Another feature of interest in the case of the Druses is the mystery which, to most people, surrounds their history, creed, and principles. Books and treatises have been written, full of vague conjectures and theories as to their origin and history, and hinting at still wilder and more absurd beliefs as to the mysterious practices which are carried on at their secret gatherings for the celebration of their religious rites. Take, for example, one outrageous and utterly false report concerning the Druses, which has been handed down among the ignorant and bigoted Christian sects of the Lebanon for many centuries. This report accuses the Druses of habitually marrying their own daughters, and of carrying on licentious orgies with promiscuous intercourse under the name of religious worship. As far as I can discover, the first person who promulgated this absurd idea was Benjamin of Tudela, an inaccurate and untrustworthy writer of the Crusading period; and it is a curious evidence of the tenacity with which ignorant fanaticism will cling to scandalous insinuations affecting other sects and religions, that such a ridiculously false charge as this should have survived against the Druses even to the present day, in the very country and districts which they still inhabit. A striking parallel to this is to be found in the popular belief among the Christian peasantry of HunPoland, and Roumania, that the Jews sacrifice human lives and drink human blood at certain of their religious ceremonies. A like accusation was commonly entertained against the early Christians, but we should scarcely have expected such fanatical ignorance to have existed at the close of the nineteenth century. It is, however, to be in a great measure accounted for by the jealous secrecy with which the Druses in Syria, like the Jews in the east of Europe, and the early Christians in the Roman Empire, guard the celebration of their religious rites; for secrecy always engenders suspicion, and human nature is ever prone to conceive the worst idea of that which is concealed from its view. This very secrecy, while it has been fruitful in engendering idle and suspicious beliefs concerning them, has undoubtedly surrounded the Druse religion and race with a certain halo of attraction

There is a third feature of special interest for Englishmen in connection with the Druses. Should England ever find it necessary to attempt an armed occupation of Syria, the Druses are the only purely native tribe on whose fidelity and support the British forces could rely.

Under these circumstances, some асcount of this remarkable race from one who has lived among them for several years, and has had unusual opportunities for observing their inner life, may be not without some amount of interest and instruction. The broad outlines of the origin of the name and religion of the Druses are tolerably familiar to those who take any interest in the races of the East. But their real ancestry has, up to the present, been veiled in mystery and doubt; and in order to make clear this interesting point, it is necessary briefly to recapitulate what may be well known to many.

In the year 996 A.D., a certain Hakim, surnamed Biamrillah, ascended the throne of Egypt, at the early age of eleven years, as the third caliph of the Fatimite dynasty. He reigned twenty-five years, and during that time he displayed such a wild mixture of vice and folly that grave doubts have existed as to his sanity. Among other acts he solemnly cursed the first caliph in the Mohammedan mosques of Cairo, and afterward revoked the curse; he compelled his Jewish and Christian subjects to abjure their religions, and afterward permitted them to resume them; he burned the half of Cairo, and gave his soldiers free license to pillage the remaining half; he forbade the sacred pilgrimage of El Haj to Mecca, the fast of Ramadan, the five daily prayers, and all other Moslem rites; he ordered all shops to be kept open the whole night through; he uprooted all the vines in Upper Egypt; he forbade the manufacture of shoes; he put the most rigid restraint upon women, forbidding any female above the age of thirteen to go out of doors at any time on any pretext whatever; he persecuted all his subjects of every rank, degree, and kind with every sort of annoyance that his ingenuity could suggest ;-in a word, he behaved in such an outrageous manner, that his throne and life became endangered; and at last, as a happy thought, he tried to cover all his misdeeds and to impose upon his subjects,

ion which would have brought them into contact and communion with outside races. Their chief desideratum was a creed which they could enjoy to themselves alone, which had been adopted by no one else, and which none but themselves should be allowed to enter. So then Hamzé, on his arrival among them, found disciples ready at hand to listen to his teaching, unbiassed by preconceived beliefs, dissatisfied with their destitute religious condition, and in a word, as it were, 66 empty, swept, and garnished" for the reception of his doctrines. The very fact that these doctrines were new, and that they had hitherto been accepted by no other nations, was, in all probability, one of the most important factors in inducing this people to listen to them, and, finally, to adopt them as their own.

Hamze was undoubtedly a very different character from either Hakim or Duruzi, whom he professed to follow. The "Book of Testimonies to the Mysteries of the Unity," which was composed by him, and which contains the main essence of his teaching, is full of the most beautiful and lofty thoughts,-mingled, it is true, with much that is false and absurd, and yet breathing, as a whole, a far different spirit from that which pervaded the life and pretensions of Hakim. The mere fact of Hamzé's creed being new and unique might not, perhaps, have proved sufficient of itself to induce his hearers to accept his teaching, if they had not also been greatly influenced by his own personal character and example. Be this as it may, the life of Hamze among his disciples was, so far as one can gather, a life of great self-sacrifice, humility, and purity; and it is an evidence of his self-abnegation that he bestowed on his new converts the name of his master, Duruzi, instead of his own. It is curious, indeed, that that name should be theirs, for the Druses regard Duruzi as the incarnation of all that is evil. It would have been far more appropriate, though perhaps less euphonious, if they had been known as Hamzé-ites.

