"From thence men go to Nazareth, of which our Lord beareth the surname ... because our Lady was born at Nazareth, therefore our Lord bare His surname of that town."
Sir John Maundeville, 1322
"Mount Tabor in Galilee ... is of a remarkably round shape, and covered in an extraordinary manner with grass and flowers."
Arculf, 700 A.D.
Our departure next morning—our little party reduced to three and one mukari—was somewhat delayed by the conduct of Sadowi, who, brought up in Moslem surroundings, firmly protested against being ridden past a pig in the streets of Haifa. If it had been a lion he could not have objected more strongly, and as the movement of a pig is not rapid our progress, for the length of an entire street, was a work of time. We were bound for Nazareth, only some twenty-four miles distant, along a fairly good road, but this was, on the whole, the most wearisome day of our journey. A chain is no stronger than its weakest link; Khalil had to lead the Artist's horse at a walk, our second servant had gone, {259} and even if we had known the way, or if it had seemed prudent to divide our forces, our horses had no confidence in Frenjy, and so firmly refused to separate from their stable companions—human and equine—that, after disputing the question with them until we were tired, we abandoned ourselves to the dragging pace which is so wearing to horse and rider, and which protracted our journey till late in the afternoon.
Descending after three miles into the fertile plain of the Kishon we retraced our road towards Megiddo for some miles, and then climbed to higher ground, and passed through a succession of beautiful groves of oak, very rare in this country, and which, we regretted to see, had been partially destroyed in the construction of the new carriage road from Haifa to Tiberias. Once more descending we reached, about fifteen miles from Haifa, the village of Sem?niyeh, historically interesting as being the first settlement in Palestine of the German Society of Templars, who have done so much for commerce and agriculture, and have demonstrated, as no other Europeans have done, by their well-built, well-arranged colonies, the fact that it is possible to live a domestic life under conditions of order, beauty, and sanitation even in Palestine. This {260} first site, however promising and pleasing to the eye, was not, however, well chosen, for the spring, bordered with flowers and shaded with maiden-hair, turned out to be very unwholesome. We passed, just below, the little village of Yafa, where since 1641 the Franciscans have possessed a small chapel, on the alleged site of the house of Zebedee. The villagers are mainly Latins and Greek Orthodox.
The town of Nazareth is so buried in a cleft of the hills that it came into sight quite suddenly, lying to the left of the road, with a few separated buildings, mostly modern institutions, the most striking of which is the immense orphanage of the Salesian Fathers, with its long arcades and its exalted position. A convent of Poor Clares is the only building noticeable to the right of the road; on the left we pass a pleasant-looking hotel (German) and some half-dozen houses, and we are at the gates of the Franciscan hospice, a handsome building, capable of accommodating over two hundred guests, with spacious reception-rooms and every modern convenience, built mainly by the liberality of Americans, and known, in consequence, as Notre Dame d'Amerique. Its hospitality, like that of all the Franciscan hospices, is open to all, rich and poor, irrespective {261} of sex, creed, or nationality. Guests are at liberty to leave a gift for the maintenance of the house; but nothing is asked, and the Lady related several instances, personally known to her, in which it had been declined owing to the circumstances, known or suspected, of the visitor.
One's emotions on finding oneself in Nazareth are, like so many of the most sacred things in life, "nothing to speak of." Easier is it to dwell upon our hearty welcome and kindly companionship, upon the refreshment of comfortable rooms and an excellent table, upon the unattractiveness of the modern town and the superfluous philanthropy and multiplication of benevolent institutions.
After "the cup that cheers," and which a Franciscan hospice anywhere in Palestine may be warranted to produce at sight of an Englishwoman, we wandered forth, rather rashly, in the twilight. The Lady alleged that the ground-plan of the town could only be compared with Clovelly—each house looks down the next-door chimneys, or would if chimneys there were. The streets appeared to be about nine feet wide. On either side is a pavement wide enough for one person; the middle is a water-course, a {262} drain, or a depository for decaying vegetable matter according to the character of the quarter. If you meet a donkey your conversation with your companion across the street is interrupted till it has clattered past; if it is loaded you flatten yourself against the wall; if you meet a camel you step inside the nearest house. The people have the manners of those accustomed to tourists and to superfluously benevolent institutions: the women stare boldly, the children demand backsheesh, the men have lost the Oriental courtesy so welcome in less frequented places.
The population is about ten thousand, of whom thirty-five hundred are Moslems, and thirty-five hundred Greeks; about twenty-eight hundred Catholics, Latin, Greek, and Maronite, and about two hundred and fifty Protestants. The people are prosperous, mainly as agriculturists, but there is also some commerce in cotton and grain.
