Rachel Shalit Gordon on the Land Liberated from the Turks

Here's something from the historical archives, the writer of it being a young Jewish woman named Rachel Gordon (née Shalit; 1883-1972; see also here), a future teacher of French in Rehovot who at the time lived in Rishon le Zion, founded in 1882 by chalutzim from the Tsarist Empire.

I would like to have posted it in commemoration of Anzac Day recently, but better late than never.  First, some background. During World War One, Kia Ora Cooee was the official, monthly, magazine for Australian and New Zealand troops serving in Egypt, Palestine, Salonika  and what was then known as Mesopotamia. 

Its 15 September 1918 issue (from which this image, left, of a Digger comes) carried a grateful letter from Rachel Gordon to the Aussies who liberated Eretz Israel from the Turks.

Rachel's letter was printed as an article entitled The New Palestine.  Here it is, below in italics, with no further comment from me:

Sitting in the evening of our Fasting Day on our balcony,  in  the  glory of our eastern moonlight, I   am able to see everything that is happening in the street below.  I try to collect my thoughts and remember Fasting Days that have gone and our present one. When  preparing our future life we always remember the past, and that is how I feel at the present moment.

Many memories come into my mind this evening, of many Fasting Davs that have passed; but I seem to know only about the horrible events this day represents as we were taught such by our  teacher in the school.

Long, long  ago  we had a small land, so small that it was like a fly on the globe, but quite large to contain all our people. In those days we had our kings, our judges, and our prophets, like all other nations; we had our grand Temple in which to pray to God, to bless our King and his people. In  those days  our  people  were happy. 

But then came the time when the wolves that  watch with hungry eyes the weak lamb came forth one day and tore it to pieces.  Our Temple was burnt; our lands  were looted; our people were murdered, and everything of value was taken from them. That was long, long ago. But our people still live with the remembrance of the past represented in this Fasting Day, and bright hopes for the future under our new regime.

Watching now the street below, one sees, besides her own people, British soldiers, and observes the happy way in which they all mingle together and regard each other as all of the one calling, the call of liberty and  justice. I watch all the present life, thinking we must hope now, because these British men bring such hopes into our homes and cheer us up. 

How long have they been here? One, two, three? Ah! yes, I  remember very well, it is seven months since we were freed from the Turkish masters, and all this time the new dawn is fast approaching. Seven months is a long time, but very little, even nothing, when the birth of a new nation is at hand. But can you find anything that is too hard for the British Government ?   

'Tis very difficult to put right the mistakes which others have  made, and to look after minor things whilst occupied with  larger ones. But all this is, it seems, not too hard for the British Government.   Hearing every day the guns, we cannot forget even for one moment that the war is not yet finished; but looking in all the ranks of life below and seeing the great change that has taken place in these few months,we can see plainly   that it is the beginning of a great new life.

Returning to that period of Turkish mastery, one can hardly realise the freedom we enjov when   comparing it with those years of slavery. It seems only a short while since we had to repeatedly pay   that "backsheech" so often demanded from us. 

And now we need not to be afraid when we see a policeman coming, because we do not have to hide everything we have of value. There was nothing the Turks did not need. Every day new orders would be issued.  More "backsheech" was demanded, horses taken from us, all being required to hand over their horses without  pretext. 

It  was  impossible to hide them as the stables would be searched, and all other places where they might be hidden.  At other times, cows, donkeys, carriages, bags, boxes, tins, etc., would be taken, and to protest would bring disaster on the home. Work in the gardens was done under extreme   difficulties without the animals, therefore we were only able to grow a little fruit with so much suffering; and they would even then rob us of that. 

But what is the difference now? In the winter when we must plough in the gardens, and we have not our own horses to work with, the British Government came to help us; they lent us horses to do the necessary work in the gardens; they brought kerosene  for the pumping motors in the orange gardens. 

