The women of Bethlehem are known throughout Palestine for their peculiar headdress. Over a high cap is thrown a large white kerchief or veil, which falls behind the shoulders and often reaches below the waist. Seen from behind, the Bethlehemite woman is a square of blue skirt, topped by a tall triangle of white; from the front she looks like a nun of some unfamiliar order. It is a singular costume, but you soon come to like it, and when the clean, white headdress is seen in the distance, it is pleasant to be able to recognize its wearer as a woman of Bethlehem. As we pass one little company after another, we cannot help looking rather closely to see what kind of women these are who are coming out from the town of Ruth and of Mary. [Illustration: BETHLEHEM GIRLS] Outside of poetical romances, one does not find many examples of Oriental beauty. There are multitudes of pretty children, and the girls of twelve or fourteen have large, soft eyes, regular features and graceful figures; but early marriages and the subsequent drudgery, combined with a lack of proper dentistry, usually turn them into toothless, wrinkled hags at an age when they should be most attractive. There are exceptions among the richer classes and among girls who have been educated in schools connected with European or American missions; but on the whole there are very few fine-looking women over twenty-five years old to be found in Palestine. We are therefore surprised to notice that many of these Bethlehem women are really handsome; not with the rich, voluptuous beauty which is usually associated with the East, but with a matronly dignity which appeals more strongly to our Western eyes. We enjoy watching that young mother who is carrying the baby upon her shoulder; she is such a straight, slender woman, with clean-cut features and honest eyes. We like the old woman beside her; an old woman who looks like a grandmother, not like a withered witch, and who carries herself with a dignity that wins our admiration. It may be due to nothing more than good food and pure water, or to the great headdresses which make it necessary to stand so erect; but whatever the cause, it seems to us that not even in Nazareth have we seen so many self-respecting, motherly-looking women as in this town which once witnessed the apotheosis of motherhood. As we stroll along the well-paved road, we pass one spot after another which is not only connected by tradition with the sacred history, but which has been noted by such a long succession of pious pilgrims that even the most trivial fables seem to bind us more closely with the innumerable throng which for nineteen centuries has been treading with reverent feet this ancient highway to the birthplace of our Lord.