Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-01-29
THE BETHLEHEM FOLK
Gardens and Pretty White Homes Of the
Gentle Mountaineers.
An Active, Intelligent and Honest
People Who Are Likewise Thrifty
and Progressive.



thousand lips all over the world holiday
week. Here are one or two Impressions of
the place and people derived from more
than one visit, the last about seven years
ago. They have only to do with the aspects
of today, for the railway has not reached
Bethlehem yet, and neither town nor people
are likely to have altered materially since
1890. We are at the extremity of a cres-
cent-shaped hill where the southern limb
curves eastward. North, south and west
treeless, rock-strewn ridges succeed each
other, utterly barren to the eye, for the
scanty patches OF titled ground are hidden
in the hollows. Patches of dark scrub re-
lieve the gray molotony. Eastward stretch
es a savage wilderness. a billowy desola-
ton, gashed and scanned by gorgeS leading
down to the Dead sea. Its sullen waters,
simmering in the furnace heat of the vast
chasm which holds them, are hidden from
Moab makes a high horizon, the Hottest
point in the sky line being the reputed
Nebo.
The hill on which we stand Is green with
olive and fig and vine, and at its foot the
little level space. the field of Boaz is bright
with yellow grain in the spring. The oasis
is in pleasant contrast with the stern wilds
that girdle it, and its name of Bethlehem
House of Foods as apt as any that could
have been bestowed upon it by the jewellers
in this parched and thirsty land. Not that
the place is one of natures gardens. If the
ground were merely tickled it would not
laugh harvest 1t is coy and has to be
wooed assiduOusly ere it yields it's fruits.
The roots of the olive trees are banked
round with the dark red loan, the narrow
terraces, emerald tinted with the vines, are
carefully shored up. But If the produce is
hardly wen, its quality richly repays the
toll of the husbandman. The grapes of
Bethlehem are renowned for their opulent
juiciness and delicate aroma the figs for
their size and lusciousness, the long, point
ed olives for their SAVIOR. Not that every
house has its vine and fig tree. Between the
filth of the lower slopes and the white
dwellings that crown the summit of the
crescent hill for half it's sweep there Is
belt Of scanty scrub and sheets of naked
rock. and. in the village itself, the absence
of verdure is as complete as in Cornhill.
save that every house has its window gar
den. where gay carnations spring from
green beds of fragrant mint The more
tender jewellers in the orchard, too, the
oranges and citrons of Jaffa, the nectarines
and almonds of Shechem. have no home
here. The yield is that of the mountain
side, and Bethlehem is mountain garden.
The people also are a hill product, and,
moreover, they possess racial characters
tics which mark them off distinctly from
the populations that surround them. These
stalwart, fair-bearded men, with gray eyes,
these fair-complexioned, fresh-colored,
plump women, are not of the gaunt brown
skinned race We have come through on our
way hither.
Not only in physique, but in dress and
manners, the Bethlehem folk differ essen
TALLY from their neighbors. To certain
extent this Is true of their language-a Pc
culiar dialect. The Arabic of Bethlehem is
not the Arabic of Jerusalem, although the
two places are barely six miles apart. Nor
ally the gulf is yet wider. Those who wiring
a hard livelihood from the mountain are
generally more sturdy and Independent than
the softer denizens of the plain, and this
holds true of Palestine But the mountain
fall off in the Of 10
the rude, uncouth hillmen of Galilee and
Samaria, for example. The Bethlehemite,
however, combines courage with a gentle
ness all his own He presents indeed, a
series of paradoxes. He is a mountaineer,
yet refined; an Oriental, yet active and Ia
borious; an Arab, yet honest. He is thrifty
to the point of parsimony, and he Is apt to
be turbulent when he thinks he Is wronged.
But. with so many virtues in the opposite
scala, these faults may be regarded with in
dulgence. His scrupulouS cleanliness in
house and person must be accounted Pc
culiarity in the land he lives in, unhappily.
Needless to say, he is healthy. Look at his
rosy, fower-Iike children. The buoyant ex-
uberance of the youth of Bethlehem is re-
freshing in the east They are a rock
climbing, wrestling, agile race. The boys
play leap frog. Down in Jaffa they would
be smoking in the cafes or wrangling over
cards.
The girls are graceful and the women,
though their charms have a tendency to be-
come ample, have invariably a light, elastic
step and a dignifed bearing Their stateli-
ness 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 Madonna. Not
few faces met with among the winding
street recall the Madonnas of the masters.
Are these Bethlehem people the offspring
of a crusading colony? We are unable to
add another theory to the several which
have been advanced to account for them.
Hit thew the plpa On f ri
of everal sojourns in Palestine.