women. The three religious orders in greatest
veneration are the Libanians, the Antonines, and
the Halebys or Aleppines. The French
Lazarists have a college at Antoura which formerly
belonged to the Jesuits, who have still two
establishments on the Mount. There is at Rome
a Maronite college, founded by Gregory the
Thirteenth, which has sent out some celebrated
Oriental scholars. Thanks to these educational
advantages, the Maronites have often become
what the Copts are in Egypt and the Persians
are amongst the Affghans—the writers and
depositaries of the correspondence of the Turks,
and especially of the Druses. Their monastic
rule is generally that of Saint Anthony, which
the monks practise rigorously. They are clad
in coarse woollen cloth; they never eat meat;
they observe frequent and severe fasts. They
lead a laborious life, tilling the ground and
working at trades. Every convent has a
shoemaker friar, a tailor friar, and a baker friar.
The nuns also are industriously occupied.

Until lately, the Maronites always enjoyed
great liberty in the exercise of their worship.
They are the only Christian people subject to
Mussulman rule, who have been allowed to go
in procession outside their churches with crosses
and banners in front, and the priests decorated
with their sacerdotal ornaments. It is well
known what horror the Turks entertain for
bells; nevertheless, throughout the Mount the
Maronite bells pealed without hindrance or
interruption. One of the most tyrannical
vexations which a late Turkish governor could
inflict on the Maronites, was to stop the ringing of
all but wooden bells. The Maronite population
may be reckoned at something more than two
hundred thousand. They could easily raise
thirty thousand fighting men. Nevertheless
they are weaker than the Druses, who are
much more warlike, and who exercise over
them a sort of military predominance, which is
so firmly established that, in spite of their
religious enmity, several of the great Maronite
families, in order to maintain their influence in
their tribe, were obliged to put themselves under
Druse protection, although the Druses are less
numerous than themselves.

The Druses are naturally bloodthirsty and
vindictive, although they have great apparent
generosity, and exercise boundless hospitality.
The Maronites are hospitable, but less so than
the Druses: which may be accounted for by
religious causes, and by the mistrust which they
feel from their isolation amongst infidels—sheep
in the midst of wolves. The Druses receive a
stranger according to the precept of the Mussulman
law: "The first duty of hospitality is to
abstain from asking a stranger whence he
comes, and in what faith he has been brought
up; but it is a duty to ask him if he is hungry,
if he is thirsty, and if he has clothing."

The Druses occupy the southern part of
Mount Lebanon, the eastern slopes of Anti-
Lebanon, and Djebel Sheik. There are thirty-
seven towns and villages entirely inhabited by
the Druses, in Lebanon, and two hundred and
eleven villages by Druses intermingled with
Christians. In Anti-Lebanon, the Druses by
themselves inhabit sixty-nine villages or towns;
a great number of others are heterogeneously
peopled by Druses, Maronites, and schismatic
Greeks. Like the Maronites, the Druses may
be divided into two classes: that of the sheiks
and emirs, and that of the people. Their general
employment is the culture of land; every one
lives on his inheritance, from the produce of his
mulberry-trees and his vines. The Emir unites
in his person the civil and the military power,
and receives his investiture from the Turkish
Pasha. He collects the tribute which the Mount
pays to the Porte: this tribute, called miri, is
imposed on the mulberry-trees, the vines, the
cotton, and the corn. The Emir keeps no
regular troops, but retains in his service a long
following of clients. In case of war, every man
capable of bearing arms must serve. Throughout
the Levant, the Druses are spoken of as
bold, enterprising, and brave even to rashness.
They are excessively touchy on the point of
honour, and never pardon an injury. Their
domestic morality is extremely severe: they
have only one wife each, but they may repudiate
her and marry again. Infidelity on the woman's
part is punished with death, and that by the hand
of her own relations. The husband sends her
back to her family with a poniard which he
received from her on the wedding-day. The father
or the brothers cut off her head, and send the
husband a lock of bloody hair. The maxim of
the Druses is, "Blood always follows dishonour."
The authorities never interfere in these acts of
domestic justice.

The origin of the Druses is a matter of
controversy; one of the national traditions makes
them the descendants of a European colony left
in the East after the Crusades. It is not rare to
hear them boast of belonging to the Gallic race;
but it is probable that, like the Maronites,
they are an Arab tribe of the Desert, who, having
embraced one of the religious parties which
arose in the East at the time of the great
Mussulman schism, fled to the mountains, and
entrenched themselves there, to avoid persecution.
As to their religion, that word can scarcely be
applied to the corrupt mixture of Mussulman
dogmas and Pagan superstitions which constitute
this people's creed. The Druses practise
neither circumcision, nor fasting, nor prayer;
they observe neither feasts, nor times of abstinence.
They are divided into two castes: the
akkals, or initiated, and the djahels, or the
ignorant. The highest order of akkals are
distinguished by white turbans. It is said that the
secret assemblies of the initiated, resemble the
ancient mysteries of Eleusis. The marriage of
brothers and sisters is permitted. Their calf-
worship appears clearly established by M. de
Sacy, in his great work on the religion of the
Druses. They have great faith in amulets,
which represent to the initiated, masonic signs.
An Englishman stuck one of these symbolic
calves in his button-hole, as if it were a decoration,
and showed it to a Druse chief who