scendants of Ishmael, there can be no doubt; for the prediction delivered to Hagar in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis holds good of them in every particular to the present day. "And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren." The epithet of " "lawless or wild man outlawed, is truly applicable to, and often used of, the Druse; for, like the roving Bedouin, he cannot be made to submit to any laws or governments. When finding himself rendered amenable to justice and searched for by the myrmidons of the law, he can retire within the recesses of the Metten, or the fastnesses of the Lejja, where he bids defiance to, and laughs scornfully at, all efforts to retake him. His skill in evading and baffling all search for him is more than equal to that of the North American Indian. He finds shelter and concealment under every Druse roof he comes to, as well as food and assistance of every sort until he is safe in the Lejja; and he need not fear that the youngest child will babble of his secret. And what is the Lejja, or refuge (for that is the meaning of the word in Arabic), where they can be so safe and bid defiance to all law? It is indeed a singular spot, so impregnable by nature, that both roving Bedouins and lawless Druses are sure of perfect safety when once they have succeeded in taking refuge within its precincts. It is wholly inaccessible to trained troops of any sort, and is called Lejja by the Arabs apparently because it is a district enclosed by a rocky rampart, being a vast field of basalt, the long, black line of which at once attracts the eye of the traveller. This was doubtless originally the land of giants or Rephaim, the special territory of Og, king of Bashan (Deut. iii. 3). To this day, the cities which lie scattered about there in great numbers, present features of interest in this respect, as bearing witness to the truth of Holy Scripture, for they are like the dwellings of a race of giants, which for that very reason have stood till now, though utterly deserted. The walls are very generally from five to eight feet thick, built of large, square blocks of basalt; the roofs of the same material, hewn like planks, and reaching from wall to wall. The very doors and window-shutters are of stone hung upon pivots. In some of the towns, there are perhaps five hundred such houses. Some of the rooms are so large and lofty that they would be considered fine rooms even in an European palace. 66 The ancient capital was called Edrei, and is now called Edra'a, which means strong arm." The ruins extend along the summit of a ledge of rocks which can not be ascended, save by a winding path like a goat track. It is a strange situation. In selecting it, everything has been sacrificed to strength and security, for there is no stream of water and no verdure here, and the rocks are wild. Huge masses of masonry lie scattered up and down, over a space three miles in circumference, being remains of towers, temples, and mosques, all of black basalt. The rugged and intricate defile that leads to it, protects to this day from any danger all those who take refuge in it. It is of no use to long for a peep into the past of this wonderful place. History, that is Bible history, tells us the little we know about it, and particularly gives us the dimensions of the bedstead of Og, king of Bashan, as of a thing fabulous in itself and worthy of preservation (Deut. iii. 11). Its warriors must have been on the same scale, heroes of no common order; and their mothers and sweethearts, sisters and wives were no doubt worthy of them. In the days of Abraham it was probably in its zenith of glory. Now it contains only cities of the dead; but the plain around is amazingly fertile. The goddess Ashtaroth, or Astarte was worshipped here Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent moon. A figure of this goddess is found at one of these cities; a large, colossal face with a crescent and rays shooting upwards looking like horns, on account of which this town is supposed to be the ancient "Karnain," as the word Karnain in Arabic means two horns. Westward from it is Kunawât, on sloping ground above a deep ravine. It was built on the top of a cliff; the walls still exist to a great extent, following the cliff in a zigzag direction. Here are found palaces and theatres and temples and churches, all in ruins; and in the glen below, and on the wooded sides of neighboring hills, clusters of columns and lofty tombs and also massive towers. The leading streets of the city can be traced wide and regular. But want of space forbids further description. At present the silence of the grave reigns around; and the rough, untutored Bedouin, who never dreams of sleeping on a bedstead as was done thousands of years ago in the days of Og, king of Bashan, and the lawless Druse, who is content with the earth for his bed and a stone for his pillow, and his own 'abba (long jacket of camel's hair) for his only covering, are the only occupants; and there, with success, these can and do bid defiance to all armies of trained soldiers sent to coerce them to the require ments of civilization. The Druse acknowledges no laws but those that emanate from his own khalwât, and are secretly made known to him by his own superiors. A blind, reverential awe and absolute, unquestioning obedience towards his superiors in religion, are instilled into him with his mother's milk, and that is the mainspring of all his actions. To be a Druse is his pride — his boast. Ask a lithe, strapping fellow not yet in his teens, or a graceful little maiden of the same age, as to their nationality, and the proud flash of the dark, limpid brown eyes, heavily curtained and fringed by long, curling black eyelashes, and the haughty straightening of the figure, and throwing back of the well-formed head, bear witness to the pride with which the words, "I am a Druse," escape the smiling, ruby lips. The bump of reticence is developed among them to a wonderful degree; not even the youngest will divulge anything respecting any one of their own people to a stranger. The saying, so common in many lands, as talkative as an old woman," finds here no foothold; for the old women are invariably silent before strangers. 