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Show Spirits of Ancient I Tourists Visualized in Historic. Lands Trip on Ramshackle Military Railroad Over the Oldest Route Known to History Is Vividly Portrayed. By WILLIAM T. ELLIS. (Copyright, 1919, by the New York Herald 1 Company All Rights Preserved.) (Copyright, Canada, by the New York Herald Company.) By WILLIAM T. ELLIS. JERUSALEM. Aug. 8. I have been spending a night with ghosts of the great. Between Cairo and Jerusalem Jerusa-lem runs a new railway, and from the Suez canal on to Gaza the line Is laid across the desert. It Is a military road, using discarded Egyptian state railway rail-way stock, and the sleeping cars are merely benches on which the passenger rolls up In his blanket and wishes he oould sleep. It was during this experience that I visited sociably with some famous ghosts. For "the cars and the rails combine to rattle one's bones until they turn to water, and the dust of the desert covers and chokes one well nigh to suffocation. Far be It from me to complain. Better men than I by the myriad have crossed these waterless wastes afoot, through terrible days; and many left their bones in the sand during recent campaigns. cam-paigns. The present railway is a historic feat; a link in world communication that has gone unnoticed by the western world. Egypt has now been collected up with Syria and Babylonia,. . and . Asia Minor, which means with the whole of Europe. Oldest Route in World. Much space has been given in print to the Cape to Cairo railway project, which will not be realized for decades, and, at the best, creates a new and artificial highway. Quite different is the already accomplished ac-complished new Palestine railroad system, sys-tem, which runs' over tile oldest routes In history, and connects the lands which were trading -by caravan at the beginning begin-ning of written records. These are the regions of romance and religion, the ancient an-cient centers of the world. It is now practically possible for, say, King George to get aboard his private car at London, and barring possible dlf- ! ference in gauge by being ferried across the English channel and the Bosphorus (on both of which straits railway ferries have been operating during the war), travel without once leaving his own car straight to LUxor on the Nile, where are the famous tombs of the kings, to excite philosophical musings in the mind of a monarch. On the way from Condon to Luxor King George could have stopover privileges at Paris and Vienna and Belgrade and Sofia and Constantinople and Baalbeck and Damascus and Jerusalem and Cairo, not to mention lesser point of interest. He could from Aleppo take a side trip half way or, go all the way to the city of the Arabian Nights in his private car. Great Railway System. That is to say, Europe, Asia and Africa are now actually linked in one intercontinental intercon-tinental railway system. What once was regarded as a difficult and dangerous journey by caravan Is today a mere matter mat-ter of railway accommodations. The manner In which time is now annihilated anni-hilated by these new methods of communication com-munication Is shown by the simple statement state-ment that I left Cairo at 6:15 o'clock in the evening and was In Jerusalem by noon of the next day. Or, if one does not : change cars at Ludd for Jerusalem, he I may proceed on to Haifa, past Nazareth and the Lake of Galilee, reaching Damascus Damas-cus in the evening. That is what is today being regularly done under more or less makeshift military mili-tary conditions; as soon as the new form of government for Syria is settled upon the roadbed and equipment will be improved im-proved and the trip greatly shortened. The journey from Egypt to Canaan, which took the children of Israel forty years. I have made within eighteen hours! , , Does not the prospect make the tourist's tour-ist's eyes glisten? Imagine the thrill ot . buying a through ticket from Calais to Carchomlsh, or from Paris to Pctra or from Liverpool to Jerusalem, from Philadelphia Phila-delphia Pa., to Philadelphia, Asia Minor; from Memphis, Tenn., to Memphis. , Egypt; from Cairo, 111., to Cairo, Lgypt; from Babylon, 111., to Babylon, Mesopo-1 tai"'h'ave personally been in all these places, and I know the rail connections. The question Is no longer one of railway construction, barring a short but. ""finished ""fin-ished bit of the Bagdad railway lines in Mesopotamia, but only of commercial tourist organization. Images Called Up. These very names call up Images of nearly all the characters one has studied about In the Bible or in classical history. A journcv such as I have indicated and Americans will flock hither as soon as passports are available-seems like traveling through centuries upon an e.v- . """person' will soon be able comfortably to make the round trip from New lorlt Cltv to Constantinople, Bagdad. Damas- cus, Jerusalem, Cairo and Luxor, all within with-in the space of six weeks. I nave figured out the schedule