Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth CenturyAdams, W. H. Davenport (William Henry Davenport)
History
Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century
Adams, W. H. Davenport (William Henry Davenport)
Women travelers -- Biography
"The criers' class of Jerusalem consists of all who sell in the streets,
of the camel and donkey drivers, and of the country-women who daily
bring fuel, herbs, vegetables, and eggs, into the city. They generally
station themselves and their wares on the Place de Jaffa, and scream in
a frightful manner; one would think they were quarrelling, when, in
reality, they are only gossiping. These women allow their dirty mantles
or veils to fall from the head down upon the back, and do not cover the
face. They are always decked and sometimes _plated_ with silver
ornaments. Silver coins, strung together, are carried in bands across
the forehead, and hang down the cheeks. Their fingers are covered with
rings and their wrists with bracelets. Not unfrequently you will see
very young girls with the face framed in silver money, to correspond
with their head-gear--a small cap or hood embroidered with Turkish
piastres, set as close together as the scales of a fish.
"I have heard it said that this cap is a maiden's dower. The
country-women are often remarkable for a kind of savage beauty, but
generally they are ugly, with an expression of rudeness and ill-nature.
They are a collection of sorceresses, whom I feared more than the men of
the same class, though the latter assuredly did not inspire me with much
confidence.
"The Arab women of high rank, enveloped in long white mantles, and with
their faces hidden by a close veil of black, yellow, or blue gauze, form
my third division. They walk, or rather totter, through the streets in
numerous groups or bands, shod with yellow slippers or _bottines_, to
enjoy a promenade outside the Jaffa Gate. You never hear them utter a
word in the streets, nor do they pause for a moment. If that black or
yellow object approach you, covered with her white veil, and turn in
your direction, it is with an expressive, a piercing, questioning
glance; but you cannot discover nor even divine the face concealed by
that coloured gauze. These poor dumb phantoms, who are all the more to
be pitied because they have no idea that they need pity, generally
betake themselves to the cemeteries, where, seated under the olive
trees, they spend the day in doing nothing."
The ease, grace, and dramatic power of this description no reader will
question.
After visiting most shrines of interest in the Holy Land, Miss Bremer
extended her tour to the Turkish sea-coast, and investigated all that
was worth seeing at Beyrout, Tripoli, Latakia, Rhodes, Smyrna, and
Constantinople. In bidding farewell to the East, she expressed her joy
and delight at having seen it, but added that not all its gold, nor all
its treasure, would induce her to spend her days in its indolent and
luxurious atmosphere. She loved the West, with its intellectual activity
and deep moral life, its progress and its aspirations after the higher
liberty. The inertia of the East irritates a strong brain almost to
madness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account