The French encampment at Beirut.
Beirut claims especial attention from its connection with the massacres of Syria. Entering the bay we anchored among a fleet of war vessels, mostly Turks, with two or three French. A single British corvette lay anchored a long way off in a safer bay. The other vessels of the English fleet had been ordered to the Adriatic, in view of the uncertainties of European politics. Thus, the French are left nearly alone in the defence or protection of Syria. I presume Napoleon does not regret his advantage, and doubtless will make the most of it. He occupies Syria, and you may depend upon it he will never leave. You have been often informed that he has an army of a few thousand quartered in the vicinity of Beirut, and among the mountains of Lebanon.-- I had the pleasure of visiting the French encampment about five or six miles from the city, containing, perhaps, four or five thousand French and Algerians.I made the trip over a French road, in a French omnibus. This road is the beginning of the road to Damascus, and means some thing more than an effort to increase the locomotive privileges of the residents of Beirut and Damascus. Very recently, I am told by a gentleman long resident in Palestine, Napoleon received a valuable present of a fortress in the Lebanon mountains, from the wife of a deceased Pasha. Whatever may be the future of French occupancy, the past and present is to be accredited to the humane desire of the Emperor to suppress the horrible butcheries of the Druses. His own prompt action alone saved the unbutchered of Syria, and his forces must remain to insure their safety. -- But to return to visit to the encampment. The roads amid mulberry groves and hedges of us. Cates for Turk and Frenchman her spring up along the way, and seem well patronized, notwithstanding they present little of the attractiveness of the cafes of the Boulevards of Paris.
The road was filled with French soldiers, Turkish soldiers, Algerines, Bedouins, horsemen and footmen, donkeys and donkey men, camels and camel men, and women with various costumes. Our French omnibus, with its team of mules and horses, and its black Nubian driver, added to the strange mingling of the European and the Oriental, the ancient and the modern, the stereotyped and the progressive. We stopped in front of a large French cafe close by the encampment. Here a large band were enlivening the gay scene with martial music, and people of all nations were sipping their coffee and smoking their "Sultana" or "Latakia." The main portion of the French are encamped in "the Pines" a fine growth of pine trees springing out of naked sands. Little if any arrangement is observable in placing of the tents.
The Frenchman, true to his tastes, seeks to ornament even his camp, though, like this, it be in a sand desert. Grass and flowers and running vines were growing around the tents, and spaces were laid out in curves and angles, and planted in various flowers and verdure. Under French taste, even the desert blossoms as the rose. The camp-fires were smouldering and the soldiers were sitting at their evening meal. Their table was the ground and their seats the ground, and yet they contrived by digging a trench around their table not to sit cross-legged like the Turk. Most of the tents are small, and afford only an indifferent shelter from the winter rains.--Various trades necessary to the camp were carried on, such as tailoring, harness-making, shoe-making, blacksmithing, &c.
The Algerine forces are encamped in the open field, beneath the piercing rays of a Syrian sun. Their horses are in like manner tied out, exposed to all changes of the weather. They were preparing their suppers at their scanty camp-fires, and it was amusing to see two or three of these wild Algerines squatting over their pot or pan, smoking and chatting their Arabic, while every eye was fixed on the meat and potatoes which they were extemporizing into food. Their dress is similar to that of the Bedouin, but their eyes are keener and their appearance I thought more sprightly.
A Hungarian General remarked to me, that I had seen the "highest perfection of military encampment;" this is a real army encampment, not the showy demonstration of annual parades, and I am satisfied that many a young military aspirant would be thoroughly cured by a couple of months' confinement here.--Letters from Rev. Dr. Baylies.
