ill. He had arrived, and had had a most cordial reception, but he had

been dispirited by not getting a single one of my letters, which all arrived in a heap afterwards. He had gone down over and over again to meet me, and I had not appeared, and now the steamer that I had come in, was the only one he did not go down to meet, so that when he came in from his walk, it was a pleasant surprise to him to find me ensconced comfortably in his room; and I found the enclosed scribbled on the corner of his journal, anent my non-arrival--

"'Twas born, thou whisperest, born in heaven, And heavenly births may never die; While truth is pure of leasing's leaven, I hear and I believe then--I! Heaven-born, thy love is born to be An heir of immortality.

"And yet I hear a small voice say, But yesterday 'twas not begot; It lives its insect-life to-day, To-morrow death shall be its lot. Peace, son of lies! cease, Satan, cease To mumble timeworn lies like these!"

A few persons who disliked the appointment, and certain missionaries who feared that he was anti-missionary, and have since handsomely acknowledged their mistake, took measures to work upon Lord Clarendon on the plea that he was too fond of Mohammedans, that he had performed a pilgrimage to Mecca, and that their fanaticism would lead to troubles and dangers. On becoming aware that he had lived in the East, and with Moslems, for many years after his pilgrimage, Lord Clarendon, with that good taste and justice which always characterized him, refused to change his appointment until that fanaticism was proved. He had the pleasure of reporting to him a particularly friendly reception. He wrote before he left London--

"I now renew in writing the verbal statement, in which I assured your lordship that neither the authorities nor the people of Damascus will show for me any but a friendly feeling; that, in fact, they will receive me as did the Egyptians and the people of Zanzibar for years after my pilgrimage to Mecca. But, as designing persons may have attempted to complicate the situation, I once more undertake to act with unusual prudence, and under all circumstances to hold myself, and myself only, answerable for the consequences."

Though he had not received his barat (_exequatur_) and firman till October 27th, he exchanged friendly unofficial visits with his Excellency, the _Wali_ (Governor-General) of Syria. Then he was honoured with the visits of all the prelates of the Oriental Churches, as well as by a great number of the most learned and influential Moslems, and of the principal Christians. Amongst them were his Highness the Amir Abd el Kadir, his Excellency the Bishop of the Greek Orthodox Church, the Syrian Orthodox and the Syrian Catholic Bishops, the Archimandrite Jebara of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Shaykh el Ulemá (Abdullah Effendi el Hálabi), the Shaykh el Molawíyyeh of Koniah, Ali Pasha el Aazam, and Antun Effendi Shami; Said Effendi Ustuwáneh, President of the Criminal Court of Damascus and its dependencies; Mohammed Effendi el Minnini, Vice-President of the Criminal Court of Appeal; the Mufti Mahmúd Effendi Hamzeh; Shaykh Mohammed Effendi el Hálabi, member of the Lower Court, and several others.

All these dignitaries evinced much pleasure and satisfaction at his being appointed H.M.'s Consul in their City. Some of them, indeed, earnestly requested him to interest the English public in forming a company for making railways through Syria, that being the sole means of bringing about the civilization of the country.

In conclusion, notwithstanding Abdullah Effendi, the Chief of the Ulemá, being the most learned, influential, and Orthodox Moslem, and though it is not consistent with his principles to call upon any Christian before being visited, he did so; and, after an interview of fifty minutes, departed with a promise to renew the visit.

Owing to the great quantity of fountains and tanks about the house, neuralgia had set in, and Richard had not been getting any sleep; so the following day we cast about for a better sort of living-place, and a quarter of an hour away, through the gardens of Damascus, higher up than Damascus, and just under and on the north of Jebel Kaysún, the Camomile Mountain, in what is _called_ a wild and lawless Kurdish village, we found a house that suited us,[1] and we took it, and moved into it next day, starting with a small quantity of furniture, but soon made it very comfortable. After all said and done, although some of the houses in Damascus were very grand and very romantic, they were all damp; cold in winter; suffocating, from being closed in, in summer. If there is an epidemic, it is like being hived. If there is an _émeute_, you are like a mouse in a trap. If there is a fire at night, you are safely locked within the town gates. Ours was a freer and wilder life; you could mount your horse, and be out in the desert in ten minutes, or in Damascus either.

Mr. and Lady Adelaide Law arrived in Damascus, and I took her to Lady Ellenborough and to Abd el Kadir. It was her father, Lord Londonderry, whose diplomacy with Louis Napoleon delivered this great hero from imprisonment in the Château d'Amboise, and he received her with effusion. Later on came Lord Stafford (present Duke of Sutherland), Mr. Crawley, and Mr. Barty Mitford.

[Sidenote: _We go to Palmyra, or Tadmor in the Desert._]

We were soon installed, and bought horses, and I began to study Arabic. The first thing Richard determined to do was to go to Tadmor. This journey was an awfully difficult thing in those days, though I am not aware whether it is now. First of all, six thousand francs used to be charged by the El Mezrab, who were the tribe who escorted for that journey. It was the tribe of Lady Ellenborough and her Bedawin husband, and she was more Bedawin than the Bedawi. There was no water, that is, only two wells the whole way, and only known to them. The difficulties and dangers were great; they travelled by night and hid by day. You may say that camels were about ten days on the road, and horses about eight days. The late Lady Ellenborough was the third of a small knot of ladies, of whom I had hoped to make the fifth--Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Lady Hester Stanhope, Lady Ellenborough, and the Princesse de la Tour d'Auvergne.

[Sidenote: _We go without an Escort._]

Lady Ellenborough was married to a Bedawin, brother to the Chief, and second in command of the tribe of El Mezrab, a small branch of the great Anazeh tribe. She aided the tribe in concealing the wells and levying blackmail on Europeans who wished to visit Palmyra, which brought in considerable sums to the tribe, whose demand was six thousand francs a head (£240). Richard was determined to go, and we had not the money to throw away; he asked me whether I would be willing to risk it, and I said, what I always did, "Whither thou goest, I will go." Lady Ellenborough was in a very anxious state when she heard this announcement, as she knew it was the death-blow to a great source of revenue to the tribe. She was very intimate with us, and distantly connected by marriage with my family, and she would have favoured us, if she could have done it without abolishing the whole system. She did all she could to dissuade us; she wept over our loss, and she told us that we should never come back--indeed, everybody advised us to make our wills; finally, she offered us the escort of one of her Mezrabs, that we might steer clear of the Bedawi raids, and be conducted quicker to water, _if it existed_. Richard made me a sign to accept the escort, and we did.

From our earliest married days, one of his peculiarities (used rather, I suspect, for training me to observe him, and to understand his wants) would be that he would not tell me directly to do a thing, but I used to find in a book I was reading, or some drawer that I opened every day, or in his own room, marked by a weight, a few words of what he wanted, conveying no direct order, and yet I knew that it was one. I grew quite accustomed to this, and used regularly to visit the places where I was likely to find them, and if I missed there was a sort of "Go seek" expression on his face, that told me that I had not hunted properly, and I knew (by another expression) when I had succeeded. I used to call these "African spoors." We could almost talk before outsiders in this way, without speaking a word out loud.

On the same principle, he used to teach me to swim without my arms, and afterwards to swim without my legs, using either one or the other, but not both, in case of falling out of a steamer and being entangled.

I mention this, because we always talked before people without their perceiving it, and he told me in this way exactly what to say to her; but we provided ourselves with seventeen camels, laden with water, in case of accident. We had each two horses, and everything necessary for tenting out, and were armed to the teeth. We had a very picturesque breakfast, affectionate farewells--the _Mushir_ and the whole cavalcade to see us out of the town. We cleared Damascus and its environs by a three hours' march; then Richard, according to his custom, called a halt, and we camped out and picketed, because, he said, it would be so easy to send back for anything, if aught were missing.

We eventually reached Da'as Agha, the Chief of Jerúd, who has a hundred and fifty fighting men. These little villages in the middle of a desert are sometimes very acceptable for the renewal of provisions. This Jerúd was a large one, and was surrounded with salt and gypsum. After this there was only one more village, Atneh, till the Great Karryatayn, in the heart of the desert. Here we were told of some underground curiosities, and we stopped to dig, and discovered an old catacomb. The women only wear one garment; they are covered with coins, and bits of stone made into necklaces and charms against the evil eye. After this we had a long desert ride, and were caught in a dust-storm. A dust-storm is no joke; you may lie down and perhaps make your horse lie, and cover yourself up with rugs, but if it is a bad storm, like a snowstorm, you may be buried. Richard advised our galloping through it, laying the reins on the horses' necks, and letting them go where they would, for, he said, they would know a great deal more than we should; so, covering our faces up in our _kuffíyyehs_--for, as far as heads and shoulders went, we dressed like natives--we gave our horses their heads, and they went at a rattling pace, and about three hours took us out of the storm. Richard and I were alone; all the rest lagged behind. When the horses once got out of the storm (they seemed to understand all about it--one was desert bred and took the lead), they relapsed into a walk till they got cool. We then went by the compass in the direction we meant to take, and were joined eventually by our followers.

We now had to sleep in our clothes, revolvers and guns at our sides, and make our men take turn to watch, in case of an attack from a _ghazú_, or Bedawi raid, and we took off the camels' bells. A _ghazú_ may pass you in the night, and if you are quite silent, and a foal does not whinny, nor a dog bark, you are all right; but those are the two things you have to dread. I ought to have said that, though we accepted the escort, we were not hoodwinked. I kept taking stock of our Mezrab between Damascus and our first halt, and I thought he had an uncanny and _amused_ look; so I rode up to Richard, and told him, in a language that was not understood, what I thought. Richard gave a grim smile, as Ouida says, "under his moustache," and said, "Yes, I have thought all that out too. Mohammed Agha, come here."

Whatever Richard told Mohammed to do, he did it thoroughly. If he wanted a culprit that had run away, he would say, "Bring me So-and-so, Mohammed." "Eywallah! ya Sidi Beg" (Yes, by Allah, my Lord Beg); and he would go off, saying, "If he were in hell I would have him out." Once he brought a man kicking and struggling under his arm, and put him down before Richard, saying, "There he is, your Excellency."

This faithful Afghan had served him in India, and he had accidentally found him in Damascus, and made him his chief _kawwás_. He now rode up. Richard gave him a few orders in Afghani, which no one else understood. He saluted and retired. When we got about three hours away from Damascus in the open desert, the Bedawin had his mare and his arms taken from him, and was mounted on a baggage mule. Every kindness was shown to him, and he enjoyed every comfort that we had, but two mounted guard over him day and night, and he was thus powerless. We knew quite well that the Bedawin, on his thoroughbred mare, would have curveted off in circles, pretending to look for wells, when in reality he would have fetched the tribe down upon us, and we should have been captured; orders would have been given to respect and treat us well, and then we should have to be ransomed, and this would have _proved_ the impossibility of visiting Palmyra without a Bedawi escort at six thousand francs a head, and the Foreign Office would have smartly reproved, and perhaps recalled, their Consul for running such a risk. We stuck our Mezrab up for a show, to prove that we had a Bedawin escort, whenever Bedawi raids were near, but he was not allowed to move or to make a sign. Da'as joined us with ten of his men, and whenever there was the smallest occasion for joy or self-congratulation, they used to do a _Jeríd_. When I say the men are riding _Jeríd_, I mean that they are galloping about violently, firing from horseback at full speed, yelling, hanging over in their stirrups with their bridles in their mouth, playing with and quivering their long feathered lances in the air, throwing them and catching them again at full gallop, picking things from the ground that they have thrown there, firing pistols, throwing themselves under the horses' bellies and firing under them at full gallop, yelling and shouting their war-cry, as Buffalo Bill's cowboys do, only far more picturesque figures, with their many-coloured dresses, and better mounted on their beautiful mares. The wildness of the whole spectacle is very refreshing; but you have to be a good rider yourself, as the horses simply go wild.

On one occasion we saw a large body, apparently of mounted Bedawi. We waved and whistled our stragglers in, and drew up in line; the others did the same. We fully expected a charge. By this time I had transformed myself into a boy (Richard's son)--found it more convenient for riding long distances, and for running away. It _sounds_ indecent, but all Arab clothes are so baggy and draping that it little matters whether you are dressed as a man or woman. So he let me ride out with two other horsemen from the ranks forward (it would have been undignified for _him_ to do so, being in command of the party); they did the same, and this is what it proved to be--the Shaykh and his fighting men on the part of a distant village, and a priest on the part of the Archbishop of Karryatayn, with invitations. All the men embraced, my hand was kissed, and we were escorted back in great triumph, riding _Jeríd_ as before. We rode to the village of the Shaykh, and we sent on others with our letters to Omar Beg, the Brigadier at that time commanding troops at Karryatayn, because they expected a revolt of the tribes.

We eventually arrived at Karryatayn. We were treated with great hospitality by Omar Beg, and when we left he accompanied us a little way with an immense cavalcade, which was very picturesque and pretty. We saw a mirage that day in the desert, and were very tired, and had to sleep with our arms, without undressing. We then had a somewhat dangerous defile to pass through mountains, where we found a well. I had invented a capital way of watering the beasts. Man can always draw water, but nobody thinks of the horses, and in a cup or tin pot you cannot get enough water for them. I had bags made of skins, exactly like a huge tobacco-pouch with ropes, and whenever we came to inaccessible water _these_ were lowered until every animal had drank its fill. At each of these places, Jerúd, Atneh, and Karryatayn, several who had been longing to go to Tadmor wanted to join us, secure of protection, of food for themselves, and corn for their animals without paying a farthing for it. We increased to a hundred and sixty persons, and some had one and some two animals. I had one man with me as my own servant, a Syrian Christian, who gave us a great deal of trouble. He was very clever, and the best dancer; but the second or third day after a hard day's ride, the horses were dead beat, and instead of taking his horse and watering and feeding it, and putting it in shelter as I desired, he drew his sword and cut its throat, in hopes of being allowed to ride my second horse, so I ordered him off to the baggage in the rear. No Moslem would have done such a thing. I never liked him after. We could not turn the man out to die in the desert, but the day that we got back to Damascus, my husband sent him to prison, for that and thefts in the houses where we stayed.

We met with another _ghazú_ before we arrived, but we imposed on them by calling a halt, planting the flag, showing our Bedawin, and ordering breakfast to be spread. We then improvised a _tir_ by planting a lance in the sand at a good distance, with a pumpkin at the top, or an orange, and showed them how far our rifles would carry, and the _ghazú_ being mounted on mares, not camels, we were not attacked. A few of ours curveted about, preparatory to bolting, but my husband called out to the men to form into line, and then he shouted, "The first man who leaves this line, I'll shoot him in the back as he rides away." That made them settle down.

[Sidenote: _Tadmor._]

The first sight of Palmyra makes you think it is a regiment of cavalry drawn out in single line on the horizon; it was the most imposing sight I ever looked upon, though I have seen plenty of other ruins. It is so gigantic, so extensive, so bare, so desolate, rising out of, and partially buried in a sea of sand. There is something that almost takes your breath away about this splendid City of the Dead. When you are alone and gazing in silence upon her solitary grandeur, you feel as if you were wandering in some unforgotten world, and respect and wonder bid you hush like a child amidst the tombs of a long-closed and forgotten churchyard. This was the Tadmor built by Solomon, as a safe halt for the treasures of India and Persia passing through the desert (2 Paralipomenon or Chronicles viii. 4), "And he built Tadmor in the wilderness, and all the store cities, which he built in Hamar." Read also 3 Kings or 1 King ix. 18.

I shall never forget the imposing sight of Tadmor. There is nothing so deceiving as distance in the desert. At sea you may calculate it, but in the desert you never can. A distant ruin stands out of the sea of sand, the atmosphere is so clear that you think you will reach it in half an hour; you ride all day and you never seem to get any nearer to it, just as if it receded in proportion as you advanced. We camped outside, close to the great colonnade. We had five tents, our free-lances ten, the rest of the party theirs, and the animals close by. There were four sulphurous streams; we kept one to drink, and one to bathe, and two for the animals. There is a height of rock on which is a castle; the mountain-top was cruised all around with an infinity of labour to form a drawbridge and moat. The ascent is exceedingly steep. On two sides is a fine range of mountains, on the other two a desert of sand, stretching far away like a yellow sea. The ruins and a small oasis caused by the foundation lie at our feet. It is possible that Tadmor once spread over all the irrigated part of the plain. A few orchards, and the splendid ruins, and a handful of wretched people have huts plastered like wasps' nests within them. The whole City must have been composed of parallel streets, and similar streets crossing them, some formed by immense columns, and stretching far over the plains, and cornered by temples and castles. The Temple of the Sun was carved from great blocks of rock from the mountains; has some fine cornices, some still perfect. In one direction there is a falling wall on the slant, as if it was arrested in falling. It has a square court of seven hundred and forty feet each side, encompassed by a wall seventy feet high. The central door is thirty-two feet high and sixteen wide. The temple still has one hundred columns standing. The few people who live there are disgusting and ophthalmic.

The tombs are a great interest--tall square towers with a handsome frontage. Inside are four stories. The ceilings are beautiful; the entrances are lined with Corinthian columns and busts. There are tiers to the very top for bodies. One contained one hundred bodies. One bore a 102 B.C. date, one Anno Domini 2--evidently a very swell family, and all speaking of sad ruined grandeur. The ruins are enormous and extensive, and simply splendid. I cannot describe the sensation of being in a great City of the Dead, and thinking over all the story of Zenobia and her capture, especially by moonlight. The simoom blew our tents nearly down part of the time. Richard discovered caves, and he spent several days excavating. We found human curios, human bones, and skulls with hair on them, which we brought home. There is a sulphurous river, bright as crystal, and tepid with the properties of Vichy. Water issues from a cavernous hole in the mountain, and streams through Palmyra. A separate spring, of the same quality, bubbles up in the sand near it. The Damascenes send for Vichy water; why don't they get it from here? We also found some Greek statues; one of Zenobia, life size. Some of our men were taken with _wahteb_, a disease peculiar to Syria, and hereditary--a sort of convulsions or hysteria. They generally get a firstborn to tread up and down the back, but I brought them to quicker with doses of hot brandy and water. We returned by a different route part of the way. There is a well-known river and outwork six hours' ride away from Palmyra, called Selamíyyah, and bearing east-south-east of the Mount of Hamah. Here begins a high rolling ground called El Aláh, which we come to later on. We had very bad weather, and our tents were nearly carried away at night. We had a wild-boar hunt on the way. We fell in with fifty Bedawi; they were not strong enough to attack us, but we had to stick to our baggage. Our usual day in the desert (in which we lived off and on) was as follows:--

[Sidenote: _Camp Life--Our Travelling Day--Night Camps._]

The usual travelling day is that those who had anything to do rose two hours before starting, but those who had not got into their saddles at dawn. Being, as one may say, head _sais_, or groom, I saw the horses groomed, fed, watered, and saddled. Our dragomans[2] attended to striking the tents and the baggage. We started at dawn, and rode until the sun was unbearable; we then halted for one or two hours. The animals were ungirthed, fed, and watered, and we had our food and smoke, and perhaps a short sleep; after which we mounted, and rode till near sunset. We then halted for the night. The tents were pitched. If we were near an inhabited place Richard sat in state on his divan and received the Chiefs with _narghíleh_ and sherbet; I saluted, and walked off with the horses. I had drilled my people so well that they were all drawn up in line; at one word of command, off with the bridles, and on with the head-stalls; at another word the saddles off, the perspiring backs rubbed with a handful of _raki_, to prevent galls, and the horse-cloths thrown on. They were then led about to cool for a quarter of an hour, then ridden down to water, if there was any, or watered out of the skins if there were not, and their nose-bags put on with _tibn_--straw chopped up as fine as mincemeat, the hay of this country--then picketed in a ring, heels out, heads in, hobbled fore and aft, and grooms in the middle.

I would then go back to my husband, and sit on the divan at a respectful distance and in respectful attitude, speak little, and be invited to have a sherbet or _narghíleh_. I then saluted, and went to see the horses groomed for the night, and get their suppers; then I returned to my husband's tent, supper and bed, and to-morrow _da capo_. The baggage animals, with provisions and water, are directed to a given place so many hours in advance by the compass. One man of our riding-party slings on the saddle-bags, containing something to eat and drink; another hangs a water-melon or two to his saddle, another the skins to draw water for the horses, and another or two, nose-bags with corn. We ride on till about eleven, and dismount at the most convenient place, and water as we go along, if there is any. The horses' girths are slackened, their bridles changed for halters; they drink, if possible, and their nose-bags are filled with one measure of barley. We eat, smoke, and sleep for one hour or two; we then ride on again till we reach our tents.

We are supposed to find them pitched, mattresses and blankets spread, mules and donkeys free and rolling to refresh themselves, baggage stacked, the gypsy-pot over a good fire, and perhaps a glass of lemonade or a cup of coffee ready for us. It does sometimes happen that we miss our camp, that we have the ground for bed, the saddle for pillow, and the water-melon for supper. Richard used to take all the notes, sketches, observations, and maps, and gather all the information. The sketches and maps were Charles Drake's business, when with us. I acted as secretary and aide-de-camp, and had the care of the stable and any sick or wounded men; I could also help him with the sextant, and with some of his scientific instruments.

A short day's riding would be eight hours, a very long one would be thirteen, and we generally stayed at any place of interest till it was exhausted. In this way we saw all Syria, Palestine, and the Holy Land off the beaten tracks, and through the deserts, the Haurán and wild places included. I do not like to say too much about it, because my two volumes of "Inner Life of Syria," which were published in 1875, and "Unexplored Syria," written by Richard, Charley Drake, and me (2 vols., 1872), have mostly told everything. These will be republished in the Uniform Library.

Camping out is the most charming thing in the world, and its scenes will always live in my memory. It is a very picturesque life, although hard, but one gets so used to it, as quite to dislike a house. I can never forget some of those lovely nights in the desert, as after supper we all sat round in circles; the mules, donkeys, camels, horses, and mares picketed about, screaming, kicking, and holloaing; the stacked loads, the big fires, the black tents, the Turkish soldiers, the picturesque figures in every garb, and wild and fierce-looking men in wonderful costumes lying here and there, singing and dancing barbarous dances (especially the sword-dance); or stories told, or Richard reciting the "Arabian Nights," or poor Palmer chanting Arab poetry, or Charley Drake practising magic to astonish the Mogháribehs, though neither of these two were with us _then_. A glorious moon lights our tripod and kettle; the jackals howl and chatter as they sniff the savoury bones, and if you can remain breathless, it is the prettiest thing to see them gambol in the moonlight, jumping over one another's backs, but if one, smelling food, runs round your tent when all are asleep, the shadow on the white canvas is so large that it frightens you. A distant pack coming along sounds like the war-cry of the Bedawi booming down upon you; their yell is unearthly as it sweeps by you, passes, and dies away in the distance. I used to love the sound, because it told me I was in camp, by far the most delightful form of existence when the weather is not too cruel.

