Reflections――Letter from Lady Hester to the Author asking him to
return――He revisits Syria――Changes which had taken place in
Beyrout――M. Jasper Chasseaud, American consul――Divine service
performed by the American missionaries――Letter from Lady Hester to the
Author――Her continued hostility to Mrs. ――.――The Author takes his
family to Sayda――Dress and demeanour of a lady of Sayda――The Author’s
reception at Jôon――His family frightened by a deserter――Settles at the
convent of Mar Elias――Earthquake of January 1, 1837.
We now arrive at an epoch in Lady Hester Stanhope’s life, when it might
be said that her European reputation had reached its height, and her
domestic humiliations had sunk her to the lowest ebb. She had been
visited in her retirement by so many travellers of all the nations of
the Continent, that it might be supposed her singular mode of life was
known to almost everybody. M. Lamartine’s account of his interview had
spread abroad an undefined sort of wonder about her mystic and singular
opinions, and the public read with avidity whatever details they could
meet with respecting her.
Six years had now elapsed since our separation; and, although
occasionally honoured with a letter from her, I had given up all idea
of ever seeing her again, when, being at Nice, where I had furnished a
house, with the intention of passing two or three years with my family,
I received the following letter.
_Lady H. S. to Dr. ――――._
August 21st, 1836.
I hope I shall not claim in vain the assistance of an old
friend, at the moment I most require one I can depend upon,
to settle the business of my debts, &c., now made public.
Money has been left me, which has been concealed from me. I
could hardly, at first, believe it, until I was assured of
it by a young lawyer, who had the fact from one of my Irish
relations. I should wish you to come as soon as you can
possibly make it convenient to yourself, and return when
the business is over.
[I omit a passage, of no general interest, in which Lady
Hester arranges the mode of transit by which I was to visit
her, assures me that she will “think of my family before
anything else,” and refers to the losses she had sustained
by the non-payment of certain bills.]
An English traveller, who has written, as I am informed, a
very learned work, told a person that, when M. Lamartine’s
book first came out in England, the impression was so
strong that many people, who did not personally know me,
talked of coming here to investigate my affairs, and to
offer their services, but that they were prevented. A
woman, of high rank and good fortune,[54] who has built
herself a _palais_ in a remote part of America, has
announced her intention of passing the rest of her life
with me, so much has she been struck with my situation
and conduct. She is nearly of my age; and, thirty-seven
or thirty-eight years ago――I being personally unknown
to her――was so taken with my general appearance, that
she never could divest herself of the thoughts of me,
which have ever since pursued her. At last, informed by
M. Lamartine’s book where I was to be found, she took
this extraordinary determination, and in the spring I
expect her. She is now selling her large landed estate,
preparatory to her coming. She, as well as Lëila, the mare,
is in the prophecy. (See page 179.) The beautiful boy has
also written, and is wandering over the face of the globe,
till destiny marks the period of our meeting.
Such wonders, doctor! Copy these signs upon another paper,
and remain silent upon the subject. Bring with you your notes
upon Palmyra, &c.――do not forget. Perhaps I may receive from you
an answer to my former letter by the next steamboat; but, as it
only remains an hour at Beyrout, this must be sent off to be in
waiting there. God bless you!
[Not signed.]
(Lady Hester seems to have been interrupted in her writing, and breaks
off; but she thus resumes:)
The little black is not twelve years old, yet she does
my bed-room, and answers the bell: she is the only
good-tempered black I have seen; so I try to please her,
poor thing! If you come, I should, therefore, wish (if not
too expensive) that you should bring, as an encouragement,
a pair of ear-rings, a string of beads, a pair of
bracelets, and a thimble. Her ears, having been spoilt with
boring and heavy ear-rings, were obliged to be bored again,
very high, nearer the face――it is a beautiful ear.
Now, what I want for myself is six cups and saucers; the
top, I think, four inches in diameter; height, four inches;
foot, two inches. I had a cup I was so fond of; for tea
and coffee tasted so good out of it! It was strong and
good china, but it is gone: and one cup held enough for
my breakfast――a moderate cup and a half. I want also a
teapot, black or red, or what you like; two cream-jugs;
four milk-jugs, in case two are broken,――being always in
use――one for hot and one for cold milk; six plates; four
glass things, for butter and honey; a toast-rack, not
plated――a plated one for strangers; a dozen basins; some
little phials and corks; a few common candlesticks, brass,
or something strong; a few common entangling combs; a few
scrubbing-brushes for the kitchen――that is all.
