THE HOLY LAND.* • The Holy Land. By Hobert Hi c hen s.

London : Hodder and Stoughton. • A History of the Boyd &Arty of Arta. By Sir Henry Truman Wood.

L60.1 London: JOTue HurraY. [154 net]

MR. HICHENS has written an account of his wanderings in Palestine. It is a bold thing for a novelist to set himself to

handle so hackneyed a theme. Mr. Hiehens's courage is com- pletely justified. The book is fascinating. As is, of course, well known, Mr. Hichens's somewhat voluptuous style forms a good medium for Eastern pictures. He begins his description of the city of Damascus by saying, "Damascus, though sacred, is seductive." He has managed to make both words apply to his pictures of the Holy Land. Damascus, with its ancient sacred associations, its forty-eight mosques, the tomb of Saladin, and its clusters of houses hidden in its world-famous roses and jasmine, is in truth a city of dreams.

" Why is it so fascinating ? Why will it be for ever a delicious memory in my mind ? I can scarcely tell. Two young Arab boys lean on the edge of the basin dreamily listening to the fountain, and casting sprays of jasmine upon the surface of the water. The guardian draws slowly at his narghile, as he squats On the sofa with his legs tucked under him. A blue pigeon flits under the white arch. The noise of the city, in the heart of which we are, does not penetrate to this place. We hear only the fountain. Who dwells in those shuttered louses, behind the fretwork of wood, behind the climbing-flowers? I shall never know. No voice drops down from them, no eyes peep out. We are in a hermitage, deep surely in old Damascus, where the feet of Abraham trod."

Mr. Hichens transports his readers to a different world by

discussing a visit which he paid to the house of a man famous among the Moslems of Syria, " The Conductor Protector General of the Holy Carpet." The title reminds one of Gilbert's operas as well as of the Arabian Nights.

" This personage has a position of great dignity in Damascus, but he has to pay for it by journeying every year to Mecca and back. Formerly this was an eshansting undertaking, but now much of the journey can be made by train. When he leaves the train, the pasha steps into his carriage. But he enters the sacred city riding upon a milk-white horse and bareheaded, and, save for a white burnoose, naked."

That this man, who seems to belong so entirely to other days, should travel in a train seems to make the Gilbertian element in the scene prevail. The picture of his house, with its "gold and crystal chandelier," its exquisite furniture, "inlaid with walnut, ivory, silver, and mother-of-pearl, and upholstered in grey and pale-yellow striped silk," confirms the half-comic impression. Mr. lichens did not see the " Conductor Protector General" himself, though he had hoped to do so, but only three of his magnificent rooms, his gardens, and the latticed windows of his harem.

Leaving the " Garden City touched by the great desert," Mr. Hichens rode on towards Nazareth, and on that journey "all that I had ever heard of the joys of the spring in Palestine came back to my memory, and I rejoiced in the truth." It seems hardly possible to realize the beauty of the wild flowers in Palestine. " Arcady ! It is an Arcady of the East." In it Mr. Hichens finds both Solomon's glory and the lilies of the field. The flowery present and the tradition- laden past seize together upon his mind. " Surely no one who has ridden, hour after hour, across the vast plains of Palestine in springtime can ever forget their charm, their peculiar, almost druglike spell, irresistible and sweet." Through all this beauty the traveller descends to "the brook Kishon," whose waters swept away the hosts of Sisera, and visits the place where Saul and his sons were killed, where

Jebu drove and Jezebel schemed, so long ago that they seem to belong to another world.

Our author gives us in passing a strange description of the motiern Samaria. 'Very few Samaritans now remain. Ever

since the time of our Lord they have held themselves apart. The few that remain are still hated, still distrusted, " and this strange race, now almost extinct, has always been famous for malice, for pertinacity, for fanaticism, and for a certain dogged indifference to the opinions of those whose power has been greater than its own." Onr Lord said a kind word for them, and somehow even now we feel an instinctive desire to defend them and to believe that among "a bitter and hasty people" there may still be some " good Samaritans." Mr. Hichens's description of Jerusalem —its outward aspect—is somehow disappointing. We feel that in this one instance he is a little carried away by his power of

fine writing. Can the hills which stand round Jerusalem be truly described as cruel! They impressed the Psalmist with as sense of perfect and intimate protection : "So standeth the Lord about His people," he exclaimed, rejoicing in the sweet sense of home. It is true, no doubt, that " The Jerusalem of our Lord is buried far down beneath the mud," but surely

association must have some power to gild the new city P Mr. lichens thinks not.

"Whenever I think of the new Jerusalem my eyes mechanically blink, and, as in a vision, I see before me various pallors : whites, yellows, yellow greys, yellow browns, pinky reds, pale dust, pale mud, pale puddles, white-faced men in yellow moving with an air of combined defiance and surreptitious servility along roads that look suburban, between large, light-coloured, new houses."

Yet he admits that in what remains of mediaeval Jerusalem the spell of the East again takes possession Of the beholder.

Some of the most charming passages in this charming book are given to descriptions of the Russian peasasit pilgrims. Never weary of worship, never discouraged by thitoil of their journeys, the Russian peasants on pilgrimage form, he tells us, the most touching sight in the Holy Land. As he went from Jericho to Bethlehem he met a vast crowd of them. "Into the wilderness, bravely, with their strange simplicity of courage, were marching the people of holy Russia, singing hymns in the wind, among the stones, the dust, the nakedness.

These voices go straight to the heart. In their timbre is the innocence that dwells in the eyes of a young child."

In front of the inn of the Good Samaritan he tells us hdd a crowd of them stopped to rest.

" Bits of black bread were produced by men and women, and eaten slowly, not voraciously, but with a quiet relish. Soma crossed themselves repeatedly. A few prayed. There was not much talking. Many seemed to be sunk in wide-eyed dreams. Many were very grave, but in their gravity there was no bitter- ness, only a sort of gentle and deep seriousness that was full of humanity. Now and then a few voices sang sweetly together. And presently, the repose over, the black bread eaten, the bundles were girded on again, the big staffs were taken in hand, and onward they slowly went once more, their minds surely full of the thought of Jordan, their eyes set toward the mountains of Moab. Whenever I saw the Russian pilgrims I thought of that day When Jesus took a little child and set him in the raidat."

To our author Jerusalem was far less holy than the shores of Galilee. There he felt the power of the Great Tradition.

"On those quiet waters far below me, as still as glass, green, bodged about by thickets of wild oleander and by myriads of unknown flowers, the miraculous feet had walked. It was as if the touch of those feet had given to them peace for ever—that marvellous peace at which I now was gazing. Yes, this was the country of Jesus; and for me at that moment all the old gods were dead."