Chapter 27

Word has come that there is cholera in Odessa, so that all the Russian steamers going to Beirût will be in quarantine. It will not be pleasant to spend a week in the Beirût quarantine, so we will keep our baggage animals and go down by land. It is two long days of nine hours each, and you will be weary enough. Bidding good-bye to our dear friends here and wishing them God's blessing in their difficult work among such people, away we go! Yanni and Uncle S. and some of the teachers will accompany us a little way, according to the Eastern custom, and then we dismount and kiss them all on both cheeks, and pursue our monotonous way along the coast, sometimes riding over rocky capes and promontories and then on the sand and pebbles close to the roaring surf.

See how many monasteries there are on the sides of Lebanon! Between Tripoli and Beirût there are about a hundred. The men who live in them are called monks, who make a vow never to marry, and spend their lives eating and drinking the fruits of other men's labors. They own almost all the valuable land in this range of mountains for fifty miles, and the fellaheen live as "tenants at will" on their estates. When a man is lazy or unfortunate, if he is not married, his first thought is to become a monk. They are the most corrupt and worthless vagabonds in the land, and the day must come before long, when the monasteries and convents will be abolished and their property be given back to the people to whom it justly belongs.

We are now riding along by the telegraph wires. It seems strange to see Morse's telegraph on this old Phenician coast, and it will seem stranger still when we reach Beirût, to receive a daily morning paper printed in Arabic, with telegrams from all parts of the world!

In July, a woman came to the telegraph office in Beirût, asking, "Where is the telegraph?" The Clerk, Yusef Effendi, asked her, "Whom do you want, the Director, the Operator, or the Kawass?" She said, "I want Telegraph himself, for my husband has sent me word that he is in prison in Zahleh and wants me to come with haste, and I heard that Telegraph takes people quicker than any one else. Please tell me the fare, and send me as soon as possible!" The Effendi looked at her, and took her measure, and then said, "You are too tall to go by telegraph, so you will have to go on a mule." The poor ignorant woman went away greatly disappointed.

Another old woman, whose son was drafted into the Turkish army, wished to send him a pair of new shoes, so she hung them on the telegraph wire. A way-worn foot traveller coming along soon after took down the new shoes and put them on, and hung his old ones in their place. The next day the old lady returned and finding the old shoes, said, "Mashallah, Mohammed has received his new shoes and sent back his old ones to be repaired."

The telegraph has taught all the world useful lessons, and the Syrians have learned one lesson from it which is of great value. When they write letters they use long titles, and flowery salutations, so that a whole page will be taken up with these empty formalities, leaving only a few lines at the end, or in a postscript, for the important business. But when they send a telegram and have to pay for every word, they leave out the flowery salutations and send only what is necessary.

The following is a very common way of beginning an Arabic letter:

"To the presence of the affectionate and the most distinguished, the honorable and most ingenuous Khowadja, the honored, may his continuance be prolonged!"

"After presenting the precious pearls of affection, the aromatic blossoms of love, and the increase of excessive longing, after the intimate presence of the light of your rising in prosperity, we would say that in a most blessed and propitious hour your precious letter honored us," etc.

That would cost too much to be sent by telegraph. Precious pearls and aromatic blossoms would become expensive luxuries at two cents a word. So they have to be reserved for letters, if any one has time to write them.

Here we come to the famous Dog River. You will read in books about this river and its old inscriptions. If you have not forgotten your Latin, you can read a lesson in Latin which was written here nearly two thousand years ago. There you can see the words.

Imp. Caes. M. Aurelius Antoninus Pius Felix Augustus Par. Max. Brit. Max. Germ. Maximus Pontifex Maximus Montibus Imminentibus etc. etc.