I do not want any books, having no one to read to me: it
even puts my eyes out to write this.
I have heard of your situation, and it pains me beyond
expression. Here you might, I believe, have been happy,
and I also comfortable, as I have confidence in your
integrity; and, whilst you were regulating all as I should
have wished, you would have pursued those avocations most
pleasing to your taste. What advice can I give you that I
have not already given fifty times?
Of myself, I can say but little which is amusing; for, from
the time the Egyptian troops entered this country until
now, I have been in hot water. After the siege,[55] all
that remained of the wretched population fled here, and my
house and the village were, for the space of three years,
the tower of Babel. Indeed, it was only at the beginning of
this year that I got rid of the last of eighteen persons of
one family, all orphans and widows; and only a lad, who was
not capable, from his want of education, of gaining anything
for himself and family, remained. I had, at one time,
seventy-five coverlets out for strangers, chiefly
soldiers――the village full of families――and those at Sayda
and other places coming and going for a little money to buy
their daily bread.
I have saved many lives by my energy and determination,
and have stood alone in such a storm! All trembled, Franks
as much as the rest; and, if they pretended to act with
a little spirit, they were sure to have folly, and not
justice, on their side, and to be at last obliged to give
in: but the most of them joined, heart and hand, with the
usurpers, whom I have treated without mercy, and, in the
end, carried all before me. God helped me in all; for,
otherwise, I never could have got through with it, having
no one of any sort of use to me.
Lunardi, Mr. Webb’s man, whom you so strongly recommended
to me, turned himself into a doctor, and was too much taken
up with his new title to be of any use to me: yet this
useless Lunardi is a good-hearted fellow. Were you to see
him now, however, you would hardly know him; his manners
are so improved, as well as his understanding: I believe,
also, that he is attached to me.
Anxiety, agitation, and fatigue, together with the violent
passions I sometimes put myself in, caused me, only a
year ago, to vomit blood enough several times to have
killed a horse. In seven days it stopped; but yet I was
obliged to be bled eleven times in four months and a half,
fearing a return. Yesterday, I was working like a _fellah_
[ploughman] in my garden. I am very thin, but contented
about my health, as this gives proof of my natural
strength. With the blood running out of my mouth, I was
collected enough to give orders respecting a man, who, if
he had been caught, would have lost his head; and no soul
in the family knew of this but one, who insisted on seeing
me in the state I was in: and although I could hardly
speak, I reflected much, and, thank God! settled all to my
satisfaction.
Abdallah Pasha has behaved very ill at Constantinople――a
vain, stupid fool, without heart and without common sense:
but it is for the Sultan that I have worked, as I am really
attached to him, he being a most superior character.
Your friend Urquhart will be very useful to Lord Ponsonby,
who, though a sensible man, is idle. Should U. gain the
confidence of the Turks, he may learn their opinion of
me; but he must not repeat it to the Franks, as a great
jealousy exists respecting my politics. I have long
foretold the change that must take place in those of the
French and English, and now say that Sultan Mahmood will be
_mansôor_ [victorious.]
P.[56] has gambled away nearly five hundred dollars I gave
him about four years ago for things that I wanted, and
never sent me anything.
Do not be uneasy about my health; for an English medical
man, who came here after my illness, said he never saw such
a constitution in his life, and that my pulse was then a
better pulse than his.
I am reckoned here the first politician in the world,
and by some a sort of prophet. Even the Emir [Beshýr]
wonders, and is astonished; for he was not aware of this
extraordinary gift formerly: but yet, all say――I mean
enemies――that I am worse than a lion when in a passion, and
that they cannot deny I have justice on my side.
Write whenever you please; do not expect me to write, as it
hurts my eyes too much, and I have no one to assist me.
[Signed] H. L. S.
* * * * *
This summons from Lady Hester Stanhope took me a little unexpectedly. I
had not much faith in a story like that on which she built her hopes of
paying her debts; for I did not think it likely that property left to
her could have been purposely concealed from her knowledge, or would be
withheld from her by her relations: but, notwithstanding this, I did
not hesitate to write immediately, and say I would come as soon as I
could arrange my private concerns, which period I limited to the
following spring.
