The house in which I lived stood in a garden of mulberry-trees, but all the houses in the neighbourhood were built in the same style, each having a tower attached, in which there is a habitable room; all these dwellings stand in gardens planted with mulberry-trees, some of them not separated from each other at all, and the rest merely by little sand-hills.  Flowers and vegetables are nowhere to be seen, nor is the suburb divided into regular streets; so that I wandered in an endless labyrinth of trees and houses.  I met none but Arabs, whose language I did not understand, and who could, therefore, give me no information.  So I rushed to and fro, until at length, after a long and fatiguing pilgrimage, I was lucky enough to stumble on the house I wanted.  Unwilling to expose myself to such a disagreeable adventure a second time, I thought it would be preferable to dwell within the town; and therefore hired the young guide before mentioned to conduct me to the house of the Austrian Consul-General Herr von A. Unfortunately this gentleman was not visible to such an insignificant personage as myself, and sent me word that I might come again in a few hours.  This was a true “Job’s message” for me, as far as consolation went.  The heat was most oppressive; I had now entered the town for the second time, to be sent once more back to the glowing sands, with permission to “come again in a few hours.”  Had I not been uncommonly hardy, I should have succumbed.  But luckily I knew a method to help myself.  I ordered my little guide to lead me to the house in which the wife of Battista the innkeeper had lived.

During my previous residence at Beyrout I had accidentally heard that a French lady lodged in the same house, and occupied herself with the education of the children.  I went to call on this French lady, and was lucky enough to find her; so I had, at any rate, so far succeeded that I had found a being with whom I could converse, and of whom I might request advice and assistance.  My new acquaintance was an extremely cordial maiden lady about forty years of age.  Her name was Pauline Kandis.  My unfortunate position awakened her compassion so much, that she placed her own room at my disposal for the time being.  I certainly saw that my present quarters left much to be desired, for my kind entertainer’s lodging consisted of a single room, divided into two parts by several tall chests; the foremost division contained a large table, at which four girls sat and stood at their lessons.  The second division formed a kind of lumber-room, redolent of boxes, baskets, and pots, and furnished with a board, laid on an old tub, to answer the purposes of a table.  My condition was, however, so forlorn, that I took joyful possession of the lumber-room assigned to me.  I immediately departed with my boy-guide, and by noon I was already installed, with bag and baggage, in the dwelling of my kind hostess.  But there was no more walking for me that day.  What with the journey and my morning’s peregrinations I was so exhausted that I requested nothing but a resting-place, which I found among the old chests and baskets on the floor.  I was right glad to lie down, and court the rest that I needed so much.