THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1912. ANCIENT AND MODERN.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10711, 15 October 1912, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1912. ANCIENT AND MODERN.

To watch a football match played just outside Jerusalem, while Moslem ladies in tlicir sheet's and veils were, among the most enthusiastic spectators—this was the experience which suggested an article by H. J. Sheptono on "Palestine Up-to-date. And" he wonders, "Did Moses, looking down in farewell ironi the heights of Nebo, with the Dead Sea at his feet, see dimly a future when its buoyant waters would be plied by petrol-driv-en boats, and the furtherest valleys be cut through with an iron rail, and the cities that had yet to be would after many vicissitudes bo lighted with a civilisation that had come back to them from the West?" Damascus is already tho terminus of two rail'ways, and in the future may be thought of "as a kind of Clapham Junction or Crewe." The smoke 01* trains floats over tho place where Samson was bom, and over the Mizpali where Jacob and Laban made primitive contract. Then the motor lias found its way into Palestine. Kerosene motors drive the pumps which irrigate Jaffa's orange groves, and, quite recently a motor boat lias been placed on the Dead Sea. Ten years ago the monks of St. John endeavoured to place such a. craft upon Jordan, .but the late Sultan refused the necessary powers. Hut now there is a syndicate anxious to establish self-propelled vessels not only on Jordan but on the Sea. of Galilee, am! they will probably be there as "an immense boon to tourists." On the plains of Sharon there are steam-driven harvesters, as well ns threshing-machines operated by motors. Tho ample carriage ways from Jerusalem to Jaffa and Jericho aro kept in order by an American roadmaking machine, and instead of falling among thieves, tho modern traveller mil only dread puncturing his tyre. Soon there will bo a tramway service to Jericho and to Bethlehem —a French syndicate, is laying down tlio lines tliis autumn. But a British firm is lighting the city by electricity. "Gone tho clay lamp that

once lighted the Judcan home, tho , candle .with which tho woman search- j <>d lor her lo*t piece of silver, with its wick made of twisted fibres of flax. 80011 tiie brilliant metal filament is to light Jerusalem." Watercarts arc taking the place of street sprinkling with water carried in skins: the Jerusalem police force are equipped with bicycles; the Gieck Patriarch may "ring up" the Anglican Bishop by telephone. If the Jerusalem footballers, the telephone bells and motor-horns, sound atrociously modern, there is the compensation that visitors to sacred places will find their way there made more easy; and, as Air Sheptone remarks, "it is not necessarily praiseworthy to put Palestine under a glass case."