MUSICAL REMEDIES. 371 from many intimations, must have been more remarkable than we have been accustomed to attribute to one whose character was so pre-eminent in other respects. This talent first brought him to the palace of Saul. From the Scriptures, David seems to have remained at court only as long as his music was needed to calm Saul's nerves and restore him to his "right mind,”—when he appeared no longer to desire David's presence. This use of David's skill in music is not so singular as some may suppose; for music as a remedy was known and used by many with success since the time of Saul. Pythagoras, 550 B.C., used to compose his spirits with the music of a harp;1 and even madness was said to be cured by the harmony of verse in the time of Xenocrates, who practised it successfully himself, B.C. 406.2 And, still later, Charles IX. was wont to have his sleep disturbed by nightly horrors, and singing-boys celebrated battles during his reign with the nations beyond the Jordan.1 The tradition of the Arabs is that stones and birds were dedicated to him,2 but he could not reclaim the Arabs. So Orpheus made the rocks, woods, and animals follow him, but could not civilize the Thracians. Orpheus charmed Pluto, the king of the infernal regions; and thereby obtained his wife. David pleased Saul, whose name in Hebrew, when pointed differently, (though radically the same,) means king of the infernal regions, and he too detained David's wife and afterward gave her to him. Other parallelisms may be found. See Hist. Account of David, 2 vols., London, 1759. 1"Pythagoras perturbationes animi lyra componebat." Seneca, de Ira, lib. iii. cap 9. 2 Alexander ab Alexandro, Gemal. lib. ii. cap. 17. 1 Here I may be permitted to say this crown was valued at (not "weighed," as in the English translation) a talent of gold. The weight, according to Dr. Prideaux and Dr. Adam Clarke, would have been eighteen hundred ounces Troy, (one hundred and fifty pounds!) but "the value with the jewels" (see the text) would have been about £7000,-nearly $35,000. The talent (according to Drs. Prideaux and Clarke) in gold, being twenty-two carats fine, was eighteen hundred times 78.13948, (or, £3 18s. 14d. sterling, or $18.91 cts. .093 fraction, the pound sterling being rated at $4.84,) equal to £7082, or, $34039.67 cts., the value of the crown and jewels. Great as this seems, it is not comparable with the value of the diamonds in the crown of England at present in the Tower of London. 2 Herbelotte, Biblioth. Orient. 372 TOMB OF RACHEL. were called into his room, who sang him to rest.1 The spirit which seized upon Saul was certainly mysterious. His physicians felt incapable of driving it off by ordinary means, and therefore they recommended music. Josephus says that he became like a demoniac: the physicians advised him to get a man to "stand over his head" as he lay in bed, and play and sing to him. And this probably explains the words, which in the original read, "David [was] going and returning from above Saul to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem." These hills, therefore, often echoed to the wonderful music of David, the unassuming, unappreciated boy, but in the hidden purpose of God the future monarch of Israel. Yet what desertion, disgrace, agony, and exile he experienced before established upon the throne! After leaving the village, we arrived at Rachel's tomb, in about half an hour's walk from the convent. It is simply an oblong building, with a dome at one end, and a broad arch opening near the other, but on the side. Entering this, we pass through a door into another arched part which is under the dome. There we met nine Jews reading and responding whilst they sat around a mass of plastered stone in the centre of the room, about nine feet high and four feet in diameter. The length of the building is fifty-four feet, by twenty-two for the width, and contains numerous Hebrew inscriptions. The air is rather chilly; and we ride on and enter Jerusalem, and make preparations for a survey of the walls. So Thuanus, tom. iii. Buckley's edition, lib. lvii. sect. 19. 2 Jos., Antiq. lib. vi. chap. 8, 2, 154° at thirty minutes past eleven. 31 Sam. xvii, 15. TRAITS IN BEDOUIN CHARACTER. 