Identifier: farjourne00rihb (find matches)
Title: A far journey
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Rihbany, Abraham Mitrie, 1869-
Subjects: Rihbany, Abraham Mitrie, 1869-
Publisher: Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin company
Contributing Library: Princeton Theological Seminary Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Princeton Theological Seminary Library

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FAR JOURNEY qualities. She was always a woman from thetip of her finger to the center of her heart, andaccording to the fashion of her time and countryan excellent housekeeper. My fathers house was a typical, common,Syrian house. It was one story high, and con-sisted of two rooms, a living-room and a store-room. It was built of roughly hewn stone, ^ andhad one door and two windows, which hadwooden shutters, without glass. The roof wasthe Biblical earth-covered flat roof, such as theone on which Peter went up to pray in ancientJoppa. On every Syrian roof there is a stoneroller, with which the dirt is rolled down andmade hard enough to shed water. Rollingthe roof is a daily task for the man of thehouse in the winter season. Failure to do thiscauses the roof to soften and the rain to soakthrough and drop into the house. Thedropping is one of the most hateful things to * In the western part of Syria all the houses arebuilt of stone; in the eastern part, generally of sun-dried brick. ( 8 )
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A. M. RIHBANY S FATHER AND MOTHER MY FATHERS HOUSE a Syrian household. The writer of the book ofProverbs did not at all exaggerate the uglinessof the situation when he said, Continual drop-ping in a very rainy day and ^ contentiouswoman are alike. The interior of that house of my early child-hood appears on the negative of my memory inthis shape: On the right as you enter stands asmall structure of sun-dried brick, called mekh-daah. It is about five feet high, six feet long,and a foot deep. On the inner side it is dividedinto openings of different sizes, and serves thecosmopolitan purpose of a china closet, kettlecupboard, a place for fathers Turkish pipe (narghile) and tobacco, and whatever other littlearticles it may be convenient for the momentto thrust into it. The maukedah (fireplace)is at the forward end of this structure. It issuch a fireplace as you would build at a picnic:square, open at the top for the kettle to setin, and at one side to admit the fuel. It is builtof clay mi

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