_BLUDÁN IN THE ANTI-LEBANON_
(1870)
Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge
in the villages.
Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine
flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates
bud forth: there will I give thee my loves.
The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of
pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O
my beloved.
_The Song of Solomon._
During the next few weeks at Damascus there was an outbreak of cholera,
which gave me a great deal of trouble at the time. Several people died
in great agony, and I did what I could to check the outbreak. I made
the peasants wash and fumigate their houses and burn the bedding, and
send to me for medicine the moment a person was taken ill. Fortunately
these precautions checked the spread of the disease; but along the
cottages at the river-side there was also an epidemic of scarlet fever
more difficult to keep within bounds. I secured the services of a
kind-hearted French surgeon, who attended the patients, and I myself
nursed them. I wore an outside woollen dress when attending cases, and
this I hung on a tree in the garden, and never let it enter my house.
I also took a bag of camphor with me to prevent infection. However,
after a time I was struck down by one of those virulent, nameless
illnesses peculiar to Damascus, which, if neglected, end in death,
and I could not move without fainting. An instinct warned me to have
a change of air, and I determined to go to Beyrout. Two hours out
of Damascus I was able to rise, and at the half-way house at Buká’a
I could eat, and when I arrived at Beyrout after fourteen hours’
journey I felt almost well. I had three weeks’ delicious sea-bathing
at Beyrout; and while there we kept Her Majesty’s birthday at the
Consulate-General with great pomp and ceremony. We also made several
little expeditions. Richard went farther afield than I did, to Tyre,
Sidon, Carmel, and Juneh. I was too weak to go with him, which I
regretted very much, as I would have given a great deal to have visited
the grave of Lady Hester Stanhope.
On June 14 we turned our faces homewards to Damascus, and as we
journeyed over the Lebanons and descended into the plain I could not
help feeling the oriental charm of the scene grow upon me. Beyrout
is demi-fashionable, semi-European; but Damascus is the heart of the
East, and there is no taint of Europeanism about it. As I was nearing
Damascus in the evening I fell in love with it. The first few weeks I
had disliked it, but gradually it had grown upon me, and now it took
a place in my heart from which it could never be thrust forth. I saw
how lovely it was, bathed in the evening sun, and it seemed to me
like home--the home that I had dreamed of in my childhood long ago. I
cannot tell what worked this charm in me; but henceforth my affections
and interests, my life and work, knitted and grew to that Damascus home
of ours, where I would willingly have remained all my days. I knew
that mine was to be the wanderer’s life, and that it is fatal for the
wanderer to make ties and get attached to places or things or people;
but in spite of this presentiment, I greedily drank in whilst I could
all the truths which the desert breathes, and learnt all I could of
oriental mysteries, and set my hands to do all the good work they could
find, until they were full to overflowing.
Ten days after our return to Salahíyyeh we had a severe shock of
earthquake. Richard and I were sitting in an inner room, when suddenly
the divan began to see-saw under us, and the wardrobe opposite to bow
down to us. Fortunately no harm was done; but it was an unpleasant
sensation, like being at sea in a gale of wind.
As Damascus began to be very hot about this time, we moved to our
summer quarters at Bludán, about twenty-seven miles across country
from Damascus in the Anti-Lebanon. It was a most beautiful spot, right
up in the mountains, and comparatively cool. We threaded the alleys
of Bludán, ascended steep places, and soon found ourselves beyond the
village, opposite a door which opened into a garden cultivated in
ridges up the mountain. In the middle stood a large barn-like limestone
hall, with a covered Dutch verandah, from which there was a splendid
view. This was our summer-house; it had been built by a former consul.
Everybody who came to see us said, “Well, it is glorious; but the thing
is to get here.” It was a veritable eagle’s nest.
We soon settled down and made ourselves comfortable. The large room was
in the middle of the house, looking on to the verandah, which overhung
the glorious view. We surrounded it with low divans, and the walls
became an armoury of weapons. The rooms on either side of this large
room were turned into a study for Richard, a sleeping-room, and a study
and dressing-room for me. We had stabling for eight horses. There were
no windows in the house, only wooden shutters to close at night. The
utter solitude and the wildness of the life made it very soothing and
restful.
