16th and 17th February, 1948 - Bitterly cold winds, a home made brazier, chats with the Arab Legion and a poem...

Monday, 16^th February, 1948

A terrific gale has been blowing all day with occasional light showers of rain.

At the P.B.S. we sit with a T.A.C. and an Arab Legion fellow at the entrance to the Studios.  Again our duty is to check and search all incomers to the Studios.  With us is an Arab Woman Police Searcher.  She searches all the women in a screened off place.

We were very cold in the late afternoon and tried to build a fire in an empty petrol tin in which holes had been punched.  The fire was a very smoky one and for the greatest part of its existence was outside the building waiting for the smoke to go off.

Tuesday, 17^th February, 1948

A bitterly cold gale force wind continues to blow all today.

We continued our watch on the P.B.S. buildings without event.

I have been talking a great deal with men of the Arab Legion.  These men seem to be of a much higher standard of intelligence than the Palestinian Arab and they have better powers of conversation.

These people do not give us the English much credit in our knowledge of the Political scene out here.  The two I was talking to seemed very surprised that I knew that the Palestinian Arabs do not like King Abdullah of Trans Jordan and would not like the two countries merged in one.

Poem:

                  Jerusalem  

City in two I found you

City half old and half new

What is the tie that binds you

Being half Arab half Jew?

City so old I found you,

Shut in by David’s high wall;

Minarets tall stand o’er you,

Religion the wish of all.

City so new I found you,

Nothing can stop you at all;

New buildings rise around you,

“Homes for the Nation,” you call.

City in two I found you

City half Arab half Jew

There is no tie can bind you

Never your heart will beat true.

17.2.48

                                                            REB

25th - 27th July, 1947 - Ron is fascinated by the locals and their religion.

Friday, 25^th July, 1947

An old woman came to the station today and said a boy had hit her.   A boy or child of this age is criminally not responsible so she was sent away unsatisfied.

She was interesting only in that her hair was red* which for such an aged one rather suggested to me she had dyed it.  I questioned a Palestinian about this & he said it was so.  A powder made from a special tree is put into the water & the hair washed.  In the morning it is again washed in clean water and is now red.  He further told me that as a sine (sic) of pending wedlock the bridegroom dyes his right hand and wrist red.

I have re[a]d somewhere that a Moslem is not allowed to show signs of age so white hair on head & face should be dyed.  This is not adhered to I think.

*Henna presumably...

Saturday, 26^th July, 1947

There was no work today so spent what I the time reading.

This evening Roughton & I went for a short walk down Wadi El Faria.  I here tasted my first pomegranate no great experience & rather laborious.

Sunday, 27^th July, 1947

I spent this morning sitting in a shaded place before the station talking to some of the Palestinians here.  I always find such a time well spent both in Arabic I learn & the ways of living of the Arabs.

Insert: Poem “Call to Prayer”

                                                        Call to Prayer

                                  Valley bare below bare mountain,

                                                        Scorched all day by Sun’s high arc,

                                  Searching, on the winds it cometh,

                                                        Calling to the faithful heart.

___________

                                  From a high tower over dome top,

                                                        Looking on the roofs below,

                                  Calling, searching, for the faithful,

                                                        “To the East bow thyselves low.”

___________

                                  In the valleys; on the mountains,

                                                        All do stop in fear and awe,

                                  Listening to the voice that tells them,

                                                        “Time is here; a prayer for all.”

___________

                                  Rich men from the shops go forward,

                                                        From the houses they come out,

                                  To the city of their Prophet

                                                        Go hearts with no trace of doubt.

___________

                                  Mosques they cannot stay to enter;

                                                        No time workers spare for that,

                                  Nor time off from their labours

                                                        So the earth their prayer-mat.

___________

                                  Thus for centuries have they heard it.

                                                        And for centuries to come;

                                  Till upon this earth they finish

                                                        When their Armageddon comes

___________

26.7.47

                                  REB