Two other books preceded the award of the Nobel prize--_Jerusalem_ and _The Wonderful Adventures of Nils_, with its sequel. In 1899, the Swedish government gave to Miss Lagerlöf a commission to go to Palestine. She was to report, on her return, upon conditions which she might discover there in the Swedish colony which had migrated from Nås, a parish of Dalecarlia, a few years previously. Urged by promoters of missionary enterprise, among them Mrs. Edward Gordon of Chicago, scores of peasants and householders had sold their homesteads and left their families to join this colony in the Holy Land. Rumors had come to Sweden of direful conditions there--of disease and hunger, of depleted morale and bickerings among colonists and missionaries. “Jerusalem kills!” became a common phrase of the day. Miss Lagerlöf undertook investigation and made a report on existent evils and exaggerated rumors. She accomplished a far more important work for literature than this report. She gathered material for one of her most emotional, graphic books, _Jerusalem_. Against the background of facts, both in Dalecarlia and Palestine, she wove a story of intense feeling, with folklore, psychological insight, and characterization of a fine type. The portrayals of the Ingmarsson family and the women, Brita, Karin, and Gertrude, whose fates were interlinked with those of the later generation of the ancestral family of Dalecarlia, are vivid. Humor relieves the tragic intensity of this book, so well rendered into English by Mrs. Howard who has, says Mr. Henry Goddard Leach in the Introduction, been able “to reproduce the original in essence as well as verisimilitude.” An example of the descriptive style of this story of Swedish life under religious tension is found in the opening sentences of the chapter, “The Departure of the Pilgrims” of Part I.[70] “One beautiful morning in July, a long train of cars and wagons set out from the Ingmar Farm. The Hellgumists had at last completed their arrangements, and were now leaving for Jerusalem--the first stage of the journey being the long drive to the railway station. “The procession, in moving towards the village, had to pass a wretched hovel which was called Mucklemire. The people who lived there were a disreputable lot--the kind of scum of the earth which must have sprung into being when our Lord’s eyes were turned, or when he had been too busy elsewhere. “There was a whole horde of dirty, ragged youngsters on the place, who were in the habit of running loose all day, shrieking after passing vehicles, and calling the occupants bad names; there was an old crone who usually sat by the roadside, tipsy; and there were a husband and wife who were always quarrelling and fighting, and who had never been known to do any honest work. No one could say whether they begged more than they stole, or stole more than they begged.