The Road to Oxiana Read Online Free PDF Page A

pleasure-trip round the world, he supposed. Then they grew so absorbed with Christopher’s diplomatic visa that they forgot to give him a card of disembarkation.
    A frenzied crowd seethed round the head of the gangway. Physically, Jews can look the best or the worst bred people in the world. These were the worst. Theystank, stared, shoved, and shrieked. One man, who had been there five hours, began to weep. When his rabbi failed to comfort him, Christopher offered him a whisky and soda out of the bar window. He refused it. Our luggage, by degrees, was handed into a boat. I followed it. Christopher had to go back for his card of disembarkation. There was a heavy swell, as we negotiated the surf-bound reef which constitutes the “port” of Jaffa. A woman was sick over my hand. Her husband nursed their child, while supporting in his other arm a tall plant of veronica in a pot.
    â€œUpstairs, please!” The sweating, malformed mob divided into two queues. After half an hour I reached the doctor. He apologised for delay, and gave me a medical certificate without an examination. Downstairs the boatmen were clamouring for money. The transport of ourselves and luggage cost
£
I : 2s. “Do you write books?” asked the customs officer, scenting an author of dutiable obscenities. I said I was not Lord Byron, and suggested he should get on with his business. At length we found a car, and putting the hood down in compliment to the Holy Land, set out for Jerusalem.
    The King David Hotel is the only good hotel in Asia this side of Shanghai. We treasure every moment spent in it. The general decoration is harmonious and restrained, almost severe. But you might not think so from this notice which hangs in the hall:—
    N OTICE FOR THE I NTERIOR D ECORATION OF
THE K ING D AVID H OTEL , J ERUSALEM
    The object was to evoke by reminiscence of ancient Semitic styles the ambience of the glorious period of King David.
    A faithful reconstruction was impossible, so the artist tried to adopt to modern taste different old Jew styles.
    Entrance Hall
: Period of King David (Assyrian influence).
    Main-Lounge
: Period of King David (Hittite influence).
    Reading-room
: Period of King Salomon.
    Bar
: Period of King Salomon.
    Restaurant
: Greek-Syrian-Style.
    Banquet Hall
: Phenician Style (Assyrian influence), etc.
    G. A. H UFSCHMID
    Decorator, O.E.V. & S.W.B.
    Geneva
    The beauty of Jerusalem in its landscape can be compared with that of Toledo. The city stands in the mountains, a scape of domes and towers enclosed by crenellated walls and perched on a table of rock above a deep valley. As far as the distant hills of Moab the contours of the country resemble those of a physical map, sweeping up the slopes in regular, stratified curves, and casting grand shadows in the sudden valleys. Earth and rock reflect the lights of a fire-opal. Such an essay in urban emplacement, whether accidental or contrived, has made a work of art.
    In detail, even Toledo offers no comparison with the steep winding streets, cobbled in broad steps and so narrow that a single camel causes as much disturbance as a motor coach in an English lane. Jostling up and down King David Street, from dawn to sunset, the crowd is still a picture of “the East”, immune as yet from the tide of lounge suits and horn spectacles. Here comes the desert Arab, furiously moustached, sailing by in his voluminous robes of gold-worked camel hair; the Arab woman, with her face tattooed and her dress embroidered, bearing a basket on her head; the priest of Islam, trim of beard and sporting a neat white turban round his fez; the Orthodox Jew, in ringlets, beaver hat,and black frock coat; the Greek priest and Greek monk, bearded and bunned beneath their tall black chimneypots; priests and monks from Egypt, Abyssina, and Armenia; the Latin father in brown robe and white topee; the woman of Bethlehem, whose backward-sloping head-dress beneath a white veil is said to be a legacy