N A MARKET DAY
_Photograph by Underwood & Underwood_

STORMY SEA BREAKING OVER ROCKS OFF JAFFA
_Photograph by Underwood & Underwood_

THE AUTHOR'S SISTER ON HER HORSE TAYAR
_Photograph by Mr. Julius Rosenwald in March, 1914_

BEIRUT, FROM THE DECK OF AN OUTGOING STEAMER
_Photograph by Underwood & Underwood_

INTRODUCTION

While Belgium is bleeding and hoping, while Poland suffers and dreams of
liberation, while Serbia is waiting for redemption, there is a little
country the soul of which is torn to pieces--a little country that is so
remote, so remote that her ardent sighs cannot be heard.

It is the country of perpetual sacrifice, the country that saw Abraham
build the altar upon which he was ready to immolate his only son, the
country that Moses saw from a distance, stretching in beauty and
loveliness,--a land of promise never to be attained,--the country that
gave the world its symbols of soul and spirit. Palestine!

No war correspondents, no Red Cross or relief committees have gone to
Palestine, because no actual fighting has taken place there, and yet
hundreds of thousands are suffering there that worst of agonies, the
agony of the spirit.

Those who have devoted their lives to show the world that Palestine can
be made again a country flowing with milk and honey, those who have
dreamed of reviving the spirit of the prophets and the great teachers,
are hanged and persecuted and exiled, their dreams shattered, their holy
places profaned, their work ruined. Cut off from the world, with no
bread to sustain the starving body, the heavy boot of a barbarian
soldiery trampling their very soul, the dreamers of Palestine refuse to
surrender, and amidst the clash of guns and swords they are battling for
the spirit with the weapons of the spirit.

The time has not yet come to write the record of these battles, nor even
to attempt to render justice to the sublime heroes of Palestine. This
book is merely the story of some of the personal experiences of one who
has done less and suffered less than thousands of his comrades.

ALEXANDER AARONSOHN

WITH THE TURKS IN PALESTINE.

CHAPTER I

ZICRON-JACOB

Thirty-five years ago, the impulse which has since been organized as the
Zionist Movement led my parents to leave their homes in Roumania and
emigrate to Palestine, where they joined a number of other Jewish
pioneers in founding Zicron-Jacob--a little village lying just south of
Moun