Chapter C: A. Dana (3)

Haifa, April 17.—The exceptional interest which, in the minds of many people, attaches to the Jewish question in Palestine must be my excuse for now alluding to it. Although, in consequence of the strenuous opposition of the Turkish government, the tide of emigration into the country has been checked, the desire of the Russian and Roumanian Jews to escape from the persecution to which they are subjected in Europe to the Holy Land has in no degree diminished. On the contrary, colonization societies continue to be formed and funds collected both in Russia and Roumania, and the English government has lately remonstrated with the Porte on the breach of treaty which the prohibition of Jews to settle in Palestine involves, with what success remains to be seen. The diplomatic action of the present government of England is by no means of a robust kind. Curiously enough, the Russian policy on this interesting question appears to be undergoing a change. The Russian government seems disposed to espouse in Turkey the cause of the race which it oppresses so unmercifully at home. M. de Nelidoff, the Russian Minister at Constantinople, has lately addressed a note to the Porte, in which he complains that the imperial authorities at Jaffa place every possible obstacle in the way of Jewish pilgrims from Russia who wish to disembark there in order to proceed to Jerusalem. The Porte has replied that no restriction whatever has been placed upon pilgrimages to the Holy City, and that the Jews, like everybody else, are free to go there. The Porte, however, draws attention to the imperial decree, recently published, which strictly prohibits the provincial authorities from allowing Jews, under any condition whatsoever, to settle in Palestine, and states that should any Jews, in spite of such express prohibition, seek to establish themselves there, the law of exclusion would be rigorously enforced. But all foreigners, of any nationality whatsoever, have a treaty right to settle in Palestine. The proof of which is that American and German colonists have established themselves here; that a society has been formed in Petersburg for promoting colonization in Palestine by Russian Christian subjects. A Jew, therefore, who is a Russian subject has manifestly as good a right to buy a piece of land in the country and settle upon it as a Christian. At this moment the Russian Consul-General at Beyrout is warmly espousing the cause of a Russian Jew colonist, who forms one of a colony of twenty-five Russian and Roumanian Jew families who have bought land and settled not far from the Lake of Tiberias. A Moslem youth wishing to examine his revolver, which the Jew refused to allow him to do, the weapon accidentally went off in the struggle, and mortally wounded the Moslem. The whole Mussulman village was up in arms, and it was only by the exercise of much tact on the part of the native Arab Jews that a general massacre was averted. The young Jew was thrown into prison, although it was recognized as an accident, and has been confined in a filthy cell for more than four months. His case was warmly taken up by the Russian authorities, and the plea of the Porte is that he had already signed a paper declaring himself an Ottoman subject. The Russian officials reply to this that he has since travelled under his Russian passport, has been recognized as a Russian subject by the authorities, and that the Arabic paper he signed was erroneously represented to him as being only a permission from the local authority to buy land and build a house. There the matter stands at present, and a warm correspondence is taking place on the subject. It is significant as showing the attitude which the Russians are assuming in the matter. The Russian vice-consul here not long since brought some Russian immigrant Jews on shore in spite of the remonstrances of the local authorities. It is evident that if the Russian government adopts the policy of encouraging Jewish immigration into Palestine, and of protecting the immigrants when here, they will have obtained an excellent excuse for political interference in the country. This was always the danger, and might have been avoided by a more enlightened and far-sighted policy on the part of the Porte. Had the Turkish government encouraged Jewish immigration on the condition of every immigrant becoming a Turkish subject, they would have added to the population by an industrious class of people, who would speedily have increased its material prosperity, while the government might have so controlled and regulated the immigration and the colonization that there would have been nothing to fear from it. By adopting this policy they would avoid possible complications with foreign powers, while they would at the same time gain the sympathy of the most enlightened among them, by affording to a suffering and persecuted race an asylum where their presence would not only be harmless, but in the highest degree advantageous to the Turkish province they had chosen for their home. Of late the prospects of both the Jewish agricultural colonies which have been established in Galilee have improved. The assiduity and perseverance with which, in spite of their inexperience, of the obstacles thrown in their way, and of the hardships inseparable from settlement in a new country, they have laboured on the soil, the progress they have made, and their prospects for the future, all go to show that under favourable auspices colonies of this nature cannot but succeed; and this belief has taken too firm a hold on the Jewish mind both in Russia and Roumania for it to be lightly abandoned. At present the pressure on the part of the Roumanian Jews to emigrate hither is greater than in Russia, where there has been a lull in the persecution; but unfortunately the Roumanian government has no diplomatic agents in these parts, and is indifferent to the fate of the Jews who leave their country. In former times the British government had a habit of taking waifs and strays of this description under its protection. Thus, nearly the whole Jewish community at Tiberias were originally Russian refugees who emigrated to Palestine thirty years ago, and applied for British protection, a privilege which Lord Palmerston promptly granted them, and to this day they travel with British passports, and pay five shillings a year to renew their registration, which secures them the protection of the British consul. If any government were philanthropic enough to adopt a similar plan now, there would be no difficulty in these poor Roumanians entering the country and settling here; but it is a course which naturally involves responsibilities, and opens a door to possible complications, and in these practical days people's sufferings, unless something is to be made out of them, do not furnish a sufficient justification to compensate for the amount of trouble which they might involve. Meantime the agricultural enterprise of the Jews in Palestine has to contend not merely with local opposition, but with the unaccountable indifference with which their efforts in this direction are regarded, with a few brilliant exceptions, by their Western coreligionists. At present the seven or eight colonies which exist are all composed of Russian or Roumanian refugees, but the best material for farmers is to be found among those Jews who have been bred and born in the country, who are already Turkish subjects, who speak the language, and are familiar with all the local conditions, and who are now mendicants, subsisting on that most pernicious institution, the Haluka, which, while it is a tax upon the whole Jewish nation outside of Palestine, is a fruitful source of pillage, contention, and sloth, among its recipients at Jerusalem and Safed. Out of some seven thousand Jews resident at the latter place, many are willing to give up all claim to the Haluka, and establish themselves as agriculturists, if they could be assisted in the first instance with the necessary capital. With some of these the experiment has been tried on a small scale, and they have proved more successful farmers in every way than the foreign immigrants, while, as they are natives of the country and subjects of the government, the latter does not interfere with their operations, as in the case of the foreigners. Under these circumstances, it is a thousand pities that Western Jews do not come to their assistance. They would confer thereby a twofold benefit upon their race. They would assist the industry and enterprise of their coreligionists, while they would undermine that system of religious mendicancy which is a disgrace to any religion, and they would deprive thereby their adversaries of the right to say, as they do now, that the success which attends missionary efforts at proselytism is due chiefly to the fact that Jews abroad are indifferent to the best interests of such of their race as have chosen for their home the land of their ancestors.

