water and shade invited a rest during the noonday heat. These mountains are at times the resort of the Ansyreeh, though they are inhabited principally by Moslems. Travellers have encountered them before now, but it would be seldom that Franks would have anything to fear.

In the afternoon we passed near a village lying high up on the side of Mount Cassius, called Casab. It is inhabited by a large colony of Armenians, and the well-cultivated fields, which have been reclaimed on the hill-sides, testify to their habits of industry. As I wished to push on, I did not go up to the village, which lay a little out of the road, but spread my carpet under a walnut-tree for a little rest. As I was about to start again, a fat personage, who has been honoured by an appointment as English consular-agent, came to press me to spend the night in the village. As he could not prevail on me to do so, he contented himself with getting me to write my name in his book. This village is deserving of remark; for, out of the way as it is, it has been reached by that most important movement which has lately arisen in the Armenian church, through the instrumentality of the American missionaries,

and many of the inhabitants have seceded from their church, and that in the face of persecution. This was not the only place where I found traces of this movement.

After toiling up ascents and along roads, bad enough, though good compared with others which I afterwards encountered in more unfrequented parts of the mountains, and after looking out for that indispensable requisite of a night's encamping ground, water, we at length arrived after nightfall in sight of a village, near which we halted, sufficiently far off to be secure from watchmen and thieves. Here next morning we made a purchase, which will give an idea of the cheapness of this part of Syria, namely sixteen fresh eggs for little more than a penny. In the villages of the Lebanon, near Beyrout, only four are procurable for the same sum, and all the necessaries of life are cheaper in the north than in the south, though perhaps in a somewhat smaller proportion. In consequence, a mission among the Ansyreeh would be supported, ceteris paribus, at a much less cost than a mission among the Druses, for instance, especially since those employed in it would be removed from any large town, and would be able to exercise an

economy in dress and other matters, which would not be so easy or desirable in the neighbourhood of Damascus and Beyrout.

Next day the road was still a trying one, rendered more so by some rain which had fallen and made it muddy in many places; moreover, our beasts were becoming tired, and the consequence was, that we had not proceeded far, before the studies I was prosecuting on the top of my luggage were interrupted by the fall of my steed, which, as there was nothing to keep me on, necessarily led to my own overthrow also. However, I mounted again in good spirits, and for a short time everything went on well, till, in one of the muddiest parts of the whole road, my steed began to stick and flounder, and at last down he came, and this time I found myself on my back, with my leg entangled in the folds of rope which had been made to form a kind of stirrup. As I could not extricate myself, and not only myself but my book was becoming saturated with mud, I was naturally anxious for my companions to interpose as soon as possible in my behalf. This they did leisurely enough, and not before they had exclaimed, "There is no might nor power but in God the High, the Great," the

pronouncing of which, and of "Verily we are God's, and verily to God do we return,” are said to secure every true believer from confusion in the most trying circumstances. However that may be, it is not calculated to allay the irritation of the victim of the supineness of his muleteers, at the very moment when he is sprawling in the mud.

To day the road lay down gorges clothed to the bottom with trees of the richest foliage. We rested for a little to shoe one of our animals, at a small village, the inhabitants of which were clearly of Turcoman origin. It is singular, in passing through Syria, to encounter in a day's journey, and perhaps in passing from one village to another, races entirely distinct in origin, and kept so by religion or language.

We had now entered on the country where Turkish and Arabic contend for the mastery. Towards the afternoon we gained the brow of the hills looking down on the wide plain of Suadeiah. I was disappointed in the first view, for instead of flowing between lofty banks, I found the Orontes to be a muddy stream, running as far as could be seen through a perfectly flat plain, and forming a delta or

As this was a place

marsh, near the sea. where I intended to stop three or four days, I was anxious to find a good position for my tent, and at length pitched it on a hill commanding a view of the whole valley, and a pretty view it was at the time I was there. In the foreground were the houses of the peasantry, interspersed among the trees, with their high slanting roofs, reminding one of our English homesteads. In fact, the whole valley had a singularly English aspect. In the distance was the majestic form of Mount Cassius running sheer down into the sea from a height of 5000 feet, and forming one of the most magnificent headlands in the world.

As the peasantry here and as far as Antioch are principally Ansyreeh, I wished to remain a short time, with the view of considering how far the place might be a desirable one for the establishment of a school for the northern section of that people. There are some reasons which would give it a preference to Antioch, which will appear when I come to speak of that place, but there are others which would render the establishment of a school here less desirable than I had thought when at a disIn the first place provisions are dear,

tance.