The Road to Oxiana

by Robert Byron

  S.s. “Martha Washington”, September 4th.—I found Christopher on the pier, adorned with a kempt but reluctant beard five days old. He has heard nothing from the Charcoal-Burners, but welcomes the prospect of Jerusalem.

  There are 900 passengers on board. Christopher took me a tour of the third-class quarters. Had their occupants been animals, a good Englishman would have informed the R.S.P.C.A. But the fares are cheap; and being Jews, one knows they could all pay more if they wanted. The first class is not much better. I share a cabin with a French barrister, whose bottles and fopperies leave no room for another pin. He lectured me on the English cathedrals. Durham was worth seeing. “As for the rest, my dear sir, they are mere plumbing.”

  At dinner, finding myself next an Englishman, I opened conversation by hoping he had had a fine passage.

  He replied: “Indeed we have. Goodness and mercy have followed us throughout”.

  A tired woman struggled by, leading an unruly child. I said: “I always feel so sorry for women travelling with children”.

  “I can’t agree with you. To me, little children are as glints of sunshine.”

  I saw the creature later, reading a Bible in a deck-chair. This is what Protestants call a missionary.

  PALESTINE: Jerusalem (2800 ft.), September 6th.—A Nicaraguan leper would have fared better with the port authorities of a British Mandate than we did yesterday. They came on board at 5 A.M. After waiting two hours in a queue, they asked me how I could land without a visa and when my passport was not even endorsed for Palestine. I said I could buy a visa, and explained that the system of endorsement was merely one of the cruder forms of dishonesty practised by our Foreign Office, which had no real bearing on the validity of a passport. Another busybody then discovered I had been to Russia. When? and why? O, for pleasure was it? Was it pleasurable? And where was I going now? To Afghanistan? Why? Pleasure again, indeed. I was on a pleasure-trip round the world, he supposed. Then they grew so absorbed with Christopher’s diplomatic visa that they forgot to give him a card of disembarkation.

  A frenzied crowd seethed round the head of the gangway. Physically, Jews can look the best or the worst bred people in the world. These were the worst. They stank, stared, shoved, and shrieked. One man, who had been there five hours, began to weep. When his rabbi failed to comfort him, Christopher offered him a whisky and soda out of the bar window. He refused it. Our luggage, by degrees, was handed into a boat. I followed it. Christopher had to go back for his card of disembarkation. There was a heavy swell, as we negotiated the surf-bound reef which constitutes the “port” of Jaffa. A woman was sick over my hand. Her husband nursed their child, while supporting in his other arm a tall plant of veronica in a pot.

  “Upstairs, please!” The sweating, malformed mob divided into two queues. After half an hour I reached the doctor. He apologised for delay, and gave me a medical certificate without an examination. Downstairs the boatmen were clamouring for money. The transport of ourselves and luggage cost £I : 2s. “Do you write books?” asked the customs officer, scenting an author of dutiable obscenities. I said I was not Lord Byron, and suggested he should get on with his business. At length we found a car, and putting the hood down in compliment to the Holy Land, set out for Jerusalem.

  The King David Hotel is the only good hotel in Asia this side of Shanghai. We treasure every moment spent in it. The general decoration is harmonious and restrained, almost severe. But you might not think so from this notice which hangs in the hall:—

  NOTICE FOR THE INTERIOR DECORATION OF

  THE KING DAVID HOTEL, JERUSALEM

  The object was to evoke by reminiscence of ancient Semitic styles the ambience of the glorious period of King David.

  A faithful reconstruction was impossible, so the artist tried to adopt to modern taste different old Jew styles.

  Entrance Hall: Period of King David (Assyrian influence).

  Main-Lounge: Period of King David (Hittite influence).

  Reading-room: Period of King Salomon.

  Bar: Period of King Salomon.

  Restaurant: Greek-Syrian-Style.

  Banquet Hall: Phenician Style (Assyrian influence), etc.

  G. A. HUFSCHMID

  Decorator, O.E.V. & S.W.B.