Before, we could not do anything, because we thought that in the middle of our work they (the   Turks) would come and disarrange everything. So we always found obstacles in our way. Seeing to-day the happy homes around us, it is hard to imagine the suffering they have passed through. When we proposed to build bridges, and roads for the benefit of our horses between the colonies and the large towns, the Turks would demand enormous sums of "backsheech". 

But the British Government have done all this without being asked. Everywhere new roads and   railways have come into being. Under the Turkish rule all money received in gold for our fruits  from  other countries was taken from us and paper money given in exchange, with the large loss on our  part. When the British came into our village we were able to change our money without loss and   no difference was made between gold and paper.

The chief motive of the Turkish Government was to ruin us and neglect our country, while the British Government have done all in their power to help us to develop our trade and country. We are now free to bear our flag through the streets and sing our national songs, which were forbidden under the Turkish military law. A poor man can travel now from one place to another on his donkey, and not be afraid of wandering tribes. Everywhere the reign of the British Government is showing its effect on the country.   

I remember when I  was at school I learned that the Prophet said long ago, that in the end of the days in which the wolf lived together with the lamb, etc: Now I understand what was meant by these words, that a strong Government would come one day  and overthrow the wolves and look after the weak lamb. 

I am  writing  to vou soldier boys to try  and express  my  feelings  to-night  towards you; and   though your  homes are many  miles away, you came here and brought with you hopes for us all.

God bless you all, and my  one wish is  that  you will return to your families so patiently waiting for you. And now victory and happiness to the British and their Allies.

How The Headmistress Entered The Harem: A Vignette From Ottoman Palestine

Annie Edith Landau (1873-1945), the daughter of a London shochet and inventor from Gomel in the Tsarist Empire and his Bavarian-born wife, was from 1900 until her death headmistress of the Evelina de Rothschild School for Girls in Jerusalem, founded in 1854 and renamed in memory of a member of the Rothschild family who died in childbirth in 1866. Miss Landau first joined its staff in 1899.

During a visit to London on extended sick leave in 1903, Annie Landau gave the Jewish Chronicle her impressions of Jerusalem (giving its population as 40,000 Jews, 14,000 Muslims and 6000 Christians), and recalling the difficulty she encountered when she first arrived in Eretz Israel in 1900:

'There is no ill-feeling on the part of the rest of the population to the Jewish inhabitants, according to Miss Landau, except that the Israelites are kept at arm's length from the holy places - even the tombs of their own Kings and Prophets.  But the Turkish Government are still very careful about the settlement of Jews in the Holy Land.  Very often, by expedients well-known in Oriental countries, Jews are enabled to evade the law which forbids them to settle in Palestine.  But whenever the Zionists give signs of activity the screw is put on, it appears, and even the almighty  [Thomas] Cook himself is unable to smuggle his Jewish tourists in with the rest of his company.  This extra care on the part of the Turk was noticeable at the time of the El Arish negotiations [1902], and a similar cause placed Miss Landau herself in an unpleasant situation the very first day she touched holy soil, which was ... shortly after the meeting of the Kaiser and Dr Herzl [October 1898] ...

When Miss Landau reached the Port of Jaffa and attempted to disembark, a Turkish official intercepted her.

"Ĕtes vous Chrétienne?" he asked.

"Je suis Anglaise," answered Miss Landau, with intentional irrelevance.

The official glanced at her.  "Ah!" he exclaimed, "Vous êtes Juive." Miss Landau could not deny the soft impeachment, and the name of Rothschild (the Rothschild School) on Miss Landau's luggage confirmed the man's worst fears.

So off the lady was marched to a sort of hut, and a guard of fifty villainous-looking soldiers was placed over her.  Fifty soldiers!  If Miss Landau had tried to escape, one feels that the Sublime Porte would have mobilised at least the first division of the Reserves.

