is not impossible that under its shadow some of the Norman invaders may have met before the Conquest; as also Crusaders may have sung under its branches their exploits in the Holy Land.

THE LAND OF THE GIANT CITIES.

BY THE REV. W. WRIGHT, B.A., DAMASCUS.
IV.

ROUND TOWER, SOUTH OF KHUBAB.

KHUBAB is a large Christian

village, built on the two marginal waves of the Lejah. An old inscription in the neighbouring village Zobeireh, in which there is a reference to Britain, gives the ancient name of this village, which was Habiba. Khubab, or Habiba, an entirely Christian village, under a Christian sheikh, contrasts most favourably with the places we have last visited. The Druzes at Burak are a parcel of outlaws watching for the police, or their other natural enemies, the Arabs. The people of Musmeih are wild animals with a little clothes. They have a limited field for vicious practices-nobody worth a killing, and nothing to steal; but I have reason to believe that they have fair natural talents which would improve with opportunity and practice, for my companion dropped his rug from the saddle, and it disappeared among the rocks like a flash. Khubab is an agricultural village, wheeled

round so far west from the Arabs as to be comparatively safe from their attacks; but sometimes the Arabs sweep over their fields, and sweep them clean

enough, and sometimes also they gut and ruin the village. There are a few houses in the village of the best Hauranic style, with the ceiling slabs ornamented, and these are solid enough to defy the Arabs. The villagers also hide their wheat in pits (nawawis) in the earth, which they stop and cover over with dung, rubbish, stones, etc., so that the Arabs do not always find their grain treasures, but they sometimes torture the sheikh to make him disclose these granaries, and they have refinements in cruelty worthy of Roman Catholic priests.

The men of Khubab labour in the fields during the seasons for labour, and during the remainder of the year they cut and dress basaltic millstones, which are rolled to Akka, and there shipped for the Egyptian market. The women spin and weave, and attend to household matters, and keep themselves comparatively clean. One of their occupations exclusively is kneading the cows' dung, and sticking it on the wall to dry for fuel. When dry these balls are gathered and stacked for winter use, as is done with peat in Ireland. There is not a shop in the town. Pedlars visit it with Manchester prints of brightest colours, Egyptian sugar, bracelets, etc., and get wheat, eggs, cheese, etc., in return for their merchandise.

I proclaim that we have books for sale, and the whole village turns out and swarms to our tent. These people have a sufficiency of curiosity, and curiosity sometimes leads to knowledge. We have a fair prospect of selling all our books at the first market; but the schoolmaster comes with a stick and drives away his pupils, and after him the priest arrives with great bluster and noise, and forces his flock back into the village. He declares that they have done sixty years without our Bible, and they will not permit it to enter among them. We are startled by hearing an almost Scripture expression drop from his passionate lips-"These people have

PALMYRENE MORTUARY TOWER.

turned the world upside down in Beyrout and Damascus, and they are come here also." It is in vain I tell him he is rejecting God's book, and Christ's gospel,

ployed. "The rights of these girls," said my communicative neighbour, "are clearly defined in our code of laws, and strictly attended to. They have a full claim to all the clothes they have received during the whole period of their service, and retain them when they return to their parents. They may be redeemed at any time on payment of the original premium, and some other stipulations. Fines and punishments are imposed on their masters if they are cruelly treated, and mistresses are commanded to treat them with clemency."

This interesting conversation was interrupted by the striking of a gong in the outer hall, which commenced with slow and light blows and gradually increased in rapidity and loudness, until the whole establishment resounded with reverberations which culminated in several loud and distinct blows, when it ceased. Then a number of male servants lined the doorway, and the mandarin, with stately demeanour, led the way to the dining-hall, the gentlemen first and the ladies afterwards. When they entered the hall the master of the house took his seat on an armchair in the middle of a crescent-shaped table, and his guests were ranged in chairs at a lower level on each side; the post of honour on his left, according to Chinese etiquette, being given to me.

The gentlemen sat only on one side of the table, on its outer edge, the opposite side having no chairs, with an open space behind hung with splendid lanterns and drapery. At the left extremity of the table was a raised platform, on which numerous small tables with chairs stood. Here the ladies seated themselves, and from their elevation could overlook the great table and its occupants. Before each guest were several small porcelain dishes, reminding one of the toy dishes children have at home when "playing at dinner." Each person had brought his own "nimblelads," or chopsticks, which he took out of a case hung at his belt, some of them being made of ivory, and mounted with gold and precious stones. The host had provided a knife and fork for me, but I said that I would use a pair of chopsticks in preference, which pleased both host and company.

a dish containing at least fifty of these minute delicacies.

