MATERIAL PROGRESS IN PALESTINE.
By The Ram's Horn
PALESTINE is beginning to throb with new life and modern activity. During the present season more visitors and pilgrims have traveled thither than in many previous years. This annual human tide will increase rapidly as the land is covered, as it soon will be, by better means of travel. The Turkish Government has worked for several years building a railway along the caravan trail from Damascus to Mecca. The line has been completed and laid with American rails for 220 miles south of Damascus, and 3,000 soldiers are now engaged in extending the grade, which has been completed to the town of Maan, near the ancient city of Petra. Cars are running daily to Ammon, thirty-five miles east of Jericho, under the management of Frenchmen who operate the railroad from Beirut to Damascus. It is expected that a regular service of one train a day each way will be established to Maan within a few weeks, and that the Turks will soon have all-rail connections between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. In the meantime a branch road is being built, also with American rails, from the beautiful town of Haifa, under the shadow of Mount Carmel in Palestine, to the town of Deraa, the metropolis of the Hauran Valley, and thence to Mezerib, where it will connect with the trunk line from Damascus to Mecca. Three thousand men are employed on that line which is to be completed and in working order by the first of June next. Within a few months it will be possible to cross Palestine by railroad from Mount Carmel, where Elijah performed his great miracle; along the River Kishon; over the battlefield where the Philistines slew Jonathan, and where Deborah the prophetess directed the battle between Barak and Sisera. The track runs over the famous plain of Esdraelon, touching the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee, an hour's drive from Tiberias, across the valley of the Jordan into the desert. Every mile is associated with some Scriptural story. In connection with the railway the government is showing great enterprise and energy13in the construction of wagon roads for military purposes, as well as for the convenience of travelers and traders. Most of the roads through Syria and Palestine have been practically impassable for wagons, and indeed few wagons are used. Most of the transportation is done by caravans of camels and donkeys. But a year or so ago the sultan issued an order requiring several of the most important of the ancient roads to be put in order, and thousands of soldiers have been working on them since, under the direction of German engineers. The ancient highway over which Christ traveled between Galilee and Jerusalem, by way of Nablus, has been put in perfect order. The road between Beirut and Jaffa, along the shores of the Mediterranean, passing through Sidon, Tyre, Acre, and Haifa, which has been in a dreadful condition for centuries, has been macadamized and is now in almost perfect condition; and a new road has been built from Jaffa to Gaza and Beersheba. There is great wonderment among the people, and especially among foreigners, as to the motives which have prompted this extraordinary enterprise on the part of the Turkish Government, and the purposes for which these roads are intended. Altho it is a military rather than a commercial movement, it can not fail to promote trade and increase the prosperity of the country, and a period of industrial development may be looked for.—The Ram's Horn.