8vo. viii, 122 pp., [2 adverts], half-title, original embossed cloth, faded & worn, new spine and end papers, preserving the original spine, copy inside clean and in very good condition, John Murray, London, third edition, 1861.

Synopsis

First edition of this early work by the great nineteenth-century politician Lord Carnarvon was published in late 1860, a year which had seen a major outbreak of violence between Druzes and Maronites in the Lebanon and Syria. ‘While at Oxford, Carnarvon formed a lifelong friendship with Lord Sandon, later third Earl of Harrowby. Shortly after graduating, the two men made an adventurous journey to Asia Minor, reaching Babylon, then relatively little visited. From his observations in Damascus, Carnarvon later published [this work]’ (Oxford D.N.B).
‘Recent events in the Lebanon have alone suggested – perhaps I should say alone justify – the publication of this slight sketch of the Druse, and of their singular faith. My visit was too short to allow me to study for myself many of those questions of domestic and political economy which are of interest and value at the present time; and I have therefore, in my personal recollections of the people and country, preferred to reproduce only the general impressions made on my mind, without engrafting on them embellishment or addition, for which I must have been indebted to the larger experience of other travellers’ (Introduction).