Druses

(dru's iz,) the name commonly given toa somewhat singular race of people who have established themselves in the region which comprises the S. slope of Mt. Lebanon, and the W. slope of Anti-Lebanon. They are of a mixed Kurdish, Persian, and Arab descent, and cherish a religion which is a compound of the old Mosaic faith, Christianity, Islamism,and the Sufism of Persia:- by their neighbors the Maronites (q. v.), they are looked upon as infidels. Numbering a community of about 80,000 souls, the D. are a brave,handsome, hospitable, and industrious people, lettered, and monogamous. They excel as fruit growers, and workers in silk. Like all mountaineers, they are e entially hardy and independent. Deir-elKammer is their principal town. In the year 1840, a bitter feud broke out between the D. and the Christian Maronites of the Lebanon, characterized by such barbarities on the part of the former, that France, by consent of the Great Powers of Europe, sent out an expedition for the protection of the Fig. 280. Maronites. In 1860, A DRUSE LADY OFMT. LEBANON. another crusade, carried on like the first, with fire and sword, was directed by the D. against their neighbors. This time, however, the Turkish authorities took the matter in hand, suppre ed the Druse outbreak, and inflicted signal punishment upon the chief parties implicated therein. The. reader is referred to the Earl of Carnarvon's work entitled Druses of the Lebanon (Lon., 1860), for exhaustive and highly interesting accounts of this peculiar people. Drusus, CLAUDIUS NERO, Surnamed GERMANIC US, aRoman general, B. 38 B. c., was the son of Tiberius Claudius Nero, and son-in-law of Mark Antony. He conquered all Germany as far as the Elbe, and D. inhis 30th year. [s. 304]