thirty-four days for actual ac-tual travel, from New York, through Asia Minor and Syria to Luxor, Egypt, including includ-ing the Bagdad side trip; and eight days for sightseeing. This, though, does not take into account ac-count any other methods or speeds of travel than those now in regular use; it disregards aeroplane possibilities, and the only serious contingency is the completion of the short, unfinished stretch of the Bagdad railway between Nisibin and Teskrit. One does not have to be a seer to envisage the army of American school teachers who will spend their vacations thus, now that it has been proved that Egypt and Palestine are perfectly habitable habita-ble in midsummer. Ride With Ghosts. But to my own personal ghosts. As I have said, my ride, from the Suez canal, and the great tented city of Kantara, to Lud (the ancient Lydda, between Jaffa and Jerusalem), was a night of weary wakefulness. Out of the windows I could see, beneath a glorious moon, the limitless limit-less white expanse of the desert. Sand and dust, dust and sand everywhere; the world's greatest rampart and barrier, up until the time when the war's airplanes vanquished it. In the spectral moonlight the desert is a solemnizing and rather eerie place. Its vastness and power fairly haunt one. While I mused whether waking or dozing doz-ing I cannot say there came to roe, In eloquent silence, the swart and stately figure of an Arab sheik, in the familiar camel's hair abeyah and headroll. I knew him at once as Abraham, who had covered this identical route with his family fam-ily and his flocks. The spectral apparition uttered not a word; but the presence brought to mind the Genesis story, and the realization that this first book . in the Bible is a place book, and that my route had been Abraham's route first. It must have been at Beersheba, the place of the seven wells, and the edge of the desert, That Abraham's son Isaac; whiter, weaker and more eager for .my good opinion, stood before me in his father's fa-ther's stead; and the shadowy shape in the background was Rebecca, who, despite de-spite her habit as an Oriental woman of keeping as far out of sight as possible, I knew to be a stronger personaJity than her husband. ' Many Pass in Review. Before my mental vision passed a caravan cara-van of camels, in charge of an unwashed Bedouin, and admist them, proud though a prisoner, walked a handsome youth, l cloakless, whom I knew for Jacob's fa- I vorite son, Joseph. Destiny, unseen, marched beside him, for, though baggage- ' less, he carried the salvation of two nations, na-tions, i Scarcely had he gone from my troubled i vision before his brothers passed in two expeditions, to bear all unwittingly a vindication vin-dication for Joseph in exchange for the food that they got from Egypt. Jacob, aged, haggard, querulous and jnfirm, followed fol-lowed after. Then, with no ""perceptible interval of time, there passed, spread out : over the shadowy sands, a multitude of people 'men, women and children the wandering of the Israelites over this dreary waste. Perhaps it was the dust choking me that brought confusion, or the pounding of the rattletrap car upon bumpy rails, but there followed an indescribable jumble of ghosts, mostly warriors and caravans. Pharaohs : and Caesars, Persian and Babylonian generals, gen-erals, Macedonians and Phoenicians, Crusaders Cru-saders and Mongols, plodded across these trackless sands, bent on conquest and glory and riches. What a highway this heart breaking expanse of sand between Syria and Egypt has been since ever mankind man-kind began to move in bands! Holy Family in Flight. It must have been at EI Arish, where the sound of Mediterranean surf and the sweet savor of green growing things soothed my semiwaking consciousness, that the hurly burly of ghostly figures I passed away; and, instead, resting be- . neath a green palm tree, with a hobbled donkey browsing near upon tufts of vegetation, vege-tation, 1 saw a little family group a grave and bearded man, solicitous for his young wife, little more than a girl, whose face shone with the beauty of spirituality; i ' and near them, eagerly interested in a big; i darting lizard of sparkling eyes and ; 1 vivid colors, was a baby boy. 1 j It was the Holy family, fleeing to Egypt, I that immemorial land of refuge, from the murderous wrath of Herod. The route of, i the railway upon which I rode also was j I the route of Joseph and Mary and Jesus. : While musing vaguely and semiwake- i i fullv of this little family group of trav- J j elers, as contrasted with all the armies, i and conquerors who had passed this way, j il must have fallen asleep; for the next; I conscious experience 1 had was the halt , of the train amid the British soldiers at ! Gaza and I never once saw the ghost of Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza! The desert was pa?t and I was entering upon pastoral and agricultural scenes from the Book of Judges including Ruth ; gleaning after the reapers. j |