He is an unfortunate man that cannot feel proud of his nationality; but it has to be confessed that it is difficult to be English during these days in Palestine. Thanks to the religious habit which I wear, the Palestinian native frequently looks on me as a Faransawi, or Frenchman—a fact which bears tribute to the influence French Catholics have exerted here in times past; and it is not always that I correct his mistake.

Indeed, one has to confess at times to feelings of downright shame and a desire to hide one’s head; to-day, for example, when the streets of Jerusalem are being paraded by armoured cars, and when groups of those known to you at home as the ‘Black and Tans’ are scattered about in the company of Hindoo troops. Because yesterday, to-day and to-morrow, the 13th, 14th and 15th of July, have been chosen by the Christian and Mahommedan Arabs as a sort of ‘down tools’ protest against the inclusion of the Balfour Declaration favouring the establishment of a Jewish national home, in the British mandate of Palestine. Shops are closed : bazaars are idle : one waits in some trepidation for the events of the next few days. There are rumours that some who are in the know have left the country. The authorities, fearing a repetition of the troubles of May and November, 1921, and of Easter, 1920, have issued proclamations and brought up armoured cars and soldiers.

One can hardly blame the authorities for these precautions.