Madame Omar Beg's two pets were a hyæna, which received me at the gate, and a lynx that lay upon the divan. The first put its fore-paws on my shoulders and smelt my cheek, and did "pouf" (like a bellows blowing in your face) to frighten me; and the other sprang at me and mewed and lashed its tail. For sheer fright I stood stock still and they did nothing to me, and amused Madame Omar immensely when she came in.

Camel-riding is very pleasant, if it is a _delúl_ with a long trot, but a slow walk is horribly tedious, a baggage animal is bone-breaking, and a gallop would be utter annihilation. A _shugduf_ or _takhtarawán_ shakes you till you are sore. The nicest mount is horse or mare--mare safer; but Richard did a very wise thing--he chose _rahwáns_. They run an American trot, and there is no more fatigue in riding them than sitting in an armchair. You have only to sit still and let them go, and they cover enormous spaces in the day; so he used to arrive perfectly fresh when we were all tired out. I possessed a couple of stallions. I was headstrong and foolish, and I would ride them, because I hated the _rahwáns_' paces; so I took a great deal more out of myself than I need have done, as they generally danced for a couple of hours before they settled down to their work. However much you may love the desert and camp life, when you have had your fill of it, I cannot tell how refreshing it is to see the first belt of green, like something dark lining the horizon, and to long to reach it. When you enter by degrees under the trees, the orchards, the gardens of Damascus, you smell the water from afar, and you hear its gurgling long before you come to the rills and fountains; you scent and then see the fruit--the limes, figs, citron, water-melon; you feel a madness to jump into the water, to eat your fill of fruit, to go to sleep under the delicious shade.

[Sidenote: _Return Home after Desert._]

Such is entering Damascus. You forget the bitter wind, the scorching sun, the blistering sand; you wonder if it is true that you are going to have a bath, to change your clothes, to sleep in a real bed, without having to watch against Bedawi, or if your brain is hurt by the sun, or if your blinded eyes are seeing a mirage. Your tired, drooping horse tells you it is true; he pricks his ears, he wants to break out into a mild trot; done up as he is, he stops to drink at every rill, and, with a low whinny of joy, gathers a mouthful of grass at every crop. You who have never travelled in the desert do not know what _water_ means. I have seen forty Bedawi race to a hole in a rock where as much rainwater had gathered as would fill a hand-basin, fling themselves off their horses, bend and put their lips to it, and then courteously make way for each other. You will see people in the East sitting, in what would appear to you a placid idiotcy of delight, by a little trickling stream not a foot wide, with a _narghíleh_, and calling it _kayf_, which means _dolce far niente_, or "sweet do-nothing."

OUR HOUSE.

"Though old as history itself, thou art fresh as the breath of Spring, blooming as thine own rosebud, as fragrant as thine own orange flower, O Damascus, Pearl of the East!"

Our house in Damascus overhung the road and opposite gardens, with projecting lattice windows, was bounded on the right by a Mosque, on the left by a _Hammám_ (Turkish bath), and front and back by gardens. On the other side of the road, among the apricot orchards, I had a capital stable for twelve horses, with a good room for _saises_ (grooms), and a small garden with the river running through it. As soon as you got out of our village there was a bit of desert sand, and a background of tall yellow-coloured mountain, called Jebel Kaysún, or the Camomile Mountain, and that was what our village smelt of. When you entered our house, you came into a square courtyard, coarsely painted in broad stripes of red, white, and blue. All around were orange, lemon, and jessamine trees, a fountain playing in the middle, opposite the _liwán_, a raised room with one side taken out of it, open on to the court, spread with carpets and divans, and the niches filled with plants. Here, on hot days, one receives and offers coffee, lemonade, sherbet, chibouques, _narghílehs_, and cigarettes. On one side is a dining-room, on the other a cool sitting-room; all the rest is for servants and offices. Upstairs, six rooms run round two sides of the courtyard; a long terrace occupies the other two sides, joining and opening into the room at either end. There is a cool house-top with plants, to spread mats and divans, to sit amongst the flowers under the trees and by the Mosque-minaret, to look either towards our mountain, or over Damascus and the gardens, and inhale the desert-air from the other side of Damascus.

We also made a beautiful arbour in the garden opposite, which contained chiefly roses and jessamine. By lifting up the overladen vines and citrons, and branches of the lemon and orange trees, and supporting them on a frame-work, so that no sun could penetrate their luxuriance; we had a divan made under them for the cool summer evenings near the rushing river, and many happy hours of _kayf_ we passed there. The Mosque next door to us, seemed to be built round and clung to a huge vine tree, which spread up and down all over it and its terrace, and the _Muezzin's_ Minaret and my study window were cheek by jowl. The village was charming--domes and minarets peeping out of trees, bubbling streams, the music of the water-wheel.

[Sidenote: _Native Life._]

Whenever we were in Eastern life, whether in Syria or elsewhere, we always made a point of being thoroughly English and European in our Consulate; but, when _not_ obligatory, we used to live a great deal _with_ the natives, and _as_ the natives, for the purpose of experience. We wore European dress in Damascus and Beyrout, and we wore native dress up the country or in the desert. It was as easy for me to wear men's dress as my own, because it was all drapery, and does not in the least show the figure. There is nothing but the face to tell by, and if you tuck up your _kuffíyyah_ you show only half a face, or only the eyes. Thus we would eat what they ate. If I went to stay with a harem, I always went in my own clothes; but if I went to the bazar, I frequently used to dress like a Moslemah with my face covered, and sit in the shops in the bazar, and let my Arab maid do all the talking lest I might be suspected, that I might hear all the gossip, and enter something into their lives. And the women frequently took me into the mosques in the same way, knowing who I was.

We attended _every sort_ of ceremony, whether it was a circumcision, or a wedding, or a funeral, or a dervishes' dance, or anything that was going on, or any religious ceremony--my husband to the Cafés and the Mosques, the evening story-tellers' haunts; I to the charm shops, where the _khosis_ (fortune-tellers) hang out and administer love philters or, in short, every sort of thing, and mix with all classes, religions, and races and tongues. My husband's friendship with Mohammedans, and his knowledge of Arabic and Persian, the language of literature, put him in intimate relation with the Arab tribes and all the chief authorities, and the _only man_ who could not get on with him was the Turkish _Wali_, or Governor-General, Rashíd Pasha.

[Sidenote: _The Arabic Library at Damascus._]

I cannot do better than copy Spyr. R. Lambros's letter describing the Arabic Library at Damascus, which was a rich find for Richard:--

"The library was founded by the Ommayads. The building is situate near the stately Djami which bears their name. It has a great stone vault supported upon four columns, and ornamented with mosaics. Not so long ago it was restored with much taste under the superintendence of the Governor of Syria, Achmet Hamdi Pasha, a favourite of the Sultan Abdul Hamid. There is no proper catalogue of this library, nor is it arranged. Several of the manuscripts are moth-eaten and much injured by damp. Still there exist in it valuable papyri, as well as manuscripts on parchment and paper. Among them, according to M. Papadopulos, a conspicuous place is due to a history of Damascus in nineteen large volumes. A great deal that is new is to be found in them regarding the City and its walls, as well as about the fine arts in Damascus. This codex is a jewel of Arabic literature, and an inexhaustible source for the whole annals of the city.

"The collection of old Arabic papyri is rich. There are several that throw light on obscure periods of Arabic history and poetry, or deal with the general history of Arabs and their literature. 'Some of these papyri are as late as the fifteenth century, and may be considered,' says M. Papadopulos, 'as copies of various monuments in stone.' On papyrus rolls are to be found whole collections of poems by celebrated Arab authors, of whom Ibn Khaldoun is the most notable. Others contain decrees of the Emirs of Damascus.

"M. Papadopulos mentions also a history on parchment of the Tartars, by Abulghazi Bahadur, and a history and geography of Damascus and Palmyra, by Abulfeda. Although M. Papadopulos gives no details regarding these writings, one can identify the history of Abulghazi as that which was discovered by Swedish officers in the captivity after the battle of Pultowa, 1709, and translated into German, and subsequently (1726) into French, and published in two volumes under the title of 'Histoire Généalogique des Tatars.' Regarding the work of Abulfeda one cannot, from the brief notice that M. Papadopulos supplies, come to any certain conclusion, whether it be a portion of the 'Annales Moslemici' or an unpublished production of the celebrated Mohammedan prince and polyhistor.

"Among the other treasures of the library are a treatise of Abul-Hassan, the Arabian astronomer of the thirteenth century; a roll of Abumazar, the astronomer (_circa_ 855), on the observatories at Bagdad and Damascus; a medical treatise of the teacher of Avicenna, Abu-Sahaal; a meteorological bulletin relating to Damascus, by Abul-Chaiz; papyrus rolls containing the Pentateuch, the Psalter, and the Gospels, in Kufic characters; papyrus rolls and others, consisting of Plato's 'Laws,' in Arabic, the 'Organon' of Aristotle, the work of Hippocrates, 'De Aëre, Aquis, et Locis,' and one containing some portions of the 'Birds' of Aristophanes (in Arabic?), and presenting variants from the received text, and the Bible, in Syriac.

"But the great prize of the library, so far as one can judge from the inadequate description given of it, is a Greek manuscript of the Old and New Testament, comprising the Epistle of Barnabas and a portion of the Shepherd of Hermas. As the discovery of it is highly interesting, I will give an exact translation of the passage referring to it.

"'One of the most important of the so-called uncial manuscripts, which contain the whole of the New Testament complete, is as follows:--

"'The manuscript is written on well-prepared parchment, and is 12½ inches wide and 13¾ inches tall. It consists of 380½ leaves, of which 200 contain the Old Testament (in the Septuagint version) incomplete; but 180 the whole of the New Testament, the Epistle of Barnabas, and a large portion of the Shepherd of Hermas. The manuscript is divided into four columns, and in each column there are fifty lines. This manuscript may be regarded as similar to the Codex Sinaiticus, and consequently is worthy of a searching inquiry and investigation. The discovery of this gem is due to us.'

"Every reader will see that it is really a gem. Not only is the mere antiquity of the manuscript a point of importance, but also the fact that it contains a portion, and a considerable portion, of the Shepherd of Hermas, which has lately been seen in a new light, thanks to the researches and criticisms of scholars like Hilgenfeld and Harnack. It is well known that Hilgenfeld maintained that he had found the Greek conclusion, still missing, of Hermas, in a London publication of the well-known forger, Constantin Simonides (Nutt, 1859). This supposed conclusion was, after the appearance, simultaneously with Professor Hilgenfeld's conjecture, of the collation of the Athos Codex by Lambros, accompanied by an introduction by Mr. Armitage Robinson, utterly rejected by Professor Harnack, and declared to be a pure forgery of Simonides--an opinion in which I concur. Now comes the ancient manuscript from Damascus as a new document. Does it contain the conclusion of the Shepherd? Unfortunately the meagre notice supplied by M. Papadopulos neither throws light on this point nor affords us sufficient information, nor does it allow us to form any certain opinion on the whole question of the importance of the Damascene Codex and its similarity to the Sinaitic, which also contains, besides the Testament, a small portion of the Shepherd. I hope, however, to be soon in a position to give further intelligence on this important discovery.

"SPYR. R. LAMBROS."

ENVIRONS OF DAMASCUS.

[Sidenote: _The Environs of Damascus._]

The small rides and excursions round Damascus are innumerable and beautiful; they lead through garden and orchard with bubbling water, under the shady fig and vine, pomegranate and walnut. You emerge on the soft yellow sand, and you throw off your superfluous strength, by galloping as hard as you will. There is no one to check your spirits; the breath of the desert is liberty. There is Mizzeh, a village placed exactly on the borders of the green and yellow; one side looks into trees and verdure, and the other side in the bare sand. After that, you get into the desert, and to Kataná, a village three hours away, and Hámah. Jeramánah is a Druze village. Jobar is a Moslem village with a synagogue, dedicated to Elijah, and is a pilgrimage for Damascus Jews, and built over a cave, where they believe the prophet used to hide in time of persecution. A railed-off space showed where he anointed Hazael. When the prophet was at Horeb, "the Lord said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus, and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be King over Syria" (1 Kings xix. 15). Burzeh is a beautiful little village almost hidden under the mountain, nestling in verdure, and partly hidden by a cliff at the mouth of the glen. A Moslem Wely, called Makám Ibrahím (place of Abraham), assembles thousands of pilgrims on its festival day, where they practise the _Da'aseh_, meaning the treading--that is, the Shaykh riding over the prostrate bodies of the Faithful without hurting them--as at Cairo. Josephus, or rather Nicolaus of Damascus, says, "Abraham reigned at Damascus, being a foreigner who came with an army out of the land above Babylon, called the land of the Chaldean, but after a long time he got up and removed from that country, also with his people, and went into the land of Canaan, but now the land of Judea. Now, the name of Abraham is still famous in the country of Damascus, and there is shown a village named from him 'the habitation of Abraham,' and Burzeh is this village." It is still disputed whether Burzeh or Jobar is the true site of Hobah. These rides will take you from our mountain in a semicircle all round Damascus (at the distance of about an hour and a half from Damascus during the whole time), which is in our centre.

The longer excursions are the Convent of Saídnaya, considered by the Greeks to be Ptolemy's Danaba. There are also the Rock-tombs and temples of Menin Helbon, said to be the Chalybon of the Bible, once famed for its wine, exported to Tyre, noted by Ezekiel and Strabo, and horrible stuff it is, if it was the same as it is now. Then there is the village of Dhumayr, which contains a well-preserved temple, built in A.D. 246. This is the first day's station for the Baghdad camel-post, which Richard was responsible for. About two miles eastward of that, and at the foot of the lowest range of Anti-Lebanon, called Jebel el-Kaus, are the ruins of a little town and fort deserted for centuries. The desert of Arabia stretches right away to the east and south-east.

These are the little and middling runs. It was very pleasant for us, as we used to get acquainted with all the Shaykhs and people for two or three days' ride all round Damascus, and if we felt dull--which, by the way, we never did--we could run out and pay them a visit, such as Shaykh Sali's camp, passing El Bassúleh to Hijáneh. Lakes are marked on the maps a day's journey from Damascus. There are four lakes supposed to receive the Abana and Pharphar, but they are generally dry, the rivers evaporating or disappearing in the sand. You ride across the Ghutah plain, the Merj, and Abbs (the plains of Damascus) into the Wady el Ajam. It is also pleasant to ride down to the coast, seventy-two miles, and take a steamer going to Tyre, Sidon, and other coast places.

[Sidenote: _How our Days were passed._]

Richard's day, as I said, was divided into reading, writing, studying, and attending to his official work. There was one kind of duty within the town, another without the town, to scour mountain and desert, to ride hard, and to know everything that is going on in the country, and _personally_, not through dragomans only. His talents were particularly Eastern, and of a political and diplomatic kind; his knowledge of Eastern character was as perfect as his languages. He was as much needed out of the town as in it, and very often when they thought he was far away, he was amongst them, and they wondered how he knew things. I interested myself in all his pursuits, and I was a most fortunate woman that he allowed me to be his companion, his secretary, and his aide-de-camp. I looked after our house, servants, stables, and animals. I did a little gardening. I helped my husband, read and wrote, studied Arabic, received and returned visits, saw and learnt Damascus through, till I knew it like my own pocket, looked after the poor and sick of my village and its environs. Sometimes I galloped over the plains, and sat in the Bedawi tents, sometime went up all the mountains. Summer times I smoked _narghílehs_ by the waterside in a neighbour's garden. Sometimes I went to pass two or three days with a harem. Our lives were wild, romantic, and solemn. After sunset the only sounds were the last call to prayer on the Minaret top, the howling of the wild dogs, the cries of the jackals in the burial-ground outside the village, the bubbling of the fountains, the hootings of the owls in the garden, the soughing of the wind through the mountain gorges, and the noise of the water-wheel in a neighbour's orchard. There was often a free fight in the road below, to steal a mare, or to kill. We have often gone down to take some poor wretch in, and bind up his sabre-cuts.

[Sidenote: _Our Reception Day._]

I used to have a large reception every Friday, and not only of the Europeans, but the Authorities as well as the natives of every tongue, race, and creed, who used to assemble in our Divan for _narghílehs_, sherbet, and coffee. It used to begin at sunrise, and go on till sunset. How I look back to those romantic days when the assembled party, being afraid to remain in our quarters after the sun was down, used to file down through the orchards and gardens to the safe shelter of the Damascus gates at sunset, and the mattresses and cushions of the divans were spread on the housetop, backed by the romantic Jebel Kaysún, with a bit of desert sand between it and us, and on all the other three sides a view over Damascus, and its surrounding oasis, and the desert beyond!

Then the supper was prepared on the roof, and there remained with us the two most interesting and remarkable characters of Damascus, the two who never knew what fear meant--the famous Abd el Kadir and Lady Ellenborough, known there as the "Hon. Jane Digby el Mezrab." Abd el Kadir was a dark, handsome, thoroughbred-looking man, with dignified bearing and cool self-possession. He dressed in snowy white, both turban and burnous. Not a single ornament except his jewelled arms, which were splendid. If you saw him on horseback you would single him out from a million; he had the seat of a gentleman and a soldier. He was every inch a Sultan. His mind was as beautiful as his face. He spoke the perfection of Arabic, he was a true Moslem, and he and Richard were both Master-Sufi. All readers will know his history. He was the fourth son of the Algerine Marabout Abd el Kadir Mahi ed Din, and was born in 1807. You all remember his hopeless struggles for the independence of Algeria, his capture, his imprisonment in France from 1847 to 1852--a treacherous act, and a tarnish to the French Government. Lord Londonderry earnestly entreated Louis Napoleon to set him free, which he did, going to the prison himself to let him out, and treating him with the greatest honour. He pensioned him and sent him to Damascus, where he was surrounded by five hundred faithful Algerines. He divided his time into prayer, study, business, and very little sleep. He loved the English, but he was loyal to Louis Napoleon. When the massacre in 1860 took place, he used to sleep at his own door, lest any poor Christian wretch should knock and petition to be saved from slaughter, and for fear his Algerines, being Moslems, should turn a deaf ear; and he saved many, sending guards down to the convents of women, and to his friends.

[Sidenote: _A Most Interesting and Remarkable Woman._]

Our other friend was the Hon. Jane Digby, of the family of Lord Digby, married to Lord Ellenborough, and divorced. She made her home in Damascus, and eventually married a Bedawin Shaykh (Mijwal el Mezrab), the tribe of Mezrab being a branch of the great Anazeh. She was a most beautiful woman, though at the time I write she was sixty-one, tall, commanding, and queen-like. She was _grande dame au bout des doigts_, as much as if she had just left the salons of London and Paris, refined in manner and voice, nor did she ever utter a word you could wish unsaid. My husband said she was out and out the cleverest woman he ever met; there was nothing she could not do. She spoke nine languages perfectly, and could read and write in them. She painted, sculptured, was musical. Her letters were splendid; and if on business, there was never a word too much, nor a word too little. She had had a most romantic, adventurous life, and she was now, one might say, Lady Hester Stanhope's successor. She lived half the year in a romantic house she had built for herself in Damascus, and half her life she and her husband lived in his Bedawi tents, she like any other Bedawin woman, but honoured and respected as the queen of her tribe, wearing one blue garment, her beautiful hair in two long plaits down to the ground, milking the camels, serving her husband, preparing his food, giving him water to wash his hands and face, sitting on the floor and washing his feet, giving him his coffee, his sherbet, his _narghílehs_, and while he ate she stood and waited on him, and glorying in it; and when in Damascus they led semi-European lives. She looked splendid in Oriental dress, and if you saw her as a Moslem woman in the bazar you would have said she was not more than thirty-four years of age. She was my most intimate friend, and she dictated to me the whole of her biography, beginning 15th March, 1871, and ending July 7th.

After I left a report came home that she was dead. I answered some unpleasant remarks in the Press about her, throwing a halo over her memory, in which I stated that I being the possessor of the biography, no one had a right to say anything about her except myself. She reappeared again, having only been detained in the desert by the fighting of the tribes. Her relatives attacked her for having given me the biography, and she, under pressure, denied it in print through one of the missionaries, and then wrote and asked me to give it back to her; but I replied that she should have had it with the greatest pleasure, only having "given me the lie" in print, I was obliged for my own sake to keep it, and she eventually died. I have got it now, but I shall never publish it.

After this episode of my being publicly attacked about her biography, _Chambers' Journal_, September 9th, 1876, produced the following notice:--

[Sidenote: _A Romantic History._]

"Jane Elizabeth, Lady Ellenborough, if we may trust the matter-of-fact pages of Lodge's 'Peerage,' is the only sister of the present Lord Digby, being daughter of the late Admiral Sir Henry Digby, G.C.B., great-grandson of the fifth Lord Digby; her mother was a daughter of Thomas William Coke, of Holkham, the veteran M.P. for Norfolk, and well-known agriculturist, afterwards created Earl of Leicester. She was born in April, 1807, and when little more than seventeen, was married to the late Lord Ellenborough (the Governor-General of India); but the union was dissolved by Act of Parliament in 1830.

"The rumour of her death was effectually contradicted a few months later by a letter in her own handwriting, addressed to an English lady, who was well acquainted with her in Damascus. This lady and her husband had mourned old Lady Ellenborough for two or three months as having died in the desert, and had quite given up all hope of ever seeing her again, when one day she received from her a letter stating that she was alive and in the best of health, and asking her to contradict the rumour of her decease.

