Imagine the delightful Blue Books to be published at Berlin and Vienna. The Consul said to me at Beyrout, "the Lebanon is the Ireland of Turkey." But one day we shall have Ireland the Lebanon of England. If the Turkish Government was fit to understand a joke, would it not announce to the French Government the necessity under which it was placed, of sending Consuls for the protection of its co-religionaries to Algiers; and to the English Government, the same necessity for the appointment of Consular Agents at Hyderabad and Delhi.* But this is no joke; it is the very way to get rid of these nuisances at Beyrout; on the refusal of the request by the two Governments, then the Porte answers, 66 Relieve me then from the intermeddling of your Agents." The two Consuls themselves would be certainly nothing loath: poor Mr. Moore is like the wheel of a railway carriage, doing hard work; disinclined to go, but not able to stop. He said to an English merchant the other day, in reference to his own duties, "it is a tortuous path, Mr. ——; a very tortuous path." Just what a railway wheel would say, if like Mr. Moore, it were gifted with a plaintive conscience, and an insurgent tongue.

As we ascended the loftier parts, we were involved in clouds; we were able to see only the ground we

* Three years later than this the English Government positively threatened the Porte with oppressing its own Mussulman subjects in India, unless it (the Porte) yielded to certain demands of intervention in its internal concerns.]

passed over, or rather the stairs we were clambering; there was neither wall nor portal, nor valley, but a village of terraced vines and mulberries on the side of a hill, under a hollow and bare cliff, traversed by streams conducted to mills and gardens, and adorned with magnificent walnut trees. These trees however are the relics only of a grove, which Ibrahim Pasha, who converted all things into elements of war and instruments of destruction, had cut down for musket stocks.

Smoke ascended from one part; we repaired to it; I was not refused admittance, and there were not people in the place enough to unroof it. We had to enter by the back; the front was allotted to the women, and the oriental seclusion of the fair sex is here preserved. This may throw additional light on the missionary turmoil, as quite unconsciously, they may have entered at the wrong door, and if informed of the distinction, would certainly have treated it as a piece of barbarism and judaism which it was their mission to destroy.

The hard shining clay floor was not dressed for company, so I was asked to retire till the necessary arrangements had been made. On re-entering I found rich carpets, a luxurious divan, velvet flowered cushions, and the shilté in the corner, of Damascus tissue and embroidery. Involuntarily I looked up at the ponderous roof, and shivered at the thought of a shower of sticks and dust in such a place.

My host entered he wore a white turban, red

antery, and blue shalvar, with a belt of the striped silk of Tripoli. A handsome Cara Khorasani sabre, and one of their short blunderbusses hung by the wall, and around, amid the coarsest things, and in the humblest place, might be observed similar evidences of rank and taste. He is brother-in-law to Sheik Jusuff.

When I was seated, water was brought to wash my feet; a scriptural ceremony which I was glad to accept. Then a large muslin shawl, embroidered in gold, was thrown over me, and a censer richly chased, hung round with coral drops, and from which arose a volume of the smoke of aloe wood, was introduced below it, till I was nearly suffocated in finery and perfume. Then came the goblet of lemonflower water; the fresh bubbling nargillé, also scented with the aloe, and lastly, the genial tiny cup of coffee in its filigree setting. How artfully are devised the means of turning fatigue and exhaustion into enjoyment; how lightly touched the various senses, and how enhanced the operation by the style; the antique beam of greeting lighting up the oriental flower of hospitality. This was the first time I had seen the censer since my return to the East; this too civilization is driving out. The grand style in Turkey used to be to meet a guest at the door with a couple of censers, which were carried before him to the apartment where he was received; one was then placed in the middle, and on his retiring both again accompanied him to the door. At Constantinople I was

myself the last to observe this usage with private persons. It pleased me the more to find it still beside the Cedars, and this pomp of the Western cathedral, in the domestic usages of Eden.

When I retired to rest, the sheets proved to be, not calico, but rich thick white silk, of the texture of Poplin, but much more soft, having at the top and bottom an elaborate border like a scarf in stripes of red and blue.

Note to p. 87.-On the threat of the English Government to oppress its own subjects.

"It rests with the Porte to determine in what manner this just and indispensable reform may be most satisfactorily completed. Hitherto the British Government has treated with similar liberality the millions of Mussulman population brought under its rule in India, and it would deeply lament the necessity of adopting a less generous policy towards them. The Porte, unwilling to incur so deep a responsibility, will doubtless bear in mind, &c."— Note addressed to the Porte by Lord Stratford de Rad

cliffe, January, 1855, in Eastern Papers, No. XVIII. entitled, "Correspondence respecting Christian Privileges in Turkey."

CHAPTER V.

THE CHILDREN OF EDEN, AND THE CEDARS

OF GOD.

My Journal must here be supplied by a letter.

"Eden, January 4th, 1850.

10 P. M.

"What a date," you will say. Eden was so called because "a place of delight;" a garden of trees fit for the food of man and watered with fountains. But then too in the days of the prophet it was a proud city; the Assyrian king brought up his battering ram against its walls. There is in the word itself a melody of old echoes that come whispering soft thoughts.

The ascent from the tenanted plains was not only to the high and desolate places of the earth; it seemed a journey backwards through years, leaving behind, and below, the ages, their rulers, and their slaves. Other lofty mountains inspire conceptions of sublimity and present forms of beauty; but, however grand or fair, they are matter alone. This is a place of the spirit, where the soul, not the limb, climbs; where matter serves and nature aids in adorning an altar of primeval traditions.

But Eden is a village: There are houses with