CHAPTER IVHOME AFFAIRS

The houses of the peasants show at a glance the grade of well-being in the different villages. There are many in the lowlands made of mud, or a worse material, with thatch and straw. But in the hills stone is so plentiful that even the poorest builder may use it. The low, hutlike,sḳîfehcabin is made of loose stone piled up without mortar. The roof is constructed of boughs, on which clay and straw are laid to make it water-tight. The usual stone house is called, in contrast to the above,ḥajjar-wa-tîn, that is, stone and mortar, and is more or less substantial according to the hardness of the stone, the care in dressing the blocks and the proportion of lime in the mortar. The arch for the roof of such a house is usually so high as to be able to support itself by its own weight. The result, in the typical house, is a square box room with a lofty ceiling, the walls being unrelieved in most instances even by whitewash. But as this must serve in many cases for the family and also for such animals as are possessed, or for a living-room and a store cellar combined, an extra floor is put in, over most of the room, from four to six feet higher than the ground. This platformed portion may be supported by small stone arches and paved with beaten clay, or lime, or flat stones. From the door stone steps ascend to this living floor. In former times these steps were so constructed that any shot from a firearm sent through the wooden door would strike them and thus fail of reaching either the people on the platform above, or the animals sheltered underneath. Sometimes there is excavated under the house a cistern to which the rain-water from the roof is conducted. As the family prospers and outgrowsthe accommodations of a single room, others may be built at right angles on either side around a little court on which all the doors open. Still more rooms may be added above as a second story, with stairs leading up outside. By such a process of agglutination the house grows, looking like a miniature fort or castle, where father, brothers and sons with their families live in patriarchal unity. Rooms with inner connecting doors come as a later refinement of the more wealthy.

In summer-time a little shady booth of boughs may be made in the court or on the roof. Many of the peasants sleep out-of-doors fully half the year.

Within the house the floor of the living-room will be covered in part with straw mats. Grain and food-bins made of clay stand along one side. Large jars stand back against the wall or in corners. One jar is to hold spring water brought for drinking; another will hold olives; and a third, olive-oil. There are also wooden bread-bowls, straw covers, the stone flour-mill, some baskets, a clay brazier, copper cooking vessels whitened, sieves, a wooden chest or two, gaudily painted, utensils for grinding, roasting and cooking coffee, a clay fire-pot set in a fire-nook, and on pegs in the wall a brass-bound flint-lock and a water-bottle made from a goat’s skin. A recess in the wall, across which a curtain is drawn, holds the bedding. At night the pallet bed is spread on the floor,[83]the chief covering being a quilt enclosed in a cotton case.

In a two-room house one room will be the kitchen and women’s apartment and the other the place of entertainment, where the men chat and eat together. This extra room may have divan couches and perhaps an Oriental rug on the floor. Glassnârjîlehs(often pronouncedârjîleh) stand ready for the guests who smoke. This glass smoking-bottle and pipes, an outfit which foreigners sometimes callthe hubble-bubble, is used by men and some women of the well-to-do classes. The common name for it among the peasants isshîsheh.

HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS1. Woman’s wardrobe and treasure box. 2. Rough straw basket. 3. Wheat basket. 4. Vegetable basket. 5. Chair. 6. Groups of baskets. 8 and 9. On this shelf are coffee utensils, wooden spoons, a wooden lock and a gourd bottle. 11. A cooking vessel on top of a wooden cutting-board. 12. Bellows. 13. Wooden mortar and pestle for pounding coffee berries. 14. Short-handled broom. (From the Hartford Theological Seminary Collection.)

HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS

1. Woman’s wardrobe and treasure box. 2. Rough straw basket. 3. Wheat basket. 4. Vegetable basket. 5. Chair. 6. Groups of baskets. 8 and 9. On this shelf are coffee utensils, wooden spoons, a wooden lock and a gourd bottle. 11. A cooking vessel on top of a wooden cutting-board. 12. Bellows. 13. Wooden mortar and pestle for pounding coffee berries. 14. Short-handled broom. (From the Hartford Theological Seminary Collection.)

Below is a list of the utensils and furnishings commonly found in houses of Palestinian peasants.

Wheat, the most important item of the well-to-do peasants’ food, has been spoken of elsewhere. It offers a scheme for classification in welfare. Those on the level of wheat bread and those below that level in life form very readily distinguishable classes. Bread made of barley or of millet is used by the poorest people. The flour used for most of the wheat bread is of graham quality. A lump of dough is saved from the mixture for the next batch. This leaven[85]goes by the namekhamîreh. After the early morning grindings the dough is mixed in a wooden bowl, the woman generally sitting outside her door on the ground. When the dough has been mixed the bowl is covered with a straw mat called theṣînîyeh. When ready for baking, the whole, surmounted by a tiny little basket,ḳuba‛, filled with dry flour for the hands when the loaves are formed, is carried on the woman’s head to the nearest oven. One oven is shared by several neighboring families. The oven is within a stone hut, or cabin, not much unlike thesḳîfeh, or loose stone house, mentioned elsewhere. The woman may have to wait her turn at the oven, as other women may be baking beforeher. She sits at one side and chats with the women and girls about her as she plies her needlework, sewing or embroidery. Being at work and unobserved, she generally has her head-shawl thrown one side. The oven is a domed pit. Inside the pit are little stones on which the cakes of bread are baked. The clay dome has a cover which may shut the baking bread within. The fire of grass[86], refuse from the olive presses, twigs or caked dung, is built outside the dome, and therefore does not come in contact with the interior when the oven is heated for baking. The cakes of bread are from a quarter to a half-inch thick and of the shape and size of a medium dessert plate. The hot stones give a hubbly surface to the loaves, and as the dough is not very stiff a delicious warm, spongy, graham bread results. The bread baked for sale in the shops is generally made of lighter flour and the loaves are smaller and sometimes thicker.

