CHAPTER II[ToC]
HOME LIFE IN THE TENTS
Most persons, no matter what their race or country, spend a large proportion of their time at home. The home is the center of many interests and activities, and it reflects quite accurately the state of civilization of a people. In this chapter let us take a look into the homes of the shepherd Hebrews. We shall visit one of their encampments; perhaps we shall be reminded of a camp of the gypsies.
A Cluster of Black Tents
Here on a gentle hillside sloping up from a tiny brook, is a cluster of ten or a dozen black tents. Further down the valley sheep are grazing. Two or three mongrel dogs rush out to bark at us as we approach, until a harsh voice calls them back. A dark man with bare brown arms comes out to meet us, wearing a coarse woolen cloak with short sleeves. Half-naked children peer out from the tent flaps.
The inside of the tents.—Our friend is eager to show us hospitality and invites us to enter his tent. It is a low, squatting affair, and we have to stoop low to enter the opening in the front. We note that the tent-cloth is a woolen fabric not like our canvas of to-day. It is stretched across a center-pole, with supports on the front and back, while the edges are pinned to the ground much as our tents are. There are curtains within the tent partitioning off one part for the men, and another for the women and children. There are mats on the ground to sit on and to sleep on at night.
Preparing Food
Like the housewives of all ages, the Hebrew women have food to prepare, and meals to get. Their one great food is milk, not cows' milk, but the milk of goats. A modern traveler tells of meeting an Arab who in a time of scarcity had lived on milk alone for more than a year.
A meager diet.—Besides fresh milk there were then as now a number of things which were made from milk. The Hebrews on the desert took some milk and cream and poured it into a bag made of skin, and hung it by a stout cord from a pole. One of the women, or a boy, pounded this bag until the butter came out. This was their way of churning. Cheese also was a favorite article of diet. The milk was curdled by means of the sour or bitter juices of certain plants, and the curds were then salted and dried in the sun. Curdled milk even more than sweet milk was also used as a drink. It probably tasted like the kumyss, or zoolak, which we can buy in our drug stores or soda fountains.