated on the page of history.
The cemetery of Gebal was right under my windows. In the middle of it was a small summer‑house which, at certain hours of the day, was thronged with women, who have a practice here of praying by the graves of husbands, parents, children and friends. In one sense the custom works well; for they always wear clean white clothes in the graveyard, and really look handsome at a distance. One evening, about sundown, I was hurrying to dinner, and found my pathway through the cemetery blocked up by these mourning women. It is considered bad manners for a man to interrupt women in the graveyard. In fact, they throw stones at you if you do. And there they "sot and sot," entirely enveloped in their concealing garments, occupying all the eligible hollows and shady places, until it became almost dark. The ordinary dress of the women has much in
MY GEBAL LANDLORD. 141
common with that of the men; a dirty white tunic (vulgarly called shirt) bound round with a leathern girdle, somewhat in the style of our Patron‑Saint John the Baptist I was glad when they left and I could proceed to my dinner.
I remarked before, that I boarded, or, rather, hired a room, while in Gebal, of some Maronite priests. This was in the second story of the house, the lower being the stables. A large wooden door opened from the street. No house in the Holy Land has more than one door. A heavy iron knocker adorned that door. When I wanted to enter, I struck the knocker three times. One of the priests, generally Father Yusef, or his assistant Latoof, "looked out of the window" (as Jezebel did at Jezreel, 2 Kings ix. 30), and seeing who it was, pulled a cord which lifted a heavy wooden latch, and then, with some muscular effort and fearful squeaking of hinges, I pushed the gate open, mounted the stone stairs to the top of the house, first story, and so entered my room.
The private room of my landlord was furnished scantily enough. I looked in upon him one morning, and saw three old presses, a lamp, a small box, and the mat on which Father Yusef sat, reading his breviary and keeping time by the motion of his body and the droning of his voice.
My host had a visitor, a reverend old gentleman, with voluble tongue and winning behavior, who used to show me through the bazaars and persuade me to buy things. But I discovered he was allowed his little commission on my purchases, and so confined myself to a few pounds of the tobacco for which Gebal has been famous ever since tobacco was introduced here, a few centuries back. These Oriental bazaars shall have full description in future chapters. I saw in this one an old man wrapped in a coarse, tattered garment, sitting on the ground, with a bushel of dirty wheat lying on a fine cloth before him, selling it by the gallon. Close by him women were seated, one with a few oranges, another having a small quantity of rice, etc., etc.
The variety sold in these miscellaneous collections of shanties called bazaars, is something remarkable; cotton and silk clothes; beef, mutton, fish, and eggs; poultry, skinny, small and cheap; quinces, pomegranates, apricots, figs, raisins, olives, grapes, and other fruit; domestic utensils; - the list is as long as my arm.
I bought of a man here a simple, plain cross, cut in marble, per baps marking the resting‑place of some early disciple of the Crucified
14Ç REFRESHING MEMORIES.
One. Also, a fragment of an elegant statuette, a faunus, in Pariam marble, exquisitely wrought. Both these rare objects were burned three years afterward in the great fire at Chicago.
It is a charming memory of Gebal, of the evenings, about sundown, when I was accustomed to walk alone around the old Phoenician harbor. The sound of a convent‑bell high up in Lebanon sometimes affected me to tears. The sea, smooth as the clearest mirror; the sun descending magnificently into it; the evening star, soon followed by the whole host of the heavenly lights, and a glorious‑night breaking in around me. I can never forget it. The sea‑line here presents a constant succession of novelties. Now a jelly‑fish, strangely out of its element, and soon to be swallowed by the gulls as one would gulp down a mouthful of Grano‑mange. Now the jaws of a shark, not very large, but so abundantly supplied with teeth that I sawed my riding‑stick through upon one of them in a jiffy; even as Talus performed that exploit with the jaws of a serpent, and was so pleased with the experiment that he kept trying until he in‑vented the first iron saw. Now an oyster‑shell (the ostrea edulis), but what business it has here, is more than I can describe. Certainly, I had no idea that the Baltimore oyster lives near Gebal. On one occasion I found the dead body of that enemy of flocks and herds, that gourmand of the flesh of asses, that eater of grain when meat cannot be had, the hyena. On another occasion the waves were rolling, foaming, and breaking in the most beautiful and majestic manner, the creatiiy mass of foam tossed by the sparkling waves, as again and again they roll majestically in to the shore, rapidly pushing each other, and riding over each other in merry play like the sea‑gods of old gambolling among the isles of the A gean. The world retires with its noisy discords, its poor shows, its empty glories, and gives way to the solemnity of the seas constantly doing their work.
It was a constant source of interest to me to watch the fishermen who stood, naked, a little ways in the sea, or on a jutting column. Of one I made this note: his net is gathered on his left arm, crooked, cleared and prepared for a throw with one turn of his right hand. Taking advantage of the ripples made by the wind, the sun throwing a shadow behind him, he runs along the shore until he sees a school of fish. Then, noiselessly and with much dexterity, he makes his throw. The net opens and spreads as it goes, so that a bag that could be compressed in my hat covers a space of twenty‑five feet in circumference. I have not time to learn the art, but think I could'
PAGES FROM MY DIARY. 149
do it with practice. This labor promotes meditation, as old Izaak Walton so often acknowledged, and this may be seen, perhaps, by a shrewd discerner, in the character of Peter, James, John, and those ether "fishers of men," born on the shores of Galilee.
I made hundreds of notes under the excitement of the moment, some worthy of record, though riot to be dovetailed with connected subjects. I append a page or two. ' Of the jackals I write, late one night, getting up, lighting a candle, and fumbling for my pencil expressly to do so; that my slumbers on that stony couch were disturbed by the jackals, whose dismal howlings rent the air, seeming to threaten me with a penalty for intruding on their ancient dominion. From a hilly knob just above the town I write: it is a stirring scene - the gazelles playing in the valleys, partridges running up the hillsides, along these territories of the old Pheenician Whose iron arm did make the mighty world A reach of beauty, and subdued the wave.
Of a sarcophagus, elegantly carved, I quote: " Faith, with her torch beside, and little cupids Dropping upon an urn their marhde tears." - Southey.
Of the boys in the bazaars, I say, they prove themselves apt scholars. One of them has learned a compound English oath of four hundred horse‑power, which none but a sailor could have taught him, and hard enough to raise the sheet‑anchor without a windlass; another one repeated to me an expression so obscene, that I was glad to believe he himself didn't know what it meant. Some tourists . delight to corrupt these unsophisticated youth. Of the effect of the sunlight upon this cretaceous stone and soil, I say, I soon had to stop looking for specimens after 10 A. M., the glare of " the sun waxed hot" upon the calcareous rock seeming almost to blear my eyeballs. No wonder these people have weak eyes. Our missionary friends down there at Beyrout, in printing books for them, use a type extremely large; anything smaller than four‑line pica fails to serve them' - without glasses. I notice, when I show these people my,}rocket Bible, they scarcely distinguish the letters. The natives suppose every American to be a hakeem (doctor), and a very little surgical and medical skill makes the traveller extremely useful to them. As the Giblites know I am a Doctor (not M.D., but how should they appreciate the difference?) they often came to me with their wants. All I could do, however, was to look serious, feel the pulse, and divide my piece of ginger‑root with them. Even for this they seemed thankful, always acknowledging my kindness by the tender
150 PAGES FROM MY DIARY.
word backsheesh. Amongst the flowers most common here I note‑the cyclamen, and recall the lines 'Tis cyclamen I choose to give, Whose pale white blossoms at the tips (All else as driven snow) are pink, And mind me of my true love's lips.
* * * * * * Old, kept, and kissed, it does not lose, As other flowers, the hues they wear; Love is triumphant, and this bloom Will never whiten for despair.
Rather it deepens as it lies, This flower that purples when it dies.
Of the uncounted mass of art‑treasures, fragmentary and heaped up on every hand, I say: these elegant mouldings, cornices, and en‑tablatures are thrown together with common stone to make walls for the fields. In giving my measurements of distances, etc., it is well to compare the standards used at different times in this country, with our own: The Roman mile was 0.710 of a geographical mile.
Arabic mile 1.055 Turkish mile 0.689 German mile 4.000 " The average caravan journey with camels is reckoned at about sixteen miles per day; mules make about eighteen miles. All travel here is ordinarily so slow that the dromedary who carries the mail at the rate of six miles an hour, and the blooded Arabian who gallops one hundred a day, are prodigies in comparison.
The sight of a great cavity bored in the monstrous ashlar in the castle, by some stupid treasure‑seeker, recalls Sveboda's description of a similar attempt to find gold and silver, by boring into the head of the stone statue at Pergamos, Asia Minor, under the belief that in the centre of the skull is a rich deposit. The fellow who did it hadn't much in the centre of his skull. The people below here are cutting and planting joints of sugar‑cane. The Crusaders, as they came to Antioch, in 1098, first ate and described sugar‑cane. Afterwardsthev became so fond of it as to cultivate the plant and erect large mills for grinding and purifying it, near Jericho. One man, to‑day. was plowing with two little oxen, scarcely larger than a pair of yearlings in Kentucky. Numbers of camels were winding down the mountain‑side laden with squared stones for buildings at Beyrout. Hassan says the camel here is worth from $100 to $125 for a good one. The fair horse, such as I am riding, cost him twenty napoleons - about 880. The old Roman road, running north of Junia Bay, still shows the ruts worn into it by Roman chariots in the days of the empire. A wheelbarrow couldn't now be trundled over it without.
PAGES FROM MY DIARY. 151
danger to the wheel. The town of Junia is beautifully located, and I do not wonder the rich citizens of Beyrout like to reside here in warm weather. A mile north of it is a place of romantic interest‑A cave, partly artificial, is in the hillside, about three hundred feet from the beach, traces of an arch inclosing it with faint lines around the top; the thundering roar of the breakers making its walls quiver; the blue and grand sea, with four sail‑vessels in sight; an ancient ruin crowning a high point near by; a palm‑tree on another eminence; the magnificent Lebanon in the rear; the interminable line of telegraphic wire connecting this retired nook with the outer world; - why was I not an artist .
To‑day I first saw that the ancient custom of hauling the coasting vessels on the shore for repairs, or for wintering and storms, is still: kept up. A number of them were thus disposed of a few miles from Gebal, in a sheltered cove, where the workmen were calking and. repairing them. On a coast like this, where no docks can be built,. such a method is indispensable.
I watched the exercises of the soldiers here to‑day, particularly in the Manual of Arms, which they went through well enough. Could they have kept their eyes off me, they would have done better; but every time the drill‑master rested for an instant, one hundred and fifty pairs of eyes made me their focus. As I saw they wanted me to smile in token of approbation, I smiled every time. This made the lance‑corporal so happy that he snickered, and got a cut for it from the drill‑master's ratan, and good enough for him. As I saw the i!‑master wanted an excuse to speak to me, I offered him one of Hassan's cigarettes (I don't smoke myself ), and it would have shocked old Baron Steuben to see how quick he (the drill‑master) lighted it and commenced smoking, while one hundred and fifty mouths watered to do the like. I told him to invite the soldiers to coffee at my expense, which he did, at an outlay to me of' a tr'fle less than a dollar (6 mills a cup, for 150 cups, is how much?) Att mi_ e, BR ~~.
SILVER PENNY OF TIBERIUS.
DIVISION FOURTIL‑LEBANON
As Lebanon's small mountain‑flood Is rendered holy by the ranks Of sainted cedars on its banks.
Like a glory, the broad sun Hangs o'er sainted Lebanon, whose head in wintry grandeur towers, And whitens with eternal sleet, while summer in a vale of flowers Is sleeping rosy at his feet.
Lifting their dreamy tops far into the heavens, there seems to be a conscious majesty about them: keeping ward and watch over the world below, they stand, Like earth's gigantic sentinels Discoursing in the skies.
How calm, how beautiful comes on The stilly hour when storms are gone.
Palestine sits, as represented in the well‑known coin of Vespasian, desolate, robbed, and spoiled, a widow amidst the graves of husband, children, and friends.
And the trees, once so numerous that everybody in the land had heard of them, and almost every one had seen them, are now so few that, as Isaiah predicted (a. 19), a child may count them.
Lebanon is ashamed and hewn down (Isaiah xxxiii. 9).
CHAPTER X.
CLIMBING UP LEBANON.
HE third of the Se ven (+rand Masonic Localities, according if, to my system, is Mount Lebanon, the site of the cedars.
First, I took my readers to Tyre, whence came the Pillar of Strength, King Hiram, and his multitude of skilled employes, to whom the work of temple‑building was familiar. Second, I led them to Gebal, the seat of the Schools of Architecture, whence came out that wisest of ancient Builders, Hiram Abif. In the present division I shall discuss Lebanon, the source of the cedar‑trees, of which such large quantities were used by King Solomon, not only for the construction of the Temple, but for his palace in Zion, in which this material was so largely employed that the edifice was called " the house of the forest of Lebanon." Following the order already commenced, the reader may expect to be conducted successively to the bay in which the cedars were gathered into rafts (" flotes "); to Joppa, where they were drawn ashore for land‑shipment; to the clay‑grounds in the plain of Jordan, where the foundries were established, and finally to Jerusalem, where everyth ing was con‑summated, both in operative and speculative Masonry. Until within a few years, it was thought that the only remains of the once abundant forests of cedars that crowned the caps of Lebanon, in its entire range, were at a point about three days' journey northeast of Beyrout, and nearly due east of Tripoli. It was there that travellers sought them, and many a glowing account of their immense trunks, their lofty tops and spreading foliage, has been transmitted to us through travellers' journals. There are about five hundred trees, great and small, in the grove at that place, on the head‑waters of the Kadisha (the Sacred River), that flows into the Mediterranean Sea near Tripoli. Latterly, however, large groves of the same trees have been disuo'ered, particularly one within a day's journey of Beyrout. The trees here, though not quite so large as the others, are of the same
BEGINNING A STAGE‑RIDE. 157
species of cedar, viz., the Cedrus Libani, or Pinus Cedrus, as another botanist styles it, and amply repays the visit of the tourist. I started from Beyrout to see them, April 25th, in company with Brother Samuel Hallock, and propose now to make report of my journey.
The way out of Beyrout is by the French turnpike towards Damascus. This I followed for twenty‑five and a half French miles, equal to about eighteen of ours. It is an excellent road, perfectly smooth, ascending the whole way in a romantic serpentine, in which the traveller is never out of sight of the sea. The thick groves of olive and mulberry trees around Beyrout, with the heavy snow‑banks that crown the mountain‑tops before you, and the increasing coolness of the breeze, afford delightful sensations. Some of these valleys around which the road winds, are deep and impressive, while the variety of travellers, the cultivated terraces, and the thousand novelties of which one never gets weary, take away from the monotony of ordinary travel, and give a delightful zest to the undertaking.
To give an accurate account of travel upon these mountains, I insert here, as the most fitting place, a description of my stage‑ride, a month earlier, from Beyrout to Damascus. There is only one stage‑line in all Syria and Palestine, and for this good reason, only one road on which a stage could travel. Wheels are a superfluity here; legs have the monopoly. Over this one stage‑road I passed, March 26th, 1868, on my journey from Beyrout to Damascus. The road is 110 French miles in length (equal to about seventy‑five American miles) and. is passed over in fourteen hours; the way, of course, being extremely mountainous. The stage (or, as termed here, diligence, pronounced dily‑zhonce) starts for Beyrout at 4 A.M., and arrives at Damascus at 6 p.m. I arise at 3 A.M., being called by my host, Brother Hallock, who has insured his own waking up by the primitive process of sitting up all night; get a good cup of coffee and a bite, and go, followed by his faithful servant Asaph (pronounced Hasaf, accent on the last syllable), down to the stage‑office, lantern in hand. A per‑son in any Oriental city caught out after dark without a lantern goes to prison, or only avoids that penalty by a heavy backsheesh to the officer who arrests him. As we walk down the narrow lanes (which are over‑honored by being called streets) the only living objects met by us are the police (who are soldiers carrying muskets, so very useful a weapon in the dark!) and the dogs. The latter, having no owners, lie out at nights and bark at all who approach them.
;age 6ns), tits) O in by wen four ditely Age nce ^nie the ever;er‑ the ted zks eat Lch led rill to ~e. n Le B!
ENGINEERING OVER LEBANON. 159
YELLAH! past the dwellings of Beyrout's aristocracy, each with its verandas with galleries, and queer eyelet holes, its orange‑groves in the trickling grounds of water from the fountains in the court.
YELLAH! past the big sycamore trees holding their great limbs horizontally out, each strong enough for a dozen of Zaccheus.
YELLAH! past the last military station on the borders of the city, and along the lanes lined with the great cactus‑leaves, faithful to their trust as any lodge‑tyler, and through the interminable mulberry groves with which the suburbs of Beyrout are planted.
YELLAE! past the three palm‑trees on the left and the two on the right, and skirting the forest of pine‑trees planted here centuries ago by the great Fakah‑ad‑din, and past those carob‑trees, reminding me of the Prodigal Son, and through more lanes of the prickly‑pear and past more palm‑trees and more sycamores, and now at the foot of the piountains, we address ourselves, about 5 A.M., to the ascent of Lebanon.
Let me read a Biblical passage; it is good to go up the sides of Lebanon with the Word of God in one's mouth: "The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir‑tree, the pine‑tree and the box together to sanctify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious." And shall I this day in good truth pass over Lebanon? Forty‑five years ago I read that passage in Isaiah, when a little boy at my mother's knee.
"At last; all things come round at last! " The French engineers did their work well in building this road. Its grade is nowhere (except in one place) more than the ordinary road‑level of a good highway, though to get over the range, which is some 8,000 feet in altitude, the task is a serious one. The road, in fact, winds like a serpent, often returning almost into itself; and traversing a mile of length to gain a quarter in height. A mile‑stone (of French measure) is set for every mile. A telegraph‑line, with two wires, accompanies it in the main, but often leaves it for a while, to gain the short cuts. Lightning, I discover, can go up hill by a steeper grade than the most diligent diligence. In three hours we have attained to the twenty‑fifth milestone. By this time the toiling world has fully commenced its day's work, and we are meeting it in endless variety. First an old man driving his loaded donkey; then a cavalcade of mules heavily laden; then a lot of camels piled up with rawhides; then a long succession of covered wagons be‑longing to the telegraph company, each drawn by three mules tan‑
160 LOOKING BACK.
dem. We change our own team every hour, usually putting on silt horses or mules, sometimes only five, in one instance eight, according to the character of the grade. At the stations all the Arabs of the vicinity gather in, and every one helps, with tongue and hands, to shout and fasten the rope‑harness used in this country. The horses are in general miserable, worn‑out, half‑fed beasts; the mules look better.
At the foot of the mountain I had observed the snowy top in advance, apparently quite near; but it was not until nearly nine o'clock, and I had come thirty miles, that I reached it. Snow has fallen enormously deep up here, and even now the banks are very thick, and the snow so hard as to bear the weight of a horse. No wonder it is so cold here as to require gloves, overcoats, and wrappers, although at Beyrout it was too warm for any of them.
About daylight we see a jackal sneaking into a ravine from his dirty deeds of darkness. IIe reminds me for all the world of a prairie‑wolf.
Looking up the mountain‑flanks, all seems desolate and uncultivated; but, looking backwards from this height, what a mistake! every square rod of ground is cultivated, mulberry‑trees, fig‑trees, olive‑trees, etc., by millions striking their roots into this soil, the latter especially "sucking oil from the flinty rock," as the Scriptures figure it. The picture is the reverse of the locust image; for, as you ascend the mountain, before you seems the desert, behind you the garden. Grain is shooting greenly from every flat, and promising its owners an hundredfold. 'Tis curious, however, to ask where these people live, for while surveying a vast area of cultivated land you don't see a single house. The reason, however, is, that the houses are built of stone, with flat roofs covered with earth, on which, at this season, grass is thickly growing. They are not distinguishable to the eye for want of chimney‑smoke, windows, etc., etc., as in our country.
By nine o'clock I am nearly at the top, after five hours of steady climbing. What a magnificent valley is this on my left! grand indeed; and here the fig‑tree takes the place of the mulberry. The two classes are easily distinguished from each other, as the mulberry is always pollarded and trained to a few horizontal limbs near the ground, being raised only for the leaves.
Now the driver and his assistant eat their breakfast; nothing but a few of the thin, black, heavy, unleavened cakes, which is the native bread. No meat, no cheese, no drink of any kind; cheap boarding!!r,
D INNER IN C.ELO‑SYRIA. 161
The culverts on this road are of splendid mason‑work. The heavy torrents of these mountains demand the strongest kind of conduits to resist their erasive power. An immense machine, made to press the surface of the road into compactness, meets me.
We pass the crown of the mountain about half‑past nine; here eight horses are scarcely able to drag us up, with two assistants to run along and whip them. Great crowds of travellers. An officer with thirty foot‑soldiers, all in gay spirits. 'Camels, horses, donkeys, and mules. No private conveyances are met on this road.
Going down Lebanon. Good gracious, what speed! ten miles in forty minutes. Full gallop, and everybody bawling yellah at the top of his voice. It quite takes my breath away to look out from my elevated seat in the parquelte. In meeting the loaded animals their conductors have great difficulty in dragging, pushing, and cursing them out of the way. These Arabs do cuss amazingly. One poor donkey, staggering under a load of sacks that almost concealed him, was knocked endwise by our carriage over the parapet, and, for aught I know, may be rolling down Mount Lebanon yet. The assistant, however, holds the handle of our brakes, and so regulates the .motion that we arrive safely in the valley of the Bukaa, the ancient " Ceelosyria," a magnificent prairie‑plain, from ten to fifteen miles wide, of the richest soil, all in cultivation. Here, at the stage‑barn, I get my "dejeuner," or breakfast, for which I pay twelve piasters (they call them herrish; five of them make a French franc). It was worth it. The courses were fish, stewed meat, fried meat, oranges from the Sidon gardens, Lebanon figs, small but excellent, the large walnuts (what we call English walnuts), wine of the best, and coffee. A half‑hour to eat it in. No other passengers partake, they having basketsfull of their own.
Here in Ceelosyria I hope to catch a glimpse of Mount Hermon, which lies under the sun from my position, and about forty miles off. "As the dew of Hermon and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion;" how often have I read that passage and longed to cast my eyes upon that memorable height. But I look in vain, nor in all the day's ride can I feast my vision upon it.
YELLA$! a caravan of camels, to which the sight of a stage‑coach drawn by six horses is a novelty. They are greatly disturbed at our appearance. They twist their long curly necks in every direction, as if to find a retired spot for escape, and with difficulty are made to obey their masters' voices and keep the road.
11 162 SONGS OF THE PASSENGERS.
A company of gentlemen, mounted on splendid Arabian horse' Their saddles are gayly decorated with yellow tasselling; their large shovel‑stirrups ring out a merry music; their riders are proud to put them to their paces. Everybody here rides with short stiiTupleathers, which do not add to equestrian gracefulness.
The women whom I meet are generally barefoot, and' carry their shoes in their hands; their lords shuffle along, however, with all the dignity of slippers. Both sexes have their legs bare to a height that I dare not measure with the eye. These women trudging over the highways of Lebanon are about as good‑looking as Indian squaws of the squaw‑class. Five out of six of them have children in their arms.
One of the Syrians, .who has his family in the "coupee," comes up and sits by my side. He sings for an hour in the monotonous style usual in this country, and of which no language of mine can afford the slightest idea. Mostly an entire song is limited to three full tones, with its accompanying semitones. It abounds in shakes, in which a particular syllable is made to do service for a whole bar or more of each. I don't understand the words, and I don't want to. It is the very infancy of music, such as would occupy a child at the very earliest age when melody attracts his mind. Accompanied, as it sometimes is, by an instrument of one string, played upon by a bow, and capable of only three notes, these Arabs will continue it in a long, drawling, melancholy monotone for half the night. My Syrian evidently enjoys his own gifts, and so do the driver and assistant, who occasionally pitch in, in a sort of chorus, but all singing the same notes, either in unison or in octaves. Considered as music it is fearful.
People here smoke all the time when not compelled by some urgent necessity to intermit the amusement. In travelling they smoke cigarettes, occupying their valuable time in making one while they are smoking another. The tobacco is about the average strength of dried cabbage‑leaves; and as much annoyed as I am when people puff tobacco‑smoke into my face, I can really scarcely tell now when this millet‑flavored weed is consuming around me. Everybody carries .cigarette papers and a box of matches. At home they smoke the rearg1eileh, in which the smoke is drawn through cold water, still more reducing its strength of nicotine, and rendering the habit less deleterious. Were it not that I have been so loud in denouncing the use of tobacco all my life, I might even use a narghileh (" bubble -
OLD‑FASHIONED PLOWING. 163
bubble," as the machine is called) myself. But there is nothing like consistency.
Leaving my breakfast‑place, where I had been studying the Scriptural image of "the sparrow on the house‑tops," away we go at a gallop through Ccelosyria. We cross the memorable River Litany (which I shall see again near the city of Tyre ere long), upon a wooden bridge with iron railings. What would the mighty conquer‑ors of antiquity think of that?,Meet the western‑bound stage from Damascus at 11 A.M., full of passengers. Foreign travellers this year very numerous. This is at the forty‑seventh milestone. People plowing on every side, generally with two heifers yoked together. The plow is a crooked stick, forked, the short end having an iron coulter. One hand of the plowman holds the end of the stick, the other prods the poor little cows along at the rate of a mile an hour. Such caricature of plowing! The wheat and barley not advanced here as in the valley of the Mediterranean, which indeed is very much lower, and consequently warmer.
