Читать книгу The People of Palestine. An enlarged edition of "The Peasantry of Palestine, Life, Manners and Customs of the Village" онлайн

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The only ponds in the country are the winter ponds called by the native name, balû‛a. These are formed by the winter rains. They stand for about five months in low places, and then disappear until the next rainy season.^[7] Robinson, in 1838, passed by one of these on his way from el-Bîreh to Jifnâ. As his journey that way was on June 13, the pond was then dry. But this same pond may now be seen every winter and spring full of water. The new carriage road cuts the eastern end of it at a point a little over a mile north of el-Bîreh. Another of these ponds may be seen just under the village of Baytûnyeh, towards Râm Allâh. Were it not for such short-lived ponds many of the country people would have little idea of any body of water larger than a rainwater cistern. The Dead Sea may be seen from the high hills to the east of these ponds and the Mediterranean from those to the west, but only a small proportion of the peasantry ever get to see either one of them. A distant view gives the unexperienced no adequate notion of their size. People living in Jaffa, on the sea, have been known to poke fun at the upland folk and bewilder them with yarns about the sea. One story that they impose on the credulous countryman is that every night, at dark, a cover is put over the sea, as one would cover over a jar of water, or a bowl of dough. One man, on reaching Jaffa late in the afternoon for his first visit, hastened down to the beach in order to see the water before the cover should be put on for the night. Perhaps the best known winter ponds are in the extensive sunken meadows of the Plain of Esdraelon, athwart the way from Jenîn to Nazareth.