'Lady Ellenborough was fortunate in the possession of at least one sincere friend, generously eager to defend her when attacked, and to make out the best case possible for her. Mrs. Isabel Burton, who had been intimately acquainted, and in the habit of daily intercourse with this extraordinary woman, during a residence of some years in Damascus, while her husband, Captain Burton, was the English Consul at that city, appears to have contracted a warm attachment for her, and speaks of her, in spite of all her faults, in terms of the highest praise. To Mrs. Burton Lady Ellenborough confided the task of writing her biography, and dictated it to her day by day until the task was accomplished. In a letter to the _Pall Mall Gazette_, written in March, 1873, when under the belief that Lady Ellenborough was dead, Mrs. Burton says, in allusion to this biography, 'She did not spare herself, dictating the bad with the same frankness as the good. I was pledged not to publish this until after her death and that of certain near relatives.'

"Mrs. Burton subsequently adds, 'I cannot meddle with the past without infringing on the biography confided to me; but I can say a few words concerning her life, dating from her arrival in the East, as told me by herself and by those now living there; and I can add my testimony as to what I saw, which I believe will interest every one in England, from the highest downwards, and be a gratification to those more nearly concerned. About sixteen years ago, tired of Europe, Lady Ellenborough conceived the idea of visiting the East, and of imitating Lady Hester Stanhope and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, not to mention a French lady, Mdme. de la Tour d'Auvergne, who has built herself a temple on the top of Mount Olivet, and lives there still. Lady Ellenborough arrived at Beyrout and went to Damascus, where she arranged to go to Baghdad across the Desert. A Bedouin escort for this journey was necessary; and as the Mezrab tribe occupied the ground, the duty of commanding the escort devolved upon Shaykh Mijwal, a younger brother of Shaykh Mohammed, chief of this tribe, which is a branch of the great Anezeh tribe. On the journey the young Shaykh fell in love with this beautiful woman, who possessed all the qualities that could fire the Arab imagination. Even two years ago she was more attractive than half the young girls of our time. It ended by his proposing to divorce his Moslem wives and to marry her; to pass half the year in Damascus--which to him was like what London or Paris would be to us--for her pleasure, and half in the Desert to lead his natural life. The romantic picture of becoming a Queen of the Desert and of the Bedouin tribes exactly suited her wild fancies, and was at once accepted; and she was married, in spite of all opposition made by her friends and the British Consulate. She was married according to Mohammedan law, changed her name to that of the Honourable Mrs. Digby El Mezrab, and was horrified when she found that she had lost her nationality by her marriage, and had become a Turkish subject. For fifteen years she lived as she died,[3] the faithful and affectionate wife of the Shaykh, to whom she was devotedly attached. Half the year was passed in a very pretty house, which she built at Damascus just without the gates of the City; and the other six months were passed, according to his nature, in the Desert in the Bedouin tents of the tribe.

"'In spite of this hard life, necessitated by accommodating herself to his habits--for they were never apart--she never lost anything of the English lady, nor the softness of a woman. She was always a perfect lady in sentiment, voice, manners, and speech. She never said or did anything could wish otherwise. She kept all her husband's respect, and was the Mother and the Queen of his tribe. In Damascus we were only nineteen Europeans, but we all flocked around her with affection and friendship. The natives did the same. As to strangers, she received only those who brought a letter of introduction from a friend or relative; but this did not hinder every ill-conditioned passer-by from boasting of his intimacy with the House of Mezrab, and recounting the untruths which he invented, _pour se faire valoir_, or to sell his book or newspaper at a better profit. She understood friendship in its best and fullest sense, and for those who enjoyed her confidence it was a treat to pass the hours with her. She spoke French, Italian, German, Slav, Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, and Greek, as she spoke her native tongue. She had all the tastes of a country life, and occupied herself alternately with painting, sculpture, music, or with her garden-flowers, or poultry, or with her thoroughbred Arab mares, or in carrying out some improvement. She was thoroughly a connoisseur in each of her amusements or occupations. To the last she was fresh and young; beautiful, brave, refined, and delicate. She hated all that was false. Her heart was noble; she was charitable to the poor. She regularly attended the Protestant church, and often twice on Sundays. She fulfilled all the duties of a good Christian lady and an Englishwoman. She is dead. All those who knew her in her latter days will weep for her. She had but one fault (and who knows if it was hers?), washed out by fifteen years of goodness and repentance. Let us hide it, and shame those who seek to drag up the adventures of her wild youth to tarnish so good a memory. _Requiescat in pace._'

"But Lady Ellenborough was _not_ dead. It will, of course, be obvious that, along with Lord Brougham, she has been privileged to read the obituary notice of her own career; and she is probably destined to see many more summers and winters in her Arab home.

"It is evident, from the tenor of the last few sentences of the foregoing letter, that the 'one fault' to which the writer alludes was the elopement of Lady Ellenborough with Prince Schwartzenberg, and that Mrs. Burton entirely disbelieves in the half-dozen or more of apocryphal husbands intervening between Lord Ellenborough and the Arab sheikh. At any rate, the eccentric lady is entitled to the benefit of the doubt; and public curiosity respecting this extraordinary woman must remain unsatisfied until the period shall arrive when her friend and confidante, Mrs. Burton, will be at liberty to publish the autobiography committed to her charge.

"It would be possible, without difficulty, to draw at once a parallel and a contrast between the eccentric Lady Ellenborough and the scarcely less eccentric niece of the younger Pitt, Lady Hester Stanhope, whom I have named above, and who, more than half a century ago, exchanged English life, habits, and sentiments, and possibly also to some extent her faith as well, for those of the wild and romantic East."

The others, besides Richard and myself, on the house roof were frequently Charles Tyrwhitt-Drake, an indefatigable worker in the Palestine Exploration; and E. H. Palmer, afterwards professor of Arabic at Cambridge, and in 1882 murdered by the Bedawi in Arabia. We were six, and I need not say how romantic those evenings were, what a halo my memory throws around them, what conversation, what real adventures, real life, real wit, real spirituality we enjoyed; and we often stayed there till the moon was on the wane. The two Englishmen were living with us, and Abd el Kadir, with an escort of his Algerines, who were picketed in our court, would see the lady home on his road to his own palace. Now I am the only survivor of those happy meetings.

RICHARD AND CHILDREN.

[Sidenote: _Richard's Love for Children._]

Richard's love for children was quite extraordinary. If there was a child in the room, even a baby in arms, no one could get a word out of him; but you would find him on the floor, romping with them, and they were never afraid of him. I do not think there could possibly be a better illustration than the very admirable and striking account given by Salih, who was one of the missionaries in Damascus:--

"_Burton at Damascus._

"My first sight of Captain Burton revealed not only the man in his complex character, but supplied the key to the perplexing vicissitudes of his extraordinary career.

"On his arrival in Damascus, Burton called at my house. My study adjoined the drawing-room, into which he was shown by a native servant. I heard him command the Arab to fetch me in harsh, peremptory tones, which were meant to be obeyed. The servant, not thinking that I was in the study, went to seek me elsewhere. I advanced, in noiseless Damascus slippers, to the drawing-room door, and I came upon a scene never to be forgotten.

"At one side of the room stood my curly-headed, rosy-cheeked little boy of five, on the other side stood Burton. The two were staring at each other. Neither was aware of my presence. Burton had twisted his face into the most fiendish-like aspect. His eyes rolled, exposing the whites in an alarming manner. The features were drawn to one side, so as to make the gashes on his jaw and brow appear more ghastly. The two cheeks were blown out, and Burton, raising a pocket-handkerchief to his left cheek, struck his right with the flat of his right hand, thus producing an explosion, and making the pocket-handkerchief fly to the left as if he had shot it through his two cheeks.

"The explosion was followed by a suppressed howl, something between the bark of a hyæna and a jackal. All the time Burton glared on the little fellow with the fiery eyes of a basilisk, and the child stood riveted to the floor as if spell-bound and fascinated, like a creature about to be devoured. Suddenly a very wonderful thing happened. The little boy, with a wild shout of delight, sprang into the monster's arms, and the black beard was instantly mingled with the fair curls, and Burton was planting kisses all over the flaxen pate. The whole pantomime was gone through as quick as lightning, and Burton, disentangling himself, caught sight of my Arab returning without me, and, instead of waiting for an explanation, hurled at him a volley of exasperating epithets, culled from the rich stores of spicy and stinging words which garnish Arabic literature. Burton had revealed himself to me fully before he saw me. The child's clear, keen instinct did not mislead it. The big, rough monster had a big child's heart behind the hideous grimaces. The child's unerring instinct was drawn by affinity to the child's heart in the man."

During our time a very interesting episode occurred at Damascus--a sad one, too. Lord and Lady Langdale had a daughter who was married to Count Téleki. It was not a very happy marriage. She made a journey to Syria and Palestine with her mother, a very nice cousin, and a young friend of his, for diversion. Like many travellers, unused to sun, hard riding, bad water, exposure, and fatigue, she got the usual fever and dysentery, and was brought down in a dying state to Damascus. She was of Agnostic principles, but in her last few hours she desired to be baptized a Catholic. I did all I could for her in the way of nursing, and Richard as far as his power went. When she died, her desk was found to contain a letter which had been written years before, when she had been very much excited by reading Buckle's "History of Civilization," and she wrote, "Should I die at Damascus, I should like to be buried by Buckle." It so happened that there was place for two next to Buckle, and she was buried there--a most impressive and touching funeral. Her coffin was covered with the Union Jack; Richard and all his dragomans and _kawwáses_, in full uniform, were present; and some time after, appeared the following note in a newspaper:--

BUCKLE'S GRAVE.

"The London correspondent of the _Manchester Guardian_ says, 'A traveller just arrived in London from Damascus gives some rather interesting details about the present condition and surroundings of Buckle's grave. Though it was left for so long after his death, without a stone even to mark it, that it had the altar-tomb of white marble and black basalt that was at length erected, and was now enclosed in a high wall with a padlocked gate. Next to Buckle's tomb are the tombs of two rather remarkable women. The first is that of the Countess Téleki (a daughter, I believe, of Lord Langdale), who especially desired that her grave should be next to Buckle's; and the next tomb is that of Lady Ellenborough, erected by her brother, Lord Digby, with an Arabic inscription from the Korán, placed on it by her later husband, the Arab sheikh, in singular proximity to the cross which forms part of the monument. On Buckle's tomb also, on which, however, there is no cross, there is an Arabic inscription, suggested by the famous Emir Abd el Kadir.'"

SYRIA.

[Sidenote: _Richard's Notes on our Wilder Travels._]

Each year in January we rode out with the Meccan Caravan, or Haj, as far as Ramsah, the third station, and one year returned to Damascus _viâ_ Izra (the Edhra of the Handbook) and the celebrated Haurán valley plain, inspecting the chief settlements and making acquaintance with the principal Shaykhs. Richard writes--

"I had business at Hums (Emesa), generally written Homs, and Hamáh (Hamath Epiphaneia), on the northern borders of the consular district of Damascus. From there I examined and sent home native facsimiles of the four unique basaltic stones, whose characters, raised in cameo, apparently represent a system of local hieroglyphics peculiar to this part of Syria, and form the connecting link between picture-writing and the true syllabarium. A friend was kind enough to give me some valuable papers, amongst them two maps noting the most important of the three hundred and sixty villages, which he had traced himself by aid of native information. These stud the plain known as El'Aláh; the same number of villages are allotted to the Lejá. This plain is a high rolling ground beginning at Selamíyyah, the well-known ruin and outwork of Palmyra, six hours' ride from, and bearing east-south-east of the Mound of Hamáh. It extends five days' journey to the north, and from east to west two or three days'. Some call it the 'Great Syrian Desert;' but the Seleucidæ here kept their immense studs of elephants and horses. The whole is virgin ground, as are also the eastern slopes of the Jebel Kalbíyyah, on the left bank of the Orontes, and of the country extending from the parallel of Hums to that of Selamíyyah. In the first five hours we had examined five ruins; and the basaltic buildings are exactly those of the Giant Cities of Bashan. We returned to Damascus by Jebel el Hulah; saw the fine crusading castle called Husn el Akrád, the plain of the Nahr el Kabír, the Eleutherus river. Our hardships were considerable; the country was under water, and the rushing torrents and deep ditches caused long detours. We had heavy and continuous rains, furious blasts, snow and sleet like Norway. One of the followers sickened and died, and we were all frostbitten. In all my trips and peregrinations, I had business to do as well as pleasure.

"Throughout Syria, when the basaltic soil runs to any depth, the earth is loose and treacherous, fatiguing to traverse in summer, and impassable in winter. In some places the water is sulphurous or brackish, but in most places without any unpleasant taste; it is strongly diuretic."

UNEXPLORED SYRIA.

Taken from Richard's journals of excursions to the Libanus with Charley Drake and me, and once with Drake alone, the Tulúl el Safá, the Anti-Libanus, the Northern Libanus, and the 'Aláh. We collected eighty-one original Greek inscriptions in the Haurán mountain, and in the 'Aláh, a collection of Alpine plants from the Libanus, shells, and geological specimens. Charley Drake did the plans and sketches and maps, Richard and I the writing.

Richard wrote--

[Sidenote: _The Tulúl el Safá._]

"The fact was we had long been tantalized by the sight of the forbidden Tulúl el Safá, or Hillocks of the Safá Pyramids, looking at the distance like baby finger-tops, dotting the eastern horizon within sight of our housetop, and, thinning out northwards, prolonged the lumpy blue wall of the Jebel Durúz Haurán, which appears to reflect the opposite line of the Anti-Libanus. Many also were the vague and marvellous reports which had reached our ears concerning a cave called by the few who knew it Umm Nírán, the mother of fires. The difficulty and danger of visiting these places arose in my time simply from the relations of the _Wali's_ government with the hill tribes of Bedawin, who, mixed up with the Druzes, infest the Trachonic countries. The hill tribes proper are Agaylát, the Hasan, the Shurafát, the Azámát, and the Masá'id. The Safá is tenanted by the Shitayá, the Ghiyás, and the Anjad, whilst the Lejá belongs to the Sulút, as clients of the Druzes. These are nine hordes intermarried, who combine together in the warfare of the tribes. They are the liege descendants of the refractory robbers of the Trachonitis, who, to revenge the death of their Captain Naub, rose up against the garrison of three thousand Idumæans stationed in their country by Herod, son of Antipater. Their prowess as plunderers is still famous.

"To the scandal of every honest man, they are allowed to scour the plains, carry off the flocks, and harry the flocks and herds of the peasantry. They served as ready implements of revenge against all those disaffected to or disliked by the petty autocrat [Rashíd Pasha] who then disgraced the land by his rule. They are small and slightly made, with oval face, bright brown eyes, and restless roving look of the civilized pickpocket. The features high and well formed, the skin a clear olive yellow. They wear long love-locks of raven-wings' tint, well buttered. Their dress scanty and irregular. The action, like the eyes, is wild and startled; the voice is a sort of bark. When attacked, they put the women, children, and cattle in the rear, form a rude line, carefully guard against being out-flanked, and advance file-firing with great regularity. They attack strangers, and they have no sense of hospitality, and for this reason it was not really safe to ride alone three hours beyond the Eastern gate of Damascus. The Subá'a, therefore, made the plain of Damascus a battle-field, and the Wuld Ali levied black-mail in Cœle-Syria.

"Dust was thrown in the eyes of the civilized world whilst the _Wali_ employed hordes of banditti to plunder its own hapless subjects, whilst the satellites had the audacity to publish, 'Le désert est cultivé, les Bedouins sont soumis, et le brigandage anéanti.' So it came to pass that all the broken-down Gassanian convents had never to our knowledge been visited by any European traveller. Mr. Porter was told that a hundred horsemen would not attempt a journey to El Diyúrá. We received no damage, and nighted in the old temple of Ba'al, called Harrán el'Awámid. However, the Ghiyás found us out, advanced in a steady line, treated us to a shower of bullets, severely wounding in the leg our gallant companion and friend, Bedr Beg. As we were well mounted and armed, and the riding ground good, we could have brought down as many of them as we pleased, for we were all armed with six-shooters, and eight shot rifles, but, as we wanted to avoid a blood-feud, we did not return fire. After Rashíd Pasha was gone, the mystery of their attacking us was cleared up.

"These convents are in an excellent state of preservation. What we have to complain of is that the spirit of clique too often succeeds in ignoring the real explorer, the true inventor, the most learned writer, and the best artist. The honour is denied to the right man. Party is successful against principle. The Pharisee, with his aggressive, vigorous, narrow-minded nature, with his hard thin character, all angles and stings, with his starch inflexible opinions upon religion, politics, science, literature, and art, with his broad assurance that _his_ ways are the only right ways, rules with a rod of iron the large herd of humanity, headed by Messrs. Feeblemind and Ready-to-halt. We find in our national life, when the Battle of the Creeds, or rather of 'Non-Credo' _versus_ 'Credo,' has been offered and accepted; when every railway station is hung with texts and strewed with tracts for the benefit of that British-public-cherished idol the working-class; when the South Kensington Museum offers professional instruction in science and art for women before they become mothers, suggesting that creation by law may be as reasonable as creation by miracle; when Secularism draws the sword against Denominationalism; briefly, when those who 'believe' and those who do not, can hardly keep hands off one another in a _mêlée_, it suggests a foretaste of the mystical Armageddon."

Richard and Charley Drake sketched and fixed the positions of some fifty ruins which are fated to disappear from the face of the earth. They took squeezes of from twenty to twenty-five Greek inscriptions, of which six or seven have dates, and explored the Harrah, or 'Hot-Country,' the pure white blank in the best maps, and took hydrographic charts, as they found that the guide-books and the maps teemed with mistakes.

"I thought," he said, "when I came here that Syria and Palestine would be so worn out that my occupation as an explorer was clean gone, but I soon found that although certain lines had been well trodden, that scarcely ever a traveller, and _no tourists_, have ever ridden ten miles off the usual ways. No one knows how many patches of unvisited and unvisitable country lie within a couple of days' ride of great cities and towns, such as Aleppo and Damascus, Hums, and Hamáh.

"Where the maps show a virgin white patch in the heart of Jaydur, the classical Ituræa, students suppose that the land has been examined, and has been found to contain nothing of interest. The reverse is absolutely the case. Finally, as will presently appear, there are valid reasons for that same, for the unexplored spots are either too difficult or too dangerous for the multitude to undertake. To visit carefully _even_ the _beaten_ tracks in the Holy Land occupies six months, and none _except a resident_ can afford leisure or secure health for more, and the reason that these places have escaped European inspection is, that they do not afford provisions, or forage, or water; they are deadly with malarious fever, they are infested by the Bedawi. They do not often detain you for ransom, nor mutilate you; but they will spear you. They will not kill you in cold blood; that is only done for a _Thar_, which is the blood-feud between tribes. Still, under these mitigated circumstances, travellers may know that their escorts will turn tail, and will hardly care to expose themselves, their attendants, and baggage to a charge of Bedawin cavalry. Indeed, the running away of the escort is the traveller's safeguard. If the tribe could seize all, it knows that dead men are dumb, but it knows that the fugitives have recognized them, and that before evening the tale will be known through all the land.

"There is no reverence in this ancient place for antiquity. Syria would _willingly_ change from ancient and Oriental to modern and European. The ruins of the 'Aláh are pulled to pieces to build houses for Hamáh. The classical buildings of Saccæa are torn down and made into rude hovels for the Druzes, who fled from the Anti-Libanus and Hermon. Syria, north of Palestine, is an old country, geographically and technologically and other ways, but it is absolutely new. A land of the past, it has a future as promising as that of Mexico or the Argentine Republic. The first railway that spans it will restore the poor old lethargic region to rich and vigorous life. 'Lazare, veni foras!'--it will raise this Lazarus of Eastern provinces, this Niobe of nations, from a neglected grave. _There is literally no limit that can be laid down to the mother-wit, the ambition, the intellectual capabilities of its sons. They are the most gifted race that I have as yet ever seen, and when the curse shall have left the country--not the bane of superstition, but the bane and plague-spot of bad rule--it will again rise to a position not unworthy of the days when it gave to the world a poetry and a system of religion still unforgotten by our highest civilization._

"My object was to become acquainted with the Haurán and its Druzes, to see the Umm-Nírán Cave, called the 'fire cave,' of which one hears such extraordinary legends, and the Tulúl el Safá, which is the volcanic region, east of the Damascus swamps.

"The South Pacific Coast, and Mediterranean Palestine, are two pendants in the world, only the East is on a much smaller scale. The lakes and rivers, plains and valleys, cities and settlements, storms and earthquakes, in fact, all the geographical, physical, and the meteorological, as well as the social features of the two regions, show a remarkable general likeness with a difference of proportion.

"The world is weary of the past. In these regions there is hardly a mile without a ruin, hardly a ruin that is not interesting, and in some places, mile after mile and square mile after square mile of ruin show a luxuriance of ruin. There is not a large ruin in the country which does not prove, upon examination, to be the composition of ruins more ancient still. The mere surface of the antiquarian mine has only been scratched; it will be long years before the country can be considered explored, before even Jerusalem can be called 'recovered,' and the task must be undertaken by Societies, not by _individuals_.

"Of history, of picturesque legend, of theology and mythology, of art and literature, as of archaeology, of palæography, of palæogeography, of numismatology, and all the other 'ologies and 'ographies, they have absolutely no visible end. If the New World be bald and tame, the Syrian old world is, to those _who know it well_, perhaps a little too fiery and exciting, paling with its fierce tints and angry flush the fair vision which a country has a right to contemplate in the days to be. There is a disease here called 'Holy Land on the Brain,' which makes patients babble of hanging gardens and parterres of flowers. The 'green sickness' attacks tourists from Europe and North America, especially where the sun is scarce. It attacks the Protestant with greater violence than the Catholic (the Catholic from long meditation is prepared for it). The Protestant fit is excited and emotional, spasmodic and hysterical, ending in a long rhapsody about himself, his childhood, and his mother. It spares the Levantine, as 'yellow Jack' does the negro. His brain is too well packed with the wretched intrigues and petty interest of material life to have any room for excitement at 'the first glimpse of Emmanuel's Land.' The sufferer will perhaps hire a house at Siloam, and pass his evenings in howling from the roof, at the torpid little town of Jebus, 'Woe! woe to thee, Jerusalem!' Men fall to shaking hands with one another, and exchange congratulations for the all-sufficient reason that the view before them 'embraces the plain of Esdraelon.'

