THE MILL OF MALAHA. 
297 
himself to appear in the light of a dark-minded, restless, un¬ 
happy man, so high above all the conventionalities of society, 
that to be" a savage is the only condition really worthy of 
him ; or, worse than all, there is so little of the genial and 
kind in his nature that he finds few to love him at home, 
finds fault with others for what he owes to himself, and be¬ 
comes smitten with a morbid contempt for civilization. It 
reads very prettily, all this—especially if it be cleverly done. 
But let me tell you, my friends, there is a dreary, common¬ 
place, comfortless reality about Arab life, with all its bar¬ 
barous romance; a beggarly vagabondism that is entirely 
unworthy of being aspired to by any person of good principles 
or common sense ; a bestiality that must make any one who 
has a respectable home turn to it with a grateful heart and 
an inward thankfulness that he was born in a tolerably de¬ 
cent country, and among a people, who, with all their affecta¬ 
tions and absurdities, are yet something better than savages. 
And now for the Mill. Behold it, as we wind down the 
rugged pathway toward the stream of Malaha—a little 
square stone building, half in ruins, with a flat top, perched 
over the water among the rocks, a camel browsing on the 
bushes near it, and a dozen lazy Arabs squatted down by 
the door smoking their chiboucks. That single glance was 
enough. Every thought of the hospitable old gentleman and 
his accomplished daughters; the flower-gardens, the choice 
home-made bread and sparkling wines of Lebanon, vanished 
in a moment. I said nothing; but rode quietly up to the 
door, where, with a misgiving of the sequel, I resigned my 
horse to the muleteers, and saw him, together with the horses 
of my companions, led off to a cave in the neighboring mount¬ 
ains. A very animated conversation now took place be¬ 
tween our dragoman and the Arabs. The chief talker, a 
ragged ill-favored man, whose dark leathern skin looked 
darker still from the fact that his beard and eyebrows were 
covered with meal, was no other than the old miller himself, 
and the others were Bedouins who had come over from an 
encampment on the opposite side of the stream. As well as 
I could catch the drift of the conversation from Yusef’s man- 
n* 
