Erhalten Sie Zugang zu diesem und mehr als 300000 Büchern ab EUR 5,99 monatlich.
- Herausgeber: libreka classics
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
The Innocents Abroad - Volume 06 by Mark Twain libreka classics – These are classics of literary history, reissued and made available to a wide audience. Immerse yourself in well-known and popular titles!
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 217
Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:
Ähnliche
Titel: The Innocents Abroad — Volume 06
von Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Pepys, William Dean Howells, John Burroughs, William Harmon Norton, L. Mühlbach, Franklin Knight Lane, Walter Pater, Jonathan Swift, Augusta J. Evans, Trumbull White, Kathleen Thompson Norris, Matthew Arnold, Charles W. Colby, Shakespeare, James Fenimore Cooper, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Ada Cambridge, Philip E. Muskett, Catherine Helen Spence, Rolf Boldrewood, Ernest Scott, Fergus Hume, H. G. Wells, Victor [pseud.] Appleton, Roald Amundsen, Max Simon Nordau, Henry David Thoreau, E. Phillips Oppenheim, Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt, Charlotte Mary Yonge, Charles Henry Eden, Charles Babbage, T. R. Malthus, Unknown, Joseph Ernest Morris, Robert Southey, Isabella L. Bird, Charles James Fox, Thomas Hariot, Cyrus Thomas, Bart Haley, Christopher Morley, Edgar Saltus, Marie Corelli, Edmund Lester Pearson, Robert Browning, John Aubrey, Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue, John McElroy, John Galsworthy, Henry James, Hamilton Wright Mabie, Mina Benson Hubbard, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, John Keble, Henry Lindlahr, Richard Henry Dana, Annie Wood Besant, Immanuel Kant, John Habberton, Baron Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett Dunsany, T. B. Ray, Isabel Ecclestone Mackay, Frank C. Haddock, William John Locke, baron Arthur Léon Imbert de Saint-Amand, Ralph Centennius, United States, Library of Congress. Copyright Office, James Otis, George Hartmann, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, George Gissing, John Henry Tilden, Thomas Wright, Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh, Anonymous, J. Clontz, David Hume, Margot Asquith, Elmer Ulysses Hoenshel, Byron J. Rees, Lida B. McMurry, Georges Duhamel, Ramsay Muir, Edith Wharton, Charles Sturt, Lola Ridge, J. M. Stone, Annie Payson Call, Grant Allen, kniaz Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin, Steve Solomon, Isabel Moser, Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin, Horace W. C. Newte, Charles Darwin, Maurice Maeterlinck, Walter Bagehot, Henri Bergson, George Randolph Chester, John S. C. Abbott, L. Frank Baum, William T. Sherman, Philip Henry Sheridan, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Ambrose Bierce, Ulysses S. Grant, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Alfred Lichtenstein, Abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy Guibert, Nellie L. McClung, Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice, E. Nesbit, Henri Barbusse, J. M. Synge, Frank Norris, Louis Hémon, Henry Van Dyke, Thomas Guthrie Marquis, Susanna Moodie, Frank Bigelow Tarbell, René Descartes, Kirk Munroe, Francis Hopkinson Smith, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Talbot Mundy, George Meredith, Clemens Brentano, James De Mille, James Allen, Norman Douglas, Bolton Hall, Arthur Christopher Benson, James Oliver Curwood, Frank Jardine, Bertram Lenox Simpson, Freiherr von Justus Liebig, Cyril G. Hopkins, Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, Evelyn