Book manuscript- (c) 2009 by William Sims Bainbridge
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After an exhausting descent, they entered the pyramid through the single opening, a few yards up the north face. Their only light came from the flickering candles they carried through the stagnant air, as they walked first downward, then upward through a narrow passageway. An Arab sang the saga of gaining one good wife and his hope to add a second. The pharaoh’s empty sarcophagus lay in the funerary chamber. The ceiling above Lucy's head was composed of nine immense blocks of granite weighing four hundred tons, and above them five separate stone-roof chambers prevented the further two hundred feet of rock from falling in upon her. As an experiment, William fired his revolver into a recess, producing a crashing echo that rebounded from the lofty ceiling and down the passageway. Thoroughly terrified, the Arab guides cowered into a corner, and it was lucky that their panic did not extinguish all the candles. Choking in the dust, they retraced their steps. About the time of Lucy’s trip, one scholar estimated that Egypt might hold over four hundred million embalmed corpses, but they did not encounter one inside the great pyramid of Cheops.135 “Passing along through palm-trees and over the sand toward the Sakkara Pyramid, we look about us for some tangible proof that there was once right here a city within whose circumference of seventeen miles, were costly temples, with their beautiful colonnades, palaces and gardens, and luxurious houses. Here had lived kings and princes in royal magnificence, here had Joseph been a slave and then a chief of Pharaoh’s household. Moses had walked the streets of this city, and had brought upon the people God’s judgements in the plagues. Now and then we see in the sand human bones and skulls, and these, with the desolate waste and silence, tell the story of the great city that worshipped the bull ‘Apis’ as their god; and of God’s righteous wrath upon them.”
The greatest challenge was hiring a dragoman — an interpreter and guide — from the dozens of these “living specimens of Arab trickery” who beset them. Their choice, Abdallah Yusef, helped assemble the substantial team and equipment needed for their expedition. Abdallah charmed them. Every evening he would come to their tent and ask, “You like?” When they said they liked what they had seen very much, he invariably commented, “More better ebery day!”137 Because the Damur river was swolen by spring rains, they started for Sidon by a circuitous mountain route. In addition to the three Americans and the dragoman, the party consisted of nine muleteers with an equal number of mules, a cook and a waiter who rode donkeys and felt superior, and little Hottahr who walked the entire journey. The sun broke through the rain clouds, and they rode past pine, palm and mulberry trees, ascending by a natural highway of pebbles that marked a dry stream. They camped near Deir el Kamar, the largest Marionite Christian village of Lebanon. Here, just seven years before, a Druze force had tried to exterminate all the men and boys, slaughtering as many as a thousand of them in cold blood. The bloody feuds in this borderland had continued since time immemorial, and they gave no sign of ending so long as tribes competed for the same land. There was peace now, because the Druze quarter of the town had been reduced to rubble, but no one believed the ferocious butchery of 1860 would be the last.138 “Our cook was smiling in front of his little stove and hot dinner, welcoming us in broken French and Arabic. The waiter in gay Turkish dress stood ready to show us the water and fresh towels, and the camp-table and chairs ready for dinner. The grassy floor was nearly covered with rugs of Oriental manufacture, and the little iron cots were neatly made up with linen and blankets, very inviting to our tired limbs. But the dinner must be attended to, for Achmet calls that the soup will soon be cold.” That night, Lucy's rest was disturbed by the fleas and doleful braying of the mules. The second day they sent the caravan onward to Sidon, while they took a circuitous path to the palace of Bteddîn, built upon a cliff two hundred and fifty feet above the valley, where the Emir Beshîr had ruled all Lebanon until his expulsion in 1840. Now the decaying establishment was occupied by the Pasha of Mount Lebanon and his two thousand lazy soldiers, who did not fully appreciate the carved doors, marble floors, inlaid walls, and painted ceilings.139 The cultivated Pasha entertained them with strong coffee and questions about far-off America. “He was richly dressed in a long, loose sack of drab cloth, trimmed with