[Footnote 9: Cemetery.]

Another impression which the visitor will receive is the curiously
Biblical character of their life, which constantly suggests the Old
Testament stories; the shepherds watching their flocks, ring-streaked
and speckled; the cattle ploughing in the fields; the women grinding
at the handmill, or grouped about the village well, all recall
incidents in the lives of Isaac and Rebekah, and episodes of
patriarchal times. Their salutations and modes of speech are also
Biblical, and lend a touch of poetry to their lives. "Turn in, my
lord, turn in to me," was Jael's greeting to flying Sisera, and
straight-way she prepared for him "butter in a lordly dish." So to-day
hospitality is one of their cardinal virtues, and I have myself been
chased by a horseman who rebuked me for having passed his home without
refreshment.

Steam-pumps, cotton-mills, and railways may have slightly altered the
aspect of the country, but to all intents and purposes, in habit of
thought and speech, in costume and customs, the people remain to-day
much as they were in those remote times pictured in the Book of
Genesis.

Fresh fruit or coffee is frequently proffered to the traveller on
his way, while his welcome at a village or the house of some landed
proprietor is always sure. On approaching a village, which is often
surrounded by dense groves of date-palms, the traveller will be met by
the head men, who, with many salaams, conduct him to the village
"mandareh," or rest-house, and it is only as such a guest, resident in
a village, that one can form any idea of the home-life of the people.