_EARLY DAYS AT DAMASCUS_
(1870)
Though old as history itself, thou art fresh as breath or
spring, blooming as thine own rosebud, as fragrant as thine own
orange flower, O Damascus, Pearl of the East!
As soon as we had settled in our house I had to accustom myself to
the honours of my position, which at first were rather irksome to me;
but as they were part of the business I had to put up with them. I
found my position as the wife of the British Consul in Damascus very
different from what it had been in Brazil. A consul in the East as
_envoyé_ of a Great Power is a big man, and he ranks almost as
high as a Minister would in Europe. Nearer home a consul is often
hardly considered to be a gentleman, while in many countries he is not
allowed to go to Court. In the East, however, the Consular service was,
at the time I write, an honoured profession, and the _envoyés_ of
the Great Powers were expected to keep up a little state, especially
the English and the French. They had a certain number of Consular
dragomans, or gentleman secretaries, in distinction to the travelling
dragoman, who bears the same relation as a courier in Europe. They
also had a certain number of kawwasses, who look like cavalry soldiers.
The Consulate at Damascus was then quite like a diplomatic post, and I
felt like a Minister’s wife, and was treated accordingly. For instance,
every time I went outside my door I was attended by four kawwasses,
with swords and uniforms much ornamented, also a dragoman interpreter.
The duty of these four attendants was to clear the way before and
behind me, and I assure you it was far more pain than pleasure to me
to see mules, horses, donkeys, camels, little children, and poor old
men thrust out of the way, as if I were sacred and they were all dirt.
How they must have cursed me! I told my kawwasses that I did not wish
them to show themselves officious by doing more than was absolutely
necessary for the dignity of the British Consulate and the custom
of the country. But their escort certainly was necessary to a great
extent. When the common people saw a kawwass, they knew one was of
importance, and made way for one; otherwise a woman could not walk the
streets of Damascus without being molested: even the famished herds of
dogs seemed to know the difference between kawwass and no kawwass. The
danger from dogs was that they collected and ran in packs, and you were
almost caught in the eddy of wild and half-starved dogs if you were not
guarded.
I hate pomp and ceremony of all kinds, except where it is absolutely
necessary; but in this case I could not dispense with it. The French
Minister’s wife was hissed in the streets of Constantinople because
she chose to dispense with her escort. A Protestant clergyman’s
wife was nearly struck by a Turkish soldier for brushing against him
with her petticoats, thus rendering him, according to his religion,
unclean. Besides, women in the East want a guard. A missionary young
lady who came up in the _coupé_ of the diligence from Beyrout to
Damascus had an unpleasant experience. A Persian, who called himself a
gentleman, was inside, and kissed her all the way up. She, poor little
idiot! saw no way out of the transaction, but came and threw herself on
Richard’s protection several days after, and there was an ugly row. She
had the Persian arrested, and tried him. If anybody had tried that sort
of game on with me, I should have made an example of him myself, and
taken the law in my own hands, whoever he was. An escort was therefore
necessary. I can understand how some consuls’ wives, sometimes vulgar,
ill-conditioned women, might get elated at this newly acquired
importance, and presume upon it until they became unbearable. I found
the lack of privacy very trying at first, but I was anxious to bear it
because I saw that English influence at Damascus required lifting a
great many pegs higher than our predecessor left it. The only member of
our English _noblesse_ the people had hitherto known in Damascus
was Lady Ellenborough, of whom more anon.
As soon as we were settled down I had to begin my receptions. I fixed
my reception day on Wednesday; and it was no trifle, for the visitors
came all day long. One native lady told me indignantly that she had
been to see me three times on my reception day, and had been refused.
