The Book of Delight and Other Papers Part 5

One constant comparison is of books to friends. This is perhaps best worked out in one of the Epistles of Erasmus, which the "Enchiridion" omits: "You want to know what I am doing. I devote myself to my friends, with whom I enjoy the most delightful intercourse. With them I shut myself in some corner, where I avoid the gaping crowd, and either speak to them in sweet whispers, or listen to their gentle voices, talking with them as with myself. Can anything be more convenient than this? They never hide their own secrets, while they keep sacred whatever is entrusted to them. They speak when bidden, and when not bidden they hold their tongue. They talk of what you wish, and as long as you wish; do not flatter, feign nothing, keep back nothing, freely tell you of your faults, and take no man's character away. What they say is either amusing or wholesome. In prosperity they moderate, in affliction they console; they do not vary with fortune, they follow you in all dangers, and last out to the very grave. Nothing can be more candid than their relations with one another. I visit them from time to time, now choosing one companion and now another, with perfect impartiality. With these humble friends, I bury myself in seclusion. What wealth or what sceptres would I take in exchange for this tranquil life?"

Tranquillity is a not unworthy characteristic of the scholar, but, taking Erasmus at his word, would he not have been even a greater man than he was, had he been less tranquil and more strenuous? His great role in the history of European culture would have been greater still, had he been readier to bear the rubs which come from rough contact with the world. I will not, however, allow myself to be led off into this alluring digression, whether books or experience make a man wiser. Books may simply turn a man into a "learned fool," and, on the other hand, experience may equally fail to teach any of the lessons of wisdom. As Moore says:

My only books Were woman's looks, And folly's all they taught me.

The so-called men of the world often know little enough of the world of men. It is a delusion to think that the business man is necessarily business-like. Your business man is often the most un-business-like creature imaginable. For practical ability, give me the man of letters.

Life among books often leads to insight into the book of life. At Cambridge we speak of the reading men and the sporting men. Sir Richard Jebb, when he went to Cambridge, was asked, "Do you mean to be a sporting man or a reading man?" He replied, "Neither! I want to be a man who reads." Marcus Aurelius, the scholar and philosopher, was not the least efficient of the Emperors of Rome. James Martineau was right when he said that the student not only becomes a better man, but he also becomes a better student, when he concerns himself with the practical affairs of life as well as with his books. And the idea cuts both ways. We should be better men of business if we were also men of books. It is not necessary to recall that the ancient Rabbis were not professional bookmen. They were smiths and ploughmen, traders and merchants, and their businesses and their trades were idealized and enn.o.bled--and, may we not add, their handiwork improved?--by the expenditure of their leisure in the schools and libraries of Jerusalem.

And so all the foregoing comparisons between books and other objects of utility or delight, charming though some of these comparisons are, fail to satisfy one. One feels that the old Jewish conception is the only completely true one: that conception which came to its climax in the appointment of a benediction to be uttered before beginning to read a book of the Law.

The real solace of books comes from the sense of service, to be rendered or received; and one must enter that holy of holies, the library, with a grateful benediction on one's lip, and humility and reverence and joy in one's soul. Of all the writers about books, Charles Lamb, in his playful way, comes nearest to this old-world, yet imperishable, ideal of the Jewish sages. He says: "I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occasions in the course of the day besides my dinner. I want a form for setting out on a pleasant walk, for a midnight ramble, for a friendly meeting, for a solved problem. Why have we none for books, those spiritual repasts--a grace before Milton,--a grace before Shakespeare,--a devotional exercise proper to be said before reading the Fairy Queen?" The Jewish ritual could have supplied Lamb with several of these graces.

It will, I hope, now be seen why in speaking on the solace of books I have said so little about consolation. It pains me to hear books praised as a relief from worldly cares, to hear the library likened to an asylum for broken spirits. I have never been an admirer of Boethius. His "Consolations of Philosophy" have always been influential and popular, but I like better the first famous English translator than the original Latin author.

