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Updated: May 28, 2025
The modern town of Saida stands close upon the shore, occupying the greater part of the peninsula and a portion of the plain on which it abuts; but the ancient city is found to have been situated entirely in the plain, and its most western traces are almost half a mile from the nearest point of the present walls.
Lady Hester for some years has refused to see English people, therefore I had not a hope that she would give me an interview; but to my surprise, on the evening of my writing, her Armenian interpreter came on board with a kind note by which I found that a horse and escort were at Saida waiting to conduct me when I might please to Djoun her residence in Libanus, about three hours from Saida.
"O twin stars, forgive me for darkening the brightness of thy sky," she said, "but I have here a letter, given to me to put into the hands of Lella Saïda." She held out a folded bit of paper, that had no envelope. Saidee, pale and large-eyed, took it in silence. She read, and then handed the paper to Victoria. A few lines were scrawled on it in English, in a very foreign handwriting.
From there it is two days' journey to Beirut, or Beeroth, where there are about fifty Jews, at their head being R. Solomon, R. Obadiah, and R. Joseph. Thence it is one day's journey to Saida, which is Sidon, a large city, with about twenty Jews. Ten miles therefrom a people dwell who are at war with the men of Sidon; they are called Druses, and are pagans of a lawless character.
Suppose a traveller entering Saida, the country where the ancient Thebes, with a hundred gates, stood formerly, and which is now a desert, should find there columns, pyramids, obelisks, and inscriptions in unknown characters.
"Why shouldst thou consider me, whom thou hast known but a few days, when thou wouldst be hurrying on towards thy sister Saïda? Yet it will surely be my death if thou makest any sign to those men. My heart would cease to beat. It beats but weakly now." With a sigh, Victoria turned away from the moucharabia, and crossing the room to M'Barka, sat down on a rug by the side of her couch.
"O Lella Saïda, I have brought the Roumia," the negress announced. A slim figure in Arab dress came into the room, unfastening a white veil with fingers that trembled with impatience. The door shut softly. Noura had obeyed instructions. For ten years Victoria had been waiting for this moment, dreaming of it at night, picturing it by day. Now it had come.
She herself had heard much of Lella Saïda, and supposed that unfortunate woman had as eagerly collected information about her; but it was especially piquant that further details of enviable magnificence should be carried back by the forlorn wife's sister.
Fine fountains also burst from the earth in the plain itself, as the Ain-el-Kanterah and the Ain-el-Burak, between Sarepta and the Zaherany river. Irrigation is easy and is largely used, with the result that the fruits and vegetables of Saida and its environs have the name of being among the finest of the country.
This was a most fatiguing day, although we did not ride for more than ten hours; but this ten hours' journey was performed without even a quarter of an hour's rest, though the thermometer stood at 33 degrees Reaumur. Our path lay through a sandy desert, about two miles in breadth, running parallel with the mountain-range from Saida to Beyrout.
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