66 of a gentleman who was an alien to their religion. Emissary after emissary was sent to get hold of it; and every means was resorted to, to wile it away in some fashion, even by stealth if possible. All efforts having proved useless, advantage was taken of one of the usual disturbances in the Lebanon, between Druses and Maronites. Fire was set to the house, and that library actually burnt down to the ground, as the only means and last resource by which they could get their book out of the possession of aliens, although the proprietor of it had been a devoted friend and benefactor to them, and a constant and welcome guest when they were in sickness and pain. Having given this short account of their religion, I will pass on to their home life. Their houses are built of a conglomeration of mud, stones, and sticks. After the walls have become sufficiently dry, the ceiling is made by laying across, from one wall to another, poplar-trees which have barely had the branches lopped off, and are of unequal sizes. There is no attempt at planing them. The interstices between these trees is more than equal to them. Two or three layers of bushes are then laid over, and earth well pressed in upon them. Serpents, scorpions, lizards, rats, and mice, as well as smaller vermin, infest these ceilings and the cavities around the door-posts; and if an unwary hand is placed unwittingly upon a scorpion or centipede basking lazily in the sun, which, being of the self-same color as the mud walls and wooden posts, is totally unseen, There seems to be an innate suspicious-a shriek of agony alone discovers the fact. ness of all other human beings wrought into their inmost nature. Should a stranger be seen approaching any of their khalwat, spies are immediately set to watch him in the distance, although their holy place may be, for the time being, un tenanted and closed; and if it should happen to be at an hour when a secret conclave is held, the life of that stranger is not safe until he leaves far behind him that low-roofed, whitewashed building, which looks outwardly more like a prison cell than a place of religious worship. Their religious books and, at the time I speak of, they had no others -are in manuscript, and are consequently very rare. The Druses will not have them printed, and are exceedingly jealous of and determined to prevent, if possible, their getting into the hands of any but their own "U'kkáls." Information once reached them that a small copy of one of these books was known to be in the library Otherwise none of these creatures go out of their way to harm any one. I myself have had a serpent drop upon me as I was crossing a room. It fell in the shape of a ball; and having a large ball of yarn on my arm with which I was knitting, I simply thought that it was my ball that had fallen. A moment's glance soon satisfied me that my ball was securely resting in the hollow of my elbow, and wondering what round object it was, the heavy weight of which I could plainly feel dragging down the train of my dress, I bent down to inspect it closely, when lo and behold! to my astonishment, and before my wondering eyes, the ball slowly but surely unrolled itself into a serpent of several feet in length, which glided away peacefully and hid itself in one of the many holes sunk into the mud floor. This happened at a late hour of the night, when alone in my bedroom; and, though somewhat startled, I thought it hardly worth while to disturb any one. The when loosened by rain, having no props result justified my confidence, for I slept of any sort, are very apt to slide down wholly undisturbed by my unwelcome vis- upon the workers, and engulf them; one itor. A pair of serpents gambolling play- or more being dead before the needed help fully together in the thatch above the door, arrives, and they can be dug out, as the is not an unfrequent sight on a sunny day quarries are always at some distance from after heavy rain. the villages. About eighteen inches from the floor and the same distance from the wall is a partition of mud and sticks, divided into compartments, each of which has a hole large enough to put in the hand down at its base, and another twice as large at the top, which is also about eighteen inches from the ceiling. These compartments fill two sides of the house, and are used for storing their wheat, barley, maize, rice, lentils, etc., for the winter. The third side is occupied by a yook, flanked by a cupboard on each side of it. The doors of these cupboards, although of sticks and mud, have some attempt at decoration in the shape of bits of looking-glass, hands with wide spread fingers to avert the evil eye, bits of bright colored, highly glazed crockery, camels' teeth, glass beads, etc., stuck here and there in the mud. The yook is a recess eighteen inches from the floor, and about the same width from the wall, in which all the mattresses, sheets, pillows, and leháfs required for the family use are neatly folded and laid away early in the morning. A curtain hangs before it. At night they are taken out and the beds made up on the mats with which the floor is covered. A small mud fireplace is raised in the centre of the room, and from it to the door is a partition, all within which is considered the women's private apartment. If there are married sons, there will be a portion partitioned off for each; but no doors of any kind to shut these partitions off from one another, can be found in any house. All the mud work is done by the females, and is more or less repaired every year. For this purpose they dig out of the sides of the mountains a peculiar kind of bluish earth, which they mix with chopped straw and cow's dung. Of course these floors are a perfect hot-bed for fleas; and every good