Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-08-17
Geographic News
Bulletins by the
National Geographic Society
Transjordania: Where the Desert is
"A Friend

Iransjordania: Where the Desert is
"A Friend
Where is Transjordania, and what
is it?
These questions arise as Transfer
DANA appears more frequently in
date lines since Great Britain con-
nrmed Emir Abdullah nominal ruler
OF the province.
Another name for Transjordania
is the Emirate of Kerak," says a
bulletin from the Washington head
quarters of the \ .ional Geographic
Society. Geographically it is easy
to locate-it is an area, almost as
large as the State of Maryland, ly-
ing between the River Jordan and
the Syrian desert.
A Political Enigma
Politically, Transjordania's af-
fairs have been highly complicated
since the armistice. On the border
land of French and British influence,
feeling the native pull of Syria, He'd
JAZZ, Palestine, and Mesopotamia, and
now a center of Arabian national
lists, h has awakened with a jolt
from her age-lons tranquility.
"A small river, like hundreds
across which modern trains dash
with scarcely a rumble to mark
their passage, has separated Trans
jordania and Western Palestine from
the time of Moses till today.
"Transjordania is the home Of
paradoxes, where Arab tents, long
symbols of transitory residence, have
persisted while rich Roman ruins,
once the gatherin" places of cultur-
ed crowds, have disappeared: where
the desert, which to so many signi-
fies death, has furnished a welcome
haven IN MANY IN whom tho mar.
row Jordan seems an impossible
gulf.
Why Jordan is a Barrier
ITO civilization, the deepest and
swfftest river is only an incident.
But the trackless desert is a barrier,
not easily passed. Not so in Trans
jordania. Up on it's high plateau,
swept by refreshing breezes, the des-
ert is a neighbor so near that none
can say just where its boundary lies.
With the changing seasons, the
boundary moves with the population
and the crops and flocks. But the
deepest depression of the Jordan is
a permanent barrier across which
the commerce of the ages has flowed
but which has turned back the shep-
herd to his cooler hills and open
plains.
sheep and camels can easily ZEN
ture out into the desert. following
the changing fodder line according
to the season. But few travers the
great cash lich yawns Zen the
Mount of Olives and the heights of
pisgah.
THE city has rs traffic rules, en-
forced by agents f the law. Not so
the desert village in the land Of Gill
cad or the Ammonites. There the
traffic shifts in keeping with the
movements of the sun. SHEPHERD
and camel-driver seek the shifting
shadows of the scanty shelters.
ThriveS on Cha.-seS; Remains
Changeless
"Transjordania is the land of the
impermanent. 1t thrives on changes
which change it not. Cities have
risen and fallen, highways been Ia
b%oriously constructed only to fall in
to disrepair nor impasse BILE than
the surrounding fields.
"Nomad tents, long since the
poetic symbol of transitory residence,
continue to dot the plain while rich
less attacks of Arab or Circassian, to
whom a beautiful carving is only
quarried stone. The theatre of Am
man and the Naumachia of Jerash,
once the gathering places of multi
tudes of leisurely folk who boasted
in their civilization, are being ruth
lessly destroyed by those whose
main demand of a dwelling is thai
it shall outlast its builders imme-
date need.
"Gilead is there, with its oaks. The
Hauran with it's rich fields of grain,
unshaded by a single r except
those few semi-sacred monarchs
which shelter the tiny tombs of long
dead saints. There, too, is the land
of the Ammonites, whittier David
sent Uriah."