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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Though it is not always the case, yet the greater number of Syrian cities and villages seek hilly sites.^[33] The ports cannot always do this, though Jaffa does. Damascus spreads out over a low flat area. Ramleh and Ludd, being plain dwellers, must live in lowlands. But defense is very commonly sought by settling on the sides or top of a hill and building the houses close together, if not one above another, as if in steps.

Garden plots and vineyards are fenced in with hastily-constructed walls of the loose stone picked up on the inside.^[34] Between these curving walls run sinuous lanes^[35] into the villages from the paths and roads outside.

It would be very easy to make a pocket-edition of a book of all the roads in the country, no matter how small the pocket. Some roads are planned for, taxed for and looked for a great many years before the semblance of road-making begins. But never mind that; Orientals enjoy a road in prospect and in retrospect much longer than in fact. Where the government does put through a road it is usually good traveling. The highlands afford the best of road-making materials and, if often enough repaired, no better roads could be asked for. Many carriageways are over favoring bits of country where the frequent passing has marked out the only road. The Romans were the greatest road-makers in Palestine. The remains of their work may even now be seen in various places. Many of their old roads are indicated on the best maps. Roman roads at this day of decay do not, as a rule, offer easy travel. The washings of a millennium or two of rain have made them of the corduroy order.