When the grapes have all been picked from a vineyard the sheep and goats[153] are turned in to eat the leaves from the vines. The flocks are allowed to feed in the wheat and barley-fields, also, after the harvest. Goats and sheep are very often seen together in flocks.[154] Their keepers, who are their inseparable companions through the day, take care to secure safe folds for them at night. A party of us were at Teḳûa on the 30th of December, 1902. After examining the ruins we turned our attention to the modern aspect of the place. The caves and recesses about the ruins were used by shepherds, who were living there and caring for large flocks. As the sheep and goats came home late in the afternoon, the little lambs and kids, whose tender days forbade their accompanying their mothers to pasture, were hungrily awaiting them. There were about sixty of these young ones skipping about. When the plaintive cries of the little ones were answered by the motherly calls of the returning elders there was considerable excitement and motion on both sides, until by some mysteriously hidden sense families were united and all was quiet again as supper progressed. A few days later, on our way in from Mâr Sâbâ, we saw the newborn of the flocks in the desert places where animals were browsing. The shepherd usually carries the newly-born in from the fields.[155] Very rarely is one missed. Once, in the valley called Wâdy el-‛Ayn, between eṭ-Ṭayyibeh and Dayr Dîwân, I traced a little kid by its bleat, and seeing no flock about carried it home in my saddle-bags, hoping to rear it; but, missing the peculiar quality of the new milk of its mother, it did not survive many hours. Sometimes, in order to curb the inordinate appetite of a young kid for the milk, the shepherd puts a little bit in its mouth, made by two pencil-like sticks and secures the ends by cords crisscrossed over the sprouting horns. ----- [Illustration: THRESHING] [Illustration: A THRESHING SCENE IN THE OLD POOL AT BETHEL] The sheep of Palestine have immense tails, which often weigh fifteen pounds and more. In the Lebanon this weight is doubled on the sheep that are specially fattened for the winter supply of meat. These sheep, called _ma‛lûf_, are fed on the remains of the mulberry leaves not devoured by the silkworms. As the worms eat only the tender parts of the leaves, the sheep are given what is left. When the animal is so surfeited as to refuse more food, an attendant makes it her business to roll it up in leaves and force it into the unwilling creature’s mouth. The sheep attains an almost incredible size under this treatment.