Women and Their Work

There are no water-mills in the south, though they are common enough in the watered mountainous region under Lebanon, and may be found in some places near the Jordan . . . .In all the south, hand-mills are the sole means of providing flour. Severe as is the labour, we fear that men never condescend to it. In the houses of the richer class several servant-maids or slave-girls are kept continually at the tedious task. "From Pharaoh to the maidservant that is behind the mill," shows the estimation in which grinding was held. As we pass through the streets at the evening hour we hear the low monotonous hum of the hand-mill . . . .There is a hole in the centre of the upper millstone through which the grain is passed, a handful at a time, by one of the two women who sit facing each other. "Two women shall be grinding at the mill." Nearer the edge is another hole, in which an upright handle is fixed; both the women hold this together, and work it as two men would a crosscut saw. The flour falls out on to a cloth on which the nether millstone is placed. (Source: Picturesque Palestine, vol. 1, pp. 135-36.)

The women are very dexterous in carrying loads on their heads and keeping them in equilibrium. Everything, except the babies and the skin water-bottle, is carried on their heads. (Source: Baldensperger 1901: 67.)

Although an exception, I have known a woman carry a big basket of cabbages to Bethlehem, some three miles distant from her village; on the way she was delivered of a boy, without assistance, rolled him into her huge sleeve, and continued her way to the market; having sold her cabbages, she late in the afternoon walked home with the boy in her sleeve, without being troubled in the least. (Source: Baldensperger 1900: 180.)