It would be absurd seriously to deny that Jerusalem is an Eastern town; but we may say it was Westernised without being modernised.

Anyhow, it was medievalised before it was modernised.
And in the same way it would be absurd to deny that Jerusalem is a Southern town, in the sense of being normally out of the way of snowstorms, but the truth can be suggested by saying that it has always known the quality of snow, but not the quantity.
And the quantity of snow that fell on this occasion would have been something striking and even sensational in Sussex or Kent.
And yet another way of putting the proportions of the thing would be to say that Jerusalem has been besieged more often and by more different kinds of people than any town upon the globe; that it has been besieged by Jews and Assyrians, Egyptians and Babylonians, Greeks and Romans, Persians and Saracens, Frenchmen and Englishmen; but perhaps never before in all its agony of ages has it ever really been besieged by winter.

In this case it was not only snowed on, it was snowed up.
For some days the city was really in a state of siege.
If the snow had held for a sufficient number of days it might have been in a state of famine.

The railway failed between Jerusalem and the nearest station.

The roads were impassable between Jerusalem and the nearest village, or even the nearest suburb.
In some places the snow drifted deep enough to bury a man, and in some places, alas, it did actually bury little children; poor little Arabs whose bodies were stiff where they had fallen.
Many mules were overwhelmed as if by floods, and countless trees struck down as if by lightning.