ded
for sale.

Also among the marshes was a temporary village of tabernacles or huts
made of plaited palm-leaves, and papyrus canes or reeds, such as one sees
on the line of the Jordan or about the lake Hhooleh, with the same class
of proprietors in both cases, the Ghawarineh Arabs. Strange that this
race of human beings should prefer to inhabit feverish marshes.

We came upon a paved causeway (called the _Resheef_) leading from a large
mill towards the sea, but only the portion nearest to the mill now
remains entire. Probably this was turned to some account during the
French military operations against Acre in 1799.

At Shefa 'Amer we had _'Ebeleen_ in sight. Both places are conspicuous
over the district around. At some distance from the town is a large well
for its supply, and along the broad road between the well and the town,
the Druse women are constantly passing with their horns over the forehead
and their jars on the shoulders.

Shefa 'Amer is crowned by the remains of the Palace Castle erected by
Shaikh Daher, (celebrated in Volney's "Syria,") and the shell of a large
old Christian church; near these are some very ancient wells cut into
solid rock, but now containing no water.

The majority of the inhabitants are Druses. There are a few Moslems and
a few Christians; but at that time there were thirty Jewish families
living as agriculturists, cultivating grain and olives on their own
landed property, most of it family inheritance; some of these people were
of Algerine descent. They had their own synagogue and legally qualified
butcher, and their numbers had formerly been more considerable. {243}

I felt an especial interest in these people, as well as in the knowledge
of a similar community existing at a small village not far distant named
_Bokea'h_.

Upon the road that day, and in half an hour from the town, I met a couple
of rosy-faced, strong peasant men, with sparkling Jewish eyes, who set to
speaking Hebrew with some Rabbis in my company. It was in a scene of
woodland and cornfields under the blue canopy of heaven; their costume
was that of the ordinary Metawaleh peasantry, _i.e._, a scarlet and
embroidered short coat with large dark blue trousers. I shall never
forget this circumstance, of finding men of Israel, fresh from
agricultural labour, conversing in Hebrew in their own land.

Our road then led through glades of exceeding beauty: an English park
backed by mountains in a Syrian climat