CHAPTER I THE LIGHTER SIDE OF THINGS

One easily forgets, among the many sorrows of the Holy Land, that there is any lighter side to the picture there. Yet such a side there is, and always has been. Nature is not always severe, nor the spirit of man melancholy, in the East. Both nature and man are sometimes found in lighter vein here as elsewhere. Stevenson’s most charming good word for the world he always defended so gallantly, is specially applicable to the Syrian part of it.—“It is a shaggy world, and yet studded with gardens; where the salt and tumbling sea receives rivers running from among reeds and lilies.” Syria has always known the value of her gardens, and felt the sweet enchantment of her reeds and lilies. Was not her first story told of a garden where four such rivers flowed, and her noblest sermon that whose text was “the lilies of the field” and “the birds of the air”? What pleasantness of open nature there is in these two latter expressions! What sense of field-breadth and sky-space, in which the Preacher had room for breathing and for delight! Every Israelite, sitting under his vine and fig tree, or going forth to meditate in the fields at evening, knew this charm. From of old the inhabitants have taken delight in exchanging roofs for bowers in their fields and gardens, or for booths, built with green branches on their{178} house-roofs. Many a sweet vista is seen in Palestine framed in trellised vines or in passion-flower swinging over a roofed fountain or a garden house. The mountains were often bare and unhomely, for at no time can any but a minor part of them have been cultivated; yet even the wind-swept heights were inhabited by health and hope and gladness, and when a shepherd passed by, or the reapers shouted in the harvest-fields, the heart of the men of Israel sang aloud. In the words of the 65th Psalm this exhilaration and childlike glee finds its most perfect expression; we quote them in that old Scottish rhymed version which has so singularly caught their spirit:—
They drop upon the pastures wide,
That do in deserts lie;
The little hills on ev’ry side
Rejoice right pleasantly.
With flocks the pastures clothed be,
The vales with corn are clad;
And now they shout and sing to thee,
For thou hast made them glad.

Similarly the Jordan, usually thought of with a certain gloom, and rendered still more dismal by its persistent allegorical association with death, is by no means so melancholy as it is supposed to be. Its rise, indeed, was from a black cave, where ancient pagan worship erected its shrines, seeing life issue there from the abyss of death. Its course leads it far down, like the dark stream of classic fable, below the surface of the earth and ocean. Yet there is no sense of all that{179} as one looks at it from any point in its course. The trees of Syria are generally disappointing. For the most part solitary, or undersized where there is a wood, many of them are decaying, and most of them are dull in colour. But the vegetation of the Jordan is a bright exception. Even at its lowest point, when it is hurrying over the last miles to the Dead Sea, it flows through that rich boscage known as the “Swellings” or the “Pride” of Jordan, where pilgrims cut their staves. It is to this part of its course that the words in Tancred apply most exactly, “The beauty and abundance of the Promised Land may still be found ... ever by the rushing waters of the bowery Jordan.” Warburton, describing the same scene in early morning, speaks of the awakening of birds and beasts there, and then the sunrise, adding, “I lingered long upon that mountain’s brow, and thought that, so far from deserving all the dismal epithets that had been bestowed upon it, I had not seen so cheerful or attractive a scene in Palestine.”

The scents of the East add to the delightfulness of Nature on her pleasant side. There are plenty of abominable smells there, but these are in the towns and villages. The open country is continually surprising and refreshing its travellers with new perfume. That this is fully appreciated by the natives, no reader of the Bible can forget. There we have the scent of spices and of wine; of the field, of water, and of Lebanon; of budding vines, mandrakes, apples; of ointment, of incense, and of raiment. In such references we see the East inhaling the fragrance of the land with an almost{180} passionate delight. It is all there still. The scent of the desert after rain has been already referred to, but the same aromatic perfume may be enjoyed by climbing the hills above Beyrout, where every ground-plant seems to breathe forth spices. Again, there are the blossoming trees, the heavy perfume of orange-flower, and the simple fragrance of roses. Best of all, there is the clean smell of ripe grain in the cornfields, and the fresh, briny exhilaration of breezes from the sea.

