E-text prepared by Richard Tonsing, MFR,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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from page images generously made available by
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| Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/newpathsthrougho00slatuoft |
Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Instead of the soft-footed camels, the motor truck stood at the gates of the Holy City.
New Paths Through Old Palestine
A WORD ABOUT THE NEW PATHS
From our earliest childhood when at Christmastime we gazed with intense interest at theWise-men on their gaily caparisoned camels,those great awkward ships of the desert havebeen associated in our minds with Palestine.The Child held close in Mary’s arms as she satupon the donkey while Joseph urged it onthrough the day and the night in the hurriedflight into Egypt has made that faithful littlebeast a part of Palestine.
We saw both the donkeys with loaded panniersdriven along by wandering Arabs and thestrings of camels, soft-footed, heads heldproudly high, moving off over the yellow sandsup to the hills. But we sat in a modern train,with comfortable leather seats, and a madlypuffing engine dragged us over the wind-blownsands up through the hills of Judea to the littlemodern station just without the walls of Jerusalem.Once when we stopped at old Lydda weheard a rushing, whirring sound over our heads.It grew louder and, as we searched the sky, aviiiplane swept out from the soft clouds into theclear blue, came down nearer, nearer to earth,rose again, and passed out of sight. It hadcome from the City of Zion: it woul