To the casual visitor, Beirut seems therefore a very peaceable, matter-of-fact place. He does not experience the feeling of half-confessed uneasiness which marked his strolls through the native quarters of other Oriental cities. Yet the busy every-day life of the seaport moves upon the thin crust of a seething volcano of hate, which all too often breaks out into murderous rage. The Moslem inhabitants are, of course, backed by all the power of the government, legal and illegal; but they are much inferior in numbers and in wealth to the Christian population. Religious jealousy is therefore never far from the boiling-point. Any insult or violence offered by an adherent of the one faith to a believer in the other is the signal for a long series of reprisals and counter-reprisals, and there is always the possibility that these may culminate in general rioting and massacre. The morning I first landed in Beirut, the Christian watchman of the American Press was found almost literally cut in pieces. The assassin was absolutely identified by the print of his bare foot in a mass of soft mortar; but, being a Moslem, the authorities quickly released him and, without any evidence whatever, arrested a near relative of the dead man. The poor fellow had a perfect alibi, yet he was kept in prison until the family signified their willingness to have the police department refrain from any further investigation of the murder. This is a favorite method of procedure when a Moslem is guilty of a crime against a Christian. It used to be a rare week that we heard of no assassinations, and a rarer year that knew no general rioting. One winter there was a murder each night for six weeks, Christians and Moslems being killed alternately. So regular was the succession of reprisals that a friend whom I had invited to make an evening visit with me postponed the trip on the ground that “this is the night for a Christian to be killed.” Frequent rumors would reach us of impending invasions of the Christian Quarter by Moslem mobs, and more than once the portentous war-cry of _Din! Din Mohammed!_—“The Faith! The Faith of Mohammed!”—rang in the ears of the terrified Christians. The morning I ended my residence in Beirut it was a prominent Moslem who was assassinated at the door of his own home. A few days afterwards, murderous mobs swept through the city chanting, “Oh, how sweet; oh, how joyful to cut the Christians’ throats!” The empty cartridges picked up after the slaughter were of the make imported exclusively for the use of the Turkish soldiers at the government barracks.