| Show NORTHERN PALESTINE the beautiful sea of gallic gallice ruins of capernaum 4 waters of Cir sarea philip the teut dwelling cruses primie alte I 1 I 1 ATHENS may cana of galileo galilee attracts the traveler from ita its associations not from anything now seen in in it thera there is a modern franciscan church marking the place where the miracle of changing the water to wine the first miracle of christ ig is said to have been performed in the church is a painting representing the marriage feast I 1 but the quality of the painting is is apparent from the ille fact that the stylo style of the dresses and dishes as well as the attitude of the persons at the table are quite modern the artist evi dently wished to produce a work of pure imagination in reference to the realities represented and he has succeeded in a school connected with the church was a class of children standing in a row on the floor as stiff and straight as lombardy poplars reci reciting tine their i drowsy morning lesson in concert with monotonous sing singsong song tones that I 1 thought a feeble instrumentality to lift the darkness and degradation ra off the mind and hen heart rt of the syrian the point of a cambric needle to raise mt tabor yonder and cast it into the sea A brighter and fresher energy must be applied but we are coming upon a more comina attractive scene I 1 here ere we are by the side of the supposed mount of beatitudes upon the edge of a high irregular plateau peeping down up y on ona broad abroad limpid limpi bluish tran spas spa rent expanse of motionless water 1600 or feet below us and surrounded by at n steep embankment of lulls hills of nearly the same samie height as the one on which we stand and frene generally rally close to the water but on oil the te t western aide side here and there receding bronit and leaving a narrow plain at ai the base it is is as we eee fee it a magnificent crystal in a deep setting of emerald we stand and gaze in wonder and admiration we never had bad imagined such a vision it seems a s scene ce no bent sent down from paradise we have come from the hard earth to the seat of the blessed we need not be told it is the sea of galilee with the morning sun stin smiling upon it the winds charmed and br brooding odi motionless over it all the floral floral beauty of spring coming out of the hidden places of nature and arraying ill g itself on the surrounding bor be her r cheter to adorn it or to see itself reflected from it we could not tell but certainly it is herband here and not a sail not a fisherman not a skim mering bird not an intrusive ox or goat or lapping dog within view to ruffle its calm it is is one of the sights which photographs itself on the mind and lives in immortal memory tha scene is suggested to me the ino moment in ent 1 ir eee ee it is donner lake aa as viewed from one of the peaks of vie sierra nevada ne arthe F summit this brings that to mind yet how difre different ren t I 1 this lake is larger nearly as large as tahoe the enbom encompassing p a s i ng hills bills aie are e nut pot as high or grand gr a sa s1 as some of those about donner but th eyare more uniform and regular id as if designed to adit be a symmetrical telling for it and not a chasm pros deuced by a wild freak of nature in in w which stray waters chance to be imprisoned and they are colored with a fresher and more beautiful green wo descend dip our gur hands in its pure waters eee see the shells and pebbles ill in its transparent depths linger by it and pitch our tents for the night below Tibe ri birins riBS close to ita its shore ah in tile evening evenin the slightest possible ripple is is beard heard it is the breathing of 0 the lake on the sands and stone we go out and listen and watch ch it as ais the full orbed or bed moon and vedus N enus como come out and gaze upon IL it ft and it blushes blush esin in their presence some come of our corn coma pany pally forgetful of tho the silent and high com communion that ia ia going on in the real plunge into int the sea to come into closer fellowship with it and to refresh themselves selves in its purity from the weariness and grime of travel I 1 wait till the first hours of the morning sun gives ives roe me and the lake lakes their blessing ble ng and justify firo prosaic action on t this b is closer inspection I 1 find that theae these water sare are pure nothing on the bottom but clean gravel and shells and stones yet the waters rest in a sink their surface feet below the level of the mediterranean a sink into which have been past cast the t he sweepings of the dirty and once crowded civilization surrounding it for odes ages in some way this seabas sea as kepi itself wonderfully clean and ita its waters now are the dependence of all ne neighboring 1 gt i inhabitants n baul lants for all purposes the b e jordan pou poura ais into it loses itself itsell in it collects itself again and run runs out plunging lunging down