Here Are A Pair Of Them, {2} Fath Allah And Ameenut
Daoodee His Father, Horse-Dealers By Trade, Who Came And Sat With
Us At The Inn, And Smoked Pipes (The Sun Being Down), While The
Original Of The Above Masterpiece Was Made.
With the Arabs outside
the walls, however, and the freshly arriving country people, this
politeness was not so much exhibited.
There was a certain tattooed
girl, with black eyes and huge silver earrings, and a chin
delicately picked out with blue, who formed one of a group of women
outside the great convent, whose likeness I longed to carry off; -
there was a woman with a little child, with wondering eyes, drawing
water at the Pool of Siloam, in such an attitude and dress as
Rebecca may have had when Isaac's lieutenant asked her for drink:-
both of these parties standing still for half a minute, at the next
cried out for backsheesh: and not content with the five piastres
which I gave them individually, screamed out for more, and summoned
their friends, who screamed out backsheesh too. I was pursued into
the convent by a dozen howling women calling for pay, barring the
door against them, to the astonishment of the worthy papa who kept
it; and at Miriam's Well the women were joined by a man with a
large stick, who backed their petition. But him we could afford to
laugh at, for we were two and had sticks likewise.
In the village of Siloam I would not recommend the artist to
loiter. A colony of ruffians inhabit the dismal place, who have
guns as well as sticks at need. Their dogs howl after the
strangers as they pass through; and over the parapets of their
walls you are saluted by the scowls of a villanous set of
countenances, that it is not good to see with one pair of eyes.
They shot a man at mid-day at a few hundred yards from the gates
while we were at Jerusalem, and no notice was taken of the murder.
Hordes of Arab robbers infest the neighbourhood of the city, with
the Sheikhs of whom travellers make terms when minded to pursue
their journey. I never could understand why the walls stopped
these warriors if they had a mind to plunder the city, for there
are but a hundred and fifty men in the garrison to man the long
lonely lines of defence.
I have seen only in Titian's pictures those magnificent purple
shadows in which the hills round about lay, as the dawn rose
faintly behind them; and we looked at Olivet for the last time from
our terrace, where we were awaiting the arrival of the horses that
were to carry us to Jaffa. A yellow moon was still blazing in the
midst of countless brilliant stars overhead; the nakedness and
misery of the surrounding city were hidden in that beautiful rosy
atmosphere of mingling night and dawn. The city never looked so
noble; the mosques, domes, and minarets rising up into the calm
star-lit sky.
By the gate of Bethlehem there stands one palm-tree, and a house
with three domes. Put these and the huge old Gothic gate as a
background dark against the yellowing eastern sky: the foreground
is a deep grey: as you look into it dark forms of horsemen come
out of the twilight: now there come lanterns, more horsemen, a
litter with mules, a crowd of Arab horseboys and dealers
accompanying their beasts to the gate; all the members of our party
come up by twos and threes; and, at last, the great gate opens just
before sunrise, and we get into the grey plains.
Oh! the luxury of an English saddle! An English servant of one of
the gentlemen of the mission procured it for me, on the back of a
little mare, which (as I am a light weight) did not turn a hair in
the course of the day's march - and after we got quit of the ugly,
stony, clattering, mountainous Abou Gosh district, into the fair
undulating plain, which stretches to Ramleh, carried me into the
town at a pleasant hand-gallop. A negro, of preternatural
ugliness, in a yellow gown, with a crimson handkerchief streaming
over his head, digging his shovel spurs into the lean animal he
rode, and driving three others before - swaying backwards and
forwards on his horse, now embracing his ears, and now almost under
his belly, screaming "yallah" with the most frightful shrieks, and
singing country songs - galloped along ahead of me. I acquired one
of his poems pretty well, and could imitate his shriek accurately;
but I shall not have the pleasure of singing it to you in England.
I had forgotten the delightful dissonance two days after, both the
negro's and that of a real Arab minstrel, a donkey-driver
accompanying our baggage, who sang and grinned with the most
amusing good-humour.
We halted, in the middle of the day, in a little wood of olive-
trees, which forms almost the only shelter between Jaffa and
Jerusalem, except that afforded by the orchards in the odious
village of Abou Gosh, through which we went at a double quick pace.
Under the olives, or up in the branches, some of our friends took a
siesta. I have a sketch of four of them so employed. Two of them
were dead within a month of the fatal Syrian fever. But we did not
know how near fate was to us then. Fires were lighted, and fowls
and eggs divided, and tea and coffee served round in tin panikins,
and here we lighted pipes, and smoked and laughed at our ease. I
believe everybody was happy to be out of Jerusalem. The impression
I have of it now is of ten days passed in a fever.
We all found quarters in the Greek convent at Ramleh, where the
monks served us a supper on a terrace, in a pleasant sunset; a
beautiful and cheerful landscape stretching around; the land in
graceful undulations, the towers and mosques rosy in the sunset,
with no lack of verdure, especially of graceful palms.
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