quantity of eggs, which they tend throughout their various stages on the owner's account, receiving as remuneration one-fourth the silk produced. A mule-load of mulberry leaves is required to support these grubs to the final stage, and from it half an oke to four okes of silk may be expected. The price of leaves varies from thirty piastres to three hundred piastres per load, rising in the last days. before the worms spin their cocoons. When prices of silk are high, the price of leaves is run up, and those who have to buy leaves lose money, as they did in 1880, while those with their own mulberry plantations then did well. The opening of the Suez Canal has very seriously affected the Lebanon silk trade, by facilitating the import of China silk into Europe.]

At 3.40 P.M. we start again, and at a point a little further along the road H.M. ships Monarch and Bacchante come in sight, lying at anchor in St. George's Bay, off Beyrout, eight miles distant. At 5 P.M. reached Khan Sheikh Mahmud, at the brow of the hill, where our camp is pitched for the night. Just before arriving we met two blue-jackets of the Monarch out riding; the sight of their English faces and uniforms made us feel as if we were getting nearer home and shipboard once more. Morel Bey, the secretary of Rustem Pasha, came up overnight with carriages to take us down the hill to-morrow. Mr Cameron from the British Consulate also rode up. (It was this night that the fire occurred on board H.M.S. Inconstant at Simon's Bay, where she was lying with the Carysfort and Tourmaline, when the curios which her men had collected on their cruise round the world with us were all burnt.)

May 6th.-Started at 9.30 A.M.; we can see the Bacchante trying heliograph signals to us as we get into the carriages; they can evidently see our camp, through glasses, on the hillside. Felt quite sorry to say good-bye to the camp and everything in it, and all the native muleteers and servants; we have had a most delightful trip, and they have all behaved uncommonly well, though often it was hard work for them to carry out the day's programme. We have never been a single day behind time at any place, or deviated at all from the plan we first proposed. Mr. Cook and Ward have managed to execute our scheme admirably. The kaimakam of Zahleh, who rode with us yesterday, is still one of our party. There are five carriages, and as we drive down the hill the view is very Italian-like; many of the houses have square towers and red tiles, and the flat-topped firs growing on the summits of the lower hills contribute to this effect. It is

very hot and dusty, and the carriages all have their hoods up. The road winds down amongst deep valleys with wooded sides, reminding one of the Coral at Madeira. At the bottom of the hill at Hazmeh, four miles outside Beyrout, Rustem Pasha, a Christian, an Italian nobleman by birth, but educated in England, now governor-general of the Lebanon, with Edhem Pasha and General Akef Pasha, is waiting in tents, with a battalion of Turkish infantry drawn up in line along the roadside, and a military band playing the English national anthem. We get out of the carriages here and go with the Pasha into his tent, where after taking coffee, sherbet, and cigarettes, in a few minutes we proceed again, Eddy with Rustem Pasha, and George with Edhem Pasha, escorted by the mounted Lebanon police to Beyrout. By the side of the road were a number of carriages and all sorts and conditions of men, who had come out for a day's holiday from the town. We drove into Beyrout amid much general excitement, and went straight to Mrs. Mentor Mott's British Syrian Schools, which the Prince of Wales visited May 6, 1862, this very day, just twenty years ago. Saw the pictures of the Prince and Princess of Wales and of the Crown Prince and Princess of Germany, which they had severally given to the schools, and saw the pupils at their various work. In method, order, discipline, and intelligence, the elementary schools would hold their own with any schools of the same grade in England, and the institution is raising up an admirably trained succession of teachers whose value to Syria is beyond price. The education of the pupils costs on an average 17. 4s. 9d. a head in the elementary schools, and the maintenance and education of each pupil in the Training Institution 167. per head per annum, There are also branch schools for the blind, both young and adults. Saw Mrs. Smith, who, with Mrs. Mentor Mott, is the sister of the late Mrs. Bowen Thompson, who founded the schools after the massacres in 1860; they have steadily grown ever since and prospered. We had come across branches of these most useful schools in nearly every village in the Lebanon; their pupils, including Christians, Jews, Moslems, and Druzes, amount to nearly 3000. Got into the carriages again and drove to the British Consulate. Mr. Eldridge, the consul-general, was ill in bed; he got up for a few minutes to welcome us, but had to retire afterwards, and Mr. Dixon, the vice-consul, took his place. The table and rooms were filled with lovely roses of all sorts, fresh and sweet smelling, reminding us of England. Captain Fairfax, of the Monarch, and

