Volume 2

Rebecca '51 School at A belmahula
295
girls dwelt in tents and were instructed in all that a wife
in a migratory household of the pastoral times ought to
know. They learned the religion of Abraham and the
special duties of wives of his race. They had gardens in
which they planted all kinds of running vines, such as
gourds, melons, cucumbers, and a kind of grain. They
had very large sheep whose milk was used for food. They
\vere taught also to read, but this as well as writing came
very hard to them. The writing of those days was done in
a very strange way on thick brown tablets, not on rolls of
skin as in later times, but upon the bark of trees. I saw
them peeling it off, and burning the letters into it. They
had a little box full of zigzag compartments, which I saw
shining on the surface, and filled with all kinds of metal
signs. These the writer heated in a flame and burnt one
after another into the bark tablet. I saw the fire in which
they heated the metal. It was the same as that used for
boiling, roasting, and baking, also for giving light. Upon
seeing it used in this last way, I thought: ""They do indeed
place their light here under a bushel." In a vessel,
whose form reminded me of the headdress that many of
the pagan idols wore, there burned a black mass. A hole
was bored in the middle of it, for the passage of air,
perhaps. The little round towers encircling the vessel
were hollow, and into thenl some part of the cooking
could be placed. Over the pan of coals, something like a
cover was turned upside down. It was tapering toward
the top and pierced by a number of holes. On this, too,
was a circle of little towers in which things could be
warmed. All around this bushel-like cover were openings
with sliding screens. When they wanted light, all they had
to do was to open one of these little windows and the
glare from the flame shone forth. They always opened
them toward the quarter from which no draught canle, a
precaution very necessary in tents. Below the coal pan,
was a little place for ashes in which they could bake flat