When this entertainment came to an end a seedy-looking character entered the arena with an open Bible in his hand. He proceeded up the stairs to the open balcony, whither he was followed by the armed crowd who had been dancing. These ranged themselves right and left beside him, and he commenced in Arabic to read in a loud voice a chapter from the Gospel of St. John. When he had read a certain number of verses he paused, and about a hundred guns went off in a sort of _feu de joie_. Then he read on, while his audience loaded their guns. Then he paused again. They fired again, and so on all through the chapter, thus emphasizing as it were the most striking passages by periodical explosions of gunpowder. When this was over the church bell rang, and some priests with round, high-crowned hats and locks flowing over their shoulders made their appearance. I was told by a Melchite friend that there was no use in going to church now, as everybody intended to go and get drunk and pay visits, and indulge in more dancing of a less restrained character, but that there would be a better mass on the following day, because the French consul was going to attend in full uniform, and everybody would be there.
This Easter festival lasts three days. The merriment increases and culminates on the last day, at the expiration of which everybody has given proof of his religious devotion by arriving at a blind state of intoxication. When in this sanctified condition disturbances not unfrequently occur between these Christian worshippers and the Moslems, in whose mind Christian religious ceremonial is inseparably connected with drunken riots and wild orgies. The Caimakam or Turkish governor of the town, fearing that the strict observance of Easter according to their custom on the part of the Melchites might lead to these results, issued an order that on Easter Monday and the day following no firing was to be allowed, but the Melchites replied to the police officer charged with enforcing this order, that they had no intention of obeying it. A serious difficulty might have occurred were it not for the intervention of the English and French vice-consuls, who gave the Melchites to understand that the Turkish authority must be respected. It was a curious illustration of the state of Turkish administration here that a Turkish governor should have to appeal to foreign consuls in order to secure compliance on the part of Turkish subjects with his own orders. When I attended mass on the following day there was no firing. With the exception of the French consul, my friends, and myself, the whole congregation stood. Three priests officiated at an altar unusually tawdry, and a group of men and boys kept up a stentorian nasal chant from first to last. They were accompanied by an orchestra of two men, each of whom had a pair of common steel table knives, with which they kept up a most ear-splitting clatter on the rim of a copper bowl, that might on ordinary occasions have been used for salad. The incense-swingers puffed fumes of incense into the faces of the French consul and myself as being honoured guests, and a priest brought him an open Bible to kiss, but abstained from offering it to me—on religious grounds best known to himself. Then he painted a good many people with holy water, using a piece of cotton put on the end of a wire. Then there was the usual procession and elevation of the Host, and the more devout members prostrated themselves and kissed the flagstones of the church. The sacrament was administered, the bread and wine being mixed together in a silver cup, which was held over an embroidered napkin stretched between two boys, so that none of the contents fell to the ground as the priest put the teaspoonful into the mouths of those who knelt before him. The women did not seem to need it, as they were all bottled up in a gallery, and could only see or be seen through a lattice-work.