JERUSALEM THE GOLDEN.
THE ancient city, hoary with age, sitting in its jewels and its rags amidst the baked and barren hills of Judaea, feels
new life in its veins. Jerusalem is giddy with prosperity. The British " Tommy " is here, and a Pactolian stream of piastres floods the shops, bazaars, the very gutters. None so meek, so dull, so unenterprising but can divert some of this torrent ; and Turk, Jew, and Gentile, shopmen, curio-sellers, restaurateurs. cabmen, guides, photographers, artisans, hucksters, barbers, shoe. blacks, and beggars, are enjoying an affluence they have never known or dreamt of since King Solomon's day. Jerusalem in war time has become very much like one of the numerous febrile, army-infested towns of Northern Franco, and in her streets a thousand allurements, from cheap jewellery to pink ice-cream, appeal irresistibly to the passing thousands of dust-covered soldiers.
Poor "Tommy" ! you can't help having a little extra compassion
for him in Jerusalem. He looks so bewildered. This isn't at all the Jerusalem of his boyhood's fancy. It isn't within a thousand miles of it. As I write a band is discoursing lively waltz music in the principal garden off the Jaffa Road, which has now been converted into a sort of open canteen. Occasionally the music is drowned by the rumbling of heavy lorries or prolonged shriek of motor-horns, or punctuated by the shouts of vendors of cakes and lemonade who stand at the doors of their shops and accost the soldiers in execrable new-found English. One fellow, whose eye now and then is lifted to mine, has the impudence to bawl : "Hullo, hullo English ! Good stuff. Come in ? " in the very faoes of officers who, I grieve to say, smile instead of cuffing him as the Hun officers would have done and did. I am afraid the truth must be told. We are not treated by the populace at large with too great respect. It is tho national failing, too easygoing, too amiab1e. too polite, too facile a prey for the petty plunderer. Very few at the natives understand it, and by too many it is mistaken for weakness. But enough of this.
I have paid several fresh visits to the Holy Places. One innova- tion which I remarked is welcome. As there are not enough English-speaking professional guides to go round (and these are reaping a rich harvest), the military authorities have wisely detailed soldiers to the task of escorting their fellows over the chief shrines, and incidentally of recalling Scripture history. I say "wisely," for on the whole it has saved " Tommy " from much imposition. But you can't expect an honest, long-suffering sergeant or corporal tit become a Cook's guide at a moment's notice or be guiltless of occa- sional blasphemy. Indeed, I have heard of more than one Padre who had to interfere and insist upon a more reverent recital of the events of our Lord's Passion. I myself overheard one ruddy-faced N.C.O. continually referring to the Saviour throughout his patter" as "J C." This man appeared, besides, to have been somewhat inadequately, instructed as to the oppressing race of that era, or was unduly artful, for he told his gaping audience that this or that iniquity was perpetrated upon "J. C." by the "ruddy Turks "- a sad misreading of history.
So much for the surface of things. Within, Jerusalem is a seething cauldron of speculation. What is going to happen What is to be its political, social, economic, industrial, and arohi- tectural future ? The inhabitants are dimly aware that Conferences are going on, in which the Commander-in-Chief, General Allenby. the Military Governor, the Chief Administrator of Occupied Enemy Territory, the Mayor of Jerusalem, the Mufti, the Chief Rabbi. the American Commissioner, the English Bishop, and perhaps others, are taking part. Amongst the more ignorant, strange rumours are afloat. It is difficult to say who are the moat exercised— the Jews, who number more than half the population, the Mosleme, or the Syrian and Armenian Christians. But there is little doubt that the Jews, ever since Mr. Balfour's pronouncement concerning Palestine, have the moat confidence in their destiny. It is astonish- ing-the effect which the Balfourian declaration has produced. You hear the name of the English statesman on the lips of Jewry as if he were one of the ancient prophets and the deliverer of their race. The Jews are to have Jerusalem at last; they are no longer to be here on sufferance of the Moslem. The tables are to be turned ; they are at last able to stalk proudly through the streets ; it is the Moslems and the Christians who are henceforward to take the wall. The Wailing Place is deserted. No one comes there now. For the first time in centuries the spectacle of the crouching Hebrew lifting up his voice in lamentations at the lost glories of Israel has wholly ceased. There is nothing to lament about. The sun shines on Zion. A hanisome new motor-car containing a single swarthy figure is familiar in the streets. This is Dr. Weizmann, the British Zionist Commissioner, who is believed to be engaged on an epoch- making Report to the Foreign Office. Of course there is anOthet side of the picture. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Moslems and Syrians and Armenian Christians are nervous. For them the future of El Khuds and of Palestine under Jewish domina- tion is not at all roseate. Many of them will tell you frankly that they will be obliged to emigrate. Already the manner in which the special trading privileges accorded to the Jews have been exercised indicates what their policy will be when they are given the full power they expect. "The Jew is clannish—exclusive ; he has been kept down so long. Reaction will make him intolerant. We see clearly what is in store for us."
Meanwhile the Moslem is lying low ; as low as Brer Rabbit or the Dead Sea. The Mayor, a brother of the late Hussein Husseini, who surrendered Jerusalem and died three weeks later, is shorn of, nearly all his powers, the city being AM under martial law. He is an amiable, enlightened man, and honestly desirous of promoting the welfare of the community. The Mufti views the infidel's invasion philosophically, and he, like the Sheikh of the Mosque of Omar, finds comfort in the present tide of prosperity. Also do they find comfort in the assurance given them by the British authorities that in the town-planning scheme now afoot the ancient city within the walls is to be untouched. Perhaps this same town.- planning scheme is rather a fly in the ointment of the local Jew's felicity. For it involves the destruction of hundreds of the hideous erections which have arisen outside the walls of late years—shops and dwellings which have ruined the approach to Jerusalem. For the Jew, with all his artistic temperament,is not very studious of architectural symmetry, and centuries of Ghetto life have not inspired him with much domiciliary taste. The Germans and the Russians have been in their way but little better. One measure of Turkish official taste is the breach in the wall made close to the Jaffa Gate on the occasion of the Kaiser's famous visit in 1898, and the erection of that eyesore, the Kaiser's Clock Tower. This latter, at all. events, one is rejoiced to hear, is to come down ; the breach is to be filled up and the Jaffa Gate restored. The plans for the new city have been drawn by Mr. McLean, the Chief Engineer of Alexandria, who was responsible for the Khartum improvements. Amongst their chief features is a splendid boulevard running from the south-west towards the old city, intersected by an arboreous rend-point containing the British War Memorial. In future all buildings are to be in keeping with the local character ; no more red roofs, no more flaunting gilded domes and other Neo-Byzantine atrocities. The Holy City is hereafter to preserve her architectural soul secure from outside violation, and with this security may become one of the most beautiful, as it is the holiest, the most ancient, and the most interesting, city in the world. On the industrial and educational aide, Mr. Mabee, the English artist-metal-worker, is here giving his advice as to the various artistic activities which are shortly to be set afoot, of which the Bessie' Workshops and those of the American Colony are pioneers.
On the whole my impressions of Jerusalem are of a " live " town, full of newly awakened interests and special problems which will be watched absorbingly by the whole world. It is hardly likely that British guardianship and oversight will be relaxed even on the conclusion of peace and the formal announcement to the Jews of Palestine that their destiny is henceforward in their own hands.
B. W.
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