244

THE MONK GIOVANNI BATTISTA.

to prevent their possible appropriation by the Greeks then in a state of rebellion, puts this question with great astonishment. The monk Fra' Giovanni Battista can reply to it; the monastery upon Mount Carmel may justly be said to be his creation. From a far distant home did he come to Carmel; with him he brought nothing but his enthusiasm, but this enthusiasm was mighty and remained faithful to him.

It was in the year 1819 that Giovanni Battista, commissioned by his order, first visited Mount Carmel from Rome. He then found within the ruins of the monastery, instead of monks, a multitude of French soldiers' skeletons. In the disposition of the Turkish alentours, in the tyranny of the pasha of St. Jean d'Acre, and in the explosion of the Greek war of emancipation, there was sufficient reason to banish, for the moment, all thoughts of a new structure. But to know the Holy Mount which had given a name to his order to be thus deserted, thus neglected, was a pain which accompanied the pious monk to his western home, and allowed no peace to visit his soul.

Seven years afterwards, in a more propitious season he again visited the East. He came by way of Constantinople; thence he brought, through the aid of French influence, a firman for the erection of a new monastery. Giovanni Battista has skill in architecture; he immediately sketches a plan, the execution of which demanded a fund of a hundred thousand dollars. And whence does he derive these means? His order does not participate in the rich revenue enjoyed by the Franciscans, as guardians of the Holy Sepulchre; the court of Rome too can accord him nothing but its benediction and its protection. He now takes his way along the coasts of Asia and Africa; he traverses Europe: he goes from prince to people; he begs from the Catholic and the Protestant; and with his own hand he conveys the gifts of a liberal sympathy to his mountain, and there he applies them along with a few similarly minded brethren: thus this monastery arose, a refreshing centre of repose to pilgrims from all countries; to the Christian, as also to him of a different creed: to the sick, both of the neighbourhood and from afar, a kindly hospital: and a festal sanctuary to the memory of the great prophet, whose name it bears.

During my visit to Carmel, Giovanni Battista was engaged in a fresh excursion to Europe, for the promotion of his plan; six months afterwards, he visited me at Leipzig. Having seen the completed building, one is absolutely induced to doubt the necessity of the new structure he contemplates. But to a man who can exhibit so praiseworthy a monument of his pious and patient zeal, a favourable eye and an aiding hand are willingly granted when he wishes to give to his work an extension, which he deems to be essential and,

NEW MONASTERY ERECTING.

245

necessary. Even at the time that I was at Carmel this new building was already commenced, and was proceeding with energy. About two hundred paces from the monastery, to the north-west, towards the sea, there is an ancient ruin, which Ibraham Pasha, who has in other ways promoted Giovanni Battista's undertaking, has presented to the Carmelites. This he purposes reconstructing, to form a second monastic building, or rather a building for charitable purposes, and especially an extensive hospital for the reception of the sick. As it is very probable that but for this second building of the Latins, the ancient walls would have been appropriated by the Greeks, and rebuilt for a Greek monastery, I cannot but rejoice on that account at the new undertaking of the worthy Carmelite. For had a Greek monastery arisen close to the present Catholic one, without all doubt the dissensions, every where prevalent in the East between the western and eastern churches, would have been transplanted to Mount Carmel, renovating these vexations.

I met with but few monks in the monastery. The present Prior is a Spaniard; the superintendent of strangers, to whose friendly advances I am much indebted, is an Italian; a third is a German, a native of Bavaria. This countryman of mine appeared to be no very worthy representative of his country, although, according to his own account, he was engaged in the compilation of an Arabic Lexicon. He had been formerly sent to Bagdad by way of punishment, and he now lived in discord with his colleagues.

