Daliet-el-Carmel, Aug. 1.—A residence in a Druse village upon the
familiar terms which I have now established with the inhabitants of this
one, opens up a phase of existence so utterly foreign to all Western
notions of domestic life, and involves experiences so novel and
characteristic, that I am constantly receiving illustrations of the
truth of the saying that one half of the world has no idea how the other
half lives.
Early the other morning, for instance, my native servant appeared in a
state of no little excitement to tell me that there had been a row in
the night in the village, from which my house is distant only a few
hundred yards, and that a young man was being killed. This was modified
a few minutes after by the arrival of some weeping females, who said
that if the young man could not find a place of refuge somewhere he
would be killed; and, as if to emphasize this statement, no great
interval elapsed before, on going out into the kitchen, I found the
young man in question clinging to the legs of the kitchen table as
though they were the horns of the altar. He was a not very
prepossessing-looking young man of two or three and twenty, and on my
appearance he abandoned the legs of the table and rushed at my hand,
which he seized and kissed effusively. It is astonishing how
affectionate a man can become under the influence of panic. I told him
to go back to the table-legs and hold on there, and consider himself
perfectly safe. I felt I could say this with a feeling of proud
satisfaction, for had I not the British government at my back, and is
not the British government celebrated for the chivalrous promptitude
with which it rushes to the rescue of those in bodily peril?
Meantime I sent for the spiritual sheik of the village, as the secular
one, who is the real supreme authority in such matters, happened to be
absent. Now, so far as I have been able to ascertain, the whole village,
consisting of some five hundred souls, is related to the two sheiks, for
the population has gone on marrying and intermarrying till the
relationships are unfathomable. The young man in question was the
youngest of four brothers, and he had one sister who had married the
spiritual sheik's son. His mother, after having this numerous family,
had married the secular sheik, who had himself had two sons by a former
wife and who has one daughter by his present one. You will observe that
the affair was already becoming mixed, and a strong suspicion was
gradually stealing over me that there was a woman at the bottom of it.
Such, indeed, proved to be the case; in fact, there turned out to be
two.
Now it happened, and this is not peculiar to the domestic relations of
the Druses, that the secular sheik's sons by his first wife were very
jealous of the children of their stepmother, and hated that elderly lady
herself with the cordial hatred not unknown to stepchildren. They had
contrived so to embitter the family circle, that the secular sheik,
partly for the sake of peace, and partly, as I afterwards discovered,
for another reason, had banished her for two years past from the marital
roof; indeed, it had often been a matter of surprise to me when calling
on this sheik, or dining with him, that I was always waited on by his
daughter and not by his wife.
Now the mystery was solved; but the sheik did not extend this
inhospitality to his stepsons, and the young man now holding on to the
kitchen table was especially favoured, and, although not an inmate of
his stepfather's house, made himself too much at home there to suit his
half-brothers. They determined, therefore, to drive him forth. Now, the
sheik had another brother, who had a wife much younger than himself, and
who, it was whispered, was much admired by the obnoxious young man. And
it being the end of Ramadan, and the village being in a state of
nocturnal festivity, people were in a mood for mischief all around, and,
rightly or wrongly, the young man being found in the sheik's brother's
house in the middle of the night, fell under grave suspicion, and a
tremendous tumult took place, in the course of which the sheik's son
belaboured his stepmother, being assisted thereto by his uncle; and here
I may incidentally remark that Druse men appear to think nothing of
beating their friends' wives, whose husbands seem to think it quite
natural they should do so. Perhaps it saves them the trouble; anyhow, on
this occasion the women gave vent to their tongues, and the men
retaliated with blows. Of course, the women took the part of the gay but
indiscreet youth, who declared that he was in search of a missing cow,
though it was suggested with some force that to go and look for her on
the roof of the sheik's brother's house after midnight showed an
unpardonable ignorance of the usual haunts of cows. The whole of the
secular sheik's first family, therefore, and their relations to the
fifth degree, who form the majority of the male population, refusing to
admit any such excuse, and considering the young man's guilt proved,
vowed to have his life, death being the not uncommon penalty among them
for a crime of this sort; but the whole of the spiritual sheik's family,
which seems to me to consist principally of all the women in the
village, accepted the young man's version of the affair, and maintained
his innocence; and, with that knowledge of human nature which
characterizes the sex, they instinctively turned to me as their natural
ally, and hence I was saddled with the protection of this
too-susceptible and much-menaced youth.
The position was delicate, for though I am not insensible to the
advantage of possessing the suffrages of the female part of the
community, I desired also to stand well with the males, and I felt that
to interpose between them and the object of their vengeance was likely
to prejudice me in their eyes. At the same time one could not turn a
youth out of one's kitchen to go like a sheep to the slaughter, even
though he may have been an erring lamb. Moreover, when I came to hear
the spiritual sheik's version of the story, though it was undoubtedly
one-sided, the question of guilt did not appear to be satisfactorily
established. So I sent for the injured husband, and the sheik's son, who
had beaten his stepmother, to hear their version of the matter, but they
refused to answer my summons.
Under these circumstances I determined to wait for the return of the
secular sheik, which took place the same evening. After sympathizing
with him on the distracted condition of his household, I asked him if he
could suggest the best course of action for me to pursue, as it was
evidently impossible for me to board and lodge his stepson for an
indefinite time on the kitchen table. This, he admitted, was an undue
tax on my hospitality. I asked him if he could not exercise sufficient
authority over the members of his own family to protect the life of his
stepson. This, he said, he could do while he remained in the village,
but as he was constantly being called away on business, he could not
answer for what might happen in his absence.
I then asked whether it might not be best to send the young man away
from the village until the storm had blown over. I had suggested this to
the spiritual sheik, but he said that in that case the youth's mother
would follow him; and, as I remarked to the secular sheik, I was loath
to propose this to him, as it would separate him from his wife. The
sheik, with apparent distress, observed that his wife did not see much
of him. I asked whether I could not be the means of healing this breach,
and whether he would allow me to send for his wife; this he at once
assented to, but the old lady refused to come. This refusal on her part
seemed to afford the sheik immense relief, seeing which, I remarked,
“Perhaps, if your wife did go away with your stepson, you would not mind
it very much.” “No,” he said, “I should not mind it very much.”
I have since discovered that he is very anxious to get rid of her, in
order to marry some one else. So I packed the young man off to a
Christian of my acquaintance at Esfia, two miles off, thinking his
mother would follow him; but not a bit. She has now taken up her abode
with the spiritual sheik, and I am at this moment employing her to make
a mud floor under a fig-tree, on which I intend to put beehives. I rode
over a few days ago to Esfia, and found the young man comfortably
installed with his Christian host, who, with true Arab hospitality,
charges him nothing for his entertainment, but who will probably be
indemnified for it by a present from the spiritual sheik. Meantime,
influences are at work to prepare the way for his safe return, and I
trust that I have so managed these delicate negotiations as to secure me
the good-will of both factions, though I am afraid that the breach
between them will never be healed until the secular sheik divorces his
present wife and takes a fresh departure by uniting himself to the lady
of his affections.