These magnificent groves are the largest in Palestine. They are said to have been planted by the Greeks, and it is asserted that at all events since the coming of the Saracens some seven hundred years back, not a single new tree has been planted. Most of the trees stand on huge roots, and have evidently sprung up from the remains of former trunks rotted away. Lentils are a common crop. Gaza trades with an excellent quality of barley to Egypt. Consequently, wealth increases, but the population, being still in a low state of civilisation, live poorly. Even the well-to-do have as a daily meal "fûl" (beans) with an onion, and a piece of roughly ground barley bread. Meat is not wanted. The luxuriance of the gardens and orchards, remarkable for the scarlet blossoms of the pomegranates, and the enormous oranges which gild the green foliage of their groves, is due to the abundance of water, drawn from twenty wells of fresh water bursting from the sandy soil--some of them are not less that 150 feet deep. The natives greatly prize the quality of the water. Good water is, indeed, plentiful at greater or less depth over all the district, even on the sea-shore, though the frequency of rubble cisterns to the south and east show that in ancient times the inhabitants depended largely on artificial supply. Gaza and Ascalon have always been noted for their wells.[47] In and about the Gaza olive-groves, several birds familiar in Great Britain abound. There are English sparrows, swallows, buntings, goldfinches, black redstarts, chaffinches, stonechats, willow-wrens, chiff-chaffs, blackbirds, and hooded crows. Other birds seen are Egyptian kites, buzzards (common species), "boomey" or little southern owl, red-breasted Cairo swallows, pelicans, dunlins, calandra and crested larks, bulbuls, pied-chats, and Menetrie's wheatear. Frequently dogs with unmistakable traces of jackal parentage are seen. It is by no means uncommon for these vagrant animals to interbreed along this part of the Mediterranean seaboard. At the risk of some repetitions, I have gladly availed myself of the opportunity of making use of a few details published in the late Annual Reports by Mr. A. A. Knesevich, H.B.M. Consular Agent at Gaza. During my first visit to Gaza, in July 1891, my tent was pitched in the Muslim cemetery, which stretches over a wide space on the west of the city. The graves are generally covered by a small erection of mud-brick, plastered over and whitewashed. The cemetery is not enclosed by any fence. FOOTNOTES: [46] The palm is the tree of the desert. It grows luxuriantly not only in the rich soil of Egypt, but in the sandy borders at Gaza. [47] It is remarkable that both the two celebrated early Palestinian wells noted in the old Testament are still in existence: (1) Abraham's well at Beersheba (Gen. xxi. 30); and (2) the well of Bethlehem, for whose water David thirsted (1 Chron. xi. 17). CHAPTER XXI