rs led their deliberate
strings of ungainly beasts by a rope or a light chain reaching from one
nodding head to another.

A camel's load never looks as large as a donkey's, but no doubt he often
finds it heavy, and he always looks displeased with it. There is
something about the droop of a camel's lower lip which seems to express
unalterable disgust with the universe. But the rest of the world around
Hebron appeared to be reasonably happy. In spite of weather and poverty
and hard work the ploughmen sang in the fields, the children skipped and
whistled at their tasks, the passers-by on the road shouted greetings to
the labourers in the gardens and vineyards. Somewhere round about here
is supposed to lie the Valley of Eshcol from which the Hebrew spies
brought back the monstrous bunch of grapes, a cluster that reached from
the height of a man's shoulder to the ground.

III

THE TENTING-GROUND OF ABRAHAM

Hebron lies three thousand feet above the sea, and is one of the ancient
market-places and shrines of the world. From time immemorial it has been
a holy town, a busy town, and a turbulent town. The Hittites and the
Amorites dwelt here, and Abraham, a nomadic shepherd whose tents
followed his flocks over the land of Canaan, bought here his only piece
of real estate, the field and cave of Machpelah. He bought it for a
tomb,--even a nomad wishes to rest quietly in death,--and here he and
his wife Sarah, and his children Isaac and Rebekah, and his
grandchildren Jacob and Leah were buried.

The modern town has about twenty thousand inhabitants, chiefly
Mohammedans of a fanatical temper, and is incredibly dirty. We passed
the muddy pool by which King David, when he was reigning here, hanged
the murderers of Ishbosheth. We climbed the crooked streets to the
Mosque which covers the supposed site of the cave of Machpelah. But we
did not see the tomb of Abraham, for no "infidel" is allowed to pass
beyond the seventh step in the flight of stairs which leads up to the
doorway.

As we went down through the narrow, dark, crowded Bazaar a violent storm
of hail broke over the city, pelting into the little open shops and
covering the streets half an inch deep with snowy sand and pebbles of
ice. The tempest was a rude joke, which seemed to surprise the surly
crowd into a good humour. We laughed with the Moslems as we took shelter
together from our common misery under a stone archway.

After the storm had passed we ate our midday