“HOLY PLACES” IN GALILEE.

Nazareth, May 1.—Talking the other day to a Franciscan monk on the prospects of his religion and of the propaganda for the faith which his order is making in these parts, he informed me that much depended upon the restoration of “holy places,” with a view to increasing their importance and popularity, for practically the most effective agent for the conversion of infidels is hard cash, and the increase of expenditure means the increase of converts. Of course he did not put it in this undisguised language, but it is distinctly a great pecuniary advantage to a native village that it should become a centre of religious attraction to pilgrims and tourists, and that money should be spent in building churches and monasteries, and otherwise civilizing remote and outlying localities where the inhabitants would remain paupers but for the sanctity of the spot upon which they are fortunate enough to live. Indeed, the latter are acute enough to understand that they can frequently make a good thing of it by the exploitation of the rivalries of opposing creeds, and they cleverly change from one to the other, when they perceive that it would be to their advantage to do so. Thus, not long ago, no fewer than a hundred and twenty of the inhabitants of the village of Kefr Kenna, situated only a few miles from this place, who belonged to the orthodox Greek Church, became Roman Catholics, and as a reward for this proof of their spiritual intelligence a Franciscan monastery is now in process of construction. The small village is deriving no little profit in consequence, to say nothing of the fact that it will draw pilgrims to visit the historic locality now that they will be received there by the holy fathers. For both the Greek and the Catholic churches have hitherto assumed the truth of a tradition to the effect that Kefr Kenna was the village in which the miracle took place of the conversion of water into wine—that it is none other, indeed, than the Cana of Galilee—and they show you the house where the marriage took place, and the stone water-pots, to prove it. The fact that it is a matter of great doubt whether it be Cana of Galilee at all, does not affect the question where religious faith is concerned, but it seems a pity that the inhabitants of Kâna el Jelil, commonly called Khurbet Kâna, should not be put up to the fact that they are possibly the possessors of the site of the veritable Cana, and may have got a “holy place” worth thousands of dollars to them if turned to proper account.

I will not trouble my readers with quotations from Scewelf (A.D. 1102), from Marinus Sanutus in the fourteenth century, from Andrichomius, and from De Vogue and Dr. Robinson in later times, to prove that this may be so. The fact that it is admitted by many modern geographers would be enough for the inhabitants of Khurbet Kâna or for the Greek Church, if they wished to revenge themselves upon their Catholic rivals. These latter have made another still more happy hit quite lately at Sefurieh, the ancient Sepphoris, distant about three miles from Khurbet Kâna, in reviving there an almost forgotten “holy place.” The merit of its discovery seems to rest with Saint Helena, who made a pilgrimage to Palestine in the fourth century, and to whose ardent piety, vivid imagination, and energetic exertions are due most of these traditional spots connected with the life of Christ which attract pilgrims to the Holy Land. On what authority she decided that a certain house in Sepphoris—called in those days Diocæsarea—had been the abode of Joachim and Anna, the parents of the Virgin, we are not told, nor how, upon descending into details, she was further enabled to identify the exact spot upon which the Virgin received the salutation of the angel; suffice it to say that the proofs were so convincing to her devout and august mind that she stamped it with her sanction, and a cathedral was afterwards erected upon it. In the course of centuries this edifice crumbled away, the site, curiously enough, became the manure and rubbish heap of the village, and under the mound thus formed was buried nearly all that remained of this ancient cathedral. Only the high arch of the middle aisle and the lower ones of the side aisles still testified to the modern tourist the ancient proportions of the edifice.

