My Father's House

NOVEMBER, 1913

BY ABRAHAM MITRIE RIHBANY

I

WHEN I first came into this world the Rihbany clan experienced the usual rejoicing which comes to a Syrian clan when a man-child is born to one of its families. My kindred rejoiced at my advent, not merely because I was a son instead of a daughter, important as that was, but because I was an asset of the clan, a possible reinforcement to their fighting strength, which they had to use often against another powerful clan in the town, called Jirdak. In the Jirdak camp, however, a correspondingly great sorrow was felt. On the same night on which I was born they lost by death one of their most valiant fighters. To be so reduced in power at the same time that the enemy was reinforced with a possible fighter, seemed to the Jirdaks to be a stern heavenly visitation which it was beyond their ability to bear. But so far as I was concerned, the enemies of my people sorrowed in vain. I never lifted a finger against them, never had the chance. My years of strength find me fighting greater battles far, far away from them, but not with carnal weapons.

The usual formalities were observed on the occasion of my birth. Friends, both men and women, came to our house in large numbers, into the very room where the day-old babe and its mother lay, to extend their congratulations. They brought their presents with them as did the ’Wise Men’ of old on their historic visit to Bethlehem. They sang and were exceeding glad, because unto them a child was born, a son was given. They were served with wine, coffee, and confections. I was baptized by triple immersion, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and thus adopted by the holy and ancient Greek Orthodox Church as one of her children. When I was forty days old, my mother being permitted again to come into the sanctuary, she carried me to the door of the church, as is the custom, where the robed priest met her, took me in his arms, as the aged Simeon took the infant Jesus, and presented me at the altar before the God of my fathers. In our family history I took rank as the fourth of a family of twelve children, five sons and seven daughters.

My parents were illiterate, as were their parents before them, and the parents of their parents, for generations. My father was a stonemason, a contractor and builder. He was a man of simple, unaffected dignity, kind-hearted, remarkably industrious and devoted to his family. He was highly respected by his kindred and business associates throughout his life. He always seemed to me to be the type of man who would never willfully and designedly ‘walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful.’ In a business way, however, he was not of the truly sagacious type. Through a wily and decidedly unscrupulous uncle of his, he became involved in certain financial transactions which kept him in debt and perpetual anxiety from early manhood until near his death at the age of eighty. And, oh, that‘debt,’ and the ever-recurring dread ‘interest’ at twelve per cent, and the thousand things which my father might have done to escape the evil designs of his uncle! how they haunted my soul from infancy to manhood, and how I shiver and shrink even now when I recall them to mind! Every bit of our property was taken away from us by the ‘Frenchman’ who held the mortgage and the hated ‘note,’ after my father had struggled for years, at least, to reduce the debt, but was prevented from doing so by the exorbitant rate of interest he was forced to pay.

My mother was in some respects more richly endowed by nature than my father. I grew up to consider her the intellectual leader of the family. She possessed an alert and resourceful mind, was swift both to hear and to speak, humorous, and generous to a fault. In our family troubles we generally looked to Mother for the wisest counsel. Along with her intellectual endowment, she possessed beauty of face and form, and absolute fearlessness. I never knew my mother to fear any situation, or anybody. Only the ‘debt’ oppressed her, because it was foisted upon my father by others. Those who knew her father always testified that she inherited his fearless spirit.

From description, I should judge that that grandfather of mine was such a man as Gideon, or Othniel, or Samson of the ancient leaders of Israel. His mighty voice was so heartening to his own clan in battle, and so terrifying to the enemy, that he was known to his generation as ‘Ibrahim the Tiger.’ My mother never forgot to remind me, with ‘great expectations,’ of the fact that I bore her father’s name. She said that his sister picked me up when I was but an hour old, kissed my doughy, wrinkly, primitive face, and named me Ibrahim—Abraham — but, rather fortunately, left out ‘the tiger.’ Her action was confirmed at my baptism. My mother’s strength of mind and great courage did not, as is sometimes the case with such women, militate against her feminine qualities. She was always a woman from the tip of her finger to the centre of her heart, and according to the fashion of her time and country an excellent housekeeper.

