Turk now undertook to pilot us to Seyden, though on our arrival there I
determined to have no more pilots, as they rather confused the
navigation, not being able to give positive information at any time.

'After leaving Beirut we next let go anchor at Saida (Sidon) once so
famed, and now a very tolerable Turkish town. Here no relic of antiquity
is visible except a large block of marble about a mile to southward of
the town with a Greek inscription (which _I_ did not see; Mandiel
gives a sufficient account of it, and my friends who visited it say it
appears to be in precisely the same state that he saw it in) with some
remains of a galley mole, which the Turks in their profound policy have
blocked up so that it is with difficulty that a small boat can get in.
Here my attention was greatly diverted from examining much of the town
and its contents by the circumstance of my dispatching a civil line
"with Captain Y's compts to Lady H. Stanhope" offering my services in
any way to take letters &c. to Malta or elsewhere that I might be going.
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. Accordingly on the following
morning, with Luca my Armenian interpreter whom I have mentioned in
company, we started for the residence of her ladyship. The ride,
uninteresting from any circumstance but that of actually being on Mount
Libanus, deserves no remark, sterile, and but little cultivated in this
part. Her residence is on an eminence about ten miles from the sea which
it overlooks; on the other side it does not look into the bosom of the
Valley of Bernica, yet it is high enough to enjoy the beautiful verdure
of the mountain rising on the opposite side, whose tops are the most