d seen in its desolation is so
refreshing to a foreigner, what must not the possession of the real in
the days of its fatness have been to the weary, battle-scarred
Israelites who secured permission to abide here!

So, in response to the call of my friends, and with the hope of adding
somewhat to the meager fund of information concerning a once famous
district, or, at least, to create additional interest in the territory
occupied by the tribe of Gad in the days of early allotment, I
undertake to tell the story of "My Three Days in Gilead."

Dayton, Virginia, February 20, 1909.

Contents

Chapter I. "Waiting at Damascus"
Chapter II. "Through Bashan"
Chapter III. "Among Bedouins"
Chapter IV. "At Gerasa"
Chapter V. "Up Into the Mountains"
Chapter VI. "By the Watch-Tower"
Chapter VII. "Down to the Jordan"
Chapter VIII. "At the Bridge"

"Waiting at Damascus"

CHAPTER I.

Damascus! A city that numbers the years of its existence in
millenniums; that witnessed in the dawn of history the migration of
Abraham as he went out from Ur to a land not known to him, and to whom
she gave one of the best of her sons; that sent out the leper, Naaman,
to Palestine for healing and received him back whole; that hailed with
great preparations the coming of Elisha, who had previously blinded her
army at Dothan; that welcomed Saul of Tarsus in his blindness, restored
his sight, and sent him, transformed in his life, to transform Asia
Minor and classic Europe. Damascus! A city surviving an age-long
struggle with the encroaching desert--a struggle that must go on
through ages to come; but, as long as the Abana and Pharpar continue to
flow, the sands that would bury her forever in oblivion will be changed
into a soil of life-giving and life-sustaining fertility sufficient to
support her thousands of inhabitants. Damascus! A city of the long ago,
practically unchanged, where the Occidental may look to-day with
unfeigned interest upon architecture, costumes, and customs similar to
those that prevailed in the East while Greece and Rome were yet young.
Damascus! A city celebrated for a thousand years for its bazaars,
work-shops, and roses; a city so beautiful thirteen hundred years ago
that Mohammed, viewing it for the first time from a distance, is said
to have exclaimed: "Man can have but one paradise. My paradise is
heaven; I cannot enter yonder city!" a city to-day of unsurpassed
beauty, wh