The above bit of ancient expression would describe the ideal of happiness of a village people in Palestine to-day.

In a village there may be few or many tribes. In a village tribe there may be scores of families. The tribe is a great family and goes by the Arabic name DÂr (court or house). In el-BÎreh, for instance, there are four tribes among its eight hundred Moslems and one tribe of Christians numbering less than a hundred. The Moslem tribes are DÂr ?awÎl, DÂr ?urÂn, DÂr Hamayil and DÂr 'Abid. The Christian tribe goes by the name RafÎdya, because originally the members came from a village of that name, near NÂblus. DÂr ?awÎl is by far the most influential and supplies two of the three shaykhs of the village recognized by the general government. The other shaykh comes from DÂr ?urÂn. These three shaykhs are the intermediaries between the general government and the village. Sometimes the tribe will become so large as to have subordinate divisions within it. In RÂm AllÂh there are five original tribes, the ?adadeh, the DÂr IbrahÎm, the DÂr Jurjus, the ?asÂsineh and the Sha?ara. But the tribe of ?adadeh is nearly the equal in numbers of the other four, and has been divided into four sub-tribes, the Shara?a, the DÂr AwÂd, the DÂr YÛsuf and the DÂr Abu Jaghab. The result is that there are practically eight tribes in the village. The four branches of the ?adadeh feel a kinship and importance from their common source and present size. The other four tribes go by the common designation of the Hamayil.

Birth is the usual mode of entering a tribe, but outsiders are sometimes admitted. A man from another part of Syria had occasion to live in one of the large Christian villages of Palestine and wished to be counted as a citizen there. He decided to join a certain tribe in that village. As much as he was permitted, he fellowshippedfellowshipped with that tribe, went to their guest-house occasionally and contributed to expenses by sharing in their provision of food for visiting strangers and soldiers. He then had the government at Jerusalem change his kushan or paper of residence and citizenship so that it should now declare him a resident of such and such a village. When he had spoken to the elders of the tribe that he sought to join, and they in turn to the members of the tribe, he was admitted to membership with them by common consent. Thenceforth he paid his military tribute through the chief men of this tribe. The elders mentioned are the heads of families and are called the ukhtiyarÎyeh. They are the tribal chiefs and representatives.

Ordinarily friendship is confined to this tribal relationship, and marriage is usually restricted to its limits. As an Arabic proverb expresses it, “I am against my cousin, but my cousin and I are against the world.” People outside this tribal family are strangers and possible foes.^[53] If, contrary to what they expect of outsiders, we should show ourselves kindly disposed to them by continual helpful acts, very likely they might set up a hypothetical relationship between themselves and us, at least in conversation, in order to gloss over the anomaly.

Closer yet is the relationship within the immediate family. As long as the size of the family permits, it occupies the one house, or extensions of it, but if it is prosperous and growing, new households are set up and by such a process the tribe develops. Where friendship is practically confined to the family and tribe the importance of family membership and numerous family connections will be appreciated.^[54] The larger and more influential one’s family, the more secure are its fortunes.^[55] And influence depends on the number of the men.

A Moslem was killed and it was several months before his slayers were detected and brought to punishment. The family of the deceased was large and worked together to ferret out the secret. A smaller family might never have been able to accomplish the object. Outsiders or the government would have made no such persistent effort.^[56]

Marriages in the country are usually with some kindred family.^[57] Marrying outside one’s tribe is comparatively rare. Marriage is the one important subject among parents of boys and girls. Girls are sometimes married as early as seven years. They are betrothed at much tenderer ages. A mother brought a little child in arms to one of the village day-schools and urged its acceptance, doubtless to have relief from the care of it for a part of the day. The child was a girl, and the teacher of the girls’ school refused to take her, exclaiming, “Why, she’s a mere baby. We cannot teach her to read now.” The mother argued and finally said, “If you don’t take her now she will be betrothed soon.” The introduction of school privileges into the country, for girls as well as for boys, has resulted, in many cases, in lengthening the childhood of those who otherwise would have been betrothed and married early in life. Parents are generally unwilling to allow a younger daughter to be married before an elder daughter.^[58]

A marriage settlement in money is expected from the bridegroom and paid to the father of the bride. Parents often attempt to avoid cash payments by an exchange of brothers and sisters. A family with a boy and a girl make overtures to an eligible family having a girl and a boy, and the young people are paired off at more advantageous terms all round than would be the case if the families were strangers, that is, if they were out of tribal relations with each other. Sometimes, of course, this matter of exchange causes people of very different ages to be joined, but then the years heal that, and the theory is that if the bride is considerably younger than the groom the husband as he comes to old age will have a comparatively strong and able housekeeper and caretaker in his wife.

