A RUSH TO AEMS. 55 



amused lis witli the account of a row, of wliicli thej liad 

 been the cause, and which had only just terminated. The 

 history of the dispute was rather complicated. The Sheikh, 

 it seems, indicated to Elias a plot of ground where our 

 tents might be pitched, and his son, a lad of seventeen, 

 came down to superintend the proceedings. The owner 

 of the ground and his child, a mere boy, then appeared on 

 the scene, and objected to the aiTangement which had 

 been made ; the boy, by some remark, angered the Sheikh's 

 son, and got his ears boxed ; whereupon the outraged 

 father knocked the Sheikh's son down, and made his nose 

 bleed. There was an immediate melee ; swords were 

 drawn, the whole village ran together — the men with their 

 weapons, and the women screaming : but the culprit very 

 discreetly put an end to the disturbance by running away, 

 and leaving the Sheikh to swear revenge at his leisure. 



The people of Khubab call themselves Christians, but 

 they are dirtier and less well-to-do than their Druse 

 neighbours. The women, who go about unveiled, are 

 peculiarly hideous. 



March 26th. — When we awoke in the morning, we found 

 ourselves wrapt in a dense fog, but the mist soon cleared 

 off, and the day became brilliantly fine. Oirr encampment 

 was surrounded by most peculiar-looking hillocks of lava, 

 which, together with house-walls of huge stones, formed a 

 characteristic specimen of Lejah scenery. A few minutes' 

 ride brought us out on the level plain. On one side the snowy 

 mass of Hermon rose grandly over nearer green ranges ; 

 on the other was the rugged coast of the ' black countr^^,' 

 which here juts out in a promontory, and there recedes, 

 leaving room for a grassy bay. At the cross-roads oppo- 

 site Shaarah, we met a man riding furiously from the 

 plain. He shouted to us, in passing, that his mule had 

 just been stolen by a party of Ai'abs, and galloped on into 



