trough,where their flocks of goats were crowding to drink. The vegetation by this stream and fountain was wild and luxuriant. Oleanders, lupins, tall grass, and the arbutus abounded. The monks soon pointed out, with delight, the white convent of Mar Elias on the headland of Carmel.
Pleasant sounds of voices, songs, and bells, and laughter reached us, and we saw an animated little party approaching, mounted on camels, whose nodding heads and necks were decorated with beads, shells, crimson tassels, and strings of little tinkling bells. I paused by the wayside to watch them, as they slowly passed. There were thirteen camels strung together, each carrying two or three women and children, all in gala dresses, made chiefly of soft crimson silk, with white Vandyked stripes on it. On their heads, they wore scarfs or vails, of various colors and materials—silk, muslin, and wool-folded across their foreheads, just meeting the eyebrows, then thrown over the back of the head, and brought forward again to cover their faces, all but the shining eyes. The fringed or bordered ends were allowed to fall gracefully over the shoulders. Some of the women had slipped these vails, or wimples, down below their lips, so as to join in the chorus of the songs improvised by the two professional singing-women who accompanied them. My brother could perceive that it was a bridal party, by these songs, which very much resembled in style the "Song of Songs which is Solomon's." A number of men were in attendance on foot, forming a picturesque body-guard to the exalted women. They were people of one of the villages of the plain or vale of Dor, and had been to Hâifa, to purchase dresses, trinkets, and furniture for two approaching weddings, in a family of some local importance. They were scarcely out of hearing when we met another noisy group, consisting of men and boys, with a few camels, mules, and donkeys, clumsily laden with the purchases for the weddings—cooking utensils, baskets of rice, reed mats, bales of goods, and two red wooden boxes, ornamented with gilt hinges and strap-work.