"_A long and happy life should be still before it. The ruined heaps show us what has been; the appliances of civilization, provided with railways and tramways, will offer the happiest blending of the ancient and the modern worlds. It will become another Egypt, with the advantages of a superior climate, and far nobler races of men._ Time was when I dreamt of the Libanus as my future _pied à terre_. When weary with warfare and wander, one could repose in peace and comfortable ease. I thought of pitching a tent for life on Mount Lebanon, whose _raki_ and tobacco are of the best, whose _Vino d'oro_ is _compared_ with the best, whose winter climate is like an English summer, whose views are lovely, a place at the same time near and far from society--it was _riant_ in the extreme;[4] but in the state of Syria in _my_ time, the physical mountain had no shade, the moral mountain no privacy, the village life would have been dreary and monotonous, broken only by a storm, an earthquake, a murder, a massacre. Such is the rule of the _Wali_ in this unfortunate time, when drought and famine, despotism and misrule, maddens its unfortunate inhabitants.

"We now determined the forms and bearings of the Cedar Block, the true apex of the Libanus. We then went to the unknown and dangerous region called Tulúl el Safá, the Hillocks of the Safá district, a mass of volcanic cones lying east of the Damascus swamps called lakes. Then we explored the northern Anti-Libanus, a region which is innocent of tourists and traveller, and appears a blank of mountains upon the best maps. Of my fellow-traveller Charley Drake I can only say that every one knows his public worth. At the end of my time here came three tedious months of battling unsupported, against all that falsehood and treachery could devise; the presence of this true-hearted Englishman, staunch to the backbone, inflexible in the cause of right, and equally disdainful of threats and promises, was our greatest comfort: I can only speak of him with enthusiasm. Our journey to the northern slopes of Lebanon, and the 'Aláh or the highland of Syria, is an absolute gain to geography, as the road lay through a region marked on our maps 'Great Syrian Desert,' and the basaltic remains in the extensive and once populous plain lying north-east and south-east of Hamah have been visited, sketched, and portrayed for the first time. We found lignite, true coal, bituminous schists and limestone, the finest bitumen or asphalt, mineral springs of all sorts, and ores of all kinds, and plants and rhubarb. And then the duty of a Consular officer in Syria is to scour the country, and see matters with his own eyes, and personally to investigate the cases which are brought before him at head-quarters, where everything except the truth appears.

"After our visit to Ba'albak and the northern Libanus, we 'did' the southern parts of the mountain, the home of the Druzes as opposed to that of the Maronites; then we ascended Hermon, then we had our gallop to the Waters of Merom, that hideous expanse of fetid mire and putrefying papyrus. We paid a visit to the only Bedawin Amir in this region, the Amir Hasan el Fa'úr of the Benú Fadl tribe, and then we visited most of the romantic and hospitable Druze villages which cling to the southern and eastern folds of Hermon."

[Sidenote: _Our Home in the Anti-Lebanon._]

We used to spend all the summers in the Anti-Lebanon. Bludán is a little Christian village, Greek orthodox, which clings to the Eastern flank of the mountain overlooking the Zebedáni valley, which is well known to travellers, because it leads from Damascus to Ba'albak. In it we found the _official_ sources of the Barada, the river of Damascus, but its _real_ source is a pool just behind our quarters, fed in winter by the torrent of Jebel el Shakíf. The Bludán block is a few miles north of the site of Abila, the highest summit of Anti-Lebanon, and is fronted on the west by Jebel el Shakíf, or "Mountain of Cliffs," with gaps and gorges. Bludán lies twenty-seven miles to the north-west across country, away from Damascus.

Ours was a large claret-case-shaped house of stone; the centre was a large barn-like limestone hall with a deep covered verandah; a wild waste of garden extends all round the house, a bare ridge of mountain behind; a beautiful stream with two small waterfalls rushes through the garden. It is five thousand feet high--an eagle's nest, commanding an unrivalled view. The air was perfect, only hot at three p.m. for an hour or two, and blankets at night. There was stabling for eight horses; no windows, only wooden shutters to close at night. We see five or six ranges of mountains, one backing the other, of which the last looks down upon the Haurán. We can see Jebel Sannin, which does not measure nine thousand feet above sea-level, monarch of the Lebanon, and on the left, Hermon, king of the Anti-Lebanon. The Greek villages cling like wasps' nests to our mountain, and Zebedáni, on the plain beneath, contains thirty-five thousand Mohammedans.

[Sidenote: _Our Day._]

The utter solitude, the wildness of the life, the absence of _luxe_, and no society, the being thoroughly alone with Nature and one's own thoughts, was all too refreshing; we led half-Eastern lives and half-farmhouse life. We made our own bread, we bought butter and milk from the Bedawi, we bought sheep or kids from passing flocks. We woke at dawn, and after a cup of tea, we used to take the dogs, and have long walks over the mountains with our guns.

The game were bears (very scarce), gazelles, wolves, wild boars, and a small leopard called _nimr_, but for these we had to go far, and watch in silence before dawn. But Richard had opinions about sport; he only wanted to kill a beast that would kill us if we did not kill it, and the smaller game, partridges, quails, woodcocks, hares, and wild duck, we never shot unless we were hungry, and we would not have the gazelles hunted. He had the greatest contempt for the Hurlingham matches, and the battue slaughters in English parks, where, instead of honestly walking for your game, and bringing it home to eat, the young men of to-day have a gentle stroll to eat _pâté de foie gras_, drink champagne, and the keeper hands them a gun with a pheasant almost tied to the end of it to blow to pieces. And what Richard thought about sport I heartily agreed with. The hot part of the day was spent in reading, writing, and studying Arabic. He sent home from Bludán, during 1870, "Vikram and the Vampire" (Hindú tales), "Paraguay," and "Proverbia Communia Syriaca" (Royal Asiatic Society, 1871)--three works he had been long preparing.

His three literary necessities were Shakespeare, the Bible, and Euclid, and they were bound up together, with three large clasps, like a breviary, and went everywhere. _His_ method of language-learning he has described in his autobiography. He taught me this way. He made me learn ten new words a day by heart. "When a native speaks, then say the words after him to get his accent. Don't be English--that is, shy or self-conscious--if you know five words, air them wherever you can; next day you will know ten, and so on till you can speak. Don't be like the Irishman who would not go into the water until he could swim. Then take a very easy childish book, in the colloquial language of the day, and translate it word for word underneath the original, and you will be surprised how soon you find yourself unconsciously talking."

At twelve we had our first meal; in the afternoon native Shaykhs, or English from Beyrout or Damascus, came to visit us, or rare tourists would crawl up to see what sort of people we were, and how we lived. They all used to say, "Well, it is glorious, but the thing is to get here." We set up a _tir_ (shooting-place) in the garden, and used to practise pistol or rifle shooting, or fence, or put on the _cavesson_, and lunge the horses if they had had no exercise. When the sun became cooler, all the poor within sixteen miles round would come to be doctored; the hungry, the thirsty, the ragged, the sick and sorry, filled our garden, and Richard used to settle grievances, and they all got money or clothing, food or medicine, and sympathy. Before dinner we used to assemble in the garden to eat a few mouthfuls of _leban_ salad and drink a liqueur glass of _raki_, which was quite necessary to give us sufficient appetite. Divans were then spread on the housetop, and we used to watch the moon lighting up Hermon, whilst we smoked the after-dinner _narghíleh_. The horses were picketed out all these summer nights, and the _saises_ slept with them. The last thing was to have night prayers, and then to go the rounds to see that everything was right, turn out the dogs on guard, and then to bed.

The mails came once a fortnight, and Richard would ride into Damascus and see that all was well. Sometimes we used to give a picnic to some of our Moslem neighbours, and we would gallop out in the plain, and stay in the black tents of the Arabs. I used to have to ride down to the Moslem village Zebedáni every Sunday for church. The path was steep, and covered with rolling stones, so that the horses used mostly to slide down, and it occupied about an hour and a half. The most curious part was that the Shaykhs and chief Moslems always accompanied me to Mass. The thing that astonished the Shaykhs the most, was the small acolytes being able to read and sing in Latin, and they constantly exclaimed, "Máshálláh!"

We were much grieved about this time to hear the sad news of poor Lord Clarendon's death. Few amongst us that have not some happy recollection of that kind, true heart. He belonged to a breed of gentlemen that with one or two exceptions may be said to have died out. R.I.P. At this juncture Mr. E. H. Palmer and Charley Drake had come back from Sinai and the Tih Desert, and came to stay with us.

[Sidenote: _With Drake and Palmer in the Lebanon._]

We wandered about for a long time together. On a long day we might easily zigzag forty or fifty miles, and thirty or thirty-six on a short day. We never rode straight to a place, and always rode two horses, as there is so much to be seen on both sides of a direct way.

Ba'albak is far more beautiful, though much smaller than Tadmor, and can be seen without any danger. Tadmor is more romantic, picturesque, more startling, and there is the attraction of the danger, and being in the absolute desert. Londoners and Parisians would consider Ba'albak in the desert, but we from Damascus do not. This was the holy place of the old Phœnicians, and I do not know a finer sight, from a distant height, when Ba'albak is lit up by the setting sun. The fertile plain of the Buká'a, with its black Turcoman tents and camels, lies in the distance. There is a big stone still lying there, which would weigh eleven thousand tons. The Hajar el Hablah, or pregnant stone, is a huge unfinished block. Our measurements were seventy feet long, fourteen feet two inches high, and thirteen feet eleven inches broad. The extraordinary sight makes you exclaim, "Something must have frightened them before they had time to carry it off."

Riding about, you come to the Turcomans' tents, who have wandered about Syria since the days of the Crusaders, and have preserved, like their neighbours the _Nuwar_ (gypsies), their ancestral language and customs. We then went to live for a short while with the Maronites, two hundred thousand people, under the rule of their Patriarch, and we camped for some time under the cedars of Lebanon. There are only nine of these large and ancient trees left; the four largest are in the form of a cross, and three smaller. There are 555 trees (newer than these nine), all told, and they are 7368 feet above sea-level. While stopping with his "Beatitude the Maronite Primate of Antioch, and of all the East," whom his flock calls "our Patriarch, our Pope, and our Sultan," we saw for once the simplicity and sincerity of the Apostolic ages.

B'sherri, Jezzín, and Sadád produce a manly, independent race of Christians, fond of horses and arms, with whom I am not ashamed to own community of faith. In all my life I have never seen worse riding than the Kasrawán; it consists of nothing but _débris_ of rock, fields, valleys, and mountains, all of the largest jagged stones. Our horses had to do the work of goats, and jump from one bit of rock to another, and it lasted over twelve hours at once. We lost our camp, but after seeing our exhausted horses groomed, fed, watered, and tethered in a warm spot, we were glad to eat a water-melon, and sleep on our saddle-cloths in the open. The next day was just as bad until we reached Affka, but the scenery was glorious. We had three days of this awful riding, which the Syrians call "Darb el Jehannum," the "road of hell." We visited Mr. Palgrave's old quarters, a monastery of fifty or sixty Jesuits, where Mr. Palgrave was a Jesuit for seventeen years. Here we all got fever.

[Sidenote: _Religious Disturbances._]

Upon the 26th of August, Richard received at night, by a mounted messenger, the two following letters from Mr. Wright, Chief Missionary at Damascus (No. 2), and from Mr. Nasif Meshaka, Chief Dragoman of the British Consulate (No. 1). I give them as they were written:--

No. 1.

"DEAR SIR,

"The Christians in Damascus are in great alarm; most of them have left for Saídnayah, and others are about to leave for elsewhere. Their alarm was occasioned from the following facts: signs of crosses were made in the streets in the same way which preceded the massacre of 1860. On the 23rd instant a certain Mohammed Rashíd, a Government inspector (_teftish_), being in disguise, caught a young Jew, twelve years old, in the service of Solomon Donemberg, a British-protected subject, making signs of crosses in a cabinet of a mosque at Suk el Jedíd. Yesterday another young Jew, in the service of Marco, a French Jew, was caught also. Both of these two boys were taken to the Government; being under age, they were at once released by order of Mejlis Tamiz Hukúk. It is believed that the Moslems are the authors of these signs, either directly or indirectly, to stop the Government from taking the Redíf (militia), which is managed in a very oppressive manner, that is, leaving many families without males to support them. Such kinds of Redíf prefer rather to be hanged than seeing their harims without support or any one to maintain them in their absence. A certain Nicolas Ghartous, a Protestant from Ain Shára, reported to me yesterday that while waiting on Mr. Anhouri, near the barracks of the Christian quarter, being dressed like a Druze, three soldiers of the same barracks came to him and said, 'Yakík el 'ijl,' a technical term used by the Druzes, meaning, 'Are you ready for another outbreak?' Ghartous replied, 'We are at your disposal.' The soldiers replied, 'Prepare yourself, and we will reap our enemies from here to the Báb Sharki' (the Christian quarter), and thus they departed. Hatem Ghanem, a Catholic member in the Haurán, came here to recover some money due to him by Atta Zello of the Meydán Aghas. While claiming the money he was beaten, and his religion and Cross were cursed by his debtor, who was put in prison at the request of the Catholic Patriarchate. Twenty to thirty Redífs of the Meydán ran away to the Lejá'a, to take refuge there. The Redífs will be collected next Saturday, the 27th instant, some say at the Castle of Damascus, others at Khabboon and Mezzeh. The report is current that on that day there will be no work in town, and that there will be an outbreak. Although Ibraham Pasha, the new Governor, arrived on the 23rd instant, he will not undertake his duties till the return of the _Wali_. The Governor, as well as some Frenchmen, through M. Roustan, who is now at Jerusalem, intend to propose to the _Wali_ to leave Holo Pasha to continue occupying his present function under the present circumstances. The _Mushir_ left on the 19th instant. The _Wali_ is absent. The _Muffetish_, whom you know his inefficiency, is the Acting Governor-General. Consuls are absent (that is, the French and English). The presence of the high functionaries, and especially the Consuls, is a great comfort to the Christians in general."

No. 2.

"DEAR SIR,

"I have just got in from Rasheiya, and before I sat down several Christians and one Moslem came in to ask if I knew what was coming. They seemed to be very much afraid; but, except that people don't act logically, I see no reason for fear. The fear, however, _does_ seem _very_ great. I know nothing. Any English of us here should be ready at the worst to fight our corner. Many thanks for your prompt action in our affairs. It is something to have

'One firm, strong man in a blatant land, Who can act and who dare not lie.'

"W. W."

It appeared that one of those eruptions of ill-feeling, which are periodically an epidemic in Damascus, resulting from so many religions, tongues, and races, was about to simmer into full boil between Moslem and Christian. The outsiders are fond of stirring up both, for they reap all the benefit. It appeared that a slaughter-day was fixed for the 27th of August, 1870; all the Chief Authorities, by an accidental combination of affairs, were absent as well as the Consuls. Wednesday is the Moslem's unlucky day, and also, I believe, the 23rd; it is thought it will be the day of the end of the world. There would be nobody to interfere, and nobody to be made responsible. It was the night of the 26th when he got these letters. Richard ordered the horses to be saddled, the weapons to be cleaned. In ten minutes he told me what his plans and arrangements were. He said, "We have never before been in a Damascus riot, but if it takes place it will be like the famous affair of 1860. I shall not take you into Damascus, because _I_ intend to protect Damascus, and you must protect Bludán and Zebedáni. I shall take half the men, and I shall leave you half. You shall go down into the plain with me to-night, and we shall shake hands like two brothers and part; tears or any display of affection will tell the secret to our men."

So it was done, and at six o'clock the next morning he walked into the _mejlis_ (council chamber). He was on good terms with them all, so he told them frankly what was going on, and said, "Which of you is to be hanged if this is not prevented? It will cost you Syria, and unless you take measures at once, I shall telegraph to Constantinople." This had the desired effect. "What," they asked, "would you have us to do?" He said, "I want you to post a guard of soldiers in every street; order a patrol all night. I will go the rounds with Holo Pasha. Let the soldiers be harangued in the barracks, and told that on the slightest sign of mutiny the offenders will be sent to the Danube (their Cayenne). Issue an order that no Jew or Christian shall leave the house till all is quiet." All these measures were taken by ten o'clock a.m., and continued for three days. Not a drop of blood was shed, and the frightened Christians who had fled to the mountains began to come back. There is no doubt that my husband saved Damascus from a very unpleasant episode. Mr. L. Wright, Mr. Scott, and the other missionaries, his own dragomans, and a few staunch souls who remained quietly with him, appreciated his conduct, and he received many thanks from those on the spot. The diligence was so much in request (nearly all the Christians and Europeans had tried to leave) that a friend of mine could not get a seat for three weeks; yet these people, so soon as they sighted the Mediterranean, were brave and blatant. "Oh! _we_ were not at all frightened; there was _no_ danger whatever!" Mr. Eldridge, who had lived for ten years safely on the coast, and had never ventured up to Damascus in his life, a civilian whose dislike to the smell of powder was notorious, wrote me a pleasantly chaffing letter, hoping I had recovered my fever and fright, and giving Richard instructions how to behave in time of danger. When Richard had gone I climbed back to our eyrie, which commanded the country, and collected every available weapon and all the ammunition. The house was square, looking every way. I put a certain number of men on each side with a gun each, a revolver, and bowie-knife. I put two on the roof with a pair of elephant guns carrying four-ounce balls, and took the terrace myself. I planted the Union Jack on the flag-staff at the top of the house, turned our bull-terriers into the garden, locked up a little Syrian maid, Khamoor (the Moon), who was very pretty (Richard used to say her eyes were of the owlified largeness of the book of beauty), in the safest room, and my English maid, who was as brave as a man, was to supply us with provisions. I knew that I could rely upon our own men, so I filled all the empty soda-water bottles full of gunpowder, and laid fusees ready to stick in and light, and throw amongst the crowd. I then rode down to the American mission--the only other people near--to tell them if there was the slightest movement to come up and shelter with me; and then into the village of Bludán, to tell the Christians there to come and camp in our garden; and lastly to Zebedáni, where there were a few Christians living amongst the thirty-five thousand Moslems, and I sent them up at once, because there would be no time for _them_ to reach me if danger came suddenly. The others were close by. I then rode down to the Moslem Shaykhs, and asked them what _they_ thought. They told me there _would_ be a fight. "One half of our village will fight _with_ you and yours, the other half will destroy the Christians here and at Bludán. They will hesitate to attack _your_ house, but if matters are so bad as that, they shall pass over our dead bodies, and those of all our house, before they reach _you_." And every night they came up and picketed round the garden till my husband came back.

This lasted three days, and all subsided without accident. At this time also there was a tremendous row between a Moslem and a Christian woman; he tore the woman's ear down, smashed her black and blue, bruised her, and took all her gold ornaments from her. The case of Hassan Beg, on whose account my husband was reported, by the British Syrian School missionaries, to be recalled _on account of my conduct_, happened a whole year before my husband's recall. After this, when we rode desert-wards, the tribes used in the evening to dance especially for Richard. The men formed a squad like soldiers; they plant the right foot in time to tom-tom music, with a heavy tread, and an exclamation like that used by our street-menders when the crowbar comes down with a thud upon the stones. When they are numerous it sounds like the advance of an army, and they would burst out into song, of which the literal translation would be--

"Máshálláh! Máshálláh! At last we have seen a man! Behold our Consul in our Shaykh! Who dare to say 'Good morning' to us (save Allah) when he rules? Look at him, look at the Sitt! They ride the Arab horses! They fly before the wind! They fire the big guns! They fight with the sword! Let us follow them all over the earth!" (Chorus) "Let us follow, let us follow," etc., etc.

[Sidenote: _Holo Pasher gives us a Panther._]

We were very fond of animals, and especially of wild ones. Holo Pasha had given us a panther cub trapped in the desert to show his appreciation of what Richard had done. We brought him up like a cat. He grew to be a splendid beast, and never did any of us harm, but he frightened the other animals a little sometimes. We kept him very well fed, in order that he might never attack them. Our cat was very frightened of him, and the only animals that he was frightened of were the bull-dogs. He used to sleep by our bedside. He had bold bad black eyes, that seemed to say, "Be afraid of me." He used to hunt me round the garden, playing hide-and-seek with me as a cat does a mouse. When he bit too hard, I used to box his ears, when he was instantly good. But he grew up and was large. There was a certain baker that the bull-terriers used to bite, and the panther, who also saw in him what we did not, worried him. At last the peasantry, who were frightened of him, gave him poison in meat. He withered away, and nothing we could do did him any good, and one day, when I went to look round the stables, he put his paw up to me. I sat down on the ground, and took him in my arms like a child. He put his head on my shoulder, and his paws round my waist, and he died in about half an hour. Richard and I were terribly grieved.

There are charming rides across the Anti-Lebanon through a mountain defile to Ain el Bardi, where we found black tents and flocks feeding by the water. There is very much to be seen in the plain of El Buká'a, beginning at Mejdel. Anjar is a little village on a hillock standing alone; on its top is a small gem of a temple built by Herod Agrippa in honour of Augustus, with a very graceful broken column; below it are the ruins of Herod's Palace, and a twenty minutes' further ride in the plain lie the ruins of Chalcis. From the temple above named we could see the greater part of the Buká'a, walled in at either side by the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon, and dotted with seventy-two villages. Anjar is bisected by the Litani river, falsely called the Leontes. Having feasted our eyes, we rode on to the square ruins of Chalcis in the plain, and to Neby Za'úr to see the tomb, and we carried off skulls and bones. We crossed the plain, ascended the Lebanon, and when near its summit turned to our left across a mountain called Jebel Barúk, in the territory of El Akkúb.

[Sidenote: _The Druzes--Their Stronghold._]

A favourite ride was into the Druze country, beginning at Barúk, a stronghold in a wild glen. They are a fine, tall, strong, and manly race, who can ride and fight and shoot, and are fit to be our allies. There is no cant about them; they are honest and plain-spoken, and do not know intriguing, lying, stealing, or spying. A Druze house has huge black rafters in the ceiling, and straight tall columns down the middle; there is a private room for council. The women have one blue garment, and one white veil showing one eye. They are chaste, and good wives and mothers. They have clean, comfortable homes, and give a warm welcome, and we rested here for some time. People often say, "What is the real religion of the Druzes?" No one ever knew who was not a Druze; they conform to the national religion, the Moslem. In speaking to you or me, they would appear to have a particular leaning to our respective faiths. They have a secret creed of their own, which, although women are admitted to the council chamber, is as mysterious as Freemasonry. Some Moslems pretend that they worship Eblis, and some Christians say the bull-calf El Ijl.

