Note Footnotes — HONBLE. ROBERT CURZON, JUN.
Reading edition
[1] Moyah—"water."
[2] This, the first mosque built at Cairo, is said to have been paid for by Sultan Tayloon with a part of an immense treasure in gold, which he found under a monument called the altar of Pharaoh, on the mountain of Mokattam. This building was destroyed by Tayloon, who founded a mosque upon the spot in the year 873, in honour of Judah, the brother of Joseph, who resorted there to pray when he came to Egypt. This mosque becoming ruined, another was built upon the spot by the Emir El Guyoosh, minister of the Caliph Mostansir, A.D. 1094, which still remains perched on the corner of a rock, which is excavated in various places with ancient tombs.
[3] A fragment of the Gospel of St. Mark was found in the tomb which was reputed to be his. Damp and age have decayed this precious relic, of which only some small fragments remain; but an exact facsimile of it was made before it was destroyed. This facsimile is now in my possession: it is in Latin, and is written in double columns, on sixteen leaves of vellum, of a large quarto size, and proves that whoever transcribed the original must have been a proficient in the art of writing, for the letters are of great size and excellent formation, and in the style of the very earliest manuscripts.
[4] See Quarterly Review, vol. lxxvii. p. 43.
[5] It is perhaps more likely that these beautiful specimens of ancient glass were made in the island of Murano, in the lagunes of Venice, as the manufactories of the Venetians supplied the Mahomedans with many luxuries in the middle ages.
[6] The only early church in which the columns are continued on the end opposite to the altar, where the doorway is usually situated, is the Cathedral of Messina. The effect is very good, and takes off from the baldness usually observable at that end of a basilica. The early Coptic churches have no porch or narthex, an essential part of an original Greek church.
[7] This curious old sunken oratory bears a resemblance in many points to the fine church of St. Agnese, at Rome, where the ground has been excavated down to the level of the catacomb in which the holy martyr's body reposes. The long straight flight of steps down to the lower level are also similar in these two very ancient churches, although the Church of Der-el-Adra is poor and mean, whilst that of St. Agnese is a superb edifice, and is famous for being the first basilica in which a gallery is found over the side aisles. This gallery was set apart for the women, as in the oriental churches of St. Sophia at Constantinople, and perhaps, also, of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.
[8] It is much to be desired that some competent person should write a small cheap book, with plates or wood-cuts explaining what an early Christian Church was; what the ceremonies, ornaments, vestures, and liturgy were at the time when the Church of our Lord was formally established by the Emperor Constantine: for the numerous well-meaning authors who have written on the restoration of our older churches, appear to me to be completely in the dark. Gothic is NOT Christian architecture—it is Roman Catholic architecture: the vestures of English ecclesiastics are not restorations of early simplicity—they are modern inventions taken from German collegiate dresses which have nothing to do with religion.
[9] We are perhaps not entirely acquainted with the mechanical powers of the ancients. The seated statue of Rameses II., in the Memnonium at Thebes, a solid block of granite forty or fifty feet high, has been broken to pieces apparently by a tremendous blow. How this can have been accomplished without the aid of gunpowder it is difficult to conjecture.
[10] For the benefit of the reader I subjoin two of there songs translated from the originals; or rather, I may say, paraphrased: although the first of them has the same rhythm as the original. The notes are but very little, if at all, altered from those which have been frequently sung to me, accompanied by a drum, called a tarabouka, or a long sort of guitar with only two or three strings. It must be observed that the chorus, Amaan, Amaan, Amaan, is generally added to all songs—à discrétion—and that the way this chorus is howled out, is to an European ear the most difficult part to bear of the whole:—
1.
Thine eyes, thine eyes have kill'd me:
With love my heart is torn:
Thy looks with pain have fill'd me:
Amaan, Amaan, Amaan.
2.
Oh gently, dearest! gently,
Approach me not with scorn:
With one sweet look content me:
Amaan, Amaan, Amaan.
3.
That yellow shawl encloses
A form made to adorn
A Peri's bower of roses:
Amaan, Amaan, Amaan.
4.
The snows, the snows are melting
On the hills of Isfahan.
As fair, be as relenting:
Amaan, Amaan, Amaan.
* * * * * * *
1.
Let not her, whose eyelids sleep,
Imagine I no vigil keep.
Alas! with hope and love I burn:
Ah! do not from thy lover turn!
2.
Patron of lovers, Bedowi!
Ah! give me her I hold most dear;
And I will vow to her, and thee,
The brightest shawl In all Cashmere.
3.
Ah! when I view thy loveliness,
The lustre of thy deep black eye,
My songs but add to my distress!
Let me behold thee once, and die.
4.
Think not that scorn and bitter words
Can make me from my true love sever!
Pierce our hearts, then, with your swords:
The blood of both will flow together.
