The arrangement of the inner court is very similar to that of the outer ; but the whole is more open and airy. The buildings usually occupy two sides of the square, of which the one opposite the entrance contains the principal apartments. They are upon what we should call the first floor, and open into a wide gallery or veranda, which in good houses is ninc or ten feet deep, and covered by a wooden penthouse supported by a row of wooden columns. This terrace, or gallery, is fur nished with a strong wooden balustrade, and is usually paved with squared stones, or else floored with boards. In the center of the principal front is the usual opcn drawing-room, on which the best art of the Eastern decorator is expended. Much of one of the sides of the court front is usually occupied by the large sitting-room, with the latticed front covered with colored glass, simi lar to that in the outer court. The other rooms, of smaller size, are the more private apartments of the mansion.
prepared for the prophet (2 Kings iv:to). The projecting construction over the reception cham ber is, like the kiosk, towards the street as a sum mer parlor; but there it belongs to the women's apartments, and looks into the court, and not the st reet.
(6) The Inner Court. The inner court is en tered by a passage and door similar to those by which we entered from the street. This passage and door are usually at one of the innermost corners of the outer court. Here a much more extended prospect opens to us, the inner court being generally much larger than the former. It is lower. thc principal apartments standing upon a terrace or bank of earth, and not upon a base ment story of offices; and it also wants the ve randa or covered gallery in front, which wc find in Syro-Arabian houses. Thc court is for the most part paved, excepting a portion in the middle, which is planted with trees (usually two) and shrubs, with a basin of water in the midst. In our Arabian house the two trees were palm trees, in which a number of wild doves built their nests.
That the Jews had an arrangement of trees in the courts of their houses as did the ancient Egyptians. and that the birds nested in them, appears from Ps. lxxxiv :2, 3. They had also the basin of water in the inner court, or harem; •• (7) Curtains. There are usually no doors to the sitting or drawing rooms of Eastern houses. They are closed by curtains, at least in summer, the opening and shutting of doors being odious to most Orientals. The same seems to have been the ease among the Hebrews. as far as we may judge from the curtains which served instead of doors to the tabernacle, and which separated the inner and outer chambers of the temple. The curtained
entrances to our Westminster courts of law sup ply a familiar example of the same practice.
(8). The Basement. These observations apply to the principal story. The basement is occupied by various offices, stores of corn and fuel, places for the water jars to stand- in, places for grinding corn, baths, kitchens, etc.
(9) The Kitchen. The kitchens are always in this inner court, as the cooking is performed by women, and the ladies of the family superintend or actually assist in the process. The kitchen, open in front, is on the same side as the entrance from the outer court ; and the top of it forms a terrace, which affords a communication between the first floor of both courts by a private door seldom used but by the master of the house and attendant eunuchs.
The kitchen is surrounded by a brick terrace, on the top of which are the fireplaces formed ln compartments, and separated by little walls of fire-brick or tile. In these different compartments the various dishes of an Eastern feast may be at once prepared at charcoal fires. This place being wholly open in front, the half-tame doves, which have their nests in the trees of the court, often visit it in the absence of the servants in search of crumbs, etc. As they sometimes blacken them selves, this perhaps explains the obscure passage in Ps. lxviii :13, 'Though ye have lain among the pots, ye shall be as the wings of a dove covered with silver,' etc. In Turkish Arabia most of the houses have underground cellars or vaults, to which the inhabitants retreat during the mid-day heat of summer, and there enjoy a refreshing cool ness. In the rest of the year these cellars, or serdaubs, as they are called, are abandoned to the bats, which swarm in them in scarcely credible numbers (Is. ii:2o).
(10) The Gallery. From the court a flight of stone steps, usually at the corner, conducts to the gallery, from which a plainer stair leads to the house top. If the house be large there are two or three sets of steps to the different sides of the quadrangle, but seldom more than one flight from the terrace to the house top of any one court. There is, however, a separate stair from the outer court to the roof, and it is usually near the en trance. This will bring to mind the case of the paralytic, whose friends, finding they could not get access to Jesus through the people who crowded the court of the house in which he was preaching, took him up to the roof and let him down in his bed through the tiling to the place where Jesus stood (Luke v :17-26).