BETHLEHEM TO-DAY

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIV, 22 December 1926, Page 3

BETHLEHEM TO-DAY

THE LITTLE TOWN ON A HILL A VISITOR S IMPRESSIONS. I always thought that Bethlehem was in a valley (says MeEwan Lawson in the "Daily News”). “O little town of Bethlehem, How still we see thee lie; Above thy deep and dreamless sleep The silent stars go by.” That is how the old hymn runs, and I fancy that, as a youngster, I must have got it into my head that anything that lay sleeping must be in a bed But Bethlehem is not in a valley. It stands right on the top of a ridge of hills which go tumbling away down to the Dead Sea twenty miles off, and, in the clear air, looking only five. It is higher than Jerusalem. It stands nearly as high a.- Helvellyn. The shepherds had to climb to get to Bethlehem. The wise men had to. go down into the valley and up again before they knelt by a cradle.

It has not changed very much. Though ravaged by the Arabs as the Crusaders advanced, it has not suffered like Jerusalem. Originally it was a walled village, but the town has spread over the walls.

Curiously enough, all through the chequered history cf Palestine Bethlehem has remained Christian. Two thirds of the population of Jerusalem is Jewish, half Nazareth is Mohammedan : but Bethlehem to-day is practically wholly Christian. The streets are clean, far more clean than most Palestinian cities, the houses are good, and the folk are prosperous. They have a reputation for adventure and progress, and many of them migrate to America, but they come back and build houses on the hillside and end their day., at Bethlehem.

It is about six miles from Jerim lem, You go out by the Jaff gate, drop down the steep hill, pass quite near the Garden of Gethsemane, climb again, and from a. well, where they say the Wise Men watered their tired camels for the last time and saw the star shining in the wa ter, you look down a valley and up again to Bethlehem. The country round is very like high Derbvshire, out-cropping limestone, clear air and plenty of wind. Bethlehem itself made me think of Clovelly. You go in at a gateway set in bit of the old wall, past a well, and up a narrow, steep, twisting way to a wide, oblong, paved market place, on the east side of which is the Church of the Nativity. It is a

simple and very noble church, erect ed by order of the Emperor Constantine. and not spoilt by later hands with ornamentation and overcrowding. At the east end they give you a lighted taper and you go down fifteen or sixteen winding steps to the long low cave which

they say was once used as a stable for the old inn. There is an altar at the east end. and under it, set in marble, is a large silver star marking the birthplace of Christ. It may or it may be the true site. The old caravanserai has gone, but it was somewhere near, and the actu al site does not seem to me to matter much.

I put out my taper and watched for down the steps with their tapers lighting their face#, came all the world. Indians, Americans, Russians, Poles, Germans, Fi-ench, Chinese, British, Arabs, some pilgrims from Thibet, and two Spaniards—rich and poor, men, women and children. Down they all came in one unending line, and, prostrating themselves, kissed the centre of the cross, lingered for a few minutes, and then, crossing the cave, climbed up some other steps, the tapers lighting the faces. I asked a guardian if the stream was as constant and as Varied as this al] the year through, and he said it

, But Bethlehem is best by night. Iwo /Americans and I tramped out tr it one night, armed with sticks, for they told us of Bedawin and dogs. Blit nothing happened to us, and, from the well on the hill opposite, we sat and looked at the little town with its few twinkling lights, and over it a mantle oi stars such as I have never seen in England. And then oame the sound of bells, and through the darkness a camel train. One by one the camels passed, padding softly along the narrow road going down and up to Bethlehem. That night will stay in my memory when I am an old, old