tribe of Gad, one of the mysterious lost Ten, and are specially friendly both to the Muslims and Christians, the former from reasons of long and intimate association, the latter because, as they maintain, they have not been, till a few years ago, in Palestine since they were driven out seven hundred years before Christ, and were not concerned in the crucifixion of our Lord.

Obadiah dealt in antiquities, and often came to us to ask the value of those which he had acquired. He was honest and industrious, and devoted to his wife Rachel, and his one child, Reuben, who, large-headed and decrepit, caused much anxiety to his parents. There had been other children, but all had died, and as the father said, with tears in his eyes, "If Reuben should follow, another must be had." The wife, a pious orthodox Jewess, loved the child almost fiercely. She had been brought up by the London Jews' Society, and still clung to a few words of English. "He is my once!" she used to say, always adding in a sort of self-defence," but I have had muchness." The child died, the mother sank into ill-health, and the little household became very sad. One day we met Obadiah in the street. He was bringing me, as a farewell offering, an amulet against snake-bites. "I am going to America," he said. "I shall stay a year; my wife will go to her mother; perhaps she will recover her health, and God will give us a sor. If I die who shall pray for me? 99

This is a point upon which the feeling is very strong among the Semites. The son keeps up the continuity of the father's prayers. There are indeed-or there were when Jerusalem was still the Holy City-Jewish lads endowed by men in distant lands, and regarded as adopted children, whose function was to offer prayers on behalf of their patrons in the holy places. About a year later Obadiah re-appeared, in a hideous unbecoming coat and trousers, in place of the picturesque blue kumbaz in which we had always known him, leading by the hand a shame-faced child of about fourteen, wearing a green dress and a red hat with a gilt buckle and a violet feather.

"I have brought something to show you," he began, as he always did when he brought his purchases to be appraised." See! she will do for my wife. Rachel will not bring me a son. God has not been pleased to heal her. Does this one please you?" "But you are not going to send Rachel away?" I cried, horrified.

"O, my God! indeed, no; but this one will be the mother of my son, and will serve Rachel, who is still feeble. Rachel can

nurse the child when it is born, and this one will do the work of the house. All will be happy."

The child listened to this arrangement of her destiny with a satisfied air, and Obadiah continued his assurances as to Rachel's endorsement of the situation; much, I thought, as Sarah endorsed the position of Hagar and Abraham, or Rachel that of Bilhah and Jacob. Obadiah had made money in America, and he improved his house. One day I was invited to tea, and as a climax to the situation he produced two gold watches with chains, exactly, so I was assured, of the same value, one for each of his wives, Rachel to have first choice.

He was but treading in the steps of the Bible saints, and there was nothing to be said; the wedding took place, and every time I visited the household I found a happy party; the new wife taking the place rather of a daughter. Rachel remained mistress of the house, and seemed in no way to lose her prestige even after the birth of the longed-for son. We were present at two important ceremonies, the redemption of the first-born, and the circumcision, which, being Jewish, have no place here. I may mention that Obadiah's prosperity later brought about his undoing, and he was brutally murdered by one of his own people. Having told a story of an Arab Jew I may add one of an Arab Muslim. It was related to us one starry night upon the Mount of Olives by one of the actors in the little drama. Within a hundred yards of where we sat we could see the twinkling lights of the house of a Muslim Shech. Indeed, the friendly occupants had furnished us with boiling-water for the meal we had just finished, and which their cats and dogs had shared.

The owner held an hereditary religious office in the Mosque. He had a good wife, whom he loved much, but, alas! she had no son. Allah had seen fit to withhold the greatest of his gifts. It was a sorrow which he would have borne with patience, as having been decreed, had not one, a relative to whom, as such, he owed a duty, a woman not young, not beautiful, earnestly desired him. Out of respect to his wife, he resisted her, but she laid spells upon him, and the wish for a son became strengthened within him, for woman, when she desires a man, is strong and can overcome all difficulties. He took counsel with a neighbour, who assured him that to bring sorrow upon so good a wife as his would not bring him the blessing of God. As this did not wholly suffice, the friend brought a wise priest from a neighbouring convent, who knew the land and spoke its language and who, greatly daring, forbade the marriage. "Seek the blessing of

God," he said," and He will give you a son." The spells of the Nazarenes are also strong, above all of those who do well and say after God's word. The son was born. Praise be to God.

God had blessed the path of the upright, and for a time all went well; but the strange woman was not to be discouraged, and she continued to cast spells, and in the end the Shech married her. Allah, as the priest predicted, turned away His face. She bore a son, but misfortune followed, and both mother and child died. The first wife also died, the first son did not prosper in a house accursed, and he turned out badly. Truly, one should yield only to such spells as are good, and a vow should never be broken.

A friend, an effendi of high birth, in answer to the question "Then, on the whole, the general feeling is against polygamy?" answered," Certainly, we appreciate peace in our households as much as you do."

