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. At two hours and a
half we crossed by a bridge the large stream of Nahr Ibrahim, the
ancient Adonis. Above us in the mountain is the village El Djissr. The
whole lower ridge of mount Libanus, from Wady Medfoun to beyond Nahr
Ibrahim, composes the district of El Fetouh [Arabic], which is at
present under the control of Emir Kasim, son of the Emir Beshir, who
resides at Ghadsir in Kesrouan; he commands also in Koura. At two hours
and a half, and to the left of the road, which runs at a short distance
from the sea, is the convent of Mar Domeitt [Arabic], with the village
of El Bouar [Arabic]. The soil is here cultivated in every part with the
greatest care. In three hours and a quarter we came to a deep well cut
in the rock, with a spring at the bottom, called Ayn Mahous [Arabic]. At
three hours and a half is a small harbour called Meinet Berdja [Arabic],
with a few houses round it. Boats from Cyprus land here, loaded
principally with wheat and salt. To the right of the road, between
Meinet Berdja and the sea, extends a narrow plain, called Watta Sillan
[Arabic]; its southern part terminates in a promontory, which forms the
northern point of the Bay of Kesrouan. Near the promontory stands an
ancient tower, called Berdj el Kosszeir [Arabic]. In four hours and a
quarter we reached Djissr Maammiltein [Arabic], an ancient bridge,
falling into ruins, over a Wady of the same name. The banks of this Wady
form
ENTRANCE INTO KESROUAN.
[p.182] the boundary of separation between the Pahaliks of Saida and
Tripoli, and divide the district of Fetouh from that of Kesrouan.
The country of Kesrouan, which I now entered, presents a most
interesting aspect; on the one hand are steep and lofty mountains, full
of villages and convents, built on their rocky sides; and on the other a
fine bay, and a plain of about a mile in breadth, extending from the
mountains to the sea. There is hardly any place in Syria less fit for
culture than the Kesrouan, yet it has become the most populous part of
the country. The satisfaction of inhabiting the neighbourhood of places
of sanctity, of hearing church bells, which are found in no other part
of Syria, and of being able to give a loose to religious feelings and to
rival the Mussulmans in fanatisim, are the chief attractions that have
peopled Kesrouan with Catholic Christians, for the present state of this
country offers no political advantages whatever; on the contrary, the
extortions of the Druses have reduced the peasant to the most miserable
state of poverty, more miserable even than that in the eastern plains of
Syria; nothing, therefore, but religious freedom induces the Christians
to submit to these extortions; added perhaps to the pleasure which the
Catholics derive from persecuting their brethren of the Greek church,
for the few Greeks who are settled here are not better treated by the
Maronites, than a Damascene Christian might expect to be by a Turk.
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