Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/146

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NAZARENE RESIDENCES.
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smaller towns and villages of Galilee. Some silver anklets were shown to me, and described as "old-fashioned," but plain bracelets of silver, gold, or glass, are universally worn. I purchased one, formed of a twist of thick silver, with a very broad, clumsily-made, jeweled ring attached to it by a chain, also of wrought silver. The ring was intended to be worn on the fore-finger. One of my Nazarene friends told me that only the fellahin would wear any thing so barbarous and old-fashioned.

The change which is gradually being made here in the costume of the women does not depend on direct European or priestly influence, but simply on fashions introduced by settlers and visitors from other Oriental towns, specially Hâifa. The display in the bazars of jewelry and silk tasseled caps from Stamboul, and colored muslirn mundîls from European Turkey and Switzerland is accelerating the change. The supply creates a demand.

On Monday, the 15th, I called, with my brother and Saleh, on Luîs Khalîl, a wealthy native of Nazareth, who had lately built a handsome house of hewn stone. He had just returned from a trip to Marseilles, where he had been purchasing furniture for it. The terraces, courts, and corridors were tastefully bordered with beds of roses, pinks, and sweet basil, edged with broad stone copings. The surface of the walls of the inner courts was very much decorated with rudely-carved, round pateræ, of interlacing designs, in low relief. Over the doors and windows, and in other prominent positions, English-made willow-pattern cheese-plates were introduced, imbedded in stucco, as encaustic tiles might be. The owner of the house called my attention to this novel application of cheese-plates. He told me that he had himself designed the house and its decorations. The new European furniture was almost as singularly disposed of as the willow -pattern plates were. His unsophisticated wife and daughters marveled exceedingly at some of his purchases in Marseilles, and seemed rather more per-