Page:Palestine Exploration Fund - Quarterly Statement for 1894.djvu/236

196 is made at each end, and such stones are called (Hejjar l'takhem), the stones of the boundary. To remove such stones while the crop is still growing or uncut is regarded as a great sin; as the one who does so robs his neighbour, not of part of the land, but of part of his crop.

Every village employs two public servants, (1) an Imam, called Khateeb, preacher (from ), whose duties are to lead the prayers, to perform the marriage ceremony, to bury the dead, and also to keep the public accounts of the village, such as the taxes, and all Government dues, the repairs of the mosque and the madafêh, guest chamber or the room or building reserved for guests.

(2), Natoor, a watchman. His duties are to be always on the look-out to see if any strangers or visitors or Government officials or soldiers are approaching the village, to take charge of their horses and to invite them into the madafêh, and to see that they are provided with food. He must also take care that no cattle of a strange village stray into the lands of the community; and that none but those belonging to the village graze in its waste lands, &c.

These two public servants are not paid wages in money, but they receive a certain number of measures of grain at the end of the harvest.

Each shaddad before housing or removing his grain from the threshing floor has to pay these measures (the quantity is agreed upon at the time of the division of the land) to the Khateeb and to the Natoor.

In addition to this payment, a plot of land is at the time of the division of the land allotted to each of the above and as generally neither of them possesses plough or ox, they either hire someone to plough and sow the land for them, or the faddan of all the village devote a day or part of a day to plough and sow these fields or pieces of land for the Khateeb and the Natoor as a gratuity. The size of each of these plots is sufficient for sowing five or seven sa'â of wheat, about $2 1⁄2$ to 3 bushels.

Such a piece of ploughed land is called, shkara, hired, i.e., ploughed by hire.

Sometimes, too, a villager who is unable to be a regular shaddad is given a plot of land for which he hires a yoke of oxen and labour, and it is called a shkara.

Oxen are the animals mostly used for ploughing. Sometimes an ox and an ass are yoked together, but this is only done when it cannot be avoided, and is regarded as unjust. Horses and mules are also used, seldom on the plains but frequently on the hills.

Camels are often employed for drawing the plough on the plains in the southern part of Palestine, chiefly by the Bedouin.