Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/248

242 are, moreover, much attacked by the jackals at night. These animals have a passion for grapes; and in every vineyard is a leaf-hut, in which the proprietor or one of his family watch all night with their dogs, beating old petroleum-tins, or playing on their scarcely less discordant pipes, to scare away thieves, whether of four legs or two. I had always supposed till now that Æsop had endowed his fox with an unnatural taste when he hankered after sweet grapes as an article of diet; but jackals seem to be not so particular as foxes, for they eat the grapes when they are decidedly sour. The natives of Dahlieh rarely ever carry their grapes to market as far as Haifa, but send them to Tireh, a village about seven miles off, where there is a grove of 30,000 olive-trees, and exchange their grapes for olive-oil or carobs. The system of barter, indeed, enters largely into the habits of these simple people: they exchange their bee's-wax for soap, their grain for pottery-jars and other household utensils that they cannot make, and the fruits and produce they grow for those of various kinds which they need. As their wants are limited, their system of agriculture primitive, their natural tendencies indolent, and the taxes of the Government are oppressive, they lack the inducements to enterprise which under other circumstances would stimulate their energies. Indeed, considering the discouraging conditions under which existence is maintained, it is wonderful how light-hearted and cheerful these poor peasants are. I am speaking now of the Druses, of whom alone I have had experience. They have their religious festivals, which usually take the form of picnics, generally to some sacred spot or the shrine of a venerated saint. Sometimes it is to the cave of Elijah, situated below the Carmelite Monastery; sometimes to the Mukrakha, or place of his sacrifice; at others to some still more distant locality. I have upon two occasions accepted invitations to join in these festivals – once at the Mukrakha, and once at the Neby Schaib, supposed to be the burial-place of Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, near the village of Hattin, distant from here a good day's journey. The first was a local affair, in which nearly the whole village took part, – the women and girls starting at a very early hour in the morning on foot and donkey-back, clad in gala costume; the men following later – the sheikhs and village notables, to the number of about twenty, being mounted, and preceded by a band of youths on foot chanting their songs of love and war. Whenever we reach an open, level, tempting space, the horsemen dash to and fro with their mock jereed-playing, and the young men fire their guns; and so we march for an hour till we reach our destination, where the young women have already assembled, and are beginning to form in dancing circles. The young men lose no time in following their example. The old women sit and gossip under the shade of such small trees as they can find, apart from the elder men, who spread their mats in the most eligible spots, and sip their coffee, and discuss their political, religious, or financial concerns.

The Carmelite monks have, within the last year, built a chapel on the place of Elijah's sacrifice; but as none of them live there, it is left under the charge of a Druse family of Dahlieh. As he has the keys, he opens it freely to his co-religionists, who troop in, the females gazing open-mouthed at the ornaments on the altar; and then