Within the last two years, however, it has occurred to the Franciscans to make excavations here, with the view of restoring the ancient cathedral and of renewing its fame as a holy place, for, to all good Catholics, it must ever be a matter of the deepest interest to see where the angel saluted the Virgin, and where her parents lived, and to press their lips to the ancient stones thus hallowed. Moreover, an influx of pilgrims to this point will have a threefold effect. It will bring money to the Franciscan treasury; it will probably be the means of converting the resident local population, who have been fanatic Moslems, but who, I was assured by my ecclesiastical informant, had benefited so much by the money already spent, that they were only deterred by fear, and by its not being quite enough, from declaring their conversion to Christianity to-morrow; and, thirdly, it would give the French government another holy place to protect. For it is by the manufacture and protection of holy places that republican France extends and consolidates her influence in these parts.

It was with a view of seeing what had been done that I determined to ride over to Sefurieh and from there take a line of my own through the woods to the Bay of Acre, instead of returning to the coast by the regular road across the plain of Esdraelon. Passing Cana and the Christian village of Reineh, where there is an old well with a sculptured sarcophagus, we leave to our right a Moslem “holy place,” called Mashad, where there is a conspicuous wely, or Moslem shrine. This spot Moslem as well as Christian tradition declares to be the tomb of Jonah. This tradition is based on the fact that the prophet is said in the Bible to be of Gath-Hepher—and this site is pretty well identified with that of the modern Mashad. There can be little doubt that these Moslem welies are the modern representatives of those “high places” which the ancient Jews were so constantly punished for erecting. They seem, indeed, to differ in no very marked degree from the “holy places” of the present day.

In an hour more we are galloping up the grassy slope on the side of which are the mud hovels of the modern population, whose conversion is so imminent, and the summit of which is crowned with the picturesque ruins of a crusading castle, reared upon foundations which are evidently of a far anterior date. This building is about fifty feet square, and from the top, which we reach by a dilapidated stair, we have a magnificent view of the surrounding country, the Buttauf, formerly the plain of Zebulon, at our feet—at this time of year a sheet of water—with the high range of the Jebel Safed behind, and bounding the horizon westward the sea-line of the Bay of Acre, with the wooded hills, through which lies my proposed route, intervening. On the side of the hill near the village is the church in process of restoration, and in the courtyard which has been recently built in front of it, where the rubbish mound lately stood, are no less than a dozen syenite columns, some standing to a height of twelve or fifteen feet, some prostrate, while their capitals and entablatures are strewn around. A small chapel has been fitted up in one of the side aisles, where a priest from Nazareth comes every Sunday to perform mass to the Arab and his wife who are left in charge during the week, and who at present form the whole congregation. The priest told me that many more handsome columns were in a subterranean part of the church which had recently been discovered, but which I could not visit, on account of débris. He also pointed out the fact that the pillars which supported the arches were divided into five sections, so built that they might actually enclose the ancient walls of the house of Joachim and Anna.

What renders this excavation interesting is, that as Sepphoris was, at the time of Christ, the principal Roman city and fortress of Galilee, some relics of a date anterior to that of the church itself may very likely be discovered. The former importance of the town may be fairly estimated by the extent of its ancient rock cemetery, which lies about a mile to the eastward, and which I visited. Here abound caves with loculi for the dead, sarcophagi, either cut into the living rock, with their stone lids still upon them, or else detached and strewn like huge water-troughs over the rocky area, immense cisterns, and rock-cut steps, and a quarter of a mile distant is a wonderful work of Roman engineering skill in the shape of an aqueduct many miles long, which supplied the citadel with water, which it is supposed continues to Sheik Abreik, a distance of ten miles, and which here tunnels through the hill for a quarter of a mile. The roof has in places fallen in, and exposes to view the canal itself, which is about twenty feet deep, with sides beautifully cemented. This subterranean aqueduct has only been recently discovered by the Palestine Exploration Fund Survey, and is quite unknown to tourists, though the whole place is well worth visiting.

