Chapter 26

But here we are coming upon a gypsy camp. The Arabs call them Nowar, and you will find that the Arab women of the villages are careful to keep an eye on their little children when the gypsies are around. They often steal children in the towns and cities, when they can find them straying away from home at dusk, and then sell them as servants in Moslem families. Last year we were all greatly interested in a story of this kind, which I know you will be glad to hear.

After the terrible massacre in Damascus in 1860, thousands of the Greek and Greek Catholic families migrated to Beirût, and among them was a man named Khalil Ferah, who escaped the fire and sword with his wife and his little daughter Zahidy. I remember well how we were startled one evening in 1862, by hearing a crier going through the streets, "child lost! girl lost!" The next day he came around again, "child lost!" There was great excitement about it. The poor father and mother went almost frantic. Little Zahidy, who was then about six years old, was coming home from school with other girls in the afternoon, and they said a man came along with a sack on his back, and told Zahidy that her mother had sent him to buy her some sugar plums and then take her home, and she went away with him. It is supposed that he decoyed her away to some by-road and then put her into the great sack, and carried her off to the Arabs or the gypsies.

The poor father left no means untried to find her. He wrote to Damascus, Alexandria, and Aleppo, describing the child and begged his friends everywhere to watch for her, and send him word if they found her. There was one mark on the child, which, he said, would be certain to distinguish her. When she was a baby, and nursing at her mother's breast, her mother upset a little cup of scalding hot coffee upon the child's breast, which burned it to a blister, leaving a scar which could not be removed. This sign the father described, and his friends aided him in trying to find the little girl. They went to the encampments of the gypsies and looked at all the children, but all in vain. The father journeyed by land and by sea. Hearing of a little girl in Aleppo who could not give an account of herself, he went there, but it was not his child. Then he went to Damascus and Alexandria, and at length hearing that a French Countess in Marseilles had a little Syrian orphan girl whose parents were not known, he sent to Marseilles and examined the girl, but she was _not his child_. Months and years passed on, but the father never ceased to speak and think of that little lost girl. The mother too was almost distracted.

At length light came. Nine years had passed away, and the Beirût people had almost forgotten the story of the lost Damascene girl. Your uncle S. and your Aunt A. were sitting in their house one day, in Tripoli, when Tannoos, the boy, brought word that a man and woman from Beirût wished to see them. They came in and introduced themselves. They were Khalil, the father of the little lost girl, and his sister, who had heard that Zahidy was in Tripoli, and had come to search for her. The mother was not able to leave home.

It seems that a native physician in Tripoli, named Sheikh Aiub el Hashim, was an old friend of the father and had known the family and all the circumstances of the little girl's disappearance, and for years he had been looking for her. At length he was called one day to attend a sick servant girl in the family of a Moslem named Syed Abdullah. The poor girl was ill from having been beaten in a cruel manner by the Moslem. Her face and arms were tattooed in the Bedawin style, and she told him that she was a Bedawin girl, and had been living here for some years, and her name was Khodra. While examining the bruises on her body, he observed a peculiar scar on her breast. He was startled. He looked again. It was precisely the scar that his friend had so often described to him. From her age, her features, her complexion and all, he felt sure that she was the lost child. He said nothing, but went home and wrote all about it to the father in Beirût. He hastened to Tripoli bringing his sister, as he being a man, could not be admitted to a Moslem hareem. Then the question arose, how should the sister see the girl! They came and talked with your uncle, and went to Yanni and the other Vice Consuls, and at length they found out that the women of that Moslem family were skillful in making silk and gold embroidery which they sold. So his sister determined to go and order some embroidered work, and see the girl. She talked with the Moslem women, and with their Bedawy servant girl, and made errands for the women to bring her specimens of their work, improving the opportunity to talk with the servant. She saw the scar, and satisfied herself from the striking resemblance of the girl to her mother, that she was the long-lost Zahidy.

