Benjamin Disraeli

“ For many hours throughout this region nothing was heard but the firing of guns, the baying of hounds, the shouting of men; not a human being was visible, except some groups of women in the villages, with veils suspended on immense silver horns, like our female headgear of the middle ages. By-and-by, figures were seen stealing forth from the forest, men on foot, one or two, then larger parties; some reposed on the plain, some returned to the villages, some re-ascended the winding steeps of Canobia. ”

“ I have some pieces now, that, although they are not as fine as those of the English prince, could pick a son of Eblis off behind a rock, whether he be Egyptian or Druse.'
'Hush!' said Francis El Kazin. 'You love our host, Butros; these are not words that will please him——'
'Or me, my children,' said Bishop Nicodemus. 'This is a great day for Syria! to find the chiefs of both nations assembled at the castle of a Shehaab. Why am I here but to preach peace and love? ”

“ Without the walls, almost as many individuals were feasting in the open air; brandishing their handjars as they cut up the huge masses of meat before them, plunging their eager hands into the enormous dishes of rice, and slaking their thirst by emptying at a draught a vase of water, which they poured aloft as the Italians would a flask of wine or oil. ”

“ Came slowly, on steeds dark as night, up the winding steep of Canobia, with a company of twenty men on foot armed with muskets and handjars, the two ferocious brothers Abuneked, Nasif and Hamood. Pale is the cheek of the daughters of Maron at the fell name of Abuneked. The Abunekeds were the Druse lords of the town of Deir el Kamar, where the majority of the inhabitants were Christian. When the patriarch tried to deprive the Druses of their feudal rights, the Abunekeds attacked and sacked their own town of Deir el Kamar. ”

“ If the two nations were indeed to be united, and form a great whole under the sceptre of a Shehaab, let not this banquet pass like the hypocritical hospitality of ordinary life, where men offer what they desire not to be accepted by those who have no wish to receive. ”

“ The heads of the great houses of both nations accompanied the Emir of Canobia; their relatives and followers, by the exertions of Francis El Kazin and Young Syria, were in general so disturbed that the Maronites were under the command of the Emir Raslan, the Druse Caimacam, while the Druses followed the Emir Hai-dar. This great hunting party consisted of more than eight hundred persons, about half of whom were mounted, but all were armed; even those who held the dogs in leash were entitled to join in the sport with the same freedom as the proudest Sheikh. ”

“ The rest of the Sheikhs and rhookatadgis established themselves in small parties, grouped in the same fashion, in the great court and under the arcades, taking care to leave free egress and regress to the fountain. The retainers feasted, when all was over, in the open air.
Every man found his knife in his girdle, forks were unknown. Fakredeen prided himself on his French porcelain, which the Djinblats, the Talhooks, and the Abunekeds glanced at very queerly. This European luxury was confined to his own carpet. ”

“ They take their sleep when they require it, and meet its embrace without preparation. One cause of this difference undoubtedly is, that the Orientals do not connect the business of the toilet with that of rest. The daily bath, with its elaborate processes, is the spot where the mind ponders on the colour of a robe or the fashion of a turban; the daily bath, which is the principal incident of Oriental habits, and which can scarcely be said to exist among our own.
Fakredeen had yielded even his own chambers to his friends. Every divan in Canobia was open, excepting the rooms of Tancred. ”

“ Could you believe it, but I was told yesterday at Deir el Kamar, that the English consul has persuaded the Queen that even the patriarch was against the Shehaabs?'
'Is it possible?' said Rafael Farah, a Maronite of the House of Eldadah. 'It must be the Druses who circulate these enormous falsehoods.'
'Hush!' said Young Syria, in the shape of Francis El Kazin, 'there is no longer Maronite or Druse: we are all Syrians, we are brothers.'
'Then a good many of my brothers are sons of Eblis,' said Butros Keramy. ”

“ The Emirs and Sheikhs, notwithstanding the powers of dissimulation for which the Orientals are renowned, their habits of self-restraint, and their rooted principle never to seem surprised about anything, have a weakness in respect to arms. After eyeing Tancred for a considerable time with imperturbable countenances, Francis El Kazin sent to Fakredeen to know whether the English prince would favour them by shooting an eagle. This broke the ice, and Fakredeen came, and soon the rifle was in the hands of Francis El Kazin. ”

“ The great court of the castle was crowded with men and horses, and fifty mouths at once were drinking at the central basin; the arcades were full of Sheikhs, smoking and squatted on their carpets, which in general they had spread in this locality in preference to the more formal saloons, whose splendid divans rather embarrassed them; though even these chambers were well attended, the guests principally seated on the marble floors covered with their small bright carpets. The domain immediately around the castle was also crowded with human beings. ”

“ Notwithstanding all this, and without giving any opinion on this latter point, it should be remembered that at dinners strictly male, where there is really no excuse for anything of the kind, where, if you are a person of ascertained position, you are invited for that position and for nothing else, and where, if you are not a person of ascertained position, the more agreeable you make yourself the more you will be hated, and the less chance you will have of being asked there again, or anywhere else, still this fatal frenzy prevails ”

“ There can be no question that, next to the corroding cares of Europeans, principally occasioned by their love of accumulating money which they never enjoy, the principal cause of the modern disorder of dyspepsia prevalent among them is their irrational habit of interfering with the process of digestion by torturing attempts at repartee, and racking their brain at a moment when it should be calm, to remind themselves of some anecdote so appropriate that they have forgotten it. ”

“ Exchanging between themselves glances of contempt at the lords of Lebanon, who were ignorant of what everybody knows, they exhibited the arms without the slightest interest or anxiety to make the Sheikhs comprehend them; till Tancred, mortified at their brutality, himself interfered, and, having already no inconsiderable knowledge of the language of the country, though, from his reserve, Fakredeen little suspected the extent of his acquirements, explained felicitously to his companions the process of the arms ”

“ The Shehaabs, the Talhooks, the Djinblats, and the Habeish were sensible men, who were of opinion that if you want to talk you should not by any means eat, since from such an attempt at a united performance it generally results that you neither converse nor refresh yourself in a satisfactory manner. ”

“ The hunting party was to last three days, and few intended to leave Canobia on the morrow; but it must not be supposed that the guests experienced any very unusual hardships in what the reader may consider a far from satisfactory mode of passing their night. To say nothing of the warm and benignant climate, the Easterns have not the custom of retiring or rising with the formality of the Occidental nations. ”

“ It has been supposed that the presence of women at our banquets has occasioned this fatal and inopportune desire to shine; and an argument has been founded on this circumstance in favour of their exclusion from an incident which, on the whole, has a tendency to impair that ideal which they should always study and cherish. It may be urged that if a woman eats she may destroy her spell ”

“ And the Druse chief of the House of Djezbek, who for five hundred years had never yielded precedence to the House of Djinblat, and Sheikh Fahour Kangé, who since the civil war had never smoked a pipe with a Maronite, but who now gave the salaam of peace to the crowds of Habeishs and Dahdahes who passed by; and Butros Keramy, the nephew of the patriarch, himself a great Sheikh, who inhaled his nargileh as he rode, and who looked to the skies and puffed forth his smoke whenever he met a son of Eblis ”