or asleep.
Whenever a Nuisairiyeh woman is in sorrow or trouble or fear, she goes
to the zeyareh and cries in a piteous tone, "zeyareh, hear me!"

Their women do not veil themselves, and consequently there is more of
freedom among them than among Moslems and Druzes, and in their great
festivals, men and women all dance together.

When a young man sees a girl who pleases him, he bargains with her
father, agreeing to pay from twenty dollars to two hundred, according to
the dignity of her family; of which sum she receives but four dollars,
unless her father should choose to give her a red bridal box and bedding
for her outfit. She rides in great state to the bridegroom's house amid
the firing of guns and shouts of the women, and on dismounting, the
bridegroom gives her a present of from one to three dollars, called the
"dismounting money."

Divorce needs only the will of the man, and polygamy is common. Lane
says in speaking of Egypt, "The depraving effects of this freedom of
divorce upon both sexes, may be easily imagined. There are many men in
this country who, in the course of ten years, have married as many as
twenty, thirty or more wives; and women, not far advanced in age, who
have been wives to a dozen or more men successively."

The Nusairiyeh women smoke, swear, and use the most vile and unclean
language, and even go beyond the men in these respects. Swearing and
lying are universal not only among the Nusairiyeh, but among the most of
the Syrian people. You never receive a direct reply from a Nusairy. He
will answer your question by asking another, in order, if possible, to
ascertain your object in asking it and to conceal the true state of the
case. Their Moslem and nominal Christian neighbors are not much better.
They all lie, and swear, and deceive. Mr. Lyde illustrates the ignorance
of the Greek clergy in Latakiah by the following incident. A ploughman
who had learned something of the Bible, heard a Greek priest cursing the
father of a little child. He said, "My father, is it right to curse?"
"Oh," said he, "it was only from my lips." "But does not the psalmist
say, Keep the door of my lips?" "That," replied the priest, "is only in
the English Bible."

Walpole says of the Nusairiyeh women, "when young, they are handsome,
often fair, with light hair and jet-black eyes; or the rarer beauty of
fair eyes and coal-black hair or eyebrows."

When a fight takes place between the tribes, the women, like the wome