The usual wedding payment to the father of the bride is about two hundred twenty-five dollars in this village. From this sum the father may make his daughter such presents as he pleases of jewels and head-coins. The wedding costume of the bride is the gift of the groom’s family.

Where a widowed woman is remarried, the marriage portion paid her father is less than in the case of a first marriage, and she is apt to receive a larger share of it in presents from her father, since she cannot, in this case, be made to marry except by her own consent.

To get the business of marriage settled at the earliest date and in the most advantageous way possible is the aim of guardians and parents. The wife will have done her part well if she bears children, mostly boys,^[59] sees that no unnecessary losses of money or food occur in the house and holds her tongue. If she fails in any of these points she may dim the felicities of the married state, that is, of her husband and his father and brothers.

There are three occasions preceding the actual marriage of the man and woman on which public celebration is made. The first is the engagement. This is arranged between the fathers of the young people. The initiative is taken by the father of the young man working through friends, who approach the father of the girl and make a proposition of betrothal. If all is favorable the bargain may be bound by money paid to the father of the young woman. A betrothal party is arranged for friends of both the contracting young people at the home of the prospective bride. The young man prepares a feast for the invited guests, a sheep is killed, a priest may be present and the betrothal made public. The agreement is but a little less strong than the marriage contract itself.^[60] The second public manifestation is the purchase by the groom of the marriage outfit of garments, including the bridal trousseau, and the procession that carries the articles home. The bridegroom’s party goes to some large near-by village or the nearest city for these purchases. One day we were apprised of such a trousseau party by shouting and the firing of arms, and later a procession of women went by on their way to their own village, carrying with them the bundle of wedding garments. One of their village chiefs was with them. At another time a group returning from Jerusalem on a similar errand was met by a crowd of women on the outskirts of the village and accompanied into it with singing and dancing. This time the women had a stick dressed up with the bridal costume. There was the red striped dress and gay jacket on a cross-stick frame to hold out the sleeves. There were also a girdle, the heavy coin head-dress and three small mirrors, one on each arm and one on the breast. The Bethlehem costume is very commonly used for gala occasions by people of other sections, as it is one of the showiest costumes of the country. The bridegroom is expected to provide wedding garments for relatives of the bride, though they in turn may be expected to return a wedding gift of equal value to him. The third celebration may last two or three days. Towards the close of it the wedding itself takes place.

We went one Saturday evening to see the jollification that preceded a wedding to be solemnized the next day. Outside the house of the groom there were two lines of young men, their number varying from forty to sixty as they shifted places, some dropping out and others falling into line from time to time. These two lines were facing each other and a bright brush fire was blazing in the middle. As more men crowded in to participate a line was formed at one end, thus making a third side of a parallelogram. The men on either side were singing back and forth to each other, in antiphonal fashion, while they kept up a sort of swaying dance in line called the mil'ab. By pressing their shoulders, neighbor to neighbor, the line moved as one mass. The left foot was made the base of movement for each singer. The right foot was swayed and then lifted high and forward until the whole body swung forward in a sweeping bow or duck. The hands were also keeping time, rubbing up and down the forearms from the elbows to the finger-tips, the head meanwhile swaying from side to side, all to the native peasant singing of the same simple tune over and over again. Certain fixed verses were made the basis and were finished out with impromptu verses for the occasion. Some of these were, “We are glad to see your faces.” “We have come to you; if it were not for love we should not be here.” “Love is sweet.” “We hope for good large dishes.” “Did you see any BedawÎn coming up from the East?” “Such and such (naming them) villages will help you against the enemy.” “Fear not, delicate young women, our young men will protect you,” and so on, passing compliments, singing the praises of love and acknowledging its power in bringing them together, or mingling snatches of war sentiment, anticipation of generous servings of the wedding-feast and assurances of alliance, friendship, defense and security in the strength and equipment of their young men. The bridegroom mingled joyfully with the others, sometimes performing in the line and sometimes replenishing the brush fire. All around, on the roofs of the neighboring houses, in the darkness that was black by contrast with the brilliant fire, the women of the tribe were seated. Every now and then, at any seeming lull in the excitement, some woman would set up the peculiar trilling cry called the zaghÂrÛt or zaghÂrÎt, at which the men would fairly leap into a renewal of the dance and song. Pistols and muskets were shot off occasionally. Although this was all taking place in a Christian village, a good number of Moslem youths from a neighboring village came over to join in the fun. They had brought two sheep which had been slaughtered and were now simmering in immense kettles for a feast. The father of the groom acted as an overseer of the gayeties and was trying, apparently, to curb the zeal of those who had firearms to discharge.

