PART EIGHT. 

 URBAN AND RURAL LIFE. 



1. The Life of the Fellaheen and Bedouin. 



For food the fellah depends for the most part upon the prod- 

 ucts of his farm. His main food is bread, made of wheat (or 

 of durrha or barley by the poorer classes) baked in thin cakes. 

 Wheat is also consumed in the form of burghul (wheat grits). The 

 well-to-do always serve mutton and rice on festive occasions. The 

 commoner vegetables are tomatoes, egg plant, lentils, peas, beans, 

 etc. Olive oil serves as a fat in the preparation of foods. Coffee 

 and tobacco are used extensively. Entertaining guests is an im- 

 portant feature of village life, as well as celebrations, such as 

 weddings, circumcisions, etc. Despite the fact that polygamy is 

 allowed, the fellah rarely has more than one wife, whom he pur- 

 chases from her father at a price ranging from 200-1,000 francs. 

 In other respects, too, the fellah is quite primitive in his customs. 

 The village children grow up without instruction of any kind an3 

 a large number of them are either disfigured or crippled by avoid- 

 able diseases, such as small-pox, trachoma, etc. The fellah rarely 

 has recourse to physicians or pharmacists. It is interesting to note, 

 however, that better health conditions exist in the Arab villages 

 near the Jewish colonies, where a physician and a drug store are 

 maintained by the community. 



The fellaheen generally live in houses consisting of one room 

 without flooring or chimney. The Bedouin, on the other hand, live 

 in tents and roam the land at will. When they come into the 

 civilized part of Syria they break up into groups of 10 to 50 

 families. Their favorite haunts are Transjordania, the Jordan 

 Valley, the environs of Beersheba and the eastern parts of the 

 Litani and Orontes Valleys. The life of the Bedouin is still more 

 primitive than that of the fellaheen. 



II. Life in the Cities. 



A. Architecture. The streets of the Syrian cities are narrow 

 and crooked, although there are modern quarters with wide streets 

 in such towns as Beirut, Damascus, Jerusalem, Jaffa, etc. In 

 the European sections the streets possess narrow sidewalks. In 



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