All the mulberry trees in the plantation, with the exception of some six or a dozen, present the lamentable spectacle of so many boughless stems; whilst nature around is profuse in luxuriance, and the wild convolvolus, as though compassionating the sad condition of the mulberry, twists its friendly leaves around, and decks it with gaudy blossoms of the early May morning. The peasant has been busy cutting down boughs of trees, etc., the bark of which he makes into string and ropes; these have been exposed to the sun, till all the leaves have withered and fallen to the ground. The worm which, by a wonderful instinct, has heretofore never strayed seven inches from where it was originally placed, now begins to evince symptoms of impatience, and roves about the edges of the shelves, or tries to mount up the
smooth and slippery canes that support the shelves. The peasant, marking these indications, immediately places the dry twigs of thorn and bushes over the worms, and in a short time the whole colony rapidly mounts amongst these twigs, each choosing out for itself some favourable position, where it may with greater facility weave its costly and wonderful web. And now we stand quietly, and watch the indefatigable little creature silently persevering in completing its own little storehouse, and what will prove to be its own little tomb. No machinery could be more exact than the movements of this small insect, as it carefully draws out of its mouth thread after thread, now moving with its head to the right, and carrying the almost invisible web down to its tail, then turning its head in the opposite direction, apparently for the purpose of drawing the silk from where it had been fastened on one side, till it has carefully drawn it over its own head, and secured it with gummy saliva. We quit the worms at mid-day, when hardly a thread of this wonderful substance is as yet visible; we return early the next day, and the cocoon is formed, but it is yet too tender to be touched. The peasant merely contents himself with observing the shape and color of these cocoons—setting much store on such as are of a yellow brown tinge, small, with a belt in the centre. Some of the cocoons are as white as snow, some yellow, some brown. The peasant now reports the condition of the silk-worms to his masters who immediately places his seal on the door of the hoosse.
When they are considered fit to reel off the silk, he has the old oven to put in repair, to inspect the basin on the top of this altar-shaped furnace, to erect the old wheel, which has lain on the dust-heap ever since last
year—drive a nail in here—put a new spoke in there; and when all is completed, and ready for immediate use, the peasant’s wife goes early on the morning of the auspicious day, and carries in her hand a morsel of damp clay; this she flings against the door-post of the master’s house, if it adheres, then luck will attend the season, if, on the contrary, it drops off, the silk will be unsaleable. This is not the last superstitious ceremony observed; early that morning, about an hour after sunrise, the master of the plantation, followed by the peasants, and all his family, march in regular procession to the hoosse, the great man carrying under his arm a bundle of handkerchiefs, or other trifles, as presents for his followers; these are duly distributed on reaching the sheds; every one says a blessing on that day’s undertaking, the door is unsealed, the people rush in, and rapidly empty the hoosse of the twigs and branches on which the cocoons have settled; these are piled up outside of the door, the women and children spread mats on the ground; here seated, they pick the cocoons from the twigs, and the peasants, as the mats get overloaded, gather them into a goodly-sized basket: by nightfall this operation has been concluded; they then separate from the mass some two or three hundred of the very best cocoons, which are set aside to breed from. Next day, the first streak of dawn has barely lit up the east, before the busy peasants are up and doing. “The cocoon cleaners” are occupied picking them; that is, detaching from the hard shell the soft downy substance, which afterwards constitutes what is termed the rough silk. The peasant, meanwhile, has lit the furnace; the water in the boiler is wrought to a proper temperature for reeling the silk. An old man busies himself in bringing bundles of faggots from the large pile of
mulberry branches, with which to keep the fire alive. Baskets of picked cocoons are placed beside the peasant who, seated on a stool, chooses from these a dozen or fourteen at a time, while a man or a boy turns the large wheel with his foot; this wheel is about fifteen feet in diameter; the cocoons are thrown into the warm water, and well whipped with switches, till the whole surface becomes frothy, and the threads of the cocoons begin to detach themselves. Seizing these, the peasant skilfully draws them up, gradually using more strength, till he has sufficient length of thread to fasten to a peg in the wheel. The party at the wheel commences turning with all his force: the wheel goes round rapidly; the peasant is ever on the watch, knotting broken threads, supplying the place of empty shells by fresh cocoons, or screaming to his attendant for more fire or more water. So passes the day. Evening arrives, and there is a large heap of empty cocoons, in which, however, the dead worms still remain; and on the wheel, which was bare in the morning, there is a fine thick golden-looking skein of silk, weighing some four or five pounds. This primitive style of reeling is of course detrimental to the quality of the silk, and is a frightfully slow method compared to European factories, which I have visited. When the peasant discovers that he has more cocoons than he can possibly reel off within a given time, he stifles them by exposing them to great heat, a process by which the quantity of silk they yield is greatly diminished; but as the cocoon fly, i.e., the moth, comes out within three weeks, this stifling is indispensable, as the cocoon (except for rough silk) is wholly unfit for use when once it has been perforated by the moth.