Such is the lighter side of Nature; and man is not by any means so far out of touch with it as is often supposed. The severity of material conditions and of historical experience has not been able quite to suppress man’s gaiety. It is well that this has been so, for here certainly the words of the Scots song are true enough: “Werena my heart licht, I wad dee.” With so much of the darker powers of the universe pressing hard upon them, one trembles to imagine what the spirit of Syria would have been without those inexhaustible stores of gaiety that break forth sometimes like her great river from the very darkness of the abyss. Her laughter is not that of progressive lands looking to the future in the great joy of an intelligent hope. It is rather a part of her inalienable childhood, whose fresh sweetness and virginity have somehow been permitted to remain through all her sorrows. Renan describes the heroes of the Bible as “always young, healthy, and strong, scarcely at all superstitious, passionate, simple, and grand.” There is still some inheritance of such life, perpetually young and even childish, in the Holy Land.{181}

The first appearance of an Eastern is grave and solemn, with an element of contempt in it rather trying to the would-be jester or too familiar stranger. But this is not wholly due to any weight of gloom pressing on his heart. It has, with singular ingenuity, been traced to quite minor and apparently insignificant causes, such as the wearing of flowing robes by the men and the burden-bearing of the women. There can be no doubt that both clothes and burdens exercise a powerful influence on character; and it may well be the case that the management of their garment has taught dignity to the men, while the carrying of heavy waterpots has helped to make the women graceful and erect. There is also the instinct of self-defence, and the constant remembrance of danger. Every Eastern, however prosperous, impresses one with the idea that his table is spread for him in the presence of his enemies. This leads him—especially if he be an Arab—to assume a show of superiority and a bullying swagger, which seem to the uninitiated quite impervious to any thought of fun. But the mask is easily laid aside, and the gravest and most contemptuous Syrian will suddenly collapse into harsh laughter or forget himself in childish interest.

It would be wonderful if it were otherwise. The East is full of provocatives to mirth—not merely such as seem ridiculous to a stranger because they are foreign, but things grotesque in themselves. Take the one instance of the camel. Much has been written about him from many points of view, but justice has never{182} yet been done to the camel as a humorous person. Yet he is the most humorous of all the inhabitants of the East. Beside him, with his sardonic pleasantry, the monkey is a mountebank and the donkey but a solemn little ass. He has been described as “the tall, simple, smiling camel”; but on closer acquaintance he turns out to be hardly so simple as he might be taken for, and if he smiles, he is generally smiling at you. The camels you meet in Syria are carrying barley with the air of kings, and regarding their human companions with, at best, a sentiment of contemptuous tolerance. The lower lip of a camel is one of the most expressive features in the whole repertoire of natural history. The humours of this animal reached for us their climax at Sheikh Miskin, while we were waiting for the Damascus train. A camel had been persuaded to kneel in order to receive its load of long poles brought by the railway. It was roaring steadily, in a fiendish and yet conscientious manner. Ten men were loading it, of whom one stood upon its near fore-leg, two fastened the poles upon its back, and the remaining seven looked on and made remarks. The beast waited until the poles were all but fixed—ten of them or so. Then it indulged in a shake, which sent them rolling in all directions. Finally it was loaded, with two of the sticks on one side and one on the other, their ends projecting far out behind and in front. It rose, nearly ruining a well-dressed Arab who had somehow got in among it. Just then the train arrived and the camel fled incontinently, sidewise like a crab, spreading the{183} fear of death in man and beast for many yards around, and dragging a terrified driver, who hung on to its head-rope, across towards the distant east. A loaded camel behaving in this fashion is a deadlier weapon than a loaded gun.