Captain Lord Charles Scott, of the Bacchante, here joined us, and all the Turkish officials came to lunch. We thanked them for the efforts which, in accordance with the Sultan's telegrams, they had made for the furtherance of our tour hither from Damascus. Afterwards, in the drawing-room, some few British residents were presented, and at 3 P.M. we went off to the Bacchante in a Turkish boat, amid crowds of the European and native inhabitants who lined the quay and landing-place. Before leaving Ottoman soil sent to Lord Dufferin at Constantinople a telegram for the Sultan"Their Royal Highnesses Princes Albert Victor and George of Wales desire to thank His Imperial Majesty the Sultan for all the courtesies extended to them during their visit to Syria and Palestine. His Majesty's A.D.C., Ahmet Ali Bey, has proved a most agreeable companion, and all the functionaries of His Majesty with whom Their Royal Highnesses have been brought into contact have been zealous in displaying every attention.” We have been just forty days ashore since we landed at Joppa, during thirty-one of which we have been travelling. We have gone over about 585 English miles, on an average about nineteen miles a day. The longest distances accomplished were twentyeight miles on April 13th and 17th and thirty-two miles on the 25th. The route east of the Jordan was 115 miles. We have most thoroughly enjoyed our life in tents and riding, and are as hearty and hard and strong after it as possible, but there is a pleasant sensation of being home and afloat again as we go on board over the ship's side. To the Captain's dinner came Mr. Moore and Captain Conder, Colonel Ahmet Ali Bey, Mr. Dixon and Captain Fairfax, whom we were very glad to chat with about old Britannia days. It was a fine starlight night and perfectly calm.

May 7th.-Left Beyrout at 6.45 A.M. with H.M.S. Monarch (Captain H. Fairfax, C.B., as senior officer). We had the usual Sunday services and Sunday routine, and felt a general sense of rest and satisfaction at being once more back in our old quarters and employments afloat. The land was soon out of sight. On October 9th, 1193, Richard Cœur de Lion took leave of Palestine, watching with tears its receding shores, as he exclaimed, “O Holy Land, I commend thee and thy people unto God! May He grant me yet to return to aid thee." The pious wish of the gallant, though wayward, crusader-king was never fulfilled. [But now the time cannot be far distant when once more Syria will be ruled by a Christian power. The Franks are about to return" is the firm

belief both of the fellaheen and the Bedouin; and such return, if it were under fair and reasonable arrangements, would be heartily welcomed by both, as a deliverance from the yoke of the Turk. It is impossible to prophecy "how this thing shall be." The

simplest plan would be to extend the international protectorate now exercised over the Lebanon to the whole of Syria and Palestine. A fixed annual revenue would be guaranteed to the Porte, so that the natural resources of the country should be simply left alone by the extortioner for a few years, then its prosperity and

increasing wealth would more than pay the slight expenses necessary for its administration. The bounds of such a protectorate of Syria would be up to the river north of Antioch, including Alexandretta. This is the limit on the north between the Arabic- and the Turkish-speaking populations; the eastern limit of the protected province would be the Hadj road. All that the people want (and the peasants are, as a rule, industrious and law-abiding) is, first, simple justice without bribes; and in the second place, that the population should be allowed to grow in peace, instead of being carried off, as at present, whole villages at a time; and thirdly, if money were lent at first on the security of their crops by the new government to the peasants at 5 per cent., their growth and enterprise would be stimulated and quickened. But this last would not be absolutely necessary. There should be two courts of judges: first, the native court with Mohammedan law, and the second, Christian with European law. Both races should have fair play; any attempt by a Christian to over-reach a Mohammedan. should be punished by the law as rigorously as any attempt by a Mohammedan to tyrannise over a Christian. There should be three regiments raised for local service-one of Druzes, another of Christians, and another of Syrians. The whole protectorate would be more than self-paying in a few years, and in reality would be a boon, not only to the subject-races, but also to their present lords. Such international protectorate, however, assumes two things: first, that the Turkish empire will last, and secondly, that the European powers would sink their mutual jealousies for the common good of these lands. As regards the former, though no European power openly professes a desire to hasten the fall of the throne of the Turkish Sultan at Constantinople, yet all feel and know that it must come sooner or later. The Turkish empire has long ceased to have any inherent strength or growth of its own; its various provinces, races, and creeds must fall asunder as soon as that which letteth is taken out of the way," that is, the exterior force that alone binds its heterogeneous portions together, and which simply results from the mutual ambitions of the Christian powers to divide its reliques. The "unspeakable" Turk will, in Mr. Gladstone's words, "clear out bag and baggage" from Constantinople, and then what? All that can now safely be predicated is that the longer the present state of things lasts the surer is the development of the natural laws that are at work beneath the surface in these countries. They are these. The French as patrons abroad of the Latin Church (which,

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