On the wedding-day in a Christian village the bride and groom with their attendant friends form two parties and approach the church from different quarters. If obtainable, horses are provided for the bride and groom to ride on and she is completely covered over with a mantle,^[61] a feather being stuck in the top of it over her head. Inside the church the bridal party, consisting of groom, bride, best man, bridesmaid, the mothers and some other relatives, stand in the middle of the church facing the altar. The groom stands at the bride’s right hand; she is heavily veiled. Guests and spectators, in the case of the wedding mentioned above, filled the church on either side of the bridal party and a large concourse filled the yard outside. Four priests and a censer boy entered the church. Tapers were provided for those guests nearest the young people, while candles were given to the bride and groom. These were lighted. The censer was swung. The ritual, hymns and Scripture were read or intoned, partly in Arabic and partly in Greek. The head priest, who was a Greek by blood, read the Greek portions, while his assistants, natives of the village, read the Arabic parts. Rings which had been touched on the head and lips of bride and groom were placed on their hands and afterwards changed about. Wreaths of artificial flowers were placed on their heads. The book to which most respect had been shown, the Bible, was brought down between them, dividing their joined fingers. Then, headed by the priests, the bridal party marched around in a circling course with all the attendant relatives. Some old women, following closely behind the bride and groom, caught at their robes and, joining them, went through the motions of sewing them with threadless needles. After this the final pronouncement was made by the head priest and the ceremony was over. Immediately the best man grabbed the groom in a sort of ecstasy of congratulation and lifted him into the air twice, and would have done so a third time had not the priest interfered, probably thinking that these demonstrations were out of place in the church. A gun was fired outside the church as soon as it was known that the ceremony was complete. After some hearty felicitations the party moved off in procession with priests and guests.

The groom, with the men, went to the guest-room^[62] of the tribe, where they enjoyed conversation, coffee and cigarettes. The bride and her party of women went to the home of the groom. As she was about to enter the house a water-jar was placed on her head and her hand was assisted to plaster a piece of bread-dough on the jamb of the doorway. These signs were in token of good housewifely qualities. After the bride had been seated for some time inside the house her women friends were granted their entreaty and she allowed them to uncover her face. Then she consented to exhibit her jewelry,^[63] silver bracelets, bangles, head-coins, ear-jewels, etc. She seemed very sad, as is expected when a young girl leaves her mother, and quite exhausted. Her hands and nails were stained with ?ennÂ. It is said that the hands, wrists and lower limbs are always stained thus on the night before the wedding. Outside the house five kettles filled with mutton were set on stones over wood fires. They were seething and bubbling, getting into readiness for the wedding-feast in the evening.^[64]

At the guest-house assembly, where the groom and his men friends are gathered, some one calls out the names of those who have given money presents to the bridegroom and the amount in each case.

If there are reasons for a less public wedding celebration than usual, the ceremony is performed on a week-day. Such is the case when some near relative has died recently, where haste is desired, or where the man or the woman has been married previously.

One Sunday we saw a double wedding celebration. But one was in the Greek Orthodox Church and the other was in the United Greek Church, which is papal in allegiance. The contracting families were so closely related as to allow of but one of the marriages planned between them, according to Greek Church law. But as each family had a son and daughter to marry off to the daughter and son of the other family and considered their own interests in the matter as of more importance than church law, one bridal party was sent to one church and one to the other.

The party of one of the bridegrooms was provided with sword dancers, and as they reached any open place of sufficient size, as at the street corners, a space was cleared and a dancer with a short curved sword in one hand and a waving cloth in the other, went through the graceful movements, leaping and crouching.

By marriage the wife becomes a member of her husband’s family. She assists her mother-in-law in the household duties. One of the reasons given for some of the very early marriages is that the young woman may be trained into a suitable wife for the son by his mother.