Leaving it with regret, for it required a longer examination than I was able to give it, I struck off past the lovely springs of Sefurieh, where a copious stream gushes out full-blown from its source, to fertilize a valley rich with olive and fig gardens—a spot celebrated in crusading annals as the scene of many skirmishes, in some of which Richard Cœur de Lion distinguished himself so much that his name is still handed down in tradition among the natives. Crossing wooded hills, we find that every step opens new surprises upon us of scenery and of discovery, for these wild forest recesses have never been thoroughly explored. First we came upon a group of prostrate columns on which we found inscriptions, so worn, however, that we were unable to decipher them, but the native who was with us told us that the clump of old trees which overhung them bore the name of “Trees of the Bridegroom,” suggestive of Baal-worship and a holy place of antiquity. Then we examined two hill-tops covered with cave tombs, and strewn with massive and overgrown remains hitherto undiscovered. One of these was called Jissy and the other Hamitz. The largest of the caves contained three chambers with loculi. The entrances were carved. Not far from them I found another group of columns, and on them managed to trace the letters IMP. AVR., evidently standing for Imperator Aurelian, which would make them date from the third century after Christ. So, winding through rocky, wooded dells, we reached Bethlehem of Galilee, the modern Beit Lahm, where there were the remains of an ancient subterranean aqueduct or sarcophagus and the fragment of a column, and on through more glassy glades, finding our way by instinct, for we were without a guide; but we had a better chance of stumbling upon undiscovered ruins this way, and whatever path we followed was sure in the end to lead us somewhere; moreover, the view guided us from the hill-tops, and our compass when we were in the valleys. I quite regretted when at last we suddenly emerged from these old oak woods—alas! so rapidly being destroyed by the charcoal burners—and found ourselves on the edge of a hill overlooking the plain of the Kishon, across which a rapid ride of three hours brought us to our journey's end, and completed one of the most delightful rides it has ever been my fortune to make in this country.

PROGRESS IN PALESTINE.

Haifa, May 16.—Considering the number of tourists, both American and English, who annually visit the Holy Land, I have been much struck with the erroneous impression which still continues to prevail in regard to its availability as a field of colonization, and as an opening for foreign enterprise and capital.

For some time past a discussion has been taking place in the Jewish papers on both sides of the Atlantic, in which the merits of Palestine from this point of view have been canvassed, and I can only account for the extraordinary inaccuracies which have characterized the arguments of the disputants, by the supposition that they have derived their information from sources which, owing to the changes which have taken place in the country during the last few years, may now be considered obsolete.

Readers will be surprised to learn that almost every acre of the plain of Esdraelon is at this moment in the highest state of cultivation; that it is perfectly safe to ride across it unarmed in any direction, as I can testify; that, so far from plundering and despoiling villages, the few Bedouins, whose “black tabernacles” are now confined to the southern margin of the plain, have, in their turn, become the plundered and despoiled, for they are all reduced to the position of being subject to inexorable landlords, who charge them exorbitantly for the land which they occupy, and for which they pay in hard cash, under penalty of instant ejection, which is ruthlessly enforced, so that the inhabitants of the villages, with which the plain is now dotted, live in perfect security, though more than twenty years have elapsed since it was predicted that “in ten years more there will not be an inhabited village in Esdraelon.” It looks to-day like a huge green lake of waving wheat, with its village-crowned mounds rising from it like islands; and it presents one of the most striking pictures of luxuriant fertility which it is possible to conceive.

When, therefore, I read the other day, as an argument why colonies should not be established in this part of Galilee, a description of the dangers which would attend any such experiment, I was amazed at the temerity of the assertion. But as so much attention is just now devoted to the consideration of the agricultural capabilities of Palestine, I think it only right that the delusions which evidently continue to exist on the subject should be dissipated with as little delay as possible. The fact is, that nearly the whole plain of Esdraelon is divided between two great proprietors, the Sultan himself, who has recently acquired a great part of the eastern portion of it, and the Sursocks, the richest bankers in Syria, who are resident in Beyrout, and who own nearly all the villages extending from the foot of the Nazareth hills to the sea. Some idea of the amount of the grain which is annually grown on their portion of the plain of Esdraelon alone may be gathered from the fact that Mr. Sursock himself told me a few weeks ago that the cost of transporting his last year's crop to Haifa and Acre amounted to $50,000. This was said as illustrating the necessity of a railway across the plain, with a view of cheapening the cost of transport, as, owing to the Sultan having property here, it has become desirable in his majesty's interest. A concession has recently been granted to these Beyrout capitalists for the purpose of constructing a line which shall connect the Bay of Acre and the two ports upon it with the great grain-growing province to the east of the Jordan, called the Hauran, from which region thousands of camels loaded with cereals come annually to Acre and Haifa.

As I write the engineers are starting to commence the surveys of this line, which will run right through to the centre of the plain of Esdraelon, and open up a great extent of new country lying in the hills behind it, which will now find an easier access to the sea, while the whole of Galilee will benefit from so important a means of communication. Indeed, it is a remarkable fact that while every province in Turkey has been steadily retrograding during the last few years, Palestine alone has been rapidly developing in agricultural and material prosperity. In Haifa and its neighbourhood land has risen threefold in value during the last five years, while the export and import trade has increased with a remarkable rapidity, and the population has doubled within ten years. Indeed, the population of the whole of Palestine shows an increase during that period, more particularly owing to immigration within the last year or two. The consequence is that although, so far as security for life and property is concerned, there is still much to be desired, great progress has been made, and with a more energetic government the country might be rendered as safe as any in the world.

