[ILLUSTRATION: IN A NATIVE CAFE, SAFFED/A LEMONADE-SELLER OF DAMASCUS]
CHAPTER VI
THE SUEZ CAMPAIGN
I have already spoken of the so-called "requisitioning" that took place
among our people while I was working at Saffed. This, of course, really
amounted to wholesale pillage. The hand of the Turkish looters had
fallen particularly heavy on carts and draught animals. As the Arabs
know little or nothing of carting, hauling, or the management of horses
and mules, the Turks, simply enough, had "requisitioned" many of the
owners--middle-aged or elderly men--and forced them to go south to help
along with the tremendous preparations that were being made for the
attack on Suez. Among these were a number of men from our village. In
the course of time their families began to get the most harrowing
messages from them. They were absolutely destitute, no wages being paid
them by the Turks; their clothes were dropping off them in rags; many
were sick. After much excited planning, it was decided to send another
man and myself down south on a sort of relief expedition, with a
substantial sum of money that had been raised with great difficulty by
our people. Through the influence of my brother at the Agricultural
Experiment Station, I got permission from the _mouchtar_ to leave
Zicron-Jacob, and about the middle of January, 1915, I set out for
Jerusalem.
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