this life, and I found this one, politically and religiously, a nullity. As I approached, it had occurred to me that these institutions offered the means which I was casting about to find, to invigorate the domestic industry of the people, or rather to arrest the decay of even so much as they still possess. The subject introduced itself, by one of the brothers bringing in a sock which he was knitting, and in a manner which I had not before seen; he used fine brass knitting needles, each made into a crotchet at one end, and he took the loop off the other needle with the crotchet, as we do off the finger. He worked expeditiously, and said he had begun the pair that morning, and expected to finish them by tomorrow night. This is now all they make at home; their black caps, till recently, were knitted in like manner, and dyed by themselves; now they buy Turkish caps, and put them on a mould to give them the shape, and dye them. On inquiring the reason of this change, the acting Abbot answered "idleness. The whole subject was now opened; they said that formerly they used to have wool and cotton brought by the peasantry, and made their own clothes. Now these are not brought, and consequently they had to dress in the American cotton dyed blue, like the peasantry. I was able to tell them that the peasantry would now be very glad to bring cotton and wool, but that they (the monks) preferred piastres. Again it was confessed that the cause of the change was "idleness." They then complained of the great

poverty of the people, and their further impoverish-
ment by their buying everything from America
and England; to which countries they sent nothing
in return. I, on the other hand, explained their
poverty by their idleness; and suggested for them
the field of useful enterprize, to which I have above
referred. They all acknowledged the evil, but the
idea of meeting it had not arisen in one of their
minds, nor could be made to enter. They were
dead flounders, and could only float with the stream;
nevertheless, the chief spoke with great energy on
the subject, and gave utterance to gloomy fore-
bodings. He had seen the condition of the people
gradually sinking for twenty years, and now, with
nothing to fear from chiefs, and no oppressions to
complain of from government, he saw them becom-
ing poorer and poorer, idler and more idle; yet with
all this, he could not face the idea of doing anything
to stop it, and could only suggest, filling up the ports
of Beyrout and Saïda. "When we had no trade," he
said, "we were rich; now we have much trade and
are poor." I told him that what he desired for the
Lebanon, I desired for England; that she too, when
she had no commerce, was well clothed and well fed,
and that the coming in of theirgold was to her a much
greater loss, than the going forth of it was to them.

Several times the personages at Beyrout, now
raised from Consuls to Ambassadors, (Elchi) were
introduced. I had succeeded in stopping such con-
versation, or in giving to it the go-bye. It was only

the following morning that they gained their wish which I let them have, by asking them what made them so anxious about the Consuls, and what they expected or feared from them. The answer was, "We owe to the Consuls our not paying charatch, nor duties on the articles of our own consumption; and in all litigations we have the benefit of the presence of the dragoman of the French Consul." When I put it to them, that this regarded a former state, when the French alone protected the Catholic priesthood, and that their freedom from charatch was a concession of their sovereign; to which they agreed; they then said, that when they now went to the French Consul, and the Druze to the English, and the Greek to the Russian, it was no benefit to any; but quite the contrary. They then asked if the Turkish Consuls did not protect the Mussulmans in India!

They consider themselves in great intercourse. with the world, and spoke of the number of Europeans they saw. The numbers were soon reduced to two Englishmen, and an English Houri, I was carrying on this conversation in broken Arabic, so I imagined that Miss Martineau must have passed this way, and that their intuitive sagacity, knowing "how to observe," had discovered the sort of compliment that would be most gratifying to that lady. Proceeding then to inquire how long she had stayed with them, and what she had spoken to them about, I found I had fallen into the mistake of sweet Ann

Page's lover, and that the Houri was not of the feminine gender. This name, which Mahomed- is made to give to the attractions of his paradise, the Christian Arabs apply to those who shew the way to ours; and what I had taken for an accomplished lady, turned out to be a blooming Prebendary.

Dec. 20th.-As it was little out of my road, I determined to take the village of Sourie, which had so fascinated me, on my way. The distance was but a mile, but it took me four hours to traverse it. I have spoken of this scenery putting a pencil in the hands of every tyro limner, and exemplified my words; finding words unavailing, and the pen devoid of form and colour, I took to sketching; now seeking to catch, so to say, an architectural detail of the stones, there the historic groupings of the mountains. The pillars of rock and the façades of precipice were interspersed or screened with festoons of vines trained up the walls, and carried from the one to the other; such columns stood sometimes 40 feet high, and the unbroken fronts, now and then, ranged for hundreds of yards. I was winding my way along the watercourse, and the promontories of squared block ran down from side to side, one into the other, forming a series of triangles; on the opposite side some peasants were scrambling in the same direction, and looked absurdly theatrical; especially by the path being always hidden, so that you could not see how they got along; the difference is, that what would be most theatrical in our stage costume, and most

It

stage like in our scenic painting, is less so than the costume of the people or the forms of nature. was endless and ever new; you were stopped at every turn, and the pencil invited forth; here you have ready made a study book of rock, and an album of ledges. I looked for these, as a sportsman for game; like quails they started under my feet. After closing my sketch-book, I turned round to proceed, and found a monk standing close to me, who had been looking over my shoulder. He was a magnificent figure, with a grave and benignant countenance, bearing, but not yet bent by, the burden of years, with a long beard, partly silvered, not frosted with age: nothing could be more unlike the community I had left, but to which he belonged. He saluted me, and seeing some sign of surprise in my manner, he extended over me both his arms, and raising his eyes to heaven, seemed at once to invoke on me a blessing, and to convey to me the knowledge of what the gesture meant. I had already moved forward before I apprehended him; and this dumb interchange of a second, sent me away reproaching myself with having perchance too lightly judged of the monastery I had quitted, yet gratified by the thought that these cells might enclose devout breasts, meekly bending before their Maker, benevolently regarding their fellow men; and I recollected the words which the night before I had listened to as of form, "We daily pray for all men; to-morrow morning we shall pray for you."