e means been
conveyed to the village, and a company of about two hundred persons was
then marching out to the rescue. The noise they made was probably to give
the Druses intimation of their coming, and thus avoid a fight. I do not
believe that any of the mountaineers of Lebanon would willingly take part
against the Druses, who, in fact, are not fighting so much against the
institution of the conscription law, as its abuse. The law ordains that
the conscript shall serve for five years; but since its establishment, as
I have been informed, there has not been a single instance of discharge.
It amounts, therefore, to lifelong servitude, and there is little wonder
that these independent sons of the mountains, as well as the tribes
inhabiting the Syrian Desert, should rebel rather than submit.

The next day, we crossed a pass in the Anti-Lebanon beyond Zebdeni,
descended a beautiful valley on the western side, under a ridge which was
still dotted with patches of snow, and after travelling for some hours
over a wide, barren height, the last of the range, saw below us the plain
of Baalbec. The grand ridge of Lebanon opposite, crowned with glittering
fields of snow, shone out clearly through the pure air, and the hoary head
of Hermon, far in the south, lost something of its grandeur by the
comparison. Though there is a "divide," or watershed, between Husbeiya, at
the foot of Mount Hermon, and Baalbec, whose springs join the Orontes,
which flows northward to Antioch, the great natural separation of the two
chains continues unbroken to the Gulf of Akaba, in the Red Sea. A little
beyond Baalbec, the Anti-Lebanon terminates, sinking into the Syrian
plain, while the Lebanon, though its name and general features are lost,
about twenty miles further to the north is succeeded by other ranges,
which, though broken at intervals, form a regular series, connecting with
the Taurus, in Asia Minor.

On leaving Damascus, the Demon of Hasheesh still maintained a partial
control over me. I was weak in body and at times confused in my
perceptions, wandering away from the scenes about me to some unknown
sphere beyond the moon. But the healing balm of my sleep at Zebdeni, and
the purity of the morning air among the mountains, completed my cure. As I
rode along the valley, with the towering, snow-sprinkled ridge of the
Anti-Lebanon on my right, a cloudless heaven above my head, and meads
enamelled with the asphodel and scarlet anemone stretching befo