The father now took measures to secure his daughter. The American, Prussian, English and French Vice Consuls sent a united demand to the Turkish Pasha, that the girl be brought to court to meet her father, and that the case be tried in the Mejlis, or City Council. The Moslems were now greatly excited. They knew that there were not less than twenty girls in their families who had been stolen in this way, and if one could be reclaimed, perhaps the rest might, so they resolved to resist. They brought Bedawin Arabs to be present at the trial, and hired them to swear falsely. When the girl was brought in, the father was quite overcome. He could see the features of his dear child, but she was so disfigured with the Bedawin tattooing and the brutal treatment of the Moslems, that his heart sank within him. Yet he examined her, and took his oath that this was his daughter, and demanded that she be given up to him. The Bedawin men and women were now brought in. One swore that he was the father of the girl, and a woman swore that she was her mother. Then several swore that they were her uncles, but it was proved that they were in no way related to the one who said he was her father. Other witnesses were called, but they contradicted one another. Then they asked the girl. Poor thing, she had been so long neglected and abused, that she _had forgotten her father_, and the Moslem women had threatened to kill her if she said she was his daughter, so she declared she was born among the Bedawin, and was a Moslem in religion. Money had been given to certain of the Mejlis, and they finally decided that the girl should go to the Moslem house of Derwish Effendi to await the final decision.

The poor father now went to the Consuls. They made out a statement of the case and sent it to the Consuls General in Beirût, who sent a joint dispatch to the Waly of all Syria, who lives in Damascus, demanding that as the case could not be fairly tried in Tripoli, the girl be brought to Beirût to be examined by a Special Commission. The Waly telegraphed at once to Tripoli, to have the girl sent on by the first steamer to Beirût. The Moslem women now told the girl that orders had come to have her killed, and that she was to be taken on a steamer as if to go to Beirût, but that really they were going to throw her into the sea, and that if she reached Beirût alive they would cut her up and burn her! So the poor child went on the steamer in perfect terror, and she reached Beirût in a state of exhaustion. When she was rested, a Commission was formed consisting of the Moslem Kadi of Beirût who was acting Governor, the political Agent, Delenda Effendi, the Greek Catholic Bishop Agabius, the Maronite Priest Yusef, and the agent of the Greek Bishop, together with all the members of the Executive Council.

Her father, mother and aunt were now brought in and sat near her. She refused to recognize them, and was in constant fear of being injured. The Kadi then turned to her and said, "do not fear, my child. You are among friends. Do not be afraid of people who have threatened you. No one shall harm you." The Moslem Kadi, the Greek Catholic priests, and others having thus spoken kindly to her, the father and mother stated the history of how the little girl was lost nine years ago, and that she had a scar on her breast. The scar was examined, and all began to feel that she was really their own daughter. The girl began to feel more calm, and the Kadi told her that her own mother wanted to ask her a few questions.

Her mother now went up to her and said, "My child, don't you remember me?" She said "no I do not." "Don't you remember that _your name was once Zahidy_, and I used to call you, and you lived in a house with a little yard, and flowers before the door, and that you went with the little girls to school, and came home at night, and that one day a man came and offered you sugar plums and led you away and carried you off to the Arabs? Don't you know _me_, my _own daughter_?" The poor girl trembled; her lips quivered, and she said, "Yes, I _did_ have another name. I _was_ Zahidy. I did go with little girls. Oh, ya imme! My mother! you _are_ my mother," and she sprang into her arms and wept, and the mother wept and laughed, and the Moslem Kadi and the Mufti, and the priests and the Bishops and the Effendis and the great crowd of spectators wiped their eyes, and bowed their heads, and there was a great silence.

After a little the Kadi said, "it is enough. This girl _is_ the daughter of Kahlil Ferah. Sir, take your child, and Allah be with you!"

The father wiped away the tears and said, "Your Excellency, you see this poor girl all tattooed and disfigured. You see how ignorant and feeble she is. If she were not my child, there is nothing about her to make me wish to take her. But she is my own darling child, and with all her faults and infirmities, I love her." The whole Council then arose and congratulated the father and mother, and a great crowd accompanied them home. Throngs of people came to see her and congratulate the family, and after a little the girl was sent to a boarding school.