However, the lady kept quite quiet, and in the hut she remained for an hour.  Meanwhile, the people who had come to meet her had hied [i.e. sped] to the British Vice-Consul for help.  This gentleman (a Jew) replied that Miss Landau was to be marched to his place.  But Miss Landau, like the brave British subject she is, strongly declined the escort.  The Vice-Consul must come to her!

The Jewish Mahomet duly came to the mountain.  But all he could suggest was that Miss Landau should sign a declaration undertaking to leave the country for thirty days, and agreeing to deposit fifty napoleons as surety.  One napoleon is twenty francs and fifty napoleons was, therefore, a big sum - more than Miss Landau had in her possession.  But even if she had had the money she could have entered into no such foolish understanding, seeing that she had come out to Palestine to take up the post of Head Mistress of the Rothschild School.  So she declined the Vice-Consul's suggestion.

In the end Miss Landau was allowed to land and proceed to her hotel, the idea being to refer her case to the British Consul at Jerusalem (who was expected that day).  Sure enough the Consul, Mr Dickson, arrived, and smoothed things over.  Miss Landau was allowed to settle in Jerusalem - but only by virtue of a firman especially issued by the Sultan.

The Cadi [judge] came to  Miss Landau and apologised for the trouble to which she had been put.  The gentleman was very anxious to be forgiven, and as a sign that he had found grace in Miss Landau's eyes he begged but one thing - that she should pay a visit to his harem.  Miss Landau agreed.  In the harem she found a whole room of women - from 15 to 20 of them.  Their faces were painted, they had belladonna [sic; kohl] under their eyes, their fingernails and hair were coloured with henna, and they lay in what Miss Landau calls "languishing attitudes".

When the visitor entered, they sat and stared at her.  Some of them regarded her, no doubt, as the latest recruit to the harem.  One of them, with embarrassing politeness, took the narghileh from her mouth and offered it to Miss Landau for a smoke.  But in those days ladies did not smoke in England, and this Miss Landau duly explained.  However, no unpleasant contretemps occurred as a result.  The lady resumed her narghileh; Miss Landau left the harem; and there was peace between the Cadi and the teacher all the days of their lives.

But two doubtful consolations remain to Miss Landau as a result of her adventures at Jaffa.  She is the first British woman that has ever been under arrest in Palestine, and she is the only Jewess on whose behalf the Sultan has issue a special firman.'
Source: Jewish Chronicle (30 October 1903)

A Tale of Ottoman Palestine: The Anecdote of the Poisoned Coffee

From Descriptive Geography and Brief Historical Sketch of Palestine by Rabbi Joseph Schwarz (1850), reproduced in London Jewish Chronicle (3 October 1851):

Some years before Mahmud Ali [ruled 1805-48] had assumed the government, and the Arabs had the ability and power to tyrannize over the Jews, a very rich Jew of Constantinople emigrated hither [Jerusalem]. The Mahomedans ardently desired to find some pretext against this rich man, in order to extort money from him, according to their fashion.

One day a Mahomedan, accompanied by a Bedouin, leading two camels loaded with charcoal, entered the courtyard of the Jew, and said that, as no doubt he was in want of coal, he would spare him the trouble to go to market for it, and brought therefore to his house two heavily loaded camels with this necessary article. But the Jew, fearing some evil, made some excuses – was very grateful for the kindness of the other, yet averred that he could not make any use of it, as he was well supplied already.

But all subterfuges were in vain, and the Mahomedan forced him fairly to take the coal; and when the other asked after the price, he answered, “Never mind, give what you think the article is worth. Yet, as thou camest but lately in our holy city, it is no more than becoming that thou shouldst invite us, as faithful fellow citizens, into thy house, and entertain us with pipes and coffee, until the camels be unloaded by the servants.”

“Let it be so,” answered the rich man; and, opening the door of his saloon, he told them to enter. Coffee and pipes were brought in; they drank and smoked, spoke of indifferent things, when suddenly the Bedouin sunk down as dead, and gave no signs of animation.

