Nicknames are often bestowed and often stick fast to individuals and families.[82] We knew a dumb man whose family went by the name Akhras, _dumb_. A trickster whose cleverness was really admired and honored by his fellows was dubbed esh-Shayṭân, _Satan_. No more enviable compliment can be paid a sharp business man than this same designation, Shayṭân. We knew a little girl who, in common with the family, shared the nickname that the villagers had given to her father, Ṣarṣûr (or Ṣurṣur), _cricket_. ----- ----- Many customs and much lore of the people have been described from time to time during the past twenty-five years by Baldensperger in the Quarterly Statements of the Palestine Exploration Fund. CHAPTER IV HOME AFFAIRS The houses of the peasants show at a glance the grade of well-being in the different villages. There are many in the lowlands made of mud, or a worse material, with thatch and straw. But in the hills stone is so plentiful that even the poorest builder may use it. The low, hutlike, _sḳîfeh_ cabin is made of loose stone piled up without mortar. The roof is constructed of boughs, on which clay and straw are laid to make it water-tight. The usual stone house is called, in contrast to the above, _ḥajjar-wa-tîn_, that is, stone and mortar, and is more or less substantial according to the hardness of the stone, the care in dressing the blocks and the proportion of lime in the mortar. The arch for the roof of such a house is usually so high as to be able to support itself by its own weight. The result, in the typical house, is a square box room with a lofty ceiling, the walls being unrelieved in most instances even by whitewash. But as this must serve in many cases for the family and also for such animals as are possessed, or for a living-room and a store cellar combined, an extra floor is put in, over most of the room, from four to six feet higher than the ground. This platformed portion may be supported by small stone arches and paved with beaten clay, or lime, or flat stones. From the door stone steps ascend to this living floor. In former times these steps were so constructed that any shot from a firearm sent through the wooden door would strike them and thus fail of reaching either the people on the platform above, or the animals sheltered underneath. Sometimes there is excavated under the house a cistern to which the rain-water from the roof is conducted. As the family prospers and outgrows the accommodations of a single room, others may be built at right angles on either side around a little court on which all the doors open. Still more rooms may be added above as a second story, with stairs leading up outside. By such a process of agglutination the house grows, looking like a miniature fort or castle, where father, brothers and sons with their families live in patriarchal unity. Rooms with inner connecting doors come as a later refinement of