LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Christians rule the Land of Christ [Frontispiece]
FACING PAGE
Primitive water wheel in the Land of Goshen [8]
Through rocky wastes to the top of Mt. Sinai [9]
Egyptians toiling where the Israelites made bricks [16]
We go ashore in small boats at Jaffa [17]
House of Simon the Tanner [17]
The men of Palestine are very strong [20]
Cactus hedges are used instead of fences [21]
The crude plough of Palestine [28]
The children of the Holy Land [28]
A sheeted Balaam and his ass [29]
Fuel is scarce in the land of no woods [32]
The Pool of Hezekiah [33]
Airplane view of Jerusalem [36]
The Kaiser’s breach in the Wall of Jerusalem [37]
The roofs of Jerusalem [44]
View of the Mt. of Olives [44]
Jerusalem seen from a bell tower [45]
Sheep and goats outside the walls [48]
Lepers beg at the Gates of Jerusalem [49]
The roads to Jaffa and Bethlehem [49]
Water carriers old and new [52]
“Going up to Jerusalem” [53]
A donkey ambulance for pilgrims on the march [53]
Pilgrims bathing in the River Jordan [60]
Russian women walk from shrine to shrine [61]
The Mosque of Omar [64]
The Jews’ wailing place [65]
A maid of Jerusalem [68]
Snow in the streets of Jerusalem [69]
Three learned Jews of the Holy City [76]
The Tower of David [77]
Inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre [80]
Keeping off the evil spirits [81]
Grandfather and grandson—both beggars [84]
Pilgrims praying in the Via Dolorosa [85]
Waiting for the Holy Fire [92]
Gathering the olive crop [93]
The Church of the Lord’s Prayer [96]
Washing the feet of the twelve bishops [97]
A tailor shop in Jerusalem [100]
The church of the best religious paintings [101]
Commercializing the holiness of the Holy City [108]
Moslem priest reading the Koran [108]
The biblical good measure [109]
Bethlehem maids [112]
Bushels of rosaries [113]
A Turkish restaurant in Jerusalem [116]
In the shoemaker’s bazaar [116]
View of Bethany from hillside [117]
The Fountain of Elisha [124]
At the Tomb of Lazarus [125]
The Healing Stone on the way to Jordan [125]
The source of the Jordan at Banias [128]
Our escort to the River Jordan [129]
On the shores of the Dead Sea [132]
Fisherman and boat on the Jordan [132]
A street in Bethlehem [133]
Christmas Day services in Bethlehem [140]
Young women and their dowries [141]
At Jacob’s Well [144]
The Sacred Scroll of the Samaritans [145]
The Feast of the Passover on Mt. Gerizim [148]
Pulling tares from the wheat [149]
The camel blubbers as his hair is clipped [149]
Why Palestinians use camels for ploughing [156]
Modern farm machinery in the Jewish colony [156]
The sheep that was lost is found [157]
Colonists terrace the hillsides with stone walls [160]
Picking almonds [161]
An avenue of cypresses and palms [164]
A carpenter shop in Nazareth [165]
Nazareth lies in a little amphitheatre [172]
The boys of Nazareth are friendly [172]
Mr. Carpenter and the Water Pot of Cana [173]
We cross the Sea of Galilee [176]
The arched Gate of Tiberias [177]
Fish from the Sea of Galilee [180]
Capernaum—the city of prophecy fulfilled [180]
The colonists do much of their own work [181]
Making the bread of Bible times [188]
A colonist’s home near Lake Merom [189]
A prayer niche in the Grand Mosque [192]
Where Fatima lies buried in Damascus [193]
A place of trees with a river flowing between [196]
The Wall of St. Paul in Damascus [196]
Shopping in the Street called Straight [197]
The men come together in the horse market [204]
“O Allah, send customers,” cry the bread-sellers [204]
Spinning wool into thread for a rug [205]
The transportation monopoly of the Bedouin [208]
At the end of the Bookseller’s Bazaar [209]
The street dress of the women of Damascus [224]
Mr. Carpenter and the Columns at Baalbek [225]
The portal of the Temple of Bacchus [228]
The mighty columns of the Temple of the Sun [229]
The nomad Bedouins live in brown tents [236]
A lonely grove of Lebanon cedars [237]
Only a few of the great trees are left [240]
Tree-lined avenues lead out of Beirut [241]
The American University at Beirut [244]
Stones carried up on the backs of camels [244]
A view of Beirut [245]
The ruins of the City of Diana [252]
Storks build their nests in the palaces of Ephesus [252]
Giving the silkworms their breakfast [253]
Armenian children make themselves useful [256]
Getting the Armenians back to the land [257]
A cradle of Armenia [260]
American flour sacks serve a double purpose [260]
The water power of the Jordan will be developed [261]
The first steel bridge across the Jordan [268]
Jerusalem now has a speed law [269]
MAPS
The Holy Land [24]
The Holy Land and Syria [40]

