A New Kind of Pilgrimage - The Modern Tourist Pilgrim of Nineteenth Century and Early Twentieth...

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A New Kind of Pilgrimage: The Modern Tourist Pilgrimof Nineteenth Century and Early Twentieth CenturyPalestineDoron Bar; Kobi Cohen-Hattab

Online Publication Date: 01 April 2003To cite this Article: Bar, Doron and Cohen-Hattab, Kobi (2003) 'A New Kind ofPilgrimage: The Modern Tourist Pilgrim of Nineteenth Century and Early TwentiethCentury Palestine', Middle Eastern Studies, 39:2, 131 - 148To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/714004511URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/714004511

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A New Kind of Pilgrimage:The Modern Tourist Pilgrim ofNineteenth-Century and EarlyTwentieth-Century Palestine

DORON BAR and KOBI COHEN-HATTAB

Today, in the transition period between the millenniums, it is obvious thatpilgrimage has been a key factor in determining and shaping Palestine’shistory and territory alike. As a land sacred to the three monotheisticreligions, Palestine has over the years received a steady stream of pilgrimseager to visit the sites holy to their faith. Indeed, small as it is, Palestinecontains a remarkable number of religious sites, the scene of so many eventsdepicted in the Old and New Testaments. For centuries, these sites haveattracted innumerable pilgrims from the four corners of the earth annually.

The Late Ottoman period (1799–1917) saw the revival and regenerationof the tradition of Christian pilgrimage.1 Pilgrimage flourished, mostparticularly from the time of the Egyptian conquest (1831–40) onwards,with Christians flocking to the Holy Land in their thousands. The questionarises, however, whether all these Christians were indeed pilgrims. Were thenew visitors and the Christian pilgrims of yore the same, or were theresignificant differences in the nature of the two groups’ visits? In otherwords, had Palestine become the target for a new kind of traveller, thetourist, already during this period?2

This article will seek to examine the onset of modern day tourism inPalestine. It will analyse this new phenomenon’s unique characteristicscompared to the more traditional pilgrimage. By examining several sourcesin which the pilgrims described their visit to the Holy Land and utilizingrecent methodological research, we hope to describe the new nineteenth-century phenomenon of the modern tourist pilgrimage. Despite the fact thatwe cannot find many perfect or precise examples for this modern pilgrim, anew type of visitor to the Holy Land definitely emerges from the cumulativeanalysis of those various sources. Attempts have been made at least

Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.39, No.2, April 2003, pp.131–148PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON

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theoretically to differentiate between pilgrimage and modern tourism.3

According to Smith, tourism and pilgrimage stand at opposite ends of acontinuum that defines spatial movement, pilgrimage marking the sacredextremity and tourism the secular end of it.4 In between lies a wide range ofjourneys that combine the two categories in varying degrees, among themthe new nineteenth-century phenomenon of modern tourist pilgrimage. Alarge number of the travellers who visited Palestine in the nineteenthcentury fit the mould of the modern tourist pilgrim. They were plainly nottraditional pilgrims, yet neither were they tourists who visited Palestine ona whim, oblivious to its historic past or spiritual significance. Accordingly,as will be demonstrated, modern tourist pilgrims combined in their journeycharacteristics typical of the centuries-old pilgrimage as well as elements ofpresent-day tourism.

Our definition of this new kind of tourist will be based on theexamination of five factors that together define the traveller’s journey to andin Palestine, whether as pilgrim or as tourist:

1. The motives for the journey; 2. The period in the year of the journey as well as its duration and the

mode of travel; 3. The travellers’ religious affiliation and social background;4. The travellers’ reaction to Palestine, in particular their response to

the country’s holy sites; and5. The services used by the travellers during their stay in Palestine.

In the nineteenth century, Christian pilgrims of all denominations wouldtravel to Palestine. While the precise motive for such a journey may havevaried from one denomination to the other, like their predecessors, thesepilgrims were inspired exclusively by religious impulses and emotions. Thepilgrims looked forward to undergoing an essentially spiritual regeneration.5

During their pilgrimage, on reaching Palestine they would feel as if they hadbeen transported from the mundane material world of daily life to anothersacred, heavenly realm. Various rituals, such as kissing the ground orwashing the feet upon setting foot in the Holy Land often marked thepassage from the secular to the holy.6 During their stay, the pilgrims focusedsolely on Palestine’s sacred, religious treasures. They visited only holy sitesand attended ceremonies associated with these sites. Everything else – thescenery, the local inhabitants and folklore – was, without exception, viewedthrough the prism of Christianity and the country’s holy, biblical past.7

By visiting the holy sites and engaging in religious ritual and prayer,nineteenth-century pilgrims, like their forerunners, sought mainly to atonefor their worldly sins. For the Greek, Russian and other Eastern Christian

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communities, the pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and especially to the Churchof the Holy Sepulchre, constituted an essential part of their preparation fordeath and salvation.8 Those pilgrims also hoped that the pilgrimage wouldcure them of illness, help them find spouses and bear children, and evenenrich them materially.9

The modern tourist pilgrim’s reasons for travelling to Palestine were, bycomparison, much more varied and complex. They included, among otherthings, cultural curiosity, education, and the desire to enrich themselves withnew experiences. Modern tourism began in the sixteenth century, with theonset of the Grand Tour. It was then that the social and financial elite ofWestern Europe began visiting the cultural centres of Europe for pleasure,intellectual interest or sheer curiosity.10 With time, the Grand Tour expandedto encompass also the more remote regions of the Mediterranean basin.Ancient cultural and historical centres like Greece, Egypt and Palestinebecame an indispensable part of the itinerary.11 This phenomenon reached apeak during the nineteenth century, fuelling the burgeoning tourist industry.12

Organized tours, arranged by the newly established tourist agencies, furtherdeveloped and accelerated these trends. Thomas Cook and AmericanExpress, for example, both founded in the 1860s, brought thousands oftravellers to the Middle East, including the modern tourist pilgrim.