I can hardly think over this story even now without tears, for I think how glad I should have been to get back again a child of mine if it had been lost. And I have another thought too about that little lost girl. If that father loved his daughter so as to search and seek for her, and expend money, and travel by land and sea for years, in trying to find her, and when at length he found her, so forlorn and wretched and degraded, yet loved her still because she was _his daughter_, do you not think that Jesus loves us even more? We were lost and wretched and forlorn. A worse being than Bedawin gypsies has put his mark on our hearts and our natures. We have wandered far, far away. We have served the world, and forgotten our dear Heavenly Father. We have even refused to receive Him when he has come near us. Yet Jesus came to seek and to save us. And when he found us so degraded and sinful and disfigured, He loved us still, because we are His own children. Don't you think that the little lost Damascene girl was thankful when she reached her home, and was loved and kindly treated by father and mother and relatives and friends? And ought we not to be very thankful when Jesus brings us home, and calls us "dear children" and opens the gate of heaven to us?

This story of the lost Damascene child calls to my mind a little song which the Maronite women in Lebanon sing to their babies as a lullaby. The story is that a Prince's daughter was stolen by the Bedawin Arabs, and carried to their camp. She grew up and was married to a Bedawin Sheikh and had a little son. One day a party of muleteers came to the camp selling grapes, and she recognized them as from her own village. She did not dare speak to them, so she began to sing a lullaby to her baby, and motioned to the grape-sellers to come near, and when the Bedawin were not listening, she would sing them her story in the same tone as the lullaby.

THE LULLABY.

Sleep, baby sleep! a sleep so sweet and mild, Sleep, my Arab boy, my little Bedawin child! _Aside to the } Once I was a happy girl, grape-sellers_ } The Prince Abdullah's daughter. Playing with the village maids, Bringing wood and water. Suddenly the Bedawin Carried me away; Clothed me in the Aba robe And here they make me stay. Sleep, baby sleep! a sleep so sweet and mild, Sleep, my Arab boy, my little Bedawin child! _Aside_ Ye sellers of grapes hear what I say. I had dressed in satin rich and gay. They took my costly robes away, And dressed me in Aba coarse and grey. I had lived on viands costly and rare, And now raw camel's flesh is my fare. Sleep, baby sleep! a sleep so sweet and mild, Sleep, my Arab boy, my little Bedawin child! _Aside_ Oh seller of grapes, I beg you hear, Go tell my mother and father dear, That you have seen me here to-day. Just by the Church my parents live, The Bedawin stole me on Thursday eve. Let the people come and their sister save, Let them come with warriors bold and brave, Lest I die of grief and go to my grave.

The grape-sellers then go home, and the warriors come and rescue her, and take her home.

We will stop here a moment and make a pencil sketch of this Arab camp, but we must be very careful not to let them see us writing. They have a great fear of the art of writing, a superstitious idea that a person who writes or sketches in their camp, is writing some charm or incantation to bring mischief upon them. I once heard of a missionary who went to an Arab village to spend the night. The people were all Maronites, and grossly ignorant. He pitched his tent and sat down to rest. Presently a crowd of rough young men came in and began to insult him. They demanded bakhshish, and handled his bedding and cooking utensils in a very brutal manner, and asked him if he had any weapons. He bethought himself of one weapon and began to use it. He took out a pencil and paper, and began to make a sketch of the ringleader. He looked him steadily in the eye, and then wrote rapidly with his pencil. The man began to tremble and slowly retreated and finally shouted to his companions, and off they all went. Shortly after, they sent a man to beg Mr. L. not to cut off their heads! Their priests teach them that the Protestants have the power of working magic, and that they draw a man's portrait and take it with them, and if the man does anything to displease them, they cut off the head of the picture and the man's head drops off! Mr. L. sent them word that they had better be very careful how they behaved. They did not molest him again.

