the train for Cairo, had begun to carry both sleeping compartments and
dining car. We boarded it late that night at the foot of the long hill.
Before it was light, we had pulled out of the Jerusalem station and did
not get even one more glimpse of the city set on a hill. Instead when we
opened our eyes we were almost out of the Judean Hills and soon were
moving along through desert-rimmed lowlands. Then the desert itself lay
about us for hours, livened by occasional caravans that also were going
down to Egypt. Once an airplane flew over us and on into the glare of
the cloudless sky. We thought often of Joseph and Mary and the Child
fleeing through this lonely desert, to find in alien Egypt refuge from
the jealous wrath of the Roman king. How rapidly the world has learned
to cover time and space since then! How slow has been its progress
toward the kingdom the Child, whom Herod feared, had come to build. God
grant that now over the new paths through old Palestine messengers
bearing Good Will may come with all speed.
At Kantara we saw a company of Jews sent by the Zionists into Palestine.
They were a weary group, their faces bore marks of deep suffering. They
spoke Russian only, so we could not talk with them. They were going by
train to Haifa. We could only hope that their sorrows were over and that
in the land of their fathers they would find peace, a chance to forget,
shelter, food and a home. But we could not feel sure. The threatening
words we had heard from the lips of the Arab, the protests on the part
of the Jews that there was not land enough in Palestine capable of
bearing crops to give food to those who now struggled to live, the
bitter race hatreds and religious feuds very near the surface always
ready to burst into flame,—these things made us doubtful. The
transformation within a generation of this land of Palestine into a safe
and happy home for all the Jews of all the world seems but the futile
day dream of children when one faces conditions as they are. Many lands
have done many things to the Jew who once in simplicity worshiped the
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and tried sincerely, not only to obey
the great commandments of Moses, but to teach them to his children.
Whether again they can gather from all lands and bring with them the
best who shall say? It may be that the fervent exhortations of rabbis,
the wisdom of judges, the training of educators, the science of
agriculturists, the modern irrigation miracles of engineers, the proper
placing of peoples, will make of Palestine a modern state where the
dream of economists, political and social, will one day be demonstrated
in action. The only spot we saw that seemed like the coming of the day
was Ramallah, the city that had to be taken by storm before the troops
could reach Jerusalem and visited by us to see the splendid work of the
schools of the Quakers who for long years have given learning and new
life to children of Syrian and Armenian, and now and then to a Moslem or
a Jew. From that little town between six and seven hundred Jews and
Syrians had emigrated to America. Since the war many had returned and
were rapidly building the city. Others had sent money to rebuild the
homes of their families. These homes were of stone built two stories
high with the flat roof but with plenty of space for light and air.
Gardens surrounded many of them and trees were being planted everywhere.
The children were well nourished, well clothed, and well trained. It
helped us to have more confidence in the dreams with the fulfilment of
which all Christendom is in sympathy. If only patience and unselfishness
can be set as watchmen over against the door of enthusiasm! We were told
that the Hebrew High Commissioner of Jerusalem looks to Ramallah as a
prophecy.
We sat for a while on the journey from Kantara to Cairo with a British
officer and a nurse who had seen hard service during the war and is now
in charge of a number of stations where the native nurses meet her to
report progress and receive further instructions. She helps them to
understand the care of mothers and young babies and trains them to fight
the terrible diseases of the eye that result in a staggering percentage
of blindness. The native girls are taking up their work with enthusiasm,
even the little children are sharing in the campaign against flies.
“That is a far harder campaign than any we have ever waged when you
consider the people you have to train to fight,” said the officer. And
remembering the flies on our days at Suez and Port Said, we could agree
with him. It was nearly midnight when she left the train at a little
station in the sand. Her man-servant was waiting with her horse and we
watched her ride off to her hospital out there somewhere in the
blackness. “No finer women on God’s earth than those who wear that
uniform,” said the officer.
A half hour or more and he left us. He was a lover of the desert and
almost made us forget how pitiless, how cruel, how destitute of all that
makes life for most of us, it is. He knew the names of all the stars and
when they would appear in the velvet sky over his great stretch of
camps. He loved the cold of the night and was not afraid of the heat of
midday, he loved the sunrise and sunsets and “the desert-folk worth many
times the puny men of cities.” He, too, rode off into the darkness.
At last—Cairo—and we left the train through the long station, bright as
day. A car was waiting. The luxury of our room made us feel that we had
entered fairyland. It had been so long since we had seen the things for
rest, comfort and cleanliness that had in our past been common
necessities, that now after these months of journeying about the world
they seemed extravagances indeed!
The next morning we looked through the open French windows with their
rose hangings, out upon the Pyramids and the Nile. The river lay almost
at our feet. The beauty of it was intoxicating in the soft light of the
rising sun. When my friend broke the silence she said, “It is indeed
beautiful,” then smiling she added “but,—
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
Let my right hand forget her skill.
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,
If I remember thee not,
If I prefer not Jerusalem
Above my chief joy....
Awake, awake, put on thy strength; put on thy beautiful garments, O
Jerusalem, the holy city.... Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit
on thy throne, O Jerusalem.—Peace be unto thee, O Zion.”
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Transcriber’s note:
1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
2. Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as
printed.