I said, “When did you come? and how could it happen that I had never
heard of it?” She answered almost angrily, “I came at daylight, and
again at sunrise, and again at eight o’clock.” I said it was rather
early; and though I was an early riser, it was just possible that
I had not made a suitable toilet to receive her. On my reception
day the dragomans interpreted for me. The kawwasses, in full dress
of scarlet and gold, kept guard by turns, and the servants were
engaged incessantly in bringing up relays of narghílehs, chibouques,
cigarettes, sweetmeats, sherbet, Turkish coffee and tea. My visitors
sat on the divans, cross-legged or not, according to their nation, and
smoked and chatted. If there were Moslem women, I had two separate
reception-rooms, and went from one to the other, as the women will not
unveil before strange men. It was a most tiring day; for not only did
people come all through the day, but I was obliged to concentrate all
my thoughts not to make a mistake in etiquette. There were many grades
and ranks to be considered, and the etiquette in receiving each guest
was different according to the rank. The dragoman in attendance upon
me would whisper until I knew it, “One step,” or “Two steps,” or “Half
across the room,” or “The door.” I thus knew exactly the visitor’s
rank, and by what term to address him, from the lowest to the highest.
Of course, in receiving natives, the method of receiving men and women
was different. I advanced to meet the women; we mutually raised our
finger-tips to our hearts, lips, and foreheads. They then seized my
hand, which I snatched away to prevent their kissing it (it sounds
rude, but it isn’t; it is the essence of politeness), and I kissed them
on both cheeks. I personally removed their veils and their izárs. When
they took their leave, I reveiled them, and accompanied them to the
door. With the men I did not shake hands: we saluted at a distance. If
my visitor was a well-bred man, he would not expect me to rise, but
would come and kiss my hand, and had to be pressed two or three times
before he would consent to sit down. The only man I was in the habit
of rising for was the Wali, or Governor-General of Syria, because he
represented the Sultan, and he in his turn paid me a similar respect.
When he left, I accompanied him to the door of the room, but never
to the street door. Moreover, it was _de rigueur_ every time
a visitor came that coffee, tea, or sherbet should be offered him,
and that I should take it with him and drink first. It was a custom
with the natives, and I could not omit it; but when I first held my
receptions I found it a great tax upon me, and mixing so many drinks
gave me indigestion. Afterwards I grew more wary, and merely moistened
my lips. Another thing I used to do at my earlier receptions was to
make tea and coffee and carry them round myself, while the dragomans
would lazily sit and look on. I didn’t understand this at all, so I
told them to get up and help me, and they willingly handed tea and
coffee to any European, man or woman, but not to their native ladies,
who blushed, begged the dragomans’ pardon, and stood up, looking
appealingly at me, and praying not to be served. So I found it the
easiest thing to wait on the native women myself, though I felt very
indignant that any man should feel himself degraded by having to wait
on a woman.
I must now mention three of my principal visitors, each of whom
afterwards played a large part, though a very different part, in our
life at Damascus.
First of all was the Wali, or Governor-General of Syria. I received him
in state one day. He came in full uniform with a great many attendants.
I seated him in proper form on a divan with pipes and coffee. He was
very amiable and polite. He reminded me of an old tom-cat: he was
dressed in furs; he was indolent and fat, and walked on his toes and
purred. At first sight I thought him a kind-hearted old creature, not
very intelligent and easily led. The last quality was true enough; for
what disgusted me was that Syria was really governed by dragomans, and
the Wali or any other great man was a puppet. For instance, if the
Consul wanted to see the Wali, he had to send one of his dragomans to
the Wali’s dragomans, and they arranged between them just what they
liked. The two chief men met each other, attended by two dragomans,
who reported every word of the conversation round Damascus. These
men easily made people enemies; and the lies, mischief, and scandal
they originated were beyond imagination. I have said that my first
impression of the Wali was as of a well-fed cat; but I soon discovered
that the cat had claws, for he quickly became jealous of Richard’s
influence, and during our two years’ sojourn at Damascus he was one of
our worst enemies.
Another, and the most interesting of all the personages who attended my
receptions, was Lady Ellenborough, known at Damascus as the Honourable
Jane Digby El Mezráb.[1] She was the most romantic and picturesque
personality: one might say she was Lady Hester Stanhope’s successor.
