Though it has bulked so large in history and religion, the Holy Land itself is not as big as Rhode Island, while all Palestine is only about the size of Vermont. If you could take it up and stretch it over the United States it would hardly make a patch of court plaster on Uncle Sam’s body. Dropped down upon New England, with one end at Boston, the other would be at Mount Washington, and most of the country would not be wider than from Boston to Springfield. If spread out upon northern Illinois the whole might be included inside a line drawn from Chicago to Aurora and thence to Decatur and back to Chicago. The Bible has called this little territory a land of milk and honey. The expression must have been used by contrast to the dreary sand of the Sinai desert, through which the Israelites travelled on their way hither. As I know from former travels, it is more rocky than any part of the Alleghanies; and the Blue Ridge of Virginia, which is covered with stones, is the Mississippi Valley compared with it. The country has a backbone of mountains comprising the hills of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, with a low coastal plain, where the Philistines lived, extending to the Mediterranean Sea. On the other side of the backbone is the great ditch in which lie the Sea of Tiberias, or Galilee, and the Dead Sea, with the winding Jordan running from one to the other. This ditch is below the level of the sea and parts of it have the hottest and most oppressive climate on earth. On the opposite side of the Jordan toward the east is a country much richer than Palestine. It is composed of highlands from two thousand to three thousand feet above sea level, giving excellent pasture and, in the north, large crops of wheat. This was the Bashan, Gilead, and Moab of the Bible, and it is now inhabited chiefly by Mohammedan Bedouins, who live in tents, driving their camels, cattle, and sheep from place to place. In the past it was thickly populated, and archæologists have uncovered the ruined cities of the people who used to live there. Palestine, on the other hand, could never have had a very large population, and the “hosts” spoken of in the Scriptures would dwindle by comparison with the numbers of people we are used to nowadays. The trip from Jaffa to Jerusalem gives us a fair idea of the character of the country. The coastal plain is typical of the richest part. Its soil is a chocolate brown, the grass is as green as that of Egypt, and there are great orchards of olives and fruits of all kinds. The roads are lined with rich red poppies and there are wild flowers on all sides. Climbing the hills is like jumping from the Nile Valley into the desert. There is nothing but rocks with a sparse vegetation scattered here and there through them. The limestone crops out everywhere, and in places heaps of stones have been thrown up to make little fields. Such fields are fenced with stone walls. There are also corrals for the sheep made in this way.