The seed pods of okra or gumbo, or, as the peasants call it, _bâmyeh_, are strung on twine and dried for the winter stores. It is cultivated in the plains near Ludd. [Illustration: BREAD-MAKING UTENSILS] 1. Wheat bin. 2. Stone mill. 3. Fine sieve. 4. Wooden bread-bowls. 5. Straw mat used as a tray or as a bread-bowl cover. 6 and 7. Ovens made of clay, fire is to be built around the outside. 8. Metal cooking plate. 9. Tiny basket for dry flour. (From the Hartford Theological Seminary Collection.) Many of the villages fail to cultivate garden vegetables in any considerable variety or quantity. They submit to a more monotonous diet than seems necessary. Other villages go into gardening extensively. They are villages with superior facilities for irrigating the crops. The vegetables are retailed in the less favored villages, or, more often, taken to the surer market of the nearest city. Squash, pumpkin, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, turnip, beet, parsnip, bean, pea, chick-pea, onion, garlic, leek, radish, mallow and eggplant are common varieties. Of the eggplant it is said that, since there are so many ways of preparing it, should a woman say to her husband, during the eggplant season, “I know not what to provide for dinner,” he has a sufficient cause for divorcing her. Doubtless, if he were hungry and sensible at the same time, he would at least try the expedient of getting a dish of the savory vegetable before discharging the cook. But, on the other hand, one might quote the Arabic proverb, “Minds are lost with stomachs.” There are two kinds of cucumber. The one like our own goes by the name _khîyâr_. The other, called _faḳûs_, is thinner, longer and fuzzy, and is eaten without peeling. The buds of the artichoke when boiled make a delicious dish. Potatoes are getting to be quite common now. Most of them are still imported, but probably more and more success will be met in raising a native crop. A pleasant little story is told of how potatoes may have first come to Jerusalem. Sister Charlotte, a Kaiserswerth deaconess, was for fifty years in mission work in Jerusalem. At the time of her death in 1903 she was the revered head of the German Orphanage for girls in the city. When the Emperor Frederick, then Crown Prince, visited Jerusalem, he accepted an invitation to dine with Sister Charlotte and the other German sisters. He asked them what, of all things, they would like from Germany. They said that they thought potatoes would be their choice. Two barrels of potatoes were the result of this incident, and Sister Charlotte thought that these were the first potatoes in Jerusalem. It is to be regretted that this is not the place to go into a thorough appreciation of the work of these blessed women who, in hospital, school and other Christian service in the East have performed a most gracious ministry of Christian womanliness.