, 1888-06-23
"A SHORT VISIT TO JoppA.
Interesting Sketch of What a Traveller
Saw In That scripturaI Town.


Saw in That scripturaI Town.
Landing at Joppa, DR.. Geikie begins his
observations at once. Joppa Is one of the
Oldest cities In the world, and the first
possible landing place as one sails north
ward from Egypt. Yet there is difficulty
in landing. Reefs of rocks defend the
shore, the bay is shallow, sharks are not
unknown, and the coast Is much exposed.
-FOUR vessel anchors half a mile out at
sea, and a throng of fiattish bottomed
coolies soon surround the ship to carry
passengers through the opening In the
reefs to land.
A babel of cries, unintelligible to west
ern ears, fills the air; but by degrees the
motley crowd of deck passengers, of the
most varied ~nationalities, yelled women,
shawl covered Arabs, black Nubians with
their red fezes, brown L~evantines, tur-
baned Syrians. or Egyptians with their
flowing robes of all shades, all drift by
degrees Into the boats, and for a time, at
least, you see the last of their red or yell
low slippers, and hear their noisy jargon
no more, Then you, who ave shrunk
possibly from this crushing crowd of
Orientals, have you turn, and the skill
full and strong armed oarsmen whisk you
through the opening In the reefs across
the shallow harbor, and then suddenly,
when you nre twenty or thirty yards off
shore, you are seized, and carried In the
bare arms or on tho back of a boatman
through the shallow water to the tumble
down old quay built of stone from the
ruins of Ctesarea, and at last you find
yourself treading on the soil of the holy
land.
Not a very digniied entrance. perhaps;
but the boats could not approach closer,
and you have Jared no worse than the
bead eyed Greeks or the hook nosed
Romans did thousands of years ~ At
one period Venice organized a spring and
autumn packet service chow strangely
modern that soundsD to Joppa and built a
mole to protect the shipping; but since
the reign of h "unspeakable Turk"
everything has relapsed into a state of
nature. And SO from earliest times
Phenician and Egyptian, Roman and
CRUSADER, English and American, all nave
to acknowledge the power of the PREACHER
GUS waters.
Pursuing our way through the street,
we find it rough enough. Once paved,
the stones have long since risen or sunk
above or below their proper level. Dust
bins and sewers being apparently alike
unknown to the idle Oriental, every kind
of foulness bestrews the way. The build
ings are of stone, with little or no wood
anywhere, timber being scarce In Pales-
tine. The arch Is hence universal; as
you ramble on you see that no light en-
tiers the shops except from the front
that they are in fact something like
miniatures of the gloomy holes sometimes
made out of railway arches in England.
Tables of cakes or sweetmeats line the
narrow streets. Rough awnings of mats,
often sorely dilapidated, or tent cloths,
or loose boards resting on q rickety struc-
ture of poles, partly shade the roadway.
Now we meet O turbaned water carrier
with q hugo skin bottle on his back. The
bottle is In fact a defunct calf, with water
instead of veal within, and without legs,
head or tall, and offering a most forcible
illustration of the reference to the plac-
Ing of new wine In old bottles.
Farther on we see a bare armed and
bare legged individual in ragged skull
cap, cotton jacket, and cotton knicker-
bockers, chaffering with q roadside buck
ster for some delicacy, costing a farthing
or two, from some Of the mat baskets on
the table; the bearded vender, also bare
armed and bare legged. sits as he tries to
sell, his head swathed IN a white and red
turban, n his body In pink and white
cotton. OF course, there is a lounger at
his side looking on.
Then again we see an Arab In "kefiyeh"
or head shawl, with a band Of camel's
hair rope, very soft, around his head to
keep the flowing gear In It's place, and a
brown and white striped abba" for his
outer dressi he Is bargaining for a bride
at o saddler's, and trying to cheaper 1t;
and the saddler sits cross legged on a
counter and under a shady projection of
wood and reeds, which gives him much
needed shade. And thus we see glimpses
of ordinary every day life In the old town
Of Joppa.-The Culver.