It has been already mentioned that by far the greater part of the cultivated land is not private, but Government property, either _miri_ or _wakûf_, and that the cultivator is merely the holder. Each district has certain tracts of such lands, and after the rains they are let to the different inhabitants in separate plots. The division is decided by lottery. Herr Schick has given an account of the manner in which this lottery takes place. All those who are desirous of land assemble in the _sāha_ (an open place generally in front of the inns). The Imam, or _khatib_, who is writer, accountant, and general archivist to the whole village, presides over this meeting. The would-be cultivators notify how many ploughs they can muster. If a man has only a half-share in one, he joins another man with a like share. Then the whole number is divided into classes. Supposing the total number of ploughs to be forty, these would be divided into four classes of ten, and each class would choose a Sheikh to represent them. The land of course varies in quality, and this division into classes makes the distribution simpler. Say there are four classes, the land is divided into four equal portions, so that each class may have good as well as bad. When the Sheikhs have agreed that the division is fair, the lots are drawn. Each of the Sheikhs puts some little thing into the _khatib's_ bag. Then the _khatib_ calls out the name of one of the divisions, and some passing child is [p315] made to draw out one of the things from the bag, and to whichever Sheikh it belongs, to this class belongs the division named by the _khatib_. This decided, the Sheikhs have to determine the individual distribution of the land. In the case of ten ploughs to a class, _they do not each receive a tenth piece of the whole, but, in order to make it as fair as possible, the land is divided into strips, so that each portion consists of a collection of strips in different parts of the village lands_. The boundaries are marked by _furrows_ or stones, and to move a neighbour's landmark is still accounted an 'accursed deed,' as in the days of ancient Israel (Deut. xix. 4). . . . _The measure by which the Fellahin divide their land is the feddân. It is decided by the amount which a man with a yoke of oxen can plough per day, and is therefore a most uncertain measure._ «Was it so on the Roman tithe lands?» This description of the mode in which public land in Palestine is often let to individual tenants or to whole villages at a rent of a tenth of the produce, and further, the picture it gives of the cultivation of the land let to a village by those villagers who supply oxen for the ploughing on an open-field system so like that of Western Europe, at least may suggest the possibility of a somewhat similar system having been adopted in the management of the tithe lands of the 'Agri Decumates.'