He agreed with me and issued an order that the men were to provide their own oil to lubricate the wheels! I shall not dwell on the physical sufferings we underwent while working on this road, for the reason that the conditions I have described were prevalent over the whole country; and later, when I had the opportunity to visit some construction camps in Samaria and Judaea found that in comparison our lot had been a happy one.

While we were breaking stones and trundling squeaking wheelbarrows, however, the most disquieting rumors began to drift in to us from our home villages.

Plundering had been going on in the name of "requisitioning"; the country was full of soldiery whose capacity for mischief-making was well known to us, and it was torture to think of what might be happening in our peaceful homes where so few men had been left for protection.

All the barbed-wire fences, we heard, had been torn up and sent north for the construction of barricades.

In a wild land like Palestine, where the native has no respect for property, where fields and crops are always at the mercy of marauders, the barbed-wire fence has been a tremendous factor for civilization, and with these gone the Arabs were once more free to sweep across the country unhindered, stealing and destroying.
The situation grew more and more unbearable.