VISITING IN THE HOLY LAND

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume 65, Issue 100, 21 December 1943, Page 3

VISITING IN THE HOLY LAND

TOURS IN AND AROUND

JERUSALEM

DUNSANDEL SOLDIER'S EXPERIENCES

In the story of his visit to Palestine, Private W. C. Balloch, of Dunsandel, speaks of many interesting tours- around, Jerusalem, not the least being that to the Old City. Of this he says:

We walked or rather dodged along the quaint old streets hardly more than 12 feet in width. Tradesmen were ,at work in their tiny shops making shoes, brass-ware, ornaments and souvenirs carved from olive wood and moth"er-df-pearl. All manner of wares and foodstuffs were displayed outside the shops. Farmers, we would call them mar-ket-gardeners, were leading their beasts of burden along these narrow crowded streets bringing in their produce to the markets. The astounding fact about this quaint, thickly-populated old, city was that everyone and everything was scrupulously clean. After tdodging through these narrow crowded streets for some time our guide led us up some steps to the Mosque of Omar, sometimes known as the Dome of the Rock. This mosque is a high-domed eight-sided building erected over a rock of which the history dates back for several thousand years. Its floor is partially covered by beautiful Turkish carpets, some of them showing signs of war. The windows were of stained glass in wliich were worked Arabic figures. There was some wonderful metal work in the form of screens and chandaliers.

Next we visited the Wailing- Wall, which, we were told, had perhaps thousands of years ago been the wall of a huge temple. Orthodox Jews come to this wall and mourn for their loved, ones. We saw them praying, chanting and even lowly wailing. From here we were led through crowded streets, which our guide informed us was the Way of the Cross, to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The building was magnificent but we were unable to see the sepulchre itself as it was closed for repairs. A walk through the Jewish bazaars finished the morning's tour. In the afternoon the party experienced its Urst donkey rid,e; the writer hoped it would be his last, because those beasts lived up to their reputation and at times were certainly stubborn. The first place inspected was Solomon's quarries. They were similar to huge caves. The guide showed ,and explained the crude methods which had been used to split the rock into the required size blocks.

Birthplace of Christ Other places of interest in Biblical history which were visited included the Garden of Gethsemane, Mount Zion, Pool of Siloam.

A visit was made next day to the Church of Nativity at Bethlehem, said to be the oldest in the world., and was built over the birthplace of Christ. After viewing- the glory of the church from the interior, one of the holy fathers provided each of us with a candle and we passed down some- steps into a cave or dungeon hewn from the rock. It was here that I saw a sight which I will long remember, for it seemed to me that here all the riches in the world were stored. We say the Star, or pattern of ,the Star of Bethlehem below an altar adorned with wealth. Then there was a wax figure of Mary Magdalene crowned and, surrounded by jewels which glittered in the candlelight. There was nothi ing of imitation about these and a heart, measuring I should imagine, nine inches at its widest part and perhaps three inches in depth, was of solid gold. We also saw, hewn from the rock, the manger in which Christ had been placed,. With candles held above our iheada *we viewed many paintings of Biblical CtiaraC" ters adorning the walls. Here, as in other churches we had visited, were contributions from most of the denominations of all parts of the world. I do not profess to be a religious person, but I must admit that I was filled with wonderment and reverence when inside these old mosques or churches, especially the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of Nativity. The whole atmosphere, though, is changed sometimes by commercialism. Other places visited, in Jerusalem were the Mount of Olives to see the British War Cemetery where were buried the bodies of those who fell the last war- An American V.M.C.A. built, at a cost of a million dollars, from the tower of which a splendid view iof Jerusalem, both ancient and modern, was obtained. With the exception of the Old City which is in good, repair and practically surrounded by a high stone wall, the city is really quite modern in its architecture. A visit was also paid to the Rockefeller Museum

Modern Jewish City Tel-aviv was the next city visited. After leaving; Jerusalem some of the country we passed through reminded me of Oenetral Otago with its sunbaked, hills. It was summer time to,o. I have often asked civilians in the Middle East the distance from one pointy to another, but have never

been told in miles or* kilometres, but in hours or minutes. We. were told that the distance from Jerusalem to Tel-aviv was two hours, so presumed the distance would, be 50 miles. Jaffa is an old Arab town and is now actually a suburb of Tel-aviv, although the position was the opposite until Tel-aviv suddenly mushroomed into a large city. It is now the most modern city in the world with a population of 150,000. It is the only all-Jewish city in the world arid, practically all the inhabitants are Jewish refugees ,or emigrants from Europe. There are no trams in this city, the population travels little by train, so practically all their transport is by taxi and s ervice bus. The bus station is a huge affair and covers several acres. Servicemen in this country are always

given the privilege of not having to stand in queues. It was-quite a novelty for us to .walk to the head of a queue and purchase our tickets or enter a bus. Chivalry just didn't seem to count at all.

The darkest shadows are those which a man makes when he stands in his own light.—Henry Sedgwick. The scale of recent bombing raids on Germany by the R.A.F. is unprecedented. In the largest German raid on Britain, under 450 tons of bombs were dropped. In one raid on Cologne (in May, 1941) thQ | R.A.F. dropped 1,500 tons of bombs, including 1,000,000 incendiaries--a^l |in the space of 90 minutes. In spite !of the distance, 900 tons iof bombs were discharged on Berlin on March 27, 1943. v ' r" ,'