II

My father’s house was a typical, common, Syrian house. It was one story high, and consisted of two rooms, a living room and a storeroom. It was built of roughly hewn stone,¹ and had one door and two windows, which had wooden shutters, without glass. The roof was the biblical earth-covered flat roof, such as the one on which Peter went up to pray in ancient Joppa. On every Syrian roof there is a stone roller, with which the dirt is rolled down and made hard enough to ‘shed water.’ ‘ Rolling the roof’ is a daily task for the man of the house in the winter season. Failure to do this causes the roof to soften and the rain to soak through and ‘drop’ into the house. The ‘dropping’ is one of the most hateful things to a Syrian household. The writer of the book of Proverbs did not at all exaggerate the ugliness of the situation when he said, ‘Continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.’

The interior of that house of my early childhood appears on the negative cf my memory in this shape. On the right as you enter stands a small structure of sun-dried brick, called mekhdaah. It is about five feet high, six feet long, and a foot deep. On the inner side it is divided into openings of different sizes, and serves the cosmopolitan purpose of a china closet, kettle cupboard, a place for father’s Turkish pipe — narghile — and tobacco, and whatever other little articles it may be convenient for the moment to thrust into it. The maukedah — fireplace — is at the forward end of this structure. It is such a fireplace as you would build at a picnic: square, open at the top for the kettle to set in, and at one side to admit the fuel. It is built of clay mixed with straw and fine quartz. There is no chimney. The smoke floats in the house with the sufferance of public opinion. The ceiling is black and shining as if it had been varnished. The earthen floor is painted frequently with red mud, and rubbed with a smooth stone until it shines. It is furnished with straw mats, cushions, and, in the winter season, soft and fluffy sheepskins. There are no chairs, no bedsteads. The family sit and sleep on the floor. The bed consists of a thick cushion for a mattress, stuffed with wool or cotton, a pillow of the same material, and a quilt for a cover. So when Jesus said to the man he had healed, ‘Arise, take up thy bed and walk,’ the man did not have very much to carry. In the daytime the beds are either rolled up, each one, in a heap and left on the floor, next to the wall, or put in a recess in the wall, constructed for the purpose.

By the stone pillar stands the large earthen barrel of flour, on top of which is the large basin in which the bread is kept. Back, by the partition which stands between the two rooms, are two or three large, plain wooden chests which form the wardrobe for the whole family. The opposite wall contains many openings in which earthen jars, containing the family winter supply of dried fruits, cereals, butter, lentils, beans, crushed wheat, olives, olive-oil, molasses, rice, and other earthly comforts, are placed. By the door, on the left, there is a low wooden bench which holds the fresh-water jars, in which the women of the house carry the water from the fountain, as did the woman of Samaria whom Jesus met at Jacob’s well. There are no pictures on the whitewashed walls. The only ornaments are a shot-gun, an ammunition belt, a short sword, and a few articles of wearing apparel, which hang from wooden nails. There are no books of any kind, no musical instruments. The other room contains the wood and charcoal, tools, and so forth.

My father’s house did not stand on a street, because streets are unknown to Syrian towns. There was no lawn around the house, no fence, no garden of any kind, no flower-beds. The immediate surroundings were our grove of mulberry trees, consisting of four large terraces, a terrace of grapevines, a large fig tree which bore black figs, a pomegranate tree and an apple tree. On the west side of the house we had a large climbing rosebush, which lifted its flaming top above the roof, and an alder bush, which bore blossoms of delicate texture and sweet fragrance. These bushes were permitted to share the soil with the more useful trees, not simply for æsthetic delight, but because their blossoms possessed medicinal properties. At least we thought so, and thoughts are things. The houses of my two uncles, father’s brothers, stood very near our house, and had similar surroundings.

III

Back of our house, and extending some three hundred feet eastward, stood a row of majestic oak trees, which did not belong to us. They were perfect specimens of strength and beauty, and a real delight to the senses and the soul. But, strange as this may seem, the proximity of those trees to our house and my uncles’ houses was very displeasing to our families. In so poor a country as Syria has been for ages, objects of mere intellectual and æsthetic delight savor of vain and vexatious things. The mode of life is severely utilitarian. Only the rich and the Europeans revel in the pleasures of gardens and other great luxuries. To the masses, the only desirable possessions are those things which can be converted into bread and raiment. The owners of those oak trees were of the families more highly favored with the things of this world; therefore they did not need the revenue which the strip of land occupied by the oak trees might yield, if put to better use.

