The population of Dair el Kamar at that time numbered 700 full-grown men of Maronites, 220 of Greek Catholics, 150 of Druses, with a few Moslems and Jews—each of the sects living apart from the rest. The silk manufacture was more extensive than that of Saida, and a constant communication was kept up with Damascus, which is at twenty hours’ distance. The Christians are far more hardy than their fellow-Christians the Maronites are in their special district to the north. The whole population is industrious, and the Druses maintain their characteristic steadfastness of purpose, secrecy, and union among themselves.
The house in which I was so hospitably received had been almost entirely destroyed in the war of 1841; and its proprietor (brother of the two brothers now its owners) shot dead in his own court, by persons who owed him money, namely, the Druse party of Abu Neked, two hundred of whom had for a fortnight lived at free quarters there.
The two brothers who were my hosts are Christians of the Greek Catholic sect, named Gabriel and Raphael. A third surviving brother is the
talented Protestant controversialist residing in Damascus, and practising medicine as learned from the Americans. The one who was shot by the Druses was Andrew; the eldest of all is Ibrahim, settled in Bayroot, and his son named Khaleel is dragoman of the English consulate there—it was he who furnished us with the introduction to this house in Dair el Kamar.
How curious is the domestic life of these Oriental families. Eating takes place in the principal room, with a throng of women and children passing heedlessly about, or visitors entering as they please. Among these, during the dinner time, came in a Jew speaking Jewish-German. He was a dyer, who had known me at Jerusalem, and conversed with remarkable self-possession: it seemed as if the mountain air, and absence from the Rabbis of Jerusalem, had made a man of him. In attendance on the meal was an ancient woman-servant of the family, very wrinkled, but wearing the tantoor or horn on her head.
On retiring from the table, if we may use that expression as applicable to an Oriental dinner, there came in the Greek Catholic Bishop of Saida, and several heads of houses of the Maronites, on visits of ceremony.
The fatigue of the day was closed, and rewarded by a night of sleep upon a bed of down and crimson silk, under a covering of the same.
In the morning our journey was resumed; but
before quitting this interesting town, I cannot forbear quoting Dr Porter’s admirable description of Dair el Kamar, from Murray’s “Handbook for Syria and Palestine,” part ii. page 413:—
“Deir el Kamr is a picturesque mountain village, or rather town, of some 8000 inhabitants, whose houses are built along a steep, rocky hill-side. A sublime glen runs beneath it, and on the opposite side, on a projecting ledge, stands the palace of Bteddîn. Both the banks, as well as the slopes above them, are covered with terraces, supporting soil on which a well-earned harvest waves in early summer, amid rows of mulberries and olives and straggling vines. Industry has here triumphed over apparent impossibilities, having converted naked rocky declivities into a paradise. In Palestine we have passed through vast plains of the richest soil all waste and desolate—here we see the mountain’s rugged side clothed with soil not its own, and watered by a thousand rills led captive from fountains far away. Every spot on which a handful of soil can rest, every cranny to which a vine can cling, every ledge on which a mulberry can stand, is occupied. The people too, now nearly all Christians, have a thrifty well-to-do look, and the children, thanks to the energy of the American missionaries, are well taught.”