On the following day I was honoured by Hallet Pacha, Governor-General of Syria, with an invitation to accompany the Consul to breakfast. About ten a.m. we were driven through the bazaar, and arrived at the Pacha’s house, on a terrace above the green meadow, west of the town. A tent was spread in the garden, and the Governor, a man of immense corpulence, sat on a velvet sofa within. His staff sat round, wearing red fezzes and black frock-coats. The Pacha belonged to the Old Turkish party, and cordially hated all “pagans.” The breakfast was studiously Oriental in character, no French dishes being allowed, and no wine offered. A great brass tray, on a plain wooden stand, formed a table for eight people. Among the guests were Mohammed S’aid Pacha--the fierce Kurd who broke in the mountaineers of Nâblus for the Turks--Holo Pacha, and other dignitaries. The first course consisted of tomato soup and macaroni, with lemons; rissoles of rice, and mutton cutlets in bread-crumbs followed, with little dishes of caviar, and bowls of leben, or sour milk, with cucumbers; next came a kind of sweet muffins; then six dishes of various vegetables stuffed with rice, and a broiled chicken; last of all, a huge pilau, and dessert of figs and melons. Though hungry at first, I was quite unable to eat a quarter of the amount consumed by the Pacha, and ceased to wonder at the almost universal obesity of the Turkish dignitaries. The guests all ate from their hands; and the conversation was such as would not be countenanced in an ordinary barrack-room, though apparently much enjoyed by the Pacha and his staff. To suppose this picture to be universally characteristic of Turkish high life would no doubt be an error; able and honest men are not altogether wanting among the Government officials of high standing, and Midhat Pacha, the immediate predecessor of my host, has since become famous as a patriot and statesman; but it is the misfortune of Turkey, that the majority of the governing class are men ignorant and fanatical, sensual and inert, notoriously corrupt and tyrannical, who have succeeded only in ruining and impoverishing the countries they were sent to govern. On the 19th of August, the whole party proceeded, from Bludân, on a visit to Baalbek, where I was ordered to report on the condition of the ruins.