481. and coun tries along the eastern coast of the Medi terranean, Palestine and Syria, are often mentioned in the Bible, and especially the cities of Antioch, the capital of Syria, and Jerusalem, the Holy City, the capital of Palestine. Here lived the kings of the Jews when these people were a great nation. .
Five miles from Jerusalem is the little town of Bethlehem where Jesus was born, but it was in Jerusalem, as the Bible tells, that an important part of his life was passed, so it is natural that the Christians of the world should take a very great interest in Jerusalem. Almost all branches of the Christian Church have built churches in and about Jerusalem to mark spots visited by Jesus. It is the wish • and prayer of vast numbers of the Greek (Russian) branch of the Christian Church, to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem before their death. You will always see there old women and bearded old men, and the funerals of pilgrims who have died. Their bodies are carried through the streets on open stretchers. Through the centuries so many pilgrims have been buried on the sides of the hills around Jerusalem that they lie many layers deep.
The people of Syria and Palestine to-day are Arabs and Jews. Like the Armenians, they have had a sad time since the Turks ruled all of the country between Persia and the Mediterranean. For hundreds of years, the people have been kept poor by unjust taxes, and oftqn cruelly treated by the Turkish rulers. But the World War drove these rulers out of Palestine and Syria. If these countries can have peace and justice, then labor will again make them rich, as they were in Bible times, with wheat, barley, olives, alfalfa, cattle, sheep, and goats. A railroad runs from Jaffa to Jerusalem, and many people from Europe and America travel over it to visit places mentioned in the Bible.
482. of Arabia is a great desert, like the Sahara, with oases here and there, and wide stretches of country along the edges where, after the scanty rains, a little grass grows. In these edges of the desert, the Arabs follow their flocks as Hakim does. (Sec. 415.) Men who live like this are harder to conquer than are those who live in cities and cannot so easily run away. That is why the Turks have never been able to rule these nomads or to make them pay taxes.
There is more rain on the mountain slopes of Arabia which face the Red Sea than in the interior. Along the slopes, near the city of Mocha, some of the finest coffee in the world is grown. Have you ever heard of Mocha coffee? The people of Egypt, Arabia, and Turkey think sb much of it that it rarely gets to America. Like the best teas of China, it is kept at home. The people of Europe first learned about coffee from the Arabs about 1652. Can you name some other kinds of coffee? To the north of Mocha, is Mekka, called the "Mother of Cities", the birth place of the prophet Mohammed, the founder of the Mohammedan religion. This is the religion of the Turks, the Arabs, and of nearly all the people living between the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea, between the Red Sea, the Black Sea and the mountains of Armenia, between the shores of Baluchistan and the Siberian wheat belt. In addition there are as many
Mohammedans in India as there are people in South America. It is a part of this religion that every male Mohammedan shall, if possible, visit Mekka at some time in his life. Therefore, that city is always thronged with kneeling, worshipping visi tors from many lands. There you may see Moors from Morocco, Turks from Constantinople, Persians, Kirghiz, swarthy men from India, and brown men from the East Indian Islands. The Mohammedan who has made this journey is given the title of Hajee after his return, a title which makes him an honored man at his home.
As a result of the World War, Hejaz, the province in which Mekka is located, has been made an independent kingdom.
483. Suez is so dry that there are large regions where no white man has been, yet along its edge is one of the world's greatest trade routes. When the French engineer, De Lesseps, succeeded in constructing the Suez Canal between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, the ships from Europe to Asia no longer had to go around Africa. Every day ships from Europe and America pass through this canal on the way to India, China, and Japan. Sometimes vessels go out from the Atlantic by Suez and back by Panama, thus going around the world.
484. is much like Asia Minor and Greece, but it has more moun tains, a higher plateau, less rain, and colder living hunting for pearls. They go out in boats, dive down twenty or thirty feet, and bring up large oysters, in whose shells they sometimes find beautiful pearls.
485. is a land like Persia; high, dry, and rough. The roving herdsmen of this country are so unfriendly to white men that it is scarcely safe to visit their country. Bands of robbers sometimes go down from the Afghanistan hills and steal cattle and horses from the people of India, who live near them in the valleys of the streams which flow into the Indus River. The English, who rule that part of India, have many soldiers there to keep the robbers from making trouble. Of late the English army has begun to chase the robber bands in airplanes. The Amir, or king, of the Afghans has about the same power as the Shah of Persia.
winters. Nomads follow their flocks over most of the country. Where the mountain streams supply water to irrigate the fields and grow food, there are a few small cities. People in these towns weave some of the finest rugs and shawls in the world. Cara vans with bales of rugs, wool, and sheep skins make long journeys over the hills to the sea, where steamships carry the goods away to Europe and America.
The government of Persia is almost as bad as that of Turkey. For a long time the Shah, or king, made the laws that pleased him best. He took people's prop erty, and even cut off their heads if he wanted to. You see he had much more power than our President has. In 1909 his people made him give them a parlia ment.
Along the shores of the Persian Gulf there are villages where people make their