“AUNT EDITH,” said Charley, one morning, "I wish you would tell us what that parcel was you received by post just now. I saw you look at papa as you opened it, and he said something about 'mountain bread,' and then you said, 'Yes; what the Arabs make;' and the parcel did really look like a roll of crust tied up in brown paper." "Yes," said May, "I quite thought somebody had sent you a cake; but then no one would send such a thing by post, and so far too. From Syria you said, didn't you?”
“Yes, May, my parcel came from Syria; and you are not so very far wrong, Charley, it did contain a piece of the bread made and which is eaten by the country people there. I am very glad," continued their aunt, "that it has been sent me while I am staying with you, and now I want you both to look at it. It is very interesting to us, not only as having come from a far country, and being unlike the bread we are accustomed to see, but because it is, I believe, the very sort of bread of which we often read in the Bible.”
“Oh! I know there is a great deal about bread in the Bible," said May. "I remember about the loaves with which Jesus fed the great crowd of people; and you know, Aunt Edith, when the disciples said, 'Lord, teach us to pray,' part of the prayer the Lord taught them was, ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’”
“And don't you remember, May, about the-bread from heaven which God sent the Israelites, and how Jesus said, ‘I am the Bread of life,’ and how very often ‘unleavened bread’ is spoken of? I think," continued Charley, thoughtfully, "we should find a great deal about bread in the Bible if we were to look, Aunt Edith.”
“I am sure we should, Charley, and we need not be surprised at this, for God speaks in His Book to men and women and children living in this world, of their common every-day wants, their work, their pleasures, their rest, their food and clothing-all that concerns them in daily life. What a blessing it is for us that God has given us such a book! Now I want you to look at this roll of bread, but remember it has only been rolled, as you would roll up a copy-book, that it might travel better. It was once quite thin and flat. Unroll it and you will see what I mean.”
“Oh, yes, I see. It is very much like crust, and how easily it breaks! May I break a bit off?”
“Yes; I want you and May to taste it. Do you like it?”
“Its not nearly so nice as our English bread," said both the children at once.
“Is that the only kind of bread to be got in Syria?" asked Charley. "Oh, no. The friend who sent me this says, ‘We eat delicious bread, far more pure and wholesome than what you have in England; it is made of white flour, and baked in cakes of two thicknesses. Those about an inch thick we split and toast. The other cakes are not quite half so thick, and hollowed all through inside.’ I don't think such bread as this," continued their aunt, pointing to the roll which lay on the table, "is much used in the towns in the Holy Land; it is mostly made in the country places, where the people are very poor, and by the Arabs, who wander about so much that it is necessary they should be able to make their bread in a rough and ready fashion. This bread came from the mountain part of Palestine, and is probably just the same as that used in the time of Abraham.”
“How very interesting," said Charley. "I see now," he added, taking up the bread which had traveled so far, and unrolling the thin, flaky folds, "why people in the Bible always break their bread, never cut it. Of course no one would think of cutting such bread as this—you see, May, it breaks quite easily. We were wondering the other day, Aunt Edith, when we were reading the accounts of Jesus feeding the multitudes, why it always says, ‘He blessed the bread, and brake, and gave to them’; and May thought it must have been because they had no knives in Palestine then.”
“Oh, yes, they had knives, though not quite like ours," said Aunt Edith, smiling at little May's way of getting rid of difficulties; "but, Charley," she added more gravely, "you are quite right to stop and ask about anything in the Bible which seems strange to you. Many things which you do not understand would be quite plain to you if you had ever lived in Eastern countries and seen the ways of the people. They do almost all common, every-day things in just the opposite way from our way of doing them; for instance, if a man in Nazareth or Damascus wants to write a letter, and is learned enough to be able to do it himself, which is not often the case, he will fold the paper across, and then begin writing with a reed pen his Arabic Letters from the right to the left of the paper-not as we do, from left to right. A Syrian schoolboy on entering his school will take off his slippers, just as an English one would take off his cap. You may notice in this picture of an Eastern school that each of the boys who sits with his tablet in his hand learning to write sentences from the Koran, has taken off his slippers.”
