246 
A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 
fountain. They had come over from Damascus with packs 
of merchandise for Baalbek ; and so picturesque they looked, 
all lying down in a circle, with their masters sitting on the 
ruined fountain smoking, that I fain had to stop and make a 
sketch of them. Soon after, we came to the village of Tihe- 
beh, a miserable collection of huts, with the white dome of a 
mosque in the centre. About this point we struck off to the 
left from the plain of Bukaa, and shortly came to the valley 
of Nebusheet; from which we climbed up a very rocky path, 
hardly practicable for our horses, to the village of Nebusheet. 
In this village there is a mosque containing a large tomb, 
called by the inhabitants the Tomb of the Prophet Nebu- 
sheet. None others but the followers of Nebusheet live in 
the village, and they are known as Meitmaleh. They revere 
the tomb of their prophet as the Mohammedans do at Mecca ; 
but it is only in secret or among themselves that they dare 
to avow their belief. When among the Turks they pray like 
Turks, and profess to acknowledge the superior power of Mo¬ 
hammed ; but they are looked upon generally as heretics, 
and are not admitted to all the privileges of the Moham¬ 
medan faith. For instance, they can not go to Mecca, or 
enter the Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem. In the valley be¬ 
yond Nebusheet there is a rapid stream of good water, from 
which the village is supplied. The labor required to carry 
the water up the rocky path, a distance of nearly a mile, 
must be prodigious. The Arab men know very well that it 
is harder work than smoking the chibouck ; so they attend to 
the smoking, and make the women and children carry the 
water. We met in the pass some thirty or forty women and 
children, with scarce any thing but rags on them, bearing 
great earthen pitchers on their heads ; and yet they toiled up 
the rocks singing merrily, as if theirs was as happy a life as 
any ; perhaps it was. About the same number were going 
down, being thus continually engaged in the hardest possible 
labor, while the men were sitting up in the village, smoking 
or doing nothing. I thought that in warm weather it must 
keep half the population of Nebusheet thirsty to keep the 
other half supplied with water. The stream below is called 
