May 7.—The next morning we went four hours almost perpetually upon deep snow, which, being frozen, bore us and our horses; and then descending for about one hour, came to a fountain called, from the name of an adjacent village, Ain-il-Hadede. By this time we were got into a milder and better region.
Here was the place where we were to strike out of the way, in order to go to Canobine and the cedars. And some of us went upon this design, whilst the rest chose rather to go directly for Tripoli, to which we had not now above four hours. We took with us a guide, who pretended to be well acquainted with the way to Canobine, but he proved an ignorant director; and after he had led us about for several hours in intricate and untrodden mazes amongst the mountains, finding him perfectly at a loss, we were forced to forsake our intended visit for the present, and to steer directly for Tripoli, where we arrived late at night, and were again entertained by our worthy friends, Mr. Consul Hastings and Mr. Fisher, with their wonted friendship and generosity.
May 8.—In the afternoon Mr. Consul Hastings carried us to see the castle of Tripoli. It is pleasantly situated on a hill, commanding the city, but has neither arms nor ammunition in it, and serves rather for a prison than a garrison. There was shut up in it at this time a poor Christian prisoner, called Sheikh Eunice, a Maronite. He was one that had formerly renounced his faith, and lived for many years in the Mohammedan religion, but in his declining age he both retracted his apostacy and died to atone for it, for he was impaled by the order of the pasha two days after we left Tripoli. This punishment of impaling is commonly executed amongst the Turks for crimes of the greatest degree, and is certainly one of the greatest indignities and barbarities that can be offered to human nature. The execution is done in this manner. They take a post of about the bigness of a man's leg, and eight or nine feet long, and make it very sharp at one end. This they lay upon the back of the criminal, and force him to carry it to the place of execution, imitating herein the old Roman custom of compelling malefactors to bear their cross. Being arrived at the fatal place, they thrust in the stake at the fundament of the person who is the miserable subject of this doom, and then taking him by the legs, draw on his body upon it, till the point of the stake appears at his shoulders. After this they erect the stake, and fasten it in a hole dug in the ground. The criminal, sitting in this manner upon it, remains not only still alive, but also drinks, smokes, and talks, as one perfectly sensible, and thus some have continued for twenty-four hours; but generally, after the tortured wretch has remained in this deplorable and ignominious posture an hour or two, some one of the standers by is permitted to give him a gracious stab to the heart, so putting an end to his inexpressible misery.
Sunday, May 9.—Despairing of any other opportunity, I made another attempt this day to see the cedars and Canobine. Having gone for three hours across the plain of Tripoli, I arrived at the foot of Libanus, and from thence, continually ascending, not without great fatigue, came in four hours and a half to a small village called Eden, and in two hours and a half more to the cedars. These noble trees grow amongst the snow near the highest part of Lebanon, and are remarkable as well for their own age and largeness as for those frequent allusions made to them in the word of God. Here are some of them very old, and of a prodigious bulk, and others younger, of a smaller size. Of the former I could reckon up only sixteen, and the latter are very numerous. I measured one of the largest, and found it twelve yards six inches in girth, and yet sound, and thirty-seven yards in the spread of its boughs. At about five or six yards from the ground it was divided into five limbs, each of which was equal to a great tree.
After about half an hour spent in surveying this place, the clouds began to thicken, and to fly along upon the ground, which so obscured the road that my guide was very much at a loss to find our way back again. We rambled about for seven hours thus bewildered, which gave me no small fear of being forced one night more at Libanus; but at last, after a long exercise of pains and patience, we arrived at the way that goes down to Canobine, where I arrived by the time it was dark, and found a kind reception, answerable to the great need I had of it, after so long fatigue.
Canobine is a convent of the Maronites, and the seat of the patriarch, who is at present F. Stephanus Edenensis, a person of great learning and humanity. It is a very mean structure; but its situation is admirably adapted for retirement and devotion, for there is a very deep rupture in the side of Libanus, running at least seven hours' travel directly up into the mountain. It is on both sides exceeding steep and high, clothed with fragrant greens from top to bottom, and everywhere refreshed with fountains, falling down from the rocks in pleasant cascades, the ingenious work of nature. These streams, all uniting at the bottom, make a full and rapid torrent, whose agreeable murmuring is heard all over the place, and adds no small pleasure to it. Canobine is seated on the north side of this chasm, on the steep of the mountain, at about the midway between the top and the bottom. It stands at the mouth of a great cave, having a few small rooms fronting outward that enjoy the light of the sun, the rest are all under ground. It had for its founder the emperor Theodosius the Great; and though it has been several times rebuilt, yet the patriarch assured me the church was of the primitive foundation; but, whoever built it, it is a mean fabric, and no great credit to its founder. It stands in the grotto, but fronting outwards receives a little light from that side. In the same side there were also hung in the wall two small bells to call the monks to their devotions; a privilege allowed nowhere else in this country, nor would they be suffered here, but that the Turks are far enough off from the hearing of them.
The valley of Canobine was anciently, as it well deserves, very much resorted to for religious retirement. You see here still hermitages, cells, monasteries, almost without number. There is not any little part of rock that jets out upon the side of the mountain, but you generally see some little structure upon it for the reception of monks and hermits, though few or none of them are now inhabited.
May 10.—After dinner I took my leave of the patriarch, and returned to Tripoli. I steered my course down by a narrow oblique path cut in the side of the rupture, and found it three hours before I got clear of the mountains, and three more afterwards before I came to Tripoli.
May 11.—This day we took our leaves of our worthy Tripoli friends, in order to return for Aleppo. We had some debate with ourselves, whether we should take the same way by which we came when outward bound, or a new one by Emissa, Hempse, and Hamal. But we had notice of some disturbances upon this latter road, so we contented ourselves to return by the same way we came; for having had enough by this time both of the pleasure and of the fatigue of travelling, we were willing to put an end to both the nearest and speediest way. All that occurred to us new in these days' travel was a particular way used by the country people in gathering their corn, it being now harvest time. They plucked it up by handfuls from the roots, leaving the most fruitful fields as naked as if nothing had ever grown on them. This was their practice in all places of the east that I have seen; and the reason is that they may lose none of their straw, which is generally very short, and necessary for the sustenance of their cattle, no hay being here made. I mention this, because it seems to give light to that expression of the Psalmist, "which withereth before it be plucked up,"[631] where there seems to be a manifest allusion to this custom. Our new translation renders this place otherwise; but in so doing it differs from most or all other copies, and here we may truly say the old is the better. There is indeed mention of a mower in the next verse, but then it is such a mower as fills not his hand, which confirms rather than weakens the preceding interpretation.