During the courses the servants brought round a native wine something like sherry, which was quite hot, in a teapot, and was poured out into cups. Besides this wine, several kinds of spirituous liquors were brought in, apparently all distilled from rice, and called sam-shoo, resembling sweetened gin. While drinking this, one guest would challenge another, repeating a rhyme until one of them made a mistake, when he was obliged to drain his cup. Then the host drained a bumper of rose-coloured wine to his foreign guest, which example was followed by all present, and had I responded to each I should have soon been tipsy, but I contented myself by drinking a toast in good old English fashion, first thanking my host for his hospitality, his kinsmen for their attention, and last, though not least, the ladies, including especially the beautiful and accomplished Loo A-lee, the "Bright Pearl" of Peking.

It is difficult to say how long my eloquence would have continued had I not observed some movement on the floor in the vacant space before the table, which brought the speech to a close. This movement was the entrance of some singers and performers, to commence a kind of play for the entertainment of the company. It was different from the public theatricals, where no women appear on the stage, the female characters being performed by young men. In this case they were all females, some dressed in male attire, and the performance was accompanied by some who played upon lutes and guitars, which pro

Then followed a course, the pièces de resistance of which were ducks and fowls, out of which every bone had been extracted before cooking. Consequently there was no necessity to carve them with knives, for the juicy meat yielded easily to the pinching of the chopsticks. The only appearance of a carver's duties was by the person sitting opposite one of these dishes helping his neighbours. Not only was this performed by his kinsmen, but by the mandarin, and when he wished to show a special mark of favour to any of his guests, he would send portions of his own recherché dishes to them. I came in for these attentions frequently, and once my little porcelain ladle had several ducks' tongues dropped into it, taken from

to the stage, an example which I naturally followed. During the performance, dessert of fruit and sweetmeats was served up, with tea and other warm beverages, while the conversation went on all the time without much heed being given to the play, except by the ladies, the younger portion of whom expressed their enjoyment of it in audible terms. However, the utmost decorum prevailed during the evening, and when it was time to depart, the most cordial exchange of civilities was evinced by all towards their entertainer and his daughter. On reaching the vestibule quite a crowd of chair-bearers with their chairs filled the place in which the parting guests took their leave. One of them was placed at my disposal, and thus I got safely and comfortably to the guard-house at the Anting gate, where I took up my quarters for the night.

"And the shops and the braw folk, woman!' "I have seen enough o' your shops and braw folk, and ower muckle o' some o' them,' quo my auntie.

"Eh! but the ministers, Kirsty; you would never gang back to Boulder without hearing some o' our grand ministers. What would the folk there think o' you if they were to learn that you had been in Glasgow, and yet had neither heard Dr. Balfour, nor our ain minister Dr. Love o' Anderston, wha many think is the most powerfu' preacher o' the twa?' "Powerfu' here, or powerfu' there,' said my Auntie Kirsty ; our ain auld minister at the Kirkton, honest man, maun just serve my turn.' "Dear me, Kirsty, I aye thought till now that you had been a woman o' speerit,' said Rabby.

Speerit or no speerit, Rabby McCorkindale,' said my auntie, 'I maun be awa' hame the morn. And I tell ye, Rabby, you and Peggy and the bairns living here just puts me in mind o' Lot and his family abiding in Sodom, where they had nae business to be; ye shouldna forget that "evil communications corrupt good manners.'

66 6

Peggy.

Hoots, Kirsty! Glasgow's a godly place,' said

"Do your godly folk gang about the street, telling lees to strangers and breaking the eighth commandment?' said my auntie.

"Ye mauna judge a' the folk by one scoondrel,' said Rabby, with a look of great wisdom. "The scum aye tells what's in the pat,' says my auntie.

"And so they had just to give in to her, and all they could succeed in was to get her to take the mail coach. It ran twice a week, and one of the days was the next. To please her, Rabby went to

the coach office and secured her seat. And next morning, after taking farewell of Peggy and the bairns, away went my Auntie Kirsty with him to the coach.

