Part 13

Alexandria is a commercial market for all nations. Merchants come thither from all the Christian kingdoms: on the one side, from the land of Venetia and Lombardy, Tuscany, Apulia, Amalfi, Sicilia, Calabria, Romagna, Khazaria, Patzinakia, Hungaria, Bulgaria, Rakuvia (Ragusa?), Croatia, Slavonia, Russia, Alamannia (Germany), Saxony, Danemark, Kurland? Ireland? Norway (Norge?), Frisia, Scotia, Angleterre, Wales, Flanders, Hainault? Normandy, France, Poitiers, Anjou, Burgundy, Maurienne, Provence, Genoa, Pisa, Gascony, Aragon, and Navarra, and towards the west under the sway of the Mohammedans, Andalusia, Algarve, Africa and the land of the Arabs: and on the other side India, Zawilah, Abyssinia, Lybia, El-Yemen, Shinar, Esh-Sham (Syria); also Javan, whose people are called the Greeks, and the Turks. And merchants of India bring thither all kinds of spices, and the merchants of Edom buy of them. And the city is a busy one and full of traffic. Each nation has an inn of its own.

By the sea-coast there is a sepulchre of marble on which are engraved all manner of beasts and birds; an effigy is in the midst thereof, and all the writing is in ancient characters, which no one knows now.

Men suppose that it is the sepulchre of a king who lived in early times before the Deluge. The length of the sepulchre is fifteen spans, and its breadth is six spans. There are about 3,000 Jews in Alexandria.

Thence it is two days' journey to Damietta which is Caphtor, where there are about 200 Jews, and it lies upon the sea. Thence it is one day's journey to Simasim; it contains about 100 Jews. From there it is half a day to Sunbat; the inhabitants sow flax and weave linen, which they export to all parts of the world. Thence it is four days to Ailam, which is Elim. It belongs to the Arabs who dwell in the wilderness. Thence it is two days' journey to Rephidim where the Arabs dwell, but there are no Jews there. A day's journey from thence takes one to Mount Sinai. On the top of the mountain is a large convent belonging to the great monks called Syrians. At the foot of the mountain is a large town called Tur Sinai; the inhabitants speak the language of the Targum (Syriac). It is close to a small mountain, five days distant from Egypt. The inhabitants are under Egyptian rule. At a day's journey from Mount Sinai is [the Red Sea, which is an arm of the Indian Ocean. We return to Damietta. From there it is a day's journey to] Tanis, which is Hanes, where there are about 40 Jews. It is an island in the midst of the sea.

Thus far extends the empire of Egypt.

Thence it takes twenty days by sea to Messina, which is the commencement of Sicily and is situated on the arm of the sea that is called Lipar, which divides it from Calabria. Here about 200 Jews dwell. It is a land full of everything good, with gardens and plantations. Here most of the pilgrims assemble to cross over to Jerusalem, as this is the best crossing. Thence it is about two days' journey to Palermo, which is a large city. Here is the palace of King William. Palermo contains about 1,500 Jews and a large number of Christians and Mohammedans. It is in a district abounding in springs and brooks of water, a land of wheat and barley, likewise of gardens and plantations, and there is not the like thereof in the whole island of Sicily. Here is the domain and garden of the king, which is called Al Harbina (Al Hacina), containing all sorts of fruit-trees. And in it is a large fountain. The garden is encompassed by a wall. And a reservoir has been made there which is called Al Buheira, and in it are many sorts of fish. Ships overlaid with silver and gold are there, belonging to the king, who takes pleasure-trips in them with his women.

In the park there is also a great palace, the walls of which are painted, and overlaid with gold and silver; the paving of the floors is of marble, picked out in gold and silver in all manner of designs. There is no building like this anywhere. And this island, the commencement of which is Messina, contains all the pleasant things of this world. It embraces Syracuse, Marsala, Catania, Petralia, and Trapani, the circumference of the island being six days' journey. In Trapani coral is found, which is called Al Murgan.

Thence people pass to the city of Rome in ten days. And from Rome they proceed by land to Lucca, which is a five days' journey. Thence they cross the mountain of Jean de Maurienne, and the passes of Italy. It is twenty days' journey to Verdun, which is the commencement of Alamannia, a land of mountains and hills. All the congregations of Alamannia are situated on the great river Rhine, from the city of Cologne, which is the principal town of the Empire, to the city of Regensburg, a distance of fifteen days' journey at the other extremity of Alamannia, otherwise called Ashkenaz.

And the following are the cities in the land of Alamannia, which have Hebrew congregations: Metz, Treves on the river Moselle, Coblenz, Andernach, Bonn, Cologne, Bingen, Münster, Worms, [All Israel is dispersed in every land, and he who does not further the gathering of Israel will not meet with happiness nor live with Israel. When the Lord will remember us in our exile, and raise the horn of his anointed, then every one will say, "I will lead the Jews and I will gather them." As for the towns which have been mentioned, they contain scholars and communities that love their brethren, and speak peace to those that are near and afar, and when a wayfarer comes they rejoice, and make a feast for him, and say, "Rejoice, brethren, for the help of the Lord comes in the twinkling of an eye." If we were not afraid that the appointed time has not yet arrived nor been reached, we would have gathered together, but we dare not do so until the time for song has arrived, and the voice of the turtle-dove (is heard in the land), when the messengers will come and say continually, "The Lord be exalted."

Meanwhile they send missives one to the other, saying, "Be ye strong in the law of Moses, and do ye mourners for Zion and ye mourners for Jerusalem entreat the Lord, and may the supplication of those that wear the garments of mourning be received through their merits." In addition to the several cities which we have mentioned there are besides] Strassburg, Würzburg, Mantern, Bamberg, Freising, and Regensburg at the extremity of the Empire. In these cities there are many Israelites, wise men and rich.

Thence extends the land of Bohemia, called Prague. This is the commencement of the land of Slavonia, and the Jews who dwell there call it Canaan, because the men of that land (the Slavs) sell their sons and their daughters to the other nations. These are the men of Russia, which is a great empire stretching from the gate of Prague to the gates of Kieff, the large city which is at the extremity of that empire. It is a land of mountains and forests, where there are to be found the animals called vair, ermine, and sable.

No one issues forth from his house in winter-time on account of the cold. People are to be found there who have lost the tips of their noses by reason of the frost. Thus far reaches the empire of Russia.

The kingdom of France, which is Zarfath, extends from the town of Auxerre unto Paris, the great city--a journey of six days. The city belongs to King Louis. It is situated on the river Seine. Scholars are there, unequalled in the whole world, who study the Law day and night. They are charitable and hospitable to all travellers, and are as brothers and friends unto all their brethren the Jews. May God, the Blessed One, have mercy upon us and upon them!

Finished and completed.

INDEX

The references in this Index are made to the pages of Asher's Edition, which are marked in the margin of the foregoing English translation.

FOOTNOTES:

The Arab writers mention that certain palaces were used as state prisons, in which the Caliphs kept their nearer relations in honourable confinement. They were duly attended by numerous servants, and amply supplied with every luxury, but forbidden under pain of death to go beyond the walls. Lebrecht, p. 381, explains the circumstances under which the Caliph Moktafi imprisoned his brother and several of his kinsmen. There were large hospitals in Bagdad: the one to which Benjamin alludes is the Birmaristan of the Mustansiriyah, in Western Bagdad, which for three centuries was a great school of medical science. Its ruins, close to the present bridge of boats, are still to be seen. The reader must bear in mind that at the time when Benjamin visited Bagdad, the Seljuk Sultans had been defeated, and the Caliphs stood higher than ever in power. They, however, took little interest in political affairs, which were left entirely in the hands of their viziers.]

C.M. Doughty was, however, more successful when visiting this district in 1875. Of Kheibar he says "that it is now a poor village whose inhabitants are a terrible kindred, Moslems outwardly, but, in secret, cruel Jews that will suffer no stranger to enter among them." See C.M. Doughty's Arabia Deserta, vol. II, p. 129. "Teima is a Nejd colony of Shammar; their fathers came to settle there not above 200 years past. Old Teima of the Jews, according to their tradition, had been (twice) destroyed by flood. From those times there remain some great rude stone buildings. It is now a prosperous open place" (vol. I, p. 286).

