One matter connected incidentally with the emigration has been the call for assistance in handling money for those abroad. In the earlier years there were no adequate banking facilities outside of Beirut and so the people began to send back money to their families through the hands of friends who were merchants living in the various seaport towns. In several cases unscrupulous men took advantage of the general ignorance in money matters to secure abnormal profits to themselves, and in more than one instance, through fraudulent bankruptcy, cheated the people out of hundreds of pounds. Those who were in any way connected with the American missionaries began sending their money to us, and at last we were obliged to conduct quite an extensive banking business. In some years drafts for several thousand pounds would come to me in sums ranging from two or three pounds to several hundred at a time. These were to be paid out to various relatives or to be held on deposit until the owners' return. On one occasion I opened a registered letter from Brazil and found in it a draft on London for ten pounds. On reading the letter I found it to be written by a man I did not know, in behalf of another stranger, and that the money was to be paid to an entire stranger in a village I had never seen. It was enough for the sender to know that his money was in the hands of an American missionary. On one occasion a returned emigrant came to my associate with a kerchief full of silver and gold coins. He asked the privilege of depositing this with the mission until he needed it. As it was evidently a considerable sum, he was advised to put it in the bank so as to secure some interest, but he preferred to feel sure that his money was safe, even though it earned nothing. Neither did he see any necessity of waiting until the money should be counted and a regular entry made of it in the books. It was enough that the missionary had charge of it. This open account remained with us a number of years and sometimes amounted to two thousand dollars. A man sent me from Venezuela a draft for a hundred pounds, charging me to let no one know of it, but to hold the money until he should come. After a long interval I learned that his wife was thinking of going to join him, since no word had been received. I succeeded in dissuading her, as I knew he was planning to come home and they might miss each other in mid-ocean. The return was delayed, and before he arrived his funds in my hands amounted to six or seven hundred pounds. The volume of emigration is growing every year and is taking away the strength of the land, but better banking facilities have relieved us of the financial cares formerly carried. The director of the Ottoman Bank in Tripoli estimates the annual amount of money passing through this one port in drafts from Syrians abroad as not less than seven hundred thousand pounds sterling. CHAPTER X SYRIAN ENTERPRISES