Naturally, all do not think alike. I remember once, during one of the long conversations for which there is so much time and opportunity at a Muslim wedding, one of the matrons present remarked that she thought there was an undue amount of rejoicing about weddings. The advantages of matrimony were greatly over-rated; the English way was good, that it was no shame to a woman if she were not married. A woman should not marry unless she wishes. Yes, but you do wish till you are married, and then it is too late!" cried a young bride with a merry countenance, amid the laughter of the rest. The complainant was not to be silenced, though some present pointed warningly at the bride who, silent and invisible beneath a thick veil, was sitting in our midst.

66

"No matter. Let her take warning by me. I have had eight sons (murmurs of admiration. Mashallah!) I have done all that is needful. I want no more. Why will not my husband take another wife? Truly I would be to her as a mother. The old days were better."

"The old days," so it was explained, referred to the time of slavery, when like Sarah or Rachel, a wife handed over her maid-servant to her husband upon occasion. Now there were no more slaves; decent girls brought up in a good home, and who cost nothing and saved the wife much. In Egypt, it was said, there are still slaves who come every year in a boat from France, and other frenjy, frankish countries, but-be it far from us-they were not good, they spent all the money there was and went away again. They did not stay to be useful in the house.

There were whispers as to certain Jewish and Greek females who had lately begun to practise shameless things in the Holy City itself-such things never used to be heard of. The days of slavery were best.

The pretty bride of a year took up the question. She would be glad if her husband would bring home another wife, young, cheerful, with a taste for dress-making, for instance. They could have each her own ménage, and so keep the command of the Prophet. It would be great fun!

"Peace, child! What will the frankish ladies think of thee?" We explained that we could not understand how such things had ever been endured.

"The frankish wives want to have all the children to themselves," she said. "They have not so many as we. It is easy to understand that one woman should envy another in such a case."

We submitted that it was the presence of another woman in the house that we could not welcome. As to the children, European ladies kept them in the nursery; they were not for ever present as in the hareem. But think of two mistresses in an orderly house!

"The sittat (ladies) do not understand. If there should be two wives there would be two establishments. The occasional companionship is pleasant. As to the children, they would have all one father, they played and studied together. As to one being first, if there were two sisters was not one the elder? The English ladies had not large families, not eight sons like Jameeli. The fingers of your hand (they will never say "five") that is a family for the frenjy."

These were city ladies with wide notions. In the country, the "bachelor girl" is a being wholly beyond comprehension. We visited such a house once, the daughter of a British peer being with us. Her father's name was known to the men who read politics, and the hareem concluded that she was a near relative of the King, so that even if her father lacked flocks or land the King could certainly give to the daughter such camels and horses as were necessary. She was not like the unmarried ladies who came out to teach religion and find husbands; she was a great lady.

It is etiquette in the East for your neighbours to come in to help to entertain your visitors, and as we sat drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes our party increased. As each new comer entered the position was briefly explained.

Hatha bint! "That one is a maiden!" was the statement

made every time, and the shortcomings of the King of England were discussed. Her blue eyes, her little ears, her dainty waist, her pleasant friendly manners, were all remarked upon, and each time there was but one remark possible, wallah! "In God's name! "

An explanation was finally forthcoming; and we were reproached that we had not furnished it ourselves. There had been a great war and men in the bilad inglese (the land of England) were scarce. Among the Arabs, too, many had fallen, fighting for their country. When the frenjy should make peace many a maiden would come into her rights, and many sons would be born.

Professor Ramsay remarks in one of his books of travel, "It is true that legally the Muhammedan wife is her husband's chattel to do with as it seems to him good. I understand that till very recently the British wife occupied much the same position, in the eye of the law, the ordinary Turkish husband does not appear to avail himself oftener of his legal right to tyrannise over his better half than the British husband does; less so in fact. Cases of brutality on the part of a man towards his wife are a hundred times commoner among the lower classes of this country than they are in Turkey. I once, but once only, saw such a case during my travels in the country"

This was written in the old days when Turkey included Palestine, but the statement applies equally to the Arabs, among whom I have never seen a single case of a single case of "Saturday-night " treatment of wife or child during twenty years of intimate association.

In any case, among the Muslims, the wife has always a second protector in the person of her father, or, still more, her brother, for a woman never passes so entirely out of her own family as among us. Her dowry, dot or mitgift as it is called in Europe-her "purchase money" as ill-informed writers on the East prefer to call it is paid into the hands of her nearest male relative, who becomes, therefore, her natural protector, when she becomes a widow. The husband's family is, however, responsible for the children, and she may be required to leave them. Among the fellaheen especially, if it is thought desirable that she should remain with them, the following procedure is often observed.

The widow stands in the newly-made grave when the funeral procession is approaching. The brother of the dead man requests her to leave, which she refuses to do, and when the request becomes a command, she replies that she has sworn to remain