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g now to do but to check off the freight as it comes alongside before it's lowered in the hold, and look out at the unchanging picture around us, which is so familiar that I believe I could paint it with my eyes shut if I were an artist. Talk of the beauty of Beyrout, indeed! To my taste, it's the most monotonous hole I was ever in in my life, and I hate it!" And yet, in spite of Charley Onslow's peevish criticism, the scene around him and his companion was charming enough. The _Muscadine_ was anchored out in the roads, close to the jutting promontory on which the lazaretto buildings were lately erected, that stretched out like an arm into the harbour; and the view from her deck presented a beautiful panorama of the semi-European, semi-Oriental town, nestling on the very edge of the blue waters of the Mediterranean, and surrounded by gently-undulating hills, that were terraced with symmetrical rows of trim olive-trees and vineyards, rising tier upon tier, the one above the other; amidst which, occasionally peeped out slily the white cupola of some suburban villa belonging to one of the wealthy merchants of the port, or the minaret of a Moslem mosque, standing out conspicuously against the shrubbery of foliage formed of different tints of green, from the palest emerald shade to the deepest indigo, that culminated finally in the cedar-crowned heights of the mountains of Lebanon in the purple distance. It was not a quiet scene either, as might have been imagined from the idle ennui of both the young sailors, whom it seemed to have well-nigh bored to death. On the contrary, to an unprejudiced looker-on it was quite the reverse of being inactive. In the foreground the harbour was lively enough, with boats and caravels, and other Turkish craft of all sizes and shapes, darting here and there like great white-winged dragon-flies, as they were wafted swiftly one moment by some passing whiff of air, or lying still on the surface of the sea as the wind fell and they were temporarily becalmed, until another gust came from the hills to rouse them out of their noontide sluggishness. Amongst them, too, were ships' boats belonging to the different vessels, anchored, like the _Muscadine_, out in the roads, being pulled to and from the shore, anon laden with merchandise, anon returning for more; while, of course, the dingy black smoke and steady paddle-beat of the inevitable steamer, that marks the progress of Western civili
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