Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/35

28 We ascended a stone staircase to a terrace leading to two rooms. We entered the first, a pretty little square whitewashed room, draped with pink and white muslin. In one corner was a bed, made on the floor, and a narrow mattress, about a yard wide, ran round the other sides of the room. Cushions covered with damask were leaning against the walls, and thus a comfortable lounge was formed. A Turkey carpet concealed the stone floor. Several ladies were seated à la Turque, on the divan, smoking narghilés, the long flexible tubes of which radiated from the group of large red Bohemian glass bottles, which stood bubbling and sparkling in the center of the room. On the low bed a young mother was reclining. Her dark wavy hair, unbraided, escaped over the embroidered pillow. Her red tarbouche was decorated with folds of blue crape and everlasting flowers, her pale hands rested on the crimson silk wadded quilt, and her striped Aleppo yellow and white silk dress contrasted well with the dark brilliancy of her fever-bright face and eyes. I took her hand in mine, and she said, "Welcome, my sister; my lips must be silent, but my heart is speaking to your heart." She lifted up a tiny blue velvet lehaff—quilt—embroidered with silver thread, and revealed a baby boy of a few days old. I took him in my arms. The ladies with one accord said, "May you soon have the joy of holding in your arms new offspring of your father's house! May your brother soon be married, and be blessed with many sons!"

The infant I held in my arms was so bound in swaddling clothes that it was perfectly firm and solid, and looked like a mummy. It had a band under its chin and across its forehead, and a little quilted silk cap on its head, with tiny coins of gold sewed to it. The outer covering of this little figure was of crimson and white striped silk; no sign of arms or legs, hands or feet, could be seen.

Leah's sister-in-law, whose head was much decorated with jewelry and artificial flowers, took the child from me and placed it in a swing cradle, draped with pink and white