The only writer that casts any doubt upon Benjamin's record as to independent Jewish tribes in Arabia is R. Jacob Safir, who visited Yemen and other Arabian ports in the Red Sea in the year 1864. See chaps. xv and xliii of Iben Safir, Lyck, 1866. Dr. L. Grünhut, in his introduction, Die Reisebeschreibungen des R. Benjamin von Tudela, Jerusalem, 1903, p. 16, refutes Safir's statements.

In Hogarth's work, p. 282, is shown a print of the Teima stone, with its Aramaic inscription, considered to belong to the fourth or fifth century B.C., and on p. 285 will be found Doughty's interesting sketch of Kheibar.]

Neither Zunz nor Asher makes any comments upon this chapter of the itinerary. Graetz gives an abstract of Benjamin's account; he, as well as all other writers, is unable to identify Tilmas, but is of opinion that Tanai must be Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, which, however, is twenty-five days' journey beyond Kheibar. It is well known that Yemen has, since Bible times, harboured a Jewish population, who--notwithstanding all oppression, intensified under Turkish rule--inhabit many of its towns and villages to the present day. It is comparatively accessible, owing to its proximity to the sea. We must cherish the hope that Great Britain, now that it claims the Hinterland of Aden, will extend its protection to the Jews.

The volcanic highlands (Harrah) of Kheibar were always inaccessible, owing to their being surrounded by waterless deserts and fanatic Bedouin tribes.

R. Abraham Farissol, who flourished at the beginning of the sixteenth century, writes that there was a large number of Jews in the district, who lived in tents and in wooden houses or huts. His contemporary, David Reubeni, who crossed from Arabia to Abyssinia and came to Europe in 1524, pretended to be brother of Joseph, king of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh in the desert of Chabor (Kheibar). Benjamin takes care to qualify his statement as to the origin of the Jews of Kheibar by adding [Hebrew:] "people say they belong to the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, whom Salmanesser, King of Assyria, led hither into captivity."

I would here mention an interesting work of Dr. R. Dozy, Professor of History and Oriental Languages at Leyden, Die Israeliten in Mecca, 1864. By a series of ingenious inferences from Bible texts (1 Sam. xxx, 1 Chron. iv. 24-43, &c.) he essays to establish that the tribe of Simeon, after David had dispersed the Amalekites who had already been weakened by Saul, entered Arabia and settled all along in the land of the Minaeans and at Mecca, where they established the worship at the Kaaba and introduced practices which have not been altogether abandoned up to the present day. Dr. Dozy further contends that after Hezekiah's reign numerous Jewish exiles came to Arabia.

Hommel, in two articles in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopaedia, under "Bedouins" and "Anzah," gives full particulars respecting the Anizeh, otherwise Anaessi, tribe--that they were in the habit of joining the Wahabees and other Bedouin tribes in attacking caravans and levying blackmail. The Turkish Pasha at Damascus had to pay annually passage-money to ensure the safety of the pilgrims to Mecca. On one occasion two of the Bedouin sheiks were decoyed by the Turks and killed; but the Anaessi, aided by other tribes to the number of 80,000, took ample revenge by pillaging the Mecca caravan on its return. They seized a quantity of pearls, and the women were said to have attempted boiling them with the rice. Seetzen (Journey through Syria, &c., I, ch. i, p. 356) says, "In Kheibar are no Jews now, only Anaessi." Layard and other modern writers often refer to the Anizeh Bedouins. Travellers go in dread of them in the Syrian desert and all along the Euphrates. Doughty mentions that they, more than any other tribe, resemble the Jews both in appearance and disposition.

Ritter (Geographie, vol. XII), in quoting Niebuhr, makes mention of the widespread Anizeh tribe of Bedouins who were anciently known to be Jews. He further states that the Jews of Damascus and Aleppo shun them as they are non-observant Jews, considered by some to be Karaites. Does all this give ground for any presumption that they are or were crypto-Jews, the descendants of the former Kheibar Jews, possibly also of those whom Omar allowed to settle at Kufa?

This lengthy note may be closed fitly with the following mysterious remark in Doughty's usual quaint style (vol. I, p. 127), in connexion with the murder of a Bagdad Jew who tried to reach Kheibar: "But let none any more jeopardy his life for Kheibar! I would that these leaves might save the blood of some: and God give me this reward of my labour! for who will, he may read in them all the tale of Kheibar."]