Opposite milestone No. 53, pass a " tell," or hill, such as often occurs in Scripture history. It is black with browsing goats. This magnificent plain is a very garden of the Lord's own spreading forth; but with such want of agricultural skill it yields scanty returns. Oh for a colony of good American or European farmers, with cattle, and implements of modern make! I observe that the skirts of the Lebanon mountains that slope towards this beautiful valley are not terraced or cultivated at all.
Near the east end of the valley is another tell," green with springing grain. Near it is a Mohammedan wely or tomb, as I should guess from its appearance. The streams that run along this valley are all full to overflowing from the melting snows in the heights above.
At the sixtieth milestone, at noon, we begin to rise the mountains of anti‑Lebanon, nothing like so high or steep as the other, yet high enough, and wanting in all the beautiful terrace‑cultivation, etc., of the forepart of the day. For four hours we scarcely meet a person, or observe any signs of human life, save the numerous laborers on the road, and one little town on the left. I forgot to mention several crowds of English and American tourists, hurrying to Beyrout to catch the steamer of Sunday next. The Oriental lives of these amiable and helpless beings is divided into two anxious parts, one to get to a place, and the other to get away. These folks got to Damas‑
INTELLIGENCE OF HORSES. 165;
hey‑ galloping along its beautiful banks under the shadows of these dense ing - orchards; now leaving it for a short distance to take advantage of ets, some short cut; now pressing closely upon it, almost into its waters, and so narrow is the glen through which it flows; thus we go at head‑ the long speed, until the river Barada and our stage‑coach burst forth the `.? together intc the plain of Damascus, the oldest city in the world; Igh the city of Abraham and Elisha and Paul; the beautiful gem where Lnd two of Mohammed's daughters lie interred; the gateway to the road to Palmyra; the object of one of my life‑long dreams‑‑Damascus.
for At the point where I left the turnpike, I engraved, on the surface' I fl`~ of a large, smooth stone on the left‑hand side of the way, the device ne, of the Square and Compass. The extreme hardness of this material, nd so long exposed to the weather, made the task a painful one to wrist‑ . a muscle, and explains the perfect preservation of such monuments as of Hiram's tomb, the great inclosing wall of Mount Moriah, the Foun‑;ht tains of Solomon at Etham, and others.
Leaving the turnpike, the change to a Lebanon bridle‑way is at once .he ,painfully evident. You begin to descend a hill so steep that you invol‑ s.,, untarily stop and look around to see that the road before you has no‑ n‑ been abandoned. At first sight it resembles those deep gullies some re, times 'observed in our own country, washed out by wintry storms of . ~` from a forsaken road. Finding that there is no other way, you get For 'down and attempt to lead your horse. But a Syrian horse is accus‑ tomed to be ridden or driven, not led. If you are alone, there is no 1st other remedy but to remount and let the animal bear you down the 's‑ hill at his own discretion. Here the peculiar training of the horse is seen in the perfect caution and safety with which he does his work.
'Teetering from rock to rock, springing up a long step, dropping a‑ down on two feet at a time when the descent is too great for one, It ' placing his feet successively into crevices barely large enough for 1, them, and taking the worst places he comes to so cheerfully as to 't .show he is accustomed to it, the horse soon brings you to the foot of,e the first hill, and prepares to mount the second. That day's journey gave me a' new idea of the intelligence of a Syrian horse. Sometimes f we rounded the sides of precipices so high and steep that I was fain r to shut my eyes in dismay. Sometimes we meandered among gigan‑ 3 ‑tic masses of rocks shaken from the mountains by some old earth‑ s quakes. Sometimes we crossed stone bridges so narrow and t rough that nothing but the peculiar construction of the horse's shoes .(made to cover the whole foot) prevented him from slipping. Finally
166 PATHS TORTUOUS AND FATIGUING.
we arrived at the village of Ain‑Zehalteh and closed our first day's stage.
A few memorandums that I made on the point of a precipice will come in very well here. If the reader could only see how my hair stood on end with fright while writing them, the picture would be complete.
The experience of a ride up Lebanon is something never to be forgotten. Roads tortuous and rocky, over a country wild of aspect, stony and wooded; roads winding to all points of the compass, up and down among the hills; roads rocky and had, with many twistings up and down, but romantic and picturesque; hardly prudent to remain on horseback, as the precipices are frightful, and the risk of rolling over with the horse is imminent; as the Latins used to say, a ironic precipituni, a tergo lupus, the cliff before and the wolf behind; ways very narrow, one side dropping down upon high, perpendicular rocks, the other an inaccessible wall; nauturn est pictura poema, it is a poem without words; paths tortuous and fatiguing; a frightful mountain‑pass; the crest of a steep hill in the midst of a wilderness Of rugged ravines and impracticable crags; a bitter, sharp, cold wind sweeping down from the snow‑clad heights of Lebanon; going high up where " the hay withers away, the grass fails, and there is no green thing" (Isaiah xv. 6); past beds of iron‑stone, recalling the " one hundred thousand talents of iron " (1 Chron. xxix. 7) which Israel gave for the service of the house of the Lord; toiling far beyond my strength until "my face did wax pale" (Isaiah xxix. 22); Where the summits glitter with streaks of snow, And the villages crown the knobs below, bare and stony, cut by every rain. A hill that none but man can climb, covered with a hundred wintry water‑courses. A lowly vale, low as the hill is high," where the hardy pine‑tree thrusts its roots deep into the rocky side of the mountain; this is the pines allapenses of the botanist. "As when the winter streams rush down the mountain sides and fill below, with their swift waters, poured from gushing springs, some hollow vale." Here rises the Damoor, which I crossed the other day going from Beyrout to Sidon, and not far from here the Owely. My view from this point suggested a thousand passages referring to height. It seemed if I was on "the highest part of the dust of the earth" (Proverbs viii. 26); when the Lord of hosts lopped the bough with terror, and the high ones of stature were hewn down with iron, and Lebanon fell by a mighty one (Isaiah x. 34).
THE PEOPLE I MEET. 167
In the destruction of Assyria, even Mt. Lebanon is said to rejoice. One of the finest thoughts in Isaiah's prophecies (xiv. 8) is that in which the mountain that had been widowed of its noblest trees by Sennacherib and other Assyrian tyrants, joins in the cry of exultation that goes up to heaven at the downfall of the kingdom.
When a boy, I read of an herb growing along this road that colors of a golden hue the teeth of animals that browse upon it, but I can and nobody here who ever heard of it.
The men living among these crags are considerably larger and far more muscular than the dwellers in the plains. Doubtless it was so in Hiram's day, and the work of cutting and removing the cedars was intrusted to the mountaineers. Old Sandys remarked, in 1610: "Perhaps the cause of their strength and big proportions is that they are bred in the mountains; for such are observed to oversize those' who dwell in low levels." At the interment of Past Grand Master Henry Clay, at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1852, a company of 100 men came down from the mountain, riding blood‑horses. Not ti man in the company was less than six feet, and their average weight was 240 lbs.! A man has just passed me with yellow slippers and red shoes over them. His sash holds his pistols and sword. He has a long venerable beard, a thing from which military officers and soldiers are de‑barred. These regular Turks seem to me generally to wear a light and florid complexion. Scanning this man's dress I observe, what other writers have remarked before, that the Turkish dress hides all deformities of limb and person, while the variety of color, arms, and flowing beard, naturally divert attention from close examination of the featu res.
Another man passes us, an ill‑favored, slovenly fellow, of whom I inquire what part of these mountains no man can pass over. The mountaineer replies that he can go up or down any wady on horse‑back that water can run through! A female school recently opened here, under the patronage of the Protestant Missions of the country, enabled me to secure pleasant accommodations with the teachers. They gave us the best fare at their command, spread for us on the floor, in the preacher's room, sufficient bedding, and left us to a repose needed after the day's ride. At the village of Ain‑Zehalteh there is an old fountain, now disused, which has a pair of carved leopards on it, resembling the lions graven on the side of St. Stephen's Gate, at Jerusalem, supposed to be
168 AT THE FOOT OF THE CEDARS.
remains of the Crusaders' period. There are here, also, several tombs of that singular people, the Druses, to whose particular form of Free‑masonry I will call attention in a subsequent chapter.
Early the next morning we took a guide and started for the cedars, which, however, were in plain view, standing in the snow‑drifts, high up on the mountain‑side. It took us two hours' hard riding even to the foot of the slopes below them. Here we left our horses and made the ascent on foot. This is the first time I discovered that a man's knees at fifty are not the same machinery as at thirty. I used to be noted as a good walker and climber; but that piece of work took the conceit out of me forever and a day. We mounted mile after mile. We passed the highest barley‑fields, which occupied a slope of ground almost perpendicular. We passed the line of scarlet pop‑pies and other gay flowers, and the line of singing‑birds, and finally the line of vegetable and insect life.
The mountain‑air revived me in my heat and fatigue, as I stopped occasionally to look back and enjoy the splendid panorama of the Mediterranean. Sea seen from Mount Lebanon, which once beheld can never be forgotten. Again I went on, with tottering knees, and muscular system so paralyzed by the unwonted strain that I seemed to have no control over it. Looking above me, the cedars appeared to mock my desires, and withdraw as I advanced. Now I came to the line of the snow‑drifts, across which the winds sobbed, cold as winter.
At last I reached the lowest, and as it proved, the largest of tht grove, a cedar‑tree fifteen feet in circumference, and divided symmetrically into four noble trunks. Here I threw myself exhausted, and devoted the first hour reflecting upon the time, place, and occasion: high 12 - Lebanon - visit to the cedars! While recovering my breath I referred to some of the authorities concerning these memorable trees - such as these: An house of cedar (2 Sam. vii. 2). He spike of trees, from the cedar (1 Kings iv. 33). The thistle sent to the cedars (2 Kings xiv. 9; 2 Chr. xxv. 18). Grow like a cedar (Ps. xcii. 12). Beams of our house are cedars (Cant. i. 17). Boards of,cedar (viii. 9). Some forty other references may be traced through the concordance.
The particular connections between the cedars and the mountains are these: Devour the cedars of Lebanon (Jud. ix. 15). The cedars of Lebanon (Ps. civ. 16). Upon all the cedars of Lebanon (Is. ii. 13). The cedars of Lebanon rejoice at thee (Is. xiv. 8). The cedars of
THE TALL CEDARS OF LEBANON. 169
Lebanon to make masts for thee (Ezekiel xxvii. 5), and various others.
The Hebrew name erez, is presern ed still among the Arabs. I asked my guide the name of the tree that bent so grandly over me; and he replied, in his corrupt vernacular, arruz, equivalent in good Arabic to arz. The word is applied in Scripture, as it is in the vernacular Arabic, generally, to the trees of the pine family, but especially to the cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus Libani). The cedar‑tree named in Lev. xiv. 4, etc., was probably the timber of a fragrant species of juniper growing among the rocks of Sinai; but in most of the Biblical .:references this tree which is now shad_ng me is doubtless meant. Everywhere the symbolic expressions of the cedar of Lebanon are lofty and grand: it is the glory of Lebanon, the tree of the Lord, the high and lifted up, etc., etc. The Amorite in his arrogance and the Assyrian in his greatness were compared to cedars. It is also the model of expansiveness. The constant growth of the righteous man is described under this similitude. Its fragrance is not overlooked in such expressions as "the smell of‑ thy garment is like the smell of Lebanon." The cedar was the prince of trees. Every one who has seen it amongst the snows of Lebanon will recognize the force of the glorious and majestic imagery of the prophets. This great monarch of twenty or thirty centuries, under which I am sitting, with its gnarled and contorted stems and its scaly bark, with massive branches spreading their foliage rather in layers than in 'flakes, with its dark‑green leaves, fully asserts its title, Monarch of the Forests.
Of the quality of the wood I need not say much; hundreds of my patrons are enabled to judge of that for themselves, as I have served good specimens to them. The roof of the Church of the Nativity, at Bethany, is made of it. It is certainly close in grain, as well as dark in color. The King's House on Mount Zion was made of it, and Solomon used it very largely in the Temple, as well as in his own palace. The second and third temples were equally constructed of cedar. It worked well in carvings, and was used by the 'I'yrian shipwrights for their masts. In the days of the Old Testament writers, the whole of this great range of mountains, probably, abounded in this noble tree, now so scarce, and found only upon spots nearly inaccessible to visitors.
I am here just on the level of Wyoming Territory, in the United States, 8,262 feet above the sea‑level, and will quote from the description
170 SNOW‑DRIFTS, ROCKS, AND GRAVEL.
of a traveller there: " For nine months in the year, the sides and summits of these everlasting hills are bedecked with the greatest variety and the grandest display of flowers that ever grew. Gorgeously arrayed in countless numbers, they present every color, form, and size. The higher the peak, the lighter and more delicate the colors; at the very loftiest summits grows the palmito nivalis, or snow‑plant, an exquisite gem of floral beauty." Gradual as the snow at Heaven's breath Melts off and shows the azure flowers beneath.
The view of the great mountain‑eagle, through the broad spreading branches of the cedars, is inspiring. Serene as the sublime untrodden heights around him, he sails alone where the eye of man cannot pierce, and, in an untroubled atmosphere, sees the lightnings leap and play, and hears the thunder burst, and the hurricane roar far, far below him. Doubtless the prophet Obadiah was regarding him under this aspect when he wrote, "Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord" (i. 4).
Ten thousand axe‑men are now (the winter of 1872) chopping pines in the forests of Michigan alone, and, with their improved steel axes, every blow struck must be equal to six of Hiram's choppers, using the clumsy copper axes.
The throne on which the statue of Jupiter Olympus sat, in his statue by Phidias, at Athens, was made of cedar‑wood, adorned, of course, with gold, ivory, ebony, precious stones, and colors.
From my present standpoint, were the sun setting so that I might have the full benefit of his light, I could see the island of Cyprus, eighty miles in the northwest; were it not for yonder projecting point, I could see Sidon, twenty miles nearly in the west.
After a good rest, my companion and myself left our overcoats at the foot of this grand old cedar, and mounted to the top of the range, crossing deep snow‑drifts, piles of rocks, loose gravel‑beds, and other varieties of mountain surface. With the exception of a few pheasants or partridges that whirred out of a pile of rocks before me, and a few insects, I saw no signs of animated nature, and a few specimens of flowers exhausted the botanical exhibit. The view from the top of the range, which is here about 8,000 feet high, is extremely grand, and had not the wind been blowing so excessively cold, I should have enjoyed a longer tarry. Villages by scores and hundreds dot the hill‑sides in every direction, though, at so great a distance, no
TREE OF THE CARDINAL VIRTUES. 171
signs of inhabitants can be detected, save a single plowman fax beneath me, who is turning up the earth between two snow‑drifts, preparatory to sowing his late barley. Ilow he has managed to climb so high with his poor little cattle, and what he expects to raise in this mountain‑zone. I cannot tell.
I return to my great cedar, which, of all the trees around me, I had chosen to be my Goliath of Gath, the very one which Daniel might in spirit have seen and described as his " tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof great, reaching unto heaven, the sight thereof to the end of all the earth; the leaves fair, the beasts of the field having shadow under it, and the fowls of heaven dwelling in the boughs thereof" (iv. 10). Returning, I say, to this tree, I named it, on account of its four prominent divisions, the Tree of the hour Cardinal Virtues. I ate heartily of the victuals we had prudently provided before leaving Beyrout, and then, snug myself in a nook on the leeward‑side of the tree, and call up in succession the names of seven‑teen persons whom I have reason to remember with gratitude or kindness. To each one of these I wrote a letter, dated " On Mount Lebanon, April 26, 1868." If these epistles were received and read with half the pleasure they afforded me in the composition, my frozen hands and feet and general discomforts were amply compensated.
To the four great divisions of this tree, shooting its branches so magnificently abroad, after carving the Square and Compass deftly upon its root. I apply four names of earth's monarchs, who in their day did not deem it derogatory to their greatness to patronize the Masonic assemblies, viz.: Frederick the Great, of Prussia; Napoleon the Great, of France; the present Charles XV., King of Sweden; and William, present Emperor of Germany.
The number of trees in this grove is probably a thousand, mostly of good size, but none of them tall enough to furnish a mast or beam, still less good boards. From all of them the Arabs have lopped off the superfluous branches, and indeed so many others as to give the entire grove a stumpy appearance, perhaps not natural to it. Upon only one did I discover any cones, those large and handsome seed‑vessels, so much sought after by travellers; the natives had doubtless gathered the best for fuel. My guide, however, afterwards collected one thousand for me, and sent them down to Ileyrout. With these I supplied my patrons, as valuable additions to their cabinets. Of the wool. I secured a large trunk of a tree, long since felled; had it rolled down the mountain‑side the day following my departure, cut in two, and brought to me on the back of a camel.
172 CEDAR‑GROVE ON RADISHA.
As soon as this grove is thoroughly "discovered," and gets intc Porter's Hand‑Book, which is the Bible of all English‑reading tourists, it will take no time at all to people it with legends. Monks will come here and build their shanties, and retail their shenanegan around it. Every tree will have its name, yes, a hundred names; in fact, will be carved all over with names. From my own cognomen, back to that of Lamartine, Willebald, and - I forget the list, the same as seen in the "Sacred Grove," at the head of the Kadisha‑‑a regular itinerant directory, worse than the one on Cheops' pyramid, will be engraved here.
The extreme cold of the mountain‑air warned me away. So, after cutting a good stick, and collecting an abundance of sprigs and leaves, and waving my Masonic flag to the winds of Lebanon, I started upon the descent, only less adventurous and even more tedious than the ascent. My very knee‑caps twinge now with the remembrance as I write of that slipping, scrambling, tumbling journey to the base of Mount Lebanon. How glad I was to have the relief of my saddle I need not say. I again spent the night at Ain‑Zehalteh, surrounded with the dwarf round‑topped pine and umbrageous carob (the name means "The spring that has moved"), and returned next day to Beyrout, highly gratified with my successful and invigorating visit to Lebanon.
In the opening of this article, I alluded to the great cedar‑grove at the head of the River Kadisha. Those are much the largest specimens of the Cedrus Libani known to be in existence, and it is quite probable that some of them even antedate the time of the Hirams. Professor Tristam says of them: "The trees are not too close, nor are they entirely confined to the grove. Though the patriarchs are of enormous growth, they are no higher than the younger trees, many of which reach a circumference of eighteen feet." Dr. Thompson says: " The platform where the cedars stand is many thousand feet above the Mediterranean, and around it are gathered the very tallest and grayest heads of Lebanon. The forest is not large, not more than five hundred trees, great and small, grouped irregularly on the sides of shallow ravines, which mark the birthplace of the Kadisha or Holy River. Some of these trees have been struck by lightning, or broken by enormous loads of snow, or torn to fragments by tempests. Young trees are constantly springing up from the roots of old ones, and from seeds of ripe cones. The whole of the upper terrace of T ',',anon might again be covered with groves of those noble trees
SETTING UP A MEMORIAL. 173
and furnish timber enough, not only for Solomon's Temple and ` the house of the forest of Lebanon,' but for all the houses along this coast. They have been propagated by the nut or seed in many parts of Europe, and it is said there are more of them now within fifty miles of London than on all Lebanon." It is said also that these groves of cedar east of Ain‑Zehalteh, which I have just visited, could, a few years ago, boast of their ten thousand cedars; but the sheikh sold them to a native, who cut them down for pitch. Vigorous young plants, however, are springing up on every side; one stump has been measured which was thirteen feet in diameter. I can only say that the largest tree I found there was but five feet in diameter (fifteen in circumference). The so‑called California pine, thirty feet in diameter, a branch that springs out at a height of fifty feet being six feet in diameter, is of course a much larger tree than any df these.
And now for a few desultory passages from my diary: Sitting under this "Tree of the Four Cardinal Virtues," let me summon up one of that cloud of witnesses who found the cedar a worthy type of inspired truth, he who noted the rush of the workmen that poured up these slopes at the command of Hiram to cut the great trees. Jeremiah: " When I prophesied of the hosts who should swarm under Nebuchadnezzar to destroy Jerusalem, I said, They shall march with an army, and come against her with axes, as hewers of wood. They shall cut down her forest" (xlvi. 22). Seeing how few and comparatively dwarfish these are, as compared with the size and abundance of the cedar forests in olden time, we see the force of Isaiah's expression (ii. 12): " The day of the Lord is upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up." Down at Bethlehem, a hundred miles southward, the. rows of unpainted beams in the old church acknowledge this forest as their source. An old pilgrim who was here A.D. 1322, wrote that cedar‑trees grow very high in these hills and produce apples as great as a man's head. This was, of course, what we commonly style cones.
As Joshua, when he had waxed old and was stricken in age, called all Israel together at Shechem (B.c. 1427), and made a covenant with them, and recounted all that God had done for them since the call of Abraham (B.c. 1921), nearly five centuries before; and then " took a great stone and set it up there under an oak," and made it a witness unto them, "lest they should deny their God" (Joshua xxiii. - xxv.)_ so let me set this rude ashlar on its end, and grate‑fully recount what God has done for me since I left my native land
174 FROM LEBANON TO MORIAH.
two months ago. At Ain‑Zehalteh, I remarked that nothing is sc painful among these grand historic mountains as to see the degradation of the women of the Lebanon villages. Descending from the steeps in lengthened files, with heavy loads of wood upon their heads, bending under burdens which their weak frames can ill sustain - here are the women of the Koran. It is humiliating to be the object of their silly stare and rude laughter, and compelled to witness their unseemly deportment, clothed as they are in filthy, coarse, and scanty garb.
A generation back, the Druse women of Lebanon wore the tantura, or silver horn, often two feet in length, fastened to the forehead by a strong cushion, and supporting a white veil which concealed the face. Assumed at her marriage, she never laid this aside until prepared for the grave. But this strange and characteristic ornament is now dispensed with. As I do not know why they wore it, neither can I explain why they have discontinued it. The horses I meet are lean and poor in flesh, but sinewy and patient of labor. Their nimbleness at a stumble is only inferior to a goat's. Evidently they are accustomed, when stepping on a stone, to calculate on its rolling, and govern themselves accordingly. The incalculable quantities of cedar transported by the mariners of King Hiram, from Lebanon to Jerusalem, contrast so widely with the scanty yield of the present day, that the reader is almost tempted to suggest an exaggeration in the figures. Yet, as late as 1837, the Pasha of Egypt sent to these same mountains with an order for 1,052,000 trees of different sorts. Of these, 70,000 were required to be thirty‑five feet long and eight inches square; the rest smaller. Year by year from that time from 50,000 to 60,000 trees were shipped thence to Egypt. From the vicinity of Alexandrette they furnish yellow pine and other sticks, of the following dimensions: Yellow pine, 80 feet long, 18 to 20 inches square. Green pine, 20 " 9 inches square.
Beech, 35 " 15 Linden, 50 " 27 The allusions to the use of the Lebanon cedar in the construction of Solomon's various works are frequent. The same appear in the Zerubbabel constructions, 500 years later. In 2 Samuel vii. 2, David says to the prophet Nathan: "I dwell in an house of cedar," and he asked leave to build "an house of cedar" for Divine worship.
The GREAT WORK OF TRANSPORTATION. 175
material for his palace had been secured through the friendship of the King of Phoenicia, the same who was afterwards so munificent to Solomon. To facilitate the work of constructing a temple, which was re‑served for his son Solomon, he collected " cedar trees in abundance for the Zidonians, and they of Tyre brought much cedar wood to David." The cedars of Lebanon are ever a symbol of beauty, loftiness, and grandeur. In Psalm civ.16, we read: "The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon which He bath planted, where the birds make their nests." In Isaiah ii. 13: `f The cedars of Lebanon are high and lifted up." In Ezekiel xxvii. 5: "They have taken cedars of Lebanon to make masts for thee." Many other references of this sort may be found in the Old Testament by the aid of a concordance.
In the construction of the great temple upon Mount Moriah, such quantities of cedar were used as surpass all computation. The labor necessary to fell these upon the high mountains; to bring them down 6,000 to 8,000 feet of perpendicular height, through frightful passes and down giddy chasms, to the plain; to make them up into rafts in the coves and inlets of the coast; to float them seventy‑five miles along the shore; to draw them, water‑sodden, up the acclivity at Joppa; to bear them by land thirty or forty miles across the country, ascending some 2,600 feet by the way; and, when arrived atJerub"alem, to shape them into the various uses demanded by the great builder - this labor, we say, was truly immense, and defies calculation. It is, indeed, well said in 1 Kings ix. 11, that "Hiram, King of Tyre, had furnished Solomon with cedar‑trees according to all his desire." In two minute accounts of the temple‑building, contained in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles, are seen these references to cedar material: "He covered the house with beams and boards of cedar;" the chambers, five cubits high against the house, " rested on the house with timber of cedar; " " He built the walls of the house within with 'boards of cedar; " " He built twenty cubits on the sides of the house, both the floor and the walls, with boards of cedar; " " The cedar of the house within was carved with knops and open flowers; all was cedar; there was no stone seen;" the altar in the holy place was of cedar, covered with pure gold.
But his own house, on Mount Zion, still more profusely abounded with this costly wood. It was, indeed, termed " the house of the forest of Lebanon," for this very reason. It stood " upon four rows of _ ‑ ~T ~nnw~'I I III
ANCIENT ALTARS.
GRAND PORTAL AT BAALBEC.
GENTLEMEN DINING.
CHAPTER XI.
BAALBEC AND PALMYRA.
