But My Observation And Experience No Other Has Had.
I know of no
other who mapped out or traveled the route chosen by me.
I sought
and expected much; I found and experienced more. And though eight
years have passed since my journeyings in Gilead, yet so fresh is
the memory of those days that I need make but slight reference, as
I write, to the notes that were then written. Often, in recent
years, I have found myself lingering in thought on some high ridge
looking out over an extended panorama filled with sacred
associations, or silently gazing up into the strangely impressive
Oriental sky by night. Even as I write I seem to catch again a
perfume-laden breeze, bearing repose to my weary soul. And if the
memory of this land seen in its desolation is so refreshing to a
foreigner, what must not the possession of the real in the days of
its fatness have been to the weary, battle-scarred Israelites who
secured permission to abide here!
So, in response to the call of my friends, and with the hope of
adding somewhat to the meager fund of information concerning a
once famous district, or, at least, to create additional interest
in the territory occupied by the tribe of Gad in the days of early
allotment, I undertake to tell the story of "My Three Days in
Gilead."
Dayton, Virginia, February 20, 1909.
Contents
Chapter I. "Waiting at Damascus"
Chapter II. "Through Bashan"
Chapter III. "Among Bedouins"
Chapter IV. "At Gerasa"
Chapter V. "Up Into the Mountains"
Chapter VI. "By the Watch-Tower"
Chapter VII. "Down to the Jordan"
Chapter VIII. "At the Bridge"
"Waiting at Damascus"
CHAPTER I.
Damascus! A city that numbers the years of its existence in
millenniums; that witnessed in the dawn of history the migration
of Abraham as he went out from Ur to a land not known to him, and
to whom she gave one of the best of her sons; that sent out the
leper, Naaman, to Palestine for healing and received him back
whole; that hailed with great preparations the coming of Elisha,
who had previously blinded her army at Dothan; that welcomed Saul
of Tarsus in his blindness, restored his sight, and sent him,
transformed in his life, to transform Asia Minor and classic
Europe. Damascus! A city surviving an age-long struggle with the
encroaching desert - a struggle that must go on through ages to
come; but, as long as the Abana and Pharpar continue to flow, the
sands that would bury her forever in oblivion will be changed into
a soil of life-giving and life-sustaining fertility sufficient to
support her thousands of inhabitants. Damascus! A city of the long
ago, practically unchanged, where the Occidental may look to-day
with unfeigned interest upon architecture, costumes, and customs
similar to those that prevailed in the East while Greece and Rome
were yet young. Damascus! A city celebrated for a thousand years
for its bazaars, work-shops, and roses; a city so beautiful
thirteen hundred years ago that Mohammed, viewing it for the first
time from a distance, is said to have exclaimed:
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 2 of 29
Words from 596 to 1124
of 14974