Scott, Charles Monroe Sheldon, George Berkeley, Steven Sills, Sara Jeannette Duncan, Jules Verne, Irvin S. Cobb, Zane Grey, August von Kotzebue, John Addington Symonds, Marjorie Allen Seiffert, J. B. Bury, William Makepeace Thackeray, Jules Renard, Susan Coolidge, Huguette Bertrand, Mrs. C. F. Fraser, Ottilie A. Liljencrantz, William Morton Payne, Henry Adams, T. S. Arthur, Orison Swett Marden, T. S. Ackland, Anthony Trollope, graf Leo Tolstoy, Robert Smythe Hichens, Émile Gaboriau, Wilkie Collins, Charles Reade, Horace Walpole, Jennette Lee, Thomas Dykes Beasley, Inez Haynes Gillmore, L. H. Woolley, John Francis Davis, James B. Stetson, William Day Simonds, James O'Meara, Almira Bailey, Cuthbert Bede, Voltaire, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Bennett Munro, Sir Richard Francis Burton, Horatio Alger, Paul Verlaine, Samuel Vaknin, William Ralph Inge, Madame de Staël, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, L. A. Abbott, F. Colburn Adams, John S. Adams, Thornton W. Burgess, Glenn D. Bradley, Eugen Neuhaus, Arthur E. Knights, Bret Harte, Maturin Murray Ballou, Jane G. Austin, Samuel Johnson, Frederick Niecks, Stephen Leacock, Suelette Dreyfus, Stéphane Mallarmé, Lyndon Orr, William Le Queux, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Jeannie Gunn, Jean François Regnard, John Ruskin, A. I. Kuprin, Pierre Louÿs, George Barr McCutcheon, John Munro, Holman Day, William Stearns Davis, John Richardson, Mary Jane Holmes, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Finley Peter Dunne, C. J. Dennis, Ethel Sybil Turner, Julius Wellhausen, Arnold Bennett, Harold Bell Wright, Guðmundur Kamban, Charles Stuart Calverley, A. E. W. Mason, Charles Rivière Dufresny, David Starr Jordan, Wallace Irwin, J. W. Wright, Thomas Hardy, United States Rubber Company, Helen Reimensnyder Martin, William Fayette Fox, Lewis Carroll, Anna Katharine Green, Shell Union Oil Corporation, Louisa May Alcott, Theocritus, of Phlossa near Smyrna Bion, Moschus, Bertrand Russell, Guy de Maupassant, Henrik Ibsen, James Whitcomb Riley, Josephine Lawrence, Pierre Loti, Harry Alverson Franck, Albert Payson Terhune, Harold MacGrath, G. A. Henty, Harriet A. Adams, John Lothrop Motley, H. E. Bird, Joseph Crosby Lincoln, Michel Baron, Gene Stratton-Porter, James Clerk Maxwell, Norman Lindsay, Edward Lasker, Margaret Penrose, S. R. Crockett, Austin Hall, Homer Eon Flint, Various, Clarence Edward Mulford, Upton Sinclair, John Andreas Widtsoe, Thomas Bulfinch, David Graham Phillips, John Kendrick Bangs, Edmond Jaloux, Emile Littré, 13th cent. de Boron Robert, Samuel Butler, James Huneker, Jessie Graham [pseud.] Flower, St. George Rathborne, Charles Wesley Emerson, Winston Churchill, Edith Bancroft, Lloyd Osbourne, Jack London, Lyman Abbott, Belle K. Abbott, Sinclair Lewis, H. W. Conn, Ludwig Thoma, Sir Walter Scott, August Strindberg, Thomas Chapais, Ernest Giles, David Wynford Carnegie, Zoeth Skinner Eldredge, Eusebius Joseph Molera, C. C. Andrews, Robert Barr, John Hendricks Bechtel, Robert W. Chambers, Alice B. Emerson, Anna M. Galbraith, Laura Lee Hope, L. T. Meade, Harry Steele Morrison, Frank Gee Patchin, Louise Clarke Pyrnelle, William MacLeod Raine, Roy Rockwood, Edward Stratemeyer, Louis Tracy, Matthew White, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Clarence Young, Ludwig Leichhardt, Arthur B. Reeve, Mrs. Georgie Sheldon, Samuel Hopkins Adams, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Chester Alan Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, William Jefferson Clinton, George W. Bush, United