T was not in my power to visit Baalbec and Palmyra without neglecting more important interests. I am there‑ itb chiefly indebted to Brother A. L. Rawson, the Oriental artist and scribe, for my notes upon those wonderful (won‑ der full!) localities, interesting especially to the Masonic antiquary, because doubtless built by the same hands whose chisel‑marks are found to‑day indented upon the walls and ashlars in the great quarry at Jerusalem. In other words, the remains of Baalbec and Palmyra are covered with the "Handmarks of Hiram's Builders! " Baalbec, or Heliopolis, the City of the Sun, is situated about thirty miles to the left of the route between Beyrout and Damascus, de‑scribed in my last chapter. It is usual for travellers to go first to Damascus by stage (" diligence," so called in French, because an exceedingly "slow coach "), and there hire horses and servants, with that inevitable and dreadful bore, the dragoman, to torment you, and be paid for it. Not that there is the least need of this fellow. There is not a horse in Damascus that couldn't keep the track between that place and Baalbee with his eyes shut; but it is fashionable here to have a dragoman, just as it is to tie a piece of (dirty) white cotton cloth around your hat, and buy a " yaller " silk scarf in the bazaars to carry home. The site of Baalbec is a pleasant one, though the mountain‑ride across from Damascus is very rough and disagreeable. I noticed, at my dining station in the Bukaa valley, a party setting out from there to Baalbec, thus avoiding three times crossing the hills between that and Damascus - a sensible procedure. Baalbec lies well tip the valley, near some charming rivulets of water, at the opening of a little nook leading into the main valley. For all particulars of the history, etc., of the place, I refer the reader to the larger works of Thomson, Porter, Robinson, etc. At what period, or by whom, the
180 HISTORY OF BAALBEC.
city was founded is unknown; but it is probably coeval with the. most prosperous period of Phmnician history; local tradition associates it with King Solomon. A slight examination shows that, while the colossal platform of the Temple and the beveled masonry under the great peristyle point to the Phoenician architects, the Greeks, Romans, and Syrians have all, in turn, had a hand in the erection of the later structures, just as we know that many of the inscriptions are Saracenic, and therefore comparatively recent. Julius Cmsar,. about B.C. 47, made it a Roman colony, under the name of Heliopolis. On the coins of Augustus Cwsar, about B.c. 31, we find the corroboration of this fact in the inscription, "Col. Julia Augusta Felix Heliopolis." A sacred oracle was established here a century later, which the Emperor Trajan, A.D. 98, consulted prior to an expedition against the Parthians.
The city of Baalbec was irregular in form, covering an area of about a mile in diameter (more accurately, two miles in circumfer ence), and this whole space is piled up with debris of costly and exquisite architecture in marble, Lebanon limestone, granite, and porphyry. Some extremely large and elegant columns of porphyry were taken from here 1,500 years since, and now form portions of the Mosque of St. Sophia, at Constantinople. The whole ruin may be best divided, for examination, as Professor Rawson has done, into the Great Temple, the Peristyle Temple, and the Temple of the Sun. Weeks and months are profitably spent by architectural students in the study of these three monuments. Fortunately, there are extant, in the great American libraries, copies of the accurate works of Wood and Dawkins, who explored, figured, and wrote up the place in the last century, when many more of the great columns, etc., were standing than now.
If an American reader, who has never seen any erections larger or finer than the Capitol at Washington, will set his imagination to work as to the designs originally drawn on the trestle‑board by the Grand Architect of Baalbec (perhaps Hiram Abif him‑self ), let him be supposed to be standing on the eastern edge of a platform, looking west. First comes the portico, one hundred and eighty feet from north to south, and thirty‑seven feet deep. The platform itself is elevated twenty feet, the wall below being built of large undressed stones, and showing that formerly a grand and massive stairway, now absent, led up to it from the direction of the rising sun. Only the bases of the columns of the portico remain, the
GREAT TEMPLE AT BAALBEC. 181
columns themselves having been removed or destroyed. But the wings of the portico, built of stones from twenty to twenty‑four feet long, and broad and high in proportion, remain almost intact. Into each wing you may enter from the portico into chambers thirty‑one by thirty‑eight feet, which have been used by the present government as forts; stairways lead down from them into the body of the massive platform below.
Passing westward from the portico through a triple gateway, we,enter a hexagon (six‑sided) court, two hundred feet deep by three hundred wide (from north to south). On the east, north, and south sides of this vast court are right‑angled recesses, each having four columns in front of it. Still passing westward, we find a portal fifty feet wide opening into the second court, which surpasses all of human grandeur that the world contains, except some Egyptian edifices. It is four hundred and forty feet from east to west, and three hundred and seventy from north to south. It was entirely en‑compassed by recesses and niches which, in their very ruin, are overpoweringly magnificent. Great rows of columns surrounded this enormous court, their bases being seven feet three inches in diameter, and their height, including base, capital, and entablature, eighty‑nine feet! Each of these tremendous works, a portion of them being of that hardest and heaviest of stone, Syenite, is composed of six pieces, viz.: the base is one, the shaft three (fastened together inwardly by .massive iron cramps), the capital one, and the entablature crossing from pillar to pillar, one. The style is Corinthian. The entablature is exquisitely done, " the mouldings being deep, and filled up with the egg and dice ornaments. The frieze has garlands hung between projections, each of which is adorned with an acanthus leaf and a bust." But we are yet only in the outer court of Baalbec's vast temple.,Still continuing westward, we come now to the real edifice for which all these costly approaches were made. It is a vast peristyle, measuring two hundred and ninety feet from east to west, by one hundred and 'sixty. On each side of it were nineteen columns, at each end ten; the dimensions, etc., of these columns have just been given. This temple stood on massive walls fifty feet high, so that a person mounted on the highest projection of the wall is one hundred and thirty‑nine feet above the surrounding plain. Thus the whole distance from the eastern edge of the platform, through the portico, the . two courts, and the temple itself, is nearly three hundred yards.
182 TEMPLE O' THE SUN.
And even this does not express the greatest architectural wonder of Baalbec. That which my readers will view with the greatest astonishment is the collection of enormous ashlars, of which the western part of the platform is composed. Here are the three great stones, so long and justly celebrated, one being sixty‑four feet in length, one sixty‑three feet eight inches, the third sixty‑three feet, making their combined length one hundred and ninety feet eight inches. Their height is thirteen feet, and depth eleven, and they are twenty feet above the ground, in the heavy masonry of the wall. From these great ashlars the building was named by the Greeks "the Three‑stoned" (trilithon). In the northern part of this platform are nine stones, each about thirty‑one by thirteen feet, and nine feet seven inches wide.
Near this wonderful building I have just described, but on a platform considerably lower, there stands, to the south, the most perfect and most magnificent monument of ancient art in Syria, the Temple of the Sun, or Apollo. Like the other, it faces the east, and is two hundred and twenty‑seven feet by one hundred and seventeen, something larger than the Parthenon at Athens. The style is also Corinthian. In 1751, Wood and Dawkins found nine columns standing on the south side of this edifice; but the earthquake of 1759 threw down three of these, and nine from the temple first described. The portal to this temple, when entire, was probably the most striking and beautiful gateway in the world. It was ornamented, says Rawson, with' every device that could be used, in the most florid Corinthian style. Ears of grain, vine‑leaves, and grapes, with little figures of genii or elves hid among them, and many choice touches of scroll‑work, attract the eye and gratify the taste. Near the south‑west angle of this temple is a heap of ruins that form a most striking image of the desolation of architecture; in one confused mass, colossal columns of shafts, huge capitals that look, when on the ground, out of all proportion with the airy columns that rise up beside them, gigantic architraves, friezes, and ceilings.
The third of these ancient structures to which the traveller will give attention is the Circular Temple, situated about three hundred yards from the others. From the centre of all these ruins the great quarries, from which the material for the underlying walls was procured, lie under the base of the hill, one‑half mile west. Here is a stone, finished in the quarry, but never used, and the largest of them all. It is sixty‑eight feet in length, fourteen feet two inches
FOUR VAST ASHLARS. 183
high,' and thirteen feet broad. It contains, therefore, more than thirteen thousand cubic feet of stone, and weighs about one thousand two hundred tons. To a student of the human intellect, it were worth a visit to Baalbec, to muse upon this ashlar! It would be an interesting study to compare it with a few of the great stones wrought in different parts of the world by ancient builders; at Sais, in Egypt, for instance, there is a chapel, cut from a single block, that is eighteen feet long, thirteen broad, and seven high. It was brought from Elephantine. Two thousand men were employed for three years in carrying the mass down the Nile. It was finished about B.C. 569, under King Amadis, the man who was visited by Pythagoras, with letters of introduction from the governor of Samos, by means of which he was initiated into the mysteries of Egypt, and whatever was abstruse and important in their religion. A block of granite was' quarried a few years since, at Monson, Ms., three hundred and fifty feet long, eleven wide, four thick, calculated to weigh about one l. thousand three hundred tons. To detach it from the matrix, eleven thousand and four holes were drilled in a line parallel with its front edge. The corner‑stone of the State House of Illinois, spoken of in the papers as something ponderous, weighs fourteen tons! In the Emporium Romanum, within a few years, a block of Syenite granite has been found that measures one hundred cubic metres (a metre is about two feet). Gibbon describes an obelisk of the same material, as being removed from Egypt to Rome, that is one hundred and twenty‑five feet in length, and twelve feet diameter at the base. The Luxor Obelisk, now in Paris, which is seventy‑two feet high; is estimated to weigh one hundred and twenty tons. The column of Alexauder, at St. Petersburg, a granite monolith, is eighty‑four feet high and fourteen in diameter, and estimated to weigh four hundred tons. The sarcophagus of King Hiram, described in a previous chapter, weighs about fifty tons. The corner‑stone at the southwestern angle of Mount Moriah, thirty feet by eight, and six high, weighs about one hundred and fifteen tons; another in the same wall is reckoned at two hundred and thirty tons. One of the ashlars in the ancient work at Stonehenge, England, weighs forty tons; another seventy.
How well it may be said of all these grand buildings: They dreamed not of a perishable home, Who thus could build! And yet the ancients had no mechanical powers other than those az
184 HOW THE STONES WERE MOVED.
we possess; nor theirs half so perfectly at command as our builders have. Of the largest ashlar I have mentioned, Mr. Charles Buckle calculates that if only muscular power was applied to it, 20,000 men would not be too large a force, allowing one hundred and seventy‑six pounds to each.
A poet‑author suggests good thoughts in these lines: These lonely columns stand sublime, Flinging their shadows from on high; The dial which the wizard time Has raised to count his ages by.
Dr. W. M. Thomson very forcibly suggests that, being on the road from Tyre to Tadmor (Palmyra), the Phoenician masons who were employed to construct that wonderful vision of the Desert, could re‑fresh their memory in the grandest architectural details, by an examination of these unexcelled productions, these perfect gems of human art.
The coins struck here, in the time of Septimius Severus (crowned A.D. 222) have on the reverse this temple, now in ruins, with the inscription Coloiiia Heliopolitana levi Optimo Maximo Heliopolitana.
Some writer has elegantly said here, that time carries his secrets away, leaving his enigmas to perplex us. I have already remarked that popular tradition attributes these stupendous works, as indeed all other extraordinary things in this country, to King Solomon. They are themselves but a stupid race, though, three hundred yee ago, travellers reported them as exhibiting a skull so large that man could put his head in it. It surely was not of any member,f the races now inhabiting this valley. The story they tell of the Grua. Ashlar is, that the devils (genii, or evil spirits) being subjugated by King Solomon, were compelled by that remarkable executive to excavate these majestic stones, and lay them in order in the platform at Baalbec; but, just as the largest stone was about to be cracked from its native matrix, the death of the Great King was announced to them, B.C. 975, and they incontinently refused to work any longer. So far as I can ascertain, they have done nothing in the architectural way since. Of their flight the Arabic poets say, " they filled the air with the sound of their eleties." I remarked before that the eight porphyry columns been in the Mosque of St. Sophia, at Constantinople, were taken by the Roman Emperor Aurelian, from the temple at Baalbec, in Syria. When that
HISTORY OF PALMYRA. 185
great Church of St. Sophia was dedicated by Justinian, long afterwards, he is said to have cried out, " Solomon, I have surpassed you! " This was hard on Solomon, who, having been in his royal sepulchre for some thirteen centuries, was not in a condition to silence the braggadocio. After all, when we come to charge our thoughts full of these stupendous proportions, we may bear in mind that they do not at all equal those of the Pyramid of Cheops, to be described in a later chapter.
Quite a number of American lodges have names suggested by this place, or by particular objects found in its ruins, as, for instance, Ashlar Lodge No. 203, Georgia; 111, Iowa; 91, Michigan; 70, Massachusetts; also, Baalbec Lodge No. 71, Massachusetts; Hobah Lodge (from a Biblical locality between Baalbec and Damascus) is No. 276, Pennsylvania. From Naphtali, the Hebrew tribe that possessed this end; of the country as far as David's kingdom extended, Lodge No. 262, Ohio, is named. We enlarge the circle of association, by planting amongst these grand old Masonic ruins the names of ten brethren, honored on the register of American and Canadian Masons, viz., W. J. B. McLeod Moore, Solomon W. Cochrane, X. J. Maynard, William C. Mahan; Charles Spaeth, R. A. Whittaker, M. E. Gillette, T. Boyd Foster, William Storer, and Enoch P. Breed.
Our good brother Mason, Lamartine, set out for this place from Beyrout, March 28th, 1833, with twenty‑six horses and a whole company of natives for servants and escort. The French poet made a noise in these mountains, and his name is even now a household word for liberality and largeness of idea. His descriptions are unparalleled for elegance of language, and I regret that I have not more space tc give them. I have never seen a work that the student of the French language can read with so much profit as his " Souvenirs, Impressions, Pensees et Paysages pendant un Voyage en Orient, 1832‑1833, ou Notes d'un Voyageur, par M. De Lamartine." In the life‑long sorrows of this remarkable man was exemplified the truth of the adage Cuivis dolori remedium est patientia - the remedy for every sorrow is patience.
The ruins of Palmyra, or Tadmor, which is the Bible‑name of the place, are only second in extent and grandeur to those just described, and are best delineated in the splendid work to which I have already referred, that of Wood and Dawkins, published in England about one hundred and twenty years since. To visit the place at present involves so heavy an expense, in purchasing protection from the
186 SHEIKH OF PALMYRA.
Arabs, that but few travellers care to attempt it. I was within the turn of a hand in securing a free and safe passage, on the staff of the Pasha, in April, 1868, but failed at the last moment, for reasons I will detail in my chapter on Damascus. It is a journey, from Damascus, of five days by the ordinary mode of travel. The sheikh who furnishes the required escort is named Miguel, a fine specimen of the Bedouin; for, although his charges are exorbitant - 8100 to $150 a head - yet when he has your money in his belt and your life in his power, he will be found, it is said, kind, generous, and faithful. The tribe to which he is attached is that of El Besher, the most numerous of the Anazeh tribes. The Anazeh, by the way, is a nation of itself, the most powerful of the Arab clans, covering the desert from the River Euphrates to Syria, and boasting of 10,000 horsemen, 90,000 camel‑riders, etc., etc. The sheikh Miguel married an Englishwoman, Mrs. Digby, whom I met twice in the Protestant Church at Damascus. She lives part of the year in the deserts with her husband, and the rest of the time among civilized people in Damascus, where she is attentive to religious duties, and bears a good reputation among the Protestant missionaries with whom I made acquaintance there. So much was said in the papers against Mrs. Digby, a few years since, that I am constrained to record this testimony in her favor. I saw members of her tribe (the Anazeh) in Damascus, all wearing the conventional dress of the clan, viz., an undergarment of calico, gray or blue, extending to the mid‑leg, and fastened round the waist by a leathern girdle, in the fashion of our June‑saint, John the Baptist. The sleeves are wide, and have very long pendant points. Over this is thrown the cloak (cabala) of goats' hair, having usually broad, vertical stripes of white and brown. On the head is the handkerchief (Kafeeyah) of yellow silk or cotton, tied round the temples by a cord of black camels' hair, passed twice round. The chiefs wear a short scarlet pelisse, lined with fur, and large red boots; but the common people go barefoot. These people are small and low of stature (about five feet six inches), but walk erect, step light, and are as graceful in movements as our Western Indians before they learn the mysteries of tangle‑foot." On their faces is the expression of a wild, free nature; the piercing, fitful, daring flash of the eye is startling, while their abrupt speech, as a writer says, is like the sudden bark of a dog. I hailed a squad of them on the mounds outside the east gate of Damascus one morning, by making use of some friendly expression, and the manner in which they turned on me and snapped their jaws
APPEARANCE OF PALMYRA. 184
together would have been alarming, only that I don't scare worth a cent. I only laughed at them, and twiddled my fingers gracefully from the end of my nose. Whereat, after a moment's exchange of glances with each other, they laughed too, and asked me for backsheesh. Which they didn't get. Each of those ruffians of Anazeh had a gun, horse‑pistols like blunderbuses, and a dagger, and looked about as dangerous as a corner‑group of Five‑Points loafers.
The way to Palmyra (I had almost forgotten my subject) is by Kuryetein, where a supply of water must be taken to cross the desert. This is quite a town, containing a large Christian church. Here you are forty miles from Palmyra, and on what was once the highway from Mesopotamia to Syria. All roads in this country must be regulated by the water‑supply, and the fountains of Kuryetein and Pal. myra, established these as essential points on the journey. Abraham must have come this way B.C. 1921. Jacob went to Padanaram by this route, and returned again twenty years later. The exiles of Israel and of Judah well knew this weary road. When Palmyra was in its glory, the wealth of the east and the commerce of the west were conveyed along this highway. But Jim Fisk's old peddler‑wagon could carry all the goods that pass along here now.
The appearance of Palmyra is said to be startling and romantic. Syria, it is claimed, has nothing to compare with it. Ruins so extensive, so desolate, so bare, exist nowhere else. Long lines of columns, in irregular clumps and single pillars, rising up out of huge piles of white stones; fragments of gateways, and arches, and walls, and porticoes; such is the general view of the great "Peddlers' city " of King Solomon. Here that far‑seeing "Merchant‑King" established a vast depot for the exchange of commodities. Out of the enormous developments of the trading spirit in those days, the poets derived many of their keenest jests. The reader will particularly recall that of Ovid: Da mode lucra mihi da facto gaudia lucro; Et. face ut emptori verba dedisse juvet: - only let me have a profit, let me enjoy the delight of making a bar‑gain, and impose on my customers! The situation was the best in the world, half‑way from the Euphrates to the Jordan. An abundance of good water was here, and so, for 1,500 years, Palmyra vindicated the forethought of Solomon in wealth, power, and political importance. With this city the history of Zenobia is associated‑‑Zenobia, Queen of the East, who, leading her
188 THE GREAT COLONNADE.
armies from these deserts, A.D. 274, conquered Syria, Asia Minos, and Mesopotamia, and defied the Roman himself. She was overcome, how‑ever, and taken a prisoner to Rome. From that period the decline of Palmyra began, and now its population is scarcely three hundred souls, who reside in some fifty wretched hovels built within the court of the temple.
The Temple of the Sun, which is one of the great attractions of Palmyra, is contained within a square court, 740 feet on a side, with walls seventy feet high. The entrance to this was on the western side, through a triple gateway, ornamented by a portico of ten columns. The central door was thirty‑two feet high and sixteen wide. Its sides and lintel were monoliths, richly sculptured with garlands of fruits and flowers. Nearly 100 of the grand columns of this court are yet standing.
In this court, and near the southeastern corner, was the temple itself. A single row of fluted Corinthian columns, sixty‑four feet high, with bronze capitals, encompassed the Sanctum Sanctorum, supporting an unbroken entablature, ornamented by festoons of fruits and flowers, held up at intervals by winged figures. The sculptures are much like those at Baalbec, and not inferior in design or execution. The signs of the Zodiac are seen on a portion of the remaining wall.
But, as Dr. Porter observes, it is the Great Colonnade that constitutes the chief wonder of Palmyra. It was originally composed of rows of columns, thus forming one central and two side avenues, which extended through the city about 4,000 feet. Each column, on the inner side, had a bracket for a statue. There are remaining about 150 of these columns out of the original number, 1,500. Their height, including base and capital, is fifty‑seven feet. Two or three columns are still seen here of the Syenite (red Egyptian) granite, brought, of course, all the way from the quarries of Syene, high up the Nile. All the other columns, however, together with the buildings and walls, are of compact limestone, so fine and firm in texture as to receive a polish nearly equal to marble. It is of a yellowish white color, and was doubtless quarried near by.
The names Tadmor and Palmyra have been used in the distinctive titles of American Lodges, viz., Lodge No. 108, Kentucky; 55, Virginia; 147, North Carolina; 248, New York; 68, Wisconsin, and others. From the river, a little way east of Tadmor, we have the name of Euphrates Lodge No. 157, England.
LACK OF EXPLORERS. 189
To make a still closer union of Masonic names with this, so nonored in history, the following list of American Masons is associated with Palmyra: Martin H. Rice, 0. H. Minor, Noble D. Lamer, Alfred W. Morris, A. R West, John Hoole, D. B. Tracey, A. S. Wad‑hams, George W. Harris, Alfred Burnett.
It is a strange neglect of those rich and powerful associations, the London Palestine Fund, etc., that they do not visit Palmyra, and bring modern learning and skill to bear upon this ancient and renowned city of the East.
COIN OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
COIN‑NOTES EXPLANATORY OF PAGE 362.
The coins so forcibly delineated on page 362, are thus named, beginning at the top and reading the lines toward the right hand: Messina; Trapane; Catania; Syracuse; Syracuse; Seg ests; Agrigenturn; Megara; Panormus; Lentini; Unnamed; Egypt; Egypt; Al. Severus; Macrinus; Egypt.
DIVISION FIFTH.‑THE BAY OF THE FLOTES.
The land of patriarchs and prophets; the land of apostles, and martyrs, and confessors; the land of Emmanuel, - the Hots LAND t The antiquities of this country display less beauty than those of Greece, but far more of arduous labor. They remind us greatly more of the people than the artist.
By Its constant reference to localities, - mountain, rock, plain, river, tree, - the Blo.e seems to invite examination; and indeed it is only by such examination.that we can appreciate its minute accuracy, and realize how far its plain, matter‑of‑fact statements of actual occurrences, to actual persons, in actual places, - how far these raise its records above the unreal and unconnected rhapsodies and the vain repetitions of the sacred books of other religions.
The Holy Land is a country of ruins, of fragments. All those objects referred to in the Holy Writings, as well as the Masonic lectures, are in ruins, and it is necessary to go under ground and see what " mother‑earth" has "heled" there, before any labors of the past ages can be established. As the bodies of the ancient craft lie in dust in their stone coffins, so of their works; " dust and ashes " symbolize them.
Of the signs and ceremonies of Freemasonry, the remains of ancient mysteries, fragmentary remains are preserved here in the customs of the common people,, especially in their religious and burial ceremonies.
13 CHAPTER XII.
THE MASONIC BAY.
FIE fourth of the Seven Grand Masonic Localities visited 1 and identified during my researches in Bible lands, is the ' MASONIC BAY, on the shores of which the materials of cedar and fir were made up into rafts (" flotes "), and em‑ barked for Joppa. This is the sheet of water in modern times known as the Bay of Beyrout, or more commonly St. (george's Bay, this title referring to the fabled encounter of that hero with the dragon, so graphically described in Spenser's Faerie Queene. (Book 1, Canto XI). To amuse strangers and extort from them their loose piastres, the Arab guides even now will show the cave from whence the dragon issued on that memorable occasion, and for a suitable consideration, his very scales and bones.
I have modernized Spenser's language, to give a verse showing how hard and heavy the beast died: So down lie fell, and forth his life did breathe, That vanished into smoke and clouds all swift; So down he fell, that earth him underneath Did groan, as feeble do great load to lift.
So down he fell, as a huge rooky clift Whose false foundation waves have washed away, With dreadful poise is from the mainland rift, And rolling down, great Neptune doth dismay; So down he fell, and like an heaped mountain lay.
After repeatedly exploring the Bay of St. George, and comparing it with all the other bays upon the coast near by, I came to the settled conclusion, which fire cannot burn out of me, that here was the chief of those natural coves or harbors used by our ancient brethren in making up " litotes " of the cedars, which they felled from the sides of the hills, that rise above it, and shipped to Joppa (1 Kings v.; 2 Chron. ii). Hiram, in his celebrated letter to Solomon, says: " My
INSCRIPTIONS ON THE ROCKS. 195
servants shall bring them (the timbers) down from Lebanon to the sea in fiotes, unto the place that thou shalt appoint me, and will cause them to be discharged there, and thou shalt receive them." A charming place indeed is this Masonic Bay, with its beautifu curves and coves, its deep blue waters, its clean white sands, and the unparalleled grandeur of the overhanging hills upon the east. On the day I first rode around it (March 5) the bay was lashed into fury by a gale, as I have described in a preceding chapter. And I saw that, while it is the best of the Syria harbors, it is at the best but an insecure anchorage. I succeeded, however, in reaching the foot of the mountain, and entering the little khan,,where some ten or twelve other persons, weather‑bound, with their beasts of burden, had collected before me. The Masonic Bay is famous at the present day for its wrecks, of which four, one of them quite recently stranded, met my eyed as I rode along the beach. Near the northern extremity of the bay is the celebrated military pass of Nahr‑el‑Kelb (Dog River), by the side of which may be seen the most remarkable collection of ancient emblems and inscriptions in the world. That the reader may understand the subject perfectly, I will explain that through this maritime country (Phoenicia) lies the only great military road formerly connecting Asia with Africa. As,such it was used for more than three thousand years. When Rameses, or Sesostris, the mighty Egyptian conqueror, passed up this coast, about B.C. 1400, say 3,300 years ago, on his way to the conquest of Assyria, he found his progress impeded by this spur of Mt. Lebanon running into the sea, just north of the Bay of St. George. Through the hard limestone of Lebanon, on which my chisel has rung so often, his engineers cut a militery road, a work, considering they only had copper or bronze tools, of immense labor. On his return to Egypt, after achieving great victories in the East, he engraved upon large smooth panels, chiseled in the sides of the native stone for that purpose, hieroglyphical records of his victories. Those inscriptions are still here, though thirty‑three centuries have passed since the edge of the chisel indented them 1 As I at and made drawings of them, the sea‑breeze whistled mourn‑fully through the insulator of the telegraph‑pole that is fixed in a crevice of the rock, right in front of it.
