The Maccabaean

WITH much reluctance we parted from Rechoboth,* for in accordance with the route adopted, we should have reached Ramleh towards evening, and Ibraim was anxious to get there in good time for two reasons, first, to secure lodging over night, and secondly, because the last half of the way we had to cover is often infested at this season by Beduin tribes, and is not always secure for the “Hadji” (pilgrim) to travel at night.

Our destination was the little colony Katra (Ghederah) famous for its history and its distinguished founders known as the "Bilus" or "Biluzes."

It was a hot day, but the refreshing sea breeze which usually sets in about ten o' clock in the morning and reaches its height at three o'clock in the afternoon, had kept continuously fanning us.

In the month of May the refreshing sea- breeze reigns all over Palestine lasting until the early rain (Yoreh) about the end of September. This breeze continues until after sunset. During the night there is a land breeze from the east blowing in the opposite direction. The warmest time of the summer is during early morning hours, and the coolest in the early afternoon.

It was the harvest season, the most joy- fvl season for the poor Falestinian fellah, when young and old, even babies in the cradle, celebrate this happy time in the field, for “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.” The whole country roundabout was alive with merry parties of reapers and gleaners, all using the time-honored sickle, probably the identical implement employed in the Biblical days. The reapers, in the old Biblical manner, gathered their grain in their left arms as they cut it with their right hands, followed by the

*See THE MACCABÆAN for November, 1912.

binders, who formed it into sheaves, or more often into bundles.

The children of the poor and the aged usually follow the reapers and do the gleaning (leket); they collect all the single ears scattered in the field.

During the harvest they sleep in the fields, under the blue sky, the brilliant moon, and twinkling stars, scenting and inhaling the air of the newly-<ut crops, for rain during harvest is very rare and no other precaution is needed except probably watching the marauding Beduin and treacherous incendiaries.

After the day’s toil they feast on bread dipped in vinegar, and on parched wheat. A fire at some distance from the grain is built whereon ears of the new wheat are roasted, then rubbed between the palms of the hands and eaten warm. From time immemorial it has been a food much relished by the Palestinian peasant and all guests are invited to partake” of the hospitality thus offered. No picture cowtld be more descriptive of the modern Palestinian fellah than that given in the Book of Ruth—"“And Boaz said unto her at meal time ‘come thou hither and eat of the bread and dip thy morsel in the vinegar,' and she sat beside the reapers and he reached 'her parched corn and she did eat and was suficed and left.” (Ruth 2:14).

We passed on the way long lines of camels bearing on their backs heavy loads of unthreshed grain, and donkeys enveloped in large loads of newly-cut wheat or barley; in some cases the animals were practically lost within the freight.

One is struck here with the substitution of the anımal’s back for the wagon as a medium of carrying freight. The back of the camel and the donkey is used to haul lumber and stone for building purposes, to convey merchandise to the market,