Mark Twain was a relatively unknown writer in 1867 when he visited Palestine in the company of 64 "pilgrims and sinners" and wrote these words:
"Tourists" outside of Jerusalem's walls (1860-1890)
Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies....Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and is become a pauper village; the riches of Solomon are no longer there to compel the admiration of visiting Oriental queens; the wonderful temple which was the pride and the glory of Israel, is gone, and the Ottoman crescent is lifted above the spot where, on that most memorable day in the annals of the world, they reared the Holy Cross. -- The Innocents Abroad
The "tourists in a cemetery outside of Jerusalem's walls,"
apparently outside of the Golden Gate. See Twain's
description of the Golden Gate below
The book, The Innocents Abroad, based on his travels, became a best seller and established Twain as the great American writer. His vivid, iconoclastic, satiric and often depressing descriptions of the Holy Land are important historical testimony.
Does the Library of Congress collection of pictures also includephotographic testimony of Twain's visit? It does contains two pictures of pilgrims around the time of Twain's visit. We are exploring the possibility that these pictures are of Twain's ship mates and traveling companions from the side-wheel steamerQuaker City.
In a private letter, Twain described his travel mates as "the d--dest, rustiest, [most] ignorant, vulgar, slimy, psalm-singing cattle that could be scraped up in 17 States." The group included Charles Langdon, Twain's future brother-in-law, who introduced Twain to his sister Olivia.
Twain in 1867
One of Twain's companions was Col. William Denny, a religious man who viewed Twain as a "worlding [one who is absorbed by worldly pursuits and pleasures] and swearer." Denny kept a journal and a photo album of the journey through Palestine, a collection that was recently given by Denny's descendents to the Mark Twain Project at the University of California in Berkeley.
With the Denny pictures in mind, we sent the Library of Congress pictures to the general editor of the Mark Twain Project who responded, "I don't recognize any of the faces. But of course we don't have all of the 'pilgrims' in carte-de-visites [A small photographic portrait in style then]. The Denny photographs should soon be available on our website."The tourist in Jerusalem
Why do we suspect these photos, identified as being taken between 1860 and 1890, may be related to Twain or his era? Partly because of the clothing style, particularly that of two women. Olivia Langdon, Twain's future wife, was not on the voyage. But please compare the dresses worn by Olivia in this 1867 portrait and the dress worn by one of the "pilgrims."Twain's wife, Olivia (1867)
Quotations from The Innocents Abroad
On Jerusalem
It seems to me that all the races and colors and tongues of the earth must be represented among the fourteen thousand souls that dwell in Jerusalem. Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt, those signs and symbols that indicate the presence of Moslem rule more surely than the crescent-flag itself, abound.
Close by is the Golden Gate, in the Temple wall--a gate that was an elegant piece of sculpture in the time of the Temple, and is even so yet. From it, in ancient times, the Jewish High Priest turned loose the scapegoat and let him flee to the wilderness and bear away his twelve-month load of the sins of the people. If they were to turn one loose now, he would not get as far as the Garden of Gethsemane, till these miserable vagabonds here would gobble him up,--[Favorite pilgrim expression.]--sins and all. They wouldn't care. Mutton-chops and sin is good enough living for them. The Moslems watch the Golden Gate with a jealous eye, and an anxious one, for they have an honored tradition that when it falls, Islamism will fall and with it the Ottoman Empire. It did not grieve me any to notice that the old gate was getting a little shaky.
A fast walker could go outside the walls of Jerusalem and walk entirely around the city in an hour. I do not know how else to make one understand how small it is. The appearance of the city is peculiar. It is as knobby with countless little domes as a prison door is with bolt-heads. Every house has from one to half a dozen of these white plastered domes of stone, broad and low, sitting in the centre of, or in a cluster upon, the flat .
