These villages of the Lebanon, peopled by Druses, were silent and sad. The children even appeared grave. The men, robust mountaineers, with ruddy complexions, wore the black and white abaye and the immaculate turban with narrow and symmetrical folds. The women, strongly built and rather common-looking, save for their eyes, which were perfectly beautiful, displayed a picturesque costume: blue dress open at the neck and on the bosom, which it left entirely uncovered; embroidered trousers, and, above all, on the head, a strange edifice simulating a horn. A high cone of silver, of copper or of pasteboard, according to the conditions, bent backwards and veiled by a muslin handkerchief which fell back over the shoulders, and which the wind caused to float gracefully. They concealed it with a jealous care, replying to the travellers who proposed to buy it from them that they would prefer to part with their heads. Love carried so far that they did remove it even to sleep and combed themselves until Doomsday. From their hair hung three silken cords decorated with green, blue or red tassels. Lady Hester, wishing to see, with her own eyes, if the Druses eat raw meat, as she had been told many times, bought a sheep and collected some villagers. The guests, feeling themselves the object of the assembly, added no doubt many supplementary grimaces and gluttonous attitudes, which left the doctor under a bad impression. It did not prevent the sheep from disappearing in the twinkling of an eye, including the tail, which was large and greasy. The doctor had lost his servant, who, inconsolable for having left the onions of Egypt, had gone back to his own country. One morning, when he was lamenting his loss on his doorstep, he saw appear a long raw-boned individual, thin and dried up, dressed in sombre garments and exhibiting a turban of doubtful black. This new-comer, in a French seasoned with a Gascon accent, offered himself with eloquence as valet, cook, guide and interpreter. Bewildered, the doctor succumbed beneath the torrent of words, the vigorous gestures, the expressive mimicry, while examining the pointed and angular outline, the bony and deeply-lined face, the cavernous and bright eyes. Curiosity aiding necessity (the caravan was on the eve of starting for Damascus), he engaged this extraordinary person. The information which he gathered in the village was favourable enough. Pierre is mad, they told him, and everyone knows that in the East madness is of no importance.