Modern tourist pilgrims wished to see and experience all that Palestinecould offer. They were interested in everything: the country’s geography,history, architecture and people.13 The modern tourist pilgrims travelled thelength and the breadth of the country, climbing mountains, hunting andfishing, roaming through the desert and bathing in the sea. They wereinterested in the local inhabitants’ customs and generally sought to immersethemselves in the country’s indigenous biblical habitat.14 Naturally, moderntourist pilgrims were well aware of the fact that Palestine had more to offerthan just beautiful scenery and an unusually varied topography. Theyrecognized and valued its immense religious significance but, unlike earlierpilgrims, modern tourist pilgrims regarded Palestine’s religious significanceas merely one of the several dimensions – historical, cultural, and scenic –that defined the country. Only for some of them were the holy sites the goaland highlight of the journey; for most of the modern tourist pilgrims thesewere but one feature of their overall experience of the area.15

There was a great difference between the earlier pilgrim’s mentalperception of the journey to Palestine and that of the modern tourist pilgrim.The former revered Palestine as the most holy, the most religiouslysignificant place on earth. Palestine stood at the very umbilicus mundi, itwas the axis around which all else revolved.16 Accordingly, pilgrimsregarded the pilgrimage as a journey from the periphery to centre.17 VisitingJerusalem and especially the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was, for most

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pilgrims, the climax of the pilgrimage and the high point of their lives.Moreover, the pilgrimage was more than a corporeal expedition to anothercountry, it was a journey into the inner depths of the soul from which thepilgrim emerged a different, better, more spiritual human being.18

Modern tourist pilgrims, by contrast, were mindful of the fact that bytravelling to Palestine they were journeying from the centre of things to theperiphery.19 Setting forth from the modern cultural centres of WesternEurope and North America, they arrived in a land that was, by theirstandards or by any standard, a social, economic and political backwater.20

Not that Palestine was without its attractions, on the contrary: The highlyinfluential nineteenth-century Romantic Movement in Europe celebratedthe mysterious and exotic Orient, and Palestine was certainly exotic. TheRomantic Movement kindled the desire of many to experience the East’salien and archaic charms.21 Thus, Palestine, like Egypt, North Africa and theGreek islands, became one of the places modern tourist pilgrims visited intheir quest for the singular and the romantic.22 With one significantdifference: Palestine, as the modern tourist pilgrim was only too aware, wasnot Egypt, or Greece, or Morocco – it was the Holy Land, a fact thatendowed it with added distinction and value.

The late Ottoman period stands out as a unique almost unparalleled era in thehistory of Palestine. Following centuries of cultural, social and technologicalstagnation, Palestine began, in the course of the nineteenth century to inchslowly forward. This was largely due to the activities of the Great Powers,which exhibited a growing interest in the area. Their representatives, religiousand diplomatic, introduced various Western innovations and amenities intothe region. The result was that a whole new range of modern, up-to-dateagencies and services, including transportation, post and telegraph, educationand health, sprang up in Palestine and rapidly developed.23

Competition among the Great Powers led to massive improvement in theefficacy and quality of travel to Palestine. Newly established shipping linesbrought Palestine much ‘closer’ to the West and opened it to both Westerninfluence and travellers.24 Steamships set sail from ports all over theMediterranean for Palestine, usually docking at the port of Jaffa. It wasbecoming increasingly practical, safe and cheap to travel to Palestine. Thewell-to-do and the less wealthy alike could now afford to visit. As access toPalestine improved, more people sought to exploit this new modernizedservice and the growing demand yielded more extensive services, with anever increasing number of ships now setting sail for Palestine.25

The pilgrims’ journey took them by and large directly to the Holy Land.Having left home, they usually did not stop along the way to visit tourist or


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even other religious attractions. As a rule, from the mid-nineteenth centuryonwards, pilgrims boarded ship at one of their home ports and disembarkedin Palestine.26 One Russian shipping line, for example, servicing mainlyRussian pilgrims, sailed directly from Odessa to Jaffa.27 On board, thepilgrims did not waste a single minute: they spent the entire voyagepreparing for the pilgrimage, praying and kindling religious zeal. Theysought in this manner to deepen their religious consciousness and tointensify and heighten the experience of visiting the Holy Land.28 Thesefervent religious activities before the pilgrims even set foot in Palestine,underline the religious nature of the journey.

Modern tourist pilgrims, on the other hand, arrived in Palestine as partof a general tour of the Mediterranean.29 Palestine was merely one more stopalong the way and not necessarily the highlight of the tour. Modern touristpilgrims often spent more time in Egypt visiting the pyramids, or touring theancient cities of Greece than they did travelling in the Holy Land.30

Once the pilgrims arrived in Palestine, however, their route wasdetermined solely by religious considerations. They visited only sites thathad a religious significance. Most pilgrims disembarked at Jaffa port andmade their way straight to Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.31

Having visited Jerusalem, clearly the high point of the pilgrimage, theytravelled around the country and visited its many religious sites.

The modern tourist pilgrims’ itinerary covered more than just thecountry’s religious sites. While not neglecting the holy sites, modern touristpilgrims also visited natural attractions and sites associated with Palestine’sbiblical and historical past.32 When Mark Twain journeyed to Palestine in1867, for example, his tour (Figure 1) included a visit to the tombs of thesons of the prophet Muhammad in Damascus, the crusader fortress in Kal’atNimrod, located above the Jordan river, and the Horns of Hattin, where theChristian Crusaders were decisively beaten by the Ayyubid Saladin.33

The pilgrims planned their visit to coincide with the various Christianreligious festivals and holy days.34 A pilgrimage on one of the holy days hada much greater religious import than one undertaken on an ordinary day. Notsurprisingly, the number of pilgrims who arrived in Palestine duringfestivals and holy days increased tenfold or more than at other times of theyear.35 Easter and Christmas were naturally the epitome of the pilgrimageseason. Eastern Christian Orthodox pilgrims often arrived in Palestineseveral weeks before Easter, stayed all through Lent, and left long after theEaster celebrations were over.36 Catholic pilgrims usually arrived duringChristmas in order to celebrate the Midnight Mass in the Church of theNativity in Bethlehem.37

The modern pilgrim tourists were inclined to time their visit less inaccordance with the dates of religious festivals and more with an eye to the


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MAP COMPARING THE ROUTE FOLLOWED BY M. TWAIN WITH THE ROUTERECOMMENDED BY T. COOK

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prevailing weather conditions. The reasons for this were twofold. First, moderntourist pilgrims had no particular desire to participate personally in anyreligious ceremonies or rites. Second, tourist agencies, aware of the region’sdifficult climate in both winter and summer, advised their clients to visitPalestine at a more seasonable time of the year. The Baedeker and ThomasCook tourist guides recommended spring (March to mid June) and autumn(end of September to October) as the ideal times to travel to Palestine.38

Pilgrims tended to stay in Palestine for a much longer period thanmodern tourist pilgrims. A pilgrimage could last several weeks or evenmonths. Russian pilgrims arrived weeks before Easter and left severalweeks after. As Palestine was merely one stop on a long and very fullitinerary, the modern tourist pilgrim’s sojourn in Palestine was thereforeconsiderably briefer.39 Moreover, the number of tourist attractions inPalestine was limited, especially in comparison with places like Egypt,Greece or Italy. The fact that modern tourist pilgrims did not ordinarily takepart in religious ceremonies also made them tend to cut short their stay.

