The Book of Khalid Part 16

For thy love, O my mother, these kisses and tears. For thy love, I stand here like a child, and look up to this inanimate figure as I did when I was an acolyte. My intellect, O my mother, I would drown in my tears, and thy faith I would stifle with my kisses. Only thus is reconciliation possible.

"Leaving this throne of modern mythology, I cross many wadis, descend and ascend many hills, pa.s.s through many villages, until I reach, at Ghina and Ma.s.shnaka, the tomb of the mythology of the ancients. At Ghina are ruins and monuments, of which Time has spared enough to engage the interest of archaeologists. Let the Peres Jesuit, Bourquenoud and Roz, make boast of their discoveries and scholars.h.i.+p; I can only boast of the fact that the ceremonialisms of wors.h.i.+p are the same to-day as they were in the days of my Phoenician ancestors.

Which, indeed, speaks well for THEM. This tablet, representing an armed figure and a bear, commemorates, it is said, the death of Tammuz. And the figure of the weeping woman near it is probably that of Ashtaroth. Other figures there are; but nothing short of the scholars.h.i.+p of Bourquenoud and Roz can unveil their marble mystery.

"At Ma.s.shnaka, overlooking the River Adonis, are ruins of an ancient temple in which can still be seen a few Corinthian columns. This, too, we are told, was consecrated to Tammuz; and in this valley the women of Byblus bemoaned every year the fate of their G.o.d. Isis and Osiris, Tammuz and Ashtaroth, Venus and Adonis,--these, I believe, are one and the same. Their myth borrowed from the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, and the Romans, from either of the two. But the Venus of Rome is cheerful, joyous, that of the Phoenicians is sad and sorrowful. Even mythology triumphs in its evolution.

"Here, where my forebears deliquesced in sensuality, devotion, and grief, where the ardency of the women of Byblus flamed on the altar of Tammuz, on this knoll, whose trees and herbiage are fed perchance with their dust, I build my _athafa_ (little kitchen), Arab-like, and cook my noonday meal. On the three stones, forming two right angles, I place my skillet, kindle under it a fire, pour into it a little sweet oil, and fry the few eggs I purchased in the village. I abominate the idea of frying eggs in water as the Americans do.[1] I had as lief fry them in vinegar or syrup, where neither olive oil nor goat-b.u.t.ter is obtainable. But to fry eggs in water? O the barbarity of it! Why not, my friend, take them boiled and drink a little hot water after them?

This savours of originality, at least, and is just as insipid, if not more. Withal, they who boil cabbage, and heap it in a plate over a slice of corn-beef, and call it a dish, can break a few boiled eggs in a cup of hot water and call them fried. Be this as it may. The Americans will be solesistically simple even in their kitchen.

"Now, my skillet of eggs being ready, I draw out of my basket a cake of cheese, a few olives, an onion, and three paper-like loaves, rather leaves, of bread, and fall to. With what relish, I need not say. But let it be recorded here, that under the karob tree, on the bank of the River Adonis, in the shadow of the great wall surrounding the ruins of the temple of Tammuz, I Khalid, in the thirty-fourth year of the reign of Abd'ul-Hamid, gave a banquet to the G.o.ds--who, however, were content in being present and applauding the devouring skill of the peptic host and toast-master. Even serene Majesty at Yieldiz would give away, I think, an hundred of its sealed dishes for such a skillet of eggs in such an enchanted scene. But for it, alas! such wild and simple joy is a sealed book. Poor Serene Majesty! Now, having gone through the fruit course--and is not the olive a fruit?--I fill my jug at the River to make my coffee. And here I ask, In what Hotel Cecil or Waldorf or Savoy, or in what Arab tent in the desert, can one get a better cup of coffee than this, which Khalid makes for himself? The G.o.ds be praised, before and after. Ay, even in was.h.i.+ng my pots and dishes I praise the good G.o.ds.

"And having done this, I light my cigarette, lug my basket on my back, and again set forth. In three hours, on my way to Byblus, I reach a hamlet situated in a deep narrow wadi, closed on all sides by huge mountain walls. The most sequestered, the most dreary place, I have yet seen. Here, though unwilling, the dusk of the December day having set in, I lay down the staff of wayfare. And as I enter the little village, I am greeted by the bleat of sheep and the low of the kine.