Here we are near Tripoli, at the Convent of the _Sacred Fish_. What a beautiful spot! This large high building with its snow-white dome, and the great sycamore tree standing by this circular pool of crystal water, make a beautiful scene. What a crowd of Moslem boys! They have come all the way from Tripoli, about two miles, to feed the Sacred Fish. They are a gay looking company, with their red, green, blue, yellow, white and purple clothes, and their bright red caps and shoes, and some of them with white turbans. They come out on feast days and holidays to play on this green lawn and feed the fish. The old sheikh who keeps this holy place, has great faith in these fish. He says they are all good Moslems, and are inhabited by the souls of Moslem saints, and there is one black fish, the Sheikh of the saints, who does not often show himself to spectators. There are hundreds if not thousands of fish, resembling the dace or chubs of America. He says that during the Crimean war, many of the older ones went off under the sea to Sevastopol and fought the Russian infidels, and some of them came back wounded. The people think that if any one eats these fish he will die immediately. That I _know_ to be false, for I have tried it. When the American Consul was here in 1856, his Moslem Kawasses caught several of the fish, and brought them to Mr. Lyons' house. We had them cooked and ate them, but found them coarse and unpalatable. That was sixteen years ago and we have not felt the evil effects yet.

This poor woman has a sick child, and has come to get the Sheikh to read the Koran over it and cure it. The most of the Syrian doctors are ignorant quacks, and the people have so many superstitions that they prefer going to saints' tombs rather than call a good physician. There is a Medical College in Beirût now, and before long Syria will have some skilful doctors. I knew an old Egyptian doctor in Duma named Haj Ibrahim, who was a conceited fellow. He used to bleed for every kind of disease. An old man eighty years of age was dying of consumption, and the Haj opened a vein and let him bleed to death. When the man died, he said if he had only taken a little more blood, the old man would have recovered. I was surprised by his coming to me one day and asking for some American newspapers. I supposed he wished them to wrap medicines in and gave him several New York Tribunes. A few days after he invited us to eat figs and grapes in his vineyard and we stopped at his house. He said he was very thankful for the papers. They had been very useful. I wondered what he meant, and asked him. He showed me a jar in the corner in which he had dissolved the papers into a pulp in oil and water, and had given the pulp as medicine to the people! He said it was a powerful medicine. He supposed that the English printed letters would have some magic influence on diseases.

One of the Moslem lads carries a short iron spear as a sign that he is going to be a derwish. Dr. De Forest once found himself surrounded in a Moslem village by a troop of little Moslems, each of them with an iron-headed spear in his hand. A Moorish Sheikh, or Chief, had been for some two years teaching the Moslems of the place the customs of their holy devotees, and in consequence all the boys had become derwishes, or Moslem monks. He was a shrewd old Sheikh. He knew that the true way to perpetuate his religion was to _teach the children_. He had taught them the Moslem prayers and prostrations, and to keep certain moral precepts. How glad we should be if these boys would come and sit down by us while we talk to them of Jesus! There they come. See how their eyes sparkle, as I speak to them. They have never heard about the gospel before. But I must speak in a low tone, as the old Sheikh is coming and he looks down upon us as infidel dogs! Perhaps some of them will think of these words some day, and put their trust in our Divine Saviour.

Many of the people seem to think that the missionary's house is like the Cave of Adullam, where David lived, (1 Sam. xxii:2) when "every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him." It makes it very hard to deal with the people, to have so many of them come to us with improper motives. They come and say they love the gospel and want instruction, and have endured persecution, when suddenly you find that they want money, or to be protected from punishment, or to get office, or to get married to some improper person, or something else that is wrong.

