FARMING IN THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY
I give you to-day some bits of Palestine out of doors. Within the past
few weeks, keeping away from the cities and towns, I have watched the
shepherds and farmers. I have seen the real Palestine, with the same
sky, the same rocks and hills, and the same carpet of wild flowers as in
the days of our Lord. I have talked with the farmers in the fields, have
ridden side by side with the modern Balaam as he climbed the hills on
his ass, and have even put my hand to ploughs such as were used in the
times of the Scriptures, and with a goad have pricked on the bullocks and
donkeys as they turned up the sod.
The Palestine of the Bible was a land of the farmer. The Children of
Israel and their leaders were brought up or worked on the farm. Abraham
had numerous sheep and so had Isaac and Jacob. Saul was the son of old
Farmer Kish, and he was hunting his father’s asses when he was met by
Samuel, the prophet, who gave him a kingdom. David was watching the sheep
when Farmer Jesse, his father, sent him to the battle, where with his
sling he killed the mighty Goliath. Lot was one of the richest farmers
the Jordan Valley has known, and as for Job, who lived in old Uz, he was
the cattle king of his time, owning seven thousand sheep, three thousand
camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses. It was in
one farm village, Bethlehem, that our Saviour was born, and in another
farming settlement, Nazareth, that He grew up to manhood. A great part of
His life was spent in going about among the shepherds and farmers, and in
His preaching most of the examples and figures in His parables were drawn
from things of the soil.
The most common sight out of doors in the Holy Land is the sheep. They
are everywhere. You find them on the rich plains where the Philistines
lived; they feed among the rocks on the slopes of the Judean mountains,
and spot the wilderness all the way down to Jericho; they graze on
every part of Samaria and Galilee and almost everywhere on the plain of
Esdraelon. They are always watched over by shepherds who often drive them
to new feeding grounds. The greater part of this country is mountainous.
Limestone rocks cover the soil, which is so thin that if you could pare
it off for a depth of eight inches there would be nothing but stone. It
is different in the plains and the valleys, but the hills are terraces of
rock covered with boulders and sprinkled here and there with patches of
earth. Yet the least bit of soil will grow luxuriant grass, and the sheep
seem to grow fat on the stones.
I remember some flocks I saw on my way to the Jordan. They were composed
of heavy-wooled animals with tails of fat hanging down like aprons
behind them. The best of them weighed two hundred pounds each, and the
average was fatter and finer than the best sheep of America. Some were
white-wooled and some brown, and some had brown heads and white bodies.
I have tasted the mutton; it is excellent, being the choicest meat to be
had at the hotels.
[Illustration: The colonists terrace the hillsides to hold back the
soil with stones cleared from the fields, once thought too rocky for
cultivation. Many neglected and treeless hills have been utterly denuded
of earth by the rains of centuries]
[Illustration: Almonds have proved a paying proposition for Jewish
colonists in Palestine, where they have long been cultivated. When Jacob
desired his sons to take into Egypt of the best fruits of Canaan, he
mentioned the almond]
The shepherds are about the same all over Palestine, kindly eyed men with
fair faces bronzed by the sun. They stay out all day on the hills with
the sheep, driving them into the villages at night. Each shepherd has his
staff and his scrip, a little bag of dried skin. He uses a sling as David
did to send a pebble just in front of any straying sheep so as to turn
it back. The strings of the slings are of goat hair, and the pad for the
stone is of the same material, often made with a slit in the middle so
that when a pebble is put in the sling fits close like a bag. Such slings
are now used in fights between the boys of the villages, who practise to
see who can throw stones the farthest.
The wool of the Palestine sheep is especially fine. It brings a higher
price than that of Damascus, and something like a million dollars’ worth
of it is exported a year. The shearing is done by hand, and much of the
wool is sold unwashed. Some is washed after shearing, the work being done
by women.
Nearly every flock of sheep has its goats. They are usually black so they
can be picked out from the sheep at a great distance. Some of the goats
produce excellent milk, the best as much as three quarts a day.
There is a great deal in the Bible about the sheepfolds. These are common
in Palestine. In the villages they are often corrals and sometimes they
are caves on the hills. The village folds are closed at night, and the
shepherds keep the keys. Those of the mountains are usually open and the
sheep go in and out as they will.
