Their huts are miserable, their children squalid and unhealthy; they toil through a life of troubles and sorrows, and have the poor satisfaction of knowing that they are possessed of no benefits which might, in after-years, accrue to their children’s advantage. From generation to generation they live and die, are born and given in marriage, but the tenure of their serfdom is still the same. They are nominally free subjects of an enlightened government, but virtually the slaves of circumstances, groaning under the petty chiefs and subordinate understrappers of government, who have yet to learn submission to the will and mandates of the present excellent Sultan, Abdul Medjid Khan, whose reign has already been distinguished by many great improvements in the condition of the Christian population. Many of the firmans issued of late years have not as yet come into force in the interior of Turkey, and in those possessions of the Ottoman empire situated farthest from the sea-ports. In the course of some years it is, however, to be hoped, that the most remote villages will be benefited by the improvements made in Western Europe.
The disposition of the natives of Southern Palestine has a tinge of sullen moroseness in it, which has doubtless been ingrafted in it from generation to generation; there is nothing _couleur-de-rose_ in their sphere of life and action; and the superstition they inherit from their ancestors is not that pure and lovely religion of Christ which can cast a halo around, whilst it strengthens, encourages, and supports in the darkest hours of affliction and woe. It may be, that, under better auspices—could the people be brought to have a common interest in their own and each other’s welfare, were there less animosity and party feeling existing between the various creeds, could they be brought to nurture less of deadly malice and hatred towards each other, all combining in one common cause with a mutual good understanding—the fate of Southern Palestine and its prevailing feature of sterile barrenness might be changed. The country, people, and climate, might yield to the introduction of agriculture and other improvements, and be materially bettered—if land were meted out in portions with a sure guarantee to the cultivator that his toil and labour would eventually be recompensed by his reaping some fruits for himself from the sweat of his brow to benefit his children—were the lower classes of the Moslems less avaricious, the Jews less despised, the Christians less exposed to the grinding system of the land-owners and admitted to reap fair profits from the fields they plough and the gardens they cultivate for their wealthier and more powerful masters; then, peradventure, the sea-coast and the cities near and round about Jerusalem would gradually re-assume a right to that blessed title which ascribed to its countries the appellation of a land rich indeed, and flowing with milk and honey. But alas for the land of Canaan! the portion of the tribe of Judah is become an unsightly wilderness; and of Zion it may be truly said, “Thy house is left unto thee desolate.”