I Went To Tiberias, And Soon Got Afloat Upon The Water.
In the
evening I took up my quarters in the Catholic church, and the
building being large enough, the whole of my party were admitted to
the benefit of the same shelter.
With portmanteaus and carpet
bags, and books and maps, and fragrant tea, Mysseri soon made me a
home on the southern side of the church. One of old Shereef's
helpers was an enthusiastic Catholic, and was greatly delighted at
having so sacred a lodging. He lit up the altar with a number of
tapers, and when his preparations were complete, he began to
perform his orisons in the strangest manner imaginable. His lips
muttered the prayers of the Latin Church, but he bowed himself down
and laid his forehead to the stones beneath him after the manner of
a Mussulman. The universal aptness of a religious system for all
stages of civilisation, and for all sorts and conditions of men,
well befits its claim of divine origin. She is of all nations, and
of all times, that wonderful Church of Rome!
Tiberias is one of the four holy cities, {27} according to the
Talmud, and it is from this place, or the immediate neighbourhood
of it, that the Messiah is to arise.
Except at Jerusalem, never think of attempting to sleep in a "holy
city." Old Jews from all parts of the world go to lay their bones
upon the sacred soil, and as these people never return to their
homes, it follows that any domestic vermin which they may bring
with them are likely to become permanently resident, so that the
population is continually increasing. No recent census had been
taken when I was at Tiberias, but I know that the congregation of
fleas which attended at my church alone must have been something
enormous. It was a carnal, self-seeking congregation, wholly
inattentive to the service which was going on, and devoted to the
one object of having my blood. The fleas of all nations were
there. The smug, steady, importunate flea from Holywell Street;
the pert, jumping puce from hungry France, the wary, watchful pulce
with his poisoned stiletto; the vengeful pulga of Castile with his
ugly knife; the German floh with his knife and fork, insatiate, not
rising from table; whole swarms from all the Russias, and Asiatic
hordes unnumbered - all these were there, and all rejoiced in one
great international feast. I could no more defend myself against
my enemies than if I had been pain a discretion in the hands of a
French patriot, or English gold in the claws of a Pennsylvanian
Quaker. After passing a night like this you are glad to pick up
the wretched remains of your body long, long before morning dawns.
Your skin is scorched, your temples throb, your lips feel withered
and dried, your burning eyeballs are screwed inwards against the
brain. You have no hope but only in the saddle and the freshness
of the morning air.
CHAPTER XII - MY FIRST BIVOUAC
The course of the Jordan is from the north to the south, and in
that direction, with very little of devious winding, it carries the
shining waters of Galilee straight down into the solitudes of the
Dead Sea. Speaking roughly, the river in that meridian is a
boundary between the people living under roofs and the tented
tribes that wander on the farther side. And so, as I went down in
my way from Tiberias towards Jerusalem, along the western bank of
the stream, my thinking all propended to the ancient world of
herdsmen and warriors that lay so close over my bridle arm.
If a man, and an Englishman, be not born of his mother with a
natural Chiffney-bit in his mouth, there comes to him a time for
loathing the wearisome ways of society; a time for not liking tamed
people; a time for not dancing quadrilles, not sitting in pews; a
time for pretending that Milton and Shelley, and all sorts of mere
dead people, were greater in death than the first living Lord of
the Treasury; a time, in short, for scoffing and railing, for
speaking lightly of the very opera, and all our most cherished
institutions. It is from nineteen to two or three and twenty
perhaps that this war of the man against men is like to be waged
most sullenly. You are yet in this smiling England, but you find
yourself wending away to the dark sides of her mountains, climbing
the dizzy crags, exulting in the fellowship of mists and clouds,
and watching the storms how they gather, or proving the mettle of
your mare upon the broad and dreary downs, because that you feel
congenially with the yet unparcelled earth. A little while you are
free and unlabelled, like the ground that you compass; but
civilisation is coming and coming; you and your much-loved waste
lands will be surely enclosed, and sooner or later brought down to
a state of mere usefulness; the ground will be curiously sliced
into acres and roods and perches, and you, for all you sit so
smartly in your saddle, you will be caught, you will be taken up
from travel as a colt from grass, to be trained and tried, and
matched and run. All this in time, but first came Continental
tours and the moody longing for Eastern travel. The downs and the
moors of England can hold you no longer; with large strides you
burst away from these slips and patches of free land; you thread
your path through the crowds of Europe, and at last, on the banks
of Jordan, you joyfully know that you are upon the very frontier of
all accustomed respectabilities. There, on the other side of the
river (you can swim it with one arm), there reigns the people that
will be like to put you to death for NOT being a vagrant, for NOT
being a robber, for NOT being armed and houseless.
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