, 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.

Im Hanna is fixing the lamp. It is a little earthen saucer having a lip
on one side, with the wick hanging over. The wick just began to smoke
and she poured in more olive oil, and it burns brightly again. Do you
rememb