“But let us swing from the road. Come, the hedges of Nature are not as impassable as the hedges of man. Through these scrub oaks and wild pears, between this tangle of thickets, over the clematis and blackberry bush—and here we are under the pines, the lofty and majestic pines. How different are these natural hedges, growing in wild disorder, from the ugly cactus fences with which my neighbours choose to shut in their homes, and even their souls. But my business now is not with them. There are my friends the children again gathering the pine-needles of last summer for lighting the fire of the silkworm nursery. And down that narrow footpath, meandering around the boulders and disappearing among the thickets, see what big loads of brushwood are moving towards us. Beneath them my swarthy and hardy peasants are plodding up the hill asweat and athirst. When I first descended to the wadi, one such load of brushwood emerging suddenly from behind a cliff surprised and frightened me. But soon I was reminded of the moving forest in Macbeth. The man bowed beneath the load was hidden from view, and the boy directly behind was sweating under a load as big as that of his father. ‘Awafy!’ (Allah give you strength), I said, greeting them. ‘And increase of health to you,’ they replied. I then asked the boy how far down do they have to go for their brushwood, and laying down his load on a stone to rest, he points below, saying, ‘Here, near the river.’ But this ‘Here, near the river’ is more than four hours’ walk from the village.—Allah preserve you in your strength, my Brothers. And they pass along, plodding slowly under their overshadowing burdens. A hard-hearted Naturalist, who goes so deep into Nature as to be far from the vital core even as the dilettante, might not have any sympathy to throw away on such occasions. But of what good is the love of Nature that consists only in classification and dissection? I carry no notebook with me when I go down the wadi or out into the fields. I am content if I bring back a few impressions of some reassuring instance of faith, a few pictures, and an armful of wild flowers and odoriferous shrubs. Let the learned manual maker concern himself with the facts; he is content with jotting down in his notebook the names and lineage of every insect and every herb.
“But Man? What is he to these scientific Naturalists? If they meet a stranger on the road, they pass him by, their eyes intent on the breviary of Nature, somewhat after the fashion of my priests, who are fond of praying in the open-air at sundown. No, I do not have to prove to my Brothers that my love of Nature is but second to my love of life. I am interested in my fellow men as in my fellow trees and flowers. ‘The beauty of Nature,’ Emerson again, ‘must always seem unreal and mocking until the landscape has human figures, that are as good as itself.’ And ’tis well, if they are but half as good. To me, the discovery of a woodman in the wadi were as pleasing as the discovery of a woodchuck or a woodswallow or a woodbine. For in the soul of the woodman is a song, I muse, as sweet as the rhythmic strains of the goldfinch, if it could be evoked. But the soul plodding up the hill under its heavy overshadowing burden, what breath has it left for song? The man bowed beneath the load, the soul bowed beneath the man! Alas, I seem to behold but moving burdens in my country. And yet, my swarthy and shrunken, but firm-fibred people plod along, content, patient, meek; and when they reach the summit of the hill with their crushing burdens, they still have breath enough to troll a favourite ditty or serenade the night.
‘I come to thee, O Night,
I’m at thy feet;
I can not see, O Night,
But thy breath is sweet.’
“And so is the breath of the pines. Here, the air is surcharged with perfume. In it floats the aromatic soul of many a flower. But the perfume-soul of the pines seems to tower over all others, just as its material shape lifts its artistic head over the oak, the cercis, and the terabinth. And though tall and stately, my native pines are not forbidding. They are so pruned that the snags serve as a most convenient ladder. Such was my pleasure mounting for the green cones, the salted piñons of which are delicious. But I confess they seem to stick in the stomach as the pitch of the cones sticks on the hands. This, however, though it remains for days, works no evil; but the piñons in the stomach, and the stomach on the nerves—that is a different question.
“The only pines I have seen in the United States are those in front
