A Man On A Handsome Horse Dressed In Red Came Prancing Up To Us,
Looking Hard At The Ladies In The Litter, And Passed Away.
Then
two others sauntered up, one handsome, and dressed in red too, and
he stared into the litter without ceremony, began to play with a
little dog that lay there, asked if we were Inglees, and was
answered by me in the affirmative.
Paolo had brought the water,
the most delicious draught in the world. The gentlefolks had had
some, the poor muleteers were longing for it. The French maid, the
courageous Victoire (never since the days of Joan of Arc has there
surely been a more gallant and virtuous female of France) refused
the drink; when suddenly a servant of the party scampers up to his
master and says: "Abou Gosh says the ladies must get out and show
themselves to the women of the village!"
It was Abou Gosh himself, the redoubted robber Sheikh about whom we
had been laughing and crying "Wolf!" all day. Never was seen such
a skurry! "March!" was the instant order given. When Victoire
heard who it was and the message, you should have seen how she
changed countenance; trembling for her virtue in the ferocious
clutches of a Gosh. "Un verre d'eau pour l'amour de Dieu!" gasped
she, and was ready to faint on her saddle. "Ne buvez plus,
Victoire!" screamed a little fellow of our party. "Push on, push
on!" cried one and all. "What's the matter?" exclaimed the ladies
in the litter, as they saw themselves suddenly jogging on again.
But we took care not to tell them what had been the designs of the
redoubtable Abou Gosh. Away then we went - Victoire was saved - and
her mistresses rescued from dangers they knew not of, until they
were a long way out of the village.
Did he intend insult or good will? Did Victoire escape the odious
chance of becoming Madame Abou Gosh? Or did the mountain chief
simply propose to be hospitable after his fashion? I think the
latter was his desire; if the former had been his wish, a half-
dozen of his long guns could have been up with us in a minute, and
had all our party at their mercy. But now, for the sake of the
mere excitement, the incident was, I am sorry to say, rather a
pleasant one than otherwise: especially for a traveller who is in
the happy condition of being able to sing before robbers, as is the
case with the writer of the present.
A little way out of the land of Goshen we came upon a long stretch
of gardens and vineyards, slanting towards the setting sun, which
illuminated numberless golden clusters of the most delicious
grapes, of which we stopped and partook. Such grapes were never
before tasted; water so fresh as that which a countryman fetched
for us from a well never sluiced parched throats before. It was
the ride, the sun, and above all Abou Gosh, who made that
refreshment so sweet, and hereby I offer him my best thanks.
Presently, in the midst of a most diabolical ravine, down which our
horses went sliding, we heard the evening gun: it was fired from
Jerusalem. The twilight is brief in this country, and in a few
minutes the landscape was grey round about us, and the sky lighted
up by a hundred thousand stars, which made the night beautiful.
Under this superb canopy we rode for a couple of hours to our
journey's end. The mountains round about us dark, lonely, and sad;
the landscape as we saw it at night (it is not more cheerful in the
daytime), the most solemn and forlorn I have ever seen. The
feelings of almost terror with which, riding through the night, we
approached this awful place, the centre of the world's past and
future history, have no need to be noted down here. The
recollection of those sensations must remain with a man as long as
his memory lasts; and he should think of them as often, perhaps, as
he should talk of them little.
CHAPTER XIII: JERUSALEM
The ladies of our party found excellent quarters in readiness for
them at the Greek convent in the city; where airy rooms, and
plentiful meals, and wines and sweet-meats delicate and abundant,
were provided to cheer them after the fatigues of their journey. I
don't know whether the worthy fathers of the convent share in the
good things which they lavish on their guests; but they look as if
they do. Those whom we saw bore every sign of easy conscience and
good living; there were a pair of strong, rosy, greasy, lazy lay-
brothers, dawdling in the sun on the convent terrace, or peering
over the parapet into the street below, whose looks gave one a
notion of anything but asceticism.
In the principal room of the strangers' house (the lay traveller is
not admitted to dwell in the sacred interior of the convent), and
over the building, the Russian double-headed eagle is displayed.
The place is under the patronage of the Emperor Nicholas; an
Imperial Prince has stayed in these rooms; the Russian consul
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:
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