These mountaineers have a peculiar way of baking bread. They dig a hole in the ground, about the size of a large bottle--put a thick coat of plaster around the side and on the bottom, and then let it dry. It is very much in the shape of a large pot, a little bulging in the middle. A fire is made in the bottom of it, of small branches, and kept up until the sides are well heated; the flames are then suffered to go down, leaving the mass of coals in the bottom. They have the dough ready, and take a piece of it, about as large as a biscuit, and laying it on a board, press it out as large as a common-sized plate, and nearly as thin as the blade of a thick knife. They place it on a round pillow or cushion, (it is so thin it cannot be handled otherwise,) and strike it against the inside of this potlike place. It sticks, and in about one minute is baked. It is then taken off, and another put on. There are, usually, several women engaged at it at the same time, and they put them on with great quickness. You may see three or four of these wafer-like cakes sticking round the tan-moor, as it is called, at the same time, and changed for others every minute. They soon bake bread for a meal.
I have just returned from a tour to Damascus, Baalbec, and the far-famed Cedars of Lebanon, and will attempt a brief account of these places, and my adventures by the way.
I had the company of Mr. B----, Angelo to cook for us, and a muleteer, who took care of our mules, and who ought to have been our guide, but who, on trial, was found not to know the way himself--a state of things not uncommon in this country--and did it not extend to higher matters than to find the road from one place to another, it would not be so bad; but from all I see and hear, it is most dolefully the case in the great matter of finding the way to everlasting life. Guides there are many in religion, but few, if any, understand the way of salvation through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is, indeed, astonishing how far the great mass of those who in these regions call themselves Christians, have sunk in darkness and ignorance respecting the most plain and leading principles of the word of God. The priests are "blind leaders of the blind."