There is a clear difference between the religious affiliation of thenineteenth-century pilgrim and that of the modern tourist pilgrim. Thepilgrims were mostly Catholic and Orthodox Christians with a fewProtestants. They came from Russia, Greece, Armenia, Egypt and theCatholic regions of Europe and America. Modern tourist pilgrims, however,were as a rule members of the Protestant denomination, and hailed fromWestern and Northern Europe and America.40

Catholics together with Orthodox Christians upheld the tradition ofChristian pilgrimage and maintained the custom of visiting sites associatedwith the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Modern Protestant touristpilgrims also visited Palestine’s holy sites, though they were often quitesceptical about the sites’ authenticity. Some of the more doubting moderntourist pilgrims hoped that by visiting Palestine they would settle some oftheir own wavering thoughts about the Christian faith.41 These uncertaintieswere largely a product of Western scientific research and the critical studiesthat by the mid-nineteenth century had seriously questioned andundermined many of the heretofore undisputed truths of the Old and NewTestaments. Many Protestants hoped that visiting Palestine would serve toauthenticate the stories of the Old and New Testaments, and thus reconfirmtheir religious beliefs.42 Other than that, they simply toured the country outof a healthy sense of curiosity and adventure.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which for centuries has attractedthousands of pilgrims, was for most modern tourist pilgrims an extremelyproblematic site. Unable to accept the tradition that claimed that the church


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was the epicentre of the world, modern tourist pilgrims visiting the sitefound it almost impossible to conceal their embarrassment and discomfortat what they saw as a primitive, old-fashioned belief.43 This was one reasonwhy they sought alternative prayer sites. Another was that the moderntourist pilgrims preferred to pray quietly in simpler, less artificialsurroundings. By the end of the nineteenth century they had adopted severalsuch sites, far from the hustle and bustle of Jerusalem’s inner walls,including the River Jordan, Gethsemane and Capernaum. Feeling muchmore at ease there, tourist pilgrims would congregate in these rather pastoralsites and conduct collective prayer services or pray individually.44 Duringthese sessions, modern tourist pilgrims gave the stories of the OldTestament place of pride.45

Each traveller’s individual response to the Holy Land was determinedchiefly by his or her religious affiliation. The modern tourist pilgrim’s visitto Palestine was an essentially external and cultural experience, while thepilgrim, for whom the journey to Palestine was a religious imperative,underwent there a soul-searching spiritual regeneration.

This helps to explain the often opposite response of the pilgrims andmodern tourist pilgrims to the religious ceremonies celebrated at Palestine’sholy sites. Pilgrims did not merely visit the holy sites, but sought to performvarious religious rituals, from lighting candles and having objects blessed,to swaddling cloth or other articles of clothing, to making vows andparticipating in mass. Catholics could obtain indulgences by visitingPalestine’s holy sites and making a donation.46

Modern tourist pilgrims, though faithfully visiting the country’s holysites, did not, as a rule, participate in religious ceremonies. Not surprisingly,the modern tourist pilgrim’s response to the ceremony of the Holy Fire thattook place in Jerusalem during Easter bore no resemblance to that of thepilgrim. The latter took an active part in the ritual, anxiously and eagerlywaiting for the Holy Fire to descend from heaven. The former, not unlikethe audience in a theatre performance, mostly observed the entire ceremonyfrom the top of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre’s rontuda. It seems asthough modern tourist pilgrims almost sought to distance themselves fromwhat was, to their mind, a rather primitive and dubious ceremony.47

The different experiences of Palestine for pilgrims and modern touristpilgrims were in part a result of the fact that both types tended to travel ingroups. The nature of the two groups was worlds apart. The members ofevery pilgrim group shared a common religious affiliation – Catholicstravelled with Catholics, Greek Orthodox with Greek Orthodox, and so on.48

The reasons for this were twofold: First, embarking on a pilgrimage with a


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group of like-minded people helped strengthen the pilgrim’s individualreligious passion and faith.49 Second, the concept of communitas is centralto the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox creeds. By travelling in a group thisall-important sense of communitas was emphasized and reinforced.Catholics as well as the Eastern Orthodox believed that religiousceremonies are communal affairs to be performed in public and in groupsrather than in isolation. Hence the mass public ceremonies performedduring the pilgrimage, such as the ceremony of the Holy Fire.50 A priest orreligious leader often accompanied the pilgrims. This too, served to reaffirmthe sense of community, as did the uniform clothes the pilgrims wore andthe items of identification they carried.51

Modern tourist pilgrims also tended to visit Palestine as part oforganized tours. However, the members of the tour were not necessarilychosen on the basis of their religious affiliation. In the case of the moderntourist pilgrims, social background, regional associations and professionalbonds were of much greater relevance. For example, prospective candidatesfor Mark Twain’s tour that was advertised in the press and on billboards hadfirst to go before a committee which accepted or rejected them on the basisof their social suitability. Not surprisingly, to take part in such a tour wasconsidered at the time a mark of social distinction.52 The group might evenbe assembled at random.53 The modern tourist pilgrims wore distinctlyWestern clothes, with accessories such as sunglasses, hats, umbrellas andparasols, serving to identify them as a group, and certainly distinguishingthem from the pilgrims whose attire was as a rule much simpler.54

The pilgrim group included members of all classes: rich, poor, aristocratand peasant. The pilgrimage, rendering void all social distinctions, meant thatstatus, wealth or rank were of no consequence.55 This stood in sharp contrastto the modern tourist pilgrims, who, belonging mainly to the upper-middleand upper classes, presented a much more socially homogeneous group.56

The pilgrims visiting Palestine followed Jesus’ footsteps. Moreover, inwishing to emulate and share in Christ’s passion, some of them performedacts of self-flagellation and penance. Many of them believed that the longerand more arduous the pilgrimage, the greater its religious benefit andsignificance, so that ultimately self-mortification became one of thepilgrimage’s desired outcomes. The Russian women who travelled fromJaffa to Jerusalem on foot while rolling a church bell uphill were perhaps anextreme example of this phenomenon.57 More typical were the rudimentaryliving conditions, meagre food and fasting, gladly endured by the pilgrims.All this stood in stark contrast to the modern tourist pilgrims, who travelledin the best and most comfortable of styles possible. Hence the developmentof various tourist services designed to cater to all the modern touristpilgrims’ needs.


