At two o’clock on Saturday every thing is pronounced ready, and from that good hour we are to be known as the “Equestrian Pilgrims.” What a formidable turnout is ours! A veritable caravan! To accommodate and serve _five pilgrims_ we have seven tents—I have to sleep in two tents—fifteen body-guards, or muleteers, and thirty head of camels, mules and donkeys! Nor is this all. Chairs and tables, tents and trunks, beds and blankets, and a hundred other things, are tied together and strapped on the backs of the animals. Thus laden, each little donkey, as he goes jogging along, looks like a veritable Jumbo; and the camels, with these great packs on their backs, look almost like walking mountains! These are all strung out one after another—one after another, the front end of the rear camel being tied to the hind end of the one before him, and that one to the next, and so on. I have been reading about caravans all my life and now I have one of my own. I am told to choose any one of the animals I want to ride, whereupon I select a small donkey, mouse-colored, except for the numerous stripes that wind around him—these give him something of a zebra-like appearance. I want to show the natives how supple I am, and, going up to the donkey and putting my arms on his back, I try to leap up. But, unfortunately, I leap over, and come down on the other end of my neck. Amid the loud acclamations of the natives, the stately procession moves off. The stars and stripes flutter in the breezes, while the music of the national hymn is borne away over the sea on the wings of the wind. 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.