As it is, the Bedouins are being gradually pushed east of the Jordan, and it is now becoming more and more rare for an Arab encampment to be seen in the neighbourhood of the more settled and prosperous part of the country. There are, of course, villages where the inhabitants have a bad reputation, and, as a rule in the establishment of new colonies, proximity to these should be avoided; but fertile lands, near peaceable villages, removed from all risk of Arab incursion, and which can be purchased at a low price, abound; and I know of no more profitable investment of money, were the government favorable to it, whether by Jew or Gentile, than is furnished by a judiciously selected tract of this description. In proof of which may be cited the extraordinary wealth which has been accumulated by the Sursocks alone, who now own thousands of acres of the finest land in Palestine, and who purchase numerous new villages every year.

At the same time it must be admitted that, practically, the purchase of land in this country is attended with many difficulties. It is either held by villages in a communal manner, or in very small patches, many of which have several owners. In the first case the whole village, with its lands, must be purchased, an operation involving many official formalities, or the co-proprietors of the small patches have to agree upon the amount of the purchase-money, and then to show a clear title and the payment of all arrears of taxes. As a rule the purchase of any considerable extent of land involves negotiations extending over several months, and strangers unused to the ways of the country and the methods by which official routine may be expedited and obstacles removed are apt to meet with many disappointments. On the other hand, owing to official corruption, immense tracts of land fit for cultivation, but which are unoccupied owing to the sparseness of the population generally, may, through favouritism and backsheesh, be obtained at an almost nominal price.

The same erroneous impression prevails in regard to the barrenness of the country, as in regard to its insecurity. Few travellers see more than the beaten routes, where the hills happen to be unusually stony and barren; but the extent of the population which once inhabited the country furnishes the best evidence of what it is capable of supporting, and its capacities in this respect have been most forcibly dwelt upon by the officers engaged in the survey of the country for the Palestine Exploration Fund, who have enjoyed unequalled opportunities of judging upon the question. The fact that the resident Jewish agricultural population of Galilee alone amounts to over a thousand souls, is probably one which will astonish Western Jews more than any one else; but I have verified it by actually visiting myself the localities in which they are engaged in their farming operations, and am not giving the number without having arrived at it upon sure data.

There are three prejudices which have operated against the colonization of Palestine by Jews, and which are all absolutely unsound, and these are, first, that the Jew cannot become an agriculturist; secondly, that the country is barren, and, thirdly, that it is unsafe. The real obstacle in the way to Palestine colonization does not lie in any of these directions, but in the fact that the government is most determinedly opposed to it.

THE FIRST PALESTINE RAILWAY.

Haifa, June 13.—When Thackeray foretold that the day would come when the scream of the locomotive would awake the echoes in the Holy Land, and the voice of the conductor be heard shouting, “Ease her, stop her! Any passengers for Joppa?” he probably did so very much in the spirit in which Macaulay prophesied the New-Zealander sitting on the ruins of London Bridge, as an event in the dim future, and as a part of some distant impending social revolution; but the realization of the prediction is becoming imminent. The preliminary survey has just been completed as far as the Jordan, of the Hamidié, or Acre and Damascus Railway, which bids fair to be the first Palestine railway.

It is called the Hamidié line because it is named after his present majesty the Sultan Abdul Hamid, and probably one reason why the firman has been granted so easily lies in the fact that it passes through a great extent of property which he has recently acquired to the east of the plain of Esdraelon. The concession is held by ten or twelve gentlemen, some of whom are Moslems and some Christians, but all are Ottoman subjects resident in Syria. Among the most influential are the Messrs. Sursock, bankers, who own the greater part of the plain of Esdraelon, and who have therefore a large interest in the success of the line. From which it will appear that this is no speculation of Western promoters or financiers, but a real, bona-fide enterprise, and one which is likely to become a large source of profit to the holders of the concession and to the shareholders, for it will tap one of the richest grain-producing districts in the East.

I have myself ridden over the line for the first twenty miles, and have just seen the surveying party, who have returned well satisfied with the facilities which it offers from an engineering point of view. Starting from Acre, it will follow the curve of the bay for ten miles in a southerly direction at a distance of about two miles from the beach. Crossing the Kishon by a sixty-foot bridge, it will turn east at the junction of a short branch line, two miles long, at Haifa. Hugging the foot of the Carmel range, so as to avoid the Kishon marshes, it will pass through the gorge which separates that mountain from the lower ranges of the Galilee hills, and debouch into the plain of Esdraelon. This plain it will traverse in its entire length. The station for Nazareth will be distant about twelve miles from that town; there may, however, be a short branch to the foot of the hills.

