At ’Azoor, a clean pleasant village, the women and girls ran in crowds to gaze at my ladies; one of the women shouted “Bon soir” in good French, and a man, accompanied by his wife, saluted us in Italian.
Rested in a beautiful wood of pines, though rather late for luncheon, as the sun was falling below the western mountains. Rising higher on the march we got into rolling misty clouds, and the brilliant effect of sunbeams between the hills and clouds could not but be surprising. Our clothes, however, got damp and chill.
At Jezzeen our tents were found ready pitched in a grove of noble walnut-trees, with the brook Zaid running among them; near alongside was a Maronite convent, with a bridge.
The muleteers having left us in the morning, lost their way, and had taken the more precipitous road by Dair Mushmushi.
Here the people behaved with great hospitality to us.
The night was very cold, and in the morning the water for washing felt like ice. The position of our encampment, as perceived by daylight, was so low between hills that the sun could not reach us till the day should be considerably advanced, yet we were at a very high altitude. Pity that we had no aneroid barometer with us to ascertain the amount of our elevation above the sea. The poplar-trees and walnut-trees, with fruit trees of
various kinds, showed we were in a totally different region from that of Jerusalem.
Jezzeen is almost exclusively a Christian village, with a Greek Catholic church, besides two Maronite churches, and the small convent mentioned above.
There were clergy walking about; the people cleanly and well clothed, the children modestly behaved, and even when rendering a service, not asking for bakhsheesh.
At the time of our leaving, a party of women were wailing over a dead body under a tree.