The population of Palestine is divided into three parts, desert, village and city. The desert population is the original Arab stock of pastoral nomads.[49] The village population is the agricultural society of the country, and the cities are the meeting places of these two with the population of other countries. The Bedawy population of the desert is the subject of much praise on the part of all writers. All who speak of the Bedawîn use a certain tone of respect, even though occasion is taken to poke fun at them for their rude ways as viewed by the dwellers in towns. The religion of the Bedawîn is a simplified Islâm, or, as it may perhaps be styled, a Moslemized simplicity. The encampment and the march, herding and the raid, mark the features of a roving life over some thousands of square miles of wild land. The different tribes have their general boundaries in the great Syrian and Arabian deserts in about the same way that the North American Indian once kept within certain regions of the continent according to nations. ----- ----- The cities and villages of Palestine, so far as appearance is concerned, vary in size merely. The houses of a small village are oftentimes just as closely packed as the buildings in a city, so that a village will look like a fragment knocked off a city. With us Westerners a village may have as much land area as some cities, only the dwellings will be far apart, the difference being in comparative density as well as in size. In Palestine the density is about the same and the difference is in the area. This compactness of the village became a fashion in times of insecurity, when feuds between villages led to raids and reprisals. The village was built as solidly as possible on rising ground. In the middle of the core of original houses was the chief’s house, with a lofty roof from which watch could be kept of all the surrounding country and approaches.[50] If you wish to trace the growth of a village, inquire for the _burj_, and probably you will be directed to the highest spot in the village, at least to the highest house, around which the early village clustered. If this be on top of a hill, as is frequently the case, the growing village creeps down the slopes, the roof of one house being the dooryard of the house above it, until the effect of a pyramidal structure of children’s building-blocks results. In troublesome times a watcher on the _burj_ of the village could warn his fellows working in the outlying fields of the approach of an enemy by the firing of a musket or by a shrill cry. All fled to the nest on the height, and a successful attack was difficult against the heavy stone houses and narrow lanes of the village. ----- -----