housewife, on making up the beds for the night, takes good care to put a piece of raw cotton within the sheets, under the impression that it will entrap the fleas before the owner of the bed comes to take possession of it, at which time it (the cotton) is taken out and burnt. The quarries formed in procuring the earth are very dangerous, being dug in the sloping sides of the mountains, which It is a sound never to be forgotten that which announces such a disaster that of the piercing shrieks and cries for help raised by those who stand outside the quarry that has collapsed; and the whole village seems paralyzed at the first note of it. The men rush from their fields and workshops, breathless, silent, and with compressed lips. The young mothers catch up their little ones and put them astride on their shoul ders, the elderly women throwing down the jars they were filling or the brooms they were using-all fly towards the site of the fearful catastrophe in breathless haste, for none know upon whose family the blow may have fallen. The young girls generally go in large numbers to these digging parties, and leave their homes before the morning light, to avoid the heat of the day. I have heard their merry laughter in the darkness of the early dawn, and heard again within a few hours the slow, heavy tramp of the bearers, as they carried the cold, mutilated forms the disfigured remains to the homes they had left but a short time before in all the flush of youth and health. Yet, strange to say, still the same thing is repeated year after year, and no precautions are taken to prevent it. Both men and women wear a coarse, strong linen stuff, woven by themselves. The portion used for the outer garment is dyed a navy blue, also by themselves. The younger portion of the community, both boys and girls, use round silver buttons for the vests of the former and the dresses or gombaz of the latter. Young married women also wear rings, bracelets, chains, with amulets and anklets of silver. The latter are especially so constructed that they tinkle as the wearer walks, or, as the Bible has it (Isa. iii. 16), “make a tinkling with their feet." At the time I speak of, the Druse women wore a very peculiar headdress called the tantoor, consisting of a horn made of some kind of metal. The rich had them of silver, and sometimes even of gold, set in front with precious stones, and measuring in some instances two feet in length. The ordinary length was one foot, or a little over. Some had them of brass, and the very poorer ones of tin. They are tied on their heads with three cords of black silk or cotton, and these cords are braided with their hair, of which they wear one tress on each side of the face and one at the back of the head. The two tresses on each side of the face were tied together tightly under the chin. A large muslin veil, covering the back, was brought over the top of the horn down as far as where it was set with precious stones; and then, as it neared the face, the edges on both sides were caught in between the cheeks and the braided hair. The strain on the hair must have been enormous, and the weight of the horn and veil together very painful. I have often been told by them that it caused a great deal of pain in many ways, giving them severe headaches, and making the hair to fall; but it was the fashion, and considered to give elegance to the figure, which in my opinion they certainly did not need, for in many years' residence among them, I do not think I ever saw a woman whose figure was not naturally elegant, or whose movements were not graceful. This is saying a great deal, seeing that they had to wear this horn, or tantoor, by night as well as by day. I have heard, since the time of which I have been speaking, that the government in the Lebanon has interdicted the use of the tantoor, but that the Druse women, instead of being thankful, were so far inclined to rebel that severe measures had to be taken to prevent the continued use of it. In the presence of a strange man, whether Druse or other, Druse women always draw one side of the veil over their faces, only allowing one eye to appear. Men, both Moslems and Druses, have repeatedly told me that they look upon a woman who leaves her face uncovered, as not only wanting in self-respect, but also in proper respect to them; in fact, they considered it an insult to men, and for this reason insisted upon the women covering their faces. speed and to overtake and mount him without causing him to stop for a single moment in his wild career (as I have myself often seen done) is the acme of pride and delight. Minus a leg, poor young Kásim could no longer enjoy this; and in bitterness of heart he turned his face to the wall that none should see the despair written upon it. When the time came for the amputation to take place, he gave orders that every one must leave the house, and go a quarter of an hour's distance away. This was done lest any one should be able to say that they had heard him giving vent to expressions of suffering. He was left with his father, the surgeon, and one faithful servant. What happened then I heard from the surgeon's own mouth. As soon as the operation commenced, the boy began to sing war songs and the songs of Antar. He never flinched for a single moment; and the only way they knew that he was suffering more at certain times than at others, was that at those times his voice would ring more proudly and thrillingly in his notes. All present had their eyes filled with tears at his endurance; but the falcon glance of his eye never quailed once. When a bride is brought home to her husband's house, she sits, carefully veiled, on a horse, riding astride, as all women in the East do, and with a drawn sword between her hands, to denote that she is to be the wife of a warrior. The Druses do not indulge in a plurality of wives, like the Moslems. They have but one at a time; but divorces are frequent. Marriages take place principally between first cousins on the father's side. A father disposes of his daughter as he pleases, and no law or government can interfere or shield her from any whim or caprice, however cruel. If the father is dead, the eldest brother takes his place; if neither father nor brothers exist, the first cousin or the nearest male relation by the father's side. The relations by the To be wanting in courage, - not to be mother's side are legally of no kin, and able to suffer and make no sign, is hold no authority whatever. In speaking scouted as a disgraceful weakness not to, or of, his wife, a man will say "Bintworthy of a Druse. I remember an inci-u'mmee," daughter of my father's brother, dent which took place in Jedeydah, in a and, vice verså, a woman in speaking family where I was staying at the time. to, or of, her husband, will say, "IbnThe son of the host, a fine boy of about u'mmee," son of my father's brother. seventeen, had injured his leg very severely. Mortification set in. The only chance of life lay in amputation of the limb. This, of itself, was a dreadful blow; for to a young man among the Druses, to be able to pursue a horse galloping at full The men are industrious, courageous, and enterprising. The women are excellent housekeepers, and devoted wives and mothers. In the fights that often take place, either with the local government or the Maronites, it is the shrill saghareet (a peculiar noise that they make) of the women that give the intimation far and near, and call the men together from the more distant villages and hilltops. On the battlefield their presence cheers and encourages the men. They bring jars of cool water from the spring for the thirsty and bandages for the wounded, load the guns for the men, and stand in front of them, while the guns rest on their shoulders for the men to take sure aim. A Druse woman laughs at danger. She follows the men of her people into the thickest of it, and shows less mercy to an enemy that falls into her hands. Druse men bear the character of being chivalrous towards women, even among their foes, and never willingly injure one; but to the men they are implacable foes, and do not know the meaning of the word mercy as regards them. To each other, their religion binds them to be strictly faithful and loyal, even to the death if necessary; and this trait is a part of their very being, whether they be men or women, old or young. Should any scandal be discovered among them, or any treachery, the man or the woman who has caused it is quietly, yet surely, made away with in the dead of night, the offender's own nearest relations taking the lead. The strictest silence is preserved on the subject, and no hint or inkling of the matter is allowed to leak out to any alien. Should any inquiries be made about the missing one, a plausible excuse is readily found to account for his or her absence. A strong bond of union exists between the common people and their sheikhs. Private messengers go swiftly from village to village on foot, travelling day and night; and thus a constant but secret communication is kept up among all ranks. The outer world, their very neighbors at their doors, see nothing, hear nothing, and suspect nothing. In the case of a great event taking place in a sheikh's family, such as the death of one of its members, or the birth of a son, or a marriage, deputations are sent from every village. Immediately upon the arrival of the messenger, word is sent to each family. The women at once set about preparing provisions for the deputation to take with them. Sheep and goats are killed, and cooked with rice, or maize, or lentils. Large quantities of bread are baked in the tannoor (native oven). The u'kkáls make out a list of men and women who form the deputation. All don their best robes. The u'kkál puts on his whitest turban and his newest abba. The women draw the kohl reed through their eyelashes, and put on, not only their own, but all the borrowed jewellery they can get. They set out on foot, travelling all night, so arranging matters that they shall arrive as soon after the dawn as possible. The women carry on their heads, in very large round pans of light wood, the food that has been prepared. As they draw near to their destination, the men break out in war-songs, to which the women add a chorus of "Zaghareet." If the occasion is a joyful one, young men accompany the party on their little Arabian steeds, and enter the large meedán, which exists before every sheikh's house, carolling and prancing, and throwing the jereed, and showing off such dexterous feats of horsemanship as would make the fortune of a circus manager. The length of time that a deputation remains at the sheikh's village is from one to eight days, according to the importance of the occasion. From The Spectator. WESTMINSTER ABBEY. THE first report of the Royal Commission which was appointed in the spring to inquire into the want of space in Westminster Abbey for further interments and monuments, is exhaustive so far as regards evidence. The dean has given the history of past burials, the clerk of the works has stated what grounds remain for future burials. The Archbishop of Canterbury has defined the general conditions to which any annex to the Abbey should conform, and several architects have presented plans and suggestions for the erection of such an annex. It is no business of ours to pronounce an opinion upon these last. To do so would be to anticipate the final report of the Royal Commission. It will be enough if we inquire whether any need has been shown for the erection of an additional building, and by what general considerations those who build it should be governed. As regards the need, it has to do with the monuments rather than with the actual interments. Mr. Wright's evidence seems to show that at the present rate, we might go on burying for another century without completely exhausting the remaining available space. Had the present practice of limiting the right of interment to eminent persons been adopted even no further back |