intelligent-looking. His long dark-blue and red-striped coat, his crimson girdle, and red and yellow shawl head-dress, twisted into turban-form, became him well. He invited me to see his wife and child. I delightedly rose and followed him across a little square court-yard, partly sheltered by matting, supported by planks and tree branches, and partly by a vine, which traveled over a rude trellis-work. In one corner of this court were a large number of oyster-shells from the Red Sea, some of them a quarter of a yard in diameter; lumps of bitumen, from the wilderness of'Ain Jidy; and pieces of rock, from Jerusalem, of red and yellow tints. The carver pointed these out to me as his stock of raw material. A pile of fine melons, and a row of water jars, stood on one side, while a bleating sound drew my attention to the other, where a fatted lamb stood munching mulberry-leaves. Into this central court four rooms of the house opened; but, as it is built on a hill-side, the shop floor is a step or two below the level of the court, while the room opposite to it is raised considerably. We mounted a few steps, and my host left me at the open door of this upper chamber, within which, seated on a mat, was a pretty-looking woman, with a round, childish, cheerful face. Perfectly unembarrassed by my unexpected appearance she rose, and, after placing her hand on her breast, and then carrying it to her forehead, she said, "Be welcome, and be pleased to rest here." This was the carver's wife. An elder woman, whom I afterward found to be her mother, placed some pillows for me on a small carpet, and then took a little swaddled figure from a curtained rocking-cradle of red painted wood. She placed it on the skirts of my dress, saying, "Behold the gift of God!" I took the little creature in my arms. His body was stiff and unyielding, so tightly was it swathed with white and purple linen. His hands and feet were quite confined, and his head was bound with a small soft red shawl, which passed under his chin and across his forehead in small folds; to this a moldering relic of St. Joseph, in
