DOMESTIC LIFE IN PALESTINE.*
Miss ROGERS has achieved an original and exceedingly difficult task. She has written a book on life in Palestine, which is not also an ela- borate essay on Jewish antiquities, which tells us how the Turks, who govern the province, really live, without also dilating on the exact spot at which the watchman stood when he desried the sou of Nimshi "driving furiously." Books of that sort are valuable when their writers have any learning, or any spirit of toleration; but we want something beyond their very argumentative theses. We want to know how men live, and talk, and grow old in modern Palestine, and more especially how they bear themselves in their houses, how they reconcile Moham- medanism, and polygamy, and the special habits of the East with that moderate degree of happiness Englishmen think essential to human life. This is what Miss Rogers endeavours to tell us in100 pages of easy and natural writing, full of anecdote, and crowded with un- conscious proofs of her own aptitude for the work she has undertaken. The result is a charming book, a real meal for readers whose appetite has only been stimulated with the literary vol-an-vent which passes so often for a description of Oriental life. Not that Domestic Life in Palestine is a "solid book," something which stupid people will call very instructive reading, and buy and lay by for a more convenient season. It is as entertaining as a novel, full of that rich flavour of personal knowledge which one finds only in books that record in a volume the observation of years. If Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had lived in Haifa, and in the nineteenth century, and had learnt that delicacy is a feminine virtue, she would have described Syrian life exactly as Miss Rogers has done, with no more vigour, and rather less of that kindly and thorough appreciation which, in writing as in paint- ing, is essential to picturesqueness. The sister of a Syrian vice- consul, Miss Rogers lived years in the country, acquired colloquial Arabic—one of the easiest of tongues—pretty thoroughly, and found access to women of all classes, from the Turkish governor's wife to the half-Frenchified Levantines. She does not say so, but her book abounds with unconscious proofs that she talked to them and treated them as if they were friends, and people in whom she had a real in- terest, whom she could bear to touch, and to kiss, and to be sorry for, and to be bored with just.as if they had been English women. She there- fore won their confidence, and is able to describe their outer lives with the fidelity not given to those who judge the East only by their eyes.
With Helweh, indeed, the wife of Saleh Bek, brother to the Go- vernor of Nablous, sheappears to have lived on terms of friendship, and the description of this household is as picturesque as a scene from the "Arabian Nights." It corroborates, moreover, to a singular degree the conventional notion of harem life, and suggests that it is really from Syria that the English ideas on that subject have been de- rived. She found two families, wives and children of the two brothers, living together, and using one great vaulted apartment as the common "keeping"-room. They seemed to live happily enough, treating one another with kindness, and flot betraying any outward jealousy, though
• Doiriedic Life in Palestine. By Miss Roger,. Bell and Daddy.
explosions, as Miss Rogers allows, do occasionally take place. The ladies were dressed in the style adopted by painters to illustrate "Oriental" works, and which is correct in Syria, though not in Cash- mere : bright-coloured drawers made very full; a white crape shirt, open over the bosom ; velvet jackets, embroidered with crimson and gold; and head-dress falling slightly over the forehead, and heavy with emeralds and jewels. Surrounded by slaves, they have no occupation except to attend to their children and gossip with their domestics and the inmates of other harems. They live in perfect seclusion, and hear all the little they know from slaves and the bath attendants, and ac- quire, therefore, erroneous, but singularly strong impressions.. In- deed, their minds seem like those of children, quick and shrewd, but exceedingly loth to surrender ideas once entertained. Thns the ladies of Saleh Bek's household could not understand the liberty of English women till they heard that the Queen, though married, still reigned. They jumped at once to the conclusion that in England the women ruled, and the men obeyed, and of this idea Miss Rogers could not disabuse them. They pounced on the English lady as on a new toy, stroked her face, fed her, examined her dress, and made her sleep in the same room in order that they might see what she had on, resolving finally that English women wore a great deal too much. They were, however, kindness itself, and we must quote one little incident as a proof of personal relation which existed between Miss Rogers and
' those whom she has described : "When my head had rested for about five minutes on the soft red silk pillow, I felt a hand stroking my fore- head, and heard a voice saying, very gently, Ya Habibi !' i.e. 'Oh, beloved !' But I would not answer directly, as I did not wish to be roused unnecessarily. I waited a little while, and my face was touched again. I felt a kiss on my forehead, and the voice said, Miriam, speak to us; speak, Miriam, darling !' I could not resist any longer, so I turned round and saw Helweh, Saleh Bek's prettiest wife, leaning over me. I said, 'What is it, Sweetness ? What can I do for yeru?' She answered, What did you do just now, when you knelt down and covered your face with your hands?' I sat up, and said very solemnly, I spoke to God, Helweh r In the morning they begged Miss Rogers to talk to God' again, in order that their neighbours might see. This household subsequently removed to Hitifa, where Miss Rogers was living, and the ladies would come and consult her in the most affectionate way, as the Mussulman ladies of Umballa did -Mrs. Colin Mackenzie, and as all Asiatics, indeed, will consult all Europeans, when sure of sym- pathy and of exemption from that form of humour which we call chaff and our neighbours badinage, and