The flight into Egypt I have assumed to have occurred about sixteen months after the birth of Jesus. Guided by Christian tradition, and holding the birth of our Lord to have taken place in December, it follows that the period which I have assigned to the Flight into Egypt is the second April in His life. During the spring-time, rich in flowers and first-fruits, the Holy Travellers are represented as passing across the Philistine plain on the road to Gaza at a distance of about thirty miles from their point of departure. The night is far spent. While the declining moon sheds its last rays on the natural objects in the picture, unearthly light reveals the embodied spirits of the martyred Innocents advancing in procession. The Virgin is seated on a she-ass of the breed now known as the Mecca race, and the foal follows its mother, as is seen to this day in the East. Signal fires—still lit in Syria in time of trouble—are burning on the slope looking down from the tableland. St. Joseph is watching these fires intent on discovering any signs that may present themselves of a movement of soldiery upon the road. Of the trees that enrich the landscape, the nearest ones shelter a water-wheel used for the irrigation of the land. The more remote group clusters round a village, with its few huts visible by the lights that burn within. Having left the colder climate of the high country, then thickly populated and well cultivated, the fugitives have descended into the rich and more balmy atmosphere of the plain. As they advance nearer and nearer to a place of safety they feel the blessed relief of a sense of peace after disturbance and terror.