In buying wheat forburghulwe sought the best grade of white wheat, paying three piasters a ruṭl for it, that is, about eleven cents for six and a quarter pounds. Burghul is prepared as a winter food. The wheat, after cleansing, is boiled until it is partly cooked. It is spread in the sun and dried and finally crushed in the hand-mill to the required fineness. The favorite size is about like broken rice. The chaff-like refuse is then blown off and, after another cleansing, the burghul is ready for a winter supply. Crushed wheat, calledjerîsheh, may be prepared and used as a breakfast cereal would be with us.Smîdis the name given to the unground portions of wheat, called with us semolina, separated from the flour by the bolting-machine of a modern mill.

The lentil,[87]‛adas, is considered by the native peasant a very nourishing food. The little seeds are reddish or brown and are shaped like tiny eyestones. When made into soup the taste is similar to that of dried peas. For the winter supply they are sifted, washed and given a treatment witholive-oil to prevent the attack of a little fly calledsûs, which eats out the inside of the seeds, leaving only the shells.

Rice is consumed in large quantities, but, as it is an imported food, it is bought as needed. A sack weighing two hundred twenty-five pounds may sometimes be bought for five dollars. A brand called Japanese rice, harder and cleaner, supposed to swell better and absorb lesssemenin cooking, costs considerably more. In the markets one often sees rice which has been colored with a red powder. Pine-nuts from the cones of theṣnôber-pine, which are very toothsome, are often cooked with rice.

The olive fruit as it comes from the tree is exceedingly puckery in flavor. For early eating the people put the berries into a strong brine, cracking them somewhat with stones to hasten the curing process. For late use the cracking of the berries is dispensed with and they are simply set away in the salt water. It takes several months to extract all the bitter taste of the whole berries and render them pleasant in flavor. The peasant much prefers ripe olives to green ones for eating. Most people who learn to eat ripe olives share in this preference for them. Usually the ripe olive is black, though some varieties are not so. They are very nourishing and full of oil, while green olives are a mere relish. Olive-oil is used very commonly as a food. The purest grade may be purchased as low as the rate of six cents a pound when bought by the jar. It is usually measured out in a heavy copper vessel shaped like a water jar of thezarawîyehtype, holding seven ruṭls, or about forty-four pounds, of oil. These copper jars are always very bright in color, as the action of olive-oil on copper is sufficient to keep it perfectly clean from corrosion. Those who make olive-oil have large cemented cisterns in which to store it, and as the cisterns are not cleaned very often, and the different grades are put in promiscuously, the flavor becomes disagreeable to the European palate, though the peasants do not mind if itacquires even a sting in taste. This defect in flavor is increased when the heaps of berries are left too long before pressing them. They become heated and more or less rancid, and acquire the sting which we think so unpleasant. But if one is painstaking, one will learn where and how to secure some of the first-grade oil which comes from the early berries and direct from the press. This early oil is often so delicate as scarcely to have any distinctive flavor. It is of a light greenish color.

Much of the inferior grades of oil is made into a soap very soft to the touch. The Mount Carmel soap is especially well liked. A great deal of soap is made in Nâblus.

As has been suggested, the grape is the choicest fruit of the country. With bread and grapes many hundreds are daily content. The native people do not wait until August, when the first ripe grapes are to be had, but enjoy eating green grapes,ḥiṣrim, with salt. Grape molasses,dibs, and grape marmalade and jam,ṭoṭleh, are prepared for winter by the more prosperous households.

Figs are next in general favor and are dried in large quantities for winter use.[88]Some are strung on strings, but most of them are pressed in bins. The black variety is preferred, as it is somewhat richer than the white and green kinds. Figs make a hearty food. Nothing more delicious in the line of fruit can be found than large, fresh figs with the morning dew yet on them. Fresh, ripe figs are often brought into the village in the little home-made, wheat-straw baskets, covered with the strong-smellingmarâmîyehleaves. The very early fruit that precedes the regular crop by two months is calleddâfûrand is esteemed a luxury. A cooked dish of dried figs flavored with anise is calledkhubayṣeh.

This list of the most common staples for the peasants’ use would not be complete without coffee, which, while it might appear more in the light of a luxury, is yet so essential in a respectablehousehold as to be classed here with the necessities. It must be on hand for guests, whether afforded for daily use or not, and wherever men meet for business or ceremony coffee is expected. It is purchased in the raw berry at about eleven cents a pound for a good grade, and the preparation of it becomes a matter of personal accomplishment. Men often carry some coffee berries in their pockets for use at gatherings with their friends. In drinking coffee, one cup is frequently passed about among a company of men, being replenished for another drinker when one has had some. The beverage is drawn into the mouth with a noisy sip that both cools it, if hot, and testifies to the drinker’s satisfaction with the quality. When done properly the business of coffee-making includes roasting on an iron spoon, pulverizing in a wooden mortar with a wooden pestle, and boiling in a tiny copper or tin pot from which it is poured into a handleless coffee-cup,finjân, of about the size of an egg.

