First Looks at Jerusalem in the 19th Century
Many western travelers who recorded their journeys to Late Ottoman Jerusalem expressed a sense of disappointment when they saw the city for the first time. How can we make sense of their experience?
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The Holy Land and Jerusalem experienced a flourishing of pilgrimage, exploration, and tourism during the 19th century. Today’s newsletter explores one aspect of travel accounts from this time—the first view and initial impressions of Jerusalem. It is striking how often western travelers who visited Late Ottoman Jerusalem wrote reflectively about the emotions involved in first seeing the city. A minority of travelers arrived at night or in the rain, and others simply chose not to discuss it. But these are exceptions that prove the rule. First impressions of Jerusalem seem to have been an expected part of travelogues as a genre.
Considering the city’s spiritual and historical significance, it is easy to see why the first sighting would be a high point of any trip. Practical aspects of the journey also contributed to this. Reaching Jerusalem took weeks or months and involved travel by boat, horse, train, carriage and/or foot, ascending half a mile in elevation. In line with the nature of the journey, a frequent theme in western travel accounts is the sense of anticipation. Christian accounts often insert quotes or allusions to the Psalms as they approach or reflect on the first sighting of Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, the disappointment
Given all this excitement, it is surprising that most travelers expressed a frank and even profound sense of disappointment when they first saw Jerusalem. By 1876, a popular guidebook on Palestine and Syria warned aspiring travelers about the likelihood of this experience:
“Jerusalem, to most travellers, is a place of overwhelming interest, but at first sight many will be sadly disappointed in the Holy City.” (Baedeker 1876:145)
One writer was so upset by his first impression of Jerusalem that he quoted at length from the book of Lamentations to describe the living city he had visited. What factors transformed such longstanding anticipation into resolute and jarring disgust?
Many scholars have examined what was likely the biggest issue that led to these reactions: the gap between the reality of Late Ottoman Jerusalem and the imagined grandeur of the biblical city. Take, for instance, the statement by William Bartlett who arrived in Jerusalem for his second visit in 1863:
“Nothing can be more flat and unimposing than the first view of Jerusalem by the Jaffa road. We passed across a high bleak tract of country, the surface of which is everywhere so rocky and uneven, that the horse stumbles at every step. The hills are totally without character, and the general scene tame, wearisome, and depressing. Here and there, indeed, the rugged slopes are thinly veiled by terraces of grey olives, or a poor looking field of corn seems struggling for life in the arid In plain; but the general aspect is sterility itself. In vain do we seek for any indications of that grandeur of situation and magnificence of architecture indelibly associated with our conceptions of a city depicted in such glowing terms by the Hebrew poets; and grievous is the disappointment as a dull line of walls, without any prominent object to relieve their monotony, is pointed out as that Jerusalem of which the imagination had formed so different an idea.” (Bartlett 1863:14-15)
Other, more tangible causes may help further explain the sense of disappointment. The city’s physical setting could have played a part. Located on the east side of the Watershed Ridge and near the drop into semi-arid wilderness, Jerusalem has always flirted with desolation. In a space like this, a cultivated and flourishing landscape looks different than on the Mediterranean coast or in the wetter and wooded areas of the north. Seasonality may also have had an impact. Many travelers arrived in Ottoman Palestine during the summertime, long after the winter rains had ended and the foliage around Jerusalem was brown and dead. Had they come in February or March, they would have found a vibrantly green land bursting with wildflowers. Another issue had to do with the direction of their approach.1
Routes and views
What we call the Old City of Jerusalem today was the only city during the first three quarters of the 19th century or so. Aside from a few scattered buildings, there was nothing between the city skyline and the approaching tourist or pilgrim. In an article on 19th-century travel to Jerusalem, Eveline J. van der Steen makes the helpful observation that a traveler’s route of approach created different vantage points, and hence, different experiences, for their first view of Jerusalem. The travelogues state clear preferences for some approaches over others. Tourists who first visited Hebron approached Jerusalem from the south, either stopping in Bethlehem or passing it by to return for a day trip later. This route to Jerusalem, running along the Watershed Ridge past Mar Elias Monastery, obscures the view toward much of the city. One Late Ottoman traveler summed up the experience:
"The view is decidedly not favourable, and I should think that on every other road the first sight of Jerusalem is better." (Measor 1844:176)
But it seems that not all other roads were better. According to a travelogue some 40 years later, the road that lead to Jerusalem from the west was in fact considered much worse:
"No one should ever have his first view of Jerusalem from the Jaffa road. Better go five, yes, fifty miles, around and approach the Holy City from the Damascus road, or, still better, from the Mount of Olives, than have your heart sink within you from disappointment in first viewing the city from the rough, barren hill-top of the road from Jaffa." (Freese 1882:50)
But the majority of travelers did approach Jerusalem from the west, mainly for practical reasons. The was the most direct way up from the coast, and the view of Jerusalem it presented may help explain, in part, the poor first impressions of so many western travelers.
As hinted in this last quote, the route approaching Jerusalem from the north was considered the best by far. The American biblical scholar Edward Robinson preferred it because it allowed the opportunity to climb Mount Scopus where the traveler could look down on the city from above. The road ascending the Mount of Olives from Jericho and Bethany (al-’Azariah) provided a similar experience, although most western travelers did not arrive this way.
