90 Prosperity of the Lebanon [i9°4 



ling all. Yet I noticed that one of them, a thick-set porker with pend- 

 ant chaps, little cunning eyes, and a bullet head, after discussing the 

 East in the language of Wall Street, and with comparisons drawn from 

 the gutter of his financial mind, was able to give a sensible account to 

 a neighbour who questioned him on the subject of the licensing laws 

 of his own New England State. A proof that in its own environment 

 there is no race entirely without value. They should be kept at home, 

 for they have no business in these ancient lands. 



" 22nd March. — On to Damascus by the new railway which is carried 

 down the wooded valley of the Baradah, very beautiful and very un- 

 like any other. The railway twists and twirls dangerously in and out 

 among the villages, and rounds sharp corners with no outlook 50 yards 

 ahead ; there have been many accidents, a single line, and the trains 

 rock prodigiously. Here we are at a hotel, the Hotel d'Orient, a 

 quiet place where few tourists go, but hotels are novelties still at 

 Damascus. 



" 23rd March. — To the Consulate. Richards, who is in charge of it, 

 confirms the prosperity of the Lebanon and says that most of the 

 emigrants return with money from America, some few are Moham- 

 medans, the greater number Christian. The country is quite undis- 

 turbed and safe. He sent a kavds with us to visit our house in the 

 Kassab quarter, which we bought in 1881, and certainly never should 

 have found without help. (I had forgotten even the name of the 

 street where it was.) When we came to the door I recognized it so 

 little that I was sure the kavds was mistaken. The little low door 

 into the street had a chink opened when we knocked, but there were 

 only women inside, the man, our tenant, having gone to market to 

 sell his wheat. The kavds, however, got hold of a watchman and so 

 we were admitted. A funny little place it was, but nice inside with 

 an inclosure of about an acre walled round and planted with lucerne, 

 and a fine old stone wall, shutting us in from surrounding gardens. 

 Lady Ellenborough used to live next door, and the house belongs now 

 to her stepson, a son of her husband Mijwel, who lets it, and on 

 the other two sides lies the great garden, called Bostan el Basha, be- 

 longing to Sheykh Hassan el Attar, a chief of the Damascus Ulema. 

 Ours is almost the last house at the extreme north-eastern end of 

 Damascus on the road to Palmyra. The name of the street is Shariah 

 Musjid el Kassab. In the afternoon we went there again and this 

 time found the whole family of our tenant assembled, Sheykh Saleh 

 Tillo and his three sons. They are well-off people and the rooms are 

 richly furnished with good carpets and pillows, and one or two really 

 handsome inlaid chests, besides china and glass, some old, some new. 

 We are pleased with our little house and feel inclined to make a part 

 of it habitable for ourselves and spend six weeks in it every year, 