One of my earliest experiences there was a deputation from the shaykhs
and chiefs of the villages round, who brought me a present of a sheep,
a most acceptable present. Often when alone at Bludán provisions ran
short. I remember once sending my servants to forage for food, and they
returned with an oath, saying there was nothing but “Arab’s head and
onions.” I don’t know about the Arab’s head, but there was no doubt
about the onions. I often used to dine off a big raw onion and an
oatmeal cake, nothing better being forthcoming.
In many ways our days at Bludán were the perfection of living. We used
to wake at dawn, make a cup of tea, and then sally forth accompanied
by the dogs, and take long walks over the mountains with our guns in
search of sport. The larger game were bears, gazelles, wolves, wild
boars, and a small leopard. The small game nearer home were partridges,
quail, and woodcock, with which we replenished our larder. I am fond of
sport; and, though I say it, I was not a bad shot in those days. The
hotter part of the day we spent indoors reading, writing, and studying
Arabic. At twelve we had our first meal, which served as breakfast and
luncheon, on the terrace. Sometimes in the afternoon native shaykhs or
people from Beyrout and Damascus would come and visit us. When the sun
became cooler, all the sick and poor within fifteen or sixteen miles
round would come to be doctored and tended. The hungry, the thirsty,
the ragged, the sick, and the sore filled our garden, and I used to
make it my duty and pleasure to be of some little use to them. I seldom
had fewer than fifteen patients a day, half of them with eye diseases,
and I acquired a considerable reputation as a doctor. We used to dine
at seven o’clock on the terrace. After dinner divans were spread on the
housetop, and we would watch the moon lighting up Hermon whilst the
after-dinner pipe was being smoked. A pianette from Damascus enabled
us to have a little music. Then I would assemble the servants, read
the night prayers to them, with a little bit of Scripture or of Thomas
à Kempis. The last thing was to go round the premises and see that
everything was right, and turn out the dogs on guard. And so to bed.
Richard used to ride down into Damascus every few days to see that all
was going well; so I was often left alone.
I must not linger too long over our life at Bludán. Mr. E. H.
Palmer, afterwards Professor of Arabic at Cambridge, and Mr. Charles
Tyrwhitt-Drake, who had done much good work in connexion with the
Palestine Exploration, came to us about this time on a visit, and we
made many excursions from Bludán with them, some short and some long.
We used to saunter or gypsy about the country round, pitching our tents
at night. I kept little reckoning of time during these excursions.
We generally counted by the sun. I only know that we used to start
at dawn, and with the exception of a short halt we would ride until
sunset, and often until dusk, and sleep in the desert.
One of our most interesting excursions was to Ba’albak, which is far
more beautiful, though smaller, than Palmyra; and it can be seen
without danger--Palmyra cannot. The ruins are very beautiful. The
village hangs on to the tail of the ruins--not a bad village either,
but by comparison it looks like a tatter clinging to an empress’s
diamond-bespangled train. The scenery around is wild, rocky, and barren.
[Illustration: BA’ALBAK.]
When we arrived at Ba’albak, the Governor and the chief people rode out
to receive us. Our horses’ hoofs soon rang under a ruined battlement,
and we entered in state through the dark tunnels. Horses were neighing,
sabres were clanking; it was a noisy, confusing, picturesque scene.
We tented for the night in the midst of the grand court of the ruins.
In the morning the ladies of the Governor’s harím paid me a visit
in my tent. With their blue satin and diamonds, they were the most
elaborately dressed women I had seen for a long time. We stayed at
Ba’albak several days, and explored the ruins thoroughly. It is the
ancient Heliopolis. One of the most striking things amid its rocky
tombs and sepulchral caves and its Doric columns and temples was the
grand old eagle, the emblem of Baal. On Sunday I heard Mass at the
Maronite chapel, and returned the call of the ladies aforesaid. In the
evening we dined with the Governor, who illuminated his house for us.
We passed a most enjoyable evening. I spent most of the time in the
harím with the ladies. They wished me to tell them a story; but as I
could not recite one fluently in Arabic, the Governor allowed me as a
special favour to blindfold our dragoman, and take him into the harím
as an interpreter, the Governor himself being present the whole time
to see that the bandage did not come off. One night Mr. Drake and I
lit up the ruins with magnesium. The effect was very beautiful. It was
like a gigantic transformation scene in a desert plain. Every night the
jackals played round our tents in the moonlight, and made the ruins
weird with strange sights and sounds.