which Asiatics, for some totally in- comprehensible reason, absolutely loathe. They use it themselves, and are, indeed, from Constantinople eti Hong-Kong, given to a sub- causticity of remark, but they cannot bear it from Europeans, however genial or however friendly. Miss Rogers, like all observers in the East, came to the conclusion that the women must be elevated before civilization can be hoped for; buther advice is not very practical. She would gradually elevate them without introducing new dogmas or puzzling their minds with new faiths. That would be excellent as a first step, more especially as Mohammedanism has little hold on the women, to whom it offers nothing on earth but subjection, and nothing in heaven except the certainty of being separated from their sons, pro- vided we had a hundred Miss Rogers through whom to elevate them. But, as a matter of fact, the only women who will devote themselves to the task are those who believe dogmas essential, even in such cases, to salvation, and who cannotAtherefore, for their souls' sake, try the gradual process. Miss Rogers thinks the husbands would help, and, indeed, one Mussulman friend expressed his own willingness; but there is, we fear, little to be hoped from that source till the men them. selves are enlightened. The contempt with which Asiatics talk of their women may, indeed, be partly feigned. They leave them, in reality, considerable power, and the mother, when once too old for harem scandal, has often enormous influence. But men nowhere approve of their wives beating them in the race of intelligence, and when for the first time conscious of ignorance, their fear on this head is apt to become quite morbid. The only real hope, we fear, is from within, from the rise of the new spirit which, as civilization invades Syria, will invade the harems, and induce women like Helweh, if not to study, at least to become what our great-grandmothers were in the days when they also believed in quaint country fables, and were occu- pied chiefly in nursing and household cares.
Miss Rogers does not, that we notice, add much to the information already current on the manners and customs of the East, though she records well-known facts with a vivid picturesqueness which makes them seem almost new. She mentions, however, one custom which we have not seen described before, and which we think exceeds in cruelty any yet imposed by fashion on the ladies of Europe. Tight-lacing was bad enough, and the insolvency of Madame Rachel set curious stories afloat about enamel and paint, but the vainest of English beauties would shrink from an improvement on nature phial' involves a gradual flaying alive. The bride, when dressed, has tolose her skin. The ope- ration is performed by female barbers, one of 'whom, named Angelina, Miss Rogers saw. The artiste first rectifies the eyebrows, which ought to form a perfect arch, and then "she prepares an adhesive plaister of very strong, sweet gum, and applies it by degrees all over the body, letting it remain on for a minute or more; then she tears it off quickly, and it brings away with it all the soft down or hair, leav- ing the skin quite bare, with an unnaturally bright and polished ap- pearance, much admired by Orientals. The face requires very careful manipulation. When women have once 'submitted to this process,
they look frightful, if from time to time they do not repeat it; for the hair never grows so soft and fine again. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why aged Arab women, who have quite given up all these arts of adornment, look so haggard and witch-like." Truly pride feels no pain, but this is only the first of the ceremonies. The bride next passes three successive days in the Turkish bath, where fuller's-earth is rubbed into her head and tow over her body, her eyes are blackened by an impalpable powder made of antimony and soot, and which, placed on the point of a silver bodkin, is drawn gently along between the almost closed lids, not thrust under them as commentators usually appear to imagine. The hands and feet are next covered with henna, the paste being spread over them while covered with lines of tape, so that the hands, when the process is finished, appear as if covered with orange mittens, and the feet with pink sandals, the latter a device, though Miss Rogers does not notice it, which takes away half the appa- rent size of the feet. Women in Asia are proud, like English women, of the length and thinness of their feet, though they take slight pre- cautions to protect them, and usually spoil the great toes. Finally, the forehead and breasts are adorned with patches of gold-leaf, and a little rouge added to the cheek, which, we may add, not being red upon white, but red upon yellowish cream, does not produce the horrible effect of visible paint. The Christian women keep up these customs, though the Greek Church, which denounces all vanities, threatens ex- communication, and one worthy priest actually denounced the use of lace mittens from the altar. We must add that he explained his conduct by the strong wish felt all over the East to keep up the system of early marriages, which would be checked by the growth of the habit of wearing expensive dress. This system is probably the most injurious of the many evils which afflict Asia, but it rests upon higher grounds than we are accustomed to admit. Asiatic society is not pure, but it is based on the wish for purity, and its only safeguard is held to be early marriage.
Miss Rogers bears high testimony to the character of the Jews, who, she says, are admitted throughout Palestine to be remarkable for the purity of their lives and the simplicity of their manners, and she decidedly approved the one specimen of the Oriental Christian with whom she became acquainted, Sit Hafeefee, a member of the Latin Church, who could only speak Arabic. She was, however, a lady in every sense of the term, though not Europeanized in any degree. We must, however, quit this very amusing book, with a regret that there are so few like its authoress to bring home to us the favourable as well as the unfavourable side of the inner life of the East.
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