Christians at Jeddeh, the little port of Mecca, on the Red Sea.1

1 Othoman, by corruption Ottoman, the title given to the Turks whose dynasty of sultans is descended from Othoman, the first sultan, elected in A.D. 1289. Though of the same faith with the Arabs, they are a different The latter are descended from Ishmael, and are from Arabia.

race.

RELEASE FROM QUARANTINE.

65

CHAPTER III.

THE DRUZES.

ON Tuesday morning we were waited upon by our hotel-keeper, who announced his willingness to accompany us to Beirût, as our confinement was now at an end. We entered quarantine late Friday evening; the physician declares us "whole" this morning; and, though we did not see him nor he us, yet we understand that we are legally free. In the West this would not be five days; but, Orientally, five consecutive parts of days are accounted so many days: so that, though we entered on Friday evening, remaining Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, on Tuesday we were liberated, being actually but three days in quarantine. This-which we found to be the universal custom throughout the East-brought to our mind the Scripture-reckoning of three days to the entombment of the Savior, though he was crucified on Friday and rose early on Sunday.1

1 See John ii. 19, where the Savior says, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up:" "he spake of the temple of his body." See verse 21. See also Matt. xxvii. 63, which is a repetition by the Jews of a

66

IDIOM OF THE ORIENT.

A general packing-up packing-up commenced, and we were soon on the way to the gate. Here we found that a

somewhat different wording by the Savior in chap. xvii. 23, but is correctly the repetition of Mark viii. 31,—“ after three days." The expression is therefore truly Oriental for "three days," as we found throughout Syria. The only difficulty in connection with this scriptural point is the passage in Matt. xii. 40,-"For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth," where the nights, thus defined, might be objected against the fact of our Savior's entombment for only two nights. In answer, it will be found that the Hebrew phrase in 1 Sam. xxx. 12, 13 is precisely the same as that in Jonah i. 17, and is there understood as being only the same as the general expression "three days," which the circumstances of the narrative show, and it may be therefore considered as meaning the same in Jonah. As our Savior quoted this "sign," he undoubtedly used the same phrase, meaning it to apply to the time which he had often repeated, and which his disciples understood in the sense of the phrase which we have found still used in the East. This is in accordance with Dr. Robinson's view in "Harmony of the Gospels," notes iv. 49. In addition, it may be said that the phrase is found in similar form in Gen. vii. 4, in reference to the Deluge,-" forty days and forty nights,”—and also in Exod. xxiv. 18, in reference to Moses in the mountain, and in Matt. iv. 2, in reference to the Savior's fast, where the mention of nights with days seems to express only an idea of the singularity of the facts described, and the unusual solemnity and earnestness of those witnessing it, and is analogous to the liberty in English when we say, such "a boy was forty or fifty minutes under the water,”—wherein we do not expect to be understood to mean as we say forty minutes, or if not forty then fifty minutes, but exactly the reverse, namely, neither forty nor fifty definitely, but some general expression quite answered if any numbers between these two are taken. It is only explicable as a custom; and a similar phraseology appears in Hebrew, and expresses deep interest, just as when we say in English, "such a child was forty long minutes under the water,"-not that it is any longer than forty minutes, but expresses the earnestness of our interest. If any one objects that the reference of the passage to an idiom makes it impossible to express the idea of day and night at all, as no one could tell when the Hebrew meant definitely the two combined, I answer that the expression used in Jonah and quoted in Matthew is not the expression used in Hebrew when a day and night are definitely intended; as, for instance, "and the evening and the morning were the first day." (Gen. i. 5.) In verses 8, 13, and in other places, where the Hebrew is, "and the morning was and the evening was the first day," being the idiomatic definite method desired by

GETTING LOST.

67

sentinel with his musket had always kept guard, and we were as much in safe keeping as though in prison. Yet we learned that some of our company, on this or on a former occasion, scaled the walls in the night and after a frolic in town returned before morning unperceived. This, if known, would have put the whole town in quarantine, according to custom, preventing any from entering it or leaving it for five days.

Three horses were in readiness for

us at the gate. Mine was a shabby specimen of his race; and the only singularity about him was a collection of Syrian ornaments hung round his neck in the shape of dirty colored cotton strings, put upon him, as I afterward supposed, because he, being the meanest and the "slowest coach" of the three, needed some set-off to make amends. D. and the hotel-keeper soon outstripped my animal; and, as the little stupid native boy did not know the way to the hotel, I was lost. Making the best of my predicament, I wandered around the country, and finally, completing a circuit of the town, I arrived at the yellow-tinted red sand hill seen on the right of the view and southwest of Beirût, at a spot where a solitary palm-tree grew. From this position the country around was seen to some extent, though little of the town; and, looking seaward, there are, not far off, cliffs, affording holes and crevices. for sea-fowl and a kind of "blue pigeon," as they have

the objector. The term in Matthew, therefore, is the same general term as simply saying three days, which we have spoken of as illustrated in the country at the present day.

been called,'-though what I saw seemed in the distance to be only varieties of the sea-gull. My little guide finally discovered the hotel Belle Vue, which is at the west of the general mass of houses constituting Beirût and included under the name, though Beirût proper is walled. The most pleasant portion of the settled ridge is outside the walls, which were greatly injured by the bombardment in 1840 by the allied fleets, in aid of the Sultan, against the Pasha of Egypt, Mehemet Ali, who gathered much from the mountaineers and others by way of tribute and entirely appropriated it to himself. Yet the majority of the inhabitants were Christians and not subject to the conscription under the Egyptian pasha. The inhabitants of Beirût generally were favorable to his government, and fearful of the renewal of the tyranny they used to endure under the Turkish rule. Ibrahim Pasha, who was an excellent general, then under the Egyptian pasha, gained some signal triumphs over the forces of the Porte, especially on the 24th day of June, 1839, completely routing the Turkish army, taking their whole "camp, baggage, ammunition, stores, and one hundred and twenty pieces of artillery;" and the report was that upwards of twenty-five thousand either deserted or were taken prisoners when the battle had just commenced. The Turks actually shot many of the Europeans who were

1"Cairo, Petra, and Damascus," by Kinnear, p. 267.

2 Mr. Kinnear, in 1839, reckoned the population at fifteen thousand, including the suburbs, "of whom," he says, "at least two-thirds are Christians." (P. 241.)