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(Copyright, 1911, by Frank O. Carpenter.)
.AMMAKIN, Mount Carruel, Palestine.
(Special Correspondence to The Bee.)
I give you today some bits of Palestine
out of doors. Within the last few weeks
I have kept away from the cities and
towns and have watched the shepherds
and farmers. I have seen the real Pales
tine, with the same sky, the same rocks and hills and
the same carpet of wild flowers that were here 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 the plows, 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 Land of the Farmer
The Palestine of the Bible was a land of the
farmer. The children of Israel and their leaders were
reared or worked on the farm. Abraham had numer
ous sheep and so had Isaac and Jacob. Saul was the
eon of old Farmer Klsh, and he was hunting his
father's asses when he was met by Samuel, the
prophet, who gave him a kingdom. David was watch
ing the sheep when Farmer Jesse, his father, sent him
to the battle, where, with his sling, he killed Goliah
and In time became Saul's successor. Lot was one of
the richest farmers the Jordan valley has known, and
as for Job, who lived In old Uz, he was the bonanza
cattle man of his time, owning 7,000 sheep, 3,000
camels, COO yoke of oxen, COO she asses and a very
large household. It was In one farm village, Bethle
hem, that our Savior was born, and in another farm
ing settlement, Nazareth, that he grew to manhood.
A great part of his life was spent In going about
among the shepherds and farmers, and In his preach
ing the most of the examples and parables relate to
things of the soil.
The Sheep of the Holy Land
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 aiyl
Galilee, and almost everywhere on the plain of Esdra
elton. They are always watched over by shepherds, and
are often driven to new feeding grounds. The greater
part of this country is so thin that if you could part
it off for a depth of eight IncheB 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. The conditions, however, are such that 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 Jor
dan. They were heavy-wooled animals, with tails of
fat hanging down like aprons behind them. The most
of them weighed 200 pounds, and the average was
fatter and finer than the best sheep of America. Some
were whlte-wooled and tome brown, and others had
brown heads and white bodies. I have tasted the mut
i ton. It is excellent, and is the best meat to be had at
the hotels.
Among the Shepherds
The shepherds are about the same all over Pales
tine. They are 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, lie uses & Bllng as David did, and stones
his sheep to keep them from straying. The strings of
the slings are of goat hair and the pad for the stone
it of the same material, often made with a silt in the
middle, so that when a stone is put in the sling it fits
close like a bag. Such things are now used in stone'
fights between the boys of the villages who practice
to see who can throw the farthest.
The wool of these sheep is especially fine. It
brings a higher price than that of Damascus, and
something like a million dollars' worth of it is ex
ported 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, who
receive less than a shilling a day.
Nearly every flock of sheep has its goats. They
are usually black and can be picked out at a great
distance. Some of the goats produce excellent milk,
and the best as much as three quarts a day.
In the Sheepfolds
There is a great deal in the Bible about the sheep
folds. These are common in Palestine. In the villages
there are often corrals and sometimes caves in the
hills. The village folds are closed at night, and the
shepherds keep the keys. Those of tthe mountains are
usually open and the sheep go in and out as they will.
One of the most Important duties of the shepherd
is to water his flock. He does this at streams or wells.
At the wells the women draw the water for the sheep,
as they did in the days of the Scriptures. They use
bags of goatskin untanned. The skins are taken al
most whole from the goats, and the legs and other
THE
Farming in
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openings tied up so that the skin is water proof. There
Is but one hole at the throat, and It Is In this that the
water is poured. The water for the household is car
ried in such bags, a network of ropes being wrapped
around them bo that It can be rested upon the back,
the bag being supported by a rope around the fore-
head. A bag of the ordinary size, when filled, weighs
at least fifty pounds. The women go along with their
heads bent half double carrying such Dags 10 ineir ,
village homes. They do this day after day all their
lives long.
Camels and Donkeys
The Palestine of today is a land of donkeys and
camels. I suppose the latter are about the same as
those owned by .Job. They are reared in Beersheba,
where the people largely live on their milk. The camel
is the freight car of Palestine. I have seen many cara
vans of them going over the country. On the way here
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 utteered shrieks as the shears snipped off bits
of their flesh. Not a few shed actual tears. The wool
of these -camels is woven into a coarse cloth, which
is used for weaving the coverings of the Bedouin tents.
