Sketches and Travels in London

by William Makepeace Thackeray

performs a great part in the city; and a considerable annual

  stipend is given by the Emperor towards the maintenance of the

  great establishment in Jerusalem. The Great Chapel of the Church

  of the Holy Sepulchre is by far the richest, in point of furniture,

  of all the places of worship under that roof. We were in Russia,

  when we came to visit our friends here; under the protection of the

  Father of the Church and the Imperial Eagle! This butcher and

  tyrant, who sits on his throne only through the crime of those who

  held it before him--every step in whose pedigree is stained by some

  horrible mark of murder, parricide, adultery--this padded and

  whiskered pontiff--who rules in his jack-boots over a system of

  spies and soldiers, of deceit, ignorance, dissoluteness, and brute

  force, such as surely the history of the world never told of

  before--has a tender interest in the welfare of his spiritual

  children: in the Eastern Church ranks after Divinity, and is

  worshipped by millions of men. A pious exemplar of Christianity

  truly! and of the condition to which its union with politics has

  brought it! Think of the rank to which he pretends, and gravely

  believes that he possesses, no doubt!--think of those who assumed

  the same ultra-sacred character before him!--and then of the Bible

  and the Founder of the Religion, of which the Emperor assumes to be

  the chief priest and defender!

  We had some Poles of our party; but these poor fellows went to the

  Latin convent, declining to worship after the Emperor's fashion.

  The next night after our arrival, two of them passed in the

  Sepulchre. There we saw them, more than once on subsequent visits,

  kneeling in the Latin Church before the pictures, or marching

  solemnly with candles in processions, or lying flat on the stones,

  or passionately kissing the spots which their traditions have

  consecrated as the authentic places of the Saviour's sufferings.

  More honest or more civilised, or from opposition, the Latin

  fathers have long given up and disowned the disgusting mummery of

  the Eastern Fire--which lie the Greeks continue annually to tell.

  Their travellers' house and convent, though large and commodious,

  are of a much poorer and shabbier condition than those of the

  Greeks. Both make believe not to take money; but the traveller is

  expected to pay in each. The Latin fathers enlarge their means by

  a little harmless trade in beads and crosses, and mother-of-pearl

  shells, on which figures of saints are engraved; and which they

  purchase from the manufacturers, and vend at a small profit. The

  English, until of late, used to be quartered in these sham inns;

  but last year two or three Maltese took houses for the reception of

  tourists, who can now be accommodated with cleanly and comfortable

  board, at a rate not too heavy for most pockets.

  To one of these we went very gladly; giving our horses the bridle

  at the door, which went off of their own will to their stables,

  through the dark inextricable labyrinths of streets, archways, and

  alleys, which we had threaded after leaving the main street from

  the Jaffa Gate. There, there was still some life. Numbers of

  persons were collected at their doors, or smoking before the dingy

  coffee-houses, where singing and story-telling were going on; but

  out of this great street everything was silent, and no sign of a

  light from the windows of the low houses which we passed.

  We ascended from a lower floor up to a terrace, on which were

  several little domed chambers, or pavilions. From this terrace,

  whence we looked in the morning, a great part of the city spread

  before us:- white domes upon domes, and terraces of the same

  character as our own. Here and there, from among these whitewashed

  mounds round about, a minaret rose, or a rare date-tree; but the

  chief part of the vegetation near was that odious tree the prickly

  pear,--one huge green wart growing out of another, armed with

  spikes, as inhospitable as the aloe, without shelter or beauty. To

  the right the Mosque of Omar rose; the rising sun behind it.

  Yonder steep tortuous lane before us, flanked by ruined walls on

  either side, has borne, time out of mind, the title of Via

  Dolorosa; and tradition has fixed the spots where the Saviour

  rested, bearing his cross to Calvary. But of the mountain, rising

  immediately in front of us, a few grey olive-trees speckling the

  yellow side here and there, there can be no question. That is the

  Mount of Olives. Bethany lies beyond it. The most sacred eyes

  that ever looked on this world have gazed on those ridges: it was

  there He used to walk and teach. With shame and humility one looks

  towards the spot where that inexpressible Love and Benevolence

  lived and breathed; where the great yearning heart of the Saviour

  interceded for all our race; and whence the bigots and traitors of

  his day led Him away to kill Him!

