There are many valleys in this country that are as rich and fertile as the alluvial deposits of the Nile. Such, for instance, is the plain of Esdraelon and the valley around Lake Huleh. These garden spots are annually sown in wheat. To be sure, the yield is not large. We can not expect it to be large when we remember that these sons of idleness use the same rude implements of agriculture that their fathers used three thousand years ago. A camel, or a yoke of oxen, a forked stick, and a half-naked Arab, make a first class plow team for Palestine.
The fact that these people are primitive in their mode and manner of life, makes it all the more delightful to the equestrian pilgrims to be here. The student of history, especially of sacred history, finds the same pleasure in traveling through the Holy Land that a miner does in traversing a rich gold field. The shining dust glittering in the light of the sun stirs every faculty of his being; and now and then, when he finds a nugget of the precious metal, his soul is all aglow with emotion.
Palestine is more than a gold mine, it is a diamond field, to the student of Biblical history. New truths are constantly discovered, and old ones are seen in a new light. Each additional ray gives more beauty, and adds new lustre, to the already resplendent gem.
To those who like novelty, and love Nature, nothing can be more interesting than “tent life in the East.” Here one is introduced into a world of novelties. True, the country is old; but its very age becomes a novelty. The mountains, though shorn of their pristine beauty, though “rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun,” have an interest all their own. If the valleys were lakes, and the hills clothed with verdure, Syria would be only a repetition of the highlands of Scotland. If the purple hills of Judea towered to the skies, if they were covered with snow, and studded with waving forest trees, the Palestine world would be another Switzerland. If these people were Christianized, civilized, and cultivated, they would differ but little from Europeans and Americans.
But such is not the case. The lakes were never here, and the primeval forests disappeared a thousand years ago. Here the snow scarcely ever falls, and the mountains are only hills, Hermon and Tabor being the only exceptions. As for the people, they are mostly Mohammedans and Jews. Many of them never heard of Christ, nor do they want to hear of Him. Nineteen-twentieths of them are so illiterate that, if they were to see a daily newspaper printed in their own language, they could not read it. Not one in fifty could write his name on paper if it would save his neck from the halter.
Nor is this all. The following sentence is as applicable as if it had been written with special reference to this special country: “A land without ruins is a land without memories; a land without memories is a land without history. But twine a few sad cypress leaves around the brow of any land, and, be that land bleak, barren, and beautiless, it becomes lovely in its consecrated coronet of sorrow.” Palestine is a land of ruins. It is strewn with ruins from one end to the other. How could it be otherwise? Has it not been the battle-ground of the nations. Did not Belshazzer come hither from Babylon and Cyrus from Persia? Did not Alexander come from Greece and Hannibal from Carthage? How often did the Ptolemies of Egypt, and the Caesars of Rome, march their devastating legions through this fair land? Think, too, of those brave knights of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, who fought as never men fought before, trying to wrench this Holy Land from the iron grasp of the Saracen and Moslem. That was the darkest and bloodiest period of this world’s history. This was the scene of action. The very dust is historic. Every tree has heard the tramp of armies, and felt the shock of battle. Every stone has a tale to tell. In every community there are stories many, and legends not a few. Yes, Palestine is a “land of ruins.” It has not a “few,” but many “sad cypress leaves twined around its brow.” And, truly, it has become “lovely in its consecrated coronet of sorrow.”
And more. All history is interesting, yet “crosses and crucifixions take the deepest hold on the hearts of men.” The word Palestine is inseparably associated with that “name which is above every name.” Here Christ was born; here he lived; among the ancestors of these people he “went about doing good.” In these waters He was baptized; these hills were the pulpits from which he preached His own everlasting gospel; while the stones of the valley, the birds of the air, and the lilies of the field, furnished Him with apt illustrations to explain and enforce divine truth. So in this Holy Land there are “memories which make it holier, and a cross which is even in itself an immortality!”
Hence I ask, “can any one who likes novelty, and loves nature, who appreciates history, and worships the Lord Jesus Christ, who has a head on him, and a heart in him, fail to enjoy tent life in the East,” or “five hundred miles in the saddle through Palestine and Syria?” If any, speak; for him have I offended. Not one; then none have I offended. So let us be up and going, taking a different route, and moving more rapidly this time than before.
There were five in the original party, but I gladly welcome the reader into our midst, saying to him, “Come thou and go with us and be as eyes unto us, and we will do thee good.” Yes, “be as eyes unto us.” We need some one to point out the road, as much so as Moses did when he addressed this language to his gray-headed father-in-law. Indeed there are no roads in this part of Asia, only dim bridle paths such as have been worn in the rock by constant use for ages. Very few of these people ever saw a wheeled vehicle of any kind. Excepting four towns, there is not a buggy, or a wagon, or even a wheel-barrow, in all Palestine and Syria. There are no roads for them nor for us. Hence we must travel on horseback. Now that the reader has joined us, we are six in number. Making calculations for the new comer, we have eight tents, eighteen servants and muleteers, and thirty-six head of horses, mules, and donkeys. Of course, the mules and donkeys are laden with tents and trunks, and beds and baggage, and other things, for our comfort and convenience, and their own board besides. They look like young elephants with all this luggage on their backs. Each of us has a riding suit, a broad-brimmed hat, and a white umbrella.