FROM DAN TO BEERSHEBA
The size of Palestine is surprising to every visitor. You know it is
small, but you cannot appreciate how small it is until you have travelled
over it.
Then you see why it has been called “the least of all lands.” The whole
country does not average more than fifty miles wide, and it is only
about a hundred and forty miles long. You could lose it in many of the
counties of Texas, and on some of its mountains you can look from one
side of it to the other. Standing on the Mount of Olives, just outside
of Jerusalem, I could see the Mediterranean on the west and on the east
the Dead Sea and the River Jordan. From Dan to Beersheba is not as far
as from New York to Washington, and the “stormy banks” of the Jordan
inclose a stream across many parts of which you can easily throw a stone,
and which though it winds in and out like a corkscrew, is not over two
hundred miles long. The Mount of Olives, upon which Jesus was taken by
the Devil, is described as “an exceeding high mountain,” but it is only
about twenty-seven hundred feet high and would be no more than a hill
in the Rockies. “All the kingdoms of the world” which Satan showed him
consisted of a few half-barren hills and some fertile plains, which
together would not make more than a good-sized Western county. With an
aeroplane we could fly across the whole of Palestine in less than an
hour. Including Syria, which takes in the mountains of Lebanon and much
other country in addition to Palestine proper, it is not as long as from
New York to Pittsburgh. It begins at the boundary of the French Mandate
of Syria on the north, and extends from there southward along the line of
the Mediterranean Sea until it is lost in the sands of Arabia.
Though it has bulked so large in history and religion, the Holy Land
itself is not as big as Rhode Island, while all Palestine is only about
the size of Vermont. If you could take it up and stretch it over the
United States it would hardly make a patch of court plaster on Uncle
Sam’s body. Dropped down upon New England, with one end at Boston, the
other would be at Mount Washington, and most of the country would not
be wider than from Boston to Springfield. If spread out upon northern
Illinois the whole might be included inside a line drawn from Chicago to
Aurora and thence to Decatur and back to Chicago.
The Bible has called this little territory a land of milk and honey.
The expression must have been used by contrast to the dreary sand of
the Sinai desert, through which the Israelites travelled on their way
hither. As I know from former travels, it is more rocky than any part
of the Alleghanies; and the Blue Ridge of Virginia, which is covered
with stones, is the Mississippi Valley compared with it. The country
has a backbone of mountains comprising the hills of Judea, Samaria,
and Galilee, with a low coastal plain, where the Philistines lived,
extending to the Mediterranean Sea. On the other side of the backbone
is the great ditch in which lie the Sea of Tiberias, or Galilee, and
the Dead Sea, with the winding Jordan running from one to the other.
This ditch is below the level of the sea and parts of it have the
hottest and most oppressive climate on earth. On the opposite side of
the Jordan toward the east is a country much richer than Palestine. It
is composed of highlands from two thousand to three thousand feet above
sea level, giving excellent pasture and, in the north, large crops of
wheat. This was the Bashan, Gilead, and Moab of the Bible, and it is now
inhabited chiefly by Mohammedan Bedouins, who live in tents, driving
their camels, cattle, and sheep from place to place. In the past it was
thickly populated, and archæologists have uncovered the ruined cities of
the people who used to live there. Palestine, on the other hand, could
never have had a very large population, and the “hosts” spoken of in the
Scriptures would dwindle by comparison with the numbers of people we are
used to nowadays.
The trip from Jaffa to Jerusalem gives us a fair idea of the character of
the country. The coastal plain is typical of the richest part. Its soil
is a chocolate brown, the grass is as green as that of Egypt, and there
are great orchards of olives and fruits of all kinds. The roads are lined
with rich red poppies and there are wild flowers on all sides.
Climbing the hills is like jumping from the Nile Valley into the desert.
There is nothing but rocks with a sparse vegetation scattered here and
there through them. The limestone crops out everywhere, and in places
heaps of stones have been thrown up to make little fields. Such fields
are fenced with stone walls. There are also corrals for the sheep made in
this way.