Accordingly, having engaged a governess for my daughter, to be at
the same time a companion for my wife in the long evenings during my
sittings with Lady Hester Stanhope, we left Nice on the 24th of May,
1837, for Marseilles; and agreed there for our passage on board of the
Zoave, Captain Robert, a tight brigantine, paying, for the exclusive
use of the cabin and our provisions, 1000 francs. We embarked on the
6th of June, being my fifty-fourth birthday, and, after a prosperous
voyage, landed at Beyrout on the 1st of July, 1837.
The city of Beyrout had undergone great changes since the conquest of
Syria by Ibrahim Pasha; not in the tortuosity of its streets, not in
its broken pavement and the filthy entrances to its houses, but in the
appearance of its population. Formerly, a few straggling Europeans, or
Levantines in European dresses, were seen hanging about the doors of
a warehouse or two in the Frank quarter; and occasionally a European
woman, the wife of a consul or a merchant, would steal from one house
to another, as if afraid, in her way, of insult from a fanatic Turk.
Now, the bustle of a crowded mart was visible, and Europeans and their
ladies walked about with a freedom which showed that a strong arm kept
the haughty Mussulman under control. In 1831, the appearance of a
French lady in the streets, wearing a green silk gown, was signalized
as a feat of great hardihood; such an assumption of the colour peculiar
to the prophet Mahomet’s descendants generally entailing vexations on
the wearer: and a gentleman would never have dared to give his arm to
a lady out of doors: but now, both the one and the other passed on
without any loud remark, although, internally, the grave Mussulmans
cherished a feeling of vengeance against those who so openly violated
their religious and moral institutions. Emboldened by these changes, I
led my family through the bazars, and showed them the busy Christians
and Turks, working with their fingers and toes those beautiful silk
stuffs, purses, cords, ribbons, &c., which form the admiration of all
persons who visit the Levant.
We were lodged at the inn kept by Pareschivà, formerly a servant of
Mr. John Maddox, an English gentleman, who had made a stay of two or
three years in Syria. This Greek, by his cleanliness and attention,
had secured, in an album which he kept for the purpose, so many
certificates of good entertainment from travellers who had put up
at his inn, that it would have required some courage to raise a
dissenting voice: but he maintained, by a continuance of the same
attentions to his guests, the reputation he had justly acquired.
The environs of Beyrout had always been studded with small villas and
garden-cottages, but some very handsome country-houses had now risen up
among them. New houses had also been built in the town; and among them
were two, the property of our old acquaintance, M. Jasper Chasseaud,
now become American consul, one of which he inhabited. We had the
pleasure of complimenting him on his new dignity, and partaking of his
hospitality in a splendid saloon, overlooking the shipping and port,
and commanding an extensive view of Mount Lebanon. M. Guys, the French
consul, and his estimable lady, also entertained us; and, could our
stay have been prolonged here, we should have had no great reason to
regret the delightful society of Nice.
I hastened to inform Lady Hester Stanhope of our arrival, and, whilst
waiting for the camels and mules which she would probably send, I
made the necessary preparations for the road. A cook was hired, named
Cabôor, who, some twenty or five-and-twenty years before, had been
my servant boy. Great was his joy at seeing his old master. He was
destined, however, to remain but a short time with us, as I discovered
that he had been turned away from Lady Hester Stanhope’s service, a
circumstance which, of course, rendered it impossible for me to retain
him in mine.
We attended divine service, performed by the American missionaries
in the great saloon of M. Chasseaud’s house, and were much edified
by the exemplary piety of these good men, who were labouring to
spread general information among the Syrians, by giving gratuitous
instruction to the children of the inhabitants, by printing useful
books of practical knowledge in Arabic, and by leading them, through
reading and meditation, to work their own way to salvation; trusting
that an acquaintance with the scriptures and with the advantages of
civilization will silently effect the pious object they have in view,
without those violent attempts at conversion which cause enmity between
brethren, and defeat their own end.
M. Guys lent us a handsome green double marquee, and all preparations
were made for our departure, when two servants arrived from her
ladyship, with her own mules, and the following answer to my letter.
_Lady Hester Stanhope to Dr. ――――, at Beyrout._
Djoûn, July 1, 1837.
