ON THE OPEN HIGHWAY
And Khalid, packing his few worldly belongings in one of his reed
baskets, gives the rest to his neighbours, leaves his booth in the
pines to the swallows, and bids the monks and his friend the Hermit
farewell. The joy of the wayfaring! Now, where is the jubbah, the
black jubbah of coarse wool, which we bought from one of the monks? He
wraps himself in it, tightens well his shoe-strings, draws his fur cap
over his ears, carries his basket on his back, takes up his staff,
lights his cigarette, and resolutely sets forth. The joy of the
wayfaring! We accompany him on the open highway, through the rocky
wilderness, down to the fertile plains, back to the city. For the
account he gives us of his journey enables us to fill up the lacuna in
Shakib's _Histoire Intime_, before we can have recourse to it again.
"From the cliffs 'neath which the lily blooms," he muses as he issues
out of the forest and reaches the top of the mountain, "to the cliffs
round which the eagles flit,--what a glorious promontory! What a
contrast at this height, in this immensity, between the arid rocky
haunts of the mountain bear and eagle and the spreading, vivifying
verdure surrounding the haunts of man. On one side are the sylvan
valleys, the thick grown ravines, the meandering rivulets, the
fertile plains, the silent villages, and on the distant horizon, the
sea, rising like a blue wall, standing like a stage scene; on the
other, a howling immensity of boulders and prickly shrubs and plants,
an arid wilderness--the haunt of the eagle, the mountain bear, and the
goatherd. One step in this direction, and the entire panorama of
verdant hills and valleys is lost to view. Its spreading, riant beauty
is hidden behind that little cliff. I penetrate through this forest of
rocks, where the brigands, I am told, lie in ambush for the caravans
traveling between the valley of the Leontes and the villages of the
lowland. But the brigands can not harm a dervish; my penury is my
amulet--my salvation.
"The horizon, as I proceed, shrinks to a distance of ten minutes' walk
across. And thus, from one circle of rocks to another, I pass through
ten of them before I hear again the friendly voice of the rill, and
behold again the comforting countenance of the sylvan slopes. I reach
a little grove of slender poplars, under the brow of a little hill,
from which issues a little limpid stream and runs gurgling through the
little ferns and bushes down the heath. I swing from the road and
follow this gentle rill; I can not find a better companion now. But
the wanton lures me to a village far from the road on the other side
of the gorge. Now, I must either retrace my steps to get to it by a
long detour, or cross the gorge, descending to the deep bottom and
ascending in a tangled and tortuous path to reach the main road on the
breast of the opposite escarpment. Here is a short-cut which is long
and weary. It lures me as the stream; it cheats me with a name. And
when I am again on the open road, I look back with a sigh of relief on
the dangers I had passed. I can forgive the luring rill, which still
smiles to me innocently from afar, but not the deluding, ensnaring
ravine. The muleteer who saw me struggling through the tangled bushes
up the pathless, hopeless steep, assures me that my mother is a pious
woman, else I would have slipped and gone into an hundred pieces among
the rocks below. 'Her prayers have saved thee,' quoth he; 'thank thy
God.'
"And walking together a pace, he points to the dizzy precipice around
which I climbed and adds: 'Thou seest that rock? I hallooed to thee
when thou wert creeping around it, but thou didst not hear me. From
that same rock a woodman fell last week, and, falling, looked like a
potted bird. He must have died before he reached the ground. His bones
are scattered among those rocks. Thank thy God and thy mother. Her
prayers have saved thee.'
