Harriet Martineau's Writing on the British Empire, Vol 3

Deborah Logan, Antoinette Burton, Kitty Sklar, Patrick Brantlinger

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000558876
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Literature
• Categoria: Literary Criticism

The literary presence of Harriet Martineau pervades 19th-century English and American culture. This edition makes her work available, and focuses on her writings on imperialism. It should be of interest to scholars of colonialism, women's writing, Victorian studies, sociology and journalism.

PALESTINE AND ITS FAITH

DOI: 10.4324/9781003113539-2

'To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.'-Ecclesiastes, iii. 1.

'First the blade, then the ear; after that, the full corn in the ear.' - Mark, iv. 28.¹³¹

'Dans tout le monde connu, yore l'ère chrétienne, et dans toutes les classes éclairées ou vulgaires do ce monde, on sembla ressentir au même instant le besoin de s'en remettre à un nouvel ordre d'idées, qui aurait pour première loi do s'addresser aux âmes beaucoup plus encore qu'aux esprits épuisés; de rompre toutes les barrières religieuses établies entre les initiés et les profanes, et de dissiper de fond en comble, comme l'honneur en a appartenu au christianisme, un agrégation tumultueuse de déesses et de dieux qui ne laissaient privés de leur exemples et de leur protection aucun genre d'absurdités ni do vices.' - Jésus Christ et sa Doctrine. - Salvador, i. p. 67.¹³²

'And here we cannot but by the way take notice of that famous and remarkable story of Plutarch's in his DEFECT OF ORACLES, concerning demons lamenting the death of the great PAN. In the time of Tiberius (saith he) certain persons embarking from Asia for Italy, towards the evening sailed by the Echinades, where, being becalmed, they heard from thence a loud voice calling one Thamous, an Egyptian mariner amongst them, and after the third time commanding him, when he came to the Palodes, to declare that THE GREAT PAN WAS DEAD.' - Cudworth. Intellectual Systems, I. ch. iv. p. 345.

Chapter I. Entrance Upon the Holy Land. - Hebron. - Bethlehem.

The first thought or impression which I remember as occurring on my entrance into the Holy Land was one of pleasure that it was so like home. When we came to towns, everything looked as foreign as in Nubia: but here, on the open hills, we might gaze round us on a multitude of familiar objects, and remember to whose eyes they were once familiar too. Never were the rarest and most glorious flowers so delightful to my eyes as the weeds I was looking at all this day; - the weeds of our hedges and ditches and fields; for I knew that in his childhood He must have played among them; and that in his manhood, he must have been daily familiar with them. If his family and that of John were related, and if the family of John lived at Hebron, the probability is strong that Jesus may have been in the very district through which we travelled this day. So general as were the habits of travel among the Hebrews, and so often as the men had to come up to Jerusalem to the feasts, it is scarcely likely that relatives should not visit each other when so near as Jerusalem is to Hebron. So I already saw that vision which never afterwards left me while in Palestine, - of One walking under the terraced hills, or drinking at the wells, or resting under the shade of the olives: and it was truly a delight to think that besides the palm and the oleander and the prickly pear, he knew, as well as we do, the poppy and the wild rose, the cyclamen, the bindweed, the various grasses of the way-side, and the familiar thorn. This, and the new and astonishing sense of the familiarity of his teachings, - a thing which we declare and protest about at home, but can never adequately feel, - brought me nearer to an insight and understanding of what I had known by heart from my infancy, than perhaps any one can conceive who has not tracked his actual footsteps. But it is too soon to enter on this now.

We entered Palestine at the close of the rainy season, which ordinarily ends with March. A few drops of rain fell to-day, and the wind was cold. In about an hour from the frontier, we came upon a meagre bit of ploughing; - the first cultivation we had seen for some weeks. Then there was more, on a better soil, and some cross-ploughing, with a rude antique-looking plough, and a camel. The soil was reddish, and much encumbered with stones. The myriads of little locusts, or grasshoppers, which swarmed for miles, were beyond belief. They lay, like clusters of bees, on the grass, covering it for large spaces; and they filled the air, for about a foot above the ground, by jumping as we passed. I may safely say I never saw so many living creatures in the same space before; for it seems to me that the gnats and frogs in an American swamp are not to be compared to these brown locusts for multitude.

We encamped about three o'clock, at a distance of four or five hours from Hebron. The place chosen was a level plot of weedy and stony ground among the hills which we were to cross in the morning. It was high ground, as we found by the cold: and it was not thought very safe, as we learned by the rumours of wild Bedoueens. - After service, some of the gentlemen explored the site, and were reasonably convinced that a town of considerable size had stood here. We had already passed one, called now El Arat, supposed to be the Aroer¹³³ of Scripture; of which there remains a large building on a height, two standing columns, and mounds of stones. Here already was another: and for some days to come we were to be more and more impressed with wonder at the magnitude and number of the remains we had to pass. Nothing that I have seen in other countries gives an idea of such a thickly settled territory as this part of Palestine must once have been. From the frontier to Jerusalem, the towns must have been in sight of one another, I should think, all the way; and in some places, many must have been in view at once. And such fine-looking places too! No brick, - no mud, - no mere piles of rough stones from the hill sides: but square houses of hewn stone, with flat roofs, rising in tiers on the slope of a hill, or crowning its summit, or set within an angle of the terraced heights.

