The Express.
London, England, 1858-09-11 00:00:00

A RIDE FROM BEYROUT TO BAALBEC

AND DAYABCIIB.

No. IV.
A bleak and barren spot is the Mrid, the summit
of the pass from which one looks westward to the
sea, and eastward upon the B'kaa end the range of
Anti-Lebanon. As we halted here to let a long
train of mules go by, my companions told me dreary
stories of muleteers frosen to death in snow storms
at this wild locality, where even in April my horse's
feet crunched through the snow that lay unmelted in
large patches. After the mules came some solemn,
ungainly camels, laden with planks and furniture
and I wondered how they would manage to descend
by the road we had followed. I learned, however, that
they would go by an upper path, along the edge
of the precipice, over which the mules and muleteers
occasionally fall in the winter time when the weather
is thick, and the snow on the ground, and are dashed
to pieces at the foot. A half-hour's ride brought us to
a Khan lower down the mountain, and my carpet
was spread by the Bide of a little stream, the Khan
being occupied by a troop of truculent looking
Bashi-Bazouks, whose horses were tethered to span
near the spot we had selected for our halt. Takoob
lighted a fire and made coffee, and after our hour's
rest and meal we started again.
A turn of the road brought us to a commandisg
spot where we had a picturesque view of the rugged
and bleak ravines of the mountain, and of the
plain of the Blatt lying below us like a
vast bowling-green, dotted here and there sparsely
with villages, but without a tree visible upon it—all
oorn and grass. At the mouth of the ravine, and on
the border of the plain, was Rub Elias, and the
ruins of the old castle, intended for the protection of
the road and plain from the incursions of the Bedawi,
while in the distance Gebel el Sheik, Mount Hermon,
towered boldly up, covered with snow. From this
point a good road conducted us to Zahle, and in the
coarse of the descent I noticed abundant traces of
iron and manganese, with many specimens of
fossils. In fact, the whole road from Beyrout was
worth the attention of the geologist and mine.
ralogist, while the botanist would find abundant
occupation and amusement.
How beautiful the wild flowers of the Lebanon
are, and how curious some of their forms ! When
there is verdure the earth is literally a carpet of
flowers, and anything more magnificent than the
brilliant colours one looks down on can hardly be
conceived. All this, however, has been told by
learned pens in various languages, and so I intro.
duce you to Zahle, the capital of the eastern Lebanon,
where we arrived about half-past two, and which,
by the direct road, is about eight hours' ride
from Beyrout. The town is very picturesque,
as seen from a little distance, occupying
the two steep slopes of a mountain gorge, so
steep that you may walk from one street on to the
flat tops of the houses in that below. At the foot of
the ravine runs the rapid river Berdaoun, which
rushes through a cleft in the rocks at the head of tke
ravine, whose perpendicular sides are washed by the
torrent, so that there is no issue from the town in
that direction except by a long detour over the
mountain. Zahle contains about 12,000 inhabitants,
notoriously insubordinate, holding the authority of
the Governor of the Lebanon very cheap. They are
rather partial to getting up feuds among themselves,
and enjoying a little shooting and stabbing, there
being at the time of my visit a deadly quarrel be-
tween Zahle proper and its suburb Moellskah, on
the other side of the river. Maloof, the chief
of the Zahle faction, called upon me, but I
could not understand what it was all about except
that on both aides men had been killed and their
death was to be avenged. The bulk of the inha-
bitants are Greek Catholics, but there are also
Jesuit schools here, and religious intolerance is in
high feather, the Christianity being of the purest
Holy Land water.
I alighted at a species of hotel, when the first
individual I met was an unfortunate American mid.
sionary, who was a sort of prisoner there, not daring
to go about the town, and in hourly dread of forcible
expulsion from the
Zahle territory. The advent of a
" bible man " had exasperated the Christians
to the last degree, and Greek and Roman catholic
forgot their quarrels for a time to fall foul of this
terrible interloper. I went to pay a visit to the
superior of one of the Greek convents, and found the
place rather dirty and dilapidated. He invited me
to take up my quarters there, but I shuddered at
the idea of such beds as I saw, and was moreover
very well off at Marianna's, which had been fur-
nished in European fashion, possessing a table,
chairs, and the unusual luxury of a basin and jog.
On my road to the convent I observed
that most of the houses were built of very
large bricks, made from the chalky mud of the
hill sides mingled with straw. They are dried is
the sun and appear tolerably durable. The chief
trade of Zahle is in wool, but it is the depot for
the merchandise entering the Lebanon from the
B'kaa and Damascus, and the inhabitants are gene-
rally well to do—some very rich. It used to be
famous for its armourers' work, but I found nothing
remarkable in that way, and some silver orna-
ments which I saw in process of manufacture gave
me a rather low idea of the Hunt and Itoskell of the
place. The tools were of the rudest kind ; file.,
burnishers, and soldering irons more like those of a
gasfitter than of a jeweller, and the wonder was how
they did their work so well with them. Blacksmiths
abounded, and I boughVa pair of horseshoes, of the
kind used throughout Syria. They are simply a
plate of iron of the shape of the sole of the hoof,
with a hole towards the hinder part corresponding
with the frog, and are slightly convex on the upper
side. I have heard but one opinion as to their supe-
riority to the English shoe, and certainly they an-
swer admirably in the mountain, and are very light.
Having no projections except the heads of the nails,
they allow the horses, in descending the mountains,
to slide down the smooth sloping stones one often
meets with, an operation which makes a looker-en,
unused to the matter, rather nervous. At the manse
time they offer no impediment to the horse in climb-
ing these same stony ascents, not slipping more than
an English shoe would do, and the hoof seems
to have freer play and better support. Bat
if their shoes are good, the Arab raddled
and stirrups are awful. The former arc padded
and covered with cloth or velvet, and are
very hot and heavy; the latter are those cruel square
shovels, the corners of which I have often seen used
most mercilessly, and which literally cut the skin,
so that in an exciting jereed play. you will often find
the meidan, or course, marked with streaks of blood
from the horses' sides. There is no doubt that yea
can make a horse go with them, and that with an
Arab bit YOU can bring him on his haunches very
readily ' • but a good rider can do all with European
bits and spurs that an Arab can with his tools ; and
in fact I saw a Polish nobleman, well known in
English society,ride with a common bridle and saddle,
and without spurs, a stallion who was the dried
of the grooms of the Caimacen. The Arab horse is
very light and flexible, and the riders are food of
exhibiting those qualities ; but men who have seen
much Arab horsemen tell me that they do not con-
sider them equal, as riders, to Europeans, and that
while the latter could do all that an Arab can with
an Arab horse and equipments, an Eastern would
make but a poor figure in a hunting field with a
horse such as some of our countrymen peril their
necks on.