  That company of Jews whom we had brought with us from

  Constantinople, and who had cursed every delay on the route, not

  from impatience to view the Holy City, but from rage at being

  obliged to purchase dear provisions for their maintenance on ship-

  board, made what bargains they best could at Jaffa, and journeyed

  to the Valley of Jehoshaphat at the cheapest rate. We saw the tall

  form of the old Polish Patriarch, venerable in filth, stalking

  among the stinking ruins of the Jewish quarter. The sly old Rabbi,

  in the greasy folding hat, who would not pay to shelter his

  children from the storm off Beyrout, greeted us in the bazaars; the

  younger Rabbis were furbished up with some smartness. We met them

  on Sunday at the kind of promenade by the walls of the Bethlehem

  Gate; they were in company of some red-bearded co-religionists,

  smartly attired in Eastern raiment; but their voice was the voice

  of the Jews of Berlin, and of course as we passed they were talking

  about so many hundert thaler. You may track one of the people, and

  be sure to hear mention of that silver calf that they worship.

  The English mission has been very unsuccessful with these

  religionists. I don't believe the Episcopal apparatus--the

  chaplains, and the colleges, and the beadles--have succeeded in

  converting a dozen of them; and a sort of martyrdom is in store for

  the luckless Hebrews at Jerusalem who shall secede from their

  faith. Their old community spurn them with horror; and I heard of

  the case of one unfortunate man, whose wife, in spite of her

  husband's change of creed, being resolved, like a true woman, to

  cleave to him, was spirited away from him in his absence; was kept

  in privacy in the city, in spite of all exertions of the mission,

  of the consul and the bishop, and the chaplains and the beadles;

  was passed away from Jerusalem to Beyrout, and thence to

  Constantinople; and from Constantinople was whisked off into the

  Russian territories, where she still pines after her husband. May

  that unhappy convert find consolation away from her. I could not

  help thinking, as my informant, an exc
ellent and accomplished

  gentleman of the mission, told me the story, that the Jews had done

  only what the Christians do under the same circumstances. The

  woman was the daughter of a most learned Rabbi, as I gathered.

  Suppose the daughter of the Rabbi of Exeter, or Canterbury, were to

  marry a man who turned Jew, would not her Right Reverend Father be

  justified in taking her out of the power of a person likely to hurl

  her soul to perdition? These poor converts should surely be sent

  away to England out of the way of persecution. We could not but

  feel a pity for them, as they sat there on their benches in the

  church conspicuous; and thought of the scorn and contumely which

  attended them without, as they passed, in their European dresses

  and shaven beards, among their grisly, scowling, long-robed

  countrymen.

  As elsewhere in the towns I have seen, the Ghetto of Jerusalem is

  pre-eminent in filth. The people are gathered round about the

  dung-gate of the city. Of a Friday you may hear their wailings and

  lamentations for the lost glories of their city. I think the

  Valley of Jehoshaphat is the most ghastly sight I have seen in the

  world. From all quarters they come hither to bury their dead.

  When his time is come yonder hoary old miser, with whom we made our

  voyage, will lay his carcase to rest here. To do that, and to claw

  together money, has been the purpose of that strange long life.

  We brought with us one of the gentlemen of the mission, a Hebrew

  convert, the Rev. Mr. E-; and lest I should be supposed to speak

  with disrespect above of any of the converts of the Hebrew faith,

  let me mention this gentleman as the only one whom I had the

  fortune to meet on terms of intimacy. I never saw a man whose

  outward conduct was more touching, whose sincerity was more

  evident, and whose religious feeling seemed more deep, real, and

  reasonable.

