Conscription in Syria――Inviolability of consular houses――Panic and
flight of the people of Sayda――Protection afforded by Lady Hester――
Story of a boy――Mustafa the barber――Cruelty to mothers of Conscripts――
Conscription in the villages――Lady Hester’s dream――Inhabitants of
Sayda mulcted――Lady Hester’s opinion of negresses――Severity necessary
in Turkey――Case of Monsieur Danna――Captain Y.――Mustafa Pasha’s
cruelty.
November 18, 1837.――The conscription for Ibrahim Pasha’s army, called
the _nizàm_ or regular troops, was going on at this time, and created
much distress in the towns and villages. Forced levies were unknown
previous to the conquests of that ambitious prince; as it was
customary for the pashas to keep in their pay mercenary troops,
composed chiefly of Albanians, a nation that for some centuries had
sent its hordes into different parts of the Turkish empire, under the
guidance of enterprising chieftains, to seek military service. There
were also Bosnians, Kûrds, and some Mograbýns or Moors: these, with
the Janissaries or standing militia, had exempted the inhabitants in
general from enlistment; and, although the martial and turbulent
disposition of the Mohametans had frequently manifested itself in
their provincial insurrections and in the petty contentions between
neighbouring chieftains, yet a man always went to the camp from choice
and from the hopes of booty, and quitted it when tired of the service.
But Ibrahim Pasha, among the innovations which he found it necessary
or politic to introduce for the furtherance of his father’s views, saw
that his whole dependance must be on the adoption of a conscription,
after the manner of France and other European states. He had already
drained Egypt, in this manner, of all her able-bodied youths; and, to
supply the constant waste of men carried off by war and disease, he
had, since his first taking possession of Syria, made an annual levy
after harvest time.
At first, the idle, vagabond, thievish, and ardent part of the
population supplied the numbers he required; and, as fast as they
could be collected, they were shipped off to Egypt; where, marched to
the Hedjàz and to distant wars, the major portion of them left their
bones, whilst some gained rank and lucrative situations, and a few
returned to tell the story of their exploits. For with Ibrahim there
was no defined term of service; once a soldier, every man continued so
until death or desertion broke the chain. In the same way the Egyptian
conscripts were sent into Syria: so that no sympathy, in either case,
existed between the troops and the people amongst whom they were
quartered, which acted as a direct check upon the spirit of
insurrection.
So far, everything had gone on peaceably, and the quiet portion of the
inhabitants rejoiced in seeing their neighbourhood cleared of such
troublesome rabble. But latterly the conscription had begun to fall on
the families of shopkeepers, tradesmen, small farmers, and the like:
and it will be seen that, of all the changes introduced by Ibrahim
Pasha into the government of the country, the conscription became the
most odious.
The first intimation people had of the levies this year was one
evening, when, as the inhabitants of Sayda were coming out of their
mosques, gangs of soldiers suddenly appeared at the doors, and laid
hands on all the young men. At the same moment, similar measures had
been taken at the coffee-houses, and nothing was to be seen but young
fellows dragged through the streets, or running off in all directions
to secrete themselves in some friend’s house, stable, vault, or the
like. The city gates were closed, and there was no outlet for the
fugitives: but Sayda, although walled in, has many houses with windows
looking on the fields; and from these, during the night, some let
themselves down and escaped to the gardens, or villages, or to Mount
Lebanon. The next day the city wore the appearance of a deserted
place: the shops were closed, and consternation reigned in every face.
The panic became general.
It is customary in Turkish towns to consider consular residences as
inviolable; a point on which, from apprehension of tumults and for
personal safety, the consuls have ever been very tenacious. France
possesses, from a long date, a khan or factory-house in Sayda, wherein
the subjects of that nation reside. It is a square building with one
gateway, containing a spacious quadrangle, surrounded by vaulted
warehouses, and, over these, commodious habitations with a handsome
corridor in front. It may be compared to a quadrangle of a college at
the Universities. To this khan many of the young men fled, being
admitted out of compassion, and in some cases for a consideration of a
more tangible nature.
