THE HOLY LAND. CHAPTER I. Off Jaffa. PLASH goes the anchor! "Port?" cries a voice from the berth under mine in the smart ship Il Vapore, an Austrian boat, with a Ragusan captain, a Smyrniote crew, and an Italian name. In less than a pulse of time, a head is butting against the pane of glass which serves to let in light and keep out drench. Yes: port. The light of dawn is opening on a long dark line of hills, standing back about eighteen miles from the shore; the stars are filming out of sight; the sky is paling to a thin blue; and a grey sea goes lapping and parting round the keel with a sullen sough, except in our front, towards the land, where it appears to rise and cream over a rugged wall of rocks. High above the rugged rocks and whitening surge stands a cone of houses a town, having a low-lying beach, dark walls, and on either side of these walls a clump of wood. It is the Holy Land on which we gaze: the country of Jacob and David, of Rachel and Ruth; the scene of our sweetest fancies, of our childish The Holy Land. I. 1 prayers, and of our household psalms. Among yon hills the prophets of Israel taught and the Saviour of all men lived and died; that stony hillock of a town is the Joppa to which Hiram sent the cedar wood; this roadstead is the port from which Jonah sailed on his tempestuous voyage; down by the shore to the south hides the flat roof on which it is said that Peter slept. The stretch of sand, with its dunes and crests blown over from the Nile, tricked here and there by a palm, a figtree, a pomegranate, is the fore-part of that plain of Sharon on which all the roses of imagination bloom and shed their scent. Yon towering chain of earth --- dark, swelling, ridgelike flushing into pink and amber, growing out into your grasp as you stand peering towards it, that mountain home of Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim, which boasts of having Hebron, Zion, Bethel, and Gerizim for its most eminent and most holy peaks. is Priests, soldiers, laymen, pilgrims are astir in the saloon; in the dim nooks of which a Turkish effendi is kneeling at his prayers, a Moldavian papa is making love to a fair sinner, a French author appears to be copying facts from a guidebook into his own, and a Saxon seems bent on filching a pint of fresh water for his difficult morning bath. Young men who have no time to wash-having to land in less than five hours are twisting cigarettes for the day. Young women are wisping up those hoops of steel which are soon to become a burden in the saddle, if not a danger in the fierce Syrian sun. Nearly all our guests of the cabin are roaring for their boots, their coats, their coffee, their pipes; but they are roaring to no end, for the steward of Il Vapore is asleep. Our steward is a genuine Oriental in a place of trust. Oil is not softer, air not more buoyant, than his spirits. No noise disturbs him; no sarcasm stings him; no shout, no threat ever ruffles the calm goodnature of his smiling face. For one who smokes in bed and breaks his fast on pickles, he has a roundness in his cheek, a music in his laugh, which tell you he belongs to that happy band of men whose dreams agree with them. Ring and rave as you list, this easy man, snug in his sheets, will not only forgive the noise you make, but take no eager and unkindly notice of your passion of tongue and feet. Why should he? Does he not send you a cup of tea at seven; serve up a meal of sardines, pickles, and uncooked swine at eight; indulge you with a refresher of rusk and cheese, and a dash of cognac in your drink about the hour of noon; provide a table of twelve good dishes and one poor wine (some old Pomard in the bin as an extra fare) at four; make tea for you at eight; produce a kettle, a lemon, and a familiar spirit about nine; amuse you with chess and books, and put out your lamp at ten? What more would you have? Such is your bill of the feast. Nothing can be added, nothing can be changed, unless (a word in your ear, Eccellenza) you would like to arrange with him for some acts of friendship by a private tip. A steward who does his duty from seven in the morning until ten at night should not be disturbed in his dreams, except by the chink of zwanzigers and francs. You pay ten pounds at an office: for which sum of money you are lodged and fed while being carried in the steamer from port to port. It is cheap; being less than the cost of bed and board on land; but when you have paid ten pounds to Il Vapore's. owners, their steward is still your lord. Pay ten francs more in the shape of vails, and he becomes your slave. Is it not worth the price? For tenpence a day, dropt deftly into the proper palm, you may buy this ship and all its uses. One small coin makes you lord of everything on board; of the pantry, the kitchen, and the cellar; of the cherry sticks, the jebilé, and the easy chairs; of the books, the piano, the chess-board, and the ship charts; of the telescope, the soda-water, and the freshly-frozen snow. Pay down that fee, and you shall dine in the highest seat, go ashore in the captain's gig, enjoy the first peep at journals, sleep in the best berth, and when the company is scant have a cabin to yourself. The sun, coming up over the ridge of Ephraim, is gilding and purpling the mountain range from Ramah to Carmel. Solomon must have seen this chain of heights in some such morning glow, when, in his Arab delight in colour, he exclaimed to his darling Shulamite: Thine head upon thee is like Carmel, Moving through the crowd of Arab sheikhs, Frank pilgrims, Nilotic slaves, Greek traders, and Armenian priests this motley of all creeds and nations, which adorns and cumbers the quarterdeck two figures seem to stand from the rank as types of East and West. The first is a fat young fellow, dressed in a white turban, a yellow cloak, and a scarlet band; the second is an aged lady, in a black gown without hoop, and a dark straw hat. Hassan (if his name be Hassan), a Cairene trader, suddenly puffed out with cotton, finding himself rich in paras and high in flesh, has been to Galata, where rosy cheeks and brilliant eyes may still be bought by true believers from the Italian merchants; and in that suburb of the splendid city, he has purchased comfort for his age in the shape of four plump wives. The rewards of virtue and a good crop are penned amidships, in a cabin of four berths, under lock and key, while Hassan reclines on his bit of red carpet at their prison door. Night and day he there holds watch and ward. To be sure that none of the crew shall see his hareem, he waits on them himself; like a slave he fetches them bread and fruit; prepares and lights their pipes; fills and removes the water jars; and, after his long and earnest evening prayer, lies down on his mat across the opening of their berths. It is pleasant to watch the white turban bobbing in among its beauties, and on the sound of a Frank footfall, to see its pursy little owner slamming the door and twisting the hasp on his gazelles. This happy man has paid for a berth of his own, opening on that state-room in which lemons and hotwater are produced about the time of rest: but the lightness of his charge sits heavy on his soul; and when night comes down upon him, and sleep ought to close his lids, he has to mount guard over his fair |