The first villager I meet is an aged woman, who stands in her door before which is a pomegranate tree, telling her beads. She returns my salaam graciously, and invites me, saying, 'Be kind to tarry overnight.' But can one be kinder than such an hostess? Seeing that I laid down my burden, she calls to her daughter to light the seraj (naphtha lamp) and bring some water for the stranger. 'Methinks thou wouldst wash thy feet,' quoth she. Indeed, that is as essential and refres.h.i.+ng, after a day's walk, as was.h.i.+ng one's face. I sit me down, therefore, under the pomegranate, take off my shoes and stockings, and the little girl, a winsome, dark-eyed, quick-witted la.s.s, pours to me from the pitcher. I try to take it from her; but she would not, she said, be deprived of the pleasure of serving the stranger. Having done, I put on my stockings, and, leaving my shoes and basket near the door, enter a beit (one-room house) meagrely but neatly furnished. The usual straw mats are spread on the winter side, behind the door; in the corner is a little linen-covered divan with tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of beautiful hand-made lace, the work of the little girl; and nearby are a few square cus.h.i.+ons on the floor and a crude chair. The seraj, giving out more smoke and smell than light, is placed on a little shelf attached to the central pillar of the beit. Near the door is a bench for the water jars, and in the other corner are the mattresses and quilts, and the earthen tub containing the round leaves of bread. Of these consist the furniture and provision of mine hostess.

"Her son, a youth of not more than two score years, returns from his day's labour a while after I had arrived. And as he stands in the door, his pick-axe and spade on his shoulder, his sister runs to meet him, and whispers somewhat about the stranger. Sitting on the threshold, he takes off his spats of cloth and his clouted shoes, while she gets the pitcher of water. After having washed, he enters, salaams graciously, and squats on the floor. The mother then brings a wicker tray on which is set the supper, consisting of only bread and olives. 'Thou wilt overlook our penury,' she falters out; 'here be all we have.' In truth, my hostess is of the poorest of the Lebanon peasants; even her sweet-oil pipkin and her jars of lentils and beans, are empty. She lays the tray before her son and invites me to partake of the repast. I go to my basket, bring forth the few onions and the two cakes of cheese I had left, lay them with an apology on the tray--the mother, abashed, protests--and we sit down cross-legged in a circle to supper. When we rise, the little girl lights a little fire, and they enjoy the cup of coffee I make for them. And the mother, in taking hers, tells me navely, and with a sigh, that it is five years now since she had had a cup of coffee. Indeed, she had seen better days. And 'tis sorrow, forestalling Time, which furrows her cheeks and robs her black eyes of their l.u.s.tre and spark.

"She had once cattle, and a beit of her own, and rugs, too, and jars full of provision. But now she is a tenant. And her husband, ever since he emigrated to America, did not send a single piaster or even write a letter. From necessity she becomes a prey of usurers; for those Lebanon Moths, of which we saw a specimen in the village of bells and potteries, fall mostly in the wardrobe of women. They are locusts rather, who visit only the wheat fields of the poor. Her home was mortgaged to one such, and failing to meet her obligation, the mortgage is closed and he takes possession. Soon after she is evicted, her son, the first-born, a youth of much promise, dies.

"'He could read and write, my son,' quoth she, sobbing; 'of a sharp wit he was, and very a.s.siduous in his studies. Once he accompanied the priest of the village on a visit to the Patriarch, and read there a eulogium of his own composition, for which he received a silver medal.

The Patriarch then sent him to a Seminary; he was to become a priest, my son. He wrote a beautiful hand--both Arabic and French; he was of a fine wit, sharp, quick, brilliant. Ah, me, but those who are of such minds never live!'

"She then tells me how they lost their last head of cattle. An excellent sheep it was; which one night they forgot outside; and the wolf, visiting the village, sees it tied to the mulberry, howls for joy, and carries it off. And thus Death robs the poor woman of her son; America, of her husband; the Shylock of the village, of her home; and the wolf, of her last head of cattle. And this were enough to age even a Spartan woman. Late in the evening, after she had related at length of her sorrows, three mattresses--all she had--are laid on the straw mat near each other, and the little girl had to sleep with her mother.

"Early in the morning I bid them farewell, and pa.s.s on my way to Amsheet, where Henriette Renan, the sister of Ernest, is buried. An hour's walk, and the incarcerated wadi and its folk lie concealed behind. I breathe again the open air of the mountain expanse; I behold again the emerald stretch of water on the horizon, where the baggalas and saics, from this distance, seem like doves basking in the morning sun. I cross the last rill, mount the last hilltop on my journey, and lo, at the foot of the gently sloping heath are the orchards and palms of Amsheet. Further below is Jbail, or ancient Byblus, looking like a clutter of cliffs on the sh.o.r.e. Farewell to the mountain heights, and the arid wilderness! Welcome the fertile plains, and hopeful strands.

