Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

and thirty years before had left his native city and come to Hebron with a regular passport; that for many years a European passport was no proteetion, and, indeed, it had been rather an object with him to lay aside the European character, and identify himself with the Asiatics; that, in consequence, he had been careless of his passport, and had lost it; but that now, since the conquest of Mohammed Aly and the government of Ibrahim Pacha, a European passport was respected, and saved its holder and his family from Turkish impositions. He mourned bitterly over his loss, not, as he said, for himself, for his days were almost ended, and the storms of life could not break over his head more heavily than they had already done; but he mourned for his children and grandchildren, whom his carelessness had deprived of the evidence of their birthright and the protection of their country. I was interested in the old man's story, and particularly in his unobtrusive manner of telling it; and drawing upon the reminiscences of my legal knowledge, I told him that the loss of his passport had not deprived him of his right to the protection of his country, and that, if he could establish the fact of his being a native of Venice, he might still sit down under the wings of the double-headed eagle of Austria. I afterward went more into detail. Learning that there were in Hebron some of his very old acquaintances, who could testify to the fact of his nativity, I told him to bring them to me, and I would take their affidavits, and on my

VENERABLE WITNESSES.

169

arrival at Beyroot would represent the matter to the Austrian consul there; and. I thought that with such evidence the consul would not refuse him another passport. He thanked me very warmly, and the next morning early, while I was waiting, all ready for my departure, he brought in his witnesses. It would have been difficult for the old man to produce deponents who could swear positively to his nativity; but of those whom he brought, any one could look back farther than it is usually allowed to man. They were all over sixty, and their long white beards gave them a venerable appearance, which made me attach more importance to the proceedings than I intended. These hoary-headed men, I thought, could not speak with lying lips; and, taking my place in the middle of the floor, the witnesses seated themselves before me, and I prepared, with business-like formality, to examine them and re-. duce their examination to writing. Since I left home I had rarely thought of any thing connected with my professional pursuits, and I could but smile as I found myself seated in the middle of a floor, surrounded by a crowd of Israelites in the old city of Hebron, for the first time in more than eighteen months resuming the path of my daily walks at home. I placed the scribe before me, and with a little of the keenness of the hunter returning to a track for some time lost, I examined the witnesses severally, and dictated in good set form the several requisite affidavits; and then

reading them over distinctly, like a commissioner authorized to take acknowledgments under the act, &c., I swore the white-bearded old men upon the table of their law, a Hebrew copy of the Old Testament. I then dictated an affidavit for the rabbi himself, and was about administering the oath as before, when the old man rose, and taking the paper in his hand, and telling me to follow him, led the way through a range of narrow lanes and streets, and a crowd of people, to the little synagogue, where, opening the holy of holies, and laying his hand upon the sacred scroll, he read over the affidavit and solemnly swore to its truth. It did not need this additional act of solemnity to · convince me of his truth; and when he gave me back the paper, and I saw the earnestness and deep interest depicted in the faces of the crowd that had followed us, I again resolved that I would use my best exertions to gladden once more the old man's heart before he died. added to the several affidavits a brief statement of the circumstances under which they had been taken, and putting the paper in my pocket, returned to the house of the rabbi; and I may as well mention here, that at Beyroot I called upon the Austrian consul, and before I left had the satisfaction of receiving from him the assurance that the passport should be made out forthwith, and delivered to the agent whom the old rabbi had named to me.

I had nothing now to detain me in Hebron; my mules and a kervash provided by the governor

JEWISH HOSPITALITY.

171

were waiting for me, and I bade farewell to my Jewish friends. I could not offer to pay the old rabbi with money for his hospitality, and would have satisfied my conscience by a compliment to the servants; but the son of the good old man, himself more than sixty, told Paul that they would all feel hurt if I urged it. I did not urge it; and the thought passed rapidly through my mind, that while yesterday the children of the desert would have stripped me of my last farthing, to-day a Jew would not take from me a para. I passed through the dark and narrow lanes of the Jewish Quarter, the inhabitants being all arranged before their houses; and all along, even from the lips of the maidens, a farewell salutation fell upon my ears. They did not know what I had done nor what I proposed to do; but they knew that I intended a kindness to a father of their tribe, and they thanked me as if that kindness were already done. With the last of their kind greetings still lingering on my ears, I emerged from the Jewish Quarter, and it was with a warm feeling of thankfulness I felt, that if yesterday I had an Arab's curse, to-day I had a Jewish blessing.

CHAPTER IX.

An Arnaout-The Pools of Solomon.-Bethlehem.-The Em peress Helena.-A Clerical Exquisite.-Miraculous Localities. -A Boon Companion.-The Soldier's Sleep.-The Birth-place of Christ.-Worship in the Grotto.-Moslem Fidelity.

I HAD given away all my superfluous baggage, and commenced my journey in the Holy Land with three mules, one for myself, another for Paul, and the third for my baggage. The muleteer, who was an uncommonly thriving-looking, well-dressed man, rode upon a donkey, and had an assistant, who accompanied on foot; but by far the most important person of our party was our kervash. He was a wild Arnaout, of a race that had for centuries furnished the bravest, fiercest, and most terrible soldiers in the army of the sultan; and he himself was one of the wildest of that wild tribe. He was now about forty, and had been a warrior from his youth upward, and battles and bloodshed were familiar to him as his food; he had fought under Ibrahim Pacha in his bloody campaign in Greece, and his rebellious war against the sultan; and having been wounded in the great battle in which the Egyptian soldiers defeated the grand vizier with the flower of the sultan's army, he had been removed from the regular service, and placed in an honourable position near the governor of Hebron.

« ÎnapoiContinuă »