"Na, na,' said she to Peggy, who even at the last tried to get her to change her mind; na, na, lass, I have seen enough o' towns; and if my freends want to see me they maun just come out to the farm.' "She kept a firm grip of Rabby's coat-sleeve, though she was half a head taller than him and stout in proportion, as they went along the streets; and she looked in every direction for the vagabond that had imposed on her, but she could see nothing of him. She had nothing now to steal but her purse, and she had secured it by putting a corking pin into the mouth of her pocket. Rabby had thought they were before the time, but when they came in sight of the coach office- Preserve us a', Kirsty! if there isna the coach just about to start!' he cried, and he had to pull her on as fast as he could, and to lose no time in helping her up to the top, which her strangeness to coach travelling and her dread at climbing up such a height, made no easy job. But at last, what with Rabby pushing her up from below and the folk that were already seated pulling her from above, she did get up; and then she looked fearfully down at Rabby, and took a mournful farewell of him, thinking it more than likely that they might never meet again in this world, for the coach seemed to her a very shoogly (shaky) concern, and she had a strong presentiment in her mind that it would coup (overturn) on the road. But just at that moment the coachman, who was already seated, gave a chirrup to the horses, and as the coach began to move she

had enough ado gripping by the rail to steady herself, for she was at the far end of one of the back seats, to think more of Rabby, who stood on the causeway with his hands in his trousers pockets, watching the coach till it had turned a corner; and then another coming rumbling along the street he got out of its way and walked quietly back to his shop.

It was an awful journey that to my Auntie Kirsty. There were two stout folk on the seat besides herself, and she had so little room that she feared she would lose her balance and fall over the side. The bit railing was her only security, and she held on to it like grim death; she dared na let go her hold even for an instant, for the height made her head dizzy; besides, the coach sometimes swung from one side to the other, and when a wheel went over a stone her very heart louped (leaped) within her. It was worst on the town causeway, but even the country roads were bad enough. She was at the back of the coach, as I have said, and the stour (dust) that rose by the horses' feet hung around her and her neighbours, blinded their een, and nearly choked them. As for seeing anything of the country they were driving through it was an impossibility; she got now and then glints o' trees and houses by the roadside, that was all; but even if there had been no stour, her terrors were so great that look around her she couldna. Tender as her feet were she would rather have been on them. The folk beside her seemed sociable enough, and cracked away to one another, but she was so full of her tribulations and the loss of her good claes, that she could neither listen nor speak to them. Every mile though was bringing her nearer home, and that thought brought consolation with it.

"About mid-day the coach stopped for half an hour at an inn to let the passengers get their dinner, and all that were on the top got down except my Auntie Kirsty. She hadna Rabby now to help her up again, and she thought it more prudent to stay where she was, though it might make her look kenspeckle (conspicuous). She had a paper bag full of cookies that Peggy had given her, so she didna want for meat; and a man very ceevily handed her up a drink of water on her asking for it. She was able to look about her now, and it struck her that the place was strange to her; she had no recollection of seeing the inn the day before-she could scarcely have overlooked it then, so she asked her fellow-travellers when they came back if this could be the right road, for she was sure she had not passed this place on her way to Glasgow.

"You must have come by the other road, then,' said one of them; 'this is the Midcalder ane, but it'll be a' the same in the end.'

'And my Auntie Kirsty's mind was set at rest, for there might have been three roads to Yoker for all she knew to the contrary; and the coachman coming round by her side of the coach to mount to his seat, she cried to him to be sure to set her down at 'the town,' for that was the name Yoker went by among the Boulder folk. She had ten miles, she knew, to walk after that; but she wearied to be off that great trundling coach and on her own legs again; and what were ten miles when she was going home with no burden to carry? The coachman said gruffly, Ay, ay, mistress,' in answer, so she thought he wouldna forget her, and in another minute the coach was off again.

"My Auntie Kirsty thought that journey was never to come to an end. Her bones were almost shaken to pieces, her heart was in her mouth, and her head felt like to split with the rattling of the coach, the heat of the sun, and her distress of mind. Besides, she was sore troubled as the day wore on about how she was to find her way to the ground with her legs so stiff and cramped, without the help of Rabby McCorkindale.

"I dinna think I could straighten myself if I tried,' thought my Auntie Kirsty, moving herself as far yont (over) as the seat would let her to prove it; and how ever are they get me down from the tap o' the coach? I'm no babby, I trow, for them to lift.' "A good solid babby' they would have found her, honest woman.