States. Presidents., Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Rex Ellingwood Beach, Euripides, Henry C. Northam, Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews, Alice Brown, Mary Stewart Doubleday Cutting, Elizabeth Garver Jordan, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Mary Heaton Vorse, Edith Wyatt, Bernard Shaw, Georg Büchner, Mrs. Alfred Gatty, Henry Mackenzie, Thomas Henry Huxley, Leonard Huxley, William Hazlitt, Arthur William Dunn, Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy, Standish O'Grady, J. M. Barrie, J. G Patterson, Alexandre Dumas père, Alphonse Daudet, Ignatius Donnelly, Henry A. Shute, Walter Savage Landor, E. J. Banfield, George Sand, Gustave Flaubert, William James, Charles Klein, J. Storer Clouston, John Fox, John Stuart Mill, Laurence Hope, Andrew Lang, Vaughan Kester, Molière, Baron George Gordon Byron Byron, Viscount Henry St. John Bolingbroke, Ben Jonson, Émile Zola, Thomas Stevens, Carl Ewald, Anatole France, Edward J. Wickson, Henry M. Stanley, Nicolas Boileau Despréaux, Selma Lagerlöf, Richard Marsh, W. B. Yeats, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Henry Stevens, Gouverneur Morris, Kaiten Nukariya, Henry Rider Haggard, Frances Boyd Calhoun, George Crabbe, Bertram Waldrom Matz, Joseph A. Altsheler, Petronius Arbiter, F. Marion Crawford, Charles James Lever, John Payne, Harlan Page Halsey, Karl Philipp Moritz, Henry Cruse Murphy, Vingie E. Roe, Mabel C. Hawley, Walter Cox Green, Henry Fielding, Jeffery Farnol, Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards, Howard Roger Garis, Lilian Garis, Carolyn Wells, G. K. Chesterton, Mungo Park, Theodore Dreiser, Arthur Cheney Train, Edward Payson Roe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Asa Gray, Jean de La Fontaine, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Mary Noailles Murfree, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, J. S. Fletcher, Elinor Glyn, Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Grimm, Kenneth Grahame, Wassily Kandinsky, Theodor Fontane, S. Baring-Gould, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, E. Cherubini, Brett Page, Dom, John Oxley, William F. Drannan, Mark Rutherford, Adelbert von Chamisso, L. M. Montgomery, Edward John Eyre, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, F. H. King, Justin McCarthy, Myrtle Reed, Francis Grose, W. H. Hudson, Andrew Kennedy Hutchison Boyd, Count Anthony Hamilton, Horace, John Brown, Katherine Cecil Thurston, Victor Hugo, Henry Sweet, Robert Hillyer, Amy Brooks, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Brillat-Savarin, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Grace M. Remick, Georg Ebers, Francis Bacon, Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing, Ralph Victor, Sir Francis Darwin, Heinrich Heine, Thomas Sherlock, William Ferneley Allen, Henry Harland, Khalil Gibran, Lady Florence Henrietta Fisher Darwin, Sir William Petty, Juliet Helena Lumbard James, Max Pearson Cushing, Marion Harland, Edward Francis Adams, E. Pauline Johnson, John Drinkwater, James Edward Talmage, Margaret Sidney, William Allen White, Gertrude Page, Michel de Montaigne, Alleyne Ireland, Charles E. Morris, Martinovitsné Kutas Ilona, Ernst Lehrs, Richard Harding Davis, Robert Seymour, Anna Bonus Kingsford, Edmund Burke, Lightheart, Brother of the Resurrection Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, Lucia Prudence Hall Woodbury, Virginia Woolf, Ellis Wynne, Eustace Hale Ball, A. A. Milne, George MacDonald, Arthur Herbert Leahy, W. E. B. Du Bois, Nathaniel H. Bishop, Charles Kingsley, Mark Twain
ISBN 978-3-7429-5526-5
Alle Rechte vorbehalten.