"My dear mother, how long since I saw thee, how long since I thought
of thee. My loving mother, even the rough, rude spirit of a muleteer
can see in the unseen the beauty and benevolence of such devotion as
thine. The words of this dusky son of the road, coming as through the
trumpet of revelation to rebuke me, sink deep in my heart and draw
tears from mine eyes. For art thou not ever praying for thy grievous
son, and for his salvation? How many beads each night dost thou tell,
how many hours dost thou prostrate thyself before the Virgin,
sobbing, obsecrating, beating thy breast? And all for one, who until
now, ever since he left Baalbek, did not think on thee.--Let me kiss
thee, O my Brother, for thy mild rebuke. Let me kiss thee for
reminding me of my mother.--No, I can not further with thee; I am
waygone; I must sit me a spell beneath this pine--and weep. O Khalid,
wretched that thou art, can the primitive soul of this muleteer be
better than thine? Can there be a sounder intuitiveness, a healthier
sense of love, a grander sympathy, beneath that striped aba, than
there is within thy cloak? Wilt thou not beat thy cheeks in ignominy
and shame, when a stranger thinks of thy mother, and reverently, ere
thou dost? No matter how low in the spiritual circles she might be, no
matter how high thou risest, her prayer and her love are always with
thee. If she can not rise to thee on the ladder of reason, she can
soar on the wings of affection. Yea, I prostrate myself beneath this
pine, bury my forehead in its dust, thanking Allah for my mother. Oh,
I am waygone, but joyous. The muleteer hath illumined thee, O
Khalid.--
"There, the snow birds are passing by, flitting to the lowland. The
sky is overcast; there is a lull in the wind. Hark, I hear the piping
of the shepherd and the tinkling bell of the wether. Yonder is his
flock; and there sits he on a rock blowing his doleful reed. I am
almost slain with thirst. I go to him, and cheerfully does he milk for
me. I do not think Rebekah was kinder and sweeter in Abraham's
servant's eyes than was this wight in mine. 'Where dost thou sleep?'
I ask, 'Under this rock,' he replies. And he shows me into the cave
beneath it, which is furnished with a goat-skin, a masnad, and a
little altar for the picture of the Virgin. Before this picture is an
oil lamp, ever burning, I am told. 'And this altar,' quoth the
shepherd, 'was my mother's. When she died she bequeathed it to me. I
carry it with me in the wilderness, and keep the oil burning in her
memory.' Saying which he took to weeping. Even the shepherd, O Khalid,
is sent to rebuke thee. I thank him, and resume my march.
"At eventide, descending from one hilltop to another, I reach a
village of no mean size. It occupies a broad deep steep, in which the
walnut and poplar relieve the monotony of the mulberries. I hate the
mulberry, which is so suggestive of worms; and I hate worms, and
though they be of the silk-making kind. I hate them the more, because
the Lebanon peasant seems to live for the silk-worms, which he tends
and cultivates better than he does his children.
"When I stood on the top of the steep, the village glittering with a
thousand lights lay beneath like a strip of the sidereal sky. It made
me feel I was above the clouds, even above the stars. The gabled
houses overtopping each other, spreading in clusters and half-circles,
form here an aigrette, as it were, on the sylvan head of the mountain,
there a necklace on its breast, below a cestus brilliant with an
hundred lights. I descend into the village and stop before the first
house I reach. The door is wide open; and the little girl who sees me
enter runs in fright to tell her mother. Straightway, the woman and
her son, a comely and lusty youth, come out in a where-is-the-brigand
manner, and, as they see me, stand abashed, amazed. The young man who
wore a robe-de-chambre and Turkish slippers worked in gold, returns my
salaam courteously and invites me up to the divan. There is a spark of
intelligence in his eyes, and an alien affectation in his speech. I
foresaw that he had been in America. He does not ask me the
conventional questions about my religious persuasion; but after his
inquiries of whence and whither, he offers me an Egyptian cigarette,
and goes in to order the coffee. It did not occur to him that I was
his guest for the night.--
"Ah me, I no longer know how to recline on a cushion, and a rug under
my feet seems like a sheet of ice. But with my dust and mud I seem
like Diogenes trampling upon Plato's pride. I survey the hall, which
breathes of rural culture and well-being, and in which is more
evidence of what I foresaw. On the wall hung various photographs and
oil prints, among which I noticed those of the King and Queen of
England, that of Theodore Roosevelt, a framed cartoon by an American
artist, an autographed copy of an English Duke's, and a large
photograph of a banquet of one of the political Clubs of New York. On
the table were a few Arabic magazines, a post-card album, and a
gramophone! Yes, mine host was more than once in the United States.
And knowing that I, too, had been there, he is anxious to display
somewhat of his broken English. His father, he tells me, speaks
English even as good as he does, having been a dragoman for forty
years.
