First came three companies of Turkish soldiers and sixty gorgeously dressed consular guards; then children from the church schools, black-robed Jesuits, humble mourners from the patriarch’s native town of Zahleh, men bearing wreaths and banners sent from sister churches; then more children singing a plaintive Arabic hymn. There were present two patriarchs of other communions, more than a dozen bishops and three hundred and fifty priests, and the solemn dignity of the procession, so different from the loud, hysterical wailing at most Syrian funerals, seemed to impress even the Moslem spectators on the housetops along the line of march. Last of all came Butrus himself, not lying within a black-draped hearse but, as if in triumphal procession, seated in a gilded chariot hung with bright banners and wreaths of flowers. The patriarch sat upright in his gorgeous robes, his staff grasped firmly in one rigid hand and a crucifix in the other. I stood within ten feet of the chariot as it passed by, and there was nothing in the least harrowing in the sight; on the contrary, it was wonderfully dignified and impressive. I could hardly realize that the patriarch was dead; he sat there so naturally with his long gray beard resting upon his golden vestments, and his large, calm features seemed still to be animated by the vital power of his dauntless spirit. Afterwards there were long addresses lauding the character and good deeds of the dead man; the bishops who had shortened his life said masses for the repose of his soul; and then, still clothed in his robes of state, they placed him on a throne in a vault under the pavement of the cathedral choir. There he sits in solemn, lonely grandeur, like some Eastern Barbarossa waiting for the time when the spirit of the Christ shall be re-born in the church which he so loved, for which in his own earnest way he so unceasingly labored, and for which at last he died. CHAPTER XII THE CEDARS OF THE LORD We had watered our horses, eaten the last olive and the last scrap of dusty bread that remained in the bottom of our saddle-bags, and were shivering and impatient and irritable; for a sea of beautiful but chilling clouds was rolling around us, and as yet there was no sound of the far-off tinkle that would herald the approach of the belated mule-train which bore our tents and food.