The Druses Are Not Under The
Control Of The Agat El Haouran, But Correspond Directly With The Pasha.
They Have A Head Sheikh, Whose Office, Though Subject To The
Confirmation Of The Pasha, Has Been Hereditary From A Remote Period, In
The Family Of Hamdan.
The head Sheikh of the Druses nominates the Sheikh
of each village, and of these upwards of eight are his own relations:
the others are members of the great Druse families.
The Pasha constantly
maintains a force in the Haouran of between five and six hundred men;
three hundred and fifty or four hundred of whom are at Boszra, and the
remainder at Mezareib, or patrolling the country. The Moggrebyns are
generally employed in this service. I compute the population of the
Haouran, exclusive of the Arabs who frequent the plain, the mountain
(Djebel Haouran), and the Ledja, at about fifty or sixty thousand, of
whom six or seven thousand are Druses; and about three thousand
Christians. The Turks and Christians have exactly the same modes of
life; but the Druses are distinguished from them in many respects. The
two former very nearly resemble the Arabs in their customs and manners;
their ordinary dress is precisely that of the Arabs; a coarse white
cotton stuff forms their Kombaz or gown, the Keffie round the head is
tied with a rope of camel's hair, they wear the Abba over the shoulder,
and have the breast and feet naked; they have also adopted, for the
greater
[p.292]part, the Bedouin dialect, gestures, and phraseology; according
to which most articles of housebold furniture have names different from
those in the towns; it requires little experience however to distinguish
the adults of the two nations from one another.
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