Es ist ohne vorherige schriftliche Erlaubnis nicht gestattet, dieses Werk im Ganzen oder in Teilen zu vervielfältigen oder zu veröffentlichen.
THE INNOCENTS ABROAD, Part 6
THE INNOCENTS ABROAD
Part 6, Chapters 50 to 61
by Mark Twain
INNOCENTS ABROAD
by Mark Twain
[From an 1869—1st Edition]
CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
CHAPTER L.
Toward Nazareth—Bitten By a Camel—Grotto of the Annunciation, Nazareth—Noted Grottoes in General—Joseph's Workshop—A Sacred Bowlder—The Fountain of the Virgin—Questionable Female Beauty—Literary Curiosities
CHAPTER LI.
Boyhood of the Saviour—Unseemly Antics of Sober Pilgrims—Home of the Witch of Endor—Nain—Profanation—A Popular Oriental Picture—Biblical Metaphors Becoming steadily More Intelligible—The Shuuem Miracle—The "Free Son of The Desert"—Ancient Jezrael—Jehu's Achievements—Samaria and its Famous Siege
CHAPTER LII.
Curious Remnant of the Past—Shechem—The Oldest "First Family" on Earth—The Oldest Manuscript Extant—The Genuine Tomb of Joseph—Jacob's Well—Shiloh—Camping with the Arabs—Jacob's Ladder—More Desolation—Ramah, Beroth, the Tomb of Samuel, The Fountain of Beira—Impatience—Approaching Jerusalem—The Holy City in Sight—Noting Its Prominent Features—Domiciled Within the Sacred Walls
CHAPTER LIII.
"The Joy of the Whole Earth"—Description of Jerusalem—Church of the Holy Sepulchre—The Stone of Unction—The Grave of Jesus—Graves of Nicodemus and Joseph of Armattea—Places of the Apparition—The Finding of the There Crosses——The Legend—Monkish Impostures—The Pillar of Flagellation—The Place of a Relic—Godfrey's Sword—"The Bonds of Christ"—"The Center of the Earth"—Place whence the Dust was taken of which Adam was Made—Grave of Adam—The Martyred Soldier—The Copper Plate that was on the Cross—The Good St. Helena—Place of the Division of the Garments—St. Dimas, the Penitent Thief—The Late Emperor Maximilian's Contribution—Grotto wherein the Crosses were Found, and the Nails, and the Crown of Thorns—Chapel of the Mocking—Tomb of Melchizedek—Graves of Two Renowned Crusaders—The Place of the Crucifixion
CHAPTER LIV.
The "Sorrowful Way"—The Legend of St. Veronica's Handkerchief—An Illustrious Stone—House of the Wandering Jew—The Tradition of the Wanderer—Solomon's Temple—Mosque of Omar—Moslem Traditions—"Women not Admitted"—The Fate of a Gossip—Turkish Sacred Relics—Judgment Seat of David and Saul—Genuine Precious Remains of Solomon's Temple—Surfeited with Sights—The Pool of Siloam—The Garden of Gethsemane and Other Sacred Localities
CHAPTER LV.
Rebellion in the Camp—Charms of Nomadic Life—Dismal Rumors—En Route for Jericho and The Dead Sea—Pilgrim Strategy—Bethany and the Dwelling of Lazarus—"Bedouins!"—Ancient Jericho—Misery—The Night March—The Dead Sea—An Idea of What a "Wilderness" in Palestine is—The Holy hermits of Mars Saba—Good St. Saba—Women not Admitted—Buried from the World for all Time—Unselfish Catholic Benevolence—Gazelles—The Plain of the Shepherds—Birthplace of the Saviour, Bethlehem—Church of the Nativity—Its Hundred Holy Places—The Famous "Milk" Grotto—Tradition—Return to Jerusalem—Exhausted
CHAPTER LVI.
