218 SIR VICTOR BROOKE CHAP. 



identification, which differs from the traditional site. 

 It is the way He would come naturally, with a large 

 procession. I have not been into Jerusalem yet, but we 

 shall go this afternoon. I really grudge every moment 

 off Olives. The Plain of Sharon through which we 

 passed is rich and a real land of promise. It and the 

 country of the Philistines to its south form a vast plain 

 some 40 miles across, and beyond rise the mountains 

 of the ' hill country,' which is very definitely dis- 

 tinguishable from the plain. Lydda struck me very 

 much. I should think it was very little altered. All the 

 villagers were out, it being Friday, in a green field on 

 a hillside the children swinging, young people playing 

 games, and the old people talking, about 2000 of 

 them ; and in their varied costumes it was most striking. 

 Emmaus is a gray, ghostly-looking village (very small) 

 on a bleak hillside. To-morrow we go to Hebron by 

 Bethlehem, then Mar Saba, then Jericho, and then 

 back, when I will write again. You cannot tell how 

 intensely I wish you were with me." 



" JERUSALEM, 

 Saturday, 6th April 1889. 



Here we are back again, and I feel as if I had lived 

 a lifetime since I wrote last. Much as I looked 

 forward and expected, as you know, I have reaped a 

 harvest of intense gain that far outstrips my keenest 

 expectations. It is impossible to give you any idea in a 

 letter of what overpowering joy it is going through a 

 country, every scene of which is full of associations, 

 beside which every interest on this earth can be but 

 nothing. At Hebron we put up in the Russian 

 convent (as it was very wet), which immediately 

 "overlooks the Plain of Mamre, and just below the convent 

 is a very aged oak. This tree is undoubtedly the 