On our road we came to another stronghold, like an ancient convent, where lives Melhem Beg Ahmad, a Druze chief, a dare-devil-fine-old-man, who, when he mounts, takes his bridle in his teeth, puts his musket to his shoulder, and charges down a mountain that an English horse would have to be led down. He lives in great style; he threw his cap in the air, drank to our health a thousand times, and his sons waited on us at dinner. Muktára hangs on a declivity in a splendid ravine in wild mountains in the territory of Esh Shuf. The house we were going to is like a large Italian _cascine_, nestled amidst olive groves, that are, so to speak, the plumage of the heights. It is the Syrian palace of the Jumblatts, the focus and centre of the Lebanon Druzes. Here reside this princely family, headed then by a Chieftainess, the "Sitt Jumblatt."

Long before we sighted Muktára, wild horsemen, in the rich Druze dress, came careering down, jeriding on beautiful horses, with guns and lances, the sons and retainers of the house heading them. They were splendidly mounted, and one of the sons had a black mare, so simply perfect I infringed the tenth commandment. We descended into a deep defile, and rose up again on the opposite side, the whole of which was lined with horsemen and footmen to salute us, and the women trilled out their joy-cry. Ascending the other side was literally like going up stairs cut in the rock; it was a regular fastness. We rode our horses up the flight of stairs into the court. We received the most cordial and gracious hospitality from the _Sitt_, who had all the well-bred ease of a European _grande dame_. Water and scented soap was brought in carved brass ewers and basins to wash our hands, incense was waved before us, we were sprinkled with rose-water, whilst an embroidered gold canopy was held over us. Coffee, sherbet, and sweets were served. The next morning the palace was filled with grey-bearded and turbaned scribes, with their long brass inkstands, and the _Sitt_ explained to Richard that her affairs were entirely neglected at Beyrout, and asked him to do something for her. He explained that it was a great embarrassment to him, as he was subordinate to Mr. Eldridge, but that, whatever she chose to write, he would make a point of going himself to present her wishes to Mr. Eldridge. Richard notes in his journal that day among others, "Eldridge does nothing, and is very proud of what he does. Consular office awfully careless; sick of dyspepsia; nothing to do body and mind."

We sat down to a midday meal equivalent to a dinner, and then went to the _Jeríd_ ground, where the sons and their fighting men displayed their grace and skill. The stables are solid, and like tunnels with light let in, containing sixty horses, all showing blood, and some quite thoroughbred. At nightfall there was a big dinner, to which all the retainers flocked in; there was dancing and war-songs between the Druzes of the Lebanon and the Druzes of the Haurán, ranged on either side of the banqueting hall; they performed a pantomime, they sang, and recited tales of love and war far into the night.

An amusing thing was, that after the _Sitt_ had dined with us, I found her shortly after sitting cross-legged on the floor of the kitchen, devouring a second dinner. I said, "Ya Sitti, I thought you had eaten your dinner with us; what are you doing?" She laughed, and said, "My dear child, you don't suppose for an instant that I got a bit into my mouth with those knives and forks; I was only doing pantomime for the honour of the house. Now I am getting my _real_ dinner with my fingers!" We were accompanied out with the same honours as those with which we were ushered in. How sorry we were to leave! Our friendship always lasted. We used to begin, "My dearest sister," and she used to say all those sweet things which only Easterns can say, such as--"My eyes sought for you many days till my head ached; when will you come to repose them, that I may not see your empty place?"

We went on to Deir el Khammar to the palace of Bayt el Din (B'teddin), where Franco Pasha (the best governor the Lebanon has ever known) lived, and was restoring this ruined castle of the late terrible Amir Beshir Sheháb, from whence the view is splendid. He had about five hundred soldiers, and was doing enormous good. He had a band, a school, was planting pine trees and wheat, teaching carpet-making, tailoring, shoemaking, making roads, teaching religion and loyalty to God, to the Sultan, with liberality and civilization. He produced an electric shock upon us by the invisible band playing "God save the Queen." We sprang to our feet, and in that wild place it made me cry. In this region we met the only real _prince_ in Syria, the Emir Mulhem Rustam. We had an immense quantity of deputations of Druze Shaykhs; those of the Haurán were something like bears, with huge white turbans, green coat, massive swords, some in red, and all exceedingly wild-looking. We then went to Ali Beg of Jumblatt, at Baderhan. We passed innumerable Druze villages, until we came to Jezzín, one of the three manly Christian villages. Usuf Beg, their Chief, was a delightful Shaykh.

Sometimes these breakfasts on the march were very amusing, where there were a mixture of races and religion. You would see forty intrigues round a dish of rice. At Rasheya there was no water; here we were on Druze ground again. From this we went to the top of Mount Hermon, _i.e._ it has three tops, and we put a _kakú_ of stones on the highest for a remembrance. The view is immense. We found a cave and saw a hare. When we got to the bottom, there was hardly a shoe or a rag left amongst us. Here we met some very charming Druze chiefs, and went with them to Hasbeya, because Richard was convinced that the sources of the Jordan were not as they are given in books; and he was perfectly right. There is a slanting rock with some figs growing out of it, and oleanders growing in luxurious clumps in the sand all around, and out of this rock rushes a stream, which we traced to the Jordan. Near is a mine of bitumen.

From thence to Kefayr, another Druze village, after which we rode to Banias. Of course, there are loads of things to see all the way--caves or temples, or what not; but, then, all those can be got in books. The sources are supposed to be here, at Banias, and are made much of; and all visitors go to the fountain of Jordan, the cave of Pan, the temple of Herod and Augustus, with the three niches. The water trickles from beneath under the stones, separating into eight or nine streams, but they are not the real source.

We had a large escort to-day. Ali Beg Ahmadi and his cavalry, Shaykh Ahmad, and many others, came to escort us, and we had a delicious gallop over the plain of Ghyam, which is part of the Ard el Húleh, through which runs the Jordan, and another portion of the same is called the Abbs. We came to Arab tents, and drank milk with the Bedawi; we found many of them down with fever, and stopped to doctor them with Warburg's drops. We had to ride all day, and at last through marshy, rushy places under a burning sun, without a breath of air.

[Sidenote: _We camp at the Waters of Merom._]

This valley of the Jordan, if drained and planted, would be immensely rich, but it teemed now with luxurious rankness, fever, and death. We pitched our tents under a large tree, divided from the lake by papyrus swamps; a most unwholesome spot, where we were punished by every sort of insect and crawling thing in creation; and we all got headache and sore throat at once.

The Bahret el Huleh, or the Waters of Merom in Josh. xi. 5-7, anciently called Lake Semachonitis, is a small blue triangular lake, the first and highest of the three basins of the Jordan. We had all our escort with us; we had scarcely any food; there was none for the horses. We had to turn them all loose to forage for themselves, except the stallions, and they had to be led. It was a hideous expanse of fœtid mire and putrefying papyrus. We had a frightful night, a stifling heat, a very blizzard of wind, rain, thunder, and lightning, and we were camped under the only tree in the plain. It was black dark; the ground was bad-smelling black mud; we passed the dark hours in holding our tent-pole against the wind, and digging trenches outside to let the water off. There were no dry clothes to be had, and the various vermin would not let one rest. We were like that for three days; so we piled up the trunks and sat at the top of them, and read "Lothair," by Disraeli, which we had brought with us. The description of the great houses of England read so funnily sitting in this black mud in the centre of desolation, surrounded by feverish swamps.

In spite of the difficulties of moving in such weather, Richard and I were agreed that if we stayed there any longer, we should all perhaps get in such a state as not to be able to move at all; so we saddled our horses, and ordering our followers and escort to strike tents, pack, load, and follow, we mounted and waded our horses through the water, scrambled over stones and slippery rocks, and in and out mud and slush for two hours, often sinking deep, till we reached the mountain roots and began to ascend.

After some hours' climbing we arrived at the seventy-two tents of the Shaykh Hadi Abd Allah; he instantly gave us hospitality, barley for our horses and food for ourselves. They were all yellow and sickly, and, even at this height, dying like sheep of fever from the miasma arising out of the plain that we had been in for three days. They had lost many children, and double sorrow when sons. One boy was dying as we entered. Our tents came up to us late that day with all our belongings. Our animals and people were fed. We stayed with the tribe long enough to doctor them all round, and to leave remedies and directions; and I baptized the incurables and the dying children.

Then came down the Amir Hasan el Fá'ur of the Benú Fadl, or Fazli tribe. He heard of our being in the neighbourhood, and took us off to his camp on the summit of a mountain called Jebel Haush, a day's ride away, where we found his three hundred tents. The whole tribe turned out to meet us, mounted and couching their lances, and jeríded the whole way back. The reception tent was fifty feet long, and each divan was twenty-five feet long. The retainers cleared a space for our camp, corn was brought, horses picketed; an excellent dinner on a large scale in the big tent was cooked, lambs and kids roasted whole, stuffed with pistachios and rice, bowls of _leban_, unleavened bread, honey, and camels'-milk butter, bowls of clear sparkling water. I love to think now of those dark, fierce men, in their gaudy flowing costumes, lying about in different attitudes, the moon lighting up the scene; the lurid glare of the fire on their faces, the divans and pipes, _narghílehs_ and coffee, their wild and mournful songs, their war-dances, their story-telling; and on that particular night, and on all these sort of nights, my husband would recite to them one or another tale out of the "Arabian Nights"--those tales which he has now translated literally for the London world; and I have seen the gravest and most reverend Shaykhs rolling on the ground and screaming with delight, in spite of their Oriental gravity, and they seemed as if they could never let my husband go again.

[Sidenote: _Richard is stung by a Scorpion._]

I can remember that night, when he and I went to our tent and lay down on our respective rugs, he called me over, for he was stung by a scorpion, but when I struck a match there was nothing but a speck of blood, as though from a black ant; so we lay down again, and he called out, "Quick, quick! I _know_ it is a scorpion." I ran over and struck another light, and plunged my hand into the shirt by the throat, and the scorpion caught my finger. I drew it out and shook it off, and killed it; but it did not sting me, being, I supposed, exhausted. I rubbed some strong smelling-salts into the wounds, and, seeing he was pale, ran off to the provision-basket and got a bottle of _raki_, and made him drink it, to keep the poison from the heart, and he woke in the morning quite well.

I now discovered that though they were treating us with this splendid hospitality, that behind the scenes they were also dying in their tents of fever, although they were in the purest air; so here we again stayed to doctor, and nurse, and baptize, and leave directions and remedies.

We then went on to most of the romantic and hospitable Druze villages which cling to the southern and eastern folds of Hermon--Mejdel Esh Shems to Birket er Ram, or Lake Phiala,[5] a little round lake which we found interesting enough to come back to afterwards. Mejdel is on a declivity of a mountain defile--their favourite position--a Druze stronghold, very fighting and turbulent, where we were received and treated like relations. Then we got to Beyt-Jenn, where we had a mixed Druze and Christian place. We came in for a very interesting Druze wedding at Arneh, at the foot of Hermon, just above which rise the sources of the Awaj, which waters El Kunayterah. We then went to a Druze village called Rimeh, to look for a stone with an inscription, which we found in a stable, and then to the Bukkásim, which is the Druze frontier. Here our Druze cavalcade took an affecting leave of us. As we rode away I could see them for three-quarters of an hour standing on a high rock to watch us out of sight, one or two of them with their faces buried in their mares' necks.

THE WULD ALI.

Our escort of free-lances one day, as we were riding to some of our usual environs, soon perceived that we were making for the desert, towards the direction where the dreaded Mohammed Dúkhi was known to camp, and they began the well-known dodges of making their horses curvet and prance and wheel in circles as if they had become unmanageable, and every round became so much larger that they gradually dropped out of sight. Presently some cast a shoe, or another had broken a girth, and stopped to rectify it. The fact is, Richard had been determined to make friends with the Wuld Ali tribe, of which Mohammed Dúkhi is the Chief, and rules five thousand lances. At last we found ourselves alone, so we rode on all that day, slept by our horses at night in a ruined _khan_, and got in sight of the Wuld Ali encampment late next day. Richard said to me, "Now mind, when they see us two horsemen, they will come galloping across the sand in a body with their lances couched; if we were to turn and run, they would spear us; but if we sit our horses, facing them like statues on parade, just as the Life Guards sit in their sentry-boxes at the Horse Guards at home, they will take us in with great applause, and our horses will stand it, because they are used to desert manners."

I said "All right," as I always did when he gave me an order, and I was glad he put me up to it, for, sure enough, when they saw our two dusky figures galloping from a distance across the sand towards them, the whole tribe charged with their lances couched, and we reined in and stood stock still, facing the charge; but as soon as they got within a few yards, they seemed by instinct to recognize the man they were charging. They lowered their lances, opened their ranks to enclose us, and with one cry of "Ak-hu Sebbah!" (Brother of the Lion), jumped off their horses, kissed our hands, galloped in with us jeriding, and held our stirrups to alight. I need not say that we were treated with all the true hospitality of real Bedawi life, and we remained several days with them. My husband's object was to make peace between the Wuld Ali and the Mezrabs. We visited the lakes which are near them, and they were all dried up except a bit of water in the sand about the size of a small duck-pond. "What, then," said Richard, "becomes of the Bárada and the Awaj, the so-called ancient Abana and Pharphar?" They have been partly drawn off, and partly evaporated before reaching their basements at 'Utaybah and Hijánah, where we then were.

The Arabic of Damascus, _especially_ the Christian Arabic, Richard found so grating to the ears after the pure speech of the Bedawi--and that of the Nejd and El Hejaz.

Richard writes an account of a trip--

[Sidenote: _Explorations of Unknown Tracts._]

"A little later on Charley Drake and I again started to revisit the Tulúl el Safá,[6] and our first eight days was over the old ground. This trip added considerably to our scanty geographical knowledge of these regions off the tracks. In one week we collected some hundred and twenty inscriptions, and three lengthy copies of Greek hexameters and pentameters from the Burj, a mortuary tower at Shakkah, a ruin long since identified as the Saccæa of Ptolemy. We went to the top of Tell Shayhán, whose height is 3750 feet, which showed us that the Lejá, the Argob of the Hebrews and the western Trachon of the Greeks and Romans, is the gift of Tell Shayhán.[7] It is a lava bed, a stone torrent poured out by the lateral crater over the ruddy yellow clay and the limestone floor of the Haurán valley, high raised by the ruins of repeated eruptions, broken up by the action of blow-holes, and cracked and crevassed by contraction when cooling, by earthquakes, and the weathering of ages. 'The features are remarkable. It is composed of black basalt, which must have issued from the pores of the earth in a liquid state, and flowed out until the plain was almost covered. Before cooling its surface was agitated by some powerful agency, and it was afterwards shattered and rent by internal convulsions and vibrations' (Porter). Two whole days were spent at Kanawát, the ancient Canatha, a city of Og.

"There are now hundreds of Druzes, and we may remark for the first time 'the beauty of Bashan,' the well-wooded and watered country. We then went along the Jebel Kulayb and visited the noble remains of Sí'a, where we met with three Palmyrene inscriptions, showing that the Palmyra of Ptolemy extended to the south-west far beyond the limits assigned to it. We then got to Sahwat el Balát, where lives my influential friend, Shaykh Ali el Hináwí, a Druze Akkál of the highest rank; and here they gathered to meet me and palaver. We crossed the immense rough and rugged lava beds which gloom the land. Jebel el Kulayb was bright with vetch, red poppy, yellow poppy, mistletoe with ruddy berries, hawthorn boughs, and the vivid green of the maple and the sumach, the dark foliage of the ilex oak scrub, and the wild white honeysuckle. There was cultivation; the busy Druze peasantry at work, the women in white and blue. The aneroid showed 5785 feet, the hygrometer stood at 0°, the air was colder than on the heights of Hermon in June, and the western horizon was obscured by the thickest of wool packs. Here we made two important observations. The apparently confused scatter of volcanic cratered hill and hillock fell into an organized trend of 356° to 176°, or nearly north-south. The same will be noticed in the Safá, and in its out-layers the Tulúl el Safá, which lie hard upon a meridian; thus the third or easternmost great range, separating the Mediterranean from the Euphrates desert, does not run parallel with its neighbours, the Anti-Libanus and Libanus, which are disposed, roughly speaking, north-east 38°, and south-west 218°.

"The second point of importance is that El Kulayb is not the apex of the Jebel Durúz Haurán, though it appears to be so. To the east appeared a broken range, whose several heights, beginning from the north, were named to us. Tell Ijaynah, bearing 38°, back by the Umm Haurán hill, bearing 94°; the Tell of Akriba (Wetz Stein), bearing 112° 30'; Tell Ruban, bearing 119°; and Tell Jafnah, bearing 127° 30'. We believed that Tell Ijaynah was 6080 English feet high, and we thought that Jebel Durúz must be greatly changed since it was described by travellers and tourists.

"Here the land, until the last hundred and fifty years, was wholly in the hands of the Bedawi, especially of the Wuld Ali, and the nine hill tribes already named. At last the Druzes, whom poverty and oppression drove away from their original home, the Wady Taym and the slopes of Libanus and Hermon, settled here. In Rashíd Pasha's reign seventeen mountain villages have been repeopled, and in 1886 some eight hundred families fled to this safe retreat; nor can we wonder at the exodus, because of half the settlements of the Jaydur district, the ancient Ituræa, eleven out of twenty-four have been within twelve months ruined by the usurer and the tax-gatherer, and at one time a hundred and twenty Druze families went in one flight from their native mountains to the Haurán.

"They found here a cool, healthy, but harsh climate, a sufficiency of water, ready-made houses, ruins of cut stone, land awaiting cultivation, pasture for their flocks and herds, and, above all things, a rude independence under the patriarchal rule of their own chiefs. In short, the only peaceful, prosperous districts of Syria are those where home rule exists, and there is scarcely any interference by the authorities. It is a short-sighted and miserable management which drives an industrious peasantry from its hearths and homes to distant settlements where defence is more easy than offence.

"This system keeps the population of the whole province to a million and a half, which in the days of Strabo and Josephus supported its ten millions and more. The European politician is not sorry to see the brave and sturdy Druze thrown out as a line of forts to keep the Arab wolf from the doors of the Damascene, but the antiquary sighs for the statues and architectural ornaments broken up, the inscribed stones used for building rude domiciles, the most valuable remnants of antiquity white-washed as lintels, or plastered over in the unclean interiors. The next generation of travellers will see no more 'mansions of Bashan.'

"At Shakkah (Saccæa) there are still extensive ruins and fine specimens of Hauránic architecture, especially the house of Shaykh Hasan Brahím with its coped windows and its sunken court Here we were received by the Druze Chief, Kabalán el Kala'áni, who behaved very badly to us, and when we tried to go, refused to let us unless we paid him forty napoleons for ten horsemen. We laughed in his face, told him to stop us if he dared, and sent for our horses. However, as we were going into a fighting country, I sent back all the people who would have been in the way.

"The Druzes had been quarrelling amongst themselves; fifteen men had been killed, and many wounded. We had to doctor three; one had a shoulder-blade pierced clean through. We were joined _nolens volens_ by ten free-lances, and escorted as far as Bir Kasam, their particular boundary. Finally, it appears that our visit to the 'Aláh district, lying east of Hamáh, has brought to light the existence of an architecture which, though identical with that of the Haurán, cannot in any way be connected with that of Og. Although only separated by seventy miles from the southern basaltic region, the northern has also its true Bashan architecture, its cyclopean walls, its private houses, low, massive, and simple in style, with stone roofs and doors, and huge gates, conspicuous for simplicity, massiveness, and rude strength. Moab has the same, only limestone is used instead of basalt.

"Dumá Ruzaymah is occupied by three great houses, and the Junaynah hamlet is the last inhabited village of this side towards the desert. We now got to the Wady Jahjah, thence to El Harrah, 'the Hot or Burnt Land,' and to the Krá'a, which we crossed in fifty-five minutes, and got into or entered the Naká, _and were surprised to see a messenger mounted on a dromedary, going at a great pace, and evidently shunning us_. We had descended 3780 feet; the passage occupied two hours.

"We then ascended into the Hazir, and from the top we had our first fair view of the Safá,[8] a volcanic block, with its seven main summits. They stood conspicuously out of the Harrah, or 'Hot Country.' In the far distance glittered the sunlit horizon of the Euphrates Desert, a mysterious tract, never yet crossed by European foot. We eventually arrived at the stony, black Wa'ar, a distorted and devilish land, and we then got to a waterless part, where our horses were already thirsty, and into the Ghadir, where we had been promised water, and it was bone dry. After long riding, we came to a ruined village, El Hubbayríyyah, where we found yellow water forming a green slime. It was again the _kattas_ which led me to the water, as in Somali-land. Here we spent an enjoyable fifty minutes at the water, refreshing ourselves and beasts; it lies 3290 feet above sea-level. We presently fell into the Saut on return; it was good travelling, and we saw old footmarks of sheep, goats, and shod horses.

"The only sign, as we turned out of the Saut and swept down from the Lohf, that human foot had ever trod this inhospitable wild, was here and there a goat-fold, with a place for the shepherd on a commanding spot, or more probably a Bedawin sentinel or scout (you often see a solitary tribesman perched on a hilltop). The road was simply a goat-track, over the domes of cast-iron ovens, in endless succession. It was a truly maniac ride. _At the Rajm el Shalshal we again saw traces of our friend on the dromedary._ That day at 4.20 p.m. we were surprised by our advanced party springing suddenly from the mares, and hearing the welcome words, 'Umm Nirán!' (the mother of fire). Late as it was, we rejoiced, because a night march over such a country would have been awful. The cave is as dry as the land of Scinde, and in the summer sunshine the hand could not rest upon the heated surface, but after rain there is a drainage from the fronting basin into the cave. We crawled into it and entered a second tunnel, and after two hundred feet we came to the water, a ditch-like channel, four feet wide. The line then bent to the right from north-north-east to the north-east. Here, by plunging our heads below water and raising them further on, we found an oval-shaped chamber, still traversed by the water. We could not, however, reach the end, as shortly the rock ceiling and the water met. The supply was sweet, the atmosphere close and damp, the roof an arid fiery waste of blackest lava. The basalt ceiling of the cave sweated and dripped, which could not have been caused only by simple evaporation. The water began by a few inches till it reached mid-thigh. The length was a total of three hundred and forty feet; the altitude was 2745 feet.

