Page:Syria, the land of Lebanon (1914).djvu/47

THE LEFT-HAND LAND I used to hear a servant going the rounds of my dormitory to waken the young men, at their own request, so that they might spend four hours before breakfast at their books. Some of those same indefatigable students have since led their classes in great American and European universities.

It is true that the Syrians nurse vengeful feuds for generation after generation. That is partly because family ties are so wonderfully strong among them. "I and my brother against my cousin; I and my cousin against my neighbor," runs the proverb. When two brothers are in the same class at school or college, they seldom have other chums, but insist upon sitting side by side in the classroom, and during their free hours they wander about the campus with arms around each other's shoulders. If an elder brother goes away to make his fortune in some distant country, he never forgets the loved ones at home; but year after year the remittances will come, until all the younger children have been educated or have been brought across the sea to share in the opportunities of the new land of promise. A trusted American missionary had at one time in his possession no less than five thousand dollars which had been sent from America for the parents and younger children of a single mountain village.

The ambition of the Syrian is as boundless as his daring, and his courageous persistence is a buttress to his splendid capacity for both business and  [ 23 ]