Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/414

Rh dren. She greatly admired her young mistress, and seemed to regard her as her especial property—as something very precious, which she delighted to caress, to embellish, and to protect.

Sit Lebîbeh could speak no language but Arabic, and could not read; but she was thoughtful, shrewd, and witty, and I always enjoyed her society. She was a member of the Latin Church.

After she had been in Hâifa about one year, she said to me, "My sister, you must not form an opinion of the character and customs of Arab women generally, from what you see of them here and in this neighborhood, for in my city, Damascus, and in Aleppo, they are much more civilized, although not Europeanized in the least degree. Here I find no companions like those I left in Damascus. Here nearly all the Arab women, both Christians and Moslems, live like peasants, and are very ignorant. They tattoo and paint themselves barbarously. They wear heavy silver head-ornaments, which are only fit to put upon the heads of horses. They do not keep their houses, themselves, or their children clean. I can not associate with them; while the few who have had the opportunity of learning some European language, and have married into European or semi-European families, have almost ceased to be Arabs. They prefer Italian or French to the language which their mothers taught them; so from them also I feel separated."

But there was happiness in store for Lebîbeh. A little while afterward her mother came from Damascus to stay with her, to help her to nurse her first-born son Yusef. When I paid the visit of congratulation, I found the young mother almost silent with delight, but the grandmother was eloquent in praise of the little swaddled boy, asleep in a swing-cradle made of walnut-wood, inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl, and curtained with fine muslin. The covering of the cradle was purple velvet, embroidered with gold thread. Lebîbeh looked very pretty in her long,