Nazareth, where He spent all His life up to the time when He
announced Himself as the Christ, the Messiah, and began His Mission. But
Nazareth is a long way off. It will take us about three days to get
there. We can ride or drive, whichever you like. You prefer to ride? All
right, but don't expect a sleek, home-fed pony, or a fine horse champing
the bit, or even a well-grown, well-fed Egyptian donkey; wait and you
will see what riding means here!

[Illustration: WOMEN AT A WELL IN NAZARETH.]

CHAPTER XI

THE COUNTRY OF CHRIST'S CHILDHOOD

If you only knew how funny you look! Perched up on a dirty, thin, white
horse which scrambles along somehow, while the great iron stirrups,
shaped like shovels, dangle far below your feet. Aha! I thought so, one
has fallen off. I try to pull up quickly to dismount and help you, and
my bridle, which is made of worsted, like the toy reins children play
with, breaks suddenly and my noble steed comes a cropper!

By the time I recover and get to you I find our guide, who looks more
like a bundle of rags than anything else, tying up your stirrups with a
crazy bit of string full of knots and quite rotten. This is the way we
journey in the Holy Land in the present year! This is the third day of
it, and these little accidents don't affect us; the harness must have
been broken in at least two dozen different places since we started,
and, as an Irishman might say, most of it is made of gaps.

To-day we ought to reach Nazareth while it is still light, though, as it
is dull and grey, the evening will close in sooner than if the sky were
clear. What a pity we could not manage to come here in the spring when
the fields of blue lupins look like a strip of summer sky fallen to
earth and fill the air with their scent for miles around. There are
anemones too, purple and red and white, and lilies, but I think nothing
would strike us so much as the homely little daisies which grow here
just as they do at home. There is something strange and yet familiar in
this country, where so many different sorts of trees and plants grow,
that a man coming from almost anywhere in the world will find something
that carries his heart back home. Besides the daisies we have the
sparrows, just as pert and neat as our own sparrows, yet other things
are odd. Yesterday we saw a man carrying a sheep on his shoulders; he
wore a striped garment hanging down on each side of his neck, and even
the sheep did not seem qu