INTRODUCTION 



We were walking along the border of the Plain of 

 Esdraelon, where Elijah girded up his loins and fled be- 

 fore the finger of Jezebel, where the Crusader knights 

 fought the hosts of Saladin. Around us were the ghosts 

 of a hundred ancient armies — but we were not thinking 

 of them because before our very eyes, more history was 

 in the making. A few hundred yards away we could hear 

 the tramp of a conquering army. Up the famous old road 

 to Jerusalem marched Tommy Atkins and his pals: — 

 Yeomen from the counties of England, Scots from the 

 Highlands, Gurkhas from Nepal, giant Sikhs from the 

 Punjab, Jodphur Lancers from Rajputana, and swart 

 Pathans from Waziristan. Behind them came the 

 Bikanir Camel Corps, and the swaggering horsemen of 

 the Australian Tenth Light Horse. They were marching 

 up the same road that had resounded to the armies of the 

 Pharaohs, the Babylonians, the Canaanites, the Philis- 

 tines, the Israelites, the Legions of Rome, and Napo- 

 leon's grenadiers. 



For weeks I had been with Allenby's army on its con- 

 quering sweep across the Holy Land. But what caught 

 my eye and held my attention on the Plain of Esdraelon 

 was something strangely removed from this pageant of 

 modern war. Men were planting trees, the loafers and 

 laborers of Arab villages industriously working under 



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