ILLUSTRATIONS OF JEWISH CUSTOMS. 69 They spoke those side-seats, uninvited and yet unchallenged. to those at table on business or the news of the day, and our host spoke freely to them. This made us understand the scene in Simon's house at Bethany, where Jesus sat at supper, and Mary came in and anointed his feet with ointment;1 and also the scene in the Pharisee's house, where the woman who was a sinner came in, uninvited and yet not forbidden, and washed his feet with her tears.2 The chief dish at the table was a highly-seasoned pilau of rice; but the Consul pressed us much to another, which he described as a dish peculiar to Egypt, made of an herb like clover, called melahieh. It has a saltish taste as its Arabic name indicates. Several armed Arabs were serving us, but the favourite attendant was Hassan, who was always summoned into the room by a loud call "Wa-hassan," accompanied by clapping the one hand very sharply on the other. The conversation was of a more serious cast than previously. The Consul, whose name is Michael Suruff, is by birth an Egyptian, and his father was a native of Damascus. He is a Greek Roman Catholic, but so liberal, that he declared he believed our Protestant worship to be much nearer the form which Christ would approve. He thought that there were no traces in Scripture of any such orders in the church as their bishops. At the same time he reckoned it a disgrace for any man to change his religion. (Wednesday, May 22.) In the pleasant air of morning the flat roof of our house afforded us an opportunity of realizing Peter's position in Acts x. 9, and of imitating his example. Immediately below our apartment was the Græco-Romish chapel, a very small apartment, filled with the fragrance of incense. Two priests stood at the altar and two monks were reading the Arabic service. Two little boys also were assisting; but we were the only auditors. The half of the population of Damietta is professedly Christian, but most of 1 John XII. 1-3. 2 Luke VII. 36-38. We afterwards saw this custom at Jerusalem, and there it was still more fitted to illustrate these incidents. We were sitting around Mr Nicolayson's table, when first one and then another stranger opened the door and came in, taking seats by the wall. They leaned forward and spoke to those at table. Now, in the case of the woman that was a sinner, Christ is dining at a Pharisee's table. As the feast goes on, the door opens, and a woman enters and takes her seat by the wall just behind him. The Pharisee eyes her with abhorrence; but as custom permits it, he does not prevent her coming in. After a little time, as Jesus is reclining, with his feet sloped toward the back of the couch, the woman bends forward, pours her tears on his feet, and anoints them with precious ointment. 70 SCHOOLS-DEPARTURE FROM DAMIETTA. these belong to the Greek church. In one of the streets we were attracted, by the sound of bawling voices, to a native school. Eight children were seated on the floor, with their books placed before them, not on a desk, but on a sort of hurdle. The children kept up an incessant rocking motion of the body backward and forward at every word they repeated, and all seemed to speak at once at the pitch of their voices. At the corner of another street we were attracted by a similar sound to a school up a stair, attended by about thirty children, with two teachers. They sat in regular rows on the floor, with their books, which were all Arabic, in their hands; their shoes had been left in a heap at the door. Three repeated their lesson at once, rocking to and fro. Quickness and loudness of utterance seemed to be aimed at as the chief excellence of the scholars. We visited the Consul once more, to thank him for all his kindness and bid him adieu. The common salutation at meeting and parting is to put the hand first on the breast and then on the lips, as if to intimate that what the lips utter the heart feels.1 But no custom of the East struck us more than their manner of squandering away time: drinking coffee, smoking, and sitting indolently on a couch, seem to occupy many hours of the day. In the forenoon, our arrangements for traversing the desert being completed, we set out for the lake Menzaleh, about a mile from Damietta. Many of the people whom we passed on the way were preparing chopped straw and camel's dung mixed with earth for fuel. Many of the children were absolutely naked. Reaching the lake, we embarked in a large open boat, spread our carpets on the floor, and formed an awning with our mats. A large sail was raised, and a gentle breath of wind carried us slowly along; the sail and ropes were well patched, and would have fared ill in a gale. Lake Menzaleh is the ancient Mendes, and is in general four or five feet deep. The bottom appeared to be a very rich alluvial soil, and were the lake drained would form a splendid plain. The banks are all cultivated for rice. In the middle of the deck of our boat stood a large earthen jar with water, of which the sailors drank from time to time. The Bedouin sheikh, Haggi Mater, sat beside us. He was an elderly man, of a 1 See Job XXXI. 27, "My mouth hath kissed my hand." LAKE MENZALEH-BEDOUIN SHEIKH-VILLAGES. 71 very mild and pleasant countenance, and yet it was easy to trace beneath the numerous folds of his turban the cunning of his nation. He was in great good humour when we gave him dates and other fruit, and still more in the evening when we offered him tea and sugar. The thermometer was 74° under our awning, and the vessel moved very slowly, so that we found it pleasant to bathe in the lake. We sailed past two villages that lie close to each other, Ugbieh or Menzaleh, and Maturich. The former is on the neck of land, and both had a lively appearance, presenting the aspect of more industry than any Egyptian town or village we had yet seen. There were many boats at the quay some carrying lime, others rice, others fish. The Mosque, rising over the houses and palmtrees, and seen against the deep blue sky, gave a truly picturesque effect to this quiet but busy spot. Towards evening, we observed the shore covered with immense reeds, from ten to twenty feet high; the water-fowl, and the fish leaping out of the water, seemed to be innumerable. The unbroken stillness of the evening scene was strangely solemnizing, and after singing the 23d and 121st Psalms, we committed ourselves to repose in the bottom of the boat. (May 23.) We were roused before sunset. Our boat had reached during the night a narrow embankment, which divides this part of the lake from the next. The part we had sailed over was anciently the Mendesian branch of the Nile and the part we were now to enter upon was the Tanitic or Saitic branch, now called Moes. The pace was called Sid, perhaps a remnant of the ancient Sais. While the men were transporting the luggage over the slender isthmus, we wandered along the shore. It was a beautiful morning, and the air was soft and balmy,—just such an atmosphere Joseph used to breathe when he was governor over the land of Egypt. We came upon two Arabs sitting by a smouldering fire of camel's dung. The quern or hand mill, made of two granite stones, was lying by a large cruise of 72 MODE OF DRAWING WATER-ZOAN. water, and a round iron plate for baking. As we sailed on, the banks on either hand presented fields of very large onions watered by human labour. A half-naked Egyptian stood by a well, into which he dipped a bucket, which was attached to a transverse pole. By means of a weight at the other end of the pole, the bucket was easily raised and emptied into the ditch, which conveyed it over the field.' There were also many "sluices and ponds for fish," similar without doubt to those referred to by Isaiah,2 which were once numerous on all the branches of the Nile. About ten o'clock A. M. we landed at the village of San, anciently called Tanis, and in Scripture Zoan, one of the most ancient cities in the world.3 The fine alluvial plain around was no doubt "the field of Zoan," where God did marvellous things in the days of Moses; and it is by no means an unlikely opinion, that the well-known Goshen was in this region. We pitched our tents upon the bank to shelter ourselves from the rays of an almost vertical sun, while the wild Arabs came round, some to gaze upon the strangers, and some to offer old coins and small images for sale. In the cool of the day we wandered forth for solitary meditation, and Mr Bonar, passing over some heaps of rubbish a few minutes' walk from the vil 1 Some such custom is alluded to in Deut. xI. 10: "Not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot as a garden of herbs." |