DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12665#0170
154 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
far other thoughts occupied my mind; and my
speculating, scheming friends and fellow-citizens
would have smiled to see me that night, with a
Syrian dress and long beard, sitting cross-legged
on a divan, with the chief rabbi of the Jews at
Hebron, and half the synagogue around us, talk-
ing of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as of old and
mutual friends.
With the few moments of daylight that re-
mained, my Jewish friends conducted me around
their miserable quarter. They had few lions to
show me, but they took me to their synagogue, in
which an old white-bearded Israelite was teaching
some prattling children to read the laws of Moses
in the language of their fathers; and when the sun
was setting in the west, and the Muezzin from the
top of the minaret was calling the sons of the faith-
ful to evening prayers, the old rabbi and myself,
a Jew and a Christian, were sitting on the roof of
the little synagogue, looking out as by stealth upon
the sacred mosque containing the hallowed ashes
of their patriarch fathers. The Turk guards the
door, and the Jew apd the Christian are not per-
mitted to enter; and the old rabbi was pointing
to the different parts of the mosque, where, as he
told me, under tombs adorned with carpets of silk
and gold, rested the mortal remains of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob.
But to return to my Bedouin companions. The
sheik and his whole suite had been following close
at my heels, through the narrow lanes and streets,
far other thoughts occupied my mind; and my
speculating, scheming friends and fellow-citizens
would have smiled to see me that night, with a
Syrian dress and long beard, sitting cross-legged
on a divan, with the chief rabbi of the Jews at
Hebron, and half the synagogue around us, talk-
ing of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as of old and
mutual friends.
With the few moments of daylight that re-
mained, my Jewish friends conducted me around
their miserable quarter. They had few lions to
show me, but they took me to their synagogue, in
which an old white-bearded Israelite was teaching
some prattling children to read the laws of Moses
in the language of their fathers; and when the sun
was setting in the west, and the Muezzin from the
top of the minaret was calling the sons of the faith-
ful to evening prayers, the old rabbi and myself,
a Jew and a Christian, were sitting on the roof of
the little synagogue, looking out as by stealth upon
the sacred mosque containing the hallowed ashes
of their patriarch fathers. The Turk guards the
door, and the Jew apd the Christian are not per-
mitted to enter; and the old rabbi was pointing
to the different parts of the mosque, where, as he
told me, under tombs adorned with carpets of silk
and gold, rested the mortal remains of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob.
But to return to my Bedouin companions. The
sheik and his whole suite had been following close
at my heels, through the narrow lanes and streets,