But our family felt differently about this matter. The oaks shaded a whole terrace of precious, silk-yielding mulberry trees for us, and some grapevines, while their mighty roots drained the soil of its substance. That was a grave situation. It meant for us loss of revenue. The mighty oaks assumed in the eyes of my people the functions of highway robbers, of enemies which never slumbered or slept and which stood at our very door. How to get rid of them was one of those family perplexities which filled my childish mind with disquieting curiosity. My father was offered much advice, gratis, as to how to kill those pernicious oaks. Not being ours, they had, of course, to be killed in some mysterious way. One of my uncles, who was of a rather grasping disposition, felt a decidedly keener antagonism toward the oaks than did my father. At times he looked and swore at them with great avidity.

So far as I can remember, the first means which was employed to wither those giants of the forest was prayer, the Oriental’s most natural speech. But, for some reason or other, prayer failed to accomplish the desired results. Then an appeal was addressed to St. John (I do not recall whether it was the Baptist or the Evangelist) whose convent was in full view from our house, farther down on the slope of the hill. He was promised three piasters (twelve cents) and a cruse of pure olive oil to be burned in the lamp which hung in front of his very picture. The understanding was that the saint was to show signs of death in the oaks before any payment was made; but St. John, for reasons known only to himself, failed to rise to the occasion and do what was expected. That was a severe disappointment.

However, there were other means of relief yet to be tried. My father was advised to seek a magician and have him ‘blast’ the oaks by his diabolical art. The formula as I heard it stated was this: The magician would enchant a pailful of water; breathe into it the very essence of Satan himself. Then all my father had to do was to step out in the night and sprinkle the enchanted water at the trunks of the oak trees, close to the ground, and they would wither in an incredibly short time. Fortunately for the trees, however, such magicians passed through our town only at long and uncertain intervals, and when one of them happened to be at hand, father was either absent from home, or something else happened to make the moment altogether inopportune for such dangerous operations.

One of our cousins urged that an appeal be made to a person having the ‘evil eye.’ One having the evil eye was supposed to do great damage by just admiring an object. A fat and sweet baby, a handsome and strong man, a beautiful woman, a very fruitful tree, an abundant crop of silk cocoons, or any other good and beautiful person or thing, stood in constant danger of being injured or even killed by an admiring evil eye. Often did my mother grab and run away with me – her beautiful baby – to the nearest hiding-place, when one who was supposed to ‘strike with the eye,’ happened to be passing anywhere near our house. Certainly those oak trees were things to be admired. Then why not secure an evileyed person, and bribe him or her to cast upon those trees a blasting look? However, those persons who were suspected of having the evil eye, for obvious reasons never would admit the fact, and certainly they were not in the market for hire.

The last prescription to be considered, so far as I remember, for doing away with the beautiful oaks was the use of mercury. Father was told by those who ‘ knew,’ that if he would take an augur and bore a hole in any tree and then pour in the hole a small quantity of mercury– ‘ live mercury’ – the tree would die. Mercury, being very heavy in weight and of such awful, mysterious potency, would penetrate the fibres of the tree in seeking to return to the ground, course through the roots, and thus destroy all their fibres. That was a simple operation. But father was not the kind of a man to undertake it. He might resort to some impersonal agency of destruction, like prayer or magic, but to do evil himself, to destroy with his own hands, that he would not. He would not assassinate a tree any more than he would a person. So far as I know, the oak trees still stand, and wave their lofty tops over the mulberry trees and the grapevines which were forced away from us by my father’s creditors.

IV

It must be that the nights I was first aware of in my father’s house made deeper impressions upon my mind than the days, because they offer themselves now to my pen as the earliest bits of my conscious existence. This, I suppose, because of the fear with which they inspired me. I do not recall the time when, as a little child, those deep shadows which the dim lamplight emphasized behind the pillar in the middle of the house, and other objects, did not frighten me whenever I looked at them. Our only source of light was a small kerosene lamp, one of the very first to come to our town after the subtle fluid of the Standard Oil Company reached Syria, shortly before my conscious life began. It was, however, a great improvement on the little oliveoil lamp, the ‘candle’ of the Sermon on the Mount and the Ten Virgins — an earthen saucer, with a protruding little lip curled up at one point in the rim for the wick. The lamp was placed on the edge of the mekhdaah, just above the fireplace. The corner in its immediate vicinity was reasonably well lighted, but the remoter parts of the living room were veiled with ghastly yellowish darkness.

