The stars shone splendidly, and a very slight breeze stirred the leaves of the tree above us. In the mean time, our tents had been pitched. The Moslems went up to the village, and we retired to rest.
At five o'clock on the following morning we started again. We lunched in a fruit-garden at Kubab, where prickly-pears were fine and abundant, and reached Ramleh at eleven o'clock. We rested during the heat of the day at the house which we had visited in August. A new drawing-room, or divan, had been built, and the white walls were bordered with blue arabesque designs, and hung with curious pictures, specimens of caligraphic art. Long histories were written in ornamental Arabic characters, arranged so as to represent animals, real and imaginary. There was a lion very carefully done. At a little distance it looked only like an ordinary quaint pen-and-ink drawing, though in reality every line consisted of part of a word. The Arabs very much admire these tedious, unartistic, and time-taking productions. Almost the only modern Arabic poetry which is published partakes of the same spirit of ingenious trifling; for the chief aim seems to be, to compose verses in which certain names and phrases are introduced intricately, in an acrostic form, with elaborate care, but without any true poetic feeling.
The real poetry of the country is unwritten. It is the every-day language of the people. They are all—more especially the Bedouins and the peasants—unconscious poets.
Their natural artistic feeling, and their sense of beauty and fitness, are shown in their costumes, which are always harmonious in color, and never embroidered except with pure and graceful designs. They show their skill and taste in the simple and appropriate forms of their home-made lamps, jars, dishes, stoves, and other articles of domestic use, which they model in clay and expose to the sun till they are thoroughly baked.
The windows of the new room commanded a fine view, the central object being the tall, Saracenic tower, for which