The remains round our encampment consisted of long lines of foundations, and numberless inclosure walls, almost razed to the ground; and the overthrown columns of three edifices; and the orifice of a substantially built well, with a hole in the rim, into which the pin of the covering-stone no doubt once fitted. There were caverns in the limestone rock, under some of the overthrown edifices. These caverns were once their vaults, but are now used to bed the goats. Such a site was the very place for scorpions; and two were immediately found.

All the next day we continually saw gaping wells beside our path, and under every angle of the hills where they were likely to be kept filled. They were not now carefully covered, with a stone so massive as that the daughters of the patriarchs could not roll it away: - the country is too scantily peopled now for such care: but we could still see turbaned men sitting beside the opening; and cattle crowding, and sheep and goats led to it. - Our way at first to-day lay over the hills where there were no visible tracks. These hill sides were very stony; but they also abounded in shrubs and grass and weeds, whereon hung the pearly dew-drops which look so beautiful to those who come here by way of the Desert. It was all very like home, - like the wilder parts of England, except for our Arab train, and the talk about wild Bedoueens, for whom our scouts were carefully on the look-out.

This reminds me of a little adventure of this day which is not down in my journal, but which I clearly remember, from a certain novelty of sensation which attended it. The face-ache which I had had almost from the day I left Cairo, had now increased to a degree which was really terrible. This morning it was worse than ever; and I dismounted, partly from the restlessness of pain, and partly because I thought exercise might act as a counter-irritant. I was advised to try smoking; and I found great relief for a short time. My own party passed me while I was looking better from this cause, and were therefore not anxious about me. But before half the long train had gone by, the pain came back; and when Alee and the baggage camels passed, I could neither speak nor make a sign. I sank down on the wet ground fainting, just after the last had gone by. Still the rear-guard were to come. They passed without seeming to heed me. I was on sloping high ground which happened to command the bases of the hills for about a mile; and with my dizzy sight I could see, opening my eyes from time to time, when the first of the troop went out of sight, and when half were gone, and, at length, when the last disappeared. Here I was alone indeed, on the hills of Judea. I did not expect to be long alone; for I supposed that the wild Bedoueens would pounce upon me immediately: but I was too weak to feel frightened. I tried to rise several times; but I could not stand. I do not know exactly how long it was, but it must have been a considerable time, before two armed Arabs came up, shouting, and running from different directions. They were of our escort. They had seen me in passing, and had run on for my camel, which presently appeared. They lifted me on; but it was still some time before we could make any way. At last, I saw what encouraged me to an effort; though indeed I had every motive before in the danger I knew my poor Arabs to be in, so far from their comrades: but now there was hope in view. One of the gentlemen had stopped to arrange his gun: and he and his dragoman and driver were dismounted, within half a mile of us. In a little while, he had sent on for brandy, and made my camel kneel till I should be more fit to proceed. And then, of course, up came my kind friends, who could hardly be persuaded that it was nobody's fault. I felt throughout that I should be missed at lunch, and hardly before; for, in a caravan like ours, everybody is supposed to be somewhere in the train; and my friends were aware that I thought them more watchful over me than was at all necessary. As it was, I know better than any of them what it is to be alone on the wild hills of Judea.

About two hours short of Hebron, the shrubs congregated into thickets about our path, and we had white briar roses dancing on the sprays. Here the beautiful cyclamen began to peep out from under gnarled roots of old trees, or stones, or bunches of moss. From place to place, I henceforth saw this delicate and graceful flower, till we left the skirts of Lebanon for the shore of the Mediterranean. I was presently surprised to see Mr. E. promoted downwards from his camel to riding the Sheikh's horse. He told me that he had declined it repeatedly, but that 'some men have greatness thrust upon them,'¹³⁴ and he found it best to accept his at last. This was our final day with Hussein. He was to be paid off in the evening; and this was his way, we supposed, of making up matters before parting with the greatest man in Europe. We had now begun to observe that cleared fields, fenced with stone walls, were on our left hand. The ploughed fields had a deep yellow soil. And soon came vineyards and olive-grounds, where the shadows of the spreading trees were cast on a soil of deep red. The vines appeared very old; but we liked the Hebron wine which we afterwards tasted. In almost every vineyard was a tower, built of the stones which lay about; - a place for the watchman and the tools, I believe. And here we were already among those natural commentaries on the Gospel which we henceforth met with from day to day. Here, before us, men had 'digged a wine-press, and built a tower.'¹³⁵

