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[Illustration: THE GIRL'S OWN PAPER

VOL. XX.--NO. 987.]      NOVEMBER 26, 1898.      [PRICE ONE PENNY.]




[Illustration: TOWN LADY AND COUNTRY WOMEN.]

_All rights reserved._]




FROM LONDON TO DAMASCUS.

JERUSALEM.


Elizabeth and I mounted a camel and took our last _schimmel hauer_, or
airing, in Jaffa the beautiful. As our ungainly steed swung up the road
with us on his back, and a peculiarly contemptuous expression on his
face, we became objects of much curiosity to the natives, who stopped
to gaze and point at us. We were amused to see the women in their
excitement stand with unveiled faces unmindful of the men, who equally
excited had joined them. Their remarks on our appearance were not
exactly complimentary. "Look at the Frangi ladies, how they sit! How
funny they look! The Frangis are all mad! See, they smile!" We did not
understand Arabic, and our missionary friend was too kind to translate
freely, otherwise we might not have smiled.

What a glorious morning it was! The remembrance of it now brings a
delicious dreaminess over my senses. It must have been on such a
day that Lothair and the radiant Mr. Phœbus journeyed from Jaffa
to Jerusalem, when the lovely Euphrosyne "rode through lanes of
date-bearing palm-trees, and sniffed with her almond-shaped nostrils
the all-pervading fragrance." Sharon, the great maritime plain, once
a huge forest, from which it takes its name, lay stretched before us.
In the midst of its magnificent orange groves, its flower bedecked
meadows, its peaceful cornfields, rose the stately palms, their plumed
heads nodding in the faint breeze. Beyond, like an _Arabian Nights_
Geni, the stagnant clouds rested on the peaks of the Judæan hills,
while in sharp contrast the restless Mediterranean flashed a thousand
brilliant lights. Even the dreaded black rocks at the entrance of the
harbour were robbed of their terror by the soft sunshine. We were
loath, indeed, to leave so lovely a scene, but we comforted ourselves
with the thought of returning again some day.

An hour after midday we had said good-bye to our kind hostesses, and
seated in a ramshackle old carriage which threatened to come to pieces
at any moment, were driving--save the mark!--in all haste to the
railway station. Our road lay through the market, whose odoriferous
Asiatic smells are particularly unpleasing to English noses. We thought
our driver divined this, for he wasted no time, but with terrific
shouts and pistol-like cracks of an enormous whip, scattered to the
right and left everything and everybody in the line of route, and
brought us up to the station in dashing style but exhausted condition.

We had barely got on to the platform with our luggage when the booking
office, as if by magic, was invaded by a howling screaming pack of
men trying to force their way through a hastily closed door into the
station. The voices of the officials demanding order were drowned by
the noise, but the speedy arrival of a couple of stalwart Turkish
soldiers armed with formidable-looking whips, which they applied
impartially to the heads and shoulders of the unruly mob, soon created
a dispersion, and peaceable passengers were allowed to take their
tickets. This sudden raid on the railway station was made by a number
of unauthorised porters, who had become a grave source of annoyance
to travellers. The officials were determined to rid themselves of the
nuisance, and the order of "No admittance" was being put into effect
that day. The Arab seems incapable of learning obedience through any
medium but that of corporal punishment. Whether he can be taught reason
by less drastic treatment under a more reasonable form of government
has yet to be proved. At present, the only law he condescends to
understand is represented in tangible form by a powerful soldier armed
with a weapon which he promptly uses, indifferent to life or limb of
the offender. This measure, if not pleasing, is at any rate effectual.

The railroads from Jaffa to Jerusalem, and from Beirût to Damascus, are
justly considered to be the most valuable innovation from the West.
The primary idea of the French Company who work them was, that the
thousands of pilgrims who visit the Holy Land every year would use the
line as a shorter and less expensive mode of travelling. The original
idea has developed, for the demands of commerce require goods trains,
and merchants are not slow to avail themselves of these advantages.
Besides this, the railways have proved a powerful means of breaking
down ancient prejudice and bringing the larger culture and refinement
of the West within reach of the more ignorant but