As" far as I can see these camels of the Holy Land
have no easy Job. They carry loads of 300 or 400
pounds each, and on short trips their packs are left
on day and night. They begin to work at 3 years, and
often last until they are 25 years of age. The best
of them bring from $90 to $100 apiece and the poorest
from $25 to $50.
As to the donkeys they are much cheaper. They
form 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 its back and which the driver
holds there as he goes up the steep hills.
A Land of Milk and Honey
Palestine is sometimes called "the land of milk
and honey." This It was in the past, and this it may
be again. A Swiss family, not far from Jerusalem,
has recently gone into the bee business, and it Is
producing many thousands of pounds of honey a year.
The bees are kept in hives made of terra cotta jars,
which are moved to different pastures several times
during a season. The average yield of honey per hive
is about 100 pounds, and the product is delicious.
As to the Palestine flowers, I cannot describe
them. There are said to be more than 3,000 varieties.
Crossing the upper plains of Sharon I rode through
great fields of daisies as yellow as buttercups and aB
beautifully shaped as our daisies at home. There were
greenish-white flowers, carpeting the roadside and
among them popples, gladioluses and lilies. In the gar
dens here are geraniums as large as rose bushes and
on the sides of the hills wild flowers of every descrip
tion. There are yellow violets and pink and blue blos
soms, 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 Bpots where dropped the blood
of our Savior as He carried the cross. I counted thirty
five different wild flowers in a single day's travel over
the mountains of Samaria. At one place I saw what
looked like piles of Bermuda onions, pulled up, lining
the roadside. There were bushels of them, and I sup
posed they had been spilled out by a broken-down
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the "Land
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caravan. "Thoso aro Illy
have dug out of the fields,"
on I Baw the men digging,
white, and they grow wild.
bulbs, -frhlch the farmers
said my guide, and further
These lilies are yellow and
"They toll not, neither do
they spin.'but they cause the farmers to toll and are
one of the pests he has to get rid of.
On the Farms
There are but few farms of large size In the Holy
Land. Tho chief cultivated patches on the mountains
are those which have been cleared of stones. They
are often not bigger than bed quilts and seldom con
tain more than three of four acres. Such fields fre
quently have stone walls around them. Down in the
valleys and on the plains of the Philistines the farms
are not separated by fences, and they are, of a much
greater extent. They are planted to wheat beans and
barley and grow luxuriant crops. One of the Interest
ing 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. I am
told that enemies sometimes sow tares In the wheat,
as is described in the parable of the wheat and the
tares as uttered by Jesus.
Speaking of wheat, it is said that Palestine Is one
of the places in which that grain originated. There is
wild wheat here today, and the agricultural experts
are investigating wild grains which are found in dif-
ferent parts of this country.
HoKt-They Plow-
The plows of the Holy Land are about the same
now as those used in the days of the Bible. They are
rough affairs, made of wood tipped 'with iron, to
which oxen and bullocks are yoked with a rough
New Religious Sect
NTOINISM" is the name given to a new
A
religion, which la now gaining some fol
lowers in Belgium. The founder or
promoter is a farmer named Antoine.
The "Great Father," or the "Parent
One," as his followers call him, is a
man of 65, with flowing white locks
and a patriarchal beard. His followers now number
160,000, of whom 300, including his wife, the "Good
Mother," are adepts.
For three years Antoine has not left his bouse
or garden. He lives entirely on vegetables, which he
prepares himself. He sleeps little, resting only for
two hours during the night, the greater part of which
he spends walking in his garden, which has electric
lamps fitted up all around the walls. He never reads
anything, he will not see newspaper men, and only
holds communication with the outside world by means
of the telephone.
He confines his healing to ceremonies in the
church, where the services are of the simplest de
scription At 9' o'clock a. m. the congregation assem
bles, and an adept, M. Deregnancourt, the publisher
of the sect's literature, takes his place at a desk under
a raised platform. There is complete silence for half
an hour, then M. Deregnancourt announces that op
erations will take place at certain hours on certain
days and that all who wish to be .cured must have
perfect faith.