downto to the dead mead sea gut but it comes comei in a turbid stream and goes out a clear one oney and yet ye all about the shores I 1 can find no traces of mud the lake must mua carefully bury its impurities in the th great great central depths which read reach IGO feet we engage four boats there an are six or eight in all on the lake and are taken to the site of caper naum some ten miles to the north th these ese boats are fishing boats wit with oars and one triangular lor or lateen sail ours is the largest on the th jake and there are in all thirteen thir teer persons I 1 i in in it and that about equals its itz capacity capac 1 ity thre Th ereis is no wind and the boatmen take the oars they are arabs fine looking men and they pull with regular decided strokes accompanying it with a weird recitation or song in the minor key keynith with glea gleaming laing eyes and expressly expressive e f faces aces till at last the length of the pull and the warmth of the sun dry up their songs and lengthen their faces out jut on the water the sight of the lake and of its unique and beautiful bettini is no less Im impressive presslye than whence when we first looked upon t the h e scene c ene yesterday and now in in add addition it fon we see the snowy ridge of mt aft hermon in full view vien at the north far away lesoon we soon came to capernaum Caperna tim there is now no town therland there and nothing above ground to be seen of the ancient town but some excavating cava ting has been done and remains of large pillars and capitals odthe of the corinthian order cut iu fine marble have been discovered and are now visible which are regarded as belonging to the synagogue which the built for the jewish nation whose eon son christ healed until the discovery of these remains the site of caper naum as its well as bethsaida and a nd magdela was in question how strange this region was the training in school adopted by the founder y of t the he movement most deeply and vitally influencing human thought and character of any ever knoch in ill the ages here he called and taught and commissioned those who were to take up the movement and hand it over dver to the world this thi is the birthplace birth of christianity yet not a village not a house not a stone remains in position and capable of certain identification to mark the spot the cause has lived and grown and spanned the earth but it nowhere grows in the ground it I 1 lives and moves ebbs and flows in human i how literally the tile words spoken of these cities have been fulfilled thou be cast down to hell heill long lowy since they have been in t the le grave and men have hunted bunted for the graves and not known whether they found them passing from the sea of galileo galilee once a rugged hill country we come in sight ot of the waters ot of merom at the north this is the name mime of a shallow sh lake formed by the spread in ing of the jordan through a broad valley valley and surrounded by mars marshes bes following Pol lowing up this valley on the west tide side some fifteen miles we strike across the head bead of it to the east and soon come to the naked site of ancient dan the once brou prou proud d metropolis of the tribe of that name dame and the keyword of the northernmost part of palestine in the popular expression from dan to beersheba sh sheba eliM now it is gone and nothing is left to mark i itsjo ts former gran auer I 1 dismount on the emi eminence nence ri rising n g a as abroad broad tumulus out of the plain la n and cut fro fromong fr omone nione of the wild pru shrubs h a riding stick as a memorial m at once of the spot and the desolation passing up tip a wild region we taesoon soon see the jordan which comes leaping and foaming madly down the rocky gorge as if sent forth t n a spiteful errand our way evidently must lie across it but how to get across so swift and deep a torrent perplexes us we are wondering where there can be a ford and we see no signs that any work has been done by man to make a road but a won der there is a bridge of massive maive hewn rocks resting on arches the old 0 ld roman has been here andthil andr and this is his work the bride has stood more than a thousand years ears and braved this splash splashing i headlong furious cataract it is ft it narrow bridge floored with large blocks of stone from afoot n foot to two feet square no not t more than ten or twelve feet icide deeply worn and without rall railing hig or side stones you at length ride over after a diligent persuasion of your horse with a stick much as you would walk over an ordinary stream on a log and when you get safely over you are fire grateful to the romans and to the one over the romans and us all now there is a sightly town up on the side of mount hennon hermon what wham is it iff it is banias old afe sarea philippi we linger hero in in the vicinity of the town under the shade of some come great old olive trees after arrest a ecat wo