A CHARACTERISTIC SCENE IN THE ORIENT.
Shepherd Tents—Many Flocks in One Sheep-Cote for the Night—Many
Merchants from Different Countries—Ships Anchored—Arabs at
Meal—Arabs Smoking—Shepherds with their Reed-Pipes—Merchants’
Response—Music and Dancing at Night—Bustle and Confusion in the
Morning—Fight Like Madmen—Over-Burdened Camels—Camp Broken
up—Dothan and Joseph’s Pit—Money-Loving Mohammedans—Crafty
Jews—Return to Tents—The Shepherds Awaken—Crook, Sling and
Reed-Pipe—David and Goliath—Shepherds under the Star-Lit Sky—“Glory
to God in the Highest.”
NOTHING could present a scene more characteristic of Oriental life than
a half dozen shepherd tents, black and dingy, pitched, not like Jacob’s
tent on the mountain top, but like Isaac’s tent in the valley, in the
midst of an olive grove, by the side of a flowing fountain. Here by the
tents is a corral, or sheep-cote, enclosed by a rock wall, on top of
which is a rough hedge of dry, thorny bushes, placed there to keep the
robbers, as well as the jackals and wolves and other wild beasts, from
molesting the sheep.
Many flocks, both of sheep and goats, are brought to this one cote for
protection during the night, and the swarthy shepherds, each with a
loose garment of coarse camel’s hair carelessly thrown around him to
hide his nakedness, occupy the tents in common.
Just across the ravine, on the opposite hillside, is a rough stone
house eight or ten feet high with a low, flat roof. This is a “Kahn,”
or an inn—a kind of lodging house to accommodate caravans which are
always passing between Egypt, Jerusalem, Damascus, Palmyra and Bagdad.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A CARAVANSARY.]
From an hour before the sun goes down, until eight o’clock at night,
one can see caravan after caravan of camels—sometimes a string of
them a half mile long—coming across the hills, laden with wines,
carpets, dried fruits, hand-made silks, Persian carpets, and all manner
of Oriental merchandise. Slowly, but patiently, these “ships of the
desert” move on beneath their immense cargo of freight. One caravan
after another comes in, until from 100 to 200 camels may be seen around
one Kahn. The burdens are removed, the several merchants putting their
goods in separate piles. The ships are anchored. The tired brutes lie
down and are fed. The merchants and camel-drivers gather round the
fire, seating themselves on the ground, folding their limbs up under
them as though they had no bones in them.
Beans, peas, dates, olives, mutton or kid—and sometimes both—are put
into one pot and all boiled together. When it is done, as many of these
hard-featured, grim-visaged, wrinkled-browed, shaggy-haired Arabs as
can, huddle around one bowl. They have no knives or forks. Sometimes
you see a wooden spoon, but usually they thrust their horny hands into
the bowl, and then cram their fists into their countenances—they
are the most open-countenanced people I ever saw. They are the most
ravenous eaters I ever saw. My dragoman offered to bet ten dollars that
one Arab could drink a quart of coffee, eat a roast turkey, two loaves
of bread, and three pounds of rice at one meal! And I am quite sure
that one who is acquainted with an Arab’s capacity for stuffing will
never make a wager like that.
The meal being over, a certain weed, used as tobacco, is brought out
and smoking is indulged in. Now the shepherds across the branch, with
their reed pipes strike up a plaintive tune which floats over the
valley and echoes from the distant hills. It strikes also a responsive
chord in the hearts of the merchants and camel-drivers. They now
bring out their rude instruments of music, and play and sing, chant
and dance, for hours, much after the order of wild Indians. In their
ideas of dress and propriety, in their customs and habits of life
generally, these children of the desert are as primitive, as rude and
uncultivated, as were their fathers 4000 years ago.
When they wake in the morning there is great stir, bustle and
confusion. As the merchants curse the camel-drivers, they in turn curse
and fight each other, and beat the camels. From the noise made one
would think that two great armies had met in deadly combat. They slap
and beat and kick each other around like madmen—I had almost said
“like fiends!” They sometimes put as much on one camel as two or three
ought to carry. The poor, faithful brutes can not speak audibly, but as
these double burdens are placed upon them, they lie on the ground and
bellow in a most pathetic manner. The pitiable cries of the dumb brutes
are almost enough to move the surrounding stones to tears, and yet
the heartless Arab is untouched. The more the camels bellow, the more
their masters beat them with sticks, and prick them with sharp spears.
Finally the ships are loaded, and soon you see them strung out across
the hills, some going south to Egypt, others going north to Damascus
and Beyrout, or east to Palmyra and Bagdad.
[Illustration: DANCING GIRL.]
As often as one sees a night like this, and especially when one sees it
near Dothan (the city of two wells), he thinks of the time when Jacob’s
sons stripped Joseph of his coat of many colors, and cast him into the
dry pit. And while yet on the plain of Dothan “they lifted up their
eyes and beheld a company of Ishmaelites, with camels, going down to
Egypt.”
[Illustration: THE SNAKE CHARMER.]
“Then there passed by Midianites, merchant-men, and they drew and
lifted Joseph out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for
twenty pieces of silver, and they brought Joseph into Egypt.” Around me
now are many money-loving Mohammedans, many cunning and crafty Jews,
who, I think, would willingly sell their younger brothers for twenty
pieces of silver, or ten pieces either. Yea, I have seen men in this
country, and in my own country, too, who would gladly sell their souls
for money. As in Joseph’s day, so in ours, “the love of money is the
root of all evil.”
[Illustration: AN ANCIENT SHEEP FOLD.]
Let us now return to the camp where the merchant-men spent the night.
I spoke of the shepherds, of their tents and flocks. The herds, both
sheep and goats, of different shepherds have been housed during the
night in the same fold. At dawn of day the shepherds awake, and, unlike
the thief and robber who climb up over the wall, they enter in by the
door. Each shepherd putteth forth his own flock, counting them as
they pass slowly out under his rod through the one doorway. As they
pass out, the sheep and the goats are separated—the one being turned
to the right hand, the other to the left. “Each shepherd calleth his
sheep by name and leadeth them out. He goeth before them and his sheep
follow him, for they know his voice.” The sheep string one behind
another, and as the shepherd, with his sling and leathern pouch filled
with stones strapped about his shoulders, with a crook in one hand
and a reed pipe in the other, leads his trusting flock out into the
“green pastures and beside the still waters,” he makes the welkin
ring with his simple, artless melodies. Who could behold a scene like
this without thinking of that robust shepherd lad who killed Goliath
with his sling, and charmed Saul with his music? Yes, it was among
the sheep, here on these purple hills of Judea, that David, the sweet
singer of Israel, first learned those Hebrew melodies that have been
sung around the world!
I have several times, on beautiful moonlight nights, seen shepherds out
in the fields with their flocks under the star-lit sky. It must have
been at a time like this that with upturned face David said: “When I
consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers; the moon and the stars,
which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him? and
the son of man that thou visitest him?”
How forcibly does this remind one of the time when the angelic host
undulated above the plains of Bethlehem crying: “Glory to God in
the highest; on earth, peace and good will to men.” This has been a
different world ever since that song fell upon the drowsy ear of night.