The population of Jerusalem is composed of Moslems, Jews, Greeks, Latins, Armenians, Syrians, Copts, Abyssinians, Greek Catholics, and a handful of Protestants. One hundred of the latter sect are all that dwell now in this birthplace of Christianity. The nice shades of nationality comprised in the above list, and the languages spoken by them, are altogether too numerous to mention. It seems to me that all the races and colors and tongues of the earth must be represented among the fourteen thousand souls.
On the land of Palestine
Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are unpicturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent. The Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee sleep in the midst of a vast stretch of hill and plain wherein the eye rests upon no pleasant tint, no striking object, no soft picture dreaming in a purple haze or mottled with the shadows of the clouds. Every outline is harsh, every feature is distinct, there is no perspective--distance works no enchantment here. It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land.
Small shreds and patches of it must be very beautiful in the full flush of spring, however, and all the more beautiful by contrast with the far-reaching desolation that surrounds them on every side. I would like much to see the fringes of the Jordan in spring-time, and Shechem, Esdraelon, Ajalon and the borders of Galilee--but even then these spots would seem mere toy gardens set at wide intervals in the waste of a limitless desolation.
Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies. Where Sodom and Gomorrah reared their domes and towers, that solemn sea now floods the plain, in whose bitter waters no living thing exists--over whose waveless surface the blistering air hangs motionless and dead-- about whose borders nothing grows but weeds, and scattering tufts of cane, and that treacherous fruit that promises refreshment to parching lips, but turns to ashes at the touch. Nazareth is forlorn; about that ford of Jordan where the hosts of Israel entered the Promised Land with songs of rejoicing, one finds only a squalid camp of fantastic Bedouins of the desert; Jericho the accursed, lies a moldering ruin, to-day, even as Joshua's miracle left it more than three thousand years ago; Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and their humiliation, have nothing about them now to remind one that they once knew the high honor of the Saviour's presence; the hallowed spot where the shepherds watched their flocks by night, and where the angels sang Peace on earth, good will to men, is untenanted by any living creature, and unblessed by any feature that is pleasant to the eye. .... The noted Sea of Galilee, where Roman fleets once rode at anchor and the disciples of the Saviour sailed in their ships, was long ago deserted by the devotees of war and commerce, and its borders are a silent wilderness; Capernaum is a shapeless ruin; Magdala is the home of beggared Arabs; Bethsaida and Chorazin have vanished from the earth, and the "desert places" round about them where thousands of men once listened to the Saviour's voice and ate the miraculous bread, sleep in the hush of a solitude that is inhabited only by birds of prey and skulking foxes.
Palestine is desolate and unlovely. And why should it be otherwise? Can the curse of the Deity beautify a land?
Palestine is no more of this work-day world. It is sacred to poetry and tradition--it is dream-land.
The Graf Zeppelin, built in 1928, was huge -- 804 feet (245 meters) long. That's more than twice as long as a football field and four times longer than the Goodyear blimps that fly over many American sporting events today.
Graf Zeppelin flying over Jerusalem's David's Tower, 1931
Along with its sister ship, the Hindenburg, the two hydrogen-filled blimps flew between Europe, North America and South America on hundreds of flights.
Two lengthy flights to the Middle East were conducted by theGraf Zeppelin in 1929 and 1931. The ship's flight over Jerusalem in 1929 took place at night, and no pictures of the ship were taken. But the flight in 1931, in daylight, was photographed by the American Colony photographers and by an Armenian photographer in Jerusalem, Elia Kahvedjian.
The airship over the Old City of Jerusalem (1931)
Mail sacks were supposed to have been dropped from the Graf Zeppelin over Jerusalem, Haifa and Jaffa. The airships did not moor in Palestine but flew from Germany to Cairo, then over Palestine and then back to Germany. The flight took 97 hours and traversed some 9,000 kilometers over 14 countries.