She was of the family of Lord Digby, and had married Lord Ellenborough,
Governor-General of India, a man much older than herself, when she was
quite a girl. The marriage was against her wish. She was very unhappy
with him, and she ran away with Prince Schwartzenburg when she was only
nineteen, and Lord Ellenborough divorced her. She lived with Prince
Schwartzenburg for some years, and had two or three children by him,
and then he basely deserted her. I am afraid after that she led a life
for a year or two over which it is kinder to draw a veil. She then
tired of Europe, and conceived the idea of visiting the East, and of
imitating Lady Hester Stanhope and other European ladies, who became
more Eastern than the Easterns. She arrived at Beyrout, and went to
Damascus, where she arranged to go to Baghdad, across the desert. For
this journey a Bedawin escort was necessary; and as the Mezráb tribe
occupied the ground, the duty of commanding the escort devolved upon
Shaykh Mijwal, a younger brother of the chief of this tribe. On the
journey the young Shaykh fell in love with this beautiful woman, and
she fell in love with him. The romantic picture of becoming a queen of
the desert suited her wild and roving fancy. She married him, in spite
of all opposition, according to the Mohammedan law. At the time I came
to Damascus she was living half the year in a house just within the
city gates; the other half of the year she passed in the desert in the
tents of the Bedawin tribe, living absolutely as a Bedawin woman. When
I first saw her she was a most beautiful woman, though sixty-one years
of age. She wore one blue garment, and her beautiful hair was in two
long plaits down to the ground. When she was in the desert, she used to
milk the camels, serve her husband, prepare his food, wash his hands,
face, and feet, and stood and waited on him while he ate, like any Arab
woman, and gloried in so doing. But at Damascus she led a semi-European
life. She blackened her eyes with kohl, and lived in a curiously
untidy manner. But otherwise she was not in the least extraordinary
at Damascus. But what was incomprehensible to me was how she could
have given up all she had in England to live with that dirty little
black--or nearly so--husband. I went to see her one day, and when he
opened the door to me I thought at first he was a native servant. I
could understand her leaving a coarse, cruel husband, much older than
herself, whom she never loved (every woman has not the strength of
mind and the pride to stand by what she has done); I could understand
her running away with Schwartzenburg; but the contact with that black
skin I could not understand. Her Shaykh was very dark--darker than a
Persian, and much darker than an Arab generally is. All the same, he
was a very intelligent and charming man in any light but as a husband.
That made me shudder. It was curious how she had retained the charming
manner, the soft voice, and all the graces of her youth. You would
have known her at once to be an English lady, well born and bred, and
she was delighted to greet in me one of her own order. We became great
friends, and she dictated to me the whole of her biography, and most
romantic and interesting it is. I took a great interest in the poor
thing. She was devoted to her Shaykh, whereat I marvelled greatly.
Gossip said that he had other wives, but she assured me that he had
not, and that both her brother Lord Digby and the British Consul
required a legal and official statement to that effect before they
were married. She appeared to be quite foolishly in love with him (and
I fully comprehend any amount of sacrifice for the man one loves--the
greater the better), though the object of her devotion astonished me.
Her eyes often used to fill with tears when talking of England, her
people, and old times; and when we became more intimate, she spoke to
me of every detail of her erring but romantic career. It was easy to
see that Schwartzenburg had been the love of her life, for her eyes
would light up with a glory when she mentioned him, and she whispered
his name with bated breath. It was his desertion which wrecked her
life. Poor thing! she was far more sinned against than sinning.
[1] Our other friend at Damascus was the famous Abd el Kadir. Every one
knows his history: every one has heard of his hopeless struggles for
the independence of Algeria; his capture and imprisonment in France
from 1847 to 1852, when he was set free by Louis Napoleon on the
intercession of Lord Londonderry. More than that, Louis Napoleon was
magnanimous enough to pension him, and sent him to Damascus, where he
was living when we came, surrounded by five hundred faithful Algerians.
He loved the English, but he was very loyal to Louis Napoleon. He
was dark, and a splendid-looking man with a stately bearing, and
perfectly self-possessed. He always dressed in snow white, turban
and _burnous_, with not a single ornament except his jewelled
arms, which were superb. He was every inch a soldier and a sultan,
and his mind was as beautiful as his face. Both he and Richard were
Master-Sufi, and they greatly enjoyed a talk together, both speaking
purest Arabic.
When I look back on those dear days and friends in Damascus, my eyes
fill and my heart throbs at the memories which crowd upon me. When I
think of all those memories, none is dearer to me than the recollection
of the evenings which we four--Lady Ellenborough, Abd el Kadir,
Richard, and myself--used to spend together on the top of our house.
Often after my reception was over and the sun was setting, we used to
ask these two to stay behind the others and have a little supper with
us, and we would go up to the roof, where it was prepared, and where
mattresses and the cushions of the divans were spread about, and have
our evening meal; and after that we would smoke our narghílehs, and
talk and talk and talk far into the night, about things above, things
on the earth, and things under the earth. I shall never forget the
scene on the housetop, backed as it was by the sublime mountain, a
strip of sand between it and us, and on the other three sides was the
view over Damascus and beyond the desert. It was all wild, romantic,
and solemn; and sometimes we would pause in our conversation to listen
to the sounds around us: the last call to prayer on the minaret-top,
the soughing of the wind through the mountain-gorges, and the noise of
the water-wheel in the neighbouring orchard.
I have said _we_ smoked, and that included Lady Ellenborough
and myself. I must confess to the soft impeachment, despite insular
prejudices; and I would advise any woman who sojourns in the East
to learn to smoke, if she can. I am no admirer of a big cigar in a
woman’s mouth, or a short clay; but I know of nothing more graceful or
enjoyable than a cigarette, and even more so is the narghíleh, or even
the chibouque, which, however, is quite a man’s pipe.
I must add that when we were in the East Richard and I made a point of
leading two lives. We were always thoroughly English in our Consulate,
and endeavoured to set an example of the way in which England should
be represented abroad, and in our official life we strictly conformed
to English customs and conventions; but when we were off duty, so
to speak, we used to live a great deal as natives, and so obtained
experience of the inner Eastern life. Richard’s friendship with
the Mohammedans, and his perfect mastery of the Arabic and Persian
languages and literature, naturally put him into intimate relations
with the oriental authorities and the Arab tribes, and he was always
very popular among them, with one exception, and that was the Turkish
Wali, or Governor, aforesaid. Richard was my guide in all things; and
since he adapted himself to the native life, I endeavoured to adapt
myself to it also, not only because it was my duty, but because I loved
it. For instance, though we always wore European dress in Damascus and
Beyrout, we wore native dress in the desert. I always wore the men’s
dress on our expeditions in the desert and up the country. By that I
mean the dress of the Arab men. This is not so dreadful as Mrs. Grundy
may suppose, as it was all drapery, and does not show the figure. There
was nothing but the face to show the curious whether you were a man
or a woman, and I used to tuck my _kuffiyyah_ up to only show my
eyes. When we wore Eastern clothes, we always ate as the Easterns ate.
If I went to a bazar, I frequently used to dress like a Moslem woman
with my face covered, and sit in the shops and let my Arab maid do
the talking. They never suspected me, and so I heard all their gossip
and entered into something of their lives. The women frequently took
me into the mosque in this garb, but to the harím I always went in my
European clothes. Richard and I lived the Eastern life thoroughly, and
we loved it.
We went to every kind of ceremony, whether it was a circumcision, or
a wedding, or a funeral, or a dervish dance, or anything that was
going on; and we mixed with all classes, and religions, and races, and
tongues. I remember my first invitation was to a grand _fête_
to celebrate the circumcision of a youth about ten years of age. He
was very pretty, and was dressed in gorgeous garments covered with
jewellery. Singing, dancing, and feasting went on for about three days.