The number of conscripts for Sayda, as was made known afterwards, had
been rated at one hundred and eighty. When the first press was over,
the government found the quota had not yet been half supplied: but the
secret of the deficiency was kept, and it was given out that no more
would be wanted. A smiling face was assumed by the commandant and his
staff, and every expression of sympathy was in their mouths, to
demonstrate the cessation of all farther oppressive measures. By
calming the people’s fears in this way, information was obtained as to
those concealed in the French khan, and scouts were sent about the
country to get tidings of the fugitives.
In the mean time, the caverns and excavations, once the beautiful
sepulchres of the ancient Sidonians, in which the environs of Sayda
abound, were converted into hiding-places, all well known to the
peasantry and gardeners: but no soul was found capable of betraying
the fugitives. Some were concealed by the Christian peasants in
cellars, although the punishment of detection was a terrible
bastinadoing. At the end of about a fortnight, when everything seemed
calm again, all of a sudden the fathers of those who were known to be
in the French khan were seized in their dwellings and shops, and
brought before the motsellem or mayor. They were told that their sons’
hiding-places were known, and that means would be resorted to for
forcing them to come out, if they, the fathers, did not immediately
use their paternal authority to compel them. Anxious to save their
children, they strenuously denied any knowledge of their places of
concealment. Then it was that the dreadful work of bastinadoing began.
From the windows of the east side of the khan was visible the open
court in the front of the motsellem’s gate, where, according to the
Eastern custom, he often sat to administer justice or injustice, as
the case might be, and through those windows the sons might behold
their aged fathers, writhing with agony under that cruel punishment,
until pain and anguish extorted the appeal of, “Come forth, for
mercy’s sake! and save a father’s life.” Some yielded to the call, and
some thought only of their own safety.
As happens always in all Turkish matters, much bribery arose from this
state of tribulation. Nobody in these countries is inaccessible to a
bribe. Many were the men in office who received gratifications of vast
sums to favour the exemption or escape of individuals. Substitutes
could hardly be got, even at the enormous premium of 10,000 piasters
each, or £100 sterling; such a dread had the natives of being
expatriated and subjected to military discipline! for in Ibrahim
Pasha’s army the drill is indeed a terrible ordeal. There,
inadvertency, slowness of apprehension, or obstinacy, is not punished
by a reprimand, a day’s imprisonment, or double drill; but the poor
recruit is, at the moment, thrown on the ground, and lacerated without
mercy by the korbàsh.
Among the fugitives, there were two young men, the sons of a
respectable shopkeeper, who, during twenty years, had been employed,
more or less, by Lady Hester: these two fled for refuge to Jôon. No
notice was taken of the circumstance by the government; and, after
remaining about six weeks under her protection, they returned to
Sayda, where they remained unmolested. Her ladyship’s servants also
enjoyed an exemption from the press; and, had she chosen to avail
herself of the dilemma in which these unfortunate young men were
placed, she might easily have ensured their servitude without pay, by
the mere threat of turning them adrift: in which case they would have
been compelled to remain upon any conditions she might have thought
proper to propose.
An old Turk presented himself, one day, at my gate with his son, a boy
about fourteen years of age, and, with earnest entreaties, begged me
to take the son as my servant, no matter in what capacity, and for
nothing. I asked him how he could be apprehensive for a stripling, too
young to carry a musket; but he told me that his age was no safeguard.
“Alas!” said he, “these unprincipled Egyptians will lay hold of him;
for there are other kinds of service besides carrying a gun: you do
not know them as well as we do.” I was very unwillingly obliged to
refuse the man’s request; for how could a stranger violate the laws of
a country in which he resided, any more than he could harbour a
deserter in France, for example, where he would be brought to justice
for so doing? But some of the agents of European powers do not
scruple, in these parts, to enrich themselves by affording protection
to Turkish deserters, contrary to the edicts of a sovereign prince,
and then set up, as an excuse, the want of civilization in Mahometan
countries.
