Society at Beyrout is much better than in any other city we stopped at. It is a healthy and pleasant residence, and many of the educated classes, many foreign consuls and mercantile Europeans live there. The houses are light and airy, and are more European in construction and convenience than elsewhere. In our hotel the rooms were large and comfortable, but with some Eastern inconveniences. There are no bells in the houses, and our only method of summoning a servant was by clapping our hands from the stair landing. There is so large an admixture of Christians that the women of the Jews, and even of the Moslems, are, I think, less strictly veiled than in Damascus or Jerusalem. The bazaars are well supplied with European articles.
Our party had several introductions, and we had some opportunity of seeing the houses and social life of the educated classes. They are very European in manners in many respects, but generally partook of Eastern fashions as well, and their intercourse, except that of the Exchange, was chiefly domestic, public amusements being very rare. I saw no evidence of intercourse between the ladies of the Christian residents and those of the Moslem, and here I would have expected it if anywhere.
The habit of seclusion of the females is, I believe, partly one of fashion, but, I think, is not by any means really liked or preferred by many of them. One day when in Egypt, a fellow-traveller of our hotel, just as he had finished dressing for dinner in his room, hearing a peculiar sound in the street, looked down from his window. It was an Egyptian funeral, which he had only once before seen. The body was placed upon a bier, a flat, oblong board, and covered with a pall, not a black one. This was borne aloft by four Arabs; six walked before it, and as many women followed singing a kind of wailing chant. At the same time, just opposite to him on the second floor of a superior clans of house, a lady pushed open the latticed casement of her room window, no doubt to see the funeral procession pass. When it did he, in retiring from his position at the window, naturally looked across the street at the opposite window. All at once, as if she had not observed him before, she thrust up her veil with unnecessary haste, with probably more of coquetry than offended modesty, for which there seemed no occasion. A very similar incident occurred to me at Damascus on the occasion of the procession of the governor with a German prince through the city. On that occasion a Moslem lady opened her lattice to enable her children and herself to view the crowd. The sun was shining into her room, whereas I was in the shade, not over seventeen feet distant, so I obtained an excellent view of her room, which seemed an Eastern parlour rather than a harem. It was richly furnished, and the couches and pillows were luxurious-looking. On a low table or cushion a piece of bright green silk was spread as if she had been sewing. Her dress and that of the children, two girls and a boy, were also very pretty. I saw no reason for leaving my position; but when my presence was pointed out by one of the children, she suddenly closed the lattice, probably having no veil at hand. I think, however, by this time the procession had passed. On another occasion, when driving out of Cairo, we stopped to pay the toll of the new iron bridge on the Nile. Two of us who were seated on the off side of the carriage observed the wife of the toll collector (who seemed to be in waiting with her lord’s dinner) deliberately remove her veil for our benefit, and she certainly improved her appearance very much thereby. No one else could have seen her movement, and the moment the carriage again started the veil was quickly replaced. These incidents appeared to me to evince that the veil is really no favourite with the wearers. Paying toll, or any other money transaction in the East, needs time, and probably the jealous Turk might have been quicker had he known his prisoner was meanwhile revealing her face to “infidel” eyes.
Beyrout, Sidon, and Tyre were all famous cities of Phœnicia, the first queen of the sea and centre of commerce and the arts. Except in Scripture and Homer, her history and literature are lost, but traces of her greatness are found almost everywhere. Evidently the discovery of Britain, the Canary Islands, and the first circumnavigation of Africa were hers. Her ships’ anchors were of silver, and her wealth in all precious metals and “purple” seems fabulous. Many of the discoveries and inventions of modern science and art seem to have been known to her nearly three thousand years ago. Her religion, originally sun or fire worship, gradually degenerated to that of Moloch! and decadence began with too much luxury in the days of Solomon. England now seems to have acquired her maritime pre-eminence.
Note M, [page 232].—The Charm of Eastern Travel—Progress of the Race.
There is, however, another and higher aspect of this matter. I mean the moral and spiritual, reaching beyond the visible—although suggested by, and continually arising out of it—a region in which “the mind that can wander through eternity” may roam at large, calling up historical personages and events long ago forgotten; revelling and luxuriating undisturbed amidst thoughts, feelings, and speculation of other days—holding converse with one’s own heart, and rehearsing scenes long since covered over with the mental dust of our working everyday life. Nor is such retrospection at all unpleasant; on the contrary, one feels lifted into a higher atmosphere, as it were—holding converse with ancient worthies, with the sages of our school books and the excellent of the earth of all ages. Our youthful dreams re-open their grand panoramas, and we mentally hold converse with “friends in council”—models of Christian truth, magnanimity, and unselfishness; although, on waking up, we may find difficulty in meeting such men among the bustling throng which jostle us in the way; or, if successful, do we not—
“As pilgrims, sigh,
Some cool green spot to meet,
But to pass by!”
The scenes of Eastern travel are continually calling up such mental pictures, and out of a very little incident or scene the mind readily spreads out a map of history in motion, which seems to unfold itself into dimensions all but illimitable. The Sacred Record becomes illumed, and its scenery indelibly printed upon the mind, leading on to mental enjoyment of the highest class, surely not unprofitable. I think some such feeling suggested to the poet his “quiet hermitage,” and if it were possible, which is very questionable, might almost realize his boast—“My mind to me a kingdom is.”