he various classes of
Arabs, Druses, and Maronites of the country.

After having become perfectly familiar with the language, manners, and
usages, of the country, she organized a large caravan, and, loading
her camels with rich presents for the Arabs, set out on her travels.
She visited every place worthy of notice in Syria. At Palmyra numerous
hordes of wandering Arabs assembled round her tent, to the number of
forty or fifty thousand, and, charmed by her beauty, her grace, and
her splendor, proclaimed her queen of that once imperial city, and
delivered firmans into her hand, by which it was agreed that every
European who should receive her protection might proceed in perfect
safety through the desert, paying to them a certain fixed tribute.

The newly-proclaimed queen herself ran great hazard, on her return
from Palmyra, and narrowly escaped being carried off by a tribe
hostile to those of that region. She, however, received notice of her
danger in season--by the swiftness of her horses, and a twenty-four
hours' journey of almost incredible extent--to place herself and her
caravan out of the reach of the enemy. The next few months she passed
at Damascus, protected by the Turkish pacha, to whom the Porte had
highly recommended her.

Satisfied, at length, with a life of wandering, Lady Hester settled
herself on one of the mountains of Lebanon, near the ancient Sidon.
Quitting this place, the traveller enters upon a wild and barren
country. Hill succeeds to hill, and all are divested of vegetation or
soil. At last, from the top of one of these rocks, his eye rests upon
a valley deeper and broader than the rest, bordered on all sides by
more majestic but equally barren mountains. In the midst of this
valley the mountain of Djoun rises, with a flat summit covered with a
beautiful green vegetation. A white wall surrounds this mass of
verdure, and marks the habitation of the "Sittee Inglis," or "English
lady." It is a confused assemblage of small cottages, each containing
one or two rooms, without windows, and separated from one another by
small gardens. All the verdure was the result of her own labor; she
created what to Eastern eyes might seem a paradise--gardens containing
bowers of fragrant vines, kiosks embellished with sculpture and
paintings, with fountains of marble; and arches formed of orange, fig,
and lemon-trees.

Here she resided for many years in a style of Eastern magnificence,
surrounded by a concourse o