With the spectacular crash of the Hindenburg in New Jersey May 1937, all flights of the two behemoth balloons stopped.1View comments
- DEC5
Re-posting an earlier essay Winston Churchill Visits Palestine in 1921, Voices Support for Jewish State
Churchill (right) and Samuel
on Mt Scopus. Also pictured
with chief rabbisThe great British leader Winston Churchill visited Palestine in 1921, relatively early in his career while serving as Colonial Secretary. He was attending a conference in Cairo, and, according to Churchill, he was invited to Jerusalem by his friend the British Commissioner for Palestine, Herbert Samuel.While in Jerusalem he attended a tree-planting ceremony at Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus with Sir Herbert Samuel.
Churchill's most important meeting -- related to the division and leadership of the post-war Middle East -- was a secret meeting with Emir Abdullah (later King Abdullah of Transjordan) and T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). A photograph from the meeting was preserved in the Library of Congress collection.
Fateful meeting. From the left, Churchill,
Lawrence and Abdullah. Lawrence was
also a strong supporter of the Zionist
enterprise, according to historian
Sir Martin Gilbert
He also met with the Muslim, Christian and Jewish religious leadership of Jerusalem. In an incredible film clip, Churchill takes leave of the leading rabbis of the time, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Chief Rabbi of the Ashkenazic community; Rabbi Joseph Chaim Zonnenfeld, Chief Rabbi of the ultra-Orthodox Eidah Charedis community; and Rabbi Jacob Meir, chief Rabbi of the Sephardi community.
To the left of the door is Emir Abdullah. Note the faint recognition Rabbi Kook gave him and Abdullah's lengthy gaze at the departing rabbi. What does it signify? We will probably never know.
In January 1925, Rabbi Zonnenfeld traveled to Amman to meet with Abdullah, his father King Hussein of the Hijaz and brother King Faisal of Iraq.
Churchill also met with a former mayor of Jerusalem and Arab leader, Musa Kazim el Husseini. Husseini was related to the Jew-hating Mufti Haj Amil el-Husseini and father of the notorious Arab militia fighter, Abdul Khadar el-Husseini. The Husseinis' hatred of Jews was only matched by their hatred for King Abdullah, and Husseini clan members were involved in Abdullah's assassination on the Temple Mount in 1951.
Musa Kazim el Husseini petitioned Churchill to stop the immigration of Jews into Palestine and claimed that life for the Arabs was better under the Ottomans. Churchill responded with his famous rhetorical brilliance, defending the Balfour Declaration and the reestablishment of the Jewish homeland.
Churchill: You have asked me in the first place to repudiate the Balfour Declaration and to veto immigration of Jews into Palestine. It is not in my power to do so, nor, if it were in my power, would it be my wish. The British Government have passed their word, by the mouth of Mr. Balfour, that they will view with favour the establishment of a National Home for Jews in Palestine, and that inevitably involves the immigration of Jews into the country. This declaration of Mr. Balfour and of the British Government has been ratified by the Allied Powers who have been victorious in the Great War; and it was a declaration made while the war was still in progress, while victory and defeat hung in the balance. It must therefore be regarded as one of the facts definitely established by the triumphant conclusion of the Great War. It is upon this basis that the mandate has been undertaken by Great Britain, it is upon this basis that the mandate will be discharged. I have no doubt that it is on this basis that the mandate will be accepted by the Council of the League of Nations, which is to meet again shortly....
Churchill greets Husseini.
Moreover, it is manifestly right that the Jews, who are scattered all over the world, should have a national centre and a National Home where some of them may be reunited. And where else could that be but in this land of Palestine, with which for more than 3,000 years they have been intimately and profoundly associated? We think it will be good for the world, good for the Jews and good for the British Empire. But we also think it will be good for the Arabs who dwell in Palestine, and we intend that it shall be good for them, and that they shall not be sufferers or supplanted in the country in which they dwell or denied their share in all that makes for its progress and prosperity. And here I would draw your attention to the second part of the Balfour Declaration, which solemnly and explicitly promises to the inhabitants of Palestine the fullest protection of their civil and political rights. I was sorry to hear in the paper which you have just read that you do not regard that promise as of value....