But the most vivid of my early memories of kerosene is very grim. In filling the lamp one night my sister spilled some oil on the earthen floor. In order to amuse me she told me to soak little bits of cloth in the oil and touch a match to them and they would burn quickly. As I was doing so one of the little rags fell from my hand on the floor. I thought I saw where it fell and reached down and grabbed something that looked like it. It was a scorpion! The fiery sting pierced my flesh under the thumb nail. I rolled on the floor, a ball of quivering flesh, with a dart of the bitterest fiery pain, which never abated the whole night, reaching from my thumb to my heart.

I feel no hesitancy in saying that when Rehoboam said to the people of Israel, ‘My father chastised you with whips but I will chastise you with scorpions,’ he made a telling figure, and the people of that country, which is full of all manner of ‘creeping things,’ must have understood him very clearly.

Our nights were not tricked into cheerfulness by any of the multitude of means which delight child-life in this age and country. As a child I enjoyed the love and care of devoted parents, the deep, instinctive, but untutored affections and protection of a richly endowed mother. But notwithstanding all that, and except on festive occasions, the evenings were very dreary for the little ones. There were no children’s story-books to read, and there was no one who could have read them, if any of them had fallen into our hands. No pictures for the children, and none to cheer the blankness of those whitewashed walls, which the smoke tinged with a murky hue. No toys of any kind. Now and then we fell spontaneously into a fit of laughter, or played a game of hide-and-seek in the dark corners of the room. Now and then we were favored with a tale about a miracle happening in the graveyard, or about ghosts, or wild beasts, which made the very hairs of our heads hiss with fear. Our peevishness and naughtiness had no ‘psychological guidance.’ When bribes, which were by no means of the most persuasive kind, failed, the chief remedy was, ‘Be good or the camel will get you!’ ‘Listen! the hyena is coming! Coming! right at the door!!’ From the fact that men could ride on his back, we always concluded that the camel must possess at least the imitation of a human spirit. But the hyena, so terrible and so abundant in the surrounding woods and rocky hills, never failed to bring us to terms. This is why, I believe, my earliest memories of the nights in my father’s house claim precedence as I write.

And as I reflect on those days now, I realize most clearly how limited, how meagrely inventive, is love without culture. How almost helpless is sympathy without knowledge. Love is indeed ‘the greatest thing in the world,’ but without knowledge, acquired knowledge–real culture–love is like a skilled workman without his tools, a mariner without his chart and compass.

But the more joyful memories of those plastic years were stored in my mind in the spring and summer seasons. When the ploughman came, some time in April, to plough the mulberry terraces for us, I experienced a delicious sensation. When that rough peasant arrived with his primitive plough on his right shoulder, the yoke hanging from the left shoulder, his long, hard, strong goad – the same as the one with which ‘Shamgar, son of Anath, slew of the Philistines six hundred men’ – in his left hand, and his two cows, or oxen, or a cow and an ox, walking before him, my childish eyes beheld a most enchanting picture. His ‘laborer’ also came with the ploughman to break the clods behind the plough. ‘Judah shall plow, and Jacob shall break the clods.’ I would stand at a respectful distance, because of their menacing horns, and, with joyous bewilderment, watch those cows, with their eyes enlarged and their backs kinked, pull at the urging and goading of their master, turn the soil and cause the small stones and clods to roll musically over the terrace walls.

In the latter part of April the eggs or ‘seeds’ of the silkworm begin to stir with life in the muslin sack (their winter quarters) hanging from the ceiling. Mother takes the sack down, as she makes the sign of the cross and implores the divine blessing on the silk crop that is to be. The sack is opened. The tiny worms are transferred to large trays where they are fed on mulberry leaves with conscientious regularity. Holy water is secured from the priest, consecrated especially to protect the precious worms from ants and mice, and sprinkled in the house. With such a sense of security, we proceed to bestow tender and incessant care on the silkworms for forty days, at the end of which time they cease to eat and begin to spin their cocoons in the bundles of brush especially prepared for them. It is a delight to watch them build their silken houses. My eyes feast, looking at them for hours, watching the web grow from a thin haze to a heavy shell. In a week’s time the bundles of brush are converted into a solid mass of cocoons. One of the most luxurious of the bundles is given to the patron saint of the family for his gracious protection of the crop. Some choice cocoons are saved for seed, and the rest of the crop is sold to the spinners.