To continue the list of foods. Tomatoes, though comparatively new to the country, have become a favorite vegetable. Tomatoes are a summer crop, and acres of them may be seen. A cooked tomato sauce is boiled down and then evaporated in the sun until of considerable density, when it is set away as a winter seasoning for soups, stews and rice. Sliced tomatoes are dried in the sun for preservation. The fresh tomato is enjoyed in salads. The price per pound is something less than one cent.

The seed pods of okra or gumbo, or, as the peasants call it,bâmyeh, are strung on twine and dried for the winter stores. It is cultivated in the plains near Ludd.

BREAD-MAKING UTENSILS1. Wheat bin. 2. Stone mill. 3. Fine sieve. 4. Wooden bread-bowls. 5. Straw mat used as a tray or as a bread-bowl cover. 6 and 7. Ovens made of clay, fire is to be built around the outside. 8. Metal cooking plate. 9. Tiny basket for dry flour. (From the Hartford Theological Seminary Collection.)

BREAD-MAKING UTENSILS

1. Wheat bin. 2. Stone mill. 3. Fine sieve. 4. Wooden bread-bowls. 5. Straw mat used as a tray or as a bread-bowl cover. 6 and 7. Ovens made of clay, fire is to be built around the outside. 8. Metal cooking plate. 9. Tiny basket for dry flour. (From the Hartford Theological Seminary Collection.)

Many of the villages fail to cultivate garden vegetables in any considerable variety or quantity. They submit to a more monotonous diet than seems necessary. Other villages go into gardening extensively. They are villages with superior facilities for irrigating the crops. The vegetables are retailed in the less favored villages, or, more often, takento the surer market of the nearest city. Squash, pumpkin, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, turnip, beet, parsnip, bean, pea, chick-pea, onion, garlic, leek, radish, mallow and eggplant are common varieties. Of the eggplant it is said that, since there are so many ways of preparing it, should a woman say to her husband, during the eggplant season, “I know not what to provide for dinner,” he has a sufficient cause for divorcing her. Doubtless, if he were hungry and sensible at the same time, he would at least try the expedient of getting a dish of the savory vegetable before discharging the cook. But, on the other hand, one might quote the Arabic proverb, “Minds are lost with stomachs.” There are two kinds of cucumber. The one like our own goes by the namekhîyâr. The other, calledfaḳûs, is thinner, longer and fuzzy, and is eaten without peeling. The buds of the artichoke when boiled make a delicious dish. Potatoes are getting to be quite common now. Most of them are still imported, but probably more and more success will be met in raising a native crop.

A pleasant little story is told of how potatoes may have first come to Jerusalem. Sister Charlotte, a Kaiserswerth deaconess, was for fifty years in mission work in Jerusalem. At the time of her death in 1903 she was the revered head of the German Orphanage for girls in the city. When the Emperor Frederick, then Crown Prince, visited Jerusalem, he accepted an invitation to dine with Sister Charlotte and the other German sisters. He asked them what, of all things, they would like from Germany. They said that they thought potatoes would be their choice. Two barrels of potatoes were the result of this incident, and Sister Charlotte thought that these were the first potatoes in Jerusalem. It is to be regretted that this is not the place to go into a thorough appreciation of the work of these blessed women who, in hospital, school and other Christian service in the East have performed a most gracious ministry of Christian womanliness.

The milk of the flocks is made into butter, and that in turn is often cooked down into what we should call clarified butter, but which the Arabs callsemen. It will keep a year and is much used in cooking, especially in preparing rice. There is a very pleasant, cooling preparation of milk calledleben,[89]which is thick and has a slightly acid taste. It looks like junket. A little of it, when put into slightly warmed milk and set away in a warm place for a few hours, will make leben of the milk. The process is one of partial digestion and makes a wholesome food for invalids, particularly for those suffering from fevers.Lebbenehis strainedlebento which a little salt has been added. It is a sort of compromise between butter and cheese. A cream cheese,jiben, is made in square cakes averaging the size of a man’s hand. These cakes are put away in brine for keeping and, when needed, are soaked in hot water. Many meals are made of wheat bread and cheese. Hard, dried leben, pressed into little balls, may be kept for months. It is then calledkishk. When they are to be used the balls are cracked into little fragments and soaked in water.

Eggs, mutton and goat’s meat are obtainable in most villages. For game, the gazel, pigeon, quail and partridge, as well as smaller birds, are shot and used by a few of the peasants. For those who live near the Sea of Tiberias (Galilee), the fish there found add to the variety.[90]In parts of Palestine locusts are eaten.[91]They are usually dried or roasted. A story and a proverb are mentioned concerning the vigor and spryness of these insects. A man who was in great haste and yet wished something to eat caught a locust and, holding it by the legs, roasted it over a fire. He didn’t wait to do it very thoroughly before he put it in his mouth. Fearing that it would burn him he delayed shutting his teeth together on it. The moment he loosened the grasp of his fingers, therefore, away went the locust.Now for the proverb: “Âflat min jarâdeh,” which means, “Better at escaping than a locust.”

