were highly amused with the account I gave them of his reception in England, little Anithe maintained a quiet and dignified reserve, which I suppose, according to Samaritan etiquette, was very praiseworthy and becoming.
Zora did not reënter the room; but when I passed through the court, on my way to the house of a neighbor, I saw her with her mother engaged in cooking. She had been crying, and on seeing me she hastily ran into a storeroom and disappeared. Amran said, "She is not quite reconciled yet to the new arrangement; but her husband is good and well off, and she will soon be happy."
I visited three other houses, all of the same character as Habîb's, but his was the most comfortably furnished. On the whole, I was very favorably impressed with the appearance of the Samaritan community. The men were generally handsome, tall, healthy-looking,and intelligent, but very few of them could read or write. The women are modest, and the children very pretty and thoughtful, yet full of life and activity. I am told that the Samaritans live to a great age, and generally escape the epidemics which break out occasionally in Nablûs. Perhaps this is owing to the simplicity of their lives, and their scrupulous cleanliness. They observe the ceremonial laws of Moses with fidelity. Three times a year they go in solemn procession to the summit of Gerizim, repeating portions of the law as they ascend, and they still proudly proclaim to pilgrims and travelers, "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain." The mountain is now called "Jebel-el- Tor."
They do not receive any part of the Bible, except the Pentateuch. They say that the other books are forgeries, and they regard the seventeenth chapter of the Second Book of Kings as a cruel calumny, originating with their enemies the Jews. The Jews, on the other hand, declare that this portion of the Bible is rejected by the Samaritans, simply because it records their true history and testifies against them.
The Samaritans declare themselves to be children of
