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us into the rough, stony ravine, which lay like an immeasurable trench, almost encircling Bhamdun, the goal of our journey. The succeeding ascent was the steepest that we had yet encountered, and required remarkable spryness on the part of the horses and great cohesive qualities in the riders to enable both parties to reach the summit in company, or even at all. But my beast was an old mountaineer, and would have climbed anything short of a lightning-rod, or a rope ladder. Every snort of his venerable nostrils seemed to say, "Now then! never say die! all together, four legs!" And, with the Howadji sitting on his tail, the energetic quadruped surmounted the edge of the acclivity and wagged his puffing nose through the narrow streets of the village. Low houses of roughly hewn stone flanked us on either side, drawn up in disorderly ranks like militia-men on parade, and, so to speak, squaring their elbows towards all points of the compass after a very independent and squatterlike fashion. Women with toilworn but good-humored faces smiled from the doors as we passed, and abundantly blessed our mornings. Little children, whose mothers had inveterate hydrophobia, scrambled out of the way of our horses, appearing wonderfully old and dignified in their thick head-dresses, their long robes and their slipshod shoes. At the other end of the village, where it fronted on its orchards of vines and mulberries, we pulled up at the door of the Hakeem's summer mansion. Yusef, the cook, and Jurjus, the man of all work, rushed out with smiling, hospitable faces to receive us. My horse was politely shown to his stall in the basement story; and I was conducted into the parlor directly above my respected quadruped's eating and sleeping apartment. Leaving him to transact his own affairs, I made a minute inspection of that part of the house which was intended for humanity. The center of the building was a hall about twelve feet wide and twenty-seven feet long. The floor at on end was raised some eight inches, forming a species of reception room which had been furnished with low divans. This recess was lighted by a double-arched window which looked out on a neighboring back yard, vocal all day with the shrieks and howlings of some ill-used Arab babies. Half the front of the hall was perfectly open, sim

ply fenced in by a wooden railing and the rude pillars of three Saracenic arches which supported that part of the roof. From thence you could look down into the valley below the village, and away over rocky hills to the distant gleam of the Mediterranean. Oh what

sunsets of gold used to sit on those waters, like famous empires on the horizons of the past, and slowly lose their splendor and vanish into the night! On various sides of the hall and opening into it, were posted, like outworks, the Hakeem's room, the room of the girls, my room and the parlor. The latter and the raised dais at the end of the hall served in case of need as the dormitories of visitors.

The floor all over the house was of mud, tamped solid and well dried, but so uneven that no school-boy would have accepted it as giving fair play to his marbles. I used to indulge in long reveries over its diminutive plains and valleys and highlands, looking down through wreaths of tobacco smoke from the elevation of my stature, as the gods looked through clouds from Olympus, and imagining it peopled with some infinitesimal race, living and laboring and squabbling upon its circumscribed geography in minute mockery of earth and her restless inhabitants. Once a week a dirty-trowsered village maiden used to wash this floor with a solution of red clay, and then polish it with a smooth pebble until it shone like a pair of new boots. Here and there mats were spread, to render the footing less damaging to the complexion of white shirts and yellow slippers.

As for the ceiling, it looked so ponderous, and, at the same time, so unstable, that it was at once a comfort and a terror. Logs, stripped of their bark, and otherwise in a state of nature, stretched from wall to wall, and formed the substratum. Crosswise upon these reposed short bits of narrow board; large flat stones lay like an aërial quarry over them; the whole was thatched, so to speak, with four or five inches of well-tamped earth and gravel. Notwithstanding that it was heavy enough to crush a village, our roof would not always keep out the rain, which dripped cheerfully through in wet weather, and added little lakes and oceans to the scenery of the geographical floor. The corners between the beams and crosspieces afforded excellent building-spots

to the swallows, who accordingly squatted there, and used to sail comfortably in and out all day. These loquacious birds made a good deal of unnecessary racket, strongly reminding me, by their vociferous way of doing business, of the Arab boatmen who had raised such a hubbub about our arrival in the country.

My room was the largest in the house. It had been designed by the respectable founder of the edifice for a grand dining hall fit for the Sultan or the Prince of Persia to over-eat themselves in. Across the end by the door stretched a stone pavement, 'separated from the rest of the apartment by a curious wooden fence. This, I suppose, was meant as a standing place for the servants, or the dogs, or the pots and kettles, or something else that was only wanted at intervals during the meals. Above it there was a large round hole in the wall, intended for the convenience of passing in dishes from the next room. How this orifice may have answered its prandial purpose I cannot say; but I found it a rather embarrassing addition to the capabilities of a bed-chamber. There was also a smaller hole in the door, for which I could imagine no earthly use, unless the former occupant had a kitten or a puppy to whom he wished to grant free ingress and egress. I sometimes thought, indeed, that it might be a hopping-out place for the rats or fleas; but, as they could hop in there just as easily, this supposition did not seem to merit much respect. Finally, there was a door into the next room, with a crack so wide between it and the door-post that Ichabod Crane, or any other thin person, might have slipped through comfortably without in the least deranging the shriveled portal.

