Oriental Zigzag; or Wanderings in Syria, Moab, Abyssinia, and Egypt

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. JAFFA. Our landing at Port Said broke the monotony of our voyage to Jaffa, for which we now pursued our course. The time so occupied was about forty hours, during which we coasted a good deal. I was impressed by a remark made by our (Russian) Captain in the course of a miscellaneous...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. JAFFA. Our landing at Port Said broke the monotony of our voyage to Jaffa, for which we now pursued our course. The time so occupied was about forty hours, during which we coasted a good deal. I was impressed by a remark made by our (Russian) Captain in the course of a miscellaneous conversation, that people who go to the Holy Land are seldom very holy after accomplishing their journey. This he explained by saying that one such trip did away with all the grandeur one was wont to associate with the Holy Land, and that religious fervour soon subsided after witnessing the dirt and misery accumulated there;?a striking illustration of the poet's observation that it is distance which lends enchantment to the view. Stage properties in the garish light of day are seldominviting; or, to speak more positively, they are very disappointing. We anchored off Jaffa, about three-quarters of a mile from the land; and we had hardly done so, or were barely conscious of the operation, when the whole ship was invaded by Arabs in the most tumultuous manner, one in eagerness of competition knocking the other down. The contest was for the transport of our luggage, and I am sure it lasted over half an hour. I said to the Captain How long will this fun go on? Oh answered he, they will fight it out all round till the excitement is over, and then they will calmly await your orders. In the meantime he suggested that we should have a cup of coffee together. Their fervour subsided even as he told me it would evaporate; and, by the time we had leisurely finished our coffee, all these scoundrels had become perfectly calm, and awaited the future in an unexceptionably business frame of mind. Up started now a dragoman, who put into my hands about twenty several letters of recommendation...