Unmarried women are very scarce among the peasantry. Marriage usually comes at an early age for girls. One of the owners of a house that we had to hire for the work of the new boys’ training school had as wife such a mere slip of a girl that we were curious to know her age. She couldn’t tell us how old she was, but said that she had been married five years. A companion with her ventured the guess that her age was thirteen years. The little wife seemed happy and was the only peasant wife I ever saw receiving any affectionate attentions from her husband. She was a pretty girl and seemed to be a pet in the family. She had her own little ways of enjoying her little life. One day, when some much poorer women from el-Bîreh were toiling on the house which her husband’s family was building, bringing stone and mortar on their heads, Mrs. Thirteen-years put on her best dress of blue with some Bethlehem needlework on the breast, adorned her fingers with the rings of cheap nickel and glass, commonly worn, and taking a piece of embroidery, stood thus, plying her needle genteelly, where the other women were toiling at their severer task. Many were the glances they threw at her, but when they looked her eyes were on her handiwork. Several statements on page 45 _f._, especially the one on army service, need modification now. See Chapter XII. The classical work in English on the modern life of the Bedawin is Charles M. Doughty’s Arabia Deserta which has recently come out in a new and expensive edition. CHAPTER III FAMILY LIFE When our sons shall be as plants grown up in their youth, And our daughters as corner-stones hewn after the fashion of a palace; When our garners are full, affording all manner of store, And our sheep bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our fields; When our oxen are well laden; When there is no breaking in, and no going forth, And no outcry in our streets: Happy is the people that is in such a case; Yea, happy is the people whose God is Jehovah. _Psalm 144: 12–15._ The above bit of ancient expression would describe the ideal of happiness of a village people in Palestine to-day.