PART

Dangers

coast.

Bosphorus above Constantinople; and this renders the present utter desertion of the coast the more remarkable. From Sidon to Tyre there is not a single hamlet on the shore, and these plains are all cultivated by people who reside on the mountains.

Iave the inhabitants retreated to the hills to enjoy a cooler climate, or for the sake of protection from bands of lawless soldiers passing up and down the coast?

As far back as the time of Thucydides at least, the people in many parts of of the sea- the Mediterranean were accustomed to build their towns at a considerable distance from the shore, and in strong positions, to escape the visits of pirates who then infested the sea. Any city exposed to these lawless attacks, and unable to defend itself, must of course be abandoned so long as this liability continues; but as soon as the sea is cleared of pirates, the inhabitants return and rebuild, except where some cause more permanent leads to final desertion. Such causes have long since reduced Cæsarea, Askelon, and other important places, to utter and hopeless desolation.

Change of employment.

Quicksands.

I suppose the main reason for the total desertion of this particular coast is to be found in an entire change of employment. The Phoenicians were mariners, and hence, wherever there was a sandy beach upon which to draw up their small craft, or a sheltered cove where they could ride at anchor, there a village sprang up and flourished. Now there are no mariners,-not a boat is owned by any of these peasants; they are exclusively given to agriculture, and have no occasion to dwell near the shore. Of course it is better for them to reside on the hills, as you see they do, in those prettily-posted villages on the mountain side. That white dome south of 'Adlûn covers the tomb of a saint called Zare. A weather-beaten, surly sheikh of the village, told me that Zare was the grandson of Joshua (on whom be peace). As such, I am willing to leave him in unquestioned possession of his sepulchre and pedigree, honoured as a great saint by these semi-savage Metawelies. It is decidedly interesting, however, to hear these austere disciples of 'Ali, as ignorant of history as the oxen they are punching along with their goads, repeat these venerable Bible names as familiar "household words."

We must take care how we cross this Abu el Asward, for there are quicksands at its mouth. My horse once sank to his belly, and plunged desperately before he brought me to the other side. Here is a safe ford, however. Above us you see that noble arch of a Roman bridge. It is quite perfect, but the embankment on either side has long since been washed away, so that it is useless. From this on, much of the plain is impracticable marsh in winter. In the centre of it are large springs, which were once surrounded by masonry like those at Ras el 'Ain, near Tyre, and for the same purpose. The work is now broken, and indeed, most of the plain is overgrown with thorns, and abandoned to Arabs. A group of their tents spreads along the base of the hills on our left.

If those of Kedar were no more attractive than these of Abu el Asward, the

Bride in the "Song of Songs" 1 has fallen upon a very lame comparison for CHAPTER

her charms.

XII.

Ay; but observe, it is she that is black, not the tents of Kedar, perhaps; Black not the curtains of Solomon, certainly. These may have been extremely beau- tents. tiful. But even black tents, when new, and pitched among bushes of liveliest green, have a very "comely" appearance, especially when both are bathed in a flood of evening's golden light. And here we have started up, and sent leaping over the plain, another of Solomon's favourites. What elegant.creatures those gazelles are, and how gracefully they bound! "My beloved is like a roe

or young hart: behold he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills." 2 These lovely harts are very timid, and descend at night to the plains to feed among the lilies until the day break and the shadows flee away.3 The roe This is alluded to in the charge to the daughters of Jerusalem, "By the roes and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please." We shall meet these graceful gazelles all through Syria and Palestine, and the more you see of them the greater will be your admiration. Solo

"4

and the gazelle.

Song 1. 5.

2 Song ii. 8, 9

3 Song ii. 17.

Song iii. 5.

PART

1.

allusions.

mon is not alone in his partiality. Persian and Arab poets abound in references to them. The fair ones of these fervid sons of song are often compared to the coy gazelle that comes by night and pastures upon their hearts. These "cruel gazelles, with graceful gait and liquid eye," are found in other lands, Scripture and graze on other hearts besides those of Persian poets. The sacred writers frequently mention gazelles under the various names of harts, roes, and hinds. They are celebrated for their activity. Thus Jacob says of Naphtali, “He is a hind let loose;" 1 and his mountains abound in gazelles to this day. "Asahel was light of foot as a wild roe." 2 And David sings, "He maketh my feet like hinds' feet, and setteth me upon my high places." 3 I have often stopped to admire the grace, and ease, and fearless security with which these pretty animals bound along the high places of the mountains. They are amiable, affectionate, and loving, by universal testimony; and accordingly Solomon says, "Let her the wife of thy youth-be as the loving hind and pleasant roe;' ;"4 and no sweeter comparison can be found. It is implied in Jeremiah xiv. 5 that the hind is particularly fond of her young; for the prophet illustrates the severity of the threatened dearth and famine by declaring that the very hinds forsook their young in the field, because there was no grass. David compares his longing for the living God to the panting of the hart for the waterbrooks.5 I have seen large flocks of these panting harts gather round the water-brooks in the great deserts of Central Syria, so subdued by thirst that you could approach quite near them before they fled. But here we are on the banks of the Kasimîeh, and yonder, at the foot of the bridge, our lunch awaits us. This bridge, which now springs quite across the river by one bold and lofty arch, is not old, for Maundrell, in 1696, found the ancient one broken down, and he and his party had great difficulty in crossing; and so should we without a bridge.

