In the descent we passed a Maronite priest riding, attended by a guide on foot; the former was greeted by our party with his title of Abuna, a novelty to us Jerusalemites.
We forded the river Barook, a tributary to the Awali, in front of the above-mentioned village,
which is Bisrah, amid tall poplars quivering in the breeze, for their foliage had stalks long like the aspen.
Our luggage having gone on during the visit to the convent, we could get no tidings of it and our people, but a guide was procured for part of the day’s journey before us; and we betook ourselves to a hill over which was, what we were assured, the only road to Hhasbeya. A road so steep and thickly entangled by bushes and trees, that we inquired of every passer-by in his turn whether we could possibly be upon the Sultâneh, or high road. At first through an olive plantation, then among evergreen oak, and higher still the fragrant mountain pines. The zigzags of the road were necessarily so short and abrupt, that at each turn we had to peer up perpendicularly, guessing which way the next twist would go. Then still higher, towards the frowning sombre cliffs that seemed to touch the brilliant blue sky, the arbutus glowed with their scarlet berries, and the pine-trees became more tall, straight, and numerous. No wonder that the Assyrian king, when he boasted of being able to cut down the cedars of Lebanon, included also “the choice fir-trees thereof,” (2 Kings xix. 23.)
Near what seemed to be the climax, we unexpectedly reached a village, named ’Azoor, where a school of boys hummed their lessons in the open air on the shady side of a house; and near them a
plank of wood was suspended, such as serves for a church-bell in parts of the country where the Moslems predominate, and bells are not tolerated. Here in the Lebanon every village and convent may have its bells; and they generally have them, for the Mohammedans scarcely exist throughout “the mountain,” as the whole range is popularly termed from Tarabulus to Saida.
The higher we ascended, the more we obtained of a brisk breeze playing and sighing musically among the noble pines, and the ground was clothed with heather and fragrant herbs. Still onwards, “excelsior,” the pines were more straight and lofty; there were patches of wild myrtle on the ground, some in white blossom; and we looked down upon the flat roofs of villages below, an appearance so strange to us after the round domes of the south country.
About noon we overtook the luggage, and the servant-boy of the muleteer swore that his head had turned gray since we left him, four hours ago, by reason of the bodily labour and anguish of mind that he had suffered on so fearful a road. He was incessantly calling upon God by epithets out of the Korân, as “O thou Father of bounty!” “O thou knower of former things!” mingled with curses hurled at the mule, or prayers that her back might be strengthened: being a Jerusalemite, he had not been accustomed to travelling of that description. This youth was nicknamed by his fellows as
Abu Tabanjah, “the father of a pistol,” from his carrying a single pistol in his girdle: it being unusual for persons in his employment to carry any belligerent weapons.
Next came the descent to Jezzeen, over a slippery road, with purple crocuses in blossom at intervals.