Again, when Sennacherib, the Assyrian conqueror, came down this way to the conquest of Egypt, about B.C. 700, say 2,600 years ago, he ordered panels of the same character cut by the side of the last, on which his name and his victories were, in the Assyrian cuneiform
196 SESOSTRIS TO NAPOLEON.
characters, duly recorded, and these, too, still remain! After I had copied them, I read in Isaiah xxxvii. of the haughtiness of this monarch, his great victories, the terrible destruction of his armies by a simoon, and his murder at the hands of his own sons.
Again, when the Roman Emperor Aurelian had completed his conquests in this country, about A.D. 173, say 1,700 years ago, finding the old Sesostris‑Sennacherib military road in disrepair, he caused a new one to be excavated from the solid rock, about twenty feet lower down the mountain‑spur than the other; it is this which is now used. Aurelian commemorated the act by an inscription that still remains, in square, beautiful Roman letters, giving his name and his exploits. Here it is, just as I copied it, on my fifth visit there: Imp. C es. M. Avrelivs Antoninvs Pivs Felix Avgvstvs Part. Max. Brit. Max. Germ Maximvs Pontifex Maximvs.
Montibvs Imminentibvs Lyco Flvmini Caesis Viam Delatavit Per * * * * Antoninianam Svam.
The portion after Per was carefully erased by somebody long since. It is probable, says Porter, that this work was constructed about A. D. 173.
Again, one of the Saracenic conquerors, about A.D. 1400, left an inscription here, cut elegantly in a stone panel, on the same plan as that adopted by his predecessors, and this also remains. And so finally did the French soldiers who were here in 1860 and 1861. Now, my visit to Nahr‑el‑Kelb, March 5, 1868 (which, by the way, was the twenty‑second anniversary of my own initiation into Free‑masonry), was made for the particular purpose of inspecting these ancient emblems and inscriptions. I found nine of them on the old or upper road (that of Sesostris), which to reach now requires considerable climbing. No doubt there were originally more of these carved panels - lost by the breaking away of the cliffs on the south side. Three are considered to be Egyptian, and six Assyrian. When the light strikes the ancient carvings properly, they stand out plainly enough to the eye. I found it necessary, however, to stand off fifteen or twenty feet from them, to gather the original idea satisfactorily.
Beginning at the south, or upper end of the road, the carvings are thus arranged, viz.:
THE GREAT HUMAN IMAGE. 197
1st. Assyrian. King Sennacherib at full length. A fine figure of a bearded man, his left arm grasping a club, and bent across the breast; the right arm raised. In Layard's Nineveh you see this figure again and again repeated. The whole tablet or panel is covered with an inscription in the Assyrian cunei characters, which Rawlinson and Lepsius have read without much difficulty.
2d. Egyptian. Two small figures at the top, and inscriptions below; the whole rather indistinct.
3d. Assyrian. Rounded at the top, with a border encircling it. A +figure like No. 1; no inscriptions.
4th. Egyptian. Square‑topped, with a cornice. Figures like No. 2. 5th. Assyrian. Much like No. 1; in good preservation.
6th. Assyrian. Round‑topped. A figure like that in No. 5. 7th. Assyrian. Square‑topped. Figure indistinct.
8th. Assyrian. Square‑topped. Figure like that in No. 1; the out‑line only discernible.
9th. Egyptian. Square at top; ornamented with a cornice, with the nesign called cavetto.
In the corners of the three Egyptian tablets are holes, apparently made to insert staples for hinges, showing that doors, probably of bronze, were constructed to protect the carvings from the weather.
Near the tablet marked No. 1, I selected a spot a few feet south of the Human Image, whose right hand is raised in such a suggestive attitude towards heaven, and cut in the solid rock an emblem more expressive and glorious than all the symbolisms of Egypt, Assyria, and Rome combined, viz., the Square and Compass. The place of this inscription is a romantic one. Nearly on the apex of that spur of Lebanon through which the engineers of Sesostris made their arduous way, it overlooks the Mediterranean Sea for twenty miles out, giving an outlook towards Gebal northward, and over the Masonic Bay beyond Beyrout southward.
After cutting this emblem, I solemnly consecrated the place to a suitable number of those Masonic brethren whose patronage enabled me to set about this mission. This was to the intent that a Masonic interest might attach to the place, and that the future tourist, looking upon the Square and Compass conspicuously engraven here, may recall those names which our institution " does not willingly let die.' A few weeks after this was done, Admiral Lord Paget visited Bey‑rout with a squadron of ships; and in company with the British Consul, E. T. Rogers, Esq. (the Worshipful Master of Palestine Lodge, 198 THE WIDOW'S SON.
No. 415, at Beyrout), made an examination of these ancient localities. Seeing the Square and Compass chiseled upon that hillside, the old mariner, it is said, put on a knowing look, and made a remark which my readers would have perfectly understood had they only heard it.
The names of Masons located here, and associated thus intimately with Hiram, King of Tyre; Hiram Abif, the Widow's Son; Adoniram, Prince of Judah; and Zabud, the King's Friend, are the following: Thomas H. Benton, Jr., Rev. William Leas, J. M. Griffith, M. W. Robinson, William Potts, R. J. Chesnutwood, B. H. Dewey, Luke Lockwood, James Walsh, Charles E. Blumenthal, M.D.
In consecrating this spot, first of all to the memory of "the Widow's Son," I do not forget that he must many a time have "gone this way," journeying to that school of architecture, Gebal, twenty miles up the coast. Passing where I passed this morning, he must have halted and stood where I now stand, to examine these three ancient Egyptian tablets, then scarcely five centuries old, and, doubtless, perfectly distinct to an eye like his, skillful " to find out every device " (2 Chron. ii. 14), and probably learned in all the knowledge of the Egyptians, as Moses was. It was easy for Hiram, then, to read all these hieroglyphics, which only by taking the utmost advantage of the sunlight I can now barely trace out.
One of the most elegant myths connected with the history of Freemasonry in the Holy Land is associated with this spot. It is to the effect that, when King Solomon had forwarded to King Hiram of Tyre his royal request, "to send him a man cunning to work in gold, etc., and skillful to grave with his own cunning men " (2 Chron. ii. 7); and when that monarch had chosen his own name‑sake, the renowned Hiram Abif, the latter promptly accepted the trust, and set off for a tour through the Lebanons, to designate the most accessible groves of cedar, and the best natural coves in which they could be made up into flotes and embarked. A number of bays met his view, but none that presented such a combination of favorable circumstances as this, which I call Masonic Bay, at the mouth of Nahr‑el‑Kelb. Just above it the overhanging mountains, now so bleak and unclothed, abounded in the finest groves of cedar and fir. The natural avenues to the sea which were presented by the ravine of Nahr‑el‑Kelb, at the north end of the bay, and Beyrout River at the south end, afforded the most desirable inclines down which the cedar‑trunks could be moved from the mountains. This place
THE MUSE AT DOG RIVER. 199'
was therefore selected; and during the seven years in which the best science and skill of Phwnicia were expended in the erection of King Solomon's, Temple at Jerusalem, the shores of this bay presented an appearance only paralleled, at the present time, by those vast depots of pine‑timber in which the supplies of Maine and Wisconsin are hoarded up.
And now to recall the myth alluded to. It seems, from the traditions sf the craft, that various questions in regard to the construction of Freemasonry, or "speculative masonry," as we call it, were made subjects of discussion by the three Grand Masters, and settled from time to time at their conferenc,s in Jerusalem. One of the most interesting of these was that of an appropriate color. Upon this point the minds of the three philosophers were strangely diverse. King Solomon preferred red, or scarlet, emblematic of that fervt scy and zeal so strikingly illustrated in his own character. King Hiram expressed his choice of the royal color, purple, a hue associated with his own metropolis, Tyre, ever since the purple‑shell had. been utilized as emblematic of the noblest precepts. Hiram Abif was partial to blue, as suggestive of that expansion and universality which, they all hoped, would become characteristics of the new society. Standing here on this lofty point of rocks, and gazing over the vast sea before him - a sea famed in all ages for its depths of blue, the boundary of his vision only limited by a clearness of blue, Hiram stored his mind with so many arguments in favor of the adoption of that color, that when the three Grand Masters held their next conference at Jerusalem his logic proved irresistible, and so the "cerulean hue" was adopted as the unchangeable type of Masonry.
The following lines were written at this locality: Thoughtfully gazing on this wall, By Egypt carved for Egypt's glory, I strive to call before me all The sum of this symbolic story: It is, that in the human heart There ever is a deathless longing For life eternal; from death's rest The immortal soul expects returning.
These col querors, in blood and flame, Wrote on earth's history their hope To have eternity of fame! Traveller upon these mountains, stop
200 TERRACE‑CULTIVATION.
And pay obeisance! 'twas a good And worthy hope, - the same that fires And animates your generous blood, And to all noble deeds inspires! The examination of this beautiful Bay of the Rafts was the subject of numerous explorations, both along the beach and at the foot of the mountains. Here, as Porter says, the terrace‑cultivation, to which I alluded in my description of a stage‑ride from Beyrout to Damascus, is seen in perfection. What an amount of time and industry has been expended in these terraces! But they show, better than anything else, how a dense and industrious population like that of the Jews, from R.C. 1450 to A.D. 70, succeeded in turning the hillsides of Palestine into gardens, and orchards, and fruitful fields. These terraces typify the golden future of this country. What richness must be in this disintegrated limestone‑soil, where a few handfuls of dirt scattered among the rocks can produce such vines, fig‑trees, mulberries, and olives, as I see here! And it was here, too, that I first learned to view with infinite scorn and contempt the practices of ordinary tourists who throng this country. After meeting and greeting the first dozen or two of them, I accustomed myself to avoiding them as the genuine bores of the land. Their ░beastly‑looking place, you know," became more disagreeable to my ears than a whole volley of Arabic gutturals. They skim the country like a bird, but without the bird's powers of perception. They ride all day to sleep soundly all night, that they may ride all next day, and sleep soundly all next night. That is the history and the pith of their diaries, if they keep diaries while in Palestine.
But, oh, the laziness of the natives! Ignavis semper ferice sunt is their motto - it is always holiday to the idle. It gave me the fidgets to see one of them hoeing in his garden. He stood so long in one dace that, if he had worn a broad‑brimmed hat instead of a tar‑)ouslc, the shade might affect the growth of the plants. (This, by the way, is an old Kentucky joke; a neighbor of mine did kill his tobacco‑plants in that way, or report lies.) Riding one day in search of shells, near the mouth of Nahr‑el‑Kelb I found a wild and strange retreat As e'er was trod by outlaw feet; The dell beneath the mountain's crest Yawned like a gash on warrior's breast.
- Scott.
BIBLE IN HEAD, HAND, AND HEART. 201
Riding, 1 say, along the mouth of that grand gorge through which the Dog River flows, under the aqueduct, where the spider sparkles like a rich setting of pearls and rubies, and makes his web a marvel of geometric preciseness, I met an Arab sheikh, small of stature, about forty, keen as a fox, with whom I had a long talk about farming. I told him all that Horace Greeley "knows about farming;" all my own experience in raising corn, and cattle, and hogs; described the success of my (much) "better half" in butter‑and‑milk ialsmg, and chicken‑raising, and cabbage‑raising. By means of Hassan, whose powers of interpretation are sorely tried when I tell these people things they never heard of before, but whose faith in " General Morris" is of that sort which "removes mountains," I really did expatiate and spread myself before the eyes of that Arab sheikh, who all the time was drinking my coffee, and smoking cigarettes at the expense of the "Masonic Exploration Fund." And, you will ask, what impression did all this make on his mind? Why, he arose, after imbibing the last drop of coffee in my rubber‑bottle, smiled a smile of contempt, and said in three or four jaw‑cracking words (in Arabic) " No keef, " and so left me without a thank‑you. The word keef expresses comfort, quiet, the dolts far niente, which is the celestial idea of these Orientals. .To lie back in cushions, sip coffee, and smoke tombac, is keef - heaven on earth.
The fencing to the fields and gardens around this bay is usually the large cactus or prickly‑pear, which reminds me that our agave alnericanus, used for fencing in Florida, makes an impenetrable ehevaux‑defrise, with its long pointed leaves interlocking, and forming a most formidable barrier against stock.
How much the traveller will miss who journeys through these Oriental lands without a Bible in hand, and a Bible in head, and a Bible in heart, can only be estimated by one who has seen what floods of light are shed by Holy Writ upon holy scenes. To read a passage, however graphic, of the Old or New Testament, sitting by the fireside, or in the class at school, is one thing, and, as far as it goes, it is a good thing. Truth is cosmopolitan, and is equally truth in Occidental as in Oriental lands. But to read it amidst the same surroundings in which it was written, is quite another and a better thing. Then the casual allusions, which may have seemed clear before, will appear doubly clear; while many passages that the language of nature, and not human language, must clear up, will be illuminated.
From my note‑book I propose to illustrate this subject by a few
202 TAE FOWLS OF THE AIR.
scenes in Holy Land, examined Bible in hand. I begin with an in - cident that struck me as I went from Beyrout to Gebal. The location of the fact was at the northern end of the Bay of St. George, just as you begin to mount the pass before arriving at Nahr‑el‑%lb, or Dog River; the season is the sowing‑time of grain.
Here, as I ride slowly through this petty inclosure of an acre or two, whose " landmark," a stone wall, is scarcely high enough to confine a skipping lamb, let me read the narrative in Mark iv., and watch the husbandman's operations while he sows his grain: "There went out a sower to sow." This poor fellah, or native farmer, has also come out from yonder village, in the‑ nook of the mountains, several miles away, for he dare not sleep, nor keep his little pair of plow‑heifers outside of stone walls, lest the robber come upon him unawares and impoverish him.
" And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the wayside, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up." Look how busy they are yonder. There are the sparrows (called by naturalists the passer salicicola and the passer montanus and the passer cisalpina) and other grain‑eating birds.
"And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprung up, because it had no depth of earth; but when the sun was up, it was scorched, and because it had no root, it withered away." Look in the skirts of the inclosure yonder, next the fence. The earth is but a half inch deep on those rocks. And how warm the soil is to the feel. Doubtless this grain will spring up most quickly of all that he is sowing; but there is no depth of earth; it can have no root; it must wither away.
" And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no fruit." Look yonder, in that recess of the hills, how dense the thorns. The withered old woman whom we met a few minutes since, bearing her bundle of sticks, gathered them from this thicket of the "camel's thorn," supposed by some to be even the same spiny growth of which our Saviour's plaited crown was woven. Think you that the grain which our sower is scattering there can ever come to maturity? Surely no; it will be outgrown by the thorns; choked by them; rendered fruitless.
"And others fell on good ground, and did yield fruit, that sprung up and increased and brought forth; some thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred." Look at this fat soil. A generation back it was hard, blue limestone, like the stony cliffs overhanging it. Un‑
SOWING THE SEED. 203
der the bright showers of heaven, and the quickening sunshine, it has kindly yielded as we now see it. For, as Pope says, " The seas shall fail, the skies in smoke decay, Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away." All the fertilizing phosphates and carbonates,'and other chemical elements that mother‑earth so covets in her transforming processes, are here; and upon these level flats, where the birds dare not alight, where the thorns cannot encroach, where there is ample depth of earth; here in this " good ground," the poor man's grain will spring up; will increase; will bring forth. Here the beautiful language of our Masonic Monitor concerning mother‑earth will be realized.
Has not the quarter‑hour beenä well spent? As I mount and ride forward upon my way, let me try my memory upon a paraphrase of this divine narative, which I composed many years ago.* He that hath ears to hear May listen now, While I shall tell, in mystic words indeed, Of a good husbandman who took his seed, And went to sow.
- Some by the wayside fell; On breezes borne, The fowls of heaven flew down, a greedy train, And snatched with hasty appetite the grain, Till all was gone.
Some fell upon a rock; And greenly soon They sprouted as for harvest, strong and fair; But when the summer sun shone hotly there, They wilted down.
Some fell among the thorns, - A fertile soil; But ere the grain could raise its timid head, The accursed weeds luxuriantly o'erspread, And choked them all.
But some on the good ground, God's precious mould, Where sun, breeze, dew, and showers apportioned well; And in the harvest, smiling swains did tell An hundredfold! Cm text of my paraphrase is that in the eighth chapter of Luke.
204 STUPIDITY OF TOURISTS.
Need I say that all this comes naturally to mind, while journeying through these Bible lands? I pity the traveller who has enjoyed such opportunities as a visit to Palestine at the present day affords, and yet has not increased his knowledge in, and his love for, the Holy Scriptures.
ANTIOCHUS YII., KING OF SYRIA.
COIN‑NOTES EXPLANATOY OF PAGE 498.
The coins so forcibly delineated on page 498, are thus named beginning at the top and reading the lines toward the right hand: Dentella; Palermo; Seleucus; Antiochus II.; Antiochus III.; Alexander II.; Deinetrius Nicator; Antiochus VI.; Seleucuo Callinicus; Heraclea; Seleucus III.; Marnerco.
CHAPTER XIIL BEYROIIT.
BEGIN this chapter by describing my visit to the Protest‑ant Cemetery, where the black cypresses shoot up their pyramidal cones into the sky, and where, of all places on `5C_^ earth, lies our brother, the man of eloquence, earnestness, and deep piety, Rev. Pliny Fisk. Among the dead who calmly repose under the thick shade of these mourning cypresses, this man is most worthy of honor in Masonic memories. When this earth shall restore those that are asleep in her, and the dust those that dwell in silence, and the secret places shall deliver those souls that were committed unto then (2 Esdras vii. 32), the form of our first Protestant missionary, who gave his young life here to his work, will lead all the rest.
We may not be able to understand the fascination that draws us to the graveside of such men and holds us solemnly there; but it exists, and often men of the greatest intelligence are most free to acknowledge the influence.
I cannot do better, in this connection, than to insert an article, written in pencil, sitting upon this tomb, and afterwards published in an American journal.
THE MASON‑MISSIONARY.
In .the Protestant graveyard at Beyrout, in the Holy Land, is a modest structure, built of the Lebanon limestone, inscribed at the top, " Rev. Pliny Fisk, died Oct. 23, 1825, 2E. 33 years." The writer, in company with Brother Samuel Hallock, first visited this hallowed spot on the 23d of March, 1868, and plucked a sprig from the funeral g press‑tree that grows straight and tall at the head of the grave. is emotions are expressed in the lines following. The Rev. Pliny Fisk was the first American missionary to the Holy Land. He came here full of hopes and holy impulses in the
206 THE MUSE UNDER THE CYPRESS.
Master's work. His youth, his zeal, his lovely spirit, overflowin with kindly sentiments, won him hosts of friends, and, had he lived doubtless the mission here had been in advance of what it now is. But it was not so to be. The Master called him up " higher," and he passed beyond.
Brother Fisk was a Freemason. At the period of his entrance upon this work, as the records of the Grand Lodge of Vermont show, the fraternity assisted him with money and moral encouragement. I have thought recently that perhaps my own mission to the Holy Land was partly suggested by reading, several years ago, this Masonic history of Pliny Fisk: 'Neath our weeping, 'heath our weeping, Lies the young disciple sleeping.
Jesus moved him with his story, Promised him the heavenly glory, While his vows of service keeping.
Earnest spirit, earnest spirit, How he did that fire inherit! How, to seek the lost, did wander, Rent his home‑ties all asunder, And his martyr's crown did merit.
Oh, to see him; oh, to see him; When the stroke of death did free him! Burst the chains that long impeded, Quenched the sorrows he had heeded; Angels to his home convey him.
Blessed resting, blessed resting, Not a jar of earth molesting; Leaves of cypress sigh above him, Breathe the faith that once did move him, Green and fragrant life attesting.
A friend, after reading this article, gave me a quotation, which 4 add to the rest: So may some gentle muse, With lucky words, favor my destined urn, And, as he passes, turn And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud! After composing these notes concerning the man of God, I discovered, in old files of the Missionary Herald, copious extracts from Fisk's own diary, together with biographical details, from which 1
DUTIFUL: FAITHFUL: AFFECTIONATE. 2O
cull some additional thoughts. Every Freemason feels interested to know that the American Mission to Syria, now the most prosperous and successful of all the missionary operations upon the face of the earth, was initiated by a Freemason, assisted by Masonic funds and other encouragements from the "great fraternity." Will not the time come when Freemasons will unite in erecting a monument to this Masonic apostle? Pliny Fisk, the fourth son of Ebenezer and Sarah Fisk, was born at Shelburne, Franklin county, Massachusetts, June 24, 1792. From early youth he was distinguished for an engaging disposition and unusual sobriety. Persevering application was a prominent trait in his disposition. As a son, he was faithful, dutiful, and affectionate. He diligently improved his scanty literary advantages, and entered Middlebury College, Connecticut, in 1811, graduating August, 1814. In January. 1815, he was licensed to preach the gospel. From 1815 to 1818 he pursued a regular course of divinity in the Theological Seminary at Andover, and was then appointed, in connection with Mr. Parsons, to the Palestine mission. On the third of November, 1819, he sailed for that country. He engaged in Oriental studies at Smyrna, while Mr. Parsons made a preliminary survey of the Holy Land. In April, 1823, Mr. Fisk entered Jerusalem, and pursued his labors there during the first year.?Then he established his mission at Beyrout, where, on the 23d of October, 1825, he expired, a victim to one of the fevers of the country.
Among all who have given their. lives to missionary labors in foreign lands, few possessed so happy a combination of qualities for the work as Mr. Fisk. The pointed and inveterate hostility of the enemies of the Gospel, were met with that union of firmness and gentleness best calculated to subdue them to the obedience of the faith. The instructions given him by the society under whose charge he was operating, strike the keynote of all his labors .
"From the heights of the Holy Land, from Calvary, from Olivet, and from Zion, you will take an extended view of the wide‑spread desolations and variegated scenes presenting themselves on every side to Christian sensibility; and will survey, with earnest attention, the various tribes and classes of fellow‑beings who dwell in that land and in the surrounding country. The two grand inquiries ever present to your mind will be, What good can be done, and by what means? What can be done for the Jews? what for the Pagans . what for the Mohammedans? what for the Christians? what for the people in Palestine? what for those in Egypt, in Syria, in Persia, in
208 EARLY SUMMONED.
Armenia, in other countries to which your inquiries may be extended? " Upon his death‑bed, Mr. Fisk dictated the following letter to his father: "BEYROUT, Oct. 20, 1825.
"My beloved, aged father: I compose a few lines for you upon a sick, probably a dying bed. When you gave me up for this mission, you gave me up for life and death. You know to whom to look for consolation and support. The same God who has comforted you so many years, under so many troubles, will comfort you under this. You know His consolations are neither few nor small. I leave these lines as a pledge to you, and niy brothers and sisters, my nephews and nieces, that I love you all most dearly, though so long separated from you. I hope all, or nearly all, our number have been enabled to give themselves to Christ, and that we shall meet with our departed mother in heaven." He died on Sabbath morning at 3 o'clock. As soon as the news of his death was announced, all the flags of the different Consulates were suspended at half‑mast. His funeral was attended at 4 r.M. the same day, in the presence of a numerous and orderly concourse of people.
And now for some account of the city of Beyrout. A writer de‑scribes it as exceedingly beautiful. The promontory upon which it stands is triangular, the apex projecting three miles into the Mediterranean, and the base running along the foot of Lebanon. It occupies the southern horn of the crescent of the Masonic Bay, as the rocky pass at the mouth of Dog River occupies the northern horn. The southwestern side of this promontory, which I perambulated one day on foot, is composed of loose drifting sand, with the aspect of a desert; but the northwestern side is very different. The shore‑line, which I frequently traversed in search of shells and general information, is formed of a range of irregular, deeply‑indented rocks and cliffs. Between these rocks the ground rises gradually, for a mile or two, to the height of 200 feet. In the middle of the shore‑line stands the city; first, a dense nucleus of substantial buildings; then a broad margin of picturesque villas, embowered in foliage, running up to the summit of the heights; then the mulberry groves, covering the acclivities, and here and there groups of palms and cypresses. The population of the city is about 75,000, one‑third of them being Mohammedans, the rest Christians and Jews. It is growing fast in size and importance.
As my headquarters were at Beyrout, and for nearly four months SOCIAL LIFE IN BEYROUT. 209' I was passing in and out of the city, I am competent to affirm that the only city in Palestine or Syria where there is any " social life," in the sense that Americans attach to the term, is Beyrout. At Jerusalem there are but a few foreign families, not enough to form a circle for social life, while in no other Syrian city is there even so much as at Jerusalem. But at Beyrout are found all the materials for society, as genial and cheerful as those at home, and well are they manipulated.
There is given, through the cooler seasons, a weekly series of lectures upon historical, educational, and scientific subjects, that would bear honorable comparison with those in any country. During the winter of 1867‑8, among the topics handled were " Petra," by Rev. Mr. Dodge; "Abyssinia," by Bishop Gobat; "Turkey in Europe," by Rev. Mr. Washburn, and other subjects by Col. Churchill, Mr. J. Aug. Johnson (the American Consul‑General), and other gentlemen of repute. These were given at private houses, thrown open to all respectable visitors. The lectures occupy about an hour each, and are followed by a distribution of tea and cakes, offered with a hospitality that is truly refreshing. I attended several of these seances with ever‑increasing pleasure.
A society of young gentlemen was formed at Beyrout, in 1367, entitled, "The Once‑a‑Week Club,",which met every Wednesday evening, at the house of Brother Samuel Ilallock. Modeled partly upon the old‑fashioned system of debating societies, this club embraced other features that made its assemblies pleasant to all concerned. There were about twenty members, and various honorary members, of whom I was one.