We left Ba’albak at dawn one morning, and rode to the source of the
Lebweh. The water bursts out from the ground, and divides into a dozen
sparkling streams. Of all the fountains I have ever seen, there is not
one so like liquid diamonds as this. We picketed our horses under a
big tree, and slept for a while through the heat of the day. At 4.30
p.m., when it was cooler, we rode on again to Er Ras. When we arrived
we met with a furious, rising wind. We stopped there for the night,
and the next morning galloped across the plain to Buká’a. We had a
long, tiring ride, finally reaching a clump of trees on a height, where
we pitched our camp. The Maronite chiefs were _jeríding_ in the
hollow. They came to dinner with us, and I gave them a present of some
cartridges, which appeared to make them very happy.
The next day we continued to ride up a steep ascent. At last we stood
upon a mountain-range of crescent form, ourselves in the centre, and
the two cusps to the sea. Turning to the side which we had ascended and
looking below, the horizon was bounded by the Anti-Lebanon, with the
plain of Buká’a and the ruins of Ba’albak beneath and far away. From
this point we could see the principal heights of the Lebanon, for which
we were bound, to make excursions from the Cedars. We had a painful
descent for an hour and a half, when we reached the famous Cedars
of Lebanon, and camped beneath them. We pitched our tents among the
Cedars, under the largest trees. They are scattered over seven mounds
in the form of a cross. There are five hundred and fifty-five trees,
and they exude the sweetest odours. We spent a very pleasant time
camping under their grateful shade.
At last the day came for our party to break up, Mr. Palmer and Mr.
Tyrwhitt-Drake _en route_ for England, and Richard and I to return
to Bludán. So we parted.
It took Richard and myself many days to get back to our home. After
parting with our friends, we resolved to visit the Patriarch, Primate
of Antioch and of all the East; and escorted by a priest and the
shaykh we travelled by way of a short cut and terrible descent of
three hours. It was no better than a goat-path. We at last arrived
at Dimán, the summer residence of the Patriarch, a conventual yet
fortress-like building on an eminence, commanding a view of the
whole of his jurisdiction. We were charmed with the reception which
his Beatitude gave us. We were received by two bishops and endless
retainers. The Patriarch, dressed in purple, sat in a long, narrow room
like a covered terrace. We of the Faith knelt and kissed his hands, and
the others bowed low. His Beatitude seemed delighted with Richard, and
at dinner he sat at the head of the table, with me on his right and
Richard on his left. We then went to see the chapel and the monks, and
the view from the terrace, where we had coffee. His Beatitude gave me a
number of pious things, amongst others a bit of the true Cross, which I
still wear.
After we left the Patriarch’s we found a dreadful road. Our horses
had literally to jump from one bit of rock to another. It consisted
of nothing but _débris_ of rocks. The horses were dead-beat long
before we had done our day’s work, and we had to struggle forward
on foot. Night found us still scrambling in the dark, worn out with
fatigue and heat. I felt unable to go another step. At last, about
nine o’clock, we saw a light, and we hoped it was our camp. We had yet
some distance to go, and when we reached the light we found a wretched
village of a few huts. It was so dark that we could not find our way
into the shedlike dwellings. We had lost our camp altogether. At last,
by dint of shouting, some men came out with a torch, and welcomed
us. Tired as I was, I saw all the horses groomed, fed, watered, and
tethered in a sheltered spot for the night. We were then able to eat a
watermelon, and were soon sound asleep on our saddle-cloths in the open.
The next day’s ride was as bad. The scenery, however, was very wild and
beautiful. We breakfasted at the place we ought to have arrived at the
previous night, and then we resumed our second bad day in the Kasrawán,
the worst desert of Syria. The horses were tired of jumping from ledge
to ledge. We passed some Arab tents, and camped for the night.
The following morning we rode to the top of Jebel Sunnin, one of the
three highest points in Syria, and we had another six hours of the
Kasrawán, which is called by the Syrians “The road of Gehenna.” We were
terribly thirsty, and at last we found a little khan, which gave us
the best _leben_ I ever tasted. I was so thirsty that I seemed as
if I could never drink enough. I could not help laughing when, after
drinking off my third big bowl, the poor woman of the khan, in spite of
Arab courtesies, was obliged to utter a loud “Máshálláh!” We were still
surrounded by amphitheatre-shaped mountains, with the points to the Sea
of Sidon. The sunset was splendid, and the air was cool and pleasant.