If a National Home for the Jews is to be established in Palestine, as we hope to see it established, it can only be by a process which at every stage wins its way on its merits and carries with it increasing benefits and prosperity and happiness to the people of the country as a whole. And why should this not be so? Why should this not be possible?You can see with your own eyes in many parts of this country the work which has already been done by Jewish colonies; how sandy wastes have been reclaimed and thriving farms and orangeries planted in their stead....3View comments
- DEC5
Another Mystery Photo: The Giants of American Zionism in the 1920s -- When and Where Were They Sailing? Actor Douglas Fairbanks Provides the Answer
Ninety years ago, these three men were the most important Zionist leaders in America. They had close relations with Woodrow Wilson's White House, Britain's Lord Balfour, and Chaim Weizmann, the foremost Zionist leader. What brought together Nathan Straus, Louis Brandeis and Stephen Wise, and on a boat no less?
Three Zionist leaders on a boat. From left: Nathan Strauss, Justice
Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Stephen Wise. Where were they
heading? (Bain collection at the Library of Congress)
The photo file from the Library of Congress' Bain Collection does not help very much. We're not even sure of the date. Flipping the photo shows a date of March 7, 1922 and another notation "Wise only December 29, 1925." A picture of Straus and Brandeis has June 14, 1920 scribbled on it.
So we checked if the three were sailing together to a Zionist Congress in Europe or to Palestine, but it appears that the three did not travel together. Brandeis, a U.S. Supreme Court justice since 1916, had been to Palestine in 1919 with Weizmann. Rabbi Wise visited Palestine in 1913, 1922 and 1935. Strauss, the owner of Macy's and Abraham & Straus department stores, was in Palestine in 1912.
[Straus was connected with other boats. He was a major contributor to a 1914 special financial aid package sent to the impoverished Jews of Turkish-controlled Palestine. To guarantee delivery, the money was delivered by the American warship, the USS North Carolina. Straus' brother, Isador, died when the Titanicsank in 1912. Believing that he was saved from being on the ship, Nathan devoted time and resources to Jewish projects in the Holy Land.]
USS North Carolina brought aid
Straus and Brandeis spoke in London in July 1920 to the International Zionist Conference, so perhaps that's why and when they were sailing. According to theNew York Times account, Straus reported at the conference on the health centers and soup kitchens he established in Palestine. [The town of Netanya and Straus Road in Jerusalem are named for the philanthropist.]
Reports about the 1920 meeting stated that Wise refused to attend, although he had been attending Zionist Congresses since 1898 and worked with Herzl. Tensions between the American delegation and the European/Palestinian delegation were taking their toll on Wise.
So when was this picture taken of the three men?
One possibility is that the photo was taken March 7, 1925 during a special cruise off the coast of New Jersey. It was the "shake out" sailing of a new Jewish-owned passenger ship, the American Palestine Line's SS President Arthur. The hundred mile cruise could have drawn the American Zionist leadership. After all, one week later when the ship sailed for Palestine 15,000 people showed up to see it off. Wise delivered a prayer, and a telegram from Straus was read. The President Arthur would sail three round-trip voyages that year before the American Palestine Line went bankrupt.
The American Palestine Line ship
had a song written for its first
voyage to Palestine. This was not
the ship, apparently
Pickford, the new bride Incredibly, actors Douglas Fairbanks and his wife Mary Pickford provide the answer when and why Straus and Brandeis were on board.The Library of Congress collection includes pictures of the famous actors, a movie mogul Hiram Abrams, and presidential advisor E.M. House all on board the same boat in 1920. Ms. Pickford is holding a bouquet of flowers, like a new bride.
From left: Movie mogul Abrams, Mary
Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Pickford's
mother. Abrams and the actors had
created "United Artists" in 1919.
