About two weeks have passed since first the cocoon commenced to be reeled; the silk is now ready for the market, and is hanging out in golden festoons to dry thoroughly before it is packed. The old baskets are once again brought into play, but they are this time all alive with fluttering white velvet-like moths; they never fly. Their enjoyment of life is very brief indeed; the male moth dies within twenty hours of its birth; the female is then placed on fine linen rags, where, in the course of the day it will deposit from 100 to 500 eggs, which are left in the air for a short time, and then put into linen bags and hung from the beam in the centre of the house, or sent to the mountain to await another year. The silk season ends just as the heat of June sets in.
Having watched the whole process of the fellah throughout the silk season, we will continue to follow him to the close of the year. The silk being weighed and given to the women to make into hanks, and provision made for the future brood of worms, I will call my reader’s attention to the wheat harvest. The labours of the peasantry will now be of a severer nature than hitherto; he has to toil under the scorching rays of the sun, whose beams, at least in some parts of Syria and Palestine, are far more powerful than those ever endured by English reapers; consequently the fellah is compelled to desist from his occupation from mid-day till about two o’clock in the afternoon. During this portion of the day, scarcely a breath of air stirs, not a leaf is ruffled; even the many-coloured and beautiful butterflies lazily flutter from flower to flower seeking shade beneath the petals of the Damascene rose; all is perfectly still, and the peasants take their wonted siesta. However great may be the inconvenience of the intense heat, yet it is wholly balanced by the benefits which accrue from the excellent climate with which this country is blest. The farmer in Syria has little cause of apprehension from sudden storms or showers, so that the harvest is gathered in, receiving no injury from those changes of weather, to which it is subject in less genial latitudes. The corn being reaped by the fellahs, the damsels, even as in the time of Ruth, follow, gathering the ears and binding them in sheaves; after leaving them for a short time to dry, they are carried to a part of the field called _baiedar_, which has been levelled and swept clear to receive them. A rude machine, constructed of oaken planks with stones fixed in holes drilled on the under side, is placed on the now scattered sheaves; on this a youth sits or stands to drive the oxen round and round, which have been harnessed to it. This process separates the grain from the husk; it has next to be winnowed, and for this purpose is collected in heaps; the corn, by means of a wooden shovel, is thrown up in the air, when the delightful and cool breezes of evening waft the chaff to the winds. The reaping, threshing, and winnowing, being now completed, the wheat intended for domestic consumption, is stored in wells, constructed expressly for this purpose, whilst that which is for agricultural uses, is placed in enormous jars, of from five to fifteen feet in height, and of proportionate diameter.