Once a sheikh from Dunnîyeh in Lebanon came to Tripoli, and declared himself a Protestant. He was very zealous, and wanted us to feel that he was too good a man to be turned away, as he was wealthy and of a high family. He was armed with a small arsenal of weapons. He had a servant to carry his gun and pipe, and came day after day to read books, and talk on religion. He said that all he needed was the protection of the American Consul, and then he would make his whole village Protestants. We told him we could have nothing to do with politics. If he wanted to become a Christian, he must take up his cross and follow Christ. He said that was just what he wanted to do, only he wished to benefit the cause by bringing others to follow Him. He seemed very earnest, but there was something dark and mysterious in his ways, and we were afraid of him. Now the Arabs have a proverb, "No tree is cut down but by _one of its own limbs_," _i.e._ the axe handle, and we thought a native only could understand a native, so we took the famous convert around to see Yanni. He went into Yanni's office, and Mr. L. and myself sat out in the garden under the orange trees. After a few minutes Yanni called out, "Come in, be preferred, your excellencies! I have found it all out. I understand the case." We went in and climbed up upon the platform, next the desk in the office. The Maronite candidate for the church sat smiling, as if he thought he would now be received at once. Yanni went on, "I understand the case exactly. This man is a son of a Sheikh in Dunnîyeh. He is in a deadly quarrel with his father and brothers about the property, and says that if we will give him the protection of the American Consulate, he will go home, kill his father and brothers, seize all the property, and then come down and join the church, and live in Tripoli!" We were astounded, but the brutal fellow turned to us and said, "yes, and I will then make all the village Protestants, and if I fail, then cut my head off!" We told him that if he did anything of that kind, we would try to get him hung, and the American Consulate would have nothing to do with him. "Very well," said he, "I have made you a _fair offer_, and if you don't accept it, I have nothing more to say." We rebuked him sharply, and gave him a sermon which he did not relish, for he said he was in haste, and bade us a most polite good morning. He was what I should call an Adullamite.

A Greek priest in the village of Barbara once took me aside, to a retired place behind his house, and told me that he had a profound secret to tell me. He wished to become a Protestant and make the whole village Protestant, but on one condition, that I would get him a hat, a coat, and pantaloons, put a flag-staff on his house, and have him appointed American Consul. I told him the matter of the hat, coat and pantaloons he could attend to at but slight expense, but I had no right to make Consuls and erect flagstaffs. Then he said he could not become Protestant.

In 1866, a man named Yusef Keram rebelled against the Government of Lebanon and was captured and exiled. The day he was brought into Beirût, a tall rough looking mountaineer called at my house. He was armed with a musket and sword, besides pistols and dirks. After taking a seat, he said, "I wish to become Angliz and American." "What for," said I. "Only that I would be honored with the honorable religion." "Do you know anything about it?" "Of course not. How should I know?" "Don't you know better than to follow a religion you know nothing about?" "But I can learn." "How do you know but what we worship the devil?" "No matter. Whatever you worship, I will worship." I then asked him what he came for. He said he was in the rebel army, was captured, escaped and fought again, and now feared he should be shot, so he wanted to become Angliz and American. I told him he need have no fear, as the Pasha had granted pardon to all. "Is that so?" "Yes, it is." On hearing this he said he had business to look after, and bade me good evening.

But you will be tired of hearing about the Adullamites. If those who came to David were like the discontented and debtors who come to us, he must have been tired too. So many suspicious characters come to us, that we frequently ask men, when they come professing great zeal for the gospel, whether they have killed anybody, or stolen, or quarrelled with any one? And it is not always easy to find out the truth. If fifty men turn Protestants in a village, perhaps five or ten will stand firm, and the rest go back, and frequently all go back.