The Lilany.

So I should judge, for it is the largest river I have seen in this country, and appears to be full to the brim. You call it Kasimîch?

It is the ancient Leontes, and its present name, except just at this place, is Litany; apparently a corruption of the Latin-or perhaps that is merely a Latinized form of Litany. It is by far the largest stream that empties into the head of this sea, except the Orontes. Both these rise in the great plain of Cole-Syria, and close together. The Orontes flows north, the latter south and south-west. The watershed of the valley between the two Lebanons is somewhere about Lebweh, but the farthest permanent source of the Litany is the copious 'Ain es Sultan at Baalbek. Even this is entirely used up during the season of irrigation, and not a drop of its water reaches the sea. Numerous fountains, however, rise out of the centre of the plain, and being joined, first by the strong stream of Zahleh, and afterward by the much larger one from 'Anjur (Ain Jur), the united river meanders through the lower Buk'ah in a south-western direction, some fifteen miles, to Jûb Jennîn. Below that it

1 Gen. x ix. 21. 2 2 Sam. ii. 18. 32 Sam. xxii. 34. 4 Prov. v. 19. 5 Psalm xlii. 1, 2.

XII.

flows in a constantly narrowing vale for six or seven miles, to Jisr Kuráone. CHAPTER Not far from this bridge its volume is increased by the stream from the noble fountains of Mushgharah. From this onward the Litany is engaged in a furious struggle with Lebanon for a passage to the sea. It has cut out for itself a narrow groove in the solid strata, so deep that no one at a little distance Singular aside from it would suspect that a powerful river rushed between him and the chasm. opposite rocks. Yet there it is at the bottom of the chasm, all in a foam of vexation, leaping, darting, roaring along. Now it whirls round the jutting base of some mighty cliff, so sharply that you are sure it bursts from the rock itself. Below, it runs madly against another towering wall, from which you see no escape; but it does, and, darting along the base at a terrific rate, launches its whole force against a similar barrier, only to recoil in shattered fragments, and shoot like an arrow down some secret pathway, quite hidden by overhanging rocks and interlacing sycamores. After about ten miles of this work, it does, in reality, come forth from the dark mouth of the mountain. At a place called Kûweh-window-it has tunneled through a rock more than ninety feet thick, and comes out quietly at the bottom of this solemn chasm. Not long to rest, however, for immediately afterward it springs madly down among large boulders reduced in width to half a dozen feet, but of depth unknown. The road passes over this natural bridge from Wady et Teim to Nihah, on Lebanon. Some six or eight miles farther south, the road from Jezzin to Hasbeiya crosses at Jisr Bûrgûs, and there the traveller has a fine specimen of our river and its behaviour among the rocks. But you must look upon it from the cliffs of Blat, some five miles below, where it is eight hundred feet beneath you, tearing at the very roots of Lebanon, and rasping out a passage for itself with mighty din and desperate haste. I have sat for hours in a sort of dreamy ecstasy, gazing into this chasm-have let myself down from crag to crag, until I stood all alone at the bottom-have reclined midway up its walls upon some projecting shelf, and watched, now the timid conies creep out and sun themselves, and now the bold eagles going and returning to their eyries in Eagles the cliffs. There are thousands of them, and their manoeuvres, particularly when coming home, are very entertaining. There comes a pair of them, just visible in the blue depths of heaven. See how they sail round and round, in ever-narrowing gyrations, as Milton's Prince of Darkness

"Down from the ecliptic

Threw his steep flight in many an aery wheel."

And now, right over the chasm, they poise themselves a moment; then, like a Their bolt from the clear sky, down, down they come, head foremost, with wings flight. collapse; sinking far below their eyrie, they round to in a grand parabola, and then, with two or three backward flaps of their huge pinions to check their fall, like the wheels of a steam-boat reversed, they land in safety among their clamorous children. Now take the glass, and see how they divide among their gross and greedy chicks the prey which they have brought from far.

PART

I.

Come to Blat, vain man, and answer thy Maker. "Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high? She dwelleth and abideth on the

Descrip

tion by Moses.

EAGLE AND NEST.

rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place. From thence she seeketh the prey; her eyes behold afar off. Her young ones also suck up blood, and where the slain are, there is she." 1

Moses, in that beautiful ode which he spake in the ears of all the congregation of Israel, refers to the habits of the eagle in a way which I have never understood: "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings, so the Lord did lead him." " 2 Do you suppose that the parent eagle literally beareth her young on her wings?

It is not necessary to press every poetical figure into strict prosaic accuracy. The notion, however, appears to have been prevalent among the ancients, that the eagle did actually take up her yet timid young, and carry them forth to teach them how, and embolden them to try their own pinions. To this idea Moses seems to refer in Exodus xix. 4: "Ye have seen what I did unto the

1 Job xxxix. 27-30.

2 Deut. xxxii. 11. 12.