we take a short walk to see seb the jordan spring ng into being as Ali minerya nerva leaped orrim from the brain of jupiter here is the rushing roaring river fifty feet wide several feet deep and hurrying boget away down the iho valley alley W wo c glance lance up tip stream alif e ignot hi in fut but mount hermon rising gradually above us no opening open inc inu no cleft through it to be seen we go a little farther and there the river jordan in ill it its prin cipal course issues full broyn with the same fury and precipitate movement roaring and tumbling from a wide opening beneath tin the rocky base of the mountain hen here the water is pure clear cold tin the child of tho the eternal snows wi we wash our hands and bathe our brows and heads leads and drink of it and some fill their bottles with it ii to take home it is the most bonz wondrous sight of the kind I 1 have ever seen a magnificent river born into the world in a moment no vonder dorthe the old romans revered the spot and selected a cave just above as a place for the worship of pan and erected a shrine to that god 0 on n the perpendicular e r n d ICU lar rocks are the nich niches which ix they hey cut forthe ima images gess and remains of inscriptions it is a weary two days ride from cesarea philippi to dam damascus over the southeastern portion of hermon range up and down among the snows and above them in the rocs rocks docs and over the rocks but it is the old roman road that is the old roman trail voi must never think of roads of the modern style when you hear of roads in palestine or this part of E europe drope they are simply passable passes through the wildness of nature for trained eyes an and d feet to any others they are tire ways of destruction ever since we reached the wa of merom herom wo we have haye found outside of banias a new population the cruses they generally live in tents or slight huts buts they are aro not cave dwellers like the people opI e of palestine tents are often black fleece of the black sheep or goat they are a race of darker skin and darker thoughts apparently than those thos we have left their looks do not invite familiarity or confidence when we first saw them on oil the plain of meron merom they were out in numbers plowing their fields encouraged cou raged by the lato into heavy rains to put in in more grain grain they havo have the small black syri syrian an cattle the syrian plow and ind a it straight yoke and instead of bows bowa straight pins pine ru running through the yoke voke and coming down about half halfway aay of the neck with a cord passing under the neck from one pin to the other so that when the ox is drawing n the main strain comes OH on the top and on the under side of the neck and how bow the am an mal is able to when put down to a hard bard pull I 1 cannot sec but lie is driven on to his work by the plowman who holds his hii one handled plow with the left hand and with the right drives his oxen avith w ith a goad stick eight or ten feet long ha having vill ft long iron prod on ono one end and f a small shovel about two inches wide on the other to clean the plow with sometimes a cow is yoked joked with an ox and I 1 bave seen the young calves following in 9 the tile mothers when thus on tho the d double ble duty about the field we found a village of cruses one day on the way to damascus near where wo we lunched on the baiers waters of the we were hardly seated before the village began to flock arcand us in lit some tome way they found out that there were some physicians in our party part yand and then a man mail came br bringing ingin his old father on his back and sa sat him down before us requesting the physic physician lan to prescribe for a bore sore it ivas was h a touching sight showing not only the devotion of the pon ron but the 0 wretchedness wretched nem odthe of the people and their sense odthe of the value and need of foreign skill it is no uncommon oc currence as we pass by villages to be asked if we have any physicians along and for our physicians who arc are very kindly men to be called eatto visit the sick I 1 which they have repeatedly done don e if it was a time when the party was halting but here is the long line of trees and the minarets mina and domes which mark the city of Da masens we yc spur up our horses into a brisk gallop ve we have now struck a carr carriage ge ro road 11 d and haye have met two carrin carriages the first wheeled vehicles we ve have seen been since since we left jerusis Te lem but damascus lin lingers er in ill pie lio distance li stance we pause all and 11 walk our horses awhile and then gallop again still it is far off WE we hardly seem to gain on it so wo we ride and ride and nd ride and still we do to not reach it 31 at length we reach the c city ity and und enter the bewildering scene of flowers and palms and oranges and alid fountains and broad blowing stream streams and rest amid in a hotel I 1 1 J E ij D |
