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conduct is so frequent, that a father never allows a full grown son
to remain alone with any of the females of his family. Their own
religion allows them to take their sisters in marriage ; but they are
restrained from indulging in this connexion, on account of its repugnance ¬
to the Mohammedan laws. A Druse seldom has more than
one wife, but he divorces her under the slightest pretext; and it is
a custom among them, that if a wife asks her husband’s permission
to go out, and he says to her « Go ;” without adding “ and come
back,” she is thereby divorced; nor can her husband recover her,
even though it should be their mutual wish, till she is married
again according to the Turkish forms, and divorced from her
second husband. It is known that the Druses, like all Levantines, -
are very jealous of their wives ; adultery, however, is rarely
punished with death; if a wife is detected in it, she is divorced;
but the husband is afraid to kill her seducer, because his death
would be revenged, for the Druses are inexorable with respect to
the law of retaliation of blood; they know too that if the affair
were to become public, the governor would ruin both parties by
his extortions. Unnatural propensities are very common amongst
them.
The Akal are those who are supposed to know the doctrines of
the Druse religion; they superintend divine worship in the chapels
or, as they are called, Khaloue (»1s), and they instruct the children
in a kind of catechism. They are obliged to abstain from swearing,
and all abusive language, and dare not wear any article of gold or
silk in their dress. Many ofthem make it a rule never to eat of any
food, nor to receive any money, which they suspect to have been
improperly acquired. For this reason, whenever they have to receive
considerable sums of money, they take care that it shall be first exchanged ¬
for other coin. The Sheikh El Nedjem, who generally accompanies -
the Sheikh Beshir, in his visits to the Emir, never tastes
