THE NEAR EAST.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2928, 25 July 1911, Page 7

THE NEAR EAST.

Whether in the boat, threading its way through the isle-studded waters of the Levant and approaching as in a dream the Sea of Marmora, or whether abandoning the olive-groves of Judea for the vineyards of Galilee, lights of Lebanon—the traveller will he dually enchanted an 1 equally interested.

Not least interesting—even to the tourist, who has studied the cosmopolitan life of Cairo—is the conglomeration of nationalities, races, and types that meets him at every step. In Palestine, Arabs, Bedouins, Israelites, a nd pilgrims from the Christian countries of the Hast and West gather round the walls of the one city in the world that, is alike sacred to.Christian, Jew, and Moslem.

In Damascus, cjt.y of bazaars and mosques, tho West, is entirely swallowed up by the Kast, and even the

Levantine is ousted by merchants from distant Persia. It. is in Constantinople, however, that the highest pr>int in the race mixture is attained, and the picturesque garb of Albanians is as a sea of colour, it can no longer boast of the id3al classic type carved in Greek statuary, is nevertheless the home of the Levantine, and truly it would be impossible to lind a more varied type than this. $ The climate need beg no word of undue praise. In late spring and ea.'iH* summer it is at its best.

Days of perpetual sunshine flooding from the intense blue of the sky, dazzle the eye, and the intense blue of the Grecian sea reflects, with here and there a patch of white-crested foam, the limpidity of the air. Sight seeing under these auspices is by no means reminiscent of boredom. Vve wander from the Acropolis to the walls of Jerusalem, from the ruins of Ephesus to the "'Straight Street" at Damascus. At Jaffa we ride the surf in boats skilfully handled by Arabs a nd Syrians, and, comfortably lounging in a train,

cross the mountains of Lebanon, nulberry proves, seated on the fairy Bay of St. George. On the Lake of Jalilee we sail Past Capernaum, ind on the plains of Sharon we >luck the red anemone. Then perhaps as the grand finale )i our trip, we enter tlm Sea of Uarmora, and suddenly, as some fanastic city, Constantinople looms up, ts mosques and minarets golden igainst the background of verdure ind blue.

"There is nothing like it in the whole world !"—The "World."