Indeed, Fairbanks and Pickford were embarking on their honeymoon to England. "On June 12 [1920], they left New York on the Red Star cruise liner Lapland for a much-delayed honeymoon in Europe. As reported in the New York Times: 'Arriving in London, the pair were ‘mobbed’ to such an extent that they had to spend one week-end at Lord Northcliffes’ place in the Isle of Thanet.'"
Pres. Wilson's advisor,
E. M. HouseBut what of Wise? According to his biographer, "He declined to join the American delegation to the Zionist conference that summer, and tried to warn Brandeis that Weizmann planned to undermine American influence..."We must conclude that Wise came to the dock to wish bon voyage to his Zionist colleagues and then got off the boat.0Add a comment
The Jaffa Gate of the Old City is unquestionably the busiest gate in the ancient walls. Damascus Gate, bordering the Moslem Quarter, serves a large pedestrian population, and the Dung Gate/Tanners Gate is an important exit for visitors to the Western Wall. But Jaffa Gate, so named because it faces west toward Jaffa, is the main entrance for pedestrians and motor vehicles -- buses, trucks, taxis and cars.
Jaffa Gate circa 1890, before construction of a road into the
city and a clock tower honoring the Ottoman Sultan
It wasn't always so.
Until the late 1800s the narrow angled gate limited wheeled traffic. A moat was an additional barrier. All that changed when the Ottoman authorities rebuilt the gate to allow the German Emperor's carriages to enter the city in 1898. 
Jaffa Gate circa 1860 
Jaffa Gate interior, circa 1870, note the narrow path and moat
Breach in the wall, circa 1900 
Traffic jam inside Jaffa Gate, 1898,
Turkish military escort, possibly part
of the German Emperor's visit.Gen. Allenby entering Jaffa Gate by foot, 1917
The wagons, carriages and Turkish army cavalry in the Jaffa Gate picture taken in 1898 (right) suggest that the scene was part of the reception for the German Emperor. Enlarging the picture reveals the American flag on the building on the left, flying over the American Colony Store. Also revealed are Jewish residents and Christian clerics mixed in the crowd. See other 110-year-old pictures of Jerusalem's Jews here, here, and here.
Another important landmark at the Jaffa Gate to help date antique pictures is the clock tower built in 1908 in honor of the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II. After the British captured the city in 1917 the ornate tower was torn down.
In deference to the holiness of the city and in contrast to the German Emperor's carriage-borne ride into the Old City almost 20 years earlier, British General Allenby chose not to ride into the Old City of Jerusalem.
The Old City of Jerusalem is surrounded by four kilometers (2.5 miles) of walls built by the Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, in 1540. Seven open gates serve as points of entry into the Old City. Several other gates, some dating back to the days of the Second Temple, are sealed.
See previous photo essays on the Zion Gate,Damascus Gate, Golden Gate, Dung Gate and Lions Gate.
Click on the photos to enlarge.
Click on the captions to see the originals.
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The "temporary vegetable market" photographed by the American Colony photographer in the 1930s is on Jerusalem's Jaffa Road in the Romema neighborhood. The building in the picture may be boarded up, but the arches, windows and columns are identical.
The building today. (Zoomap.co.il)
The address is 167 Jaffa Road, not far from the main bus station.
View of Jaffa Road looking east toward the Old City.
The building is on the right, (Zoomap.co.il)
The "temporary market," possibly set up
when the Old City was held by terrorists
in 1938.
HT: TBD1View comments
- NOV29
A Strange Picture of a "Temporary" Arab Vegetable Market in a Jewish Neighborhood in Jerusalem in the 1930s More from the Arab Revolt 1936-1939
This picture of a market (right) is something of a mystery. Why would there be a "temporary market" in the middle of the Jewish neighborhood of Romema, particularly when most of the customers are Arabs? Moreover, the time frame of the picture, 1934-1939, was marked by strife between Arabs and Jews, especially after the outbreak of the "Arab Revolt" in 1936.