373 CHAPTER XVII. VISIT TO DEAD SEA-PLAIN OF JERICHO. SOME days after our arrival, we determined on a visit to the Jordan. We were informed that two tribes were exhibiting their enmity by skirmishing, and that, if we intended to stay any length of time or visit the Dead Sea, we had better go prepared. A messenger was despatched to a sheik, who, with his men, was hired to accompany us to the Sea. He promised to be at the rendezvous, on the east of Mt. Olives, at nine o'clock the following morning, but refused to come within the city,—as is generally the case with the Arabs, who have, from various causes, a fear and a dislike for stone walls. This antipathy to settlement has existed among them from the time of Herodotus, if not from a period long before.1 Pass There is something singularly unchangeable in the habits of the Bedouins and of the class of Arabs called " Fellahin," who are the inhabitants of houses and in this respect principally distinguished from the Bedouin. It is generally supposed that abstinence from wine among the Arabs was first suggested by the rule of Mohammed; but a Greek historian in the fourth century says it was "a law amongst them neither to sow, plant, build houses, nor drink wine; and he who was discovered acting in violation of the law was sure to die for it.” (Diod. Siculus, b. xix. cap. 6.) The description of them then would be equally correct in almost every particular now: they are the same in spirit now as they were when the angel foretold their history to Hagar nearly four thousand years earlier in their existence. 374 AN AMBUSH OF FRIENDS. ing out of the gate of St. Stephen on the east of the city, we descend into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and, at a distance of two hundred and fifty yards, reach the entrance of the tomb or church of the Virgin Mary. It is a small building, half buried in the valley. There are forty-seven steps, each of seven inches, descending to the floor of a room like the nave of a church, and an elevated recess on the right appears like the extension of a transept. The room is hung with lamps; and, at the utmost extremity of the nave, there is an ascent which is seen immediately after our descent. Here is the reputed tomb of the Virgin. Some priests were chanting, and, not discovering much to interest us, we soon ascended, and found Hanna outside enjoying his narghilêh. Winding around the southern slope of Mt. Olives, we found the Arabs one by one coming out suddenly from rock, crevice, and corner, until the whole troop, true to their word, were assembled, with their brass-banded, long-barrelled, unwieldy guns and their swords in their sashes. The sheik was first to be seen; and the rest appeared so quickly as to suggest to my thoughts that just as quickly might our company be surprised by a band appearing from ambush against us. These are the wandering, half-gentlemanly, half-barbarous, good-natured Bedouins, who form a lazy compound of the strangest traits that ever economist, missionary, or traveller had to deal with. They are not the fierce, untamable Bedouins of the desert, but a class between them and the every-day inhabitant and tiller of the soil found in the hamlets and towns. The latter are seen everywhere, and at all times, and FELLAHIN POPULATION. 375 are the respectable lazzaroni of Palestine. Their chief end of life is to live with the smallest imaginable exertion beyond what a changing, restless life requires. They occupy a position between the roving, untamed outlaws of Arabian society—the Bedouins of the desert-on the one hand, and the Turkish rulers of the land, whom we have described, on the other. Even these are divided into classes also, while they themselves are a class peculiar to the land. They are the residents of the villages, of the towns, of houses, but not of the country nor of tents. Though not the rulers of the land, save by sufferance, they nevertheless constitute the population, all other classes being the incidental, the minority of that mass of which they only may be called the body. Their position in the empire may be significantly pictured in their appearance when happiest,—their habits, their costume, their position, their ornaments and luxuries, being mixed, or, so to speak, in pieces, borrowed from all around. Living in a condition between the luxury and haughtiness of the highest and the lawlessness and rags of the lowest, they exhibit a perfect indifference to any thing in particular, with an equal amount of complacency in every thing that happens. The Arab of this class is never happier than when, lazily squatting upon his little donkey, he mingles in some wandering company as guide or companion, with an unwieldy matchlock across his lap, the thunder of which has scared no bird for many generations, and on trial may prove as harmless as his pipe, without which he never travels, and which, never formed of the fragile reed, but of some straight thick |