"After supper, he orders me a narghilah, and winds for my entertainment
that horrible instrument of torture." Khalid did not seem to mind it;
but he was anxious about the sacred peace of the hills, sleeping in
the bosom of night. My Name is Billy Muggins, I Wish I Had a Pal Like
You, Tickle Me, Timothy, and such like ragtime horrors come all the
way from America to violate the antique grandeur and beauty of the
Lebanon hills. That is what worried Khalid. And he excuses himself,
saying, "I am waygone from the day's wayfaring." The instrument of
torture is stopped, therefore, and he is shown into a room where a
mattress is spread for him on the floor.
"In the morning," he continues, "mine host accompanies me through the
populous village, which is noted for its industries. Of all the
Lebanon towns, this is, indeed, the busiest; its looms, its potteries,
and its bell foundries, are never idle. And the people cultivate
little of the silk worm; they are mostly artisans. American cotton
they spin, and dye, and weave into substantial cloth; Belgian iron
they melt and cast into bells; and from their native soil they dig the
clay which they mould into earthenware. The tintinnabulations of the
loom can be heard in other parts of the Lebanons; but no where else
can the vintner buy a dolium for his vine, or the housewife, a pipkin
for her oil, or the priest, a bell for his church. The sound of these
foundries' anvils, translated into a wild, thrilling, far-reaching
music, can be heard in every belfry and bell-cote of Syria.
"We descend to the potteries below, not on the carriage road which
serpentines through the village, and which is its only street, but
sheer down a steep path, between the noise of the loom and spinning
wheel and the stench of the dyeing establishments. And here is the
real potter and his clay, not the symbol thereof. And here is the
pottery which is illustrated in the Bible. For in the world to-day, if
we except the unglazed tinajas of the Pueblo Indians, nothing, above
ground at least, can be more ancient and primitive. Such a pitcher, I
muse, did Rebekah carry to the well; with such a Jar on her shoulder
did Hagar wander in the wilderness; and in such vessels did the widow,
by Elijah's miracle, multiply her jug of oil.
"The one silk-reeling factory of the village, I did not care to visit;
for truly I can not tolerate the smell of asphyxiated larvas and
boiling cocoons. 'But the proprietor,' quoth mine host, 'is very
honourable, and of a fine wit.' As honourable as a sweater can be, I
thought. No, no; these manufacturers are all of a piece. I know
personally one of them, who is a Scrooge, and of the vilest. I watched
him one day buying cocoons from the peasants. He does not trust any of
his employees at the scales; they do not know how to press their hand
over the weights in the pan. Ay, that little pressure of his chubby
hand on the weights makes a difference in his favour of more than ten
per cent. of what he buys. That little pressure of his hand is five
or six piasters out of the peasant's pocket, who, with five or six
piasters, remember, can satisfy his hunger on bread and olives and
pulverised thyme, for five or six days. So, we visit not the
cocoon-man, about whom the priest of his private chapel--he prays at
home like the Lebanon Amirs of old, this khawaja--tells me many
edifying things. Of these, I give out the most curious and least
injurious. As the sheikh (squire) of the town, he is generous; as the
operator of a silk-reeling factory, he is grasping, niggardly, mean.
For, to misgovern well, one must open his purse as often as he forces
the purses of others. He was passing by in his carriage this great
khawaja, when we were coming out of the pottery. And of a truth, his
paunch and double chin and ruddy cheeks seemed to illustrate what the
priest told me about his usurious propensities.
"What a contrast between him and the swarthy, leathery, hungry-looking
potters. I can not think that Nature has aught to do with these naked
inequalities. I can not believe that, to produce one roseate
complexion, she must etiolate a thousand. I can not see how, in
drinking from the same gushing spring, and breathing the same mountain
air, and basking in the same ardent sun, the khawaja gets a double
chin and the peasant a double curse. But his collops and his ruddiness
are due to the fact that he misgoverns as well as his Pasha and his
Sultan. He battens, even like a Tammany chief, on political jobbery,
on extortion, on usury. His tree is better manured, so to speak;
manured by the widows and tended by the orphans of his little
kingdom. In a word, this great khawaja is what I call a political
coprophagist. Hence, his suspicious growth, his lustre and lustiness.
