Haifa; or, Life in modern Palestine. Laurence Oliphant
they had no intention of obeying it. A serious difficulty might have occurred were it not for the intervention of the English and French vice-consuls, who gave the Melchites to understand that the Turkish authority must be respected. It was a curious illustration of the state of Turkish administration here that a Turkish governor should have to appeal to foreign consuls in order to secure compliance on the part of Turkish subjects with his own orders. When I attended mass on the following day there was no firing. With the exception of the French consul, my friends, and myself, the whole congregation stood. Three priests officiated at an altar unusually tawdry, and a group of men and boys kept up a stentorian nasal chant from first to last. They were accompanied by an orchestra of two men, each of whom had a pair of common steel table knives, with which they kept up a most ear-splitting clatter on the rim of a copper bowl, that might on ordinary occasions have been used for salad. The incense-swingers puffed fumes of incense into the faces of the French consul and myself as being honoured guests, and a priest brought him an open Bible to kiss, but abstained from offering it to me—on religious grounds best known to himself. Then he painted a good many people with holy water, using a piece of cotton put on the end of a wire. Then there was the usual procession and elevation of the Host, and the more devout members prostrated themselves and kissed the flagstones of the church. The sacrament was administered, the bread and wine being mixed together in a silver cup, which was held over an embroidered napkin stretched between two boys, so that none of the contents fell to the ground as the priest put the teaspoonful into the mouths of those who knelt before him. The women did not seem to need it, as they were all bottled up in a gallery, and could only see or be seen through a lattice-work.
The service came to an end, and the people divided to allow the French consul, who, with his cocked hat and gold lace, had been the figurehead of the ceremony, to march out in state. These French consuls are all very pious men in Syria. The French government, which has been ejecting monks and nuns and closing religious establishments, and making laws against religious instruction in France, is very particular about the religious principles of their representatives in Syria; as a member of the French government recently remarked, “Religion is only useful as an article of export.” Thus, the French consul-general at Beyrout goes to mass on Easter Sunday with the Roman Catholics. On Easter Monday he attends mass with the Maronites, and on Tuesday he worships with the Melchites, thus dividing his favours equally, and patronizing with great impartiality any heresies he may happen to come across.
As the correct thing among the Melchites after being at church is to go and “have something to drink,” I followed the usual custom and paid a visit to my Melchite friend's family. The ladies of his establishment, in gorgeous attire, pressed beer and wine and raki, and sweetmeats and cakes and coffee, upon our enfeebled digestion. We smoked narghilès, and enlightened our minds upon Melchite manners and customs. As I passed through the outskirts of the town on my return home, I came upon the male Melchite population indulging in their circular dance and their discordant chants. They continued on the following day, stimulated by a plentiful indulgence in intoxicating liquors, thus to glorify God, and to celebrate the resurrection of the Saviour among men.
THE JEWISH QUESTION IN PALESTINE.
Haifa, April 17.—The exceptional interest which, in the minds of many people, attaches to the Jewish question in Palestine must be my excuse for now alluding to it. Although, in consequence of the strenuous opposition of the Turkish government, the tide of emigration into the country has been checked, the desire of the Russian and Roumanian Jews to escape from the persecution to which they are subjected in Europe to the Holy Land has in no degree diminished. On the contrary, colonization societies continue to be formed and funds collected both in Russia and Roumania, and the English government has lately remonstrated with the Porte on the breach of treaty which the prohibition of Jews to settle in Palestine involves, with what success remains to be seen. The diplomatic action of the present government of England is by no means of a robust kind. Curiously enough, the Russian policy on this interesting question appears to be undergoing a change. The Russian government seems disposed to espouse in Turkey the cause of the race which it oppresses so unmercifully at home. M. de Nelidoff, the Russian Minister at Constantinople, has lately addressed a note to the Porte, in which he complains that the imperial authorities at Jaffa place every possible obstacle in the way of Jewish pilgrims from Russia who wish to disembark there in order to proceed to Jerusalem. The Porte has replied that no restriction whatever has been placed upon pilgrimages to the Holy City, and that the Jews, like everybody else, are free to go there. The Porte, however, draws attention to the imperial decree, recently published, which strictly prohibits the provincial authorities from allowing Jews, under any condition whatsoever, to settle in Palestine, and states that should any Jews, in spite of such express prohibition, seek to establish themselves there, the law of exclusion would be rigorously enforced. But all foreigners, of any nationality whatsoever, have a treaty right to settle in Palestine. The proof of which is that American and German colonists have established themselves here; that a society has been formed in Petersburg for promoting colonization in Palestine by Russian Christian subjects. A Jew, therefore, who is a Russian subject has manifestly as good a right to buy a piece of land in the country and settle upon it as a Christian. At this moment the Russian Consul-General at Beyrout is warmly espousing the cause of a Russian Jew colonist, who forms one of a colony of twenty-five Russian and Roumanian Jew families who have bought land and settled not far from the Lake of Tiberias. A Moslem youth wishing to examine his revolver, which the Jew refused to allow him to do, the weapon accidentally went off in the struggle, and mortally wounded the Moslem. The whole Mussulman village was up in arms, and it was only by the exercise of much tact on the part of the native Arab Jews that a general massacre was averted. The young Jew was thrown into prison, although it was recognized as an accident, and has been confined in a filthy cell for more than four months. His case was warmly taken up by the Russian authorities, and the plea of the Porte is that he had already signed a paper declaring himself an Ottoman subject. The Russian officials reply to this that he has since travelled under his Russian passport, has been recognized as a Russian subject by the authorities, and that the Arabic paper he signed was erroneously represented to him as being only a permission from the local authority to buy land and build a house. There the matter stands at present, and a warm correspondence is taking place on the subject. It is significant as showing the attitude which the Russians are assuming in the matter. The Russian vice-consul here not long since brought some Russian immigrant Jews on shore in spite of the remonstrances of the local authorities. It is evident that if the Russian government adopts the policy of encouraging Jewish immigration into Palestine, and of protecting the immigrants when here, they will have obtained an excellent excuse for political interference in the country. This was always the danger, and might have been avoided by a more enlightened and far-sighted policy on the part of the Porte. Had the Turkish government encouraged Jewish immigration on the condition of every immigrant becoming a Turkish subject, they would have added to the population by an industrious class of people, who would speedily have increased its material prosperity, while the government might have so controlled and regulated the immigration and the colonization that there would have been nothing to fear from it. By adopting this policy they would avoid possible complications with foreign powers, while they would at the same time gain the sympathy of the most enlightened among them, by affording to a suffering and persecuted race an asylum where their presence would not only be harmless, but in the highest degree advantageous to the Turkish province they had chosen for their home. Of late the prospects of both the Jewish agricultural colonies which have been established in Galilee have improved. The assiduity and perseverance with which, in spite of their inexperience, of the obstacles thrown in their way, and of the hardships inseparable from settlement in a new country, they have laboured on the soil, the progress they have made, and their prospects for the future, all go to show that under favourable auspices colonies of this nature cannot but succeed; and this belief has taken too firm a hold on the Jewish mind both in Russia and Roumania for it to be lightly abandoned. At present the pressure on the part of the Roumanian Jews to emigrate hither is greater than in Russia, where there has been a lull in the persecution; but unfortunately the Roumanian government