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 cities and villages of Palestine, so far as appearance is concerned, vary in size merely. The houses of a small village are oftentimes just as closely packed as the buildings in a city, so that a village will look like a fragment knocked off a city. With us Westerners a village may have as much land area as some cities, only the dwellings will be far apart, the difference being in comparative density as well as in size. In Palestine the density is about the same and the difference is in the area. This compactness of the village became a fashion in times of insecurity, when feuds between villages led to raids and reprisals. The village was built as solidly as possible on rising ground. In the middle of the core of original houses was the chief’s house, with a lofty roof from which watch could be kept of all the surrounding country and approaches.^[50] If you wish to trace the growth of a village, inquire for the burj, and probably you will be directed to the highest spot in the village, at least to the highest house, around which the early village clustered. If this be on top of a hill, as is frequently the case, the growing village creeps down the slopes, the roof of one house being the dooryard of the house above it, until the effect of a pyramidal structure of children’s building-blocks results. In troublesome times a watcher on the burj of the village could warn his fellows working in the outlying fields of the approach of an enemy by the firing of a musket or by a shrill cry. All fled to the nest on the height, and a successful attack was difficult against the heavy stone houses and narrow lanes of the village.