XIIITHE LONG WHITE ROAD

TheJaffa Gate of Jerusalem opens out upon two historic highways. The one which gives its name to the gate leads westward to the sea; the other, which we are to take, passes southward along the Valley of Hinnom between the Sultan’s Pool and the western wall of the city, and then climbs over the brow of a steep hill on its way to Hebron, beyond which the caravan trail leads farther on to the South Country and the desert and the land of the Pharaohs.

A good walker could go from Jerusalemto Bethlehem in a little more than an hour, for the distance is hardly five miles; but it will be more pleasant to stroll along leisurely, studying the other wayfarers, and stopping now and then to admire some rugged old olive tree or to watch the changing colors on the distant hills.

THE BETHLEHEM ROAD (To the Right)From the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem

As soon as we are fairly started down the Hebron road, we begin to pass little companies of men and women who are coming up from Bethlehem to the Holy City with their merchandise. There is a striking difference between the appearance of these people and that of the other inhabitants of Judea; a difference not only in dress, but in feature. The men wear large yellow turbans, and have full lips, long noses, and high, sloping foreheads, so that they fit in very closely with our common idea ofthe Hebrew type. They are not Jews, however, but Christians, and it is said that in the veins of many of them flows the blood of the Crusaders. The boys we meet are frank and independent, tramping merrily along, with little caps on their heads, their one long, loose garment tucked up into the leather belt, and their brown, bare legs ending in tremendous slippers which flop clumsily with every step.

The women of Bethlehem are known throughout Palestine for their peculiar headdress. Over a high cap is thrown a large white kerchief or veil, which falls behind the shoulders and often reaches below the waist. Seen from behind, the Bethlehemite woman is a square of blue skirt, topped by a tall triangle of white; from the front she looks like a nun of some unfamiliarorder. It is a singular costume, but you soon come to like it, and when the clean, white headdress is seen in the distance, it is pleasant to be able to recognize its wearer as a woman of Bethlehem. As we pass one little company after another, we cannot help looking rather closely to see what kind of women these are who are coming out from the town of Ruth and of Mary.

BETHLEHEM GIRLS

Outside of poetical romances, one does not find many examples of Oriental beauty. There are multitudes of pretty children, and the girls of twelve or fourteen have large, soft eyes, regular features and graceful figures; but early marriages and the subsequent drudgery, combined with a lack of proper dentistry, usually turn them into toothless, wrinkled hags at an age whenthey should be most attractive. There are exceptions among the richer classes and among girls who have been educated in schools connected with European or American missions; but on the whole there are very few fine-looking women over twenty-five years old to be found in Palestine.

We are therefore surprised to notice that many of these Bethlehem women are really handsome; not with the rich, voluptuous beauty which is usually associated with the East, but with a matronly dignity which appeals more strongly to our Western eyes. We enjoy watching that young mother who is carrying the baby upon her shoulder; she is such a straight, slender woman, with clean-cut features and honest eyes. We like the old woman beside her; an old woman wholooks like a grandmother, not like a withered witch, and who carries herself with a dignity that wins our admiration.

It may be due to nothing more than good food and pure water, or to the great headdresses which make it necessary to stand so erect; but whatever the cause, it seems to us that not even in Nazareth have we seen so many self-respecting, motherly-looking women as in this town which once witnessed the apotheosis of motherhood.

As we stroll along the well-paved road, we pass one spot after another which is not only connected by tradition with the sacred history, but which has been noted by such a long succession of pious pilgrims that even the most trivial fables seem to bind us more closely with the innumerable throng which for nineteen centuries has been treadingwith reverent feet this ancient highway to the birthplace of our Lord.

Off to our right is the Wâdi el-Werd, “The Valley of Roses,” which recalls the quaint tale of Sir John Mandeville. At the left of the road is a well by which Mary is said to have rested on her way to Bethlehem, and in which a few days later the Wise Men found again the reflection of the guiding Star. Some distance further on, near the venerable monastery of St. Elijah, the “Field of Peas” is still strewn with its little, rounded stones. A sudden rise in the road broadens our horizon so that we can see, off to the left and very far below us, the dark blue waters of the Dead Sea. Six or seven miles to the southeast there rises the striking profile of the Frank Mountain, shaped like a truncated pyramid,upon whose platform lie the ruins of Herod’s famous castle. Glimpses of Bethlehem itself are caught now and then between the surrounding heights. We pass the tomb of beautiful, warm-hearted, impulsive Rachel, the sadness of whose lonely burial by the roadside has touched the hearts of passers-by for nearly forty centuries.

Here we leave the main road, which goes on southward to Hebron, and turn in to the left to Bethlehem. “David’s Well” has long been identified with a series of cisterns hewn in the rock some distance before we reach the modern city. Somewhere in the fields below us Ruth gleaned among the harvesters of Boaz. Somewhere among those same fields the youthful David tended his father’s sheep. Somewhere above them rang the glad music ofthe angelic Gloria. Somewhere on the long hilltop, now covered by the white, closely-built houses of the town, the Saviour of the world was born.

The heart must be dead to romance as well as to religion, which does not beat with a strange, solemn excitement upon entering the Christmas City.

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