The Mahomedan jumped up from his seat in a great rage, and addressed the Jew with a loud voice—“Murderer! what hast thou done ? Thy coffee is poisoned! Shall we tolerate the Jews among us, that they may lay plots against our lives? This murder shall be washed out by the blood of all the Jews.”

The other protested his innocence, trembling, with tears in his eyes, saying, “Have I not drunk myself of this coffee? How, then, can it be poisoned?” “Then must the Bedouin’s cup have contained poison,” was the furious reply of the other.

The Jew adduced all sorts of proofs of his entire innocence. At length the Mahomedan was moved, and said, “My friend, I indeed pity thee and all the Jews of the city; but I can think of only one remedy by which thou and thy people can be saved. Have thy courtyard immediately locked up, so that no one from without will be able to enter. I will employ all possible means to suppress this affair and keep it a profound secret; and this evening I will send thee two confidential persons, who shall fetch away the corpse and bury it in all secrecy; and in this way thou and thy brothers will be saved. But to effect this a large sum of money is necessary, which I am sure thou wilt readily and willingly furnish on the spot.”

The trembling Jew esteemed himself happy that the matter could be settled with money, and gave immediately the sum which the Mahomedan had demanded, large as it was, with great willingness and with the utmost unconcern. The other went away, and the corpse was left lying in the saloon.

After sunset two Bedouins arrived with a large sack, in which they thrust the corpse, took it on their shoulders in profound silence, and walked away greatly terrified. But scarcely were they a few steps distant from the house of the rich man, when the dead Arab jumped out of the sack; and the Jew now learned for the first time that the whole affair was a gross deception, contrived merely to extort from him the large sum he paid for his ransom.

From the River to the Sea – Public Opinion in Palestine

During August, AWRAD (Arab World for Research and Development) polled Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza regarding their thoughts on a peace agreement with Israel.  The entire poll, which makes fascinating reading, can be seen on the organisation's website, but here are a few of the questions and responses, which will give you the flavour:

 "With regards to the final status of Palestine and Israel please indicate which of the following you consider to be Essential, Desirable, Acceptable, Tolerable or Unacceptable as part of a peace agreement"
Historic Palestine – from the Jordan River to the sea as a national homeland for Palestinians – Essential, 78.2%; Two state solution – two states for two peoples: Israel and Palestine according to UN resolutions – Essential, 17.7%; One joint state – a state in which Israelis and Palestinians are equal citizens between the Jordan River and the sea. – Essential, 9.6%
“With regards to refugees please indicate which of the following options you consider to be Essential, Desirable, Acceptable, Tolerable or Unacceptable as part of a peace agreement”
Right of Return and Compensation – Essential, 85.7%
"With regards to Jerusalem please indicate which of the following options you consider to be Essential, Desirable, Acceptable, Tolerable or Unacceptable as part of a peace agreement"
All of Jerusalem (East and West) should remain in Palestine – Essential, 84.1%
"With regards to Holy sites please indicate which of the following options you consider to be Essential, Desirable, Acceptable, Tolerable or Unacceptable as part of a peace agreement"
East Jerusalem, including holy sites, under Palestinian sovereignty –  Essential, 82.0%

In short, the majority of respondents – like the groupies of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign here in the West, with their chant of “Palestine shall be Free, from the River to the Sea”, want almost all of Eretz Israel and are none too bothered about the rights and status of the Jews within it.

It was a brilliant piece of rebranding on the part of Arafat and cohorts – that decision back in the 1960s to define themselves as Palestinians. It implied a traditional sense of peoplehood and an ownership of the land of Palestine (as the Romans had rebranded Judea) stretching back eons. Never mind that the Arabs of Eretz Israel were not a national entity, that they sojourned on land that belonged to the Turks and were not a sovereign people, that many of them had arrived in Eretz Israel from elsewhere in the region to seek work from Jews making a barren land bountiful. No, never mind those inconvenient though salient facts. The term conveyed the opposite impression, and was a fantastic (in both senses) public relations coup. It’s certainly managed to hoodwink the gullible and those who either won’t learn history or who for reasons best known to themselves refuse to face true facts.

