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Events such as these, are among the deep mysteries of Providence. Nor is this mystery yet solved; though, from facts that will appear in the sequel, we shall see enough to authorize the hope of a renewal at some time, of the former pleasing relations between the Druzes and Christian missionaries. The mission was strengthened, early in 1842, by the arrival of Dr.
We remained for the night with the Shaykh, and had breakfast with him in the morning, and then went on to Mukhtara, which is the centre of the Lebanon Druzes.
Taken by surprise, no opposition was made. Both Druzes and Christians were at once disarmed, and officers were left to collect recruits. With the dreaded evil thus strongly upon them, there was a more general disposition to throw off the Druze religion. Applications came from individuals and from families in different and distant villages. Among them were some of the higher ranks.
"I had no time to converse with the common people in B.'T., but one of our Christian Druzes who accompanied me, spent the day with them, and tells me, that a great many of the villagers wished to join us. Here also the Papists are busy as bees, both with arguments and terrors. What the end will be, is known only to God."
In working out their policy, the Turks necessarily resorted to measures intended to place the Druzes in bitter antagonism to all the native Christians. In the atrocious massacre of 1860, which, for the time, threw the Druzes far from all Christian sympathy, that unfortunate people were used as tools by the Turks to work out their own policy.
Here we find Burton protecting the missionaries against certain Druzes, who had plundered and maltreated two English missionaries travelling amongst them. Burton's method of punishing the Druzes was summary. He wished to impose a fine upon them. This the Consul-General at Beyrout refused to impose, and again Burton came into conflict with his Consul-General.
Abeih, now a missionary station, was inhabited by both Druzes and Maronites, and the conflict began there on the 9th of May. Our brethren were all along assured by both parties, that neither they nor their property would be molested, whichever was victorious.
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