Page:Syria, the land of Lebanon (1914).djvu/263

HAMATH THE GREAT evening a number of his friends dropped in to see us. As our own supply of Arabic was not at that time equal to the demands of a long conversation, we essayed one or two gymnastic tricks, only to be immediately outdone by our Syrian acquaintances. Then the ice was broken, and we settled down to a long evening of rough games, which always ended in somebody having his hand slapped with a knotted handkerchief. These strangely garbed men with their brown, wrinkled faces, entered into it all with such a childlike enjoyment that we were soon laughing and shouting as we had not done since the Christmas days of boyhood; and the little brazier, with its bright bed of charcoal that sent fearsome shadows of turbaned heads and long mustachios dancing on the white walls overhead, seemed a natural substitute for the Yule log which that very night was burning in the home across the seas.

As the Christians form a quite insignificant minority of the population of Hama, they receive a degree of consideration from their Moslem neighbors such as is not granted in cities where the two religions are more nearly balanced and where jealousy and hatred consequently lead to frequent reprisals. Our host, Dr. Taufik, told us that some of his warmest friends were young Moslems. He has a large practice among the harems of the city, and has performed heroic operations upon their inmates. One afternoon he guided us through a narrow,  [ 213 ]