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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



the feet and legs can be quite bare and 

 exposed to the cold and wet with seem- 

 ingly but little discomfort. 



When the native men travel and night 

 overtakes them far from a village, they 

 lie down in an open field or by the road- 

 side, thrust the head into one corner of 

 the abayeh, and, wrapping it round the 

 body, have little care whether the legs 

 be bare or not. It is quite common to see 

 men thus sleeping with a stone for a pil- 

 low, just as Jacob did of old at Bethel. * 



In the Mosaic law we read: "If thou 

 at all take thy neighbor's raiment to 

 pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by 

 that the sun goeth down : for that is his 

 covering only ; it is his raiment for his 

 skin: wherein shall he sleep?" f Today 

 the giving of small articles as a pledge or 

 security is quite common ; still, any one 

 taking an abayeh from a poor man to de- 

 prive him of it over night is considered 

 as unmerciful and a kind of Shylock. 



THE OLDEST EXISTING TYPE OF HEAD-DRESS 



In some districts or villages the men 

 wear the Bedouin headgear, consisting 

 of a large square of cloth called kaffeyeh. 

 It is doubled cornerwise, laid on the head, 

 and held in place by an 'agal, a thick 

 double coil made of wool or goats' hair 

 and black in color. The variations of 

 this 'agal, or coil, show from where the 

 person comes (see page 271). 



It is probable that this form of head- 

 gear is the oldest of those now in use in 

 the country. A small Canaanitish figure 

 in pottery, dating back to about the 14th 

 century B. C, now in the Whiting collec- 

 tion at Yale, although of necessity very 

 crude, has such a band around the head, 

 and shows how very ancient is the origin 

 of this kaffeyeh and 'agal. 



Among certain Bedouin, at the death 

 of a woman these 'a gals are removed 

 from the head and placed on the corpse 

 as it is being carried from the tent to the 

 grave ; and in the Book of Ezekiel a "tire" 

 is twice mentioned]: as part of a man's 

 headgear, and he was told by God that 

 his wife was about to be taken away with 

 a stroke ; but he was not to mourn or 

 weep, but to "bind the tire of his head 



* Genesis 28 : 11. 

 t Exodus 22 : 26, 27. 

 % Ezekiel 24: 17, 23. 



upon him." This leads us to suppose 

 that the "tire" of that time must have 

 been the same in principle as the present- 

 day 'agal. 



THE MARRIAGE CUSTOMS OE THE HOLY 

 LAND 



The villagers of Palestine are mostly 

 of the Mohammedan faith, while fewer 

 in number are the Christians belonging 

 to the Catholic and Greek Orthodox 

 churches. Some villages are entirely 

 Christian, and there are a few which have 

 both religions represented, but in this 

 case each class has its own quarter. 



We are, throughout these descriptions 

 of the life of the present inhabitants of 

 the Holy Land, devoting our observations 

 to the Mohammedans, who are not only 

 by far the most numerous, but also, from 

 our standpoint, the more interesting, as 

 they follow the ancient customs more 

 closely than the Christians. 



Marriage takes place at an early age, 

 the young men at about 20 and the girls 

 between 12 and 16. So long as the father 

 is living, the burden and expenses of 

 marrying his sons fall on his shoulders. 



When a youth has reached a marriage- 

 able age and the expenses that a wedding 

 involves can be defrayed, he begins in a 

 business-like manner to look for a bride. 

 When his choice seems to rest upon a 

 certain girl from simply seeing her in the 

 village, for no courtship is allowed, or if 

 a girl is heard of in another hamlet that 

 strikes his fancy, then the mother of the 

 bridegroom, with a retinue of her daugh- 

 ters and women friends, goes to see the 

 prospective bride. 



If she is from another village, they may 

 spend a couple of days "looking her over," 

 as the expression is, learning whether she 

 bakes well and is handy at all kinds of 

 work, seeing if she is good looking, and, 

 above all, that her eyes are perfect. One 

 who, like Leah of old, is "tender-eyed,"§ 

 is but little sought after. 



FIXING THE PRICE OE THE BRIDE 



The young man, with his father, uncles, 

 and other male relatives and friends, next 

 makes a visit. They formally ask for the 

 girl's hand. It would be considered im- 

 polite for the girl's father to meet the 



§ Genesis 29 : 17. 



