My Brother, Theodore RooseveltRobinson, Corinne Roosevelt
History
My Brother, Theodore Roosevelt
Robinson, Corinne Roosevelt
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919
And now the Nile trip was over and we were back again in Cairo, and
planning for the further interest of a trip through the Holy Land. Mr.
Thayer and Mr. Jay, two of the young friends who had accompanied us on
the Nile, decided to join our party, and after a short stay in Cairo
we again left for Alexandria and thence sailed for Jaffa. In my diary
I write at the Convent of Ramleh between Jaffa and Jerusalem, where we
spent our first night: “In Jaffa we chose our horses, which was very
exciting, and started on our long ride. After three hours of delightful
riding through a great many green fields, we reached this convent and
found they had no room for ladies, because they were not allowed to go
into one part of the building as it was against the rules, but at last
Father got the old monks to allow us to come into another part of the
convent for just one night.”
“Father,” like his namesake, almost always got what he wanted.
From that time on one adventure after another followed. I write of many
nice gallops, and of my horse lying down in the middle of streams; and,
incidentally with less interest, of the Mount of Olives and the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre! Antonio Sapienza proved to be an admirable
dragoman, and always the practical part of the tenting cavalcade
started early in the morning, and therefore as the rest of us rode
over the hills in the later afternoon we would see arranged cosily in
some beautiful valley the white tents, with the curling smoke from the
kitchen-tent already rising with the promise of a delightful dinner.
Over Jordan we went, and what a very great disappointment Jordan was
to our childish minds, which had always pictured a broad river and
great waves parting for the Ark of the Covenant to pass. This Jordan
was a little stream hardly more impressive than the brook at our old
home at Madison, and we could not quite accustom ourselves to the
disappointment. But Jerusalem with its narrow streets and gates,
its old churches, the high Mount of Olives, and the little town of
Bethlehem not far away, and, even more interesting from the standpoint
of beauty, the vision of the Convent of Mar Saba on the high hill not
far from Hebron, and beyond all else the blue sparkling waters of the
Dead Sea, all remain in my memory as a wonderful panorama of romance
and delight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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