us into another road, the first, he said, being impracticable.  Up and up we toiled, and the long hollows of snow lay below us, and the wind came cold from the topmost peaks, which began to show near at hand.  But now the road, as we had surmised, turned towards that we had first taken, and on reaching the next height we saw the latter at a short distance from us.  It was not only a better, but a shorter road, the rascal of a guide having led us out of it in order to give the greater effect to his services.  In order to return to it, as was necessary, there were several dangerous snow-fields to be passed.  The angle of their descent was so great that a single false step would have hurled our animals, baggage and all, many hundred feet below.  The snow was melting, and the crust frozen over the streams below was so thin in places that the animals broke through and sank to their bellies.

It were needless to state the number and character of the anathemas bestowed upon the guide.  The impassive Dervish raved; Mustapha stormed; Francois broke out in a frightful eruption of Greek and Turkish oaths, and the two travellers, though not (as I hope and believe) profanely inclined, could not avoid using a few terse Saxon expressions.  When the general indignation had found vent, the men went to work, and by taking each animal separately, succeeded, at imminent hazard, in getting them all over the snow.  We then dismissed the guide, who, far from being abashed by the discovery of his trickery, had the impudence to follow us for some time, claiming his pay.  A few more steep pulls, over deep beds of snow and patches of barren stone, and at length the summit ridge—­a sharp, white wall, shining against the intense black-blue of the zenith—­stood before us.  We climbed a toilsome zig-zag through the snow, hurried over the stones cumbering the top, and all at once the mountains fell away, ridge below ridge, gashed with tremendous chasms, whose bottoms were lost in blue vapor, till the last heights, crowned with white Maronite convents, hung above the sea, whose misty round bounded the vision.  I have seen many grander mountain views, but few so sublimely rugged and broken in their features.  The sides of the ridges dropped off in all directions into sheer precipices, and the few villages we could see were built like eagles’ nests on the brinks.  In a little hollow at our feet was the sacred Forest of Cedars, appearing like a patch of stunted junipers.  It is the highest speck of vegetation on Lebanon, and in winter cannot be visited, on account of the snow.  The summit on which we stood was about nine thousand feet above the sea, but there were peaks on each side at least a thousand feet higher.