with plenty of water, and perfect feet nearly 3000 feet below security from Arab incursion. The result is, that it is compara tively well populated, and the land, for any colonies which might be established here, would have to be purchased from the natives. Nowhere else have I seen SO many flourishing villages, each surrounded with immense groves of olives, and expanses of yellow waving grain. There are carefully tended gardens of fruit trees; the vineyards are well looked after, and produce the largest grapes in the country; and good crops are obtained almost everywhere. This prosperous portion extends over the whole central plateau on both sides of the watershed. Among the villages over which I was now looking are some interesting historical sites, notably Kades, the site of Kadesh Naphthali or Kadesh in Galilee, a city of refuge, and where there are some extensive and interesting ruins, which have been elaborately examined and reported upon by the Palestine Exploration Fund Survey; El Jish, the Giscala of Josephus; Kefr Birim, where some of the finest remains of purely Jewish architecture in Palestine are to be found; and Meiron, which I shall describe in my next letter, as it was to be my next stopping place. In half an hour we found ourselves commencing a descent so steep, that it was more comfortable to dismount and scramble on foot down the mountain gorge that leads to Jauna. A magnificent view now suddenly opened upon us in exactly the opposite direction from that in which we had just been looking. The valley, or rather the plain, of the Jordan, from the Lake Huleh or the waters of Merom on the one side to the Lake of Tiberias on the other, lay stretched at our us, with the mountains of Jaulan attaining an elevation even higher than those on which we stood bounding the view eastward, and Hermon towering away to the north. Here we looked over a fine tract of rich land at present lying undeveloped, but which is capable of being made immensely productive. This is the plain of El Keit, which is about six miles long by four miles wide, and is watered by the Wady Hindaz and the Wady Wakkas,-streams which run into the Huleh, on the south-western margin of which lake the plain is situated. It is a few feet below the sea level, and the climate in summer is therefore oppressive, while it is liable to incursions from the Arabs, who use it as their camping-grounds now. After descending about 800 feet we came upon a splendid spring, which gushed from the rock and flowed in a fine stream down the valley, fertilising the highest gardens of the village of Jauna, which we were now approaching. This fine source, which is perennial, belongs to the new Jewish colony. Turning the corner as the gorge opened, I suddenly came upon some twenty men and women, all Jews, hard at work hoeing in their potato patches. This was a sight at once novel and encouraging; and as nearly all the population seemed out in the fields, I had to wait a short time for them to come from their several occupations. Then, under the guidance of the managing committee, and who had in the course of six months' field work work developed into into bronzed horny - fisted farmers, I entered the principal house of a neat little row of sixteen, and discussed their immediate necessities and future prospects. In doing this, I was sorry to find that the Roumanian tendencies could be modified for and Russian Jews would have to be considered in separate categories. This arises from the difficulty of establishing a thorough harmony among Jewish colonists who come from different localities, and much more from different countries. From my experience so far of agricultural experiments of this kind, I feel convinced that the obstacles to success will not be found to lie in the incapacity of the Jew for agriculture, so much as in the jealousies and rivalries which exist between them, and in the tendency which they manifest to intrigue against each other, and to rebel against the imposition of rules and regulations by which all should be equally bound. There are, moreover, often strong divergences of opinion among them on theological subjects, all which renders it very difficult to combine them for united action of any kind, or to use any of them for positions of responsibility or authority. In fact, these Russian and Roumanian Jews, who have suddenly escaped from the house of bondage, are like untrained children who have fled from prison, and who now, without any experience or knowledge of the world, or habits of self-restraint, find themselves free to follow their own devices, and to obey the first impulses which may act upon their ill-regulated natures. We have only to consider the conditions of their existence in Russia and Roumania, to see how impossible it is for them to enter upon communal life as farmers without some assistance from abroad, and some strong hand to guide, restrain, and, if need be, to coerce. Their faults are not so much inherent defects of character as the result of circumstances, and there can be no doubt that, with firm and judicious treatment, what appear to be their natural VOL. CXXXIV. NO. DCCCXVI. the better. That these are not national characteristics, is evident from the fact that a Russian Jew differs as much from an English one as a Russian does from an Englishman. In the case of the Jauna colony, twenty-three families had come from one place in Roumania, and were living together in tolerable harmony: they were in far better circumstances than the Russians, and were in communication with a local committee, from whom they derived some little support. The Russians, on the other hand, had not been so well off at first, and had suffered pecuniarily from the unfortunate accident to which I have already referred. Of the Roumanians, twothirds had already built, or were building, their houses; but the Russians were still without shelter, and were living at Safed. As they had both land and cattle, they were conducting their farming operations from there. I went into each of the sixteen houses already built: they consisted generally of two rooms, in one of which there was nearly always an oven for baking bread, besides other cooking apparatus. They were kept remarkably clean, and the whole row commanded the view over the Jordan plain I have already described. As yet no farm buildings had been put up, and it will probably be found that for all to live in a single street will be attended with inconveniences when the question of barns and outhouses has to be considered. So far, they have manifested an energy and perseverance which is in the highest degree praiseworthy; and they seemed to take a real delight in the consciousness of the fact that they had become landowners, and declared that they much preferred the open-air life and the manual labour in which 2 M they were engaged, to the Ghetto life they had left. One of the houses was set apart for sacred purposes, in which two men were engaged in their devotions when I entered it. The remainder of the village of Jauna, which has not been purchased by the Jews, is owned by about twenty Moslem families, who have so far maintained the best possible relations with the newcomers, offering them assistance and advice, and seeming well pleased to have them among them. Their houses are immediately contiguous to the new row which has just been built. Besides about a thousand acres of arable land, the colonists have some fruit and vegetable gardens in the gorge, watered by the little stream that gushes from the spring above. Jauna does not seem to have been identified as a Biblical site; but some broken pillars, and a capital with ordinary mouldings, indicate that it was the position of some Roman city of greater or less importance. The Jewish colonists have given it the name of Rasch Pina, meaning "the head of the corner." At least such is the translation of the Hebrew word in the verse in which it occurs: "The stone which the builders rejected, the same has become the head of the corner." By means of a fund supplied to me by the charity of benevolent persons in England, who take an interest in promoting the welfare of the Jews in Palestine, by assisting them in their agricultural efforts, I was able to afford this interesting colony some support; and I have heard since my visit that they are likely to be encouraged in their efforts by the Alliance Israelite of Paris-a body which has hitherto persistently set its face against Jewish colonisation in Palestine. Colonies in this country need protection against unjust taxation and official oppression after they are prosperous, even more than pecuniary assistance in the first instance and if, through the medium of the " Alliance," the French Government extends its ægis over Jewish colonies in Palestine, as well as over the Latin Holy Places and monasteries in that country, and the various heretical sects who have applied for it, a convenient excuse will be afforded for promoting its political influence. Considering the more important interests which Great Britain has in the destiny of the country, this is a duty which I should have rather seen undertaken by the Anglo-Jewish Association of England. A part of the land now cultivated by the colonists of Jauna was once farmed by some of the Jewish families of Safed, who would have done pretty well here had they not been unjustly overtaxed, and who expressed to me their great regret that farming operations, which some of them professed to understand thoroughly, and to like as an occupation, were attended with so much risk of extortion on the part of the Government officials, that they had been compelled to abandon them. Still one of them showed me a very good garden at Jauna that he still possessed, and where he has determined to return and establish himself. I was assured that there were altogether two hundred Jewish families who were acquainted with agriculture, and desirous of earning their livelihood by the sweat of their brow. They needed, first, capital, and secondly, protection; and besides this, I was informed that over a hundred Jews in the place worked for hire on farms belonging to Moslems and Christians. If this be so--and one of the chief Rabbis was my authority-it goes far to disprove the oft-made assertion, that the Jew will always refuse to work on the