Baked dishes are not common among the peasantry. Boiling, roasting and frying are the common modes of preparing food.Kibbehis a mixture of meat and burghul, bruised together in a mortar until it becomes a jellied mass, when it is pressed into pans, scored off into cakes and fried with semen.Maḳlûbehis a preparation of rice and eggplant cooked in a deep dish, and, when served, turned out, upside down; whence the name, which means “turned over.”Keftahis a meat cake fried in semen, not very different from Hamburg steak.Mujedderah, or‛aṣîdeh, is a mixture of rice and lentils. Sometimes fried onion scraps are served with it.

A favorite vegetable calledkûsâ, which looks like a cucumber and tastes like our summer squash, is often hollowed out, stuffed with meat and rice and boiled. Here is a combination of fruit, flesh and vegetable worth trying: A roll of tender grape-leaves stuffed with rice and meat and then boiled. It makes a little sausage-like affair of which a Scotch professor said that, if there were sausages in Paradise, they would be of this kind. The natives call all stuffed dishes of these sortsmaḥshy,stuffed. A maḥshy made of eggplant is calledshaykh el-maḥshy, the chief of the maḥshys. Kids, lambs and chickens also are stuffed. With some of these maḥshys, leben sauce is served and with others lemon-juice.

Salads of all kinds are enjoyed by the people.Ḥumuṣ b’ṭeḥînehis made from dried chick-peas boiled, mashed with olive-oil and flavored withṭeḥîneh. Ṭeḥîneh is a mixture of olive-oil,serejand some sour substance, either vinegar or lemon-juice.

Caraway, anise, thyme and mint are used as seasonings.

The common cooking fats are semen, olive-oil andserej, the latter being a rich cooking oil made from simsim seeds.

An out-of-door luxury is the new parched wheat,[92]calledfrîḳy, when immature heads are roasted, andkalîyeh, when ripe grain is roasted. The peculiar milk of a fresh goat or sheep, curdled a little, by being placed over the fire, and sweetened, is considered a dainty. Cooked sheep’s brains are a delicacy and very nourishing.

The fruits of Palestine are many. The better known varieties are the grape, orange, lemon, apricot, plum, pomegranate, quince, citron, watermelon, cantaloup, date, mulberry and medlar. This last mentioned fruit is known by the Turkish nameakydunya, literally,the next world. The cherry and peach find a congenial climate in the country. The apple and pear do not thrive so well in Palestine as in the neighborhood of Damascus. Of apricots there are several varieties. A large sweet kind, of which the seed pit has a taste similar to the almond nut, is called for that reasonlôzeh. Another kind is calledklâby, and yet anothermestkâwy. Apricot leather is displayed in large sheets in the markets. From pomegranates, of which there are at least three flavors, sweet, medium and sour, and from lemons, drinks are prepared. Distilled orange-flower water is esteemed as a flavoring extract. A little of it in water is good for a sour stomach.

Of nuts there are the almond, pistachio and walnut. The almond is frequently eaten green, when the kernel is in a milky state and the whole nut with its shell is tender. Chestnuts and peanuts are imported. Melon and pumpkin seeds are eaten. Sesame, or simsim, seeds are sprinkled over cakes. Partially ripened chick-peas, roasted on the stems, are very much liked.Mulabbas, which simply meanscovered, generally refers to sugar-coated, roasted chick-peas. These roasted peas without the sugar are callediḳḍâmeh, orḳâḍâmeh.

Jellies are called ṭoṭleh. They are often served to guests,in such cases being offered before the coffee, which must always be the last of any number of refreshments. A dish of jelly or jam, with several spoons and a tumbler of water, is passed around. Each guest takes a spoon and helps himself to a taste of jelly, then puts the soiled spoon into the vessel of water.

The people are very fond of honey. Many kinds of pastes, cakes and confections have honey as a prominent ingredient. Some of them seem very cloying to the unaccustomed Western taste.Ḥelâwehandmulabbasare the very common confections in the villages. The first looks like light-colored molasses candy and comes in bulk. It is used as a food with bread. It is made from the root of the simsim plant, the oil of which imparts to it its peculiar flavor. There is a local hit to the effect that “the people of Nâblus eat their sweets first.” The word used to express satisfaction with a flavor iszâky, which is equal to our colloquialism, “it tastes fine,” or the German, “grossartig.” A rebuke of an inordinate appetite is apparent in the proverb, “Let a dog take a taste, but not a son of Adam [i. e., a man].”

The list of foods should include some of the many varieties of edible wild growths.[93]

Khurfayshis a plant with a little notched leaf having milk-white veins. The edible stalk that grows up from the center is very delicious and refreshing when tender.

Murrâr, a bitter herb, looks, during its early growth, a little like the dandelion. Later it develops a thorn.

Ḳurṣ‛annehbears a small leaf suitable for salad.

Ḥumayḍehhas a leaf with red veins and a red back. It is used less commonly than the others.

Dhanbat faras(tail of a mare) looks like young onion leaves.