In some parts of the country the shepherds pasture their flocks
separately by day, but at evening several of them often bring their sheep
together in a large open field or a spot sheltered from the winds. Then
each of the four or five men will take turns at keeping watch while the
others sleep, curled up in their sheepskins. The shepherds to whom the
“glad tidings” came on the first Christmas Eve were thus guarding their
flocks by night. In the morning each shepherd calls out to his sheep, and
they, knowing his voice, come to him until he has his whole flock around
him again. They will pay no heed to the same call if it is uttered by a
stranger or another shepherd. Often to make sure his sheep are all there
and also to see that they are all right the shepherd causes them to pass
under his rod between him and a rock. He can thus count them, and if one
is limping or sickly he can pull it out of line with the crook of his
staff and give it special care.
The Palestine shepherd does not use his staff to drive his charges, for
he always goes before with the sheep following him. The club or crook
he carries is for protection and defence of his flock. If they are
frightened the sight of the crook on his shoulder calms their panic. One
is reminded of the words of the Psalmist: “Thy rod and thy staff they
comfort me.”
One of the most important duties of the shepherd is to water the flock.
He does this at streams or wells. At the wells the women draw the water
for the sheep as they did in Bible times. They use bags of goatskin
untanned. The skin is taken almost whole from the goats, and the legs and
other openings are tied up so that it will hold water. One hole is left
at the throat into which the water is poured. The water for the household
is carried in such bags, a network of ropes being wrapped around a skin
so that it can be rested upon the back, the bag being supported by
a rope around the forehead. The water-bag of the ordinary size, when
filled, weighs at least fifty pounds. The women go along with their heads
bent far over, carrying water to their village homes. They do this day
after day all their lives long. This is one of the most common sights of
the Holy Land.
Indeed these Palestine peasants are strong men and women. The men bear
astonishing weights, and nobody thinks anything of walking twenty miles
and more in a day. One naturally asks as to their diet. This is largely
rice, vegetables, nuts, and the whole-meal unleavened bread of the
country baked in flat cakes as in Bible days. Meat is a rare luxury. The
Arabic name for bread is _aish_, which means life, and to the peasants of
the Holy Land it is the staff of life. They have even a sort of reverence
for it. No one will trample a fallen crumb into the dust, and even the
smallest bit dropped or thrown away by a careless child will be picked
up and lodged in a crack of a stone or wall so the birds may get it.
Tomatoes, squash, cabbage, cauliflower, onions, and eggplant are common
vegetables. There is a saying of the eggplant that there are so many
different ways of preparing it that if during the eggplant season a woman
says to her husband, “I know not what to provide for dinner,” he has
sufficient cause for divorcing her.
Grapes not quite ripe are much relished when eaten with salt. Cucumbers
take much the place of apples with us. Coffee is considered a necessity.
It is bought in the raw berry and a housekeeper is judged by her skill in
roasting and preparing it. Even if a family cannot afford it for every
day it must be on hand for guests. Men often carry some coffee berries in
their pockets for use at friendly gatherings, and wherever men meet for
business or ceremony coffee is expected.
The Palestine of to-day is a land of donkeys and camels. I suppose the
latter are about the same as those owned by Job. They are raised in
Beersheba, where the people live largely on their milk. The camel is the
freight car of Palestine. In going over the country I have seen many
caravans of them. On the way to Zammarin we passed some camels which
the Bedouin drivers were shearing. They were clipping the wool from the
kneeling beasts, which cried and moaned and now and then uttered shrieks
as the shears nipped off bits of their flesh. Not a few actually shed
tears. The wool of these camels is woven into a coarse cloth used for
making the coverings of the Bedouin tents.
As far as I can see the camels of the Holy Land have no easy job. They
carry loads of three or four hundred pounds each, and on short trips
their packs are left on day and night. They begin to work at three years,
and often last until they are twenty-five years of age.
The donkeys are much cheaper than camels. They are the draft animals
of the poor, and are used by the farmers for carrying vegetables and
wood into market. I see them loaded with olive roots on their way to
Jerusalem, and now and then pass a donkey caravan, every animal carrying
a bag of grain which has been balanced upon his back and which the driver
holds there as he goes up the steep hills.
[Illustration: With cypresses and palms Jewish colonists have beautified
this plantation near Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. The Jews answer the
objections of the Arabs to their settlements by pointing out how they
have “made the desert bloom like the rose”]
[Illustration: Carpenters of Nazareth and their shops are much the same
to-day as when Joseph plied his trade and the boy Jesus helped him.
Nazareth is a mountain village of some eight thousand people—Greeks,
Moslems, Maronites, Roman Catholics, and about a hundred Protestants]
Palestine is often called “the land of milk and honey.” This it was in
the past, and this, so far at least as the honey is concerned, it may
be again. I have already referred to the delicious honey served at the
hotel in Jerusalem. Modern bee-keeping was started in Palestine by an
enterprising Swiss in one of the Jewish colonies. His bees were kept in
hives made of terra-cotta jars, which were moved to different pastures
several times during a season so as to get the benefit of different kinds
of flowers. The average yield of honey per hive is about one hundred
pounds, and the product is delicious.
As to the Palestine flowers, I cannot describe them. There are said to
be more than three thousand varieties. Crossing the upper plains of
Sharon I rode through great fields of daisies as yellow as buttercups.
There were greenish-white flowers carpeting the roadside, and among them
poppies, gladioli, and lilies. In the gardens at Zammarin are geraniums
as large as rose bushes and on the sides of the hills wild flowers of
every description. There are yellow violets, and pink and blue blossoms
whose names I know not. There is also a red flower called “the blood
drop of Christ.” It is said to have sprung up on the spots where dropped
the blood of our Saviour as He carried the cross. In a single day’s
travel over the Samaritan mountains I counted thirty-five different wild
flowers. At one place I saw what looked like piles of Bermuda onions
pulled up along the roadside. There were bushels of them, and I supposed
they had been spilled out by a broken-down caravan. “Those are lily bulbs
which the farmers have dug out of the fields,” said my guide, and farther
on I saw the men digging. The lilies are yellow and white and grow wild.
“They toil not, neither do they spin,” but they cause the farmer to toil
and are one of the pests he has to get rid of.
There are but few farms of large size in the Holy Land. The chief
cultivated patches on the mountains are those which have been cleared of
stones. They are often no bigger than a parlour rug and seldom contain
more than three or four acres. Such fields frequently have stone walls
about them. Down in the valleys and on the plains of the Philistines
the farms are not separated by fences and are much larger. They are
planted to wheat, beans, and barley, and grow luxuriant crops. One of
the interesting scenes of the wheat fields is often referred to in the
Bible. This is pulling the tares, the seeds of which, if left, will make
the flour bitter. Gangs of girls are engaged in this business all over
Palestine. Each gang works under an overseer, and the girls bend half
double as they pull the weeds from the wheat. It is said that a farmer’s
enemies even to-day sometimes sow tares in his wheat, just as in the
parable.
Speaking of wheat, it is claimed that Palestine is one of the places in
which that grain originated. There is wild wheat here to-day, and the
agricultural experts are investigating to find out what can be done with
the other wild grains found in different parts of this country.
The ploughs of the Holy Land are about the same now as those used in the
days of the Bible. They are crude affairs, made of wood tipped with iron,
to which oxen and bullocks are yoked with a rough piece of wood fastened
to the necks of the animals. Sometimes the yoke is tilted at an angle
of forty-five degrees, reaching from the neck of a camel down to that
of a donkey. Donkeys and cows are also harnessed together, and bullocks
and camels. The plough ends in a point like that of a pickaxe. It only
scratches the soil, and nowhere goes very deep. The furrows are so narrow
that many ploughs are required for large fields. The ploughmen wear long
gowns, and on their heads are cloths bound round with rope. They wear
rough shoes or go barefoot.
Much of the land in the mountainous parts is so rocky that ploughs are
not used. The earth is broken up with mattocks or hoes and all the crops
are cultivated by hand. Nevertheless, this limestone soil is so rich that
it will often produce several crops in one year. Figs, olives, and other
fruits flourish. There are olive orchards everywhere. They cover the
sides of the hills and are near every farm village. I was hardly out of
sight of them on my way from Shechem to Mount Carmel. A great quantity of
oil is exported.
The curse of the Palestine farmer has long been the Mohammedan tax
gatherer and assessor. These men have squeezed the heart out of both the
farmer and his crop. The tax assessors have gone out over the country
in the blossom time of the olive orchards and levied on each tree the
cash tax to be paid no matter how the crop finally turned out. The olive
harvest often fails in Palestine, so rather than pay unjust and excessive
taxes the discouraged farmers have sometimes simply cut down trees and
sold both wood and roots.
It is not only the olive orchards that have suffered from this kind of
taxation. One eighth of the annual yield of every crop has been taken
from the people. The custom of selling to the highest bidder the right to
collect the taxes in a given district has, of course, made things worse.
In their determination to get back the money they paid the government and
a handsome profit for themselves besides, these men have had no mercy on
the farmer. The bundles of grain brought to the village threshing-floors
and put up in stacks of eight have been closely watched by the tax
gatherers and their agents.
Besides these farm taxes, the people have suffered from a head tax of two
dollars on every male member of the community from birth to death, from
the salt tax, from taxes on imports, and on everything that a man eats,
drinks, or wears.
Once freed from oppressive taxation and its farmers given a fair chance,
there is no doubt that Palestine will produce many times what it has done
under Turkish rule.