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In terms of travel services, sleeping accommodations were both thepilgrims’ and the modern tourist pilgrims’ primary need. Pilgrim groupsusually lodged in church compounds, monasteries, nunneries and, onoccasion, in inns. Some of these hostelries had been in business forcenturies and were positively archaic.58 Others, built in the nineteenthcentury by the churches or the Great Powers, were slightly more modern.Although intended initially to serve pilgrims, these newly constructedhostels and compounds were a part of the churches’ and Great Powers’efforts further to extend their influence in Palestine. The RussianCompound, located outside the Old City’ walls of Jerusalem, is perhaps themost striking and impressive example of this new development.59 Housingmainly Russian pilgrims, the compound was not open to regular tourists.Other Powers and organizations like Austria, Germany, and France alsobuilt compounds to accommodate their nationals.60 Situated alongsidePalestine’s principal holy sites, these hostels enabled pilgrims to visit them,secure in the knowledge that they would never lack a place to stay.

Unlike the pilgrims, the modern tourist pilgrims could not rely on theirchurch or state to provide them with accommodation. To find a hotel, theyhad to rely on their own initiative and, more importantly, financialresources. They consequently usually either booked accommodation inadvance through a tourist agency or rented a room themselves in one of thelocal hotels.61 The same was true for all other services the modern touristpilgrims used in the course of their visit. Admittedly, they could have stayedin Franciscan or Greek Orthodox hostelries, but given the rather ascetic,austere character of these places, most modern tourist pilgrims preferred tostay in hotels that provided all the modern amenities.62 Not surprisingly,therefore, by the end of the nineteenth-century Palestine experienced aboom in hotel construction.63 Privately owned, these hotels offered betterquality service, although at a price to match. In other words, staying in ahotel was a relatively expensive affair, certainly when compared to thepilgrims’ hostels owned by the church which charged next to nothing.

Pilgrim hostels, given their religious nature and proximity to the holysites, naturally maintained separate sleeping quarters for men and women.64

Not so the hotels or camp sites that served the modern tourist pilgrims.Furthermore, when determining a hotel’s location, the question of itspotential financial profit was the main consideration, besides its proximityto this or that holy site. Other than hotels, modern tourist pilgrims stayed intents, especially when touring the countryside. This allowed them to visitareas that even devoid of hotels were of considerable, though if notnecessarily religious, interest.65 The tents were reasonably comfortable, and,together with the food that the modern tourist pilgrims sometimes broughtfrom home and the European style cooking served by the tourist agencies,made for a relatively agreeable stay.


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The tents, like the hotels and the food, were part of the general effort toimprove the modern tourist pilgrims’ travel and living conditions.66 In likemanner, the flourishing tourist industry and growing number of organizedtours were a product of the modern tourist pilgrims’ desire to enjoy a smooth,trouble and headache free journey.67 All this cost money, and it follows thatthe social and financial background of the modern tourist pilgrim was quiteunlike that of the average pilgrim. Subsidies by the Great Powers and thechurch allowed even those who had humble or no financial resources toembark on a pilgrimage, sometimes without paying a penny.68 Modern touristpilgrims, who had to finance their journey out of their own pocket andexpected the best possible service, were by necessity people of means.69

Tour guides were another service utilized by the pilgrims and themodern tourist pilgrims alike. Most pilgrim groups were either chaperonedby a priest from home or enjoyed the services of a local clergyman. Thepriests often functioned as both the group’s guide and religious authority.70

Guidebooks written by local priests were frequently distributed among thepilgrims, who consulted them throughout the pilgrimage.71 Clearly, thepilgrims’ entire knowledge and perception of Palestine stemmedexclusively from the church and its priests.

Tour guides who had no special religious affiliation customarilyaccompanied the modern tourist pilgrims. Most of them were not evenChristian.72 Modern tourist pilgrims usually preferred to hire local guides.The guides, speaking both the modern tourist pilgrims’ languages and thelocal vernacular, also functioned as interpreters. These were the Dragomen,who featured in both the literature and guidebooks of the period.73

Occasionally a guide accompanied modern tourist pilgrim groups fromhome, and sometimes, even if he was the group’s religious leader, he actedas a guide in both the holy and secular sites.

When touring Palestine, modern tourist pilgrims relied on both the Bibleand tourist guidebooks. In the course of the second half of the nineteenthcentury, Thomas Cook, Baedeker and others published innumerableguidebooks on Palestine. Often published in several editions, theseguidebooks are proof of the growing number of modern tourist pilgrimswho visited Palestine. The guidebooks offered a wealth of information andtips on living expenses, the local currency, accommodation, the location ofpost offices and telegraph services, and even advice on local customs. Theycontained descriptions of Palestine’s many sites, both holy and secular, andthey suggested slow excursions through the various regions of Palestine.74

This was in sharp contrast to the churches or other religious guidebooks,which provided almost only religious facts and data.75

The pilgrims and modern tourist pilgrims had manifestly differentattitudes towards the souvenirs and mementos that they acquired throughout


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their journey. The former sought to amass as many mementos of thepilgrimage as possible. The tradition of accumulating objects associatedwith the holy sites had characterized the pilgrimage from its very beginning,and was still as strong as ever in the nineteenth century.76 The pilgrimsbelieved these mementos to be sacred, a piece of the Holy Land. By takingthem home they hoped to sanctify their own domiciles, if only a little.77

The modern tourist pilgrims too, acquired mementos of the holy sites,but they regarded these less as sacred objects and more as simple souvenirs.Mark Twain and his companions drew water from the River Jordan forprecisely the same reason that modern tourist pilgrims took fragments ofinscriptions and columns from Baalbek or chunks of the Sphinx; they servedas both reminder and evidence of their journey.78 The mementos the moderntourist pilgrims acquired when visiting the holy sites were no different fromthe souvenirs they collected elsewhere during their visit, such as scenicviews of Palestine, portraits of themselves, dried flora, olive woodornaments, and so on.79

The second half of the nineteenth century was one of the most dynamicperiods in the history of Palestine. It was also a time when the long andwell-established tradition of Christian pilgrimage underwent a suddenrevival. In part, this was due to improved travelling methods that made thejourney to Palestine and the holy sites much easier and safer. As travel forthe sake of travel grew more popular, the waves of tourists who hadpreviously swept Europe and parts of the Mediterranean during theeighteenth century began to reach the shores of Palestine. Accordingly,nineteenth-century Palestine now welcomed a new type of traveller: themodern tourist pilgrim.