[Illustration: Fuel is so scarce in this land of no woods that even roots
and twigs bring good prices. Two years of poor olive crops often drive
the peasants to cutting down their precious olive trees and selling them]
[Illustration: The Pool of Hezekiah, opened by an ancient Hebrew king in
the city of Jerusalem, is fed by a fountain in the hills. Not until the
British came did the city have an adequate water-supply. One old Arab
said, “For four hundred years, the Turks did not give us so much as a cup
of cold water”]
Palestine has no woods. There are no groves or bushes. Almost the only
trees are fruit trees, with now and then a funereal cypress in a garden.
Our consul tells me that the country has two groves which the people call
forests. One of these contains forty scrub oaks and the other is not
quite so large. He says that a few years ago there was some brush on the
hillside, but that the people have even dug up the roots and sold them
for fuel.
Indeed, fuel is one of the most costly things in this country. It
is so expensive that it is seldom used except for cooking, and that
notwithstanding the fact that the climate is cold. Wood is so valuable
that the older olive trees are being cut down, and it is feared that the
olive orchards will gradually disappear. These old trees are often of
considerable thickness, but they are only twenty or thirty feet tall so
that one will supply but a small amount of firewood. The olive tree is as
hard as the apple and far more knotted and gnarly. Its wood is heavy and
is sold by the ton. It is brought in on the backs of donkeys and camels
and every stick has to pay a tax before it gets inside the gates of
Jerusalem.
A common fuel is charcoal, made mostly of olive wood. It is made chiefly
at Hebron, about twenty-three miles south of Jerusalem, near the cave
where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are buried and where tradition says Adam
died. Hebron, which is about five hundred feet higher than Jerusalem, has
big orchards of olives, almonds, and apples, the brush and the dead wood
of which are used to make charcoal.
The use of coal is almost out of the question on account of the high
rates over the railroads. The same charge is made for carrying coal as
for carrying silk. Such coal as comes here is in the shape of briquettes
and sells for high prices.
Another lack from which the Holy Land suffers is water. The rainfall in
the southern sections is something like six inches and upward a year,
the amount gradually increasing as one goes northward toward Galilee.
The country has always been one of pools and wells, and every house in
Jerusalem has its roofs so made that they drain into cisterns placed in
the courts. In dry seasons water is sold, and the man who has a spare
cistern gets a big price for his surplus.
Nearly all the wells of the olden times remain, and are pointed out by
the dragomans. One can drink from the well where Christ met the Samaritan
woman, and from many cisterns scattered over the country. Most of them
are shaped like great pears.
When the pools of Solomon were connected with Jerusalem it was thought
that they would supply the city with water. These pools are on the
highlands between Bethlehem and Hebron. They are cut out of the solid
rock, and it is said that they originally held about forty million
gallons. There are three of them, ranging in height from three hundred
and eighty to five hundred and eighty feet. They lie in terraces one
above the other, being of varying widths. The depths are from twenty-five
to fifty feet. If they were in good condition they could supply a vast
deal of water, but as it is, the aqueducts which Solomon built to
Jerusalem have gone to ruin, and there is now only a four-inch iron pipe
running from them to the city. The pipe comes in near the Dung Gate and
goes from there to the temple platform. I stumbled over it the other day.
I am told that the water is used almost altogether for the Mosque of
Omar, although it is connected with the fountains of the city, which are
only occasionally allowed to play.
In addition to these pools there are many others in and about Jerusalem.
The Pool of Hezekiah is in the heart of the city, not far from the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre; and the Pool of Siloam, where Our Lord sent the
blind man to wash, is in the valley of Jehoshaphat, outside the walls.
Just now the Holy Land is suffering from drought and the people are
praying for rain. We have had one or two showers in the last few days,
but more is needed or the crops will fail. Most of the inhabitants of
Jerusalem are great believers in prayer, and Mohammedans, Christians, and
Jews are all holding services at which they ask the Lord to send water.
We had a slight rain yesterday and more is expected. The people evidently
think their prayers will be answered. As I walked through David Street
I heard two Mohammedans talking. Their language was Arabic, but my
dragomans told me that one had just said to the other:
“How good God is, after all. We have prayed for the rain and, lo, it has
come.”
When the first shower began to fall I was standing in a doorway. A little
girl, perhaps eight years old, passed by with a platter of bread on her
head. The rain was pouring down upon it and she was wet to the skin, but
nevertheless she was singing. I asked my guide the words of her song. He
replied: “She cries: ‘Praise God for the rain! Praise God for the rain!
Praise God for the rain!’”