The Great Falls leader. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1888-1890, 1888-08-04
IA SHORT VISIT TO JoPPA.
Interesting Sketch Of What . Travele
Saw In That Scriptural 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.
Your vessel anchors half mile out at
sea, and throng Of fattish bottomed
cobles 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 Levantines, tur-
baned Syrians, or Egyptians with their
flowing robes of all shades, all drift by
degrees into the boats, and for time, at
least, you see the last of their red or yell
low slippers, and hear their noisy jargon
no more. Then you, who have shrunk
possibly from this crushing crowd Of
Orientals, have your turn, and the skill
fnl and strong armed oarsmen whisk YOU
through the opening in the reefs across
the shallow harbor, and then suddenly,
when you ere twenty or thirty yards off
shore, you are seized, and carried in the
bare arms or on the back of boatman
through the shallow water to the tumble
down old quay built of stone from the
yourself treading on the soil Of the holy
land.
Not a very dignified 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 ago At
one period Venice organized a spring and
autumn packet service chow strangely
modern that soundsD to Joppa and built q
mole to protect the shipping; but since
the reign of the 'unspeakable Turk"
everything has relapsed into a state of
nature. And so from earliest times
Ph@nician and Egyptian, Roman and
Crusader, English and American, all have
to acknowledge the power of the treacher-
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-.
ters 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 rickety struc.
ny%1r e,hn
Now we meet a turbaned water carrier
with huge skin bottle on his back. The
bottle is in fact defunct calf, with water
instead of veal within, and without legs,
head or tail, and offering a most forcible
of the reference to the plac-
ing of new wine in old bottles
Farther on we see q bare armed and
bare legged individual in ragged skull |
cap, cotton jacket, and cotton knicker
bockers, chafering with roadside huck.
ster for some delicacy, costing farthinp
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 white and red |
turban, and his body in pink and white
cotton. OF course, there is lounger at |
his side looking on.
Then again we see an Arab in "kcfiveh"
" y Aoao sAA"1, WACu Dand OF camelS |
hair rope, very soft, around his head to
keep the flowing gear in its place, and a
brown and white striped "abba" for his
outer dress; he is bargaining for bride
at saddlers, and trying to cheaper it;
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
IF Joppa.-The Culver.