The age-herald., 1898-02-06

The oasis is in pleasant contrast with the stern wilds that girdie- it, and its name of Bethlehem-House of Food-is apt as any that could have been bestowed upon it by the dwellers in this parched and thirsty land. Not that the place is one of na- ture's gardens. If the ground were merely tickled it would not laugh a harvest. It IS coy and has to be wooed assiduousiy ere 1t yields it's fruits. The roots of the olive trees are banked round with the dark red loam. the narrow terraces, emerald tinted with the vines, are carefully shored up. But if the produce is hardly won, its qual- ity richly repays the toll of the husband- man. The grapes of Bethlehem are re- nowned for their opulent juiciness and deli cate aroma. the figs for their size and lus- ciousness, the long, pointed olives Tor their sayor. Not that every house has its vine and fig tree. Between the tfith of the lower slopes and the white dwell ings that crown the summit of the cres- cent hill for half its sweep there Is belt of scanty scrub and sheets of naked rock and, in the village itself, the absence of yerdure is as complete as in Cornhfll, save that every house has its window garden, where gay carnations spring from green beds of fragrant mint. The more tender dwellers In the orchard, too, the oranges and citrons of Jaffa, the nectarines and al- monds of Shechem, have no home here The yield is that of the mountain side, and Bethlehem is a mountain garden. The people also are a nll1 product, anu, Inorc- over, they possess racial characteristics which mark them off distinctly from tho populations that surround them. These stalwart, fair-bearded men, with gray eyes. these fair ir-complexioned, fresh-col- ored, plump women, are not of the gaunt brown-skinned race we have come through on our way hither.
 Not only fin physique, but in dress ana manners, the Bethlehem folk differ essen- tially from their neighbors. To a certain extent this is true of their language-a pe- culiar dialect. The Arabic of Bethlehem is not the Arabic of Jerusalem. although the two places are barely six miles apart. Morally the gulf is yet, wider. Those who wiring hard livelihood from the noun tain are generally more sturdy and inde- pendent than the softer denizens of the plain, and this holds true of Palestine. But the mountaineers fall off in the matter of courtesy Take the rude, uncouth hill- men of Galiee and Samaria, for example. The Rethlehemite, however combines cour- age with gentleness all his own. He pre- sents, indeed series of parndoxes. He is a mountaineer, yet refined; an Oriental, yet active and laborous; an Arab. yet honest. He is thrifty to the point of par simony, and he is apt to be turbulent when he thinks he is wronged. But. with so many virtues in the opposite scale, these faults may be regarded with indulgence. His scrupulous cleanliness in house and person must be accounted peculiarity in the land he lives in. unhappiiy. Needless to say, he is healthy. Look at his rosy f1ower-like children. The buoyant exu- berance of the youth of Bethlehem IS re- freshing in the east They are rock climbing, wrestling, agile race. The poys play leap frog. Down in Jafra they would he smoking in the cafes or wrangling over cards.
 The girls are graceful and the women, though their charms have tendency to become ample, have invariably light, elastic step and dignifed bearing. Their stateness is increased by the high crown like headgear, from which their white wells flow over their shoulders. The unmarried girls do not wear this, and their veil Is precisely that of the conventional Madon- na. Not a few faces met with. among the winding street recall the Madonnas of the masters. Are these Bethlehem peo- pie the offspring of a crusading colonyf We are unable to aid another theory to tho several which have been advanced to account for them. But they are emong the pleasant memories of several sojourns in Palestine.