Page:Palestine Exploration Fund - Quarterly Statement for 1894.djvu/192

156 I need hardly say that they make a fresh appeal to British and American travellers, and those who are interested in Palestine for the means of carrying out these explorations. I am sure we must feel that we have no little advantage to-day in the presence and presidency of His Royal Highness (hear, hear), who has told us of his experiences in Palestine, and who lias also shown so much sympathy with, and deep interest in, this work by his opening remarks. I am sure we must all feel we have had a great privilege in the admirable lecture which has been given us by Major Conder. We must bear in mind that he was one of those great pioneers of exploration in the Holy Land, associated as he was with the names of Sir Charles Warren, Sir Charles Wilson—who, I am happy to say, is present here to-day—and Brigadier-General Sir H. H. Kitchener, and perhaps to none of those are we more indebted than to Major Conder, who, I believe, took the greatest share in the preparation of that magnificent map and survey, and who has devoted himself so much to the literary illustration of the subject. (Hear, hear.) I only trust, ladies and gentlemen, that the earnest words with which he concluded his lecture may find an echo in the hearts of all those present—that we will not leave this meeting without promising ourselves to support him, and those I have mentioned who have gone before us in this great work, by a liberal response to the call for subscriptions to enable this admirable society to give once more a proof of how much can be done by the energy of an English Association in the distant clime of Palestine. (Applause.) With these few remarks, 1 venture, your Royal Highness, to propose a hearty vote of thanks to Major Conder for his lecture.

I am sure we have all listened with very great pleasure and advantage to the lecture which Major Conder has delivered to us. The name of Major Conder is so intimately associated with exploration in Palestine that he is properly regarded as one of the very best authorities upon this important subject. As His Royal Highness mentioned at the beginning of this meeting, the ruins of Rome and Greece have been investigated with very great care, and we know a great deal of the habits and of the history of these great powers of ancient times, and possess a great deal of architectural and artistic knowledge, which we have gained by their exploration. And so I hope that we may know, in the course of time, a very great deal more than we know at the present day, about the Bible and the nations mentioned in the Bible, in which we all feel such great interest. It is the great glory of this country that the Bible literature is so deeply studied; but now, as Major Conder has told us, and as we have heard from several other great authorities connected with this society, notwithstanding what we know, we are only at the very outset of the work. The monuments of Syria, the valley between the Tigris and the Euphrates, and a great portion of Southern Persia, have to be still explored. The peculiar conditions in which these countries arc, the semi-civilised state in which they are, the great jealousy which the great tribes exhibit towards anyone who touches the tells which contain the imbedded cities of antiquity is so great, that whoever lays a hand upon them, even when furnished with the firman of the Sultan, they view with the greatest suspicion, and many valuable monuments are doomed to destruction because of the superstition that as soon as they have been touched by Christians they are desecrated, and misfortune will somehow fall upon the country. We hope that in the course of time we