we got our first sight of the Holy City, that I was now carrying away with me as clear and definite a conception of Jerusalem and the country round it, as of almost any one of the most familiar scenes of my native land. Friday, the 1st of May, was intensely hot. The sciroco, whose burning breath we had experienced for several preceding days, was still in full force. We had intended setting off in the course of the day, but the state of the atmosphere was such as to reconcile us to the delay, which the usual dilatoriness of Orientals had rendered inevitable. Instead of having his horses all in readiness early in the forenoon, as had been agreed upon, Ahmed, our chief mukhari, met us with a long list of excuses. Some of the horses were at Bethany and some at Bethlehem, and they could not be all got in till the evening. In short, there was nothing for it but to postpone our journey till next day. But bent as we were on spending the approaching Sabbath at Nablouse, where we could have such memorable places to preach to us as Gerizim and Ebal, Joseph's Tomb and Jacob's Well, it was very desirable that we should be on the march on the Saturday long before break of day. The distance from Jerusalem is upwards of forty miles a long and laborious journey to make in Palestine in a single day. Engagements of a merely verbal kind are not much worth in Syria. The traveller who wishes to have the bargain made with him kept, must be at pains to see it all written out, signed and sealed, before he starts. For this purpose a meeting with our friend Ahmed, a tall and rather lanky Syrian, was held in presence of the British consul. To mount our party, consisting of three ladies, four gentlemen, and our Italian servant, Gaetano, we required of course eight horses. In addition to these, four others were necessary to carry our tent equipage and general baggage. For these twelve animals, our agreement bound us to pay at the rate of 33s. 4d. a-day. They were to be all in attendance at Max's an hour after midnight, and ready for the road. Half the hire of the beasts for the whole journey A MEETING IN THE DARK. 303 The was paid down on the spot before leaving the consul's office. other half the contract bound us to pay at the end of our journey in the event of our being satisfied that Ahmed had fulfilled his part of the engagement. This important business being duly settled, the rest of the day was devoted partly to a general survey of the city, and partly to those visits to the Jews' place of wailing and to their synagogues, which, for the sake of keeping things of the same class together, have, somewhat out of their proper chronological order, been already described. In view of the early march that was before us on the following morning, I had gone to bed about ten o'clock, and was just dropping asleep, when a sharp voice at the open window of my bedroom called my name. On the instant I recognized it as that of an old friend, Mr. Graham, of Fereneze, who had for some years been resident in and about Jerusalem. He had happened, a few days before our arrival in the Holy City, to have gone down with Dr. Porter, of Damascus, to explore Philistia, from which he had just returned. Hearing of our intended departure, he had hastened down to our hotel to endeavour to induce me to prolong my stay in Jerusalem. "Is it you, Graham?" I said; "pray sit down, my dear fellow, where you are, and let us have a chat, for I am really too tired to get up. A chat, and a long one, we had accordingly, in this sort of Pyramus and Thisbe style. Having at length finished our colloquy, and neither having seen the other, we said our adieus— Talia diversâ nequicquam sede locuti Sub noctem dixêre-Vale: partique dedêre It is hardly fair, indeed, to apply the expression "in vain" to this interview, purely vocal though it was. It was the means of procuring for me the use of a first-rate English saddle for my approaching journey-a boon, the full value of which can be fully understood only by those who have bestrode for a few weeks the Syrian article which bears the same name. Old and early familiarity with horseback, had led me too hastily to conclude that the saddle of the country, be it what it might, would suit me well enough. The experience of the few preceding days had somewhat modified my opinion on that subject; and I was therefore only too glad to avail myself of my friend's obliging offer, which insured me of reaching Tripoli not only much less fatigued than otherwise I should have been, but also with a whole skin. On getting up some hours afterwards, I found the promised saddle lying at my bedroom door. As had been previously arranged, our party were all busily engaged at the breakfast-table by one o'clock A.M., laying in, upon Sir Dugald Dalgetty's far-sighted campaigning principle, not only such ordinary, but such extra provision as the exigencies of a long day's march might perchance require. But alas! for the virtuous effort we had made in getting out of bed at so unnatural an hour. It turned out that our excellent friend, Mr. Grant Brown, whose Arabic tongue was the open sesame on which we relied to pick every lock that