The Beirut people are famous for their fighting spirit, but this spirit was not manifested after a few weeks of intimate acquaintance with the American blue-jackets.
My inspection of the devastation caused by the locusts completed, I returned home.

The news that greeted me there was alarming.

I must narrate with some detail the events which finally decided me to leave the country.

About one hour's ride on horseback from our village lives a family of Turkish nobles, the head of which was Sadik Pasha, brother of the famous Kiamil Pasha, several times Grand Vizier of the Empire.
Sadik, who had been exiled from Constantinople, came to Palestine and bought great tracts of land near my people.

After his death his sons--good-for-nothing, wild fellows--were forced to sell most of the estate--all except one Fewzi Bey, who retained his part of the land and lived on it.