A land without a people : Utah IMC

Alexander Keith, recalling Volney's 1785 description (quoted above) fifty years later, commented: "In his day [Volney's] tthe land had not fully reache its last degree of desolation and depopulation." (The Land of Israel).

Other travelers and pilgrims recorded similar reports of the dreary state of the Land around the middle of the nineteenth century. Here are just a few examples:

Alphonse de Lamartine, in 1835: "...a complete eternal silence reigns in the town, on the highways, in the country ... the tomb of a whole people" (Recollections of the East, Vol. I, p. 308).

A contemporary German encyclopedia (Brockhaus, "Allegmeine deutsche Real- Encyklopaidie", Vol. VIII, p. 206, Leipzig, 1827) calls Palestine "desolate and roamed through by Arab robber-bands."

In 1849, the American W. F. Lynch described the desertion of Palestinian villages "caused by the frequent forays of the wandering Bedouin" (Narrative of the United States Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea, p. 489).

And again H. B. Tristram, in 1865: "... both in the north and south (of the Sharon plain), land is going out of cultivvation, and whole villages ar rapidly disappearing from the face of the earth. Since the year 1838, no less than 20 villages have been thus erased from the map (by the Bedouin) and the stationary population extirpated" (p. 490).

Mark Twain, 'Innocents Abroad' 1867:

""Desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds - a silent mournful expanse ... We reached Tabor safely ...
We never saw a human being on the whole route" (p. 451, 480);
"There is not a solitary village throughout its (the Jezreel Valley's) whole extent - not for thirty miles in either direction.
There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents but not a single permanent habitation.
One may ride ten miles, hereabouts, and not see ten human beings" (p. 448);
"Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren ... the valleys are unsightly deserts... It is a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land... Palestine is desolate and unlovely... Palestine is no more of this workday world. It is sacred to poetry and tradition - it is dreamland" (pp. 564, 567).

Referring to the same era, the Christian historian James Parkes writes in Whose Land?: "Peasant and Bedouin alike have contributed to the ruin of the countryside on which both depend for a livelihood... In spite of the immense fertility of the soil, it is probable that in the first half of the nineteenth century the population sank to the lowest level it had ever known in historic times."

In 1738, the land was described by the English archeologist Thomas Shaw as "lacking in people to till its fertile soil" (Travels and Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant). The French historian Conte Constantine Francois Volney writes:

"The peasants are incessantly making inroads on each other's lands, destroying their corn, durra, sesame and olive-trees, and carrying off their sheep, goats and camels. The Turks, who are everywhere negligent in repressing similar disorders, are attentive to them here, since their authority is very precarious. The Bedouin, whose camps occupy the level country, are continually at open hostility
Alexander Keith, recalling Volney's 1785 description (quoted above) fifty years later, commented: "In his day [Volney's] tthe land had not fully reache its last degree of desolation and depopulation." (The Land of Israel).

Other travelers and pilgrims recorded similar reports of the dreary state of the Land around the middle of the nineteenth century. Here are just a few examples:

Alphonse de Lamartine, in 1835: "...a complete eternal silence reigns in the town, on the highways, in the country ... the tomb of a whole people" (Recollections of the East, Vol. I, p. 308).

A contemporary German encyclopedia (Brockhaus, "Allegmeine deutsche Real- Encyklopaidie", Vol. VIII, p. 206, Leipzig, 1827) calls Palestine "desolate and roamed through by Arab robber-bands."

In 1849, the American W. F. Lynch described the desertion of Palestinian villages "caused by the frequent forays of the wandering Bedouin" (Narrative of the United States Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea, p. 489).

And again H. B. Tristram, in 1865: "... both in the north and south (of the Sharon plain), land is going out of cultivvation, and whole villages ar rapidly disappearing from the face of the earth. Since the year 1838, no less than 20 villages have been thus erased from the map (by the Bedouin) and the stationary population extirpated" (p. 490).

Mark Twain, 'Innocents Abroad' 1867:

""Desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds - a silent mournful expanse ... We reached Tabor safely ...
We never saw a human being on the whole route" (p. 451, 480);
"There is not a solitary village throughout its (the Jezreel Valley's) whole extent - not for thirty miles in either direction.
There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents but not a single permanent habitation.
One may ride ten miles, hereabouts, and not see ten human beings" (p. 448);
"Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren ... the valleys are unsightly deserts... It is a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land... Palestine is desolate and unlovely... Palestine is no more of this workday world. It is sacred to poetry and tradition - it is dreamland" (pp. 564, 567).

Referring to the same era, the Christian historian James Parkes writes in Whose Land?: "Peasant and Bedouin alike have contributed to the ruin of the countryside on which both depend for a livelihood... In spite of the immense fertility of the soil, it is probable that in the first half of the nineteenth century the population sank to the lowest level it had ever known in historic times."

In 1738, the land was described by the English archeologist Thomas Shaw as "lacking in people to till its fertile soil" (Travels and Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant). The French historian Conte Constantine Francois Volney writes:

"The peasants are incessantly making inroads on each other's lands, destroying their corn, durra, sesame and olive-trees, and carrying off their sheep, goats and camels. The Turks, who are everywhere negligent in repressing similar disorders, are attentive to them here, since their authority is very precarious. The Bedouin, whose camps occupy the level country, are continually at open hostility