Palestine was noted in olden times as a land flowing with milk and honey. At the Casa Nova we drank of the milk, the milk of the black-haired goats that fed along the hillsides, and ate of the honey, which was of delicious flavor. The Syrian waiters who served our meals and also cared for our bedrooms were picturesquely dressed in long gowns of blue striped material falling to their ankles, and encircled with bright sashes, and these men at all times, whether making beds or serving tables, wore on their heads the red fez of Turkish subjects. The managers of the Hospice, the Franciscan monks, wore the garb in which the monks of that order are always seen, brown gown, rope girdle, rosary with pendant cross, and sandals.
On Sunday a cold rain fell during the day, making it unpleasant for sight-seeing and confining the travelers to the house during most of the day.
"How disappointing this is to be kept in the house by the rain," exclaimed a discontented tourist while watching the rain drops glide down the window-pane.
"Have you thought," said another who was busily engaged with guide-book and pencil, "that until to-day not one unpleasant day has interfered with our trip? The temperature has been neither uncomfortably warm nor disagreeably cold, but just delightful for the exertion of sight-seeing."
The tourists having made a request for some heat in the house, one of the gowned Arab servants carried a brazier into the reception room, placed a handful of charcoal in it and lighted a fire. As we gathered around the little fire trying to warm our hands, one could realize the scene many centuries ago, in the Palace of Caiaphas, when the soldiers coming in at midnight from the cold hills, kindled a fire in the midst of the hall, and Peter, shivering from cold and fear, joined the group around the brazier to warm himself.
"I have been trying for the past three days," remarked an elderly clergyman, "to realize that these bare hills were once 'a land flowing with milk and honey,' producing 'grapes, pomegranates, and figs' in abundance. To-day I have been thinking of the changes that the tempests of a few short years have made in the hills of my own native state, New Hampshire, since the rapacious lumber-men have been denuding our mountains of the forests. There, the unprotected soil is being washed away by the heavy rains, gulleys have been formed, the brooks have diminished or dried up, and the part of our once beautiful White Mountains that has been cut over is desolate indeed. Now, since thinking of the changes that have occurred in a decade at home. I can more fully realize the changes that centuries have made here.
"Looking backward," said he, "I can see more clearly in my mind the picture that David saw with the eye of an artist, and described with the heart of a poet, when these bare, gray, rocky, treeless hills were crowned with forests that protected the soil from the beating storms; when these slopes, now furrowed with gulleys and spread with stones, were covered with orchards and clad with verdure, where the flocks might 'lie down midst pastures of tender grass;' and when these dried up waterways were purling brooks, where the flocks were 'led beside the waters of quietness.' I believe that David's description of this country was a true picture of the land as it appeared then. 'Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly; thou settlest the furrows thereof; thou makest it soft with showers; thou blessest the springing thereof. The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing.'"
WHEN THESE BARE HILLS WERE COVERED WITH ORCHARDS AND CLAD WITH VERDURE.
"In those days the vicinity of Jerusalem was beautiful with palm trees," continued the clergyman, "and the City of Palms was but fifteen miles away. Now the City of Palms is a squalid, unhealthful village, and in the vicinity of Jerusalem it is difficult to obtain a leaf of the palm."