A COMMON EXPERIENCE.

109

this travellers should be prepared. So much is it a matter of course, that a tour in the Holy Land is hardly complete without a robbery.

Comparing our experience with others, we do not find that we have fared worse than they. This year has been a harvest time for thieves, and few have escaped. An American gentleman whom we met in Jerusalem-Mr. Chapin of Providence-left the day before us. We met him again in Nazareth, when he told us his experience. On the second night he camped at Howara, an hour and a half before reaching Nablous, and applied to the sheikh of the village for a guard, who sent three men. In the night a man entered his tent, and carried off his wife's carpet-bag; but finding little in it, came again, and carried off his portmanteau. By this time his suspicions were excited, and he gave the alarm, which brought the dragoman to his tent, who, understanding the ways of the country, put his pistol to the head of the chief man of the guard, and told him to bring back the portmanteau. In a few minutes he brought it. It was found outside the tent, where it had been opened. The guards of course protested their innocence, but the dragoman was not deceived by them; but sure that they were the thieves, called his muleteers, and ordered them to seize the sheikh and bind him. No quicker said than done. Instantly they threw him on the ground, and lashed his hands behind his back. In this condition the dragoman tied him with a strong rope to his horse's head, and literally drove him before him. The others were taken in hand by the muleteers, and thus all were marched to Nablous, where they were recognized as old offenders, and lodged in prison.

This constant exposure to the danger of being robbed, is the great drawback to the pleasure of travel in Palestine. Robbery is the curse of the country, as brigandage has

110

NEED OF A STRONG GOVERNMENT.

been for generations the curse of Sicily. How it is to be extirpated is a difficult problem. The fault is not merely in the people; it is in this wretched Turkish government, which is as weak as it is corrupt, and which, by its total failure to encourage honest industry, almost compels the miserable people to steal in order to live. It discourages honesty, and offers a premium to crime. Such a deepseated disease can only be cured by heroic surgery. I hear a great deal said about this country's being "evangelized"; but it needs first to be governed-to be ruled justly and firmly. Moral influences, when they can have a chance to operate, will bring other blessings in their train. But for the present we must rely upon the strong arm. The country must be governed with an iron hand.

CHAPTER X.

A RIDE OVER THE PLAIN OF ESDRAELON.

Promptly at the hour of sunrise the muezzin climbed the minaret of the mosque of Jenin, and called the faithful to prayer; but his wailing, melancholy cry did not awaken the same pensive musing as when we heard it at the hour of sunset. After a night of alarms, of men running and shots firing, with a robber at the door of my tent, I was not in a mood to indulge in the luxury of sentimental devotion. We felt no desire to "dwell in the tents" of Jenin any longer, but were quite ready to depart.

The morning, however, was not one for rapid movement. The dark and dismal night still lowered over the opening day. The clouds hung low upon the hills, and fast fell the drops which the wind blew angrily in our faces. Prudent travellers would perhaps have lingered awhile before leaving camp. But it was the last day of the week, and we were bent on spending Sunday in Nazareth; and after our experience of the night, if it had “rained pitch-forks" we should have wished to move on. So girding up our loins, and muffling up our breasts, we mounted our horses, and set our faces to the storm.

The result proved the wisdom of our course.

When a

112

66

THE PLAIN OF ESDRAELON.

man or a party is "in the dumps," a solemn, silent mood that may sour into sullenness, there is nothing like the "movement cure." In travelling, as in other things that demand instant action, the American rule is a good one that the only way to do a thing is to do it," and not stand thinking about it till the time for action is past. However formidable the attempt may appear, it is probable that the reality will not prove so serious as the anticipation. Once in the saddle, the exercise gave us a sensation of life; the blood began to tingle in our veins, and to set our dull thoughts in motion. Instead of drawing thick wraps over our stooping shoulders, we straightened up and began to look about and to study the geography of the country. We found that we had come into a new part of Palestine; that we had left the hills and come down into the plains, a change which was grateful to the eye, as we had been riding for days over a very rugged country. We were now in the great Plain of Esdraelon, so famous in Jewish history-a plain which is not monotonous like our Western prairies, because it is set in an amphitheatre of hills. Central in position, it makes a break between the Hill Country of the South and the Mountain Country of the North, and thus at once separates and unites the two great divisions of Palestine. The beauty of this Plain is not only in its fertility, which in this month of April makes it one broad expanse of green, but in its bordering of hillss-a feature which reminded me of the Parks of Colorado, although the resemblance extends only to this, that in each case there is a broad plain lying in the lap of hills which enfold it, and seem to stand guard around it. As to magnitude, there is no comparison: for the whole of Palestine is but a representation in miniature of the central State of our continent, traversed by the great chain of the Rocky Mountains. Here both mountain and

FROM SAMARIA TO GALILEE.

113

plain are on a very reduced scale. Compared with the Middle Park or the South Park of Colorado, the Plain of Esdraelon is of very moderate dimensions, while the mountains around it are but foot-hills beside the American Alps.

But whatever this Plain may want in natural grandeur, it more than makes up by historical associations. Its horizon is like that of the Roman Campagna, where every summit of the Sabine and the Alban Hills has its legend and story. Those hills on the South, which we are leaving behind, were once held by the powerful tribe of Manasseh, which played such a heroic part in the Jewish wars; that long ridge on the West, stretching to the Mediterranean Sea, is Mount Carmel, the retreat of the Prophets Elijah and Elisha; on the East, standing apart, are the heights of Mount Gilboa and Mount Tabor; while in front of us to the North, rise the Hills of Galilee.

The natural divisions of the country determined its political divisions. In ancient times, when communication was slow and difficult, some natural feature of a country— a mountain or plain or river-was the barrier interposed by nature, which separated one kingdom, or province, from another. Thus the Province of Samaria ended with the hills, and in descending to the plain, we enter another province which figures far more conspicuously in the New Testament history-that of Galilee.

Riding over the plain, a couple of hours brought us to a hill, on which is perched a wretched village, but which was once a habitation of princes; for this is JEZREEL, where Ahab, when he had his capital in Samaria, had his country palace, his Versailles, which was the scene of many a revel and many a tragedy. Here was Naboth's vineyard, of which Jezebel, more resolute than her cowardly husband Ahab, who did not dare to strike, stirred him up to get