A PLEA FOR CARMEL.
IFINE extent to which Palestine has been denuded of its I. forests has been so frequently emphasized that many have ceased to realize it. Hardly a writer on the land.but has set this fact forth, till men have scarcely cared to believe. No jest was commoner with the men of our Egyptian Expeditionary Force than. the one about the place of their campaigning being " a land of milk and honey." Yet, as the tide of success carried us northward, and out of the miserable desert-plains, we began to see, with wonder, how many features of naturai,beauty still remained; and few can have got into Galilee and Lebanon without finding that they had learned to love a country so richly and variously attractive. One thing is very certain, no man who came to Palestine from Mesopotamia was ever heard to utter any word of criticism. And, even now, glimpses and patches remain of the old exquisite woodland. " Gad, but this is pretty country, this is," said a Brigadier in my hearing as we came in sight of the approaches to Haifa ; " I'd like to go over it-with a gun." I have no doubt that he shortly did so.
The great coast-forests, through which the Crusaders came, have gone. I have read that considerable remains of the oakforest of Arsuf lasted up to the war, and it is likely enough, for all those slopes are full of stumps recently cut down. The hills which run up into the country's heart, through Samaria and by Nablus, have the appearance of a half-shaven sheep's back, so cleanly and utterly have the trees 'been cut away almost to the crest. Sir George Adam Smith speaks of riding over the ridges of Gilead, " where the oak branches rustled and their shadows swung to and fro over the cool paths." He did what no living man will ever do again. 'Coppice remains in Gilead, but.hardly a tree ; the woods went to feed the Maan Railway. Lebanon is stripped, and Anti-Lebanon, and it is only in some of the western valleys that thickets of ilex and myrtle and carob remind us that it was here that Adonis died and Kypris ran wailing, that it was here that the young world's imagination wandered. Syrian coppice is perhaps the loveliest 3n earth. But the Syrian prefers to make a sheer sweep of it, that he may then terrace up the hillside, for vineyards.
But Tabor remains, and Carmel. The Turkish axes have been busy on both, yet both remain, lovelier than description an convey. I went into the heart of Carmel early in April of this year. I have seen many lands, and know the forests af Burma and the Himalayas ; but. I can truthfully say that I have seen nothing more exquisite in beauty than April on Carmel. I had seen it a month earlier, in its first burst of wild lilies, when the Austrian Hospice had bowls filled with great, velvet, all-but-black irises, and the slopes were lit with yellow asphodeline. It was glorious in Esdraelon, then, at Carmel's foot, with anemones, white; blue, and scarlet, and with the small gold iris. But in April the spring had ripened. For a dozen miles I went on, till I reached the traditional scene of Elijah's contest with the priests of Baal. Carmel's long summit, a plateau with rugged edges, glens dipping down to sea or Kishon and wooded still, was one face of flowers. The Mediterranean front had been ruined, before the war, by the German colony of Haifa ; for the native woodland they had planted eucalyptus and pines. And among these pines were our G.H.Q. huts. NVe were making a second Kantara here, cutting down the pines, to make way for long wooden sheds. When the work of devastation had gone moderately far, plans were changed, and it was decided to make Carmel the summer home not of G.H.Q. but of Corps. It matters little. The Muses are unrepresented on either, and the wood-gods get short shrift from both. Corps or G.H.Q.—they recognize that it is " pretty country," good to go over with a gun.
