Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/408

Rh lent man, an Arab, who at that time lived at Hâifa. He could speak no language except his own, but he knew that thoroughly, and my young friend enjoyed the unusual advantage of being able to correspond with him without the aid of a secretary.

One afternoon, as I was walking with her in the garden of roses, she showed me a little poem he had written to her, in the form of a letter, in which he complained of not having heard from her for several days.

Furrah is a happy wife and mother now, and I think that she will forgive me if I chronicle here a translation of the letter, which made her face look so bright on that 17th of June. I wrote it down in my note-book, as literally as I could, after she had kindly read it to me in Arabic two or three times, carefully explaining in English the meaning of every word which I did not understand. (Don't be angry, Furrah!) The letter was dated Haifa, June 15, 1857: