Back of Saida, among the low hills that border the foot of the Lebanon range, Lady Hester Stanhope has her residence. She was engaged to be married to Sir John Moore, who fell near Corunna, in the Peninsular war, in the contest which the English had with the French. That Lady Hester Stanhope felt the affliction most deeply, may well be supposed; other matters tending to alienate her affections from England, she came to the East, and has for many years made her home in the mountains near Saida. She has gained the affections of the native population, and has had great influence over them formerly; her power is now on the wane. She is occasionally visited by foreigners, but does not see all who would call on her, as some of them have made statements about her that gave her displeasure.
Saida, like most of the towns on this coast, stands on a sandy point that projects out a short distance into the sea. It is surrounded with gardens, and has more fruit trees about it, and a greater extent of groves, than any of the towns on the coast south of this, that I have visited. The plain about it appears peculiarly adapted to fruits. The town is walled, and has a garrison of soldiers. The houses are old, as you may suppose; the streets narrow, crooked, and dark, from the fact that many of them are, in many places, arched over; so much so, that you are nearly one half of your time passing under arches, which shut out all the light but that which comes in from the end of these narrow, crooked streets. I have often mentioned narrow, crooked streets, and once more repeat it, with the addition of dark. The bazaars and markets are much as those at Soor and Acre, poor, and badly supplied. On the whole, while the outside of the town had a most lovely appearance, the inside was the reverse. The harbour appeared mean, and not such as would give any recommendation to the place. The distance from Saida to Beyroot is between twenty and twenty-five miles. For some miles north of Saida, the road is much covered with sand, and the whole district, until near Beyroot, resembles that already described, some parts rocky, and others good, and well adapted to tillage. A few small villages are scattered along the coast. As we approached Beyroot, we took a road through the olive-grove, and not by the sands. This gave me a more perfect knowledge of the extent of the plain, south-east of Beyroot, and of the large orchards that lie in that quarter, covering miles, and bordering the lower part of the hills. The plain is more fertile, and more thickly settled, than I had at first supposed.
We found our friends at Beyroot well,—the mission families had returned from their summer residence on the mountains, and were engaged in carrying on their various operations in and about Beyroot. At first view it appears a rather untoward circumstance that they have to resort to the mountains during a part of each summer. It must, no doubt, in some degree interrupt the thread of their operations; but the climate makes it necessary, especially until they are well acclimated. The evil, however, is not so great as might be expected. The mountains are full of villages; indeed, the mountains of Lebanon are the most populous districts in these countries. The missionaries take their station in some of these villages, and when their number will admit they occupy two or more. There they usually open schools, mix with the people, distribute the Scriptures and other books, talk and preach, as the nature of the case will admit. Thus village after village becomes personally acquainted with the missionaries, and persons are brought within the hearing of the truth who might never be reached by the sound of the gospel were the missionaries always to remain in Beyroot. Thus what in one respect may seem an evil and a drawback to their work, in another is beneficial, and contributes to the furtherance of the gospel.
I have much reason to bless God for his kind care over me during the tour I have now finished, and hope that I shall be led by it more and more to realise that it is only His hand that keepeth me, and maketh me to go out and come in in safety.
[LETTER XVII.]
Beyroot, December 18, 1836.
I think I have mentioned in several of my letters, that the mulberry tree is much cultivated in this region, principally for the raising of the silk-worm. At times vegetables are raised on the same lot, but generally nothing else is allowed to grow among them, and the weeds are carefully removed. The trees are planted in rows, and the plough is passed among them several times in the year. I now find that the tree serves another purpose, and one of some importance, though secondary to the making of silk. They gather the leaves from the trees in the fall and beginning of winter, to feed their sheep and cows. The first crop of leaves is eaten by the silk-worms; by the time the worms begin to spin their silken shrouds, the trees are nearly bare; the branches are then all cut close to the body of the tree, and used for fuel. In a few days new branches shoot out, which are soon covered with leaves. They gather the leaves with their hands, put them in baskets, and give them to their sheep and cows. They appear, indeed, to be the chief food of these animals for many months in the autumn and beginning of winter. The entire absence of rain during the long hot summer burns up what grass may have been on the ground in the spring and early part of the summer, but the mulberry trees, which have much care taken of them, and watered, when it can be done, by a channel from a stream, or by the hand, retain their greenness, and serve the important purpose of food for the cattle. So far as I have observed, they were always fed with the green leaves, at least I have not seen any dried and preserved in that state, excepting the fibres of the new leaves, that the silk-worm rejects, which are carefully collected and preserved for the animals. The mildness of the climate causes the leaf to retain its freshness much longer than it would in the northern and middle parts of the United States. We have entered on the month of December, and yet the leaf of the mulberry is as green and fresh as it was in midsummer; true, most of the trees near us are nearly bare, not, however, by the fall of the leaf, but by their having been gathered for the animals. The horses, mules, and donkeys, are fed with barley and straw, which is cut fine by their mode of threshing out the grain. For a few weeks in the spring of the year they are kept on the green barley. I have generally seen the camel fed on weeds, which are gathered for that purpose.
I mentioned that some rain fell, about the time I set out on my tour to Jerusalem. The showers were light, and but few of them. Small showers fell from time to time during the month that I was travelling, but not in such quantities as to give us much annoyance. This was a matter greatly to our comfort, as we had to sleep nearly every night out under the canopy of heaven, and as we wished to travel without much incumbrance, we did not carry a tent with us. During the month of November there was a great increase of clouds and cloudy weather, but not much rain. There were, however, occasional showers, and some of them fell in snow on the upper parts of Mount Lebanon. It was not until the first part of the present month that it began to rain in good earnest, and for some days it has rained as if the "windows of heaven" were opened; great quantities of water have fallen, and the earth, thirsty from the long, dry summer, seems to drink it in as if it would never say—It is enough. Still, I have not yet seen a long, cloudy period, as we often have in the United States, of many days and weeks, in which the sun is seldom seen. Not a day has past in which it has not contrived to find some opening in the clouds through which to show itself. Indeed, the rain generally comes in showers; large masses of black clouds are driven over us, often with strong winds accompanied with thunder and lightning, and pour down water as if from buckets; then there is an intermission, and possibly the sun shines forth, and then comes another cloud loaded with water, which it pours out and passes away. Thus, "the clouds return after the rain." For a day or two the rains have ceased, and the weather is fine, a little colder and more chilly, as might be expected from the great fall of water, but not to the degree that I expected. The higher parts of Mount Lebanon are covered with snow. They have a singular appearance, two or three thousand feet of the top, especially the highest peak, called the Sunneen, is covered with snow, while the lower parts are bare. Snow may be found at all times on some of these high points, from whence it is brought down during the summer in considerable quantities, for the use of those who will pay the pretty good, though not unreasonable price, that is asked for it. The rains have caused the grass to spring forth, and whole districts that were before dry dust, or stubble, are now fresh with verdure. The face of the land looks like spring, so wonderfully does the rain operate to give beauty and fertility to the earth. The heat without the water will not do it, nor the water without some degree of heat; but when both are united, they make vegetation spring forth, and give food for man and beast.
The troops which marched from this place to the Houran, a few months since, have returned. It is now said they were sent there to aid in killing the young locusts, which had appeared in great numbers, and threatened to destroy the crops. Last year the troops were thus employed towards Aleppo, and with great advantage to the country. It is, however, a new kind of warfare for a regular army to be engaged in.