PALESTINE TO-DAY.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16154, 7 March 1918, Page 5

PALESTINE TO-DAY.

A \ A CHRISTMAS LETTER FROM THE HOLY LAND. IX THE HILLS OF PALESTINE, , December 2, 1917. I am sitting in tlie shade of a huge granite boulder 2000 ft above tho sea. I Tho heat is intense despite the lateness [of the season. Lizards dart-in-and out, and a chameleon is sitting on my boot; an eaglo soars aloft. I can see right down across the stony wadis to tho Syrian foothills, beyond which stretch olive and orange groves away to the blue sea. A Roman road, said to date from 77 8.C., winds down through the passes on its way towards the greatest, city of Biblical times. The Maccabean hordes, Crusadors, and many armies of ancient days have swopt through these passes, and now and again the wadis ar@ full of th e sounds and sights of war. As I watch, a string of 200 camels, loaded with "fantazis" (water tanks), come swinging up toward me from the drinking wells a thousand feet bolow. Their burden is precious beyond gold. An army is impotent without water in a country where good , wells are few and far between. | A Turkish battery is just over tho ridge behind and shrapnel shells are constantly exploding over the deserted vine slopes around me. Now and again the roar of our own heavy_ artillery can bo heard; shells shrieking overhead on their way toward tho Turkish lines. Guerrilla warfare is going on . night and day throughout this region ; villages are taken and retaken several times daily, and I can see 'iho machine guns spitting out death from many concealed positions on* th© rocky slopes of these historic; hills. We are held in reserye; a Turkish stronghold across a deep wadi. is to bo stormed. I am waiting to take my platoon into action, good dismounted yeomen, bronzed by two years' campaigning in Egypt and Syria, eager to press forward and to win fresh laurels. The mounted troops wo aro supporting have been hard at it all night, and a stream of wounded are clambering down from tho front line a thousand yards away. • Badly wounded among them are slung across camels' backs on "kakalag," others on foot with bandaged heads and arms, picking their way painfully down the long track among the hot stones toward the dressing stations in the cool groves below. Important events are pending; the Turks are fighting desperate rearguard actions, holding crest after crest with their usual (logged tenacity. The next few days may witness tho decisive actions of tfiis campaign, and both sides know it. Strings of mules bearing machine guns and S.A.A. are even now toiling up toward the front luies, where the outpost positions of both forces can be detected with the naked eye. Yesterday a villago. famed throughout tho Christian and Jewish world was stormed by mounted Australian and Scottish troops; the straggle could be seen clearly from where 1 sat upon a mountainside. The Turks withdrew their guns and took- up positions on the terraced vineyards to the north; 500 Turkish prisoners were taken, 300 of them escaped in a moment of confusion —tho Turks charged down the slopes, but were driven back, and at night we held the village, tho wliolo valley, and the slopes beyond, commanding important roads and passes. And bo it goes on from day to day and week to week and the 'lurks lose their age-long hold on tho Holy Lam; slowly but surely. incredible iumours trickle up from tho coast, tiixough Arabs, JJedouins, and Syrian jews: "Tho Turks are retreating; Jerusalem has fallen; Krusaia is £eHiaiiaing peaco; Italy has been delea ted ; Glanders oattles continue slorrniiy." One can behevo nothing; y&i everything in this strange land, the very atmosphere, is alive with the stirring histories of many throbbing 'centuries. Jesus the Christ .walked among these very hills. Hiß disciples were born and bred in just such villages as those around me. The birthday of the Christ approaches, the Christ of Peace; and wo war among His hills as if Hia life and message meant nothing to us. A burying party has just passed up and is wending its' way into j the next valley; a squadron of our cavalry, running into ambush, await burial. And still the shells burst around me, and we await the summons that will take us up again into the inferno. Surely theso sacred hills could have been exempted i'rom such bloodshed at such a season! But war claims all times and seasons; war claims all men and energies; war claims' allegiance, grudging or ungrudging, from the whole world just now, and the New Testament is but a book of legends, maybe, in which men's interest and belief have begun to flag. This is what my sergeant thinks as he sits beside me trying to express his thought in words that I can understand. I cannot believe that he is right, somehow; indeed, I feel that he is wrong. The power of the Christ Message thrills through me anew as I meditate among these blazing, shimmering hills awaiting summons to the conflict. A runner has com-< in. Tho Turks are counter-attacking; our outposte

have been rushed; reinforcements aro urgently needed. My meditations aro rudely broken, and tho horrid realities of modern war surgo over me once more. Mv company is forming up, and my platoon sergeant is waiting for me. In half an hour we shall bo in tho firing line again. Will it bo for tho last time for us? Who can say? But 6omewhow one can find a poaeo here that is so deep and satisfying that, problems of life and death loso their hold of terror over us. The fear of death no longer stings; it is a matter of so ( little consequence after all. Life cannot ,be destroyed. It is the eternal gift which the Jesus of these hills came to proclaim 2000 ; years ago. And maybe this, is, to be tho last Christmas of war; ArmagedI don must be fought, to a finish before another year is gone. So may it be? 'Good-bye.