THE HOLY LAND AND SYRIA

CHAPTER I
JUST A WORD BEFORE WE START

By the World War the Moslem was forced to the rear and Palestine has become more and more the possession of Christian and Jew. General Allenby and his troops have taken the part of Richard the Lion-hearted and the Crusaders, and Jerusalem is at last out of the hands of the followers of the Prophet Mohammed. Among the innovations that followed are the removal of the tax gatherers who robbed the poor and the rich in the name of the Sultan, the safeguarding of the roads from the wandering Bedouins, and the reclaiming of the soil, so that the country bids fair to become once more the land of milk and honey that it was when it gladdened the tired eyes of the Israelites after their long wanderings in the desert of Sinai. Railways now cross the desert, connecting Palestine with Egypt and Turkey, and one may go on the cars from Cairo to Jerusalem and from Paris, via Constantinople and Damascus, to Galilee.

At the same time the Holy Land of the Bible is the Holy Land of to-day. It has the same skies as those under which the Wise Men followed the Star to the birthplace of Jesus. It has the same flowers as those trodden by Joseph and Mary, and the water in Jacob’s Well is still sweet, notwithstanding it is now compared with that of the Nile which flows in pipes over the desert almost to the Pool of Siloam. The sheep still pasture on the hills as they did in the days of our Saviour, and boys and girls may be seen picking the tares from the wheat. Asses like Balaam’s still carry their masters over the road, although their brays are now and then drowned in the horns of the automobiles; and the strange people one constantly meets personify Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Rachel and Ruth, and the other Bible characters who lived and loved in the days of the Scriptures.

All these belong to the Palestine perennial, and to that Palestine belong the talks of this book. They are based on the notes dictated to my stenographer or written by me in the midst of the scenes they describe. I give them as they came hot from the pen, changing only a line here and there to accord with the changing conditions.

We start in the Land of Goshen which Joseph gave to his father and brothers after he was sold to the Ishmaelites and carried down into Egypt, and enter Palestine at Jaffa, the city of Jonah and Simon the Tanner. We cross the plains of Sharon by rail, and travel back and forth over the Holy Land from Beersheba to Dan. Jerusalem and Bethlehem, Jericho and the Jordan, Shechem and Nazareth are among the places where we linger longest, and it is on the opposite side of the Sea of Galilee from Capernaum that we take the train for Damascus. In that city we go to the wall over which Saint Paul was let down in a basket, shop in the Street called Straight, and then, crossing the Abana, one of the rivers that Naaman the Leper would have preferred to the Jordan, ascend the mountains of Lebanon to the ruins of Baalbek. We next climb down to the Mediterranean Sea at Beirut and sail north to Smyrna to pay our respects to the ruined shrine of the Goddess Diana on the site of old Ephesus. After a peep at Asia Minor we take a ship for home. Throughout the journey, the old is ever tramping on the heels of the new, and the Palestine of the future is seen through the veil of the Palestine of the past.