After the meal the Bek withdrew to the corner of his divan for transaction of business with his people, as the Moslems do at that season. His part of the affairs consisted in endorsing a word or two upon the petitions or addresses that were produced by the secretaries--these were written on small rolls of paper like tiny cigarettes, pinched at one end. How very un-European to carry on business in so few words, either written or spoken! Said Bek was a man of few words in such transactions, but what he did say seemed always to hit exactly the point intended; and the wave of his finger was sufficient to summon a number of men to receive his commands. He was evidently a person of a different stamp from the coarse leaders of Lebanon factions, the Abu Neked, the Shibli el 'Arian, and such like; he is proud of his family antiquity, refined in dress and manners, and has always, like the rest of the Druses, courted the favour of the English nation. On the entrance of his son, named Nejib, probably four or five years old, all the Akal councillors and military officers rose to receive him. In the morning we took our departure, when Said Bek accompanied us as far as the Meidan, and a profusion of Druse compliments filled up the leave-taking. We now passed for some hours along the river side, through the utmost loveliness of Lebanon scenery. Among other trees that lined its banks, or adorned the precipitous cliffs, or followed the rising and falling road, were noble specimens of platanus (plane) and lofty zanzalacht, (the peepul of India;) crystal rills tumbled down the rocks, as if sparkling alive with enjoyment; then the usual poplar, walnut, evergreen oak, and a large plantation of olive: the river sometimes smiled with the fringe of oleander. We halted for a time under a wide-branching platanus at the end of a bridge, between the masonry of which grew bunches of the caper plant, then in blossom of white and lilac, and at the piers of which grew straggling blackberry brambles and wild fig-trees in picturesque irregularity, while the water bubbled and gurgled over a pebbly bed or fragments of rock. Peasantry passed us with ass-loads of wood for fuel, (camels being unknown in that region.) The same features continually repeated themselves as we advanced; large broken cliffs were overhanging us, and birds singing in the solitude; it need not be added that the sun was cloudless the whole day long. Forward we went to the Convent of the Dair el Mokhallis, which we reached in four hours and a half from Mokhtarah, where we rested a few hours; then visited once more the house of Lady Hester Stanhope.