About a year since, I happened to be at a convent about two days’ journey from Tripoli; and while there, I had an opportunity of seeing a number of these curious people. Some days previous to my arrival, a young woman belonging to them had been brought to the convent in a state of mental aberration. I ought to say that the convent is consecrated to Saint George, who is believed to possess especial power for the cure of madness, and for whom the Nosairiyeh, as well as most of the mountain tribes, profess great respect and veneration—carrying out their professions practically, by the payment of an annual donation of oil, corn, and fruits, for the use of the convent. The young woman in question, having been confined in chains during her whole stay in one of the cells behind the altar, and kept on very low diet indeed, was restored to reason. I will not say what part of the treatment had been most efficacious in curing her, but the devout believers in the power of the saint, declared that he had visited her during the night, and by his presence driven out the evil spirit. Her friends, being made acquainted with her miraculous recovery, came to reclaim her just after my arrival. Contrary to the general Eastern custom, there was a large number of women mixed up with the men, moving apparently on a footing of perfect equality with the ruder sex. While they remained within sight of the convent, before and after reclaiming their recovered companion, they appeared to care for nothing besides dancing and singing. One of their dances was very much like an English country dance, with a great deal of shaking hands. I found them to be a powerfully-built, muscular race, with open honest countenances; they were all thoroughly equipped and armed. In their dress, the women differed from the general costume of the country, inasmuch as they wore very long and very flowing garments, of a kind usually only worn by men.
Nothing, however, can exceed the degradation in which the female sex are held among the Nosairiyeh. They are regarded in the same light as their horses and other domestic animals; and to the practice of polygamy among them, and the drudgery and ill-usage to which their wives are condemned, may be traced the origin of the darkest and most repulsive portions of the picture they present. The untiring perseverance and praiseworthy zeal of missionary labourers may yet succeed in leading them to a knowledge of better things. I could repeat here what I have always stated in respect to such endeavours, that schools must be the first step towards such an end; and that even before the subject of religion is touched upon, they must be taught such a course of secular studies as will, by expanding their mind and strengthening their reasoning faculties, prepare them to receive that priceless seed, which it would be unwise to cast beforehand in such a weedy soil, among the thorns and the thistles that would choke its growth and cause it to perish.