The Pulaskian., 1920-09-16


Redouins
~ NOE upon time Moses took
~ 40 years TO travel from Egypt
~ into the Promised Land. To.
day the Palestine Military
railway is doing it between midnight
and dawn every day of the week,
writes Clair Price in Asia | stood at
my carriage window, entering Pales-
tine to the ELECTROMAGNETIC of 30 miles
an hour. Below me, the rails were
bedded in golden sand up the slope
of which the green of the adjacent
fields lay like surf on a yellow beach.
Judd was small railroad yard in
vast pool of sand. with Welsh coal
cinders speaking its yellow eXpanse.
With its passengers leaning out its
windows calling into the station
crowd "Ya weled" the Officers Spe-
cial pulled in ON its way to Haifa
shortly after seven o'clock and came
TO a dignified stop alongside the little
"jerk-water" train for Jerusalem.
An Arab weled wearing a fez and a
station porter's brassard, strapped
my luggage to his head. transferred it
to the Jerusalem train, demanded
tip of ten piastres $50 cents), accept
ed half the amount and was finally
routed with the wrathful air of a man
who has staked gold mine and has
found it contained only quartz. The
Jerusalem train consisted of London
& Southwestern locomotive and three
ancient Egyptian State Railways pas
seuQer cars, bearing on their wooden
sides the chalked words which desig-
mated them for Officers" "batmen"
and civilians"
Arrival at Jerusalem.
! finally lost interest in the fidgety
train and went to sleep. 1t was an
Arab porter's "Khowajah, khowajah,"
which brought me bolt upright and
awake. He was gathering up my lug
gage The rest of the passengers had
left I followed him out of the ear
and into the crowd of British soldiers
in pith helmets and shorts, Egyptian
military policemen in fezzes and
shorts, Baluchistan soldiers in turbans
and shorts, Zionists in khaki drill and
native porters who moved about on
the fenced-off platform. My porter
led me into the cool dusk of the Gus
toms barrier, on toward the quaran-
tine barrier and thence around to the
area of the station. Jerusalem was
nowhere in sight. climbed into an
arbuggy, with eyes narrowed to Sits
against the glare of the limestone sur
faces, and was driven away from the
station at gallop to the accompani-
ment of q furious jangling of bells
and the harsh grinding of iron tires
on crushed limestone road. We
rounded the low hill and sighted
Jerusalem a mile away--a savage
ravine ribboned with glaring white
roads and crowded on the farther
slope by a huge modern German
church with a brief length of ancient
gray wall retiring modestly beyond it.
On the very roof of Palestine, over
looking the Dead sea, a quarter of a
mile below the keels of the craft off
Jaffa. the walled city of Jerusalem
lies between the Hinnom and Jehosha
phat ravines. as New York city lies
between the North and East rivers 1t
overffows into a dusty red-and-white
modern suburb to the north, as New
York overfiows into the Bronx.
Haifa's New Importance.
The physical Jerusalem is small,
but the spiritual Jerusalem is the
scene of such world panorama that,
although l went there to stay a day or
two should be there yet had | not
cast a fleeing glimpse at the expense
account. With a movement order TO
Haifa. | finally drove back to the
Jerusalem station one evening, and,
feeling like Ali Bahia returning to
stark world after six miraculous
weeks in the Robbers Cave, boarded
the fussy little train that conveys of
fcers. over the Jerusalem-Ludd line.
Haifa is like Atlantic City in the
wash of its surf. It is like Florida in
the wide. white streets of its German
colony, 1t is like Manitou in its green
slopes Of Mount Carmel It is like the
orient In the narrow, yaulted streets
of its native quarter. The war has
made it the keystone of that vast arch