Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/40

Rh be with you!" We passed through fertile fields and orchards, overtaking peasants leading oxen or laden camels, or shepherd boys guiding flocks of goats to pasture land. Though the sun was low, and sent our shadows in long lines behind us, yet the rays were fierce with light and heat. The fields of sesame—called simsim in Arabic—looked very pretty. It is a tall, bright-green plant, with upright stems, garnished with blossoms, somewhat like the fox-glove, white, shaded with pink. The seeds yield a very fine oil, almost equal to olive. Blue chicory, yellow flax, the hardy goat's beard and convolvulus, of many tints, large and small, bordered the road. We soon reached an uncultivated part of the undulating plain, where the ground was burned up and cracked into deep, wide fissures, and where large blocks of stone, like cromlechs, cast their shadows. I watched numbers of green lizards and strange reptiles, running rapidly in and out of the cracks, and under and over the rocks, pausing sometimes,  opening their eyes of fire to the sun, and nodding their large heads quaintly. Wild ducks were flapping their wings above our heads. Camels every now and then passed in strings of three or four together, their drivers bending and touching their foreheads gracefully as we passed. Some of the peasants wore scarcely any clothing. Flocks of goats and cattle were browsing on the scanty burned-up pasture, and the shepherd boys were piping on rude instruments made of cane or reed. At half-past eight o'clock we were in the shelter of the hills, and paused for a few moments at the entrance of a woody and rocky valley, called Wady-'Aly. Some Arabs brought us a supply of good water, in leather bottles. Mr. Finn, Her Britannic Majesty's Consul at Jerusalem, had sent his kawass there to meet and welcome us, and to lead the way, for in the hill country a skillful pilot is required. Wild