When an honored guest takes his departure, as a mark of high regard his host walks with him out of town a distance the length of which is determined by the affectionate esteem in which the host holds his visitor. At times we walked for a whole hour with our departing guest, and desisted from going farther only at his most urgent request. So in the eighteenth chapter of the Book of Genesis we are told that Abraham's guests "rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and Abraham went with them _to bring them on the way_." The English phrase, however, "to bring them on the way," falls far short of expressing the full meaning of the term _shy-ya'_. Pilgrimages to holy places and fraternal feasts--such as are enjoyed on betrothal occasions, weddings, baptisms of children, and great holidays--are practically the only occasions the common people of Syria have to bring them together. On such occasions the guests {222} are invited in families; therefore the number of those who come to the feast is never exactly known in advance. The food is served in large quantities, but not in such great variety as in the West. The table appointments are very simple. There are no flowers, no lace doilies, nor the brilliant and sometimes bewildering array of knives, forks, and spoons which grace an American host's table on such festive occasions. The guests sit close together on the floor, about low tables, or trays, and eat in a somewhat communistic fashion from comparatively few large dishes. If twenty guests are expected, and thirty come, they simply enlarge the circle, or squeeze closer together. Their sitting so close to one another makes the "breaking of bread together" for these friends more truly fraternal.