things I have somehow absorbed concerning Palestine. I must begin a
system of reduction. Like my grapes which the spies bore out of the
Promised Land, I have got every thing in Palestine on too large a scale.
Some of my ideas were wild enough. The word Palestine always brought to
my mind a vague suggestion of a country as large as the United States.
I do not know why, but such was the case. I suppose it was because I
could not conceive of a small country having so large a history. I think
I was a little surprised to find that the grand Sultan of Turkey was a
man of only ordinary size. I must try to reduce my ideas of Palestine to
a more reasonable shape. One gets large impressions in boyhood,
sometimes, which he has to fight against all his life. "All these
kings." When I used to read that in Sunday School, it suggested to me
the several kings of such countries as England, France, Spain, Germany,
Russia, etc., arrayed in splendid robes ablaze with jewels, marching in
grave procession, with sceptres of gold in their hands and flashing
crowns upon their heads. But here in Ain Mellahah, after coming through
Syria, and after giving serious study to the character and customs of the
country, the phrase "all these kings" loses its grandeur. It suggests
only a parcel of petty chiefs--ill-clad and ill-conditioned savages much
like our Indians, who lived in full sight of each other and whose
"kingdoms" were large when they were five miles square and contained two
thousand souls. The combined monarchies of the thirty "kings" destroyed
by Joshua on one of his famous campaigns, only covered an area about
equal to four of our counties of ordinary size. The poor old sheik we
saw at Cesarea Philippi with his ragged band of a hundred followers,
would have been called a "king" in those ancient times.

It is seven in the morning, and as we are in the country, the grass ought
to be sparkling with dew, the flowers enriching the air with their
fragrance, and the birds singing in the trees. But alas, there is no dew