"A water scorpion was the only living thing in the cave. This curious tunnel reservoir is evidently natural. There are legends about a clansman going in with black hair, and coming out after the third day with white hair, and one of our lads declared he had taken an hour to reach the water; but we, on all fours, took three minutes. We set out again next day for the great red cinder-heap, known as Umm el Ma'azah, where we halted for observation, and then fell into the trodden way which leads from the Ghutah section of the Damascus plain to the Rubbah valley.

"We had long and weary desert rides, seeing everything to the Bir Kasam. Bedawi never commit the imprudence of lingering near the well after they have watered their beasts, because that is the way to draw a _ghazú_, or raid, down upon you.

[Sidenote: _I prevent Rashíd Pasha's Intentions taking effect._]

"Now I have every reason to be thankful that I did not bring my wife on this journey, as she was not very well. In this country fever and dysentery seize upon you with short notice, and pass away again, and she, though in no danger, was not in a state for hard riding at the time. At Bir Kásam, a Druze greybeard, on a _rahwán_, rode up to the well, and took the opportunity of making me a sign: pretending to question him, as to the name of a mountain on the horizon, I led him away, and he cautiously pulled out of his pocket a medicine bottle, which he handed to me, from my wife. I then knew there was something up, and I thanked him, giving him some money, and asked him if he had anything to say. He said, 'If I may advise you, get rid of all your party. They want to go to Damascus or Dhumayr; announce that you are going to neither, and they will probably forsake you, as this is not a safe spot. I shall ride on, till out of sight, and then turn round and ride back to Damascus, by slow degrees, sleeping and eating on the road. You and your friend ride into Jebel Dákwah; but first read the directions about the medicine.'

"I uncorked the bottle, saw my wife's warning in writing, and carefully put them in my pocket not to leave a 'spoor.' I then paid him still more handsomely, and told him to go back to my wife, and tell her it was 'all right,' and not to fear. As evening fell, they asked us what our intentions were. We said we were not going either to Damascus or Dhumayr, and, as our messenger had prophesied, they all disappeared in the night, to our great relief. As soon as the last man had disappeared, we went into the Dákwah Mountain (hid our horses in a cave), from the cone of which you command a view of the whole country, and after a few hours we saw a hundred horsemen and two hundred dromedary riders beating the country, looking for some one in the plains. At last they turned in another direction, towards some distant villages, and when we were consoled by not seeing a living thing, we descended from our perch, galloped twenty miles to Dhumayr, where we were well received by faithful Druzes, whose Chief was Rashíd el Bóstají. We were just in time. The Governor-General had mustered his bravos; they missed us at Umm Nirán, at the Bir Kasam, and again upon the _direct_ road to Dhumayr, having been put out by our _détour_ to Dákwah. They were just a few hours too late everywhere; so, to revenge themselves, they plundered, in the sight of six hundred Turkish soldiers, the village of Suwáydah, belonging to my dragoman Azar, whose life they threatened, and also Abbadáh and Haraán el Awáníd. So we rode into Damascus, escaping by peculiar good fortune a hundred horsemen and two hundred dromedary riders, sent on purpose to murder _me_. I was never more flattered in my life, than to think that it would take three hundred men to kill _me_. The felon act, however, failed."

RASHÍD PASHA'S INTRIGUE WITH THE DRUZES--MY ACCOUNT FROM DAMASCUS.

"I wish each man's forehead were a magic lantern of his inner self."

[Sidenote: _Rashíd's Intrigue about the Druzes._]

About this time the Druzes wrote and asked Richard to come to the Haurán. He wished to copy Greek inscriptions and explore volcanoes. He was not aware that the _Wali_ had a political move in the Haurán, which he did not wish him to see. Mr. Eldridge knew it, and encouraged him to go, as his leave would be short. Richard knew that if he went to one man's house, he must go to everybody, therefore he asked them all to meet him at the house of the principal Shaykh. When the _Wali_ was told by Richard that he was going, his face fell, but he suddenly changed, and said, "Go soon, or there will be no water." Mr. Eldridge, who never left Beyrout, and had at that time never seen Damascus, had talked a great deal about going there; so Richard wrote and asked him to go with him, but to that there was no answer. It was providential that I was weak with fever and dysentery, and could not ride, so that I was left at home. As soon as he was gone the _Wali_ wrote to me, and accused my husband "of having made a political meeting with the Druze Chiefs in the Haurán, thereby doing great harm to the Turkish Government." Knowing that Richard had done nothing of the kind, I told him so, but I saw there was a new intrigue on. The _Wali_ had only let my husband go in order to be able to accuse him of meddling, and by Mr. Eldridge's not answering I suspected he knew it too. An old Druze from the Haurán came to our house, said he had seen my husband, and began to praise him. I said, "Why, what is he doing?" He replied, "Máshálláh! we never saw a Consul like him. He can do in one day what the _Wali-Pasha_ could not do in five years. We had a quarrel with the Bedawi, and we carried off all their goats and sheep, and the Government was going to attack us. Our Chiefs, when they saw the Consul (Allah be praised!), told him the difficulty, and asked him what we ought to do. He told us we ought to give back the goats and sheep to the Bedawi, and to make up our quarrel, and submit to the Government, for that the war will do us great harm. The Shaykhs have consented, and now we shall be at peace. Máshálláh! there is nobody like him!" I now began to wonder if the _Wali_ had intended a little campaign against the Druzes, and if my husband had spoilt it by counselling submission. If he had intended to reduce the Druzes of the Eastern Mountains, and if a campaign took place in Jebel Durúz Haurán, the inhabitants would have been joined by the fighting men of the Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon, and Hermon. The country is eminently fitted for defence, and the Druzes, though badly armed, are brave, and animated by the memories of past victories. In short, the same disgraceful defeat of the Turkish Government would have taken place as that which occurred in 1874, and which caused the _Wali_, Mustafa Beg, and nine high officials to be dismissed.

The _Wali_ then employed somebody--who I need not name--to inform him what day my husband was coming back. On being questioned about it, my suspicions were aroused; I immediately gave the wrong date (it was God's own blessing that I had for once been unable to go with him). I got the faithful old Druze to start at once, with a pretended bottle of medicine. I wrote, in a cipher that my husband and I composed and understood together, the whole history of the case, and I tied it round the cork of the bottle, covering it with leather and a bit of oil-skin, and sent my messenger straight out to meet him. It was just in time. He noticed with his keen desert instincts the fresh spoor of one solitary dromedary; the rider was bound like them from Shakkah to the north-east (where the Bedawi encamped), not for exploration, but with a message. He divined the ill-omened foot-prints which he saw twice in different localities, and so soon as the medicine bottle reached him, with what Ouida would call "a quiet low laugh under his moustache," he altered his course, and from a concealed shelter in the rocks was able to watch the progress of a hundred horsemen and two hundred _Redifs_--dromedary riders, two in each saddle--beating the country and looking for some one. Now, these were not _real_ Bedawi, but the jackals who call themselves Bedawi, who surround the Cities, and are to be hired like bravos for any dirty work. They went off on a false scent, and he arrived home all right. Now, the day of his arrival I had been obliged, more or less officially, to attend a ceremony, where the _Wali_ and Authorities and the Consuls would be present with their wives. I was determined to go, and to put on a perfectly calm exterior, though I felt very heart-sick, and a well-known Greek in the _Wali's_ pay said to me, with a meaning, unpleasant smile, "I fancy there will be important news for you in a short while." I felt very faint inside, but I said coolly, "Oh, will there? Well, I suppose I shall get it when it comes." Almost immediately afterwards, Richard's Afghan walked in, and saluting said, "The Consul has returned and wants you." The faces of the _Wali_ and his Greek were a study. I saluted them all, went out, jumped on my horse, and rode back. Had the _Redifs_ fallen in with Richard, the verdict would have been, "Fallen a prey to his wild and wandering habits in the desert." The _Wali_ then forged a letter from Richard to the Druzes, and forwarded it through Mr. Eldridge to the Foreign Office. Here it is:--

REAL COPY (TRANSLATED) TO THE SHAYKHS OF THE RENOWNED DRUZE MOUNTAIN.

"After the usual compliments we want to inform you that this time the wish to visit you has moved us, and to take the direction of your country.

"For which reason we will leave Damascus on the Wednesday, and sleep at Hijaneh; the second day at Lahtah, and the third at Kanawát.

"We therefore hope that you will meet us in the above-mentioned place, that we may see you."

This is a simple general _return visit_ to the visits of the Druzes, not to waste time in going to each man's house, nor to make jealousies by singling out some and neglecting others.

FALSE COPY (TRANSLATED) AND SENT TO ENGLAND.

"Traduction d'une lettre addressée par le Consul Britannique, en date du 22 Mai, 1871 (3 Jui), aux Cheikhs Druzes Haurán.

"'Après les compliments d'usage, _je m'empresse_ de vous informer que, animé du désir _de m'entretenir avec vous_, je quitterai Damas mercredi _pour vous rejoindre_, et que j'arriverai ce jour même à Hedjan, et le lendemain à Lahita, et le troisième à Finvate. Je nourris l'espoir que vous ne manquerez pas _tous_ de venir me recontrer, au dit village de Finvate, _afin de prendre part à cette entrevue_."

This _adds_ all the words that are dashed, to give it a semblance of a secret political meaning.

Richard and I and Charley Drake made another pleasant journey exploring the Anti-Libanus. Everybody thinks, even professional geographers, if you speak of the Anti-Libanus, that you are going over trodden ground, filling up details upon the broad outlines traced by other people; but it is very far from being the case. Now the best maps only show a long conventional caterpillar, flanked by acidulated drops, and seamed with a cobweb of drainage. They never name a valley north-east of Zebedáni, nor a summit, except Jebel el Halímah, which is not its name. The northern half of the Anti-Lebanon is arid and barren, the southern is very fertile, and it is far superior to the Lebanon. Weird, savage, like parts of Moab, the colouring is richer, forms more picturesque, contrasts of shape and hue are sharper, and the growth is more like thin forest. "That ravines of singular wildness and grandeur furrow the whole mountain side, looking in many places like huge rents," is true of Anti-Lebanon, but not of Lebanon. The views are superior; it is richer and more remarkable.

Some of our followers will not forget some of our day's work, for we ascend successively every height, taking angles, laying down altitudes, and building up _kakús_ to serve for a theodolite survey. Charley Drake mapped and sketched whilst we wrote.

The Convent of Nabi Baruh is ruinous in the extreme, but it gave us the idea of being the most ancient which we had seen throughout Syria and Palestine. The reception in these wild places is always the same, if they are not Christians, who--why, it is impossible to say--generally receive one badly, except of course the Maronites in their stronghold, and more especially the splendid Christians of Jezzín, Sadád, and B'sherri, who are marked exceptions to the generality of Christians, and who are equal, if not better than the rest.

[Sidenote: _The Manner in which we are received in Villages._]

All the Chiefs and notables meet the stranger at a distance beyond the houses. As the two parties meet, he reins in his horse and touches hands, snatching away his with a jerk if they attempt to kiss it, reproachfully ejaculating "Astaghfir 'Ullah!" (I beg pardon of Allah, _i.e._ God forbid that such a thing should happen). If you permit it they kiss your hand, and ridicule you in their minds as a fool, who delights in such homage as a priest, whose right it is. Guided by the Shaykhs, each in a strict precedence as at a London dinner-party, he rides leisurely, not hastening the pace, lest he cause his host to run; he dismounts at the door, and the Chiefs and notables rush to hold his horse, his stirrup, and his back under the shoulders. He must be sure to ride into the courtyard, no matter how broken be the gate threshold, nor how slippery the pavement, or up the steps, or they will suspect him of not knowing how to ride. He is led to the _salamlik_, but he will not enter till the women who have been sprinkling the floor have made themselves scarce. He sits down, doubling his legs a little if he cannot cross them, whilst the others form a semicircle upon humbler rugs before him. Each salaams, and is salaamed to, as he takes his place, squatting ceremoniously on his shins, till his visitor says, "Khuz ráhatak" (Take your ease), suggesting a more pleasant posture. If he fails to do this they will watch an opportunity to change seat, but if disposed to be impertinent they will stretch out their shanks and require a reproof. Water pipes, sherbet, lemonade, and coffee are brought, after which the Shaykh will retire and beg you to repose.

A breakfast is served about noon of cheese, soured milk, grape syrup, raw green onions, boiled rice, wheaten scones, and eggs fried in clarified butter. It is vulgar for the stranger to produce his own wine and cold meat from the saddle-bags. At sunset meat is served. A whole kid is a prime sign of honour. During meals one of the family stands up, holding a metal pot full of drinking water. Pipes and coffee conclude. The correct thing is to compel the Shaykh and the Chiefs to eat with you; the followers and retainers will eat afterwards, the trays being removed to another part. At night there will be a _samrah_, or palaver, in which the state of the country in general, and the village in particular, is discussed, grievances are quoted, the usurer and creditor complained of, the Government and Governor abused. Local legends are told, and the traveller can gain any amount of information if he can speak the language. They press him to stay next day, and his excuses are received with a respectful and regretful unwillingness.

Before leaving next morning he will find out privately what he has cost them, he will find out that his animals have been well fed, and he will manage to slip it and something more into the hands of one of the women or children. Before the departure the women of the family will offer excuses for their poor fare, saying, "La tawák-hizná" (Don't be offended with us), and he will hasten with many "Astaghfir 'Ullahs" to express his supreme satisfaction. He mounts as ceremoniously as he dismounted, preceded by his escort, but every now and then he reins in, dismissing them--"Arja'ú ya Masháikh" (Return, O Shaykhs). They persist in walking to the last house, and often much farther; they again try to kiss his hand, which he pulls away as before, and the visit ends. The visited then retire and debate what has caused the visit, and what will be the best way to utilize it.

We divided and visited every section of the northernmost line of Anti-Libanus from the Halímat el Kabú, 8257 feet above sea-level. We enjoyed an extensive and picturesque view far superior to anything seen in the Libanus, especially southwards. From here we might write a chapter on what we could see. The weather being clear, we could even see the long-balled chine of the Cedar Block of the Libanus, and its large spots of snow, which glowed like amethysts in evening light. We could see the apex of the Libanus, which falls into the Jurd of Tripoli. We could see the Jebel el Huleh, which defines the haunts of the mysterious Nusayri; the glance falls upon the Orontes Lake, upon the rich cultivation of Hums and Hamáh, one of the gardens of Syria upon the ridge of Salámiyyah, that outpost of ancient Tadmor, and upon the unknown Steppe el Huleh, and the Bedawi-haunted tracts which sweep up to the Jebel el Abyaz, whilst the castle of Aleppo bounds the septentrional horizon. The end of this day was a remarkable one. "It was the only occasion," said Richard, "during my travels in Syria and Palestine that I felt thoroughly tired. My _rahwán_, though a Kurd nag, trembled with weakness, and my wife jogged along sobbing in her saddle, and if it had not been for the advice of Charley Drake we should have spent the night on the mountain-side; but we did arrive. Habíb had built a glowing fire, beds were spread, tea was brewed, and presently a whole roast kid appeared, and restored us all in the best of humours; and our horses, after plenty to eat and drink, and being well rubbed down, lay down. We had had fifteen hours very hard work, not counting the before and after the march."

We next determined to prospect the third part of the east-west section of Anti-Libanus, including the Ba'albak crest, and then to ride up the Cœle-Syrian valley so as to fill in the bearings of the western wady mouths. We had forage for our beasts, water the whole way, and we were excited by the account of inscriptions and ruins. The Wady el Biyáras was splendid in scenery, and though our road was horrible, we congratulated each other in not missing it, and we descended into the Wady Atnayn.

[Sidenote: _Remarks on the Journey._]

It is very curious to observe the goats and sheep; they don't mix much, though in the same flock. The goats prefer difficult and venturesome places, the sheep browse in the lower lands. The goat is curious and impudent--he goes out of the way to stare and sneeze at you; the sheep is staid and respectable, like the "good young man." Here Richard did nothing but quote a piece of poetry which amused him intensely--

"In Teneriffe, for a time brief, I wandered all around, Where shady bowers and lively flowers Spontaneously abound.

"Where posies rare perfume the air In festoons o'er your head, Brave sheep and cows in pastures browse Without remorse or dread."[9]

[Sidenote: _Kurdish Dogs._]

Some of the goatherds are rather bullying. The Kurdish dog is shaggy, with cropped ears, large head, brindle coat, rough hair, bushy tail, as big as a St. Bernard, and looks like a bear; but if he is a soldier's dog, he is always civil. I took one from a Bedawi tent as a pup; he was christened "Kasrawán," which soon became "Cuss." From his earliest puppyhood he played watchman, and led our horses by the halter. As he grew up he would hardly allow a native to pass along the road at night. He wrangled with and made love to our English bull-terriers, he appeared to be sorely oppressed with the seriousness of life, and could never get fighting enough. A Fellah threw him some meat with a needle in it, a favourite style of revenge of one who has been once bitten, and does not care to be bitten again; we were obliged to put him out of his misery, and he was honourably buried in the garden of Bludán.

We carried out all our prospected journey, gathering information, inscriptions, and ruins everywhere, till we reached Yabrud, where the Shaykhs gave us a picnic, to show us the Arz el Jauzah.

There is a temple known as Kasr Namrúd; the water flows through a conduit of masonry, and is said to pass into a large underground cistern below, round the ample stone troughs and scattered fragments of columns. All through Syria Nimrod represents the Devil, and 'Antar the Julius Cæsar of Western Europe. The picnic, under the shade of this venerable building, passed off happily enough. The _kabábs_ of kid, secured instantly after sudden death, were excellent; the sour milk and the goat's cheese were perfection; and the Zahlah wine had only one fault--there was only half a bottle, and we could have drank a demijohn. We were very much struck by the similarity of plan which connects the heathen temple with the Christian church. It was late in the afternoon when we shook hands with our good host. It is pleasant to think upon happy partings--we never saw them again.

On our way home we passed ruins, arched caves, and sarcophagi, whilst a wall displays a large rude crucifix. We were received later at Talfíta with all honours by the Shaykh el Balad Mahfúz, whose pauper homes had been destroyed and the rest threatened by the villainous usurers under British protection, and next day we rode into Damascus. During this excursion, we had seen in a range of mountains, supposed to be impracticable, four temples, of which three had been hitherto unvisited; we had prepared for the map of Syria the names of five great mountains; we had traced out the principal gorges, all before absolutely unknown to geography; we had determined the disputed altitudes of the Anti-Libanus, and we proved that it is much more worthy of inspection than the much-vaunted Libanus.

ANOTHER TRIP, DESCRIBED BY CHARLEY DRAKE.[10]

[Sidenote: _Excursions to Unknown Tracts._]

"It is curious to see even what discrepancies there are in the heights of the Lebanon, which have been visited by scientific men. It shows that it must have been guess-work. There is one height which the goatherds know by the name of Tizmarún; but the aneroids, uncorrected for temperature, gave a reading of barely nine thousand feet, and this is the highest, though not generally acknowledged so.

"We wonder whether England will ever look upon Syria as anything else than a land for tourists to amuse themselves in; whether she will ever see that a _pied à terre_ there, would secure her not only an uninterrupted passage to India, but wealth incalculable in mineral and agricultural produce; that both may yet be drawn from this fertile land, whose soil needs no manure, and whose mountains teem with ores.

"The prettiest scenery we had seen in the Lebanon was at the head of a large _wady_, called El Nakrah; wild deep gorges, overhung by fantastic rocks, and in some places thickly wooded, are alternated by open grassy Alps, contrasting well with the deep rich purple of the basalt, and the yellow sandstone which was never far from it. When we got to the head of the Wady Mimnah overlooking the entrance to Hamath, the comparatively level tract that stretches from Tripoli to Hums, and divides the Lebanon from the Jebel Nusayri, we got to Akkar, to Kala'at el Husn and to Hums, crossing the river Orontes. When we were in the 'Aláh, all the Arabs agreed that it contained three hundred and sixty-five ruins, and that if a man travelled for a year, he might never sleep twice in the same village; and we quite believed it. The number of Bedawi who infest this region, the want of water, the loose basaltic soil, so tiring to horses, and want of reliable information, is, doubtless, the reason why this district has never been explored.

"The Pasha of Hamáh worried us with a large escort, which meant piastres. The troop would have made the fortune of any theatre as a gang of bandits in a burlesque. There were horses of all sizes and colours--some had bridles, some had none--half-starved beasts, not able to keep up with ours; pistols that would not go off, swords that would not come out of the scabbards; but one of them, a short-bodied, long-legged fellow, was mounted, without stirrups, on a year-old colt, his only arm a lance sixteen feet long. He looked like a monkey, armed with a broomstick, riding a small dog. On the road we found several ruined, deserted, fortified camps. The Circassians are come into this part of the country, and have taken a village from the Nusayri, and ousted the rightful owners, and we think there will be mischief later on. We reached the edge of the plain, in which stands Salamíyyeh, whose chief, Amir Ismail, is a patriarchal old gentleman. Holo Pasha sent us a large escort without our asking him; but when we explained to them our intention of striking across the desert to Shakún, they declined to go, which delighted us. Going along, we found the Haddidín Arabs encamped all along the desert.

"It is a curious thing to say, but there are sheep and goats where there is apparently nothing to eat, yet they are always fat. The soil is rich, but very tiring to horses, because it gives way beneath their weight, letting them sink in to the hock. At Shakún we found a quarantine for travellers from Baghdad. We were now on the ordinary travelling road from Hamáh to Aleppo. In these deserts the Haddidín go to the wells, which are a great depth, a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet. A horse is attached to the end of a rope, and trots away, bringing the leathern bucket to the surface. If the well be not very deep, they sometimes harness two women in it. El Háthir is in a marsh which has been dry for two years, and abounds in a large and troublesome horse-fly, whose bite is so severe that the horses were streaming with blood.

"We passed through a salt-pan which becomes a lake in the winter months, and is a source of considerable revenue to the Government. Soldiers are placed here to prevent contraband trade in salt.

"The refraction induces mirage. It seems impossible that one is not looking upon a pellucid and unruffled lake, in which both the houses of Jabúl and the outlines of an insular Tell are clearly reflected by the mirage.

"Akrabeh must have been a place of importance from the extent of ground over which the ruins are spread. The resemblance borne by the mounds on which the castles are built in Hums, Hamáh, and Aleppo is very striking; they are quite identical, Aleppo being the largest. At Hamáh particularly we find monuments of greatest possible value. History is silent about the construction of these three sister castles, but we thought that the five blocks of basalt at Hamáh, covered with hieroglyphics in excellent preservation, may be the opening page of a new chapter in history."