The summer follows and I dance for joy. Our own vines and fig trees, the desire of a peaceful Israel, are laden with fruit. The delicious black figs show their African faces among the large rough green leaves. The grapes and pomegranates afford delightful varieties. My uncle has an apricot tree near our house. He instructs me ‘not to touch it,’ but I do, both for the sake of eating apricots, and to spite him.

That was my father’s house in its natural setting and human atmosphere. That was the feeding place and shrine of my early childhood, and these are my memories of it.

V

The larger environment of my early years was the town of El-Shweir in which my father’s house stood. ElShweir falls, geographically, in the province of Mount Lebanon, Syria, in Asiatic Turkey. It is situated about midway between Jerusalem on the south, and Antioch on the north, about sixty miles to the northwest of Damascus, and fifteen miles east of Beyrout and the Mediterranean Sea. Ecclesiastically, El-Shweir falls within the ancient See of Antioch, in the chief city of which the followers of Christ were first called ‘Christians.’

The inhabitants of El-Shweir, who are supposed to count ten thousand,– and to the poetic Oriental mind a supposition is always more agreeable than an actual count,–are all of the Christian faith, and overwhelmingly Greek Orthodox. The minority consists of Maronites and Greek Catholics.² The inhabitants’ chief source of livelihood is the stonemason trade, which is handed down from father to son, not, however, according to status, but from choice. The majority of the men follow this trade, and the minority provide the town with its storekeepers, blacksmiths, carpenters, butchers, muleteers and loafers – the leisure class.

—The rocky hills which surround ElShweir are crowned with lofty pine trees, the lower slopes are covered with grapevines and fig trees, while groves of mulberry trees form the immediate environs of the town. In its depressed location El-Shweir sees but little of the outside world. Ascending to the summits of the surrounding hills, however, one beholds some of the most beautiful and sublime natural scenery in the world: the rugged and picturesque slopes of Western Lebanon, terminating in luxurious gardens at the sandy shores of the blue and dreamy Mediterranean; the city of Beyrout, with its white buildings standing on the glittering shore like blocks of silver on a cloth of gold; a countless number of hills and mountains, groves of pine and olive trees, winding streams, vineyards, and a multitude of towns and hamlets, nestling in the bosom of the hills in all directions as far as the eye can see.

The large majority of the houses of El-Shweir were similar to our house. A few houses were two stories, and one or two three stories high. There were no streets. Syrian towns never were built according to preconceived plans. Each man built on his own piece of land, regardless of general convenience and symmetry. One or two main roads ran winding through the town, and crooked stony footpaths, running from all directions, connected with those roads. In the rainy season the roads became streams of water, mud and slush, and pedestrians picked their way as best they could.

The Orient in general has never troubled itself about sanitation, not even in the large cities. At the present time some changes for the better are gradually being introduced, but in my early years the country was just as Isaiah and Paul left it. Filth and refuse were thrown everywhere in the roads and around the houses. The ‘dung-hill’ existed by every house. The people knew nothing about germs, and the germs apparently knew nothing about the people. Or rather, the germs did their utmost with the people generations ago, leaving only those who proved germproof.

In recent years El-Shweir has made some progress in certain directions, but when I was a child it was decidedly primitive. When I think of that portion of my life in comparison with my present state, I seem to myself to have traveled through the lights and shadows of two thousand years. I never knew in those days what a library was; never saw street lights, glass windows, iron stoves, public halls, newspapers, structural iron of any kind, or anything that rolled on wheels. I had never heard the piano but once (in the home of an American missionary) before I came to America. Public education, citizenship, a national flag, political institutions of any description, were as unknown to me as the postulated inhabitants of Mars.

