LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Frontispiece The Mountain of the Law and the Plain of the Assemblage, Mount Pyramids and Sphinx, Egypt. A Portion of the Great Wall of Jerusalem. Herd of Camels in the Valley of the Upper Jordan, Palestine Constructing a Kelek.. Floating Down the Tigris on a Kelek. Native of Mesopotamia Swimming on Inflated Goatskin. The Kufa of the Lower Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Tent of an Arab Chief and Water Buffalo in Flooded Babylonian Plain, Irrigating in Babylonia. Preparing Skins which are used in Southwest Asia for storing water, olive oil, and even cheese, as well as for many household purposes. . Bedouin Women Milking Goats.. Bedouins Making Mats from which Dwellings are Constructed in Lower Mesopotamia. . Buttermaking in Southwest Asia. A Letter Writer in the Near East Ruins of Ancient Babylon. A Suburban Street Lined with Gardens, Bagdad. Rugmakers in Southwest Asia. A Syrian Caravan Led by a Seven-year-old Boy. Bedouin Life in the Wilderness, East of the Dead Sea, Palestine. Cedars of Lebanon, Syria. Section of Damascus. A Grain Bazaar in Southwest Asia. Bee-Hive Homes near Aleppo, Syria. Portrait of Bedouin Sheik. Source of the Jordan.. Fish Market, Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee. Nazareth, the Home of Jesus, Palestine. Ruins of Ancient Samaria, Palestine.. Plowing in the Holy Land. Threshing Floor, Palestine. Shepherd and His Flock in the Mountains of Judea, Palestine. A Turkish Harem out for an Airing. 163 165 165 166 167 171 General View of Mecca Showing the Kaaba. 174 177 178 182 185 186 187 190 204 Camels Laden with Grain and Figs on the Wharf at Smyrna. Child Labor in the Silk Industry in Turkey. Ruins of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. Mars' Hill, Athens. Modern Athens. Harvesting in Italy. The Colosseum, Rome. Ruins of the Forum, Rome. Arch of Titus, Rome.. Arch of Constantine, Rome. MAPS 213 244 216 222 223 226 227 228 228 231 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author wishes to thank Dr. S. G. Ayres and Mr. M. E. Torcom, of Evanston, Illinois, Professor J. R. Smith, of Columbia University, and Miss C. L. Templeton, of Chelsea, Massachusetts, for courtesies shown." She is especially indebted to "Asia," the American Magazine of the Orient, for information and for permission to use their maps of the Near East, and to Dr. A. W. Patten, of Northwestern University, for the illustrations on the following pages: 103, 112, 127, 132, 133, 136, 138, 146, 163, 165, 185, 190, 204, and 216. LESSON I THE LANDS WE SHALL STUDY "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people." You have read these words, but have you ever seen the mountains round about Jerusalem? Have you ever seen them in your mind's eye? Have you ever thought of the fig trees of the Bible as bearing figs like those we buy in little round baskets at the fruit stands? Or are you like the woman who, when told by a friend that he was about to visit the Holy Land and hoped to see Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Galilee, and other places described in the Bible, said that she knew all those places were in the Bible, but had never thought of their being on the earth? Most of us cannot go in person to see the interesting peoples and places about which we read in the far-away Bible lands. Let us, therefore, journey together in imagination, trying to get clear pictures of these people, the life they lived, and the work they did in developing those parts of the world where civilization began. ASIA, THE LAND OF BEGINNINGS We shall first go to Asia, the continent of great distances, high mountains, broad plateaus, immense deserts, and marked varieties of climate. Here also we shall find the native home of most of the domestic animals and of the food plants, such as wheat and barley, which have been taken to all parts of the world. We shall see how man has learned to use the raw materials supplied by nature in such a way as to give us the beginnings of our own modern civilization. "Man is he who thinks," and by thought combined with hard and patient labor |