So far there has only been a rise from the sea-level in twenty miles of two hundred and ten feet, so that the grade is imperceptible. It now crosses the watershed, and commences to descend across the plain of Jezreel to the valley of the Jordan. Here the Wady Jalud offers an easy incline as far as Beisan, the ancient Bethshean, and every mile of the country it has traversed so far is private property, and fairly cultivated. At Beisan it enters upon a region which has, partly owing to malaria and partly to its insecurity, been abandoned to the Arabs, but it is the tract of all others which the passage of a railway is likely to transfigure, for the abundance of the water, which is now allowed to stagnate in marshes, and which causes its unhealthiness, is destined to attract attention to its great fertility and natural advantages, which would, with proper drainage, render it the most profitable region in Palestine. Owing to the elevation of the springs, which send their copious streams across the site of Beisan, the rich plain which descends to the Jordan, five hundred feet below, can be abundantly irrigated. “In fact,” says Dr. Thomson, describing this place in his “Land and the Book,” “few spots on earth, and none in this country, possess greater agricultural and manufacturing advantages than this valley, and yet it is utterly desolate.”

It needs only a more satisfactory administration on the part of the government, and the connection of this district with the sea by rail, to make Beisan an important commercial and manufacturing centre. All kinds of machinery might be driven at small expense by its abounding brooks, and then the lovely valley of Jezreel above it, irrigated by the Jalud, and the Ghor Beisan below, watered in every part by many fertilizing streams, are capable of sustaining a little nation in and of themselves. There is a little bit of engineering required to carry the line down to the valley of the Jordan, here eight hundred feet below the level of the sea, which it then follows north as far as the Djisr el-Medjamieh. Near this ancient Roman bridge of three arches, which is used to this day by the caravans of camels which bring the produce of the Hauran to the coast, the new railway bridge will cross the Jordan, probably the only one in the world which will have for its neighbour an actual bridge in use which was built by the Romans, thus, in this now semi-barbarous country, bringing into close contact an ancient and a modern civilization. After crossing the Jordan, the line will still follow the banks of that river to its junction with the Yarmuk, which it will also cross, and then traverse a fertile plain of rich alluvium, about five miles long by four wide, to the base of the ridge which overlooks the eastern margin of the Sea of Tiberias.

This is the extent to which the survey has been completed. It is not decided whether to rise from the valley by the shoulder of the ridge which overlooks the Yarmuk, or to follow the east shore of the Lake of Tiberias to the Wady Semakh, which offers great advantages for a grade by which to ascend nearly three thousand feet in about fifteen miles. This is the toughest bit of engineering on the line, and is in close proximity to the steep place down which the swine possessed by devils are said to have rushed into the sea. Once on the plateau it will traverse the magnificent pasture-lands of Jaulan, across which I rode four years ago in the spring, when the numerous streams by which it was watered were flowing copiously, and the tall, waving grass reached nearly up to my horse's belly.

This rich tract was the one on which it is probable that Job pastured his flocks and herds—at least, all the local tradition points to this. It was well populated until comparatively recent times, but the sedentary inhabitants, the ruins of whose villages dot the country, were driven out by the Arabs, who now pasture vast herds of cattle upon it, and droves of horses which are fattened here after their journey from Mesopotamia previous to being exported to Egypt. The course of the line across this region has not been definitely fixed, but it will probably take as southern a direction as possible, so as to tap the grain-growing country of the Hauran. There may possibly be a short branch to Mezrib, which is the principal grain emporium, and one of the most important halting-places on the great pilgrimage road from Damascus to Mecca. It is calculated that the transport of grain alone from this region to the coast will suffice to pay a large dividend upon the capital required for the construction of the road, which will be about one hundred and thirty miles in length. I do not remember the number of tons annually conveyed on the backs of camels to Acre and Haifa, but I have seen thousands of these ungainly animals collected at the gates of both those towns during the season, and the amount must be something enormous. This does not include the whole of the Damascus trade, which now finds its way by the French carriage road across the Lebanon to Beyrout, and which will all be diverted to the railway, or the produce of the rich country it traverses between the sea-coast and the Jordan.

The grantees have also secured the right to put steam-tugs upon the Lake of Tiberias, and under the influence of this new means of transportation the desolate shores will undergo transformation. The great plain of Genesareth, across which I rode a month ago, is now a waste of the most luxuriant wild vegetation, watered by three fine streams, besides being well supplied with springs. It was celebrated of old for the amount and variety of its produce, and I have no doubt is again destined to be so. The plains in which Bethsaida and Capernaum stood formerly are all covered with heavy vegetation which conceals the extensive ruins of the cities which once adorned them; and there is a fine back country within easy reach of the lake which will send its produce to it as soon as means of transportation are provided. At present there are only half a dozen sailing-boats on the lake, rather a contrast from the time when Josephus collected no fewer than two hundred and thirty war-ships with which to attack Tiberius in the war against the Romans; and the fish with which it abounded in the days of the miraculous draught are more miraculously numerous than ever, for fishing as an industry has almost ceased to exist, and the finny tribe are left undisturbed. There are some celebrated sulphur baths also on the shores of the lake and within two miles of the town, which are visited annually by thousands of patients. I was there during the bathing season, and found them camped in tents on the margin of the lake, or sweltering in the fetid atmosphere of the one large bathing-room, in which a crowd of naked and more or less cutaneous patients were disporting themselves.

