291

ILLUSTRATIONS

_The Gate of David, Jerusalem_ Frontispiece

_Jaffa_ Facing page 14
_The port where King Solomon landed his cedar beams
from Lebanon for the building of the Temple_

_The Tall Tower of the Forty Martyrs at Ramleh_ 28

_A Street in Jerusalem_ 60

_A Street in Bethlehem_ 86

_The Market-place, Bethlehem_ 90

_Great Monastery of St. George_ 136

_Ruins of Jerash, Looking West_ 184
_Propyloeum and Temple terrace_

_The Virgin's Fountain, Nazareth_ 232

_The Approach to Baniyas_ 276

_Bridge Over the River Litani_ 282

_A Small Bazaar in Damascus_ 316

I

TRAVELLERS' JOY

I

INVITATION

Who would not go to Palestine?

To look upon that little stage where the drama of humanity has centred
in such unforgetable scenes; to trace the rugged paths and ancient
highways along which so many heroic and pathetic figures have travelled;
above all, to see with the eyes as well as with the heart

"Those holy fields
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
Which, nineteen hundred years ago, were nail'd
For our advantage on the bitter cross"--

for the sake of these things who would not travel far and endure many
hardships?

It is easy to find Palestine. It lies in the south-east corner of the
Mediterranean coast, where the "sea in the midst of the nations," makes
a great elbow between Asia Minor and Egypt. A tiny land, about a hundred
and fifty miles long and sixty miles wide, stretching in a fourfold
band from the foot of snowy Hermon and the Lebanons to the fulvous crags
of Sinai: a green strip of fertile plain beside the sea, a blue strip of
lofty and broken highlands, a gray-and-yellow strip of sunken
river-valley, a purple strip of high mountains rolling away to the
Arabian desert. There are a dozen lines of steamships to carry you
thither; a score of well-equipped agencies to conduct you on what they
call "a _de luxe_ religious expedition to Palestine."

But how to find the Holy Land--ah, that is another question.

Fierce and mighty nations, hundreds of human tribes, have trampled
through tha