One will be pained to miss the spirit of public weal, the commiseration of the unfortunate or the willingness to undertake enterprises that would be for the general good. Absolutism means individualism only relieved by the wonderful tie of kinship and family among the common people.
There is a local Turkish postal service, with offices at all the large centers and in some of the inland villages of importance. Mail destined to points without the empire must bear postage stamps of a different issue from those affixed to domestic matter. The readiest way to distinguish these two issues is to notice that the stamps allowed to go out of the country are provided with the emblem of the crescent at each of the upper corners, while the stamps restricted to domestic use have but one crescent at the top, and that in the middle of the top line.
[Illustration: PRIMITIVE RUG WEAVING (BEDAWIN)]
[Illustration: STRAW MAT AND BASKET MAKING: JIFNA WOMAN]
Besides the Turkish postal facilities there are also, by special rights of extraterritoriality, offices and services by the posts of other countries. At Jerusalem and Jaffa there are Austrian, French, German and Russian post-offices. The Germans have one at Ramleh also. The telegraph service is in charge of the government and connects a number of towns east and west of the Jordan with each other and the outside world. The service is reasonable in price, but precarious in results. I once telegraphed from Beirut to Jerusalem and asked the operator if the message would reach its destination by noon, then several hours away, and was answered, “If God wills.” During the unquiet times in Beirut in the summer of 1903 some one in Jerusalem, anxious concerning friends in the disturbed city, essayed to send the simple inquiry, “Are you well?” but the message was refused at the office. No reference, inquiry or information is ever allowed, officially, concerning any troubles in any part of the empire. Nevertheless, news has a remarkable way of sifting into the country and passing from lip to lip very rapidly. When the Ottoman Bank was dynamited in Salonîka the news quickly reached the ports on the Syrian coasts and went as a rumor all through the country. For some reason or other, messages by telegraph and cable for European and American destinations, and messages from those places, often take three or four days in transmission, and sometimes longer, if, indeed, they “come through” at all.