During our week's stay in Jaffa, as guests of our missionary friends, we had exceptional opportunities of seeing the country and the inner life of its people. Most travellers leave the same day they arrive, going up to Jerusalem by the afternoon train, and carrying away the impression that Jaffa is a dirty, uninteresting town. We found our days all too short, there was so much to see and hear. Several afternoons were spent in the famous orange gardens, or _bayaras_, and very grateful was the shade of the trees even in March. The scent of the flowers and fruit fills the air; indeed, in certain winds, it is wafted miles away out to sea. We often had boughs of this delicious fruit presented to us. To eat it seemed almost a crime; the oranges looked so beautiful hanging amid their shining leaves and silver blossom. We were constantly reminded of the appropriateness of Solomon's simile, as we listened to the courteous speech of our Arab friends, accompanied by pleasant smiles. "A word fitly spoken is like oranges[A] of gold in pictures of silver." Within the last few years Jaffa has shown a desire for progress. The thrift and prosperity of the German and Jewish colonies are teaching the Arabs the value of commercial intercourse with other nations, as well as the best methods of cultivating their land. The missionaries are also doing much towards civilising the people, by teaching the gospel, and opening schools for the children, where they learn invaluable lessons to carry back to their homes. The English hospital is also another proof of missionary zeal, and brings the fellaheen from distant villages into touch with skilful hands and loving service, unknown and undreamt of by these poor men and women; for the Moslem is a fatalist; his religion makes him one. If his favourite wife or child dies, he accepts it without emotion, as being "God's will." If he is ill himself he takes little or no pains to seek remedies; his illness is "from God." I heard of a man who went on pilgrimage to Mecca last year. He was sincerely attached to his wife, and allowed her to accompany him as a very special mark of his favour. After five months' absence he returned, having exchanged his ordinary turban for the sacred green one, and resumed his interrupted work. One day he called at the house of a friend of ours. She inquired after his wife's welfare, and received the unexpected answer, "The Prophet had need of her, and I left her in the desert." It seems that the poor woman fell ill on the long journey, but with an unusual display of affection her husband cared for her until she recovered. She again became sick, and this second attack convinced him "that the Prophet wanted her," and allowing fatalism and superstition to stifle the feelings of humanity, he left her in the desert to die, where, in a few hours, the vultures were feeding on the poor dead body.