A woman, the widow of Shaykh Omar ed dyn, came also on a donkey to beg
Lady Hester’s intercession with the commandant for one of her sons, a
lad, who had been pressed in the streets. Lady Hester sent out word to
her that she could not mix herself up in the business, and desired me
to give her 500 piasters――I suppose to help her to buy him off. This
son, Lady Hester told me, was a beautiful boy, and that she once had
him in her house, but could not keep him――he was too handsome! * * * A
sad picture this of the morals of the Syrian Turks, and yet a true
one!
November 20.――After a succession of sunny days, finer and warmer than
an English summer, the wind got up at the change of the moon, and it
blew a gale. The effect of gloomy weather in climates naturally so
genial as that of Syria is perhaps more impressive than in one like
that of England, where clouds and fogs are so common. I was therefore
in a fit humour to listen to the melancholy stories of her ladyship’s
secretary, Mr. Michael Abella, who had been absent a day or two to see
his father and mother at Sayda. He told me that the press for recruits
continued with unabated severity, and that the military commandant
and motsellem were resorting to measures, which, I thank God, are
unknown in England! From imprisoning and bastinadoing fathers, with a
view to make them produce their children, a measure which had already
induced several families to abandon their homes, they now proceeded to
bastinado the neighbours and acquaintances of the fugitives, in order
to wring from them the secret of their hiding-places.
The reader is already in some degree familiar with the name of
Mustafa, the barber, well-known in Sayda for his skill in shaving,
phlebotomizing, and curing sores and wounds. He had four or five sons,
and he had taken his donkey and ridden up to Jôon to beg of Lady
Hester Stanhope to admit one or two of them into her household, in
order to save them from the conscription. In the interim, two others
had taken refuge in the French khan, and one had fled to Tyr; but the
father said he expected hourly to be seized and put to the torture, if
some means were not afforded him for protecting his children. “A
letter from the Syt mylady to the commandant,” added Mustafa, “would
be sufficient to save my two boys who are in the French khan, and it
is so easy for her to write it.” Lady Hester, being ill, could not see
Mustafa, and I went to her and stated his supplication. She considered
the matter over, and, as Mustafa was rather a favourite, she said at
first――“I think I will write to the commandant; for poor Mustafa will
go crazy if his children are taken away from him. I have only to say
that I wish the commandant to _bakshýsh_” (make a present of) “these
boys to me, and I know he will do it:” then, reflecting a little
while, she altered her mind. “No, doctor,” says she, “it will not do:
I must not do anything in the face of the laws of the country; and,
besides, I shall have all the fathers and mothers in Sayda up here.
Go, tell him so.” I did, and Mustafa returned very much dispirited to
Sayda.
He had scarcely got back to his shop, when, as he had anticipated, he
was summoned before the motsellem, and questioned about his children.
With an assumed air of cheerfulness and submission, he answered that
they were within call, and, if necessary, he would fetch them
immediately. The motsellem, by way of precaution, was about to send a
guard of a couple of soldiers, to see that no trick was played him;
but Mustafa, laughing, exclaimed――“Oh! don’t be afraid of me: I shan’t
run off. That man” (pointing to a small merchant of his acquaintance
standing by)――“that man will be bail for my appearance.” The man
nodded his head, and said――“There is no fear of Mâalem Mustafa: I will
be responsible for him.”
Mustafa went towards his house, and, as soon as he was out of sight,
looking round to make sure that he was not followed, he hurried to
one of the outlets of the town, entered a lane between the gardens,
and, mounting again on his own donkey, which he had left with a friend
in case of such an emergency, rode off. Not appearing within the
expected time, search was made for him, and, when he was not to be
found, the man, who so incautiously vouched for his reappearance, was
seized, bastinadoed, and thrown into gaol. Mustafa, in the mean time,
had taken the road to Jôon,――not to Lady Hester’s residence, but to
Dayr el Mkhallas, the monastery, where he had a good friend in the
abbot, and was immediately sheltered in a comfortable cell. Nor did
he, when he heard what cruelties had been inflicted on his bail, move
one inch from his retreat, but there remained for about six weeks,
until, by negociations with the commandant and by the sacrifice of a
good round sum, he was informed that his children were safe, and that
he might return unmolested.
