Cuf’r Menda was on our left; Sefoorieh at a distance on the right; Rumâneh and ’Azair before us. Then we entered upon the long plain of ’Arâbet el Battoof, and rested a short time before sunset at ’Ain Bedaweeyeh for refreshment. Carpets were spread upon long grass which sank under the pressure. The horses and mules were set free to pasture, and we formed ourselves into separate eating groups; one Christian, one Jewish, and one Moslem. Some storks were likewise feeding in a neighbouring bean-field, the fragrance of which was delicious, as wafted to us by the evening breeze.
On remounting for the road to Tiberias, several hours beyond, we put on cloaks to keep off the falling dew, and paced on by a beautiful moonlight, at first dimmed by mist or dew, which afterwards disappeared; the spear carried by one of the party glimmered as we went on; and the Jews whiled away the time by recitation of their
evening prayers on horseback, and conversing in the Hebrew language about their warrior forefathers of Galilee.
2. CAIFFA TO NAZARETH.
July 1854.
Passing through the rush of ’Ain Saadeh water as it tumbles from the rocky base of Carmel, and by the Beled esh Shaikh and Yajoor, we crossed the Kishon bed to take a road new to me, namely, by Damooneh, leaving Mujaidel and Yafah visible on our right, upon the crests of hills overlooking the Plain of Esdraelon. We passed through a good deal of greenwood scenery, so refreshing in the month of July, but on the whole not equal in beauty to the road by Shefa ’Amer.
3. CAIFFA TO NAZARETH.
Sept. 1857.
By Beled esh Shaikh and Yajoor, where threshing of the harvest was in progress in the Galilean fashion by means of the moraj, (in Hebrew the morag, Isa. xli. 15 and 2 Sam. xxiv. 22,) which is a stout board of wood, with iron teeth or flints on the under surface. The plank turns upward in front, and the man or boy stands upon it in exactly the attitude of a Grecian charioteer: one foot advanced; the head and chest well thrown back; the reins in his left hand, and with a long thonged whip, he drives the horses that are attached to it at a rapid pace in a circle, shouting merrily or singing as they go,—a totally different operation from the drowsy
creeping of the oxen or other animals for threshing in our Southern Palestine.