From what I have been able to gather, the Druse women, if they are pretty, are a heartless lot. Another characteristic incident was a procession of Esfia Druses to the cave of Elijah, below the monastery, in fulfilment of a vow, when a child was dedicated to a religious life, and a goat was sacrificed to God, as in the times of old. After being sacrificed, it was nevertheless eaten, which seems somewhat to deprive the performance of its merit, as the share of the Deity was the bones. There was a great clanging of discordant instruments and loud singing as they came back, some of the men caracoling around on horseback, and others, with arms clasped, dancing in a measured step, followed by a group of dancing women, in dark-blue garments, with gaudy borders and fringes and sashes, and flowing white head-dresses bound with bright-coloured scarfs. They formed a most picturesque tableau, chanting their way to their home on this wild mountain hill-top.
One day a magnificent figure of a man, armed with sword and pistol, suddenly entered my tent. I asked him where he had come from. He said from the Jebel Druse, and, seeing a foreign tent, he had turned in to see who I was. So we exchanged confidences. He was, in fact, an outlaw. He had been fighting against the government, and was wandering from one Druse village to another, not daring to go back to his own, which was in the Lebanon. He said that at this moment the Druses of the Jebel Druse were in full revolt against the Turkish government; that no Druse dare show himself in Damascus, and no Turk dare show himself in the Jebel Druse. They had defied the Governor-General, who knew that it would be useless in their wild mountains to attempt to conquer them. He offered to take me to the Jebel Druse, if I would avoid all places where there were any Turks. He had a profound contempt for his coreligionists of Dalieh and Esfia. “I am ashamed of such Druses,” he said. “Why, I saw a Moslem insult one, the other day, and, instead of killing him, he walked away. Why don't they leave a place where they dare not punish insult, and come to the mountain?” I have rarely seen a finer specimen of humanity than this man was, and, with all the defiant recklessness and daring of his expression, there was the charm of entire frankness and good-nature combined with it.