As we ride over the land we notice that at first it is very level. This part of the country is called "the Sea Coast Plain," and a plain it surely is, almost as level as a floor. All around, you see gardens and farms, orange trees and fig trees. If you could pluck one of these golden oranges and taste it, you would find that it is one of the sweetest and richest and juiciest that you have ever eaten, for the Jaffa oranges are famous for their flavor. You ride between great fields of wheat and rye and barley, for this Sea Coast Plain is a rich farming land. [Illustration: House of Simon, the tanner, in Joppa, where Peter stayed while visiting in that city] But after a few miles, ten or fifteen, we notice that we have left the plain and are winding and climbing among hills. In place of the farm-lands, we see here and there flocks of sheep with shepherds guarding them just as the boy David watched over his flock three thousand years ago. Indeed, in our journey we might pass over the very brook where David found the round, smooth stones, one of which he hurled with a sling into the giant Goliath's forehead. This is the region of low hills, the foothills of the higher mountains beyond. It is called "the Shephelah," a name not easy to remember. In the Old Testament days, many battles were fought on these hills between the Israelites and the Philistines, their fierce enemies. [Illustration: A saddled camel] These foothills of the Shephelah are not many miles wide; and beyond them we come to the real Mountain Region of Palestine. Mountains rise on every hand, bare, stony, with scarcely any soil upon their steep sides, and with not a tree to be seen for miles. They are rocky crags, with here and there a village perched on their summits or clinging to their walls. This mountain land, more than the hills and plains below, was the home of the Israelites, the people from whom Jesus came. We wonder how they could ever have found a living in such a desolate land; but everywhere we see the ruins of old cities, showing that once the land was filled with people. In those times, two thousand and more years ago, all these mountain-sides, now bleak and rock-bound, were covered with terraces, where grew olive trees, fig trees and vineyards; where gardens blossomed and great crops were raised to feed the people. Even now in the spring and early summer, the valleys between these mountains are covered with flowers of every color. Scarcely another land on earth has as many wild flowers as this land of Palestine. This mountain-belt, running from the north to the south throughout the land was the part of Palestine where nearly all the great men of Israel lived and died. Here among the mountains in the south is Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. In a mountain village in the north, Nazareth, was the home of Jesus during nearly all his life; and over these mountains everywhere in the land, Jesus walked in the three years of his preaching and teaching.