We debated whether to camp or to go on; but the place was so tempting
that we ended by remaining, and were repaid by a charming evening.
The next day we rode quietly down the mountains. We enjoyed a grand
view and a pleasant ride but it was as steep as a railway-bank; and
we came at last to another little khan, where we breakfasted. The
Anti-Lebanon rose on the opposite side. Miss Ellen Wilson, who had a
Protestant mission at Zahleh in this district, asked us to her house,
and we accepted her hospitality for the night, instead of remaining in
our tents. We stayed at Miss Wilson’s for a few days; and we visited
and were visited by the Governor of Zahleh, the Bishop, and other
dignitaries. Richard was taken with fever. I nursed him all night, and
caught the complaint. We both suffered horribly, in spite of every
attention on the part of our friends. Richard soon shook off his
illness, but I did not; I fancied I could not get well unless I went
home to Bludán.
So at sunset on August 11, after we had been at Miss Wilson’s rather
more than a week, our horses were made ready. I was lifted out of
bed and put into a litter. We wound out of Zahleh, descended into
the plain, and began to cross it. I was so sorry for the men who had
to carry my litter that I begged to be allowed to ride. I told my
Arab stallion Salim to be very quiet. We went at foot’s pace till 1
o’clock a.m. in bright moonlight across the plain. Then we passed
regular defiles, where once or twice the horses missed their footing,
and struck fire out of the rocks in their struggles to hold up. At
two o’clock in the morning I felt that I was going to drop out of my
saddle, and cried for quarter. The tents were hastily half pitched, and
we lay down on the rugs till daylight. By that time I had to repair to
my litter again, but I felt so happy at coming near home that I thought
I was cured. As we neared Bludán I was carried along in the litter,
and I lay so still that everybody thought that my corpse was coming
home to be buried. The news spread far and wide, so I had the pleasure
of hearing my own praises and the people’s lamentations.
We had not long returned to Bludán before a great excitement arose.
When we had been home about a fortnight, on August 26, Richard received
at night by a mounted messenger two letters, one from Mr. Wright, chief
Protestant missionary at Damascus, and one from the chief dragoman at
the British Consulate, saying that the Christians at Damascus were
in great alarm; most of them had fled from the city, or were flying,
and everything pointed to a wholesale massacre. Only ten years before
(in 1860) there had been the most awful slaughter of Christians at
Damascus; and though it had been put down at last, the embers of hatred
were still smouldering, and might at any time burst into a flame. Now
it seemed there had been one of those eruptions of ill-feeling which
were periodical in Damascus, resulting from so many religions, tongues,
and races being mixed up together. The chief hatred was between the
Moslems and the Christians, and the Jews were fond of stirring up
strife between them, because they reaped the benefit of the riot and
anarchy. It appeared that the slaughter day was expected on August
27--on the morrow. It had been so timed. All the chief authorities
were absent from Damascus, as well as the Consuls, and therefore there
would be nobody to interfere and nobody to be made responsible. We
only got notice on the night before, the 26th. Richard and I made our
plans and arrangements in ten minutes, and then saddled the horses and
cleaned the weapons. Richard would not take me to Damascus, however,
because, as he said, he intended to protect Damascus, and he wanted me
to protect Bludán and Zebedani. The feeling that I had something to do
took away all that remained of my fever. In the night I accompanied
Richard down the mountain. He took half the men, and left me half. When
we got into the plain, we shook hands like two brothers, and parted,
though it might have been that we should never see one another again.
There were no tears, nor any display of affection, for emotion might
have cost us dear.
Richard rode into Damascus, put up his horse, and got to business.
When he stated what he had heard, the local authorities affected to be
surprised; but he said to them, “I must telegraph to Constantinople
unless measures are taken at once.” This had the desired effect, and
they said, “What will you have us do?” He said, “I would have you post
a guard of soldiers in every street, and order a patrol at night.
Issue an order that no Jew or Christian shall leave their houses until
all is quiet.” These measures were taken at once, and continued for
three days; not a drop of blood was shed, and the flock of frightened
Christians who had fled to the mountains began to come back. In this
way the massacre at Damascus was averted. But I may mention that some
of the Christians who had run away in panic to Beyrout, as soon as they
were safe, declared that there had been no danger whatever, and they
had not been at all frightened. I grieve to say it, but the Eastern
Christian is often a poor thing. But all this is to anticipate.
When I had parted from Richard in the plain, I climbed up to my eagle’s
nest at Bludán, the view from which commanded the country, and I felt
that as long as our ammunition lasted we could defend ourselves, unless
overpowered by numbers. Night was coming on, and of course I had not
the slightest idea of what would happen, but feared the worst. I knew
what had happened at the previous massacre of Christians at Damascus;
and flying, excited stragglers dropped in, and from what they said one
would have supposed that Damascus was already being deluged in blood,
and that eventually crowds of Moslems would surge up to Bludán and
exterminate us also. I fully expected an attack, so I collected every
available weapon and all the ammunition. I had five men in the house;
to each one I gave a gun, a revolver, and a bowie-knife. I put one on
the roof with a pair of elephant guns carrying four-ounce balls, and a
man to each of the four sides of the house, and I commanded the terrace
myself. I planted the Union Jack on the flagstaff at the top of the
house, and I turned my bull terriers into the garden to give notice of
any approach. I locked up a little Syrian girl whom I had taken into my
service, and who was terribly frightened, in the safest room; but my
English maid, who was as brave as any man, I told off to supply us with
provisions and make herself generally useful. I then rode down the hill
to the American Mission and begged them to come up and take shelter
with me, and then into the village of Bludán to tell the Christians to
come up to me on the slightest sign of danger. I gave the same message
to the handful of Christians at Zebedani. I rode on to the Shaykhs, and
asked them how it would be if the news proved true. They told me that
there would be a fight, but they also said, “They shall pass over our
dead bodies before they reach you.” It was a brave speech and kindly
meant; but if anything had happened I should have been to the fore.
I did not wish the Shaykhs to think I was afraid, or wanted their
protection against their co-religionists.
When all preparations were completed, I returned to the house, and we
waited and watched, and we watched and waited for three days. Nobody
came, except more flying stragglers with exaggerated news. After having
made all my preparations, I can hardly explain my sensations, whether
they were of joy or of disappointment. The suspense and inaction
were very trying. I was never destined to do anything worthy of my
ancestress, Blanche Lady Arundell, who defended Wardour Castle against
the Parliamentary forces.
During the three days we were in suspense a monster vulture kept
hovering over our house. The people said it was a bad omen, and so I
fetched my little gun, though I rather begrudged the cartridge just
then; and when it was out of what they call reach, I had the good luck
to bring it down. This gave them great comfort, and we hung the vulture
on the top of the tallest tree.
At last at midnight on the third day a mounted messenger rode up with a
letter from Richard, saying that all was well at Damascus, but that he
would not be back for a week.
After this excitement life fell back into its normal course at Bludán,
and the only variations were small excursions and my doctoring. _À
propos_ of the latter, I can tell some amusing anecdotes. Once
a girl sent to me saying she had broken her leg. I had a litter
constructed, hired men, and went down to see her. When I came near the
place where she was, I met her walking. “How can you be walking with a
broken leg?” I said. She lifted up her voice and wept; she also lifted
up her petticoat and showed me a scratch on her knee that an English
baby would not have cried for. Sometimes women would come and ask me
for medicine to make them young again, others wished me to improve
their complexions, and many wanted me to make them like Sarai of old.
I gently reminded them of their ages, and said that I thought that at
such a time of life no medicines or doctors could avail. “My age!”
screamed one: “why, what age do you take me for?” “Well,” I answered
politely, “perhaps you might be sixty” (she looked seventy-five). “I am
only twenty-five,” she said in a very hurt tone of voice. “Well then,”
I said, “I must congratulate you on your early marriage, for your
youngest daughter is seventeen, and she is working in my house. Anyway
it is really too late to work a miracle.”
On another occasion I received a very equivocal compliment. A woman
came to me and begged for medicines, and described her symptoms. The
doctor was with me, but she did not know him. He said in French, “Do
not give her anything but a little effervescing magnesia. I won’t have
anything to do with her; it is too late, and risks reputation.” I did
as he bade me, simply not to seem unkind. The next day she was dead.