The surveying party tell me that they received the greatest kindness and hospitality from the Arabs in the Jordan valley, who were of a sedentary tribe, and cultivated the land, and who looked forward with pleasure to the advent of a railway, and to the chances of employment which it afforded them. Indeed, both natives and foreigners are not a little excited at the prospect which is now being opened to them, and which promises to be the dawn of a new era of prosperity for the country.

NOTE.—Since the above was written, the concession has lapsed in consequence of difficulties which arose at the last moment in the formation of the company for carrying out the enterprise; but it is again in process of renewal, and I have little doubt but that it will be ultimately accomplished.

SAFED.

Haifa, July 10.—Next to Jerusalem, the city most highly venerated by the Jews in Palestine is Safed. I had occasion to visit it a few weeks ago on my way to a colony of Russian and Roumanian Jews which has been established in the neighbourhood. Perched on the summit of a mountain nearly three thousand feet high, it is one of the most picturesquely situated towns in the country; and there is a tradition to the effect that it was alluded to by Christ as “the city that is set on a hill, and cannot be hid,” when he preached the Sermon on the Mount, the mount being supposed to be one of the Horns of Hattin, a remarkably shaped hill.

The whole of this district is indeed full of romantic scenery. It is a country of wild gorges and huge precipices, which escape the attention of the traveller following the beaten routes, and to most of them associations are attached, investing them with an interest beyond that of a mere scenic character. There is, for instance, the Wady Hammam, where the bluffs are about twelve hundred feet high, perforated with caves, communicating with each other by passages concealed in the rock, once the abode of bands of robbers who lived like eagles in their eyries. Looking up at these holes in the cliff some seven or eight hundred feet above me, I tried to picture the terrible battle which was once fought in mid-air between the denizens of these caves and the soldiers whom Herod let down the face of the cliff in baskets to attack them. The desperate nature of the struggle, as the soldiers strove to make good their foothold on the edge of the caves, and the frenzy with which the robbers, who had no loophole of escape, must have defended themselves as they endeavoured to hurl their assailants from their baskets, suggested a scene which was quite in keeping with the gloomy character of the surroundings. Some of the more accessible of these caves have been occupied at a later period by hermits, and they may have been utilized for military purposes at the time of the crusades, but they have never been thoroughly explored.

Just before reaching Safed there is a rock called Akhbera, which rises five hundred feet sheer up from the path, and is also full of similar caves. Josephus mentions having fortified it. However prepossessing Safed may look from a distance, it does not bear a close acquaintance. Down the centre of every street runs an open sewer, which renders it the most odoriferous and pestiferous place that it has ever been my fate to sleep in. The aspect of the population is in keeping with the general smell. One seems transported into the ghetto of some Roumanian or Russian town, with a few Eastern disagreeables added. The population here have not adopted the Oriental costume as they have at Tiberias, but wear the high hats, greasy gabardines, and ear-curls of the Jews of Europe. Instead of Arabic, one hears nothing in the streets but “jargon,” as the dialect used by the Jews in eastern Europe is called. The total population of _Ashkenazim_, or German Jews, who are hived in this unenviable locality, is between five and six thousand; besides these there are about twelve hundred _Sephardim_, or Spanish Jews, who wear Oriental costumes, and in the other quarter of the town from six to seven thousand Moslems, making the total number of inhabitants about fourteen thousand.

As there is nothing approaching to a hotel or boarding-house in the place, I was of course dependent on the native hospitality for board and lodging, and thus able to acquire an insight into the mode of life of rather a curious section of the human family. The majority of the Jews here are supported by a charitable fund called the Haluka, which is subscribed to by pious Jews all over the world as a sacred duty, for the purpose of providing support to those of their coreligionists who come here or to Jerusalem to pass the last years of their lives in devotional exercises, and to die on the sacred soil. The practical result of this system is to maintain in idleness and mendicancy a set of useless bigots, who combine superstitious observance with immoral practice, and who, as a rule, are opposed to every project which has for its object the real progress of the Jewish nation. Hence they regard with alarm the establishment of agricultural colonies, or the inauguration of an era of any kind of labour by Jews in Palestine. They are bitterly hostile to schools in which any secular teaching is carried on, and agree with those Western Jews who consider that any scheme for developing the material resources of Palestine by means of Jewish industry is fantastic and visionary. It is due to the Jewish population of Safed to say that this spirit does not prevail among the younger members of it. There are about a hundred young Safed Jews who actually work as day-labourers on the farms of Moslems and Christians, and I was informed by one of the most liberal of the rabbis, the only one, in fact, who was inclined to promote Jewish agriculture, that about two hundred families in Safed were desirous of being established on farms, while several had owned land and cultivated it, and only abandoned it at last for want of protection against the extortionate demands of Turkish tax-gatherers. It is true that most of the Jews at Safed are under the protection of some European power, but until lately no power has taken sufficient interest in the race to raise a Jewish question with the Turkish government. Now that important political interests are to be subserved by doing so, and the destiny of Palestine is likely to become a crucial point in the Eastern question, both Russia and France are seizing every excuse for interference and complaint, and the questions which are constantly arising in regard to their Jewish _protégés_, both in Tiberias and Safed, are likely to furnish them with the pretexts they desire.

