The secrets of satisfactory travel are mainly two—to have certain questions ready to ask; and to detach oneself from preconceptions, so as to find not what one expects, or desires to find, but what is there. These rules I endeavoured to follow while in the Holy Land. As to this book, I have tried to write it “with my eye on the object”—to describe things as they were seen, and to see them again while describing them. The extent to which this ideal has been reached, or missed, will be the measure of the book’s success or failure.
No attempt has been made to add anything original to the scientific knowledge of Palestine. For that task I am not qualified either by sufficient travel or by expert study of the subject. On the other hand, this is not merely an itinerary, or journal of experiences and adventures of the road. I have freely introduced notes from my journal in illustration of characteristics of the country and its life, and have claimed the privilege of digressing in various directions. But the main object has been to give a record of impressions rather than of incidents.
These impressions are arranged in three parts, as they bear upon the geography, the history, and the spirit of Syria. They have been corrected and amplified by as wide reading as the short time at my disposal allowed. A few of the books read or consulted are referred to in footnotes, but many others have helped me. To append a list of them to so small a contribution to the subject as this, would be but to remind the reader of the old fable, Nascetur ridiculus mus. I must, however, acknowledge with much gratitude my obligation to two volumes above all others—Major (now Colonel) Conder’s Tent Work in Palestine, and Professor George Adam Smith’s Historical Geography of the Holy Land. To these every chapter is indebted more or less, some chapters very deeply. Among the pleasures which this task has brought with it, none is greater than the intimate acquaintance with these two works which it entailed.
With Professor Smith I have a more personal bond of obligation than the invaluable help I have had from his book. Last year we rode and camped together from Hebron to Damascus, back over the eastern spurs of Hermon to the coast, and north by Tyre and Sidon to Beyrout. All who were in that party know, as no words can express, how much insight and suggestion we owed to the leader who interpreted the land for us so brilliantly and with such kindness. For my own part I feel that at times it has been difficult to distinguish between impressions of my own and those which have been unconsciously borrowed from him. If I have borrowed freely, I am sure he will allow me to count that among the many privileges of our long acquaintance, and as a token of my admiration for his genius and gratitude for his friendship.
JOHN KELMAN.
Edinburgh, 1902.