The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-07-20

ing all manner of stone structures Iney have to depend upon stone as they have no wood. AS you remember, when King Solomon's temple was being built the timbers had to be brought from the Leb- anon mountains, distance of about 0oo miles. These were floated down by sea to Joppa and transported from there overland to Jerusalem. From this an cient description, with which we gre familiar. we can realize that wood IS not very plentiful in Palestine, and the wonderful art of the people ot Palestlhe for masonry is thus understood.
 .sIn Jerusalem" said Captain Carson mo one thing has occupied the center of the stage in history more than the water supply. Away back in time of Hezekiah, I don't know the exact time' but it was perhaps 5000 years ago, Jeru- salem was only village, perhaps clus- ter of low, stone houses built on top or 1, a stony hill-Mount Moriah There Is a snrine on the east side of this hill that has an intermittent flow This spring 1 flows an hour or two and then VIII s'op | for a few hours and then flow asah''
 This Is due to a siphonic formation Tn the rock structure which gives II an m 1 ternittent flow. Hezekiah was, Hhe
 many kings, much besieged by the ar
 r,;es of other cities or tribes, and ne 1 found that he could not get water rom
 this intermittent spring at the bottom oi the hill when there was an army sur rounding the city. So at great expense and probably half lifetime ne CUT | structed a tunnel rur,ning through the so,;s rock to the southwest side of the hill, which was then within the old bat
 tie walls of Jerusalem. This tunnel car
 ries the water through, and today emp ties into the Pool of Sioam. It saved
 the day for Hezekiah, who was thereos ab,e to get water for himself ana ms
 neople while the city was being be-
 sieged.
 "1n December I went into Syria, sale
 Captain Carson. land there for the HTS
 time I saw people actually starVlhg U
 death Over 15o,Ooo had died Of starVa
 tion and so many died during the win
 tAr that they could not be ourleo, s'
 great holes were blasted out and al
 many as 1o bodies were buried in on
 of these. In Beirut conditions were eS
 tremely bad and I often heard rom tn
 ups of refugees who were pelng care'
 for hv the Red Cross and the Brltlsl army of occupation the most shockih
 and pathetic accounts Of now the' homes had been destroyed and tnei
 mothers. sisters and closest relative
 were murdered by the unspeakable Turk
 or tortured before their very eyes.
 Many thousands of the refnsees'
 said Captain Carson, from Armenia ha . been cared for, fed and sheltered an
 provided work by the American He
 Cross in Palestine, and it was from on
 of these Armenians, Joseph David Shlki
 now living with his father at Beirut, tha
 l I heard story which will tell you nearly in his own words as l can.
 .This Armenian' said Captain Car son, "in telling me the story said this 7 My village-Ki1lis-,iesa about "A m'le north of Nardin, which is now con nected with the outer world by rail
 way joining the famous Bagdad line' e Tn this, my birthplace, the inhabltan' : were not nationally Armenians; tn /. majority were Syriacs. an ancient rae g linhabiting the same country as tn Armenians. The minority were Prot l, estants and were originally Syrine
 also: the common language of th n village was Arabic. differing from tn s Arabic language as spoken in Syri' IT being mixed with Kurdish. Turkish an It old Syriac words and idioms.'
 e "Now. to explain to stranger tn It peculiar religious situation that ha e existed in Turkey for almost thcs d sand years, it must be understood th1 the Kurds. being Mohammedans, na d urally hate like poison the Armenian r. or Christians as a whole. Whilst the; o Kurds have been suppressed man 70 times by civilized Britain and Ame' l. lea. they nevertheless were anxiousl ' Dawaiting an opportunity to completsl