In the course of time their families began to get the most harrowing messages from them.

They were absolutely destitute, no wages being paid them by the Turks; their clothes were dropping off them in rags; many were sick.

After much excited planning, it was decided to send another man and myself down south on a sort of relief expedition, with a substantial sum of money that had been raised with great difficulty by our people.

Through the influence of my brother at the Agricultural Experiment Station, I got permission from the _mouchtar_ to leave Zicron-Jacob, and about the middle of January, 1915, I set out for Jerusalem.
To Western minds, the idea of the Holy City serving as a base for modern military operations must be full of incongruities.

And, as a matter of fact, it _was_ an amazing sight to see the streets packed with khaki-clad soldiers and hear the brooding silence of ancient walls shattered by the crash of steel-shod army boots.