22
HOSRUN.
Kanobin. Though I had no letter of introduction to him, and was
in the dress of a peasant, he invited me to dinner, and I met
at his table his secretary, Bishop Stefano, who has been educated -
at Rome, and has some notions of Europe. While I was
there, a rude peasant was ordained a priest. Kanobin had once
a considerable library ; but it has been gradually dispersed ; and
not a vestige of it now remains. The cells of the monks are, for
the most part, in ruins.
Three hours distant from Kanobin, at the convent Kashheya, -
which is near the village Ehden, is a printing office, where
prayer-books in the Syriac language are printed. This language
is known and spoken by many Maronites, and in this district the
greater part of them write Arabic in the Syriac characters. The
names of the owners of the silk-worms were all written in this
character in different hands, upon the bags suspended in the
church.
I returned to Bshirrai by an easier road than that which I had
travelled in the morning ; at the end of three quarters of an hour
I regained the upper plain, from whence I proceeded for two
hours by a gentle ascent, through fields and orchards, up to the
village. The potatoe succeeds here very well; a crop was growing
in the garden of the Carmelite convent; it has also been cultivated
for some time past in Kesrouan. In the mountains about Kanobin -
tigers are said to be frequently met with; I suppose ounces
are meant.
October 4th.—I departed from Bshirrai with the intention of returning -
to Zahle over the higher range of the Libanus. We crossed
the Kadisha, at a short distance from Bshirrai, above the place
where it falls over the precipice : at one hour distant from Bshirrai,
andopposite to it, we passed the village of Hosrun. The same cultivation ¬
prevails here as in the vicinity of Bshirrai; mulberry and wal¬
