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6- Two river mouths, two rivers, two fairylike caverns, Afka and Jeita.

They set the limits to Kesrouan to the north and to the south.

The Mediterranean laps its shore to the west, and the most beautiful of mountains rises on its east. This is Sannine, a mountain that lives, that may be seen to follow the rhythms of the sun, every minute changing its shades of color with varied tints.

Here is a land of legend, of dreams, of myths, of poems and of endeavor, a land of gods, of heroes, and of men, for whom toil is delight, for fable becomes reality.

One can write nothing more perfect, more poetic, more imbued with life, than the description of Nahr Ibrahim, the river of Adonis, with its wild waters, furious and foaming, hurtling down.

How enthralling is the epic of the human race!

Human endeavor reveals the pioneer spirit of its time.

The Lebanese work with passion for an eternal goal.

Their human fabric adapts to every change and contrast.

In the beginning was the Logos, the Word of God. Once this people was like any other, but there was also a difference.

The yeast that was the ferment of this people came straight from the Word.

This is the month of March and of April, the beginning of Holy Week, with fasting, mortification, sacrifice and prayer, with chant and with psalmody.

Almighty God, Creator of the Cosmos, Creator of Time, of Beauty, of Light, God of mankind, and muse inspirer of poets, protector of the seasons, animator of souls, we implore you, protect our children and our homes, give us back this son Adonis and the spirit of Adonis.

You see, Lucien, these ceremonies go to my head and make me feel involved.

I have known Adonis, son of the Cosmos, reborn on the soil of Lebanon with the April air.

All nature awakes, beauty of abundant blossom.

The sap rises through the stems, giving all that is green a new verdure, fresh and vital. The blood courses through our veins, in the gracious young damsels decked with flowers who dance in the spring air, celebrating the renewal of life in the world.

As for the men, dear Lucien, they meditate, plunged deep in their own thoughts, in union with the resurrection of the Son of God.

The smiles have gone from the faces, but the kindness and tenderness have added to their expression.

A Holy Week, once again there is rejoicing. God is among us, and no desert separates man from God.

God is with man, close to men, as one of them.

Dear Lucien, the wild boar is forgotten,

As the false prophets are forgotten, and their victims, the lost sheep that we love.

Life goes on for the rest of the year, and the feast-days follow on like the seasons, like the blessed waters of our two rivers.

7- Look, Lucien, here we are!

Here at the western extremity of that chain of mountains stretching from Zion to Hermon, from Sannine to Kornet es-Sawda. Other mountains raise their heads, the Pyramids, the Iron Mountain, the Mountain of Moses, and yet others, and what a mighty rampart do these chains form! Facing the Bedouin on his horse or his camel, the hordes which sweep all before them, riding like the wind, without pity or fear, sowing terror, capture, rape and death, there stood only one hurdle on their way over the plateau extending from Iran named Persia, over Iraq and over Syria, the wall of the mountains of Lebanon.

They had to pass this first obstacle before they reached the second one, the Mediterranean.

The Mediterranean shore and the plain, they are like light and darkness, and between them is twilight, a twilight seething with life.

‘Twixt the river mouth and the plain there is every exchange, from the valley of Adonis to the great Heliopolis; the temples of Mithras rise in succession, to be replaced by the churches, so many of them bearing the names of the prophet Elias or of Our Lady.

Yes, the prophet Elias lives again in every Lebanese soul, that Elias who revolted and said No! to the impious King Achab.

Long caravans of mules, of donkeys and of camels brought on their banks merchandise and offerings, then bought, paid and bore away. Communication means exchange.

For the departure, the arrival and the return one thing was needed, the blessing and help of the gods, a prayer offered before the temple, with vows and with thanks.

The children came running to welcome these caravans, while the young people of of around Byblos awaited news of their lovers at Baalbek Heliopolis.

Our produce of every kind journeyed all over this limitless plateau. From this sack, dear Lucien, as we approach the Metropolis, let us scatter its content in the sacred water of the torrent, that the water polluted by this virus of knowledge may spread through the seas, the oceans, the islands, the continents, that all Creation may be touched by it that it might be the one bond uniting mankind.

After Golgotha, the day when the blood of the Lord God flowed on the planet, all ties of blood were wiped out that one bond of love, of truth, of justice, of equality and of freedom might unite all men to their Creator.

You know, Lucien, these descendants of Abraham, of Isaac and Ishmaël still believe in these stories of ties of blood and of different races.