  Only a few feet off, the walls of the Anglican Church of Jerusalem

  rise up from their foundations on a picturesque open spot, in front

  of the Bethlehem Gate. The English Bishop has his church hard by:

  and near it is the house where the Christians of our denomination

  assemble and worship.

  There seem to be polyglot services here. I saw books of prayer, or

  Scripture, in Hebrew, Greek, and German: in which latter language

  Dr. Alexander preaches every Sunday. A gentleman who sat near me

  at church used all these books indifferently; reading the first

  lesson from the Hebrew book, and the second from the Greek. Here

  we all assembled on the Sunday after our arrival: it was affecting

  to hear the music and language of our country sounding in this

  distant place; to have the decent and manly ceremonial of our

  service; the prayers delivered in that noble language. Even that

  stout anti-prelatist, the American consul, who has left his house

  and fortune in America in order to witness the coming of the

  Millennium, who believes it to be so near that he has brought a

  dove with him from his native land (which bird he solemnly informed

  us was to survive the expected Advent), was affected by the good

  old words and service. He swayed about and moaned in his place at

  various passages; during the sermon he gave especial marks of

  sympathy and approbation. I never heard the service more

  excellently and impressively read than by the Bishop's chaplain,

  Mr. Veitch. But it was the music that was most touching I

  thought,--the sweet old songs of home.

  There was a considerable company assembled: near a hundred people

  I should think. Our party made a large addition to the usual

  congregation. The Bishop's family is proverbially numerous: the

  consul, and the gentlemen of the mission, have wives, and children,

  and English establishments. These, and the strangers, occupied

  places down the room, to the right and left of the desk and

  communion-table. The converts, and the members of the college, in

  rather a scanty number, faced the officiating clergyman; before

  whom the silver maces of the janissaries were set up, as they set

  up the beadles' maces in England.

  I made many walks round the city to Olivet and Bethany, to the

  tombs of the kings, and the fountains sacred in story. These are

  green and fresh, but all the rest of the landscape seemed to me to

  be FRIGHTFUL. Parched mountains, with a grey bleak olive-tree

  trembling here and there; savage ravines and valleys, paved with

  tombstones--a landscape unspeakably ghastly and desolate, meet the

  eye wherever you wander round about the city. The place seems

  quite adapted to the events which are recorded in the Hebrew

  histories. It and they, as it seems to me, can never be regarded

  without terror. Fear and blood, crime and punishment, follow from

  page to page in frightful succession. There is not a spot at which

  you look, but some violent deed has been done there: some massacre

  has been committed, some victim has been murdered, some idol has

  been worshipped with bloody and dreadful rites. Not far from hence

  is the place where the Jewish conqueror fought for the possession

  of Jerusalem. "The sun stood still, and hasted not to go down

  about a whole day;" so that the Jews might have daylight to destroy

  the Amorites, whose iniquities were full, and whose land they were

  about to occupy. The fugitive heathen king, and his allies, were

  discovered in their hiding-place, and hanged: "and the children of

  Judah smote Jerusalem with the edge of the sword, and set the city

  on fire; and they left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all

  that breathed."

  I went out at the Zion Gate, and looked at the so-called tomb of

  David. I had been reading all the morning in the Psalms, and his

  history in Samuel and Kings. "Bring thou down Shimei's hoar head

  to the grave with blood," are the last words of the dying monarch

  as recorded by the history. What they call the tomb is now a

  crumbling old mosque; from which Jew and Christian are excluded

  alike. As I saw it, blazing in the sunshine, with the purple sky

  behind it, the glare only served to mark the surrounding desolation

  more clearly. The lonely walls and towers of the city rose hard

  by. Dreary mountains, and declivities of naked stones, were round

  about: they are burrowed with holes in which Christian hermits

  lived and died. You see one green place far down in the valley:

  it is called En Rogel. Adonijah feasted there, who was killed by

  his brother Solomon, for asking for Abishag for wife. The Valley

  of Hinnom skirts the hill: the dismal ravine was a fruitful garden

  once. Ahaz, and the idolatrous kings, sacrificed to idols under

  the green trees there, and "caused their children to pass through

  the fire." On the mountain opposite, Solomon, with the thousand

  women of his harem, worshipped the gods of all their nations,

  "Ashtoreth," and "Milcom, and Molech, the abomination of the

  Ammonites." An enormous charnel-house stands on the hill where the

  bodies of dead pilgrims used to be throw
n; and common belief has

  fixed upon this spot as the Aceldama, which Judas purchased with

  the price of his treason. Thus you go on from one gloomy place to

  another, each seared with its bloody tradition. Yonder is the

  Temple, and you think of Titus's soldiery storming its flaming

  porches, and entering the city, in the savage defence of which two

  million human souls perished. It was on Mount Zion that Godfrey

  and Tancred had their camp: when the Crusaders entered the mosque,

  they rode knee-deep in the blood of its defenders, and of the women

  and children who had fled thither for refuge: it was the victory

  of Joshua over again. Then, after three days of butchery, they

  purified the desecrated mosque and went to prayer. In the centre

  of this history of crime rises up the Great Murder of all . . .

  I need say no more about this gloomy landscape. After a man has

  seen it once, he never forgets it--the recollection of it seems to

  me to follow him like a remorse, as it were to implicate him in the

  awful deed which was done there. Oh! with what unspeakable shame

  and terror should one think of that crime, and prostrate himself

  before the image of that Divine Blessed Sufferer!

  Of course the first visit of the traveller is to the famous Church

  of the Sepulchre.

  In the archway, leading from the street to the court and church,

  there is a little bazaar of Bethlehemites, who must interfere

  considerably with the commerce of the Latin fathers. These men

  bawl to you from their stalls, and hold up for your purchase their

  devotional baubles,--bushels of rosaries and scented beads, and

  carved mother-of-pearl shells, and rude stone salt-cellars and

  figures. Now that inns are established--envoys of these pedlars

  attend them on the arrival of strangers, squat all day on the

  terraces before your door, and patiently entreat you to buy of

  their goods. Some worthies there are who drive a good trade by

  tattooing pilgrims with the five crosses, the arms of Jerusalem;

  under which the name of the city is punctured in Hebrew, with the

  auspicious year of the Hadji's visit. Several of our fellow-

  travellers submitted to this queer operation, and will carry to

  their grave this relic of their journey. Some of them had engaged

  as servant a man at Beyrout, who had served as a lad on board an

  English ship in the Mediterranean. Above his tattooage of the five

  crosses, the fellow had a picture of two hearts united, and the

  pathetic motto, "Betsy my dear." He had parted with Betsy my dear

  five years before at Malta. He had known a little English there,

  but had forgotten it. Betsy my dear was forgotten too. Only her

  name remained engraved with a vain simulacrum of constancy on the

  faithless rogue's skin: on which was now printed another token of

  equally effectual devotion. The beads and the tattooing, however,

  seem essential ceremonies attendant on the Christian pilgrim's

  visit; for many hundreds of years, doubtless, the palmers have

  carried off with them these simple reminiscences of the sacred

  city. That symbol has been engraven upon the arms of how many

  Princes, Knights, and Crusaders! Don't you see a moral as

  applicable to them as to the swindling Beyrout horseboy? I have

  brought you back that cheap and wholesome apologue, in lieu of any

  of the Bethlehemite shells and beads.

  After passing through the porch of the pedlars, you come to the

  courtyard in front of the noble old towers of the Church of the

  Sepulchre, with pointed arches and Gothic traceries, rude, but rich

  and picturesque in design. Here crowds are waiting in the sun,

  until it shall please the Turkish guardians of the church-door to

  open. A swarm of beggars sit here permanently: old tattered hags

  with long veils, ragged children, blind old bearded beggars, who

  raise up a chorus of prayers for money, holding out their wooden

  bowls, or clattering with their sticks on the stones, or pulling

  your coat-skirts and moaning and whining; yonder sit a group of

  coal-black Coptish pilgrims, with robes and turbans of dark blue,