But these superficial demonstrations of social life are only slight indications of the great under‑current. The truth is that, in a foreign country like Syria, people lay aside, to a great extent, those social distinctions which, at home, form an almost impassable barrier between them and their neighbors. "The nobility and gentry," as they are so magniloquently designated in the English papers, or the " upper classes," as the American press somewhat vaguely styles them, finding no other members of the "upper classes," still less of the "nobility and gentry," with whom they can associate, come gradually down from the upper and mysterious atmosphere in which they were born, and cultivate the social spirit with people who are their equals. in all but the accident of birth. Very gracefully do they develop themselves. No persons can make themselves more agreeable.
14 210 PERFECTION OF HOSPITALITY.
At Beyrout, this blending of respectable people, regardless of other distinctions, forms the principal charm of society. At church, at funeral, at lecture, and in family parties, they mingle, each bringing his share to the enjoyment of the whole; some of music, some of conversation, etc.
The religious circles are equally free and social. A Bible‑class, under the superintendence of Rev. Mr. Robinson, a Scotch minister, who has charge of the Beyrout church, included some of the best‑instructed spiritual minds that I ever met in such a circle. At the regular Sunday morning service, in English, all attend and blend their voices in the psalmody, as, doubtless, their hearts in the prayers. So many ministers, of so many denominations, are found among the tourists to this country, that the variety of pulpit gifts is uncommonly great, while, it is to be presumed, each one who is thus called upon to officiate, exerts his best efforts.
The best English and American periodicals, religious and secular, are taken by the English‑speaking population here in great numbers. These are exchanged and loaned or distributed, in a manner partaking of the free‑and‑easy spirit that animates the whole circle, until there is no lack of good reading for all. A considerable library is attached to the American Mission, and there is a kind of heading Club Subscription, for the purchase of periodicals and cheaper literature.
But one of the most agreeable features of "social life in Beyrout" remains to be described. During the hot season, say - from June 15th to October 1st, existence in Beyrout is intolerable to foreigners. Every family, therefore, has a summer residence in some one of the innumerable villages that dot the cool and breezy mountain‑sides overhanging Beyrout on the east. Here an unbounded hospitality is maintained, that goes right to the heart of the stranger. Here he can find, among the most refined classes of people, a yielding of social position, an open hand and heart, a blending of luxury with plainness, and generosity with all, that would be hard to find anywhere else. Those who have spent a summer among these people, in the range of the Lebanons, have nothing further to look for to realize the perfection of hospitality.
From the highest point of Bassoul's Hotel the view by starlight is a charming one. Below are the gleaming roofs, the dark shadows of winding streets, the outlines of a battlemented wall, a castle by the sea, the waters of the harbor, silvery with the starlight, a faint view of prostrate pillars of Egyptian granite at the landing‑place, the dark
NOTE‑TAKING IN THE BAZAARS. 211
sweep of the pines beyond the city, and all closed in, on the east, by the sombre, solemn ramparts of Lebanon.
As life in Beyrout is analogous to all Oriental experience, I give here quite a number of extracts from my diary, mostly made in a day's stroll through the bazaars, and amidst the din and turmoil of the streets. I was under the effects of that southern wind called Khamsin, which Dr. W. M. Thomson has so well described in his Land and Book, and viewed things in a cynical mood, yet not so much so as to prevent accurate details.
Behold my notes, scratched amidst the bustle and yells of an Arab market‑place! Saffron: piles of it sold here; name from the Arabic saphor, signifying hot; carried by pilgrims to England, A.D. 1539. After turning half a dozen corners in these narrow lanes, it will defy anything but an intelligent dog to tell where you are. I have already lost my way on three several days going from Hallock's to the American Consulate. The tools used by these mechanics would give an American artisan the horrors. The ancients used saws for wood‑cutting, made, probably, of iron; though the saws from the Egyptian tombs of the same period are of bronze (that is, copper and tin alloy). The stones for the Temple of Solomon were cut with saws (1 Kings vii. 9), just as the blocks of stone from the old Temple quarry under Jerusalem, which I brought home with me, were taken out with saws, so soft is the rock in its native condition. Saws were used in punishing criminals (2 Sam. xii. 31, and 1 Chron. xx. 3), and 'these, as the text shows, were of iron. The saws of the Egyptians were single‑handed and traight, and this is the only pattern that I noticed in Palestine; but in Ni,neveh the sculptures, nearly as old as Solomon's time, prove that the Assyrians used the cross‑cut or double‑handled saw. Hyssop: it "springeth out of the wall" abundantly here, and awaits such a botanist as Solomon to describe it (1 Kings iv. 33), for I notice that no two writers agree as to its identity. Sparrow: this bird is on every house‑top, building nests on every jutting, and stuffing materials of nests into every crevice. Lucky there are few cats here to worry them; cats are only once mentioned in the Bible, and that in the apocryphal book of Baruch. Blindness: blind "beggars by the wayside" in sufficient abundance to deplete my spare change; I find the eighth‑piastre pieces capital coin for this purpose; being worth only half a cent a piece, I can give to a score of applicants without impoverishing myself. Battlements: every roof more than six or eight feet above the ground has a battlement, according to the requirements of the old Jewish law. Bazaars these and the mechanics' shops are unending sources of curiosity and instruction. Meal‑times: awkward hours to Americans, to eat at 8 o'clock; nothing but bread, jam, fruit, and coffee, and then wait until noon for breakfast; I notice strangers seem wolfish about 10 A.M. for want of their steak. Dr. Thomson: a bluff, genial, weather‑
212 NOTE‑TARING IN THE BAZAARS.
beaten old Buckeye (Ohio) American, ready to communicate all that he knows, in the most affable and unpretending manner. His wife (second wife, the first died at Jerusalem), an Italian lady, cordial and kind. Clothing: had full suit made of French cloth, worth in New York $8 per yard, for $28 the entire suit. Palestine Lodge is in a low condition - want of harmony among the brethren; scarcely had a meeting for a year; Dr. Brigstock, a most intelligent physician: lately W. M. One of the Past Masters is an Israelite. Women. under the white, enveloping sheet they spread out their arms cunningly, to appear corpulent, thinking it " an especial honor," as the old traveller Sandys remarked, "to be fat; and many of them are fat!" So far as their faces are concerned, I can say nothing, for I did not see the face of a Turkish woman all the time of my pilgrim‑age in the Holy Land. But among the lower classes of the Arabs less care is taken to conceal the countenance from strangers, and of them I can repeat another observation of the same ancient, accurate traveller: "I saw divers of the women with their chins stained with blue knots and flowers, made by pricking the skin with needles and rubbing it over with the juice of an herb (henna), which will never wear out again." Snails: a wonderful place for them; very large and edible for those who hanker after them. Their firm, crescent‑shaped jaws, and tongues, with sharp, hooked, rasping denticles to the number of 10,000 or more, on a bit of membrane not a quarter of an inch long nor half so wide, - all this is very well in natural history, but when it comes to eating them, I prefer sardines. Freemasons: I found here Brother Todd, a member of the lodge at Newburyport, Massachusetts; Gen. Starring, a Chicago Mason; and Brother J. M. Hirnes, of Atlas Lodge, New York; all nearly through with their Syrian travels. The snows on Mount Lebanon,'always an obstacle to travel in the month of March, were deeper in 1868, as I was in‑formed by Dr. Thomson (who has been in this country thirty‑six years), than he had ever known them before. A number of travellers were detained at Beyrout on this account, desiring to visit Damascus, but unable to cross the mountains. I made early and frequent calls upon the United States Consul‑General, J. Augustus Johnson, favorably known in American journals as a vigorous writer. Ile returned to New York in 1870. I brought him letters from his wife, then visiting Bethany, West Virginia, the residence of her father, the veteran Jerusalem explorer and missionary, Dr. J. T. Barclay. Mr. Johnson met me cordially, and tendered me all the aid in his power to further the purposes of my visit. He ought to be a Mason, as all the English Consuls are. Fortunately, there is a library, well‑selected and well‑filled, attached to the Protestant mission here, and I shall read, while in this country, Kenrick's Phoenicia, Lamartine's Pilgrimage, Hasselquist's Oriental Botany, Anderson's Geological Survey of Syria, and Renan's new work on Phoenicia, just coming out in parts.* - Since returning tome, I have purchased the numbers of this splendid production so far as issued, Mission de Phenicie, and can heartily recommend it to all who read French, as a noble contribution to Oriental literature.
NOTE‑TAKING IN THE BAZAARS. 213
An educated Syrian, in the provision‑store here, described the Dead Sea to me with accuracy, spreading meal upon his hat and delineating the topography with his finger, just as the plan of the city of Alexander was first drawn by the architect when inaugurating that work. In looking at the antique weights and measures used by these people, it is a good time to commence the inquiry, how far they can be traced to that one necessarily material centre (the Great Pyramid of Cheops, in Egypt), from which those material things called weights and measures, in a primeval age, were divinely distributed to every leading people. Groups of women returning from the cemetery, wrapped in shrouds, white as the " White Lady of Avenel." No wonder they catch catarrhs, rheumatisms, fevers, blindness; sitting through such damp days as these on the cold ground upon the graves. The hired mourners, who weep, howl, beat the breast, etc., by contract, are wiser. They only go out professionally, and remain but a few minutes. One hundred of these drygoods stores would not make one such establishment as in the Bowery, New York, constitutes a fair retail store. It was here at Beyrout that Gregory was coming, A.D. 231,^to attend the famous law‑school, when he met Origen, and was converted to Christianity. Three fine columns of gray granite are standing behind the donkey‑stables of Beyrout, representing three of the angles of a perfect square, the fourth being absent; these noble pillars are some thirty feet long, and thick in proportion. I have dedicated them to Freemasonry, and styled them Faith, Hope, and Charity, the three theological virtues of our order. Beyrout is said to be the cleanest place in Syria. A fountain with an Arabic inscription, said to be an invocation to God for a blessing to him who drinks; in this spirit, I took often and copious draughts. But there is a blessing in cool, sweet water everywhere, and especially in the East. The presbyter, Pamphylus, was born here A.D. 275, and martyred A.D. 300. He had collected a very complete library of Christian literature, all destroyed long since. The weather here has had close observers. Dr. Klein, comparing the mean annual frequency of thunder‑storms‑throughout the world, says that while Java has from 159 to 110, and Sitka 11 per annum, Beyrout has 4.
Bark from Boston, 3,200 bbls. capacity, freighted with kerosene in barrels and cases." Adv. Sept. 12, 1870. This advertisement reminds me that the only merchantable commodity sent by the United States to this country is kerosene, of which three or four cargoes are landed here annually from Boston. The return freight is wool. 'Twas a ‑droll sight to see my French tailor's row of Arab journeymen, squatting in the street, outside the shop, stitching away for dear life. Hal‑lock particularly requests me, when I walk on the flat roof of his house, not to look down into the adjacent courtyard. His neighbor, a chaste Mohammedan, has his hareem there, and I might possibly catch a glimpse of the faces of some of his wives. Of course, after such a warning, I spend considerable time every day, looking, but thus far in vain. Joseph us, in his Wars of the Jews (Wars, VII., 214 TURKISH BATHS.
gives interesting details concerning Beyrout. Everybody who reads travels in the Holy Land, expects to see something uponthe subject of Turkish baths. I made an article, spiced with some exaggeration, that was published in the Masonic department of the New York Sunday Dispatch. In reading it, three years afterwards, I recognize its general accuracy. Only 1 forgot to say that one of those bath‑servants has been in the profession, it is said, for forty years. He looks it. He is a Calvin Edson, as I remember Calvin, the " Living Skeleton " of Barnum's time, a dried‑up old man, washed away by palm‑fibre and olive‑oil soap.
,A'n ell) COIN OF SARDIS.
CHAPTER XIV.
FREEMASONRY IN BEYROUT.
ee WAS disappointed by finding that none of the American missionaries in the Holy Land are Masons. The first two 0'r p to that country, Mr. Pliny Fisk and Mr. Eddy, became: 1 members of the Masonic Order before leaving the United States, in 1818, rightly judging that nothing would bring them so near to the hearts of the Mohammedans. The consequence was, they enjoyed an intimacy with the natives such as no missionary has done since; and when Mr. Fisk died, in 1825, after a short and .brilliant career, he was mourned for by them with regrets that no missionary now operating there can expect to inspire among that class. And this, simply because, in addition to zeal, piety, and learning - all of which our missionaries have abundantly - Mr. Fisk had the Masonic claim, which they have not.
The first two men, not natives, whom I met in Beyrout, were Ma‑sons, guests at Bassoul's Hotel, where I stopped. I have given their names in a preceding chapter. The following day I made the acquaintance of Brother Hallock, already alluded to more than once, an ardent devotee of the order, and afterwards fell in for a moment with Brother General Starring, who was passing hastily through the city. A few weeks before my arrival, Brother John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, with whom I was associated in the Grand Lodge of that State as far back as 1853, spent a few days here. From time to time, I enlarged my circle of fraternal acquaintance, and at last, visiting a company of white‑aproned brothers, "where the lambs feed after their manner" (Isaiah v. 17), I am enabled to examine and describe their lodge‑room.
An account of the orgin of Palestine Lodge, No. 415, Beyrout, is given me by Brother D. Murray Lyon, of Ayr, Scotland, to whom I wrote for information on the subject. Extract from the records,
216 MASONIC LODGES IN BEYROIIT.
of the Grand Lodge of Scotland: " In Grand Committee, March 4th, 1861, the M. W. the Grand Master stated that he had received an application for a charter for a new lodge in Syria, to be called The Lodge of Palestine, at Beyrout. That the application had come to ale son, the Marquis of Tullibardine, by the hands of Lieutenant Colonel Burnaby, Commissioner of the British Government to the French Army of Occupation at present in Syria. That Colonel Burnaby intended to return to Syria immediately, and the parties were most anxious that the charter should, if possible, be taken out by him. The M. W. the Grand Master thereupon moved that, in the special circumstances of the case, the Grand Committee should authorize the issue of the charter in question, and he felt confident that the Grand Lodge would confirm their resolution. It was there‑fore unanimously resolved to issue the charter, under the peculiarly Dressing circumstances of the case; but this should form no precedent for the future." This action was confirmed by the Grand Lodge at its next session. On the occasion of my visit, in 1868, the lodge had a membership of about seventy‑five, scattered as far as Gaza on the south and Bagdad on the east, and included brethren at Sidon, Acre, Nablous, Damascus, Aleppo, Hums, etc., etc.
Since my departure, June, 1868, the Grand Lodge (Orient) of France has established a second lodge here, entitled Le Liban. This lodge set out with a feature peculiar to itself, described in the Grand Lodge records thus: " Your Committee on Administration proposes to you to sanction the remarkable by‑law of the Lodge Liban, at Beyrout, which comprises the creation of an establishment of relief (Relief Lodge, or Board of Relief) for Masonic travellers; also a library and a Masonic Tribunal of Conciliation, to settle differences netween the brethren, and in their relation with the outside world." I cannot discover whether this idea was made practical or not. This lodge was installed January 4th, 1869; Brother Lambert, W. M.; Brother Ilaggv, S. W.; Brother Mossip, J. W. My informant says: " It is destined to throw out deep roots into the Syrian soil; to spread abroad bright rays amidst ignorance and superstition, and to spread the protecting shadow of peace and fraternity over all." I hope it may.
The order of Freemasonry at Beyrout is not, I regret,to say, n a condition satisfactory to the members there, or creditable to the great cause in which the fraternity are engaged. The reasons for this need not be enlarged upon; they are such as do not in the least
MY MEETING WITH NO. 415. 217
compromise the honor of the individual craft at Beyrout, nor will it require any extraordinary effort to rem( ve them. Personally there is the best of feeling amongst the brethren concerning future operations, and I feel confident that the opening of a new era for Masonic 'progress upon the Syrian coast is not distant.
I had postponed my intention to have the good fellows of Bey‑rout called together, owing to the protracted absence of Brother. G. J. Eldridge, H. B. M. Consul‑General of Syria, late Master of the lodge here (Palestine Lodge No. 415) and who had been endowed, it was understood, with special powers for the extension of Freemasonry in this country. That functionary had been away on leave of absence tc his native country for nearly a year, during which period little or nothing had been accomplished in the affairs of the lodge, the actual Master, Brother R. W. Brigstock, M.D., being much engaged in the engrossing duties of his profession, and the other officers declining to act in his absence. But upon the return of Brother Eldridge, a general wish was expressed by the fraternity of Beyrout that we should have a meeting, and one was called for Saturday, the 6th of June. The night, of course, was oppressively sultry, yet the attendance embraced nearly all the resident members of Beyrout, about thirty. Amongst them were Brother Eldridge, just named; Brother E. T. Rogers, Master‑elect of this lodge; the present Master, Dr. Brigstock; Brother Ridley, an old and highly‑respected merchant here, etc. The visitors included Brother Samuel Hallock, of Philadelphia, Pa., and others.
The extreme heat rendering the lodge‑room insupportable, we used the parlor of the lodge for our meeting. This is a well‑furnished apartment, very tastily arranged, similar to those I saw in Smyrna, Alexandria, Paris, and elsewhere. Here, after an introduction to the brethren, most of whom spoke Arabic only, I opened the purposes of my mission to Palestine, my remarks being excellently interpreted by Brother Rogers, one of the best Oriental scholars upon this coast. I said, in brief, that I had come to the land of historical and Masonic associations, representing a large number of the enterprising members of the fraternity in the United States; that, in pursuance of my mission, I had visited all places particularly memorable in the history of our society, especially Tyre, Gebal, Mount Lebanon, the Bay of Rafts (St. George's Bay), Joppa, and Jerusalem, and had collected relics from every part of the land, that would serve as tokens 0 our friends at home; that the most profound interest is felt in
218 MASONTC ADDRESS.
the United States in all matters relative to Syria and Palestine; that no questions will be propounded me, on my return, with more earnestness than those relating to the condition of Freemasonry here.
Then I pointed to the world‑wide reach and extent of our ancient,ssociations, showing them that I had found a group of the mempers of this fraternity upon the steamer that brought me to Liver‑pool; another upon the Mediterranean steamer; a large body of Masons, representing seven or more lodges, at Smyrna; a company of sixteen Masons in Damascus, and a goodly number at Sidon, Jaffa, and Jerusalem; that all these, without exception, seemed earnest and zealous in the cause, and glowed with the desire to extend the honorable and useful reputation of the fraternity; that the prospects were now bright for the establishment of lodges at Damascus and Jerusalem.
Then I sketched the principles and aims of the Masonic Institution. I showed them that a prudent reticence, so rare in this country, where men talk more freely of each other than anywhere else, is one of the fundamental principles of the order. That obedience to the laws and regulations of the society; charity in relieving the wants of the distressed; the most scrupulous honor in our dealings with each other; promptness in recognizing Masonic summonses; secrecy in preserving the fundamental esotery of the order; fidelity in regard to exchanged confidences, and profoundest caution in the admission of members to the lodge, are essential to the successful workings of the institution anywhere. I assured them that Freemasonry stands very high in the opinion of the better classes in Syria and Palestine; that is to say, amongst the governing classes and those who would do more credit to its affiliation; and that it only needed for the Masons of Beyrout to strengthen themselves; to establish a few more lodges in the city; to establish regular meetings; to publish their laws, aims, and principles, for the reading of their own members and the outer world, and the benefits of the royal order would be increased an hundredfold.
I told them of our methods of operation in the United States; that our lodges held regular meetings in places well‑known to every one; that they let the surrounding community know who they are and where they are, and what they are endeavoring to do; that they publish a u umber of journals devoted to the interests of Freemasonry; that when a stranger calls at one of their assemblies there is art
THE SECRET MONITOR. 219
officer, the Senior Deacon, specially charged with the duty of welcoming and accommodating him, and introducing him to the officers and members of the lodge; and that his stay in the place is made pleasant in consequence of the Masonic associations thus formed. On behalf of the great American fraternity, representing more than one‑half of all the Freemasons in the world, I invited them to come and see us and verify the statements I had made.
By special request, I then recited " The Level and the Square," following after, "Our Vows" Both seemed to give satisfaction. An hour was then spent in the interchange of friendly sentiments. There is a fervor about these Syrian Masons that is extremely pleasant to a stranger. I was overwhelmed with kind wishes, invitations, and solicitations " to come again," and " to come often," and if anything can tempt me once more to undertake the long journey from La Grange to Beyrout, it will be to duplicate the agreeable sensations of that evening among the Masons of Beyrout.
Before dissolving the meeting, one of the lodge‑officers suggested that, as few of the craft there had ever received a "side degree" of any kind, they would be pleased, and perhaps benefited by the communication of the Secret Monitor. Anxious to gratify them, I explained what a "side degree" is, and the object of this one. All expressed their wish to receive it; and certainly, if its uses are at all commensurate with the enjoyment it gave that good set of fellows, the Secret Monitor, whoever got it up, is not to be sneered at. In this, as in all other inculcations of the evening, my words were interpreted into Arabic to them by Brother Rogers. My general statements were substantiated by Brother G. J. Eldridge, now Deputy Grand Master for the District of Syria, and by the other English‑speaking Masons present. This assembly was one of unmingled enjoyment, and will, I think, do good.
I cannot close the chapter without pointing out the chief difficulties with which the Masonic devotee in this country must necessarily contend. It is the necessity of working the rituals both in French and Arabic. A portion speak French only, and all,foreigners in Syria speak French, no matter what may be their nationality. But the natives generally only speak Arabic. No one in Syria has the rituals in the Arabic language, and this compels the Worshipful Master to extemporize the lectures, covenants, etc., as he goes along, a task immensely difficult. In a lodge that I visited at Alexandria, Egypt (the Loy, des Pyramides), the work is done alternately in
220 RITUALS IN ARABIC.
French and Arabic, and the record‑books, which I examined, are kept correspondingly. But even there the rituals‑(in all French 'odges the rituals are printed and laid out on the pedestals for the officers' use) - are printed in French, not in Arabic, and this reproduces the difficulty above alluded to.
Let one of my readers, who is Master of a lodge, conceive, if he can, the labor of being compelled to translate into a foreign tongue, clause by clause, the language of the rituals, so that the candidate may understand it. This embarrassment, too, is increased when that foreign tongue is the Arabic, an Oriental tongue whose phrases and trains of thought are essentially different from the French and English. I think I have said enough to show that, instead of blaming our Syrian brethren for their want of progress, we should give them credit for what they have done, and lend them warm wishes and sympathy in their future operations.
The Masons of Beyrout, and generally of Eastern lodges, know nothing of demitting. They may transfer their membership to other lodges, or become members of as many other lodges, at the same time, as they choose; but, like the Masons of Connecticut, they are charged no dues, and running no risk of suspension, retain affiliation with their alma mater, their mother‑lodge, as long as they live. In conversation with them during my various visits to Beyrout, I learned much of the high claims that charity makes upon them. I think that in foreign countries the society is not so much a moral institution as with us, but has more of the social and benevolent features.
Fatherless, motherless, sisterless, brotherless, Ilouseless and homeless, the wanderer here, having any claims upon Masonic charity, will realize them with less difficulty than with us, while the discipline due for unmasonic conduct will not fall so promptly as in American lodges. One of them quoted to me "The drying up of a single tear has more Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore," and evidently considered that this expresses the whole theory of Freemasonry. Although Lebanon Lodge, No. 415, is of Scotch parentage, yet it has been worked under some of those new‑fangled whimseys, as Southey calls them, those bizarre ceremonies, the pro‑duct of the French mind, which, as they could never be adapted tc a cosmopolitan system, are as impracticable as they are trifling.
THE GREAT NAME OF GOD. 221
With the Oriental dislike to change, these craftsmen will be strong advocates of uniformity, and stern opponents of innovation, saying with Southey: " It don't look well, These alterations, sir! I'm an old man, And love the good old fashions; I like what I've been used to." The eunuch, that dry‑tree of Freemasonry, as Isaiah terms him (lvi. 3), artificially made, is common here, readily distinguished by the imbecility of his countenance and moroseness of manner. He is the conventional non‑Mason of this as well as all jurisdictions.
The only innovation possible to Oriental Masons is that of omission They may (and do) drop out, lop off, more or less of the work, and so fail to exhibit the great principles in as heavy relief (basso‑relievo) as we do in America. This is too clear to an observer in one of their lodges to bear contradiction. But they never "put new cloth upon the old garment," tattered as it may be.
The holy nature of our obligations to the wife, daughter, widow, sister, and mother, of the Master Mason, growing out of that respect for the sex which colors all our communications with each other, is carried here to excess. Even to ask a Moslem if he has a wife or daughter, or to inquire after her health, or to make any allusion to her existence, is a violation of social etiquette; there‑fore a violation of one of the landmarks of Oriental society! In relation to the NAME of DEITY as a Masonic emblem, strangely disputed by some American reformers, I found no variety of opinion in the East; and the following English translation of a Russian poem by Derzhaven embodies their views as well as ours: Oh thou eternal ONE, whose presence bright All space doth occupy, all motion guide; Unchanged through time's all‑devastating flight, Thou only Goo, - there is no Goo beside! Being above all beings, Mighty ONE, Whom none can comprehend and none explore, Who fill'st existence with Thyself alone, Embracing all, supporting, ruling o'er; Being whom we call Goo, and know no more! And yet if there is any one precept in Masonry more persistently violated by these people than another, it is that Masonic injunction "Never to mention the name of God, but with that reverential awe
222 THE OPEN WORD ON THE ALTAR.
which is due from a creature to his Creator." The Mosaic prohibi - tion against profanity was as positive as human language could make it, and equally forms a part of the Mohammedan's Koran as of the Book of Exodus; yet the name of God is persistently, irreverently, and even ridiculously used here, by old and young. It is always ringing in your ears while travelling among Mohammedans. The expression to your horse or ass, "Get up; go ahead," is Yellah (Ya Allah), oh God! and in a hundred, yea, a thousand other forms the Divine Name is made contemptible among them. The Jews, I suppose, had got to the same point in the days of Jesus; for Peter, in his shameful fall and denial, "made imprecations and swore," taking heavy blasphemies on his tongue when he cut loose his friendship for the MAN who had fallen into evil hands. The Crusaders swore like Trim's "army in Flanders," and the Oriental Catholics and Greek Christians are as bad as the Mohammedans. "For swearing the land mourneth," may well be said of the Orient. This is a subject to which the Masonic moralist here should turn his first attention.
