Next morning, after returning the visit of the bishop at the patriarchal residence in front of the convent, we breakfasted in the corridor with the president and another of the convent clergy. Our ladies then set themselves to sketching the view from the window, and talking about church singing from notes, whereupon the president sent a deacon to fetch his book, and the latter sang for us an anthem, the vociferation and screechings of which was so alarming, not to mention the nasal twang, that my niece had to run away to indulge in an obstreperous laugh, and her senior companion had also much difficulty in refraining from the same kind of expression of opinion. The Oriental system of church musical notation is very complicated, having no stave-lines or bars, but only certain arbitrary marks over the notes to designate high or low, plain or flourishing. Afterwards we inspected the church; then the refectory, and there they showed us the desk at which one of the community reads to the rest at meal time, triumphantly assuring me that they read the Bible, yet the two books I found on the desk were, one the Apocryphal writings, the other some homilies of St Basil, under whose rule the convent is constituted. Next we walked over the roof, and looked at the great bell, and the gong; the view, as might be expected, repaid the trouble. After this the kitchen and the store-rooms. On leaving the convent we proceeded to the nunnery in the neighbourhood. The ladies visited the inmates, while I remained in an outer apartment chatting with a priest, till a curtain was drawn aside, and there, behold! were the lady-president and her flock, curious to see a consul, and blaming the servants for not having admitted me together with my companions. The latter gave me afterwards as their opinion of the establishment, that it very much resembled a comfortable asylum or almshouse for old women. By this deviation from the high roads we lost the fairy view in that neighbourhood which had charmed me so much in 1849. There is a pleasing novelty to us non-Lebanonites in being in a native Christian country. Every hill there has its convent, every convent its bells; clergy are continually passing along the road; and on our descent of the hill we met a nice old gentleman in clerical dress, with a very white beard, holding a crimson umbrella over his head, (this is not uncommon in Palestine,) and preceded by a kawwas with a silver-headed official staff, also accompanied by a few peasants carrying guns,--this was a Maronite bishop. Crossed the river Barook at _Bisrah_, and ascended the usual highway leading to Hhasbeya. At the village of _Ineer_ we took further directions, and followed over a very wild scene to nearly the summit of a mountain called _Rummet-er-Room_, (the Ramah, or high-place, of the Greeks,) from which the glorious landscape surpasses all power of description--it is one not to be forgotten.