CHAPTER III.

OVER THE PLAIN OF SHARON.-THE THIRD DAY.

AT THE GATE OF JOPPA, Wednesday, March 17th, 1 P.M.

I SAW a wedding ceremony this morning; a bride taken home to her husband. First came the happy fellow with a lot of his friends, walking two and two. Then came his spouse under a sort of tent held over her by other women. You couldn't see the bride at all. On each side of the tent was a man with a drawn sword. Then a row of women-filthy, haggard creatures, dressed "in unwomanly rags" of blue cotton. A great many musical instruments were in the crowd, and all played together. There was no tune. The noise was dreadful.

I bought a narghileh this morning, to send home to a friend who smokes. It is the water-pipe of the Orientals. There is first a large glass decanter. Then a long brass tube that reaches nearly to the bottom of the decanter and fits tight in its mouth. The tobacco is first moistened with water, then placed in an earthen bowl at the top of this tube and a coal of fire laid on it. The decanter is filled with water, and a long snaky stem fitted in the side of the tube. So the smoke goes down through the brass tube, through the cold water and through the stem to the lips. The stem of my pipe is eight feet long. The narghileh, pipe and all, cost three dollars, but you have to use their kind of tobacco to smoke in it, and it is very different from ours. No more like American tobacco than cabbage leaves.

We are through now at Joppa, and ready to cross the sweet plain of Sharon, of which we have talked ever since we left home. Governor Noureddin is going to ride a few miles with us. Such a beautiful horse as he has got. I asked him the cost. He said about twenty thousand piastres. That is about seven hundred and fifty dollars. What a ridiculous sort of money it is that makes such big figures in counting a small sum. There are no bushes on the plain of Sharon any more than on the Iowa prairies. You can gallop your horse here as much as you want to.

I have just had a good laugh over a caravan of horses brought to this place that travelers may see them. They are of all colors, nations and tongues. White, brown, bay, gray and black; one-eyed, sore-eyed, no-eyed; halt and lame; some of them wheezy with asthma; some of them snap at everything that goes by, like dogs with hydrophobia; but generally they are tame enough. These pilgrims don't seem to know one horse from another.

And here is a lot of natives just in from the country, wanting to hire out. Such dresses! They don't seem to care how naked they go, so they keep their heads covered. Such big, dirty bundles of turbans.

I saw a lot of them cooking. First they kindled a wood fire on the ground. When the ground is hot enough, they scoop away the ashes and dirt six or eight inches deep, and make a hole two feet square. The dough is fitted into that as a cook fits her pie-crust into the plate. Then the coals are raked over the whole and presently the bread is baked. A pot of rice was boiled into which melted butter was poured. All being ready, they used pieces of bread for spoons, and scooped the rice out. The bread looked like a very smutty blacksmith's apron, and nearly as tough. Lots of coal and ashes stick to it, but the people don't care. May be 'tis all the healthier for that. They ate the rice scalding hot. Such mouthfuls! Our Newfoundland dog at home never gobbled such mouthfuls as they do. As soon as they got through eating they went to sleep. I asked one of them if he knew the name of the Sultan of Turkey. He said Lar, lar. That means No, no. I asked him if he didn't want to know, and he said Backsheesh.

We got our telegram from New York this morning, and a rich treat it was. It made us all happy. How wonderful, that we could send a message home and get an answer back within twenty-four hours! It is dated one hour earlier than the one we sent! This is for the reason that nine o'clock yesterday morning, at Joppa, was only one o'clock in the morning in New York. They got our telegram in about six hours; that made it seven o'clock in the morning in New York, and he started his answer back at eight.

As there is a telegraph-office now at Jerusalem, it is no exaggeration to say that if our Lord Jesus should appear in that city to-morrow, as he did there nineteen hundred centuries ago, the whole Christian world would hear of it before the day is out—as it is connected by telegraph-wires.

I have just made me a cross in imitation of the one on which our Saviour suffered, at Golgotha, thirty miles from here. As I am wearing a cockle-shell on my hat, emblematic of pilgrimage, I suspend the cross upon my breast to denote that I fight under the banners of Prince Emmanuel. It is composed of four kinds of wood glued together. The bottom piece, or socket, is cedar of Lebanon; the upright post, cypress; the cross-beam, palm; the tablet, on which the inscription was nailed, olive. The native Christians in this country believe that the cross on which Jesus suffered was composed of these four kinds of wood arranged in that order, and such was the Christian belief as early as the day of Chrysostom (A. D. 397.) They used this Latin verse to express the idea:

Quatuor ex lignis Domini crux dicitur esse ;

Pes crucis est cedrus; corpus tenet alta cupressus :
Palma manus retinet; titula lætatur oliva.

They also taught, from traditions, that this cross was eight cubits high; the beam three and a half cubits long; the olive tablet one cubit long. A cubit, according to this reckoning, is eighteen inches.

