Upon A Stone In The Wall I Saw A Rose, With A Smaller One On Each Side.

There is a small castle here, in which the Emir Beshir keeps about forty men.

A few years ago Djebail was the residence of the Christian Abd el Ahad; he and his brother Djordjos Bas were the head men of the Emir Beshir, and in fact were more potent than their master. Djordjos Bas resided at Deir el Kammar. The district of Djebail was under the command of Abd el Ahad, who built a

[p.180]very good house here; but the two brothers shared the fate of all Christians who attempt to rise above their sphere; they were both put to death in the same hour by the Emir's orders; indeed there is scarcely an instance in the modern history of Syria, of a Christian or Jew having long enjoyed the power or riches which he may have acquired: these persons are always taken off in the moment of their greatest apparent glory. Abd el Hak, at Antioch; Hanna Kubbe, at Ladakie; Karaly, at Aleppo; are all examples of this remark. But, as in the most trifling, so in the most serious concerns, the Levantine enjoys the present moment, without ever reflecting on future consequences. The house of Hayne, the Jew Seraf, or banker, at Damascus and Acre, whose family may be said to be the real governors of Syria, and whose property, at the most moderate calculation, amounts to three hundred thousand pounds sterling, are daily exposed to the same fate. The head of the family, a man of great talents, has lost his nose, his ears, and one of his eyes, in the service of Djezzar, yet his ambition is still unabated, and he prefers a most precarious existence, with power, in Syria, to the ease and security he might enjoy by emigrating to Europe. The Christian Sheikh Abou Nar commands at Djebail, his brother is governor or Sheikh of Bshirrai.

Many fragments of fine granite columns are lying about in the neighbourhood of Djebail. On the S. side of the town is a small Wady with a spring called Ayn el Yasemein [Arabic]. The shore is covered with deep sand. A quarter of an hour from Djebail is a bridge over a deep and narrow Wady; it is called Djissr el Tel [Arabic]; upon a slight elevation, on its S. side, are the ruins of a church, called Kenyset Seidet Martein [Arabic]. Up in the mountains are two convents and several Maronite villages, with the names of which my Greek guide was unacquainted. In half an hour we came to a pleasant grove of oaks skirting the

MEINET BERDJA.

[p.181]road; and in three quarters of an hour to the Wady Feidar [Arabic], with a bridge across it; this river does not dry up in summer time. A little farther to the right of the road is an ancient watch- tower upon a rock over the sea; the natives call it Berdj um Heish [Arabic] from an echo which is heard here; if the name Um Heish be called aloud, the echo is the last syllable "Eish," which, in the vulgar dialect, means "what?" ([Arabic] for [Arabic]). Many names of places in these countries have trivial origins of this kind.

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