he
author of the _Expedition to Syria_, who, placed in
similar circumstances with myself, was likewise an
inmate of the same house, and of whom, as we were
subsequently much known together during our residence in
this country, I shall after have occasion to mention: at
present I will take the liberty of borrowing from his
amusing narrative the following account of the inmates
of our new domicile. 'We lived in the house of a
respectable Syrian family, that of Habbit Jummal, or
interpreted, the esteemed camel-driver. Our landlord,
Giorgius, the head of this family, was a young man
hardly out of his teens; and having some competency, and
being moreover _un beau garcon_, did not follow either
his ancestral, or any other avocation. The harem, or
woman's portion of the house, was composed of his
mother, a fair widow of forty, and her two daughters,
both Eastern beauties of their kind, Sarah and Nasarah
(meaning Victory or Victoria;) the first, a laughing
black eyed houri, with mischief in every dimple in her
pretty face; the other, a more portly damsel, of a
melancholy but not less pleasing expression. There were
besides these, three younger children with equally
poetic names, (Nassif, Iskunder, and Furkha,) and
included in the _coterie_ was a good-humoured negress,
the general handmaid, whose original cognomen of Saade,
was lost in the apposite soubriquet of
Snowball.'--Although the greater part of the
inhabitants of Beyrout are Christians, generally
speaking, of the Greek Church, to which persuasion
likewise belonged the family of our host Giorgio; still
in this land of bigotry and oppression--to such an
extent is carried suspicion and jealousy, and so far
have Mahommedan prejudices in this respect been adopted,
that all the women (those of the peasantry alone
excepted) lead nearly as secluded a life as the Osmanli
ladies of Constantinople or Smyrna. On venturing abroad,
which they seldom do, unless when the knessi or humaum
(church or bath) are the limits of their excursions,
they are so closely shrouded in the izar, or long white
garment, which, coming over the head and hiding the
face, falls in numerous folds to the ground, as to be
scarcely recognizable by their nearest friends or
relations. To allow, therefore, two unknown and
friendless s