I was too disgusted with these latter, however, to be tempted to live near them, and was casting about in despair for an alternative, when one day I received a visit from the Druse sheik of Dalieh, the only other village on Carmel, and distant about thirteen miles from Haifa, who arrived in great distress to tell me that his only son had just been drawn as a conscript for the army, and that the whole family, including his son's wife, whom I had remarked on the occasion of a former visit as one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen, were thrown into the greatest grief, as they were unable to pay the $250 which was required to buy a substitute. I rode up to the village to inquire into the matter, and, in return for the required sum, which I paid, received a vineyard and garden of fruit-trees, with a good title, and a site far surpassing in loveliness of situation that which I had failed to secure at Esfia. The whole village turned out _en masse_ to express their gratitude and make professions of service. As the village is exclusively Druse, and does not contain a single Christian inhabitant, I felt that these were to be relied upon; nor, so far, has this confidence turned out misplaced. The sheik to whom I had thus been able opportunely to render assistance, was the spiritual head of the village. Its temporal affairs are managed by another sheik. The site for my house was only divided by a terrace from the little Druse place of worship, where, however, the services are conducted under the strictest secrecy. The whole hillside here is terraced with vines, pomegranates, and wide-spreading fig-trees, at an altitude of thirteen hundred feet above the sea, which is distant as the crow flies about five miles. It commands a magnificent view of it and of the picturesque ruin of Athlit on its projecting promontory, while a smiling valley, the sloping hills of which are partially cultivated and partially covered with copse-wood, winds down to a wild gorge between whose precipitous cliffs one enters the plain of Sharon.