There were, as we have seen, substantial and very basic differencesbetween the modern tourist pilgrim and the traditional pilgrim. To date,studies of nineteenth-century Palestine have failed to reveal the complexand composite nature of this new type of traveller, content merely to labelthem as tourists. Yet these so-called tourists, though in many respects quiteunlike the traditional pilgrims, were equally unlike modern-day tourist.

The modern tourist pilgrims visited Palestine and the Holy sites as partof a general tour of the Mediterranean. Unlike the pilgrims, whose journeywas purely religious in nature, the modern tourist pilgrims’ motives weremuch more varied. Nonetheless, the pilgrims’ and modern tourist pilgrims’underlying purpose in journeying to Palestine was essentially the same: tovisit the country’s holy sites and the sites of the events described in the Oldand New Testaments. Moreover, there is little doubt that alongside other,more traditionally touristic considerations, Palestine’s unique status as the


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birthplace of the three monotheistic religions played a key part in themodern tourist pilgrim’s decision to visit it.

In conclusion, the modern tourist pilgrim presented a unique blend of thesacred and the secular. If the pilgrims pursued a wholly religious route, themodern tourist pilgrims visited both the land’s holy and secular places to asimilar extent. Accordingly, in Palestine the modern tourist pilgrims wereexposed to a wide variety of experiences. Not content simply to confinethemselves to its religious holy dimension, they experienced all thatPalestine had to offer.

Under the British Mandate modern tourist pilgrims continued to flock inPalestine, whereas the number of pilgrims, by contrast, graduallydiminished. This largely explains why during the British Mandate the sumtotal of Protestant visitors to Palestine multiplied, while the number ofOrthodox Christians fell drastically. During this period, more and moremodern hotels were built, and the British authorities began to regulate andinstitutionalize the tourist guide business. These and other elements ofmodern tourism, which first made their appearance in the nineteenth centuryunder Ottoman rule, continued to develop and expand, forming the basis forthe Middle East tourism industry.

NOTES

This article reflects the authors’ two interests: the historical aspects of Christian pilgrimage toPalestine and modern-day tourism. We would like to thank Professor Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, whopioneered the study of modern Palestine’s historical geography and introduced us to thisfascinating field of study. His observations and suggestions were of unfathomable value inwriting this article. We would also like to thank Dr Margalit Shilo, Dr Haim Goren and Dr JosephB. Glass who read through the drafts of this article and made innumerable helpful comments.

1. A pilgrim according to the Oxford English Dictionary is ‘one who journeys to a sacred placeas an act of religious devotion’. See H.W. Fowler and F.G. Fowler, The Concise OxfordDictionary of Current English (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951), p.901. The term‘pilgrimage’ has numerous definitions. Its precise meaning is dependent upon the particularperiod and culture under discussion. For the purpose of this article a general definition thatalso encompasses the tradition of Christian pilgrimage was selected. For further details, seeE. Turner, ‘An Overview’, in M. Eliade (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol.11 (NewYork: Macmillan, 1986–87), p.328; M. Prior, ‘Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Yesterday andToday’, in M. Prior and W. Taylor (eds.), Christians in the Holy Land (London: World ofIslam Festival Trust, 1994), p.184.

2. Given that tourism is associated with the manifold and diverse aspects of human culture, itis very difficult to define precisely. According to the United Nations and World TourismOrganization, Recommendations on Tourism Statistics, Vol.83 (New York: United Nations,1994), p.5, tourists are ‘persons travelling, for reasons of recreation, business, etc. etc, fromtheir homes to places that are not along their customary route. They remain in these placesfor a period lasting no less than 24 hours and no longer than a year.’ It should be noted thatthis broad, rather loose definition applies mainly to the modern day tourist, who travels forpurely recreational purposes. Indeed, tourism is generally undertaken for the sheer pleasureof things and has no religious or spiritual dimension. Nevertheless, from the generalized term


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‘etc. etc.’ it can be deduced that a pilgrimage may be one of the reasons tourists embark upontheir journey. On that, see L. Turner and J. Ash, The Golden Hordes: International Tourismand the Pleasure Periphery (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1976), pp.136–9; E. Cohen,‘Pilgrimage and Tourism: Convergence and Divergence’, in A. Morinis (ed.), SacredJourneys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992),pp.48–9.

3. Cohen, ‘Pilgrimage and Tourism’, and see the relevant bibliography there.4. In 1992 the Annals of Tourism Research devoted an entire issue to the subject of tourism and

pilgrimage. In the introduction to this issue, Smith presented an analytic model of therelationship between the two types of journey. That model was adopted as the article’sanalytic framework. See V.L. Smith, ‘Introduction: The Quest in Guest’, Annals of TourismResearch, Vol.19, No.1 (1992), pp.3–4.

5. C.C. Park, Sacred Worlds: An Introduction to Geography and Religion (London: Routledge,1994), p.259.

6. G. Bowman, ‘Christian Ideology and the Image of a Holy Land: The Place of JerusalemPilgrimage in the Various Christianities’, in J. Eade and M.J. Sallnow (eds.), Contesting theSacred: The Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage (London: Routledge, 1991), p.109.

7. For example, travellers believed that the local Arabs had lived in Palestine since biblicaltimes. Believing the Arabs to be the authentic descendants of the people of the Old and NewTestaments, the modern tourist pilgrims wrote about them, sketched them and, towards theend of the nineteenth century, even took photographs of them. Y. Ben-Arieh, ‘Perceptionsand Images of the Holy Land’, in R. Kark (ed.), The Land that Became Israel: Studies inHistorical Geography (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1989), pp.37–53;idem, ‘Holy Land Views in Nineteenth-Century Western Travel Literature’, in M. Davis andY. Ben-Arieh (eds.), With Eyes Toward Zion 3: Western Societies and the Holy Land (NewYork: Praeger, 1991), pp.10–29; Y. Nir, The Bible and the Image: The History ofPhotography in the Holy Land, 1839–1899 (Philadelphia, PA: University of PennsylvaniaPress, 1985), pp.3–25.

