TO JERICHO.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 380, 22 July 1911, Page 2

TO JERICHO.

The excursiou to Jericho and the Jordan is so familiar that it requires a skilful pen to make such a trite incident of Kastern travel readable, but Mr. F. G. Aftalo has, we think, succeeded in doing so in his Palestine article in the October number of " Travel and Exploration." Here is an impressionist sketch of a morning ride in the Holy I>and. "In the streets and outskirts of Jerusalem the horses have to (bread their careful way through a seething :rowd of camels, asses, mules, muleteers and othets, all saddling up for the new day's work. Then the road strikes out past a panorama of IJiblc geography ; first, the little Harden jf Gethsemane, now, alas, walled in from the public gaze ; then the Mount :>[ Olives, Bethany, and the 1 Apostles' fountain. The road, a. little billy in some places aud stony in more, is good, until we reach an inn kepi by a, Greek, a humorous knave, with a smattering of half-a-dozen tongues, and a light heart even in the worst tourist season known these many years." A picturesque figure which helps (< relieve the banality of a score nf tourists, noisily choosing then mounts, is the armed escort which gives an air of romantic advent tire O. this commonplace trip. The nut hoi - , however, is mildly contemptuous o! this time-honoured custom, and cans ideally remarks that the spectacle of :>ne elderly man armed with an oh soletc gun guarding half a dozen lusty Americans is a curious one. and declares that, it would seem as reasonable to employ a washerwoman tc protect one in Hyde Par!;.