MODERN CANAAN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 3984, 17 July 1915, Page 7

MODERN CANAAN.

Palestine (writes a contemporary is a country poor in any natural resources. There arc practically no minerals, no coal, no iron, no copper, ho silver,. thought recently some oil wells have been discovered in the Jordan Valley. Neither are there any large forests, and though the land may have been better wooded in days of Joshua than it is now, thcro is little reason to think that the woods were of trees sufficiently large to constitute a source of wealth. A comparatively small area is fit for tillago. To an Arab tribe that had wandered through a barren wilderness for forty years, Canaan may well have seemed a delightful possession; but many a county in lowa, many a department in France, could raise more grain or wine than all the Holy Land. The Holy Land is steeped also in an atmosphere of legend and marvel. As the. traveller steps ashore at Jaffa he is shown the rook to which Andromeda was chained when Perseus rescued her from the sea monster.' (It is the only Creek story localised on these shores.) Till recent years he was also shown the remains of the ribs of another sea monster, the “great fish” that swallowed and disgorged the prophet Jonah, whoso tomb lio will see on the coast near Sidon. *. . '