"But he is not the only example in the village of this superabundance
of health; the priests are many more. For I must not fail to mention
that, in addition to its potteries and founderies, the town is blessed
with a dozen churches. Every family, a sort of tribe, has its church
and priests; and consequently, its feuds with all the others. It is a
marvel how the people, in the lethal soot and smoke of strife and
dissension, can work and produce anything. Farewell, ye swarthy
people! Farewell, O village of bells and potteries! Were it not for
the khawaja who misgoverns thee, and the priests who sow their
iniquity in thee, thou shouldst have been an ideal town. I look back,
as I descend into the wadi, and behold, thou art as beautiful in the
day as thou art in the night. Thy pink gables under a December sky
seem not as garish as they do in summer. And the sylvan slopes,
clustered with thy white-stone homes, peeping here through the
mulberries, standing there under the walnuts and poplars, rising
yonder in a group like a mottled pyramid, this most picturesque slope,
whereon thou art ever beating the anvil, turning the wheel, throwing
the shuttle, moulding the clay, and weltering withal in the mud of
strife and dissension, this beautiful slope seems, nevertheless, from
this distance, like an altar raised to Nature. I look not upon thee
more; farewell.
"I descend in the wadi to the River Lykos of the ancients; and
crossing the stone-bridge, an hour's ascent brings me to one of the
villages of Kisrawan. On the grey horizon yonder, is the limed bronze
Statue of Mary the Virgin, rising on its sable pedestal, and looking,
from this distance, like a candle in a bronze candle-stick. That
Statue, fifty years hence, the people of the Lebanons will rebaptise
as the Statue of Liberty. Masonry, even to-day, raises around it her
mace. But whether these sacred mountains will be happier and more
prosperous under its régime, I can not say. The Masons and the
Patriarch of the Maronites are certainly more certain. Only this I
know, that between the devil and the deep sea, Mary the Virgin shall
hold her own. For though the name be changed, and the alm-box thrown
into the sea, she shall ever be worshipped by the people. The Statue
of the Holy Virgin of Liberty it will be called, and the Jesuits and
priests can go a-begging. Meanwhile, the Patriarch will issue his
allocutions, and the Jesuits, their pamphlets, against rationalism,
atheism, masonry, and other supposed enemies of their Blessed Virgin,
and point them out as enemies of Abd'ul-Hamid. 'Tis curious how the
Sultan of the Ottomans can serve the cause of the Virgin!
"I visit the Statue for the love of my mother, and mounting to the
top of the pedestal, I look up and behold my mother before me. The
spectre of her, standing before the monument, looks down upon me,
reproachfully, piteously, affectionately. I sit down at the feet
of the Virgin Mary and bury my face in my hands and weep. I love
what thou lovest, O my mother, but I can see no more what thou seest.
For thy love, O my mother, these kisses and tears. For thy love, I
stand here like a child, and look up to this inanimate figure as I
did when I was an acolyte. My intellect, O my mother, I would
drown in my tears, and thy faith I would stifle with my kisses. Only
thus is reconciliation possible.
"Leaving this throne of modern mythology, I cross many wadis, descend
and ascend many hills, pass through many villages, until I reach, at
Ghina and Masshnaka, the tomb of the mythology of the ancients. At
Ghina are ruins and monuments, of which Time has spared enough to
engage the interest of archæologists. Let the Pères Jesuit,
Bourquenoud and Roz, make boast of their discoveries and scholarship;
I can only boast of the fact that the ceremonialisms of worship are
the same to-day as they were in the days of my Phoenician ancestors.
Which, indeed, speaks well for THEM. This tablet, representing an
armed figure and a bear, commemorates, it is said, the death of
Tammuz. And the figure of the weeping woman near it is probably that
of Ashtaroth. Other figures there are; but nothing short of the
scholarship of Bourquenoud and Roz can unveil their marble mystery.
"At Masshnaka, overlooking the River Adonis, are ruins of an ancient
temple in which can still be seen a few Corinthian columns. This, too,
we are told, was consecrated to Tammuz; and in this valley the women
of Byblus bemoaned every year the fate of their god. Isis and Osiris,
Tammuz and Ashtaroth, Venus and Adonis,--these, I believe, are one and
the same. Their myth borrowed from the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, and
the Romans, from either of the two. But the Venus of Rome is cheerful,
joyous, that of the Phoenicians is sad and sorrowful. Even mythology
triumphs in its evolution.
