Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/187

180 Pashas and Governors do not remain long or for any fixed time in one place. Wherever they go they, with few exceptions, "tread upon the poor, and take from them burdens of wheat; they afflict the just, and take a bribe." They naturally favor the Moslems; but money is their chief consideration. They not only injure the people whom they are appointed to protect, but they rob the Government which they are employed to serve. If appointments were given, with appropriate salaries, to men of honor and energy, fitted for office, instead of being sold to speculators, there would be hope for Syria. Crime would be punished and innocence protected in spite of patronage and piasters.

Elias severely felt the disadvantageous position of his countrymen. They live in a land overrun by Bedouins, where there is no security for property, and no encouragement for agriculturists; where there are no roads and very few modern books; where offices are purchased, laws tampered with, justice disregarded, and industry and commercial enterprise checked. I could not help sympathizing with him, especially as I by degrees became better acquainted with the capabilities of the Arab mind, and the wonderful fertility of the country. Under more favorable circumstances and better cultivation each would flourish. Elias admitted that oppression had demoralized the people to a lamentable extent. Their powers and talents were misapplied, their ingenuity and inventive faculties were displayed in artful cunning and clever intrigue. Their powers of endurance and self-sacrifice had grown into seeming apathy and indifference, their love of poetry and of the marvelous had been trifled with by teachers of strange doctrines and conflicting traditions, and their imaginations were incumbered with wild superstitions.

When Elias spoke thus despondingly, no such man as Fuad Pasha had been in Syria to inspire the hope of a better state of things. Elias was always ready to answer patiently and carefully my many questions. During nearly