With the Campers, Above Dhour

Hers is the first kiss from the Mother of Light, and for her lips the first sip of the full moon's radiance — that green hill on the shoulder of Dhour! As for the flood of perfume, and the music stealing through the folds of the wood, they are a lasting intoxication, an enraptured ecstasy: lofty pines butting the clouds with pride and dignity, while over their backs, and through the ether, sweet melodies sway, reeling in every direction.

When you look out upon those knolls, moist breezes wash your face, and it is as if in doing so they had washed away your care and your sorrow; you become merry again, free of troubles, and you sink, if you wish, into an air of gladness, calm, and purity — for nature around you makes you forget the world of man and all that his hands have contrived!...

But what is there on top of the knoll?...

There are the tents, billowing between white and green and the color of the clouds, and before them the circles of recreation and study are convened: girls at the age of buds and blossoms, escaped from the mire of the pleasure-seeking city and its clamorous airs, and settled into a corner that is indeed one of the loveliest spots on earth, however the standards of beauty may differ.

Come with me now, and let us stroll a little among these tents — and do not keep glancing at your shoes every other moment, for they will certainly take on the color of the dust here; and even this dust is not the dust you tread in the city.

I see in your eyes a question about the cleanliness and order you see. "Yes, all of this rests on the girls' shoulders. We are here to guide them toward mental and manual work, so that each one feels her responsibility as an individual who asks much of life, and is required in turn to supply life from her own giving." This is the view of Miss Edma Bayyud, general director of the Young Women's Christian Association. The girl washes and sweeps and fills water from the nearby spring, then gathers firewood; and in all of this she drinks health from the fountain of open air and refreshing sun. Gladness spreads over her cheeks, and the sweet tunes never leave her lips.

Those circles convened here and there are simply to train the campers in acting, drawing, and dancing, and then in arranging the various athletic programs.

On the green stage the dreams and hopes dance; the little flowers sway coquettishly to the strains of the music, and souls reel at the sound of virgin voices soaring and roaming.

Folk dancing is an art that refines the soul and fills the spirit with gladness, and a time has been set aside for it; acting, too, has a large share in the camp, since it is a miniature and directed picture of life as it is. And quickly our girls feel the pull of poetry and art out there in the open country and in the shade of the wood; they sit before a teacher from whom they take up various arts, such as leather-carving, drawing, and handicrafts.

Each week has a program in which the arts are mingled, just as each day at the camp has a full and prepared program: neither sleeping nor rising is left to improvisation... and thus we apply the verse that says: "To every thing under heaven there is a season."

Around the hill are springs bursting from the depths of proud mountains, to which the campers go for outings, for drinking, and sometimes to eat. And there is no harm in a fleeting glimpse of these short excursions: the girls divide into two parties, one going ahead of the other and leaving behind it directions and papers pointing out the way it has taken — or sometimes leading it astray — while the second caravan marches stumbling along on the track of the first, floundering; and in all this there spreads a merriment beyond all merriment, and laughter rings out, innocent and resonant, until at last they find their way to the "treasure," where "trays" of tabbouleh and dishes stand ready.

"One cannot think of evil here." So spoke Miss Layla Shahin, leader of the vanguard at the camp; and along this path, far from evil and from the very thought of it, her battalions march. Forward, then, Layla — you and your Laylas!...

"Today our excursion is to Beit Chabab — are we ready?"

"The Munjidat are always ready!" The whistle sounded, and each girl took up her kit, not forgetting her nature notebook, in which she records every new thing she sees and gives a report on it. And at Beit Chabab, this time, we set down our loads and went about touring the workshops of industry, which live on despite the tightness of the purse and the scarcity of encouragement, moral and material, and which produce manufactures it is our duty to value and to strengthen.

These bells that ring among the valleys in the forenoon, sending enthusiasm and the love of life through our nerves, and carrying us at evening, with their rapture, to a safe night's rest — they are the product of very small workshops in which Beit Chabab stands alone. And pottery — whose manufacture has so advanced in the developed countries that they have come to treat it as an art, adding to it and boasting extravagantly of it — is still, as an industry here, a frail infant, needing nourishment to live and grow strong. As for the weaving mills, most of them resting on handwork, they lift their heads to peer out at the world of light, but the window is very narrow and the door is locked. Where is he who will throw it open wide, so that industry may be freed and range the breadth of the sky?... Without knowing it, and between earnest and jest, the girl took a lesson in certain industries, and then learned how to value a craft; for the camp's idea moves toward schooling souls in the facts of real life.

At Gemayel's Qaysariyya: "Come to me, little ones." With these words our famous artist received the troop of campers. "Come, that I may sow in your tender souls the seed of knowledge glowing in the spirit of art, and feed your mouths with the most delicious of provisions, one to lead you to the love of truth and to a feeling for everything on which your eyes alight." And indeed the little ones gathered, and a quarrel

broke out over who should sit next to "César": this one cries, "I reserved my place at his right hand," and another challenges her, "I have settled for the left side." And here the command's whistle intervenes, and innocent laughter rises in an air brimming with feeling and merriment.

In every one of our sons and daughters there is an aptitude and a capacity for the tasting of art or the practice of it; but those capacities flower or are effaced according to the direction that steers them and the environment that works upon them. And how delightful was the hour in which I heard questions raining down upon the artist's head, so that he rubs his brow to recall the serial number, smiles, and then answers in detail — or else the protests rise loud.

I think you are tired now — but the campers are not tired. Here are the tongues of the campfire blazing, calling everyone to a circle where we enjoy "whatever comes along" of talk and of songs let loose, free, no throat growing hoarse over them, rising with the silvery rays and drifting like mist among the valleys and the hills spread out as far as the eye can see. Upward the eyes lift to watch the stars, and are lost for spells in the world of the heavenly bodies... And darkness steals into the heart of the wood — but you will not feel it here; it is another day, of golden dreams toying with your enraptured fancy. To the tent, then, to sleep on the hope of an early sunrise... tomorrow morning!...