In half an hour I reach the immense building--the first or the last of the village, according to your direction--which, from the top of the hill, I thought to be a fortress. A huge structure this, still a-building, and of an architecture altogether different from the conventional Lebanon type. No plain square affair, with three pointed arches in the facade, and a gable of pink tiles; but here are quoins, oriels, embrasures, segmental arches, and other luxuries of architecture. Out of place in these wilds, altogether out of place.

Hard by are two primitive flat-roofed beits, standing grimly there as a rebuke to the extravagant tendencies of the age. I go there in the hope of buying some cheese and eggs, and behold a lady of severe beauty smoking a narghilah and giving orders to a servant. She returns my salaam seated in her chair, and tells me in an injured air, after I had made known to her my desire, that eggs and cheese are sold in the stores.

"'You may come in for breakfast,' she adds; and clapping for the servant, orders him to lay the table for me. I enter the beit, which is part.i.tioned into a kitchen, a dining-room, and a parlour. On the table is spread the usual breakfast of a Lebanonese of affluence: namely, cheese, honey, fig-jam, and green olives. The servant, who is curious to know my name, my religion, my destination, and so forth, tells me afterwards that Madame is the wife of the kaiemkam, and the castle, which is building, is their new home.

"Coming out, I thank Madame, and ask her about the grave of Renan's sister. She pauses amazed, blows her narghilah smoke in my face, surveys me from top to toe, and puts to me those same questions with which I was tormented by her servant. Indeed, I had answered ten of hers, before I got this answer to mine: 'The sister of whom, thou sayst? That Frenchman who came here in the sixties for antiquities?

Yes; his sister died and was buried here, but no Christian remembers her for good. She must have been a bad one like her brother, who was an infidel, they say, and did not know or fear G.o.d.--What wouldst thou see there? Art like the idiot Franje (Europeans) who come here and carry away from around the grave some stones and dust? Go thou with him--(this to the servant) and show him the vault of the Toubeiyahs, where she was buried.' This, in a supercilious air, while she drew from the narghilah the smoke, which I could not relish.

"We come to the cemetery near the church in the centre of the town.

The vault where Henriette was laid, a plain, plastered square cell, is not far from an oak which in the morning envelopes it with its shadow; and directly across are palms, whose shades at sundown, make a vain effort to kiss its dust. No gra.s.s, no flowers around; but much of the dust of neglect. And of this I take up a handful, like 'the idiot Franje'; but instead of carrying it away, I press therein my lips and leave my planted kisses near the vault.--When the mothers and the sisters of these sacred hills, O Henriette, can see the flowers of these kisses in thy dust, when they can appreciate the sacred purity of thy spirit and devotion, what mothers then we shall have, and what sisters!

"I pa.s.s through the village descending on the carriage road to Jbail, or Byblus. In these diggings the shrewd antiquary digs for those precious tear-bottles of my ancestors. And everywhere one turns are tombs in which the archaeologist finds somewhat to noise abroad. His, indeed, is a scholars.h.i.+p which is essentially necrophagous. For consider, what would become of it, if a necropolis, for instance, did not yield somewhat of nourishment,--a limb, a torso, a palimpsest, or even an earthen lamp, a potsherd, or a coin? I rail not at these scholarly grave-diggers because I can not interest myself in their work; that were unwise and unfair. But truly, I abominate this business of 'cas.h.i.+ng,' as it were, the ruins and remains, the ashes and dust, of our ancestors. Archaeology for archaeology's sake is pardonable; archaeology for the sake of writing a book is intolerable; and archaeology for lucre is abominable.

"At Jbail I visited the citadel, said to be of Phoenician origin, which is occupied by the mudir of the District. Entering the gate, near which is a chapel consecrated to Our Lady of that name, where litigants, when they can not prove their claims, are made to swear to them, we pa.s.s through a court between rows of Persian lilac trees, into a dark, stivy arcade on both sides of which are dark, stivy cells used as stables. Reaching the citadel proper, we mount a high stairway to the loft occupied by the mudir. This, too, is part.i.tioned, but with cotton sheeting, into various apartments.

"The zabtie, in zouave uniform, at the door, would have me wait standing in the corridor outside; for his Excellency is at dinner. And Excellency, as affable as his zabtie, hearing the parley without, growls behind the scene and orders me gruffly to go to the court.

