Had I been a painter, it would have been difficult to tear me away from the contemplation of these regions.
Below the greater waterfall a narrow stone bridge, without balustrades or railing, leads across a deep ravine, through which the stream rushes foaming, to the opposite shore.

After having once crossed, we enter upon a more inhabited tract of country, and travel on between rows of houses and gardens.

But many of the houses stood empty, the inhabitants having fled into the fields, and there erected huts of branches of trees, to escape the plague.

The Maronites, the real inhabitants of these mountains, are strong people, gifted with a determined will; they cannot be easily brought under a foreign yoke, but are ready to defend their liberty to the death among the natural strongholds of their rocky passes.

Their religion resembles that of the Christians, and their priests are permitted to marry.