Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/279

272 community, but they vail themselves closely in the streets and in the presence of strangers.

They were generally very simply dressed, in trowsers and jackets of Manchester prints and colored muslin head kerchiefs and vails. When out of doors, they shrouded themselves in large white cotton sheets, and, though the former were faded and the latter patched, their poorest garments looked clean. I saw very little jewelry, except on the head-dresses of the most recently-married women. They nearly all, however, wore glass bracelets; and some of the children had anklets, made of tinkling silver bells. The girls had a few small coins sewed to the edges of their red tarbûshes, just in front.

The Samaritans seem really to represent one family. The people look to the hereditary priest as their father and divinely-appointed guide, and he apparently knows the history and character of every member of the community. He is king, magistrate, physician, teacher, counselor, and friend of all. It struck me very forcibly that the Samaritans are not animated with any religious emotion or feeling, though they certainly venerate their theological system and all that is connected with it, especially the site of the ancient temple on the mountain where their fathers worshiped. They attach great importance to ceremonial and especially to sanitary laws relating to marriage, to food, and to ablutions. They observe the Sabbath-day strictly, in a material sense, but without the slightest sign of spiritual devotion. Their services are noisy and seemingly irreverent.

They do not avoid friendly or commercial intercourse with strangers, though they will not intermarry with them. The few native Protestants in Nablûs are on a very intimate footing with the Samaritans; and native Greek Christians, and many Moslems, are on good terms with them. But their Jewish neighbors do not like them at all. They accuse them of heresy and even of idolatry, and avoid them as much as possible, saying that they are worshipers of