straggling blackberry brambles and wild fig-trees in picturesque
irregularity, while the water bubbled and gurgled over a pebbly bed or
fragments of rock.

Peasantry passed us with ass-loads of wood for fuel, (camels being
unknown in that region.) The same features continually repeated
themselves as we advanced; large broken cliffs were overhanging us, and
birds singing in the solitude; it need not be added that the sun was
cloudless the whole day long.

Forward we went to the Convent of the Dair el Mokhallis, which we reached
in four hours and a half from Mokhtarah, where we rested a few hours;
then visited once more the house of Lady Hester Stanhope.

Thence descending to the sea beach, we crossed the river Awali, and
looked back with regret to the heights of Lebanon. Just as the last gun
of Ramadan was fired, (for it was the termination of that fast and the
commencement of Beiram,) we galloped our horses into the sea-wave near
the walls of Sidon, which they enjoyed as refreshing to their heated
fetlocks, and we found a luxury in the breeze and in the rustling sound
of the endless roll of wavelets upon the shelly beach.

How different were the temperature and the scenery from those of
Mokhtarah in the early morning!

* * * * *

Even now in the nineteenth century one can understand how it was that in
ancient Bible times the peoples inhabiting those romantic districts were
distinct from each other within a small space, having separate kings and
alien interests, for here in the lapse of few hours I had traversed
regions where the inhabitants differed greatly in religion, in manners,
customs, dress, and physical aspect. The Maronite and the Druse of
Lebanon; the Syrian and the Turk of Bayroot, Saida, and Soor; the
Metawali of the Phoenician district, no more resemble each other than if
they were men or women of different nations, as indeed they are by
derivation; each of these is but a fragment of antiquity, representing to
us his several ancient race; yet all these fragments are united for the
present by the slenderest of bonds, those of using one common language,
the Arabic, and of an unwilling subjection to the Ottoman scymitar.

Alas! for the beautiful country thus parcelled out by peoples, who,
cherishing ancient rivalries and modern blood-feuds, have, and can have
no national life, or sentiment of patriotism.

XIII. NORTH-WEST OF THE DEAD SEA.

In December 1856