Saturday night.
Dear Doctor,
I have sent you Botrôos Metta, with the mules necessary
for your trunks and what you want immediately. Your heavy
luggage had better go by sea.
I could wish you, first of all, to come here alone, to see
a house at Sayda for your family, and to well understand
each other before you bring them here. For your sake, I
should ever wish to show civility to all who belong to you,
but caprice I will never interfere with: for, from my early
youth, I have been taught to despise it. Botrôos Metta,
if he can be useful to Mrs. ――――, may remain until your
return; if not, he will come with you. I hope your health
is quite recovered, and, in the end, that you will have no
reason to regret your voyage.
Yours, sincerely,
HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
* * * * *
So then, thought I, the past is never to be forgotten; and, hardly have
we set foot on the shores of Syria, but war is declared against my
wife. Lady Hester Stanhope made no mystery of her likes and dislikes;
and Botrôos Metta, in his confabulations with Cabôor (as servants in
general talk about their masters and mistresses) dwelt on the rising
storm, which probably would soon burst. Cabôor bore no good will to her
ladyship. He had picked up a little French, and his reflections on my
situation were not deficient in shrewdness. “Ah!” he would exclaim,
“it will be just as it was six years ago――my mistress crying, my lady
_emportée_, and my master trying to satisfy both――no easy task! He will
have one woman saying one thing in one ear, and the other saying the
contrary in the other ear; well! he will be a clever gentleman if he
reconciles them!”
As it would not have been proper to leave my family in an inn, I
resolved to take them with me at once to Sayda, notwithstanding Lady
Hester’s suggestion to the contrary. On the 3rd of July, at sunset, we
commenced our journey; for the weather was too hot to travel in the
daytime. It was pitch dark; nothing whatever was visible; we could
not even see the path before us: but Abdhu, the mule-driver, and
Botrôos, led the way, and each person had a driver by his side. We
were, therefore, spared the horrors of the surrounding scenery, which
M. de Lamartine describes in such imaginative diction. In four hours
we reached Khaldy, where the tent was pitched on the seashore; and,
after supping on a _pâté à la Perigord_, with which Madame Guys had
kindly provided us, and taking a cup of nice Mocha coffee, we lay down
in our clothes, and slept until the morning star made its appearance:
then, remounting, we marched four hours more, which brought us to Nebby
Yuness, where we breakfasted on coffee and milk and the remains of our
provision basket. Here we rested until three in the afternoon, and
then proceeded along the seashore to Sayda. When within about a quarter
of a mile of the town-gates, we met M. Conti, the French consular
agent, and from him learned that the earthquake had so damaged the
city, and the French khan in particular, that he could not give us
lodging in it, but politely offered us his garden, where, under the
shade of the trees, we might pitch our tent. The gardens, or rather
orchards of Sayda, occupy a flat strip of land which intervenes between
the seashore and the foot of Mount Lebanon, from a quarter to half a
mile in width, and stretching a league along the shore. M. Conti’s
garden was on the verge of the sands, and near the spot where we met
him. His offer was accordingly thankfully accepted; and, turning in
at the orchard gate, in about half an hour our camp arrangements were
completed, and Cabôor, with his cooking utensils round a gipsy’s fire,
was busily occupied in preparing our supper.
The lovely wife of M. Pierre Gerardin, who had also just returned to
her home from Beyrout, astride on a kedýsh,[57] in the space of seven
hours, alighted from her horse at the garden-gate, when she learned
who was within, and paid us a visit. This lady was married to a son
of that Gerardin who had treated us with such politic incivility in
1831, and who had since died. She was in the costume of a Syrian lady:
her hair hung in strait tresses down her back, and black braids of
silk fell intermingled with it, so as seemingly to lengthen it to the
bend of her knees. The whole was bespangled with small gold money,
called _rubiahs_, of which there might be two hundred or more; and a
band, set with gold money, encircled her head, on a level with her
forehead, in the fashion of a diadem: the whole being surmounted by a
marone-coloured skull cap, richly embroidered in gold. A cream-coloured
gown, open in front, and buttoned only at the waist, disclosed her
silk gauze chemise, which overhung her pantaloons of silk brocade, and
served as a handkerchief to her neck. Her feet were without stockings,
and covered only by a pair of yellow papooches. She was a lively young
creature; and, as it is common in the Levant to suppose that European
ladies who go in public unveiled must, on that account, have much
levity of conduct, she endeavoured to imitate what she fancied to be
their manners by an assumed freedom, which certainly shocked the
females of our party. Mulberries were brought, and eaten with little
pointed wooden picks, not to stain the fingers. When our new friends
were gone, we supped or dined, and passed the night beneath the tent,
bitten most dreadfully by fleas and musquitoes.