fur, and the usual Turkish trousers and embroidered vest. His head was ornamented with the scarlet fez and its blue tassel. On his finger sparkled a diamond, said to be worth twenty-five thousand dollars.” At Sidon, they joined two missionary couples, the Jessups and the Eddys, to see Phoenician tombs. “Passing the gardens of fig and peach, apricot, orange and lemon trees, the air perfumed with the blossoms of the two latter, we dismounted near what looks to be but a cave. We clamber down until we can stand in this ancient sepulcher, and see the little niches and compartments where the dead were once laid away. The ornamentations are of curious flowers and birds, and the colors very bright, as though put on but a few years ago, instead of hundreds of years. Several inscriptions still remain, and from one of these has arisen the belief that the sarcophagus containing the body of Jezebel’s father was buried here.” When Ahab married Jezebel the temptress, he abandoned the God of Israel to worship Baal, but Lucy’s mind quickly turned to Paul and to Jesus, whose feet had trod these shores: “Oh Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.” At Tyre they read the Biblical passages about the original grandeur and utter destruction of this ancient city.140 “The cluster of mud houses which cling to the very sides of the old church, and the ruins and broken columns, are all that remain to tell the story of the city which once declared: ‘I am of perfect beauty,’ and whose proud king boasted: ‘I am a god; I sit in the seat of a god in the midst of the seas.’” When they rode down the thousand-foot Ladder of Tyre, Lucy compared herself with Israel Putnam when he plunged his horse down a much smaller natural rock staircase in Connecticut to escape the Redcoats.141 Soon they were in dangerous country, famous for marauders and thieves. “Abdallah has hired two of these Bedouins to guard us on the journey. Hire two of the robbers to guard us from being robbed seems a queer plan, but it is the surest way of reaching Joppa in safety.” Lucy read all the biblical references to Mount Carmel. It was here that Elijah mocked the prophets of Baal, and “they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them.”142 They paused for a time at the Carmelite monastery overlooking the sea,143 “which is occupied and cared for by thirty or forty monks, who spend their time chanting and praying before the shrine of the Virgin. Our host is willing to show us as much of this large building as allowable, but only the gentlemen can descend into the grotto under the church, where we are told Elijah heard the still, small voice. Lady visitors have never profaned the holy spot by their presence, and we are only permitted to look down and get a glimpse of silver candlesticks and tawdry trappings, and the smell of incense. These Catholic monks, though very kind in their attentions, have learned Arab manners, and very politely asked for a ‘baksheesh’ as we bade them good-by.” A heavy rain storm beat their tents, when they camped just south of Mount Carmel near the ancient city of Dor. The next day they cantered along the shell-strewn beach. The two Bedouins with their rusty guns guarded the baggage, and Abdallah seemed to expect an attack by robbers at any moment, especially when they neared the vacant wreckage of Caesarea. “There is not an entire building left of this city of Herod,” Lucy discovered. “Columns and stones, and ruins of ancient walls and gateways, are tumbled together in complete confusion near the shore, and overgrown with weeds and thistles. The remains of the old harbor are still to be seen in the water. It is a lonely, gloomy spot. There is not a sound to be heard but the waves as they wash up on to the mossy ruins, and seem to murmur the story of its perfect desolation. This, then, is all that is left of the city where Paul preached before King Agrippa, and made Felix tremble as he spoke of ‘righteousness, temperance and judgment to come.’ Here that greatest of all missionaries was imprisoned for two long years. This city was the home of Cornelius, and scene of that first baptism of a Gentile Christian.” After tasting the fragrance of the fruit trees around Joppa, they turned inland, passed Lydda, and sought the burial place of the Hebrew patriarchs at the cave of Macpelah. Built directly over this holy site was a huge mosque, and for the first time their baksheesh was scorned. The earthly remains of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, and Leah were denied a visit, and Abdallah told William and Lucy they would loose their lives if they entered. Abdallah himself went in, even though he had earlier claimed to be a Christian, and Lucy discovered