of which is a trough into which they put the barley for the animals.  This is the “medhwad” or manger, such as the infant Jesus was laid in.  We will now accept Im Hanna’s kind invitation to supper.  The plates are all on a small tray on a mat in the middle of the floor, and there are four piles of bread around the edge.  There is one cup of water for us all to drink from, and each one has a wooden spoon.  But Abu Hanna, you will see, prefers to eat without a spoon.  After the blessing is asked in Arabic, Abu Hanna says, “tefudduloo,” which means help yourselves.  Here is kibby, and camel stew, and Esau’s pottage, and olives, and rice, and figs cooked in dibbs, and chicken boiled to pieces, and white fresh cheese, and curdled milk, and fried eggs.

Kibby is the Arab plum pudding and mince pie and roast beef all in one.  It is made by pounding meat in a mortar with wheat, until both are mixed into a soft pulp and then dressed with nuts and onions and butter, and baked or roasted in cakes over the fire.  Dr. Thomson thinks that this dish is alluded to in Prov. 27:22, “Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.”  That is, put the fool into Im Hanna’s stone mortar with wheat and pound him into kibby, and he would still remain a fool!  It takes something besides pounding to get the folly out of foolish men.

You see there are no separate plates for us.  We all help ourselves from the various dishes as we prefer.  Abu Hanna wants you to try the “mejeddara,” made of “oddis.”  It is like thick pea soup, but with a peculiar flavor.  This is what Jacob made the pottage of, when he tempted Esau and bought his birthright.  I hope you will like it, but I do not.  After seventeen years of trying, I am not able to enjoy it, but Harry will eat all he can get, and the little Arab children revel in it.  You make poor work with that huge wooden spoon.  You had better try Abu Hanna’s way of eating.  Many better men than any of us have eaten in that way, and I suppose our Saviour and his disciples ate as Abu Hanna eats.  He tears off a small piece of the thin wafer-like bread, doubles it into a kind of three cornered spoon, dips it into the rice, or picks up a piece of kibby with it, and then eats it down, spoon and all!  Im Hanna says I am afraid those little boys do not like our food, so she makes a spoon and dips up a nice morsel of the chicken, and comes to you and says “minshan khatri,” for my sake, eat this, and you open your mouth and she puts it in.  That is the way our Saviour dipped the “sop” and put it into the mouth of Judas Iscariot to show the disciples which one it was.  Giving the sop was a common act, and I have no doubt Jesus had often given it to John and Peter and the other disciples, as a kindly act, when they were eating together.