July 4.――In the morning I walked into Sayda to see the house destined
for us; but it was inconvenient, and was still in the possession of
its tenants, a Turkish family; so that the idea of locating ourselves
there was abandoned. Then, leaving my family under the tent, I set off
for Jôon, where I arrived about sunset, it being three hours’ ride from
Sayda.
Lady Hester Stanhope’s reception of me was kind and warm, but more
serious than it had been in 1830; one would have said it was a welcome,
as if I had left her a month before, and had just come back, for she
proceeded, as she called it, immediately to business. She told me it
would have given her pleasure if I had left my family at Beyrout, for
she had no house to offer them; and, from the dreadful effects of the
earthquake, which, on the 1st of January of this year, had thrown down
or cracked a third of the houses throughout Palestine, it would be
difficult for me to find one, if I could not content myself with that
which had been fixed upon for us at Sayda.
July 5.――This discussion occupied the whole of the next day; when,
towards evening, a letter came from my family to say they were in
the greatest trouble and fright, and that my presence was required
immediately. It was hastily determined, therefore, that I should take
them to the convent of St. Elias, (Dayr Mar Elias, as it is called)
which had been the first residence of Lady Hester Stanhope when she
settled in this country.
July 6.――In the morning I rode down to the tent, and found my whole
family in tears, and apparently inconsolable. To understand this,
the reader must fancy himself transported from a comfortable and
well-furnished home to a distant, half-civilized country, where he does
not comprehend a word of the language, and planted under a tent in
the outskirts of a city, without bar or bolt, without table or chair,
and with nobody for an interpreter of his wants but two servants, one
of whom speaks broken French, and even that hardly intelligible, and
the other nothing but Arabic. It is true, the ladies of the French
vice-consul’s family paid mine a visit, and assured them there was
no danger to be apprehended: but, when I had left them, and had gone
up into the mountains, the defiles, ravines, and precipices of which
were visible from the tent, it required no very gloomy imagination to
conjure up horrors of all sorts.
It so happened that, on the night of my quitting them, a deserter,
who expected to be severely bastinadoed or shot next morning, made
his escape from the barrack prison[58] which overhung the walls of
Sayda towards the sea, by letting himself down through a sewer, which
emptied itself into the surf. He ran for his life along the seashore,
until, seeing a light burning in M. Conti’s garden, and a tent, he
crawled through the hedge of prickly pear in the state he was in, and
thought he might find pity, and a temporary hiding-place. A rustling
and a noise awoke Mrs. ――――, and she saw a man, in a _nizàm_ dress,
wet and filthy, standing at the opening of the tent. Her screams awoke
the children, the governess, the cook, the gardener, and Abdhu, who
slept in the gardener’s shed close by. They seized the man, who did
not attempt to escape, but told them his story; and as all the lower
classes were suffering from the oppressive conscription, and other
onerous burthens imposed by Ibrahim Pasha, whose rule they abhorred,
they furnished the poor deserter with a little covering, and directed
him by a lane, through the gardens, towards the mountains, where he
would find holes in the rocks to secrete himself, until he could obtain
succour from the peasantry.
It is not extraordinary that such an apparition as this should have
frightened them all; for, up to the hour of my return, from ignorance
of the language, they had hardly comprehended the circumstances that
gave rise to it. Entreaties and tears, even then, made it imperative
on me to remove them forthwith; and, as the mules had been kept
tethered on the ground in readiness for a removal, they were reloaded;
and, threading the romantic lanes which wind through the gardens,
where lilac-trees, bananas, vines, orange and lemon trees, of
extraordinary height, with passionflowers, and other creeping plants,
wantoning among the thick foliage, made a delicious shade, we emerged
from them at the foot of the mountain. Then, passing the hamlet of
Hellaléah, where, at the doors of their country _bastides_,[59] the
_Kheláts_ and _Dubâanys_, friends of my younger days, stood watching
to hail my return among them, whilst the elders pointed to their
children, now grown up, that I might notice them, we made a steep
descent into a small torrent bed, and, again ascending a rough and
zigzag path, reached the elevation on which stands, on a barren and
unproductive cliff, the small monastery of Mar Elias Abra, or St.