'This is not the place to make a complaint,' he adds. But the stranger at thy door, O gracious Excellency, complains not against any one in this world; and if he did, a.s.sure thee, he would not complain to the authorities of this world. This, or some such plainness of distemper, the zouave communicates to his superior behind the cotton sheeting, who presently comes out, his anger somewhat abated, and, taking me for a monk--my jubbah is responsible for the deception--invites me to the sitting-room in the enormous loophole of the citadel. He himself was beginning to complain of the litigants who pester him at his home, and apologise for his ill humour, when suddenly, disabused on seeing my trousers beneath my jubbah, he subjects me to the usual cross-examination. I could not refrain from thinking that, not being of the cowled gentry, he regretted having honoured me with an apology.

"But after knowing somewhat of the pilgrim stranger, especially that he had been in America, Excellency tempers the severity of his expression and evinces an agreeable curiosity. He would know many things of that distant country; especially about a Gold-Mining Syndicate, or Gold-Mining Fake, in which he invested a few hundred pounds of his fortune. And I make reply, 'I know nothing about Gold Mines and Syndicates, Excellency: but methinks if there be gold in such schemes, the grubbing, grabbing Americans would not let it come to Syria.' 'Indeed, so,' he murmurs, musing; 'indeed, so.' And clapping for the serving-zabtie--the mudirs and kaiemkams of the Lebanon make these zabties, whose duty is to serve papers, serve, too, in their homes--he orders for me a cup of coffee. And further complaining to me, he curses America for robbing the country of its men and labourers.--'We can no more find tenants for our estates, despite the fact that they get more of the income than we do. The shreek (partner), or tenant, is rightly called so. For the owner of an estate that yields fifty pounds, for instance, barely gets half of it; while the shreek, he who tills and cultivates the land, gets away with the other half, sniffing and grumbling withal. Of a truth, land-tenants are not so well-off anywhere. And if the land but yields a considerable portion, any one with a few grains of the energy of those Americans, would prefer to be a shreek than a real-estate owner.' Thus, his Excellency, complaining of the times, regretting his losses, cursing America and its Gold Mines; and having done, drops the narghilah tube from his hand and dozes on the divan.

"I muse meanwhile on Time, who sees in a citadel of the ancient Phoenicians, after many thousand years, that same propensity for gold, that same instinct for trade. The Phoenicians worked gold mines in Thrace, and the Syrians, their descendants, are working gold mines in America. But are we as daring, as independent, as honest? I am not certain, however, if those Phoenicians had anything to do with bubbles. My friend Sanchuniathon writes nothing on the subject. History records not a single instance of a gold-mine bubble in Thrace, or a silver ditto in Africa. Apart from this, have we, the descendants of those honest Phoenicians, any of their inventive skill and bold initiative? They taught other nations the art of s.h.i.+p-building; we can not as much as learn from other nations the art of building a gig. They transmitted to the people of the West a knowledge of mathematics, weights, and measures; we can not as much as weigh or measure the little good Europe is transmitting to us. They always fought bravely against their conquerors, always gave evidence of their love of independence; and we dare not raise a finger or whisper a word against the red Tyrant by whom we are degraded and enslaved. We are content in paying tribute to a criminal Government for pressing upon our necks the yoke and fettering hopelessly our minds and souls--and my brave Phoenicians, ah, how bravely they thought and fought. What daring deeds they accomplished! what mysteries of art and science they unveiled!

"On these sh.o.r.es they hammered at the door of invention, and, entering, showed the world how gla.s.s is made; how colours are extracted from pigments; how to measure, and count, and communicate human thought. The swarthy sons of the eternal billows, how shy they were of the mountains, how enamoured of the sea! For the mountains, it was truly said, divide nations, and the seas connect them. And my Phoenicians, mind you, were for connection always. Everywhere, they lived on the sh.o.r.es, and ever were they ready to set sail.

"In this mammoth loophole, measuring about ten yards in length,--this the thickness of the wall--I muse of another people skilled in the art of building. But between the helots who built the pyramids and the freemen who built this ma.s.sive citadel, what a contrast! The Egyptian mind could only invent fables; the Phoenician was the vehicle of commerce and the useful arts. The Egyptians would protect their dead from the tyranny of Time; the Phoenicians would protect themselves, the living, from the invading enemy: those based their lives on the vagaries of the future; these built it on the solid rock of the present...."

