The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1888-07-13
4 oar ~ yoppA.


4 0AY ~ JoPPA
0lsAts ana sesaeu b Ous q ths WeesNu
oldest Citiss.
Landing at Joppa, DR.. Geilrie begins
his observations at once. Joppa L. one
Of the oldest cities In the world. and
the first possible landing place a. one
sails northward 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 nattish-bottomed coolies soon sur
round the ship to carry passengers
through the opening in the reefs to
land. A babel of cries, unintelligible
to Western ears, filb the air; but by de-
grees the molly crew Of deck passen-
gers. Of the most varied nationalities,
yelled women, shawl-covered Arabs,
black Nubians with their red fezes, brown
Levantines, turbaned Syrians, or Egypt
ians 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 yellow 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 skillful and
strong-armed osrsnen whisk you
through the opening in the reefs across
the shallow harbor, and then suddenly.
when you arc twenty or thirty yards of
shore, you are seized and carried in the
bare arms or on the the back Of boat
man, through the shallow water to the
tumbled-down old quay bulls Of stone
from the ruins Of C@sarea, and sklast you
find yourself treading on the soil Of the
Holy Land,
Not very dignifed entrance. per-
haps. but the boats could not approach
closer. and you have Jared no worse
than the bead-eyed Greeks or the hook
n0sed Romans did thousands of years
ago. At one period Venice organized
spring and autumn packet-service
chow strangely modern that soundsD
to Joppa and built mole to protect the
shipping; but since the reign Of the ''un-
speakable Turk" every thing has re
lapsed into state CT nature. And so
from the earliest times Phenician and
Egyptian. Roman and Crusader, Eng
lish and American, all have to acknowl-
edge the power of the treacherous wa
tiers.
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 buildings are of stone, with little
or no wood anywhere. timber being
scarce in Palestine. The arch is, hence,
universal. As you ramble on you see
that no light enters 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 a
rickety structure of poles, partially
shade the roadway. Now we meet a
turbaned water-carrier with q huge
skin bottle on his back. The bottle is,
in fact. defunct calf, with water in
stead of veal within. and without legs,
head or tail, and Offering most fOrci-
BILE illustration of the reference to the
placing of new wine in old bottles.
Further on we see bare-armed and
bare-legged individual in ragged skull
cap, cotton jacket, and cotton knicker-
bockers, chaffering with some roadside
huckster for some delicacy, costing
or two, from some of the mat
baskets on the table; the bearded vend-
or. also bare-armed and bare-legged.
sits as he tries to sell, his head swathed
in a 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 "kefi-
yer" or head shawl. with band of cam
ers-hair rope, very soft, around his
head to keep the flowing gear in its
place, and a brown and white-stripped
''abba" for his outer dress; he is bar
gaining for bride at a saddler's, and
trying to cheaper it; and the saddler
sits cross-legged ona counter and un-
der a shady projection Of wood and
reeds, which gives him much-needed |
shade. And thus we see glimpses of
ordinary everyday life in the old town |