So I struck inland. The copse had been slashed and broken up, but the flowery carpet remained. There were miles of cistus, both white and pink, a shrubbery in themselves, rough, dwarf bushes, covered with multitudes of daintiest blossoms. From the clefts hollyhocks sprang, and cyclamen not yet finished flowering. Where cornfields had usurped the forest's place, the yellow marigold and gladiolus grew. Both of these are " of the cornfields " (Chrysanthemum segetum and Gladiolus segetum). Under the rock-roses crept their tiny kinsflower, the sun-rose (Helianthemum). Blue cornflowers were everywhere. Lilies were over, except for gladiolus, garlic% and orruithogalum ; but red ranunculus was out, following on the heels of red anemone, which had reigned during March. Marguerites, and those most ubiquitous of Palestine wild flowers, pink flax and cream-coloured scabious, were in their prime. Other flowers that I noticed were bur-marigold, pink campion, campanulas of several sorts, including one tall enough and with bells enough to be a wand for Silenus, the silvan deities' jester ; buplevrum, negella, knapweeds, thyme—carpets of thyme—thistles, pink bindweed, poppy, adonis (" tears of Christ "), yellow saxifrage, white clover, dwarf yellow trefoil. But the copse was Carmel's greatest glory. A stray pine had seeded itself here and there, from those abominable Teuton groves. But the copse, where the axe of war had spared it, kept its fresh, native sweetness. Styrax, a very showy plant, was in flower, hung with white tassels ; arbutus, wild bay (Laurus nobilis), and holmoak (Quercus pseudo-coccifera) were all blossoming. These, with hawthorn, no longer in flower, butcher's broom, terebinth, and carob, made up the thicket, a thicket, as I have said, lovelier to my mind than great forests of magnificent trees. Cistus filled up the interstices and made a purfled fringe ; red-berried burnt and coarse, pungent lentisk added a rough jungle of their own. Two sorts of broom, both flowering, were in placesGenista sphace,lata and Calycotome villosa. Blue salvia is almost a shrub, and this was abundant ; and thymelaea (which looks somewhat like young box) is certainly one, but this was rare. By El-Moukraqa—the place of Elijah's sacrifice—the wildest part of all this lovely region, I found a cephalanthera in the arbutus thicket, tall, waxen spikes of virginal whiteness.
There is only one village on Carmel, where Druses live. I visited them on my way back, and they told me of the devastation which the Turks had made. Formerly Cannel had abounded with wild animals. But now the leopards had fled, all but two or three still haunting the glens leading down to Kishon ; and the roe-deer were almost extinct.
And now for my plea for Carmel. Remember how famous and dear this land is, and once how beautiful. Yet even in this land " the excellency of Carmel " stood out, a crown and dream of loveliness. Though he hid in Carmel, where the forest grew as thickly as hairs on a head, God would pluck him thence, said the prophet. And though during the centuries spoilers
have ravished the land's beauty, still Cannel has kept much of its woodland. Especially towards the south, in the foothills behind Zummorin, and in the deep glens, the copse has survived. This is the most southerly home of the roe-deer, in Palestine lingering here only and in Northern Galilee. The huntingleopard, a graceful creature which does not harm man, is not yet extinct. No country has a more fascinating fauna than the Holy Land. Yet one fears that, after six months' peaceoccupation by the British Army, the new Fauna of Palestine will be like the famous chapter on Snakes in Iceland. A new edition of Tristram's book is overdue. Since the war a lynx new to science has been found in the Jordan Valley. Almost every page of Tristram has to be modified. Whoever undertakes the task of writing the new Fauna will find how greatly, in how short a time, our Army has simplified his work. Yet surely Cannel and Tabor might be saved, especially Carmel. From Carmel the pilgrim looks down to Homer's " wine-dark sea," and on the story of countless centuries. There is still the old high place, muffled in with ilex and knee-holly ; to the north is " that ancient river, the river Kishon," running past the Mound where tradition says the priests of Baal died, through pool and lagoon, to the sea. Beyond Kishon, Acre looms ; and, over Acre's shoulder, in winter the snowy head of Hermon, John's " great white throne," high in heaven, looking out towards the sunsets on Patmos. To the south, Athlit, the " Castella peregrinorum " of the Crusaders, stands on its promontory. There is the Plain of Sharon. And here to the north-east is Esdraelon, where Sisera fled and good King Josiah died ; and, above it, is the sickle-sweep of Gilboa, where Saul and Jonathan perished. And, against Gilboa, there is Tabor ; and there is Nazareth. Nay, but for its own sake alone Carmel should be saved. The seaward front is doomed. But let there be no roads made into its heart, where paths 'suffice. Let the cograilway, now being run up to its summit, stop at the crest. Above all, let all the miscellaneous Levantine crowd, soulless and sordid, who collect round British quarters, be kept from building on Cannel. Let it be held as a sanctuary, where the wild life of Palestine can find shelter, and men after us can know it. So will men's minds be able to live over again that crowded drama which these heights saw, when Elijah strove with a people " halting on the threshold " ; and they will understand why even Vespasian, on his way to stamp out Jewry, halted to consult the oracle of the God Cannel. Otherwise the excellency which has survived Roman and Saracen, and, in considerable measure, even Turk and Teuton, will perish in our hands ; and Carmel will be merely a fashionable residential quarter, a second Malabar Hill to the second Bombay which we are building at Haifa. The interests which would ruin Carmel are very powerful ; and it will soon be too late to save it.
EDWARD J. THOMPSON.
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