Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/151

144 panion, who belonged to the peasant class, occupied a cell close to it, which was used as the kitchen or cooking place. Two very rough delf dishes, two wooden bowls and spoons, and a metal stew-pan were to be seen there.

I asked Erinna if he had ever been married. He said that Mount Tabor was his only bride.

He and "his man Friday" assured me that they were very happy, and they looked so. They divided their days regularly, and worked, prayed, ate and slept systematically, but they seemed to think ablution unnecessary, and they wore the same clothes day and night. Erinna was ruddy and hearty, and though his bushy beard was quite white, he did not look aş old as he reckons himself to be.

The view from Mount Tabor is very extensive; it over looks the plain of Esdraelon Proper, which is divided into squares and patches of cultivated land; it appeared from the distance like a rude mosaic, of every tint of orange, yellow,gray, green, brown, and lavender. Not a house, tent, or village could be seen to break its monotony, nor even a tree to cast a shadow; but the hills which surround it were clothed with woods, and dotted with towns, hamlets, and ruins. Mr. Finn said, "Fancy Barak with his 10,000 men upon this mountain; people that plain with the chariots, 'even 900 chariots of iron,' gathered together by Sisera, and see Sisera pursued by Barak unto Harosheth." He read the landscape round for me, pointing out the range of Carmel and the Mediterranean on the west—the hills of Gilboa and the villages of Jezreel, Endor, and Nain in the south—the hill-country beyond Jordan, and the mountains which encircle the Sea of Galilee on the east, and far away in the north Lebanon crowned with snow. Nearer to us we could see the Horns of Hattin—a rounded hill with two distinct mounds or peaks on its summit. This is called the Mount of Beatitudes, where tradition tells us that the Sermon of sermons was preached. After exploring the ruins and the