We began shortly to come upon the real beauties of the Land of Canaan. The road was bordered in many places by fruit trees of all kinds, overhanging so far that you had only to reach out your hand to pick the fruit as you rode along. Also, there were numerous orchards and kitchen-gardens with whose owners we used to bargain for the produce. Curiously enough we had extraordinary difficulty in persuading the people to take Egyptian money: they would insist on having Turkish money in spite of our reiterated assertions that it had suffered a serious slump in value. One old lady to whom I showed a Turkish one pound note—worth about the cost of printing—simply jumped at it, and immediately fished out an enormous bag of small change. She was quite upset at my refusal to part with the note; and we haggled for a quarter of an hour about whether she would give me, roughly, sixteen shillingsworth of Turkish silver for a piece of worthless paper, or whether she would accept five piastres Egyptian in exchange for a hatful of limes.
The camel-drivers thoroughly enjoyed this part of the trek; indeed, they were in amazingly high spirits the whole way, despite the long daily march. They had as much water as they could drink, a great thing for the Egyptian native, there was fruit for the picking on the trees, and everything was free! So they imagined, but the exasperated ladies who were continually coming to complain that a sportsman in a blue galabeah was rifling their orchards evidently thought otherwise.
All the camel-men had the predatory instinct strongly developed, and they were adepts at concealing the "evidence," which sometimes was very much more than fruit or eggs. On one occasion the convoy passed an old man driving a flock of sheep, of which one mysteriously disappeared. I happened to be riding immediately behind the flock and saw nothing unusual, yet some time after the old man caught us up at the midday halt and complained that one of the camel-men had stolen a sheep. We searched the convoy from end to end and found no trace; we even went so far as to search the men's clothing! and ultimately the old man had to go away without his sheep.
Curiously enough, a leg of mutton appeared in the mess that night; and a very welcome change it was, too, from bully-beef.
I can offer no explanation of the phenomenon; I only know that we searched the convoy conscientiously and thoroughly and there was no sign of mutton, dead or alive. It must have needed marvellous sleight-of-hand to conceal a full-grown sheep from view!
That was the reverse side of the medal: the obverse was much brighter. It was impossible not to admire the extraordinary endurance of the camel-men. They would march fifteen to twenty miles a day for days, and even weeks at a time, provided only that they had enough water; and, well led, they would go anywhere and do anything.
On the fifth day out from Haifa we marched into Sidon, whose inhabitants turned out en masse and welcomed the column with great and spontaneous enthusiasm, which left no doubt as to its genuineness, though at times it became a trifle embarrassing. On the surface the people looked little the worse for four years' privations and ill-treatment at the hands of the Turks, but a glance into the shops as we passed showed little else but fruit in the shape of food; and this is not very satisfying as a sole diet. In some parts of the town pinched faces and wan cheeks were frequent; and one group consisting of an elderly man with his wife and two daughters especially attracted my attention. Their faces were dead-white, as if they had been living below ground for years, and the dull, stunned look of misery in their eyes was terrible to see; obviously they had not yet fully realised their deliverance. The old gentleman, a French Syrian, told me that when, three years before, he had heard of the coming of German troops to Sidon, he gave out to his neighbours that he and his family were going to the north, leaving the empty house in charge of the native caretaker. The family disappeared, and until the hurried departure of the Germans nothing more was seen of them, when they—apparently—returned once more to their home.
In reality, they had never left it. They had retired to a disused wing of the house, barricaded themselves in so skilfully that no one but the old caretaker who looked after the supplies suspected their presence; and there they had lived for three years, never venturing out except to walk at night in their extensive garden! On one occasion the house was occupied by a German staff-officer, and their walks ceased for three weeks; but for the greater part of the time it had remained untenanted. During the period previous to our coming they had been almost entirely without food, other than fruit and dried legumes.
That was the story told to me as nearly as I can remember it, and the lifeless pallor of the old Frenchman's face and those of his family certainly gave colour to the narrative. It is very hard to believe in starvation when you are surrounded on all sides by beautiful gardens and orchards abounding in fruit; and those at Sidon were surely the loveliest on earth. All round the town stretched great masses of green, in the midst of which, like diamonds in a sea of emeralds, were white cupolas and summer-houses, with scores of fountains playing all day long. On the hills behind the gardens were many modern houses admirably built after the Italian fashion, whose mellow terra-cotta blended effectively with the green mass below. Riding through the umbrageous lanes between countless orchards you could believe anything but that people here were starving.