people of the village, (which is
somewhere near us on the mountain, but out of sight), come to fill their
pitchers and water-skins, and to let their cattle and donkeys drink. All
through the late afternoon they are coming and going, plashing through
the shallow ford below us, enjoying the cool, clear water, disappearing
along the foot-paths that lead among the hills.

These are very different cattle from the herds we saw among the Bedouins
a couple of hours ago; fine large creatures, well bred and well fed,
some cream-coloured, some red, some belted with white. And these men who
follow them, on foot or on horseback, truculent looking fellows with
blue eyes and light hair and broad faces, clad in long, close-fitting
tunics, with belts around their waists and small black caps of fur, some
of them with high boots--who are they?

They are some of the Circassian immigrants who were driven out of Russia
by the Czar after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, and deported again
after the Bulgarian atrocities, and whom the Turkish Government has
colonized through eastern Palestine on land given by the Sultan. Nobody
really knows to whom the land belongs, I suppose; but the Bedouins have
had the habit, for many centuries, of claiming and using it as they
pleased for their roaming flocks and herds. Now these northern invaders
are taking and holding the most fertile places, the best springs, the
fields that are well watered through the year.

Therefore the Arab hates the Circassian, though he be of the same
religion, far more than he hates the Christian, almost as much as he
hates the Turk. But the Circassian can take care of himself; he is a
fierce and hardy fighter; and in his rude way he understands how to make
farming and stock-raising pay.

Indeed, this Land of Gilead is a region in which twenty times the
present population, if they were industrious and intelligent and had
good government, might prosper. No wonder that the tribe of Gad and
Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh, on the way to Canaan, "when they
saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead, that, behold, the place
was a place for cattle," (Numbers xxxii) fell in love with it, and
besought Moses that they might have their inheritance there, and not
westward of the Jordan. No wonder that they recrossed the river after
they had helped Joshua to conquer the Canaanites, and settled in this
high country, so much fairer and more fertile than Judea, or even than
Samaria.