It is peculiarly gratifying to know that, in spite of Gallic influences, the Open Word is yet spread out on the altar in Palestine Lodge, No. 415, to gladden the first sight of the Masonic Candidate " brought to light;" and the Emblem of Deity, author of the Bible, still greets his first upward glance to the Orient. Long may these ancient landmarks of the craft be maintained! Every Freemason, whether Christian, Jewish, or Mohammedan, is willing to abide by the precepts, admire the beauty, revere the mysteries, and practise the principles, so far as he has the power, of this sacred volume; and these genial craftsmen, with all their lack of skill in rituals, have not transgressed the fundamental laws of Masonry, or changed its ordinances, or broken its everlasting covenants (Isaiah xxiv. 5). Occidental reformers may encourage their Oriental brethren with the hope that though "the bricks are fallen down, we will build with hewn stones; though the sycamores are cut down, we will change them into cedars" (Isaiah ix. 10).
But as it used to be said so often, by our Masonic authors, that the Koran has been, or will be, or may be, substituted for the Hebrew Scriptures, in lodge‑use, this is a good time to consider the subject. An entire chapter, had I the space, would not be too much to dissect that singular work, which some Masonic writers have suggested as a fitting substitute on Masonic altars, in Mohammedan countries, an
THE KORAN. 223
the Hebrew Scriptures, and illustrate the numerous topics introduced into this volume. That it is the Bible of Mohammedan Masons may be admitted in one sense, and Preston seems, in his Illustrations, to take it for granted that as Freemasons we may so recognize it.
Is the Koran a book to support the hands of a Freemason? The perusal of it will show - 1. That all the doctrines (as distinguished from the legends) are sound and good.
2. That nearly every maxim, religious precept, and doctrine, strictly so called, is quoted from the Hebrew Scriptures, and notably from the Ten Commandments, and is then sound and good.
3. That the larger portion of its legends (traditions, historical passages) are borrowed from the same source, and are therefore reliable.
'It follows, then, that the so‑styled "True Believers " are qualified, as to 'religious belief, to receive the mysteries of Masonry.
About twenty years since I made a critical commentary on Sale's Koran, with special reference to the question, "May this book (or the original) be used on the Masonic altar as a substitute for the Hebrew Scriptures?" From that essay the following is extracted: 1. The Bible is to be judged by its general scope and intention, - not by a few isolated passages, and these, possibly, misconceived in the process of translation from a language highly idiomatic and poetical to one extremely practical. Many of its traditions and teachings were delivered orally, and awaited for years the pen of the historian. How easy, then, to mistake their meaning'. As believers in its authenticity, we are unwilling that it shall be treated harshly. Let us only have like charity for the Koran, and it will not stand so much condemned. The history of the one, in these respects, is very similar to that of the other. It inculcates the mode of life exemplified by its giver; and of him Spanhemius says: "He was richly furnished with natural endowments; beautiful in his person; of a subtle wit; agreeable behavior - showing liberality to the poor - courtesy to every one - fortitude against his enemies - and, above all, a high reverence, for the name of Cod; severe against the perjured, adulterers, murderers, slanderers, prodigals, covetous, false witnesses, etc,; a great preacher of patience, charity, mercy, beneficence, gratitude - honoring of parents and superiors; and a frequent celebrator of the divine praises." 2. That it is principally derived from the Holy Scriptures, can anly be proved by a more extended comparison than can be made here, and, after a thoughtful examination of the quotations that fob low, the student is referred to the body o` the work.
224 SYNOPSIS OF THE KORAN.
3. 'That its traditions are mainly true, follows as a corollary upon the establishment of the second proposition; therefore, reference is only made here to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments,,ind to Masonic tradition.
4. Faith in God, a belief in a revealed Word, are the first requisites of a candidate for Masonic honors and privileges. Unless he possess the former, no pledge, obligation, or covenant, can be considered binding upon him. Without the latter, he can know nothing, spiritually, of the former. With both, he possesses that veneration for truth which the Institution requires, and that horror of falsehood so eloquently illustrated in Masonic rites. The proof that the Koran is such a Revelation to those who believe it, is found in its pages, from which the following extracts are taken.
5. The fitness of the Koran for Masonic uses, may be considered from the first of these propositions. It is the Bible of the Moslems, and they are many millions; nations are governed by its precepts, religious and civil; they neither have, nor desire to have, any other law; it is as fully the standard of Mohammedan brethren as are the Holy Writings to the Hebrew and the Christian.
" Thee do we worship, and of Thee do we beg assistance. Direct us in the right way, in the way of those to whom Thou hast been gracious - not of those against whom Thou hast been incensed, nor of those who go astray.
" God is almighty; God is omnipresent and omniscient; God is easy to be reconciled and merciful; God is gracious and merciful unto men; God is mighty and wise.
GoD, there is no God but He, the living, the self‑subsisting; neither sleep nor slumber seizeth Him; to Him belongeth whatsoever is in heaven or on earth. He knoweth that which is past and that which is to come.
"Who forgiveth sins except God? God loveth the beneficent. Truth is from the Lord. As for him who voluntarily performeth a good work, verily God is grateful and giving. God is bountiful unto whom He pleaseth, without measure. They who believe, and who fly for the sake of religion, and fight in God's cause, they shall hope for the mercy of God; for God is gracious and merciful. Unto God belongeth the kingdom of heaven and of earth; He giveth life, and He causeth to die; and ye have no patron or helper beside God. God is easy to be reconciled and merciful. 0, true believers, fear God and be sincere. If ye attempt to reckon up the favors of God, ye shall not be able to complete their number. God is surely gracious and merciful. If it be asked of those who fear God, What hath your Lord sent down? they shall answer, Good! - unto those who do right shall be given an excellent reward in this world. But the children of the next life shall be better; and happy shall be the dwelling of the pious, namely, gardens of eternal abode, into which they shall enter; rivers shall flow beneath the same; therein shall
SYNOPSIS OF THE KORAN. 225
they enjoy whatsoever they wish. Thus will God recompense the pious.
"Praise be unto God, the Creator of heaven and earth. The mercy which God shall freely bestow on mankind, there is none who can withhold; and what He shall withhold there is none who can bestow. 0 men, remember the favor of God towards you! - is there any Creator besides God, who provideth food for you from heaven and earth? The promise of God is true. Let not, therefore, the present life deceive you. Whosoever deviseth excellence, unto God cloth all excellence belong; unto Him aseendeth the good speech; and the righteous work Ile will exhort. Oh men, ye have need of God, but God is self‑sufficient. Whosoever cleanseth himself from the guilt of disobedience, cleanseth himself to the advantage of his own soul, for all shall he assembled before God at the last day.
The pious distribute alms out of what God has bestowed on them.
"Ask help with perseverance and prayer.
"Surely those who believe, and those who Judaize, and Christians, Ind iabines, whoever (niieveth in Cod and the last day, and (loth that vlat'ek is rinlzt, they shall have their reward with the Lord; there shall no fear come on them, neither shall they be grieved.
"Ye shall show kindness to your parents and kindred, and to orphans, and to the poor, and speak that which is good unto men, and be constant at prayer, and give alms.
"They who purchase this life at the price of that which is to come, their punishment shall be complete, and they shall be without help.
"Be constant in prayer, and give alms; and what treasures ye have laid up in heaven, ye shall find them with God. He who resignet}i himself to God, and sloth that which is right, he shall have his reward with his Lord.
" ltee as,sistunce, with patience and prayer, for God is with the t~‑ patient.
" Righteousness is of him who believeth in God and the last day, and t'.:ie angels, and the Scriptures, and the prophets; who giveth money, fur (hod's sake, unto his kindred and unto orphans, and the needy, and the st anger, and those who ask, and for redemption of captives; who is constant at prayer, and giveth alms; and of those who perform their covenant, wlie>_ they have covenanted, and who behave themselves patiently in adversity and hardship, and in time of violence, - these are they who are true, and these are they who fear God.
" lie who volnniarily dealeth better with the poor man than he is obliged, this shall he bolter tor him.
"duke nor, (nod lightl.y the object of your oaths, and deal justly, and he devout, and make peace among nun.
" God will not punish ou for on inconsiderate word in your oaths, out for that which your hearts have assented to.
lt‑r 226 SYNOPSIS OF THE KORAN.
"Let there be no violence in religion.
"Whatever alms ye shall give, or whatever vow ye shall vow verily God knoweth it.
"If there be any debtor under a difficulty of paying his debt, let his creditor wait till it be easy for him to do it.
"Whoso keepeth his covenant, and feareth God, God will surely love. . . But they who make merchandise of God's covenant and their oaths, shall suffer a grievous punishment.
" He who cleaveth firmly unto God, is already directed in the right way.
" Fear God that ye may prosper.
"What is with God shall be better for the righteous than short‑lived worldly prosperity.
"Observe justice when ye appear as witnesses before God, and let not hatred towards any induce you to do wrong.
"Since ye were dead, and God gave you life, he will hereafter cause you to die, and will again restore you to life; then shall ye return unto him.
"God said, 0 Adam, dwell thou and thy wife in the garden, and eat of the fruit plentifully wherever ye will; but approach not this tree, lest ye become of the number of transgressors. . . But Satan caused them to forfeit Paradise, and turned them out of the state of happiness wherein they had been.
"Remember, when God delivered you from the people of Pharaoh, who grievously oppressed you, and slew your male children; and when Ile divided the sea for you and delivered you.
" God raiseth the dead to life.
" Solomon was a believer.
" God shall judge between us, at the day of resurrection, concerning that about which we now disagree.
"The dead have what they have gained, and ye shall have what ye gain; and ye shall not be questioned concerning what others have done.
" Wherever ye be, God will bring you all back at the resurrection. " God shall lead the believer out of darkness into light, "God created you out of one man, and out of him created his wife, and from them two bath multiplied many.
"God formerly accepted the covenant of the children of Israel, and appointed out of them twelve leaders.
"God sent down the Law and the Gospel, a direction unto men; and also the distinction between good and evil.
"Do you believe in part of the Book of the Law, and reject other parts thereof? Whoso among you cloth this, shall have no other re‑ward than shame in this life, and on the day of resurrection shall be vent to a most grievous punishment.
"He delivered the Book of the Law unto Moses, and gave evident miracles to Jesus, the Son of Mary, and strengthened Him with the Holy Spirit. The Scriptures descend upon the heart, by the per.
SYNOPSIS OF THE KORAN. 221
mission of God, confirming that which was before revealed, a direction and good tidings to the faithful. Oh God, punish us not if we forget or act sinfully. Oh God, lay not on us a burden like that which Thou hast laid on those who have been before us; neither make us, oh Lord, to bear what we have not strength to bear, but be favorable unto us, and spare us, and be merciful unto us. Paradise is prepared for the godly, who give alms in prosperity and adversity, who bridle their anger, and forgive men. They who have committed a crime, or dealt unjustly with their own souls, who shall remember God, and ask pardon for their sins, and persevere not in what they have done, their reward shall be pardon from the Lord.
"Whosoever believeth not the Scriptures shall perish. They who conceal any part of the Scriptures, God shall not speak to them on the day of resurrection, and they shall suffer a grievous punishment." The Scriptural doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments is everywhere taught in the Koran: " Whosoever doeth maliciously and wickedly, God will cast him to be broiled in hell‑fire," is startling enough for the firmest believer in eternal punishment. "Their couch shall be in hell, and over them shall be coverings of fire; they shall be companions of hell‑fire; they shall taste the punishment for that which they have gained. On a certain day God will call all men to judgment, with their respective leaders; who‑ever hath been blind in this life shall also be blind in the next; the righteous shall be rewarded with the highest appointments in Paradise, because they have persevered with constancy, and they shall meet therein with greeting and salutation; they shall remain in the same forever; it shall be an excellent abode and a delightful station. Those who shall believe, and shall work righteousness, God will surely introduce into Paradise among the upright." Injunctions to believe and obey the Scriptures abound everywhere in the Koran. For instance: "If they who have received the Scrip‑'ures believe and fear God, Ile will surely expiate their sins from them, and Ile will lead them into gardens of pleasure; and if they observe the Law and the Gospel, and the other Scriptures which have been sent down unto them from their Lord, they shall surely eat of good things, both from above them and from under their feet. 0, ye who have received the Scriptures, ye are not grounded on any‑thing until ye observe the Law and the Gospel, and that which hath been sent down unto you from your Lord." But of all the matters of Masonic interest in this parallelism between the Koran and the Bible, perhaps none is so striking as the introduction into the former, though often in a distorted state, of the historical facts and narratives that make up so large a portion of the latter. Nearly every incident is transferred, with more or less ac‑curacy, and those of chief importance are repeated several times
228 SYNOPSIS OF THE KORAN.
Concerning Adam, for instance, we have many facts - some, it must f;e confessed, fanciful enough - yet generally agreeable to the Bible. They refer to his creation, his being worshipped by the angels, his grievous fall, his penitence with prayer, his meeting with hive, retirement with her, their stature, etc.. etc.
Concerning Abraham, the Koran is even more diffuse. We have roe facts of his idolatrous youth. his conversion, his destruction of the idols of his father's family. his preaching to the people, disputations with Nimrod, escape from destruction, prayer for his father, plea to God for evidence of the resurrection, sacrifice, entertainment of the angels. God's promise of Isaac, he is called the friend of God, is fed with a miracle. his olfering up of Isaac, etc., etc.
The Old Testament relations concerning Moses. Aaron, Mount Ararat, the Delnee, Pharaoh, the tower of Babel, Balsam, the Queen Sheba, Solomon. Jacob, and several of' his sons, Cain, and Abel, tmhna, Caleb, the Golden Gall, David and Goliath. Elijah, Elisha, Enoch, Ezekiel, Ezra. the Angel Gabriel, Jonah. Ishmael. Lot, Nimr.i t. Sennacherib. etc.. etc., are detailed with minuteness. I give meciinens: ~ul~,nto I was 1lavi:,'s hair, and he said, Oh meta, we have been t,,,ught the speech of birds, and have liad all things bestowed on us; this is u1 anii'cst eleellrnee:" 1.11(1 of Moses - "N ow Pharaoh lifted himself up in the laird of .Egypt.: and he caused his subjects to be divided. into parties; he;acaket,ed ‑one party of them by slaying their male children and presrrviny their females alive; for he was an oppressor. And L roll was mined to be gracious unto those who were weakened in the hind, auet to nmke them models of' religion, - and to snake them the heirs of' the wealth of' Pharaoh and his people, and to establish a pine for theist in the earth; and to show Pharaoh and Hainan, and their faces, that di structienl of their kingdom and nation by darn, which they sought to avoid. And God directed the mother of Moses, by revelation, saving, Give him r.ck: and, if thin i;irc.t jr ohint, cast him into the river, and fear,t, neither be afflicted; I ho. we will restore him unto the, and `..'point him one of our alo ties. A nd when she had put the child n than ark," etc. See chat ter xxviii. of the 'Koran for a minute his‑,). of these I r[lll_S11e it ails.
Your God is our God; there is no God but lie., the most mercitul. Ail power I, lone tlt unto God, and Ile is severe in punishing. iod caitttacteth and exta - ndeth his hand as Ise pleased.. God is our support, and the most excellent patron. God knoweth the. inner‑moist) of' the breasts of men. (itt men, serve your God who hat:h created von. Ye shall not worship any other except God. Most thou not know that God is;almighty? that unto Hilo bclongeth the kingdmmof heaven and earth: that re have no helper or protector except Goa? To God helongetit?_fie east and the west; there‑fore. whithersoever way ye turn yourselves to pray, there is the face of God.'
TITLES OF KORANIC CHAPTERS, 229 -
So many Mohammedans are Masons, and the seed of Masonry has proved so congenial to the soil of Mohammedan lands, that I trust the space I have given this subject will be considered fitly occupied.
As a specimen of the style in which this singular work is composed, let us take the third chapter, entitled Abu Laheb. Mohammed had become incensed against his uncle, Abu Laheb, for refusing to accept his prophetic misson, and launched the following missile against him: " In the name of the Most Merciful God,* the hands of Abu Label) shall perish, and he himself shall perish. Neither his riches nor his gains shall be of service to him. He shall go down into the flaming fire of hell, and there be burned. His wife also shall go there, carrying fuel to feed the infernal flames. And she shall have on her neck a rope twisted of the fibres of the palm‑tree." The name of Mohammed's aunt, to whom he threatened such diabolical pepalties, was Omm (mother) Jemeel.
The titles of some of the chapters of the Koran afford a hint of their contents, and show how florid is Oriental imagery: The Helping Hand (107), The Gloomy Veil (SS), The Swift War‑horses (100), The Breath of the Winds (51), The Frowning Brow (SO), The Un‑. just Measure (S3), etc.
In the presence of the priests, the chiefs of Arab tribes meet together on the eve of a military expedition, and putting their paand8 upon their micro/ book (the Koran), they say: " We swear by God (Allah) that we are 1,rothers; and will tight with one and the same weapon: and if we perish, it shall be with the same sword." * All the 114 chapters of the Koran, except one, commence with th passage, " la ie name c f the Most Merciful ' J fl 4111430 M rlli . J t tllM,Ifi f I SiU 2PIItiNUIi; III Ili 1iII EGYPTIAN WILLO\ BASKETS.
CHAPTER XV.
THE AMERICAN MISSIONARIES.
o VERY American Mason must feel a national as well as A religious interest in whatever proposes to elevate the Orien‑ t tad races, and paves the way for the lifting up of this long down‑trodden land. Nothing has conduced so much to this as the labors of the Protestant missions of the A. B. C. F. M., operating in this country for about half a century. Going out through the narrow, gloomy, noisy, noisome streets; through winding ways of the magnificent amphitheatre of gardens; through the pines which cast their thin shadows over the surrounding flats of sand; through the vast grove of olives which silver the shallow valley at the base of Lebanon; then, looking back over this thriving city, with a present population of 75,000 souls, and the promise of thrice the number, we may proudly point to the Syrian University, built by American money, and conducted by American learning and intelligence, as the only institution of the class in the East. And this is but one of the many fruits of missionary labors here. As I read the corner‑stone speech of Mr. Wm. E. Dodge, delivered here December, 1871, I could not help inquiring with the poet: An erit qui vellit recuset ospopuli meruisse, et cedro digna locutus lingners? - Is there any one who does not wish to deserve popular applause, and to leave words worthy to be preserved in cedar? For I felt that I would rather have filled his place that day, as the chief benefactor of the Syrian University, than that of any other living man! I associated with the different families of the missionaries a good deal, and my personal views of them as a class are admirably ex‑pressed by another writer, who says: " They are pious, sober, benevolent; devout in the offices of religion; in conversation, innocent and cheerful; exhibiting in all their actions those best and truest signs of Christian spirit, a sincere and cheerful friendship among them‑
PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES. 231
selves, and a generous charity to all." This witness is true. Of Dr. Van Dyke, whose professional labors, especially in the Department of Ophthalmy, have been something unprecedented in extent, I have written; he has much grace and ease, with a sub‑flavor of gentle and sportive humor, hinting at possibilities. Whenever I returned to Bey‑rout, loaded down with specimens and note‑books, his salutation, " Well, Doctor, have you discovered Jachin and Boaz yet?" was the first that greeted my ear. Of Dr. Bliss, I noted he has an air of engaging frankness. His language is always simple and unaffected. He is a hard student, and an industrious man.
It is the part of these men to contend with the bigotry, intolerance, unreasonableness, and wordly‑mindedness of the Latin and Greek priests, who oppose schools, books, printing, and everything not under their own control. Among them I enjoyed the excellence and amiableness of the Lord's house. Another has given my idea in alntost the same words: " What they chiefly have to contend with is not so much the heathenism that surrounds them, as the pompous and imposing ceremonies in which the remains of Oriental Christianity are enveloped. At the same shrines of idolatrous superstition, in Jerusalem, bow the subtle and exclusive Jesuit, the pompous 'Greek, the austere and zealous Armenian, the poor Copt, and the timid Abyssinian; their worship in all essential features similar; heat without light, sound without sense, form without power, the body without the soul." Since Father Jonas King (who deceased 1870) brought his own bread and wine here from Paris, to celebrate the sacrament, more than half a century since, nearly two generations have participated in the mystic repast with these missionaries, at Beyrout.
They recognize no denominational names, such as Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and the like, but call themselves missionaries, as the disciples just above here, at Antioch, first called themselves Christians.
They are of opinion, and so are many of us, that one great result of the awakening in missionary effort, here and elsewhere, has been to kindle the religious fire in the churches, and increase the harmony of the Christian body at home. At first Smyrna and Malta were made their centres of labor, and certain persons in Boston, Massachusetts, agreed to give $3,000 per annum for five years to establish a Christian press at Malta. Then it was moved to Smyrna, and finally here.
232 THE EYE‑INFIRMARY.
They are making gradual but sure progress towaras raising, from a degraded and vicious level, these people of the East, just as the nations of Europe were raised from a similar plane by missionaries from the East. They find, with Cicero, Dei plena sent emnia - all things are full of Deity, and they lean heavily and faithfully on the Divine arm.
They have their romances, their episodes of terrible interest, their history of times when a man's heel could have stamped out the little spark they had kindled. The story of Assad‑esh‑Shidiak, as told in the Missionary Herald of Feb., 1S33, is one of these. But fidelity and heroic resistance have thus far overcome all obstacles.
Some tourists have foolishly exaggerated the comforts they enjoy, and depreciated the effect of their labors upon the uninstructed masses around them. Both these errors, it is charity to believe, spring from thoughtlessness alone. The sight of educated, delicate ladies, like those whom I saw gracing the Protestant missions at Beyrout and Sidon, who have buried themselves beyond the reach of congenial society, or that of earnest Christian gentlemen, thoroughly instructed to adorn any profession in life, but giving their whole lives to a most arduous, thankless charge; these things suggest nothing to my mind but self‑sacrifice. Their manner of living is simple and economical, the only deviation being the necessary care of strangers who claim their hospitality, sometimes in inconvenient numbers, and add greatly to their domestic expenses.
The principal work of the mission has been, until quite recently, printing books, establishing schools for teaching Christianity to the young, and healing institutions for the sick. The number of their printed publications is large, including, in addition to hymn‑books and theological works, a complete copy of the Holy Scriptures in Arabic. For this, the first matrices were cut by the elder Mr. Hallock, and the electrotype plates made by his son, Mr. Samuel Hallock, of whose name I am making such frequent use in the present volume. He told me that the lead of which the first type‑metal here was made was sheet‑lead torn from the old Roman coffins, and sold to them by the natives! Several steam‑presses are now kept busy by this printing‑house at Beyrout.
In the way of establishing schools, their labors have been abundant. Their hospital and infirmary at Beyrout have a reputation that extends even to Bagdad and Egypt. For diseases of the eye, which Dr. Van Dyke makes a specialty, there is perhaps no institution in
TRANSLATIONS OF BOOKS. 233
the world that excels his in the number of cases treated, or the success of operations and treatment. I used to see a regular string of applicants waiting their turn at his door, and was informed that during the spring I was there (1868) Dr. Van Dyke treated largely over one thousand ophthalmic cases! I shall refer to this subject again.
When the first of them landed here, November 17, 1823, they were objects of curiosity, many natives following them to the house, and the boys running before to secure a good view; now they are as _much a landmark of Beyrout and its history as the very pine‑groves in the suburbs.
Amongst other works, they have published The Pilgrim's Progress, and Oriental readers are now enjoying acquaintance with Worldly Wiseman and other characters of good old John Bunyan, as I did twoscore years ago, and equally, I hope, to their profit. The America i Protestant press, first established A.D. 1822 in Malta, printed the amount of 287,150 copies of religious matter, in Italian, modern Greek, Armeno‑Turkish, and Greco‑Turkish. December 23, 1834, this press was removed to Smyrna, Homan Hallock and Daniel Temple being the printers. It has been the very fulcrum of Archimedes to move the world of Oriental ignorance. It arrived here May 8, 1854, at which time there were eight presses in the Holy Land, all given to the promulgation of sectarian error.
My note of Dr. W M. Thomson is this: Something over seventy, portly but vigorous, florid face, courteous expression. Reminds me of old Zach. Taylor, with whom I once travelled on the Mississippi river. Paces his parlor in his red‑painted Damascus slippers, smokes and talks, all at the same time. For this veteran missionary, to stand by the grave of Pliny Fisk, the mild and mellow light of these Mediterranean shores flowing through the cypresses, must bring a gush of devotion which memory will retain forever and forever.
