The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1891-12-05

the owner of the land getting the other
three-fourths and paying the taxes. The
farmers pay military tax also. They
pay taxes on their donkeys and other
animals, and there are import and export
taxes In my wanderings about Jerusalem
found Il couple of Turkish soldiers at
each gate, and noted that every chicken
and every head of lettuce that was carried
into the city for sale paid tax before it
passed within the walls. l saw a farmer 60
in one day with little donkey not bigger
than a Newfoundland dog, loaded with
about bushel of gnarled olive roots.
These were for fuel, and he expected to
sell them for twenty-five cents in the mar
ket near David's tower. He was stopped
and charged three cents duty before he
was PERMITTED to pass. Thus it is with
everything salable.
The Philistines had, by all odds, the
best lands in Palestine The plains of
Sharon have been worked ever since the
days of Abraham, and they produce the
richest of crops to-day. The soil is deep
brown loan, and | found the farmers
plowing when | visited it in May. The
implements used were the same as those
of the time of Christ. There was the
wooden plow, with its point shod with iron
and with its single handle, which the plow-
man held with one hand while he walked
behind his donkey or OK. He had long
gOad in the other hand, to stir up the
beast, and the words Of the Scripture
about the man putting his hand to the
plow are applicable to this. In one of the
fields saw camel hitched to a plOw, and
the great, ungainly beast shambled up and
down the field with sullen air.
Nowhere did l see any improved ma
chinery, and am told that there is not a
threshing machine in Palestine, though the
advanced farmer who owns the lands
further up in Syria, where Abraham
farmed, has mower and reaper in active
operation.
There are no big bank barns in Pales-
tine The grain is either kept in the
houses, and in some districts slowed away
in tombs and caves, or packed down into
boxes made of mud and dung. The hills
of Palestine are full of caves, and the
houses of the people are little better than
holes cut into the rock Many of the
villages are built against the sides of hill,
so that the hill forms one side of the
house, and the cattle and sheep are often
kept in the same room in which the people
sleep.
The fsod of the people is of the cheapest
variety. Whole families live on from fifty
to seventy-five dollars a year, and the
clothing of village would not exhaust the
stock of country dry-goods store. Only
one man in twenty wears shoes, and the
most common garment among the peasants
is Il wooden blanket of black and white
stripes, made at home, and full Turkish
trousers and vest under this. The women,
to a large extent, wear the blue denim,
nightgown-like costume which you see in
Egypt, except they do not veil their faces,
unless they be Mohammedans.
Some of them are very beautiful. |
found the women of Bethlehem among the
most beautiful in the world. They seemed
to be better OFF than those of other parts of
Palestine, and their faces were as rosy and
fresh as those of the girls of Ireland They
had beautiful eyes, and Raphael might have
found a model for the Sistine Madonna in
the land where Mary gave birth to Christ.
The shepherds of Bethlehem are fine look
ing men, and sheep are tended on the
plains about the city to-day as they were
eighteen centuries ago. Many of these
shepherds wear sheepskin coats. They
have their slaves in their hands, and they
drive the sheep into the folds near the vii
lagos now as they did when Christ was
born. The sheep Of Palestine are of the
fat-tailed variety. Some of the tails, | am
told, weigh as much as thirty-fve pounds.
Palestine sheep are worth from three to
five dollars apiece, and great quantity of
wool is shipped from Syria and Palestine
to the United States. In the Valley of
the Jordan and along the Dead Sea there
are many fine pastures and about three
fourths Of million pounds of wool is
shipped annually from Syria l was in
Palestine ust before the shearing- time, and
l noted that the feeces were heavy, The
most of the wool is exported unwashed
and the bulk of it goes to the United
States. The wool is sometimes washed
after it is cut from the sheep The wash.
ing done by women, who are paid from
eight to ten cents day for it. Wages are
low all over Palestine. You can geta farm
hand for twenty-five cents day, and he
will not plead the eight-hour law. nor want
a threshing-day dinner thrown in.
The plains of Sharon grow very fine
wheat. If Palestine and Syria were under
a proper government, and furnished with
good means of transportation, they might
export a great deal of grain. As it is, the
cost of bringing the crops to the seaboard
from the interior is immense. Everything
has to be carried upon camels, which are
big caters. Three bushels make load,
and, for distance of few hundred miles,
the camel will eat one bushel and it will
take another bushel to pay his driver, so