Ḥasakis used more especially for cows, andḥalîbet es-sukûlis fed to the kids when milk is scarce. It yields, whenbroken, a thick milky juice. The fruit of the cactus or prickly-pear is yellow, seedy and sweetish. For some reason or other the name for this plant, in Arabic, and the word forpatienceare the same,ṣubr. This cactus fruit is much esteemed. A story is told of a man with a prodigious appetite for it who was going along by the hedges of prickly-pear near Ludd and followed by some cows which ate up the peelings of the fruit as he dropped them. The story says that the cows had to stop eating the peelings before the man’s appetite for the fruit had been fully gratified. This is only a sample of the many stories told about great eaters.

The carob-pod is chewed.[94]It has a flavor like that of sweetened chocolate. Green carob-pods may be cooked in a toothsome way with milk.

A receipt for making “Turkish Delight.” The first essential is a perfectly clean cooking dish, as the secret of good Turkish Delight is to prevent burning or sticking. One-half pound of corn-starch, three pounds of sugar and ten cups of water are to be used. The corn-starch is to be dissolved in two cups of water and strained. The remaining eight cups of water, hot, and the sugar are to be made into a syrup. When the syrup is almost at the boiling point, clear with the white of an egg, skim off, add the juice of a half lemon and strain through a cloth. Pour the corn-starch solution into the hot syrup, stirring continually, and allowing the mixture to boil until very thick, an hour if necessary, stirring all the time to prevent sticking to the bottom. This constant stirring during the cooking is very important. Blanched almonds and the flavoring (generallymistkâgum) are put in just before taking the dish from the fire. The whole is then poured into a large shallow tin into which fine sugar has been sifted. When the paste has cooled it may be scored and cut.

There is almost no drinking of alcoholic liquors among the peasantry. On the feast-days the convents offer‛araḳ, anative grape brandy, to callers. The increasing influence of foreigners tends to an increase of drinking customs in the cities and the extension of such habits into the country villages. This influence comes through the foreign ecclesiastics in the convents, monasteries and patriarchates, business and travel, and sometimes the example of missionaries. Among Moslems the habit of using ardent liquors is supposed not to exist, but an aged official of wide experience told me that he knew of two hundred fifty Moslems in Jerusalem who were hard drinkers, and that the Turkish officials as a class were taking up the custom rapidly. Said a poor Moslem girl in Hebron despairingly of her brother, who had taken up with the drinking habit, “Why, my brother drinks like a Christian!” Of an inveterate and shameless toper the Arabs say that “he would drink from his shoe.”

The custom among the country people is to eat out of a common dish.[95]If it contains rice the food is rolled into balls and put into the mouth with the fingers. The bread is held on the knee, as one sits in squatting posture, and bits are torn from it. With these bits of bread the food may be dipped up, especially if it be oil or leben. Portions of meat are taken with the fingers. A wooden spoon is sometimes used. When guests are eating, the women of the family are not present, but often eat in another place and use the remains of the men’s feast. In the field the workers gather around the dish that has been brought from the village. They may be sitting in the broiling sun. It is customary to invite the passer-by to the repast.

The first meal of the day is not usually taken until the middle of the forenoon, and is a light one. The second one, at or after noon, may be heartier. The evening meal is the best. Meat is almost a luxury, the increase in its use denoting progress in prosperity.

Almost any discriminating person will decide for the nativepeasant costume as more modest, graceful and artistic than the European styles. One feels disappointed and defrauded at sight of a villager togged in European trouserings. The village woman descends in the scale of attractiveness just so far as she submits to the fashion of Western dressmaking. Stockings are seldom worn by the country people when they are in vigorous health. At best the stocking is an unsanitary snare. Men generally wear the roomy shoe having buffalo rawhide from India for the soles and a red or brown goat-skin for the uppers. Women seldom wear shoes inside the village for fear of ridicule. When they are out in the rough places they wear the same kind of shoe as the men.

The fully dressedfellâḥ, (peasant) has in his outfit the following articles:

Dîmâyeh, orḳumbâz, a long dress or tunic.Shirîhah, a girdle studded with therazât, which are ornaments like little silver buttons.Ṣadrîyeh, a vest.Ṭuḳṣîreh, a small blue jacket made ofjûkh, a blue cloth. Sometimes a European jacket is worn or a sheepskin is used.‛Abâh(colloquial,‛abâyeh), a homespun woolen overcoat, striped.Ṣirmâyeh, a shoe, heavy or light according to the season.Leffeh, a general name for the entire head-dress.The leffeh consists of the following parts:Ṭuḳîyeh, a cotton skull-cap.Libbâd, a skull-cap of woolen felt put on over the cotton one.Ṭarbûsh, a hat proper, usually a red fez-like head-covering, broad and flat, put on over the ṭuḳîyeh and libbâd.Scarfs are wound around the rim of the ṭarbûsh so as to make a very heavy border (a thin scarf helping to pad out a heavier one).Mendîl, a thin scarf used under a heavier one.Maḥrameh, a white heavy scarf.Kefîyeh, a yellow and fancy variety of scarf.In the leffeh or head-dress are tucked, for convenience in carrying, the following articles:Mirât, a mirror (a tiny glass).Mishṭ, a comb for the beard.Maṣṣâṣat, a cigarette holder.Dukhân, tobacco.Khalḳat(aṣfat), a ring (yellow) for the thumb (bahim).Khâtim(fuḍat), a seal[96]ring (silver) for the little finger (khanaṣet).Dubleh, a guard.All these small articles following are in or about the girdle or belt:Ghâb, a cartridge-belt.Shibrîyeh, a dirk carried in the belt.Ṣifn, tow.Zinâreh, a steel for igniting the tow in striking a light.Ṣuwâneh, a flint.Mûs, a clasp knife.Zaradeh, a chain to which the knife is attached.

