Friday evening, November 21, some Jaffa Christians sought to flee from their city and come to Râm Allâh, but the Râm Allâh people drove them back with threats and stones. Some of the Râm Allâh people recommended a cordon for all roads about the village, but the poorer inhabitants declared that they could not stand the increased price of living that would ensue. December 3 we heard that some Constantinople physicians had visited Jaffa and declared the disease not cholera but malignant typhoid fever. It made little difference to the generality what they chose to call it. By December 6 cholera was reported at Jericho. It was reported at an end in Ḳubâb but continuing in Jaffa with a very variable death-rate. By the middle of December six thousand deaths had been reported in Gaza. The reports from Jaffa always minified the number of victims. One physician stated that, when the reports said fifteen a day, he knew there were from fifty to seventy a day. It was said that Moslems were evading the government’s orders regarding instant disposal of the corpses and secreting their dead, in order that they might carry out the custom of washing and otherwise preparing the body for burial. Hunger probably played an important part in the death-rate. The outside world never knew the facts. By the middle of January the cholera was announced at Turmus ‛Âyâ, a little south of ancient Shiloh. But the disease had done its worst for the country for that season. The work of Miss Newton in Jaffa and vicinity was very effective and impressed the Moslems greatly. One leading Moslem in Jaffa tried to collect money for the suffering, but met with no very generous response. He exclaimed of this English woman, “Do you mean to tell me that the Moslems, all of them, will go to heaven and this noble young woman will go to hell? Her shoe is purer than their souls.” CHAPTER V RELIGIOUS LIFE IN THE VILLAGE