text:  As I was sitting alone after a solitary dinner (in the miserable hotel at Beyrout ) musing in a brown study over a bottle of red Cyprus wine my new acquaintance was ushered into the apartment; I made no secret to him of my extremely uncomfortable position when he with great kindness and liberality overcoming the usual prejudices of his country offered me an asylum in his own family which offer I most gladly accepted and was accordingly the next morning comfortably installed in my new quarters whereof I will endeavour to give the reader a slight description