After the meal the Bek withdrew to the corner of his divan for transaction of business with his people, as the Moslems do at that season. His part of the affairs consisted in endorsing a word or two upon the petitions or addresses that were produced by the secretaries—these were written on small rolls of paper like tiny cigarettes, pinched at one end. How very un-European to carry on business in so few words, either written or spoken!
Saïd Bek was a man of few words in such transactions, but what he did say seemed always to hit exactly the point intended; and the wave of his
finger was sufficient to summon a number of men to receive his commands. He was evidently a person of a different stamp from the coarse leaders of Lebanon factions, the Abu Neked, the Shibli el ’Ariân, and such like; he is proud of his family antiquity, refined in dress and manners, and has always, like the rest of the Druses, courted the favour of the English nation.
On the entrance of his son, named Nejib, probably four or five years old, all the Akâl councillors and military officers rose to receive him.
In the morning we took our departure, when Saïd Bek accompanied us as far as the Meidân, and a profusion of Druse compliments filled up the leave-taking.
We now passed for some hours along the river side, through the utmost loveliness of Lebanon scenery. Among other trees that lined its banks, or adorned the precipitous cliffs, or followed the rising and falling road, were noble specimens of platanus (plane) and lofty zanzalacht, (the peepul of India;) crystal rills tumbled down the rocks, as if sparkling alive with enjoyment; then the usual poplar, walnut, evergreen oak, and a large plantation of olive: the river sometimes smiled with the fringe of oleander. We halted for a time under a wide-branching platanus at the end of a bridge, between the masonry of which grew bunches of the caper plant, then in blossom of white and lilac, and at the piers of which grew straggling
blackberry brambles and wild fig-trees in picturesque irregularity, while the water bubbled and gurgled over a pebbly bed or fragments of rock.
Peasantry passed us with ass-loads of wood for fuel, (camels being unknown in that region.) The same features continually repeated themselves as we advanced; large broken cliffs were overhanging us, and birds singing in the solitude; it need not be added that the sun was cloudless the whole day long.
Forward we went to the Convent of the Dair el Mokhallis, which we reached in four hours and a half from Mokhtârah, where we rested a few hours; then visited once more the house of Lady Hester Stanhope.
Thence descending to the sea beach, we crossed the river Awali, and looked back with regret to the heights of Lebanon. Just as the last gun of Ramadân was fired, (for it was the termination of that fast and the commencement of Beiram,) we galloped our horses into the sea-wave near the walls of Sidon, which they enjoyed as refreshing to their heated fetlocks, and we found a luxury in the breeze and in the rustling sound of the endless roll of wavelets upon the shelly beach.