54

SCENES AND MISSIONS.

on the floor. They learn to read and write the Arabic and the English correctly. They are graceful, of calm, open countenance, with an impress of most perfect selfpossession, dark eyes, very little colour, unless that may be called colour which is such a combination of white and Oriental brunette as to be neither, and only imitable sometimes in painting. Some drawings and writings of several of the young ladies were exhibited, some of which were decidedly artistic; and one of the artists was from the wildest of the Lebanon ranges and tribes. Until lately, teaching young ladies was uncommon in Syria; and it is gratifying to know that many send daughters to the schools who have hitherto utterly refused to do so. This we should judge was the High mission-school of Syria, and deservedly the model school, as far as appertains to the education of females both as pupils of Christianity and of literature. We may be able to account for the fact that some professed Christians take so little interest in foreign missions, and that others would like to slander that which is so opposite to their own tastes and characters; yet we are surprised that some, whose acquaintance we cherish, as men of science and as philosophers, are so slow to appreciate the victories which these establishments are achieving in favour of science and civilisation, even if no other object were attained. And yet several with whom we have travelled have spoken disparagingly of mission operations from which they have acknowledged great aid in their examinations, not only from the missionaries directly, but from influences which have penetrated many wild tribes and places even untrodden by the foot of the missionaries, and upon which influences these travellers have lived as upon a capital, without which they would have had to retire from their investigations.

Before our arrival, there had been no rain for months; and all, feeling the need, began to put up prayers, Mussulmans included, whose little prayer-flags, as I was told, waved quite freely from windows and posts; and, as we have a

ARRANGING THE ROUTE.

55

deluge rather than a rain, our Mohammedan friends take all the credit.

Last night, after midnight—one o'clock-I noticed the thermometer stood at 54°, and this morning (Dec. 10) at eight o'clock it was still at 54°, the difference not being one-fifth of a degree. At twelve it was at 58°, and at six, 54°, showing what slight variation there is in the temperature. This we found to be the general result of all our observations, taken at the same place: the exceptions are few.

Being reminded that the Feast of the Nativity took place at Bethlehem on Christmas eve, at which time there is a better opportunity of seeing the people than at any other time, we immediately decided to leave for Jerusalem. Meeting our old friend Zadoc Levi, we were soon in conversation as to the best method of travelling to Jerusalem on a route suggested to us by our missionary friends. We told him that our contemplated guide charged us twentyfive shillings a day for two, including everything. "Auch!" said Father Levi, in his German dialect, in which he always spoke to us, at the same time putting his hand to his aged beard, and thence to his head, as if he had been seized with a violent neuralgia: "twenty-five shillings! twentyfive shillings!"

We can't help

"Well," said I, "what's to be done? the matter we can't get any one else." "Yes, my friend will go for 8s. 4d. a day. Come with us." In a few minutes we were in the Jewish house, and, sitting on the divan, we entered into an inquiry. The man promised to take us, providing horses and food, which was to consist of cheese, bread, and eggs, a fish now and thenperhaps some chicken-water, &c. We were to have all our baggage taken; he was to cook for us, and to travel every day save Saturday-the Jewish Sabbath.

"Ah! there it is.

will you rest then."

We can't travel on Sunday, neither

Yes, he would, and would wait for us at Jerusalem, and then return with us, as he lived here.

56

CHOOSING A GUIDE.

Levi was to give us an answer at one o'clock whether he would accompany us or not so we parted. "Verily," thought we, "this is the plan." Soon after we met our Arab friend Dahan, whom we called Hanna. We told him of the interview, and promised to decide at one o'clock, at which time he was to call. Now, Hanna is apparently as fine a fellow as ever wore Arab trousers--genteel, dignified, obliging, intelligent, and patient, which last trait we afterwards found existed in excess; but we did not feel like losing him, and he was equally disinclined to lose us.

