wool, and bone are carefully sought for, and burnt on the heap, that not a morsel may remain. My brother has twice been present at the celebration of the Feast of the Passover, and from him I obtained the above description.
The Feast of Tabernacles is also kept "in this mountain." It happens in the early part of the Autumn, when tent-life is very pleasant and refreshing. The people "take the branches of goodly trees," such as the evergreen oak and the arbutus, and they "make booths," roofing them with interlacing willows, pliant palm fronds, and boughs of the glossy-leaved citron and lemon trees, with the green fruit hanging from them in clusters. For seven days the people dwell there, rejoicing and giving thanks to God.
Sometimes the Samaritans, to their great distress, have been obliged to celebrate their festivals elsewhere, and in secret, owing to the fanaticism and persecuting spirit of the Moslems of Nablûs. But Priest Amran said, "Now that the English word has been spoken for us, we shall no longer fear; and, notwithstanding the civil war, the Paschal lamb will this year be slain on the mountain where our fathers worshiped. The time is near at hand, O lady! tarry with us till the Passover, and we will make a pleasant tent for you on the mountain, that you, with the Consul, may witness the celebration of the festival and eat of our unleavened bread."
Most of the Samaritan women came to see me in my private room at the hotel. Yakûb esh Shellabi's sister, a fine girl—very like her brother—came several times, and Zora grew somewhat sociable. I could plainly see, by her manners and by her few words, that she was angry with herself and with her absent betrothed, and still more angry that she had not been permitted to await his return. She even seemed imbittered against the English people, as if they had lured Yakûb away from her, and I did not wonder that this marriage had given Priest Amran "much trouble." The women do not hide their faces from men of their own
