Es Salt is built on the three sides of hills which top the town. Roughly speaking there are 12,000+ Mohammedans and 4,800 Christians of various sects. The Greek Orthodox are the original Chriatians and number about 3,000;. Roman Catholics number 850, Greek Catholics 600 and Protestants 4,000. The Church Mis: sionary Society has a small hospital with day schools for boys and girls. This is the only Anglican cffont for the evangelization of Mohammedans on the east side of the Jordan.
Arabs are not poor and pay well for treatment and some of them possess gold sovereigns. Their treatment of women leaves much to: be desired. A young married girl received burns on the front of her body and was doing very ell under our treatment. It promised to be a long case, so her husband' took her away or rather asked her mother to take the girl home, as he said it would be cheaper for him to get another wife A father brought his son to be operated on for stone. They had travelled a long way and were consequently hard-up. so an ostrich egg was presented in lien of a fee, When handing it to the doctor, he said, "Tf you take it and it is more than enough may God forgive you."
The Hedjaz railway runs from Damascus right down to Medina touching at Amman. an important town 20 miles southeast of Es Salt, thus the chief trade goes to mon-
Tue Rasen Hanvest.
Ihave mentioned that the chief exports are raisins and barley: The local grapes posses such thin skin that they won't bear ex-nort so they become raisins. The bunches have a few very small grapes which are picked and dried and are known to us as Sultana raisins The grapes grow on stumpy little trees with branches ailing along the ground and for miles and miles you see nothing but vines. Whole families share in this pleasing task and they look forward to spending 10 weeks in the open air by day and bivouaching beneath open booths by night. "Faces become clearer and bodies fatter" they say, and they regard it as a most healthy occupation and claim a general toni effect due to good air and a liberal diet of bread and grapes.
The method in vogue for preparing the dried fruit is a simple one. To olive oil is added some water in which the burnt ashes of oak swaed and leaves have been soaked 5 these give up their potash salts to the water and when mixed swith olive oil a soapy fluid results. Into this emulsion each ripe bunch of grapes is plunged and then laid on the rocks or clay to dry. The scorching sun completes the process. Possibly the oil prevents the thin skins from cracking whilst the potash is a preservative.
As regards education 2 hopeful feature of the Christian work here is that Moslems send their children to the schools, their motive being
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.