Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/74

Rh for the purpose, and were shouting merrily over their work. From another of these little huts there came forth, as if by magic—for it did not look capable of containing them—five young Bethlehem girls. Three of them were very pretty, brilliant brunettes—the others rather fair. All looked strong and hearty, with rich color and large clear eyes. They advanced, half-shyly, half-daringly, to peep at us as we passed. Their simply-made, loose purple linen dresses, girdled below the waist negligently; their long wide sleeves, revealing bronzed and braceleted arms; their coarse white linen vails thrown back from their foreheads and hanging over their shoulders; and their naked feet, were in perfect harmony with the pastoral scenes around.

I was very thirsty, so I called to one of them, saying, "Water me with water, O my sister!" Immediately a red and black two-handled porous earthenware vase of antique form was handed to me, and when I had drank of the cool, tasteless water it contained the girls around said, "May God make it refreshing to you, O lady!" And, prompted by my brother, I gave the customary answer, "God preserve you!" We inquired whence came the delicious water, and they answered, "From the well over against the town." So perhaps we had tasted of the very water which David sighed for when he said, "O, that one would give me of the water of the well at Bethlehem, that is at the gate!" We gave the girls a backshîsh, and they gave us their blessings as we rode away.

The men and boys whom we met, or saw working in the orchards above or the plains below, wore nothing but short coarse white shirts, girdled with broad red leather belts, ornamented with stitching and embroidery. Their heads were protected and adorned with bright-red and yellow-striped shawls, tastefully bound round their tasseled tarbûshes, the crowns of which were bleached by the sun. A few of them wore red, pointed, clumsy-looking, but picturesque boots. Nature, however, provides admirably for the shoeless and furnishes a hardy and ever-growing horny