Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/138

Rh to Nazareth; however, they turned and accompanied us. They looked very picturesque. Their large, heavy cloaks were made of camel’s-hair, with broad brown and white stripes. On their heads they wore red and yellow kefias—fringed shawls—put on like hoods, and fastened round the crown with double ropes, made of camel's-hair. Their spears, adorned with ostrich-feathers, were twelve or thirteen feet long.

We paused at a spring, festooned with ferns and bordered with mossy stones, and alighted for a few minutes to water our horses. When Saleh was on the point of remounting, his mare suddenly started off, and soon disappeared in the dusky distance. Saleh was quite disconcerted; for the animal was a favorite one, and so docile that it was never considered necessary to tether her. She was accustomed to follow her master, and to obey his call like a dog. Saleh remembered that the village of which his mare was a native was about a quarter of an hour's distance from the spring, and this explained the cause of the flight. He immediately mounted a horse belonging to one of the Arabs and galloped away. He actually found his mare standing quietly in the court of the house in which she had been born, surrounded by her former owners, who were marveling greatly. Saleh rejoined us, and we soon entered the hill-country which encircles Nazareth. Our volunteer attendants rode now before and now behind, singing and shouting. Higher and higher we rose, meeting the fresh mountain air. It was so dark that I could only just perceive the figure immediately before me, and the loose white stones which clattered under my horse's feet, and the smooth slabs of rock over which he every now and then slipped and stumbled.

For about an hour I rode on silently, hardly knowing where I was going, but following in faith the steps of my leader. I was roused from a reverie by the words, "We are entering the olive-groves of Nazareth." I could just distinguish a range of hills, forming an amphitheater in