Boethius wrote in the sixth century as a fallen man, as one to whom philosophy came in lieu of the mundane glory which he had once possessed, and had now lost. But Alfred the Great turned the "Consolations" into English at the moment of his greatest power. He translated it in the year 886, when king on a secure throne; in his brightest days, when the Danish clouds had cleared. Sorrow has often produced great books, great psalms, to which the sorrowful heart turns for solace. But in the truest sense the Shechinah rests on man only in his joy, when he has so attuned his life that misfortune is but another name for good fortune. He must have learned to endure before he seeks the solace of communion with the souls of the great, with the soul of G.o.d. Very saddening it is to note how often men have turned to books because life has no other good. The real book-lover goes to his books when life is fullest of other joys, when his life is richest in its manifold happiness. Then he adds the crown of joy to his other joys, and finds the highest happiness.

I do not like to think of the circ.u.mstances under which Sir Thomas Bodley went to Oxford to found his famous library. Not till his diplomatic career was a failure, not till Elizabeth's smiles had darkened into frowns, did he set up his staff at the library door. But Bodley rather mistook himself. As a lad the library had been his joy, and when he was abroad, at the summit of his public fame, he turned his diplomatic missions to account by collecting books and laying the foundation of his future munificence. I even think that no lover of books ever loved them so well in his adversity as in his prosperity.

Another view was held by Don Isaac Abarbanel, the famous Jewish statesman and litterateur. Under Alfonso V, of Portugal, and other rulers, he attained high place, but was brought low by the Inquisition, and shared in the expulsion of his brethren. He writes in one of his letters: "The whole time I lived in the courts and palaces of kings, occupied in their service, I had no leisure to read or write books. My days were spent in vain ambitions, seeking after wealth and honor. Now that my wealth is gone, and honor has become exiled from Israel; now that I am a vagabond and a wanderer on the earth, and I have no money: now, I have returned to seek the book of G.o.d, as it is said, [Hebrew: cheth-samech-vav-resh-yod mem-cheth-samech-resh-aleph vav-hey-chaf-yod qof-tav-nun-yod], 'He is in sore need, therefore he studies.'"

This is witty, but it is not wise. Fortunately, it is not quite true; Abarbanel does little justice to himself in this pa.s.sage, for elsewhere (in the preface to his Commentary on Kings) he draws a very different picture of his life in his brilliant court days. "My house," he says, "was an a.s.sembly place for the wise ... in my abode and within my walls were wealth and fame for the Torah and for those made great in its lore." Naturally, the active statesman had less leisure for his books than the exiled, fallen minister.

So, too, with an earlier Jewish writer, Saadia. No sadder t.i.tle was ever chosen for a work than his _Sefer ha-Galui_--"Book of the Exiled." It is beyond our province to enter into his career, full of stress and storm.

Between 933 and 937, driven from power, he retired to his library at Bagdad, just as Cincinnatus withdrew to his farm when Rome no longer needed him. During his retirement Saadia's best books were written. Why? Graetz tells us that "Saadia was still under the ban of excommunication. He had, therefore, no other sphere of action than that of an author." This is pitiful; but, again, it is not altogether true. Saadia's whole career was that of active authors.h.i.+p, when in power and out of power, as a boy, in middle life, in age: his constant thought was the service of truth, in so far as literature can serve it, and one may well think that he felt that the Crown of the Law was better worth wearing in prosperity, when he chose it out of other crowns, than in adversity, when it was the only crown within his reach. It was thus that King Solomon chose.

So, in speaking of the solace of books, I have ventured to employ "solace"

in an old, unusual sense. "Solace" has many meanings. It means "comfort in sorrow," and in Scotch law it denotes a compensation for wounded feelings, _solatium_, moral and intellectual damages in short. But in Chaucer and Spenser, "solace" is sometimes used as a synonym for joy and sweet exhilaration. This is an obsolete use, but let me hope that the thing is not obsolete. For one must go to his books for solace, not in mourning garb, but in gayest attire--to a wedding, not to a funeral. When John Clare wrote,

I read in books for happiness, But books mistake the way to joy,

he read for what he ought to have brought, and thus he failed to find his goal. The library has been beautifully termed the "bridal chamber of the mind." So, too, the Apocrypha puts it in the Wisdom of Solomon:

Wisdom is radiant....

