The morning call., 1893-12-24

yNdlo asOs anu tue uOle6 VI lily D6Hcil anu
my camera lie before me. The sweet face
of Bethlehem Madonna looks up at me
from my table as l write. and photographs
of Bethlehem shepherds in their sheepskin
coats, registered by my camera only year
or so ago, make me think of those famous
shepherds who first saw the star the night
before Christ came. They watch their
dockS on the same plains to-day. and in
coming to Bethlehem from Jerusalem 1
drove right over the fields upon which they
lay and saw the star.
Palestine is much the same now as it was
300 years ago. The greatness of its his
tory has magnifed its size, and it is hard
to appreciate how small it is. You could
lose 1t in one of the counties of Texas.
You could ride across il in a few hours on
railroad train, and to-day second-class
ticket from Joppa to Jerusalem costs you
only 81. Between the seacOast and the
mountains lie the rich lands of the Philis-
tines. They are the famed plains of
Sharon. and they are twenty miles wide
ana sixty miles long. The mountains of
Judea would be lost in the Alleg hanies or
the Rockies, and the Mount of Olives is so
small that You can 60 out of Jerusalem.
walk past the Garden of Gethsemane and
be at It's top in an hour. Standing here
you can look clear across Palestine.
On bright day you can see the thin,
sllvery Jordan tied as a string TO the great
TN pan of the Dead Sea on your left, and
the vast. sparkling Mediterranean away
over the plains of Sharon on the right.
King David made a great fuss about his
all-days trip from Jerusalem to the ,JOr-
dan, but the dstan is only fourteen
miles, and the Sabbath days journey from
the holy city 10 Bethlehem is not more
than SIX miles. The Jews dealt in big
bgures. They looked upon everything
concerning themselves or their people
through the right end of the opera glass,
ana their Imagery is truly oriental. The
probability is that Judea never had very
large population, and it is very doubtful
whether Jerusalem was a large city in
comparison with the great capitals Of to-
day. 1t now contains just about 10000
souls, and the walls around it inclose less
than half section of land. You could
crow q the whole city on a good farm,
and Bethlehem covers hardly more than
garden patch.
Both towns lie in the hills of Judea, and
they Will show you in Jerusalem Just
where Herod lived when he got excited
about the coming of Christ and massacred
the innOcents, | walked over the same
floor upon which POntlns PLATE stood
when he gave up the Lord to be crucified.
The walls of Jerusalem are thirty-eight
feet high. They would reach to the top
of four-stOry house, and they run around
Jerusalem cutting il out in the shape of
a diamond. Outside of these walls the
steep hills run down on every side, and
across the valley formed by these you see
other hills, and the whole country is roll
ing. The big diamond inside the wall is
filled with mass OF box-shaped limestone
houses, built one on top of the other and
crowded into streets which cut each other
at all sorts of angles.
The roofs of the houses are fat. There
are no chlmneys and no windows. Many
of their rooms look like yaulted caves
tioored, walled and ceiled with stone, and
those which open on the street are of this
character. The streets have sidewalks,
and the shops are merely holes in the wall.
The streets are vaulted and winding, and
in going through them you think of the
catacombs and ppear TO be going through
densely populated that one room often
con stitutes house for family, and these
narrow streets are packed with people of
all descriptions. They are so narrow hat
no carriage can enter Jerusalem, and in
going to Bethlehem | had to walk from
my hotel through the city and out of
David's gate before could get convey
ance.
The ride from Jerusalem to Bethlehem
can be made in less than an hour. 1t is
one nf the most interesting journeys OF the
world, and il is through most interesting
country. Outside the walls OF Jerusalem
you find many new houses. They have
grown up since the building of the railroad,
and the holy city has had suburban
real-estate boom. These houses are OF
limestone. They have no gardens about
them, and the white walls ana the white.
dusty roads as they glare in the winter
sun are painful to the eye. About tbs gate
We fin 90 m a with dark -fQPad Rp6nufnc
upon them. They have guns with them,
and they scowl az you as you pass by.
Here are ragged farmers on dOnkeys
with their black and white blankets hang
ing from heir necks down over their bod
les and half covering the animals they
ride. Now you go by Russian pilgrims,
who are on their way into Jerusalem 10
worship al the Church of the Holy Sepul-
cher, and here pass turbaned MOham-
medans, who scowl at you. There are
plenty OF beggars. A barefoOted Turk
with a crate on his back yels out bach
sheesh. and behind him stand the Turkish
soldiers with guns in their hands and with
swords at their sides. 1t is motley crowd
ana you are glad when you have gotten
your way through it and out into the
country.
My trip to Bethlehem was made in the
spring. The hills were then dotted with
olive groves, whose leaves shone like
frosted silver under the bright sun of Pal
estne, and the plains through which the
road passed were covered with grass rs
green as that of old Ireland. These were
the plains on which the shepherds lay
when they saw the star, and there the
shepherds Craze their sheep to-day. saw
perhaps dozen bearded men in sheepskin
coats who were watching their flocks on
these Judean hills and their eyes were
kind and their faces full of character
In one place | saw family of four-a
husband and wife and two children
which might have represented the holy
family with the addition of John the
Baptist One child sat in the mothers
arms, another squatted cross-legged on the
ground, while the father lay on lis elbow
and looked cautiously at me as l drove
by. The faces OF all were fine, and you
will see nowhere more striking features
than those of these natives of Palestine.
1t is out in the country districts of Pales-
inc that you realize that you are in the
aDds of the Scriptures. saw dozen old
men during the journey whose pairiarchal
faces and long white boards reminded me
of Abraham. Isaac and Jacob, and an old
turbaned Syrian wearing long beard who
rode behind me on donkey made me
wonder if he was not a second BALKAN
and why his long-eared beast dii not open
its mouth and speak. Away off at the
back / was shown the site of the