PART II.

Perhaps you would like to take a ride with me some day, and visit some of the missionary stations in Syria.  What will you ride?  The horses are gentle, but you would feel safer on a donkey.  Mules are sometimes good for riding, but I prefer to let them alone.  I never rode a mule but once.  I was at Hasbeiya, and wished to visit the bitumen wells.  My horse was not in a condition to be ridden, so I took Monsur’s mule.  It had only a jillal or pack saddle, and Monsur made stirrups of rope for me.  My companions had gone on in advance, and when I started, the mule was eager to overtake them.  All went well until we approached the little stream which afterwards becomes the River Jordan.  The ground was descending, and the road covered with loose stones.  The rest of our party were crossing the stream and the mule thought he would trot and come up with them.  I tried to hold him in with the rope halter, but he shook his head and dashed on.  About the middle of the descent he stumbled and fell flat upon his nose.  I went over his head upon my hands, but my feet were fast in the rope stirrups.  Seeing that he was trying to get up, I tried to work myself back into the saddle, but I had only reached his head, when he sprang up.  I was now in a curious and not very safe situation.  The mule was trotting on and I was sitting on his head holding on to his ears, with my feet fast in the rope stirrups.  A little Arab boy was passing with a tray of bread upon his head and I shouted to him for help.  He was so amused to see a Khowadja with a hat, riding at that rate on a mule’s head, that he began to roar with laughter and down went his tray on the ground and the Arab bread went rolling among the stones.  It was a great mercy that I did not fall under the brute’s feet, but I held on until he got the other side of the Jordan, when a man ran out from the mill and stopped him.  Monsur now led him by the halter and I reached the bitumen wells in safety.

You can mount your donkey and Harry will ride another, and I will ride my horse, and we will try a Syrian journey.  As we cannot spare the time to go from Beirut to Tripoli by land, I have sent Ibrahim to take the animals along the shore, and we will go up by the French steamer, a fine large vessel called the “Ganges.”  We go down to the Kumruk or Custom House, and there a little Arab boat takes us out to the steamer.  In rough weather it is very dangerous going out to the steamers, and sometimes little boats are capsized, but to-night there is no danger.  You are now on the deck of the steamer.  What a charming view of Beirut and Mount Lebanon.  Far out on the point of the cape are the new buildings of the Syrian College, and next is the Prussian Hospital and then the Protestant Prussian Deaconesses Institution with 130 orphans and 80 paying pupils.  There is the house of Dr. Thomson and Dr. Van Dyck and Dr. Post, and the Turkish Barracks, and Mrs. Mott’s