ng.

We all rested in a coffee-station at the end of the bridge. Several
parties of muleteers had halted there at the same time. By the little
fireside a large hawk was perched, and the owner of the place had his
apparatus for shoemaking in the middle of the room.

Flowering oleander and fruit trees imparted liveliness to the scene
outside, our several parties in variegated costumes adding not a little
to the same.

Crossing the bridge, (which is level, and has no side parapets,) we
commenced the great ascent; the hill-side was largely planted with
sherabeen, (sprouts,) of a kind of cedar, not the real cedar of Lebanon.
At a spring half way up we found a poor Turkish infantry soldier resting
all alone, he was a pitiable object in a district so unfriendly to him.

What a different country would Palestine or all Syria be were it like the
Lebanon, industriously cultivated inch by inch! How different would the
Lebanon be were this industry and its produce never interrupted by
intestine warfare!

Higher still we saw a train of shaikhs on horseback, attended by men on
foot, coming in our direction longitudinally on the opposite hill from a
remote village.

All the distance, I think, from Jis'r el Kadi forwards, notwithstanding
the steep nature of the country, was over a paved or made road. There is
no such a thing in the south; here, however, the desolation of Turkish
rule is but little known, and the people are not only industrious, but a
fine muscular race.

We overtook small groups of village people who had, it seems, gone out to
meet the important riding party lately seen by us. Suddenly, at a turn
of the road, the cheerful town of Dair el Kamar opened out to view, with
the hills and palaces of Beteddeen behind. This was at three hours from
'Abeih, exclusive of the hour's rest at the bridge.

The town appeared to be well built, better than many a European town,
notwithstanding the destruction arising from recent warfare, and the
people cleanly; it was, however, no proof of the latter quality that I
saw a pig being fed at a house-door as we passed along.

We alighted at the best Arab house I had ever entered, namely, that of
the influential Meshakah family. After some repose the host took me and
the friends who had accompanied me from Soor and Saida to look about the
town. Through streets and bazaars we came to a large open place occupied
by silk weavers at work, among whom was the father of Faris, the Ar