The Maccabaean

WE set out from Jaffa in the company of Messrs. Levontin and Bermann, on the morning of the fourteenth of Shebat. It had been rather cold during the last few days, as indeed throughout the whole winter this year, which had been unusually severe. Heavy, gray mists concealed the landscape. But we had not left the city far behind before suddenly the fog scattered and the sunshine in all its glory poured down upon us. The winter fell away, sunk and forgotten, though it still embraced the city. The azure sky laughed down upon us; soft, warm breezes wandered over the land, and to our enchanted gaze the fields showed green with the newly sprouting grain and spotted with the colors of the first flowers that were pressing up from the soil.

A neat little village came in sight, Sarona, the seat of an industrious Würthembergian Templar colony. The white houses, each of which has its well-kept garden in front, the clean, straight streets, make a very agreeable impression. Thence our journey took us in a wide curve to the right of Petach-Tikwah.

After an hour and a half the scene widened and we espied the sea in its silent majesty and before us rising in soft outlines the lovely hills of Ephraim. Our road was crossed by the brook Odscha (Biblical, Jarkon), which

Herr David Wolffsohn contributes to the current numbers of Die Welt, a series of charming descriptions of his trip through Palestine and South Africa. One of these articles THE MACCABAEAN is pleased to give its readers this month.

is spanned by a little bridge. \Ve saw opposite us the new chaussee which the Government has laid out from here to Sechem (Na- hblus), and for the completion of which work is stiil continuing, A little later we had a chance to rest for a while. We had arrived at the “Tomb of Benjamin” (Nebi Benjamin) which is held sacred by the Arabs. There are in this region, besides, numerous so-called "Welys,” that have been erected over the graves of the revered dead, and that remind one of little chapels.. We found when we arrived at the grave of Benjamin, a group of kneeling and devoutly praying Arabs. We did not wish to disturb them in their devotion and so refrained from more closely examining the interior of the Nebi Benjamin. . . .

Horses were changed and we proceeded at a fresh gait. The sun, which in the mean while had ascended to the zenith, sent down warmth and light in ever increasing quantities, so that we almost believed ourselves transported into the summer season. As we paused at noon in the open in order to refresh ourselves with a slight meal, our eyes beheld a wonderful picture. The fields spread before us like a variegated tapestry in glowing yellow and red, with glimmering shades of green, white and blue distributed here and there. The first of the rich Palestinian flora, Alpine violets, anemones, narcissus, laughed to us in their young vernal splendor. While we were feeding heart and eyes with this lovely picture and wondering at the wealth of this bewilderingly rapid unfolding of vegetation, we suddenly discovered that we were surrounded by a band of brown