This Emperor Marcus Aurelius, must have cut this road through the rocks about the year 173 A.D. But there is another inscription higher up, with arrow-headed characters and several other tablets. They are Assyrian and Egyptian. One of the Assyrian tablets was cut by Sennacherib 2500 years ago, and one of the Egyptian by Sesostris, king of Egypt, 3100 years ago. Don't you feel very young and small in looking at such ancient monuments? All of those men brought their armies here, and found the path so bad along the high precipice overhanging the sea, that they cut a road for their horses and chariots in the solid limestone rock. Just think of standing where Sennacherib and Alexander the Great passed along with their armies!

What a steep and narrow road! We will dismount and walk over this dangerous pass. It is not pleasant to meet camels and loaded mules on such a dizzy precipice, with the high cliff above, and the roaring waves of the sea far below! It is well we dismounted. Our horses are afraid of those camels carrying long timbers balanced on their backs. Let us turn aside and wait until they pass.

Seeing these camels reminds me of what I saw here in 1857. I was coming down the coast from Tripoli and reached the top of this pass, in the narrowest part, just as a caravan of camels were coming from the opposite direction. I turned back a little, and stood close under the edge of the cliff to let the camels go by. They were loaded with huge canvas sacks of tibn, or cut straw, which hung down on both sides, making it impossible to pass them without stooping very low. Just then I heard a voice behind me, and looking around, saw a shepherd coming up the pass with his flock of sheep. He was walking ahead, and they all followed on. I called to him to go back, as the camels were coming over the pass. He said, "Ma ahlaik," or "don't trouble yourself," and on he came. When he met the camels, they were in the narrowest part, where a low stone wall runs along the edge of the precipice. He stooped down and stepped upon the narrow wall, calling all the time to his sheep, who followed close upon his heels, walking in single file. He said "tahl, tahl," "come, come," and then made a shrill whirring call, which could be heard above the roaring of the waves on the rocks below. It was wonderful to see how closely they followed the shepherd. They did not seem to notice the camels on the one side, or the abyss on the other side. Had they left the narrow track, they would either have been trodden down by the heavily laden camels, or have fallen off into the dark waters below. But they were intent on following their shepherd. They heard his voice, and that was enough. The cameleers were shouting and screaming to their camels to keep them from slipping on these smooth rocks, but the sheep paid no attention to them. They knew the shepherd's voice. They had followed him before, through rivers and thickets, among rocks and sands, and he had always led them safely. The waves were dashing and roaring on the rocks below, but they did not fear, for the shepherd was going on before. Had one of those sheep turned aside, he would have lost his footing and been destroyed and thrown the whole flock into confusion.

You know why I have told you this story. You know that Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He said, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me." Wherever Jesus leads it is safe for us to go. How many boys and girls there are who think they know a better path than the one Jesus calls them to follow. There are "stranger" voices calling on every side, and many a child leaves the path of the Good Shepherd, and turns aside to hear what they would say. If they were truly lambs of Jesus' fold, they would love Him, and follow Him in calm and storm, and never heed the voice of strangers.

I was once travelling from Dûma to Akûra, high up on the range of Lebanon. It was a hot summer's day, and at noon I stopped to rest by a fountain. The waste water of the fountain ran into a square stone birkeh or pool, and around the pool were several shepherds resting with their flocks of sheep and goats. The shepherds came and talked with me, and sat smoking for nearly an hour, when suddenly one of them arose and walked away calling to his flock to follow him. The flocks were all mixed together, but when he called, his sheep and goats began to raise their heads and start along together behind him. He kept walking along and calling, until all his flock had gone. The rest of the sheep and goats remained quietly as though nothing had happened. Then another "Rai," or shepherd, started up in another direction, calling out in a shrill voice, and _his sheep_ followed him. They knew their shepherd's voice. Our muleteers were talking all the time, but the sheep paid no attention to them. They knew one voice, and would follow no other.

We will now hasten on to Beirût. You will wish to see the Female Seminary, and the Sabbath School and the Steam Printing Press, and many of the Beirût Schools, before we start to Abeih again.