The leffeh consists of the following parts:

Scarfs are wound around the rim of the ṭarbûsh so as to make a very heavy border (a thin scarf helping to pad out a heavier one).

In the leffeh or head-dress are tucked, for convenience in carrying, the following articles:

All these small articles following are in or about the girdle or belt:

The fellâḥah (peasant woman) wears theKhurḳeh, an embroidered dress of linen crash, with silk stitching. Over this dress she wears theKhalaḳ, orTôb, a long veil of the same material as the Khurḳeh. But she is mostly distinguished by the

This head-dress is bound into the hair by strings and is worn night and day.

In the division of household labor the man goes to the market, field or on the road with the animals, leaving almost all the work about the house to be done by women and children. Indeed, these may often be called upon to assist in carrying to or from the market, in watching on the threshing-floor or in the vineyard and orchard, in helping harvest the crops or in gleaning, sifting and cleaning grain. Children sometimes carry food to the workers who are at a distance. The man may make repairs about his house, if skilful enough to do so. He drives the bargains and settlesbusiness matters. Upon the woman falls most of the work of the household. It is often hard and long because of primitive methods and scanty means.[97]The older girls may help considerably, especially by taking much of the care of the children. The woman’s day begins early with the grinding of flour for bread.[98]She probably cleaned the wheat on the previous afternoon while there was light. Grinding can be done in the early morning before daylight. The woman sweeps and cleans and cooks food for the family. She makes long trips into the uncultivated country about the village to bring home head-loads of brush, thorns or grass. She must make daily trips at least, and sometimes several a day, to the spring, or possibly to a cistern, for the water supply. She often keeps chickens. Gardening is the man’s work, though the woman must often help in the little plot if there be one. Now and then a woman may find time to attend to her personal appearance. If her dress of linen crash be soiled she may take it with other washing to the spring or cistern. She first soaks her clothes and then laying them on a rock pounds out the dirt with a short club. If the silk embroidery on the dress makes it unadvisable to wet the cloth, she rubs off the dirt with bread-crumbs. She occasionally gets an opportunity to take off her head-dress of coins, clean the coins and comb out and wash her hair, or she may do the similar service of washing and head-cleaning for her children.

The peasant women are sometimes skilful in embroidering in silk, with a cross-stitch, on linen and on cotton. They make a good deal of basketwork from wheat straw, which they dye a brilliant blue, green, red, purple and brown. Cooking dishes, platters, bowls and jars are made of clay by the women. The women of any village keep to the making of such vessels and shapes as they have learned best. The Râm Allâh women make a reddish jar of huge size ornamentedwith a brown painted band of a basketwork pattern. This jar is known colloquially asjarreh. The smaller size goes by the same name or else by the termhisheh.Hishis a kind of red stone that is pulverized to make jar material. The long jar that is used for carrying water from the spring to the house is calledzarawîyeh. Thezarawîyeh zerḳais a product of Gaza, and thezarawîyeh bayḍehof Ramleh and Ludd. Another large variety of jar is calledzîr. Any tiny jar used as a drinking vessel or for cooling drinking water may be calledsherbeh. The little milk jars with a very wide mouth are calledkûzor, by the fellaḥîn,chûz.

The peasant, when well fed, clothed and sheltered, is a fine specimen of physical humanity. When ill he is miserable indeed, and greatly to be pitied. Hospitals and other European helps are assisting of late where but a short time ago there was nothing but native ingenuity. Even now the very poor can hardly be said to be supplied with adequate assistance. In the more backward villages, farther from centers where physicians and dispensaries are available, the most curious shifts are made to drive off disease and win health. Among Moslems and Christians similar means are taken. Mothers pray at shrines and sacred trees, tying up bits of rag to keep the prayers in the minds of the saints who have been invoked. It takes kindliness and patience to win over the poorest and most suspicious of the sick peasantry. And it will take more than that to secure suitable nursing for invalids.

One child of Christian parents wore a bone from a wolf’s snout about the neck as a charm. It was the gift of the paternal grandmother. A wolf’s jaw-bone is a potent charm. A Moslem said that the wolf was a friend of his family and that if one killed a wolf with a knife and then wrapped the knife in a handkerchief or other cloth it would prove efficacious in time of sickness. For instance, if a child were ill with a cough it was only necessary to draw the back of theknife-blade across the throat in imitation of cutting and say, “Allâh and the wolf,” “Allâh and the wolf,” then make a noise like the growl of a wolf and the child would be well. The many superstitious remains of primitive religious notions are usually preserved among the women of the land.