But on this spot the mind of the gazer is or ought to be carried back far beyond the time when there began to be vineyards here at all; to the time when the whole of this expanse of country was pasture land, and the flocks were on the hills, and the herdsmen, abiding in the field by night, worshipped the stars. Here, in those days, was that worship of the Sun whose traces we were to meet with throughout the rest of our journey. Here, upon the plain of Mamre,¹³⁶ nothing was more natural than such worship to men who, living in tents in wide pasture lands, with the brilliant sky of the East overhead, saw sun and moon daily rise behind the mountains of Moab, and go down towards the sea, to let the dews descend and freshen the grass of the pastures. Here it was that these Sun-worshippers found among them the tents of a mighty prince* who did not worship sun or star. Here it was that Abraham fed his flocks both before and after his visit to Egypt. Here, as he sat under the terebinth¹³⁷ tree, in the plain, he could tell neighbour and guest of those wonderful works of Egyptian art of which we could now have told in the same place. Here he could astonish the shepherds of Mamre with descriptions of the marvels, and hints of the mysteries of the Pyramids: and with an account of the honours with which he had been treated at Memphis. Here it was that Sara died; and within view of where we now stood was the field leading up to a hill, wherein was a cave in which Abraham wished to bury his dead. There was the hill now, before us, with the cave in the midst of it, where the patriarch himself was afterwards laid.

* Genesis, XXIII.6.

Then, after several generations, other herdsmen came hither, who could tell more of Egypt than even Abraham. Hither came the sons of the generation who had come out of bondage. Years ago they had buried Miriam, not far to the south of this place: then they had seen Aaron go up Mount Hor to die: and now lately, Moses had disappeared from their eyes. They had not yet fulfilled the desire of Moses by becoming a nation, - a people with One God and a single faith. They were so little united yet by any national spirit as to be prepared for the cruel civil wars which took place as soon as they obtained arms; that is, under the Judges,¹³⁸ presently after. Meantime, here they were, permitted by the Philistines¹³⁹ to pasture their flocks, and learning the while, something of the arts of war and of civil life from the neighbours whom they hated and despised as unclean, because uncircumcised; - the only uncircumcised people within their knowledge.

Then again, some generations later, after the barbarian wars of the times of the Judges, during which the institutions of Moses appear to have been completely lost sight of, and the worship of Jehovah to have been only one item in a wide idolatry, - during which, in the historical language, 'every man did that which was right in his own eyes;' - immediately after that dark time, three women passed this way, - unless Orpah¹⁴⁰ had already turned back to yonder mountains, where her old home lay. Here at least passed old Naomi and Ruth; and greatly astonished would Ruth have been to be told that she was to be the great-grandmother of a king who should be crowned in the city then before her eyes; a king who should so sing as that the human race should echo his strains through all future time; and who should take the strong rock-fort of Jebus,¹⁴¹ some way to the north, and make of it a city so holy, as that its very name should be music forever. Little did the gentle Ruth think of these things when she and Naomi passed this way.

Whether the greatest man, after Moses, in all Israel, Samuel, was ever here, I believe we are not told: but, as he lived in Ramah,¹⁴² and journeyed much, it is probable that he was. He, too, like Moses, was disappointed in his wisest wishes for this people; and he, like Moses, appears to have overrated their moral capacities. The people would have a king, and a very bad one. Here their second king was crowned, not as sovereign of Israel, but, as yet, of Judah only. Here the limited dignity was given, and here David lived for seven years and a half before he took the oath which made him king of all Israel. Hebron would not longer serve for his residence, as it was necessary for him to live where he could communicate easily with other parts of his dominion, and especially where he could command the valley of the Jordan: he therefore took the rock-fort of Jebus, and fixed his abode upon Zion, whose praises he thenceforth celebrated as never city was celebrated by mortal man. Six of David's sons were born in Hebron. Of these, Solomon was not one, he being the son of Bathsheba whom, as we all know, David took to wife at Jerusalem; but two of the six were Absolom, who here declared his rebellion, and Adonijah, who assumed the government while David lay dying, in order to exclude Solomon, the favoured son of Bathsheba. From the time of David's removal to Jerusalem, we hear little more of Hebron, except as one in the list of fortified cities. Once upon a time, however, the Idumaeans came up from Petra, and took it; and it was theirs till Judas Maccabæus drove them out. If this was the city 'in the hill country in Judea' where the Baptist was born and reared, this is a strong interest connected with the place, and the latest, except for those who like to follow the career of the Crusaders.

I little thought ever to have felt any touch of the crusading spirit: but I was surprised by an impulse of it, on turning the shoulder of the hill which had hidden Hebron from us. The town looked very pretty, sloping down in the sun, on the two eminences on which it is built: but the most conspicuous thing in it is the mosque which covers the Cave of Machpelah.¹⁴³ It was not the thought of this burial-place of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob which gave me a momentary ill-will to the Mohammedans. It was the thought of the devout John, who had for a disciple, for a time, a greater than himself. I was presently ashamed of the absurd and illiberal emotion; and, as I looked upon the minaret, felt that the Mohammedans had as much right to build over sacred places as the Empress Helena: though one must heartily wish they had all let it alone. - As soon as we thus came in view of the town, we sat down on the hill side, to rest and refresh ourselves, sending on the baggage, that our tents might be pitched on the quarantine ground, south of the town, in readiness for us.

We found our tents pitched on thick short grass, with the tombs of the Turkish cemetery behind us, and the town in full view in front. On the green, a company of Turkish soldiers was exercising. They looked mean, - one might say vulgar, in their European blue uniform...