Mencken on Palestine

The following is the second of a series of articles by the former editor of American Mercury, author of a score of books dealing with American culture and letters, and popularly recognized as one of the country’s leading critics.

This is reproduced by permission of the Baltimore Sun.

My appetite for holy places, I confess, is only moderate, especially when their authenticity is dubious and they are dressed up like sideshows at a county fair, but I have had a grand time traversing the immemorial battlefield of Armageddon, and an even better time zigzagging up the Jordan Valley to Galilee. The latter journey–it may sound formidable, but it really took only a couple of hours–carried me over the border into Transjordania, and through some rough country, with crazy roads that are legacies of the Turk. But it is as safe today as Anne Arundel County, and indeed much safer, for at every considerable crossroads there is one of those police fortresses, and on a bench in front of every one of them sits a cop in his shirt sleeves waiting for trade.

The Jordan itself is no great shakes. It burbles over its stones noisily, for it has a steep fall, but it is not much wider than Jones Falls at Belvedere Avenue, and getting enough power out of it to run the electric plant below Tiberia involved some complicated engineering. But at the forlorn little Arab town of Semakh, hard by Magdala, it widens out into the Sea of Galilee, and around the shores of the sea is some of the loveliest scenery I have ever laid eyes on. Not even Switzerland can surpass it. There is nothing large or gaudy about it, for the hills are low here and the sea itself is small, but it would be hard to imagine natural pictures of a greater charm, or more of them in a row.

PLACE ‘SWEATS’ HISTORY

The whole region sweats history, both sacred and profane. Magdala I have mentioned–a poor village today and seldom visited. Nearby is the hill which saw the strange butchery of the Gadarene swine, and a bit further on is the scene of the miraculous draft of fishes and beyond it the place where Jesus seared the Disciples by walking on the sea. At the head of Galilee is Capernaum, and over the bills is Nazareth, with Cana on the way. This trip over the hills I shall not soon forget. As we started up there was a violent shower of rain, but we soon got above it, and looked down upon it. The blue waters of Galilee, lashed by it, turned a brilliant green, and over them arched a magnificent rainbow.

It was my hope to visit the site of Gomorrah, the Hollywood of antiquity, but this turned out to be impossible, for no part of Palestine wants to claim it, and the archaeologists are still at odds about it. Most of them agree that it must have stood somewhere in the valley of the Dead Sea, but some of them place its bones in the salty desert south of the sea, whereas others hold that they are now under water. Perhaps they will be pumped up soon or late by the potash company which now has pipes thrust into the sea, to fetch up the water of highest density at the bottom. But this is only speculation. For the present I can only note my regret.

The battlefield of Armageddon is easily identified and very accessible. In fact, it is the richest part of the Valley of Jezreel, and Zionist plows now turn up its rich red soil. A week or two ago I was writing from Carthage, marveling over its semidiurnal bloodiness, but Carthage is almost a Lake Chautauqua compared to Armageddon. It began to soak up gore back in the very dawn of history, and it saw its last battle so recently as 1918, when Allenby and the Turks rounded out their little war by fighting all over it. Every great captain of antiquity contributed to its fertilization. On it Hittites met Egyptians, and Egyptians met Persians, and Persians met Greeks, and Jews were slaughtered by one and all.

A BIT OF HISTORY

It was fought for so hard because it lay directly across the only feasible route between Africa to Asia. There was no passing down the seacoast here, for the great shoulder of Mount Carmel stood in the way. Any commander who wanted to break into or out of the Plain of Sharon had to do so through the Valley of Jezreel, and so Jezreel heard the tramp of armed men for thirty centuries, and a hundred times at least its poor farmers lost their crops to swarms of human locusts, and not infrequently their wives too, and their lives. The marvel is that the survivors ever went back. But men forget quickly, and I daresay that the Zionists who live there now, cultivating that vast surgical sponge, seldom give a thought to Sennacherib, or to Nebuchadnezzar, or to Alexander, or even to Allenby.

I visited a few of them, and found them very enterprising and enlightened fellows, as unlike American farmers as you could imagine. Some of them are Communists and some of them are engined by self-interest, but all are extremely competent, and what they have done with Armageddon is worth telling. If the chance offers I may tell some of it anon.