But we have had enough of Khalid's gush about the Phoenicians, and we confess we can not further walk with him on this journey. So, we leave his Excellency the mudir snoring on the divan, groaning under the incubus of the Gold Mine Fake, bemoaning his losses in America; pa.s.s the zabtie in zouave uniform, who is likewise snoring on the door-step; and, hurrying down the stairway and out through the stivy arcade, we say farewell to Our Lady of the Gate, and get into one of the carriages which ply the sh.o.r.e between Junie and Jbail. We reach Junie about sundown, and Allah be praised! Even this toy of a train brings us, in thirty minutes, to Beirut.

[1] Khalid would speak here of poached eggs, we believe. And the Americans, to be fair, are not so totally ignorant of the art of frying. They have lard--much worse than water--in which they cook, or poach, or fry--but the change in the name does not change the taste. So, we let Khalid's stricture on fried eggs and boiled cabbage stand.--EDITOR.

CHAPTER V

UNION AND PROGRESS

Had not Khalid in his retirement touched his philosophic raptures with a little local colouring, had he not given an account of his tramping tour in the Lebanons, the hiatus in Shakib's _Histoire Intime_ could not have been bridged. It would have remained, much to our vexation and sorrow, somewhat like the ravine in which Khalid almost lost his life. But now we return, after a year's absence, to our Scribe, who at this time in Baalbek is soldering and hammering out rhymes in praise of Niazi and Enver, Abd'ul-Hamid and the Dastur (Const.i.tution).

"When Khalid, after his cousin's marriage, suddenly disappeared from Baalbek," writes he, "I felt that something had struck me violently on the brow, and everything around me was dark. I could not withhold my tears: I wept like a child, even like Khalid's mother. I remember he would often speak of suicide in those days. And on the evening of that fatal day we spent many hours discussing the question.

'Why is not one free to kill himself,' he finally asked, 'if one is free to become a Jesuit?' But I did not believe he was in earnest.

Alas, he was. For on the morning of the following day, I went up to his tent on the roof and found nothing of Khalid's belongings but a pamphlet on the subject, 'Is Suicide a Sin?' and right under the t.i.tle the monosyllable LA (no) and his signature. The frightfulness of his intention stood like a spectre before me. I clapped one hand upon the other and wept. I made inquiries in the city and in the neighbouring places, but to no purpose. Oh, that dreadful, dismal day, when everywhither I went something seemed to whisper in my heart, 'Khalid is no more.' It was the first time in my life that I felt the pangs of separation, the sting of death and sorrow. The days and months pa.s.sed, heartlessly confirming my conjecture, my belief.

"One evening, when the last glimmer of hope pa.s.sed away, I sat down and composed a threnody in his memory. And I sent it to one of the newspapers of Beirut, in the hope that Khalid, if he still lived, might chance to see it. It was published and quoted by other journals here and in Egypt, who, in their eulogies, spoke of Khalid as the young Baalbekian philosopher and poet. One of these newspapers, whose editor is a dear friend of mine, and of comely ancient virtue, did not mention, from a subtle sense of tender regard for my feelings, the fact that Khalid committed suicide. 'He died,' the Notice said, 'of a sudden and violent defluxion of rheums,[1] which baffled the physician and resisted his skill and physic.' Another journal, whose editor's religion is of the Jesuitical pattern, spoke of him as a miserable G.o.d-abandoned wretch who was not ent.i.tled to the right of Christian burial; and fulminated at its contemporaries for eulogising the youthful infidel and moaning his death, thus spreading and justifying his evil example.

"And so, the days pa.s.sed, and the months, and Khalid was still dead.

In the summer of this year, when the Const.i.tution was proclaimed, and the country was rioting in the saturnalia of Freedom and Equality, my sorrow was keener, deeper than ever. Not I alone, but the cities and the deserts of Syria and Arabia, missed my loving friend. How gloriously he would have filled the tribune of the day, I sadly mused.... O Khalid, I can never forgive this crime of thine against the sacred rites of Friends.h.i.+p. Such heartlessness, such inexorable cruelty, I have never before observed in thee. No matter how much thou hast profited by thy retirement to the mountains, no matter how much thy solitude hath given thee of health and power and wisdom, thy cruel remissness can not altogether be drowned in my rejoicing. To forget those who love thee above everything else in the world,--thy mother, thy cousin, thine affectionate brother--"

And our Scribe goes on, blubbering like a good Syrian his complaint and joy, gus.h.i.+ng now in verse, now in what is worse, in rhymed prose, until he reaches the point which is to us of import. Khalid, in the winter of the first year of the Dastur (Const.i.tution) writes to him many letters from Beirut, of which he gives us not less than fifty!

