Birds by the Wayside 107 



the large cities. Even when birds are found in cities, they 

 may be strange birds, requiring time for their identification. 

 It is at such times in a conducted party that one feels as if 

 jerked along by a string. There has been a pause, the guide 

 starts on, the string is jerked, one must follow fast, and in- 

 stantly or be lost, and the strange bird whose points of iden- 

 tification are being taken drops into the class of the unknown. 



Possibly an uplift in religious faith may be the portion of 

 some American visitors to the Holy Land, but more likely 

 they experience a sickening disgust, produced by the ubiqui- 

 tous parade of fake relics, antiquities, and historical sites. 

 We landed at Jafifa, the port in which Jonah took ship for a 

 voyage that included a remarkable adventure with a "big 

 fish." The immense brown rocks 'that dot the waters of the 

 bay probably withstood tempestous waves for countless ages 

 before the days of Jonah or those in which Phoenician "floats" 

 came there, ladened with cedars from Lebanon for the tem- 

 ple of Solomon. These rocks offered the sole opportunity, 

 that we saw in Palestine, that had escaped the fakir's wand. 

 On none was mounted a giant cedar reputed to have been left 

 there in Solomon's time; nor was anywhere exposed the 

 skeleton of the "big fish" ; nor was any rock singled out as 

 a spot where Jonah sunned himself after a sea bath. One 

 such blessed exemption as this cannot be prized too highly. 



Some years ago, while a Scottish guide pointed out to 

 American tourists the window from which was lowered the 

 infant son of Mary, Queen of Scots, one visitor exclaimed : 

 " Do you mean to tell us that this is the identical window ? 

 That these very stones were in place here then ? " The guide 

 hastening to uphold the tradition answered : " The ?tones 

 may have been changed, but the hole certainly is the same." 

 Realizing the changes, ruin, and decay that three thousand 

 or nineteen hundred years are sure to work everywhere, the 

 intelligent visitors to Palestine can expect to find no more 

 than "the hole" remaining: The bay of ancient Joppa, with 

 its steep, encircling hills, the plains, the mountains, the rivers, 

 the seas, the flowers, the trees, and the birds are much the 



