Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/173

166 The upper classes of Christians are generally interred in coffins. The coffin is usually borne by four or six men, preceded by priests walking under canopies, and surrounded by crowds of people, chanting, bearing embroidered banners and a large cross, and sometimes accompanied by surpliced boys, swinging incense. At a little distance a troop of women follow, singing and screaming wildly; for the priests in vain put their veto on the attendance of female mourners.

There was not one case of cholera in the Jewish community.

Deaths were most frequent in the crowded Moslem quarter, but the Moslems did not seem to suffer much from fear. Perhaps their reliance on the doctrine of fatalism made them calm and apparently resigned. On the other hand, among the Christians, a demoralizing panic quickly spread.

By degrees nearly all the Europeans went up to the Convent, where they established a strict quarantine. Many of the Arabs went to Nazareth and Shefa 'Amer. Altogether, above a thousand people fled, and the Christian quarter looked quite deserted. It was remarked that there was only one hat left in the town—that is, only one Frank—alluding to my brother, who remained at his post endeavoring to reanimate the people. He went from house to house, giving advice and simple medicines, and, as he was not quite convinced that the epidemic was cholera, he examined two or three bodies immediately after death. Their appearance confirmed the current report.

The Arab word for cholera, or the pest, is "Howa-el Asfar," which signifies "the yellow wind." Flags proclaiming quarantine are yellow; is it possible that the color was selected on account of this name? The Arabs told me that the worst cases of cholera occurred at the change of the moon, and that people who were attacked then never recovered! The women seldom left their houses, except to follow funerals; and the men grew more and more