I throw a few notes together here, preferring to insert them in this chaotic state than to omit them altogether: At the mission‑press they are completing a thorough concordance to the Holy Scriptures, in the Arabic language. Sitting in their house of worship at Beyrout, on my first Sabbath here, it was start‑ling, in the midst, to hearken to the sound of the trumpet (Jeremiah vi, 17) blown by the Turkish troops in the garrison, recalling the unpleasant fact that the Moslems, the Jews, and the Christians each have a different day called Sabbath. A society was established in
234 SYRIAN UNIVERSITY.
1861, entitled Women's Union Missionary Society of America .for Heathen Lands, designed to extend Christian blessings to heathen women. A missionary, returning to his field in Turkey, writes to one of our papers of the joy and pride with which he looked upon the new American College at Constantinople. It stands perched high on the northern bluff of the Bosphorus, just above the old fortress of Europe. The site is the finest in the whole length of that classic strait. The wonder is that the Turks should ever have surrendered so choice a spot for such a use. The building is a very handsome one, of stone, with Mansard roof. But even now it proves insufficient for the pupils who apply, even at the rate, for tuition and board, of $200 for one year. They reckon every Jew converted in Palestine as worth, to Christianity, a thousand converted anywhere else. In 1835 the editor of the Missionary Herald wrote pathetically that the managers of this mission had sought in vain for a pious and competent physician. C. N. Righter, devoted to Bible distribution, died in the Oriental field December 16, 1856. His theory of labor was to bring back to the East the same Bible and Gospels, in their purity, whence we received them 1,800 years ago. The missionaries teach that the Word of God is fire and the hammer; when it goes forth it will accomplish that whereunto it is sent. In educating orphan children, the teachers often give them the names of their benefactors in America who assume the payment for proteges, and it is not uncommon to hear such names as Peter Jones, John Brown, etc., applied to a boy who carries "Ishmael" on his every feature.
The Syrian University was incorporated a few years since, under the laws of New York. It has a literary course of four years, and a medical department; the language of instruction is Arabic. Its first class graduated July, 1870. It has a fine campus of twenty acres, valuable philosophical, chemical, and medical apparatus, a good telescope, a respectable library, an herbarium of 6,000 Oriental plants, and fair collections in geology and mineralogy. In February, 1871, they received four ("opt students, from a town 500 miles up the Nile. These are well supplied with funds, and promise great usefulness on their return home.
At the laying of the corner‑stone of their new building, Dec. 7, 1871, the weather was charming. The warm Syrian sun beamed down with cloudless brightness, and throngs of the American, English, German, and Syrian population assembled on the site of the new College building. This site is a noble, elevated promontory on the north side of Cape Beirut, a mile west of the city, commanding an unobstructed view of the sea, the Lebanon range, and a portion of the city.
The exercises were opened by an introductory address by the Rev.
PLANTING THE CORNER‑STONE. 235
Dr. Bliss, President of the College, who made a brief statement of the design of the Syrian Protestant College; its scope, and especially the religious element in its course of instruction. He urged that al‑though direct proselytizing is not aimed at in the institution, yet it is the intention of its Faculty that no young man shall enter its halls and complete his studies without a thorough knowledge of the Christian system and of the way of salvation in Jesus Christ. He may enter as a heathen, but he cannot leave without seeing and knowing what it is to be a Christian. These halls will be open to Christian and Pagan, Moslem and Jew, Druse and Nusairy; but alll will learn that there is one, and one only, Inspired Volume of Divine Revelation, and one Saviour for lost and ruined man.
The Rev. Dr. Thomson then offered prayer, and the Scriptures were read by the Rev. Jas. Robertson of the Kirk of Scotland, in English, and by the Rev. Professor Wortabel, in Arabic.
Air address was then delivered by the Hon. Wm. E. Dodge, President of the Board of Trustees in New York, who stood on a platform of six narrow joists of Cilician pine (from the Taurus range, above Tarsus), which had been laid across the stone heaps near the founda‑ tion wall. The following are extracts: "We are assembled this afternoon to lay the corner‑stone of the Syrian Protestant College. It may seem to some a very small matter of itself; but there is connected with its future, we doubt not, most important results. For more than forty years the American and other missionaries have been patiently laboring to promote the best interests of the people of Syria, trying by their schools and seminaries to awaken a desire for education; and they have been encouraged by a growth from year to year, which has now assumed such importance that we find in this city, and throughout the greater part of Syria, schools, more or less extensive, for training boys and girls, which, we cannot doubt, are destined to great enlargement within a few years. This fact has led the friends of the American and English missions to feel that the time had arrived for establishing a classical institution of a high grade, to be presided over by men of superior education and experience, where young men from the various preparatory schools of the country could have an opportunity of obtaining a thorough classical education, equal in all respects to such as is furnished in Europe and America, fitting them to fill with honor the highest positions, as instructors, physicians, ministers, lawyers, as well as the various civil and political positions under the government; and, in fact, offering young men of all classes the opportunity of securing a thorough classical and medical education.
" For several years the institution has been in partial operation,
236 MR. DODGE'S ADDRESS.
and the friends of the College have been so much encouraged by the success of the beginning, that they resolved to secure a site, and, if possible, the necessary funds to erect suitable buildings. I am gratified in being able to say that, thronah the liberality of friends in America and England, sufficient funds have been obtained to warrant a commencement; and having secured this beautiful situation, the Board of Trustees have decided at once to commence the erection of the buildings for the classical and medical departments, and we are here to‑day formally to lay the corner‑stone of the first building. Here it will rise in commanding proportions, in accordance with plans designed by an eminent American architect; and like a city set on a hill. or as the lighthouse at the entrance of your harbor, it will be one of the first objects which will meet the eye of the stranger entering your port. But more than that, we trust it will be a centre of light and influence, which, like streams in the desert, shall give moral life and beauty to the hills and valleys of Syria, as from year to year there shall go forth the young men graduated with honor, and filled with a desire to communicate to others the knowledge they have acquired.
"To those connected with the education of youth in Syria, this must be au occasion of interest, for the erection of this building will increase the desire for Maher attainments, and act as a stimulus to other schools. I am very happy to be with you at this interesting time, and mingle my congratulations with yours, and be able to convey to the friends in America the good news that the College building is fairly under way. Mav the blessing of God attend the effort, and prosper all engaged in the work of erection, giving wisdom to carry out successfully the plans till; the top‑stone shall be laid with rejoicing, crying, Grace, grace. unto it;' and as years shall go by, and those of us who have been permitted to aid in its erection shall have passed away, this University shall still go on increasing in use‑fulness, and thousands of young men go forth from its halls to aid in redeeming and blessing this land, so full of Bible and historic interest.
" Let me invoke the prayers and influence of all present in its be‑half. This is not a money‑making enterprise. It has been conceived in the spirit of Christian philanthropy, and those engaged in it have made great sacrifices, have left home and friends to secure to this people the inestimable blessings of a thorough classical education. Appreciate their motives, and give them every encouragement. And now, in accordance with the custom in America and England, I proceed to lay the corner‑stone of the `Syrian Protestant College; having placed in a leaden case, imbedded in the foundation, a copy of the College charter; an annual catalogue, containing the names of the Faculty, Directors, Trustees, and students, and the rules and regulations; also copies of the local papers of the latest dates. And now may the blessing of God ever rest on the building whose foundation has now ueen laid! And to His name be all the praise."
DR. FRAYS ADDRESS. 237
This address was then translated into Arabic by Dr. H. H. Jessup, and after the laying of the stone, prayer was offered in Arabic by Rev. Dr. Van Dyke, when a young native physician, Dr. Selina Fray, a Greek Catholic, and a member of the first graduated medical class, asked permission to say a few words. He spoke in Arabic as follows: "I must ask your pardon, sirs, in giving utterance to these few words, which the emotions of my heart impel me to offer, regretting the impotence of my tongue to do justice to such an occasion.
" This stone, laid before us as the corner‑stone of this structure that is destined to rise in noble proportions, expresses a type of two things that ought not to escape the notice of the sons of our native land. It is not only an earnest for the nphuilding of this noble College which has diffused, as a sweet fragrance, science and virtue throughout all our borders, but also it should be held in veneration as,an earnest of the return of science and civilization from the West to our land, in whose courts the raven of ignorance and folly is ever croaking. Yes, and every one who does not darken his vision by the veil of envy or partiality, will most clearly discover that the laying of this stone is the positive assurance for the beginning of a return of science and knowledge to this our native land.
"Who, before the foundation of this College, taught us algebra and,arithmetic, astronomy and geometry, chemistry and natural philosophy, and the other mathematical sciences? Who, before her, taught botany, mineralogy, natural history, and medical science? To what shall T liken thee, 0 noble College? To the Star of the East? in that thou art scattering by thy rays the mists of the gross darkness of ignorance which has enveloped our native land. To the life‑giving fountains? for thou halt changed the wild desert wastes of mind, in the sons of our land, to gardens in which resound the songs of science, which teem with the Hewers and fruits of knowledge. To a tender mother? because thou dost bear in thy bosom youth from whatsoever sect or faith, nourishing them by thy life‑sustaining milk, polishing their minds and understandings, and making them worthy to be numbered in the malts of civilized nations. Come, then, ye sons of fatherland! hasten with rapid steps to the arms of this tender mother. Come, let us drink deep draughts from her milk; for it will give life to our barren minds.... Let us entreat the high and holy One to establish and jealously guard our beloved Alma Mater. 0 Thou our God! cast Thine eve in favor upon the upbuildiug of this noble College, our Alma niter. 0 God, environ her by Thy angels, that they may shield her from all evil, and from every evil eye. May the plots of her envious opponents be baffled by her immovable foundations, and return upon them in disappointment. 0 God, bestow an abundance of blessing upon those benefactors who are giving their aid in the erection of this College. 0, our God, bestow upon this high‑minded and eacell~ nt men, the lion. Wm. E. Dodge, who has
238 CATALOGUE OF MISSIONARIES.
so honored our country, a supporting hand; for he is chief among het benefactors. Restore him, 0 Lord, with his family, to his native land in peace and safety. Grant them long life, and happy days, overflowing with blessings and good fortune. . . . 0 Thou, our God, richly impart Thy blessing to the President of this College, and to her distinguished instructors. Grant them Thy helping hand, that they may perfect this good and glorious work. Multiply their benevolent aims, and prepare for each one of the Board of Trustees and Managers, and each of the teachers of this College, and of her benefactors, a glorious portion in Thy heavenly kingdom." At Beyrout, in 1872, are Dr. Bliss, Rev. W. M. Thomson, C. V. A. Van Dyke, and Henry H. Jessup, and their wives, with three single lathes, Misses Eliza D. Everett, Ellen Jackson, and Sophia B. Loring, assisted by one native teacher and two native helpers. At Tripoli, fifty miles up the coast, are Rev. Samuel Jessup and wife, and two native assistants. At Abeih, a few miles southeast of Beyrout, are Rev. S. H. Calhoun and Wm. Bird, with their wives, and five native assistants. At Sidon, Rev. W. W. Eddy and wife, Rev. James S. Dennis, and three assistants. Thirty‑one outlying stations, all within sixty miles of Beyrout, are connected with this great mission, which may God in power and mercy greatly bless. Other missions, for which I have not space here, are also at work throughout these mountains of old King Hiram. One pious lady, Mrs. Bowen Thompson, for many years devoted to establishing Christian schools for girls, had succeeded in. organizing nearly one hundred of this class when, November 14th, 1869, she was summoned to her reward.
THE TWO SIDES OF THE RING} OF PHARAOH THOTHMEB.
CHAPTER XVI.
FOLLOWING THE RAFTSMEN.
T was strictly in accordance with my original pledge to the generous Masons who furnished me the " sinews of war" r e, for these explorations, that I should follow the ancient - '~~ raftsmen of Hiram, from the shores where they made up their "flotes" in the Masonic Bay to the place of debarkation in the port of Joppa. The timbers were all felled and prepared in the forests of Lebanon, says the old writer, conveyed by sea in "flotes" (sic) to Joppa, and from thence by land to Jerusalem. On the last day of April, 1868, therefore, I undertook this part of my . pilgrimage.
My notes here are of course sketchy and desultory. The day of my passage was fair, and nothing on earth can be grander to the voyager than the passage down this historical coast. Eye, mind, pencil, all were busy; and if my readers can enjoy a dish of hash, Voila! here it is.
Moving out of the Bay of St. George on the Austrian steamer - I forget the name, a miserable affair, table poorly supplied, officers as incommunicable as the Royal Arch Word - I had a good view, through old Bishop GohaCs field‑glass, of the town of Gebal, about twelve miles in the north. From its stony caskets (sarcophagi) I had pro‑cured hundreds of seals, signets, and beads, composed of opal, cornelian, jasper, agate, chalcedony, and other hard and precious stones, of all colors and compositions. As in olden times, the signet was used to ratify such social and religious transactions as called for a sacred pledge, so every person of the least note or consequence possessed one; and, like the spear and pipe of the American Indian, it was de‑posited with its owner in his tomb. Hero do tus, speaking in his day of the Assyrians, declares that every man possessed one, even as every Arab sheikh does now. Ledvard, who found numbers of them among the
240 PASSING} SIDON.
ruins of Nineveh, etc., says they were anciently used by inserting them in a metal axis, and applying them like the garden rolling‑stone. But at present they are made flat, and applied by one firm pressure of the hand to the wax, as I saw Mohammed Rasehid Pasha and Noureddin Effendi apply theirs.
So exquisitely are some of these objects engraved, that we must conclude their artists understood the use of the microscope, although history is silent upon the subject. A cylinder one half‑inch high, and the same in diameter, has five human figures upon it, with accessory matters, each perfectly drawn. The story of stout old Charlemagne sounds well in this connection. IIe inserted his signet in the hilt of his sword, and swore, "What I sign with the hilt I will maintain with the point!" The question as to whether the raftsmen of Hiram encountered dangerous winds along this coast, cannot be answered until we are told at what seasons of the year the work of "logging" was done. If in the summer, the gales are always auspicious between Beyrout and Joppa; and with a moderate spread of sail, such as the artist has (Rs‑played on the rafts in my Masonic map, the distance, 150 miles, was rapidly and pleasantly accomplished. By steamer it takes only four‑teen hours.
One must withdraw from the Phceniciau coast about ten miles, to appreciate how narrow a shelf of land that kingdom was. I could imagine that once the sea ran close under the mountain's massive rocks, but that, in process of ages, they disentegrated sufficiently to compose the scanty soil we see.
Past the. mouth of the I)amour River, with its great grove of mulberry trees. Past Sidon, to be remembered for the hospitality of the missionaries, which I had enjoyed so recently. 1 can almost select their house from the mass of flat‑roofed buildings facing the sea. May God bless that house! Bishop Gobat talks with me about Freemasonry. IIe preached last Sunday against the Abyssinian war in which England is now engaged. The old man was long a missionary to Abyssinia, and the war he denounced the British government for this unprovoked and uncalled‑for invasion of an innocent people, was hand on the group of British officials in the congregation. Ile asks me now what is there _n Syria and Palestine for Freemasons to do. I reply that much illustrating the doctrine and history of ancient Masonry is yet to come to light. On coins, on broken statuary, on fragments of pottery, in
PASSING TYRE. 241
the recesses of caves, anywhere, at any hour, without a moment's warning, the greatest and most important evidences of Masonic antiquity may spring forth to view, to confound the skeptic, confirm the wavering, gladden the faithful, and gag the mouths of those with in our own affiliation who are trying to break down our traditional claims. After eight centuries of researches, the world of Bible‑believers and Christian‑believers have brought more genuine evidence to light during the past ten years than in all previous ages. What, then, may we not hope from Masonic researches now, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but just begun? The great Barclay quarry under Jerusalem should be explored, every inch of it, walls, ceiling, and floor. . . . But here we are interrupted by a call to as poor a steamship dinner as I ever sat down to. Either the cooking or the motion of the sea so disagrees with my stomach, that when we get about opposite K/ian Faunas (where Jonah was vomited on shore) I give np the unsavory mess to the sea, and resume my pencil.
Past Tyre. Am reminded that all along this coast large pieces of glass, and the dross and slag of glass furnaces, lie among the ruins. I carry home a very considerable quantity of these for specimens. What Pliny says of the origin of glass manufactures, applies strictly to this section of the country. At the present time, some of the most beautiful glassware in use is made at Sandwich and East Cambridge, Mass. This is remarkable for its clearness and lack of color, and much of it is exported to Europe. Josephus, in his Wars (IX., xlv. 2), refers to the glass of Tyre. In the Beni Hassan tombs of Egypt, glass is found of the period B.C. 2000 to 3500, according to different chronologies. Among my most curious specimens gathered at Tyre, is a glass bottle, evidently of the very earliest period of the manufacture, and now in my office at La Grange, Ky. There is nothing directly said in the Scriptures of glass, though no doubt allusions to it may be found. The word only occurs once, in Job xxviii. 7, as " crystal." It comes from a Hebrew word, signifying " to be pure," and refers to a species of glass formerly held in high esteem. The skill of the ancients in the manufacture of glass was such that they not only made it of a crystalline purity, shaped it by blowing, ground it by lathes, and carved it like silver, but by its use imitated every known marble and every sort of precious stone. In the Museum Victorium, at Rome, there are two ancient gems, both counterfeits, one a chrysolite, the other an emerald, but perfectly well executed, perfectly 6
242 PASSING THE LADDER OF TYRE.
transparent and colored throughout, and both externally and internally free from the smallest blemish. The mixture used by ancient glass‑makers, according to Pliny, was three parts nitrum to one part sand; and the Belus‑sand, just below Tyre, near Acre, was held in such repute for its purity and cleanliness, that great quantities were exported to Europe and elsewhere for this manufacture. Glass was formerly used for wainscotting churches and dwellings, also for coffins, personal ornaments, drinking‑vessels, mosaic work on walls and pavements, figures of deities, etc. The Egyptians had learned to permeate the materials with designs of ancient colors. Among the tessera of mosaic pavements which I brought home to America, many are of glass. While in the minaret of the great mosque in Damascus, I purchased quite a handful of these, which are beautiful. At Pompeii glass windows were found. . . . So much on the vitreous theme.
Past Scala Tjrorum, the Ladder of Tyre. As old Samuel John‑son says, on these shores were the four great empires of the world - the Assyrian, the Persian, the Greek, and the Roman. All our religion, almost all our law, almost all our arts, almost all that sets us above the savage, have come to us from these shores. Here, at Promontorium Album, this White Cape (Ras‑el‑Abyad, the Arabs call it), the mountains close into the sea much as they do at the mouth of Dog River, where the inscriptions are. A military road was opened across this point, which, ascending in zigzags, is named the Ladder of Tyre. The pass is styled Ras‑en‑Nakoorah, and there is a town in ruins near by, to which the great name of Alexander (Scanderoon, as pronounced here) is applied. At the top of this pass, is a tower called Candle‑tower, or Light‑house (Kulaat‑esh‑Shema). What a landmark this white cape must have been to the raftsmen whose course I am pursuing, and how useful to them in dark nights the Candle‑tower on the top! In full sight of Mount Hermon, bearing now not far from due east, and some forty miles distant. Its isolated cone, tipped with snow, presents a noble appearance. A small hill near it, borrowing some of its peculiar claims, is styled Abu Nedy, the Father of Dew, because the clouds seem to cling with peculiar fondness round its wooded top, reflecting the genial influences of the grand mountain‑sire above.
Passing the Plain of Acre, old Accho of the Bible, the St. Jean d'Acre of the Crusaders. I have just looked through a copy of the
PASSING ACRD 243
London Times, so dear to every Englishman's breast, which lies on the cabin‑table, and have tried, as I have a hundred times before, to interest myself in it. I took it for six months, in 1859, and can only repeat now what I said then, after paying an exorbitant bill of subscription: "It is the dullest newspaper I ever came across." It was started in 1788, and probably got enough vis inertics at that time to keep it running these eighty years; certainly the motive. power is not inside of it.
But Acre, city of glorious associations! I will devote some pages to its history in my chapter on Knights Templars, and at present only note the current thoughts that arise. The sight of the British flag, always a pleasant one to me, recalls the wonderful defence of Acre made by our gallant brother Mason, Sidney Smith, in 1799, against the French army, under that other gallant Masonic brother, Napoleon Bonaparte. The union jack, denoting the British vessels here,was adopted in their naval service January, 1, 1.801. Before that it was a union of the old banner of St. George, white, with a red cross. This was joined, April 12, 1606, with the banner of Scot‑land, blue, with a white diagonal cross.
This historical Plain of Acre is connected yonder with the big prairie:land of Esdraelon by a narrow pass, swampy and full of rushes and alder, through which the Kishon, "that ancient river," flows, and there a genial English writer, in 1869, professes to have found a crocodile! The map shows that if you set a compass at the gate of Acre, and sweep a semicircle from north, eastward to south, you include the whole plain. Every movement of these billows recalls the throb of friendship's heart; every voice of these waters, the whispers of love which made the bond of the Christian crusades.
But the Governor of Acre, with whom our good brother Sidney Smith so genially hobnobbed while warding off the assaults of the French army. It was no other than "the Butcher‑Ruler," Djezzar Pasha, who, in the old Hebrew allegory, would have been justly named Magor‑missabib, "fear round about" (Jeremiah xx. 3), one of those whom the prophet Isaiah describes (x. 2) as decreeing unrighteous decrees, writing grievousness, turning aside the needy from judgment, taking away the right of the poor of the people, making widows their prey, and robbing the fatherless. The Turkish system of government opens the broadest way for injustice, in such hands; all responsibility to mortal power being taken away, we cannot but rejoice that there is such a thing as death to break the staff of the
244 OFF THE NOSE OF CARMEL.
wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers (Isaiah xiv. 5). Djezzar seems to have taken for his model the Governor Felix of Paul's time, the man who ruled Judea with the power of a king but the soul of a slave, the tyrant capable of every crime; and he well illustrates the dog‑like rage and arrogant folly of idiots advanced to be governors. How many cases of poisoning, how many mutilations, what untold floods of human misery, has yonder city witnessed.
Past Caifa. Here Mr. G. D. Hardegg has his German colony, in which I am the happy possessor of a "lot," bought in 1871. I will refer to it again. A traveller describes the gates of Caifa covered, in 1836, with bulls' hides, like the shields of Homer. That best of Oriental Masons, E. T. Rogers, was British Consul here for many years, and here his intelligent sister, Miss Rogers, wrote her best of books, on " Domestic Life in the Holy Land." And here is Mount Carmel, greatly admired for the regularity of its form, shaped like a sugar‑loaf, having rather the appearance of art than nature. Stewart says in summer this promontory is undisturbed by storms. This fact has its bearing, as I have before hinted, upon the amount of skill and daring necessary to float the cedar‑rafts from Beyrout to Joppa. Just below are those mountains of masonry that even now afibrd an inexhaustible supply of material for the masons of Beyrout, called The Castle of the Pilgrims, built during the crusades. Lynch referred to this view when he was here in 1848.
Off "the nose" of Carmel is a group of pelicans solemnly fishing. I always admire the piscatorial gravity which a pelican puts on when he goes a‑fishing. No chatting, no loud laughter. If he gets a hook in his fingers, or a sculpin steals his bait, or he breaks his fishpole, he takes the thing as a necessary incident of the sport, and tries again. I have had so much trouble with noisy companions while out fishing on Saturdays, that I shall ever respect the pelican as a model fishist. Counting three hundred and sixty‑one of them in the gang, I fall to reckoning how many pounds of fish are necessary for the daily rations of these voracious fowl. The name, if my natural history is not all afloat, is Pelicanus onocrotalus; a very appropriate title, too, for that forlorn one yonder, sitting on a floating piece of wreck, in a pensive attitude, if ever I saw pensiveness. He reminds me for all the world of the Grand Treasurer of the Grand Lodge of in his pensive attitude, when the Grand Lodge is voting away all its funds in spite of his protests.
PYTHAGORAS AT CARMEL. 245
Mount Carmel is intimately connected with the life of the great Masonic Ritualist, Pythagoras, of whom I spoke in the fourth chap‑ter. This wonderful man founded the third school of philosophy, following that of Thales of Miletus, and Xeuophanes of Colophon.
\[OtiNT CARMEL.
He was born at Samos, B.C. 5S0. IIe was emphaticallya born student, receiving knowledge successively from Thales, Anaximander, and other Greek philosophers. He left no written instructions, but strictly followed the Masonic idea of oral communications; but it is certain he believed in the transmigration of souls. His knowledge of geometry and arithmetic was pre‑eminent, and some of his pupils taught that numbers were the basis and essence of all things. He was emphatically a religious teacher, and some of his contemporaries believed him to be a god.
At the age of forty (B.c. 540) he opened his school at Crotona, and met with wonderful success. He formed a religious brotherhood, the members being bound together by peculiar rites and observances. Various degrees were established among them, and a period of proba tion, in which the mind and morals were severely tested. Everything done and taught was kept profoundly secret from the world without. The Pythagoreans had Masonic signs by which they recognized each
PASSING CROCODILE RIVER.
other. Temperance was strictly observed, and the other three cardinal virtues insisted upon. The members at Crotona were usually of the noble and wealthy class, three hundred of whom formed the Grand Council of the Society. These were bound to Pythagoras and each other by a special vow, a considerable resemblance being found between this and the Jesuit Society founded by Loyola. In his eastern travels he is known to have visited the oracle then established in Mount Carmel, just as Vespasian, the Roman general, did seven centuries later.
Numerous American lodges are named from this memorable mountain, viz., Ohio, No. 303; Georgia, 150; Massachusetts, 144, etc. Among those to whom the name of Pythagoras and his school at Crotona are given, I cite Kentucky, No. 339; Georgia, 41; New York, 86; Mississippi, 48, etc. To connect the place still more intimately with our American brotherhood, I write here the names of ten genial and enlightened craftsmen, viz., John P. Brown (of Constantinople), Thomas Byrde Harris, Edward Jewell, Charles Roome, John Ransom, Henry Clark, John D. Caldwell, J. F. Brennan, John M. Bramwell, and J. C. Batchelor.
The adage of Pythagoras, Abstineto a, fabis, Don't eat beans, which has puzzled commentators so long, refers, no doubt, to one of his doctrines of metempsychosis, that departed souls were enshrined in the centre of beans. His peculiar views on that subject are well ex‑pressed in the following lines: Errat et illinc But vinit hint illuc et quoslibet occupat artus, Spiritus: eque, feris humana in corpora transit, Inque.feras noster.