“Oh, there the shoes are, all lying on the floor," said May. "Of course the boys' feet are not cold in those hot countries.”
"And they have all got their caps on," said Charley. "I dare say if they saw a picture of an English school they would say, How strange those boys look with their bare heads.”
“If I had time," continued their aunt, "I could show you how different almost all Eastern customs are from ours, and the most interesting thing about them is that they do not change; the people still eat, and sleep, and dress just as they did thousands of years ago in that land,
"‘Over whose acres walked those blessed feet,
Which, eighteen hundred years ago, were nailed,
For our advantage, on the bitter cross.’”
"But do the fashions never change?" said May.
"Very little indeed. The people never seem to wish to learn any new way of doing things. They still grind their corn in small hand-mills, which are made of two flat circular stones (the upper and the nether mill-stones) carefully fitted together; the upper stone is made to turn round upon the lower one, while the corn, poured through a hole at the top, is gradually crushed between them; but this grinding is slow, laborious work, and has been the lot of captive women in all times. We find many allusions to this in the Old Testament; ancient historians and poets, too, speak of the custom of imposing this work upon the women of a conquered people, and during the sad time of the Indian mutiny delicate English ladies were set to grind for their savage captors.”
“I suppose corn may have been ground in this way in England long ago?”
“Yes, Charley. Until quite lately mills of this sort were in use in lonely parts of the Highlands of Scotland, and were called querns. They were worked by two women, who sat opposite each other, and turned the upper stone round by its handle; I have seen great millstones lying about near the villages in Ireland half covered by the grass which has been allowed to grow over them.”
“I suppose the women grind the corn in Syria, too," said May, "for you know it says somewhere in the Bible, ‘Two women shall be grinding at the mill?’”
“I will read you what Dr. Thomson, who was for many years a missionary in Bible Lands, says about the mills in use there," said her aunt. "He is describing what he saw at Lydda, the town called Lydda in the Acts, ‘which was nigh to Joppa,’ and he says -"‘Two women are sitting before the door of their house, upon a large piece of sackcloth, grinding on a hand-mill. From this, on southward through Philistia, there are no mill-streams, and we shall not cease to hear the hum of the hand-mill at every village and Arab camp morning and evening, and often deep into the night. I like it, and go to sleep on it as a child to its mother's lullaby. It is suggestive of hot bread and a warm welcome when hungry and weary. You observe that two women sit at the mill, facing each other. Both have hold of the handle by which the upper is turned round on the nether mill-stone. The one whose hand is disengaged throws in the grain as occasion requires through the hole in the upper stone, which is called "rekkab" (rider) in Arabic, as it was also long ago in Hebrew. Both retain their hold of the handle, and pull to, or push from, as men do with the whip or cross-cut saw. Women only grind. I cannot recall an instance in which men were at the mill.’”
“Thank you, Aunt Edith," said Charley. "Now will you tell us whether the corn in Syria is like ours?”
“Palestine still is, as it seems to have been from the earliest times, a corn-growing country, as Egypt was. It is said that ‘seven ears on one stalk’ may still be seen. The most common kinds of corn are wheat and barley. The parched corn of which we read was grain gathered before it was ripe, and roasted or dried in the ear. It was eaten without any further preparation.”
“Boaz gave Ruth parched corn," said May, "and the disciples ate the corn just as it was growing in the cornfield. I suppose that must have been because they were hungry, and had no time to roast it.”
“Bread which was wanted for immediate use was unleavened. You remember the unleavened cakes baked upon the hearth which Abraham gave to the angels, and how the Israelites, on leaving Egypt in baste, took with them their dough before it was leavened. Unleavened bread, too, was used in the service of the Tabernacle, for ‘leaven’ in Scripture is always a type of something bad and corrupting in its influence. Loaves of ordinary bread, whether of wheat or barley, were made very thin, and oval or circular in form—indeed, their name signified a circle—and baked in a curious sort of oven.”