Soon afterwards a young man of about twenty came to me and said, “Ya
Sitti, will you give me some of that nice white bubbling powder for my
grandmother that you gave to Umm Saba the day before yesterday? She is
so old, and has been in her bed these three months, and will neither
recover nor die.” “Oh thou wicked youth!” I answered; “begone from my
house! I did but give Umm Saba a powder to calm her sickness, for it
was too late to save her, and it was the will of Allah that she should
die.”
I will here mention again my little Syrian maid, to whom I had taken a
fancy at Miss Wilson’s Mission, where I first met her, and I took her
into my service. She was a thorough child of Nature, quite a little
wild thing, and it took me a long time to break her into domestic
habits. She was about seventeen years of age, just the time of life
when a girl requires careful guiding. When she first came to us, she
used to say and do the queerest things. Some of them I really do not
think are suited to ears polite; but here are a few.
One day, when we were sitting at work, she startled me by asking:
“Lady, why don’t you put your lip out so?” pouting a very long
under-lip.
“Why, O Moon?”
“Look, my lip so large. Why, all the men love her so because she pout.”
“But, O Moon, my lip is not made like yours; and, besides, I never
think of men.”
“But do think, Lady. Look, your pretty lip all sucked under.”
I know now how to place my lip, and I always remember her when I sit at
work.
On another occasion, seeing my boxes full of dresses and pretty
trinkets, and noticing that I wore no jewellery, and always dressed in
riding-habits and waterproofs for rough excursions, and looked after
the stables instead of lying on a divan and sucking a narghíleh, after
the manner of Eastern women, she exclaimed:
“O Lady, Ya Sitti, my happiness, why do you not wear this lovely
dress?”--a _décolletée_ blue ball-dress, trimmed with tulle and
roses. “I hate the black. When the Beg will come and see his wife so
darling, he will be so jealous and ashamed of himself. I beg of you
keep this black till you are an old woman, and instead be joyful in
your happy time.”
After she had been in the house a fortnight, her ideas grew a little
faster; and speaking of an old sedate lady, and hoping she would do
something she wished, she startled me by saying, “If she do, she do;
and if she don’t, go to hell!”
[Illustration: “THE MOON,” LADY BURTON’S SYRIAN MAID.]
The girl was remarkably pretty, with black plaits of hair confined by
a coloured handkerchief, a round baby face, large eyes, long lashes,
small nose, and pouting lips, with white teeth, of which she was very
proud: a temperament which was all sunshine or thunder and lightning
in ten minutes. She had a nice, plump little figure, encased in a
simple, tight-fitting cotton gown, which, however, showed a stomach of
size totally disproportionate to her figure. Seeing this, I said gently:
“O Moon, do wear stays! When you get older, you will lose your pretty
figure. You are only seventeen, and I am past thirty, and yet I have no
stomach. Do let me give you some stays.”
She burst into a storm of tears and indignation at being supposed to
have a fault of person, which brought on a rumbling of the stomach. She
pointed to it, and said:
“Hush! do you hear, Lady? She cry because she is so great.”
Our kawwass having picked up a little bad language on board ship from
the sailors, was in the habit of saying wicked words when angry, and
the Moon imitated him. The Moon, on being told to do something one
day by my English maid, rapped out a volley of fearful oaths, and my
maid fled to me in horror. I was obliged to speak very seriously to
the Moon, and told her that these were bad words used by the little
gutter-boys in England when they had bad parents and did not know God.
Our dragoman, I regret to say, once took liberties with her. She
complained to me.
“O Lady, all the men want my lip and my breast. Hanna he pulled me, and
I told him, ‘What you want? I am a girl of seventeen. I have to learn
how I shall walk. You know the Arab girl. Not even my brother kiss me
without leave. Wait till I run and tell Ya Sitti.’”
This frightened Hanna, a man like a little old walnut, with a wife and
children, and he begged her not to do so. But she came and told me, and
I replied:
“O Moon, the next time he does it, slap his face and scream, and I will
come down and ask him what he takes my house to be. He shall get more
than he reckons on.”
