The camp awakens in the midst of corn and red poppies; it is daybreak, the hour of the first resounding call of the muezzins and the hour the shepherds set out. Close by, behind the cactus hedges and the walls, the minarets and the little domes of Jenin appear; we shall move on without even walking through its streets.

Thousands of goats with their kids leave the town, slowly bleating, so pressed together that you would think it is a river spreading over the countryside. Within the black flow of the animals, the tall figure of a shepherd stands here and there, each one with his garment blue, yellow or pink and his head covered in a headdress held in place by a broad woollen band. This is the entrance to Galilee. Tonight, we shall sleep in Nazareth which remains hidden in the folds of indistinct mountains, yonder beyond the green expanse of the plain of Esdraelon.

Firstly, we must cross this level plain unfolding endlessly before us. For five hours on end, we move forward, at a walk or a canter, through barley and corn, the very fields of the Promised Land, watching the mountains as they approach, seeming to form the other shore of the green sea. We meet Arabs on the way, some on foot, others on donkeys or on horseback. If they think we are Christians, they say, ‘Naraksai!’; most often, if they think we are Muslims, they say, ‘As-salaam alaikum!’

Here and there on small hilltops which emerge from a level expanse like islands, live those who work these fertile fields. As far as possible, they have perched their old domed houses like this. The exterior walls stand together in the shape of a rampart, protected moreover by cactus hedges. Age-old mistrust and the continual necessity to defend themselves against the attacks of the neighbouring bedouins can be seen in the arrangement of each group. All the villages are the same. At the entrance, the women and girls are always at the washhouse; for the most part too, there is a Christian sarcophagus from early

times, violated, the cross defaced, serving as a cattle water trough. Everywhere around, lie fetid horse and camel carcasses, where jackals gather every night, making these human nests look like the dens of wild animals.