The elevated view from the Mount of Olives presented a majestic angle on Jerusalem that more closely matched the city of the traveler’s imagination. From this view, they could point out various landmarks associated with biblical and historical lore. They could also look upon (and perhaps weep over) the city as Jesus did. The following passage sums up typical associations with the view from the Mount of Olives. Notice how the author shifts seamlessly from the appearance of the Late Ottoman city to memory of the biblical one:
“Probably this is the most impressive view, of any sort, presented to human eyes, anywhere on the wide earth. One beholds indeed, not merely the spectacle which greets his outward vision, but looks through this to that yet sublimer spectacle of temple and palaces, and all sumptuous splendors of marble and gold, presented first when King Solomon had realized his magnificent schemes for glorifying his capital and the place of Jehovah's abode, and again when Herod the Great had so successfully imitated him. And the view is made still more profoundly impressive by the thought that it is the same which met the gaze of the Saviour, when "he beheld the city and wept over it." We stand where Jesus stood. And, as we look, we think of Him, who, for the once in His life consenting to a recognition of His kingly claims, rode toward His capital amidst the hosannas of His loyal people; who yet, when the sight of the city burst upon Him, paused in His progress, and, as if all-oblivious to the joy of the moment, shed silent tears of human pity as he contemplated with omniscient eye the city's coming woe." (Burt 1869:192)
Whether or not visitors enjoyed their first view of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, nearly all went here at some point during their stay:
"...the view upon the city which can be enjoyed from the summit or the slopes of Olivet, is what first attracts the visitor there; and nearly every traveller deems it a sacred duty to expatiate upon that prospect." (Tweddie 1873:18-19)
A changing landscape
Another factor that impacted first impressions among Late Ottoman travelers was Jerusalem’s urban development. The sense of a changing Jerusalem is perceptible already in the writings of Edward Robinson, who first came to the city in 1838 and returned again in 1852. In his second travelogue, he mentions newly developed gardens and cultivated land around the city, as well as buildings within the city, such as the Mediterranean Hotel and Anglican Christ Church. He wrote that the process of tearing down old buildings and replacing them with new ones reminded him “somewhat of New York” at the time (1856:161).
By the end of the 19th century, Jerusalem became a very different place than it had been at the beginning. Among other things, it attained a telegraph line, improved streets, a municipality, public spaces and parks, a railroad, banks, post offices, and consulates. Urban growth increased rapidly, especially along the western city wall and in neighborhoods and compounds springing up outside the walls. These developments altered previously unincumbered views by placing landmarks between the travelers and the ancient core of Jerusalem.
It is interesting to notice the ways this affected first impressions. For example, the Russian Compound was built in the early 1860s on a high plateau outside the city walls. The area is rarely visited or even known by tourists today, but then it sat prominently along Jaffa Road, totally altering the usual western approach to Jerusalem. In 1865, Charles Wilson complained that the buildings obscured the view. A later traveler in 1894, approaching from the south, describes first seeing the newly built train station.
Rationalizing disappointment
An interesting feature of many travelogues is their attempt to explain the poor first impressions of Jerusalem. Why did the character of the Holy City fail to match its imagined grandeur? Some blame the Turks (i.e. Muslims) who controlled the city. Others suggest the presence of a divine curse, enacted after Jesus’ crucifixion, that continued to affect the city and surrounding landscape:
“…the greater portion of the city looks dark, dreary, and unsatisfactory; and the utter desolation of the country around, which has but one exception in a small valley south of the city, adds much to the dreariness of the scene, and makes one feel from the very first that the curse of God rests upon this once favored city, and upon everything connected with it.…(Freese 1882:53)
These texts foist the notion of a divine curse upon various groups related to Jerusalem, but its Jewish community is a common target. The all-too-frequent antisemitic passages in 19th-century travelogues are a sad reminder of theological presuppositions and prevailing views at this time.
Reading 19th-century travelogues
The disappointing first sightings of Late Ottoman Jerusalem seem to have been the result of many factors: weather patterns and seasonality, direction of approach, expectations, worldview, and ideology, among others.2 Understanding these issues can help develop a hermeneutic for reading 19th-century western travel literature. It also provides a reminder that the descriptions of Jerusalem in these travelogues are not to be taken at face value. They should be weighed on a case by case basis and subject to the same rules of interpretation as any other text. In the end, a fair reading of most travelogues may not provide much useful historical information about the character of Late Ottoman Jerusalem, but it can help explain why the authors felt prompted to write of a desolate city that failed to inspire their imaginations.3
Note: some language in this post was updated since it was originally published.
To these, we can also add the European association of fertility with the monocropping of grains. I wrote further about this in a later post.
Mark Twain famously visited Jerusalem in 1867 and expressed an unfavorable view of the city: "Jerusalem is mournful, and dreary, and lifeless. I would not desire to live here" (Twain 1869:329). His disappointment seems to have been part of a deliberate strategy of humor and satire throughout The Innocents Abroad.
Edward Robinson’s comment about Jerusalem during his first visit is one of the more objective that I have encountered:
"...on entering the gates of Jerusalem, apart from the overpowering recollections which naturally rush upon the mind, I was in many respects agreeably disappointed. From the descriptions of Chateaubriand and other travellers, I had expected to find the houses of the city miserable, the streets filthy, and the population squalid. Yet the first impression made upon my mind was of a different character; nor did I afterwards see any reason to doubt the correctness of this first impression. The houses are in general better built, and the streets cleaner, than those of Alexandria, Smyrna, or even Constantinople. Indeed, of all the oriental cities which it was my lot to visit, Jerusalem, after Cairo, is the cleanest and most solidly built." (Robinson 1841:328
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