8. S.F. Aivazian, ‘Pilgrimage: Eastern Christian Pilgrimage’, in Eliade, Encyclopedia, Vol.11,p.337; Prior, ‘Pilgrimage to the Holy Land’, p.189; B. Vokonic, Tourism and Religion (NewYork: Pergamon, 1996), p.119. The Orthodox pilgrims use the name ‘Anastasis’, while theCatholics use the name Holy Sepulchre.

9. D. Davies, ‘Christianity’, in J. Holm with J. Bowker (eds.), Sacred Places (London: Pinter,1994), pp.45–6.

10. As M. Mason Fairbanks is quoted to admit in L.I. Vogel, To See a Promised Land: Americansand the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania StateUniversity Press, 1993), pp.41–60; Thomas Cook, Cook’s Tourist’s Handbook for Palestineand Syria (London, 1891), pp.7–9; The Cruise of the Eight Hundred: To and ThroughPalestine (New York, 1905), p.25.

11. The Grand Tour has been the subject of a great many novels and academic studies. See, forexample, J. Towner, ‘The Grand Tour: A Key Phase in the History of Tourism’, Annals ofTourism Research, Vol.12, No.3 (1985), pp.297–333; C. Hibbert, The Grand Tour (London:Thames Methuen, 1987); J. Black, The British Abroad: The Grand Tour in the EighteenthCentury (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1992); Y. Ben-Arieh, Painting the Holy Land in theNineteenth Century (Jerusalem: Yad Itzhak Ben-Zvi, 1997), pp.36–8.

12. By the end of the nineteenth century, numerous tourist agencies had been establishedthroughout the West. Of these, Thomas Cook was the largest and most famous. E.Swinglehurst, Cook’s Tours: The Story of Popular Travel (Poole: Blandford, 1982); P.Brendon, Thomas Cook: 150 Years of Popular Tourism (London: Secker and Warburg,1991); B. Cormack, A History of Holidays 1812–1990 (London: Routledge, 1998); R. Kark,‘From Pilgrimage to Budding Tourism: The Rule of Thomas Cook in the Rediscovery of theHoly Land in the Nineteenth Century’, in S. Searight and M. Wagstaff (eds.), Travellers inthe Levant: Voyagers and Visionaries (London: Astene, 2001), pp.155–74.

13. Vogel, To See a Promised Land, p.74.14. D. Klatzker, ‘Sacred Journeys: Jerusalem in the Eyes of American Travelers Before 1948’,


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in Y. Ben-Arieh and M. Davis (eds.), With Eyes toward Zion 5: Jerusalem in the Mind of theWestern World, 1800–1948 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), pp.47–58.

15. G. Rinschede, ‘Forms of Religious Tourism’, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol.19, No.1(1992), p.52.

16. M. Eliade, The Sacred, pp.36–42.17. V. Turner, ‘The Center Out There – Pilgrim’s Goal’, History of Religion, Vol.12 (1971),

pp.191–230. 18. A. Osterrieth, ‘Medieval Pilgrimage: Society and Individual Quest’, Social Compass, Vol.36,

No.2 (June 1989), pp.153–4.19. Cohen, ‘Pilgrimage and Tourism’, pp.47–61.20. E. Naveh, ‘A Spellbound Civilization: The Mediterranean Basin and the Holy Land

According to Mark Twain’s Travel Book, The Innocents Abroad’, Mediterranean HistoricalReview, Vol.5, No.1 (June 1990), pp.45–6.

21. D.G. Charlton, ‘The French Romantic Movement’, in D.G. Charlton (ed.), The FrenchRomantics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984); H. Bordeaux, Voyageursd’Orient (Paris: Librairie Plon, 1926).

22. Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad or the New Pilgrims’ Progress (San Francisco, 1870),pp.19–23; The Cruise of the Eight Hundred, pp.23–5.

23. Much has been written about Palestine’s technological and sociological development duringthe final years of the Ottoman Empire. See, for example, Y. Ben-Arieh, The Rediscovery ofthe Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, The Hebrew University,1979); M. Maoz, Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine, 1840–1861 (London: ClarendonPress, 1968); C.P. Issawi, The Economic History of the Middle East, 1800–1914 (Chicago,IL: University of Chicago Press, 1966); R. Owen, The Middle East in the World Economy(London: I.B. Tauris, 1993); idem (ed.), Studies in the Economic and Social History ofPalestine in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (London: Macmillan, 1982); D. Kushner(ed.), Palestine in the Late Ottoman Period: Political, Social and Economic Transformation(Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press, 1986); G.G. Gilbar (ed.), Ottoman Palestine,1900–1914: Studies in Economic and Social History (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1990).

24. See the maps detailing the shipping routes to Palestine. Most guidebooks supplied both thedates on which the ships set sail for Palestine and the length of the voyage. See, for example,Meyers Reisebücher, Der Orient (Leipzig, 1882), Map of the ‘Routennetz zum Orient’(endpapers); K. Baedeker, Palestine and Syria (London, 1898), pp.xvii–xx. See the study ofthe Austrian Lloyd company: R. Agstner, ‘The Austrian Lloyd Steam Navigation Company’,in M. Wrba (ed.), Austrian Presence in the Holy Land in the 19th and Early 20th Century(Tel Aviv: Austrian Embassy, 1995), pp.136–57.

25. Baedeker, Palestine and Syria, pp.xvii–xx; Vogel, To See a Promised Land, p.61.26. During the first half of the nineteenth-century, pilgrims disembarked in Alexandria or Beirut

and immediately set sail for Jaffa, usually on board smaller ships. Alternatively, they enteredPalestine on foot, riding a donkey or in a carriage. On the development of Jaffa Port see, R.Kark, Jaffa: A City in Evolution 1799–1917 (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press, 1990),pp.230–35.

27. Stephan Graham, a British author and journalist, had accompanied a group of Russianpilgrims on their pilgrimage and later published his impressions of the journey. See S.Graham, With the Russian Pilgrims to Jerusalem (London: Macmillan, 1913), pp.29–76.

28. J. Kramer, ‘Austrian Pilgrimage to the Holy Land’, in M. Wrba (ed.), Austrian Presence inthe Holy Land in the 19th and Early 20th Century (Tel Aviv: Austrian Embassy, 1995), p.76.