The secretary told me that, in some cases, mothers were suspended by
the hair of their head, and whipped, to make them confess where their
children were concealed. Surely such horrors are enough to make men
hold these sanguinary tyrants in abhorrence, who, whatever their
pretended advances towards civilization may be, never suffer it to
soften the barbarity of their natures. Of civilization, they have
borrowed conscription, custom-houses, quarantines, ardent spirit and
wine-drinking, prostitution, shop licensing, high taxation, and some
other of our doubtful marks of superiority; but whatever is really
excellent in an advanced state of society they have forgotten to
inquire about. The secretary added that, when down at Sayda, he had
seen a lad, nursed in the lap of luxury, the only child of respectable
parents, at drill on the parade outside of the town, with two soldiers
who never quitted him. The drilling was enforced by cuts of the
korbàsh. So long as the recruits remain in Sayda, their parents are
allowed to supply them with a meal and other little comforts; but,
when transported to Egypt, and perhaps to the Hedjàz, they are exposed
to hardships unknown to European troops. Their pay is fifteen piasters
(3_s._ 2_d._ English) a month.
After the expiration of two or three weeks, the shaykhs or head-men of
the villages in Mount Lebanon, received orders to levy their
contingent of recruits, and pretty much the same scenes were acted
over again. From the village of Jôon eight conscripts were required;
for, although the population might be five hundred persons, there were
but few Mahometan families. No sooner had the estafette, who brought
the order, alighted at the Shaykh’s door, than the mussulman peasants
to a man seemed to guess what its contents were, and every one who
thought himself liable to serve made off to the forests. Among the
lads put down on the roll were two, the brothers of Fatôom and Sâada,
Lady Hester’s maids. The girls fell on their knees, kissed her feet
and the hem of her robe, and prayed her, for God’s sake, to save them.
Lady Hester returned the same answer she had done to Mustafa, the
barber, and to the other applicants, that she could not act contrary
to the laws of the country, and that they must take their chance.
Three or four days had elapsed, when, quitting my house in the morning
to go to Lady Hester’s, I found that all her people were full of an
extraordinary dream she had had. She had seen in her vision a man with
a white beard, who had conducted her among the ravines of Mount
Lebanon to a place, where, in a cavern, lay two youths apparently in a
trance, and had told her to lead them away to her residence. She
attempted to raise them, and at the same moment the earth opened, and
she awoke. As soon as I saw Lady Hester, she recounted to me her dream
to the same effect, but with many more particulars. Being in the habit
of hearing strange things of this kind from her, I thought nothing of
it, although I well knew there was something intended by it, as she
never spoke without a motive.
Next morning I saw, as I passed the porter’s lodge, two peasant lads
sitting in it, and, as soon as I got to Lady Hester’s room, she asked
me if I had observed them.――“Isn’t it wonderful, doctor,” said Lady
Hester, “that I should have had exactly the same dream two nights
following, and the second time so strongly impressed on my mind, that
I was sure some of it would turn out true: and so it has. For this
very morning, long before daylight, I had Logmagi called, and,
describing to him the way he was to go in the mountain until he should
come to a wild spot which I painted to him, I sent him off; and, sure
enough, he found those two lads you saw, concealed, not in a cavern,
but in a tree, just where I had directed him to go.
“They are two runaway conscripts, and, although I know nothing of
them, yet I seem to feel that God directed me to bring them here. Poor
lads! did you observe whether they looked pale? they must be in want
of nourishment; for the search that is going on everywhere after
deserters is very hot. Logmagi himself had no very pleasant duty to
perform; for, if they had mistaken him for a man in search of them,
one against two in the heart of the mountain ran some risk of his
life. You know, one deserter the other day wounded three soldiers who
attempted to take him, and another killed two out of five, and,
although taken, was not punished by the Pasha, who exchanged willingly
an athletic gladiator, who had proved his fighting propensities, for
two cowards.”