"They had been upwards of eight hours on the road-my auntie would have sworn to a whole daywhen they began to enter into a town, which she had no doubt was Yoker at last; for once or twice during the last hour she had got a glint through the stour of some hills that she supposed were the ones they saw from Boulder, and her heart had warmed to them as signs of home. 'Catch me ever losing sight o' them again!' she said to herself; this travelling doesna agree with me at a'.' She had had no idea that Yoker was so big a town as this; it wasna unlike Glasgow itself for that matter. On they rumbled between high dark houses, and finally turned into a very wide, spacious street, up which they went so cannily that my auntie could use her een with perfect freedom.

"Dear me!' quo my Auntie Kirsty to her nearest neighbour, as her een suddenly fell on some object that struck her as extraordinary; 'whatna muckle rock's that with the house on the tap o't-it canna be a kirk, surely?'

"A kirk, woman!' says the other. 'D'ye no ken the Castle o' Edinburgh when ye see it?'

"The Castle o' Edinburgh!' says my Aunty Kirsty in a faint voice, and with her head running round. What do you mean, woman?'

"What do I mean!' says the woman, glowering at her in surprise. I mean just what I say that it's the Castle o' Edinburgh. What else should it be?'

"But just then the coach drew up at the door of the White Hart Inn, and the woman, with the rest of the passengers, got down without delay, leaving my Auntie Kirsty sitting like an image on the top. She was like a person in a dream, perfectly helpless and stupified; and though she saw every other person had left the coach, she made no attempt to follow them. But she was soon roused out of this state.

"Come awa, mistress,' cried the coachman, coming round to where she sat; what for are ye sitting there?'

"Whatna town's this, sir, if you please?' says my auntie in a trembling voice, but trying to speak very ceevil.

Town! what town should it be but Edinburgh?' "It's no possible!' says my auntie. 'Are you sure that it's Edinburgh?'

"Sure enough,' says the man.

"Then pity on me!' says my poor Auntie Kirsty, thinking there must be glamour in the matter, and giving herself up for lost.

"Well, come down, then,' says the man, roughly; ye're no to sit here a' night.'

"But my auntie wouldna stir. "What's the matter with the wife?' said the coachman.

"I insist that you'll drive me without delay to the right place,' says my auntie, plucking up spirit; she wasna going to submit to such usage.

"The woman's daft!' says the man, looking round to the folk that were gathered about the inn door, who began to grin.

"I'll no stir a foot,' says my auntie.

"We'll soon see that,' says the man, putting his foot on the lowest round of the ladder, for they had one here for the use of the passengers.

"I tell you I willna,' says my auntie.

"Then we'll have to pull you down, that's a',' said the man.

"I daur you to lay a hand on me, you cheating vagabond,' says my auntie, shaking her nieve (fist) in his face, for she was now in a state of desperation and her blood was up. 'I shanna be imposed upon twice, I can tell you. I paid you nine shillings and saxpence at least, my gude brother did-to take me to Yoker; sae leave me here at your peril.'

"My Auntie Kirsty's arm, as I have said, was no light one; and the coachman, who was an undersized, wizened-looking creature, no doubt saw that it wouldna do to meddle with her, especially as she had the advantage in point of position. So he just stood on the pavement and abused her, and she scolded at him, till the noise brought a whole crowd round about the coach, laughing and hurrahing. The landlord and waiters of the inn, who had been attending to the passengers that wanted quarters there, came back to the door at sound of the din; and then came the landleddy herself. And there was the coachman stamping and raging on the pavement, and my Auntie Kirsty scolding and lamenting on the top of the coach; and every window and doorway in the Grassmarket crowded with folk looking on and laughing.

What's the matter with you, honest woman?' says the landleddy, who was a comfortable, redcheeked, motherly-like woman.

"I'm a puir stranger, mem, from the parish of Boulder,' says my auntie, thankful to see so respectable a person of her own sex to appeal to. I was gaun hame from Glasgow; and that blackguard's driven me to Edinburgh instead of to Yoker, as he promised.'

"It's a lee,' says the man; 'she's either drunk or daft.'

"Me drunk, you ill-tongued vagabond!' says my Auntie Kirsty, who couldna bear such a reproach on her good name; 'I'm a' but blackfasting this day from either meat or drink; you had better no meddle wi' my character.'