It is counted an affliction^[75] if the new wife is not a mother in due time, and it is a joyous occasion when a male child is born. There are many parents who love their girl babies tenderly, but they are almost sure to be partial to boys, and the majority of parents are greatly disappointed if boys do not make up the larger part of the children.

One day I stumbled into a house where an anomalous condition of things existed for a Christian village. On coming away I learned that the man was a bigamist. He was reputed to have become rich through thieving, and his fine house was childless. What did he do but bring home another wife! The laws of his country were not against such a practise, but the law of his church, with the sentiment and practise of his fellow villagers, was sternly against it. He defied all, even though he was cut off from communion. He became an object of reproach and abhorrence to the pious and the superstitious of the whole village, who looked for terrible consequences. A long time afterwards, some mention of this man having occurred in conversation, I learned that he was without any children by his second wife also, and that his childlessness was considered by the villagers as a token of the wrath of God. Although rich, his lot was considered miserable by the neighbors. He was said to be worth about fifteen thousand dollars. He was accused of having made a business of stealing wedding finery from festive and sleepy bridal parties.

Disappointed lovers are not unknown among the peasantry. One young man of a prominent family fell in love with the daughter of the owner of a fig orchard next to his father’s orchard. For some reason, possibly the fact that they belonged to different tribes (though of the same village), the father of the girl was unwilling that these two young people should marry each other. He gave his daughter in marriage to another youth, a member of her own tribe. The disappointed young man has never been consoled, refuses to marry any other or even to enter into the social affairs of his own family. He lives, a recluse, at some distance from his village in one of the valleys. The villagers think that in time he may become a priest.

Boyhood and girlhood are shorter in Palestine than in America, but often merry. Stories illustrating the preference for boys among Oriental parents are plentiful, but no one who examines the society of the Orient will fail to find that it could not well be otherwise without very great changes. Boys increase the size, force, wealth and importance of the family. When they marry they bring home their wives and the children perpetuate the house of the father. Should the husband die, the wife and her boy children may be assisted by her husband’s relatives, the boys certainly. Should the mother of the boys marry again, the boys go from her to be brought up by her former husband’s family. Boys increase the house, girls decrease it. The earnings of the father and the sons go to provide a substantial family dwelling and to defend the house against adverse circumstances. Girls are sure to marry and, although they bring in a money payment to their fathers, yet in every other respect they are a disadvantage, as they go to strengthen another house, not the house where they were fed and reared. But there is not an iron-clad observance of an inhuman rule here as some seem to imagine. All customs strange to our Western ideas may surely be supposed to be grounded in very human causes and to be very natural after all. Many parents are very fond of their girls. Relations through the mother’s family and through sisters are often highly esteemed.

One evening two fatherless little girls belonging to a Moslem tribe in el-BÎreh were going home from RÂm AllÂh and were caught in a heavy hail and thunder-storm just behind our house. Knowing that they would be endangered we went out to bring them into the house until the storm should pass. We found them very frightened and cowering in the poor defense of a wall. They were soon quite happy after we had dried and fed them.

But, just as in any other country, there were anxious mother-hearts a mile away in el-BÎreh, and soon those mothers were out in the storm, having enlisted two men and two boys in their eager search for the little girls. Their terror was changed to keen pleasure when they found the children safely sheltered from harm.

As the demands of the tribal life become less imperative, following the improvement of social and general governmental conditions, the customs of the people approach more nearly those of other nations.

At the time of the baby’s birth one of the neighboring women goes with the good news to the father. For her welcome news she may receive a gift from him. The father also provides fruit and other dainties for those who come to congratulate him on the birth of a child. All this happens in case the child is a boy. Quieter times ensue on the birth of a little girl. The father and mother are known after the birth of the first son as the father of so and so and the mother of so and so. For instance, Abu FÂris and Umm FÂris are the new titles and practically the names of the father and mother of the boy FÂris. The child adds its father’s first name after its own. Simon Bar Jona (Simon, Son of Jona) was the style of name among the ancient Jews. In modern times the Arab omits the word son in common usage, thus making the name simply Simon Jona.

The midwife attends to the dressing of the baby. She rubs the little body with salt and oil and swaddles it tightly. This woman attendant comes every day for forty days to cleanse and wrap the child. Woe betide the mother or any other meddler who interferes with the wrapping and other peculiar functions of the midwife, who is very jealous of the dignity of her profession. She is mistress of her department and brooks no interference.