About two weeks have passed since first the cocoon
commenced to be reeled; the silk is now ready for the market, and is hanging out in golden festoons to dry thoroughly before it is packed. The old baskets are once again brought into play, but they are this time all alive with fluttering white velvet-like moths; they never fly. Their enjoyment of life is very brief indeed; the male moth dies within twenty hours of its birth; the female is then placed on fine linen rags, where, in the course of the day it will deposit from 100 to 500 eggs, which are left in the air for a short time, and then put into linen bags and hung from the beam in the centre of the house, or sent to the mountain to await another year. The silk season ends just as the heat of June sets in.
Having watched the whole process of the fellah throughout the silk season, we will continue to follow him to the close of the year. The silk being weighed and given to the women to make into hanks, and provision made for the future brood of worms, I will call my reader’s attention to the wheat harvest. The labours of the peasantry will now be of a severer nature than hitherto; he has to toil under the scorching rays of the sun, whose beams, at least in some parts of Syria and Palestine, are far more powerful than those ever endured by English reapers; consequently the fellah is compelled to desist from his occupation from mid-day till about two o’clock in the afternoon. During this portion of the day, scarcely a breath of air stirs, not a leaf is ruffled; even the many-coloured and beautiful butterflies lazily flutter from flower to flower seeking shade beneath the petals of the Damascene rose; all is perfectly still, and the peasants take their wonted siesta. However great may be the inconvenience of the intense heat, yet it is wholly balanced by the benefits which
accrue from the excellent climate with which this country is blest. The farmer in Syria has little cause of apprehension from sudden storms or showers, so that the harvest is gathered in, receiving no injury from those changes of weather, to which it is subject in less genial latitudes. The corn being reaped by the fellahs, the damsels, even as in the time of Ruth, follow, gathering the ears and binding them in sheaves; after leaving them for a short time to dry, they are carried to a part of the field called baiedar, which has been levelled and swept clear to receive them. A rude machine, constructed of oaken planks with stones fixed in holes drilled on the under side, is placed on the now scattered sheaves; on this a youth sits or stands to drive the oxen round and round, which have been harnessed to it. This process separates the grain from the husk; it has next to be winnowed, and for this purpose is collected in heaps; the corn, by means of a wooden shovel, is thrown up in the air, when the delightful and cool breezes of evening waft the chaff to the winds. The reaping, threshing, and winnowing, being now completed, the wheat intended for domestic consumption, is stored in wells, constructed expressly for this purpose, whilst that which is for agricultural uses, is placed in enormous jars, of from five to fifteen feet in height, and of proportionate diameter.
The peasant now receives from his master the portion due to him from the harvest; he then commences making one half of what he obtains into borghol. The weather is most favourable for this process, as it requires fine sunny days, and during the night the wheat is covered with sheets to protect it from the dew, which is very heavy in the East. The grain is first washed and boiled, when it is exposed for several days to dry on