might happen to bar our way on passing through the land, had unluckily forgotten to procure the written order from the governor of the city, without which no traveller can leave it till the gates are opened at break of day. There was no help for it now. To stretch ourselves out on the divans of the public room, and to try to catch a little more sleep, was the only practicable resource Come what come may, time and the hour Wear through the longest day, The dawn began at length and through the longest night too. to trace the outlines of Olivet against the verge of the eastern sky; the stars grew pale, and sank insensibly into the increasing flood of light; the singularly harsh and unmusical reveillè, like kettle and tongs, of the Turkish garrison, sounded over the city; and we were again all astir. But eager as we were to be off, Ahmed and his two followers, Halil and Hassan-the one a bandy-legged, sturdy, thickset, resolute-looking fellow, the other a big, soft, witless-like creature, evidently the slave or Gibeonite of the two seniors-were in no haste at all. They were in attendance, it is true; but not a single sumpter mule was yet laden, nor a single steed saddled. In such a country and in dealing with such a people, there would seem to be only two possible results that must, one or other, in the long-run arise that one must either go mad, or grow as apathetic and off-putting as themselves. After an intolerable three-quarters of an hour spent in urging, scolding, threatening, coaxing, helping, hindering, the tumult at length ceased, the cavalcade was extended in line far up the narrow dirty lane outside of the hotel, and we began to move. Defiling slowly along the dingy street of the bazaars, scrambling up the sharp staircase-like ascent that scales the townward face of Zion, and which resembles not a little one of those precipitous closes that rib the sides of the old town of Edinburgh; passing next through the market-place that opens out to some width beneath the old gray, solid, rocklike tower of Hippicus, we at length reached the Jaffa gate, where we bade farewell to a city whose very dust and rubbish can never fail to be dear to every Christian heart. Even of the literal Jerusalem, one feels under the inspiration of its many touching and awful memories, as if it were hardly an exaggeration to say "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth: if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy." When we had got fairly out into the open, we called a halt, till the straggling rear should close up, and to satisfy ourselves that our muster was complete. Ahmed having been summoned to the front, cantered up on his clever little donkey-his long legs sweeping the ground-and having received his orders to take the lead and show the way, we, at last, fairly began our march. Crossing diagonally the broad plateau that stretches out on the north-west side of the city, and passing the valley of the Kedron near its upper extremity, where it is little more than a gentle hollow, we fell into what is called the Damascus road, which led us right through the camping ground of Titus, and over that famous hill of Scopus, so well known as that from which he first surveyed the devoted city. From the brow of this historic height it was that we took our parting view of Jerusalem. As seen from this point the city has less of that fortress-like appearance which it presents when surveyed from the Mount of Olives, or from the bed of the valley of the Lower Kedron. The deep chasms with which, on these two sides, nature has so formidably entrenched it, and the rocky precipices from whose summits it there looks so proudly down, give, even now, to its eastern and southern aspects, the unequivocal look and character of a place of strength. At the same time there is no side on which it could have shown to greater advantage, considered as a royal city and as the capital of a kingdom, than from that of the north. From Scopus, all the way across the broad expanse that spreads out from its base, the sight that met the eye of old was one rich and continuous prospect of groves and gardens, interspersed with the semi-rural residences and suburban villas of the wealthier citizens. Beyond these lay the lower city of Bezetha, and over it first Akra and then Zion would be seen, rising the one above the other, crowned with their stately towers and royal palaces; while to the left of Akra, upon the rocky ridge of Moriah, the temple, gleaming with burnished gold, would attract every eye as it flashed gloriously in the sun. How the heart of the devout and patriotic Israelite, coming up to worship from his distant home at the foot of Hermon or by the Sea of Tiberias, must have throbbed with deep emotion when this magnificent spectacle-the pride of his country, and, in his eyes, the joy of the whole earthburst upon his sight! With what fond enthusiasm would he pause on this hill of Scopus to point out to his children, coming up for the first time with him to the feast, the various hallowed scenes and objects that had here suddenly opened upon their view! We could not but linger on such a spot, sadly changed |