THROUGH PALESTINE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 90, 18 April 1939, Page 12

THROUGH PALESTINE.

NEW ZEALANDER'S VISIT.

ADDRESS TO BUSINESS WOMEN

The speaker at the first dinner meeting of the season held by the Business Women's Club last evening, was Mies Elsie K. Morton, who gave a very interesting talk on her journey to and through Palestine.

"I was particularly fortunate in that I arrived at Haifa in the glory of a lovely spring," said Miss Morton. "We travelled through wonderful orange groves on our way to Jerusalem, and it was most interesting to notice the amazing progress made by the Jews in establishing crops in this area which had previously been only waste ground."

Miss Morton described the progress through the Jaffa Gate, a visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with its myriads of golden lamps, ikons and altars, inspecting the quarries of Solomon under the temple of Jerusalem, from which stone had been obtained for the building of the temple, the whole comprising a labyrinth of passages in white rock. The trip down to the Dead Sea, 1000 ft below sea level, the lowest spot on earth, was an interesting experience, although the heat at times was almost unendurable. A visit to Jericho, the only oasis in all that desolation on the shores of the Dead Sea, was described, as were trips to Samaria and Jacob's Well.

The president, Miss Irene Tanner, presided over the gathering, which was a large one.