Next to its heartless toil the uncured sickness of the land contributes to the deep sadness of its spirit. Disease seems to stare you everywhere in the face. Superstition and fatalism combined have blocked all progress in medical science. The people are naturally healthy; and their strong constitutions, kept firm by plain living, yield to medical treatment in a marvellous way. But when any serious accident has happened, or any dangerous disease infected them, they are utterly helpless, and things take their course. The medicinal springs form an exception to this rule, and seem to be the one real healing agency in the country. Their bluish waters bubble with sulphuretted hydrogen, and smell abominably, but they cure sicknesses of some kinds. For other diseases there is no native cure. Those which are most in evidence are ulcers and inflammatory diseases of the eyes. The natives appear to be immune so far as malaria is concerned; but a peculiar kind of decline is not uncommon, in which the emaciation is so great as to reduce the patient to the appearance of a skeleton, with great lustrous eyes. It need hardly be said that the characteristic disease of Syria is leprosy. The first object which attracts the eye after you arrive at the railway station of Jerusalem is an immense leper hospital. In a case which created some sensation lately in the south of England, it turned out that a fraudulent Syrian had been raising money for a non-existent hospital at Tirzah, which was to accommodate eleven thousand lepers. Of course the figure was a monstrous one, but the fact that it was invented shews how terrible a scourge this is. It is a curious circumstance that the inhabitants of towns do not contract leprosy. It appears in villages, and the sufferers are at once driven out, to wander to the larger towns, outside of which they settle in communities or beg by the wayside. The view of the north-east end of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives shews a roadside which is always dotted with these pitiable folk. For many travellers this is the road of their first journey from the city, leading over Olivet to Bethany, and they are not likely to forget that ride. Lepers, in all stages of hideous decay, line the roadside; real or sham paralytics sprawl and shake in the middle of the path, so that the horses have actually to pick their way among the bodies of them. The epileptics appear to be frauds. Their faces are covered, but they see what is going on well enough to stop shaking when the horses have passed. The leprosy is all too real. Arms covered with putrid sores, hands from which the fingers have one after another fallen off, and husky voices begging from throats already half eaten out--these cannot be imitated.