The Christian baby is ordinarily baptized after the fortieth day. The occasion is celebrated with a dinner. Babies are not weaned early. Some are nursed for two years, while the last baby may be weaned only after it is four or five years old. Dainties are brought to sweeten the little gums and cause the weaning child to forget its mother’s milk.^[76]

One day we stepped into a near neighbor’s to see a newborn boy. He was fast asleep, wound and dressed in his tight little wraps, and lying on one of those circular straw mats of the kind used to cover the wooden bread bowl. The mat in this case was put on top of a round shallow straw basket such as the peasant woman uses to carry wheat. The whole was about six inches high. The mother lay on a pallet on the floor beside it. Considerable interest was felt in the health of this baby boy. There were three girl children in the family, no boys, two other boy babies having died. Their death illustrated the saying, “Killed with kindness.” Being boys they received more attention, that is to say, more pampering, than they would have received had they been girls. This consisted in heeding their every wish in the matter of food, which was especially harmful in times of sickness.

Children are the rulers of most houses in the country villages. They exceed in number and dirtiness. If they are well they run in and out in all kinds of weather, barefooted, bareheaded. If they are unwell, not overmuch attention is paid to them at first except to bring them extras to eat. If they become dangerously ill, all the medical help within reach is summoned in a frenzy of helplessness. If they recover, their convalescence is retarded by the same excessive generosity that seeks to stuff them with whatever edibles they may call for. An ordinary country parent is simply unable to resist the crying demands of a sick child, and scarcely of a well one. The more ignorant parents are fond of encouraging the precocity of their children, even teaching them to utter baby curses against the members of their families, and laughing and patting the little swearers in encouragement.

The poorer children are seldom bothered with more than one garment, unless it be a skull-cap. If the parents are more prosperous a little cloth cap embroidered, and with a few bangles or blue beads sewed on the front, is provided. As they grow older the children may gain a jacket over the little shirt. The little girls may have a row of coins on their head-dresses and a little shawl or sash about them. On festivals the little girl may be allowed to wear her mother’s holiday jacket or shawl. The shawl has to be folded several times for the girl’s use. The Bethlehem jacket, so commonly sought for festivals, is never meant to be an exact fit for any one. Its beauty is in its surface, embroidered with yellow, red and green silk.

The little girls begin very early to bring water in a jar on the head, first beginning with a tiny jar which they steady by the hands, and progressing until able to carry the heavy full-sized jar without the touch of a hand, yes, even to carry such a jar, weighing thirty pounds, tilted forward on the head. Of such a one, having a strong muscular neck, and swinging forward gracefully and easily, the others may say as they point, “See, she is strong, she can carry her jar tipped like the comb of a cock.”

When very little, boys and girls play together in the streets and around the ovens, sometimes even on the roofs. By the time they are six years old they are very apt to separate and play with their own kind and to differ a little in their choice of games. The older girls in the families have to care for the little children a great deal, and have to carry and amuse them. Boys and girls are soon able to help in the vineyards, or in picking up olives, or gathering grass and brush, or carrying things for older members of the family.

The receipt for making men and women in Palestine is the same as elsewhere: Take boys and girls and give them a few years of responsibility and you have men and women. The result of these few years of responsibility is to take away the freedom of play and innocency and to add the reserve of work and insight.

The following story is sometimes told to children to warn them against foolish pride and to inculcate obedience to fathers.

A young tiger who had heard about the ability of men, though he had never seen one, felt so eager in his strength to have a combat that he expressed to his father a wish to go out and find a man and have a fight with him. The father tiger advised against such an undertaking, saying, “Even I who am older and stronger than you should not think of seeking a fight with a man, for I could not prevail against him.” But the proud young tiger, not heeding his father’s advice, went to seek a man. He journeyed until he came to a road much frequented by travelers and lay down under a tree to await a foe. While waiting there he noticed a camel running down the road, although loaded heavily. The camel was running away from his master. The young, inexperienced tiger got up and said to the camel, “Are you a man?” The camel answered hastily, “I am not a man, but I am running away from a man, because he loads such heavy burdens on me.” The young tiger thought to himself, “How strong must the man be if he causes so much distress and fear in this great creature.” Next a horse passed, and the tiger thought, “Maybe this is the man,” but received a negative reply to his question as he had from the camel. Then there came along a weak little donkey, loaded with wood and driven by a man. The tiger asked his question of the man, “Are you a man?” “Yes,” the man answered. Then the young tiger said, “I have come to have a fight with you.” “All right,” replied the man, “but I am not quite ready now. May I tie you with my rope to the tree until I can come back?” The tiger allowed the man to tie him, which the man did very securely, and then cut a strong, thick club from the tree, with which he beat the young tiger cruelly. The tiger cried out in pain, “Oh, please let me go; I’ll never try to fight with a man again.” Then the man let him go and the young tiger went to his father and told his experience.