When I was in Safed, Russia was actively espousing the cause of a young Jew who had accidentally shot a Moslem, and over whom the Turkish government claimed jurisdiction, on the ground that, though a Russian, he had repudiated his allegiance to Russia. As the youth was not of age at the time, the Russian government still claimed the right to protect him in Turkey, though it had not exercised this right in Russia itself, from which country he had been compelled to flee for his life. As I rode through the village where the accident had taken place, in company with some Jews, we were pelted by the Moslem population, and, although the release of the boy is now certain, he will probably be compelled to leave the country, unless the relatives of the deceased Moslem can be pacified with the blood-money that has been offered them.

Jauna, which was the name of the village to which I was bound, was situated about three miles from Safed, in a gorge, from which, as we descended it, a magnificent view was obtained over the Jordan valley, with the Lake of Tiberias lying three thousand feet below us on the right, and the waters of Merom, or the Lake of Huleh, on the left. The intervening plain was a rich expanse of country, only waiting development. The new colony had been established about eight months, the land having been purchased from the Moslem villagers, of whom twenty families remained, who lived on terms of perfect amity with the Jews. These consisted of twenty-three Roumanian and four Russian families, numbering in all one hundred and forty souls. The greater number were hard at work on their potato-patches when I arrived, and I was pleased to find evidences of thrift and industry. A row of sixteen neat little houses had been built, and more were in process of erection. Altogether this is the most hopeful attempt at a colony which I have seen in Palestine. The colonists own about a thousand acres of excellent land, which they were able to purchase at from three to four dollars an acre. The Russians are establishing themselves about half a mile from the Roumanians, as Jews of different nationalities easily get on well together. They call the colony Rosch Pina, or “Head of the Corner,” the word occurring in the verse, “The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner.”

MEIRON.

Haifa, July 20.—One of the most interesting and little-known spots in Palestine is the famous shrine of Jewish pilgrimage called Meiron. Hither, in the latter part of the month of May, Hebrews resort in vast numbers from all parts, especially of the East, and as many as two thousand are often encamped there at a time. It is situated in a wild part of the mountains of central Galilee, on the edge of the most fertile plateau in the whole district, where the villages are surrounded by the most luxuriant gardens and groves, and the peasantry are in a more prosperous condition than I have seen elsewhere. Meiron itself is a wonderfully romantic spot; perched at an elevation of twenty five hundred feet above the sea, upon the northeastern flank of a high spur of the Jebel Jermuk range, it commands a magnificent view of the surrounding country, with the town of Safed, towering on its mountain-top, distant about five miles. A clear, brawling stream tumbles in a series of small cascades down the narrow gorge, which expands just here sufficiently to allow of some orchards of apricots, figs, and pomegranates; and near a spreading weeping-willow there is a picturesque old flour-mill, which turns to advantage so unusual a supply of water-power. A hundred yards or so above it is the spot sacred to Jewish devotees. A large, oblong courtyard, around which runs a broad stone balcony, upon which open chambers crowned with domes, marks the site of the burial-places of some of the most celebrated rabbis of Jewish history, and forms a sort of caravansary for the pilgrims. It was not the moment of the pilgrimage at the time of my visit, and I had a choice of chambers. Two of these had been fitted up most comfortably for my benefit, with beds and tables, by the Safed Jews who accompanied me, and who did the honours of the place. It was no doubt the sacredness of the tombs at Meiron which was the cause of Safed being constituted a Jewish colony and a holy city. Here are situated the tombs of the Rabbi Jochanan Sandelar, of the celebrated Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai, the reputed author of the book of the Sohar, and the Father of the Cabalists. Here repose the remains of his son, the Rabbi Eleazer; but more celebrated than all are the sepulchres of the great saints and doctors, Shammai and Hillel. The thirty-six pupils of the latter were buried with him. He founded a school of morals immediately prior to the birth of Christ; and, indeed, it is maintained by Jews that all the ethics of Christianity are to be found in the teaching of Hillel, to which Christ simply gave a more forcible expression than it had hitherto received.