that their dragoman adjusted his religion to match that of his employers, becoming at various times Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and even Jewish. “If we had only such a chameleon religion, we too could enter the holy place and stand near the dust of our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But we are Christians, and until a Christian government controls this people we shall be excluded.” At Bethlehem, Lucy entered the church built over the grotto where tradition held Jesus had been born. “Following our solemn monk, we descend with lighted tapers by the winding stairs from the Latin chapel to the sacred cave. The place is stifling with incense and the smoke of lamps; the tawdry drapery of silk and satin, red cotton velvet and tinsel trimmings, hang about on every side. Lamps are burning continually before the ugly pictures of uglier looking saints. Under a plain white marble altar is a slab of marble in the pavement, with a silver star in the center, round which are the words: ‘His de Virgine Maria Jesus Christus natus est.’ Above the star sixteen silver lamps are hung, and always kept burning brightly. Notwithstanding the surroundings a feeling of solemn awe comes over the Christian visitor; and in this possible — yes, probable birthplace of Jesus, the truth comes home afresh: ‘Jesus the Son of God was born into the likeness of sinful flesh, to be crucified and to die for me.’” From tents pitched on Mount Olivet at Jerusalem, they visited the Garden of Gethsemane. Skeptically they traced the Via Dolorosa, sure that the exact path trod by Jesus had long ago been eradicated by the changing shape of the city. Lucy meditated, “In his providences God will show to each of his own the ‘Via Dolorosa’ designed for them, and necessary for their discipline. And as each Christian heart passes along its ‘way of sorrow,’ it may take courage and learn well the lesson of submission, of perfect trust in a Father’s infinite love, from this divine exemplar who carried heavier crosses and greater sufferings than could be borne by us.” Respectfully, they watched Jews pouring out their hearts at the Wailing Wall. “Notice that trembling old man, with silvered locks, as he approaches the sacred stone of the temple of his fathers. He lays his wrinkled face on the cold smooth surface, and as the tears run down the furrows of his cheek and mingle with the kisses he is giving to it, we can see his lips move and that he is uttering his grief aloud. There another has his lips into one of the worn cavities, and is caressing the stone with his hand. We almost fancy we can interpret the words of their mourning here, into those used by the sweet singer of Israel: ‘O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they had laid Jerusalem on heaps. We are become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us. How long, Lord? Wilt thou be angry forever?’” At the House of Caiaphas they suppressed their laughter when the monk serving as tourist guide confidently pointed here and there, saying, “Peter stood during the denial, and right there was the fire at which he warmed himself, and right in that spot stood the cock when it crowed three times.” Returning to their Olivet tent home, they rode slowly past “the loathsome creatures” on either ride of the street. “Though the sight is most sickening, we can well afford to endure it for the sake of the light which it throws on the leprosy spoken of in the Bible. The scene is too horrid for description; the wounds and mutilations of battle are nothing in comparison. Men and women with faces partly gone, but who still have an arm left, hold out their rusty tin pail or cup into which the traveler drops his charity. Others can only motion with their stump of an arm, to where their cup stands before them, or turn their sightless eyes and move their decaying tongues in efforts to win your gift. Along with these rotting wrecks of humanity are to be seen beautiful girls with bright faces, healthy-looking infants full of baby prattle and glee, but deep down are the seeds of that leprosy which only the power of God has been able to destroy.” The next day, a liberal dose of baksheesh got them into the Mosque of Omar. William went in his socks, while one of the women tied handkerchiefs around her shoes and the other borrowed slippers. Under the rock believed to be the foundation of the high altar in Solomon’s temple lies a cave, and when they sought to enter, one of the handkerchiefs came off allowing an unclean shoe to touch the sacred pavement, horrifying their Moslem guide. Once this sacrilege had been repaired by baksheesh, they were confidently shown the spot where Mohammed gained his first