"Here, where my forebears deliquesced in sensuality, devotion, and
grief, where the ardency of the women of Byblus flamed on the altar of
Tammuz, on this knoll, whose trees and herbiage are fed perchance with
their dust, I build my _athafa_ (little kitchen), Arab-like, and cook
my noonday meal. On the three stones, forming two right angles, I
place my skillet, kindle under it a fire, pour into it a little sweet
oil, and fry the few eggs I purchased in the village. I abominate the
idea of frying eggs in water as the Americans do.[1] I had as lief fry
them in vinegar or syrup, where neither olive oil nor goat-butter is
obtainable. But to fry eggs in water? O the barbarity of it! Why not,
my friend, take them boiled and drink a little hot water after them?
This savours of originality, at least, and is just as insipid, if not
more. Withal, they who boil cabbage, and heap it in a plate over a
slice of corn-beef, and call it a dish, can break a few boiled eggs in
a cup of hot water and call them fried. Be this as it may. The
Americans will be solesistically simple even in their kitchen.
"Now, my skillet of eggs being ready, I draw out of my basket a cake
of cheese, a few olives, an onion, and three paper-like loaves, rather
leaves, of bread, and fall to. With what relish, I need not say. But
let it be recorded here, that under the karob tree, on the bank of the
River Adonis, in the shadow of the great wall surrounding the ruins of
the temple of Tammuz, I Khalid, in the thirty-fourth year of the reign
of Abd'ul-Hamid, gave a banquet to the gods--who, however, were
content in being present and applauding the devouring skill of the
peptic host and toast-master. Even serene Majesty at Yieldiz would
give away, I think, an hundred of its sealed dishes for such a skillet
of eggs in such an enchanted scene. But for it, alas! such wild and
simple joy is a sealed book. Poor Serene Majesty! Now, having gone
through the fruit course--and is not the olive a fruit?--I fill my jug
at the River to make my coffee. And here I ask, In what Hotel Cecil or
Waldorf or Savoy, or in what Arab tent in the desert, can one get a
better cup of coffee than this, which Khalid makes for himself? The
gods be praised, before and after. Ay, even in washing my pots and
dishes I praise the good gods.
"And having done this, I light my cigarette, lug my basket on my back,
and again set forth. In three hours, on my way to Byblus, I reach a
hamlet situated in a deep narrow wadi, closed on all sides by huge
mountain walls. The most sequestered, the most dreary place, I have
yet seen. Here, though unwilling, the dusk of the December day having
set in, I lay down the staff of wayfare. And as I enter the little
village, I am greeted by the bleat of sheep and the low of the kine.
The first villager I meet is an aged woman, who stands in her door
before which is a pomegranate tree, telling her beads. She returns my
salaam graciously, and invites me, saying, 'Be kind to tarry
overnight.' But can one be kinder than such an hostess? Seeing that I
laid down my burden, she calls to her daughter to light the seraj
(naphtha lamp) and bring some water for the stranger. 'Methinks thou
wouldst wash thy feet,' quoth she. Indeed, that is as essential and
refreshing, after a day's walk, as washing one's face. I sit me down,
therefore, under the pomegranate, take off my shoes and stockings, and
the little girl, a winsome, dark-eyed, quick-witted lass, pours to me
from the pitcher. I try to take it from her; but she would not, she
said, be deprived of the pleasure of serving the stranger. Having
done, I put on my stockings, and, leaving my shoes and basket near the
door, enter a beit (one-room house) meagrely but neatly furnished. The
usual straw mats are spread on the winter side, behind the door; in
the corner is a little linen-covered divan with trimming of beautiful
hand-made lace, the work of the little girl; and nearby are a few
square cushions on the floor and a crude chair. The seraj, giving out
more smoke and smell than light, is placed on a little shelf attached
to the central pillar of the beit. Near the door is a bench for the
water jars, and in the other corner are the mattresses and quilts,
and the earthen tub containing the round leaves of bread. Of these
consist the furniture and provision of mine hostess.