Richard took copies and Charley Drake took squeezes of them.

At Aleppo, in the south wall of the Jam'ia el Kahan, is a block of basalt with an inscription similar to those of Hamáh. Though much defaced, Charley Drake made out nineteen characters identical with the above-mentioned, and a doorstep bore the same. Charley Drake thought that the key to these characters must be looked for in _beth_ (house), _kaf_ (hand), _gimel_ (camel), _ain_ (eye), etc., of the Semitic alphabet. Hands, flowers, and teeth, and other unmistakable signs occur. If Richard was right, the well-known Moabite Stone would be modern in comparison, and we shall see these remarkable monuments deposited in the Louvre or the St. Petersburg Museum; and, as Charley Drake said, "there will be the usual gnashing and weeping of teeth after it is too late." But for my own part, in 1892, I begin to doubt that England is sufficiently interested in anything, except money, to have the energy to gnash its teeth at all.

"The ironwork of the gates of the castle of Aleppo is very good. The upper gate bears the name of Melek el Dhaher and the date 645 A.H. Having been officially informed that the mosques of Aleppo might not be visited by any Christian, we thought that something interesting might be found; but we managed to see them, and we did not find much, and the Shaykhs were only anxious to give all the information they could. We crossed the Nahr el Kowwáyyik, which does not run thirty miles to the south of Aleppo, as said in maps, but loses itself at a distance of two and a half hours from the City. On our road a row was going on between the Kurdish shepherds and the Fellahín of this place. The shepherds bring sheep down from Mesopotamia and Diarbekr by easy stages, and sell them at Aleppo and Damascus. The Fellahín envy and dislike these itinerant pastors. We rode seven and a half miles from Aleppo, arriving at Serákib.

"If you listen, the Fellahín are always talking about money, and prices, and transactions. The Bedawi only delights in listening to or telling stories of travelling and adventure, or smokes his pipe in placid enjoyment, while another of them sings an endless romance to the stirring tones of a one-stringed fiddle. We rode on to Mo'arrat el No'aman, where we visited some very interesting ruins in Jebel el Zowi. We then went to Jirjinnáz, as we found we could make it a head-quarter, and visit all the ruined cities within reach and then move on to Temányeh. The natural features and ruins of the 'Aláh are nearly all alike--a rolling plateau varying from thirteen hundred feet at the north-eastern, to sixteen hundred feet at the south-western above sea-level.

"From Damascus to Aleppo, one only meets with a few favoured villages whose supply of water is just sufficient to irrigate a patch of land and a few trees. The first ruin in the 'Aláh was Abu Mekkeh, and it was exactly like the uninhabited cities of the Haurán and the Lej. The ruins of Surr 'Aman are a mere collection of rude shelters piled up with old materials. The ruins of Tarútín el Tujjar are the most important in the 'Aláh. The village of Harráken was repeopled by Fellahín four years ago. Happily they have not the organ of destructiveness, as have their brethren in Palestine, and what was broken was accidental, and not wilful damage, like in the Haurán. At Burj el Abiadh ruins of considerable extent surround the white tower after which it is named. At Kufayr we found a ruined tower two stories high. The tower and ruins at El Fárajeh are of the usual type, but more solid. Nearly all the ruins bear crosses, Greek or Latin. At El Ikhwayn there is good water, but at Temányeh the villagers have to go a mile distant, to a hill with a well at the top. We then went to Atshán, passing the mounds and pillars which mark the site of S'kayk el Rubyíet. We next visited El Ma'an, which has the largest guard-house in the 'Aláh, built by Justinian. Of the ruins of Duwaylíb little has been left; the stones have been carried off for building purposes. We got water for our thirsty horses at the shallow well of Arúneh, beside which and around were encamped the Bedawi Mowáyleh. We rode through the ruins of Kefr-Ráa, and then descended into the valley of Orontes to Hamáh.

"There is a pyramidal-roofed tomb at El Barah. The roofs of these curious sepulchral monuments are built of massive stones, open inside up to the apex. One rock-hewn cave contains six loculi, five and a quarter feet long, by three and a quarter feet deep, and two and a quarter feet wide, with semicircular arches above them. On one of the rounded pillars we remarked that two crosses had been obliterated. A round-about road took us to Kefr Omar, where we saw a ruined monumental column built with circular stones upon a square base. We then went to Hass, where there was every kind of style of tomb--a square tower supporting a pyramidal roof, and all kinds of other shapes. The number of ruined villages in this district is surprising. During the day's ride you could count from six to eight with not a mile between them. Near Mo'arrat el No'aman is a castle similar to that near Salamíyyeh. At Danah there are very extensive ruins, and one building called the 'Church' resembles that near Hass. The stones used in these buildings are commonly six feet long, by two wide, and two deep. Here the Shaykh told us that twenty years ago a tomb had been opened, and a small gold image, a sword, a dagger, and some glass and pottery vessels had been found. There were one or two tombs in imitation of rock-hewn sepulchres. We felt certain that the ruined cities of Jebel el Zowi would amply repay any one with time and opportunity to make excavations. We then went to examine the Hums Lake, whose position, considering the rapid fall of the Orontes Valley, had always been a puzzle.

"We eventually came to a dam of masonry five hundred yards in length, and twenty feet high in the centre, built across the northern end of the lake. A small square tower stands at the west of it, and the water leaks through it in several places, but the dam looks as if it would last many centuries. The lake is now four or five feet lower than in winter, yet the surface of the water is about twelve feet higher than the river at the base of the dam, and many feet higher than the housetops of Saddi. Were the barrage ever to give way the destruction to life and property down the valley of the Orontes would be terrible. The ruins of Wajh el Haja afforded little of interest. We passed through many villages till we came to Tell Nebi Mand, a conspicuous mound. The native Moslems think that this prophet was related to the patriarch Joseph, but the Shaykh assured Richard that the tomb was that of Benjamin. The place marks the site of the ancient Laodicea and Libanum. At the south-east end of the lake is a large building standing at the water's edge, called Kasr Sitt Belkis ('Queen Belkis' Castle'), and near (_i.e._ about two miles distance) is an old entrenched camp some four hundred yards square, called Tell S'finet Núh, or 'the Mound of Noah's Ark.' It was probably a Roman post of observation to guard the entrance of the Buká'a. From Tell Nebi Mand we rode back to Damascus."

"FAIS CE QUE DOIS, ADVIENNE QUE POURRA."

"Caused by the moon's veering orb, what tumult and strife I see! Wherever I view the earth, iniquity rife I see. Daughters of turbulent mind, awaking their mother's ire, And sons who of froward mood wish ill of their sire, I see. Sherbets of sugar and rose the world to the fool supplies; But nought save his heart's blood the food of the wise I see. Galled by the pack-saddle's weight, the Arab's proud steed grows old; Yet always the ass's neck encircled with gold I see. Master, go forth and do good; The counsel of Háfiz prize; Far better than treasured pearl This counsel so wise-- I see." ----_Ode composed when Persia was invaded by Taimur._

Unofficially speaking of official things, we had rather a lively time, in an unpleasant sense, during these summer months. I always say "we," because I enter so much into my husband's pursuits, and am so very proud of being allowed to help him, that I sometimes forget that I am only as the bellows-blower to the organist. However, I do not think that anybody will owe me a grudge for it.

No. 1.

[Sidenote: _Troubles from a Self-appointed Zealot._]

The first shadow upon our happy life was in 1870-71. An amateur missionary, residing at Beyrout, came up to Damascus, visited the prisons, and distributed tracts to the Mohammedans. It was the intention of the Governor to collect these prints, and to make a bonfire of them in the market-place. Damascus was in a bad temper for such proselytizing. It was an excitable year, and it was necessary to put a stop to proceedings which, though well meant, could not fail to endanger the safety of the Christian population. The tract-distributor was a kind, humane, sincere, and charitable man, and we were both very sorry that he had to be cautioned. He had an enthusiasm in his religious views which made him dangerous outside a Christian town. At Beyrout he was well known, but at Damascus he was not, and the people would have resented his standing on bales in the street haranguing the Turks against Mohammed. I believe this gentleman would have gloried in martyrdom; but some of us, not so good as he is, did not aspire to it. His _entourage_, also, was not so humble or so kind as himself.

Richard was obliged to give the caution, to do his duty to his large district, thereby incurring at Beyrout most un-Christian hatreds, unscrupulously gratified. Richard, with the high, chivalrous sense of honour which guided all his actions, redoubled his unceasing endeavours to promote the interest and business of these persons, amidst the hailstorm of petty spites and insults--which justice and greatness of mind on his part they themselves were obliged _eventually_ to acknowledge, however reluctantly. We were decidedly destined to stumble upon unfortunate circumstances. Since that, a gentleman told off to convert the Jews in one of Richard's jurisdictions, insisted on getting a ladder and a hammer, and demolishing a large statue of St. Joseph in a public place of a Catholic country, because he said it was "a graven image." Why are the English so careless in their choice? and why have other foreign Consuls no _désagrémens_ on this head?

Richard writes--

No. 2.

"The Druzes applied early in 1870 for an English school. They are our allies, and we were on friendly terms with them. As two missionaries wished to travel amongst them, I gave them the necessary introductions. They were cordially received and hospitably entertained by the Shaykhs, but on their road home they were treacherously followed by two _mauvais sujets_ and attacked; they were thrown off their horses, their lives were threatened, and their property was plundered.

"Such a breach of hospitality and violation of good faith required prompt notice: firstly, to secure safety to future travellers; and, secondly, to maintain the good feelings which have ever subsisted between the Druzes and the English. To pass over such an act of treachery would be courting their contempt. I at once demanded that the offenders might be punished by the Druze chiefs themselves, and twenty napoleons, the worth of the stolen goods, were claimed by me for the missionaries. The Druzes went down to Beyrout to try to pit Consulate-General against Consulate, and refused to pay the claim. I then applied for their punishment to the Turkish authorities, knowing that the Druzes would at once accede to my first demand--a proceeding approved of by her Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople. After three months the Shaykh el Akkál, head religious chief, brought down the offenders, who were recognized by the missionaries. They confessed their guilt, and the Shaykh, who was staying as a guest in our house, assured me [Richard] that I was perfectly right in acting as I had done, and that every Druze was heartily ashamed of the conduct of these two men."

No. 3.

[Sidenote: _Usurers very troublesome._]

"In June, 1870, I prepared a despatch for our Ambassador at Constantinople, on the system of defrauding the poor and of 'running' villages by the Damascus Jewish money-lenders.

"I will now try to explain how these matters stood.

"In former days, when not a few Europeans were open to certain arrangements which made them take the highest interest in the business transactions of their clients, a radically bad system, happily now almost extinct, was introduced into Syria. The European subject, or _protégé_, instead of engaging in honest commerce, was thus encouraged to seek inordinate and usurious profits by sales of the Government and by loans to the villagers. In such cases he, of course, relied entirely upon the protection of a foreign Power, on account of the sums to be expended in feeing native functionaries before repayment could be expected. Thus the Consuls became, as it were, _huissiers_, or bailiffs, whose principal duties were to collect the bad debts of those who had foreign passports.

"Damascus contained a total of forty-eight adult males protected by H.B.M.'s Consulate, and of these there were a triumvirate of Shylocks. Most of them are Jews who were admitted to, or whose fathers acquired, a foreign nationality, given with the benevolent object of saving them from Moslem cruelty and oppression in days gone by. These _protégés_ have extended what was granted for the preservation of their lives, liberties, and property, to transactions which rest entirely for success upon British protection. The case of No. 1, whom we will call Judas, is a fair example. He has few dealings in the city, the licit field of action. But since the death of his highly respectable father, in 1854, he had been allowing bills signed by the ignorant peasantry of the province to accumulate at simple and compound interest, till the liabilities of the villagers have become greater than the value of the whole village. A----, for instance, on the eastern skirt of Mount Hermon, owed him 106,000 piastres, which were originally 42,000. He claims 5000 purses from the B---- family, upon a total debt of 242,000½ piastres, in 1857. We have not yet passed through a single settlement where his debtors did not complain loudly of his proceedings; and to A--- may be added C----, ----, and D---- el X----, a stronghold of the Druzes. Some villages have been partly depopulated by his vexations, and the injury done to the Druzes by thus driving them from the Anti-Lebanon to the Haurán, may presently be severely visited upon the Ottoman authorities.

"The British _protégé_ is compelled every year, in his quality of _shúbasi_ (farmer of revenue), to summon the village Shaykhs and peasantry, to imprison them, and to leave them lying in jail till he can squeeze from them as much as possible, and to injure them by quartering _hawali_, or policemen, who plunder whatever they can. He long occupied the whole attention, though it had other and more important duties, of the Village Commission (_Kumision Mahasibat el Kura_), established in A.H. 1280 (1863). For about a year a special commission (_Kumision Makhsus_) had at that time, 1870, been sitting on his case, whose intricacies, complicated by his unwillingness to settle anything, wearied out all the members. At different times he quarrelled with every person in the Court--from the _defterdar_, who is its President, to the Consular Dragomans, who composed it. Even felony was freely imputed to him by various persons. He was accused of bribing the Government _khatibs_ (secretaries) to introduce into documents sentences of doubtful import, upon which he can found claims for increased and exorbitant interest, of adding lines to receipts and other instruments after they have been signed, and of using false seals, made at home by his own servants. One of the latter publicly denounced him, but was, as usual, paid to keep silence. He is reported again and again to have refused, in order that the peasants might remain upon his books, the ready moneys offered to him for the final settlement of village liabilities. His good management had baffled all efforts at detection, whilst every one was morally certain that the charges were founded on fact. He corrupts, or attempts to corrupt, all those with whom he has dealings.

"I wanted to inform them that British protection extends to preserving their persons and property from all injustice and violence, but that it would not assist them to recover debts from the Ottoman Government, or from the villages of the province, and that it would not abet them in imprisoning or in distraining the latter. To such general rule, of course, exceptions would be admissible, at the discretion of the officer in charge of H.B.M.'s Consulate; in cases, for instance, when just and honest claims might be rejected, or their payment unduly delayed. The sole inconvenience which would arise to such creditors from their altered positions would be the necessity of feeing the Serai more heavily; and even they openly communicated with the local authorities, reserving the Consulate as a forlorn hope. The change might possibly have directed their attention to a more legitimate commercial career. Such a measure would have been exceedingly popular throughout the country, and would have relieved us from the suspicion of interested motives--a suspicion which must exist where honesty and honour, in an English understanding of these words, are almost unknown; and from the odium which attaches to the official instruments of oppression. Finally, the corruption of Damascus rendered me the more jealous of the good name of the Consulate, and the more desirous of personal immunity from certain reports which, at different times, have been spread about _others_ in office. I therefore posted on the door of H.M.'s Consulate, Damascus, the following notice:--

"'Her Britannic Majesty's Consul hereby warns British subjects and _protégés_ that he will not assist them to recover debts from the Government or from the people of Syria, unless the debts are such as between British subjects could be recovered through H.M.'s Consular Courts. Before purchasing the claims, public or private, of an Ottoman subject--and especially where Government paper is in question--the _protégé_ should, if official interference be likely to be required, at once report the whole transaction to this Consulate. British subjects and protected persons are hereby duly warned that protection extends to life, liberty, and property, in cases where these are threatened by violence or by injustice; but that it will not interfere in speculations which, if undertaken by Syrian subjects of the Porte, could not be expected to prove remunerative. British subjects and protected persons must not expect the official interference of the Consulate in cases where they prefer (as of late has often happened at Damascus) to urge their claims upon the local authorities without referring to this Consulate, and altogether ignoring the jurisdiction of H.B.M.'s Consul. Finally, H.B.M.'s Consul feels himself bound to protest strongly against the system adopted by British subjects and protected persons at Damascus, who habitually induce the Ottoman authorities to imprison peasants and pauper debtors, either for simple debt, or upon charges which have not been previously produced for examination at this Consulate. The prisons will be visited once a week. An official application will be made for the delivery of all such persons.

"'(Signed) R. F. BURTON,

"'H.B.M.'s Consul, Damascus.

"'Damascus, June 20th, 1870.'"

[Sidenote: _A Jehád threatened._]

I have already related how, on August 26th, Richard received a letter from the Rev. W. Wright, and likewise one from the Chief Consular Dragoman, Mr. Nasif Meshaka, which induced him to ride at once to Damascus (from Bludán, the summer quarter); how he found that half the Christians had fled, and everything was ripe for a new massacre; how he sought the authorities, and informed them of their danger; induced them to have night patrols, to put guards in the streets, to prevent Jews or Christians leaving their houses, and to take all measures needful to convince the conspirators that they would not find every one sleeping as they did in 1860. The _Wali_ and all the Chief responsible Authorities were absent. The excitement subsided under the measures recommended by him, and in three days all was quiet, and the Christians returned to their homes.

I affirm that, living in safety upon the sea-coast, no man can be a judge of the other side of the Lebanon, nor, if he does not know some Eastern language, can he be a judge of Orientals and their proceedings. Certain Jewish usurers had been accused of exciting these massacres, because their lives were perfectly safe, and they profited of the horrors to buy up property at a nominal price. It was brought to Richard's notice that two Jewish boys, servants to British-protected subjects, were giving the well-understood signal by drawing crosses on the walls. Its meaning to him was clear. He promptly investigated it, and took away the British protection of the masters temporarily, merely reproving the boys, who had acted under orders. He did not take upon himself to punish them. Certain ill-advised Israelitish money-lenders fancied it was a good opportunity to overthrow him, and with him his plan of seeing fair proceedings on the part of the British _protégés_; so they reported to Sir Moses Montefiore and Sir Francis Goldsmid that he had tortured the boys. His proceedings were once, more proved just. The correspondence on the subject was marvellously interesting, but being official I cannot use it.

[Sidenote: _Jews._]

"The Jews," he writes, "from all times held a certain position in Syria, on account of their being the financiers of the country; and even in pre-Egyptian days Haim Farhi was able to degrade and ruin Abdullah Pasha, of St. Jean d'Acre. In the time of Ibrahim Pasha, about forty-four years ago,[11] when the first Consuls went there, a few were taken under British protection, and this increased their influence. Then came the well-known history of the murder of Padre Tomaso. After this had blown over, all the richest people of the community tried to become British-protected subjects, or _protégés_ of some foreign Consulate. In the time of Mr. Consul (Richard) Wood, (1840), they were humble enough. In the massacre of 1860 they enriched themselves greatly, and men possessing £3000 rose suddenly to £30,000. Then they had at their backs in England Sir Moses Montefiore, Sir F. Goldsmid, and the Rothschilds[12] and others, who doubtless do not know the true state of the Jewish usurers in this part of the world. The British Consul became the Jews' bailiff, and when we went to Syria we found them rough-riding all the land. I speak only of the few money-lenders. When I arrived in 1869, Shylock No. 1 came to me, and patting me patronizingly on the back, told me he had three hundred cases for me, relative to collecting £60,000 of debts. I replied, 'I think, sir, you had better hire and pay a Consul for yourself alone; I was not sent here as a bailiff, to tap the peasant on the shoulder in such cases as yours.' He then threatened me with the British Government. I replied, 'It is by far the best thing you can do; I have no power to alter a plain line of duty.' Shylock then tried my wife's influence, but she replied that she was never allowed to interfere in business matters. Then Sir Francis Goldsmid, to our great surprise, wrote to Head-quarters--a rather unusual measure--as follows: 'I hear that the lady to whom Captain Burton is married is believed to be a bigoted Roman Catholic, and to be likely to influence him against the Jews.' In spite of 'woman's rights' she was not allowed the privilege of answering Sir Francis Goldsmid officially; but I hope to convince him, even after years, that he was misinformed."

I think that religion certainly is, and ought to be, the first and highest sentiment of our hearts, and I consider it my highest prerogative to be a staunch and loyal Catholic. But I also claim to be free from prejudice, and to be untrammelled in my sentiments about other religions. Our great Master and His Apostles showed no bigotry, and it is to them that I look for my rule of life, not to the clique I was born in. Many amongst us Old Catholics, who live amongst our own people, and are educated men and women, go forth into the world and are quite unbiased against other faiths; we take to our hearts friends, without inquiring into their religion or politics. And if sometimes we sigh because they are not of our way of thinking, it is not from any bigotry or party feeling; it is because we love them, and we wish that we could give them some of our happiness and security. I appeal to my enemies--if I have any--to say whether I have any prejudice against race or creed.[13] At all events, I have an honest admiration and respect for the Jewish religion. They were the chosen people of God. They are more akin to us than any other faith.

Jesus Christ was a Jew, the Apostles were Jews. He came not to destroy the Law, but to change the prescriptions necessary for the times. The Great Reformer was the connecting link between us. He made Christianity, or Judaism, for the multitude, a Syro-Arabian creed. He parted the creation into two divisions--those who accepted the new school, and those who clung to the old. We are of the former, and the Jews of the latter fold. It would be madness to despise those who once ruled the ancient world, and who will rule again--do we not see signs of their return to power every day? It would be more than folly not to honour the old tribes of the chosen people of God. In Syria only the Jews, Druzes, and Bedawi can boast of their origin. In the Syrian world we know, only the Jews and Catholics can boast of antiquity of religion. An Eastern Jew cannot but be proud of his religion and his descent. As I turn over my old Damascus journal, my heart warms to think that some of our dearest native friends at Damascus were of the Jewish religion. We were on good terms with them all, and received sincere hospitality from them. At Trieste, again, the enlightened and hospitable Hebrews were our best friends. It is the Jews who lead society here, the charities and the fashion; they are the life of the town. When I call to mind how many Jews I know, and like, and have exchanged hospitality with, here and in the East, I do not know how to speak strongly enough on the subject.

But now let us turn to the dark side of the picture. Even those who are the proudest of their Semitic origin speak contemptuously of their usurers. And, let me ask, do we pet and admire our own money-lenders? Let a Damascus Jew once become a usurer, back him up with political influence, and see what he will become. He forgets race and creed; that touching, dignified, graceful humility changes into fawning servility, or to brutal insolence and cruelty, where he is not afraid. He thirsts only for money. The villanies practised by the usurers, especially the Shylocks in Damascus, excite every right-minded person to indignation; and if I had no other esteem for my husband, I should owe it to him for the brave manner in which he made a stand against these wrongs at every risk. He knew that no other Consul had ever dared--nor would ever dare--to oppose it; but he said simply, "I must do right; I cannot sit still and see what I see, and not speak the truth. I must protect the poor, and save the British good name, _advienne que pourra_, though perhaps in so doing I shall fall myself." And he did--but not for this.

