II. Killeh. Like the game of shooting marbles.

III. Owal Howa. The same as leap frog.

IV. Biz Zowaia. Cat in the corner.

V. Taia ya Taia. All the boys stand in a row, and one in front facing them, who calls out Taia ya Taia. They all then run after him and hit him. He then hops on one foot as if lame, and catches one of them, who takes his place.

VI. El Manya. Hig tig.

VII. Bil Kobbeh. A circle of boys stand with their heads bowed. Another circle stand outside, and on a given signal try to mount on the backs of the inner circle of boys. If they succeed they remain standing in this way; if not, the boy who failed must take the inside place.

VIII. Ghummaida. Blind-man's-buff.

IX. Tabeh. Base ball and drop ball.

X. Kurd Murboot or Tied Monkey. A rope is tied to a peg in the ground, and one boy holds it fast. The others tie knots in their handkerchiefs and beat him. If he catches them without letting go his hold on the rope, they take his place.

XI. Shooha or Hawk. Make a swing on the limb of a tree. A boy leans on the swing and runs around among the boys, until he catches one to take his place.

XII. Joora. Shooting marbles into a joora or hole in the ground.

XIII. Khubby Mukhzinak. "Pebble pebble." One boy goes around and hides a pebble in the hand of one of the circle and asks "pebble, pebble, who's got the pebble." This is like "Button, button."

Then there are other games like chequers and "Morris," chess, and games which are used in gambling, which you will not care to hear about.

Sometimes when playing, they sing a song which I have translated:

So you see the Arab boys are as fond of plays and songs as American boys. They have scores of songs about gazelles, and pearls, and Sultans, and Bedawin, and Ghouls, and the "Ghuz," and the Evil Eye, and Arab mares and Pashas.

A few days ago a Druze, named Sheikh Ali, called upon me and recited to me a strange song, which reminded me of the story of "Who killed Cock Robin," and "The House that Jack built." In some of the Arab villages where fleas abound, the people go at times to the tennûr or oven, (which is like a great earthen jar sunken in the ground,) to shake off the fleas into the fire. The story which I have translated goes thus: A brilliant bug and a noble flea once went to the oven to shake off the ignoble fleas from their garments into the fire. But alas, alas, the noble flea lost his footing, fell into the fire and was consumed. Then the brilliant bug began to weep and mourn, saying,

THE NURSERY RHYMES OF THE ARABS.

Who is that singing in such a sweet plaintive voice in the room beneath our porch? It is the Sit Leila, wife of Sheikh Abbas, saying a lullaby to her little baby boy, Sheikh Fereed. We will sit on the porch in this bright moonlight, and listen while she sings:

This is not very sweet language for a gentle lady to use to a little infant boy, but the Druze and Moslem women use this kind of imprecation in many of their nursery songs. Katrina says that many of the Greek and Maronite women sing them too. This young woman Laia, who sits here, has repeated for me not less than a hundred and twenty of these nursery rhymes, songs for weddings, funeral wails, etc. Some of the imprecations are dreadful.

They seem to think that the best way to show their love to their babies, is to hate those who do not love them.

Im Faris says she has heard this one in Hasbeiya, her birthplace:

The servant girl Nideh, who attends the Sit Leila, thinks that her turn has come, and she is singing,

I hope she does not refer to us for we are her nearest neighbors. But in reality I do not suppose that they actually mean what they sing in these Ishmaelitic songs. Perhaps they do when they are angry, but they probably sing them ordinarily without thinking of their meaning at all.

Sometimes snakes come down from the ceilings of these earth-roofed houses, and terrify the people. At other times government horsemen come and drag them off to prison, as they did in Safita. These things are referred to in this next song which Nideh is singing:

That is about enough of imprecations, and it will be pleasanter to listen to Katrina, for she will sing us some of the sweetest of the Syrian Nursery Songs.

There is not much music in the tunes they sing to these words. The airs generally are plaintive and monotonous, and have a sad and weary sound.

Here is another:

She says that last line is extravagant, and I think as much. The next one is a Moslem lullaby.

This one is used by the women of all the sects, but in all of the songs the name is changed to suit the name of the baby to whom the mother is singing,

Among all the scores of nursery songs, I have heard only a very few addressed to girls, but some of these are beautiful. Hear Katrina sing this one:

The "fuller's soap" mentioned in Malachi 3:2, is the plant called in Arabic "Ashnan or Shenan," and the Arabs sometimes use it in the place of soap. The following is another song addressed to a baby girl:

This song is sung by the Druze women to their baby girls:

The following is supposed to be addressed by a Druze woman to her neighbor who has a daughter of marriageable age, when she is obliged to veil her face:

The next one is also Druze and purely Oriental:

The Druze women delight in nothing so much as to have their sons ride fine horses:

Katrina says that this little song is the morning salutation to baby boys:

This song is sung by the Druze women to their babes:

The apples of Damascus are noted throughout Syria, though we should regard them as very poor fruit:

Laia says that the next one is sung by the Druze women to their baby boys:

Nejmeh says that the Bedawin women who come to Safita, her native place, often sing the following song:

They use the "henna" to dye their hands, feet and finger nails, when a wedding or festive occasion occurs in the family.