"Her son, a youth of not more than two score years, returns from his
day's labour a while after I had arrived. And as he stands in the
door, his pick-axe and spade on his shoulder, his sister runs to meet
him, and whispers somewhat about the stranger. Sitting on the
threshold, he takes off his spats of cloth and his clouted shoes,
while she gets the pitcher of water. After having washed, he enters,
salaams graciously, and squats on the floor. The mother then brings a
wicker tray on which is set the supper, consisting of only bread and
olives. 'Thou wilt overlook our penury,' she falters out; 'here be all
we have.' In truth, my hostess is of the poorest of the Lebanon
peasants; even her sweet-oil pipkin and her jars of lentils and beans,
are empty. She lays the tray before her son and invites me to partake
of the repast. I go to my basket, bring forth the few onions and the
two cakes of cheese I had left, lay them with an apology on the
tray--the mother, abashed, protests--and we sit down cross-legged in a
circle to supper. When we rise, the little girl lights a little fire,
and they enjoy the cup of coffee I make for them. And the mother, in
taking hers, tells me naïvely, and with a sigh, that it is five years
now since she had had a cup of coffee. Indeed, she had seen better
days. And 'tis sorrow, forestalling Time, which furrows her cheeks and
robs her black eyes of their lustre and spark.
"She had once cattle, and a beit of her own, and rugs, too, and jars
full of provision. But now she is a tenant. And her husband, ever
since he emigrated to America, did not send a single piaster or even
write a letter. From necessity she becomes a prey of usurers; for
those Lebanon Moths, of which we saw a specimen in the village of
bells and potteries, fall mostly in the wardrobe of women. They are
locusts rather, who visit only the wheat fields of the poor. Her home
was mortgaged to one such, and failing to meet her obligation, the
mortgage is closed and he takes possession. Soon after she is evicted,
her son, the first-born, a youth of much promise, dies.
"'He could read and write, my son,' quoth she, sobbing; 'of a sharp
wit he was, and very assiduous in his studies. Once he accompanied the
priest of the village on a visit to the Patriarch, and read there a
eulogium of his own composition, for which he received a silver medal.
The Patriarch then sent him to a Seminary; he was to become a priest,
my son. He wrote a beautiful hand--both Arabic and French; he was of a
fine wit, sharp, quick, brilliant. Ah, me, but those who are of such
minds never live!'
"She then tells me how they lost their last head of cattle. An
excellent sheep it was; which one night they forgot outside; and the
wolf, visiting the village, sees it tied to the mulberry, howls for
joy, and carries it off. And thus Death robs the poor woman of her
son; America, of her husband; the Shylock of the village, of her home;
and the wolf, of her last head of cattle. And this were enough to age
even a Spartan woman. Late in the evening, after she had related at
length of her sorrows, three mattresses--all she had--are laid on the
straw mat near each other, and the little girl had to sleep with her
mother.
"Early in the morning I bid them farewell, and pass on my way to
Amsheet, where Henriette Renan, the sister of Ernest, is buried. An
hour's walk, and the incarcerated wadi and its folk lie concealed
behind. I breathe again the open air of the mountain expanse; I behold
again the emerald stretch of water on the horizon, where the baggalas
and saics, from this distance, seem like doves basking in the morning
sun. I cross the last rill, mount the last hilltop on my journey, and
lo, at the foot of the gently sloping heath are the orchards and palms
of Amsheet. Further below is Jbail, or ancient Byblus, looking like a
clutter of cliffs on the shore. Farewell to the mountain heights, and
the arid wilderness! Welcome the fertile plains, and hopeful strands.
In half an hour I reach the immense building--the first or the last of
the village, according to your direction--which, from the top of the
hill, I thought to be a fortress. A huge structure this, still
a-building, and of an architecture altogether different from the
conventional Lebanon type. No plain square affair, with three pointed
arches in the façade, and a gable of pink tiles; but here are quoins,
oriels, embrasures, segmental arches, and other luxuries of
architecture. Out of place in these wilds, altogether out of place.
Hard by are two primitive flat-roofed beits, standing grimly there as
a rebuke to the extravagant tendencies of the age. I go there in the
hope of buying some cheese and eggs, and behold a lady of severe
beauty smoking a narghilah and giving orders to a servant. She returns
my salaam seated in her chair, and tells me in an injured air, after I
had made known to her my desire, that eggs and cheese are sold in the
stores.
"'You may come in for breakfast,' she adds; and clapping for the
servant, orders him to lay the table for me. I enter the beit, which
is partitioned into a kitchen, a dining-room, and a parlour. On the
table is spread the usual breakfast of a Lebanonese of affluence:
namely, cheese, honey, fig-jam, and green olives. The servant, who is
curious to know my name, my religion, my destination, and so forth,
tells me afterwards that Madame is the wife of the kaiemkam, and the
castle, which is building, is their new home.