Now the native wit always appeared to us to have modelled itself on camel drollery of this sort. It is generally personal, and its essential function is to hit somebody. It lacks freshness, and has a certain suggestion of a clown with “crow’s feet” under his eyes. Sometimes indeed a Syrian indulges in jokes at his own expense, but more frequently his facetiousness is at the expense of others, and it is tolerably direct. The habit of nicknames lends itself to Oriental wit, the lean man being described familiarly as “Father of Bones,” and the stout man as “Full Moon of Religion.” Passing through a village some distance off the usual route of travellers, we were surrounded with villagers who asked the dragoman why we had come. “To take away your country!” was the answer, and it was met with peals of laughter. Another witticism which was immensely appreciated was the remark to some farmers who were suffering from drought that we in England had stolen their rain and it had made many people sick there. A boatman on the Sea of Galilee was being chaffed unmercifully upon the fact that he had once tried to commit suicide. He appealed, smiling, to one of the passengers as “My Father,” and pled that he had been mad when he did that. A fellow-boatman rebuked him for calling the{184} gentleman “father of a lunatic,” and the whole crew was dissolved in laughter, the victim himself heartily joining in the chorus. In Damascus we found a time-worn Joe Miller in the shout of the nosegay-seller—a very musical cry, which the guide-book translates “Appease your mother-in-law,” i.e. by presenting her with a bouquet.

From of old pleasure has been apt to degenerate in the luxurious East, and the fun of Syrians shows abundant traces of such degeneration. Many unpleasant elements mingle with it. One of the recognised forces in Eastern life is humbug—barefaced bluff and transparent pretence, which is apparently seen through and yet retains its potency. The lengths to which this method may go are almost incredible, and cases are on record of interpreters who have volubly translated a long English address and afterwards confessed that they did not know a word of the English language. At times, also, high spirits leads to savagery. The men who were in charge of our animals were kind and even affectionate to them, but their moods changed unaccountably. Your donkey-driver, trotting behind his donkey, will sometimes encourage it with yelling which would fill any animal less philosophical with the fear of instant extermination, and he jocularly throws rocks at it until you stop him. Worst of all, the Syrian humour constantly tends towards indecency of the most bestial type. The song with which a musical donkey-boy relieves the monotony of the journey is sometimes quite untranslatable. The “body-dances,” which form the staple{185}

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THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, FROM A HOUSE-TOP ON MOUNT ZION.

entertainment provided by wandering Arabs, are often pantomimic, and their crude realism is unspeakably disgusting.

Yet there is a very innocent and cheerful vein in the human nature of Syria. At times it is irrelevant and trying. The camp guards, e.g. who are hired from the nearest village to watch the sleeping tents, are apt to beguile the hours of darkness in a manner hardly conducive to repose. In most of our camps they were silent figures, flitting about in an almost ghostly fashion, with perfectly noiseless footsteps. But MacGregor complains of having had to pay his Egyptian guards “for sleeping very loud to keep away the robbers.” Our difficulties were not exactly the same as his, but in some places the guards kept singing as they paced to and fro, and shouted cheerily to one another along the whole length of the encampment, or whistled incessantly, and occasionally fired guns to prove their vigilance. There is a sense of spontaneity and heartiness about the mirth of the East which throws into strong contrast its subtler and more gloomy characteristics. Irresponsible and gay, Syrians seem to be grown-up children, and they retain the ways of childhood. We rarely saw children playing games, but bands of full-grown men were seen at times playing schoolboys’ field games with much shouting. Everybody in the cities appears to be either selling or eating sweetmeats. Sport is rare, but men go forth with guns to shoot little birds like sparrows. One of the most curious sights of Damascus is that of shopkeepers and artisans{186} who go about the streets followed by pet lambs instead of dogs, the wool of these strange little creatures being dyed in brilliant spots of blue or pink.

