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1 1 Jerusalem 



A SECTION OF THE GREAT MOSAIC MAP OE PALESTINE 



In 1880 a Christian settlement was founded about the mound of ancient Madeba. Ten 

 years later the Greek patriarch at Jerusalem heard of a mosaic map at that place and 

 promptly sent a master mason there to preserve it. The mosaic was nearly complete at that 

 time. Instead of preserving it, the mason almost destroyed it, reporting back to Jerusalem that 

 it did not possess the importance which had been attributed to it. In 1897 the librarian of the 

 Greek patriarchate went down to Madeba and found the map one of the greatest archeolog- 

 ical discoveries of modern times. It is thought that originally it included all of the country 

 from Constantinople to Egypt. Jerusalem is plainly seen with a colonnaded street running 

 through It, past the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Jordan River is shown with fish 

 in it and emptying into the Dead Sea. 



DOMINION OF THE PAST 



Caves and tombs, ruins and battle- 

 fields, and ancient seats of worship are 

 the visible signs of that dominion of the 

 past, overweighting and almost effacing 

 the present, which one feels constantly 

 and everywhere in Palestine. For us 

 English-speaking men and women, who 

 read the Bible in our youth and followed 

 the stream of history down through an- 

 tiquity and the Middle Ages, no country 

 is so steeped in historical associations. 



It could not be otherwise, for in no 

 other country (save Egypt) did history 

 begin so early ; none has seen such an un- 



ending clash of races and creeds ; none 

 has been the theater of so many events 

 touching the mind of so large a part of 

 mankind. The interest which Nature, 

 taken alone, fails to give is given in un- 

 equaled profusion by history, and by 

 legend even more than by history. 



THE ATMOSPHERE OF LEGEND AND MARVEL 



The Holy Land is steeped also in an 

 atmosphere of legend and marvel. As 

 the traveler steps ashore at Jaffa he is 

 shown the rock to which Andromeda 

 was chained when Perseus rescued her 

 from the sea monster. (It is the only 



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