i88i] A JOURNEY IN THE HEjAZ 563 



her children ; and as the old gentleman recently purchased 



an Abyssinian slave girl she cost him a hundred dollars 



and made her his wife according to usage when she bore 

 him a son, his first wife has withdrawn to her own cottage 

 with her daughter and two sons. There is no separation 

 or formal quarrel. Hosein visits his wife, but she will 

 not come to the house where her rival is installed. The 

 children naturally take their mother s side, and Aly, a 

 handsome lad of nineteen, who, with the assistance of 

 a slave -boy, waited on us while we were in Taif, told 

 me in quite a touching way how good his mother was 

 and how unhappy. But the boy did not say a word 

 that could be construed as disrespectful to his father. 

 An Arab father expects of his son an almost servile 

 deference, which is paid cheerfully, and as a matter of 

 course. The son of the house, even when he is grown 

 up, is called on to do menial service to his father and his 

 father s guests, and does not feel humiliated by so doing. 

 Aly was ready to wait, not only on me, but on my attend 

 ants, though they, with the exception of the conceited 

 Al Mas, thought it civil to deprecate his services. Nor 

 would he, without the express request of his father and 

 myself, come and sit down in the mejlis, much less join 

 us at meals, although after the first day, during which 

 a stiffer etiquette was observed, every one, down to the 

 camel man Marzook, dined at my table. Of an evening, 

 when the old Mohtesib was tired, he would lie down 

 and call Aly to shampoo his feet, which was done by 

 gently treading on them. Salim, the eldest son, who 

 was twenty-three years old, was allowed a little more 

 independence. He went out with me into the neighbour 

 hood, but did no menial service in the house, and came 

 and sat freely in the room with his father and myself. 

 But the old gentleman was pretty strict even with him. 

 Salim was very anxious to marry, and confided to me his 

 plans. Most fathers would certainly demand a dowry 

 of 100 dollars, probably also a negro slave girl, worth 