Then he continues Bitting perfectly still, not a
muscle moving and his watery blue eyes fixed in an
unblinking stare straight before him. At the stroke
of 10 eveYy one rises and the "Parent One" enters
by a side door and slowly walks up the steps to the
rostrum.
Wearing a black cassock and with his gray hair
falling around his shoulders, Antoine faces the con
gregation for a full minute without moving or utter
ing a sound. He then lifts bis right hand toward them
and holds it thus extended for another minute. That
is all. Those two minutes make the service. The
"Good Father" walks slowly out, the adept remarks,
"Every one whose faith is strong enough must be
cured," and the church empties silently. No collec
tion Is made, but .subscriptions are taken for the
maintenance of tilt-church, which Antoine built him
self with a legacy of $4,000.
For six months Antoine has not spoken a word
to any one. People come at all hours, with all sorts
of ailments and appeals. Antoine effects his cures
now by deputy. His wife or some other adept stands
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Qz&ering tare s
piece of wood fastened to the necks of the animals.
Sometimes the yoke hangs at an angle of 45 degrees,
reaching from the neck of a camel to that of a donkey.
Donkeys and cows are also harnessed together, and
bullocks and camels. The share of the plow ends in
a point like that of a pickax. It scratches the soil, and
nowhere goes very deep. The furrows are narrow, and
many plows are required for large fields. The plow
men 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
rough that plows are not used. The soil is dug up with
a mattock or hoe and all the crops are cultivated by
hand. Nevertheless, the soil is so rich that It will often
produce several crops in one year. It will grow any
thing, and 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, and I am told that a great quantity
of oil is exported.
Taxed by the Mohammedans
The chief trouble of the Palestine farmer is the
Mohammedan tax gatherer and assessor. These men
have squeezed the heart out of every crop of the past,
and it is only now, when Turkey has a new constitu
tion, that the people have begun to hope that they
may make something out of their lands. The tax as
sessors go over the country when the olive trees are in
blossom and they then estimate the money which each
tree should yield. They assess this amount as a cash
tax, and the owner of the orchard must pay it whether
the yield turns out well or not. There is often a failure
of crops, atod the trees produce Just enough for the
taxes. Sometimes they fail entirely. As a result, people
have grown discouraged, and have begun to cut down
their orchards and sell both wood and roots. This is
forbidden by the new constitution.
The taxation is not confined to the orchards. It is
Appears in Belgium
in front of the applicant, and turning her eyes upward
slowly waves her hand in the air, which means that
she is invoking Antoine, "the Healer."
The patient or the patient's deputy then departs.
The cure is effected, or if it is not, then there has
been a lack of faith.
An Easter Dedication
When the church bells at Eastertide ring out their
gladuome messages telling of peace ou earth and good
will to mankind in the coming spring, they will also
announce the dedication and opening in part of the
magnificent Protestant Episcopal cathedral of St. John
the Divine, on Morniugside Heights, New York. For
many months past an army of skilled artisans has
been rushing the work in the hope that the great
gothic pile could be ready for dedication service's on
December 27, St. John's day, and the anniversary of
the laying of the cornerstone in 1S92.
But this was found to be impossible, and the date
has been fixed for Easter. All Is in readiness for this
important event in the history of the Episcopal church
in this country, with 'the exception of minor furnish
ings and decorative work, which is rapidly nearing
completion. It will be years hence before the cathe
dral as a whole is thrown open for worship and takes
its place as the largest in this country and the fourth
largest in the world.
When worshipers enter the cathedral next Easter
they will find completed the choir and crossings and
the grand $60,000 organ, the largest in the world,
which U the gift of .Mr. and Mrs. Levi P. Morton, in
memory of their daughter, lA'na Kerny Morton, who
died six years ago; alao the magnificent nierble altar,
and In the rear of this the famous Barberinl tapes
tries, valued at $J00,000. These latter are now on
exhibition in the Metropolitan museum.
The part of the cathedral now built represents but
$3,600,000 of the total estimated cost of $20,000,000
and only a small fraction of the magnificent completed
whole. The temporary walls will lie torn down and
the temporary dome, now 1(J2 feet high, will raise l'S
proud height of 252 feet, topped by a spire, which,
from the ground will measure 426 feet, and be flanked
by two towers, each 225 feet In height.