29. Cook’s Map of tours to Egypt, the Nile, Palestine, Turkey, Greece and Italy, in Cook,Handbook for Palestine and Syria; C.G. Trumbull, A Pilgrimage to Jerusalem (Philadelphia,PA: The Sunday School Times Company, 1905); Hibbert, Grand Tour, pp.215–33.

30. The participants in The Cruise of the Eight Hundred left New York on 8 March and returnedon 20 May. Of the more than 70 days of the trip, only two weeks were spent in Palestine, ofwhich three days were a convention held in Jerusalem.

31. Y. Ben-Arieh, Jerusalem in the 19th Century: Emergence of the New City (Jerusalem; YadIzhak Ben-Zvi Press, 1986), pp.216–18; Krammer, ‘Austrian Pilgrimage’, pp.75–6.


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32. Frederick J. Bliss, ‘The Recent Pilgrimage to Jerusalem’, Palestine Exploration FundQuarterly Statements (1894), pp.101–8, informs us about the ten lectures given during thenine-day trip of a pilgrim tourist Protestant group visiting Palestine during 1894. Parts of thelectures were on such themes as the Druze, the Haram in Jerusalem, the Mounds of Palestine,and other non-religious subjects.

33. For Mark Twain’s route through Palestine, see the accompanying map. See also Twain, TheInnocents Abroad, p.463; for his Damascus description, pp.469–70, 519–20.

34. It was so during the ancient and medieval periods: Osterrieth, ‘Medieval Pilgrimage’, p.153;and it is so today: Rinschede, ‘Forms of Religious Tourism’, pp.61–2.

35. Bowman, ‘Christian Ideology’, p.111.36. Edward Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petrraea, Vol.1

(London: J. Murray, 1841), p.329; Prior, ‘Pilgrimage to the Holy Land’, p.188. 37. Harry C. Luke, Ceremonies at the Holy Places (London: Faith Press, 1932), p.36.38. Baedeker, Palestine and Syria, p.xi; Cook, Handbook for Palestine and Syria, p.1.39. Mark Twain spent three weeks in the Holy Land, John Ross Browne travelled in Syria,

Lebanon and Palestine for 40 days and Herman Melville re-embarked at Jaffa after 19 days.See V.D. Lipman, Americans and the Holy Land: Through British Eyes, 1820–1917(London: Self Publishing Association, 1989), pp.215–16. The guidebooks recommendedseveral excursions through Palestine’s various regions, in each case offering a detailed dailyitinerary. See Baedeker, Palestine and Syria, pp.xiii–xvii.

40. Ben-Arieh, Emergence of the New City, pp.198–201; H. Wohnout, ‘The Austrian Pilgrims’House from its Foundation to World War One’, in M. Wrba (ed.), Austrian Presence in theHoly Land in the 19th and Early 20th Century (Tel Aviv: Austrian Embassy, 1995), pp.33,36. Pilgrimage in the Orthodox world: S. Coleman and J. Elsner, Pilgrimage: Past andPresent, Sacred Travel and Sacred Space in the World Religions (London: British MuseumPress, 1995), pp.120–26; D. Klatzker, ‘American Catholic Travelers to the Holy Land,1861–1929’, Catholic Historical Review, Vol.74 (1988), pp.55–74.

41. F. Dickerson Walker, Irreverent Pilgrims (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press,1974), p.31.

42. Prior, ‘Pilgrimage to the Holy Land’, p.188; Vogel, To See a Promised Land, p.59; TheCruise of the Eight Hundred, p.25; E.L. Queen, II, ‘Ambiguous Pilgrims: AmericanProtestant Travelers to Ottoman Palestine, 1867–1914’, in B.F. LeBeau and M. Mor (eds.),Pilgrims and Travelers to the Holy Land (Omaha, NE: Creighton University Press, 1996),pp.212–13.

43. E. Blyth, ‘The Greek Easter at Jerusalem’, Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statements(1920), p.69; Vogel, To See a Promised Land, p.86; T. Hummel, ‘English Protestant Pilgrimsof the 19th Century’, in A. O’Mahony (ed.) with G. Gunner and K. Hintlian, The ChristianHeritage in the Holy Land (London: Scorpion Cavendish, 1995), p.165; Queen, ‘AmbiguousPilgrims’, pp.217–18.

44. Klatzker, ‘Sacred Journeys’, pp.48–51. Symbolically, the members of The Cruise of theEight Hundred held their convention in a tent near this optional Calvary, see pp.237–8. S.Kochav, ‘The Search for a Protestant Holy Sepulchre: The Garden Tomb in Nineteenth-Century Jerusalem’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol.46, No.2 (1995), pp.278–301.

45. Davies, ‘Christianity’, pp.48–9; Bowman, ‘Christian Ideology’, p.116. 46. Klatzker, ‘American Catholic Travelers’, pp.59, 61.47. A.M. Mantell, ‘Easter Ceremonies of the Washing of the Feet’, Palestine Exploration Fund

Quarterly Statements (1882), pp.158–60; M.E. Rogers, Domestic Life in Palestine (London:Bell and Daldy, 1862), pp.321–9; Blyth, ‘The Greek Easter’, pp.70, 72–6; A.A. Boddy, Daysin Galilee and Scenes in Judaea (London: Gay and Bird, 1900), pp.187–94.

48. Rinschede, ‘Forms of Religious Tourism’, p.53; Bowman, ‘Christian Ideology’, pp.108–10. 49. Edith Turner, ‘Pilgrimage: An Overview’, in Eliade, Encyclopedia, Vol.11, p.328; Victor W.

Turner and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1978), pp.250–55; Yoram Bilu, ‘The Inner Limits of Communitas: ACovert Dimension of the Pilgrimage Experience’, Ethos, Vol.16, No.3 (Sept. 1988),pp.303–25; Davies, ‘Christianity’, p.45.


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50. Neophytos S. Spyridon, ‘Annals of Palestine 1821–1841’, Journal of Palestine OrientalSociety, Vol.18, Nos.1–2 (1938), pp.87–9; Bowman, ‘Christian Ideology’, pp.111–12.

51. Klatzker, ‘American Catholic Travelers’, pp.63–4, describes the 1889 organized pilgrimagemade by American Catholics who carried medals throughout the trip to Palestine the first ofits kind; Alexander Schölch, Palestine in Transformation 1856–1882: Studies in Social,Economic and Political Development (Washington DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1993),p.68. On Austrian pilgrimages see, for example, Krammer, ‘Austrian Pilgrimage’, p.75.