VI

The social life of the El-Shweir of my childhood was no less strangely interesting. As in other parts of Syria, and as in the days of Israel and Canaan, and the Jews and the Samaritans, the various clans of the town lived on terms of mutual enmity. Seldom did a year pass without a serious fight occurring between the clan of Rihbany and the clan of Jirdak. To down the other clans seemed to be every clan’s ideal. This I was taught by example and precept from my infancy. Often did I hear a cousin of mine say that he would pay the toll-tax for every man who died in the clan of Jirdak. As clans, we lived in accordance with the precept, ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, burning for burning, wound for wound,’ and no favor. There was indeed social intercourse between the various clans; there were common feasts and festivals. But all these were temporary concessions which our contiguous existence and the oneness of our religious faith required. It is not difficult to see, therefore, that under such conditions the ideal man for us was the fighter. The good man, the man wise in counsel, was indeed greatly revered, but he needed the fighter to maintain his supremacy.

Of these thoughts my young soul drank its fill. Those men of strong limbs, heavy voices and fiery eyes stood for me as the heights of my climbing ambition. To be like one of them was a dream which seemed to me too good to be realized. And those interclannish fights, which I witnessed in my innocent, plastic days, thrill my soul to its centre, even now, when I think of them. The sight of a few hundred men engaged in a hand-to-hand fight, shouting, cursing, swearing, and inflamed with wrath; hundreds of women shrieking, children howling in terror; stones, clubs, and clods flying in all directions, blood dripping from heads and faces, was indeed bewildering, overwhelming for a little soul to witness.

The large majority of the men of ElShweir were absent from their homes from spring until late autumn. As a rule they left their home town right after the Easter festival, and scattered all over Syria in pursuit of their trade as stone-masons. In their travels ‘in the land of the stranger’ they forgot their clannish animosities and worked and lived together as friends. They stored their summer wages in their Damascusmade girdles, until their return home. Their families in the mean time lived on credit.

Late in the autumn the men returned to town to spend the winter at home in complete idleness. Upon their arrival clannish animosities reasserted themselves in their hearts. Their wives,who stayed at home the year round and kept up their own feminine clannish fights, hardly allowed their returning husbands time enough to put their shoes from off their feet at the door, and their traveling bags from off their backs, before they told them of the many indignities which had been heaped upon their families in their absence, not only by the women and children of the other clan, but also by the old men who remained in the town during the summer. Thus a grave situation was immediately created, and the men made ready to ‘clear for action’ on short notice.

When my father came home the occasion was deliciously interesting to me. Life took on greater vigor and exhilaration. He brought with him many goodies which were ‘ pleasant to the sight and good for food.’ The sound of the bubbling water in his long-idle narghile, the smell of the Persian tobacco smoked in it, his manly voice, and the sense of added security which his presence gave, were choice pleasures. It was a supreme moment for me when he took down the gun from the wall to clean and oil it. I was always taught that the gun was made by Satan, and I should not touch it, but I never knew the time when I did not take awe-inspiring delight in looking at this product of Satan’s genius.

The social pleasures of the people of our town were very simple and unlearned. No literary circles, no lectures, theatres, or receptions; no dried-beefand-creamed-potato church suppers, or ice-cream socials to pay the minister’s salary. The social routine was very simple and most favorable to the perpetuation of the juvenile temper. Life did not radiate in broad, intellectual, æsthetic, ethical, and political highways. It had only a few hungers to feed and small ambitions to satisfy. The inhabitants of the town gathered in homogeneous groups and feasted themselves on gossip and tales of adventure. Eating and drinking in parties was frequent. ‘Tossing the ball’ was a favorite game with the men, which, however, frequently ended in a serious fight. ‘Lifting the mortar’ was another heroic feat. A wooden handle was fastened in the hollow of a large stone mortar, and the strong men vied with one another in lifting it with the right arm to the shoulder, or the full height of the arm. Rivalry in this game, also, often precipitated a fight.

The game called ‘Two-steps-and-ajump’ was an exciting one. A ‘mark’ was placed at a certain point. The player made a short run – ‘ to gather his strength’–until he reached the mark. Then he sprang forward with all his might, two steps and a jump. Another mark was placed where his feet last struck the ground. Thus the men strove to out-distance one another, and he whose agilily placed the third mark beyond the reach of all others won the day.

