NOTHING could present a scene more characteristic of Oriental life than a half dozen shepherd tents, black and dingy, pitched, not like Jacob’s tent on the mountain top, but like Isaac’s tent in the valley, in the midst of an olive grove, by the side of a flowing fountain. Here by the tents is a corral, or sheep-cote, enclosed by a rock wall, on top of which is a rough hedge of dry, thorny bushes, placed there to keep the robbers, as well as the jackals and wolves and other wild beasts, from molesting the sheep.
Many flocks, both of sheep and goats, are brought to this one cote for protection during the night, and the swarthy shepherds, each with a loose garment of coarse camel’s hair carelessly thrown around him to hide his nakedness, occupy the tents in common.
Just across the ravine, on the opposite hillside, is a rough stone house eight or ten feet high with a low, flat roof. This is a “Kahn,” or an inn—a kind of lodging house to accommodate caravans which are always passing between Egypt, Jerusalem, Damascus, Palmyra and Bagdad.
INTERIOR OF A CARAVANSARY.
From an hour before the sun goes down, until eight o’clock at night, one can see caravan after caravan of camels—sometimes a string of them a half mile long—coming across the hills, laden with wines, carpets, dried fruits, hand-made silks, Persian carpets, and all manner of Oriental merchandise. Slowly, but patiently, these “ships of the desert” move on beneath their immense cargo of freight. One caravan after another comes in, until from 100 to 200 camels may be seen around one Kahn. The burdens are removed, the several merchants putting their goods in separate piles. The ships are anchored. The tired brutes lie down and are fed. The merchants and camel-drivers gather round the fire, seating themselves on the ground, folding their limbs up under them as though they had no bones in them.
Beans, peas, dates, olives, mutton or kid—and sometimes both—are put into one pot and all boiled together. When it is done, as many of these hard-featured, grim-visaged, wrinkled-browed, shaggy-haired Arabs as can, huddle around one bowl. They have no knives or forks. Sometimes you see a wooden spoon, but usually they thrust their horny hands into the bowl, and then cram their fists into their countenances—they are the most open-countenanced people I ever saw. They are the most ravenous eaters I ever saw. My dragoman offered to bet ten dollars that one Arab could drink a quart of coffee, eat a roast turkey, two loaves of bread, and three pounds of rice at one meal! And I am quite sure that one who is acquainted with an Arab’s capacity for stuffing will never make a wager like that.