Tan AUSTRALIAN MAILS.—The Australian Mail
just brought home is the Tcvlot contained 91,0001etterv. litho
ietoria nail steamer had arrived out at Australia before the
Teviot's mails had been despatched, it is "specked that the
would have brought home ten or fifteen 'hared man
letters than she did, in answers to the Vistoris's rear
spondence.
A MORMON PREACHER TRAVELLING THE CMS..
TRY 1/4 • VIELOCIPIDI.—TbIa week a letter him bee
dressed to Superintendent Jargard from Mr. Jebben, Ike
deputy chief constable of Bedford, Mating that a OWL WWI
Thomas Alfred Jeffery, a Mormon, of We
Bedford, has been arrested and remanded till Atfeo
Tukwil
day), on the charge of having in Us pommel's a
Mr. Law)
answering In deo:Option to the Om swim hew
of Cambridge, on the 30th dt. Jaw, says ttatesirjg
chased the velccipede of Howes, set Asa left
and travelled with It Into Norfolk sod
preaching and collecting rabsteiptions rir=tim
alai
Mormons. Mr. Jebbatt has requited Mr. Howse
sl
saes at Bedford. to give evidence spire the
it will be seen from oar lest weeks police report did
velocipede taken from Mr. Howes hoe bean fouad•—Hiew
bridge Itedependene.