My tears are consuming my heart, How can I from him bear to part. Oh raven of death, tell me why, You betrayed me and left him to die? Oh raven of death begone! You falsely betrayed my son! Oh Milham, I beg you to tell, Why you've gone to the valley to dwell? From far, far away I have come, Who will come now to take me back home? Then rises such a wail as you never heard before. A hundred women all screaming together and then men are coming to take it away. The women hug and kiss the corpse, and try to pull it back, while the men drive them off, and carry it out to the bier. Some of the women faint away, and a piercing shriek arises. Then you hear the mother's wail again. Then one sings the call of the dead man for help: Oh ransom me, buy me, my friends to-day, 'Tis a costly ransom you'll have to pay, Oh ransom me, father, whate'er they demand, Though they take all your money and houses and land. And another sings his address to the grave-diggers: Oh cease, grave-diggers, my feelings you shock, I forbade you to dig, you have dug to the rock; I bade you dig little, you have dug so deep! When his father's not here, will you lay him to sleep? Then a poor woman who has lately buried a young daughter begins to sing: Oh bride! on the roofs of heaven, Come now and look over the wall: Oh let your sad mother but see you, Oh let her not vainly call! Hasten, her heart is breaking, Let her your smile behold; The mother is sadly weeping, The maiden is still and cold. The Druzes believe that millions of Druzes live in China and that China is a kind of heaven. So another woman sings: Yullah, now my lady, happy is your state! Happy China's people, when you reached the gate! Lady, you are passing, To the palace bright, All the stars surpassing, On the brow of night! And now the body is taken to be buried, and the women return to the house, where the wailing is kept up for days and weeks. They have many other funeral songs, of which I will give two in conclusion: Ye Druzes, gird on your swords, A great one is dead to-day; The Arabs came down upon us, They thought us in battle array, But they wept when they found us mourning, For our leader has gone away! The next is the lament of the mother over her dead son: The sun is set, the tents are rolled, Happy the mother whose lambs are in fold; But one who death's dark sorrow knew, Let her go to the Nile of indigo blue, And dye her robes a mourning hue!