And now we start up to Jerusalem, the common centre to which Christians come from all parts of the earth, partly to behold the accomplishment of prophecy in the conquest and destruction of that city, and partly to pay their adoration at the sacred places. We are going right eastward. According to the Jewish notion, this is forwards; or, as we Americans say, right ahead. I was reminded of this by an Arab who was lying by the roadside, his hand shading his face, watching us keenly with one bright eye open. A asked him the way to Ramleh. He answered, as they always do, Doagry; that is Right ahead." This is the sort of indefiniteness and want of precision interwoven with the very genius of Eastern character and language. The fellow would have said the same thing if we had been going directly the other way.

66

ABRAHAM'S FOUNTAIN, 2 P. M.

We came out here this morning through the beautiful and excellent gardens of Joppa, with their abundant supply of fruit, and are waiting here for some of our lagging servants.

Noureddin Effendi, Governor of Joppa, rode out several miles with us, and at parting, said Salaam aleik, with that peculiar grace native to a Turkish gentleman. He is a good and a friendly man. He rides a splendid Arab horse, the finest I ever saw. When he observed how much I admired the horse, he informed me that there is a strain of horses in possession of the great Sheikhs of the desert,

of which a written genealogy has been preserved for two thousand years. It is called Kockland, and the race is believed to have sprung from the celebrated horse of Solomon, of which so many extravagant stories are credited by the Orientals. But everything extraordinary in this country is attributed in some way to King Solomon, or, as they call him, Melek Suleyman. The most celebrated horses of this country, the Khamseen stock, are descended from the five mares of Mohammed. The word kamsa, means five; wahid, ithnine, thalathah, arbah, khamsah-one, two, three, four, five.

This old Arabesque fountain, with its reservoir, is called "Abraham's Fountain," or, as they speak the name here, Ibraheem. It has no inscription on it now visible. I was in hopes to find one; for I have read of an Arabic fountain over which are these beautiful thoughts: "Many like me have viewed this fount. But they are gone. And their eyes are forever closed." I believe it is not known who was the builder of this structure. There is a Nahr Ibraheem, or River Abraham, twenty miles north of Beyrout, and there may be a connection between the two names. But Saladin was the great builder of khans and fountains in the middle ages.

We dedicate this fountain to the Rev. John Wheeler, D.D., of Mount Pleasant, Iowa. May the good man live to pour out many a refreshing draught for the comfort of generations yet to come.

A fine grove of olive-trees, close by, has attracted my attention. The olive looks very much like the old apple-trees of our country, and I couldn't help feeling around in the hollow places of these trees for blue-bird's eggs, just as I used to among the apple-trees when I was a boy. The foliage of the olive-tree, with its dull grayish hue, scarcely deserves the name of verdure. The leaf is about the size and shape of the willow leaf. They say that some of these old trees will produce a hundred gallons of olive oil year by year. The older the tree the more productive. The trunk is always hollow, and the limbs of the older trees are hollow. The natives fill the old trees full of stones, packed closely together, to keep them from falling, and build stone walls to hold up the limbs. One of these trees, under which I am sitting, has three stone walls holding up its principal branches. The fruit of the olive ripens in the month of June; it is

a berry about as large as a wild plum.

AT ABRAHAM'S FOUNTAIN, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 2 P. M.

We have stopped here for half an hour to wait for some of our baggage.

All the way from Joppa, we have seen native picnic parties enjoying themselves at short distances from the road. They get far enough from the highway that the women can remove their veils without being seen by strangers. From their screams of laughter and the tossing of their arms, they appear the gayest of the gay. Their bearded, phlegmatic old Mormon of a husband reclines nonchalantly, smoking his narghileh in the centre of the merry group. What a beastly thing is polygamy! These natives seem particularly to admire trees, flowers, fine horses and young children; but even the better sort appear to have no refined delights and but few pleasures, save those common to the lowest classes.

Oh, what it must have cost the Jews to part from these homes of their ancestors, when Jehovah brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who carried away to Babylon "them that had escaped the sword!" (2 Chron. xxxvi.) And again, when Titus once more destroyed the cities of their land, and removed the few whom the wars had spared to distant colonies. To part from the homes they had created and beautified, who can tell what it cost them in tears and sighings? How powerfully Jeremiah has depicted their feelings! The lovely plain of Sharon is dotted with villages. Acacias are abundant there. The light wind bows the heads of the green barley fields, like a lake with clouds drifting over it! When the wind lulls the heat is oppressive.

Solomon, alluding to the matchless pastures, said: "Go thy way forth to the footsteps of the flock and feed thy flock beside the shepherds' tents." But I might note a hundred such expressions of Bible readings. None, however, affects my mind so much as the words of Jesus, referring, perhaps, to the very flower I have just plucked at the Fountain of Abraham: "Consider the lilies how they grow! I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these!" How these simple, happy illustrations of Christ cling to the memory like ivy to the wall! The name of Abraham is very common here, for they look upon Abraham as the father of their nation, and call him el-Khaleel, the Faithful. We have no account that Abraham, the patriarch, ever visited this portion of Canaan.

The Fountain of Abraham is a large square structure of limestone and marble. A stone trough before it lies by the side of a delightful open chamber. Immense sycamore trees shade its foot. Two roads meet, and the trampled appearance of the earth proves how much the place is frequented.