That is to say, the human soul wanders about, and comes from that spot to this, and from this to that, and takes possession of any limbs it may; it both passes from the beast into human bodies, and from as into beasts.
Passed the mouth of Crocodile River. Dr. W. M. Thomson suggested twenty years ago that crocodiles might still be found there, and in 1869 (the year after my visit to the country) an English tourist avers that he saw one in the Kishon, close by. This need not astonish us too much. In the American Journal of Science, January, 1870, Prof. Wyman describes a crocodile killed recently in Florida, where nobody would think of looking for them.
IN BIGHT OF JOPPA. 247
Passed Caesarea as the sun was setting quietly under its canopy of crimson, gold, and blue. In these sunsets, of which I never weary, there is a splendor peculiar to these Oriental climes. Here at Cwsarea preached the great missionary apostle Paul, for two years chained, " an embassador in bonds." His seventeen links taught, in his figurative imagination, these seventeen Christian principles: Charity, without hypocrisy; fraternity, politeness and civility, fervor, hope, joy, patience, amiability, concord and humility, pardon of enemies, love of neighbors, eagerness for the wants of the saints, a blessing upon persecutors, rejoicing with the rejoicing, weeping with the weeper, overcoming evil with good. What lessons have these fifty generations learned through that Roman chain! Sandys says, the houses in Czesarea are now level with the floor, the haven is lost, and the situation abandoned.
A passenger describes a pilgrim caravan that landed at Joppa a few weeks 'since, as a small vessel loaded with seventy‑two passengers, Greeks, Armenians, Turks, Arabs, both white and black, baptized Jews, a Greek woman, and a missionary, hadjis, soldiers, officers, all colors, bond and free.
At midnight our anchor drops. I come on deck; yonder two miles south is Joppa, sprawling all over a round hill, "a moderate hill, rounded off at the summit," the stars shining so brightly that I can almost count the houses in it. The view is sublime. The great constellation Scorpio, with its forty‑four stars, hangs directly over the city, sparkling with a brilliancy that is surprising. Its principal star, Antares, always exhibiting a remarkably blood‑red appearance, seems exactly in the range of the expanded tuft of a palm‑tree that crowns the hill in the centre of the town. I shall never look at that starry group again without associating it with the tree, the town, and this glorious midnight hour. It is a strange coincidence that the Jewish astrologers, mapping out the heavens among the twelve tribes of Israel, apportioned the constellation of Scorpio to Dan, the tribe to which yonder town of Joppa belonged. Did Jonah, when he fled from this port towards Tarshish, see that crimson star, Antares? It must have appeared to him an avenging meteor, the eye of insulted Deity Yonder too is Andromeda, in the constellation of Taurus. Her adventures with Perseus and the sea‑monster occurred here at Joppa, else history is at fault; and " Still in the heavens her captive form remains, And on her wrists still hang the galling chains."
DIVISION SIXTH.‑JOPPA.
Land of antiquity and tradition, - land where customs are landmarks - when the dress, the food, the highways, the nomenclature, the salutations, the marriagf sites and the burial rites - all that make one people different from another - are continued as they originated, forty or fifty centuries since, in the very be ginning of human history, - land whose very dust on which travellers' treat was once sentient, the atoms of nations long destroyed, - where each hill ant valley has its tale of horror and mortal woe; - land of Judaism, Freemasonry Christianity, and Mohammedanism! I have considered Bible emblems as Masonic property. All emblems of di vine origin are Masonic property; wherein they teach threatenings or praises, penalties or rewards, encouragement or discouragement, faith, hope, or charity brotherly love, relief, or truth, temperance, fortitude, prudence, or justice, - the3 are, as an old Scotch writer calls them, " the surprising eloquence of heaven' to the Freemason's soul. Things apparently carnal and trifling are made, it the Holy Writings, to foreshadow the wisest purposes of God. Almost ever] object in nature is an illustrator of inspired truth, truth such as forms the light warmth, and salt of the Masonic rituals. In this sense I have incorporates them into my book, and so, I trust, given a new direction to Masonic study.
As the first three Masons, Solomon, Hiram the King, and Hiram the Archi. tect, are associated with and have made illustrious their respective cities, Jeru sale'n, Tyre, Gebal, so I have felt at liberty, being the first Masonic traveller and author in this field, to locate, at marked and important points, the name, of many persons known to me as eminent in the theory or practice of Freema sonry. Thus I have given to the genus loci of each site one or more worth] comps,: ions, and dotted the Masonic Map of Palestine here and there with it 4astt ous moderns
CHAPTER XVII.
THE PORT OF JOPPA.
HE fifth of the Seven Grand Masonic Localities visited rc and identified during my researches in the Holy Land, is Joppa, at which ancient and far‑famed port I arrived May 1st, a few minutes after midnight, it being then about 4.30 P.m. at La Grange, Kentucky. To secure a bountiful sup‑ply of relics and specimens from Joppa, I had sent my assistant there, and he had given uninterrupted attention to the locality for several weeks.
Joppa, now termed Ja/Ta, is a port of little importance in mod‑ern times, save as being the landing‑place of pilgrims to Jerusalem. Steamships and war‑vessels cannot approach within two miles of' it. It lies in latitude 32░ 3' north, longitude 34░ 44' east of Greenwich. The, population is about 7,000 souls, nearly one‑half of them Christians. Formerly it was, next to Jerusalem, the most important city in the possession of the Jews. There being no other harbor on all this coast, Joppa was, of course, the place of transit for the immense accumulations of wood and metal collected in various parts of the world for the construction of King Solomon's Temple.
In the Masonic system the port of Joppa holds a conspicuous place, occurring in the lectures of the Entered Apprentice, still more prominently in those of the Master Mason, and most of all in those of the Mark Master. It was to Joppa that Jonah fled from the presence of the Lord and embarked for Tarshish. In the building of the Second Temple, under Zerubbabel, B.c. 533‑515, this city bore the same relationship to the work of the architect as in the first; but when Herod constructed the third Temple, he made some use of the port of Cwsarea, a few miles further north, and this rendered Joppa a place of only second‑rate importance.
Joppa is reckoned one of the oldest cities in the world. Tradition
THE PORT OF JOPPA. 253
ascribes its establishment as antediluvian, and associates it with mythological narratives of the very earliest periods. At present it is chiefly celebrated for its orange groves and gardens of Oriental pro‑duce. The oranges are the finest in the world; and as they are, unfortunately, seedless, so that I cannot collect their seeds for my patrons, as I desired, I put up and secured a supply of their leaves for nib cabinets; and the same with regard to the lemons of Joppa, equall famous for size and flavor.
In best days of the crusades, A.D. 1099‑1187, pious pilgrims depar ng from Joppa went out upon the sea‑shore and selected shells, in which this beach largely abounds; and these they ever after‑wards wore as symbols of pilgrimage and testimonials of their having performed it. I found so general a desire, among my patrons at home, to secure specimens of the pilgrims' shell, that I brought away severalthousands of them for distribution. They are of the family and species Ostrcea pecten and others.
Agreeably to the lectures of the Mark Master, I find that Joppa is built upon a dome‑shaped hill, rather steep, its western base washed by the Mediterranean Sea, and presenting a fine appearance from the sea. The present harbor, however, is very poor, and even dangerous; so 'much so, that in stormy weather the regular steamers of this coast are compelled to pass by, much to the disappointment of passengers, who are carried on to Beyrout or Alexandria. An instance of this sort occurred during my first week in Beyrout. The city is surrounded by a wall and ditch, scientifically constructed and well fortified.
Having a letter to the Governor (Kaimakam) of Joppa, Noureddin Effendi, from Brother E. T. Rogers, Master of Lebanon Lodge, at Beyrout, I made haste to call upon that official, and was at once henored with his fraternal conA fence. This gentleman is a Mason of some fifteen or twenty years' standing, initiated, as his diploma shows, in a French lodge on the Island of Corfu; but now a member of Lodge Amitie Clemente, Paris, France. He is about forty‑five years of age, and a bachelor. He favored me with an invitation to dine with him, which I readily accepted. I found him anxious for the extension of the Masonic craft in Syria and Palestine; but, like all other Masons I have encountered here, he is but poorly posted as to the ways and means of Masonic dissemination. In fact, he has in his possession the amplest authority from the Grand Orient of France, in the form of a commission some ten or twelve years old, but never used, to establish
254 MASONIC USE OF JOPPA.
lodges, confer degrees, etc.; and it was one of my privileges tc instruct the good brother how to proceed in its use. The results, I trust, will some day be visible in the establishment of lodges either here or elsewhere.
The American colony near Joppa, of which so much has been said in the papers the past two years, is entirely broken up. Four of the colonists who were there on my arrival in May, I found to be members of the Masonic order, viz., Brother G. J. Adams, who is the Bishop and projector of the colony, and Brothers George W. Toombs, Rolla Floyd, and Joshua Walker. This rendered my acquaintance with them highly agreeable. Beside these five gentlemen I found no Freemasons in Joppa.
In accordance with my custom elsewhere, I selected an appropriate spot at the southwestern angle of the city, and chiseled the Square and Compass as a token of the Masonic identification of Joppa. In doing so, I dedicated it to the following group of good Masons, viz., William B. Hubbard, G. H. C. Melody, E. J. Carr, W. W. Storey, Augustus Rowe, Andres Cassard, William Manby, E. W. H. Ellis, Edward Brewer, and Tal. P. Shafner.
Numerous lodges are named from this locality, such as No. 167, Kentucky; 152, Georgia; 201, New York; 65, Texas; 136, Iowa; 223, England, etc. The Plain of Sharon, on the verge of which the city stands, is also perpetuated in lodge nomenclature by Lodge No. 95, Texas; 116, Wisconsin; 97, Canada; 250, Pennsylvania, etc. The name of the country itself, Palestine, on which I am now entering - for thus far my explorations have been in Syria, of which Pales‑tine is the southern extremity - has been still more frequently used in this way, as in Lodge No. 158, Ohio; 120, North Carolina; 208, Missouri; 204, New York; 31, Texas; 114, Wisconsin; 143, Iowa,; 109, Arkansas, etc. The future visitor to this ancient port will find his stay made the more agreeable the more the spirit of our fraternity pervades it.
Traces of an ancient harbor are detected on the north and east sides of Joppa, which gave the city, in Solomonic times, the best protected harbor on the coast. Lieutenant Lynch, who was here about twenty years ago, was sanguine as to the feasibility of reopening this roadstead, now choked with sand, and giving a splendid revival to the old city. This is much to be desired. Traces of the ancient Roman road from Joppa to Jerusalem are plainly identified; and, as the Romans were the best road‑builders in the world, it is most likely that
THE STEEP HILL AT JOPPA. 255,
the original causeway made by Hiram's men, for the transportation of the almost incalculable supply of materials required for the Temple, ran over the same ground. While this cannot yet be proven, I am satisfied, as the result of all my observations, that such was the fact. The distance between the two cities, on a straight line, is about twenty‑five miles, but as the road runs, thirty‑five miles. After running about twelve miles, it mounts to a hilly region, as will be seen by recalling the fact that Jerusalem stands 2,600 feet above Joppa. The Pasha of Jerusalem, Nazif Pasha, has opened a turn pike‑way recently, connecting the two cities.
It is perhaps only an accidental circumstance, yet it struck me with some force, that in no town in Palestine have I seen so many and such ingenious combinations of arches as in Joppa. I copied in my note‑book quite a number of them that particularly attracted my, eye. (The builders in our country, who seem to be restricted to a few simple forms of arches, might take lessons from these Arab builders. A few palm‑trees grow here and there among the buildings, and in the suburbs of Joppa.
I remarked before that the hill at Joppa is quite steep. A friend, with myself, "tried our hands" at assisting each other to climb it; this, however, was more for speculative purposes than practical ones.
A sketch of my first day in Joppa is given from my note‑book. I landed at the ancient port of Joppa, now called Jaffa (sometimes Yaffa), early on the morning of May 1. It is truly a charming day The sea is only slightly agitated, not more so, indeed, than I am at the thought of at last treading the shores so renowned. It was hard, indeed, to conceive that this harbor, so restricted now in its marine accommodations, having only a few fishing vessels or small craft en‑gaged in the orange‑trade, was once the great port of the Jewish kingdom - their only harbor. It was difficult to recall the former glories of Joppa under the reigns of David and Solomon, when the commercial alliance with Tyre filled this bay with vessels, and brought the products of the whole earth to the foot of this hill. Yet the place is a sightly one for all that, and gratified my curiosity quite as much as I had reason to anticipate. The town covers the sea‑end of a promontory that juts out for half a mile into the water, leaving a small bay upon each side. The hill being steep, the houses are built one above the other, and the narrow streets rise from the shore by broad stone steps, adapted only. to camels, donkeys, and the native horses, who, I believe, could climb a ladder if required.
256 THE HOWADJI LANDING.
Approaching the shore, I called to mind all the Masonic and Scriptural references to Joppa, those of Solomon's time, of Jonah, etc., being prominent. As the boatmen forced their way through the reef of rocks that runs parallel to the shore, I observed a granite pillar upright upon a rude, stony ledge, used now for fastening the small craft of the port, but once, doubtless, a part of the architectural glories of ancient Joppa. At this point of my entrance a difference arose between the chief boatman and myself as to the rate of compensation for bringing one person from the ship. Had I been sufficiently acquainted with Arabic to understand their loud and boisterous arguments, it is possible that I should have paid their price, viz., seventy cents. As it was, I handed them twelve cents, turning a deaf ear to their clamor. I fear that my indifference left a bad impression upon those "sea‑faring men," but I couldn't help that. "Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise." I have long since learned that your only way, in this country, is to give what you think is right, and turn contemptuously away from all protestations. One thing you may be sure of, an Arab will never refuse to take your money, or be a bit the less civil when he meets you again.
But oh, how the Joppanese bleed the general traveller! Some tourists are so flush of money that they don't seem to care what they give. Some become excited by the loud clamor of the demand, and give a dollar when they mean a shilling. Some are perpetually ignorant of the denomination of current coins. Many fail to provide themselves with small change, and not until they have spent a good many dollars in bacicsheesh do they discover that plenty of half‑piastre pieces (two cents) will go just as far and be as thankfully received in this way as francs (twenty cents) or shillings (twenty‑five cents). There is a class of tourists here whose extravagant and reckless profusion in money matters should be universally reprobated. Never having earned their own support, and being totally indifferent as to expenditures, they corrupt the whole body of the people with their lavishness, and so become a plague to all " who come this way after them." As I reached the shore a host of arms were extended to steady me, or catch me in case I should fall. One broad‑backed fellow turned his shoulders to me, and loudly invited me to ride ashore on nature's own saddle. But, not recognizing any Freemasons among them, taking my overcoat on one arm, and slinging my little wallet around my neck, I took a position on the bow of the boat, and
17 258 THE GOVERNOR 01 JOPPA.
watching my opportunity, as the last wave receded, sprang ashore, and so landed at the port of Joppa, my heavier baggage being brought by an attendant.
Landed at Joppa. No ships here bound for Ethiopia. Those five large vessels yonder are British war‑ships. Those ten little smacks are only used to skim the coast. There are no Mark Masters ready to assist me up the hill. So through the crowd of screaming, yelling, blaspheming boatmen, and hotel‑runners, and beggars, and soldiers, and thieves, and idlers of Joppa, I force my way up, and follow my guide to the English hotel; past a row of kneeling camels; past a row of water‑carriers, filling their goat‑skins from the fountains near the shore; under the bewildering succession of arches which make Joppa, more than any town I have visited, the proper establishment for the Royal Arch; past a miserably deformed beggar, sitting by the roadside, and asking and getting alms, as his predecessors in all ages have done here, and so on to the Locanda, or hotel already named, kept by Messrs. Blatner.
As soon as I had taken refreshments, consisting of coffee and dread, which is all you get here till noon, I procured a guide, and went out to the American colony, about half a mile from the wall of the town, on the north side. Bro. Geo. W. Toombs, formerly of Illinois, had been lying quite low with Syrian fever, but was able to converse with me. I was much impressed with the honesty and sincerity of Bro. Floyd, who offered me, both in. his own person and through his excellent wife, the hospitalities of his house, as he had done, several weeks before, to my associate. The Bishop, Bro. Adams, was likewise extremely kind to me, and labored to make my stay at Joppa agreeable. The manner of Bro. Toombs, though lying in his bed extremely ill, was most gentlemanly, friendly, and accommodating.
Next I called on the Governor, at his Serai, or court of justice, surrounded by a crowd of litigants. I found his Excellency to be a most gentlemanly and agreeable person, small, active, with keen eye and sharp features, voice loud and quick, and full of Masonic fire. In the Scotch Rite (Ancient and Accepted), he has advanced to the twenty‑ninth degree, Chevalier de Soleil, or Knight of the Sun. His name, Noureddin, is pronounced with full stress upon the last syllable, deene, and his official title is that of .Kaimalcam, or Governor. In official parlance, he is addressed as his Excellency the Effendi.
Noureddin being a bachelor, lives in military style, his family consisting of his staff and male servants only. Besides the official
NEED OF A LODGE. 259
language, which is Turkish, he speaks French fluently, and the Arabic. I was able to communicate with him only through an interpreter, M. Serapion Murad, Chancellor of the Prussian Consulate at Joppa, kindly doing the duties of interpreter for me, and a little French, which I mustered up for the occasion. I have had so much experience in this country, talking to the people of all nationalities, through interpreters, that the awkwardness of such intercourse has been mainly overcome, and I enjoyed this meeting with the Governor exceedingly. It was gratifying, too, to see that the object I had in view, in this conference, was one that had already occupied his Excellency's attention, viz., the establishment of a lodge at this place. The four American brethren of the colony are also warmly in favor of this project. I took my leave, having been invited to dine with his Excellency at seven o'clock, and promising to have the petition for the establishment of a lodge ready at that hour.
In drafting the petition to the Grand Orient of France, I labored under the difficulty of not possessing sufficient familiarity with the Constitution and Rules of Order of that body. I knew there was some difference between the forms of procedure in the Grand Orient of France and the various Grand Lodges with which I am acquaint‑ed. So I ventured on an original plan of my own. I wrote a letter as coming only from myself, setting forth the following facts, that there is only one lodge in this country (the one at Beyrout working under the Grand Lodge of Scotland), although the number of Free‑masons resident in various towns is large; that at this place (Joppa) there are five resident Masons - I specified their names - and testified that these brethren are ardently desirous of establishing a lodge here, believing that many initiates would promptly be secured, and those of the best quality, thus advancing the general interest of Freemasonry and the cause of universal benevolence and morality. Finally I suggested, on behalf of the seven brethren whose names I had given, that his Excellency Noureddin Effendi be nominated Deputy, or Provincial Grand Master of Syria, under the Constitution of the Grand Orient of France, with the amplest powers that such a patent embraces, with special authority to establish the Lodge Jerusalem and Jaffa, empowered to work at either place at its own convenience. This paper being carefully copied, was forwarded to the Grand Secretary at Paris, an answer being expected within a month. I may say here, however, that the proposal was declined, on the ground that the petitioners (except his Excellency) were not French Masons!
260 ORANGE ORCHARDS
In this country you don't get breakfast till high 12. How I have continued thus far to avoid a horrible death by starvation, 1 can scarcely tell; but here at Joppa, you can eat oranges, for which this vicinity is so famous. They are admittedly the largest and the best in the world, some of the picked specimens more resembling pumpkins than fruit. Usually they are seedless, particularly the giants. They are of course very cheap; for half a piastre (two cents) you can get as many as you can eat; for a whole piastre, as many as you can carry away. They constitute - a very large part of the trade of this port, being sent as far as Constantinople, and in every direction through the country. No one who has observed the peculiar baskets used for transporting the Joppa orange will forget them, the quantity carried by a donkey being simply, if the donkey only knew it, preposterous. At this season the orange‑gardens or orchards are at their prettiest, ripe fruit, green fruit, immature fruit, blossoms, buds, and leaves, all growing good‑naturedly together upon the same tree and same bough. The flowers exhale the most delicious per‑fume; the tree itself is a model of beauty; while the sight of the large yellow fruit sets off with equal grace the bright green of the leaves and the pure white of the blossoms. Strange that the orange is not once named in the Bible. Is it not most probable that by the term "apple'' in Scripture the orange is meant? I like to believe it, and to imagine that, just as the boys and other orange‑venders here hand you the tempting fruit all day, and urge you to purchase and eat, so they did to the swarthy Phoenicians who were drawing the heavy cedar‑trees up this hill, and across yonder sandy plain, and to the top of those heights that loom up so grandly in the eastward; and that those faithful craftsmen had their thirst assuaged by oranges, and rested their limbs at night under the dense foliage of the orange‑orchards. If so, they were well accustomed to the fruit before they came to Joppa; for I believe the oranges that I saw near Sidon, two weeks ago, are only second in size and value to these at Joppa.
As I said, breakfast at high 12 is an attempt upon the life of a human being, and I attribute my escape from starvation only to the sustenance afforded by the Joppa oranges. When at last the break‑fast has come - but let me describe it. First, two of the fish from this harbor, sweet and delicious specimens of the finny tribe whose forefathers did so much to strengthen our Masonic forefathers, as they came floating down this way on rafts from the Masonic Bay, a hundred and fifty miles above here. I ate them both. Next, a stewed
NODREDDIN EFFENDI. 231
chicken, stewed to rags, as is the custom of the country; but by judicious use of sweet olive‑oil in place of butter, well flavored and toothsome, I ate it all. Then a plate of cold mutton, cut in slices. My eyes being indifferent, I mount my glasses now to give it a name, and easily recognizing it, I ate it all. Next some fried mutton, rather stringy and hard; however, I ate it also. Now comes a plate of oranges, and a cup of coffee; a woman's thimble is gigantic in size compared with it. This is my breakfast. Picking my teeth, I looked out at that fine palm‑tree yonder, my favorite tree of all the trees in the world. They tell me the palm bears its fruit (the date) abundantly in the southern section of Palestine, which is more than it does about Beyrout. There is a considerable number of palm‑trees in this vicinity, while the pomegranate, so famous in Masonic symbology, is even more so. I secured ample specimens of the wood of both these trees.
Having spent the afternoon in a manner suitable to my mission, I sallied forth at the proper hour to fill my appointment with his Excellency Brother Noureddin Effendi, between whom and myself Freemasonry has already established an equality which no other society can accomplish. Brother Adams joined us in the party, and there were present Monsieur Serapion Murad,= already named, together with half a dozen clerks and secretaries of the Governor. I showed his Excellency my diploma of the thirty‑second grade, Scottish Rite. I had also my diploma from my lodge, Fortitude No. 47, La Grange, Ky., prepared expressly for this journey, and my firman from the Sultan. Upon his own part, the Kaimakam showed me written evidence of his membership in various lodges, and we passed esoterical evidences satisfactory to both. Two hours passed by before dinner was announced, which time was spent in conversation of a varied and pleasing character. His Excellency is one of the best of companions, and Brother Adams has the art agre'able in perfection. Monsieur Serapion Murad is one of a thousand in making his friends happy, while I found myself both in the mood conversational and musical. Cigarettes and narghilebs were offered abundantly. The latter is the celebrated water‑pipe, through which, when the fumes of this mild Turkish tobacco have passed, you can't tell that you are smoking anything. It is this which, according to tradition, King Solomon used while inducting the Queen of Sheba into the art of using tobacco. The only drawback connected with its use is tke vast expenditure of muscular energy requisite in drawing smoke
262 ORIENTAL ODDITIES.
through it. The first time you attempt to use one you become black in the face from the tremendous effort, and present an alarming appearance. I dislike the roar of water which it makes, for I always imagine it is raining torrents outside when I hear it. But I digress.
My mind is exercised at Joppa in observing the queer points of contrast between the people of the East and the West. Of these I note eleven, viz.: 1. We write and read from left to right; they from right to left.
2. We uncover the head at worship, and keep our feet covered; they cover the head and bare the feet.
3. We shave the face but not the head; they shave the head but not the face.
4. We draw the razor towards us; they push the razor.from them.
5. We push the saw from us in sawing; they draw the saw towards them.
6. We chew and snuff tobacco as well as smoke; they use it only in fumigation.
7. We stand at reaping, preaching, etc.; they sit at all such labors.
8. We distinguish carefully the clothing of the two sexes, and the law (and the Bible) forbid similarity; they make little or no distinction.
9. We sleep in the house‑rooms; they on the house‑tops.
10. We drink alcoholic liquors; they religiously abstain from such.
11. We rejoice in active life; they are strictly sedentary. A maxim is found among them like this: "Never walk when you can ride; never stand when you can sit; never sit when you can lie! " A seashore ramble of several hours was a charming episode in my visit to Joppa. The beach is lined with shells, especially the escalop, already named. Ever since I was made a Knight Templar, in 1850, I have desired to see the real escalop (scalop, esclialop) shell of the Crusaders. Here they are in millions. To wear them around the hat, as Scott described the Templar in Ivanhoe, implied that the wearer had made a long voyage by sea, particularly in attendance on holy wars. This shell, for some reason, was the emblem of St. James, the brother of Jesus, who is always drawn in the guise of a pilgrim; and it is largely seen in the churches dedicated to him. This shell is of the family Ostrceadce, another name for Pectinidce. The regular "pilgrim's shell" now in my hand is Pectin Jacobcevs
TELEGRAPH POLES. 263
or that of St. James. Sometimes it grows four or five inches broad, but they are rarely much over one inch.
The steady movement of the tides upon this beach, along which I have wandered already so often, never ceases to attract my attention. Homer describes it just as I should to‑day, only so mtch better: As when the ocean‑billows, wave, on wave, Are pushed along to the resounding shore Before the westward wind, and first the surge Uplifts itself, and then against the land Dashes and roars, and round the headland peak Tosses on high and spouts its foam afar. - Iliad.