My dormitory had blind walls on three sides, but was sufficiently lighted, for sleeping purposes, by a window which opened into the central hall. All the windows in the house had been furnished with glass, which was a constant astonishment to the aboriginals of the village, human and quadruped. One morning, an ignoramus of a cat got into my room through one of the holes aforesaid, and, on my making some manual remonstrances against his stay, attempted to get out through the window. He plunged unsuspectingly at the clear pane, rolled back with a squeal on the

floor, tried it again with great emphasis, and fairly butted through, coming down on the outside amid an avalanche of broken glass. Looking somewhat stupified by the shock, he set his tail a-kimbo and made off at half-speed, no doubt very much surprised at the density of the atmosphere between my window-sashes.

On another occasion, I saw the schoolmaster of the village nonplused by the same mystery. A Turkish Pasha had called to see the Hakeem, and was on reception in the parlor. His presence being noised abroad, the principal inhabitants of Bhamdun, and among them grammatical Abu Mekhiel, came to present their respects to his excellency. The Turk, a stout good-humored personage, sat on one of the divans, and the magnates of the hamlet crossed their legs comfortably on the floor. The dignitary spoke very little Arabic, the mountaineers spoke not a word of Turkish, but both sides smoked cheerfully, and time passed away like a pinch of snuff. Suddenly an accidental knock of the Pasha's elbow sent the coal from his pipe on to the rush matting which partially covered the floor. Abu Mekhiel eagerly seized the inflamed morsel and tried to throw it out of the window. As it was shut, he rapped his knuckles smartly, burnt his fingers, dropped the coal, and called for the tongs. It was an immense incident in the monotony of the visit; and even the stout Pasha laughed and chuckled at the blunder of abashed Abu Mekhiel.

In describing our house, I must not forget the rats, which were, perhaps, its most numerous inhabitants. They seemed to think that it belonged to their order, and haunted it, especially by night. They rattled and rolled through invisible galleries like diminutive four-legged peals of thunder. The Hakeem had famous sport among these creatures, and blazed away at their shiny eyes and bald tails until we thought he would eventually get rid of them by burning the house up. They were a perpetual bugbear to the small lad, who was afraid to sleep alone lest they should climb up the bed coverlet and nibble at his toes.

I have adverted to the union of stable and house in one edifice. This architectural approximation of the human and animal kingdom was the cause of various uncouth interruptions and interludes in our drawing-room conversa

tions. A speaker would be diverted from the train of his ideas by an outrageous scream, or a tattoo of kicks from some excited beast below. Whenever a strange horse was introduced into these subterranean quarters, there was almost sure to be a clamorous disagreement. Whether they wanted to eat off each other's tails, whether they tried to annex each other's portions of barley, or whether they differed on some other question of an abstract nature, at all events, they were never able to come to an understanding without an unreasonable uproar.

Visitors kept perpetually dropping in, and we almost always had some puffy-trousered individual cuddled up on the divan, or against the wall, his pipe sending a wreathing fragrance aloft among the rats and swallows. As long as I staid in Bhamdun, probably never a day passed without a dozen or twenty of these turbaned exits and entrances. Occasionally, my alien and inquisitive ears would be delighted by an observation of the most innocent simplicity. One day the old Maronite priest of the village lounged into the hall, and smoked his pipe in a comfortable taciturnity for half an hour. Noticing the swallows at last, he remarked that a blessing lay upon the house, since it was inhabited by those good-omened birds.

"Why so?" asked the Hakeem. "Do you not see that those swallows are constantly bringing earth in their bills to mortice their nests?"

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"They bring it from the tomb of Moses. Every morsel of that blessed earth comes from the tomb of Moses."

"Indeed! But I thought that no man knew where Moses was buried." "Very true. But the swallows know."

"But how do people feel so sure, then, that the swallows get it from the tomb of Moses?"

"Well," said the old man, taking a puzzled pull at his pipe, "God knows. I never thought of that before."