The coming of ‘the bear and the monkey’ greatly excited the populace. The owner of the animals beat upon his tambourine at a certain spot in the town, to which the multitude hastened. A small sum was granted him by the authorities, out of the tax-money. He made the bear ‘dance’ and the monkey perform antics. He sang songs, the enchanting qualities of which made the animals do certain pleasing things. But the climax of the bear-and-monkey entertainment was reached when some strong man offered to wrestle with the bear.

The man comes forward. The bear, urged by his owner, stands up on his hind feet. The wild and the human beast come together. The man’s arms encircle the bear just under the armpits. The owner must see to it that the bear does not bite his antagonist. The battle is joined. The bear snorts and grunts. The man does no less. The crowd sways with every movement of the combatants. The owner urges his bear to victory. The crowd, in a similar manner, stiffen the resolution of the man. Such a battle cannot last long. The bear grows weaker, because he has danced long before the fight. The crowd shouts. The man grips the ground with his feet and, with a last mighty push, lands upon the roaring animal! Men rush forward, extricate the victor from the claws of the angry beast, and proclaim him hero. The owner soothes the misfortune of his vanquished pet.

Playing cards was a prevalent pastime. Propounding riddles, like that which Samson propounded to the Philistines, was very popular. Ghost stories abounded. The miraculous workings of saints were often and reverently rehearsed; the relative strength of the kings of Europe considered, mythical heroes extolled, etcetera, etcetera.

VII

But the chief social event of the town, the summit of social joy to both old and young, was the marriage feast. I always looked forward to a marriage feast as do those who watch for the morning. Its tumultuous joys rolled within my soul like ocean waves. It was then that as a child I could do absolutely as I pleased. It was then that my pockets burst with plenty. Sugarplums, nuts, raisins, cakes, and other delicacies fell into my hands in great profusion. The singing, dancing, and sword-playing thrilled every nerve in me. Both in childhood and youth, ElAiris – marriage feast – was to me an expression comprehensive of multitudinous joy.

According to the ancient customs of Syria, which go back to that wedding of Cana of Galilee and ages beyond it, it is not a wedding day that is appointed, but a wedding festival, which extends over several days, during which time the whole town thinks of nothing else.

During the preceding week, a deputation on behalf of the bridegroom’s family, and another on behalf of the bride’s, visit all the chief homes of the various clans in the town and notify them of the coming event. This is the equivalent of an invitation to all the members of all the families. Whosoever will may come. Only unfriendly clans or families are omitted and only such refuse to come, even if invited. The parable in the Gospel of St. Matthew of ‘a certain king, which made a marriage for his son, and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding, and they would not come,’ indicates this social peculiarity. The intention of the parable was to show the persistent antagonism of the Jews of the apostolic age to the Christian faith. Though they were ‘ called ’ again and again, they would not come. To refuse an invitation to a marriage feast, in Syria, excepting in case of a recent sorrow, is a sign of deep-seated enmity.

His wedding day is the supremest day in a man’s life. Marriage to the Syrian Christians is not only a holy sacrament, but an ideal to which all other ideals stand subordinate. The loveliest thing a guest can say to parents at the end of a meal is, ‘May we eat again within this house at the wedding of the dear grooms [i.e. sons].’ Matrimonial expectations are affectionately expressed to boys from early childhood. Whatever service or courtesy a boy renders, he is repaid for it by saying to him, ‘May we serve at your wedding?’

The guests come to the wedding in large groups, of hundreds and of fifties, representing clans and houses. While yet a short distance from the bridegroom’s house they begin singing in groups and in diverse tunes. A large company of the groom’s clan rushes out to meet the approaching throng, with singing and shouts of joy. The two groups meet and merge together, making not only ‘a joyful noise,’ but a deafening roar. They march into the house and are met by those within, with similar manifestations of joy. Presently all singing ceases. The relatives of the bridegroom stand in a straight line, with him as its centre and glory, facing their guests who have also fallen in line. The guests, speaking all together say, ‘Blessed, O bridegroom, be your enterprise; May Allah bless you with many sons and a long life; Our joy this day is supreme.’ To which the relatives of the bridegroom respond in similar fashion: ‘May Allah bless your lives; May such events happen in your homes; May all your sons who are needy (of marriage) be so blessed and made happy. You have honored us by your coming!’ The two parties thus give vent to their happy feelings, simultaneously causing a commotion resembling an artillery duel. Only an expert in the etiquette of the occasion is able to comprehend the meaning of the felicitations.

