unceremoniously drove about half of them out of the place, and they all withdrew when the gentlemen returned from their ride.
We spent the evening at the house of Habîb. A large party assembled to meet us in his spacious guest-chamber, and all the culinary skill of Shefa 'Amer had been employed in preparing a supper for us. Songs, complimentary speeches, and story-telling followed. I walked back to Stephani's house by the light of many lanterns, accompanied to my door by my brother and nearly all the guests.
At sunrise the next morning we were mounted and ready to start for Hâifa. Stephani, Habîb, and a large party joined us. Our Egyptian groom had charge of a beautiful Syrian gazelle-hound which had been given to my brother. We rode down into the valley and along a level road leading to a large fountain. A number of the village girls were already assembled there—some standing on the high stone platform surrounding the well, and others grouped round the base. In the distance we saw a procession of them, traversing, one by one, a narrow foot-path on the hill-side, with their replenished jars perfectly poised on their heads.
We turned out of the Akka road, and entered an extensive olive-grove. Picturesque groups of men, women, and children, in bright-colored garments, were busy among the trees, or hastening along the road. I had always seen the olive plantations so silent and deserted that it was quite a surprise to me. Saleh explained that it was the beginning of the olive harvest—the 19th of October—and all of these people had been hired to gather the fruit. The men beat the trees with long sticks, and the women and children pick up the berries.[1] We met a straggling group of figures, which looked so unnaturally tall and disproportionate that I could not make them out till I was
- ↑ "When thou beatest thine olive-tree thou shalt not go over the boughs again; it shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow." Deut. xxiv, 20.
