burgh Castle to surrender in May
1573. In 1576 he was sent to Ireland as president of Munster, where his
stern rule was very successful, and in 1578 he became lord justice to
the Irish council, taking the chief control of affairs after the
departure of Sir Henry Sidney. The rising of the earl of Desmond had
just broken out when Sir William died in October 1579.

Drury's letters to Lord Burghley and others are invaluable for the
story of the relations between England and Scotland at this time.

DRUSES, or DRUZES (Arab. _Druz_), a people of mid-Syria (for the
derivation of the name see HISTORY section below), distributed nowadays
into three isolated groups, of which the most numerous inhabits Jebel
Hauran (Jebel Druz), E. of Jordan (about 55,000); the second, the
_cazas_ of Shuf and Metn in Lebanon (about 50,000); the third, the
_cazas_ of Hasbeya, Rasheya, W. al Ajem, Homs, Hamadiyeh and Selimiyeh
in Anti-Lebanon and Hermon (about 45,000). The first group, which has
been greatly increased by migrants from the second, since the
establishment of the privileged Lebanon province (1861) under Christian
auspices, lives apart from other peoples in semi-independence. The
second is now confined to the southern Lebanon, and even there is
greatly outnumbered by Maronites, who, in the whole "Mountain," stand to
Druses as 9 to 2. The third is counterbalanced everywhere by a large
population of Moslem and Orthodox Syrians. The Hauran, therefore, has
become the stronghold of the Druses, offering nowadays the best field
for studying their peculiar customs and religion; and the group there
still increases at the expense of the other groups, despite efforts on
the part of the Ottoman government to check Druse migration by both
conciliatory and repressive measures. The actual distinction of the
Druses, as a racial unity, despite their dispersion, depends so
exclusively on the peculiarity of their common religion, that it will be
well at once to give an account of Druse creed and practice as they are
understood to stand at the present day. How this religion may have grown
up and come to be theirs will be considered later.

_Religion._--Druse religion is a secret faith, and the following account
is given with all reserves. There are many indications that a more
primitive cult, containing elements of Nature worship, preceded it, and
still survives in the popular practices of the more remote Druse
districts, e.g. in the eastern Hau