At the time appointed both arrive. Hanna leaves the room, after introducing our Jewish guest. Father Levi takes his tobacco, and, sitting down, commences, continues, ends; and the result is that neither Father Levi nor his friend are inclined to leave till Monday. Now, we must be in Jerusalem on the evening of the 24th, to attend the festival at Bethlehem, five miles beyond. If we go with them we must keep two Sabbaths-which we could well afford to do, only that we must be in Bethlehem at the festival; and though we should like to travel with two Israelites in their land, yet we state the case and decline. The old man then bids us farewell, heartily hoping to see us at Jerusalem, where I am to meet him at his house, upon which we exchanged the genuine Hebrew salutation, even now in use, "Peace be with you," and parted to meet at Jerusalem. And now we depend upon Hanna, said to be a capital guide, well acquainted with the country and the Arabic-his native language-educated in English schools, recommended by the missionaries and the consul, and furnishing everything to protect us and to make us comfortable.

He is called in; and, after a little further bargaining, we write out the contract, to which he agrees. In our condition we say nothing of arms as protection against the wandering Arabs, he asserting that "there is no need, as the country is peaceful, and he had travelled with some one who had no use for them."

"Very well; if you get slain, charge it to yourself,

But carry one

Hanna, and we will say nothing about it. gun, as we need it for shooting birds for examination and drawing." To which Hanna agrees, receives one thousand piastres for the outfit, and, giving a receipt with his name affixed in English, promises to sign the contract at the consul's office to-morrow; and we dismiss him, to spend his last evening with his family, as we expect to need his services until next March. So we introduce Hanna as henceforth our dragoman or interpreter, the guide and head of our little troop.

The next morning we intended to start, but we waited in vain for Hanna; and, as nothing could be heard of him or his preparations, we determined to look for him after breakfast. At the table we heard of a curious superstition said to exist among the Lebanon Syrians in reference to the native students in English schools. The English, it is thought, take a daguerreotype of the students coming from Syria; and, when they return, if they change their religion and go back to the religion of their country, the picture becomes black, upon which the English stab the picture, and the man whose likeness it is drops dead, wherever he may be, walking, standing, or sitting. Another superstition is associated with the English shillings, which, it is supposed, if they are taken, will be lost again, and the shilling be found in the purse of the Englishman.

I took several bearings to-day from our hotel-top, among which was one of a peak lying toward the south-east, pronounced Kennàzi: it is very prominent, and is near the head of the Beirut River. This peak forms a very important mark. It is the grand outpost at the foot of which the direct road running east from Beirut ushers the traveller into the great valley of the Buka'a. This valley, between the two ranges of Lebanon on the west, and Anti-Lebanon on the east, forms the ancient Cole-Syria, called in Greek cœle or hollow, from its depression so much resembling a hollow between the two high ranges. Running north-east of this peak, it widens until at Baalbek, twenty-five miles

H

E.N.E. from Kennàzi, it attains its greatest width-about sixteen miles. It contracts at a distance of thirty miles beyond Baalbek; and sixty miles north-east of Jebel Kennazi it becomes very narrow in that part where the two Lebanon ranges terminate. Thus Cole-Syria, between the mountains, presents somewhat the appearance of a flat canoe running to a point about twenty miles south of Kennazi, and there terminating in the Wady et Teim, at the foot of Mount Hermon (called Jebel esh Sheikh, or Mount of the Governor). Mount Hermon bears about 20° to the east of south from Beirut, though I could obtain no sight of a ridge from the hotel which could with certainty be recognised as that of Hermon ; and my impressions are formed from an admirable position afterwards gained in the interior, north of Lake Tiberias, compared with the bearing of a position visible from Beirut. Mount Hermon is a ridge terminating somewhat abruptly on the south-west and running irregularly north-east. At its base commence the rills which, fed from the melting snows of the mountain, run a little west of south about twenty miles, and empty into the little lake of Huleh, the Biblical "waters of Merom" (Joshua xi. 5, 7), from whose surface in after-time some fine ducks were obtained for our dinner. This little triangular lake, about three miles long, on its northern border is contracted to a southern angle pointing toward the Lake of Tiberias, from which it is about ten miles distant, and connected with it by the Jordan. Hence the true head-waters of the Jordan are to be found at the base of Hermon, which lies about s. 25° E. from our hotel.

This valley of Buka'a is in the Arabic a different word from Baca, having a guttural third letter not in that word, with which it has sometimes been confounded, and which occurs in the Psalms-" who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well"—where the signification is beautifully expressive of sorrow turned to joy. The word baca originally signified neither "weeping" nor "mulberries," as has been supposed to be the meaning in this passage, but simply