On making inquiries of a practical kind in regard to the present financial position of this property and its peasant owners, I began to suspect that any foreigner who desired to become its possessor would find himself involved in a struggle of a different kind from that of which in past times it has been the scene, and one more consonant with the spirit of the age in which we live. The invasion of Palestine of late years by foreigners of all religions and nationalities, the constant influx of Jews, and the increasing attention which the Holy Land is concentrating upon itself, has so far alarmed the Porte that foreigners are practically prohibited from purchasing any more land in the country; and the peasantry of the villages who applied to me for assistance were informed that, even if I were prepared to lend them money, they were not to be allowed to borrow. I was thus relieved of the great annoyance of having constantly to refuse applications, which, under any circumstances, I could not have satisfied.
From Megiddo I followed the historical highway through the mountain, which, in the days of Christ, when Cæsarea was rising into its grandeur, must have been one of the most frequented routes in the country. The road led through charmingly diversified scenery. I turned off from it to ascend to the town of Umm-el-Fahm, an important place, containing about two thousand inhabitants, situated on copse-clothed hills, at an elevation of fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, and commanding extensive views. Here I was the guest of a local millionaire, noted for his penurious habits and his grasping nature. His ragged appearance and humble establishment did not belie his reputation. I had, however, no reason to complain, for, if the accommodation was rough, his intentions were certainly hospitable.
The romantic valleys by which the village is surrounded are thickly planted with olive groves, which contain over a hundred thousand trees, and are a great source of revenue. While, when they are too far from the village for the protection of any crop, the hillsides and summits are clothed with a dense undergrowth of scrub oak, terebinth, and other shrubs, which are only prevented from becoming forest trees by the charcoal-burners; but their quick growth testifies to the richness of the soil. To the north the range extends for fifteen miles, to the base of Carmel. The woodland disappears, and is succeeded by rolling chalk downs, affording magnificent pasturage and good arable land, for it is well watered, and from its temperate and healthy climate is called the “breezy land.”