Slips of paper, with verses from the Ḳurân written on them, are soaked in water and the drink administered to patients by the very ignorant. Burning and bleeding are frequently resorted to. More nauseating practises are the utilization for medicinal purposes of the froth that forms at the mouth of a maniac, or of aderwîsh(dervish) who, in the excitement of his exercises, has fallen down insensible. It is considered proper for the friends of the sick to call, and sometimes the room where the patient is lying is full of talking neighbors.[99]Fortunate is it if some of them be not smoking as well as making a noise. Figs are used as drawing plasters.[100]For soreness of the gums or teeth a dry fig is heated and laid on the spot. A relic of the days of quacks is found in the proverb, “Ask one who will try and not a doctor.” Doubtless the next proverb in order would be the one running, “Patience is the key of relief.” Of palsy the peasants say, “Palsy, then don’t doctor it.”

IN A DOORYARD. WOMEN CLEANING WHEAT

ON TOP OF AN OVEN. WOMEN SIFTING WHEAT

The following data, taken from accounts of medical assistance rendered to inhabitants of a score of villages in the country about Râm Allâh for a year are suggestive of the distribution of ailments. Leaving out of the account wounds, the chief ailments were classified under fevers,[101]malaria and typhus, with gastric troubles nearly akin. Then comes the second group of troubles, with influenza and pneumonia. Third in frequency was rheumatism. Enteric troubles were rarely mentioned. Eye troubles are common, but the physician is not resorted to as frequently as would be supposed. A few cases of abscess, dropsy and eczema were mentioned. May and June, October and November, broughtnumerous cases of fevers. January and March exceeded in pulmonary affections, though they were pretty generally met with throughout the year. Autumn is a very unhealthy season. The dust blowing about the villages in the high winds is laden with abundant filth in pulverized form. Sunstroke is not unknown among the natives.[102]The reapers in the Ghôr are often stricken with deadly fever, probably because of the poor water supply, hot sun, cold nights and irregular meals. Contagious skin, scalp and eye diseases are to be dreaded. Because of the lack of facilities and knowledge in the care of children convalescing from measles,ḥuṣbeh, that disease is much feared, and the mortality among the young is great. The typhoid cases in the country are long and tedious, though not perhaps so violent as with us. Leben makes an ideal food for the patient.

Certain of the fountains of the country are provided with a more or less capacious catch-basin from which animals as well as people may drink. The fastidious are not to be blamed if they insist on seeing their own drinking water taken from the actual flow of the spring and under such conditions as shall not subject them to the washings of other people’s mouths. Often at such places leeches thrive in the water, and where they are known to abound the natives seldom let their animals drink if other available water be near. People, too, are often bothered by the leeches lodging in the sides of the mouth or throat. Those that are swallowed cause no inconvenience, but when tiny leeches lodge in the side of the throat and grow to an uncomfortable size they have to be extracted. One day I was lunching with the local physician, Dr. Philip Ma‛lûf, when a poor woman from el-Bîreh, not finding him at the dispensary, sought him at his home. She was troubled with a leech which had grown to uncomfortable size in her throat and was using up too much of the blood needed in her system. After theparasite was removed she haggled about the price of the operation.

At another time I saw a little girl sitting on a chair in the sun in front of the doctor’s dispensary. The doctor said that her leech was too difficult of observation and approach with his tweezers, but that in the warm sun it would be tempted within reach.

Medical assistance in the form of hospital or dispensary facilities is now offered at Hebron, Jaffa, Gaza, Jerusalem, Nâblus, Nazareth, Tiberias, Ṣafed, Haifa, es-Salṭ and Kerak. To these places the peasantry come from the country about, bringing their ills for treatment at the hands of foreign physicians. From the country around Nâblus, for instance, many patients come to receive the skilful attention of the surgeon at the Church Missionary Society Hospital in the city. Among these cases are many suffering with diseased bones.

The medical department of the American College at Beirut is an exponent of modern medical science for all Syria. There native physicians are trained in medicine and pharmacy and go to all parts of the Turkish empire, Egypt and the Sudan. The European hospitals in the country are in charge of expert physicians assisted by well-trained nurses.

Here and there one meets dumb people. In Râm Allâh is a dumb man, the well-to-do father of a considerable family. He is keen, alert and very skilful at making himself understood by motions.

The blind are receiving some attention. Schneller’s school in Jerusalem makes provision for them. Miss Lovell, an English woman, has a small school for blind girls where she works assiduously for their welfare. The French Roman Catholic Sisters care for some.

The first hospital asylum in all Syria for the humane and scientific treatment of the insane was founded a few years ago and first opened to patients August 9, 1900. It is just ashort drive out of Beirut, at a place called ‛Aṣfûrîyeh, within the Lebanon government district. Its founders are Mr. and Mrs. Theophilus Waldemeier. Mr. Waldemeier was for over twenty years the superintendent of the English Friends’ Mission at Brummana and other stations in Mount Lebanon. Advancing years seemed to make it wisest that he should relinquish the many-sided mission work. With his wife he planned a world tour in the interests of a work which he had thought over for many years. While friends were advising and expecting him to take a deserved rest he began to plan for this new enterprise, which he sweetly calls his “evening sacrifice”; a hospital for the right treatment of the insane, of which the country has many. The Waldemeiers visited successfully in Europe and America and returned with funds to build. They found a fine property of over thirty acres belonging to one of theeffendîyehclass of natives, a Moslem who was in need of funds and good enough not to make too hard terms with these philanthropists. In the first two years the institution treated two hundred twenty-seven patients and sent away thirty-six patients recovered.

