Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/98

Rh by troops of men and boys, we approached the little town, which comprises about thirty or forty rudely-built houses, made of irregularly-piled blocks of hewn stone, bits of broken columns, and masses of mud or clay. The custom-house officer, Abu Habîb, guided us to his house, which consisted of one low, large, square room, lined with clay and roofed with tree branches blackened with smoke. One half of the ceiling was concealed by matting, and the other half was picturesque with pendent branches. Small holes served as windows, and the roughly-made door was a portable one. A mattress spread on the floor was used as a divan. Jars of earthenware and metal saucepans stood against the wall. A cooking-place was built in one corner, made of large, finely-beveled, ancient stones and burned clay. Baskets of coarse salt from the sea-shore were near to it. Habîb, the son of our host, prepared coffee for us. In our presence he roasted the berries, and then pounded them in a stone mortar. A large box, like a muniment chest, with ornamental lock and hinges of wrought iron, stood near the door, and I perched myself on it to be as far away as I could from the mud floor, on which I could distinctly see a numerous assembly of large fleas dancing and hopping about. The monks, with truly monastic virtue, did not seem to mind them. Gaunt-looking women, hiding their faces with tattered white cotton vails, peeped at us, and dirty but pretty children came crowding round.

Katrîne made a tour of the town, and then took me to the house which she considered the neatest and cleanest, where I rested with her and refreshed myself. The women who welcomed me were dressed in tight jackets and full trowsers, made of washed-out Manchester prints, patched all over without regard to color or pattern. Their heads were covered with mundîls—squares of colored muslin; their necks adorned with coins, and their wrists with twisted silver bracelets. They were exceedingly amused with my little traveling dressing-case. They told me they had never seen a hair-brush before. They unplait their long