soil. The fact is, that the Jew is in every country what circumstances make him. In the mountains of Mesopotamia he is a shepherd; in the deserts of Yemen he is a nomad, living in tents with flocks and herds; in Western Europe the richer classes engage in the ordinary pursuits and occupations of civilised life; while the poorer, who have never had a chance of becoming rural peasantry in any country, and have in many cases been prohibited from holding land, have been driven to petty commerce, money - lending, and peddling. It has yet to be proved that if the Jew is placed on the soil which was tilled by his ancestors, he has become inherently disqualified to enter, by his own exertions, once more into the ownership of it, or that he prefers carrying a pedlar's pack to following a plough. So far from such being the case, my observation has led me to arrive at an opposite conclusion. At the same time, I am ready to admit that attempts at colonisation in this country can only be attended with success if they are undertaken under certain conditions; and that in considering what these are, the peculiar characteristics of the Eastern Jew must be taken into account, as well as the varied obstacles with which he has to contend, in undertaking, in a country where all the surroundings are new to him, a pursuit of which he has had no experience, and which he can only prosecute under the disadvantage of a Government which places every conceivable obstacle in his way, and of officials who lose no opportunity of robbing him. Left absolutely to himself, then, with his limited pecuniary resources, and with no foreign protection to rely upon, or strong hand to guide and sustain him, it is quite probable that he may fail to establish himself so securely on the soil of his fathers as to pave the way for the restoration upon it of a Jewish peasantry; but this consummation is both feasible and practicable, if it is really desired either by the Jews or the Christians of the west, and if they are prepared to make the very small sacrifice of money and of time and of influence which it would involve. Meanwhile the fact that certain colonies have been established already with more or less success in Palestine, has kept up the desire of the Jews, especially in Roumania, to emigrate to this country, and they continue to dribble in, in spite of the Government prohibition. Scarcely a week passes without some fresh arrivals; but the fact that they come in twos and threes, unsupported by any organisation in their own country, and almost destitute of funds, renders it hopeless to establish them on land without assistance. They all have the same story to tell. Life has become impossible in Roumania---they are willing to do work of any description for their daily bread; they generally profess to be agriculturists, but probably in most cases are not, and unless something is done for them, I see no other future for them and their wives and little ones but death by starvation-or at best a life of mendicancy at Jerusalem or Safed, if they can procure for themselves a share of the Haluka. Sooner or later the question of their relief will force itself upon public notice,a question which might have taken a very different shape had the facts of the case been better understood from the first, the necessity of providing for them recognised, and had an organisation been formed in England either by Christians, Jews, or both, which should have included Palestine in its scheme of operations. The word was introduced by the Mansion House Committee in its programme, it is difficult to say exactly with what object--but it is certain that any contributors who were under the impression that any large amount of its funds would be applied towards establishing Russian Jews in this country have been disappointed. It must be admitted, however, that the founding of colonies either here or in America did not enter directly into the scope of the committee's operations. What is needed in England is the formation of a society for protecting the Jews of Eastern Europe generally, which should protest against illegal action on the part of the Turkish Government, which should insist in behalf of foreign Jews, no matter of what nationality, upon their legal right to purchase land in any part of Turkey in which they desire to settle without necessarily becoming Turkish subjects, which should aid them in doing so by pecuniary advances upon terms offering the necessary guarantees, and which should protect them by its influence against oppression or extortion. Such a society would have power to control the emigration within proper limits, to choose the most desirable families, to select the most available land, and to insist upon such provisions being complied with by the emigrants as might best ensure success, and avert the calamities which an unlimited and unprotected pauper emigration is certain to involve. Sooner or later the force of events will render such an organisation necessary; the only effect of delay will be, that an immense amount of unnecessary misery will have to be endured, and an increasing number of obstacles will have to be encountered. |
