Camel caravan on Mount of Olives, 1925-46

“The camels of loaded caravans are usually fastened one behind another in single file, and thus make one deep track or footpath; but in the Haj and in a small party like ours, they are left to choose their own way, and seldom follow each other in line; so that many parallel tracks are thus formed” –Edward Robinson and Eli Smith, Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petrea (1841): 1:60.

“The first time I came up this road from Jaffa, many years ago, midway between Upper Beth-horon and el Jîb, in the narrowest and most difficult part of the pass I encountered a long and straggling drove of camels—more than five hundred—which Ibrahim Pasha had bought from the Arabs east of the Jordan, in order to transport provisions and war material for his army. Though I have since seen many thousand camels in one caravan of the Wuld ‘Aly—some said fifty thousand—that sight did not affect my imagination to an equal degree. Those five hundred loose camels, with their Bedawin drivers shouting to them at the top of their voices, came lunging and plunging down the rocky path in wild confusion; and my terrified horse becoming quite unmanageable, rushed away amongst the rocks, to the no slight danger of breaking his own neck and that of his rider” –William M. Thomson, The Land and the Book (1882): 2:73.

The photo and quotations are taken from the Traditional Life and Customs volume of The American 
Colony and Eric Matson Collection (Library of Congress, LC-matpc-04570).

My home is decorated with photos from the Middle East, arranged by geographical region or theme. 

One of the photos my wife chose to put in the laundry area is this one.

Date of Photograph: Early 1900s

“Dirty clothes are generally carried to the nearest running water; sometimes this is far from the village, and where there are only wells, water must be drawn; but seldom are things washed with warm water” –Philip Baldensperger, “Women in the East,” Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement (1901): 75.

The photo and quotation are taken from the Traditional Life and Customs volume of The American Colony and Eric Matson Collection (Library of Congress, LC-matpc-05312).

Threshing floor, early 1900s

“The threshing-floor is a flat place in the neighbourhood of the village. If possible, a rocky place is chosen, so that it may be easily swept. Where this is not obtainable, a hard, flat piece of ground is made to answer the purpose. The floor is common property, but each thresher keeps to a certain part of it. For four months the Fellah has nothing to fear from rain or bad weather. During that time he almost lives at the beiyâdir (threshing-floor) and some of the villages are nearly deserted, at least by the men. The wheat, &c., is spread out, and the oxen and asses are driven round so many hours a-day to tread out the grain with their hoofs, at the same time treading and softening the straw so that it becomes fit for fodder. This straw is called tibn, bundles of ordinary straw and stubble they call kash.

The animals as a rule are not muzzled” –F. A. Klein, “Life, Habits and Customs of the Fellahin of Palestine,” Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement (1883): 41-48.

“Do you suppose that these floors which we see at Yebna and elsewhere resemble those so celebrated in ancient times? They have, perhaps, changed less than almost anything else in the country. Every agricultural village and town in the land has them, and many of them are more ancient than the places whose inhabitants now use them. They have been just where they are, and exactly as they were, from a period ‘to which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.’” –William M. Thomson, The Land and the Book (1880): 1:149-51.

The photo and quotations are taken from the Traditional Life and Customs volume of The American Colony and Eric Matson Collection (Library of Congress, LC-matpc-10182).

Native village in early 1900s

“The most important and most frequented portion of the house next to the reception-room is the roof.

The roof is made in various ways. Mr. Haddad speaks of a common way in Syria, to lay beams across from one side to the other of the walls, then a mat of reeds on the top of these beams, then some bushes of a thorn, and finally, a coating of clay or earth, and scatter sand and pebbles on the top of the earth, then they roll it with a roller of stone, to make it compact, so that the rain will not run through.

Sometimes a little space three or four feet square is cut in the roof, with separate pieces, made like the rest of the roof, or covered with mat or tiling, which can be taken up when desired. It might have been such a place in the roof that was used in letting down the paralytic on his rug or quilt, which would be the only bed an Oriental in such condition would be likely to have.

These roofs are flat, and the terraces or parapets around them are low, and made of dried bricks, or stone, just like the wall. If a higher terrace is required, it is made of lattice-work to screen the women of the household. In summer the people of Palestine, Egypt, and Mesopotamia usually sleep upon the housetops. The servants sleep on bedding or the ground in the court below. The very poor people often sleep in the streets, the open squares, the market-places, and courts, rolling themselves in a coverlet, a rug, or their outer garments, and screening their faces.

Many occupations are carried on upon the roof. Here the wheat is washed and spread to dry, the flax is prepared, and vegetables and fruits to be stored in winter; wool and cotton when washed is spread out upon the roof, clothes are hung there to be dried; as now, so has it been of old” –Edwin Wilbur Rice, Orientalism in Bible Lands (1910): 249.

The photo and quotation are taken from the Traditional Life and Customs volume of The American Colony and Eric Matson Collection (Library of Congress, LC-matpc-06851).

John Whiting described the capture of locusts in “Jerusalem’s Locust Plague,” published in National Geographic in 1915:

“The fighters now made two long lines, one on each side of the trap. To noise and racket the locusts seemed only to turn a deaf ear; but a large flag—the darker the better—with which to cast a deep shadow upon the ground, proved to be the most formidable tool one could employ to make them move in the desired direction; in fact, countless numbers could thus be guided and held in check if one but anticipated the general direction they wished to go.”

“In their path was sunk a bottomless box, the inside lined with shining tin, up which the locusts could not crawl, while on each side a wing was provided, similarly prepared with a smooth metal face, with the object of directing them into the box.”

“Once, however, they made in the right direction, they jumped, hundreds at a time, into this death trap. . . . Thus in about an hour’s time four large sacks full were caught and destroyed each containing no less than 100,000 of these insects” (535-36).

Locusts crawling on overseer’s trousers, 1930

“Whenever touched, or especially when finding themselves caught within one’s clothes, they exuded from their mouth a dark fluid, an irritant to the skin and soiling the garments in a most disgusting manner. Imagine the feeling (we speak from experience) with a dozen or two such creatures over an inch long, with sawlike legs and rough bodies, making a race-course of your back!” (533).

The photos and quotations are taken from an extraordinary collection of 80 photographs of locust plagues that occurred in Palestine in the early 1900s, now published on the Traditional Life and Customs volume of The American Colony and Eric Matson Collection (Library of Congress, LC-matpc-01912 and LC-matpc-02938).

“The principal ceremonies with wedding are the processions of the bride and bridegroom through the street, accompanied by their friends. The procession of the dower is also accompanied by a band of women, singing, clapping the hands, and uttering shrill cries; but the bride’s fortune among the peasantry is necessarily small, and, as in Italy, a single chest on a mule conveys the whole trousseau”
–C. R. Conder, Tent Work in Palestine (1878): 2:249.

The photo and quotation are taken from the Traditional Life and Customs volume of The American Colony and Eric Matson Collection (Library of Congress, LC-matpc-01300).