“Oh, do tell us what it was like.”
“I believe we have no account of it in the Bible, May, but it was probably like that now used by the Arabs, and also by the Egyptians and ancient Greeks. This oven is a jar, which is thoroughly heated by burning dry grass and wood in it. The cakes are placed in the hot jar; it is covered, hot embers are placed on the top, and the thin cakes of bread are soon baked. A kind of fritter made with honey and flour, and cooked with oil in a frying-pan, is still eaten in Palestine.”
“I should like to see the poor people who live on the mountains make their bread," said Charley, “because then I should know how it was made in the very old times.”
“I heard a gentleman describe it not long ago. He spent three months last winter in a place called the Lebanon, not very far from where the cedars are, about which David wrote, and saw the poor people making their bread, and this is how it was done: a girl makes some flour into a ball with water, and keeps throwing it backwards and forwards, from one hand to the other, with a regular motion, for some time; then she passes her ball to an old woman (for only the very old women finish the loaves), who shapes and flattens it till it is so thin you can see through it by holding it up to the light. This large, thin cake is then placed before the fire upon a cushion, like a footstool, and there baked. The Arabs often bake their cakes on flat stones or on the sand.”
“Did the gentleman tell you how the people of the Lebanon used their thin leathery cakes of bread, Auntie?”
“Yes, Charley, he gave an amusing account of a Syrian meal at which he was present. If you are not tired, I will tell you what it was like.”
“I should very much like to hear about it," said Charley.
“Another day I hope to tell you a little more about Eastern customs at meals, for they are very unlike ours. You must remember that in this case the traveler I speak of was the guest of very poor country folk, who had not much to offer. The guests were not provided with plates and knives and forks. The traveler soon found he was expected to use his bread as a plate, the fashion being to fold a piece of the bread into a little scoop, and so help yourself: now to a plate of rice, which you pop into your mouth and eat, plate and all; then to a plate of something else-always eating your plate, and making a fresh one for your next mouthful. There was one dish, rather like treacle made from the juice of grapes, and one of the women seeing the stranger seemed to like it, and wishing to be very polite, made a little scoop of bread, dipped it in the treacle, and then popped it into her guest's mouth, which he opened at once to receive it, for he knew it was meant as a mark of kindly feeling and respect.”
“Oh, Aunt Edith, I should not like to be fed in that way!”
“As the traveler received the food given him in such a strange manner, the promise of God to His ancient people came to his mind: ‘I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.’ He thought, too, dear children, of that most solemn scene in the upper chamber at Jerusalem, where, as the twelve sat with their Master at that last passover supper which He had so earnestly desired to eat with them before He suffered, the blessed Lord, after His sorrowful words, ‘One of you shall betray Me,’ had caused them to look at each other in doubt and fear, answered John's question, ‘Lord, who is it?’ by bestowing just such a mark of kindness upon the traitor. ‘He it is, to whom I, having dipped the morsel, give it.’ And, having dipped the morsel, He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.”
“Jesus was always kind to everybody, so He would be kind even to Judas," said May.
“Yes, during those three years when Judas went about with the Lord, hearing His gracious words, and seeing the mighty works which He did, no doubt he had had many a kind act and word from Jesus, although He knew from the beginning that Judas would at last be so terribly under the power of Satan as to sell Him for a few pieces of silver, and betray him with a kiss. We read that, after this last mark of kindness shows him by the Lord he was so soon to betray, ‘Satan entered into him,’ and at a word from Jesus, understood only by himself, he ‘went immediately out; and it was night.’
They were all silent for a little while, and then their aunt told Charley and May that she should be glad to have a little more talk with them about Eastern customs another day.