"Temporary vegetable market" in Romema, Jerusalem (picture
taken between 1934 and 1939)
"British army breaking into the Old City's
Damascus Gate, evacuating and
arresting certain individuals, rebels,"
Oct. 19, 1938
Lifting the siege. Arab residents waiting
to enter Damascus Gate. Oct 22, 1938
We'll take a guess and suggest that the picture was taken in October 1938 when Arab terrorists captured the Old City of Jerusalem and held it for a week. Food and water were cut off. The Arab market in the Old City would have been closed. A temporary solution was found, we suggest.
Distributing bread to residents after the
siege was lifted. Another picture here.
On October 19, the British army broke in and recaptured the Old City, killing 19 terrorists.
Providing water after the siege
The women's clothing in the mystery picture appears to be light, even summer clothes, challenging our hypothesis. Was the clothing appropriate for October? Actually, yes. Viewing the clothing of the soldiers and nurses in the October pictures, the days were apparently warm.
Nurse on duty at Damascus Gate,
October 22, 1938
In its 1938 annual report, the British Mandatory office wrote,
Lifting the siege
"The Old City of Jerusalem, which had become the rallying point of a large number of bandits and from which acts of violence, murder and intimidation were being organized and perpetrated freely and with impunity, was fully re-occupied by the troops on the 19th of the month."
The Library of Congress' American Colony collection contains several dozen pictures of the British retaking the Old City.1View comments
Except for a few historians, does anyone know why the Crimean War (1853-1856) was fought and between whom?
"Russian priestesses" (circa 1900)
It’s a fact that one of the causes of the Crimean War was a dispute over who controlled the Christian holy sites in the Holy Land. The primary combatants were the Russian Empire versus an alliance of the French, Ottoman and British Empires.
In 1851 Napoleon III sent an ambassador to the Ottoman court to convince the Turks to recognize France as the sovereign authority over the holy sites in Palestine, effectively meaning Roman Catholic control over the sites. After Russia protested, the Ottomans reversed the agreement with the French and proclaimed that Russia was the protector of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire (not too much to the liking of the Greek Orthodox).
France responded with “gunboat diplomacy.” The Turkish Sultan reversed his ruling again, giving authority over Christian sites to France and the Roman Catholic Church.
Russian pilgrims on the way to Jericho 
Russian pilgrims on the Jordan River
The dispute over the holy sites was part of the general balagan as the Ottoman Empire disintegrated, leading to widespread warfare, predominately in the Crimean Peninsula along the northern coast of the Black Sea.
Hospital in the Russian Compound,
Jerusalem
Russian Pilgrims on the road
between Jerusalem and
the Jordan RiverAfter the war, Russian Czar Alexander II sent agents to purchase properties in Jerusalem and Nazareth. The Russian Palestine Society was established in 1860 to encourage and subsidize pilgrimages to the Holy Land. Russian churches, hostels and even hospitals were built to accommodate thousands of pilgrims. The large “Russian Compound” was established in Jerusalem.
Click on the photos to enlarge.
Click on the captions to see the originals.
Subscribe to Israel Daily Picture by entering your email address in the box in the right column and click on "submit."1View comments
Scene from first movie
Auguste Lumière and Louis Lumière were photographic inventors who began to experiment with motion pictures in the early 1890s.
Railroad Station (1900)
The Frenchmen's first footage was recorded in March 1895. In 1897, they produced the first motion picture made in the Holy Land, a 51-second film from a train leaving Jerusalem station.
Click on the picture to see the film or view an annotated version of the film which answers the question, "Who were the residents of Jerusalem when the film was made?"
[Do not adjust the sound on your computer; this is a silent movie.]
Note in the background the windmill in the Jewish neighborhood of Yemin Moshe built by Moses Montefiore in 1860.1View comments
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Are these Photographs of Mark Twain's Companions from The Innocents Abroad? 'The Pilgrims and the Sinners' in the Holy Land - picture a day
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