having been collected from all sides, and put together to form a modern building according to Turkish notions of taste.
We were received into the convent, but could command no further accommodation than an empty room and a few straw mats.

Our attendant brought us pilau, the every-day dish of the East; but to- day he surprised us with a boiled fowl, buried beneath a heap of the Turkish fare.

Count Zichy added a few bottles of excellent wine from Lebanon to the feast; and so we sat down to dinner without tables or chairs, as merry as mortals need desire to be.
Here, as in most other Eastern towns, I had only to step out on the terrace-roof of the house to cause a crowd of old and young to collect, eager to see a Frankish woman in the costume of her country.

Whoever wishes to create a sensation, without possessing either genius or talent, has only to betake himself, without loss of time, to the East, and he will have his ambition gratified to the fullest extent.

But whoever has as great an objection to being stared at as I have, will easily understand that I reckoned this among the greatest inconveniences of my journey.
July 7th.
At five o'clock in the morning we again mounted our horses, and rode for three hours through an immense plain, where nothing was to be seen but scattered columns, towards the foremost promontories of the Lebanon range.