bad charcoal, often brought
from a considerable distance, and carefully husbanded.

[Illustration: BREWING THE GUEST'S COFFEE IN A MOHAMMEDAN HOME]

This corner of the K'hawah is also the place of distinction
whence honour and coffee radiate by progressive degrees round the
apartment, and hereabouts accordingly sits the master of the house
himself, or the guests whom he more especially delighteth to
honour.

On the broad edge of the furnace or fireplace, as the case may be,
stands an ostentatious range of copper coffee-pots, varying in size
and form. Here in the Djowf their make resembles that in vogue at
Damascus; but in Nejed and the eastern districts they are of a
different and much more ornamental fashioning, very tall and
slender, with several ornamental circles and mouldings in elegant
relief, besides boasting long beak-shaped spouts and high steeples
for covers. The number of these utensils is often extravagantly
great. I have seen a dozen at a time in a row by one fireside,
though coffee-making requires, in fact, only three at most. Here in
the Djowf five or six are considered to be the thing; for the south
this number must be doubled; all this to indicate the riches and
munificence of their owner, by implying the frequency of his guests
and the large amount of coffee that he is in consequence obliged to
have made for them.

Behind this stove sits, at least in wealthy houses, a black slave,
whose name is generally a diminutive in token of familiarity or
affection; in the present case it was Soweylim, the diminutive of
Salim. His occupation is to make and pour out the coffee; where
there is no slave in the family, the master of the premises
himself, or perhaps one of his sons, performs that hospitable duty;
rather a tedious one, as we shall soon see.

We enter. On passing the threshold it is proper to say,
"_Bismillah_, _i.e._, in the name of God;" not to do so would be
looked on as a bad augury alike for him who enters and for those
within. The visitor next advances in silence, till on coming about
half-way across the room, he gives to all present, but looking
specially at the master of the house, the customary
"_Es-salamu'aleykum_," or "Peace be with you," literally, "on you."
All this while every one else in the room has ke