assumes the form of a shower of mud. Bad as all this may seem, the
houses are still worse in the mountain districts, such as Gawar.
There they are half under ground, made of cobble stones laid up
against the slanting sides of the excavation, and covered by a
conical roof with a hole in the centre. They contain, besides the
family, all the implements of husbandry, the cattle, and the flocks.
These last occupy "the sides of the house" (1 Sam. xxiv. 3), and
stand facing the "decana," or raised place in the centre, which is
devoted to the family. As wood is scarce in the mountains, and the
climate severe, the animal heat of the cattle is a substitute for
fuel, except as sun-baked cakes of manure are used once a day for
cooking, as is the practice also on the plain. In such houses the
buffaloes sometimes break loose and fight furiously, and instances
are not rare when they knock down the posts on which the roof rests,
and thus bury all in one common ruin.

The influence of such family arrangements, even in the more favored
villages of the plain, on manners and morality, need not be told. It
is equally evident that in such circumstances personal tidiness is
impossible, though few in our favored land have any idea of the
extent of such untidiness. If the truth must be told, vermin abound
in most of these houses; the inmates are covered not only with
fleas, but from head to foot they are infested with the third plague
of Egypt. (Ex. viii. 16-19). This last is a constant annoyance in
many parts of Turkey as well as Persia. If one lodges in the native
houses, there is no refuge from them, and only an entire change of
clothing affords relief when he returns to his own home; even there
the divans have to be sedulously examined after the departure of
visitors, that the plague do not spread. The writer has known
daughters of New England, ready for almost any self-denial, burst