Chapter XX: Damascus--His Third Consulate (3)

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.