time of Abraham, and extending through the reigns of all the Pharaohs. Cuneiform writing in Babylonia has also been brought to light, probably more than a thousand years older than the age of the Hebrew patriarchs. The bundles of letters found at Tel-el-Amarna indicate how widespread was the knowledge of writing before the days of Moses. Dr. Griffis also tells of an interesting discovery that at the earliest introduction of writing into Japan, men devoted their studies to the Chinese language, and left their own language to be cultivated by women. It is said that a large proportion of the best writings in the past age of Japanese literature is the work of women.1

1 Mikado's Empire, p. 213.

XXX.

BUYING AND SELLING-SHOPS, BAZAARS.

NOMADS and primitive races have no commerce and no shops. Yet they trade, by barter and exchange, in rude and simple ways. Among more settled tribes in an Oriental village the first shop started is usually a bakkal, grocer's stall, who sells bread, cheese, olives, salt and dried fish, wood, iron, and earthenware utensils for the passing traveler. Sometimes the village will have a haddad, blacksmith, a coffee house, a baker, a cobbler, or a butcher.

335. Shops.-Oriental shops are all after a similar patternthe workshop and the place to store goods usually being in the same room or building. Dr. Van Lennep, out of his long observation, describes one of these places. On the street is a platform, about two feet high, and along the whole front of the shop. A small door opens to a room back, the goods and best articles are displayed in front, as they are now in the windows of our great department stores. On the platform is a sejadeh, or rug, or thin mat. Upon this the keeper sits cross-legged. He keeps himself busy with his accounts, or displaying his goods, keen to address passersby, inviting them to look at the special beauty of his articles.

Buyers and sellers meet in the Oriental village “market,” on a chief street. Shop and store-rooms line this street, which the Arabs call sûk. Here the peasant is found, with his animals ladened with food-stuffs and his country produce. The gardener is there with his small fruits. All the shopkeepers are on or near this market street or center. Prof. Elihu Grant tells us an Oriental shop in a Syrian village is a small room, six to twelve feet square, has a door, but rarely a window, a counter, or bench, and shelves and bins along the

1 Matt. 20: 3.

walls, where sugar, flour, oil, matches, candies, spice, starch, coffee, rice, and dried figs-but no wrapping paper-may be found. For liquids, the buyer brings his own dish; his other purchases he carries away in the ample folds of his skirt or in a handkerchief.

336. Buying.-Oriental buyers and sellers are alike keen at bargains. They haggle over prices with great heat. They cool, then are swept into a frenzy of strife; again they grow calm, but the haggling and controversy and argument begin over again, becoming more heated than before, and so excited as to appear soon to come to blows. At last, however, they find a common basis, and the sale is made with flattering compliments to one another, and to the rapturous delight of both parties.

This "striking a bargain" is a tedious process to the stranger. The native Oriental takes pleasure in the exercise, and sees great possibilities before him. He assures you the bargain shall be just as you like, wholly. Is he not a servant of God? He cares not for money, but for your good-will and happiness. That is the sweetest thing of life, the love and favor of brothers. You offer a price, and he says, "What is such a trifle as that between us? Take it for nothing." But he does not mean a word of it. A native once offered a young gazelle found in the wilderness to Prof. Grant. He said it was a "present." The professor offered him forty cents for it; he promptly demanded sixty.

337. Bazaars.-The shops or bazaars in some Oriental villages are found in clusters. Each group of shops in the sûk, agora, or market, has a supply of special articles or necessaries of life, belonging to similar classes. Thus, every considerable Turkish town, says Van Lennep, has a bazaar or bezesten, a sort of arcade: a stone structure, open at both ends, a narrow alley or street running through it, covered with an arched roof, the sides pierced with openings or windows. This covered street on both sides is lined with shops, narrow and shallow. Dealers in similar goods and articles flock