Her I loved and sought out from my youth, And I sought to take her for my bride, And I became enamored of her beauty.

When I am come into my house, I shall find rest with her, For converse with her hath no bitterness, And to live with her hath no pain.

O G.o.d of the fathers, ...

Give me wisdom, that sitteth by Thee on Thy throne.

MEDIEVAL WAYFARING

Men leave their homes because they must, or because they will. The Hebrew has experienced both motives for travelling. Irresistibly driven on by his own destiny and by the pressure of his fellow-men, the Jew was also gifted with a double share of that curiosity and restlessness which often send men forth of their own free will on long and arduous journeys. He has thus played the part of the Wandering Jew from choice and from necessity. He loved to live in the whole world, and the whole world met him by refusing him a single spot that he might call his very own.

Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast, How shall ye flee away and be at rest!

The wild-dove hath her nest, the fox her cave, Mankind their country,--Israel but the grave!

A sad chapter of medieval history is filled with the enforced wanderings of the sons of Israel. The lawgiver prophesied well, "There shall be no rest for the sole of thy foot." But we are not concerned here with the victim of expulsion and persecution. The wayfarer with whom we shall deal is the traveller, and not the exile. He was moved by no caprice but his own. He will excite our admiration, perhaps our sympathy, only rarely our tears.

My subject, be it remembered, is not wayfarers, but wayfaring. Hence I am to tell you not the story of particular travellers, but the manner of their travelling, the conditions under which they moved. Before leaving home, a Jewish wayfarer of the Middle Ages was bound to procure two kinds of pa.s.sport. In no country in those days was freedom of motion allowed to anyone. The Jew was simply a little more hampered than others. In England, the Jew paid a feudal fine before he might cross the seas. In Spain, the system of exactions was very complete. No Jew could change his residence without a license even within his own town. But in addition to the inflictions of the Government, the Jews enacted voluntary laws of their own, forcing their brethren to obtain a congregational permit before starting.

The reasons for this restriction were simple. In the first place, no Jew could be allowed to depart at will, and leave the whole burden of the royal taxes on the shoulders of those who were left behind. Hence, in many parts of Europe and Asia, no Jew could leave without the express consent of the congregation. Even when he received the consent, it was usually on the understanding that he would continue, in his absence, to pay his share of the communal dues. Sometimes even women were included in this law, as, for instance, if the daughter of a resident Jew married and settled elsewhere, she was forced to contribute to the taxes of her native town a sum proportionate to her dowry, unless she emigrated to Palestine, in which case she was free. A further cause why Jews placed restrictions on free movement was moral and commercial. Announcements had to be made in the synagogue informing the congregation that so-and-so was on the point of departure, and anyone with claims against him could obtain satisfaction. No clandestine or unauthorized departure was permissible. It must not be thought that these communal licenses were of no service to the traveller.

On the contrary, they often a.s.sured him a welcome in the next town, and in Persia were as good as a safe-conduct. No Mohammedan would have dared defy the travelling order sealed by the Jewish Patriarch.

Having obtained his two licenses, one from the Government and the other from the Synagogue, the traveller would have to consider his costume.

"Dress shabbily" was the general Jewish maxim for the tourist. How necessary this rule was, may be seen from what happened to Rabbi Petachiah, who travelled from Prague to Nineveh, in 1175, or thereabouts. At Nineveh he fell sick, and the king's physicians attended him and p.r.o.nounced his death certain. Now Petachiah had travelled in most costly attire, and in Persia the rule was that if a Jewish traveller died, the physicians took half his property. Petachiah saw through the real danger that threatened him, so he escaped from the perilous ministrations of the royal doctors, had himself carried across the Tigris on a raft, and soon recovered.

