The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1920-08-02

| Holy Nativity, camels lay chewing
their cuds, their legs folded up beneath
them like jackknife. their bells
breaking into heavy tinkle as they
gulped.
Through the squatting groups and
the herds the unveiled women of Beth.
lehem moved about their mornings
marketing; their embroidered waists
and their tall. peaked headdresses of
white and green-the same headdresses
that the returning crusaders brought
back to their ladies of the middle ages
make the women Of Bethlehem in
stantly recognizable anywhere in Pal
estine. BedOuin women, with tattOoed
faces, walked noiselessly about on
naked feet, holding their handker.
chiefs to their mouths. Donkeys and
mich goats battered through the
crowd. A Bedouin sheik, with walk
ing stick, dug his fingers thoughtfully
into the launches of a sheep and
passed on with the flap of slippers.
Az of them were speaking Arabic
and trading in Egyptian piastres. In
all the spacious, crowded market place
the only sign of western civiliza-
ton was an originally field gray Benz
car, waiting down in front of the serai,
with layers of white limestone dust
that almost obscured the black Ger
man eagle on its tonneau door, and
with chauffeur in British khaki
smoking a cigarette in the drivers
seat. The east and the west are still
as far apart as Bethlehem, Palestine
and Bethlehem, Pa.
Chain of Caves.
Some 20 feet below the floor level
Of the Church of the Holy Nativity is
a chain of caves, whose walls are the
living limestone and whose connection
is made by winding subterranean pas
sageways hewn out of the living rock
and barely big enough to. stoop
through. These caves include the
abode and tomb of st. Jerome, the
chapel of st. Catherine, the chapel
Of the innocents slaughtered by Herod,
and Empress Helena's cave, now call
ed the Chapel of the Nativity and re-
vered as Bethlehem's holy of holes.
1t is dimly lit with hanging lamps,
whose smoke has blackened it's low
stone roof with the accumulated SCOT
of centuries. Its floor is incased with
worn marble and it's walls are hung
with unlit lamps, figures of saints and
woven silk hangings of silver, blue
and dark red-the gifts of penitent
emperors. A glance reveals statue
standing dimly against the dark hang
ings; opposite a gilded railing 'front.'
ing the lace covered manger; nearer,
the altar on which the wise men laid
their frankincense and myrrh. Close
at hand two figures kneel silently be-
fore the star, where millions of Rus
sian pilgrims have knelt with drop
ping tears.
A second glance, after ones eyes
have adjusted themselves to the dim
ness, reveals the statue standing dim
ly against the dark hangings as a
British soldier, standing where a Tur- I
kish soldier formerly stood, and the /
CLEAN against the hangings beside him
Is the CLEAN of fixed bayonet. OF
the two figures kneeling before the
star, one is British officer on leave
who at the moment is whispering to
the dragoman beside him the amount
If time exposure at which he proposes
% set his camera. Before the two
If them burn the six lamps of the
Orthodox, the five lamps of the Ar
nenians and the four lamps of the
which have burned for CEN
uries above the star. In the dull
light they she'd the star itself appears
'xactly as it appeared in 1S47, when
he proposal to add a second star,
'earing the arms of France, brought
bout the Crimean war. It is a silver
tar, let into the marble pavement and ..
encircled by the words:
'1717 Hic de Virgine Maria Jesus )
Jhristus natus est. ="