Departure from Jerusalem—Samson—The Plain of Sharon—Arrival at Joppa—Horse of Simon the Tanner—The Long Pilgrimage Ended—Character of Palestine Scenery—The Curse
CHAPTER LVII.
The Happiness of being at Sea once more—"Home" as it is in a Pleasure Ship—"Shaking Hands" with the Vessel—Jack in Costume—His Father's Parting Advice—Approaching Egypt—Ashore in Alexandria—A Deserved Compliment for the Donkeys—Invasion of the Lost Tribes of America—End of the Celebrated "Jaffa Colony"—Scenes in Grand Cairo—Shepheard's Hotel Contrasted with a Certain American Hotel—Preparing for the Pyramids
CHAPTER LVIII.
"Recherche" Donkeys—A Wild Ride—Specimens of Egyptian Modesty—Moses in the Bulrushes—Place where the Holy Family Sojourned—Distant view of the Pyramids—A Nearer View—The Ascent—Superb View from the top of the Pyramid—"Backsheesh! Backsheesh!"—An Arab Exploit—In the Bowels of the Pyramid—Strategy—Reminiscence of "Holiday's Hill"—Boyish Exploit—The Majestic Sphynx—Things the Author will not Tell—Grand Old Egypt
CHAPTER LIX.
Going Home—A Demoralized Note-Book—A Boy's Diary—Mere Mention of Old Spain—Departure from Cadiz—A Deserved Rebuke—The Beautiful Madeiras—Tabooed—In the Delightful Bermudas—An English Welcome—Good-by to "Our Friends the Bermudians"—Packing Trunks for Home—Our First Accident—The Long Cruise Drawing to a Close—At Home—Amen
CHAPTER LX.
Thankless Devotion—A Newspaper Valedictory—Conclusion
CHAPTER LXI.
CONCLUSION.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
CHAPTER L.
We descended from Mount Tabor, crossed a deep ravine, followed a hilly, rocky road to Nazareth—distant two hours. All distances in the East are measured by hours, not miles. A good horse will walk three miles an hour over nearly any kind of a road; therefore, an hour, here, always stands for three miles. This method of computation is bothersome and annoying; and until one gets thoroughly accustomed to it, it carries no intelligence to his mind until he has stopped and translated the pagan hours into Christian miles, just as people do with the spoken words of a foreign language they are acquainted with, but not familiarly enough to catch the meaning in a moment. Distances traveled by human feet are also estimated by hours and minutes, though I do not know what the base of the calculation is. In Constantinople you ask, "How far is it to the Consulate?" and they answer, "About ten minutes." "How far is it to the Lloyds' Agency?" "Quarter of an hour." "How far is it to the lower bridge?" "Four minutes." I can not be positive about it, but I think that there, when a man orders a pair of pantaloons, he says he wants them a quarter of a minute in the legs and nine seconds around the waist.
Two hours from Tabor to Nazareth—and as it was an uncommonly narrow, crooked trail, we necessarily met all the camel trains and jackass caravans between Jericho and Jacksonville in that particular place and nowhere else. The donkeys do not matter so much, because they are so small that you can jump your horse over them if he is an animal of spirit, but a camel is not jumpable. A camel is as tall as any ordinary dwelling-house in Syria—which is to say a camel is from one to two, and sometimes nearly three feet taller than a good-sized man. In this part of the country his load is oftenest in the shape of colossal sacks—one on each side. He and his cargo take up as much room as a carriage. Think of meeting this style of obstruction in a narrow trail. The camel would not turn out for a king. He stalks serenely along, bringing his cushioned stilts forward with the long, regular swing of a pendulum, and whatever is in the way must get out of the way peaceably, or be wiped out forcibly by the bulky sacks. It was a tiresome ride to us, and perfectly exhausting to the horses. We were compelled to jump over upwards of eighteen hundred donkeys, and only one person in the party was unseated less than sixty times by the camels. This seems like a powerful statement, but the poet has said, "Things are not what they seem." I can not think of any thing, now, more certain to make one shudder, than to have a soft-footed camel sneak up behind him and touch him on the ear with its cold, flabby under-lip. A camel did this for one of the boys, who was drooping over his saddle in a brown study. He glanced up and saw the majestic apparition hovering above him, and made frantic efforts to get out of the way, but the camel reached out and bit him on the shoulder before he accomplished it. This was the only pleasant incident of the journey.