These lads, whom Lady Hester pretended not to know, were the two
brothers of Fatôom and Sâada: they were put into a room in an inner
enclosure, where they had comfortable quarters assigned them, and were
kept for two months hid from observation; by which means they escaped
the conscription of that year. At the end of their term, they were one
day turned out, told they might go home in safety, and warned that, if
ever they made their appearance near the house, they would be flogged.
Such were Lady Hester’s eccentric ways; and just as they were wasting
their breath in protestations of gratitude, they were frightened out
of their senses. No doubt, the reason was that, as from their long
stay in the premises, they were more or less acquainted with every
locality, it might be that they had formed plans to carry off stolen
goods, which Lady Hester thus had the foresight to frustrate. She
never told me that her dream was an invention, but I believe that it
was.
In addition to the loss of a son, or a husband, or a brother, which
the dozen families of Jôon (for there were no more) had to complain
of, these same families were taxed at the rate of one, two, or three
hundred piasters each, in order to furnish the equipment of the
soldiers draughted from among them. For, under the pretext of sending
off each recruit with a good kit and with a little money in his
pocket, a benevolence tax was invented, the greatest part of which,
after the parings of the collectors, went to the Pasha’s treasury, and
the half-naked recruit was left to take his chance. Oh! that a
European soldier could see what these men are compelled to live
on――how they sleep, how they are flogged――and how they are left to
die!――and yet suicide is unknown among them.
The bastinado in Sayda was succeeded by mulcts. An order was published
by the Pasha, that those whose sons had concealed themselves, or did
not appear by a certain day, should be taxed collectively 1,300
purses, a sum more than enough to pay for substitutes. An appeal was
made to Ibrahim Pasha to lessen the fine, but the result never came to
my knowledge.
November 19.――I had taken to my house to read the book that Sir Gore
Ouseley had sent Lady Hester Stanhope, and I related to her the
anecdote of the old woman and the copper dish.[12] This threw a gleam
of satisfaction over her countenance. “Ah!” said she, and she made a
sigh of pleasurable feeling, “these are the people I like; that’s my
sort: but the people now-a-days, who call themselves gentlemen, and
don’t know how to blow their nose!――when the first peer of the realm
will go about bragging what a trick he has played some poor woman whom
he has seduced! Cursed be the hour that ever the name of gentleman
came into the language! I have seen hedgers and ditchers at my
father’s, who talked twice as good sense as half the fine gentlemen
now-a-days――a pack of fellows, that do little else than eat, drink,
and sleep. Can one exist with such persons as these? or is it to be
supposed that God can tolerate such brutalities?”
I sat by, as I was accustomed to do, on such occasions, mute; knowing
that a word uttered at that moment would only increase her irritation,
instead of appeasing it. She went on: “And whilst you show no more
sensibility than that wall, here am I, a poor dying creature” (and
then she wept so that it was piteous to hear her), “half killed by
these nasty black beasts. Last night, instead of coming refreshed out
of my bath, soothed by a gentle perspiration, I was drier than ever,
with my mouth parched, my skin parched, and feebler than I was
yesterday. But they will all suffer for it; not here, perhaps, but in
the other world: for God will not see a poor miserable creature
trampled under foot as I have been.”
As she grew a little calm, I expressed my regret to see her so annoyed
and tormented by her servants. The conversation then turned on blacks:
and I asked――“Are they then never susceptible of feeling: can kind
treatment never work on their sensibility?”――“Doctor,” answered Lady
Hester, “they have neither one nor the other: it is a bit of black
skin, which the people of the country say you must work on with the
korbàsh, and with nothing else. I recollect an aga, who told me that
he had a black slave, who, when he first bought her, one day got hold
of his poniard, and seemed as if she was going to stab him with it. He
started up, seized his sabre, and gave her a cut or two; then, with a
switch, beat her pretty handsomely. From that day she became fond of
him, faithful, and so attached, that, when he wanted to sell her, she
would not be sold, but always contrived that the contract should be
broken by her swearing she would kill herself, throw herself over the
terrace, or something, that made the buyer refuse to take her.
