The Innocents Abroad

Chapter 47

We traversed some miles of desolate country whose soil is rich enough,

but is given over wholly to weeds--a silent, mournful expanse, wherein we

saw only three persons--Arabs, with nothing on but a long coarse shirt

like the "tow-linen" shirts which used to form the only summer garment of

little n***o boys on Southern plantations. Shepherds they were, and they

charmed their flocks with the traditional shepherd's pipe--a reed

instrument that made music as exquisitely infernal as these same Arabs

create when they sing.

In their pipes lingered no echo of the wonderful music the shepherd

forefathers heard in the Plains of Bethlehem what time the angels sang

"Peace on earth, good will to men."

Part of the ground we came over was not ground at all, but

rocks--cream-colored rocks, wor