A Dangerous Harbor

       Glory to God in the highest, we have arrived at Joppa. Last night we made our exit from Egypt and have come through the sea dry-shod, and are now about to enter the "Promised Land," through the gates of Joppa. The sea is as smooth as a polished floor, although the harbor has the worst reputation for shipwrecks. The guide-books and all the tourists have prophesied a terrible debarkation at this place. The bottom of this harbor, they tell us, is strewn with human bones. Fifteen years ago a boat with twenty-seven pilgrims went down. But we personally know nothing against the harbor of Joppa. Hardly a ripple on the sea. Floods of sunshine. May all the rough stories about death prove in our cases as untrue, and our entrance into the promised land of heaven be as placid! May it be a radiant harbor! We are ashore and are met by people of many nationalities. While I am writing this, the air is full of fragrance, gardens all a-bloom though the first of December, and we are surrounded by acacia, tamarisk, oleander, palm, mulberry, century plant and orange groves, the oranges either ripe or ripening, the orange tree in March having both fruit and blossom, and all the year round in foliage, so that it fulfills the prophecy, "Their leaf also shall not wither."

       On the back of hills Joppa is lifted toward the skies. It is as picturesque as it is quaint, and as much unlike any city we have ever seen as though it were in another world, Jupiter or Saturn or Mars. It comes out into the sea to meet one so that I felt like shouting to it in salutation from the deck of the steamer.

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