21
KANOBIN.
cend on every side into the Kadisha, whose source is two hours distant -
from Bshirrai, in the direction of the mountain from whence I
came.
Bshirrai belongs to the district of Tripoli, but is at present, with
the whole of the mountains, in the hands of the Emir Beshir, or
chief of the Druses. The inhabitants of the village rear the silkworm, -
have excellent plantations of tobacco, and a few manufactories ¬
of cotton stuffs used by the mountaineers as shawls for girdles.
Forty years ago the village was in the hands of the Metaweli, who
were driven out by the Maronites.
In the morning I went to Kanobin; after walking for two
hours and a half over the upper plain, I descended the precipitous
side of a collateral branch of the valley Kadisha, and continued
my way to the convent, which I reached in two hours and a
half. It is built on a steep precipice on the right of the valley, ¬
at half an hour’s walk from the river, and appears as if suspended ¬
in the air, being supported by a high wall, built against
the side of the mountain. There is a spring close to it. The
church, which is excavated in the rock, and dedicated to the Virgin, ¬
is decorated with the portraits of a great number of patriarchs.
During the winter, the peasants suspend their silk-worms in bags,
to the portrait of some favourite saint, and implore his influence
for a plenteous harvest of silk ; from this custom the convent derives ¬
a considerable income.
Kanobin is the seat of the patriarch of the Maronites, who is
at the head of twelve Maronite bishops, and here in former times
he generally passed the summer months, retiring in the winter to
Mar Hanna; but the vexations and insults which the patriarchs
were exposed to from the Metaweli, in their excursions to and from
Baalbec, induced them for many years to abandon this residence.
The present patriarch is the first who for a long time has resided in
