THERE is now a great railway system in the course of construction, which will girdle the Holy Land from one end to the other. A French company has secured a concession for a line from Beyrout to Damascus, and has already commenced work on a narrow-gauge road. An English syndicate is now building a railway from Haifa to Damascus, which will be about one hundred and forty miles long, starting from Haifa, finding its way along the northern base of the range of Carmel to the plain of Esdraelon, through the valley east of Nazareth. Leaving Mount Tabor it will cross the River Jordan on a trestle, and then to the point known as Majemeh, where the Little Jordan joins the greater river. At this point the road will border on the southern shore of Galilee, and almost without a curve along the famous wheat region, biblically known as the plains of Bashan, thence to the southern gate of Damascus.—St. Louis Republic.