A retreat from the heats of summer is almost essential to the health of the colonists. If they had the right of way claimed they could, with ease, construct a wagon-road to the top of the hill overhanging the colony, where, at an elevation of nine hundred feet, they would be in full enjoyment of the sea breezes, while only half an hour distant from their homes. The money necessary for the construction of such a sanitarium was provided under singular circumstances a few weeks ago. I was riding just outside the town, on the Nazareth road, when to my surprise I met a foreign lady riding by herself, accompanied only by an Arab, an unusual sight in this country. Following her was a covered litter. On returning to the colony an hour later I found that the litter contained the body of the husband of the lady I had met. He had died in it on the road from Nazareth a couple of hours before I met the poor widow, a perfect stranger and unable to speak a word of the language, forming the solitary attendant of her husband's corpse. These painful circumstances enlisted the warmest sympathy on the part of the colonists, whose kindness and consideration so overwhelmed the lady, who was herself a countrywoman, that before leaving she presented the colony with a check for $7500. These simple people had no idea when they were lavishing their kindness on the widow that she was a lady of large fortune, and this was their unexpected reward. And it is with this money they hope to build their sanitarium.
Haifa, June 7.—I was glad to avail myself of an opportunity to revisit Jerusalem after an interval of six years, and by a journey through a part of Judea to see the changes within that period. The attention which has of recent years been directed towards Palestine has perhaps produced more marked results in this province than in Galilee, and in some respects its progress has been more rapid. This is partly owing to the fact that for the past eight years it has been under the administration of a more than usually enlightened pasha, who exercises his authority independently of the Governor-General of Syria, and partly because its holy places prove more attractive both to Jews and Gentiles than do those of Galilee. Hence there has been a larger inflow of capital and of immigration.
