Abu Asaad says the Nusairy Sheikh who was arrested some months ago has been poisoned.  Poisoning used to be very common in Syria.  If we should call at the house of a Nusairy, and he brought coffee for us to drink, he would take a sip himself out of the cup before giving it to us, to show that it was not poisoned.  Once Uncle S. and Aunt A. were invited out to dine in Hums at the house of the deacon of the church.  His mother is an ignorant woman, and had often threatened to kill him.  When they had eaten, they suddenly were taken ill, and suffered much from the effects of it.  It was found that the mother had put poison into the food, intending to kill her son, the missionaries, and the other invited guests, but through the mercy of God none of them were seriously injured.

Michaiel says that they have only half a crop of corn this year, as the locusts devoured the other half in the spring.  You remember I sent you some locusts’ wings once, in a letter.  When they appear in the land, the Pashas and Mudirs and Kaimakams give orders to the people to go out and gather the eggs of the locusts as soon as they begin to settle down to bury themselves in the earth.  The body of the female locust is like the spawn of a fish, filled with one mass of eggs.  Each man is obliged to bring so many ounces of these eggs to the Pasha and have them weighed and then burned.  A tailor of Beirut brought a bag of them, and as it was late, put them in his shop for the night and went home.  He was unwell for a few days and when he went to his shop again, opened the door, and thousands of little black hopping creatures, like imps, came like a cloud into his face.  They had hatched out in his absence.

This is a fearful land for lying; in these mountains around us, you cannot depend on a word you hear.  The people say that in the beginning of the world, Satan came down to the earth with seven bags of lies, which he intended to distribute in the seven kingdoms of the earth.  The first night after he reached the earth he slept in Syria, and opened one of the bags, letting the lies loose in the land.  But while he was asleep, some one came and opened all the other bags! so that Syria got more than her share!

An old man in Beirut once said, “Sir, you must be careful what you believe, and whom you trust in this country.  If there are twenty-four inches of hypocrisy in the world, twenty-three are in Syria.”  This man was a native of great experience.  I think he was rather severe on his countrymen.  Yet the people have had a hard training.  The Nusairiyeh all lie.  They do not even pretend to tell the truth.  The Druze religion teaches the people that it is right to lie to all except Druzes.  The Moslems are better than either of these two classes, but they lie without a blush, and you must be very careful how you believe them.