PALESTINE 



249 



Nearly every Druse in the 

 mountains can read and write. Wine 

 and tobacco they never touch. Their 

 women are virtuous. Divorce is 

 almost unknown amongst them, 

 though it is allowed and can be 

 easily effected; it is only necessary 

 that the husband should tell his wife 

 three times in the presence of wit- 

 nesses that she had better go back 

 to her mother. The Druses have 

 carried the soil of the valleys up 

 and along the hillsides. These are 

 laid out in terraces, planted with 

 mulberry, olive, and vine, which 

 flourish under the constant care 

 bestowed upon them. The chief 

 industry is the production of silk. 



The religion of the Druses is 

 peculiar and mysterious. It has a 

 Mussulman foundation, but it em- 

 braces Christian and Zoroastrian 

 elements. Their religion was first 

 taught in 1029, but its votaries have 

 done nothing to make it known 

 outside their own circle. Their lives 

 are regulated by seven great prin- 

 ciples, which they must profess. 

 One of them is veracity. This must 

 be rigidly observed in their dealings 

 with each other, but not necessarily 

 in their intercourse with unbelievers 

 that is to say, all who are not 

 Druses. Another is the recognition 

 of the unity of God. A third is 

 complete separation from all who do 

 not hold their beliefs, and are there- 

 fore in error. A fourth is mutual protection and support. They believe that the number of souls 

 in existence never varies. Accordingly all the souls now in life have lived in some human 

 form since the creation and will continue to live till the final destruction of the world. Prayer 

 is looked upon as an unwarrantable interference with the Almighty. 



Christian missionaries have laboured among them with very little effect. The Druses 

 will not accept the teachings of others, whom they regard as presumptuous meddlers. On the 

 other hand, they make no attempt to extend their own doctrines by either force or argument. 

 It is to the remarkable nature of their religion that the Druses, according to some writers, 

 owe their independent and exclusive temper. 



PALESTINE. 



THE branch of the human family inseparably associated with Palestine is the Hebrew. 

 Palestine, or the Holy Land, lying to the south-west of Syria, fills the most important place 

 in the history of the Christian and Hebrew races. To-day it forms but a very small part of 



32 



J'/IU/O III/ 



AN ARAB SHEIKH. 



