This is the point to which Mr. Oliphant's fine enthusiasm dwindles down--the floating of a joint-stock company, limited, with one million sterling capital, for the purpose of transforming into "landed proprietors" a number of Oriental Jews, who would neither have the heart to work themselves nor the skill to direct the labour of others. Those who have read modern history, or political economy, will not require an elaborate exposure of a scheme which aims at setting up in Gilead, under the guise of philanthropy, the rack-renting and ornamental landlording which have received such severe rebukes in Europe. We refer to the general outline of Mr. Oliphant's fascinating scheme, inasmuch as he has reduced to practical shape what others vaguely theorize about. He gives us a map of the proposed colony, connected by railways and tram-cars with the outer world. It embraces "the plains of Moab and the land of Gilead," from the Jabok to the Annon. I know the country well. It is even more beautiful and fertile than Mr. Oliphant describes it to be. It is impossible to pass through it without the constant thought of what it might be in the hands of an Anglo-Saxon race. Mr. Oliphant was struck with the beauty of the girls of Ajlun, one of whom tried in vain to remove the vermin from his blankets. Dr. Thomson and I lay on a grassy slope, a whole afternoon, at the village of es-Souf, watching the children pelting each other with flowers, and we both agreed that we had never seen an assemblage of merrier or lovelier children. "I cannot make them out," said Dr. Thomson, with unwonted enthusiasm; "they seem to be English children." Supposing the land for the proposed colony were secured, on Mr. Oliphant's plan, partly by judicious bribing at Constantinople, and partly by buying out the interest of the present proprietors, and that the undertaking proved to be the "sound and practical scheme containing all the elements of success" which its promoters predict--the very success of the colony would expose the colonists to a great and terrible danger. Travellers must have noticed that the _fellahîn_ cultivate their fields with long guns slung over their shoulders, and an armoury of pistols and daggers in their belts. Why is this? Because, as the proverb, tested by experience, has it--"A Turkish judge may be bribed by three eggs, two of them rotten; and a _fellah_ may be murdered for his jacket without a button upon it."