It is this, especially as it regards the Saviour of mankind, that is the most precious gain of Syrian travel. Now and again it comes on one with overpowering force. Sailing up the coast, this impression haunted the long hours. As we gazed on the mountains, and the image of them sank deeper and deeper, the thought grew clear in all its wonder that somewhere among these heights He had wandered with His disciples, and sat down by the sides of wells to rest. In camp at Jericho we were confronted by an uncouth, blunt-topped mountain mass, thrusting itself aggressively up on the Judean side, in itself a very rugged and memorable mountain-edge. Not till the light was fading, and the bold outline struck blacker and blacker against the sky, did the fact suddenly surprise us that this was Quarantana, the Mountain of Temptation. Then we understood that wilderness story in all its unprotected loneliness, and we almost saw the form of the Son of Man. Thus, as day after day he rides through the country, the traveller finds new meaning in the words, “I have glorified Thee _on the earth_.” An inexpressible sense possesses him of the reality of Jesus Christ. These pathways were, indeed, once trodden by His feet; through these valleys He carried the lamp of life; under these stars He prayed; through this sunshine He lay in a rock-hewn grave. To a man’s dying day he will be nearer Christ for this. The chief sorrow of the Christian life for most of us is the difficulty of realisation. At times we have all had to flog up our imagination to the “realising sense” of Christ. After this journey that necessity is gone. It is almost as if in long past years we had seen Him there, and heard Him speak. The divine mystery of Christ is all the more commanding when the human fact of Jesus has become almost a memory rather than a belief. CHAPTER I THE COLOUR OF THE LAND Every land has a scheme of colour of its own, and while form and outline are the first, they are not the most permanent nor the deepest impressions which a region makes upon its travellers. It is the colour of the land which slowly and almost unconsciously sinks in upon the beholder day by day. We observe the outlines of a scene; we remember its colouring. This is especially true of Palestine. Nothing about it is more distinctive than its colour-scheme; and nothing is perhaps less familiar to those who have not actually seen it. Syria may be treated as if it were Italy, or even Egypt--in hard intense colouring; or it may be treated as if it were England, in strong tones but with a certain homely softening of edge. Neither of these modes is true to Syria. Its edge-lines are sharp, but they are traced in such faint shades as to produce an effect very difficult either to reproduce or to describe, and yet impossible to forget.