A travelogue by Henry C. Potter (1834–1908), a bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, detailing a journey from Italy to Egypt and the Holy Land.
The first half of the book is devoted to Egypt, with chapters on Cairo, the Copts, Nile voyages, and, of course, the Pyramids. The second half covers the Holy Land. From Port Saïd the author travels to Jaffa. From there he continues to Ramla (Ramleh), Jerusalem, Mount of Olives (Olivet) and Bethany, Jericho, the Dead Sea and the Jordan, and Bethlehem.
Interestingly, the author expressed his disappointment with the Holy Land,noting “the most sacred localities profaned by the incongruous character of their surroundings”. However, he was deeply impressed by a spectacle he witnessed at the end of his journey.
However, he was deeply impressed by a spectacle he witnessed at the end of his journey. In Jerusalem “the Jews were accustomed to assemble on Friday afternoons, and bewail their oppressed condition and the degeneration of their holy places. [...] There were exhibitions of feeling so intense and so uncontrolled that it became, in some instances, most painful to witness them, and I confess that, sitting calmly on my horse, a mere spectator of such passionate outbursts of emotion, I felt as if I were almost guilty of an indecorum” (pp. 242-3).
The appendix includes the “literal translation of the Jewish lamentations at the place of wailing at Jerusalem”.
From Italy to Egypt and the Holy Land in 1877
Henry Codman Potter.
The gates of the East. A winter in Egypt and Syria.
New York, E.P. Dutton & Co, 1877.
14,8 x 10,7 cm. vii, [2],10- 259, [1 blank] pp. Original publisher’s cloth. Name on first blank. Corners bumped and cover slightly worn, otherwise in very good condition.