Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/398

Rh In the chief room I found a large number of people assembled, and in one corner there was a bed, consisting of two mattresses, on the floor, and Helweh, my favorite, was half reclining on it. When I approached her she threw herself on my neck and burst into tears, but quickly recovered herself, and said, "Welcome, O light of my eyes." I said softly, "You are very happy, Helweh, in being the mother of a son. Where is the boy?" She answered sadly, "I have no son. My child is a female child, and is made no account of."

I sat on the edge of her bed, and she lifted up the heavy coverings by her side, and handed to me a little figure swaddled in white and purple linen, and crimson silk, with its head bandaged and its eyelids blackened with kohl. I said, "What name shall you give your little girl?" She answered, "The Bek will name her—I have no power." I said, "Have you any choice?" She replied, "I should like it to be called Miriam, because that is your name, and it is a good name." I said, "That would please me greatly, and your little child would remind you always of me. I will ask the Bek if he will allow it." She answered immediately, "Then the child is named already—its name is Miriam."

A number of women were sitting round the room leaning against the walls. After coffee had been brought for me, and a narghilé had been prepared, the nurse, a strange-looking woman, with long ragged hair dyed with henna, till it had become a tawny red, began in a low monotonous key to sing a welcome to the first-born child of Helweh, and all the women clapped their hands beating the time.

I found that there had been a very serious quarrel in the harem, and to prevent mischief Saleh Bek had been obliged to hire a separate house for one of his wives, and she had gone there with her children and servants.

Soon after I returned home I saw Saleh Bek, and I asked him if he had seen his new-born child. He said, "No, custom forbids me to see it or its mother before seven days