"_Sept_. 12. Went to B.'T., and spent the day in conversing with the large family of sheiks there. These sheiks govern, under the Emir, all this part of Lebanon. The greater part of them appear resolved to become Christians at all hazards. Alas! how little do they know of that religion, which they profess to be so anxious to embrace. The mother of the sheiks in A. is married to the most powerful sheik in B.'T., and she sent word to her children, encouraging them to become Christians, and approving also of their plan to place the youngest boys in our seminary. "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." Two days later, several sheiks camp down from the mountains, with an apparent determination to take houses, and receive religious instruction; declaring their wish not to return to the mountains until they had been both instructed and baptized. The same day, two Druzes came as agents from a large clan of their people residing in Anti-Lebanon, three days from Beirut, professing to treat in behalf of their whole community. In the evening, several leading Druzes came from Andara, the highest habitable part of Lebanon, professing to act in the name of their whole village, and earnestly requesting the mission to open schools, build a church, and baptize them all forthwith. The missionary preached to them till a late hour, and they promised to come again after a few days. They kept their promise, and stated that they had made arrangements with the people of several villages to unite together, and all declare themselves Christians at the same time; hoping that the Emir, when he saw so many of them of one mind, would not venture to execute the plans of cruel persecution, with which they were threatened. Mr. Thomson now found it necessary to call in the aid of Mr. Hebard and Mr. Lanneau. The Emir Beshir, urged on by the Papal priests, now sent for the young Druze sheiks, and threatened them with the full measure of his wrath. This occasioned a division among them, some through fear siding with the Emir. The father of several young sheiks,--a venerable old man, with rank and talents to give him extensive influence,--being at Beirut, declared in oriental style his attachment to the Gospel, and his intended adherence to it. The excitement among the Druzes continued, and visitors from all parts of Lebanon thronged the house of the missionary, till winter rendered communication with the mountains difficult.