We staid all night with the good monks at the convent of Ramleh, and in the morning got up and galloped the horses a good part of the distance from there to Jaffa, or Joppa, for the plain was as level as a floor and free from stones, and besides this was our last march in Holy Land.  These two or three hours finished, we and the tired horses could have rest and sleep as long as we wanted it.  This was the plain of which Joshua spoke when he said, “Sun, stand thou still on Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon.”  As we drew near to Jaffa, the boys spurred up the horses and indulged in the excitement of an actual race —­an experience we had hardly had since we raced on donkeys in the Azores islands.

We came finally to the noble grove of orange-trees in which the Oriental city of Jaffa lies buried; we passed through the walls, and rode again down narrow streets and among swarms of animated rags, and saw other sights and had other experiences we had long been familiar with.  We dismounted, for the last time, and out in the offing, riding at anchor, we saw the ship!  I put an exclamation point there because we felt one when we saw the vessel.  The long pilgrimage was ended, and somehow we seemed to feel glad of it.

[For description of Jaffa, see Universal Gazetteer.] Simon the Tanner formerly lived here.  We went to his house.  All the pilgrims visit Simon the Tanner’s house.  Peter saw the vision of the beasts let down in a sheet when he lay upon the roof of Simon the Tanner’s house.  It was from Jaffa that Jonah sailed when he was told to go and prophesy against Nineveh, and no doubt it was not far from the town that the whale threw him up when he discovered that he had no ticket.  Jonah was disobedient, and of a fault-finding, complaining disposition, and deserves to be lightly spoken of, almost.  The timbers used in the construction of Solomon’s Temple were floated to Jaffa in rafts, and the narrow opening in the reef through which they passed to the shore is not an inch wider or a shade less dangerous to navigate than it was then.  Such is the sleepy nature of the population Palestine’s only good seaport has now and always had.  Jaffa has a history and a stirring one.  It will not be discovered any where in this book.  If the reader will call at the circulating library and mention my name, he will be furnished with books which will afford him the fullest information concerning Jaffa.

So ends the pilgrimage.  We ought to be glad that we did not make it for the purpose of feasting our eyes upon fascinating aspects of nature, for we should have been disappointed—­at least at this season of the year.  A writer in “Life in the Holy Land” observes: 

“Monotonous and uninviting as much of the Holy Land will appear to persons accustomed to the almost constant verdure of flowers, ample streams and varied surface of our own country, we must remember that its aspect to the Israelites after the weary march of forty years through the desert must have been very different.”

Which all of us will freely grant.  But it truly is “monotonous and uninviting,” and there is no sufficient reason for describing it as being otherwise.