their return, but dispersed over the plain, blending together, galloping
their steeds, throwing their lances, and occasionally firing a shot.
Fakredeen and his immediate friends rode up to the Caimacam of the
Druses, and they offered each other mutual congratulations on the sport
of the morning. They waited for the Caimacam of the Maronites, who,
however, did not long detain them; and, when he appeared, their suites
joined, and, cantering off at a brisk pace, they soon mounted in company
the winding steeps of Canobia.

The kitchen of Canobia was on a great scale, though simple as it was
vast. It was formed for the occasion. About fifty square pits, some four
feet in length, and about half as deep, had been dug on the table-land
in the vicinity of the castle. At each corner of each pit was a stake,
and the four supported a rustic gridiron of green wood, suspended over
each pit, which was filled with charcoal, and which yielded an equal
and continuous heat to the animal reposing on the gridiron: in some
instances a wild boar, in others a sheep--occasionally a couple of
gazelles. The sheep had been skinned, for there had been time for the
operation; but the game had only been split open, cleared out, and laid
on its back, with its feet tied to each of the stakes, so as to retain
its position. While this roasting was going on, they filled the stomachs
of the animals with lemons gashed with their daggers, and bruised
pomegranates, whose fragrant juice, uniting with the bubbling fat,
produced an aromatic and rosy gravy. The huntsmen were the cooks, but
the greatest order was preserved; and though the Emirs and the great
Sheikhs, heads of houses, retiring again to their divans, occupied
themselves with their nargilehs, many a mookatadgi mixed with the
servants and the slaves, and delighted in preparing this patriarchal
banquet, which indeed befitted a castle and a forest. Within the walls
they prepared rice, which they piled on brazen and pewter dishes,
boiled gallons of coffee, and stewed the liver of the wild boars and the
gazelles in the golden wine of Lebanon.

The way they dined was this. Fakredeen had his carpet spread on the
marble floor of his principal saloon, and the two Caimacams, Tancred
and Bishop Nicodemus, Said Djinblat, the heads of the Houses of Djezbek,
Talhook, and Abdel-Malek, Hamood Abune-ked, and five Maronite chieftains
of equal consideration, the Emirs of the House of Shehaab, the Habeish,
and the El