the door, where the sunlight was streaming in. Then the others took the same seat in turn, and I made two more sketches, but Helweh was by far the prettiest. She had a sweet voice, which is rather unusual among Arab women, and was simple and frank in her manners. She wore yellow silk trowsers, ornamented at the sides with black silk braid. Her yellow pointed slippers were turned up at the toes. She wore no stockings. Her black velvet jacket was embroidered beautifully with gold thread, and a purple, red, and green shawl, twisted round her waist rather low, served for a girdle. A wide collar of gold coins encircled her throat, and a little, shallow, red cloth cap was arranged coquettishly on one side of her well-shaped head. A long tassel, springing from perforated gold balls, hung from it. Her hair, intertwined with silk braid, was divided into nine plaits and fell straight over her shoulders. Little jewels and pearls were fastened to it. Round her head, over her red cloth cap, or tarbûsh, she wore strings of pearls and coins and diamond and emerald sprays, and little bunches of red, yellow, and violet everlasting flowers, which grow wild on the hills in Palestine. She had large, dark eyes. The eyebrows were painted thickly, and the eyelids edged with kohl. She had spots of blue dye on her chest and on her chin, and a blue star tattooed on her forehead. The women were all thus ornamented, more or less, and they very much wished to paint and tattoo me in the same way.
I wrote down in my book the names of all the women and their children and servants in Arabic, and a description of their dresses in English. I found that Helweh was born at Kefr Kâra, and she told me how all the villages near to it were called. I explained the use of my map, and how by looking at it I could tell the direction of Senûr and other towns. Then they cried out more and more, "O work of God!" for they had never heard that it was possible for a woman to learn to read or write. They knew that men could do so, and their own sons went to a day school at the Mosque, where a learned dervish taught them