One of the most frequent visitors at the Hakeem's house was a man named Khalil, Maronite born, but now, thanks to the American missionaries, a Protestant. Although only about forty or forty-five years old, our girls called him

Uncle Khalil, according to the custom of Syrian young folks when speaking familiarly to one who has attained the ripeness of middle life. Of a slender frame, slow and easy motions, a face decidedly more northern than southern in its features, Khalil always entered with the heartiest and kindliest smile. He wore a dark blue jacket, full dark trowsers, a large white turban, and always carried a short pipe, sometimes gravely smoking it, sometimes using it gesticulatively to point a moral or adorn a tale. He was a good representative of a large class, half farmer, half trader, to be found scattered all over the mountain. He was a moderate landed proprietor, holding mulberry orchards. and grain land on different parts of the terraced hillsides of Lebanon, a bit here and a bit there, according to the fashion of the mountaineers, who never own a farm all lying together.

The time and capital not devoted to his own agriculture, he gave to traffic in the produce of other people. In the spring he usually bought a flock of sheep of the Kurdish shepherds, who come annually with their broad-tailed stock from the elevated plains about Erzeroum. Over and above his woolly quadrupeds, the Kurd always threw in his huge sheepskin coat, and his fierce sheep dog. Khalil then placed his flock under the care of some hireling shepherd, and set out on a retailing tour among the villages, selling to each family a sheep. Some sales were for cash, but more were for cocoons, to be taken at a stipulated price when the silk season should arrive in the succeeding July. If credit was thus given, the buyer paid Syrian interest, which varies from fifteen to thirty or forty per cent., by the year. Khalil had a large market to choose from, for a great proportion of the terraced declivities of Mount Lebanon, as well as the shore plain at its base, is devoted to the cultivation of the mulberry. The silk of Bhamdun alone will average nearly a ton after it is wound from the cocoons. The women, who exclusively take care of the worms, become very fond of them, caress them, kiss them, and call them endearing names. After gathering his cocoons, our friend Khalil wound off the imperfect ones, on the coarse Arab reel, and sold the better sort to the French or English merchants, who have established flourishing filatures in va

rious parts of Syria. These men paid him in cash, which he invested in coarse raw silk, to be retailed to native weavers.

His next step was usually to go to the fine wheat lands of the Bukaa, and speculate in cereals. The mountains alone, in Syria, are freehold. The great plains are the private property of the Sultan, who exacts about a quarter of the crops from the cultivators, as tax and ground rent. This is paid in kind, or compromised for a specific sum in cash, at the time of harvest. The peasantry were glad of the intervention of so reputable a middle-man as our enterprising Bhamdunee; and the oppressive government official was equally pleased to escape from the hard duty of overlooking an unscrupulous tenantry. Khalil compromised for the cash, and became owner of the Sultan's quarter of the crops. Night and day he watched the enormous grain heaps of the threshing-floor; and at the end of the season received one measure of wheat or barley for every three retained by the villagers. He sold on the spot enough to pay the Sultan's dues, and carried home the remainder, which generally amounted to about one-eighth of the crop. He thus made a profit equal to his entire risk, without having laid out a piastre, at the same time that he conferred an actual favor on the peasants and their imperial landlord.

This was his favorite operation. He tried to persuade me into a partnership, in order to secure the protection of the stars and stripes against the petty exactions of government understrappers. I felt tempted now and then to accede, and formed various miragic fancies of setting up for a Syrian farmer-general. Three or four thousand dollars would have been a stupendous capital, and would have made me a little despot among the grain-raising, cocoon-selling peasantry of plain and mountain. With the income derivable from that sum, I could have had a town house, a mountain house, a wife from some genteel Arab family, like the Bait Susa, a couple of blood horses, and three or four servants. I should have passed only so much time as I pleased in riding about the country with Khalil; and for the rest, should have kept myself comfortably quiet with hot coffee, ambermouthed chibouks, and silver-mounted nargilehs. I should have set up a big turban immediately, and a long beard as

soon as I was able. I should have become a great Arabic scholar, and read the Arabian Nights in the original. I should have had bad debtors and dragooned them into honesty with swarms of gormandizing Howaleyeh. Not seldom since those days has the lazy sunshine of that idea lured my mind back to Syria. I sometimes feel as if it would be delightful to retire into a turban, shadow myself with tobacco smoke, and let the age drive by.

With the hope of drawing better crops from the deep soil of the plains, Khalil sent for one of the lighter sorts of American plows. The Bhamdunees laughed heartily at the outlandish enormity when it arrived, and unanimously voted that such a thing would never work. "God knows," said Khalil, "it turns earth very well in America, and I suppose will do the same thing here." "Every land has its peculiarities," rereplied the unbelievers; "this will not suit our atmosphere." But this really intelligent and enterprising Arab has never yet dared to use his foreign plow, for fear that so costly and novel an instrument should be made an apology for fresh exactions.

