Here come two little girls bringing earthen pots of milk.  They are poor girls, daughters of two of our neighbors who are fellaheen or farmers.  One has no shoes, and neither have stockings.  They wear plain blue gowns, made of coarse cotton cloth, dyed with indigo, and rusty looking tarbooshes on their heads, and a little piece of dirty white muslin thrown over their heads as a veil to cover their faces with, when men come in sight.  One is named Lebeeby and the other Lokunda, which means Hotel.  They behave very well when they come here, as they have the fear of the big Khowadja before their eyes, but when they are at home running about, they often use dreadful language.  Little boys and girls in Syria have some awful oaths which they constantly use.  I suppose the poor things do not know the meaning of half the bad words they use.  One of the most common is “Yilan Abook,” “curse your father!” It is used everywhere and on every side by bad people, and the children use it constantly in their play.  When the little girls come into our Schools and Seminaries, it is a long time before they will give up “abook"-ing.  One of our friends in America is educating a nice little girl in the Beirut Seminary, and we asked the teacher about her a few days ago.  The answer was, “She still lies and swears dreadfully, but she has greatly improved during the past two years, and we are encouraged about her.”

Sometimes a boy will say to another Yilan abook, “Curse your father,” and another will answer, Wa jiddak, “and your grandfather,” and then they will call back and forth like cats and dogs.  I saw a Moslem boy near my house standing by the corner to shield himself from the stones another boy was throwing, and shouting wa jid, jid, jid, jid, jidak, “and your great-great-great-great-grandfather,” and away went the other boy, shouting as he ran, “and your great-great-great-great gr-e-at,” and I heard no more.  And then there are a great many very naughty and vile words which the children use, which I cannot write, and yet we hear them every day.  It is very hard to keep our children from learning them, as they talk Arabic better than we do, and often learn expressions which they do not know the meaning of.  One of the most common habits is using the name of God in vain.  The name of God is Allah, and “O God,” Yullah.  Then there is Wullah and Bismillah, “In the name of God,” Hamdlillah, “Praise to God,” Inshullah, “If God will.”  The most awful oaths are Wullah and Billah.  The people use Yullah at all times and on all occasions.  The donkey-drivers and muleteers say Yullah when they drive their animals.  Some years ago a good man from America, who fears God and would not take his name in vain was travelling in the Holy Land, and came on to Beirut.  When he reached there, some one asked him if he had learned any Arabic during his journey.  He said yes, he had learned Bakhshish for “a present,” and Yullah for