In our rides to and from Cæsarea, we constantly had reason to admire the faint, harmonious colouring of the wild flowers on the untilled plain. Cæsarea was surrounded by fields of the yellow marigold, which produced a bad kind of hay-fever, and gilded our legs in riding. Ancient ruins in Palestine are, in spring, easily distinguished, by the growth of this plant, and of the marsh-mallow. Other flowers were also conspicuous--the red pheasant's eye, in some cases as big as a poppy; blue pimpernels, moon-daisies, the lovely phlox, gladioles, and huge hollyhocks. Swarms of "painted-ladyâ butterflies fluttered over the mallows; the hoopoes had just arrived, and were fanning their crests up and down in the oak boughs; the storks were solemnly marching over the plain; and the air was full of the white-footed lesser kestrel, also a migratory bird.
Early in April the corn was ripening under the oaks; but a great portion of the plain is covered with marshes, among which the Ghawarni Arabs, who are almost independent, have their camps. The tracks through the boggy land are known only by themselves, and the government is thus unable to do more than inflict a poll-tax on them. Here the shaggy brown buffaloes might often be seen sunk, like hippopotami, in the deep, muddy stream, the nose and horns only visible--for the peculiar set of the neck allows the head to be extended quite horizontally, the nose, ears, and eyes in line, as in the hippopotamus.
We made diligent inquiry as to the crocodiles, and visited Abu Nûr, the miller on the river. He took us up a ladder into the loft above the mill, where we sat in state on carpets, as he prepared coffee, our eyes blinded with wood-smoke, and our ears deafened with the whirl of the mill-wheel. The old man promised to do all in his power--"Inshallah,â he would get us a crocodile. He also criticised my riding-whip, which he pronounced good, but not equal to one he had seen, which could also be used as a chair and umbrella, with a sword-blade inside.
The Arabs and Turkomans of the plain are rich in flocks and herds. Long lines of the Syrian fat-tailed sheep, black goats, and small red oxen covered the plain. The rich people in the hills had sent down their horses for spring grazing, and camps were pitched, round which forty or fifty fine horses were picketed, feeding on the grass and flowers. Here also I noticed the peculiar fashion of sewing the ears of donkey colts together, to make them stand up, and of splitting the cows' ears, so that they appear to have two pairs of horns as well as ears.