6/27/2023 0 Comments Mark twain in the holy landNazareth is forlorn about that ford of Jordan where the hosts of Israel entered the Promised Land with songs of rejoicing, one finds only a squalid camp of fantastic Bedouins of the desert Jericho the accursed, likes a moldering ruin, today, even as Joshua’s miracle left it more than three thousand years ago Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and their humiliation, have nothing about them now to remind one that they once knew the high honor of the Saviour’s presence the hallowed spot where the shepherds watched their flocks by night, and where the angels sang Peace on earth, good will to men, is untenanted by any living creature, and unblessed by any feature that is pleasant to the eye. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies. It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent. The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are unpicturesque in shape. Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. Excerpts from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain:
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