A bit of current fiction regarding Asiatics is that the children are chronically unhappy. Moslem children are the especial victims of this Christian species of prevarication. To such people “children playing in the streets of Jerusalem” belong to the good time coming and are the sign of fulfilled prophecy,^[77] despite the probable fact that children have been playing in Jerusalem’s streets for some thousands of years, whether tourists have seen them or not. Doubtless, as the tourist appears in any street, playing ceases and small children flee or stand in mute amazement. The child will probably be happy again when the apparition vanishes. Along the tourists’ route the children are too often taught to cry out for gifts (bakshÎsh) and to show themselves at a disadvantage in order to excite pity. Moslem children sometimes curse or even attempt to stone travelers.

A matter of wonderment to us is the apparent immunity from harm with which children play on unprotected places, such as roofs and about empty pits and cisterns. Now and then we hear of some accident, but rarely. A neighbor’s little girl, playing on the flat housetop, fell over into the street and died.^[78]

One day I saw some little girls five or six years of age playing at carrying head bundles of grass in imitation of women. Boys make and play with slings (mi?lÂ') for throwing stones. When quarreling, the first impulse is for them to reach for a stone to throw. We noticed severe burns on some of the boys, near the wrist. Some of them made huge sores which roused our pitying concern. We found out that the wounds were self-inflicted, however, the superstitious scamps having a boyish notion that burning the wrist or forearm would insure for them greater accuracy in throwing. The boys play horse vigorously. They have a game played with pegs of wood very similar to our peggy, in which one strikes a double-pointed peg on one end with a stick and tries to gain ground with an opponent. Another game is played in a soft, spongy spot of ground with longer pegs sharpened on one end only. It is something like playing stick-knife. The object is so to drive the peg by a throw into the soft space in the ground as to dislodge an opponent’s pegs, previously thrown, and made to stick in the same place.

A game among the boys, called 'alÂm, is very similar to the game of roll to the bat. The privileged player strikes a ball with a stick and drives it out into a field of other players. The boy who secures the ball tries to throw or roll it so as to hit a stone marker ('alÂm) set up by the first player. The one thus aiming at the stone marker warns the others to stand aside and allow him to play by saying “DustÛr,” signifying, “By your leave.”

The boys in our school played a game called wolf. A circle of boys joined hands and went dancing around while one outside the moving circle, called the wolf, kept trying to snatch one from the circle of boys who represented sheep. But whenever a boy in the dancing circle came anywhere near the hovering wolf he let fly his heels to prevent capture. As boy after boy was snatched successfully by the outside boy the circle grew smaller until but one was left, who was to be the wolf in the next game.

Boys play about the threshing-floor and are often in the vineyards and gardens. They play many games that are either the same or very similar to those played by boys elsewhere. Such are marbles, duck-on-the-rock, seesaw, swinging, blindman, leap-frog and hide-and-seek. In RÂm AllÂh there is a variation of this last game called khurrak, played by sides. There is a game called ilkÛrat which might well be considered a primitive relative of golf.

There is as much difference between the training of the children of the better class of peasants and the poorer in Palestine as obtains in the differing grades of homes in other countries. Most youths come to exhibit a very admirable respect for their elders and their teachers. They are taught to kiss the hand of their father^[79] or of any guest who is visiting him. They seldom interject their own conversation or ideas into the current of talk going on about them, but listen with keen though modest attention. They are proud of the standing of the family in the respect of the neighborhood and eager to learn their part in the business of life.

One father, a shaykh in his village, on sending away a son to another village to attend school, was gruff in manner for some days before the boy’s departure and treated the boy so unhandsomely that the mother protested and said that it was wrong to let the boy go away feeling badly. In explanation of his treatment of his son the father said, “Do you love the boy more than I do? I am acting so that he will not be homesick.”