Elias, of the village of Abra, about an hour’s ride from the gates of
Sayda.
Mar Elias had originally been the dwelling of a few monks, who
performed the duties of a small chapel attached to it. Being a retired
and healthy spot, it was chosen by the Bishop of the Schismatic Greeks
(to whose see it now belonged) for his residence, and, in 1813, when
Lady Hester Stanhope first went to live there, was inhabited by one of
his successors to the see, Macarius, who was also Patriarch of
Antioch. At the request of the Emir Beshýr, prince of the Druses, the
patriarch[60] had given it up to Lady Hester, who lived there five or
six years, until she removed to Dar Jôon. After that time she only
occasionally visited it, and, since Miss Williams’s death, had never
been there. General Loustaunau[61] occupied one of the rooms, and an
old woman, the widow of Metta, the village doctor, with her son, lived
in the lodge, and served as porters.
The injuries caused by the earthquake were very extensive. It seems
to have begun somewhere near the sea of Tiberiàd, burying the town of
that name, Suffad, and some others, in ruins, and throwing down or
damaging the greater part of the dwellings in every city or village
along the coast as far as Beyrout, which latter place did not suffer.
The monastery of Mar Elias was shaken to its very foundations; and, on
taking possession of our new residence, the state it was in
sufficiently showed how terrible the terrestrial convulsion had been.
General Loustaunau described it to me as follows:――He was sitting
under the verandah which runs round a part of the small quadrangle,
reading his Bible, when his chair gave a tilt under him. He raised his
eyes from his book, and saw the side of the building facing him rock.
A cloud of dust immediately rose above the roof. He knew it was an
earthquake, but was not, or had not time to be, terrified; for, before
he could well think about it, it was over, and he found himself unhurt.
He never quitted the spot where he was, until his maid, the porter,
and the porter’s mother, called to him with loud cries. When they came
to examine the mischief that had been done, they found the store-room,
which was the corner room of the quadrangle to the north-west, entirely
fallen in, burying in its ruins more than two hundred weight of copper
utensils. The wall of the room which formerly served as Lady Hester
Stanhope’s bed-room, next to the store-room, had peeled from top to
bottom――half having fallen, and half being left standing. The kitchen
roof had fallen in. In the centre of the quadrangle, the parterre,
bordered with oblong freestones, had been raised perpendicularly about
two feet, with a _zenzeluct_ tree, the rose-bushes, and a palm-tree
on it; and so we found them still, the pavement giving a hollow sound
to the tread. The arch of the gate of the stable-yard was lifted out
of its curve, and the wood-house was down. The room inhabited formerly
by Monsieur Beaudin, then her ladyship’s secretary, and now French
vice-consul at Damascus, was a heap of ruins; and numberless rents and
partial fissures manifested themselves everywhere. The chapel, General
Loustaunau’s room, the saloon, and another large room of equal size,
had escaped entirely, together with the bath, and two or three small
rooms adjoining. The beams of what had been Lady Hester’s bed-room were
now propped up by balks of wood; and thus we had three large rooms at
our disposal.
Here then I fixed my family; and hiring two women, Tabithâ and Helôon,
a girl, Werdy, and a boy, Habyb, from the village of Abra, which was
about ten minutes’ walk from Mar Elias, as servants, there seemed a
prospect of great comfort and tranquillity for us all, whilst I could
give my undivided attention to Lady Hester’s health and affairs,
passing my time alternately between the two places.
FOOTNOTES:
[54] The Baroness de Fériat.
[55] Of Acre.
[56] An Italian.
[57] The name given to horses taught to amble; a palfrey.
[58] The ancient palace of Fakr-ed-dyn.
[59] The name given in Provence to country boxes.
[60] This patriarch died in 1814, and was embalmed by my
hands. A niche was cut in the solid wall of the chapel
at Mar Elias, and the body was there entombed, seated
in a chair, and then walled in.
[61] Some account of this gentleman’s history will appear
farther on.