Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/301

Rh faith, to carry light and joy back to the darkness of his own country of Ethiopia.

As we come up out of the South, we enter gradually the foot-hills of that mountain region which forms the Hill Country of Judea. We leave behind us what the Scotch would call the Lowlands of Palestine, and what in some of their features are not unlike the Lowlands of Scotland; we leave the broad uplands and wide valleys; the swells of ground rise higher on either hand, leaving but a narrow intervale, sometimes a mere strip of green, between hills that are rugged and rocky, but whose ruggedness is somewhat relieved by the fig trees, winch are just "in blossom," and the low shrubs which partly cover the rocks, and make them beautiful, as the purple heather clothes with bloom the bald Highlands of Scotland.

As we advance, the country becomes more thickly inhabited; villages are more frequent, and though the houses are of mud, they are more fit for human habitation than the black tents of the Arabs, open to all the winds and rains of heaven. There is also more of comfort and of decency in the clothing of men, women, and children. It was a pleasure to see once more the unveiled face of woman — a face perhaps plain and common, and bearing traces of labor and care, yet not disfigured by the hideous black veil, which does not of necessity betoken modesty in the wearer. As we rode through the villages, women were sitting round the fountains, or carrying water jars on their heads or their shoulders, like the Rachels and Rebeccas of patriarchal times.

We camped at Shummeit, just out of the little town, on the top of a hill which commanded a wide sweep of the horizon southward and westward; over the country we had left behind, and away towards the coast where the sun went down into the western sea.