“I recollect another story. There were five European travellers coming
down the banks of the Nile on horseback, when they saw an aga, who was
sitting in the open air, lay hold of a black woman by the hair of her
head, throw her down, and flog her most unmercifully with the korbàsh.
One of the party was a German count, or something, who, being what you
call a humane man, said he must interfere; but the others told him he
had better not. However, he did: and what was the consequence? why,
the woman immediately jumped up, called him an impudent rascal,
slapped his face with her slipper, hooted him, and followed the party
until she fairly frightened them by her violence.
“No, doctor, they do not like mild people. They always say they want
no old hens, but a _jigger_” (I believe her ladyship meant some
ferocious animal) “for their master. As for what you say, that the
common people of this country stand in respect of nobody, I can tell
you that they do. You should have seen the Shaykh Beshýr, how they
respected him. When I was at his palace, I recollect, one day, one of
his secretaries brought in a bag of money. ‘Is it all here?’ said the
Shaykh, with a terrible, cross, frowning face. ‘It is, your felicity,’
said the man. ‘Very well,’ said the Shaykh, still with the same fierce
countenance; and I asked him what he put on such a severe look for to
a very pleasing-looking man. ‘Why,’ answered he, ‘if I did not, I
should be robbed past imagination: if I said to him, I am much obliged
to you, sir; you have given yourself a great deal of trouble on my
account, and the like compliments, he would go away and chuckle in his
own mind to think his peculations were not suspected; but now he will
go, and say to himself, I will bet an _adli_ some one has told the
Shaykh of the five hundred piasters that were left for me at my house:
I must send directly, and desire they may be returned――or, he knows
about the tobacco that was brought me by the peasant; I had better get
rid of it; and so on. Their peculations are past all bounds, and they
must be kept under with a rod of iron.’
“There was Danna, the poor old Frenchman, who lost his trunk with all
his doubloons in it: do you think he would ever have found them, if
the Emir Beshýr had not sent Hamâady to that village about a league
off――what do you call it?――where the robbery was committed? He
assembled all the peasants, men and women, and he told them――‘Now, my
friends, Monsieur Danna does not want anybody to be punished, if he
can help it; therefore, you have only to produce the money, and
nothing farther will be said: for the money was lost here, and some of
you must know where it is.’ To see what protestations of innocence
there were, what asseverations! and from the women more than the men.
So Hamâady, finding that talking was of no use, heated his red-hot
irons and his copper skull caps, and produced his instruments of
torture; and, seeing that the women were more vociferous than the men,
he selected one on whom strong suspicions had fallen, and drove a
spike under her finger-nails. At the first thrust, she screamed
out――‘Let me off! let me off! and I will acknowledge all.’ She then
immediately confessed――would you believe it?――that the curate’s son
had robbed Danna, and she had shared the money with him.
“Now, tell me, was it best that the old Frenchman should die of
starvation, or that the rascally thief of a woman, who had induced the
curate’s son to commit the robbery, should be punished, as a warning
to others? If such severe punishments were not used among them, we
should not sleep safe in our beds. How well is it known that they have
with pickaxes opened a roof, and thrown in lighted straw to suffocate
people, that they might rob in security.
“I recollect once, when Captain Y. was here, I was showing him the
garden; and, seeing some lettuces which were badly planted, he said to
me, ‘That’s not the way to plant lettuces: they should be so and
so.’――‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘I have told the gardener so a hundred times,
and he will never listen to me.’――‘Oh! oh!’ said he, ‘won’t he? Let me
bring a boatswain’s mate to him, and I’ll soon see whether he will or
not?――‘You are very good,’ was my answer; ‘but then I should lose your
company for half a day, and I had rather have no lettuces than do
that.