52. Twain, The Innocents Abroad, pp.19–25.53. The 1891 Baedeker guidebook to Palestine recommended that travellers visit it as part of a

group, both for financial and security considerations as well as for reasons of convenience.Travelling alone, the guidebook emphasized, was extremely complicated. Baedeker,Palestine and Syria, pp.xi–xii.

54. Twain, The Innocents Abroad, pp.30–31; N. Shepherd, The Zealous Intruders: The WesternRediscovery of Palestine (San Francisco, CA: Harper and Row, 1987), p.173.

55. Turner, Image and Pilgrimage, pp.1–39.56. M. Feifer, Tourism in History: From Imperial Rome to the Present (New York: Stein and

Day, 1986), p.189; Cormack, History of Holidays, pp.38–43.57. B. Vester Spafford, Our Jerusalem (London: Evans Brothers Limited, 1951), p.88. 58. Y. Ben-Arieh, ‘Patterns of Christian Activity and Dispersion in Nineteenth-Century

Jerusalem’, Journal of Historical Geography, Vol.2, No.1 (1976), pp.49–69.59. D. Hopwood, The Russian Presence in Syria and Palestine 1843–1914: Church and Politics

in the Near East (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), pp.71–2; Ben-Arieh, Emergence of theNew City, pp.70–74.

60. Ben-Arieh, Emergence of the New City, pp.283–4; Ben-Arieh, ‘Patterns of ChristianActivity’, p.63; Wohnout, ‘The Austrian Pilgrims’ House’, pp.25–40.

61. A.M. Goodrich-Freer, Inner Jerusalem (London: Constable, 1904), p.205. 62. Baedeker, Palestine and Syria, pp.xxxiv–xxxv. 63. On the development of Palestine’s first modern hotels, especially in Jaffa and Jerusalem, see

S. Gibson and R.L. Chapman, ‘The Mediterranean Hotel in Nineteenth-Century Jerusalem’,Palestine Exploration Quarterly, Vol.127 (1995), pp.93–105; J.B. Glass and R. Kark,Sephardi Entrepreneurs in Eretz Israel – The Amzalak Family (Jerusalem: Magnes Press,The Hebrew University, 1993), pp.92–3; Kark, Jaffa, pp.285–8. On family-owned hostelssee, for example, J. Wardle, A Tour to Palestine and Egypt and Back (Nottingham: H.B.Saxton, 1907), pp.36–7.

64. E. Blyth, When We Lived in Jerusalem (London: J. Murray, 1927), p.95.65. Baedeker, Palestine and Syria, pp.xxii–xxiv; Cook, Handbook for Palestine and Syria,

pp.7–9; Walker, Irreverent Pilgrims, pp.19–20; Vogel, To See a Promised Land, pp.61–5. 66. Cook, Handbook for Palestine and Syria, pp.7–9; Feifer, Tourism in History, p.191.67. Shepherd, The Zealous Intruders, pp.177–8; Feifer, Tourism in History, pp.167–91; Klatzker,

‘American Catholic Travelers’, p.64, informs us that the American Catholics making apilgrimage to the Holy Land were advised to avoid Protestant tour agents such as Thomas Cook.

68. Graham, With the Russian Pilgrims, p.31. 69. Vogel, To See a Promised Land, p.58; Feifer, Tourism in History, p.189.70. Y. Ben-Arieh, ‘Jerusalem Travel Literature as Historical Source and Cultural Phenomenon’,

in Y. Ben-Arieh and M. Davis (eds.), With Eyes toward Zion, 5: Jerusalem in the Mind of theWestern World, 1800–1948 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), pp.25–6. For example, in 1898some 500 Austrian pilgrims visited Palestine. Priests, who also acted as the group’s guidesand provided a thoroughly religious tour of Palestine’s holy sites, accompanied them.Krammer, ‘Austrian Pilgrimage’, p.75.

71. For example, Lievin de Hamme, a Belgian Franciscan Friar, with ten years of experience inPalestine, who published a French guidebook in 1869. The English translation was publishedunder the name of Guide to the Holy Places and Historical Sites in the Holy Land (Ghent:C. Poelman, 1875); Goodrich-Freer, Inner Jerusalem.

72. On secular tourist guides, see E. Cohen, ‘The Tourist Guide: The Origins, Structure andDynamics of a Role’, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol.12, No.1 (1985), pp.5–30.


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73. The guidebooks published by both Thomas Cook and Baedeker advised their readers toemploy a dragoman. Not only did most modern tourist pilgrims apply this recommendationbut the dragomen themselves, it seems, made a very strong impression and were frequentlymentioned in the modern tourist pilgrims’ letters, diaries, and memoirs. John R. Brown, inYussuf, or the Journey of Franji: A Crusade in the East (New York: Arno Press, 1853),includes a detailed description of the dragoman’s duties and character. The most famousdragoman of the period was Rolla Floyd, an American who lived in Palestine and, in the finaldecades of the nineteenth century, became its most sought-after dragoman. On Floyd and hisactivities, see his posthumously published letters: H. Palmer-Parsons (ed.), Rolla Floyd,Letters from Palestine: 1868–1912 (Dexter, ME, [SN], 1981).

74. Cook, Handbook for Palestine and Syria, pp.1–15; Meyers Reisebücher, Palästina undSyrien (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1913), pp.1–24; K. Baedeker, Palästina undSyrien (Leipzig: Karl Baedeker, 1904), pp.xi–xciv.

75. Ben-Arieh, ‘Jerusalem Travel Literature’, pp.38–9; Shaul Katz, ‘The Israeli Teacher-Guide:The Emergence and Perpetuation of a Role’, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol.12, No.1(1985), pp.54–5.

76. C. Hahn, ‘Loca Sancta Souvenirs: Sealing the Pilgrim’s Experience’, in R. Ousterhout (ed.),The Blessings of Pilgrimage (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1990), pp.85–96;Blyth, ‘Greek Easter’, p.75; Graham, With the Russian Pilgrims, pp.142–9; Aivazian,‘Eastern Christian Pilgrimage’, p.337.

77. Jean Remy, ‘Editorial: Pilgrimage and Modernity’, Social Compass, Vol.36, No.2 (1989),pp.141–2.

78. Twain, The Innocents Abroad, pp.451, 630. 79. N.N. Perez, Focus East: Early Photography in the Near East (1839–1885) (New York: Harry

N. Abrams, 1988), pp.42–64; Graham, With the Russian Pilgrims, pp.116–18; Klatzker,‘Sacred Journeys’, pp.53–4.


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