The herald. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1905-1953, 1922-10-05

.&&N1

and honey" appropriately describe,
the best 1t has to offer, for sheep anC
goats can thrive on the thin herbag,
that covers the hills. and the numer
Gus aromatic plants furnish plenty OF
excellent food for the bees; but II 4.
nearly all thin pasture. for the land
Is dry and the soil mostly shallow
The sheep and goats vastly Outnumber
the oxen. Woody BaShan, on the east
side of Jordan, is still the region
where one must look for the strong
. bulls.
Palestine is not beautiful country.
The classical scholar finds charms
| everywhere in Greece, land conse-
Grated to him by the genius of poets
| and philosophers. although great
part Of Greece is painfully dry and
bare. So, too, the traveller who brings
a mind suffused by reverence and piety
to spots hallOwed by religious associ-
otions sees the landscapes of the Holy
Land through a golden haze that
makes them lovely. But the scenery
of the Holy Land, taken as whole,
Is inferior, both in form and in
color, to that of northern and mid
die Italy, to that of Norway and Scot
land, to that Of the coasts of Asia
Minor, TO that Of many parts Of Cali
fornia and Washington.
The hills are flat-tOpped ridges. with
a mOnotonOus sky line. very few Of
them showing any distinctive shape.
Not a peak anywhere. and Tabor the
only summit recognizable by its form.
They are all composed Of gray or red
dish-gray limestone, bare of wood,
and often too stony for tillage. Be
tween the stones or piles or rock there
are low shrubs, and in the few weeks
of spring masses Of brilliant flowers
give rich hueS to the landscape; but
for the rest of the year all is gray or
brown. The grass Is withered away
or Is scOrched brown, and scarcely
any foliage is seen on the tops or up
per slopes of the rolling hills. It is
only in some of the valleys that one
finds villages nesting among olive
groves and orchards where plums and /
peach and almond blossoms make /
spring lovely.
Few Wells and Springs.
Arid indeed is the land. The travel /
er says with the psalmist: MY soul
longs in dry, parched land, wherein |
no water is" Wells are few, springs |
still fewer, and of brooks there are
none. for the stony chan
nels at the bottom Of the gleus have
no water except after winter rain
storm. There may probably have been
q more cOpiOus rainfall 20 or 80 CEN
turtles ago, when more woods clothed
the hillsides, and the country would
then have been more pleasing to
Northern eyes, to which mountains are
dear because rillS make music and
green boughs wave in the wind.
To this general description there are
certain exceptions which must not be
forgotten. The high ridge Of Mount
Carmel rises grandly from the sea, and
IN Its land side breaks down in bold
iecllvities and deep glens upon the
'alley through which the Kishon. an
Utmost perennial stream. finds its way
o the Bay of Acre. Here, upon the ,
Hopes of long ridge, on the other
lde of the KishOn, there is a wilder
ng forest of ancient holm oaks. all
he more beautiful because 1t is the ,
ne considerable stretch of natural ,
voOd in the whole country west of .
Ordan.
III Palestine Is not land of natural ,
'ealth nor a land of natural beauty, e.,
mat is 1t? What are the impressions :
hitch the traveller who tries to see II !,
xactly as it is carries away with him?
'oughly summed up, they are these: =.
tones, caves, tOmbs, ruins, battle
elds, sites hallOwed by traditions
II bathed In an atmosphere of legend
nd marvel. c
Never was there a country. not be-
X an absolute desert, so stony. The
hlSldes seem one mass Of loose rocks =
irger or smaller. Me olive yards ana
Vineyards are full of stones. Even ,
lie cornhelds Except in the alluyial =
oil or the plain Of Esdraelon and j
long the sandy coast) seem TO have o
ore pebbles than earth, so that one a
onders how crops so good as one o
sees can spring up. Caves s.
'e everywhere, for limestone is the II
'evailing rock, and 1t is the rock K
which the percolation Of rain makes o.
efts and hOllows and caverns most
equent.