Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/188

Rh three years I was in the habit of seeing him frequently. In August, 1858, he went to Beirût on business. He was not well when he left home, and on Wednesday, the 1st of September, news was brought to Hâifa that he was dead, and had been buried at Beirût. This was a new and terrible affliction for the Sekhali family, for Elias was looked up to as the ruler and manager of the house. Khalil, the aged father, felt the loss acutely, and the widow was quite prostrated. Grief bewildered and almost stupefied her she could not even weep. "Call for the mourning women, that they may come; and for such as are skillful in lamentation, that they may come; and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters." And again there were seven days of weeping in the house of Sekhali. See Jeremiah ix, 17, 18.

I joined the mourners on the third day. As soon as I entered the house, I heard the minstrels and the loud cries of the people. See Matthew ix, 23. I was led into a large, long room. Women were sitting on the floor in rows on two sides of it. An open space was left down the middle to the end of the room, where the widow sat apart, with her two youngest children lying at her feet. Her hair was disheveled, and she wore no covering on her head. Her eyelids were swollen with weeping, and her face pale with watching. She looked as if she had suddenly grown old. Her dress was rent and disordered. She had not rested or changed her garments since she heard the tidings of her husband's death. She kissed me passionately, and said, "Weep for me, he is dead;" and then, pointing to her children, she said, "Weep for them, they are fatherless." I sat near to her. One of her children, who was about three years old, crept into my lap, and whispered, "My father is dead." Then he closed his eyes, and pressed his chubby little fingers tightly over them, saying, "My father is dead like this—he is in the dark."

The wailing,which had been slightly interrupted at my