[Illustration: Fuel is so scarce in this land of no woods that even roots and twigs bring good prices. Two years of poor olive crops often drive the peasants to cutting down their precious olive trees and selling them] [Illustration: The Pool of Hezekiah, opened by an ancient Hebrew king in the city of Jerusalem, is fed by a fountain in the hills. Not until the British came did the city have an adequate water-supply. One old Arab said, “For four hundred years, the Turks did not give us so much as a cup of cold water”] Palestine has no woods. There are no groves or bushes. Almost the only trees are fruit trees, with now and then a funereal cypress in a garden. Our consul tells me that the country has two groves which the people call forests. One of these contains forty scrub oaks and the other is not quite so large. He says that a few years ago there was some brush on the hillside, but that the people have even dug up the roots and sold them for fuel. Indeed, fuel is one of the most costly things in this country. It is so expensive that it is seldom used except for cooking, and that notwithstanding the fact that the climate is cold. Wood is so valuable that the older olive trees are being cut down, and it is feared that the olive orchards will gradually disappear. These old trees are often of considerable thickness, but they are only twenty or thirty feet tall so that one will supply but a small amount of firewood. The olive tree is as hard as the apple and far more knotted and gnarly. Its wood is heavy and is sold by the ton. It is brought in on the backs of donkeys and camels and every stick has to pay a tax before it gets inside the gates of Jerusalem. A common fuel is charcoal, made mostly of olive wood. It is made chiefly at Hebron, about twenty-three miles south of Jerusalem, near the cave where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are buried and where tradition says Adam died. Hebron, which is about five hundred feet higher than Jerusalem, has big orchards of olives, almonds, and apples, the brush and the dead wood of which are used to make charcoal. The use of coal is almost out of the question on account of the high rates over the railroads. The same charge is made for carrying coal as for carrying silk. Such coal as comes here is in the shape of briquettes and sells for high prices. Another lack from which the Holy Land suffers is water. The rainfall in the southern sections is something like six inches and upward a year, the amount gradually increasing as one goes northward toward Galilee. The country has always been one of pools and wells, and every house in Jerusalem has its roofs so made that they drain into cisterns placed in the courts. In dry seasons water is sold, and the man who has a spare cistern gets a big price for his surplus.