The long red skull cap (tarbûsh), seen pending from the head of the right hand figure, was at this time peculiar to Syria, and more especially to Mount Lebanon. In the towns and cities it is only partially worn.
COSTUME OF THE DRÛZES.
About five hundred yards from the hamlet, and on the same level, was a large monastery of Maronite friars, called Dayr el Sayda, peopled with seventy or eighty monks and lay brothers. As their rules never allowed them to eat meat, their whole maintenance consisted of cheese, milk, leben, (curds and whey), dibs, (grape-juice concentrated) and vegetables. They were, for the most part, very ignorant; but there were two who were ingenious as artificers,[110] and two or three who passed among them for scholars; their scholarship consisting in being able to read Syriac, (in which the service of their church is performed) in Syriac characters; whilst the greatest number read Syriac in Arabic characters, into which it is transferred for the use of the uninformed. These two friars spoke a little Syriac likewise. They had a painter among them, who would not have ranked higher than a dauber in any other country. Their chapel was considered as one of the finest on the mountain. The building was of rough stones, found on the spot: their cells had nothing superfluous in them, having only a raised bench on one side, on which was a mattress, and upon it a wadded coverlet; sheets being considered as unnecessary luxuries. The windows had no casements nor shutters; and, when the elevation of the spot is considered, and that snow falls frequently, they must have suffered much from the cold. Women were not admitted within the monastery; but, by an evasion of an easy nature, there was a small chapel, separated by a wall, through which was a door from the monastery into it, where the women heard mass, prayed, and confessed.
The Maronites are not found more to the south than Meshmûshy. Maronites and their monasteries abound most in the northern districts of the mountain. They distinguish themselves by the name of belledýah (indigenous,) from those of Aleppo, who are called Aleppine Maronites. The Maronites are of the order of St. Anthony, the Egyptian.
A great deal of tobacco was cultivated at Meshmûshy, and with great success. This sort, when lighted, sparkles and hisses slightly, as if impregnated with saltpetre, which salt, in fact, gave it that property, and is derived from the goats’ dung, with which the ground is manured.
There were many fine springs at Meshmûshy, the water of which was delicious and cool; but not in sufficient quantity for the purposes of irrigation.
On the very pinnacle of the mountain is a small level of an acre’s breadth. Here was the tomb of Nebby Meshwah, covered with a small cupola, which could be seen at a great many miles’ distance. This tomb was held in reverence by Moslems and Drûzes. It was surrounded by old oak trees, less large, however, than the English oak. Below Meshmûshy was a Turkish village, called Benywaty. Some one of these villages kept the sepulchre clean, and lighted a lamp in it every night.
One day, whilst standing at the gateway of the house, I observed several peasants in succession pass by with pieces of meat, on wooden skewers, in their hands. I asked them what meat it was, and they told me camel’s flesh, upon which I bought a piece of about half a pound from one of them, and ordered it to be dressed. The cook turned up her nose, and expressed much wonder at my taste, by which I understood that camels’ flesh was no dainty in her eyes; and, although many travellers have affirmed that it is considered so in the Desert by the Bedouins, yet I never saw any eaten there but once. The peasants whom I spoke to were inhabitants of the village of Benywaty, and Mahometans. The Christians pretended to hold the camels’ flesh as unclean; but whether because their priests told them so, or because they love to do contrary to what Mahometans practise, which is a common motive with them for many of their actions, I could not learn.
Ayd, the man-servant, was dismissed, without his wages, on the 19th, for refusing to go a journey on foot to fetch articles wanted for the house. He betook himself to Dayr el Kamar, and complained to the emir; upon which the dragoman, M. Beaudin, was summoned to Bteddýn, the emir’s residence, to answer the charge, and I accompanied him. In the afternoon of the 20th, we descended the north-east side of the mountain into the valley of Bisra. The side of the mountain was covered with aromatic herbs, especially lavender. Half way down, there is a small river, which, rushing over a precipice at Gezýn, a village about one mile to the right, in a cascade of a single sheet of water, tumbles from rock to rock through a deep descending glen, until it reaches the vale of Bisra, and joins the river Ewely. This glen is overtopped, to the south, facing Meshmûshy, by a chain of lofty precipitous rocks, upon which were seen the ruins of an old castle, rendered memorable by the stout resistance which Fakhr ed Dyn,[111] emir of the Drûzes, made in it to the forces of the sultan for the space of seven years. At our feet was a small bridge crossing the torrent, and close to it a water-mill, to grind the corn of the neighbouring villages. Leaving this on the right hand, and below us, and, inclining to the left, we descended into the vale, which we traversed.