three thousand feet high, broken by crags
of white marble, and towering almost precipitously to the very clouds. I
doubt if Melville saw anything grander in the tropical gorges of Typee.
After reaching the other side, we had still a journey of eight hours to
the sea, through a wild and broken, yet highly cultivated country.

Beyrout was now thirteen hours distant, but by making a forced march we
reached it in a day, travelling along the shore, past the towns of Jebeil,
the ancient Byblus, and Joonieh. The hills about Jebeil produce the
celebrated tobacco known in Egypt as the _Jebelee_, or "mountain" tobacco,
which is even superior to the Latakiyeh.

Near Beyrout, the mulberry and olive are in the ascendant. The latter tree
bears the finest fruit in all the Levant, and might drive all other oils
out of the market, if any one had enterprise enough to erect proper
manufactories. Instead of this the oil of the country is badly prepared,
rancid from the skins in which it is kept, and the wealthy natives import
from France and Italy in preference to using it. In the bottoms near the
sea, I saw several fields of the taro-plant, the cultivation of which I
had supposed was exclusively confined to the Islands of the Pacific. There
would be no end to the wealth of Syria were the country in proper hands.

Chapter XIII.

Pipes and Coffee.

--"the kind nymph to Bacchus born
By Morpheus' daughter, she that seems
Gifted upon her natal morn
By him with fire, by her with dreams--
Nicotia, dearer to the Muse
Than all the grape's bewildering juice." Lowell.

In painting the picture of an Oriental, the pipe and the coffee-cup are
indispensable accessories. There is scarce a Turk, or Arab, or
Persian--unless he be a Dervish of peculiar sanctity--but breathes his
daily incense to the milder Bacchus of the moderns. The custom has become
so thoroughly naturalized in the East, that we are apt to forget its
comparatively recent introduction, and to wonder that no mention is made
of the pipe in the Arabian Nights. The practice of smoking harmonizes so
thoroughly with the character of Oriental life, that it is difficult for
us to imagine a time when it never existed. It has become a part of that
supreme patience, that wonderful repose, which forms so strong a contrast
to the over-active life of the New World--the enjoyment of which no one
can taste, to whom the pipe is not familiar. Howl, ye Reformers! but I
solemnly