But the rain is coming down and we will hasten to the Meena to Uncle S.'s house, where we can rest after this wearisome and hasty journey from Safita. For your sake I am glad that we took comfortable bedding and bedsteads with us. It costs a few piastres more to hire a baggage animal, but it is cheaper in the end. At one time I was going on a hard journey, and I thought I would be economical, so I took only my horse and a few articles in my khurj or saddle bags, with a little boy to show me the road and take care of my horse. When I reached the village, I stopped at the house of a man said to be a Protestant. He lived in the most abject style, and I soon found by his bad language towards his family and his neighbors that he needed all the preaching I could give him that evening. There was only one room in the house, and that was small. By nine o'clock the mother and the children had lain down on a mat to sleep, and the neighbors who came in were beginning to doze. I was very weary with a long ride on a hot August day, and asked mine host where I should lie down to sleep. He led me to a little elevated platform on the back side of the room, where a bed was spread for me. The dim oil lamp showed me that the bed and covering were neither of them clean, but I was too weary to spend much time in examining them, and after spreading my linen handkerchief over the pillow, I tried to sleep. But this could not be done. Creeping things, great and small, were crawling over me from head to foot. There was a hole in the wall near my head, and the bright moonlight showed what was going on. Fleas, bugs, ants, (attracted by the bread in my khurj,) and more horrible still, swarms of lice covered the bed, and my clothing. I could stand it no longer. Gathering up my things, and walking carefully across the floor to keep from stepping on the sleeping family, I reached the door. But it was fastened with an Arab lock and a huge wooden key, and could only be opened by a violent shaking and rattling. This, with the creaking of the hinges, woke up my host, who sprung up to see what was the matter. I told him I had decided to journey on by moonlight. It was then one o'clock in the morning, and on I rode, so weary, that when I reached Jebaa at ten o'clock, I was obliged to go to bed. I did not recover from the onset of the vermin for weeks.

I have known missionaries to travel without beds, tents or bedsteads, and to spend weary days and sleepless nights, so as to be quite unfitted for their great work of preaching to the people. If you ever grow up to become a missionary, I hope you will live as simply as you can, but be careful of your health and try to live as long as you can, for the sake of the people you are working for, and the Lord who sends you forth. It is not good economy for a missionary to become a martyr to studying Arabic, or to poor food, or to exhausting modes of travelling. One can kill himself in a short time, if he wishes, on missionary ground, but he could have done that at home without the great expense of coming here to do it, and besides, that is not what a missionary goes out for. He ought to live as long as he can. He should have a dry house, in a healthy location, good food, and proper conveniences for safe travelling.

How pleasant it is to hear that sweet toned bell! Let us climb up to the roof and read the inscription on it. "From little Sabbath School Children in America to the Mission Church in Tripoli, Syria." It was sent in 1862 by the children in Fourth Avenue Church, New York, and in Newark, Syracuse, Owego, Montrose and other places.

The Moslems abhor bells. They say bells draw together evil spirits. We are not able yet to have a bell in Hums, on account of the Moslem opposition. They do not use bells, but have men called Muezzins stationed on the little balconies around the top of the tall minarets, to call out five times a day to the people to come to prayer. They select men and boys with high clear voices, and at times their voices sound very sweetly in the still evening. They say, "There is no God but God." That is true. Then they add, "and Mohammed is the Apostle of God," and that is not true. As the great historian Gibbon said; these words contain an "eternal truth and an eternal lie."

The Moslems are obliged to pray five times every day, wherever they may be. At home, in their shops, in the street, or on a journey, whenever the appointed time arrives, they fall on their knees, and go through with the whole routine of prayers and bodily prostrations. One day several Moslems called on us in Tripoli, at the eighth hour of the day (about 2 o'clock P.M.), and after they had been sitting some time engaged in conversation, one of them arose and said to his companions, "I must pray.". They all asked, "Why? It is not the hour of prayer." "Because," said he, "when I went to the mosque at noon to pray, I had an ink-spot on my finger nail, and did not perceive it until after I came out, and hence my prayer was of no account. I have just now scraped it off, and must repeat my noon prayer." So saying, he spread his cloak upon the floor, and then kneeling upon it with his face towards Mecca, commenced his prayers, while his companions amused themselves by talking about his ceremonial strictness. One of them said to me, "He thinks he is holy, but if you could see the _inside_ of him, you would find it black as pitch!" He kept his head turned to hear what was being said, and after he had finished, disputed a remark one of them had made while he was praying. Such people worship God with their lips, while their hearts are far from him.

Moslems have a great horror of swine. They think us barbarians to eat ham or pork. In February, 1866, the Moslems of Beirût were keeping the Fast of Ramadan. For a whole month of each year they can eat and drink nothing between sunrise and sunset, and they become very cross and irritable. In Hums, some Moslems saw a dog eating a bone in Ramadan, and killed him because he would not keep the fast. They fast all day, and feast all night. Ramadan is really a great nocturnal feast, but it is hard for the working people to wait until night before beginning the feast. During that fast of 1866, a Maronite fellah came into Beirût driving a herd of swine to the market. Now of all sights in the world, the sight of swine is to an orthodox Moslem the most intolerable, and especially in the holy month of Ramadan. Even in ordinary times, when swine enter the city, the Moslems gather up their robes, turn their backs and shout, "hub hub," "hub hub," and if the hogs do not hasten along, the "hub hub," is very apt to become a hubbub. On the 28th of that holy month, a large herd entered Beirût on the Damascus road. The Moslems saw them, and forthwith a crowd of Moslem young men and boys hastened to the fray. A few days before, the Maronite Yusef Keram had entered the city amid the rejoicings of the Maronites. These swine, whom the Moslems called "Christian Khanzir," should meet a different reception. Their wrath overcame their prejudice. The Maronite swine-drivers were dispersed and the whole herd were driven on the run up the Assur with shouts of derision, and pelted with stones and clubs. "You khanzir, you Maronite, you Keram, out with you!" and the air rang with shouts mingled with squeals and grunts. I saw the crowd coming. It gathered strength as it approached Bab Yakoob, where the white turbaned faithful rose from their shops and stables to join in the persecution of the stampeding porkers. "May Allah cut off their days! Curses on their grandfather's beard! Curses on the father of their owner! Hub hub! Allah deliver us from their contamination!" were the cries of the crowd as they rushed along. The little boys were laughing and having a good time, and the men were breathing out wrath and tobacco smoke. Alas, for the poor swine! What became of them I could not tell, but the last I saw, was the infuriated crowd driving them into the Khan of Muhayeddin near by, where one knows not what may have happened to them. I hope they did not steal the pork and eat it "on the sly," as the Bedawin did at Mt. Sinai, who threw away the hams the travellers were carrying for provisions, and declared that their camels should not be defiled with the unclean beast! The travellers were _very_ indignant at such a loss, but thought it was too bad to injure the feelings of the devout Moslems, and said no more. What was their horror and wrath to hear the next night that the Bedawin were seen cooking and eating their hams at midnight, when they thought no one would see them!

Do the Syrian people all smoke? Almost all of them. They speak of it as "drinking a pipe, drinking a cigar," and you would think that they look upon tobacco as being as necessary to them as water. Old and young men, women and even children smoke, smoke while they work or rest, while at home or journeying, and measure distances by their pipes. I was travelling, and asked a man how far it was to the next village. He said about two pipes of tobacco distant! I found it to be nearly an hour, or three miles. The Orientals spend so much time in smoking, that some one has said "the Moslems came into power with the Koran in one hand, and the sword in the other, but will go out with the Koran in one hand and the pipe in the other!"

Here we are on the sandy beach. What myriads of sea shells, and what beautiful colors they have. And here are sponges without number, but they are worthless. There on the sea are the little sloops of the sponge fishers. They are there through the whole summer and the fishers dive down into the sea where the water is from 100 to 200 feet deep, and walk around on the bottom holding their breath, and when they can bear it no longer pull the cord which is tied around the waist, and then their companions draw them up. They do not live long, as it is very hard and unnatural labor. Sometimes they are killed by sharks or other sea monsters. One of them told me that he was once on the bottom, and just about to pick up a beautiful white sponge, when he saw a great monster with huge claws and arms and enormous eyes coming towards him, and he barely escaped being devoured. At another time, the men in the boat felt a sudden jerk on the rope and pulled in, when they found only the man's head, arms and chest on it, the rest of his body having been devoured by some great fish or sea animal. The sponges grow on rocks, pebbles or shells, and some of them are of great value. It is difficult to get the best ones here, as the company who hire the divers export all the good ones to Europe.