Clearly, it was imprudent of a Jewish traveller to excite the rapacity of kings or bandits by wearing rich dresses. But it was also desirable for the Jew, if he could, to evade recognition as such altogether. Jewish opinion was very sensible on this head. It did not forbid a Jew's disguising himself even as a priest of the Church, joining a caravan, and mumbling Latin hymns. In times of danger, he might, to save his life, don the turban and pa.s.s as a Mohammedan even in his home. Most remarkable concession of all, the Jewess on a journey might wear the dress of a man. The law of the land was equally open to reason. In Spain, the Jew was allowed to discard his yellow badge while travelling; in Germany, he had the same privilege, but he had to pay a premium for it. In some parts, the Jewish community as a whole bought the right to travel and to discard the badge on journeys, paying a lump sum for the general privilege, and itself exacting a communal tax to defray the general cost. In Rome, the traveller was allowed to lodge for ten days before resuming his hated badge. But, curiously enough, the legal relaxation concerning the badge was not extended to the markets. The Jew made the medieval markets, yet he was treated as an unwelcome guest, a commodity to be taxed. This was especially so in Germany. In 1226, Bishop Lorenz, of Breslau, ordered Jews who pa.s.sed through his domain to pay the same toll as slaves brought to market. The visiting Jew paid toll for everything; but he got part of his money back. He received a yellow badge, which he was forced to wear during his whole stay at the market, the finances of which he enriched, indirectly by his trade, and directly by his huge contributions to the local taxes.

The Jewish traveller mostly left his wife at home. In certain circ.u.mstances he could force her to go with him, as, for instance, if he had resolved to settle in Palestine. On the other hand, the wife could prevent her husband from leaving her during the first year after marriage. It also happened that families emigrated together. Mostly, however, the Jewess remained at home, and only rarely did she join even the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This is a striking contrast to the Christian custom, for it was the Christian woman that was the most ardent pilgrim; in fact, pilgrimages to the Holy Land only became popular in Church circles because of the enthusiasm of Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, especially when, in 326, she found the true cross. We, however, read of an aged Jewess who made a pilgrimage to all the cities of Europe, for the purpose of praying in the synagogues on her route.

We now know, from the Chronicle of Achimaaz, that Jews visited Jerusalem in the tenth century. Aronius records a curious incident. Charles the Great, between the years 787 and 813, ordered a Jewish merchant, who often used to visit Palestine and bring precious and unknown commodities thence to the West, to hoax the Archbishop of Mainz, so as to lower the self-conceit of this vain dilettante. The Jew thereupon sold him a mouse at a high price, persuading him that it was a rare animal, which he had brought with him from Judea. Early in the eleventh century there was a fully organized Jewish community with a Beth-Din at Ramleh, some four hours' drive from Jaffa. But Jews did not visit Palestine in large numbers, until Saladin finally regained the Holy City for Mohammedan rule, towards the end of the twelfth century. From that time pilgrimages of Jews became more frequent; but the real influx of Jews into Palestine dates from 1492, when many of the Spanish exiles settled there, and formed the nucleus of the present Sefardic population.

On the whole, it may be said that in the Middle Ages the journey to Palestine was fraught with so much danger that it was gallantry that induced men to go mostly without their wives. And, generally speaking, the Jew going abroad to earn a living for his family, could not dream of allowing his wife to share the dangers and fatigues of the way. In Ellul, 1146, Rabbi Simeon the Pious returned from England, where he had lived many years, and betook himself to Cologne, thence to take s.h.i.+p home to Trier. On the way, near Cologne, he was slain by Crusaders, because he refused baptism. The Jewish community of Cologne bought the body from the citizens, and buried it in the Jewish cemetery.

No doubt it was often a cruel necessity that separated husband and wife.

The Jewish law, even in lands where monogamy was not legally enforced, did not allow the Jew, however, to console himself with one wife at home and another abroad. Josephus, we know, had one wife in Tiberias and another in Alexandria, and the same thing is told us of royal officers in the Roman period; but the Talmudic legislation absolutely forbids such license, even though it did not formally prohibit a man from having more than one wife at home. We hear occasionally of the wife's growing restive in her husband's absence and taking another husband. In 1272, Isaac of Erfurt went on a trading journey, and though he was only gone from March 9, 1271, to July, 1272, he found, on his return, that his wife had wearied of waiting for him. Such incidents on the side of the wife were very rare; the number of cases in which wife-desertion occurred was larger. In her husband's absence, the wife's lot, at best, was not happy. "Come back," wrote one wife, "or send me a divorce." "Nay," replied the husband, "I can do neither. I have not yet made enough provision for us, so I cannot return.