The Druses then, according to my belief, are merely the modern representatives of the illustrious Phoenicians of old,-genuine and lineal descendants of the subjects of Hiram, King of Tyre. To state in full all the process of reasoning and investiga tion by which I have arrived at this conclusion, would occupy more than my al

loted space. myself at present with summing up the principal causes of my belief. (1.) This people had lived from time immemorial where Hamzé found them, on the slopes of Lebanon toward Tyre and Sidon. (2.) Their one great hero of Old Testament history is Solomon, about whom they will tell you marvellous stories reminding you of the Arabian Nights. of the Arabian Nights. (3.) They themselves stoutly maintain that they built Solomon's temple. omon's temple. (4.) Their religious rites and ceremonies are, to the present day, very intimately associated with the mystic rites of Freemasonry; which, as is well known, is supposed to have taken its rise at the building of Solomon's Temple ;— Solomon, Hiram the king, and Hiram, the widow's son of Tyre, being the first Grand Masters. The Druses have their different degrees of initiation, their signs and passwords. Their khalwehs (or places of sacred assembly) are very like Masonic lodges; the symbols on their walls are distinctly analogous to Masonic symbols. An outer and an inner guard watches on either side of the closed door during their sacred meetings (or lodges); and if these are not sufficient to indicate the truth of my theory, I will mention two other most remarkable corroborations.

I must therefore content

1. In examining the "Book of the Testimonies to the Mysteries of the Unity,' which contains the code of the esoteric religion of the Druses, I came across the following passage at the end :

and believes in what has preceded, and is of "The conclusion is, that whosoever knows full age, free from servitude, and sound of mind and body, will be of those who are destined to the ranks (i.e., the different degrees of initiation), and entitled to be present at the private assemblies (i.e., the lodges'), at which whosoever is present will be saved by God Almighty, and whosoever is absent will repent. May God make His good ways easy, and pour upon us His blessing! He is the Helper, the Giver of victory, the Wise, and the Initiated! Amen.

Observe carefully the words in italics. The formula which expresses the condition of eligibility for initiation into Freemasonry is, as is well known, the following: "The candidate for initiation must be of full age, free-born, and of good report.' Thus it will be seen that in the two cases the conditions stated are virtually identical. This exact coincidence is in the highest degree significant and suggestive. It can hardly

be the result of mere accident, and goes far to prove the intimate connection between Freemasonry and esoteric Drusedom.

2. But the second instance of corroboration is to my mind stronger still, for it is one which has come under my own personal experience. A few months ago I had occasion to enter into a business contract with one of my Druse farmers. When we were about to draw up the agreement, the Druse suggested that, as he could neither read nor write, we should ratify the bargain in the manner customary among his people. This consists of a solemn grasping of hands together in the presence of two or three other Druses as witnesses, while the agreement is recited by both parties. Being always on the qui vive to gain a practical insight into the nanners and customs of the Druses, I readily consented to this form of contract, hoping thereby to learn something more of their methods of procedure. Accordingly, the farmer brought three of his neighbors to me; and the terms of our contract having been made known to them, one of them took the right hand of each of us and joined them together, while he dictated to us what to say after him. To my great astonishment, the Druse who was grasping my hand gave me the grip of Master Mason! I immediately returned it, to his equal surprise. He asked me how and where I had learned their secret sign; and this set me on the track of further inquiries, the result of which has been to render what was before a very strong belief on my part an absolute conviction. I now feel morally certain that my theory is correct; and speaking as a Freemason, and as one who has also searched somewhat fully into the mystic tenets of the Druses, I can assert that, in many particulars, the esoteric teaching of both systems is more or less identical. Owing to the extreme secrecy and exclusiveness of the Druse character, it is most difficult to gain an insight into their inner rites and tenets; and it requires many years of intercourse with them, and the firm establishment of relations of mutual confidence and trust, before one can be in a position to learn anything concerning them. But, speaking from experience, I can only say that if those who are qualified to pursue the subject further, will investigate carefully for themselves this most interesting mat

ter, they will be more and more convinced of the truth of any statement, and cannot fail to be persuaded that the origin of Freemasonry is to be traced to the ancestors of the Druses, and that these ancestors were the Phoenician mountaineers of the Lebanon, who were the subjects of Hiram, King of Tyre. As might have been expected under these circumstances, the Druses are essentially a mountaineering race; there not being a single Druse village situated upon a plain, either in the Lebanon district, across the Haurân, or in the Holy Land proper.

This fact naturally exercises a great influence over their national habits and characteristics. Mountaineers are invariably active, hardy, and independent; and the Druses are no exception to this general rule. There is not a tribe in the whole of Syria that can compare with them in physical strength, symmetry of form, muscular development, and capability of endurance. In these respects they afford a remarkable contrast to the poor, miserable-looking, abject fellaheen and peasantry of an ordinary Syrian village, as also to the mongrel, crosss-bred specimens which are to be met with in the larger towns of Palestine. Among the latter, indeed, it is rarely that one can find a genuine Syrian of pure native blood. Most of the inhabitants are the offspring of a motley ancestry. Turkish, Greek, Egyptian, French, Spanish, Italian, and Arab blood is intermingled, in greater or less proportion, in the veins of the modern so-called Syrian; and the result of this heterogeneous compound is, as might be expected, a very inferior type of humanity.

Not so, however, the Druses. Their rigid exclusiveness of religion and nationality has preserved then from such an intermingling of races; and, throughout the centuries, they have retained a purity of blood uncontaminated by foreign admixture. It is true, indeed, that there has until lately existed-and there may still linger—a common and popular belief among travellers in the East, that the Druses are in some way connected by descent with the Crusaders. The fair hair and light eyes of many of the Druse maidens are cited in support of this theory; but the idea may be discarded as entirely erroneous. It will be seen below how it first originated.

It is now eight hundred years since the