At Nazareth we camped in an olive grove near the Virgin Mary's fountain, and that wonderful Arab "guard" came to collect some bucksheesh for his "services" in following us from Tiberias and warding off invisible dangers with the terrors of his armament. The dragoman had paid his master, but that counted as nothing—if you hire a man to sneeze for you, here, and another man chooses to help him, you have got to pay both. They do nothing whatever without pay. How it must have surprised these people to hear the way of salvation offered to them "without money and without price." If the manners, the people or the customs of this country have changed since the Saviour's time, the figures and metaphors of the Bible are not the evidences to prove it by.
We entered the great Latin Convent which is built over the traditional dwelling-place of the Holy Family. We went down a flight of fifteen steps below the ground level, and stood in a small chapel tricked out with tapestry hangings, silver lamps, and oil paintings. A spot marked by a cross, in the marble floor, under the altar, was exhibited as the place made forever holy by the feet of the Virgin when she stood up to receive the message of the angel. So simple, so unpretending a locality, to be the scene of so mighty an event! The very scene of the Annunciation—an event which has been commemorated by splendid shrines and august temples all over the civilized world, and one which the princes of art have made it their loftiest ambition to picture worthily on their canvas; a spot whose history is familiar to the very children of every house, and city, and obscure hamlet of the furthest lands of Christendom; a spot which myriads of men would toil across the breadth of a world to see, would consider it a priceless privilege to look upon. It was easy to think these thoughts. But it was not easy to bring myself up to the magnitude of the situation. I could sit off several thousand miles and imagine the angel appearing, with shadowy wings and lustrous countenance, and note the glory that streamed downward upon the Virgin's head while the message from the Throne of God fell upon her ears—any one can do that, beyond the ocean, but few can do it here. I saw the little recess from which the angel stepped, but could not fill its void. The angels that I know are creatures of unstable fancy—they will not fit in niches of substantial stone. Imagination labors best in distant fields. I doubt if any man can stand in the Grotto of the Annunciation and people with the phantom images of his mind its too tangible walls of stone.
They showed us a broken granite pillar, depending from the roof, which they said was hacked in two by the Moslem conquerors of Nazareth, in the vain hope of pulling down the sanctuary. But the pillar remained miraculously suspended in the air, and, unsupported itself, supported then and still supports the roof. By dividing this statement up among eight, it was found not difficult to believe it.