Here is the Female Seminary. There are a hundred girls here, studying Arabic reading and writing geography, arithmetic, grammar, botany, physiology and astronomy, and a few study English, French and music. But the great study is the _Bible_. I am afraid that very few schools in America have as much instruction in the Bible, as the girls in this Seminary and the Sidon Seminary receive. You would be surprised to hear the girls recite correctly the names of all the patriarchs; kings and prophets of the Old Testament, with the year when they lived, and the date of all the important events of the Old and New Testament History, and the Life of Christ, and the travels of the Apostle Paul, and the prophecies about Christ in the Old Testament, and then recite the whole Westminster Assembly's Catechism in Arabic! I have given out _one hundred and twenty_ Bibles and Hymn Books as rewards to children in the schools in Beirût, who have learned the Shorter Catechism perfectly in Arabic.

Five years ago there was a girl in the school who was once very rude and self-willed, and very hard to control. She had a poor bed-ridden brother who had been a cripple for years, and was a great care to the family. They used to carry him out in the garden in fine weather and lay him on a seat under the trees, and sometimes his sister would come home from the school and read to him from the Bible, to which he listened with great delight. Not long after this he died, and his sister was sent for to come home to the funeral. On reaching home she found a large crowd of women assembled from all that quarter of the city, shrieking and wailing over his death, according to the Oriental custom. When A. the little girl came in, one of the women from an aristocratic Greek family was talking in a loud voice and saying that it was wrong for any person to go from the house of mourning to another house before first going home, because one going from a house of mourning would carry an _evil influence_ with her. A. listened and then spoke out boldly before the seventy women, "How long will you hold on to these foolish superstitions? Beirût is a place of light and civilization. Where can you find any such teaching as this in the gospel? It is time for us to give up such superstitions." The old woman asked, "Where did that girl learn these things? Truly she is right. These things _are_ superstitions, but they will not die until _we old women die_." It required a great deal of courage in A. to speak out so boldly, when her own brother had died, but all felt that she spoke the truth, and no one rebuked her.

Near by the house of A. is another beautiful house surrounded by gardens, and ornamented in the most expensive manner. A little girl from this family was attending the school in 1867. Her name was Fereedy. She was a boarder and the best behaved girl in the school. One day during vacation, her mother came to Rufka and said, "What have you done to my little daughter Fereedy? She came home last Saturday with her sister, and at once took the whole care of the little children, so that I had no trouble with them. And when night came she put her little sisters to bed and prayed with them all, and then in the morning she prayed with them again. I never saw such a child. She is like a little angel." The mother is of the Greek sect, and the little girl was only twelve years old.

And here is a story about another of the superstitions of the fellaheen, and what a little girl taught the people about them. This little girl named L. went with her father to spend the summer in a mountain village, where the people had a strange superstition about an oak tree. One day she went out to walk and came to the great oak tree which stood alone on the mountain side. You know that the Canaanites used to have idols under the green trees in ancient times. When L. reached the tree, she found the ground covered with dead branches which had fallen from the tree. Now, wood is very scarce and costly in Syria, and the people are very poor, so that she wondered to see the wood left to rot on the ground, and asked the people why they did not use it for fuel. They said they dared not, as the tree belonged to Moses the Prophet, and he protected the tree, and if any one took the wood, they would _fall dead_. She said, "Moses is in heaven, and does not live in oak trees, and if he did, he is a good man, and would not hurt me for burning up old dry sticks." So she asked them if she might have the wood? They said, "yes, if you _dare_ to take it, for we are afraid to touch it." So she went to the tree and gathered up as much as she could carry, and took it home. The people screamed when they saw her, and told her to drop it or it would kill her, but on she went, and afterwards went back and brought the rest. She then talked with the ignorant women, and her father told them about the folly of their superstitions, and read to them in the Bible about Moses, and they listened with great attention. I have often thought I should like to go to that village, and see whether the people now leave the dead branches under Moses' oak, or use them for fuel during the heavy snow storms of winter.