This part of the proceedings in the marriage festivities was always most, thrilling to me. So many strong men, dressed in their best and many-colored garments, formed for me a rare picture of strength and beauty. My soul expanded and contracted with the rise and fall of their mighty voices. My heart beat tumultuously as the two crowds merged together in happy confusion, My supreme care was to be at a safe distance from the wild tread of those many strong limbs, and the fearful points of those swords flashing at the head of the procession.

Sunday is the last and greatest day of the wedding festivities. It is the day of the solemnizing of the marriage, and all the town is out. If the ceremony is to take place at the house, then the bride is brought to the house of the bridegroom as Rebekah was brought to Isaac’s house, where the consecration takes place. But if at the church, as is most often the case, then both the bridegroom and the bride are escorted there by the multitude. ‘The bringing of the bride’ from her father’s house was amost interesting event to me as a child. Picked men are sent to ‘bring the bride,’thus echoing the ancient custom of strong men forcing the bride away from her kindred. If the bridegroom is to be grave and reserved in his conversation, the bride is expected to be absolutely silent while the festivities last. She is not to open her eyes, either, excepting on rare occasions. Nor is she to close her eyes tightly. That would be humiliating crudeness. She has been instructed carefully to exercise her eyelids with lovely gentleness, until they just touch fringes, with no sign of effort, or stress. The ‘drooping eyelids’ of the right kind of a bride are poetized by the Syrians as a superb example of bewitching loveliness.

What seemed like an inscrutable mystery to my little mind on such an occasion, was the behavior of the bridegroom and the bride. Where did they get, all at once, such unapproachable dignity? Were they still such people as we are? Were they still my cousins? It: did not seem possible. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw them a few days after the wedding conducting themselves just like other people. The bridegroom’s looks were no longer aweinspiring. The bride’s eyes were wide open, and the output of her organs of speech seemed unlimited.

Shortly after the arrival of the escorting party, who are immediately served with wine and confections, the bride is led from her bridal seat by women attendants and the closest male friends of the bridegroom. The etiquette of the country requires that she walk out of her father’s house extremely slowly. On some occasions the walk of the bride from the innermost part of the room to the door consumes about half an hour. A decorated horse or mule is at the door, on whose back she is lifted by the strong men of the party. Another mule carries the bride’s bed and clothes-chest, and the procession moves slowly toward the sanctuary, amidst great rejoicing. A large concourse of peopie escorts the bridegroom.

When the ceremony takes place in the night, the whole affair assumes a brilliant aspect. Sword-players, singers, ‘musicians,’ torch-bearers and other merrymakers surround the bridegroom, and are distributed also along the procession. The housetops are filled with spectators, largely women and children. They shower on the procession rose-water, flower-water, wheat the symbol of fecundity), and confections. Waves of zelagheet — songs peculiar to women — float over the marching host. The procession moves with flashing swords, flaring lamps and torches, and an indescribable din of music and song. ‘Behold the bridegroom cometh! Go ye out to meet him,’ and woe to those ‘foolish virgins’ who are not ready to join the joyous throng! The contracting parties meet at the altar, and are joined together in holy marriage by a most impressive ceremony. This done, the mighty host retraces its steps with the happy couple to the house of the bridegroom, where the chief feast of the occasion has been prepared. Food is provided for an unlimited number of guests. They come from all the walks of life, from ‘the highways and the hedges,’ and the house is literally filled. In the summer season the feast is spread on the housetop, but as most of the weddings occur in the winter, the guests crowd into the house, and eat and drink from an apparently unlimited supply of Syrian generosity. With this feast end the wedding festivities.

Such were the simple pleasures and social activities amid which my earthly life began. So distressingly homogeneous, so unmixed with higher intellectual and ethical delights, was the life of my people. There was no higher education to rid the mind of trivialities and superstitions, and lead to the higher unity of ideals. No industry to teach the value of time and create a longing for peace. No civic spirit to convert life’s activities into ethical and social values, and lead to the love of law and order, and to cleanliness and beauty of material surroundings. Such was the home of my people when it was first introduced to my consciousness; out of it I have traveled by devious ways to the vastly various and complex present.

(To be continued.)