  Geneva

  The beauty of Jerusalem in its landscape can be compared with that of Toledo. The city stands in the mountains, a scape of domes and towers enclosed by crenellated walls and perched on a table of rock above a deep valley. As far as the distant hills of Moab the contours of the country resemble those of a physical map, sweeping up the slopes in regular, stratified curves, and casting grand shadows in the sudden valleys. Earth and rock reflect the lights of a fire-opal. Such an essay in urban emplacement, whether accidental or contrived, has made a work of art.

  In detail, even Toledo offers no comparison with the steep winding streets, cobbled in broad steps and so narrow that a single camel causes as much disturbance as a motor coach in an English lane. Jostling up and down King David Street, from dawn to sunset, the crowd is still a picture of “the East”, immune as yet from the tide of lounge suits and horn spectacles. Here comes the desert Arab, furiously moustached, sailing by in his voluminous robes of gold-worked camel hair; the Arab woman, with her face tattooed and her dress embroidered, bearing a basket on her head; the priest of Islam, trim of beard and sporting a neat white turban round his fez; the Orthodox Jew, in ringlets, beaver hat, and black frock coat; the Greek priest and Greek monk, bearded and bunned beneath their tall black chimneypots; priests and monks from Egypt, Abyssina, and Armenia; the Latin father in brown robe and white topee; the woman of Bethlehem, whose backward-sloping head-dress beneath a white veil is said to be a legacy of the Norman kingdom; and among them all, as background of the essential commonplace, the occasional lounge suit, the cretonne frock, the camera-strapped tourist.

  Yet Jerusalem is more than picturesque, more than shoddy in the style of so many Oriental towns. There may be filth, but there is no brick or plaster, no crumbling and discolourment. The buildings are wholly of stone, a whitish cheese-like stone, candid and luminous, which the sun turns to all tones of ruddy gold. Charm and romance have no place. All is open and harmonious. The associations of history and belief, deep-rooted in the first memories of childhood, dissolve before the actual apparition. The outpourings of faith, the lamentations of Jew and Christian, the devotion of Islam to the holy Rock, have enshrouded the genius loci with no mystery. That spirit is an imperious emanation, evoking superstitious homage, sustained thereby perhaps, but existing independently of it. Its sympathy is with the centurions rather than the priests. And the centurions are here again. They wear shorts and topees, and answer, when addressed, with a Yorkshire accent.

  Set in this radiant environment, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre appears the meanest of churches. Its darkness seems darker than it is, its architecture worse, its cult more degraded. The visitor is in conflict with himself. To pretend to detachment is supercilious; to pretend to reverence, hypocritical. The choice lies between them. Yet for me that choice has been averted. I met a friend in the doorway, and it was he who showed me how to cope with the Holy Places.

  My friend was a black-robed monk, wearing short beard, long hair, and a tall cylindrical hat.

  “Hail,” said I in Greek. “You come from Mount Athos?”

  “I do,” he replied, “from the monastery of Docheiariou. My name is Gabriel.”

  “You are the brother of Aristarchus?”

  “I am.”

  “And Aristarchus is dead?”

  “He is. But who could have told you?”

  I have described Aristarchus in another book. He was a monk at Vatopedi, the richest of the Athonite monasteries, whither we arrived, after five weeks on the Holy Mountain, tired and underfed. Aristarchus looked after us. He had once been a servant on an English yacht, and he called us every morning with the question: “What time would you like lunch today, sir?” He was young, efficient, and material, entirely
unsuited to the monastic vocation and determined, if he could, to save enough money to take him to America. He hated the older monks, who humiliated him.

  One day, a year or two after our visit, he acquired a revolver and shot a couple of these venerable bullies. So the story goes. What is certain is that he then committed suicide. A saner man, externally, than Aristarchus never existed, and the Athonite community was filled with shame and reticence at the tragedy.

  “Aristarchus was cracked in the head”, said Gabriel, tapping his own. Gabriel, I knew—for Aristarchus had told me—was happy in his vocation and could see in his brother’s violence only an aberration. “Is this your first visit to Jerusalem?” he continued, changing the subject.

  “We arrived this morning.”

  “I’ll show you round. Yesterday I was in the Tomb itself. Tomorrow I go in again at eleven. This way.”