And, before Heaven, I love you, so I cannot divorce you." The Rabbi advised that he should give her a conditional divorce, a kindly device, which provided that, in case the husband remained away beyond a fixed date, the wife was free to make other matrimonial arrangements. The Rabbis held that travelling diminishes family life, property, and reputation. Move from house to house, and you lose a s.h.i.+rt; go from place to place, and you lose a life--so ran the Rabbinic proverb. This subject might be enlarged upon, but enough has been said to show that this breaking up of the family life was one of the worst effects of the Jewish travels of the Middle Ages, and even more recent times.

Whether his journey was devotional or commercial, the rites of religion formed part of the traveller's preparations for the start. The Prayer for Wayfarers is Talmudic in origin. It may be found in many prayer books, and I need not quote it. But one part of it puts so well, in a few pregnant words, the whole story of danger, that I must reproduce them. On approaching a town, the Jew prayed, "May it be Thy will, O Lord, to bring me safely to this town." When he had entered, he prayed, "May it be Thy will, O Lord, to take me safely from this town." And when he actually left, he uttered similar words, pathetic and painfully significant.

In the first century of the Christian era, much travelling was entailed by the conveyance of the didrachmon, sent by each Jew to the Temple from almost every part of the known world. Philo says of the Jews beyond the Euphrates: "Every year the sacred messengers are sent to convey large sums of gold and silver to the Temple, which have been collected from all the subordinate Governments. They travel over rugged and difficult and almost impa.s.sable roads, which, however, they look upon as level and easy, inasmuch as they serve to conduct them to piety." And the road was made easy in other ways.

It must often have been shortened to the imagination by the prevalent belief that by supernatural aid the miles could be actually lessened. Rabbi Natronai was reported to be able to convey himself a several days' journey in a single instant. So Benjamin of Tudela tells how Alroy, who claimed to be the Messiah in the twelfth century, not only could make himself visible or invisible at will, but could cross rivers on his turban, and, by the aid of the Divine Name, could travel a ten days' journey in ten hours. Another Jewish traveller calmed the sea by naming G.o.d, another by writing the sacred Name on a shard, and casting it into the sea. "Have no care," said he, on another occasion, to his Arab comrade, as the shadows fell on a Friday afternoon, and they were still far from home, "have no care, we shall arrive before nightfall," and, exercising his wonderworking powers, he was as good as his word. We read in Achimaaz of the exploits of a tenth-century Jew who traversed Italy, working wonders, being received everywhere with popular acclamations. This was Aaron of Bagdad, son of a miller, who, finding that a lion had eaten the mill-mule, caught the lion and made him do the grinding. His father sent him on his travels as a penalty for his dealings with magic: after three years he might return. Fie went on board a s.h.i.+p, and a.s.sured the sailors that they need fear neither foe nor storm, for he could use the Name. He landed at Gaeta in Italy, where he restored to human form the son of his host, whom a witch had turned into an a.s.s. This was the beginning of many miracles. But he did not allow one place to monopolize him. Next we find him in Benvenuto. He goes to the synagogue, recognizes that a lad omits the name of G.o.d from his prayer, thus showing that he is dead! He goes to Oria, then to Bari, and so forth. Similar marvels were told in the Midrash, of travellers like Father Jacob, and in the lives of Christian saints.

