In February, 1871, he came to Beirut on business, and was the guest of a Maronite merchant, who brought him at our invitation to visit the Female Seminary, the College and the Printing Press.  After looking through the Seminary, examining the various departments, and inquiring into the course of study he turned to the pupils and said, “Our Bedawin girls would learn as much in six months as you learn in two years.”  I told him we should like to see the experiment tried, and that if he would send on a dozen Bedawin girls, we would see that they had every opportunity for improvement.  He said, “Allah only knows the future.  Who knows but it may yet come to pass?” The Sheikh himself can neither read nor write, but his wife, the Sitt Harba, or Lady Spear, who came from the vicinity of Hamath, can read and write well, and she is said to be the only Bedawiyeh woman who can write a letter.  With this in view we prepared an elegant copy of the Arabic Bible, enclosed in a waterproof case made by the girls of the Seminary, and presented it to him at the Press.  He expressed great interest in it, and asked what the book contained.  We explained the contents, and he remarked, “I will have the Sitt Harba read to me of Ibrahim, Khalil Allah, (the Friend of God), and Ismaeel, the father of the Arabs, and Neby (prophet) Moosa, and Soleiman the king, and Aieesa, (Jesus,) the son of Mary.”  The electrotype apparatus deeply interested him, but when Mr. Hallock showed him the steam cylinder press, rolling off the sheets with so great rapidity and exactness, he stood back and remarked in the most deliberate manner, “the man who made that press can conquer anything but death!” It seemed some satisfaction to him that in the matter of death the Bedawin was on a level with the European.

From the Press, the Sheikh went to the Church, and after gazing around on the pure white walls, remarked, “There is the Book, but I see no pictures nor images.  You worship only God here!” He was anxious to see the Tower Clock, and although he had lost one arm, and the other was nearly paralyzed by a musket shot in a recent fight in the desert, he insisted on climbing up the long ladders to see the clock whose striking he had heard at the other end of the city, and he gazed long and admiringly at this beautiful piece of mechanism.  On leaving us, he renewedly thanked us for The Book, and the next day he left by diligence coach for Damascus.

In the summer we sent, at Mr. Arthington’s expense, a young man from the Beirut Medical College, named Ali, as missionary to itinerate among the Bedawin, with special instructions to persuade the Arabs if possible to send their children to school.  He remained a month or two among them, by day and by night, sleeping by night outside the tents with his horse’s halter tied to his arms to prevent its being stolen, and spending the evenings reading to the assembled crowd from the New Testament.  He was present as a spectator at a fight between Mohammed’s