We were young and gay at the time I speak of, and passionate too! Two of
my brother lieutenants fought a duel, much more serious than those pin-
prick encounters which are now the fashion. They fought with pistols, on
the very marine promenade where they had been joking with young ladies
the evening before. Just as the seconds gave the signal to fire, the sun
rose on the horizon. Its first ray glinted on a breast button on the
uniform of one principal: the other man's bullet, as though drawn by
some fatal attraction, struck the button, and killed our unhappy comrade
dead. A midshipman carried off a charming Greek lady, who was discovered
in his cabin after his ship had got out to sea. And many another strange
incident occurred! On leaving Smyrna, the Iphigenie cruised all about
the Archipelago, and along the Anatolian, Caramanian, and Syrian coasts.
Whenever I was not on duty my pencil was in my fingers, for I had the
most enchanting and picturesque of models under my hand. From Tripoli in
Syria I climbed to the top of Mount Lebanon, whence I saw an immense
panorama, with the ruins of Baalbec and the Desert. We picnicked with
the patriarch of the Lebanon and his monks, under the world-famed
cedars, and Bruat had a perfect duel of jokes there with a witty ship's
surgeon named Camescasse, who was one of our party. I remember a funny
saying of this same Camescasse, about a brother medico of his who
retired into Brittany, where his practice was specially among the local
aristocracy. He always called him "The Avenger of the People."

At Eden, the chief town of the Maronites, the old shiek Boutrouss-Karam
received me with the greatest honours, and I was half drowned with
sprinklings of rose-water, the smell of which I detest. Apart from my
presence, there was a great fete going on at Eden for the marriage of
Boutrouss-Karam's daughter, and the whole Maronitenation had hurried to
it in their best clothes. Such handsome types, such costumes, such
turbans! I was one of the bride's witnesses: she and I had each to keep