"Coming out, I thank Madame, and ask her about the grave of Renan's
sister. She pauses amazed, blows her narghilah smoke in my face,
surveys me from top to toe, and puts to me those same questions with
which I was tormented by her servant. Indeed, I had answered ten of
hers, before I got this answer to mine: 'The sister of whom, thou
sayst? That Frenchman who came here in the sixties for antiquities?
Yes; his sister died and was buried here, but no Christian remembers
her for good. She must have been a bad one like her brother, who was
an infidel, they say, and did not know or fear God.--What wouldst thou
see there? Art like the idiot Franje (Europeans) who come here and
carry away from around the grave some stones and dust? Go thou with
him--(this to the servant) and show him the vault of the Toubeiyahs,
where she was buried.' This, in a supercilious air, while she drew
from the narghilah the smoke, which I could not relish.
"We come to the cemetery near the church in the centre of the town.
The vault where Henriette was laid, a plain, plastered square cell, is
not far from an oak which in the morning envelopes it with its shadow;
and directly across are palms, whose shades at sundown, make a vain
effort to kiss its dust. No grass, no flowers around; but much of the
dust of neglect. And of this I take up a handful, like 'the idiot
Franje'; but instead of carrying it away, I press therein my lips and
leave my planted kisses near the vault.--When the mothers and the
sisters of these sacred hills, O Henriette, can see the flowers of
these kisses in thy dust, when they can appreciate the sacred purity
of thy spirit and devotion, what mothers then we shall have, and what
sisters!
"I pass through the village descending on the carriage road to Jbail,
or Byblus. In these diggings the shrewd antiquary digs for those
precious tear-bottles of my ancestors. And everywhere one turns are
tombs in which the archæologist finds somewhat to noise abroad. His,
indeed, is a scholarship which is essentially necrophagous. For
consider, what would become of it, if a necropolis, for instance, did
not yield somewhat of nourishment,--a limb, a torso, a palimpsest, or
even an earthen lamp, a potsherd, or a coin? I rail not at these
scholarly grave-diggers because I can not interest myself in their
work; that were unwise and unfair. But truly, I abominate this
business of 'cashing,' as it were, the ruins and remains, the ashes
and dust, of our ancestors. Archæology for archæology's sake is
pardonable; archæology for the sake of writing a book is intolerable;
and archæology for lucre is abominable.
"At Jbail I visited the citadel, said to be of Phoenician origin,
which is occupied by the mudir of the District. Entering the gate,
near which is a chapel consecrated to Our Lady of that name, where
litigants, when they can not prove their claims, are made to swear to
them, we pass through a court between rows of Persian lilac trees,
into a dark, stivy arcade on both sides of which are dark, stivy cells
used as stables. Reaching the citadel proper, we mount a high stairway
to the loft occupied by the mudir. This, too, is partitioned, but with
cotton sheeting, into various apartments.
"The zabtie, in zouave uniform, at the door, would have me wait
standing in the corridor outside; for his Excellency is at dinner. And
Excellency, as affable as his zabtie, hearing the parley without,
growls behind the scene and orders me gruffly to go to the court.
'This is not the place to make a complaint,' he adds. But the
stranger at thy door, O gracious Excellency, complains not against
any one in this world; and if he did, assure thee, he would not
complain to the authorities of this world. This, or some such
plainness of distemper, the zouave communicates to his superior
behind the cotton sheeting, who presently comes out, his anger
somewhat abated, and, taking me for a monk--my jubbah is responsible
for the deception--invites me to the sitting-room in the enormous
loophole of the citadel. He himself was beginning to complain of the
litigants who pester him at his home, and apologise for his ill
humour, when suddenly, disabused on seeing my trousers beneath my
jubbah, he subjects me to the usual cross-examination. I could not
refrain from thinking that, not being of the cowled gentry, he
regretted having honoured me with an apology.
