Wednesday, August 15th 1945

On Wednesday I discovered, after returning from the early celebration at St. George’s, that it was VJ day but there didn’t seem to be anything we could do about it. We wanted to see the Palestine Archaeological Museum, along the Jericho road past the Damascus Gate, but it was closed in celebration. So we went in the Old City and explored such parts of the wall as one may walk along, from the Damascus Gate to the corner between Herod’s Gate and St. Stephen’s Gate. It is on this stretch that one can see the Gordon Calvary just across the way – the place of the skull and its queer markings on the scar round the two caves that form the skull’s eyes. On the other side of the wall, a bit farther along, the American Colony has provided a playground, complete with swings, see-saws etc., which is well used by many Arab children, all of whom, I saw, were wearing European dress, (ie shirts and shorts). Frank was then going to a Methodist Thanksgiving Service at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer which I also attended. We climbed the Street of the Prophets in the new city, where Wesley House is – afterwards for a lemonade and then walked back through the Russian compound and passed the big flaming onion turreted Russian Cathedral.

In the afternoon we expended 750 mills in a trip run by St. Andrew’s House Jewish agent by taxi to Jericho. The road runs across the Kedron by Gethsemane through El Azareih, or the “Village of Lazarus” (Bethany), down steep, winding slopes. The soil is very stony and the limestone is continually jutting through, until, after a long series of fantastic S Bends, the road passes Ain el Haird or Ain Shesh of Joshua Ch. 15 v.7. Below here the road is just as steep and the soil as stony but the limestone ends. Some distance beyond we passed a shepherd leading a long column of sheep in single file up a mountain track. A short climb brought us to Khan Hathroor, the inn on the Jerusalem-Jericho road from time immemorial until destroyed in the war of 1914-18. Hence it may well be the inn of which Christ was thinking when He told the Good Samaritan parable. Now a small Arab shop sells lemonade, water melons and so on in the ruins. The road still descends quite steeply and the ground is just as strong. Some way further on we passed below sea level and, a considerable way beyond, came to a fork in the road, straight on for Kallia on the Dead Sea, left for Jericho and Trans-Jordan. We first forked left along the edge of the vast, barren Jordan plain, covered with low thorn bushes and very sparsely, coarse grass. After four or five kilometres we came into modern Jericho, a small collection of single storey huts roofed with a sort of thatch, all sloping roofs. Modern Jericho is not on the site of ancient Jericho, which is a turning again on the left. We first turned right and took the Trans-Jordan road to Allenby Bridge. Just before we arrived there the road again dipped below the level of the plain and threaded its way through a desolate wilderness of mis-shapen, whitish slag heaps, once part of the Dead Sea bed.

The road twists and turns threading its way between until the bright green, tall, factory-like building of the Palestine Police Allenby Bridge post came into sight and our taxi pulled up. We got out and walked past the heterogeneous collection of lorries and bus passengers going through the customs house at the roadside to the small iron bridge over the Jordan. The Jordan here is quite swift flowing, but very muddy. It twists between banks thickly overgrown with bushes, through which we forced our way on to the Trans-Jordan bank; the fourth country we had been in (just) in seven days. The climate down there is exceedingly hot and also very humid and “muggy”! The queer shaped white mounds and tropical vegetation make the place completely different from any other part of Palestine. We returned to the car and travelled back as far as Jericho, the modern Arab village, and then turned off the Jerusalem road to old Jericho. The road we followed runs through banana groves, palm trees and so on and the country seems very fertile. At old Jericho there remains only the well, still in use. A walled-in little reservoir is fed from underground, and quite a large volume of water rushes out through a shallow channel where goats and cattle were drinking in large numbers. We climb ed up to the left of the road over an area of ruins. The ruination is so complete that at first glance one might not notice any ruins. But traces of built walls can be seen and it is thought that one of the cities in this site was that which fell at trumpeting and shouting of the children of Israel. Excavations are in progress just beyond this area at the moment. Immediately above this site the Judean mountains rise almost precipitously from the plain. On the top of one peak a building is incredibly perched. Another, a monastery, nestles half way up the sheer slope. This is the mount of the Temptation according to the legend. Just how many of the countries may be seen from the summit I do not know, but I should imagine that the view was limited to the Jordan and Dead Sea valley, impressive though the great height is.

From old Jericho we returned through new Jericho to the fork on the Jerusalem road and turned back to Kallia where the Palestine Potash Co. has a big factory and has built blocks of modern flats for its employees. We went on to the Kallia Hotel bathing beach and I had a swim in the Dead Sea. This is surprisingly difficult. When one attempts to swim normally one looks as if one is trying to take off because it is impossible to keep the legs below water. One can stand upright in the water without touching the bottom but tends to overbalance. It is easier to sit or lie. The water stings under the arms and a splash in the eye is very painful. It is however quite pleasant to be able to float around without any effort. On coming out I had a fresh water shower and found Frank in conversation with one of the Sudani suffragi from Omdurman. I suppose the climate will suit the Sudanis there. We returned by the same road, the only road, up the steep, winding wadis. About a mile below Khan Hathrour a bus was standing by the road side and the driver signalled us to stop and asked if we would take his boy to Jerusalem to get help as his distributor was broken. We did so and began to feel that perhaps 750 mills was not so very expensive all things considered. It was seven o’clock when we reached St. Andrew’s and I found Maurice Steadman waiting for me in the hall. He had got 36 hours leave on the strength of VJ day and my letter which had only just reached him at one o’clock that afternoon. Since then he had fixed everything up and hitched from Pardess Hannah, a Jewish colony, Hannah’s orange grove, to Hadera, the nearest town, from there on the North-South road to Sarafand, then had to wait over an hour for a lift only as far as Ramle and finally arrived in Jerusalem and just got fixed up when we walked in. We sat down opposite the price list which said just ‘VJ Day – everything free’, but the waiters seemed to be having a holiday as well. After an hour or so we stopped talking and discovered that, everything being free, had been sold (which is Irish), so we adjourned to the CA for a good meal at normal price. Maurice and I then went to the YMCA to see if we might go up the tower to see the city lights. But we were told that it is not possible to go up in the dark, although actually it is floodlit. However we saw quite a bit from the Old City, and thus to bed.