THE station at Stoura is a big stable and a dirty little inn, which has the kitchen in one shanty, the dining-room in another, and the beds in a third; a swift mountain stream runs behind it, and a grove of poplars on the banks moans and rustles in the wind that draws down the Lebanon gorge. It was after dark when we arrived, but whether our coming put the establishment into a fluster, I doubt; it seems to be in a chronic state of excitement. The inn was kept by Italians, who have a genius for this sort of hotel; the landlord was Andrea, but I suspect the real authority resided in his plump, bright, vivacious wife. They had an heir, however, a boy of eight, who proved to be the tyrant of the house when he appeared upon the scene. The servants were a tall slender Syrian girl, an active and irresponsible boy, and a dark-eyed little maid, in the limp and dirty single garment which orphans always wear on the stage, and who in fact was an orphan, and appeared to take the full benefit of her neglected and jolly life. The whole establishment was on a lark, and in a perpetual giggle, and communicated its overflowing good-humor even to tired travellers. The well-favored little wife, who exhibited the extremes of fortune in a diamond ring and a torn and draggled calico gown, sputtered alternately French and Italian like a magpie, laughed with a contagious merriment, and actually made the cheerless accommodations she offered us appear desirable. The whole family waited on us, or rather kept us waiting on them, at table, bringing us a dish now and then as if its production were a joke, talking all the while among themselves in Arabic, and apparently about us, and laughing at their own observations, until we, even, came to conceive ourselves as a party in a most comical light; and so amusing did we grow that the slim girl and the sorry orphan were forced to rush into a corner every few minutes and laugh it out.

I spent a pleasant hour in the kitchen,—an isolated, smoke-dried room with an earth floor,—endeavoring to warm my feet at the little fires of charcoal kindled in holes on top of a bank of earth and stone, and watching the pranks of this merry and industrious family. The little heir amused himself by pounding the orphan, kicking the shins of the boy, and dashing water in the face of the slim girl,—treatment which the servants dared not resent, since the father laughed over it as an exhibition of bravery and vivacity. Fragrant steam came from a pot, in which quail were stewing for the passengers by the night mail, and each person who appeared in the kitchen, in turn, gave this pot a stir; the lively boy pounded coffee in a big mortar, put charcoal on the fire, had a tussle with the heir, threw a handspring, doing nothing a minute at a time; the orphan slid in with a bucket of water, slopping it in all directions; the heir set up a howl and kicked his father because he was not allowed to kick the orphan any more; the little wife came in like a breeze, whisking everybody one side, and sympathized with dear little Hobby, whose cruel and ugly papa was holding the love from barking his father's shins. You do not often see a family that enjoys itself so much as this.

It was late next morning when we tore ourselves from this enchanting household, and went at a good pace over the fertile plain, straight towards Anti-Lebanon, having a glimpse of the snow of Mount Hermon,—a long ridge peering over the hills to the? southeast, and crossing in turn the Litany and the deep Anjar, which bursts forth from a single fountain about a mile to the north. On our left we saw some remains of what was once a capital city, Chalcis, of unknown origin, but an old city before it was possessed by the Ptolemies, or by Mark Antony, and once the luxurious residence of the Herod family. At Medjel, a village scattered at the foot of small tells rising in the plain, we turned into the hills, leaving unvisited a conspicuous Roman temple on a peak above the town. The road winds gradually up a wady. As we left the plain, and looked back across it to Lebanon, the colors of Buk?'a and the mountain gave us a new surprise; they were brilliant and yet soft, as gay and splendid as the rocks of the Yellowstone, and yet exquisitely blended as in a Persian rug.

The hill-country was almost uninhabited; except the stations and an occasional Bedaween camp there was small sign of occupation; the ground was uncultivated; peasants in rags were grubbing up the roots of cedars for fuel. We met Druses with trains of mules, Moslems with camels and mules, and long processions of white-topped wagons,—like the Western "prairie schooner"—drawn each by three mules tandem. Thirty and forty of these freight vehicles travel in company, and we were continually meeting or passing them; their number is an indication of the large trade that Damascus has with Beyrout and the Mediterranean. There is plenty of color in the people and in their costume. We were told that we could distinguish the Druses by their furtive and bad countenances; but for this information I should not have seen that they differed much from the Maronites; but I endeavored to see the treacherous villain in them. I have noticed in Syria that the Catholic travellers have a good opinion of the Maronites and hate the Druses, that the American residents think little of the Maronites, and that the English have a lenient side for the Druses. The Moslems consistently despise all of them. The Druse has been a puzzle. There are the same horrible stories current about him that were believed of the early Christians; the Moslem believes that infants are slain and eaten in his midnight assemblies, and that once a year the Druse community meets in a cavern at midni............