before me, and there was nothing left but modern Cabbalistic literature.
The other synagogue is small, and very bare of ornament. The Rabbi was
seated there, "learning," with great Tefillin and Tallith on--a fine,
simple, benevolent soul. To my surprise he spoke English, and turned out to
be none other than Rachmim Joseph Franco, who, as long ago as 1851, when
the earthquake devastated the Jewish quarter, had been sent from Rhodes to
collect relief funds. He was very ailing, and I could not have a long
conversation with him, but he told me that he had known my father, who was
then a boy, in London. Then I entered a typical Jewish dwelling of the
poor. It consisted of a single room, opening on to the dark street, and had
a tiny barred window at the other side. On the left was a broad bed, on the
right a rude cooking stove and a big water pitcher. There was nothing else
in the room, except a deep stagnant mud pool, which filled the centre of
the floor.

Next door they were baking Matzoth in an oven fed by a wood fire. It was a
few days before Passover. The Matzoth were coarse, and had none of the
little holes with which we are familiar. So through streets within streets,
dirt within dirt, room over room, in hopeless intricacy. Then we were
brought to a standstill, a man was coming down the street with a bundle of
wood, and we had to wait till he had gone by, the streets being too narrow
for two persons to pass each other. Another street was impassable for a
different reason, there was quite a river of flowing mud, knee deep. I
asked for a boat, but a man standing by hoisted me on his shoulders, and
carried me across, himself wading through it with the same unconcern as the
boys and girls were wallowing in it, playing and amusing themselves. How
alike children are all the world over!

And yet, with it all, Hebron is a healthy place. There is little of the
intermittent fever prevalent in other parts of Palestine; illness is