A favourite ride was into the Druze country, beginning at Barúk, a stronghold in a wild glen. They are a fine, tall, strong, and manly race, who can ride and fight and shoot, and are fit to be our allies. There is no cant about them; they are honest and plain-spoken, and do not know intriguing, lying, stealing, or spying. A Druze house has huge black rafters in the ceiling, and straight tall columns down the middle; there is a private room for council. The women have one blue garment, and one white veil showing one eye. They are chaste, and good wives and mothers. They have clean, comfortable homes, and give a warm welcome, and we rested here for some time. People often say, "What is the real religion of the Druzes?" No one ever knew who was not a Druze; they conform to the national religion, the Moslem. In speaking to you or me, they would appear to have a particular leaning to our respective faiths. They have a secret creed of their own, which, although women are admitted to the council chamber, is as mysterious as Freemasonry. Some Moslems pretend that they worship Eblis, and some Christians say the bull-calf El Ijl.
On our road we came to another stronghold, like an ancient convent, where lives Melhem Beg Ahmad, a Druze chief, a dare-devil-fine-old-man, who, when he mounts, takes his bridle in his teeth, puts his musket to his shoulder, and charges down a mountain that an English horse would have to be led down. He lives in great style; he threw his cap in the air, drank to our health a thousand times, and his sons waited on us at dinner. Muktára hangs on a declivity in a splendid ravine in wild mountains in the territory of Esh Shuf. The house we were going to is like a large Italian cascine, nestled amidst olive groves, that are, so to speak, the plumage of the heights. It is the Syrian palace of the Jumblatts, the focus and centre of the Lebanon Druzes. Here reside this princely family, headed then by a Chieftainess, the "Sitt Jumblatt."
Long before we sighted Muktára, wild horsemen, in the rich Druze dress, came careering down, jeriding on beautiful horses, with guns and lances, the sons and retainers of the house heading them. They were splendidly mounted, and one of the sons had a black mare, so simply perfect I infringed the tenth commandment. We descended into a deep defile, and rose up again on the opposite side, the whole of which was lined with horsemen and footmen to salute us, and the women trilled out their joy-cry. Ascending the other side was literally like going up stairs cut in the rock; it was a regular fastness. We rode our horses up the flight of stairs into the court. We received the most cordial and gracious hospitality from the Sitt, who had all the well-bred ease of a European grande dame. Water and scented soap was brought in carved brass ewers and basins to wash our hands, incense was waved before us, we were sprinkled with rose-water, whilst an embroidered gold canopy was held over us. Coffee, sherbet, and sweets were served. The next morning the palace was filled with grey-bearded and turbaned scribes, with their long brass inkstands, and the Sitt explained to Richard that her affairs were entirely neglected at Beyrout, and asked him to do something for her. He explained that it was a great embarrassment to him, as he was subordinate to Mr. Eldridge, but that, whatever she chose to write, he would make a point of going himself to present her wishes to Mr. Eldridge. Richard notes in his journal that day among others, "Eldridge does nothing, and is very proud of what he does. Consular office awfully careless; sick of dyspepsia; nothing to do body and mind."
We sat down to a midday meal equivalent to a dinner, and then went to the Jeríd ground, where the sons and their fighting men displayed their grace and skill. The stables are solid, and like tunnels with light let in, containing sixty horses, all showing blood, and some quite thoroughbred. At nightfall there was a big dinner, to which all the retainers flocked in; there was dancing and war-songs between the Druzes of the Lebanon and the Druzes of the Haurán, ranged on either side of the banqueting hall; they performed a pantomime, they sang, and recited tales of love and war far into the night.
An amusing thing was, that after the Sitt had dined with us, I found her shortly after sitting cross-legged on the floor of the kitchen, devouring a second dinner. I said, "Ya Sitti, I thought you had eaten your dinner with us; what are you doing?" She laughed, and said, "My dear child, you don't suppose for an instant that I got a bit into my mouth with those knives and forks; I was only doing pantomime for the honour of the house. Now I am getting my real dinner with my fingers!" We were accompanied out with the same honours as those with which we were ushered in. How sorry we were to leave! Our friendship always lasted. We used to begin, "My dearest sister," and she used to say all those sweet things which only Easterns can say, such as—"My eyes sought for you many days till my head ached; when will you come to repose them, that I may not see your empty place?"
We went on to Deir el Khammar to the palace of Bayt el Din (B'teddin), where Franco Pasha (the best governor the Lebanon has ever known) lived, and was restoring this ruined castle of the late terrible Amir Beshir Sheháb, from whence the view is splendid. He had about five hundred soldiers, and was doing enormous good. He had a band, a school, was planting pine trees and wheat, teaching carpet-making, tailoring, shoemaking, making roads, teaching religion and loyalty to God, to the Sultan, with liberality and civilization. He produced an electric shock upon us by the invisible band playing "God save the Queen." We sprang to our feet, and in that wild place it made me cry. In this region we met the only real prince in Syria, the Emir Mulhem Rustam. We had an immense quantity of deputations of Druze Shaykhs; those of the Haurán were something like bears, with huge white turbans, green coat, massive swords, some in red, and all exceedingly wild-looking. We then went to Ali Beg of Jumblatt, at Baderhan. We passed innumerable Druze villages, until we came to Jezzín, one of the three manly Christian villages. Usuf Beg, their Chief, was a delightful Shaykh.
Sometimes these breakfasts on the march were very amusing, where there were a mixture of races and religion. You would see forty intrigues round a dish of rice. At Rasheya there was no water; here we were on Druze ground again. From this we went to the top of Mount Hermon, i.e. it has three tops, and we put a kakú of stones on the highest for a remembrance. The view is immense. We found a cave and saw a hare. When we got to the bottom, there was hardly a shoe or a rag left amongst us. Here we met some very charming Druze chiefs, and went with them to Hasbeya, because Richard was convinced that the sources of the Jordan were not as they are given in books; and he was perfectly right. There is a slanting rock with some figs growing out of it, and oleanders growing in luxurious clumps in the sand all around, and out of this rock rushes a stream, which we traced to the Jordan. Near is a mine of bitumen.
From thence to Kefayr, another Druze village, after which we rode to Banias. Of course, there are loads of things to see all the way—caves or temples, or what not; but, then, all those can be got in books. The sources are supposed to be here, at Banias, and are made much of; and all visitors go to the fountain of Jordan, the cave of Pan, the temple of Herod and Augustus, with the three niches. The water trickles from beneath under the stones, separating into eight or nine streams, but they are not the real source.
We had a large escort to-day. Ali Beg Ahmadi and his cavalry, Shaykh Ahmad, and many others, came to escort us, and we had a delicious gallop over the plain of Ghyam, which is part of the Ard el Húleh, through which runs the Jordan, and another portion of the same is called the Abbs. We came to Arab tents, and drank milk with the Bedawi; we found many of them down with fever, and stopped to doctor them with Warburg's drops. We had to ride all day, and at last through marshy, rushy places under a burning sun, without a breath of air.