<A JOURNEY IN THE EAST: 341 



and real Jews, attired in the old costume. There was, how- 

 ever, a good deal of the vagabond ahotit 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 



