1907.] TRIPOLI. 209 



an angle that it began to shine down into her face. It seemed 

 to be undignified or improper for the bride to move. She, in 

 fact, was required to sit there for three hours. It must have 

 been very terrible for her to sit there that way with the sun 

 shining into her eyes. So one of her little bridesmaids ap- 

 parently decided upon a revolutionary measure, and although 

 she was not allowed to move one of them took one elbow and 

 another the other, and they raised her to her feet, and when 

 they got her to her feet, one of them leaned over and took this 

 little slippered foot, and then the other in the same way, thus 

 pushing her into a shady position, and seating her again. She 

 could not turn her eyes or raise her hand. 



I had a curious experience there. I asked the mother of 

 the bridegroom if I might take a picture of the interior of the 

 house, and she said, " Oh certainly, I am perfectly willing that 

 you may take it anywhere except of the bride." So I snapped 

 the camera. At the time I noticed a lot of rather peculiar 

 looking people, but I thought it would be interesting to carry 

 away a picture of the scene. That night as we were at dinner, 

 a foolish fellow came rushing up the steps eagerly demanding 

 to see me. Come to find out, he desired me to give him the 

 picture. He said that he had been threatened, that his life 

 would be taken if he did not secure the impression, and that 

 there were men who were following him even in there. I 

 asked the British consul what I should do, and on his advice 

 that it would be better to let him have it I gave it to him, and 

 then what did he do but go straight to our expedition photo- 

 grapher to have it developed. He wanted to see what was 

 on it himself. Our photographer told me he had a very strong 

 temptation to develop the wrong end and bring him the other 

 end, but it had been taken out in the wrong way, and there was 

 nothing there. So he did not have any satisfaction except that 

 he showed it to his Arab friends and all saw that there was no 

 danger of any of the family life being exposed in the picture. 

 It may be interesting to you for me to say in passing that the 

 Arabs have a dislike of having anything photographed which 

 they think would in any way be a violation of the law of Allah. 

 One time I saw a boy at the top of a date palm tree. They 

 get from the top of the date palm tree some remarkably juicy 

 fine dates, and the boys of the village have a way of climbing 

 up the long limbless trunks which is very interesting, going 



Agr. — 14 



