Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/272

Rh "Nearly all our girls are promised before they can speak, and are married when they are eleven or twelve."

Priest Amran took me one day to the Samaritan quarter. It is an irregular cluster of two-storied houses, in the most crowded part of the town. We passed through white washed passages, and ascended a crooked, uncovered, steep stone stairway, leading into an open court, where a large, glossy-leaved lemon-tree grew close to an arched door, through which we passed, after "putting off" our shoes. I found that I was in the synagogue. It is a simple, unadorned, vaulted building, in rather a dilapidated state. Amran introduced me to the chief priest, his aged father, "Selâmeh"—he who, in 1808, corresponded with Baron de Sacy. He received me very courteously. After a short conversation about Yakûb esh Shellabi, he said, "I am very old, but I shall die in peace, thanking God that he has let me live to see my people under the protection of the English Government." He said this in allusion to the fact that Lord Clarendon had sent instructions to the Consuls resident in Palestine, expressing the interest which Her Britannic Majesty's Government takes in the Samaritans, and directing them to afford, in case of need, such protection as may be proper toward Turkish subjects. His Excellency Lord Stratford de Redcliffe had also been instructed to use his good offices with the Porte in favor of the Samaritan community. A mat was spread on the stone floor, and there I rested, listening to the slowly, and earnestly-uttered words of the aged priest. He wore a loose blue cloth robe, lined with crimson, over a yellow and red-striped satin kumbaz, which is made like a dressing-gown. His large turban and his long beard were white.

He directed my attention to the vail of the temple. It was a square curtain of whote damask linen, ornamented with appliqué work; that is, pieces of red, purple, and green linen were sewed on to it, forming a beautiful pattern of conventional ornament. He supposed it to be six or seven hundred years old, but I imagine that it is the