6 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 



tlien tlie cabin-benches got loose, and tumbled about 

 noisily. At 7 a.m. we were off Jaffa, but landing- was 

 out of the question ; an hour later the cabin in which 

 I was dressing was filled with a blaze of light, and the 

 ship shook with a report as if she had fired a broadside. 

 Our foremast had been struck by lightning, but, being 

 provided with a conductor, the vessel escaped injury. All 

 that day we ran on through a big tumbling sea, and 

 anchored at night in the roadstead of Beyrout. 



On Wednesday morning we disembarked, and went to 

 the ' Hotel de Damas.' Our original plan, to land at 

 JafPa and go up direct to Jerusalem, had been thrown out 

 by the storm, and new arrangements were necessary. 

 Mr. Williams, one of our American friends, was in the 

 same position, and now agreed to join us in our Syrian 

 journey, so that we were a party of three. As attendants, 

 besides the dragoman, Elias Abbas, we had a cook and 

 a waiter, with the usual staflP of muleteers. 



Elias's preparations took him several days, and it was 

 not till Sunday that we succeeded in leaving Beyrout. 

 Meantime we heard complaints from all sides of the extra- 

 ordinary severity of the season ; Damascus was virtually 

 inaccessible, owing to the heavy snowstorms which had 

 blocked up the passes of the Lebanon. The rain fell almost 

 incessantly, and the mock torrents which poured down 

 the streets of Beyrout augured ill for our chance of pass- 

 ing the formidable streams which intersect the road to 

 Jerusalem. At last we set out. We made a long circuit 

 through the hills to Deir-el-Kamr, to find a bridge over 

 the Damur, the first and most formidable of the rivers we 

 had to cross. Along the coast of Tyre and Sidon we 

 journeyed on through rain and mud, until at A ere the tide 

 of our mishaps reached its highest point. We had 

 pitched our tent beneath a ruined villa a mile outside 



