The narrow streets of Beyrout are soon quitted, and we at once begin the ascent of Lebanon. The first thing that attracts our attention is a wide world of mulberry trees—it looks about seventeen thousand acres on either side of the road. The trees appear to be about eighteen feet high. Half naked boys and girls, men and women have climbed up the trees and are plucking off the leaves here and there. I don’t know what to make of it. The first thought that suggests itself is that “fig-leaf dresses” have come in fashion again. But Tolhammy my dragoman, says: “This is a great country for silk culture, and mulberry trees are cultivated, and the leaves gathered for the silk worms.” In Damascus he says we shall see plenty of silk manufactured by hand.
We meet a great many Arabs going into the city that we have just left. Several miles back I stopped one of these sons of the desert for a conversation. I think we talked about an hour and thirteen minutes, more or less, and would, no doubt, have talked longer, but neither one of us understood a word the other said. Occasionally there was a lag in the conversation. While I was gathering this valuable information from the stranger, the other part of the caravan slacked never a pace. And now, looking aloft, I see high on the mountain-side a white city—a city of tents. This reminds me of Balaam who was traveling in this same country not far from here, and, seeing a sight just like this, he exclaimed: “How goodly are thy tabernacles, O Jacob and thy tents, O Israel!”
The road, gleaming in the sunshine, looks at one time like a clothes-line hanging on the mountain-side; again it resembles a winding serpent crawling zigzag up the mountain as though it wants to swallow the tents. Climbing the hill, we pass a number of dilapidated villages on the right and left of the road. Just as the sun goes down to cool his hot face in the Mediterranean, we reach the tents pitched on Mt. Lebanon! At last the city is before us. Dismounting, and going into our new apartments, we can hardly believe we are in tents. The walls and ceiling look like white marble newly painted and beautifully frescoed. The rock floor is spread with rich Persian carpets and mats. Here are rocking-chairs, tables, bedsteads, washstands—every thing! “What style!” I say to the party.