which might therefore be reached without passing through the house. Hence our Lord, enjoining a prompt escape, says :"Let him that is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter therein, to take anything out of his house" (Mark xiii. 15); and hence also we read that the friends of the paralytic man "when they could not find by what way they might bring him in (to the house where Jesus was) because of the multitude, went upon the house-top (Luke v. 19). This staircase is sometimes placed inside the courtyard. Dr. Robinson thus describes this arrangement :— "The house was built around a small court, in which cattle and horses were stabled. Thence a stone staircase led up to the roof of the house proper; on which, at the north-west and south-east corners, were high single rooms like towers, with a staircase inside leading to the top " (Researches, iii. 302).

“The stairs are sometimes placed in the porch, sometimes at the entrance into the court. When there is one or more stories, they are afterwards continued through one corner or other of the gallery to the top of the house, whither they conduct us through a door. . We may go up or come down by the staircase I have described, without entering into any of the offices or apartments, and consequently without interfering with the business of the house."-SHAW's Barbary, vol. i., p. 379.

"He told us that his own house has a staircase from the flat roof down into the street, by which he could descend and escape without passing through the house, if danger called for it."-Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews, p. 147.

"The allusion to the lightning (in Luke xvii. 24) might have been taken from its actual appearance at the moment, being of continual occurrence in the summer months; and the flat-roofed chambers of the khan, upon which probably were many persons seated at the moment, afforded a figure of more expeditious flight

than by descending into the area and escaping by the door of the khan; and if any proof of this is wanted, the dreadful earthquake at Aleppo, in 1822, will abundantly supply it for multitudes saved their lives by passing from roof to roof by the terraces, while those who went down into the streets were crushed by the falling houses."-ARUNDEL'S Asia Minor, ii. 195.

access

The roof was surrounded with a parapet or battlement to prevent people falling over; and so requisite was this for the safety of the inhabitants that it was the subject of a divine command: "When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine head, if any man fall from thence" (Deut. xxii. 8). It has been supposed by some that in the account of the cure of the paralytic man the "uncovering of the roof" (Mark ii. 4) refers to the removal of a portion of the battlement, by which means would be gained to the courtyard in which our Saviour might have been teaching. Others, however, consider that this would not accord with the literal meaning of the words, and that we must rather suppose our Lord to have been in an upper chamber, to which access was gained by removing a portion of the roof. The battlement is thus described by Shaw :"The court is for the most part surrounded with a cloister, . . . over which, when the house has one or more stories (and I have seen them with two or three), there is a gallery erected, . . . having a balustrade, or else a piece of carved or lattice-work going round about it, to prevent people falling from it into the court."-SHAW's Barbary, i. 376.

...

The roof, being covered merely with gravel or soil, requires constant attention to prevent the rain penetrating. The annoyance produced by leakage is very great, and hence a contentious woman" is compared to a 66 continual dropping on a very rainy day" (Prov. xxvii. 15). This inconvenience was experienced by

66

the Rev. J. Hartley, and brought to his mind the words just quoted :-" April 21.-Last night we retired to rest in what appeared one of the best rooms which we have occupied during the journey; but at midnight we were roused by the rain pouring through the roof, and I found it necessary to rise and dress. In flat-roofed houses this is a frequent occurrence. I discover in this adventure an illustration of Prov. xxvii. 15. The Septuagint has it, 'Drops of rain in a wintry day drive a man out of his house; and just so a railing woman.’ The Vulgate speaks expressly of the roof through which the water passeth. I was literally driven out of the house by the rain descending through the roof, and sought for shelter in the corridor, which was better protected."—HARTLEY's Researches, pp. 283, 284.

A few stalks of dry grass get root in rainy weather, and soon wither away under the heat of the sun. The Psalmist alludes to this, when he exclaims :— "Let them be as the grass upon the house-tops, which withereth afore it groweth up" (Ps. cxxix. 6). The only means to preserve the roof in good order is frequent rolling, as represented in the accompanying cut, and described in the following quotations.

"October 8th. This evening the season broke. Thunder, and lightning, and rain came from the west. . . . The whole prospect became dreary and cheerless. In the morning of this day-not an hour too soon-the master of the house had laid in a stock of earth which was carried up, and spread evenly upon the roof of the house, which is flat. The whole roof is thus formed of mere earth, laid on and rolled hard and flat, not as in Malta, of a composition which is smooth and impenetrable, and thus receives the rainwater, and carries it off into the tanks under the house. There is no want of flowing water in this mountainous country, as there is in Malta. On the top of every house is a large stone roller, for the purpose of harden

58

GRASS ON THE HOUSE-TOP.

ing and flattening this layer of rude soil, so that the rain may not penetrate: but upon this surface, as may be supposed, grass and weeds grow freely. It is to such grass that the Psalmist alludes, as useless and bad, Let them be as the grass upon the house-tops, which withereth afore it groweth up.'"-Rev. W. JOWETT'S Christian Researches in Syria and the Holy Land, p. 89.

6

Many of them were drawing rollers over the roofs of their houses, which are flat, like terraces, and covered with a mixture of mud and small stones, as this operation is best performed during a fall of rain, after which the composition is consolidated and made

HOUSE FURNITURE.

59

hard by the heat of the sun. . . . Rotted grass may be seen on the top of several houses, bleached by the sun. -RAE WILSON's Travels, ii. 158, 159.

وو

The furniture of the house differed from that of the tent already described, both in regard to the variety and the solidity of the articles contained in it. The most important articles were, the bed, the table, the chair, and the lamp, as we learn from 2 Kings iv. 10:"Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick." Hardly less important was the divan (particularly in the later times of the Bible history, when the custom of reclining became more prevalent), with its accessories-the "coverings of tapestry (Prov. vii. 16) and the "pillows to the elbows " (Ez. xiii. 18, margin). Lastly, water-jars and other vessels connected with eating and drinking were multiplied.

The bed was generally nothing more than a mattress: a bedstead in our sense of the term was unusual, and is only once noticed in connection with Og, king of Bashan:-"Behold his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof and four cubits the breadth thereof" (Deut. iii. 11). The ordinary bed, however, was of a movable character, and hence we have such expressions as:- Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may slay him" (1 Sam. xix. 15); "Behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy and . . . they let him down through the tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus. And Jesus said 'Arise take up thy couch' immediately he took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house (Luke v. 18-25).. The mattress itself would naturally be raised somewhat off the level of the ground, and hence it is said :-" Thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die" (2 Kings i. 4); "I will not go up into my bed " (Ps. cxxxii. 3); "When Jacob

:

and