When they wake in the morning there is great stir, bustle and confusion. As the merchants curse the camel-drivers, they in turn curse and fight each other, and beat the camels. From the noise made one would think that two great armies had met in deadly combat. They slap and beat and kick each other around like madmen—I had almost said “like fiends!” They sometimes put as much on one camel as two or three ought to carry. The poor, faithful brutes can not speak audibly, but as these double burdens are placed upon them, they lie on the ground and bellow in a most pathetic manner. The pitiable cries of the dumb brutes are almost enough to move the surrounding stones to tears, and yet the heartless Arab is untouched. The more the camels bellow, the more their masters beat them with sticks, and prick them with sharp spears. Finally the ships are loaded, and soon you see them strung out across the hills, some going south to Egypt, others going north to Damascus and Beyrout, or east to Palmyra and Bagdad.
As often as one sees a night like this, and especially when one sees it near Dothan (the city of two wells), he thinks of the time when Jacob’s sons stripped Joseph of his coat of many colors, and cast him into the dry pit. And while yet on the plain of Dothan “they lifted up their eyes and beheld a company of Ishmaelites, with camels, going down to Egypt.”
“Then there passed by Midianites, merchant-men, and they drew and lifted Joseph out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, and they brought Joseph into Egypt.” Around me now are many money-loving Mohammedans, many cunning and crafty Jews, who, I think, would willingly sell their younger brothers for twenty pieces of silver, or ten pieces either. Yea, I have seen men in this country, and in my own country, too, who would gladly sell their souls for money. As in Joseph’s day, so in ours, “the love of money is the root of all evil.”
Let us now return to the camp where the merchant-men spent the night. I spoke of the shepherds, of their tents and flocks. The herds, both sheep and goats, of different shepherds have been housed during the night in the same fold. At dawn of day the shepherds awake, and, unlike the thief and robber who climb up over the wall, they enter in by the door. Each shepherd putteth forth his own flock, counting them as they pass slowly out under his rod through the one doorway. As they pass out, the sheep and the goats are separated—the one being turned to the right hand, the other to the left. “Each shepherd calleth his sheep by name and leadeth them out. He goeth before them and his sheep follow him, for they know his voice.” The sheep string one behind another, and as the shepherd, with his sling and leathern pouch filled with stones strapped about his shoulders, with a crook in one hand and a reed pipe in the other, leads his trusting flock out into the “green pastures and beside the still waters,” he makes the welkin ring with his simple, artless melodies. Who could behold a scene like this without thinking of that robust shepherd lad who killed Goliath with his sling, and charmed Saul with his music? Yes, it was among the sheep, here on these purple hills of Judea, that David, the sweet singer of Israel, first learned those Hebrew melodies that have been sung around the world!