"But after knowing somewhat of the pilgrim stranger, especially that
he had been in America, Excellency tempers the severity of his
expression and evinces an agreeable curiosity. He would know many
things of that distant country; especially about a Gold-Mining
Syndicate, or Gold-Mining Fake, in which he invested a few hundred
pounds of his fortune. And I make reply, 'I know nothing about Gold
Mines and Syndicates, Excellency: but methinks if there be gold in
such schemes, the grubbing, grabbing Americans would not let it
come to Syria.' 'Indeed, so,' he murmurs, musing; 'indeed, so.' And
clapping for the serving-zabtie--the mudirs and kaiemkams of the
Lebanon make these zabties, whose duty is to serve papers, serve,
too, in their homes--he orders for me a cup of coffee. And further
complaining to me, he curses America for robbing the country of
its men and labourers.--'We can no more find tenants for our
estates, despite the fact that they get more of the income than
we do. The shreek (partner), or tenant, is rightly called so. For the
owner of an estate that yields fifty pounds, for instance, barely
gets half of it; while the shreek, he who tills and cultivates the
land, gets away with the other half, sniffing and grumbling
withal. Of a truth, land-tenants are not so well-off anywhere. And if
the land but yields a considerable portion, any one with a few
grains of the energy of those Americans, would prefer to be a
shreek than a real-estate owner.' Thus, his Excellency, complaining
of the times, regretting his losses, cursing America and its Gold
Mines; and having done, drops the narghilah tube from his hand and
dozes on the divan.
"I muse meanwhile on Time, who sees in a citadel of the ancient
Phoenicians, after many thousand years, that same propensity for
gold, that same instinct for trade. The Phoenicians worked gold
mines in Thrace, and the Syrians, their descendants, are working
gold mines in America. But are we as daring, as independent, as
honest? I am not certain, however, if those Phoenicians had anything
to do with bubbles. My friend Sanchuniathon writes nothing on the
subject. History records not a single instance of a gold-mine
bubble in Thrace, or a silver ditto in Africa. Apart from this, have
we, the descendants of those honest Phoenicians, any of their
inventive skill and bold initiative? They taught other nations the
art of ship-building; we can not as much as learn from other
nations the art of building a gig. They transmitted to the people
of the West a knowledge of mathematics, weights, and measures; we
can not as much as weigh or measure the little good Europe is
transmitting to us. They always fought bravely against their
conquerors, always gave evidence of their love of independence; and we
dare not raise a finger or whisper a word against the red Tyrant by
whom we are degraded and enslaved. We are content in paying tribute
to a criminal Government for pressing upon our necks the yoke and
fettering hopelessly our minds and souls--and my brave Phoenicians,
ah, how bravely they thought and fought. What daring deeds they
accomplished! what mysteries of art and science they unveiled!
"On these shores they hammered at the door of invention, and,
entering, showed the world how glass is made; how colours are
extracted from pigments; how to measure, and count, and communicate
human thought. The swarthy sons of the eternal billows, how shy they
were of the mountains, how enamoured of the sea! For the mountains, it
was truly said, divide nations, and the seas connect them. And my
Phoenicians, mind you, were for connection always. Everywhere, they
lived on the shores, and ever were they ready to set sail.
"In this mammoth loophole, measuring about ten yards in length,--this
the thickness of the wall--I muse of another people skilled in the art
of building. But between the helots who built the pyramids and the
freemen who built this massive citadel, what a contrast! The Egyptian
mind could only invent fables; the Phoenician was the vehicle of
commerce and the useful arts. The Egyptians would protect their dead
from the tyranny of Time; the Phoenicians would protect themselves,
the living, from the invading enemy: those based their lives on the
vagaries of the future; these built it on the solid rock of the
present...."
* * * * *
But we have had enough of Khalid's gush about the Phoenicians, and we
confess we can not further walk with him on this journey. So, we leave
his Excellency the mudir snoring on the divan, groaning under the
incubus of the Gold Mine Fake, bemoaning his losses in America; pass
the zabtie in zouave uniform, who is likewise snoring on the
door-step; and, hurrying down the stairway and out through the stivy
arcade, we say farewell to Our Lady of the Gate, and get into one of
the carriages which ply the shore between Junie and Jbail. We reach
Junie about sundown, and Allah be praised! Even this toy of a train
brings us, in thirty minutes, to Beirut.
-----
[1] Khalid would speak here of poached eggs, we believe. And the
Americans, to be fair, are not so totally ignorant of the art of
frying. They have lard--much worse than water--in which they
cook, or poach, or fry--but the change in the name does not
change the taste. So, we let Khalid's stricture on fried eggs and
boiled cabbage stand.--EDITOR.