vision of the heavenly seraglio. Late that Sunday evening, they camped outside the locked gates of Jerusalem, all their books and clothing spread around, when a wild lightening storm suddenly dropped waterfalls on them. The ladies’ sleeping tent blew away, and the Arabs went straight from slumber to frantic prayer. No time to dress, William wrapped his blanket around him and rushed into the midst of the Arabs, “Giving orders in English, and a little French, and a very little Arabic, and as the forces understood only the latter, there was no much progress made. Here was an Arab trying to save a dress from the water, and in his efforts turned over a pile of books and papers into the mud, and floundered in the meshes of the crinoline. Another fished out my shoes from a pool of water formed in the trench, while another was interested in pocketing hair-pins, evidently thinking he had a curious prize.” William ordered the Arabs to pick up each lady’s cot, with its lady still inside, and carry it into the small dining tent. “There could not be a more ludicrous tableau than that of the leader, who must jump from his cot at every gust of wind, and, throwing both arms about the tent-pole in an embrace of despair rather than affection, stand in the mud, with the cold rain dripping down on to him, until the squall passed by, and he was off duty till the next one came.” At the crack of dawn, Jerusalem opened its gates, and the expedition scurried to the sanctuary of the hotel. “We found a party of gentlemen about the warm fire, collarless, starchless, with hair like our own, looking as though electrified; and together we could laugh over similar experiences in testing the shady side of tent life on the mountains about Jerusalem.” After examining archaeological excavations in quarries under the city, they headed north to Bethel where they camped in an ancient cistern, Shiloh where they followed highway directions conveniently contained in their Bibles, Sechem where they counted thirty leprous beggars, Samaria where swarms of women insisted upon fingering Lucy’s hair net while she was still wearing it, and the repulsive mud town of Jezreel where ugly curs barked them on their way. As they came near Endor, they remembered the days when Saul gathered the armies of Israel to repel the Philistines. Terrified by their multitudes, Saul asked the Lord for help, but the Lord did not reply — not in dreams, nor through a prophet, nor through divination by the sacred casting of lots. In desperation, Saul disguised himself, visited a woman who had a familiar spirit, and implored her to bring Samuel back from the dead to advise him. When the woman conjured up the ghost of Samuel, she realized to her horror that her client was actually Saul whose law would condemn her to death for witchcraft, but he told her not to fear and asked what she saw. “Gods ascending out of the earth,” she said. “An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle.” Realizing this was the ghost of Samuel, Saul stooped and pressed his face to the ground. Samuel accused him for having violated God’s law and prophesied that he and his sons would soon join Samuel in death. The next day in battle against the Philistines, Saul learned that his sons had been killed. Pierced by arrows, he commanded his armorbearer to slay him, but when the man would not obey, Saul fell upon his own sword.144 Thoughts of the witch reminded Lucy of the cults that had become so popular back home. “Too many of even professed Christians follow Saul’s example and seek to lift that veil which God has placed between us and the coming future, by consultation with astrologers, clairvoyants, dream interpreters, trance speakers, spirit rappings and the like. They are of one parentage, and their father is the Devil.” With every mile Abdallah's demands for money increased, and he threatened to abandon them to find their own way back to Beirut. Several hot days of travel brought them to Damascus. From a distance, the many minarets of the city looked like the foliage of a garden, and their way took them past beautiful groves and fountains. To settle the dispute, they went straight to the American Consul, who turned out to be a Syrian despite the stars and stripes that decorated his reception room. Lucy and her cousin left the negotiations to enjoy the hospitality of the Consul’s wife and daughters, who were ignorant of English and at first thought that both American ladies were William’s wives, in the Arab fashion. The ladies spent several delightful minutes inspecting each other’s shoes, then a barefoot servant brought in a set of sweetmeats in little jars. “Here was a rich paste of citron and another of almond, imbedded with nuts