Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/56

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BAZARS AND SHOPKEEPERS.
49

The shopkeepers were crying to the passers-by, "Ho, every one that hath money, let him come and buy!", "Ho, such a one, come and buy!" But some of them seemed to be more disinterested, and one of the fruiterers, offering me preserves and fruit, said, "O lady, take of our fruit without money and without price; it is yours, take all that you will," and he would gladly have laden our kawass with the good things of his store, and then have claimed double their value. In a street leading to one of the bazars, a number of peasant women and girls from Bethany and Siloam were selling vegetables and fruit. They did not wear the white shroud of the townspeople. Their dresses were chiefly of indigo-dyed linen, and made like long shirts, girdled with red shawls or sashes. Their heads were covered with colored handkerchiefs or shawls, or white towels, so arranged as partially to conceal their faces, which were very dark and tattooed with blue stars and dots on the forehead and round the lips. Their dark eyes looked larger and darker on account of the kohl on the eyelids, and the black pigment on the eyebrows. They wore colored glass bracelets—made at Hebron—silver anklets, and some of them had necklaces of coins and silver rings. A very striking-looking young Siloam girl said to me, taking hold of my dress, "Taste of the fruit of our gardens and our vineyards, O sister!" My brother, by accident in passing a shrouded yellow-booted figure in the crowded street, slightly disarranged the folds of her izzar, and he said, "Your pardon, Ya Sitti "—O my lady! She answered, "Say not, 'Ya Sitti' to me; say it rather to the queen of heaven." We met a large number of people afflicted with ophthalmy, and partial or entire loss of sight; but deformed persons are comparatively rare in Palestine.

In one of the most bustling bazars we saw a tall, gaunt man gesticulating in the midst of a crowd. He was almost naked, for he wore only a ragged strip of sackcloth round his loins. He carried in one hand a long, stout staff, and in the other a large stone. His vehement exclamations,