This book is an autobiographical account of the author's life in Haifa, which at the time was still part of Palestine. The writer of the book was Laurence Oliphant; a Member of Parliament, a South African-born British author, traveller, diplomat, British intelligence agent, Christian mystic, and Christian Zionist. He and his family settled in Palestine for most of their lives, dividing their time between a house in the German Colony in Haifa, and another in the Druze village of Daliyat al-Karmel on Mount Carmel. Oliphant's secretary Naftali Herz Imber, author of the Israeli national anthem, Hatikva, lived with them. Oliphant is regarded as having been "central" to "the establishment and survival" of Rosh Pinna and Zikhron Ya'akov.