cloth on the ground.

=Baking bread.=--After the wheat is ground into flour there is bread
to be baked. On the plains they do not use much yeast-bread, for this
requires an oven for baking and one cannot carry heavy ovens from camp
to camp. But in Canaan each family has its oven. It is made of baked
clay and looks like a section of tiling standing on end, about two
feet high, the clay being about an inch and a half thick. There is a
cover of the same material. Sometimes the fire is made on the inside
and the loaves of dough plastered on the outside. More often the
loaves are placed on a baking tray, let down on the inside of the
oven, and the fire built all around and over it outside.

All sorts of fuel are used. Wood is the best, of course, but in that
land wood has always been scarce. In the times of the Hebrews, as
to-day, dried manure, straw, and all sorts of refuse were used. Jesus
speaks of the grass of the field, "which to-day is, and to-morrow is
cast into the oven."

=Baking day.=--To-day, while we are visiting, our Hebrew hostess is
kneading some dough. She "set it" last night, pouring in some liquid
yeast. By and by it is ready for baking. A tray of small loaves about
the size of biscuits is placed in the oven, and a great pile of dried
grass placed around the sides and over the cover. By and by the fire
is lighted from some coals on the hearth; and in a few moments the
house is filled with smoke. We all go out on the street until the oven
is heated and the smoke has escaped.


WEAVING WOOL AND FLAX