The Monticellonian., 1918-01-11

The town was once fired by the Ro- man governor of Syria, and it's destruc- ton, invited by the instruction of the Jews, caused many of the latter to re- sort to thievery, piracy and brigandage. More than 5000 of them had been put to the sword, and the remainder be- came outlaws.
 Mecca for Pilgrims.
 Vespasian put a stop to this sort of thing by attacking a band of the thieves, and massacring more than 1000 of them. Then he built a fort and around this new city sprang up.
 Later for the first time Jaffa became virtually a Christian city. It had been pagan and Jewish by turns, but now it was raised to bishopric. Fidus was the bishop, and he was present Ut the Synod of Lydda in 415 and at the Council of Ephesus in 43f.
 It now became q place for pilgrims from Europe. For centuries they ar rived and made their way to the Holy City. Many of them landed at Ces- area, further up the coast, but the biblical traditions of Jaffa caused al- most all of them to visit it's pictur- esque walls.
 In the seventh century of our era the Arabs invaded the country and then began the reign of the Saracens and Turks, which has continued, with oeca- sional periods of other occupation, un- til the present day.
 Tn al of tha nicrbt Grf1EadaS which began in the eleventh century and con tinued intermittently for 300 years, Jaffa was q prominent figure in the ae- counts. The Crusades were begun un- der the missionary work of Peter the Hermit, q French monk, who, having visited Jerusalem, found that the pil- grims were unjustly treated by being taxed highly for admission to the city of their dreams, and that they were otherwise unjustly treated by the gov ernment.
 It was customary for most of the Crusaders to land at Acre, which, while further away from Jerusalem. seemed to offer q more direct route and saf- er landing for the ships and galleys which brought the Knights Templar and Hospitallers.
 Jaffa became the advanced base for most of the operations against the Sa- racens and later the Turks at Jeru- salem.
 Taken by Napoleon.
 Napoleon in his Egyptian campaign i took the city of Jaffa, and it was there 1 that it was declared that he left his 1 soldiers to die of the plague, but he had his eye on posterity and had a picture painted depicting him in the convent of the Armenians going sym pathetically among his stricken sol diers, whom his enemies declared he poisoned when he was about to leave.
 Mehemet Ali took the town in 1882, and the Arabs were evieted by the Turks, who took the town eight years later, although in the meantime it had been laid partly waste by an earth quake in 1888.
 The guide books will tell the modern pilgrim that he may still see the ruins of the house of Simon the tanner, now covered by d mosque, and the pious may make the journey to that part of the town where the worthy Tabitha was raised by St. Peter. He may read on q signboard, "Tabitha's Quarter, ' but the exact spot where her house stood has not been transmitted to this time.
 From a small town of about 10000 population, the completion of the rail- road to Jerusalem about twenty years ago caused the city to become impor tant enough to boast of more than three times that number of inhabitants The treacherous character of the en trance by sea to the town is likely to stand in the way of its future great ness, but as one of the oldest cities ir the world it must always have fasci nation for the curious.
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