IN AND ABOUT THE HOLY CITY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 80, 28 December 1917, Page 7

IN AND ABOUT THE HOLY CITY

QUAINT SCENES AND CUSTOMS

[TOPSY-TURVY LAND

Jerusalem, for all its sacredness, is not without its humours (says a vntcr in tho "Sunday Times"). It is topsyturvy land. Tho native entering a sacred, place takes off his shoes and keeps on his hat- you begin to road a. book at the end;'the landlord pays the taxes; your servant walks iii front of you instead of behind; a man calls himself not Mac, but Abu, not "the sol of," but "the father of"; the men wear petticoats and the women expose their legs while they cover their faces; the theory of "ladies first" is a novelty from Europe; they put carpets on their walls and pictures on their ceilings : you buy milk by weight. Swearing there is,, but of a different tyj>3 from the universal Australian adjective. It takes longer, but it leaves some scope for originality; it is after the fashion of the 109 th psalm, only "more/ so." It is indirect, whether from inherent politeness or from r:eferenc3 to the law of libel. A man curses, not the priest but the bishop who ordained him, not you, but any cf your ancestors or relatives whom it occurs t-j him to mention. Courtesy inquires the form of generosity rather Umn of gratitude—you must place all that you possess At the disposal of your friend, but Arabic contains no Word for "Thank you." • V? •

A, Place of Many Greeds,

'. As Jerusalem, more even than Rome herself, is the gathering-place of weeds, tboholy place alike of Christian, Jew, at d Moslem; nay, more, as the unites to. 3 still wider disparities of sect and sect, it is hardly surprising that all the more striking eccentricities of Christianity seem to have at 6cmo time or other, represented vitliin her walls, from the self-tortured ascetics of the earliest Christian centuries down to the latest extravagances fresh from America.

On the north of the Holy City is th?. settlement of the American Colony, commeiijy known from their founder as Spaffordites: on the south that of the Templars or Hofinannites, both societies admirable for their order and their industry, if somewhat erratic in theological opinions. On the west there is the immense ruin of the unfinished building in which, half a century ago, seme wealthy lady, apparently Butch (although variously reported <iP English, Belgian, and German), proposed to housi' the hundred and forty thousand men who had been sealed in the middle of their foreheads; a. scheme arrested by the Government on the ground of the. danger to society involved in so large a gathering of Jews. To the oast there is the Mount Jof Olives, geographically the rallying place of an extraordinary variety of enthusiasts, including a worthy _ Englishwoman who is alleged to be in constant readiness, to welcome our Lord's return thither/with a. cup of tea. There are Adventists and . Lyddites, and Seventh Day Baptists, and Mormons, and votaries or Christian Science. There was a penitent Englishman, who did penance for his sins by beating his wife, becausf it was. the punishment which caused him the most pain. There, is a worthy 'Englishwoman who at over 50 years of age converted, a modest competence into portable property, and wandered out to Jerusalem alone, with: 561b. of luggage and £150 of.money, upon which, with the kindly help of foreigners of another creed, she has lived for over 25 years, convinced of the justice of her undertaking by the fact that sho had travelling companions whose relation to each other permitted her to suppose her journey a fulfilment of Jeremiah 111, 14: "I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion." There was a lady who, partly as a propagandist of rational dress, partly in the interests of self-sacrificing eco-' nomy, wore skirts so exceedingly narrow that when she fell down the church steps she was unable to recover her feet; and another (or perhaps l tho same) who provided herself with inexpensive millinery by trimming her hat with a cotton poolret handkerchief, on which was printed an Arabic love-song of a nature-so erotic as to afford considerable entertainment to the native element in the congregation at church. There is a colony profanely. known as the Tishbites—English and American—presided over by "the prophet Elijah." Scarcely a year goes by without the arrival of someone who dares to assume, a personality , still more sacred. Every greater festival is attended by. various' strange-looking figures, pious men who for the rest of the year pass an eromitic existence in dens and caves of the earth. Thero are defroques priests and declassees nuns, generally loading truly penitent and devout lives, often after some quaint and ascetic fashion. There are .irresponsible philaiir thropists and "independent" missionaries, those to whom obscure rites have been miraculously revealed, and votaries of "Gordon's Calvary." There are a good many persons of whom it may be conjectured that i their nearest and dearest long ago "wished them at Jericho," and who, in the endeavour to oblige, have stopped a few miles short on the way.

