noise as of wild beasts let loose, howls of rage and calls to battle. It
was only the dogs. In Jerusalem I had never heard them, as the Jewish hotel
was then well out of the town; it has since been moved nearer in. It is
impossible to convey a sense of the terrifying effect produced by one's
first experience of the night orgies of Oriental dogs, it curdles your
blood to recall it. Seen by daytime, the dogs are harmless enough, as they
go about their scavenger work among the heaps of refuse and filth. But by
night they are howling demons, stampeding about the streets in mad groups,
barking to and at each other, whining piteously one moment, roaring
hoarsely and snapping fiercely another.

The dogs did me one service, they made me get up early. I walked through a
bluish-gray atmosphere. Colors in Judea are bright, yet there is always an
effect as of a thin gauze veil over them. I went, then, into the streets,
and at five o'clock the sun was high, and the bustle of the place had
begun. The air was keen and fresh, and many were already abroad. I saw some
camels start for Jerusalem, laden with straw mats made in Hebron.

Next went some asses carrying poultry for the Holy City, then a family
caravan with its inevitable harem of closely veiled women. Then I saw a man
with tools for hewing stone, camels coming into Hebron, a boy with a large
petroleum can going to fetch water,--they are abandoning the use of the
olden picturesque stone pitchers,--then I saw asses loaded with vine twigs,
one with lime, women with black dresses and long white veils, boys with
bent backs carrying iron stones. I saw, too, some Bethlehemite Christians
hurrying home to the traditional site of the nativity. You can always
distinguish these, for they are the only Christians in Palestine that wear
turbans habitually. And all over the landscape dominated the beautiful
green hills, fresh with the morning dew, a dew so thick that I had what I
had not expected, a real morning bath. I was soaked quite wet by the time I