One afternoon last week I logged off from my computer and went for a nice long walk in the sun. It was a “scorcher” of a day, and most people who could get away from work were crowding the nearby beaches and parks. Not so the shrill and fanatical little all-female coven of local Palestine Solidarity Campaign “peace activists” (yeah, right), who in the sweltering heat were at their town-centre post as usual mid-week in and mid-week out, with their Palestinian flags and tee-shirts emblazoned with the Palestinian colours and their printed signs calling for an end to the siege on Gaza. As I passed, a new sign, huge and handmade, pinned alongside their trestle table bearing collecting tins for the convoy – the “mother of all flotillas” – due to leave for Gaza shortly, caught my beady Zionist eye. In large untidy black capitals on a blood-red background it asked, as if accusing both Israel and the world in general, “Whatever happened to Palestine?” I got closer, and saw those familiar maps – that set of four that does yeoman service to the mendacious Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other Israel-demonising organisations – distorting history and depicting the Israelis as ruthless, heartless, lawless land-stealers. And there were the leaflets, which speak of Zionism as a European colonial enterprise.  The true facts of Jewish attachment to the land of Israel are invisible.

That the resettlement of Jews in their ancient homeland has a long history is encapsulated in this letter (printed in the Jewish Chronicle, 16 June 1854) from Rabbi Joseph Schwarz. He had lived in Jerusalem since 1841, being one of the thousands of Jews living in the four sacred cities of the ancient homeland. Such cities, for example Judaism’s second most holy city Hebron, now the largest city in the West Bank, had an unbroken Jewish presence dating back possibly to Biblical, and certainly to medieval, times:

“[T] he land of Israel has been a place of refuge to us in many a trouble, and when the Inquisition of Spain induced the king and queen of Castile, Ferdinand and Isabella, to expel the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, followed, as they soon were, by the King of Portugal, thousands turned their steps to the shores of Palestine, and became the founders of the Portuguese congregations still existing there, and they carried with them as to other parts of Turkey, the language of Spain, which still continues in the vernacular tongue [Ladino]. By degrees other emigrants from Africa, Poland and Germany joined them, and all clung with a holy devotion, amidst every suffering, to the place of the sepulchres of their fathers, a land endeared to every son.”

And not only that. Before the advent of the Jewish agricultural communities in the nineteenth century the land was sparsely populated and underworked. Wrote Schwarz:

“It is not now, as formerly, that the whole land is covered with villages and towns, and every foot of land rendered productive by the industry of man; for the far larger number of towns are totally destroyed, and the land is waste: there are no inhabitants to cultivate it. The terraces on the hills, which produced food in abundance, have been washed away by the winter rains, since the industry of the husbandman has ceased to guard them against destruction; and what land is still productive lies fallow, because of the wandering Bedouin, who loves to reap where he has not sown. Commerce is scarcely known; navigation is not attended to; the mechanic arts are not needed in a country where the inhabitants have few wants as the roving Arabs who now dwell there; wherefore, with all their efforts, it is almost impossible for the few Israelites, who chiefly dwell at Jerusalem, Hebron, Zafed and Tiberias to obtain a livelihood.”

There are many old accounts, by both Jews and Christians, of the sparsity of the population of the Holy Land in the nineteenth century and of the land’s sad decay – and from time to time I’ll include some, making their long-dead authors “guest bloggers”, so to speak.

