The age-herald., 1901-04-07
Copyrighted by the Christian Heraid)

Copyrighted by the Christian Herald)
 NTOUCHED throughout the long
 esp5sssf os by ,ns .ns nass ssls a " at last yielding up it's ancient forms and usages before the march of Western improvement. Already railroads and telegraphs thread the valleys and plains of Palestine, and modern hoteis have sprung up in some of the oldest ana most venerated places mentioned in sa- cred history. Across the ancient battle fields, where once the hosts of Israel with their chariots and their horsemen" con tended with their enemies, the iron steed of civilization now goes puffing and snort ing. with its carloads of passengers, to the dlsmay of those natives who are not yet quite accustomed to the new order of things. From Damascus to Jerusalem IS no longer tedious caravan journey Tor one can go comfortably by rail In few hours So rapidly is the network Of shin ing rails extending, that soon the Holy Land will be a comparatively simple problem for the tourist in comparison with the days when the awkward camel back was the popular style of travel.
 Even Nazareth, the beautiful little Vil- lage in the hill country, where Jesus was brought up. has not escaped the modern invasion. Nazareth has now It's telegraph office where an Armenian op- orator. in ordinary European dress, keeps the village community in touch with the great world. When the proprietor of the Christian Herald visited Nazareth during his tour of the Holy Land he handed to the operator the first cable message ever | filed there for transmission to the United | States. The operator hesitated, and de- | clined to receive it. After telegraphing to Beyrout however to ascertain the rate, 1 he sent the message. which, speeding from | the little curtained office in Nazareth, | clicked its way to it's destination in New | York.
 l Dr. N K Jamel, native of Palestine, | now in this country, but who has lately revisited his own land. has furnished to the Christian Herald this interesting de- scription of Nazareth as it is today:
 "As the town is approached from the south 1t presents very pretty sight, nes- 1 tied along the brow and slope or a h1ll facing directly east. and the spotless white buildings looking refreshingly pie turesque The quaint, odd-looking dwell- ings with their flat roofs are here and | there interspersed with red-tiled slanting l roofed buildings-the tiles fresh from the factories of Marseilles, France. As Ori- | ental cities go, Nazareth is remarkably l clean and nealtny, III IaCt, Ill Wuo Nisii 1 the town are loud in their praises on that | score.
 During harvest time. between June | and August, the first sight that meets the | eyes of whoever enters the town from the i south is a great threshing floor. This Is | a perfectly level twenty-acre piece of l ground where the newly reaped crops of wheat, barley and lent!ls are gathered in sheaves and piled in separate heaps, each being of larger or smaller proportions ac- cording as 1t represents an individual far | mer's harvest returns for the season. As the heaps stand thus they are ready for threshing, which process is formed by leveling off the borders of the pile to a depth of one foot and a width of five to six feet. Then horses, asses or mules are driven or ridden, singly or in pairs, round and round the heap, grinding and tramp ling under foot the grain out of the ears and the stalks Into chaff until the heap Is thoroughly threshed. It is then gathered up and removed separately, and another
 part of the heap is leveled off for th'
 threshing process. This Is kept up unti
 all the heap is done, when the newly
 threshed pile is fit for winnowing. Thi
 work Is very tedious, as in fact are al
 the various departments of field labor fl
 Palestine, for the farmers are destitute O