Here we are on the sandy beach.  What myriads of sea shells, and what beautiful colors they have.  And here are sponges without number, but they are worthless.  There on the sea are the little sloops of the sponge fishers.  They are there through the whole summer and the fishers dive down into the sea where the water is from 100 to 200 feet deep, and walk around on the bottom holding their breath, and when they can bear it no longer pull the cord which is tied around the waist, and then their companions draw them up.  They do not live long, as it is very hard and unnatural labor.  Sometimes they are killed by sharks or other sea monsters.  One of them told me that he was once on the bottom, and just about to pick up a beautiful white sponge, when he saw a great monster with huge claws and arms and enormous eyes coming towards him, and he barely escaped being devoured.  At another time, the men in the boat felt a sudden jerk on the rope and pulled in, when they found only the man’s head, arms and chest on it, the rest of his body having been devoured by some great fish or sea animal.  The sponges grow on rocks, pebbles or shells, and some of them are of great value.  It is difficult to get the best ones here, as the company who hire the divers export all the good ones to Europe.

PART V.

Word has come that there is cholera in Odessa, so that all the Russian steamers going to Beirut will be in quarantine.  It will not be pleasant to spend a week in the Beirut quarantine, so we will keep our baggage animals and go down by land.  It is two long days of nine hours each, and you will be weary enough.  Bidding good-bye to our dear friends here and wishing them God’s blessing in their difficult work among such people, away we go!  Yanni and Uncle S. and some of the teachers will accompany us a little way, according to the Eastern custom, and then we dismount and kiss them all on both cheeks, and pursue our monotonous way along the coast, sometimes riding over rocky capes and promontories and then on the sand and pebbles close to the roaring surf.

See how many monasteries there are on the sides of Lebanon!  Between Tripoli and Beirut there are about a hundred.  The men who live in them are called monks, who make a vow never to marry, and spend their lives eating and drinking the fruits of other men’s labors.  They own almost all the valuable land in this range of mountains for fifty miles, and the fellaheen live as “tenants at will” on their estates.  When a man is lazy or unfortunate, if he is not married, his first thought is to become a monk.  They are the most corrupt and worthless vagabonds in the land, and the day must come before long, when the monasteries and convents will be abolished and their property be given back to the people to whom it justly belongs.

We are now riding along by the telegraph wires.  It seems strange to see Morse’s telegraph on this old Phenician coast, and it will seem stranger still when we reach Beirut, to receive a daily morning paper printed in Arabic, with telegrams from all parts of the world!