PALESTINE UP-TO-DATE.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 April 1921, Page 9

PALESTINE UP-TO-DATE.

A CHANGED COUNTRY. BENEFITS OF BRITISH RULE. Before the War it used to be said that the one country in the world that had never changed for thousands of years was Palestine. Since the British occupation, however, this is no longer true. Not only in Jerusalem, the capital, but all the way from Dan to Beersheba, every thing is being modernised. Electric trams are running in the streets of Jerusalem, motor vehicles convey passengers tc outlying villages, and sanitation such as would have seemed a wild dream in the old days is now installed in many places. The latest change that has been introduced is the equipment of Abraham’s wells at Beersheba, in the extreme south of the country, with the most up-to-date and efficient pumping machinery, so that water is now available in increasing quantities much more easily than when every gallon had to be dipped up from the well by women with pitchers. This is the most dramatic instance of modernising an ancient institution that has yet occurred, for the wells of Beersheba are the oldest waterworks in the world.

In a well-watered country like England it is almost impossible to realise the important place which wells hold in the dry Eastern lands. The huge reservoirs which supply a mighty city like London with water do not hold a greater place in our estimation than do the little wells of Beersheba in the eyes of the villagers and the wandering Bedouins.

In such lands water is very frugally used, and it is always difficult, owing to labor conditions, to get a well dug in the first place, and in the second place to keep it in order when dug. A chief who digs a well is looked upon as a public benefactor, and the work is so highly appreciated that the property in the well becomes vested in him and his heirs for ever.

In the old days, too, the digging of a well generally indicated possession of the land, and so, when Abraham went away after digging the wells, the Philistines filled up the wells, evidently to reclaim possession of the land. Pt was this that Isaac contested when he reopened the wells to show his ownership. The wells of Beersheba date back nearly 4000 years, and their original digging by Abraham is described in the early part of the Book of Genesis. The stone-work is very much worn by the feet and ropes of couni less women who have visited the wells.

Of course, any innovation is resented at first by the natives of Eastern lands, ano the fitting of modern pumping machinery to so ancient an institution as Abfaham s wells was no exception. But with a copious supply of good water, which m. Palestine is always spoken of as the gift of God, the people are now looking upon the Rrtish as real benefactors.

The name Beersheba means “the Well of the Seven,” probably a reference to the seven ewe lambs which Abraham gave to the sheik Abimelech in exchange for the right to keep the well; but there were, in ancient times, actually seven wells. Only two are now working. With modern pumping machinery, electric trams, telephones, and air planes and wireless from Dan to Beersheba, is indeed a changed country.