The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1880-09-18
THE SEARCH FOR PARADISE.
4 story Told I'm syrian Monastery

Sunrise over Jerusalem; the dark
ramparts of the citadel, with their blue
frocked Turkish sentries, looking stern
ly down upon the network of narrow,
dusty streets and tall, fat-roofed, for
tress-hke houses; the huge round dome
of the Mosque of Omar looming like a
thunder cloud over the deep fosse-ike
Valley of Jehoshaphat; Mount Oliyet,
topped by the gray wall of the Russian
convent, standing boldly out against
the bright eastern sky; the Hill OF Sco-
pus, farther to. the north, still green
and beautiful as when Titus and his de-
stroying legions encamped there eigh-
teen centuries ago; and four horsemen,
in white turbans and soiled linen jack
cts. issuing from the deep shadowy
archway Of the Jaffa Gate.
az say. Jack, hadn't you better
change your mind after alp" says one
of my English comrades, looking anx-
iously at his friend pale face and heavy
eyes. ats whole days ride to Jaffa
and you Dere pretty bad last night, you
know. Are you quite sure you can
stand ite'
81 don't know if I can," replies the
invalid, with a logged John-Bun COM
preston of his firm lips, "but l know !
viii. anyhow
Or native guide, Ibrahim (Abraham)
Mordecai, shakes his gray head mean
ingly, but says nothing, and away we
60.
Onward, ever onward-past wave
after waveo of dark, ridgy upland-past
clustering vineyards that line both
sides of the road for hundreds of yards
together, tantalizing my comrades with
the sight Of magnificent grapes, which
are still far too unripe to be eaten
past the rocky gorge of Abu- Gosh, with
its quaint little robber-viilage perched
like q vulture's nest halfway up q
frowning clif'-till at length the hills
are left behind and we look down upon
the beautiful PLAIN of Sharon, where,
after so many centuries of Moslem neg
1ect and misrule, the standing corn still
reaches to the saddle-bow of q horseman
as he rides through it.
But we have seen too much of Pales-
tine to judge it by the g sample-show"
which it offers to holiday tourists.
Riding beneath these telegraph wires,
along this broad post-road, one might
dream of civilization; but divergence
of single mile from the track will
show the laden camel plodding through
the sand, the yelled woman bearing her
pitcher on her head from the well, the
half-clad " Fellah'' tending his black
dwarfish goats, the gaunt, fierce-eyed
Bedouin rushing at fnil-gallop along the
brink of q precipice, with his striped
mantle streaming in the wind, and his
sixteen-foot lance of cane in his hand,
as in the days when Abraham was still
aroying sAeikh on the Chaldean steppes.
Palestine has no present-everything
which you look upon is of the past. Ruins
everywhere--the ruins of Canaanite
cities, of Roman aqueducts, of Byzan-
tine converts, of Arab villages; splep-
did monuments half-buried in sand,
tombs of ancient kings filed with dirt
and rubbish. spots of worldwide re-
nown tenanted BY filthy savages--such
are the characteristic features of the
Holy Land!
Such, too, they must inevitably be
till some well-constituted administra-
ton shall replace the organized brigand-
age of the Turk. The present system
is merely scale of graduated robbery.
The Grand Vizier takes toll from the
Governor General, the Governor-Gen-
eral taxes the Pashas, the Pashas fleece
their subalterns, the subalterns plumber
the people; and, considering that the
latter are burdened not merely with the
Government impost of ten per cent,
but with countless other exactions for
the benefit of the local officials, it is
wonderful how the poor wretches con-
trive to exist at all.
Our midday meal, in the shade of a
spreading tree, is delightfully."- refresh
ing after the hot, dusty ride ofthe morn
ing. But it is now evident that this
constant jolting up and down hill under
. vertical sun, has been too much for
our invalid member, who, though he
still bears up with true Anglo-Saxon
pluck, is msnifestly almost played