knees; their heads are covered, if Moslems with the moon-shaped tire, if Christians with a gay handkerchief or the hair plaited in long tails. A negress in blue here and there mingles with the crowd, which is chattering, screaming, gossiping, and sometimes fighting.
"The people of the town are remarkable for the gay colouring of their dresses, and the Christian women for their beauty. Many a charming bit of colour, many a shapely figure set off by picturesque costume, many a dark eye and ruddy cheek have I seen in the streets or by the spring. This beauty is peculiar to the Christians of Bethlehem and Nazareth."
Jesus lived at Nazareth until the time arrived for entering upon his public work. The immediate occasion which called him forth from the carpenter's shop was the news that John the Baptist had begun preaching in the wilderness of Judea. The work of the Palestine explorers has thrown important light on the movements and mission stations of John the Baptist.
John appears to have begun his public work at the great ford of the Jordan near Jericho; and there went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea to be baptized. The Jordan at this part is a brown, rapid swirling stream, about 20 yards across, fringed with a jungle of tamarisk and cane and willow, in which the leopard and the wolf find a hiding place. The tradition which says that Jesus was baptized here is at least as old as the fourth century; the Greek and the Latin churches agree in regard to it, and at the present day pilgrims from all churches resort to this spot to bathe in the sacred waters.
Our explorers see no reason to doubt this tradition, and a difficulty which did exist they have been enabled to remove. It is stated in the fourth Gospel (John i. 28), that John was baptizing in Bethabara beyond Jordan, when Jesus came to him; that the Baptist bare testimony to