Jew-baiting at the Western Wall – an historical vignette

Yesterday was marked around the world – by Muslims and anti-Zionists of various stripes carrying pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah placards – as Al-Quds Day, dedicated to liberating Jerusalem from the Israelis – or, as the Iranian satellite news channel Press TV put it last night, demanding an end to “Israel’s 62-year [sic] occupation of Palestine” . The Al Quds Day march in Britain has been described, with good reason, as “the biggest annual Israel hatefest in London” – at yesterday’s ‘"We Are All Hizbolla Now" and "Zionism Equals Racism" were just two of the racist chants. Resistance was provided by a small group of Zionists, a group of Iranian expatriates in London and a group from the EDL. Around 1200 marchers walked from Speakers Corner down Hyde Park Lane, then back up, turning right to congregate in front of the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square (the "Great Satan").”’ For a description and links to other accounts and videos see http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/terrorist-supporters-march-freely-through-london


Al-Quds Day was inaugurated by the late Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, the year he took power in Iran. “I ask all the Muslims of the world and the Muslim governments to join together to sever the hand of this [Israeli] usurper and its supporters,” he declared. “I call on all the Muslims of the world to select as Al-Quds Day the last Friday in the holy month of Ramadan ... and through a ceremony demonstrating the solidarity of Muslims world-wide, announce their support for the legitimate rights of the Muslim people. I ask God Almighty for the victory of the Muslims over the infidels.” On the eve of this year’s Al-Quds Day Ayatollah Khamenei stated: "Israel is a hideous entity In the Middle East which will undoubtedly be annihilated." And yesterday, in Teheran, President Ahmadinejad proclaimed: "If the leaders of the region do not have the guts, then the people of the region are capable of removing the Zionist regime from the world scene" and pronounced the peace talks between Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas as "stillborn and doomed."

Al-Quds Day is intended to demonstrate the importance of Jerusalem in Islam. Now, whatever a final peace settlement regarding Jerusalem may be – and it may well prove that east Jerusalem becomes, as the Palestinians insist, their capital – it is undeniable that while Jerusalem is the third holiest city in Islam, behind Mecca and Medina, Jerusalem is the foremost holy city in Judaism. In the Quran it is mentioned perhaps not at all, whereas in the Tanakh – the Hebrew Bible – it is mentioned almost 350 times, and its alternate name, Zion, a further 108.

Despite the dark centuries of exile there has always a Jewish presence in Jerusalem, and it’s thought that by the mid-1840s there were more Jews there than Muslims, who in turn outnumbered Christians. The following interesting historical vignette, which I discovered in the Jewish Chronicle (7 January 1870), was reprinted from the London Daily Telegraph, whose Holy Land Correspondent had written it. It provides a telling commentary on the status of the Jews in Jerusalem before that city was captured by the British from the tottering Ottoman Empire in 1917. So here it is, without further comment from me:

‘In this clear, bright moisture-free air everything looks so close and near that you fancy you could drop a stone down upon the roofs that lie far away beyond rifle shot and it is only as your eye becomes accustomed to the distance that you take in the grandeur of the city upon which you look. In a semi-circle around you is placed Jerusalem, a city standing in a sort of natural amphitheatre, tier upon tier, row upon row of flat-roofed dome-surmounted houses. The church-like Russian convents, the pseudo-medieval almshouses, the modern stucco and plaster suburb beyond the walls are hidden from view, the horizon is bounded solely by the crest of the hills, along whose summit run the western walls. At your feet is the vast, bare, open space on which once stood the Temple of Solomon – on which now stands the Mosque of Omar. A few Mussulmans [sic] sit smoking gravely under the shadow of the trees planted here and there close beneath the Sacred Shrine; a cripple, whose legs dangle helplessly after him, is crawling on his breast to reach the holy edifice. But, unless you wear the turban, there is no entrance here for either Christian or Jew, without special permission. The ground is too sacred, in the eyes of the Muslim, to be desecrated by the foot of the unbeliever. Beyond the plateau of the mosque, you look down upon the parapets of the eastern walls; beyond them, again, is the dark shadow covered gorge which men call the valley of Jehoshaphat. Higher up, just about the gloom of the valley, are the tombs of Absalom and Hezekiah ... and right in front, above the tombs, towers the Mount of Olives ....

