‘A JOURNEY IN THE EAST’ 341 
and real Jews, attired in the old costume. There was, how- 
ever, a good deal of the vagabond about them, and they 
appeared to live by shooting partridges. One of them spoke 
French well, and seemed to have sporting dealings with many 
of the Bedouin tribes, for he promised to arrange an Ibex 
hunt for us and to procure us some of these animals alive. 
He was a Christian, like all the inhabitants of Bethlehem, 
and had fought bravely in the French army against the 
Germans, for M. de Lesseps, when travelling in Palestine, 
came across him and carried him off as a servant to France. 
There he entered the ranks of the army which was marching 
to the Rhine, took part in the campaign of 1870, and came 
home again soon after the conclusion of peace to shoot 
partridges as before. 
With these men Hoyos and I went out for an afternoon 
ramble over the ground close at hand, and while walking 
along the valley in an easterly direction we came across some 
delightfully picturesquely-clad shepherds with their flocks. 
Surely those shepherds who were the first to worship at the 
manger of the Son of God must have looked just like these 
men, who were now wandering about the hillsides with their 
goats, singing their monotonous songs. 
Here the hills were higher and steeper, but less stony, and 
were quite covered with yellowish grass, while there was 
already a perceptible difference in the flora. Betsahur is the 
last village in this direction, and with the beginning of the 
grey-green mountains and the Jordan vegetation the ter- 
ritory of the Bedouin tribes is reached, where certain 
precautions must be taken. 
Some partridges were seen and heard as we clambered 
about the hills, but the few that we came across in the 
neighbourhood of Bethlehem were so shy that getting near them 
was quite out of the question; so we beat back over some hills 
towards the village with our local sportsmen, and on nearing 