5.
Fill us the golden bowl with wine;
Give us the ripe and downy peach:
And, in this bower of jessamine,
No sorrows our retreat shall reach.
6.
Masr may boast her lovely girls,
Whose necks are deck'd with pearls and gold:
The gold would fall; the purest pearls
Would blush could they my love behold.
7.
Famed Skanderieh's beauties, too,
On Syria's richest silks recline:
Their rosy lips are sweet, 'tis true;
But can they be compar'd to thine?
8.
Fairest! your beauty comes from Heaven:
Freely the lovely gift was given.
Resist not, then, the high decree—
'Twas fated I should sigh for thee.
This last song is well known upon the Nile by the name of its chorus, Doas ya leili.
[11] This sword is used by the Reverendissimo, the title given to the superior of the Franciscans, when he confers the order of Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, which is only given to a Roman Catholic of noble birth. The Reverendissimo is also authorised by the Pope to give a flag bearing the Five Crosses of Jerusalem to the captain of any ship who has rendered service to the Catholic religion. These honours were first instituted by the Christian Kings of Jerusalem, but they are now sold by the monks for about forty dollars to any Roman Catholic who likes to pay for them.
[12] On another occasion some years afterwards, I was waiting in the same place, when I wandered into the new Patriarchal church which opens on this court: while I stood there, a corpse was brought in on a bier, followed by many persons, who I suppose were the relations and friends of the deceased. After the funeral service had been read by a priest, every person in the church went up to the bier and kissed the dead man's hand and forehead: this is the usual custom, and an affecting one to see when friends bid friends a last farewell. But this man had died of some fearful and horrible disease, perhaps the plague, which through this horrid means may have been distributed to half the congregation.
[13] All eastern cities are infested with troops of half-wild dogs, who act the part of scavengers, and live upon the refuse food which is thrown into the streets.
[14]
Direction.—"To the blessed Inspectors, Officers, Chiefs, and Representatives of the Holy Community of Monte Santo, and to the Holy Fathers of the same, and of all other sacred convents, our beloved Sons.
"We, Gregorios, Patriarch, Archbishop Universal, Metropolitan of Constantinople, &c. &c. &c.
"Blessed Inspectors, Officers, Superiors, and Representatives of the Community of the Holy Mountain, and other Holy Fathers of the same, and of the other Holy and Venerable Convents subject to our holy universal Throne. Peace be to you.
"The bearer of the present, our patriarchal sheet, the Honourable Robert Curzon, of a noble English family, recommended to us by most worthy and much-honoured persons, intending to travel and wishing to be instructed in the old and new philology, thinks to satisfy his curiosity by repairing to those sacred convents which may have any connexion with his intentions. We recommend his person, therefore, to you all: and we order and require of you, that you not only receive him with every esteem and every possible hospitality, in each and in the several holy convents; but to lend yourselves readily to all his wants and desires, and to give him precise and clear explanations to all his interrogations relative to his philological examinations, obliging yourselves, and lending yourselves, in a manner not only fully to satisfy and content him, but so that he shall approve of and praise your conduct.
"This we desire and require to be executed, rewarding you with the Divine and with our blessing.
"(Signed) Gregorios, Universal Patriarch.
"Constantinople, 1 (13) July, 1837."
[15] Ridiculous as these pictorial representations of the Last Judgment appear to us, one of them was the cause of a whole nation's embracing Christianity. Bogoris, king of Bulgaria, having written to Constantinople for a painter to decorate the walls of his palace, a monk named Methodius was sent to him—all knowledge of the arts in those days being confined to the clergy. The king desired Methodius to paint on a certain wall the most terrible picture that he could imagine; and, by the advice of the king's sister, who had embraced Christianity some years before whilst in captivity at Constantinople, the monastic artist produced so fearful a representation of the torments of the condemned in the next world, that it had the effect of converting Bogoris to the Christian faith. In consequence of this event the Patriarch of Constantinople despatched a bishop to Bulgaria, who baptised the king by the name of Michael in the year 865. Before long his loyal subjects, following the example of their sovereign, were converted also; and Christianity from that period became the religion of the land.
[16] In the early ages of the Greek church the Epiphany was a day of very great solemnity; for not only was the adoration of the Magi celebrated on the 6th of January, but also the changing of the water into wine at the marriage at Cana, the baptism, and even the birth of our Lord. On this day the holy water is blessed in the Greek church, by throwing a small cross into it, or otherwise by holding over it the cross, with a handle attached to it, which is used by the Greek clergy in the act of benediction.
[17] The Emperor Leo the First was crowned by the Patriarch of Anatolia in the year 459. He is the first prince on record who received his crown from the hands of a bishop.
[18] Mosheim's 'Ecclesiastical History;' Gibbon.