But the Jew had a real means of shortening the way--by profitable and edifying conversation. "Do not travel with an Am ha-Arez," the olden Rabbis advised. Such a one, they held, was careless of his own safety, and would hardly be more careful of his companion's life. But, besides, an Am ha-Arez, using the word in its later sense of ignoramus, would be too dull for edifying conversation, and one might as well or as ill journey alone as with a boor. But "thou shalt speak of them by the way," says Deuteronomy of the commandments, and this (to say nothing of the danger) was one of the reasons why solitary travelling was disapproved. A man walking alone was more likely to turn his mind to idle thoughts, than if he had a congenial partner to converse with, and the Mishnah is severe against him who turns aside from his peripatetic study to admire a tree or a fallow. This does not imply that the Jews were indifferent to the beauties of nature. Jewish travellers often describe the scenery of the parts they visit, and Petachiah literally revels in the beautiful gardens of Persia, which he paints in vivid colors. Then, again, few better descriptions of a storm at sea have been written than those composed by Jehudah Halevi on his fatal voyage to Palestine. Similarly, Charizi, another Jewish wayfarer, who laughed himself over half the world, wrote verses as he walked, to relieve the tedium. He is perhaps the most entertaining of all Jewish travellers.

Nothing is more amusing than his conscious habit of judging the characters of the men he saw by their hospitality, or the reverse, to himself. A more serious traveller, Maimonides, must have done a good deal of thinking on horseback, to get through his ordinary day's work and write his great books. In fact, he himself informs us that he composed part of his Commentary to the Mishnah while journeying by land and sea. In Europe, the Rabbis often had several neighboring congregations under their care, and on their journeys to and fro took their books with them, and read in them at intervals. Maharil, on such journeys, always took note of the Jewish customs observed in different localities. He was also a most skilful and successful Shadchan, or marriage-broker, and his extensive travels placed this famous Rabbi in an excellent position for match-making. Certainly, the marriages he effected were notoriously prosperous, and in his hands the Shadchan system did the most good and the least harm of which it is capable.

Another type of short-distance traveller was the Bachur, or student. Not that his journeys were always short, but he rarely crossed the sea. In the second century we find Jewish students in Galilee behaving as many Scotch youths did before the days of Carnegie funds. These students would study in Sepphoris in the winter, and work in the fields in summer. After the impoverishment caused by the Bar-Cochba war, the students were glad to dine at the table of the wealthy Patriarch Judah I. In the medieval period there were also such. These Bachurim, who, young as they were, were often married, accomplished enormous journeys on foot. They walked from the Rhine to Vienna, and from North Germany to Italy. Their privations on the road were indescribable. Bad weather was naturally a severe trial. "Hearken not to the prayers of wayfarers," was the pet.i.tion of those who stayed at home.

This quaint Talmudic saying refers to the selfishness of travellers, who always clamor for fine weather, though the farmer needs rain. Apart from the weather, the Bachurim suffered much on the road. Their ordinary food was raw vegetables culled from the fields; they drank nothing but water.

They were often accompanied by their teachers, who underwent the same privations. Unlike their Talmudical precursors, they travelled much by night, because it was safer, and also because they reserved the daylight for study. The dietary laws make Jewish travelling particularly irksome. We do, indeed, find Jews lodging at the ordinary inns, but they could not join the general company at the _table d'hote_. The Sabbath, too, was the cause of some discomfort, though the traveller always exerted his utmost efforts to reach a Jewish congregation by Friday evening, sometimes, as we have seen, with supernatural aid.

We must interrupt this account of the Bachur to record a much earlier instance of the awkward situation in which a pious Jewish traveller might find himself because of the Sabbath regulations. In the very last year of the fourth century, Synesius, of Cyrene, writing to his brother of his voyage from Alexandria to Constantinople, supplies us with a quaint instance of the manner in which the Sabbath affected Jewish travellers.

Synesius uses a sarcastic tone, which must not be taken as seriously unfriendly. "His voyage homeward," says Mr. Glover, "was adventurous." It is a pity that s.p.a.ce cannot be found for a full citation of Synesius's enthralling narrative. His Jewish steersman is an entertaining character.

There were twelve members in the crew, the steersman making the thirteenth.

