Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/48

Rh CHAPTER II. JERUSALEM.

In the early morning, childish voices called me to come to breakfast in the lewan, on the shady side of the house. The sun was shining brightly over the city and the hills, but the western walls and slopes were still in shade.

After breakfast, we went to the sitting-room, which was almost as simply furnished as a hermitage, with rustic tables, camp stools, matting, and a few rough shelves for books and toys.

I sat on the doorstep, and looked over a rocky, thorny slope to a ridge which I was told marked the course of the valley of Hinnom, beyond which rose the western wall of Jerusalem; the turreted and massive-looking tower of David, and the Yâfa gate, breaking its monotony.

The Anglican church and consulate, with its pointed façade and strikingly modern appearance, the large white domed Armenian convent, a minaret, a few palm-trees, pines, and cypresses, was all I could see of the Holy City, for it slopes eastward.

On my right hand was the plain of Rephaim. It spreads southward toward a rounded hill, which is crowned by the convent of Mar Elias. Long lines of camels, troops of horsemen, flocks of goats, vegetable-laden asses, and groups of peasant women, with baskets or bundles on their heads, were coming and going all day, along the broad road which crosses this plain, and vultures and eagles swept through the air.

In the afternoon I rode out with my brother. We went down into the stony valley of the Convent of the Cross, passing the white-walled newly-restored Greek convent, and