Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/337

330 CHAPTER XII. DOMESTIC LIFE IN JERUSALEM.

an hour before the sun went down, on Holy Saturday, we rode out of the city, glad to breathe the fresh air after the fatigue and excitement of the morning. We passed out of the Yâfa Gate, and went all round Jerusalem, close to the walls. I saw a number of poor peasant-girls coming out of the olive-grove opposite to the Damascus Gate. They wore tattered white cotton vails and home spun purple linen dresses. They were barefooted, but they all looked merry, and carried boughs of trees and flowers in their brown hands. One of the youngest had a branch of hawthorn, with glossy green leaves and several bunches of white blossom on it. It was the first bit of "May" I had seen, and, well pleased, I stopped my horse and asked the girl if she would give me a part of it. She looked up good-naturedly, and, seeing a rosebud fastened in my habit, she said, "Lady, if you will give me the flower which grows in your bosom, you shall have my hawthorn blossom." So we made the exchange.

On the 2d of May news reached us of serious skirmishes between the rival factions in the district of Jenin. The little mud-built village called "Khubeiseh," which we passed through on our way to Kefr Kâra, had been the scene of conflict, and many people whom we knew had been engaged in it.

On the 5th my brother started for Hâifa, by way of Nablûs and Jenin, and I was once more left with my kind friends at the Consulate, where I enjoyed leisure and excellent opportunities for sketching, studying,and observing all that was going on around me.