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.

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.

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.”

“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.”

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.