The kindliness of the East is as genuine and as pleasing as that of any land in the West. It is not in evidence indeed when there is nothing to call it forth. As you pass through the country, the villagers and townsfolk regard you with indifference if not with scorn. But one must remember the universal acting of the East—its devotion to appearances, and its very curious ideas as to which appearances are most becoming. With that in mind, the indifference and the scorn become less alarming. You may find the whole spirit of the situation suddenly change to one of the kindliest. A traveller who has fallen victim to one of the malarial fevers which are so common in Syria at certain periods, will never forget the tenderness with which his camp-servants come about his tent inquiring, “Ente mabsut?” (Are you happy, or well?). When he returns the inquiry the answer is, “Ente mabsut, ana mabsut” (If you are happy, I am happy). At Sidon we had just arrived and had the tents pitched in the open space next the burying-ground. It was Thursday, and the graves were crowded with visitors—Mohammedan women in black, white, or light-coloured robes. They did not seem very sad, even beside the most recent graves, but gossiped and enjoyed their half-holiday, disappearing before sunset silently, like a flock of pigeons to their dovecots. The spectacle was theatrical and almost unearthly. It was{187} difficult to persuade oneself that these flitting figures were really women at all; they seemed rather to be animated bits of landscape. Just while we were watching this, and feeling all its dreamy remoteness from human life as we had ever known it, two new figures appeared. They were the gardener of a neighbouring garden and his young daughter Wurda (Rhoda, Rose). She was five years of age, a tiny vision of black eyes and hair, the hair being arranged in two pigtails down her back. She brought a little bunch of roses for each of us, and as she gave them kissed our hands with as sweet a shyness as any child anywhere could have done. The incident, like that on the hill of Samaria, lingers on the memory, and bears witness to a world of gentleness and kindliness such as we had little dreamed of. Altogether there are abundant signs that in ancient days there must have been much of that Syrian life described by one scholar as “gay and bright, festive and musical—the very home of songs and dances.” It is pleasant to know that although the fortunes of the land have saddened her so terribly, there still remains something at least of her former gaiety.

Even the religion of Syria has its lighter side. Every student of the Bible knows how much there was of rejoicing and fresh childlike revelling in the situation, in the worship of ancient Israel. It is peculiarly interesting to find that in the Semitic worship before and apart from the invasion of Israel, so kindly and friendly a relation subsisted between man and his gods. “The{188} circle into which a man was born was not simply a group of kinsfolk and fellow-citizens, but embraced also certain divine beings, the gods of the family and of the state, which to the ancient mind were as much a part of the particular community with which they stood connected as the human members of the social circle.”[32] Accordingly it would appear that among these ancient Semites the conception of sacrifice was by no means so gloomy as it came to be later, when the moral tragedy of life was more clearly realised. The idea was that of “communion with the deity in a sacrificial meal of holy food.” They “go on eating and drinking and rejoicing before their god with the assurance that he and they are on the best of jovial good terms.... Ancient religion assumes that through the help of the gods life is so happy and satisfactory that ordinary acts of worship are all brightness and hilarity, expressing no other idea than that the worshippers are well content with themselves and with their divine sovereign.”[33]

Of course the severer truth and cleaner conscience which Israel’s revelation brought her gradually deepened the shadows on her religious life. She substituted duty for happiness, the beauty of holiness for the mere joie de vivre, and the tragic blessedness of forgiveness for the careless pleasures of life. Yet to the end she retained and insisted on the gladness of religion. The duty of joy was a command and not merely an epigram for Israel. Dante himself was not more explicit in his condemnation of perverse sullenness than was he who{189} wrote, “Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things: therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies.”[34]

It is surely a very striking fact that the spots which all travellers select as those in which the gladness of the land dwells most freely still are Nazareth and Bethlehem. For beauty of feature and of dress, and for their general air of pleasant and light-hearted gaiety, these are the acknowledged centres. It was of Bethlehem that we felt this most true. Its name, signifying “House of Bread,” is significant of plenty and of comfort. Its associations, even apart from the song of angels there, are sweet and gracious. While approaching it, you look across a pleasant and lightsome landscape to the dim blue mountains of Moab, and remember how Ruth looked across these very fields, when the reapers of Boaz were working in them, to her distant home in those mountains. Here it was that King David in his boyhood played and tended the flocks of his father, and it was the water of that sweet well for which he longed in the days of his adversity. These and a hundred other memories prepare the traveller for a place of gracious and kindly sweetness.