The

By the time that Khalil had closed his speculation on the threshing-floors of the Bukaa, the vintage of the mountain was at hand. Bhamdun has about one thousand acres of vineyard, descending from the lofty hill, back of the village, over hundreds of terraces, to the bottom of the enormous ravine in front. grapes are both purple and white, usually the latter; the earlier varieties small, and of a soft pulp; the later ones firm, delicious, and of some kinds remarkably large. The people eat them in great quantities fresh, and dry them into raisins for winter use. There are grape-presses where the juice is crushed out with the naked feet, to be boiled into dibs, a very pleasant kind of thick molasses. It is this dibs which is sometimes brought to our temperate shores "communion wine," "the pure juice of the grape." The pure juice of the grape it certainly is, exactly as treacle is the pure juice of the sugar-cane. It is wine, therefore, just as true as molasses is rum. Khalil exchanged some of his wheat and barley for the vintage of his Druze neighbors, and then retired into winter quarters, and retailed at leisure his various stock of raw silk, grain, dibs, and raisins.

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Such is the business life of a merchant of produce in Mount Lebanon. In the small career which is permitted to them, the Syrians show a good degree of mercantile shrewdness and enterprise. Perhaps the locality inspires them, or there are some echoes in the blood, as Calderon phrases it, which come down to them from their ancestors. All along their coast lived the old Phenicians, who were very glorious merchant princes when England was solely remarkable for its tin mines and the painted hides of its citizens. One of the most unfortunate blanks in ancient history is our total ignorance of the political economy of the Tyrians, Sidonians, and their colonies. What were their tariffs, their navigation laws, their profits or cargoes, the pay or character of their seaman? They gave letters to the Greeks: who were their Roscoes and Lorenzos de Medici? They coasted England and circumnavigated Africa: where are the biographies of their Columbus and Captain Cook? But their glory has sunk almost as deep into our ignorance as their gorgeous galleys ever foundered beneath Indian or Atlantic billows.

Modern Syrian enterprise sails as far, but in foreign bottoms. There are now some considerable mercantile houses in Beirut. A small, direct trade over American keels has been opened with New York and Boston. Before many years the Directory of our great commercial capital will become still more thorny to our organs of speech with unpronounceable names from the land of the east and the clime of the sun.

Of the mechanical skill of the Syrians little can be said, although they furnish some pretty specimens of silken stuffs. The manufacture of steel has died out in Damascus, whose present inhabitants are unequal to the composition of a good common hatchet. As the beautiful palaces of that city fall into dilapidation, they are restored by botchwork, distinguishable at first sight from the dim glory of the olden walls and arches. The implements of trade are probably exact copies of the expired patents of Tubal Cain; and agriculture is about as it was in the suburbs of Eden just after the expulsion of its incautious gardener.

THE DRAMA IN FRANCE-CLASSIC AND ROMANTIC.

THE

HE foyer of the Theatre Français is the Campus Martius of French dramatic criticism. Thither, at the fall of the curtain, the consuls of the press lead the arbiters of renown, the "bons esprits qui font l'opinion publique," and there, in comitial dignity, the fate of authors and of actors is scaled. Vain, we are told, are the loudest applauses of the concio in the parterre, if the Romans of the foyer shrug their invincible shoulders. Noisy, crowded, agitated, these centuriata may often be. But the noise is a delicate noise of witty words, the crowd is a crowd of well-bred men, the agitation transcends not the pleasing hubbub of a ball-room. And therefore it is that the historian of the French drama shudders to record the scenes which transpired in this celebrated saloon on the night of the first of February, 1829. For, on that eventful night, the traditions of the foyer were scattered to the winds, and Melpomene was outraged by the uproar of her votaries. It VOL. VI.-26.

was as if the Eil de Boeuf had been invaded by a Jacobin Club. The walls that for so many years had echoed only the audita susurra of the most polished of mortals, resounded with shouts of savage exultation. A group of young men, attired in the supreme style of the day, giving each other the hand, formed a circle, such as Indians draw around some hapless captive at the stake, and performed a wild war-dance, an insane fandango, to the music of their own yells.

An Anglo-Saxon spectator of this extraordinary performance (the memory of which will be transmitted to posterity in a print which is now become one of the curiosities of lithography,) would surely have supposed that he was present at some decisive act of a great political revolution. For it is one of the cherished articles of the creed of our race, that revolutions in France are always brought about by a knot of men who happen to have nothing particular to do, and are

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