There was a great deal of ill-feeling simmering between the Moslems
and Christians all this summer, and there were many squabbles between
them. Sometimes the Christians were to blame, and needlessly offended
the susceptibilities of the Moslems. I was always very careful about
this, and would not eat pig for fear of offending the Moslems and Jews,
though we were often short of meat, and I hungered for a good rasher of
bacon. I used to ride down to Zebedani, the next village to Bludán, to
hear Mass, attended by only one servant, a boy of twenty. The people
loved me, and my chief difficulty was to pass through the crowd that
came to kiss my hand or my habit, so I might really have gone alone. I
would not mention this but that our enemies misreported the facts home,
and it went forth to the world that I behaved like a female tyrant, and
flogged and shot the people. How this rumour arose I know not, for I
never shot anybody, and the only time I flogged a man was as follows. I
do not repent of it, and under similar circumstances should do the same
over again.
One day I was riding alone through the village of Zebedani; as usual
every one rose up and saluted me, and I was joined by several native
Christians. Suddenly Hasan, a youth of about twenty-two, thrust himself
before my horse, and said, “What fellows you fellahin are to salute
this Christian woman! I will show you the way to treat her.” This was
an insult. I reined in my horse; the natives dropped on their knees,
praying me not to be angry, and kissed my hands, which meant, “For
Allah’s sake bear it patiently! We are not strong enough to fight for
you.” By this time quite a crowd had collected, and I was the centre
of all eyes. “What is the meaning of this?” I asked Hasan. “It means,”
he answered, “that I want to raise the devil to-day, and I will pull
you off your horse and duck you in the water. I am a Beg, and you are a
Beg. Salute me!” Salute him indeed! I did salute him, but hardly in the
way he bargained for. I had only an instant to think over what I could
do. I knew that to give him the slightest advantage over me would be
to bring on a Consular and European row, and a Christian row too, and
that if I evinced the smallest cowardice I should never be able to show
my face in the village again. I had a strong English hunting-whip, and
was wearing a short riding-habit. So I sprang nimbly from my saddle,
and seized him by the throat, twisting his necktie tightly, and at
the same time showering blows upon his head, face, and shoulders with
the butt-end of my whip till he howled for mercy. My servant, who was
a little way behind, heard the noise at this moment, and, seeing how
I was engaged, thought that I was attacked, and flew to the rescue.
Six men flung themselves upon him, and during the struggle his pistol
or blunderbuss went off, and the ball whizzed past our heads to lodge
in the plaster wall. It might have shot me as well as Hasan, though
afterwards this fact was used against me. The native Christians all
threw themselves on the ground, as they often do when there is any
shooting. The brother of Hasan then dragged him howling away from me.
I mounted my horse again, and rode on amid the curses of his brothers.
“We will follow you,” they shouted, “with sticks and stones and guns,
and at night we will come in a party and burn your house, and whenever
we meet an English son of a pig we will kill him.” “Thank you for your
warning,” I said; “you may be quite sure I shall be ready for you.”
I went home and waited to see if any apology would be offered, but none
came. The Shaykhs came up, and the Christians told me if I allowed this
insult to pass in silence they would be unable to stay in the village,
they were too few. I waited, however, some time, and then wrote an
account of the affair and sent it to Damascus to the Wali. The Wali,
who at that time was not ill-disposed towards Richard, behaved like a
gentleman. He expressed regret at the incident, and sent soldiers up to
burn and sack the home of Hasan and his family, but I interceded and
got them off with only a few weeks’ imprisonment. The father of the
youth Hasan, accompanied by about fifty of the principal people, came
up to beg my pardon the morning after the insult. I, however, received
them coldly, and merely said the affair had passed out of my hands. But
I begged them off all the same.
There was a sequel to this story, which I may as well mention here.
The following summer, when we were at Bludán, Hasan and I became great
friends. One day, after doctoring him for weak eyes, I said, “What
made you want to hurt me, O Hasan, last summer?” He replied, “I don’t
know; the devil entered my heart. I was jealous to see you always with
the Shaykhs and never noticing us. But since I have got to know you I
could kill myself for it.” He had an excellent heart, but was apt to
be carried off his head by the troubles of the times. I may mention
that I reported the matter to the Consul-General, who had also received
the story in another form; to wit, that I had seen a poor Arab beggar
sitting at my gate, and because he did not rise and salute me I had
drawn a revolver and shot him dead. This is a specimen of Turkish
falsehood.