The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-01-10

M(H ASHlNGIoN, January 9--Sopo-
 MW cial)-Viscount James Bryce,
 V former British ambassador to the United States, in recent commu- nication to the National Geographic so- ciety. gives a succinct idea of the size and physical characteristics of Palestine, which is now under the protection of the British empire since the occupation oi Jerusalem A part of Niscount Bryce communication is issued by the soclety today from it's Washington headquarters in the following war geography bulletin'
 NO country has been so often or so minutely described by travellers Of all sorts of tastes and interests as Palestine has been: and this is natural, for none has excited so keen an interest for so
 long a time and in so many nations.
 "As we have all at some time or other read much about the country it may well be thought that nothing now remains 10 be said about Palestine except by arch- aeoloejsts. whose explorations of the sites of ancient cities are always bring ing fresh facts to light But if all of us have read a good deal about the Hoiy
 Land. most of us have also forgotten a
 good deal, and our ideas of the country ideas colored by sentiments of reverence and romance-are often vague and not all ways correct. "It may, therefore be worth while to
 set down in a plain and brief way the
 salient impressions which the country
 makes on a, western traveller who passes quickly through it. The broad impress
 sions are the things that remain Tn memory when most of the details nave vanished and broad impressions are Just what an elaborate description sometimes fails to convey, because they are smoth- ered urder an infinitude of details. apalestine is a tiny little country. Though the travellers handbooks prepare him to find it small it surprises him by being smaller than he expected. Taking it as the region between the Mediter- ra re can on the west and the Jordan ana Dead sea on the east. from the spurs or I ,ebarnon and Hermon on the north to the desert at Beersheba on the south, if is only llo miles long and from 50 to 60 brcad-that is to say, 1t is smaller than New Jersey, whose area is 7oOo square miles
 ",f this region large parts did not be- long to ancient Israel Their hold on the southern and northern districts was but slight, while in the southwest wide and nci. plain along the Mediterranean was occ,,pied by the warlike Philistines, who were sometimes more than match 1 for the Hebrew armies. Israel had in | fact. little more than the hill country, which lay between the Jordan on the l east and the maritime plain on the west. King David. in the days of his power, i looked down from the hill cities of Ben 1 iamin. just north of Jerusalem, upon
 Philistine enemies only 25 miles off on l the one side, and looked across the Jor-
 dan to Moabite enemies, about as far off,
 on the other.
 l Nearly all the events in the history l of Israel that are recorded in the Old Testament happened within territory
 no bigger than the state of connecticut' whose area is 4S00 square miles, ana into hardly any other country has there been crowded from the days of Abraham tvu our own so much history-that is to cav so many events that have been re- l corf,ed in the annals of mankind
 aNor is it only that Palestine Is
 reallv d small country. The traveller constantly feels as he moves about that 1 # small country. From the heights :. faw miles north of Jerusalem he
 sees. looking northward, far-on sum
 ,nit carrying snow for eight months
 ;,, the year. It is Hermon, nearly 10.- 1 ooo feet high-Hermon, whose foun .a;ns feed the rivers of Damascus.
 apnt Hermon is outside the territory i If Israel altogether, standing in the
 Hand of the Syrians so, too. it is of ! I.ebanon. We are apt to think of that mountain mass as within the country.
 because it also is frequently mentioned l in the Psalms and the Prophets; but the two ranges of Lebanon also rise beyond the frontiers of Israel lying between the Syrians of Damascus and the Phonicians of the west
 '.Perhaps it is because the maps from which children used to learn Bible geography were on large scale that most of us have failed to realize how
 narrow were the limits within which took place all those great doings that fill the books of Samuel and Kings.
 Just in the same way the classical scholar who visits Greece is surprised