The Franciscans, besides their own college for novices, have a school for boys; the Salesians an orphanage for boys; the Christian Brothers a school for boys, with higher grade as well as elementary teaching; the Dames de Nazareth an orphanage and school for girls; the Sisters of {263} St Joseph a school for girls and a dispensary; the Brothers of St John the Divine a hospital and dispensary; the Sisters of Charity all the miscellaneous works of care for young and old, for homeless and infirm, with which everywhere they fill up the gaps left by others. The Greeks, Russians, Maronites—all have their own institutions; the Russians a very large hospice for pilgrims. The Edinburgh Medical Mission has a church and hospital, and the English have a small orphanage for girls, founded by the Society for Female Education, which, despite its unattractive title, has done some excellent work in Palestine. How, out of a Christian population of about three thousand (exclusive of Greek Orthodox, and in a well-to-do town), enough material is collected to furnish occupation to so many societies, and the means of spending so much money as is here represented, is beyond the understanding of the mere layman!
Darkness fell suddenly, and in the narrow, unlighted streets we—to our own self-contempt at so unusual a circumstance—lost our way, got mixed with a long train of camels which, whether standing or sitting, barricaded our steps in all directions, and were finally rescued by a lad speaking very good French, who lifted the Lady {264} bodily over pack-saddles and humps of camels, drove her under arches formed by the front and hind legs of camels, held aside for her the investigating muzzles of camels, defended her from the hind legs of camels, and finally, to her great surprise, delivered her safe at the convent door, and disappeared into the dark.
Next day we visited all the traditional sites, known by description to all the world. The great Church of the Annunciation, rich with costly gifts of marbles, and silver, and pictures, on the site of that built by Constantine, is the parish church of the Franciscans. The present building is not older than the beginning of the eighteenth century; its immediate predecessor having been burnt and pillaged by the Bedu from beyond the Jordan. A very simple chapel covers a part of the foundations, still visible, of a crusading church, on ground bought by the Franciscans a hundred and fifty years ago, and which they hope some day to restore. The timeworn arches, the fragments of masonry standing silent and solitary in a walled garden, among well-ordered flower-beds—the tradition that this was the site of the workshop of Joseph, the village carpenter, impressed us more than all the wealth, the multiplied legends of the {265} handsome Church of the Annunciation.[4] The Franciscans have also a chapel covering the rock said to be the scene of one of the occasions when our Lord, after His resurrection, was known in the breaking of bread. The Greek Catholics are in possession of the church which is associated with the synagogue in which Jesus is said to have preached, and from which He was cast out; the Greek Orthodox of a chapel which covers one of the springs of the village well. Here, as in many other places where only one well exists, we may feel certain of at least one scene of many sacred associations.
Later in the day the Lady and the Doctor rode up to the top of one of the many hills, which stand out like islands or peninsulas in the plain, and from which, but a mile or two beyond the village, one has a view which is an epitome of Old and New Testament history. It is said that one may see thirty miles in three directions: east to the valley of the Jordan and the hills of Gilead beyond, west to the Mediterranean, and in the nearer foreground one may look {266} upon the battlefields of Esdraelon, on Carmel and Tabor, on the scenes of the history of Elijah, Barak, Gideon, of the death of Saul, of the struggles of the Maccabees, of the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
Here, once more, one cannot fail to be struck by the falsity of conventional teaching. No meditation on the boyhood of Jesus is complete without its paragraph as to the obscurity of His home, the remoteness of this Galilean village, its aloofness from the life and history of the times. The very phrase "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" is taken in support of its insignificance, instead of evidence of the well-known character for turbulence of its inhabitants—a character said, by those in political authority, to be still prominent to-day.
Apart, however, from the stimulus of its surrounding scenery it is obvious to the most elementary student that Nazareth was very little removed from the most crowded highway, from the centre of the busiest life of Palestine; that—to speak it with reverence—an intelligent boy, wandering about the neighbourhood as boys will, would bring in every day news of all the activities, the competitions, the commerce, the politics of the times. Midianite caravans making {267} their way to the fords of the Jordan would tell of all the wealth and learning of Egypt, and reflect somewhat of its contact with Europe; Damascus caravans coming south or returning home from trading expeditions; pilgrims going up to Jerusalem to the feasts, and bringing back news of the capital, the rendezvous of all Jewry; lords and princes with their retinues travelling from the Greek cities of the Decapolis to the Greek city of Tiberias, but a few hours distant; Roman legions marching south; luxurious ladies going down to winter among the palm gardens of Jericho; learned men travelling from one city to another; peripatetic teachers as the fashion was; Herod and his Court removing from Tiberias to Sebaste, to Jericho, to Jerusalem—all such spectacles would be of daily occurrence, a part of that human training which made the Master, perfect Man; which taught Him sympathy not only with those who frequented the carpenter's workshop and the fisherman's hut, but with a learning, a civilisation, a life, which brings Him nearer to us and to ............