more on it with the help of our driver and then the little Ford turned and climbed slowly and bravely up the hill, keeping with greatest difficulty close to the safe side of the road. The lorrie was out of sight in a few moments flying along to make up for lost time. It would take word of our trouble and send another car. [Illustration: There lay the boat in which one might row across the Jordan to the land of Moab.] There was nothing to do but wait and nothing to see but bare hills. We climbed one great rocky mound only to see more hills with deeper valleys lying between as far as the eye could reach. They reminded us of the hills in the most desolate part of the Mormon trail in our own American desert. The sun rose higher and the heat became almost unbearable. We drew down our hats, put on our dark glasses and sat on the rocks in the dry bed of the stream. There was not a sound, not a bird note, no bleating of sheep. There were caves in the side of the hill. They looked dark, cool, and inviting, they had sheltered many people good and bad during the long centuries, but the guide warned us that they were full of vermin and unclean. There was a tiny boulder half-way up the hill which made on one side a narrow strip of shade and we made ourselves as small as possible and sat there. Noon came and we ate our chicken and hard boiled eggs, French bread, figs, dates and oranges made ready by the hotel, and drank the water in our thermos bottles sparingly. A group of Arabs clattered past us over on the road. One sang a couplet in a clear, ringing voice and the others joined as in a chorus. They did not see us, or, if they did, made no sign. “When the Turks ruled Palestine,” said our guide, “we could not sit here so safe. There was much danger on this road and no man traveled over it at nightfall.” He told us tales of brigands in league with Turkish high officials with whom they shared their spoil that would have made excellent material for certain types of American motion pictures. Suddenly the simple story that Jesus told to the crowd in answer to the half-mocking question of the keen Jewish lawyer came vividly before us. It was in these hills, in the desperate loneliness of them, that the certain man, stripped of all his goods, beaten and half dead, lay helpless. He might wait for help for many an hour before out of this place of emptiness any would come! How could Priest and Levite pass him by on the other side and leave him in this forsaken spot that their own journey might be undisturbed? To them he was only a man robbed by the bandits. He would die as had many another. It was a common thing, and, inhuman as it seems, they went on to their task of holy worship and to the seat of judgment.