FIRST OF ALL, let us take a journey to the land where Jesus lived. We will sail in one of the big ocean steamers across the Atlantic, heading our prow a little to the south, and in eight days will pause at the Rock of Gibraltar, which stands on guard at the gate of the Mediterranean Sea. Do you know what "Mediterranean" means? It means, "among the lands"; and when you look at this sea on the map, you see that it has lands around it on every side, with only a narrow opening at Gibraltar, where its blue waters pour into the Atlantic Ocean.
We will enter the Mediterranean Sea, and sail its entire length, past Spain and France and Italy on the left. We just miss touching the toe of Italy, for you know Italy runs into the sea like a great leg with a high-heeled boot upon its foot. And just beyond Italy we sail by Greece, which looks somewhat like a hand with fingers wide apart.
While we are passing by these lands on the left, we are also sailing past Morocco and Algiers, and Tunis and Tripoli on the right. We stop at Alexandria in Egypt, at one of the mouths of the river Nile, and soon after we leave the big steamer at Port Said, where the great Suez Canal begins.
There in the afternoon about ten days after our leaving America, we go on board a smaller ship, and sail northward past the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The next morning we awake to find our ship at anchor in front of a city on a hillside, rising up in terraces from the water.
That city is now called Jaffa, or Yafa; and it is the place where the steamers stop to send ashore those who are about to visit the Holy Land, for that is the name given to the land where Jesus lived. Do you remember in the Old Testament the story of Jonah, the prophet who tried to run away from God's call to preach in the city of Nineveh? Well, it was from this city of Jaffa, then called Joppa, that Jonah started on his voyage, which ended inside the big fish. Perhaps you remember also the story of Dorcas, in the New Testament, that good woman who helped the poor; and after dying was raised to life through the prayer of the Apostle Peter. Dorcas too lived at Joppa; and they show the house where, it is said, Peter stayed while he was visiting in that city.
Here at Jaffa or Joppa we end our long sea-voyage of about six thousand miles. We go ashore in a small boat, tossing up and down on the waves, for there is no wharf where a steamer can land its passengers. And now we are standing on the soil of the Holy Land, where Jesus lived. In Christ's time this land was called Judea. In our day its name is Palestine.
There is no real harbor at Jaffa. Steamers must anchor some distance out, and passengers are landed by rowboats
It is a small country. If you will turn to the map of the United States, and look at New Hampshire, you will see a state in form quite like Palestine, and only a little smaller in size; for Palestine, or the Holy Land, contains about twelve thousand square miles, and New Hampshire a little more than nine thousand.