A boy was noticed who had a fiery temper. When in a passionate fit of anger he seemed to lose control of himself and wished to harm other boys, being restrained only by force. An experienced mother in the village who was related to the family explained the lad’s disposition to sudden fits of anger by saying that when the child was very young the mother’s milk was scanty and the baby had to be fed from the breasts of several different women to help out a little now and then, and that this variety of breasts for feeding accounted for the violent temper of the boy.

Few families, comparatively, have what we should call a family name. The nearest to it for the generality would be the name of the tribe to which the family belongs. The tribal name is not used except in a formal or legal designation. Generally a child bears two names, his own, or, as we should say, a Christian or first name, followed by the name of his father. Thus the child is given the personal name YakÛb (Jacob), and if his father’s personal name is IbrahÎm (Abraham), he goes by the two names, YakÛb IbrahÎm, which is equivalent to saying, “This is YakÛb, the son of IbrahÎm.” If IbrahÎm had a daughter, he might name her 'AzÎzeh, and she would be 'AzÎzeh IbrahÎm. IbrahÎm’s own father’s name may have been DÂÛd (David), so IbrahÎm’s full name would be IbrahÎm DÂÛd, that is, IbrahÎm, the son of DÂÛd. But more likely IbrahÎm’s father’s name was YakÛb, the same names being used often in a family with the omission of a generation, so that grandfather and grandson may have the same name.^[80] In such a case the list of names would run:

If this boy should have a son he probably would be called IbrahÎm YakÛb. Sometimes one of these names, say IbrahÎm, is kept as a continuous family name, and so ordinary names become stiffened into family or house names. Occasionally the name thus taken may have been that of a mother rather than a father. There is the very pretty custom, already mentioned, that is quite general, of calling a man and his wife after the name of their first-born son. So in the above case the father would seldom be called IbrahÎm YakÛb, but Abu YakÛb, that is, father of (the little) YakÛb, and the mother, Umm YakÛb, the mother of YakÛb. Even though the child die the parents will be called henceforth by these designations, which are esteemed titles of honor. In other cases family names are derived from trades, as ?adÂd, blacksmith; BannÂ, mason; BustÂny, gardener or orchard-keeper; ?ajjÂr, stone worker. Or, it may be from a former place of residence, as RafÎdya (a village near NÂblus). If a member of the family has been a priest the name of all the family and descendants is apt to be KhÛry. Some family names are hard to interpret. One of the most frequently heard names in the Lebanon district is that of Ma'lÛf. The word itself means a fatted sheep, but the history of the application of the name is obscure unless it was given to families possessing such animals. Another family name, possibly of modern origin, is Ba?Â?Ô, or Ba?Â?Â, the second form being the same as the word now used for the new vegetable, potato, which fact may explain the name, or it is possible that another significance attaches to the term.

Some names are indicative of the religion to which the bearer belongs. 'Abd er-Ra?man, Mu?ammad, Ma?mÛd, ?asan, Zayd, would be understood as being Moslem names. A woman with the name ?Âjar (Hagar) would be a Moslem. On the other hand, ?ann (John) for a man (feminine, ?annÂh), would be pretty sure to mark a Christian. Such masculine names as KhalÎl, MÛsÂ, DÎÂb, 'AzÎz, GhÂnim and FarÎd would not betray the religion of the bearer, nor such feminine names as ?elweh, AnÎseh, ?abÎbeh and ?ab?ah.

Many of the above names and others are very significant when translated.^[81] Miladeh means that the little girl bearing it was born at Christmas, which is known as the “Feast of the Birth” ('AÎd el-MÎlÂd). Needless to say, this little girl was born in a Christian family. TufÂ?ah, apple, makes a pretty feminine name. So also Far?Â, joy, and Nijmeh, star. Not so pleasant are the names TamÂm, complete, and KÂfyeh, enough, which mean that girl babies are not welcome in the homes where such names are given.

Nicknames are often bestowed and often stick fast to individuals and families.^[82] We knew a dumb man whose family went by the name Akhras, dumb. A trickster whose cleverness was really admired and honored by his fellows was dubbed esh-Shay?Ân, Satan. No more enviable compliment can be paid a sharp business man than this same designation, Shay?Ân. We knew a little girl who, in common with the family, shared the nickname that the villagers had given to her father, ?ar?Ûr (or ?ur?ur), cricket.

Many customs and much lore of the people have been described from time to time during the past twenty-five years by Baldensperger in the Quarterly Statements of the Palestine Exploration Fund.