Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/167

160 sesame, millet, and many kinds of cucumbers. Poppy, mallows, and various herbs enliven it, while all the hills around are suitable for vineyards,olive-groves, and orchards. Flax, asparagus, gentian, scammony, and many other plants, valuable in medicine, grow wild there, and the marshes of the plain abound with kali, the ashes of which, mixed with olive or sesame oil, are converted into soap. The villages of this district are inhabited by Moslems, Christians, and Druzes, and a few Jews. They pay heavy taxes to the Government in wheat, barley, and money, and are bound to furnish camels, horses, or mules whenever the Pasha requires them.

We crossed a spring, round which tall reeds and short, soft grass grew. Thousands of edible snails were clinging to the stems of some straggling bushes. Wily, long-rooted marram-grass and sea-holly—eryngium maritimum—tamarisks, and willows bound the sandy soil, and kept it from drifting. We passed over some sand-hills, on which were a few scattered plants, with thick, downy, whitish leaves and yellow blossoms. Here we took leave of our Shefa ’Amer friends, and they returned to their olive-groves.

We were soon on the sea-shore. Two English merchant steamers were just entering the port of Hâifa. We cantered to the Kishon and crossed over it, by carefully keeping on the bar of sand which encircles the mouth of the river, sweeping out far into the sea. The water was above our horses' knees, and now and then an advancing wave covered us with spray.

We rode quickly along by the edge of the water, with the palm-grove and the fruit-gardens on our left hand, and the rippling waves on our right. We entered the town at a quarter to nine, just in time to receive two English merchant captains, at the Vice-Consulate, where poor Katrîne, our soi disant mother, welcomed us with tears of joy, saying, "Praised be God! my children have returned to me in safety."