ing friend. How
gloriously he would have filled the tribune of the day, I sadly
mused.... O Khalid, I can never forgive this crime of thine against
the sacred rites of Friendship. Such heartlessness, such inexorable
cruelty, I have never before observed in thee. No matter how much thou
hast profited by thy retirement to the mountains, no matter how much
thy solitude hath given thee of health and power and wisdom, thy cruel
remissness can not altogether be drowned in my rejoicing. To forget
those who love thee above everything else in the world,--thy mother,
thy cousin, thine affectionate brother--"

And our Scribe goes on, blubbering like a good Syrian his complaint
and joy, gushing now in verse, now in what is worse, in rhymed prose,
until he reaches the point which is to us of import. Khalid, in the
winter of the first year of the Dastur (Constitution) writes to him
many letters from Beirut, of which he gives us not less than fifty!
And of these, the following, if not the most piquant and interesting,
are the most indispensable to our History.

Letter I (As numbered in the Original)

My loving Brother Shakib:

To whom, if not to you, before all, should I send the first word
of peace, the first sign of the resurrection? To my mother? To
my cousin Najma? Well, yes. But if I write to them, my letters
will be brought to you to be read and answered. So I write now
direct, hoping that you will convey to them these tidings of
joy. 'Tis more than a year now since I slinked out of Baalbek,
leaving you in the dark about me. Surely, I deserve the
chastisement of your bitterest thoughts. But what could I do?
Such is the rigour of the sort of life I lived that any
communication with the outside world, especially with friends
and lovers, would have marred it. So, I had to be silent as the
pines in which I put up, until I became as healthy as the
swallows, my companions there. When we meet, I shall recount to
you the many curious incidents of my solitude and my journey in
the sacred hills of Lebanon. To these auspicious mountains, my
Brother, I am indebted for the health and joy and wisdom that
are now mine; and yours, too, if you consider.

Strange, is it not, that throughout my journey, and I have
passed in many villages, nothing heard I of this great political
upheaval in the Empire. Probably the people of the Lebanons
cherish not the Revolution. There is so much in common, I fin