Katrina recalls another little song which she used to sing to Harry:

Nideh, the Druze girl down stairs is ready with another song. She is rocking little Sheikh Fereed in his cradle, and says:

It makes me feel sad to hear a poor woman praying to a man. This El Hakim was a man, and a bad man too, who lived many hundred years ago, and now the Druzes regard him as their God. But what difference is there between worshipping Hakim as the Druzes do, and worshipping Mary and Joseph as the Greeks and Maronites do. Laia says the Maronites down in the lower part of this village sing the following song:

Sit Leila sings:

Katrina is ready to sing again:

People say that every baby that is born into the world is thought by its mother to be better than any other ever born. The Arab women think so too, and this is the way they sing it:

Im Faris asks if we would not like to hear some of the rhymes the Arab women sing when playing with their children. Here are some of them. The first one you will think is like what you have already seen in "Mother Goose."

Sugar cane grows luxuriantly in Syria, and it was first taken from Tripoli, Syria, to Spain, and thence to the West Indies and America. But all they do with it now in Syria, is to suck it. It is cut up in pieces and sold to the people, old and young, who peel it and suck it. So the Arab women sing to their children:

Wered says she will sing us two or three which they use in teaching the little Arab babies to "pat" their hands:

And now the Sit Leila is singing again one of the Druze lullabys:

Do you hear the jackals crying as they come up out of the valley? Their cry is like the voice of the cat and dog mingled together, and Im Faris knows some of the ditties which they sing to their children about the jackals and their fondness for chickens:

It is not pleasant to have so many fleas annoying us all the time, but we must not be more anxious to keep the fleas out than to get the people in, and as the fellaheen come to see us, they will be likely to flea us too. Safita is famous for fleas, so no wonder that Nejmeh knows the following song of the boys about fleas:

Laia is never at a loss for something new, and I am amazed at her memory. She will give us some rhyming riddles in Arabic, and we will put them into English as best we may. The first is about the Ant:

Riddle about a gun:

Riddle on salt:

The door has opened down stairs, and some of Sit Leila's friends have come to see her. The moment they saw the little baby Fereed, they all began to call out, "Ism Allah alayhee," "The name of Allah upon him." They use this expression to keep off the Evil Eye. This superstition is universal throughout Western Asia, Northern Africa, and exists also in Italy and Spain. Dr. Meshaka of Damascus says that those who believe in the Evil Eye, "think that certain people have the power of killing others by a glance of the eye. Others inflict injury by the eye. Others pick grapes by merely looking at them. This power may rest in one eye, and one man who thought he had this power, veiled one eye, out of compassion for others! The Moslem Sheikhs and others profess to cure the evil eye, and prevent its evil effects by writing mystic talismanic words on papers, which are to be worn. Others write the words on an egg, and then strike the forehead of the evil eyed with the egg."

Whenever a new house is built, the workmen hang up an egg shell or a piece of alum, or an old root, or a donkey's skull, in the front door, to keep off the evil eye. Moslem women leave their children ragged and dirty to keep people from admiring them, and thus smiting them with the evil eye. They think that blue eyes are especially dangerous.

They think that the name of God or Allah is a charm against evil, and when they repeat it, they have no idea of reverence for that Holy Name.

Here is a terrible imprecation against a woman who smites with the Evil Eye:

Nideh sings

It is ten o'clock at night, and Katrina, Laia, Wered, and Handûmeh say it is time to go. Handumeh insists that we come to her wedding to-morrow. Amîn will go with them to drive away the dogs, and see that no wolves, hyenas, or leopards attack them by the way.

PART VII.

The sun shines out now, and Khalil says the "world has got well" again, so he sings:

The roofs of the houses are low and flat, and on the hill-sides you can walk from the street above upon the roof of the houses below. I once lived in a house in Duma in which the cattle, donkeys, and sheep used to walk on our roof every evening as they came in from pasture. It was not very pleasant to be awakened at midnight by a cow-fight on the roof, and have the stones and dirt rattling down into our faces, but we could get no other house, and had to make the best of it. You can understand then Khalil's song:

The boys seem to be in high glee. They all know Handûmeh and her betrothed Shaheen Ma'ttar, so they are swinging and singing in honor of her wedding.

