Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/154

Rh its crooked arms in all directions, clothed with green leaves—the largest which I had ever observed. This pleasant garden is near to the fountain which was the gathering-place of the Christian knights before the terrible battle of Hattin, and where the conqueror Saladin encamped after he had in that decisive conflict almost annihilated the Crusaders. Sephoris or Sefurieh is just opposite. It is a poor but interesting place. Jewish, heathen, and Christian ruins are to be found there, and tradition points to the house in which Anna, the mother of Mary, was born.

We mounted at half-past three, and followed the course of the stream. It flowed between orchards, gardens of cucumbers, and stubble-fields. All the horses and their riders seemed newly animated. They rode in circles, displaying feats of horsemanship, letting off their pistols while in full gallop; their long, loose, white Arab cloaks, made of goat's-hair, fluttered behind them, and the almost flying figures represented to my fancy the Templars of old on their fabled white-winged steeds. When the horses were well tired, the riders grouped together, and we rode through an oak-wood, talking of the Crusades. I found that our Arab friends were quite familiar with such names as Peter the Hermit and Richard Cœur de Lion. Oriental—poets and historians call the latter "Ankitâr."

We soon came to an olive-grove, on a hill forming part of an extensive amphitheater, from the center of which rises a mount of conical form, and on it stands Shefa 'Amer, backed by a lofty castle, square and massive, looking almost as large as the village itself. The hillsides, with the exception of the one which we descended, were clothed with evergreens; and the valleys for miles were around were wooded with olive and other fruit-trees. We rode through a burial-ground, tastefully planted with shrubs, and passing an immense heap of dust, dirt, and rubbish—on the top of which a crowd of people had assembled to see us—we entered the village, and alighted