Thence their Sisters of the Rosary were penetrating even the doubtful districts east of the Jordan. The Italians, whose Franciscans were of such old establishment at Jerusalem (fourteenth century) as to be accepted as a matter of course, were not regarded as likely to increase either the numbers or the liberalism of their institutions; but the British Church missionary schools and hospitals throughout Palestine were another matter, and the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem had recently instituted a new centre for educating natives, whether Protestant or other.
Jewish Immigrants.—More, however, than any Christians, Abdul Hamid believed he had reason to fear the Jews. They were to be a wedge driven in by the hands of France, Russia, and Great Britain, whom, in this connection, he suspected in the order named. The Alliance israélite universelle, of Paris, had introduced a first Hebrew colony to Palestine in 1870. British Jews followed suit in 1878. Four years later there was a veritable rush, as a result of pogroms in Russia and Rumania. With ten colonies already in existence, occupying some of the best land of the maritime lowlands, while Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias. and Safed had long sheltered Jewish communities, the Porte resolved to act. In 1888 it informed the Powers that it would not admit another Hebrew colony into Palestine, or, indeed, any Jew pilgrim, except on payment of heavy caution for his departure within a short term; and that the standing interdict against aliens holding real estate would be rigorously enforced. This effort, however, availed but little. The Powers (although Great Britain had pledged herself to cease protecting Russian Jews after 1890) refused to accept discriminatory legislation against their nationals, Hebrew or other; while a people so well supplied and so conversant with finance as the Jews found little difficulty in evading the prohibitions of a Turkish administration. The tide of Jewish colonisation slackened, but did not stop, and it flowed again with renewed volume after Herzl had enunciated his Zionist