The Quadrupeds. To the picture-books of our youth wo owo the superstition that a dromedary is a camel with two humps. As a matter of fact, tho dromedary is to the camel what the hunter is to the cart horso, a lighter and swifter specimen of tho samo genus, and the twohumped camel is never seen in this part of tho world at all. Hβ is not tlin ship of the desert, but belongs to tho regions farthor north—to Turkestan, Tifet, and China. The camel as we know him here is undoubtedly the camel of ,the Bible, of whom we first hear as part of a present which Abraham received from Pharaoh, and next' appoars as in use among tho Ishniaelites, for carrying merchandise of spices, balm, and myrrh. The camel comes somewhere between Mark Twain's and Rudyard Kipling's; he is less of a tame ineptitude than the one, and less of an intentional aggravation than the other. Lot us take the poet first. The creature apparently irritates him "with 'is Filly neck abobbin' like a basket full of snakes." He gets absolutely angry with "the commissariat camel puttin' on 'is bloomin' frills."

'E'll gall, an' chafe, an' lame, an' fight —'e smells most ;j,wftil vilo; 'E'll lose 'imself for ever, if you let *im stray a mile, 'flie 'orse 'e knows ahovo a bit, and bullock's not a fool, The elephant's >a gentleman, tho battery mule's a mule, - But the commissariat cam-u-el when all is said and done 'E's a devil, and an ostrich, and an orphan-child in one. Mark Twain's requirements wero less, and therefore he had the less to resent. "We have been trying for some time to think what a camel looks like, and now we have made it out. When ho is down on nil his knees, flat on his breast to receive his load,_ ho looks something like a goose swimming, and when he is upright he looks like an ostrich? with an extra set of legs Camels are not beautiful, and their long under-lip gives them an exceedingly 'gallus' expression. They have immense, flat, forked, cushions of feet, and they make a track in the sand

like a pio with a slice cut out of it. They are not particular about their diet. They would oat a tombstone if they could bito it." .

It would; not do for' most of the beasts of tho Holy Land to bo particular about their diet. Vultures, pariah docß, and stray cats are probably tho best fed, being tho scavengers of tho country. The vultures overhead, tho yellow dogs slinking out of sight, ara already on their way to finish the work begun by human hands at tho slaughter-houso below tho village of Bothany, on the road to Jericho. Was thero ever £> land in which associations aro bo strongly intermixed as hero? Tho cat is a clean animal, and Solomon put his seal on him._ Hβ fiourishos in Jerusalem to-day with all the dignity, vanity, and iudependonco of cats everywhere else. The Arab steed, from the point of view of the European rider,, is, as ono gets him in Jerusalem, a much over-rated animal. With arched lieck, light of limb, head held high, .nana awl tail in their pristine beauty, accoutred with gay housings, a necklaco of blue beads about his neck, for preservation from the Evil Eye, an' ornament formed by two tusks hanging r.bout his breast, mounted by a Bedouin Sheikh with flowing Headdress and balanced lance, ho is part ;.f a picnira so harmonious that one almost reseats it as theatrical. _ Or, again, with fringed clothing and picturesque peaked saddle, ridden by a Moslem effendi with gav turban and lithe Oriental carriage, prancing and curvetting, and, as'the Arabs say, doing fantasias, all tt part of his careful training, he is agftir , a subject.for song and t-tory. But the overworked, nervous, unceitain creature, whose mouth has been spoilt by tourists, whose temper by constant change of stableman, with the viciousness of stupidity, and the irresponsiveness of the ill-used, is not a pleasant animal to ride. He can nmble and gallop, but has never been taught to canter, and his trot is disagieeable. . , 'Fortunately, it is possible to obtain really serviceable_ donkeys of a degree of grace and spirit of which, as associated with the humble ass, we of the West know nothing.' Like the horse, the donkey is usually "entire," and occasionally, regardless of Iris jider, .takes to fighting his companions. There is here no indignity : n riding upon, a donkey, and, indeed, ander certain circumstances, there is no choice a* to means of locomotion. The na-. tire women are hardlv ever seen upon horses, though sometimes on camels, Vhen they have quite a luxurious lit. th platform, which probably necommo. dates luggage and a child or two into the bargain, and is sometimes protect, ed by an awning.' On a donkey they sit astride, for the conventionality which requires that the face s-hould he 'concealed strifes the average by leav, ina entire liberty in the matter _ of legs, and several- inches of the striped stockings popular in this country are commonly visible.