The evening of the present day I dedicated to the reminiscences of Mount Carmel, both sacred and profane. Even in the earliest period it appears to have been the seat of religious observances; but it was the prophet Elijah who selected it to be the sublimest and holiest scene, the scene of a veritable judgment of the Almighty. (See 1 Kings xviii. 18.) It was hither that Ahab brought his prophets of Baal, eight hundred and fifty individuals; hither came Elijah; the priests built an altar to their Baal; Elijah repaired the altar of his God that was broken down. Sacrifices lay upon both altars. Fire from heaven was to testify to the divine truth before the doubting people of Israel. And it proclaimed aloud and testified miraculously; the people exclaimed "The Lord, he is the God; the Lord, he is the God." (1 Kings xviii. 39.) Elijah led the convicted lying prophets down to the brook Kishon, and slaughtered them; he then returned to Carmel, and implored in his prayer for rain, which, on his denunciation, had been withheld for one year.

Besides Elijah, his disciple Elisha had also his cavern upon Carmel ; it is believed to be still recognisable. The number of caves and caverns, however, upon Mount Carmel approximates closely to two thousand; this labyrinth of cavities would seem the passage to the

246

THE PASHA OF ST. JEAN D'ACRE.

spirits of the lower regions. It may thence be easily understood how this mountain became a favourite place of resort for anchorites, and of refuge for the persecuted. Notices in the classics show that Pythagoras also, upon his return home from the sages of Egypt, visited a temple upon Mount Carmel dedicated to the most sacred purposes; that Carmel was the holy mountain of Zeus; that the gods of the mountain were named identically with the mountain itself; that an oracle stood here which prophesied the throne to the general Vespasian. But whatever there may be of real and positive fact in all this, it was Elijah, the fearless zealot of Jehovah, who made it a revered mountain of God: and even now, when the pilgrim, gazing far away over the immeasur able sea, finds emotion moistening his eye, the name of Elijah resounds within his heart, like the sound of the trumpet of the day of judgment.

The very next morning I quitted the mountain of Elijah and its beautiful monastery; I quitted it with the wish to return. The Italian padre who had so kindly joined me yesterday conducted me as far as Haïfa. On the road he mentioned some anecdotes of the notorious pasha of St. Jean d'Acre, who fortunately has been dead for several years. Amongst them were the two following. His officer was ordered to cut off the nose of an official person. The officer fulfilled the command, which, as it affected a kind friend of his own, he executed as sparingly as possible. When subsequently the pasha saw the official, it occurred to him that his nose was only half cut off. The officer very humbly entreated pardon; but the pasha caused the deficiency to be immediately cut from the officer's own nose. The other anecdote is of a better character; it has been already related by travellers. A Greek Christian, who was in favour with the pasha, had an aged father who dwelt with him in the same house at St. Jean d'Acre: when the son married, he expelled his aged father with harshness and craft from the upper story, the most agreeable part of the house. The pasha heard of this, and cited his favourite before him. Of what religion art thou? asked he him, and caused the confession of the Holy Trinity with the three signs of the cross to be repeated to him. Dost thou not know, he exclaimed, in answer to the reply, that the Father* occupies the highest place: viz. the forehead? The ungrateful son saved his head by means of this Turkish-christian sermon. A third anecdote was an occurrence which took place between my companion himself and a Bedouin of the vicinity of Carmel. The monk, a handsome man of about forty,

* In Catholic countries, three signs of the cross are made; the first (on the forehead) for the Father, the second (on the breast) for the Son, and the third (slightly lower down) for the Holy Ghost.

whose beard was not exactly of Oriental growth, had by means of medicaments cured the Bedouin of a malady. The Bedouin wished to pay for it; but the monk would accept of nothing. Then, said the Bedouin, quite seriously, I will pray to the prophet to let your beard grow.

ST. JEAN D'ACRE.

BEYROUT. SMYRNA.

Our road from Haïfa to the celebrated fortress of St. Jean d'Acre led us so close to the shores of the sea, that we were often obliged to give way to its advancing foaming waves. I found in the sand a gigantic tortoise, but the shell appeared useless. About ten in the morning we reached the town.