And of these, the following, if not the most piquant and interesting, are the most indispensable to our History.

Letter I (As numbered in the Original)

My loving Brother Shakib:

To whom, if not to you, before all, should I send the first word of peace, the first sign of the resurrection? To my mother? To my cousin Najma? Well, yes. But if I write to them, my letters will be brought to you to be read and answered. So I write now direct, hoping that you will convey to them these tidings of joy. 'Tis more than a year now since I slinked out of Baalbek, leaving you in the dark about me. Surely, I deserve the chastis.e.m.e.nt of your bitterest thoughts. But what could I do?

Such is the rigour of the sort of life I lived that any communication with the outside world, especially with friends and lovers, would have marred it. So, I had to be silent as the pines in which I put up, until I became as healthy as the swallows, my companions there. When we meet, I shall recount to you the many curious incidents of my solitude and my journey in the sacred hills of Lebanon. To these auspicious mountains, my Brother, I am indebted for the health and joy and wisdom that are now mine; and yours, too, if you consider.

Strange, is it not, that throughout my journey, and I have pa.s.sed in many villages, nothing heard I of this great political upheaval in the Empire. Probably the people of the Lebanons cherish not the Revolution. There is so much in common, I find, between them and the Celtic races, who always in such instances have been more royalists than the king. And I think Mt. Lebanon is going to be the Vendee of the Turks.

I have been in Beirut but a few days. And truly, I could not believe my eyes, when in the Place de la Concorde (I hope the Turks are not going to follow in the steps of the French Revolutionists in all things), I could not believe my eyes, when, in this muddy Square, on the holy Stump of Liberty, I beheld my old friend the Spouter dispensing to the turbaned and tarboushed crowd, among which were cameleers and muleteers with their camels and mules, of the blessing of that triple political abracadabra of the France of more than a century pa.s.sed.

Liberty, Fraternity, Equality!--it's a shame that the show has been running for six months now and I did not know it. I begin by applauding the Spouters of Concord Square, the donkey that I am. But how, with my cursed impulsiveness, can I always keep on the sidewalk of reason? I, who have suckled of the milk of freedom and broke the bottle, too, on my Nurse's head, I am not to blame, if from sheer joy, I cheer those who are crowning her on a dung-hill with wreaths of stable straw. It's better, billah, than breaking the bottle on her head, is it not? And so, let the Spouters spout. And let the sheikh and the priest and the rabbi embrace on that very Stump and make up. Live the Era of Concord and peace and love! Live the Dastur! Hurrah for the Union and Progress Heroes! Come down to Beirut and do some shouting with your fellow citizens.

Letter V

No; I do not approve of your idea of a.s.sociating with that young Mohammedan editor. You know what is said about the tiger and its spots. Besides, I had another offer from a Christian oldtimer; but you might as well ask me to become a Jesuit as to became a Journalist. I wrote last week a political article, in which I criticised Majesty's Address to the Parliament, and mauled those oleaginous, palavering, mealy-mouthed Representatives, who would not dare point out the lies in it. They hear the Chief Clerk read of "the efforts made by the Government during the past thirty years in the interest of education," and applaud; while at the Royal Banquet they jostle and hustle each other to kiss the edge of Majesty's frock-coat. The abject slaves!

The article was much quoted and commented upon; I was flouted by many, defended by a few, these asked: "Was the Government of Abd'ul-Hamid, committing all its crimes in the interest of education, were we being trained by the Censors.h.i.+p and the Bosphorus Terror for the Dastur?" "But the person of Majesty, the sacredness of the Khalifate," cried the others. And a certain one, in the course of his attack, denies the existence of Khalid, who died, said he, a year ago. And what matters it if a dead man can stir a whole city and blow into the nostrils of its walking spectres a breath of life?

I spoke last night in one of the music halls and gave the Mohammedans a piece of my mind. The poor Christians!--they feared the Government in the old regime; they cower before the boatmen in this. For the boatmen of Beirut have not lost their prestige and power. They are a sort of commune and are yet supreme. Yes, they are always riding the whirlwind and directing the storm. And who dares say a word against them? Every one of them, in his swagger and bl.u.s.ter, is an Abd'ul-Hamid. Alas, everything is yet in a chaotic state. The boatman's shriek can silence the Press and make the Spouters tremble.