More than half, including the steersman, were Jews. "It was," says Synesius, "the day which the Jews call the Preparation [Friday], and they reckon the night to the next day, on which they are not allowed to do any work, but they pay it especial honor, and rest on it. So the steersman let go the helm from his hands, when he thought the sun would have set on the land, and threw himself down, and 'What mariner should choose might trample him!' We did not at first understand the real reason, but took it for despair, and went to him and besought him not to give up all hope yet. For in plain fact the big rollers still kept on, and the sea was at issue with itself. It does this when the wind falls, and the waves it has set going do not fall with it, but, still retaining in full force the impulse that started them, meet the onset of the gale, and to its front oppose their own. Well, when people are sailing in such circ.u.mstances, life hangs, as they say, by a slender thread. But if the steersman is a Rabbi into the bargain, what are one's feelings? When, then, we understood what he meant in leaving the helm,--for when we begged him to save the s.h.i.+p from danger, he went on reading his book,--we despaired of persuasion, and tried force.

And a gallant soldier (for we have with us a good few Arabians, who belong to the cavalry) drew his sword, and threatened to cut his head off, if he would not steer the s.h.i.+p. But in a moment he was a genuine Maccabee, and would stick to his dogma. Yet when it was now midnight, he took his place of his own accord, 'for now,' says he, 'the law allows me, as we are clearly in danger of our lives.' At that the tumult begins again, moaning of men and screaming of women. Everybody began calling on Heaven, and wailing and remembering their dear ones. Amarantus alone was cheerful, thinking he was on the point of ruling out his creditors." Amarantus was the captain, who wished to die, because he was deep in debt. What with the devil-may-care captain, the Maccabean steersman, and the critical onlooker, who was a devoted admirer of Hypatia, rarely has wayfaring been conducted under more delightful conditions. As is often the case in life, the humors of the scene almost obscure the fact that the lives of the actors were in real danger. But all ended well. "As for us," says Synesius further on, "as soon as we reached the land we longed for, we embraced it as if it had been a living mother. Offering, as usual, a hymn of grat.i.tude to G.o.d, I added to it the recent misadventure from which we had unexpectedly been saved."

To return to our travelling Bachur of later centuries than Synesius's Rabbi-steersman. On the road, the student was often attacked, but, as happened with the son of the great Asheri, who was waylaid by bandits near Toledo, the robbers did not always get the best of the fight. The Bachur could take his own part. One Jew gained much notoriety in 801 by conducting an elephant all the way from Haroun al-Ras.h.i.+d's court as a present to Charlemagne, the king of the Franks. But the Rabbi suffered considerably from his religion on his journeys. Dr. Schechter tells us how the Gaon Elijah got out of his carriage to say his prayer, and, as the driver knew that the Rabbi would not interrupt his devotions, he promptly made off, carrying away the Gaon's property.

But the account was not all on one side. If the Bachur suffered for his religion, he received ample compensation. When he arrived at his destination, he was welcomed right heartily. We read how cordially the Sheliach Kolel was received in Algiers in the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. It was a great popular event, as is nowadays the visit of the _Alliance_ inspector. This was not the case with all Jewish travellers, some of whom received a very cold shoulder from their brethren. Why was this? Chiefly because the Jews, as little as the rest of medieval peoples, realized that progress and enlightenment are indissolubly bound up with the right of free movement. They regarded the right to move here and there at will as a selfish privilege of the few, not the just right of all. But more than that. The Jews were forced to live in special and limited Ghettos. It was not easy to find room for newcomers. When a crisis arrived, such as the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, then, except here and there, the Jews were generous to a fault in providing for the exiles. Societies all over the Continent and round the coast of the Mediterranean spent their time and money in ransoming the poor victims, who, driven from Spain, were enslaved by the captains of the vessels that carried them, and were then bought back to freedom by their Jewish brethren.

This is a n.o.ble fact in Jewish history. But it is nevertheless true that Jewish communities were reluctant in ordinary times to permit new settlements. This was not so in ancient times. Among the Essenes, a newcomer had a perfectly equal right to share everything with the old inhabitants. These Essenes were great travellers, going from city to city, probably with propagandist aims. In the Talmudic law there are very clear rules on the subject of pa.s.sers through a town or immigrants into it. By that law persons staying in a place for less than thirty days were free from all local dues except special collections for the poor. He who stayed less than a year contributed to the ordinary poor relief, but was not taxed for permanent objects, such as walling the town, defences, etc., nor did he contribute to the salaries of teachers and officials, nor the building and support of synagogues. But as his duties were small, so were his rights.