Norwich bulletin., 1918-01-15
THE WAR PRIMER By National Geographic Society.

Size and Character of Palestine.-- Viscount James Bryce, former British ambassador to the United States, in a recent communication to the National Geographic Society. gives a succinct idea of the size and physical charac- teristics of Palestine, which is now under the protection of the British empire, since the occupation of Jeru- salem. A part of Viscount Bryce's communication is issued by the so- ciety today from it's Washington head quarters in the following war geo. graphy bulletin:
 "No country has been so often or so uinutely described by travellers of all sorts of tastes and interests as Pales- | tine has been and this is natural. for | nine has excited so keen an interest for so long time and in so many na- ions.
 "As we have all at some time or other read much about the country, 1t
 may well be thought that nothing now remains to be said about Palestine,
 except by archaeologists, whose ex-
 plorations of the sites of ancient cities are always bringing fresh facts to l light. But if all of us have read a good deal about the Holy 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 a1-
 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 1t. The
 broad impressions are the things that
 remain in memory when most of the
 details have vanished, and broad inn
 pressions are just what an elaborate
 description sometimes fails to convey
 because they are srnothered under ar
 infinitude of details.
 Palestine is tiny little country Though the travellers handhooks pre- } pare him to find it small. it surprises him by being smaller than he expected Taking it as the region between the Mediterranean on the west and the Jordan and Dead Sea on the east, iron the spurs of Lebanon and Hermon or ] the north to the desert at Beershebs on the south, it is only 110 miles Ions . and from 50 to 60 broad-that is to say it is smaller than New Jersey. who's area is 7.500 square miles.
 "Of this region large parts did no
 belong to ancient Israel. Their holt . on the southern and northern district | was DQG WIillS III tHO S0utIW " CS . wide and rich plain along the Mediter rariean was occupied by the wariik Philistines, who were sometimes nor than a match for the Hebrew armies 5 Israel had! in fact, little more thai s the hill country, which lay betweel I the Jordan on the east and the mari . time plain on the west. King David in the days of his power. looked dow from the hill cities of Benjamin. jus j. north of Jerusalem, upon Phiiistin n enemies only 25 miles off, on the on }, side and looked across the Jordan t
 Moabite enemies about as far off, O. s the other.
 : "Nearly all the events in the iaistor . of Israel there are recordedd in tn e Old Testament happened within a ter s ritory no bigger than the state c e Connecticut, whose area is 4,800 squar 0 miles; and into hardly any other coun . try has there been crowded from tn . days of Abraham till our own so nuc r history-that is to say, so many event n that have been recorded in the annal S of mankind.
 "Nor is it only that Palestine i
 really a small country. The travele Il constantly feels as he moves abou
 that it is small country. From tn
 heights few miles north of Jerusale7
 he sees looking northward, a faro
 summit carrying snow for eigf months in the year. It is Hermol
 nearly 10 900 feet high-Hermon,w ,whoa
 fountains feed the rivers of Damascu
 II "But Hernon is outside the territor W of Israel altogether, standing in tn
 land of the Syrians: so, too, it is ( le Lebanon. We are apt to think of tha
 countain mass as within the countr,
 because it also Is frequently mentione ,r in the Psalms and the Prophets; bt Ie the two ranges of Lebanon also ris Q beyond the frontiers of Israel lyih e, between the Syrians of Damascus an l. the Phonecians of the west.
 ni Perhaps it is because the maps frol le which children used to learn Bib
 geography were on a large scale tfe l-f most of us have failed to realize ho