Pierrotti, in his _Customs and Traditions of Palestine_, tells of a scene witnessed by him when architect-engineer to Surraya Pasha, of Jerusalem. During a visit to Hebron in company with some Armenian gentlemen, he found the whole community stirred. A youth of eighteen had met in the fields a girl of fifteen, who was betrothed, and had tried to kiss her without her consent. She told her parents of the young man's misconduct. The families belonged to different clans or districts, and so were enemies. Efforts on the part of the boy's parents, through the sheiks of the two communities, were unavailing, though the father entreated earnestly for his son, and even promised to give up all he had as a ransom for his life. The girl's father demanded the boy's blood as propitiation for the wrong. And so, in the presence of an assembled crowd, the parent drew his sword and struck off his child's head, without a tear, saying: "Thus wipe I away every stain from my family." Overcome, he then instantly swooned away. His friends restored him to life, but his reason had fled. A clan war at once commenced, and those who had demanded the youth's destruction were slain in the strife. Concerning the slaying of a woman, there are certain customs which sound strange to the Western ear, but are in keeping with the general law of "the price of blood" which prevailed among the ancient Hebrews, though in a somewhat modified form. If a man should be so unfortunate as to kill a woman, the members of the family that is wronged seek revenge, just as is the case should a man be slain, but "the price of blood" is never so high in case of the woman, it being about two thousand piastres, or about eighty dollars. This sum goes largely to the relatives of the woman. If the woman be married, the husband's damage is measured at eight hundred piastres and a silk dress. Should the murdered woman be pregnant, the slayer is amerced as if he had killed two. If the offspring would have been a boy, it is as though a woman and a man were slain, and "the price of blood" is so measured. If it would have been a daughter, the smaller price is charged, the father receiving the full price for the child and his eight hundred piastres for the murdered wife. Should it be a maiden, however, who has been slain, arrangement is often made whereby a sister of the slayer is given by her family to the brother of the slain as his wife; or if this arrangement is not feasible, the price of a woman is paid as first described.