The most impressive memory I shall ever carry away with me from Jerusalem is that of the Jews weeping before the walls of Zion. The Hebrew population is said, in the guide-books, to be about one-third of the whole city.... The Jews of Zion are neither prosperous, active, nor influential; and, as Muslims and Christians, disagreeing in everything else, agree in oppressing the children of Israel, these have a hard time of it in the city of their fathers. No native Jew can enter the precincts of the Temple, where now stands the Mosque of Omar, without the risk of being maltreated and stoned, if his presence is detected by a Mussulman. Once a week, however, and once a week only, the Jews are permitted by the Turks to come and pray at the foot of one of the high stone walls on which the plateau of Solomon’s Temple is supported. The hour of prayer is fixed, whether by chance or irony, upon the Mussulman Sabbath; at that hour the Jews flock to the narrow strip of ground, enclosed beneath high walls, where alone they can pray in public for the coming of the Messiah, and the restoration of the chosen people to the Promised Land. There are a few Rabbis, clad in long fur-lined cloaks and low-crowned velvet caps; but the great bulk of the worshippers are aged men and women of the poorer sort, meanly dressed in coarse woollen stuffs; the men with long grey greasy coats and greasier ringlets, the women with cheap striped cotton petticoats, and white linen hoods bound over their heads. Men and women stand apart, the worshippers, as they each arrive, taking up their station close to the wall, with their faces buried as far as may be in their slits and fissures. All along the line there rises a murmer of wailing cries and sobs. There are few amongst the company who have not Hebrew books of prayer in their hands, out of which they recite long swings of words chanted to a low sing-song tune. From time to time one of the elders reads out a prayer, and at each pause the chorus of men and women join in with a long wailing cry. But, as a rule, it seemed to me, each person prayed after his own fashion, and the voices rose and fell in a constant ebb and flow of sound; but, as worshipper after worshipper turned away slowly from the wall, after kissing it repeatedly, you could see tears running down their wrinkled cheeks.

The Turkish soldiers were lounging on the parapet of the wall above. In former years, they would throw down stones upon the Jews as they stooped in prayer, or insult them with opprobrious names. Now the power of the West is too much dreaded for the Moslem official to venture upon the exhibition of his contempt for the unbeliever. But, amongst the common folk, who have not the terror of the Pasha before their eyes, the old hatred of creed still survives. On the day when I visited the place of wailing, a group of dark-eyed, bold-faced stalwart Arab women sat with their children, in a corner of the pathway whereon the Jews were praying. An old Jewish dame, very feeble, bent, and wrinkled, laid her large hide-bound prayer-book on a stone beside her while she buried her head in a hole in the wall; forthwith one of the Arab girls stole up stealthily and carried off the book in triumph. The old Jewess, when she discovered her loss, begged and prayed for its return, but was told she could not have her book again unless she paid five piastres – about a shilling – to the girl who had stolen it. There was wrangling and whining for ever so long, but the Arab girl stood firm; the Jewish women were afraid to touch her, and at last they made up the sum amongst themselves by odd half-pence, and handed it to the impudent young hussey, who pocketed the coin, and then announced that now she would not return the prayer-book, as she saw the old woman valued it, till she had double the price named.

Seeing that our party were strangers, one of the Jewesses came up to me, and asked me, in German, to help them get the prayer-book back. I volunteered, through my dragoman, to pay the couple of shillings which was needed to redeem the book; but the Arab wench raised her terms again, and stood out for more. Happily, a threat that I would take the old woman to the English Consul – like many other unmeaning menaces in this world of ours – succeeded where persuasion had failed; and the girl, pouring forth a volley of abuse against myself, the Bible, and the Jewish race, raised up the prayer-book into the air, threw it as hard as she could fling right into the midst of the group of Jewesses, and then ran down the hill laughing loudly.'