  We were now in a broad circular chamber as high as a cathedral, whose shallow dome was supported on a ring of massive piers. In the middle of the empty floor stood the shrine, a miniature church resembling an old-fashioned railway engine.

  “When were you last on Mount Athos?” asked Gabriel.

  “In 1927.”

  “I remember. You came to Docheiariou.”

  “Yes. And how is my friend Synesios?”

  “Very well. But he’s too young yet to be an Elder. Come in here.”

  I found myself in a small marble chamber, carved in the Turkish baroque style. The way to the inner sanctuary was blocked by three kneeling Franciscans.

  “Whom else do you know at Docheiariou?”

  “I know Frankfort. Is he well?”

  “Frankfort?”

  “Frankfort, Synesios’s cat.”

  “Ah! his cat.… Don’t mind those men; they’re Catholics. It’s a black cat——”

  “Yes, and jumps.”

  “I know. Now here we are. Mind your head.”

  Stepping through the Franciscans as though they were nettles, Gabriel dived into a hole three feet high, from which came a bright light. I followed. The inner chamber was about seven feet square. At a low slab of stone knelt a Frenchwoman in ecstasy. By her side stood another Greek monk.

  “This gentleman has been to Mount Athos,” announced Gabriel to his crony, who shook hands with me across the body of the Frenchwoman. “It was six years ago and he remembers Synesios’s cat.… This is the Tomb”—pointing to the slab of stone—“I shall be in here all day tomorrow. You must come and see me. There’s not much room, is there? Let’s go out. Now I’ll show you the other places. This red stone is where they washed the body. Four of the lamps are Greek, the others Catholic and Armenian. Calvary’s upstairs. Ask your friend to come up. This is the Greek part, that the Catholic. But these are Catholics at the Greek altar, because Calvary was there. Look at the inscription over the cross. It’s in real diamonds and was given by the Tsar. And look at this image. Catholics come and give these things to her.”

  Gabriel pointed to a glass case. Inside I beheld a wax Virgin, draped in a pawnbroker’s stock of chains, watches, and pendants.

  “My friend here is a Catholic,” I informed Gabriel maliciously.

  “Oh, is he? And what are you? Protestant? Or nothing at all?”

  “I think I shall be Orthodox while I’m here.”

  “I shall tell God that. You see these two holes? They put Christ in them, one leg in each.”

  “But is that in the Bible?”

  “Of course it’s in the Bible. This cave is the place of the Skull. That’s where the earthquake split the rock. My mother in Samos had thirteen children. Now only my brother in America, my sister in Constantinople, and myself are left. That there is Nicodemus’s tomb, and that the tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea.”

  “And what are the two little tombs?”

  “They’re for the children of Joseph of Arimathaea.”

  “I thought Joseph of Arimathaea was buried in England.”

  Gabriel smiled, as though to say “Tell that to the marines”.

  “Here,” he continued, “is a picture of Alexander the Great visiting Jerusalem, and being received by one of the prophets—I can’t remember which.”

  “But did Alexander ever visit Jerusalem?”

  “Certainly. I only tell you the truth.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought it might be a legend.”

  We emerged at last into the daylight.

  “If you come and see me the day after tomorrow, I shall be out of the Tomb again. I come out at eleven, after being in all night.”

  “But won’t you want to sleep?”

  “No. I don’t like sleeping.”

  The other holy sites are the Weeping Wall and the Dome of the Rock. Nodding and ululating over their books, squeezing their heads into crevices of the enormous masonry, the Jewish mourners are not more attractive than the performers in the Sepulchre. But at least it is light; the sun shines, and the Wall itself is comparable to the walls of the Incas. The Dome of the Rock shelters an enormous crag, whence Mohammad the Prophet took off on his ride up to Heaven. And here at last, apart from its associations, is a monument worthy of Jerusalem. A white marble platform, several acres in extent and commanding a view of the city walls and the Mount of Olives, is approached on different sides by eight flights of steps announced by lines of arches. In the middle of the platform, dwarfed by the space around it, stands a low octagon spangled with blue tiles and supporting a blue-tiled drum, whose breadth is about one-third of the octagon’s. On top of the drum is a dome, faintly bulbous and powdered with ancient gilt. To one side stands another miniature octagon, as it were a child of the larger, resting on pillars and sheltering a fountain. The inside has a Greek impress: the marble pillars uphold Byzantine capitals, and the vaults of gold mosaic, adorned with twirling arabesques, must be the work of Greek craftsmen. Iron screens commemorate a Christian interlude, when the Crusaders turned the place into a church. As a mosque, it was founded in the VIIth century. But many ages have contributed to its present form. Quite lately, the Byzantine capitals have been too brightly regilded. They will tone down in time.

