Kergolay will make you taste of the good little
vintages. You will be as happy as the day is
long. You will help Madame at her embroidery,
and sing to her, and read to her, and play her to
sleep; and then the abbé will play backgammon
with you. I shall not be jealous, ma mignonne,
and on Sundays and feast–days I will come to you,
and we will go to the mass together."

"I am a Protestant," interposed Lily, gently.

"A Protestant!  que' q' c'est qu'ça?" quoth
Madame Prudence. "Ah! I know a Huguenot,
a dissident. Well, you must read Monseigneur
the Bishop of Meaux upon the Reformists. Ah!
the great man Bossuet. And then, my faith, you
must go to your temple, and hear your minister.
Madame de Kergolay seeks to make no
proselytes. Many of her kindred are dissidents. I
have known a good many honest folks—très
gentils même—who were of the Lutheran
profession. M. l'Abbé is Gallican and tolerant.
That wicked old giraffe, the Marcassin, is
ultramontane, and breathes nothing but sulphur
against heretics. She would make a furious
grand inquisitor. Voyons! I can't see why
Protestants should burn. Le bon Dieu meant
nothing to be burned, except candles and wood
for the kitchen fire."

Thus sociably chatting, the abbé's
housekeeper led Lily through the streets of the only
city in the world worth living in. The modest
package of clothing which the Marcassin had
persuaded herself to part with as the wardrobe
of Mademoiselle Floris had been sent on before
by a commissionnaire.

A CHRISTIAN PASHA.

THE summer of 1863 found me again
wandering in Syria. Before turning my face
northward, I was anxious to see whether, and how
far, the district of Mount Lebanon had
recovered from the effects of the dreadful civil
war of 1860. The last time I had visited "that
goodly mountain," it was my lot to see a whole
population reduced to beggary, and more than
two hundred villages that had been burnt to
ashes.* Mile after mile of what had been
cultivated fruitful lands, formed part and parcel of
a howling wilderness. I had heard that of late
there had been great improvements introduced
into the government of Lebanon, and being much
interested in this land, I wished to see and judge
for myself.

* See After the Lebanon Massacres, No. 110, All
the Year Round.

The route from Beyrout to Beit–ed–Deen has
been described before.† This time, I started
armed with a letter of introduction from the
English consul–general at the former place, to
Daoud Pasha, the new Ottoman governor–
general of Lebanon, who resides at the ancient
feudal castle of Beit–ed–Deen, and which has
also been before described in the pages of
this periodical. I have called Daoud Pasha
the "Ottoman" governor–general, because it
seems almost a contradiction in terms to
designate a Christian as the "Turkish"
governor–general, and this functionary is by birth,
education, and practice, a Christian, being a
member of the Armenian Catholic Church.
Daoud Pasha may, for the following reason, in
fact, be termed "a compromise." After the
dreadful massacres of 1860, the five Great
Powers sent each a commissioner to Beyrout to
regulate the future government of Syria in
general, and of Mount Lebanon in particular.
These commissioners had a sixth—the
commissioner of the Porte—added to their number.
Three of the Powers—France, Russia, and
Prussia—insisted upon the future government
of Lebanon being entrusted to one of the native
Christian princes of the mountain; whereas the
other three—England, Austria, and Turkey—
were as determined that it should be ruled by a
governor named by the Porte. At last a compromise
was effected, and it was agreed that the
governor–general of Mount Lebanon should be a
Christian, nominated by the Sultan. Daoud
Pasha is the first Christian ever raised to the
rank of mouchir—pasha of the third, or highest
grade, corresponding in rank with a field–marshal
of the army; and the very fact of the Porte
having set aside the old–established landmarks
of Moslem bigotry, in this instance, bespeaks a
hopeful future for Turkey.

† See A Lebanon Sheik, No. 3, All the Year
Round.

Quick travelling in the East is a simple
impossibility. From Beyrout to Beit–ed–Deen
is but a distance of some twenty–eight miles,
yet it took us two days to get over the ground.
We might, it is true, have accomplished the
journey in one very long day; but when going
over a mountainous country it is out of the
question to ride faster than at a foot pace,
scrambling up and sliding down steep hills
at the rate of four miles an hour. By the time
the rider has been four hours in the saddle,
both he and the animal which carries him have
had quite enough exercise for one day.

Three hours' ride brought us to the village of
Shemlin, on the summit of the first range of
Mount Lebanon, and commanding one of the
most beautiful views in the world. Shemlin
may be almost termed an English village,
inasmuch as the greater inhabitants are more
or less belonging to English institutions, and
the three only good houses in the place belong
to English people. The first of these, the
large silk factory of Mr. S., employs upwards
of a hundred and fifty natives. There is a
large school for native girls, supported by a
ladies' society in London, presided over by an
English lady, with three English lady–assistants,
and doing a vast deal of good in Mount
Lebanon. Lastly, there is the country–house of
an English merchant of Beyrout, who, together
with the owner of the silk factory, must be
long remembered for unbounded hospitality by
every English traveller in Syria.

After spending the night in Shemlin, and
partaking of a regular English breakfast in