zebel
assassinated. (I Kings xxi: 1-16.) From some window of her favourite
palace on this eminence, that hard, old, painted queen looked down the
broad valley of Jezreel, and saw Jehu in his chariot driving furiously
from Gilead to bring vengeance upon her. On those dark ridges to the
south the brave Jonathan was slain by the Philistines and the desperate
Saul fell upon his own sword. (I Samuel xxxi: 1-6.) Through that open
valley, which slopes so gently down to the Jordan at Bethshan, the
hordes of Midian and the hosts of Damascus marched against Israel. By
the pass of Jenin, Holofernes led his army in triumph until he met
Judith of Bethulia and lost his head. Yonder in the corner to the
northward, at the base of Mount Tabor, Deborah and Barak gathered the
tribes against the Canaanites under Sisera. (Judges iv: 4-22.) Away to
the westward, in the notch of Megiddo, Pharaoh-Necho's archers pierced
King Josiah, and there was great mourning for him in Hadad-rimmon. (II
Chronicles xxxv: 24-25; Zechariah xii: 11.) Farther still, where the
mountain spurs of Galilee approach the long ridge of Carmel, Elijah put
the priests of Baal to death by the Brook Kishon. (I Kings xviii:
20-40.)

All over that great prairie, which makes a broad break between the
highlands of Galilee and the highlands of Samaria and Judea, and opens
an easy pathway rising no more than three hundred feet between the
Jordan and the Mediterranean--all over that fertile, blooming area and
around the edges of it are sown the legends

"Of old, unhappy, far-off things
And battles long ago."

But on this bright April day when we enter the plain of Armageddon,
everything is tranquil and joyous.

The fields are full of rustling wheat, and bearded barley, and
blue-green stalks of beans, and feathery _kirsenneh_, camel-provender.
The peasants in their gay-coloured clothing are ploughing the rich,
red-brown soil for the late crop of _doura_. The newly built railway
from Haifa to Damascus lies like a yellow string across the prairie from
west to east; and from north to south a single file of two hundred
camels, with merchandise for Egypt, undulate along the ancient road of
the caravans, turning their ungainly heads to look at the puffing engine
which creeps toward them from the distance.

Larks singing in the air, storks parading beside the watercourses,
falcons poising overhead, poppies and pink gladioluses and blue
corn-cockles blooming through the grain,--