People complained that they were badly governed, which merely meant that they were left to their devices save on great occasions.

A Government which touches every individual and interferes with him to some extent in daily life, though much esteemed by Europeans, seems intolerable to the Oriental.

I had a vision of the tortured peoples of the earth impelled by their own misery to desolate the happy peoples, a vision which grew clearer in the after years.
But in that easy-going Eastern life there is a power of resistance, as everybody knows who tries to change it, which may yet defeat the hosts of joyless drudgery.
My Syrian friend--the Suleyman of the following sketches--introduced me to the only Europeans who espoused that life--a French Alsatian family, the Baldenspergers, renowned as pioneers of scientific bee-keeping in Palestine, who hospitably took a share in my initiation.

They had innumerable hives in different parts of the country--I have seen them near the Jaffa gardens and among the mountains south of Hebron--which they transported in due season, on the backs of camels, seeking a new growth of flowers.

For a long while the Government ignored their industry, until the rumour grew that it was very profitable.