I purposed after a short stay to ride on to Tyre; but my two muleteers were so full of care and anxiety, first for their horses, and then for themselves, that I allowed them to return hence to Nazareth. I sought in vain for fresh horses; the only ones that I could meet with had no saddles. I therefore rejoiced at finding a vessel laden with corn, which was to sail this very evening for Beyrout. I took my place on board; but unfortunately we waited the whole night for a favourable wind; the next morning, I again landed, and returned to the vessel in the evening. Thus, therefore, I had far more leisure than I desired, to look around me at St. Jean d'Acre, and to recal to mind the remarkable events, which this very ancient city* has seen since the period of the Jewish Judges.

Of its last calamity, its forcible capture by the cannons of the English fleet in 1840, whereby Ibraham Pasha lost possession of Syria, many a trace still remains, although up to the present hour the greatest activity prevails in the restoration of the battered fortresses. At the bazaar many of the weights consisted of pieces of split shells; similar unsavoury relics of the "untoward" act, I myself found in multitudes strewed about the fields in the environs.

Had Bonaparte been more successful in the spring of the year 1798, who can imagine what might have been the result? Whether possibly the denounced destroyer of freedom might not have pre

* Its original name was Acco (see Judges i. 31) and Ake; it was subsequently called Ptolemais, probably from Ptolemy Lathyrus; now the Arabs call it Akkra; the Franks, Akri, and St. Jean d'Acre. The Akkra, of the Arabs, signifies, the broken; whereas, the Greek name, Acri, refers to the cure which Hercules received there from the bite of a snake.

248

DEPARTURE FROM ACRE.

pared a more happy future for the Holy Land than it has acquired up to the present time, from the protection of the great Christian powers. Bonaparte stormed the Turkish walls eight times, yet the skill of Sir Sydney Smith remained impregnable behind them.

During the Crusades the city experienced still more violent conflicts. For three years Philip Augustus and Richard Cœur de Lion besieged it against Saladin; nine battles were fought for its possession. The conquest cost the crusaders much blood, and unfortunately it was stained by a deed against the Turkish prisoners, that had been intrusted to them, which was avenged a hundred years afterwards, by the slaughter of many thousand Christians.

Hastily passing from the remembrance of all these dreadful scenes I recalled to mind the Apostle Paul, who, upon his last eventful journey to Jerusalem, whither he went bound in the spirit (Acts, xx. 22), at Ptolemais, “saluted the brethren and abode with them one day." (Acts, xxi. 7.) The present number of "the brethren there may exceed a thousand, chiefly Greeks, both schismatics and Catholics.* There are but few Latins and Maronites : about five hundred Jews and eight thousand Mahometans dwell here. I visited the Latin monastery, which has a magnificent view of the sea and of Mount Carmel. The Greeks also have a monastery; their church of St. George is large and stately. My dragoman met here two old acquaintances, German mechanics, who were not discontented with their condition.

I threw

Early in the evening of the 31st, the long anxiously hoped-for south wind commenced blowing; our bark immediately left the harbour of St. Jean d'Acre, and coasted towards the north. Besides myself and my dragoman, there were four sailors on board. a woollen wrapper upon the heaped up barley, and there I took my station. Timid persons would not readily thus confide themselves to the waves of the Mediterranean; but here upon the coast of Phoenicia it was perfectly apropos to transplant oneself into those times when the energy of the human mind first ventured to make a pathway over the unstable waters.

Towards morning my companions aroused me in accordance with my wish: on my right I beheld glittering in the light of the full moon, precipices and shattered walls, with the waves of the ocean foaming around them. They were the melancholy heralds of that royal daughter of the sea, of that "joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days." (Isaiah, xxiii. 7.) These were the ruins of Tyre,

* Williams, from the census of the diocese, cites the number of orthodox Greeks at 500.