The ceremony took place quite publicly. There was a loud clang of music
and firing of guns to drown the boy’s cries, and with one stroke of a
circular knife the operation was finished in a second. The part cut off
was then handed round on a silver salver, as if to force all present to
attest that the rite had been performed. I felt quite sick, and English
modesty overpowered curiosity, and I could not look. Later on, when I
grew more used to Eastern ways, I was forced to accept the compliment
paid to the highest rank, and a great compliment to me as a Christian,
to hold the boy in my arms whilst the ceremony was being performed. It
was rather curious at first to be asked to a circumcision, as one might
be asked to a christening in England or a “small and early.”
For the first three months of my life at Damascus I only indulged in
short excursions, but Richard went away on longer expeditions, often
for days, sometimes on business and sometimes to visit the Druze
chiefs. I have said that our house was about a quarter of an hour from
Damascus, and whilst Richard was away on one of these expeditions I
broke through a stupid rule. It was agreed that I could never dine
out or go to a _soirée_ in Damascus, because after sunset the
roads between Damascus and our house on the hillside were infested
with Kurds. I was tired of being “gated” in this way, so I sent to the
Chief of the Police, and told him I intended to dine out when I chose
and where I chose, and to return at all hours--any hours I pleased. He
looked astonished, so I gave him a present. He looked cheerful, and I
then told him to make it his business that I was never to be attacked
or molested. I showed him my revolver, and said, “I will shoot the
first man who comes within five yards of me or my horse.” I went down
twice to Damascus while Richard was away the first time, and I found
all the gates of the city open and men posted with lanterns everywhere.
I took an escort of four of my servants, and I told them plainly that
the first man who ran away I would shoot from behind. I came back one
night at eleven o’clock, and another at two o’clock in the morning, and
nothing happened.
When I knew that Richard was coming back from the desert, I rode out
to meet him about eight miles. I did not meet him until sunset. He
said he knew a short cut to Damascus across the mountains, but we lost
our way. Night came on, and we were wandering about amongst the rocks
and precipices on the mountains. We could not see our hands before our
faces. Our horses would not move, and we had to dismount, and grope our
way, and lead them. Richard’s horse was dead-beat, and mine was too
fiery; and we had to wait till the moon rose, reaching home at last
half dead with fatigue and hunger.
Our daily life at Damascus, when we were not engaged in any expedition
or excursion, was much as follows: We rose at daybreak. Richard went
down every day to his Consulate in the city at twelve o’clock, and
remained there till four or five. We had two meals a day--breakfast at
11 a.m., and supper at dusk. At the breakfast any of our friends and
acquaintances who liked used to drop in and join us; and immediately
after our evening meal we received friends, if any came. If not,
Richard used to read himself to sleep, and I did the same. Of Richard’s
great and many activities at Damascus, of his difficult and dangerous
work, of his knowledge of Eastern character and Eastern languages, of
his political and diplomatic talents, all of which made him just the
man for the place, I have written elsewhere. Here I have to perform
the infinitely harder task of speaking of myself. But in writing of my
daily life at Damascus I must not forget that my first and best work
was to interest myself in all my husband’s pursuits, and to be, as far
as he would allow me to be, his companion, his private secretary, and
his _aide-de-camp_. Thus I saw and learnt much, not only of native
life, but also of high political matters. I would only say that my days
were all too short: I wish they had been six hours longer. When not
helping Richard, my work consisted of looking after my house, servants,
stables and horses, of doing a little gardening, of reading, writing,
and studying, of trying to pick up Arabic, of receiving visits and
returning them, of seeing and learning Damascus thoroughly, and looking
after the poor and sick who came in my way. I often also had a gallop
over the mountains and plains; or I went shooting, either on foot or
on horseback. The game was very wild round Damascus, but I got a shot
at red-legged partridges, wild duck, quail, snipe, and woodcock, and I
seldom came home with an empty bag. The only time I ever felt lonely
was during the long winter nights when Richard was away. In the summer
I did not feel lonely, because I could always go and smoke a narghíleh
with the women at the water-side in a neighbour’s garden. But in the
winter it was not possible to do this. So I used to occupy myself with
music or literature, or with writing these rough notes, which I or some
one else will put together some day. But more often than not I sat and
listened to the stillness, broken ever and anon by weird sounds
outside.
So passed our life at Damascus.