Money lending is common among the country people and often the rates are very high. Seldom is the rate less than ten per cent, and more often it is twenty. A clever man possessed of a small capital multiplies it rapidly by judicious loans, though it must be confessed that the gambling element enters pretty largely into the business. Some possessors of ready money invest it in the form of advances to owners of future crops, taking their pay in the crop when harvested. This is often done when soldiers, representing the government, descend on a village and demand the taxes. The peasants in seeking the ready money with which to pay are compelled to dispose of barley and other produce cheap. Often of an evening one will hear the crier publishing something of general concern to the villagers. In Râm Allâh this officer, called _nâṭûr_, and chosen by the shaykhs, receives a yearly allowance of seventy mejîdehs. The tribal elders decide upon some matter for general observance and the crier makes it known. For instance, when an especially dry season was on, the village crier was heard proclaiming that no woman should draw more than one jar of water from the springs at a time. If any woman were caught offending the extra jar would be broken and a fine of a bishlik (eleven cents) imposed. At another time it was forbidden the people to harvest the olives until a certain date. Lost articles are advertised by the criers, and those lounging about in the evening are kept in touch with business news, as the voice penetrates all quarters of the village. The go-between, or _wasîṭ_, is a familiar figure in Syrian business matters. A merchant from Nazareth explained to me the popularity of this intermediary thus: “If there are two men, each wanting something of the other and neither wishing to express his whole mind before the other has done so, they can avoid the difficulty by employing a third person to whom each unbosoms freely, and this third person, possessing the secrets of both, knows how to approach either one with the business of the other.”[163] ----- -----