and other sweets, but not a plate or fork, only one spoon. We frankly confessed our ignorance, and asked to be taught their manner of accepting such delicacies, and found we were to take the spoon in turn and help ourselves to a mouthful of each kind. Then followed the coffee in tiny cups with the silver holders, but these had become very familiar to us, and we could sip our coffee quite like a native Arab.” When the American Consul urged Abdallah to fulfill his contract, the dragoman said he would appeal to the French Consul, knowing that this diplomat was at the moment visiting Beirut and thinking this an excellent ploy to extort more money from William. However, there was a telegraph line between the two cities, and a message came back from the French Consul in a matter of hours. Unfortunately, William could not read the Arabic in which it was written, but according to Abdallah it merely said the consul would look into the matter when they reached Beirut. “However,” said Abdallah in a friendly tone of voice, “I like you very much, and think I may as well go on with you to Beirut and finish the journey.” Later, William showed the telegram to a hotel keeper, who translated it differently: “Fulfill your contract or be liable to imprisonment.” Lucy found the bazaars of Damascus splendidly entertaining, but turning a particular corner, she saw what looked like a very strange shop sign. “On coming nearer we discovered to our horror that it was a dead man hanging from that projecting beam near the roof. The rope was around his neck; his only covering was a short cotton shirt. Dead in the midst of all this busy life. The crowds moved by with apparent unconcern, except as a few, like ourselves, stopped suddenly to inquire about the dead man’s history. He had lived for a time in the mountains and had been the murderer of both men and women. The government had given permission that anyone capturing him was at liberty to immediately hang him, and it was done in this public place as a warning to all of a murder’s fate.” Lucy wanted to see a harem, and the one she found turned out to belong to a Jewish rather than an Arab gentleman. “Following our interpreter through a winding hall and stairs we entered the apartment occupied by the women. The rooms were handsome, overlooking the court; not a window toward the street. Sitting on their feet on the broad divan they appeared too lazy to rise to greet us, but pointed to the divan and held toward us a part of a sheet of unleavened bread from which they had been eating. The women and little girls were gaudily dressed and very ignorant and vulgar. The son, about seven years of age, who had the freedom of the house, came in prettily dressed in velvet. He could talk some English and could read Hebrew, and had already begun to feel the importance of being a boy instead of having been born a girl. “The mother of the little boy was dressed in a style quite beyond description. Her head was a mass of artificial flowers, tassels and lace, spangled and fringed. From her neck and shoulder over the gay striped silk dress were festooned long strings of Napoleons and other pieces of money. She was blazing with jewelry. Her eyebrows were stained, and nails dyed and cheeks painted. You could no more describe her attire than an Arab could tell what was the dress of a New York belle. “‘Why do you English people not dress as we do?’ asked our Jewish lady, whom we were inspecting. ‘You be all rich, very rich in your country, but you do not dress handsome as we. What good is your money if not to make you beautiful?’ She cast on us and our plain traveling suits a disdainful look, and in turn we glanced at her, feeling our hearts full of pity and thankfulness that we were permitted to live in a Christian land, where women may, if they will, live above and beyond mere dress and adornment.” On the way back to her hotel, Lucy watched poor women and girls gather manure from the streets in their bare hands and pat it together into cakes to dry in the sun for fuel. From Damascus to Beirut was hardly more than fifty miles, but this last leg of their journey through the Holy Land took them two full days, along a mountainous road. The last time they pitched their tents was in the very midst of the vast, magnificent ruins of Baalbek. Called Heliopolis by the Greeks, its great stones remind the visitor that before Jesus there was Jupiter, and before baptism by water there was worship of the sun.145 “It was a weird place in which to spend a night, in the midst of broken columns and dark niches and piles of stones of an old heathen temple, with an untiring serenade from hyenas and jackals.”
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