  When we first saw the mosque, it was too late to go in; but we could just get a glimpse of it from the entrance at the bottom of King David Street. An Arab planted himself in our way and began to be informative. I said I would rather see the mosque for the moment, and hear about it tomorrow; would he be so kind as to move to one side? To this he answered: “I am an Arab and I shall stay where I please. This mosque belongs to me, not you.” So much for Arab charm.

  This evening we went to Bethlehem. It was already dusk, and we could hardly distinguish the magnificent rows of columns which support the basilica. The guides were almost more tiresome than at the Sepulchre. I left Christopher to see the manger, or whatever it is they show, by himself.

  Jerusalem, September 7th.—As I was sitting beneath an olive tree in the court of the Dome of the Rock, an Arab boy came to share the shade and repeat his lessons out loud. They were English lessons. “Gulfs and promòntories, gulfs and promòntories, gulfs and promòntories,” he reiterated.

  “It’s not promòntories,” I interrupted, “but pròmontories.”

  “Gulfs and pròm-òntories, gulfs and pròm-òntories, gulfs and pròm-òntories. Deliver Mosul, deliver Mosul, deliver Mosul. Gulfs and…” He said he was first in his drawing class, and hoped to go to Cairo, where he could study to be an artist.

  Stockley gave a dinner-party last night, at which two Arab guests proved good company. One of them, who used to be in the Turkish Foreign Office, knew Kemal and his mother in the old days. The War found him consul at Salonica, whence he was deported by Sarrail to Toulon—an unnecessary hardship since the Turkish frontier was so near, and one which lost him all his furniture and possessions. Talk turned on the Arlosorov, the Jewish leader, who was shot on the sands of Jaffa while walking with his wife. The murderers are supposed to have been Jewish revisionists, an extreme party that want to be rid of the English and set up a Jew
ish state. I don’t know how long they think the Arabs would suffer a single Jew to exist once the English went.

  This morning we went to Tel Aviv as the guests of Mr. Joshua Gordon, chief showman of the Jewish agency. At the municipality, where Christopher was received as the son of his father, the walls were hung with portraits of the apostles of Zionism: Balfour, Samuel, Allenby, Einstein, Reading. A map showed the development of the place by years, from a struggling Utopia of only 3000 people to a bursting community of 70,000. Over Jaffa hock in the Palestine Hotel, I tried the Arab arguments on Mr. Gordon. He was contemptuous. A commission had been set up to look after landless Arabs. It could only find a few hundred. Meanwhile, the Arabs of Transjordania were begging the Jews to go there and develop the country.

  I asked if it might not pay the Jews to placate the Arabs, even at inconvenience to themselves, with a view to peace in the future. Mr. Gordon said no. The only possible basis of an Arab-Jewish understanding was joint opposition to the English, and this the Jewish leaders would not countenance. “If the country is to be developed, the Arabs must suffer, because they don’t like development. And that’s the end of it.” The sons of the desert have had enough apologists lately. I find it more refreshing to contemplate an expanding budget—the only one in the world at the moment—and congratulate the Jews.

  The Italians were another snake in Mr. Gordon’s grass. Some time ago, he and others had tried to start an Anglo-Palestinian shipping line, which might carry the mails instead of Italian boats. They failed, for lack of English co-operation. The Italians offer free education in Rome to all Palestinians, with reduced fares thrown in. Admittedly, only about 200 a year go. But Mr. Gordon grew bitter when he considered the difficulties encountered by any student who wishes to finish his education in London, even at his own cost.