The dry season is more in keeping with its name throughout its control of nearly seven months, although rain in May has been experienced and a _slip_ in one of the summer months is not unknown. At the end of September or at the beginning of October a slight shower is expected. One scarcely expects rain, however, until well into November. Despite the very hot days in the dry summer season, the nights in the Palestine highlands are generally cool. The Syrian sun is a synonym for piercing, intense heat, and foreigners are more apt to be thoughtless of its power than to overdo caution. During the midsummer months it is hard to take photographs except very early or very late, or with very slow-acting lenses and plates. Then, too, the poorest light for distant views may be in summer, when the intense heat fills the air with a haze. Those who have seen the dead, brown look that comes on a district of country which has suffered an unusual period of drought may partly imagine the appearance of Palestine after a six months’ absence of rain unrelieved except for the night-mists that may prevail during some of that time.
After the drought the peasant, like the country, is pantingly ready for the first rains of the autumn. He never hesitates to choose between rain and sunshine. It is always the former. Even if rain comes in destructive abundance he has only to think of the terrors of a scanty rainfall to repress all complaints. As we say in a complimentary way to a guest, “You have brought pleasant weather,” so the Syrian will say, “Your foot is green,” that is, “Your coming is accompanied by the benedictions of rain.” Rains usually begin with an appearance of reluctance,[19] but sometime in November or December they ought to come down heavily for most of a fortnight. Sometimes there are several weeks of delightfully balmy weather between the drenching rains. During an unusually dry winter, when the rainfall is below twenty inches, much of the winter will be pleasant, at the expense of the crops and of the general welfare. At such times the price of wheat goes up and the scantily supplied cisterns give no promise of holding out through the succeeding summer. Springs dry down until the best of them offer but a tiny stream, and hours must be spent at some of the fountains to fill a few jars. Much of January is apt to be rainy. February is strange and fickle, and because it is especially trying to the vital forces of the aged and weak is called Old Woman’s Month. We remember a very pleasant February, but such are rare. Honest March is pretty much its boisterous self even in Palestine. April is sunny and a charming month for a journey. If the latter rains have been delayed they may come even in April, though that is late. But the needed rain has been known to come as late as middle May, with unusually cold weather. Then the peasants deemed such weather portentous.[20] The latter rains—how familiar a phrase to the ears of many who may not know just why they are so called![21] The downpour of November or December washed out the ground, made the heat flee, brought back health to the succulent plants, hastened the ripening of the oranges and did pretty well for the cisterns, but this latter rain is the key of the situation. If it does not come, wheat may sell at famine prices and all the pains of a drought take hold of the land.[22] But if it only will come, then wealth and comfort and a healthy summer.[23]