some lettering on the face, which indicated that it was from a Connecticut factory and a genuine "Yankee notion," made for the Syrian market. The figures were a slight improvement upon the usually lean Turkish numerals, and rather more Turkish than the original,-as may be seen in the figure 9, which in the Turkish or Arabic is much more like our numeral figure of the same value than the Yankee-Turkish nine; yet the latter is more crescent-like than the figure on the left, which is nearer the usual form of the plain Turkish numeral, improved in the right-hand figure, which may be called the improved ornamental Turkish. We noticed that the Arabs and other Syrians at the quarantine who had watches of the usual form had both hour and minute hand set at the figure 12 at sunset, or rather for six o'clock, one o'clock being one hour after sunset, and so on till twelve, which would be considered as sunrise. If they were asked, therefore, the time at noon, their reply would be, "It is the sixth hour,"-meaning the sixth hour after sunrise, or, more strictly, after that twelve at which their watch was set at sunrise.1 Thus,

1 "Are there not twelve hours in the day?" John xi. 9.

ORIENTAL DIVISION OF THE DAY.

95

as in the time of our Savior, the simple method, and the one most natural, of reckoning the hours from sunset and sunrise, still obtains the ascendency, and reminds us of the constant references in the Scriptures to a similar method. The distinction between the night and the day hours is the same that is made in the fifteenth verse of the second chapter of Acts, where the day-hour is mentioned as "the third hour of the day;" and in the twenty-third verse of the twenty-third chapter the same hour at night is called "the third hour of the night."

The complexion of the Syrians is lighter than that of the Egyptians of the same class: it may be said to be that of the brunette slightly shaded. The color is hardly describable in that class of the peasants who are generally exposed: the other classes being much fairer. Some of the females we suspected of staining the eyelids black, as they did in Egypt; and, watching one girl of about fifteen years of age, I am certain that she had thus dyed the under eyelids, and afterward found that it was performed with a little brush and upon the edge of the eyelid, to give it, as one informed me, "an almond shape." But large eyes are considered beautiful; and the little delicate black edge, when neatly made, did not appear to us otherwise than ornamental,—at least, not less so than the best style of painting applied in our own land to the cheeks. The eyes of

1 Matt. xx. 3, xxvii. 45, 46; Mark xv. 25; John i. 39, iv. 6, 52; Acts ii. 15, iii. 1.

96

PAINTING EYES.

the Orientals are now and were anciently considered the chief charms of a beautiful face, as numerous classic references prove: hence the reference to a necessity, on the part of those ladies liable to the perils of beauty, for a "covering of the eyes" similar to that which Abimelech afforded Sarah when her eyes nearly proved to be the occasion of his ruin.1 In 2 Kings ix. 30, where Jezebel hears of Jehu's coming, the literal translation is, "which Jezebel hearing of, put her eyes in paint,"-dressed her head well and looked out at a window. So also in Jeremiah iv. 30, painting the eyes is a part of the toilet in the adorning of a coquette for her lovers. And yet a word in that passage seems to indicate that the operation was sometimes painful, as I find both here and in Egypt to be the case where a young girl not practised in the use of the antimonial powder carelessly gets it into the eye. It is said to scratch or "tear the eyes;" and hence I sup

1 Gen. xx. 16.

2 And for this reason I cannot but think that the translation in Solomon's Song iv. 1, where of his bride he says, "Thou (hast) doves' eyes," should be, "thou hast eyes like doves,"-not the little eyes of doves, but like doves themselves; that is, beautiful, innocent, and gentle. The Hebrew has it, "thine eyes doves," there being no construct form to exhibit any thing more. Besides, the same form is in the same verse translated "thy hair [is] as a flock of goats." Why not say, "as the hair of a flock of goats"? Again, in the second verse, "Thy teeth [are] like a flock of sheep." The form being precisely the same, it would require the translation to be “the teeth like those of a flock of sheep" if not, eyes should be represented not as the eyes of doves, but as the doves themselves, just as in the case of the hair and the teeth. So in Song v. 12, "As the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, [and] fitly set." In the original it is "eyes like doves [keyonim] upon [al] the rivers of waters, washed in [》, be] milk, set in fulness," (, milleth,)-i.e. large.

INTERESTING FACT.

97

pose the expression in Jeremiah, "Though thou rentest thy face [Hebrew, "rentest thine eyes"] with painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair." It is a very interesting fact that among the Abyssinians, who have many customs evidently obtained from the ancient Hebrews, there is a practice of painting the eyes with a preparation of "stibium, or black-lead" powder, mixed with a little soot, and put on with a small pencil, which they call blen. They believe it to be a great preservative of the sight; and the paint is in their language called cuehol or cohol, a word which has been in use from time immemorial, and exists in several Eastern languages. It is singular that the very word used in Ezekiel xxiii. 40 to signify "paintedst," in the sentence "for whom thou. . . paintedst thy eyes," is, in the Hebrew of the Scriptures, "for whom thou didst use the cohol for thine eyes," the word being in the same form as that in Abyssinia given to the paint, as if both the use and the name were relics preserved through centuries to the present day.1

1 Whence the Greek collyrium, as it were cohollyrium. The Arabic word el cohol still remains in the Spanish language, where there is a proverb, “El polvo de las ovejas el cohol es para el lobo," "The dust which the sheep raise is a collyrium to quicken the wolf's sight."-Hist. Ethiopia Ludolphus, folio, London, 1682, bk. i. ch. vii. p. 32.

7

98

TURKISH PASSPORT.

CHAPTER IV.

INTERESTING MISSION-SCHOOLS-DEPARTURE FOR THE SOUTH.

TO-DAY we received our "tezkirah," or passport, for which we pay six piastres (twenty-six cents) apiece. This paper, though seldom called for, is yet a safeguard, making the Government responsible in case of our injury or robbery.

This was preparatory to our de

1 1It is as long as a foolscap sheet and more than half the width, printed in Turkish, having in an oval piece at the top "Traveller's Tezkirah [or passport,]" with a flourish; then, half-way down the paper, the statement of intent of the traveller, his permission and his name, which in my case was without any title whatever, and the first syllable so spelled in Turkish letters (similar to Arabic) that it could be pronounced with four different sounds, according as it was read in Algiers, Egypt, Arabia, or Syria, the Arabic having a different peculiarity in the different places, so that the otherwise excellent Arabic Grammar (Algerine) of Bled de Braine has to be repeatedly corrected for Syria. The blanks of the tezkirah for date, name, and appearance are filled up in most shocking letters without vowels, (points,) and finally closes with the Beirût seal,-a mere circular blot near the bottom, with the fact stated of its being "done at Beirût." On the left margin are two parallel columns containing items of "description," giving your "complexion," "size," "beard," "mustache," and kuz or "eye,”—by which it is seen that two-fifths of a man are made up of his beard and mustache. At the top and bottom is the Italian word "numero" in Turkish letters. All that is manuscript is written so rapidly and in such a detached state that it appears impossible that any but officials could decipher it. I obtained the aid of a resident of Constantinople, and, though well acquainted with the Turkish, he found some difficulty in deciphering it. The Turkish is in all respects, however, less difficult to learn than the Arabic and less subject to exceptional rules. The tezkirah is evidently a copy of the European passports.