Help me, Lucien, for I have lapses of memory at my age, the age of all time; you know I am old, so help me to describe. What is it that marks the soul of this country, this people, this Lebanon, these Lebanese?

What can one say of God and of his saints?

A people with energy? Hospitable and friendly? Supple, obstinate, fearing no challenge? Open, giving their heart even to the ungrateful, lucid and cheerful, generous and vital, hard as the blacksmith and gentle as doves?

With moral values, a people just.

Help me to walk, Lucien, so that with this freeing breath I may animate the earth, the sun and the light.

Rude workers of metal, steady in action, men of all trades like the goatherd with his skills.

With a spirit of sacrifice even reaching martyrdom.

With the mysticism of work, always a prayer.

Mystical worker.

Saints and hermit monks. Truth to tell, we are all monks, monk goatherds and goatherd monks.

To walk in the early dawn at the fourth hour of the morn under the gentle rays of Venus, the shepherd’s star, star of love, this is most beautiful in the land of the cedars, bathed in moonlight, in yellow and orange rays from a moon at arm’s reach.

8- Wake up, dear Lucien, let us continue, but we leave these places with regret where we sleep, dream and meditate near the sacred water, beside the stream.

The light intensifies with a glowing blue, ever stronger. On the horizon a clear line is drawn.

The wind murmurs on the coast as we make our way along mysterious paths half overgrown.

What pleasure is this, we forget weariness, sweat and thirst!

The stars are no more to be seen, they fade like the civilizations of the past, just a few planets cast their last rays and then are lost.

Between Adonis and Byblos the land is more open, the hills rise less high, and the horizons stretch farther.

The fruit trees are still many and varied, and we see terraces of banana trees, orange trees, almond trees, olive trees and carob trees, while to our left the fishermen draw their daily sustenance, coming from an ancient past and having seen the history of many civilizations.

They ever hope for stronger health in a universe temple of God.

The universe is a paradise of holiness and here one senses the pleasures of silence, hearing the bells inviting the faithful to prayer, for from Beirut to Byblos we see everywhere the outline of the belfries of our churches.

These are so simple, some stones and a bell under a holy cross, this cross to be seen as far as the Cosmos.

It may be seen in every source of light.

It is the Cross of the Cosmos, made flesh on earth in the Word to bear high the germ of the soul which is divine, with upraised arms praying in the realms of the heavens where the dialogue with the Creator is touching in an act sublime.

It is only at Byblos that a first minaret shows its outline. Here the faithful eager for Allah call him with all their strength of soul.

You know, Lucien, Renan and his friends followed this very same road.

Lamartine, Gérard de Nervard, Flaubert, Barrès and others.

Europeans and conquerors, Alexander, Pompey, the Greeks and the Romans, going from North to South and from South to North.

Happy would I have been to land in Byblos from a boat, a boat of dreams rocked by the waves of my soul.

My heart trembles, Lucien, I am moved, I am joyful to see Byblos before me.

The tears run down my cheeks.

Words fail me, I am totally united to God on this sacred world that I love as the gods of old loved it.

What a great idea was yours, Lucien, when you compared Byblos to a giant hand, with its center the palm and the roads to its outskirts so many fingers.

Yes, paths that run from the heart out to the great spaces of heaven.

The old city lies in the middle and the many homes stretch out on every side.

Here is a people of fishermen, settled eight thousand years ago around a providential well of water, a place easy to defend, where over this vast period some five or six civilizations have come and gone.

South-west of the hillock lies the earliest primitive village, with floors of smoothed clay and chalk for the tents of the fishermen, cattle-raisers and hunters; then there are the first true houses of the ages of bronze and of iron. Here began the great epic of the Phoenician galleys, their bows plowing everywhere the seas before they returned to the

temples of the gods and to the palaces of the kings with their proud hypogea.

Let us stop here, for today we are called. We are invited, for here each passer-by is made welcome. Hospitality is the absolute rule. Generosity is a tradition, everyone feels at ease, a group of women, girls or men seated under a vine whose roots are in the soil and whose bunches of grapes are in paradise, this paradise which Fra Angelico or this springtime of Botticelli. The Edenic dream becomes daily reality. Over every doorway there spreads a vine to enchant you.

The terrace is another world, as in a legend of princes. Flowers of every kind surround us. We are received with open arms and served coffee and sweetmeats and succulent fruit, as we sit shaded against the trunk of a tree. Nearby, an ass is attached with her little foal.

And in the harbor we visualize the triremes and counters of yore.

Joseph Matar
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Translated from French: K.J.Mortimer