towards Mecca, I went down to him, and we conversed for a long time on religious matters.  He is tolerably well informed, having read the Books of Moses and the Psalms of David, but, like all Mahommedans, his ideas of religion consist mainly of forms, and its reward is a sensual paradise.  The more intelligent of the Moslems give a spiritual interpretation to the nature of the Heaven promised by the Prophet, and I have heard several openly confess their disbelief in the seventy houries and the palaces of pearl and emerald.  Shekh Mahommed Senoosee scarcely ever utters a sentence in which is not the word “Allah,” and “La illah il’ Allah” is repeated at least every five minutes.  Those of his class consider that there is a peculiar merit in the repetition of the names and attributes of God.  They utterly reject the doctrine of the Trinity, which they believe implies a sort of partnership, or God-firm (to use their own words), and declare that all who accept it are hopelessly damned.  To deny Mahomet’s prophetship would excite a violent antagonism, and I content myself with making them acknowledge that God is greater than all Prophets or Apostles, and that there is but one God for all the human race.  I have never yet encountered that bitter spirit of bigotry which is so frequently ascribed to them; but on the contrary, fully as great a tolerance as they would find exhibited towards them by most of the Christian sects.

This morning a paper was sent to us, on which we were requested to write our names, ages, professions, and places of nativity.  We conjectured that we were subjected to the suspicion of political as well as physical taint, but happily this was not the case.  I registered myself as a voyageur, the French as negocians and when it came to the woman’s turn, Absalom, who is a partisan of female progress, wished to give her the same profession as her husband—­a machinist.  But she declared that her only profession was that of a “married woman,” and she was so inscribed.  Her peevish boy rejoiced in the title of “pleuricheur,” or “weeper,” and the infant as “titeuse,” or “sucker.”  While this was going on, the guardiano of our room came in very mysteriously, and beckoned to my companion, saying that “Mademoiselle was at the gate.”  But it was the Italian who was wanted, and again, from the little window of our pavilion, we watched his hurried progress over the lawn.  No sooner had she departed, than he took his pocket telescope, slowly sweeping the circuit of the bay as she drew nearer and nearer Beyrout.  He has succeeded in distinguishing, among the mass of buildings, the top of the house in which she lives, but alas! it is one story too low, and his patient espial has only been rewarded by the sight of some cats promenading on the roof.