Mr. Waldemeier and his gifted wife treated us with the greatest cordiality, when we called on them, and showed us detail after detail of the work, the new building and so on, just as if they were enthusiastic devotees of an interesting new game; and so they are devotees of the old, the ever new game, of doing good. A large, well-equipped administration building, another for women patients and still another one for men were already up and fully used, forty patients at a time being the capacity. A new building was being erected to be used for the most violent cases. The story of some cases is a sad one. A surgeon of the Egyptian army was with us as we inspected the wards where the women patients are kept, filled mostly with young girls. He said, “I never saw anything so sad. The wounded and the dying on the battle-field do not make me feel like this.” The causes of thetroubles of these sufferers are various. Ten distinct kinds of mania are recorded on the books, among them cases resulting from alcoholic excess, from typhoid fever and those that are hereditary. No patients are received unless there is reasonable expectation of their recovery under treatment.

The nurses and attendants in the women’s ward seemed to be much interested in their charges and to develop a real affection for them. There are no bonds in the whole institution. The severe cases are put to bed. As soon as their condition will warrant it they are set to work at something that will keep them busy, laundering or helping in various ways about the institution, always with ample supervision. One bright-faced patient possessed with the notion that the devil was in her nose made that member the object of her constant thought, keeping it always covered.

We saw a large, powerfully-made man standing behind the iron grating of one of the men’s windows. He was an alcoholic case who was sent away from the hospital at one time apparently cured, but fell into the old ways again and now is hopeless, incurable.

Some of the patients come to the hospital in a most wretched state of filth. Some come loaded with the chains that the ignorant country people have put on them. Some have been isolated in caves and scantily fed, some have been beaten. Some have been made to drink water in which written texts of the Ḳurân have been soaked. Many are the ways with which the superstitious natives would treat these unfortunates. Sometimes the insane are looked upon with superstitious awe as of an order other than ordinary human beings and to be invoked. At other times the people are said to beat them in order to drive out the demon, but more often, according to their own saying, they let them pretty much alone. “For,” say they, “God has touched him; that isenough; leave him alone.”[103]All through the country this unconscious fraternity lives its life apart from men. Only their bodies are in contact with the world of reality. They are fed or beaten, caged or prayed to, in turn. We saw one of these unfortunates who had been groveling in a fit on the street in Jerusalem near the Jaffa Gate. He had a small cord drawn through a fleshy place in his abdomen, by working which back and forth well-meaning spectators had caused considerable blood to flow, thinking to relieve him. We have seen them wandering in the streets of Damascus with the freedom of the city, all making way for them; and well they might; we did, too, for I’ve never seen human beings more unutterably filthy. In the village of ‛Ayn ‛Arîk there was a dumb maniac who went about naked.[104]He was credited with being a wily, or holy man. Families having a sick person among them would sometimes send him presents of roast stuffed fowls and secure from the wily some of his hairs, which they would burn near the patient, hoping thereby to effect a cure.

The leprous generally congregate outside the cities and follow the trade of begging. Hospitals and asylums are provided for them, but many of them prefer the freedom which puts them obnoxiously in the way of those who can be teased for alms.

Death among the peasantry is an occasion for long mourning. The body is wrapped, and placed in the ground and protected from the falling earth as well as may be by the use of stones. On the top of the grave the heaviest stones obtainable are packed to make it difficult for the hyenas to secure the body. It is customary to watch the grave manynights to keep these creatures away.[105]The more advanced peasantry try to secure a wooden coffin for the body about to be buried. The natives are capable of much tenderness and consideration at these sad times. The many bearers take turns assisting in the carrying of the body on the way to the grave. Visitors from other villages come to assist in the mourning for the deceased. They are provided with food and shelter while they remain. The public mourning lasts as long as visitors continue coming to offer condolences, which may be for many days. At weddings the singers are men, but at funerals the women perform the part. The same native melody is used on both occasions. The death of a young man is an occasion for especial grief, since so many family hopes and prospects are thereby disappointed. A prop and stay in the tribe is withdrawn and the calamity is very severe. The women are sometimes seen on the threshing-floor marching slowly round and round, wailing out the dirge. One of the saddest cases that came under my observation was that of a young man who, leaving his family, emigrated to America in search of fortune. While in Monterey, Mexico, he heard of the death of an uncle in the home village and grieved over it. He was taken ill, probably with yellow fever, went to the hospital and died there in a short time. When the news reached Râm Allâh the grief was keen. It is customary at such a time for the women to go either to the threshing-floor or the cemetery to mourn.[106]But in this case, as the man was buried far away, the women assembled on a small piece of ground that was owned by some of the tribe where there was a fig-tree. They sat under this talking until the company increased to over forty women. They had all left their head-dresses, ornamented with coins, at home, and their hair fell in disheveled condition over their necks and shoulders. Some of them had daubed theirfaces with soot. Some were dressed in their oldest and poorest clothing; one had on a fancy Bethlehem costume, but her disordered hair was bound with crêpe. A circle was formed and the women marched to the accompaniment of the mourning song. Now and then a few would break from the circle into the middle and, tossing their arms above their heads, perform a funeral dance. The name of the deceased was Butrus (Peter) and the widow’s name was Na‛meh (Naomi). The following is a translation of the words which the women sang at the time:

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