These gifted Latin monks never do any thing by halves. If they were to show you the Brazen Serpent that was elevated in the wilderness, you could depend upon it that they had on hand the pole it was elevated on also, and even the hole it stood in. They have got the "Grotto" of the Annunciation here; and just as convenient to it as one's throat is to his mouth, they have also the Virgin's Kitchen, and even her sitting-room, where she and Joseph watched the infant Saviour play with Hebrew toys eighteen hundred years ago. All under one roof, and all clean, spacious, comfortable "grottoes." It seems curious that personages intimately connected with the Holy Family always lived in grottoes—in Nazareth, in Bethlehem, in imperial Ephesus—and yet nobody else in their day and generation thought of doing any thing of the kind. If they ever did, their grottoes are all gone, and I suppose we ought to wonder at the peculiar marvel of the preservation of these I speak of. When the Virgin fled from Herod's wrath, she hid in a grotto in Bethlehem, and the same is there to this day. The slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem was done in a grotto; the Saviour was born in a grotto—both are shown to pilgrims yet. It is exceedingly strange that these tremendous events all happened in grottoes—and exceedingly fortunate, likewise, because the strongest houses must crumble to ruin in time, but a grotto in the living rock will last forever. It is an imposture—this grotto stuff—but it is one that all men ought to thank the Catholics for. Wherever they ferret out a lost locality made holy by some Scriptural event, they straightway build a massive—almost imperishable—church there, and preserve the memory of that locality for the gratification of future generations. If it had been left to Protestants to do this most worthy work, we would not even know where Jerusalem is to-day, and the man who could go and put his finger on Nazareth would be too wise for this world. The world owes the Catholics its good will even for the happy rascality of hewing out these bogus grottoes in the rock; for it is infinitely more satisfactory to look at a grotto, where people have faithfully believed for centuries that the Virgin once lived, than to have to imagine a dwelling-place for her somewhere, any where, nowhere, loose and at large all over this town of Nazareth. There is too large a scope of country. The imagination can not work. There is no one particular spot to chain your eye, rivet your interest, and make you think. The memory of the Pilgrims can not perish while Plymouth Rock remains to us. The old monks are wise. They know how to drive a stake through a pleasant tradition that will hold it to its place forever.
We visited the places where Jesus worked for fifteen years as a carpenter, and where he attempted to teach in the synagogue and was driven out by a mob. Catholic chapels stand upon these sites and protect the little fragments of the ancient walls which remain. Our pilgrims broke off specimens. We visited, also, a new chapel, in the midst of the town, which is built around a boulder some twelve feet long by four feet thick; the priests discovered, a few years ago, that the disciples had sat upon this rock to rest, once, when they had walked up from Capernaum. They hastened to preserve the relic. Relics are very good property. Travelers are expected to pay for seeing them, and they do it cheerfully. We like the idea. One's conscience can never be the worse for the knowledge that he has paid his way like a man. Our pilgrims would have liked very well to get out their lampblack and stencil-plates and paint their names on that rock, together with the names of the villages they hail from in America, but the priests permit nothing of that kind. To speak the strict truth, however, our party seldom offend in that way, though we have men in the ship who never lose an opportunity to do it. Our pilgrims' chief sin is their lust for "specimens." I suppose that by this time they know the dimensions of that rock to an inch, and its weight to a ton; and I do not hesitate to charge that they will go back there to-night and try to carry it off.
This "Fountain of the Virgin" is the one which tradition says Mary used to get water from, twenty times a day, when she was a girl, and bear it away in a jar upon her head. The water streams through faucets in the face of a wall of ancient masonry which stands removed from the houses of the village. The young girls of Nazareth still collect about it by the dozen and keep up a riotous laughter and sky-larking. The Nazarene girls are homely. Some of them have large, lustrous eyes, but none of them have pretty faces. These girls wear a single garment, usually, and it is loose, shapeless, of undecided color; it is generally out of repair, too. They wear, from crown to jaw, curious strings of old coins, after the manner of the belles of Tiberias, and brass jewelry upon their wrists and in their ears. They wear no shoes and stockings. They are the most human girls we have found in the country yet, and the best natured. But there is no question that these picturesque maidens sadly lack comeliness.
A pilgrim—the "Enthusiast"—said: "See that tall, graceful girl! look at the Madonna-like beauty of her countenance!"
Another pilgrim came along presently and said: "Observe that tall, graceful girl; what queenly Madonna-like gracefulness of beauty is in her countenance."
I said: "She is not tall, she is short; she is not beautiful, she is homely; she is graceful enough, I grant, but she is rather boisterous."
The third and last pilgrim moved by, before long, and he said: "Ah, what a tall, graceful girl! what Madonna-like gracefulness of queenly beauty!"
The verdicts were all in. It was time, now, to look up the authorities for all these opinions. I found this paragraph, which follows. Written by whom? Wm. C. Grimes:
