
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
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q k rt~drasi``~ == Ye A GIA us9 na '4. Q~V,FI
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9ipns .
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‑‑‑~_ SHD a ~_ äs - s _ OF THE ..''w era Yqh d ' ‑
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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.
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near on which is fishes, a man ess.
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officers ere, had come an IIowadji.; Freemasons' Lerations have ate being the
Rob Morris, an event that Simons, and were gathered ill the reader r bands of
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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.