Omaha daily bee., 1911-02-12

tSSssgsJ in fsraway Syria How would
you like exchange your life for theirs? How would
you like to spend your days without showing your
face to the light of the sun? How would you like
to go about in a great bag of black silk which is tied
in at the waist that it your form from the
head to the feet except for short thick veil of black
which enables you to feel your way along the street?
How would you like to be penned up in the back of
your house, to have your front windows atticed
that you could see out only through holes as big
around lead pencil? Aye, more, how would you
like to never talk to any man but Of your
family, and worse, never to have any other
boy talk to or see you?
This is the condition Of the girls of this fanatical
city of Damascus. It is the fate of millions of other
women in Turkey, and of the female Mohammedans
throughout the whole world.
Among the Yelled Women.
Within the last thirty years l have visited every
Mosem country earth, and have out my
eyes trying to through the wells which hide the
fair SEX In Morocco their faces covered with
cotton. and they peep through a crack big as
your finger, made by pulling the cloth slightly apart
in front Of the face In Kairouan the girls their
faces with black crepe thick that you cannot tell
whether they negroes whites and in Tunis
they shrouded that they have to lift up their
cloaks a few feet in order to pick their way through
the streets In Zanzibar the girls wear bags which
them to the feet and their only view of the
world is through peephoes big 5O-cent piece
which hedged across with lace netting. that
man cannot see in. In Egypt the headdTess comes
down to the eyebrows and veil extends from there
TO the knees, with the exception of crack for the
eyes the crack being kept open by a gold or brass
spool which rests the bridge of the In Con-
stantnopIe the fashionable Turks are doing away with
the veil using thin white gauze through which the
face be plainly 1t is thus that the harem
OF the sultan is dressed, and thus the wives of all
the rich
In Damascus
Here in Damascus the women stick to wells of
lowered muslin black crepe and they wrap them
selves in great balloon like cloaks of black silk or
calico. These bulge out above and below where they
are tied at the waist, makns each maiden look like
Two huge Jumps of sausages as they waddlc along.
I see hundreds of them every time / 90 through the
city They throng the bazaars, where they bob back
and forth they talk with the merchants They may
be picking their way through the side streets
sitting the floors of the mosques reading the
Koran and watching the men through their pray
ers. Many Of the yelled figures are those Of small
girls They take the veil at II OF H. and the wells
kept after marriage until death.
And then the houses, All of the Mohammedans
have homes so latticed that the women cannot be
from the streets, I'm some cases the windows
are built out over the sidewalks hanging like
boxes of wooden network This is so in the new
apartment houses which going up and also
In the huts of the poor although the latter seldom
lave windows except at the back. The ordinary lat
lice is made of Canckike rushes or sticks and pre-
pairing them is special trade followed by many The
PUSHES are brought in TO Damascus already trimmed
on the backs of donkeys, which they go fill the
streets with their loads.
Queer Divorce Laws.
II behooves the Mohummedau woman to be strict
in her conduct. The husband here has most of tho
rights, and he can divorce his wife, or wives when.
ever he will. He sometimes does without thinking
and that to his sorrow. I heard of such a case yes
terday According TO the laws of Damascus, if
wishes to get rid of his wife he has only to say
81 divorce you, / divorce you, / divorce YOU" and
the woman must leave After she has gone however
she cannot come back as a wife until after she has
married 20 some one else To get around this
angry husband, reenting and logging for the dea
departed, arranges to marry her to friend, dervish