The new cathedral will' be surpassed in size only
by St. Peter's at Rome, the Milan cathedral and what
is now the Mosque at Constantinople.
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Imposed upon every crop, the amount fixed belnn
about one-eighth of the annual yield. This tax is
farmed out to the highest bidder, one man taking the
contract of collecting the taxes for-a village or district
and offering the government a lump sum in cash fo
them. After the allotment has b en made and the
price fixed, they are allowed to stand for a week or
so. during which time any one who offers 3 per cent
more can get the district. Once settled the allotment
belongs to the man who has paid for it, and he sets
a watch on the crops to see that the full taxes are
paid. All the grain must be treshed at the village, and
put up there in stacks of eight, each stack being of the
same size.
When this is done, the tax gatherer selects the
stack which he. will take for the taxes and this is
threshed out by itself, the farmer being required to
deliver the grain as the collector directs. He may have
to carry it to Jerusalem, Jaffa or Nablous, and in thla
way make it so costly that the farmer will be glad tq
ell him the grain at his price or to keep It at home.
In addition to Buch taxes there is the salt tax, by
which every one in Palestine must use and pay for so
much salt a year, the salt being a government monop
oly. There is a head tax of $2 on every male member
of the community. This begins with babyhood and
lasts until death, and there are other taxes upon land,
as well as upon Imports and everything that man eats,
drinks and wears.
In a Jewish Colony
If the Holy Land could be freed from taxation a
the farmers allowed fair play, there is no doubt but
that the land would produce many times what It does
now. Its possibilities can be seen in the various
colonies which have been established by the Jews
and the Germans In the various parts of Palestine.
Take, for instance, Zammarin on the southwest slope
of Mount Carmel, where these notes are written. The
place Is about five hours' ride from Haifa, and a day's
Journey by carriage from Nablous. The town is owned
by a Jewish colony which has a large tract of land
given it by Baron Edward Rothschild of Paris. The
land is high above the sea at the northern end of the
plain of Sharon, so situated that it commands a view
of that plain at the east and of the Mediterranean sea
at the west. The country about is covered with chunks
of limestone of all shapes and sizes, the bedrock crop
ping out in ledges with small tracts of arable land
here and there.
The Jews have taken this land and have cleared
it by picking off the loose rocks and they are making
It bloom like a garden. They have some quite large
fields on top of Mount Carmel, which are now covered
with wheat. They are raising luxuriant crops of oats
and beans and have vineyards as thrifty as those of
.South France or the Rhine. They have olive orchards
which would be a credit to any part of Italy; and Eng
lish walnut trees which bear like those of southern
California. They are raising fine cattle which they
graze on the hills in the daytime and bring in at night.
The milk is excellent, and the meat as tender a
sweet as the cornfed beef of Chicago. I am told that
the land produces abundantly and that the colony does
well.
A German Town in the Holy Land
The town of Zammarin Is far different from those
of other parts of Palestine. Its houses are of German
architecture and many of Its people speak German.
It has a German hotel run by an American Jew and
planned upon Jewish lines. Outside the door of my
room is fastened a tube of olive wood containing the
Ten Commandments, and similar tubes are to be found
at every door of the hotel, and also on the doors of
every bouse in the town. The Jews kiss these tubes as
they go In and out.
Zammarin has sidewalks, and there is a water
tower, filled by machinery, which gives water to every'
house. There 1b a synagogue, which is well attended,
and a town hall, where the colonial officials meet and
govern themselves as far as they can under the laws
of the sultan.
Indeed, the colony Is a little republic, with a
president and other officials elected by its members.
It settles its own disputes, and makes assessments
for special taxes for such things as schools and village
improvements. When the colony was started it was
supported by Rothschild. Later on It was turned over
to the Anglo-Israelite Colonization society, founded
by Baron Hlrsch. It was then supported from Euroi'
but this did not Wrrk and it is now running itself,
Every family works for Itself and has its own prop
erty. As a result the people are becoming independent.
The standard of self-respect has risen, and all seem
to be prosperous. FRANK G. CARPENTER,
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