He is not what is _called_ a religious man, but he acts like one; and if he did nothing to win respect and admiration, that alone should give people an insight into his character, whilst I, like Job's wife, incessantly said, "Leave all this alone, as your predecessor did, as your Consul-General does, and as your successor will do, and keep your place, and look forward to a better." If the usurers had been Catholics instead of Jews, I should like them to have lost their "protection," to have been banished from Damascus, and _excommunicated_ as long as they plied their trade. More I cannot say. Nay, I prefer the Jew to the Christian usurer. The former will take my flesh and blood, but the Christian will want my bones too.

Richard writes--

"One man alone had ruined and sucked dry forty-one villages. He used to go to a distressed village and offer them money, keep all the papers, and allow them nothing to show; adding interest and compound interest, which the poor wretches could not understand. Then he gave them no receipts for money received, so as to be paid over and over again. The uneducated peasants had nothing to show against the clever Jew at the Diwán, till body and soul, wives and children, village, flocks, and land, became his property and slaves for the sake of the small sum originally borrowed. These men, who a few years ago were not worth much, are now rolling in wealth. We found villages in ruins, and houses empty, because the men were cast into jail, the children starving, and women weeping at our feet; because these things were done in the name of England, by the powerful arm of the British Consulate."

[Sidenote: _Usurers try to remove Richard._]

My husband once actually found an old man of ninety, who had endured all the horrors of the Damascus jail during the whole of a biting winter, for owing one of these men a napoleon (sixteen shillings). He set him free, and ever after visited the prisons once a week, to see whether the British-protected subjects had immured pauper Christians and Moslems on their own responsibility. One of the usurers told him to beware, for that he knew a Royal Highness of England, and that he could have any Consular officer recalled at his pleasure; and my husband replied that he and his clique could know very little of English Royalty if they thought that it would protect such traffic as theirs. The result of this was that they put their heads together, and certain letters were sent to the Chief Rabbi of London, Sir Francis Goldsmid, and Sir Moses Montefiore. They sent telegrams and petitions, purporting to be from "all the Jews in Damascus." We believe, however, that "all the Jews in Damascus" knew nothing whatever about the step. Richard said, "They are mostly a body of respectable men--hard-working, inoffensive, and of commercial integrity, with a fair sprinkling of pious, charitable, and innocent people." These despatches, backed by letters from the influential persons who received them, were duly forwarded to the Foreign Office. The correspondence was sent in full to Richard to answer, which he did at great length, and to the satisfaction of his Chiefs, who found that he could not have acted otherwise.

Richard wrote: "I am ready to defend their lives, liberty, and property, but I _will not_ assist them in ruining villages, and in imprisoning destitute debtors upon trumped-up charges. I would willingly deserve the praise of every section of the Jewish community of Damascus, but in certain cases it is incompatible with my sense of justice and my conscience." They bragged so much in the bazars about getting Richard recalled, that a number of sympathizing letters were showered upon us.

I quote the following _verbatim_:--

[Sidenote: _Letters of Indignation and Sympathy._]

DEAR MRS. BURTON,

"We desire to express to you the great satisfaction which Captain Burton's presence as British Consul in Damascus has given us, both in our individual capacities and in our character of missionaries to Syria.

"Since his arrival here we have had every opportunity of judging of Captain Burton's official conduct, and we beg to express our approval of it.

"The first public act that came under our notice was the removing of dishonest officials, and the replacing them by honest ones. This proceeding gave unmixed pleasure to every one to whom the credit of the English name was a matter of concern. His subsequent conduct has restored the _prestige_ of the English Consulate, and we no longer hear it said that English officials, removed from the checks of English public opinion, are as corrupt in Turkey as the Turks themselves. As missionaries we frankly admit that we had been led to view Captain Burton's appointment with alarm; but we now congratulate ourselves on having abstained, either directly or indirectly, endeavouring to oppose his coming.

"Carefully following our own habitual policy of asking no consular interference between the Turkish Government and its subjects, we stand upon our right as Englishmen to preach and teach so long as we violate no law of the land, and we claim for our converts the liberty of conscience secured to them by treaty. In the maintenance of this one right we have been firmly upheld by Captain Burton.

"A few months ago, when our schools were illegally and arbitrarily closed by the Turkish officials, he came to our aid, and the injustice was at once put a stop to. His visit to the several village schools under our charge proved to the native mind the Consul's interest in the moral education of the country, which it is the object of those schools to promote, and impressed upon the minds of local magistrates the propriety of letting them alone.

"Within the last few days we had occasion to apply to Captain Burton regarding our cemetery, which had been broken open, and it was an agreeable surprise to us when, after two days, a police-officer came to assure us that the damage had been repaid by the Pasha's orders, and search was being made for the depredator.

"Above all, in view of any possible massacre of Christians in this city--the all but inevitable consequence of a war between Turkey and any Christian Power--we regard as an element of safety the presence among us of a firm, strong man like Captain Burton, as representing the English interests.

"When, not long ago, a panic seized the city, and a massacre seemed imminent, Captain Burton immediately came down from his summer quarters, and by his presence largely contributed to restore tranquillity. All the other important Consuls fled from Damascus, and thus increased the panic.

"We earnestly hope that Captain Burton will not suffer himself to be annoyed by the enmity he is sure to provoke for all who wish to make the English name a cover for wrongs and injustice, or think that a British subject or _protégé_ should be supported, whatever be the nature of his case.

"With kindest respects, we are, dear Mrs. Burton, yours very truly,

"(Signed) JAMES ORR SCOTT, M.A., Irish Presbyterian Mission.

"WM. WRIGHT, B.A., Missionary of the Irish Presbyterian Church.

"P.S.--By-the-by, on one occasion one of the most important Jews of Damascus, when conversing with me [Wm. Wright] and the Rev. John Crawford, American missionary, said that Captain Burton was unfit for the British Consulate in Damascus; and the reason he gave was that, being an upright man, he transacted his business by fair means instead of by foul.

"Damascus, November 28th, 1870."

* * * * *

"MY DEAR ISABEL,

"I was calling at a native house yesterday, where I found assembled some leading people of Damascus. The conversation turned upon Captain Burton and the present British Consulate. One word led to another; and I heard, to my surprise and consternation, that men famed for their _various pecuniary_ transactions are boasting about everywhere 'that, upon _their_ representations, _the Consul is to be recalled_,' and all Damascus is grieved and indignant at them. For my part I cannot, will not, believe that her Majesty's Government would set aside a man of Captain Burton's standing, and well-known justice and capacity in public affairs, for the sake of these Jews, who are desolating the villages and ruining those who have the misfortune to fall into their clutches. He is also so thoroughly adapted for this Babel of tongues, nations, and religions, and is so rapidly raising our English Consulate from the low estimation in which it had fallen in the eyes of all men, to the position it ought to and would occupy under the rule of an incorruptible, firm, and impartial character like Captain Burton's.

"At the risk of vexing you, I must tell you what I now hear commonly reported in the bazar, for several merchants and others have asked me if it was true. [Here follows the history of the complaints.] Our present Consul is too much a friend to the oppressed, and examines too much everything _himself_, to suit their money transactions. The Consulate for an age has not been so respectable as now; and should you really go, I should think any future Consul would shrink to do his duty, for fear of his conduct being misrepresented at home. You must write me a line to tell me the truth, if you may do so without indiscretion; and people are wanting to write to the Foreign Office and the _Times_, so provoked are they at the lies and duplicity. The day I was with you and you refused to see Judas and the other Jew, who seemed to dodge you about like a house cat, and looking so ill at ease and in a fright, did you then suspect or know anything about all this?

"With regard to the Arab tribes, they too have an admiration for Captain Burton's dauntless character and straightforward dealing, so different from others. You know that Shaykh Mohammed el Dhúky and Farés el Mézyad openly say so in the desert.

"I had intended to scribble but two lines, and I have been led on till my note has become a long letter. So, good-bye; and I truly hope all these machinations will end in the discomfiture of their inventors.

"Your affectionate cousin,

"JANE DIGBY EL MEZRAB.

"Damascus, November 28th, 1870."

* * * * *

"MONSIEUR LE CONSUL,

"C'est avec le plus plaisir nous venons vous exprimer notre satisfaction et les sentiments de notre amour envers votre amiable personne, ayant toujours devant les yeux les belles qualités et les grands mérites dont vous êtes orné.

"Il y a plus d'un an que nous avons eu l'honneur de vous connaître, et nous sommes en même de pouvoir apprécier votre bonne disposition pour le soutien de la cause chrétienne sans distinction de religion; et, par conséquent, nous sommes extrêmement reconnaissants au bienfait philanthropique de Gouvernement de S.M. Britannique, qui a daigné nous envoyer à Damas un représentant si digne et si mérité comme vous l'êtes, Monsieur le Consul.

"C'est avec regret que nous avons appris que des gens malicieux de Damas se sont plaints contre vous pour des causes qui vous sont très-honorables.

"Nous venons vous exprimer notre indignation pour leur conduite inexplicable at méprisable en vous témoignant notre reconnaissance pour le grand zèle et l'activité incessante que vous déployez toujours pour le bien et pour le repos de tous les Chrétiens en général.

"Nous espérons que vous continuerez pour l'avenir comme pour le passé à nous accorder les mêmes bienfaits.

"C'est avec ce même espoir que nous vous prions, Monsieur le Consul, d'agréer nos sentiments de haute considération.

"(Signé) EROTEOS, Patriarche Grec d'Antioche.

"A M. le Captaine Burton, Consul de S. M. Britannique à Damas.

"Damas, le 15 Décembre, 1870."

* * * * *

"MONSIEUR LE CONSUL,

"Nous avons entendu avec beaucoup d'inquiet que certains gens malicieux à Damas se sont plaignés de vous pour des causes qui vous sont très-honorables.

"Nous désirons vous exprimer combien leur conduite est méprisable et inexcusable à nos yeux.

"Nous vous avons connu maintenant plus qu'un an; nous vous avons trouvé toujours prêt à assister la cause chrétienne, sans égard pour les differences de la religion et à nous appuyer quand nous aurions été peut-être traités durement.

"Dans les circumstances actuelles de cette année nous aurions beaucoup d'inquiétude s'il y avait une chance même que vous nous quittiez. Nous espérons que vos bons offices seront continués pour nous dans l'avenir comme dans le passé. Nous vous prions de vous servir de notre regard pour vous comme Consul et ami aussi publiquement que possible.

"Daignez agréer, etc., etc.

"(Signé) L'EVÊQUE MACARIOS, Le Vicaire du Patriarcat à Damas. (L.S.)

"GREGOIR JACOB, Archev. Syrien Catholique de Damas. (L.S.)

"Le Vicaire du Patriarcat Maronite à Damas. (L.S.)

"Le Vicaire du Patriarcat Armenian Catholique à Damas. (L.S.).

"A Monsieur R. F. Burton, Consul de S. M. Britannique à Damas.

"Damas, le 13 Décembre, 1870."

[Sidenote: _Jews._]

To conclude: the effect of their conduct in Damascus will fall upon their own heads, and upon their children. Do not purposely misunderstand me, O Israel! Remember, I do not speak of you disparagingly as a nation, or as a faith. As such I love and admire you; but I pick out your usurers from among you, as the goats from the sheep. You are ancient in birth and religion; you are sometimes handsome, always clever, and in many things you far outstrip us Christians in the race of life. Your sins and your faults are, and have been, equally remarkable from all time. Many of you, in Damascus especially, are as foolish and stiff-necked as in the days of old. When the time comes, and it will come, the trampled worm will turn. The Moslem will rise not really against the Christian--he will only be the excuse--but against you. Your quarter will be the one to be burnt down; your people to be exterminated, and all your innocent tribe will suffer for the few guilty.

A Druze of the Haurán once said to me, "I have the greatest temptation to burn down A----'s house. I should be sent to Istambul in chains, but what of that? I should free my village and my people." I begged of him not to think of such a crime. A sinister smile passed over his face, and he muttered low in his beard, "No, not yet! not yet! Not till the next time. And then not much of the Yahúd will be left when we have done with them." I quote this as a specimen of the ill-feeling bred over the interior of Syria by their over-greed of gain. And I only hope that the powerful Israelite Committees and Societies of London and Paris will--and they can if they will--curb the cupidity of their countrymen in Syria.

[Sidenote: _Omar Bey's Fine Mare--Horse-breeding._]

We were present at a very grand review, where a splendid mare, ridden by Omar Bey, was the centre of attraction, and the newspapers afterwards noticed her in the following manner:--

Cutting from the _Boomerang_.

"Lady Burton mentions a very fine mare which Omar Bey, a Turkish brigadier-general at Damascus, bought from some Arabs after a free fight in the desert. She was so handsome that at a grand review, the only one held while Sir Richard Burton was Consul at Damascus, neither Lady Burton nor her husband could look at anything else. Omar Bey was subsequently ordered to leave the district, and sold the mare for £80, being all she would fetch at the time. It does seem a pity that, in a great horse-breeding country like Australia, there are not men to be found patriotic enough to secure specimens of these famous breeds of antiquity. We have plenty of breeders willing and anxious to secure and continue the breed of the English thoroughbred, but although we are possessed of some of the finest areas in the world for horse-breeding, and in a climate analogous in many respects to Mesopotamia, the original home of the horse, we have unfortunately no one among all those who have amassed wealth who will, either for pleasure or profit, take in hand the formation of a pure Arabian stud. There can be no question that in this country, where feed is not a matter of consideration, the Arabian would grow to a very much larger size."

[Sidenote: _The Holy Land._]

We at last determined to thoroughly do Palestine and the Holy Land, and we went down in an awfully rough sea, in a very tiny and dirty little Egyptian steamer, as far as Jaffa. There were great doubts as to whether we could land, but at last boats were put out, and we got in on the top of a truly alarming surf, shooting through a narrow hole in the rocks just wide enough to admit the boat. The plain of Sharon was looking beautiful--meadows of grass land, wild flowers, cultivation, and orange groves all along our forty mile-ride.

I shall not say much about this pilgrimage, because it is too well known, except that we remained long enough to see and learn everything by heart about every place where our Saviour and His followers ever were in Syria, not only with the Bible and "Tancred," but learning all the legends, and the folklore handed from father to son. I have given a very long account of this in my "Inner Life of Syria" (2 vols., 1875), so that I don't want to repeat it again.

With Richard it was a constant matter for thought whether the sites and the tombs were the correct ones; and the sword of Godfrey de Bouillon and the Crusaders' arms, also those of the Knight Templars, were always of immense interest to him. We visited all the Patriarchs, and principally Monseigneur Valerga, a man of brilliant education, with the _savoir faire_ of the diplomat or courtier, blended with religion. We went through all the ceremonies of _all the numerous religions_ during the Holy Week, the Mohammedan as well as the fourteen Christian sects, and Jewish, of which not the least touching thing is the wailing of the Jews outside the wall of the Temple on Fridays, and the Greek fire on Holy Saturday. A Jewish friend took us in for the Passover. We visited all the country of St. John, Bethlehem, Hebron, where Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Rebecca, and Leah are buried; to Mar Saba, where is the Convent of Penitent Monks, in a most wonderful ravine. From there we got down to the Dead Sea, and swam in it, and saw fish. It receives daily seven million tons of water, and has no outlet; but its evaporation forms the desert of salt, called the Ghor, all round its southern shore, which fact Richard compares with Tanganyika. From there we went into Moab; we visited Moses' Tomb on the return journey. At Bethábara we bathed, and brought home bottles of the water of the Jordan; thence we went to Jericho, but we took care to visit every spot where tradition and folklore says our Saviour touched at, _off the tracks_ besides. We encamped on the supposed sites of Sodom and Gomorrah, and so on to Bethel, and Hai, the most ancient site in Palestine, the camping-ground of Abraham, where he and Lot parted and divided their flocks; and we gradually made our way to Nablus, which is the boundary between the Damascus and Jerusalem Consular jurisdictions. We ascended Mount Ebal and Mount Gerízim, and stayed with the Samaritans, who then numbered a hundred and thirty-five. We then went to Samaria, and through the plain of Esdraelon; and we camped at ancient Engannin, where Christ cured the ten lepers. From thence to Scythopolis into the Ghor, and to as many sites of the towns of the Decapolis as we could realize. We went to Naim, and Endor, and Tabor, and Nazareth--at Nazareth we were stoned (a little political manœuvre); thence to Cana. About Nazareth Richard wrote in his private journal--

"I rode down the country by the vile Kunayterah road to Tiberias, where the Jews protected by our Government were complaining that the _Wali_ had taken from them and had sold to the Greek Bishop Nifon, at Nazareth, a cemetery and synagogue, which for the last four hundred years had belonged to their faith, and to visit a few men who held British passports, which ought to have been annually changed, but had through carelessness not been renewed since 1850. For these acts, I was destined to the same honour as my Master, namely, being stoned out of Nazareth; and because I did good to the Jews, they also betrayed me to the Authorities, and asked for my recall."

We went up the Mountain of Precipitation to Hattín, and ascended to Tiberias, the second and the middle sea which feeds the Jordan, and we visited the site of the eight towns so much frequented by our Saviour. From thence we went to Sáfed, which is a very fanatical Jewish Holy City, from which we could see the Jaulán and the Haurán stretching right away into the Arabian desert of the ancient kingdom of Báshan; and from here we again made our way to the plain of Huleh, which we remember of old, and the Waters of Merom, where we camped before under difficulties, and so nearly got a bad fever. This time it was black from a recent prairie fire. The best amusement on these occasions is to laugh at one another's miserable, unrecognizable faces, all swollen with bites and stings, like the face one sees in a spoon. After a lot of other places, we got back to Birket er Ram or Lake Phiala, which I remember saying a while ago we determined to revisit. Richard found something that excited his attention about it, so we emptied the water out of all our goat-skins, blew them up with air, strapped them to our camp-table, made a raft, and used the tent-poles for oars. It is supposed to have no bottom, is six hundred yards broad, and about nine hundred wide. We sounded with the lead, and the deepest part proved to be seventeen feet and a half. It has a weed bottom and leeches below, no shells; but the air began to whistle out of the skins, and Richard and Charley Drake only just got back in time to save themselves a swim.

Whilst at Jerusalem and its environs Richard did two very graceful things. He saw a monk conducting a party of Catholics, who wanted to say prayers in the Sepulchre itself at three o'clock on Good Friday. It was invaded by the usual class of tourists. The monk shrunk back with his people, and the particular time for these prayers was slipping away. Richard stepped forward, and, touching his cap, said, "What is the matter, Father?" He said, "The Sepulchre is full of tourists, who are not Catholics. We have no right to turn them out, and we don't like to push in and begin our devotions." Richard said, "Leave that to me." He went in and explained to them, and they came out. Richard then passed the monk and his party in, and he stood guard himself outside the whole time they performed their devotion, and would not let any one pass. These little acts used to win him the heart of everybody.

Another day we were riding in rather a desert place about a mile from a small village; we met a solitary priest and his acolyte. I was about to ride up to speak to him, when he gave me the sign--I mean the sign the priest gives you when he is secretly carrying the Blessed Sacrament. I told it to Richard, who ordered his men to draw up in two lines for the priest to pass through and salute. He jumped down from his own horse, and offered it to the priest, asking to accompany him. The priest declined it, but he blessed him as he passed. I always thought of this afterwards in Austria, when I saw the large picture in the Palace at Innsbrück, of Rudolph the Second of Hapsburg doing the same thing.

At Jerusalem we explored the Mágharat el Kotn; these are enormous quarries, also called the Royal Caverns. The entrance looks like a hole in the wall outside the town, not far from the Gate of Damascus. Creeping in, you find yourself in endless caves and galleries unexplored. We used to use magnesium fusees, and take plenty of ropes to have a clue.

[1] "We were living at the foot of the eastern spur of the Anti-Libanus, upon whose south-eastern slopes lies the large northern suburb of Damascus, El Salahíyyah ('of the Saints'), facetiously changed on account of its Kurdish population into El Talahíyyah ('of the Sinners'). Our friend Bedr Beg was its Chief."--R. F. B.

[2] If any one wants dragomans, let them give preference above all to Melhem Wardi, of Beyrout, and consult his brother Antun.

[3] This was written at the time when the report of Lady Ellenborough's death was generally believed to be true.

[4] Ah, what a beautiful life it would have been!--I. B.

[5] The cave near Affka forms the Orontes, the Jura sends forth the Bárada of Damascus, and Lake Phiala Josephus makes the highest water of the Jordan.

[6] I was not well, and was left at home.--I. B.

[7] This answers something to the Karst above Trieste.

[8] "This is a term used at Damascus to the northern offsets; these are the southern."

[9] Lines by a West African poet.

[10] Most of these descriptive scientific journeys are more for geographers and antiquaries.

[11] Now sixty-four years in 1893.

[12] Now, in 1893, the Sassoons, the Oppenheims, and Bischofheims.

[13] Although a staunch Catholic, I was an ardent disciple of Mr. Disraeli--I do not mean Mr. Disraeli as Prime Minister of England, but the author of "Tancred." I read the book as a young girl in my father's house, and it inspired me with all the ideas, and the yearning for a wild Oriental life, which I have since been able to carry out. I passed two years of my early life, when emerging from the school-room, in my father's garden, and the beautiful woods around us, alone with "Tancred." My family were pained and anxious about me--thought me odd; wished I would play the piano, do worsted work, write notes, read the circulating library--in short, what is generally called improving one's mind; and I was pained because I could not. My uncle used to pat my head, and "hope for better things." I did not know it then, I do now: I was working out the problem of my future life, my after mission. It lived in my saddle-pocket throughout my Eastern life. I almost know it by heart, so that when I came to Bethany, to the Lebanon, and to Mukhtár--when I found myself in a Bedawi camp, or amongst the Maronite and Druze strongholds, or in the society of Fakredeens--nothing surprised me. I felt as if I had lived that life for years. I felt that I went to the tomb of my Redeemer in the proper spirit, and I found what I sought. The presence of God was actually felt, though invisible. The author possesses by descent a knowledge that we Northerners lack (a high privilege reserved to his Semitic blood).--I. B.