ForeverYoung436
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- Aug 10, 2009
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Taken from the book "Innocents Abroad":
We traversed some miles of desolate country, a desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. The further we went, the more repulsive and dreary the landscape became. No landscape exists that is more tiresome to the eye than that which bounds to the approaches to Jerusalem...Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt, those signs that indicate the presence of Moslem rule, abound. Jerusalem is mournful and dreary and lifeless. I would not desire to live here. It is a hopeless and heart-broken land. Bethlehem is untenanted by any living creature. Stirring scenes occur in the Valley of Jezreel no more. There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent, not for 30 miles in either direction. There is not a single permanent habitation. One may ride 10 miles hereabouts and not see 10 human beings. To find the sort of solitude to make one dreary, one must come to Galilee--these unpeopled deserts, these rusty mounds of barreness that never do shake the glare from their harsh outlines, and faint and fade into vague perspective, that melancholy ruin of Capernaum, this stupid village of Tiberias, slumbering under its six funereal palms. We reached Tabor safely. Nazareth is forlorn, Jericho the accursed lies a moldering ruin today. Bethany is in poverty and humiliation. A desolate country where the soil is rich enough, but is given wholly to weeds. A silent, mournful expanse, a desolation, we never saw a human being on the whole route. There was hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the cactus and olive tree, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country. It is empty, destitute and a barren desert. Palestine sits in sackloth and ashes, desolate and unlovely. It is dreamland.
My own notes, especially for those like Tinmore, who have never even been there:
Galilee is now full of trees. I have camped there. Nazareth, Tiberias and Jerusalem are beautiful, bustling cities. Even the desert blooms.
We traversed some miles of desolate country, a desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. The further we went, the more repulsive and dreary the landscape became. No landscape exists that is more tiresome to the eye than that which bounds to the approaches to Jerusalem...Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt, those signs that indicate the presence of Moslem rule, abound. Jerusalem is mournful and dreary and lifeless. I would not desire to live here. It is a hopeless and heart-broken land. Bethlehem is untenanted by any living creature. Stirring scenes occur in the Valley of Jezreel no more. There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent, not for 30 miles in either direction. There is not a single permanent habitation. One may ride 10 miles hereabouts and not see 10 human beings. To find the sort of solitude to make one dreary, one must come to Galilee--these unpeopled deserts, these rusty mounds of barreness that never do shake the glare from their harsh outlines, and faint and fade into vague perspective, that melancholy ruin of Capernaum, this stupid village of Tiberias, slumbering under its six funereal palms. We reached Tabor safely. Nazareth is forlorn, Jericho the accursed lies a moldering ruin today. Bethany is in poverty and humiliation. A desolate country where the soil is rich enough, but is given wholly to weeds. A silent, mournful expanse, a desolation, we never saw a human being on the whole route. There was hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the cactus and olive tree, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country. It is empty, destitute and a barren desert. Palestine sits in sackloth and ashes, desolate and unlovely. It is dreamland.
My own notes, especially for those like Tinmore, who have never even been there:
Galilee is now full of trees. I have camped there. Nazareth, Tiberias and Jerusalem are beautiful, bustling cities. Even the desert blooms.
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