Mr. Barker Resided Here For Two Years
And A Half, And His Prudent And Liberal Conduct Have Done Great Credit
To The English Name In The Mountain.
The French consuls on the coast
applied several times to the Emir Beshir, by express orders from the
French government, to have Mr. Barker and his family removed; but the
Emir twice tore their letters in pieces and returned them by the
messenger as his only answer.
Harissa [Arabic] is a well built, large
convent, capable of receiving upwards of twenty monks. Near it is a
miserable village of the same name. The view from the terrace of the
convent over the bay of Kesrouan, and the country as far as Djebail, on
one side, and down to Beirout on the other, is extremely beautiful. The
convent is situated in the midst of Kesrouan, over the village Sahel
Alma.
March 16.--I slept at Harissa, and left it early in the morning, to
visit Ayn Warka. The roads in these mountains are bad beyond
description, indeed I never before saw any inhabited country so entirely
mountainous as the Kesrouan: there are no levels on the tops of the
mountain; but the traveller no sooner arrives on the summit, than he
immediately begins the descent; each hill is insulated, so that to reach
a place not more than ten minutes distant in a straight line, one is
obliged to travel three or four miles, by descending into the valley and
ascending again the other side. From Harissa I went north half an hour
to the village Ghosta [Arabic], near which are two convents called
Kereim and Baklous. Kereim
AYN WARKA.
[p.185]is a rich Armenian monastery, in which are twenty monks. The silk
of this place is esteemed the best in Kesrouan. A little farther down is
the village El Basha. One hour and a quarter Ayn Warka [Arabic], another
Maronite convent. I wished to see this place, because I had heard that a
school had lately been established here, and that the convent contained
a good library of Syrian books; but I was not so fortunate as to see the
library; the bishop, although he received me well, found a pretext for
not opening the room in which the books are kept, fearing, probably,
that if his treasures should be known, the convent might some day be
deprived of them. I however saw a beautiful dictionary in large folio of
the Syriac language, written in the Syriac character, which, I suppose,
to be the only copy in Syria. Its author was Djorjios el Kerem Seddany,
who composed it in the year 1619. Kerem Seddany is the name of a village
near Bshirrai. This dictionary may be worth in Syria eight hundred or a
thousand piastres; but the convent would certainly not sell it for less
than two thousand, besides a present to the bishop.
The school of Ayn Warka was established fifteen years since by Youssef,
the predecessor of the present bishop.
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