But the time has come for the wedding, and we will go over to Ain Kesûr, about a mile away, and join in the bridal procession. As we come near the house we hear the women inside singing. They have been dressing the bride, and after she is dressed they lead her around and try to make her dance. Perhaps they will let us see how she is dressed. Her head is covered with a head-dress of pink gauze, embroidered with gold thread and purple chenille, and ornamented with pearl beads and artificial flowers, and over all a long white gauze veil trimmed with lace. Her ear-rings are gold filigree work with pendant pearls, and around her neck is a string of pure amber beads and a gold necklace. She wears a jacket of black velvet, and a gilt belt embroidered with blue, and fastened with a silver gilt filigree buckle in the form of a bow knot with pendants. On her finger is a gold ring set with sapphire, and others with turquoises and amethysts. Her dress is of brown satin, and on her arms are solid gold bracelets which cost 1400 piastres or fifty-six dollars. You know Handûmeh is not a rich girl, and her betrothed is a hard working muleteer, and he has had to work very hard to get the money to buy all these things, for it is the custom for the bridegroom to pay for the bride's outfit. The people always lay out their money in jewelry because it is easily carried, and easily buried in time of civil wars and troubles in the land. Shaheen's brothers and relatives have come to take her to Abeih, but he is nowhere to be seen. It would not be proper for him to come to her house. For weeks she has not been over to Abeih, except to invite us to her wedding, and when Anna asked her on what day she was to be married, she professed not to know anything about it. They think it is not modest for a bride to care anything about the wedding, and she will try to appear unwilling to go when they are ready to start. The women are singing now:

And now the young men outside are dancing and fencing, and they all join in singing:

And now the young men, relatives of the bridegroom, address the brother of the bride, as her father is not living, and they all sing:

And now the warlike Druzes, who are old friends of Shaheen and his father, wish to show their good will by singing a wedding song, which they have borrowed from the old wild inhabitants of this land of Canaan:

But the time has come for the procession to move, and we go along slowly enough. The bride rides a mare, led by one of Shaheen's brothers, and as we pass the fountain, the people pour water under the mare's feet as a libation, and Handûmeh throws down a few little copper coins to the children. The women in the company set up the zilagheet, a high piercing trill of the voice, and all goes merry as a marriage bell. When we reach the house of Shaheen, he keeps out of sight, not even offering to help his bride dismount from her horse. That would never do. He will stay among the men, and she in a separate room among the women, until the hour of the ceremony arrives.

But the women are singing again, and this time the song is really beautiful in Arabic, but I fear I have made lame work of it in the translation:

The house is now crowded full, the men being all in one room with Shaheen, and the women in the other room, and the court with the bride Handûmeh. One of Shaheen's brothers comes around with a kumkum, and sprinkles orange flower water in all our faces, and Khalil asks us if we wish the ceremony to take place now? We tell him that he must ask the bride and groom. So Abû Shaheen comes into the court with the old priest Eklemandus, as Shaheen's family belong to the Greek Catholic sect. Handûmeh is really a Protestant, and Shaheen has nothing to do with the priests, but the "old folks" had their way about it. A white curtain hangs across the court, and the bride stands on one side, with her bridesmaid, and all the women and girls, and on the other side is the priest with Shaheen, and all of the men and boys. Then candles were distributed, and lighted, and the old priest adjusted his robes and began to read the marriage service. An assistant stood by his side looking over his shoulder, and responding Amen in a loud and long drawn voice. At length the priest called out to him, "A little shorter there on those Amens. We don't want long Amens at a wedding!" This set the whole crowd laughing, and on he went reading passages of Scripture, prayers and advice to the bride and bridegroom in the most hasty and trifling manner, intoning it through his nose, so that no one could understand what he was saying. While he was reading from the gospel about the marriage at Cana of Galilee, a small boy, holding a lighted candle, came very near burning off the old man's beard, and he called out to him, "Put out your candle! You have tormented my life out of me with that candle." This raised another laugh, and on he read. Then he took two rings, and drawing aside the curtain, placed one on the bride's head, and the other on the bridegroom's head, pronouncing them man and wife, and then gave them each a sip of wine and the ceremony was concluded, all the men kissing Shaheen, and the women Handûmeh. Refreshments were then served to the guests from the village, and a dinner to those from other villages. In the evening there assembled a great company in Shaheen's house, and the hour was given up to story telling. Saleh, whose brother married Shaheen's sister, will begin with the Story of the Goats and the Ghoul.

Once there was a Nanny Goat, strong and powerful, with long and strong horns, and once upon a time she brought forth twin kids, fair and beautiful. One was named Sunaisil, and the other Rabab. Now the Nanny Goat went out every morning to the pasture, leaving her twin kids in the cave. She shut the door carefully, and they locked it on the inside through fear of the Ghoul, for her neighbor in the next house was a Ghoul who swallowed little children alive. Then at evening when she came home, she would stand outside the door, and sing to her twin kids this little song: