Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

The ordinary tubercular leprosy is due to the presence of bacteria in the tubercles, and the disease works out from within, not inwards from without. It appears not to be the same disease described in Leviticus, though the white leprosy—a spot deeper than the skin, with white hairs (Levit. xiii. 3)—is still found in Palestine. The name leprosy is derived from El Burs, a corruption of the Hebrew term used for the disease.

No cure is as yet known for tubercular leprosy, for the reason of the presence of the microscopic parasites is not yet discovered. The prevention of this plague, which is now rather on the increase in Palestine, seems to be possible, if habits of greater cleanliness and morality, with more comfort and better food, could be introduced among the peasantry, and if at the same time strict laws were enforced for secluding the lepers in asylums.

This dreadful plague does not become manifest before the age of twelve, nor later than forty-five. The patients suffer pain at first, and, in later stages, much distress; their physical strength and animal life dies out, and they are, in their own words, “like oxen,” without feeling or intellectual power, scarcely conscious of the outer world; their voices become changed to a feeble whine, husky and querulous; their joints and features waste away, and swelling and black discolouration ensue. The flesh decays, until the appearance of an advanced case is ghastly in the extreme; and a raw wound may be burnt with an iron in their bodies, producing only a slightly pleasing sensation. They die finally of leprosy.

The lepers at Jerusalem live in huts near the south-west corner of the town, inside the wall, and marry lepers, and the disease which reappears in their children thus becomes hereditary.

Turning from this repulsive subject to that of the daily life of the peasantry, we may next notice their marriages, funerals and amusements.

The distinctive physiognomy of each village is extremely striking. In one the people will be good-looking, in another ugly; in each case there is a strong family likeness between the various inhabitants of any one place, which is apparently due to constant intermarriage between the peasants of the same village.

The principal ceremonies connected with weddings are the processions of the bride and bridegroom through the street, accompanied by their friends. The procession of the dower is also accompanied by a band of women, singing, clapping their hands, and uttering shrill cries; but the bride’s fortune among the peasantry is necessarily small, and, as in Italy, a single chest on a mule conveys the whole trousseau.

At Nazareth, in 1872, we witnessed two of these wedding processions, or Zeffehs—one Christian, one Moslem.

First came a group of women clapping their hands in time, and uttering the Zaghârît, or shrill ululations, commonly used as a mark either of joy or of sorrow. Most of them wore over their heads the black cloak with an embroidered border; their palms were dyed with henna, and they had the moon-shaped tire as above described, and tight-fitting bodices of silk, gleaming with red, green, yellow, blue, and purple, in stripes and patches. One woman carried a basket of flowers on her head, with a bottle of wine and a cake. The bride followed, close veiled, dressed in glorious array, mounted on a horse, and supported by three of her female relatives, while two other women held the bridle.

Presently the Zeffeh of the bridegroom passed in turn, consisting of some two hundred of his friends. They were in white, with ’Abbas and with silk Kufeiyehs, or turbans. Many were armed with old brass-bound guns, which they let off at intervals. The shouting crowd went before the bridegroom to the market-place, and there a ring of some hundred and fifty men was formed; they were jammed close together, shoulder to shoulder, clapping their hands and shouting “Alla-lá!” at the top of their voices, their bodies swaying in time, while the best-man, in a green dress, hopped round on one leg, and another man, in a black and purple head-dress, which was tied beneath the chin, his cheeks being reddened with henna, and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, sprinkled rose-water over the whole circle. A gun was let off, and a sort of proclamation was made, after which the clapping was resumed at a furious pace, the best-man becoming almost frantic.