In fact tea Is the common drink the narrow streets of the old city, it carries one through scenery as graphic as any conception based on the Bible. As a piece of enginecring work it is outstanding. As a tourist route revealing strange and unbelievable aspects of the country it is superb. Even the midnight horrors of the Seven Sisters fade as the road unfolds its marvellous vistas. Extremely volcanic, with range after range of fused rock, like gigantic stairs, with little vegetation except where the thrifty peasant has scratched—fertile. sell loose from the grip of the rock, one would wonder why it received the name of the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey until one looks into the deep, rich, fertile valleys where the deep green of lush cultivation contrasts with the drab red and brown of the volcanic formation above. Through tiny villages with the dust of ages on the buildings, through countryside where long files of camels and donkeys plod their way, and past wells where flocks are watered precisely as they wore watered centuries ago except that the kerosene tin is a universal water container nowadays, the road winds back to Lydda and the sea. For-Rotting the contrasts such as motor lorries and an occasional aeroplane overhead, characters walk out of the Bible upland down the Jaffa Road and a hundred and one incidents of childhood study appear in the passing scene. Every bend in the Food brings a rush of recollection of the days of old for the water carrier with his goatskin, the Good Samaritan, the lonely shepherd are real to-day as ever although the scene is continually shifting and progress also walks along the Jaffa Road but is unable to efface the past.
"Fork Left for Gaza." One suddenly remembers that the years: have passed and the motor car has demanded its proper recognition and control. Just like the Brighton Read, or the Great North Road, hard facts of reality must prevail, Wis with a sigh of recollection that the gaze is east down that road for it was at Gaza that the greatest battle in the history of the Pa-Iestine campaign was fought and hundreds of British soldiers rest in the cemetery of this tiny town which, unlike most other places in the country, has little historically to distinguish' it in guide book. that cemetery there lies a brother who loved the green fields and hedgerows of rural Yorkshire but found death at the edge of the desert. The road swings by at a melancholy pace and passes through the miles and miles of citrus fruit farms yielding the pleasant aroma of red earth and oranges and then back to Lydda where a string of camels wait for the train to poss before erossing over the line. ely for quenching thirst, but also for banishing the effects of fatigue or Sepression. The light Shaohsing wine or sam sul is drank chiefly at feasts 'oF family celebrations, while the ra, locally manufactured spirit 1s far to> potent to be enjoyed by anyone oxcept the most hardened drinker.
There is no need to stress the importance of tea in the national life of China, as its" influence. is. all-pervading even in the remotest parts the Republic.
the theatres and places of entertainment the purveyors of tea swarm everywhere while they form an indispensable part of the personnel of every passenger train, No matter where we are travelling whether far away inthe mountains or on the desert borders, at every Stopping place there is sure to be teahouse, often consisting of ttle more than a few wooden benches under an awning. of branches, but where there is always available supply of boiling " water, and,—If necessary, tea eaves, though the wise traveller when journeying away from the beaten track will carry his own leaves and not trust to those he may be able to obtain en route.
The business of keeping such as! vast a country as China supplied with tea is indeed a formidable one and carries with it innumerable prob-Jems of transportation,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.