Passing out from the town we cross the Plain of Sharon, the exquisite fertility and beauty of which made it to the Hebrew mind a symbol of prosperity. “The excellency of Carmel and Sharon”[5] was proverbial. “The earth mourneth and languisheth” when “Sharon is like a wilderness.”[6] When the Most High shall again “bring forth a seed out of Jacob and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains,” its first result will be that once more “Sharon shall be a fold for flocks.”[7] In the Song of songs, “I am the Rose of Sharon,”[8] is the symbol to express the highest ideal of grace and beauty. As we rode across the plain, bright with the vivid green of early spring, and plucked handfuls of the innumerable flowers—cyclamens, anemones, roses, lilies, tulips and a score of others—which gemmed the turf or grew “unprofitably gay” amongst the corn, we could enter into the feelings of Hebrew poets and prophets as they exulted in “the glory of Sharon.” But where were the inhabitants? This fertile plain which might support an immense population is almost a solitude. Two or three wretched hamlets, mere clusters of mud huts, are the sole representatives of the numerous and thriving cities which once occupied it.[9] Here and there was a solitary Arab breaking up the clods with a plough which remains unchanged in form from the earliest ages. These were the only signs of life we could discover. Day by day we were to learn afresh the lesson now forced upon us, that the denunciations of ancient prophecy have been fulfilled to the very letter,—“the land is left void and desolate and without inhabitants.”[10] Within the last few years, however, there has been an improvement in some parts of the plain, arising from the establishment of a German agricultural colony near Jaffa, of a model farm supported by a society in London, and the acquisition of a considerable tract of land by Messrs. Bergheim of Jerusalem. The German colonists retain, unchanged, the dress and manners of their fatherland, and it is not a little curious to meet a bevy of fair-haired, blue-eyed, red-cheeked damsels driven by a Silesian peasant in a genuine _einspanner_, in a district made memorable by the exploits of Samson against the Philistines. [Illustration: PLOUGHING IN PALESTINE.] [Illustration: RAMLEH.]