_December_ 21.—The shortest day of the year, but still hot, though the night was cold.
We spent the morning with Huseyn. His house has not long been built, but it looks old because it is built of old stones. Its construction is simple but good, the main room being divided into sections with arches so as to suit the stone rafters with which it is roofed. In front there is a pleasant terrace overlooking an agreeable prospect of broken ground, with glimpses of the desert beyond. While Wilfrid was talking to Huseyn I went to see the ladies of the establishment. Huseyn has only one wife; her name is Wardi (a rose). She is the mother of a nice little boy, Mohammed, about six years old and very well behaved, whom we had seen with the Sheykh; and of a pretty little girl of two, named Amina. There are, besides, some older children by a former husband. Wardi is rather fat, with a brilliant complexion and well-kohled eyes and eyebrows; she has good manners, and received me very cordially in a room opening on to a terrace, with a beautiful view eastward of some tells at the edge of the Hamad. She sat surrounded by dependants and relations, among whom were Huseyn’s mother and her own. The former was suffering from cough and loss of voice, and another member of the family complained of a rheumatic arm; both wanted me to advise them as to treatment. The ladies would not uncover their faces until Assad, the Sheykh’s secretary, who accompanied me, had retired. Wardi’s concealment of her features was, however, a mere make-believe, only a corner of her head veil pulled half across her face. She talked a great deal about her children of the former marriage, Mustafa a son of eighteen, who is chief of a neighbouring village, and a daughter of perhaps twelve who was present. This young girl seemed particularly intelligent and had received some education; enough to read out a phrase from my Arabic exercise book, and to repeat the first chapter of the Koran. The pleasure of my visit was somewhat marred by the quantity of sweetmeats and tea and coffee served; with the tea and coffee I got on very well, as the cups were of the usual small size, but the sugar-plums were of so massive a kind that it was impossible to swallow them. The two small children fortunately came to my rescue; and by their zeal in devouring everything I handed to them, took off their mother’s attention from my shortcomings. At parting Wardi gave me a bunch of feathers pulled then and there out of an ostrich skin hanging up against the wall; the skin, she said, had been brought to her some months before, from somewhere in the south.