September, with its trying siroccos, is often hotter than May. The pomegranates ripen in this month. In the country districts it is very hard to get goats’ milk from this time onward for several months. The flocks are too far distant, having been driven away to find pasture and water, and a little later on the milk is all needed for the young. During these days, too, it is not thought good to weaken the goats by milking them any more than is quite necessary. In the cities milk is always to be had. The Greek Feast of the Cross, about the end of September, is looked forward to as marking the date for an early shower which may be sufficiently strong to cleanse the roofs. After that the rain may come in a month, or it may wait two. The people notice a period of general unhealthiness just preceding the autumn rains. Their advent usually puts an end to it, bringing healthier conditions. Sometime along in the autumn there is often noticed a warm spell of weather which the natives call _Ṣayf Ṣaghîr_, or _Ṣayf Rummân_, that is, _Little Summer_, or _Pomegranate Summer_. The cement in the paved roofs cracks under the fierce heat of summer and the early showers help to discover the bad places which must be patched before the heavy winter rains. In the case of earth-covered roofs the first shower ought to be followed by a good rolling, the owners going over and over them with stone rollers rigged with wooden handles that creak out upon the clear air after the rain as they work in the sockets. From the peculiar noise thus made the Râm Allâh people have a local name of _zukzâkeh_ for the wooden handles of these stone rollers. In the northern part of the country the name _nâ‛uṣ_ is given to the roller handles for a similar reason. The roofs of rolled earth can be kept very tight. The covering of such roofs is made by mixing sandy soil with clay and with the finest grade of chaff, called _mûṣ_, from the threshing-floor. On old earth roofs patches of grass[29] grow, and even grain has been seen springing up in such places. ----- ----- The Syrian peasant divides trees into classes by pairs. There are those that are good to sit under and those that are not. Then there are those that yield food and those that do not. Finally there are those that are holy, and therefore cannot be cut for charcoal or fuel, and those that are not thus tabooed.