



Produced by David Widger from page images generously provided by the
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IN THE LEVANT.

By Charles Dudley Warner,

Twenty Fifth Impression

Boston: Houghton, Mifflin And Company

1876


TO WILLIAM D. HOWELLS THESE NOTES OF ORIENTAL TRAVEL ARE FRATERNALLY
INSCRIBED.





CONTENTS

PREFACE

IN THE LEVANT.

I.—FROM JAFFA TO JERUSALEM.

II.—JERUSALEM.

III.—HOLY PLACES OP THE HOLY CITY.

IV.—NEIGHBORHOODS OF JERUSALEM.

V.—GOING DOWN TO JERICHO.

VI.—BETHLEHEM AND MAR SABA.

VII.—THE FAIR OF MOSES; THE ARMENIAN PATRIARCH.

VIII.—DEPARTURE FROM JERUSALEM.

IX.—ALONG THE SYRIAN COAST.

X.—BEYROUT.—OVER THE LEBANON.

XI.—BA'ALBEK.

XII.—ON THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS.

XIII.—THE OLDEST OF CITIES.

XIV.—OTHER SIGHTS IN DAMASCUS.

XV.—SOME PRIVATE HOUSES.

XVI.—SOME SPECIMEN TRAVELLERS.

XVII.—INTO DAYLIGHT AGAIN.—AN EPISODE OF TURKISH JUSTICE.

XVIII.—CYPRUS.

XIX.—THROUGH SUMMER SEAS.—RHODES.

XX.—AMONG THE ÆGEAN ISLANDS.

XXI.—SMYRNA AND EPHESUS.

XII.—THE ADVENTURERS.

XXIII.—THROUGH THE DARDANELLES.

XIV.—CONSTANTINOPLE.

XXV.—THE SERAGLIO AND ST. SOPHIA, HIPPODROME, etc.

XXVI.—SAUNTERINGS ABOUT CONSTANTINOPLE.

XXVII.—FROM THE GOLDEN HORN TO THE ACROPOLIS.

XXVIII.—ATHENS.

XXIX.—ELEUSIS, PLATO'S ACADEME, ETC.

XXX.—THROUGH THE GULF OF CORINTH.




PREFACE

IN the winter and spring of 1875 the writer made the tour of Egypt and
the Levant. The first portion of the journey is described in a volume
published last summer, entitled “My Winter on the Nile, among Mummies
and Moslems”; the second in the following pages. The notes of the
journey were taken and the books were written before there were any
signs of the present Oriental disturbances, and the observations made
are therefore uncolored by any expectation of the existing state of
affairs. Signs enough were visible of a transition period, extraordinary
but hopeful; with the existence of poverty, oppression, superstition,
and ignorance were mingling Occidental and Christian influences, the
faint beginnings of a revival of learning and the stronger pulsations of
awakening commercial and industrial life. The best hope of this revival
was their, as it is now, in peace and not in war. C. D. W.

Hartford, November 10,1876.




IN THE LEVANT.




I.—FROM JAFFA TO JERUSALEM.

SINCE Jonah made his short and ignominious voyage along the Syrian
coast, mariners have had the same difficulty in getting ashore that
the sailors experienced who attempted to land the prophet; his tedious
though safe method of disembarking was not followed by later navigators,
and the landing at Jaffa has remained a vexatious and half the time an
impossible achievement.

The town lies upon the open sea and has no harbor. It is only in
favorable weather that vessels can anchor within a mile or so from
shore, and the Mediterranean steamboats often pass the port without
being able to land either freight or passengers, In the usual condition
of the sea the big fish would have found it difficult to discharge Jonah
without stranding itself, and it seems that it waited three days for the
favorable moment. The best chance for landing nowadays is in the early
morning, in that calm period when the winds and the waves alike await
the movements of the sun. It was at that hour, on the 5th of April,
1875, that we arrived from Port Said on the French steamboat Erymanthe.
The night had been pleasant and the sea tolerably smooth, but not to the
apprehensions of some of the passengers, who always declare that they
prefer, now, a real tempest to a deceitful groundswell. On a recent trip
a party had been prevented from landing, owing to the deliberation
of the ladies in making their toilet; by the time they had attired
themselves in a proper manner to appear in Southern Palestine, the
golden hour had slipped away, and they were able only to look upon the
land which their beauty and clothes would have adorned. None of us were
caught in a like delinquency. At the moment the anchor went down we
were bargaining with a villain to take us ashore, a bargain in which the
yeasty and waxingly uneasy sea gave the boatman all the advantage.

Our little company of four is guided by the philosopher and dragoman
Mohammed Abd-el-Atti, of Cairo, who has served us during the long voyage
of the Nile. He is assisted in his task by the Abyssinian boy Ahman
Ab