“When I first came to this country, you know perfectly well that I
never behaved otherwise than with the greatest kindness to servants.
You ask me why I don’t now try gentle measures with them, rewarding
the good, and merely dismissing the idle and vicious: my reply is, I
did so for years, until I found they abused my forbearance in the
grossest manner. Do you think it would frighten the rest, were I to
turn away one or two? no such thing. Why, upon one occasion, four of
them, after they had received their wages, and had each got a present
of new shawls, new girdles, and new kombázes, all went off together,
clothes, wages and all, in the night. It is by degrees I am become
what I am; and, only after repeated trials and proofs of the
inefficiency of everything but severity, that I am grown so
indifferent, that I do nothing but scold and abuse them.
“But you talk of cruelty: it is such men as Mustafa Pasha, who was one
of those who besieged Acre when Abdallah Pasha was _firmanlee_”
(proscribed), “that you should call cruel; he was indeed a sanguinary
tyrant. Doctor, he made a noise sometimes like the low growl of a
tiger, and his people knew then that blood must flow. It was his
custom, when the fit was on him, to send for some poor wretch from
prison, and kill him with his own hand. He would then grow calm, smoke
his pipe, and seem for a time quieted. But he was a shrewd man, and a
clever pasha. He wrote with his own hand (which pashas never do,
except on particular occasions) a letter to the Shaykh Beshýr,
desiring him to pay marked attention to me. The Shaykh was highly
flattered with the distinction shown him.”
The recollection of the Pasha’s civility and the Shaykh Beshýr’s
letter recalled her thoughts to what she had proposed to do at the
beginning of the evening, which was to write an answer to Sir Gore
Ouseley, and to thank the Oriental Translation Fund Society for their
present. This was done in a letter from which the following are
extracts:――
_To the Right Hon. Sir Gore Ouseley, Bart._
Djoun, on Mount Lebanon,
November 20, 1837.
Forgotten by the world, I cannot feel otherwise than much
flattered by the mark of attention which it has pleased the
society of learned men to honour me with. I must therefore
beg leave, in expressing my gratitude, to return them my
sincere thanks. You must not suppose that I am the least of
an Arabic scholar, for I can neither read nor write one word
of that language, and am (without affectation) a great dunce
upon some subjects. Having lived part of my life with the
greatest philosophers and politicians of the age, I have
been able to make this _observation_, that all of them,
however they may dispute and ingeniously reason upon
abstruse subjects, have, in moments of confidence, candidly
declared that we can go no _farther_. Here we must stop――all
is problematical: therefore I have wished, however it may
appear presumptuous, _to go farther_ and remove some of
these stumbling-blocks, not by erudition, but by trusting to
some happy accident.
It is extraordinary that many of this nature have occurred
to me during my residence in the East. First, many proofs of
the fallacy of history; next, the denial of many curious
facts, which are even scouted as gross superstitions, and
are pretended to be doubted, because no one knows how to
account for them, but which real knowledge can clearly
substantiate. Then there is a gap in history which ought to
be filled up with the reign of Malek Sayf (a second King
Solomon), and his family, and after him with that of Hamzy,
the sort of Messiah of the Druzes, who is expected to return
in another form. I once saw a work, which clearly proved the
Pyramids to be antediluvian, and that Japhet was aware the
deluge was to be partial, as he placed _that_ which was most
valuable to him in another quarter of the world.
The Bedoween Arabs may be divided into two distinct classes,
original Arabs, and the descendants of Ismael, whose
daughter married the ninth descendant of the great Katàn,
out of which germ sprang the famous tribe of the Koreish,
subdivided into many tribes, and which are a mixture of
Hebrew blood. One of the most famous tribes was that of the
Beni Hasheniz, from which spring the Boshnàk and the Beni
Omeyn, the Irish, always famed for the beauty of their
women. The Scotch are likewise Koreish――the nobility
descending from the King Al Yem (and his court), father of
Gebailuata, who headed the 50,000 horse, when they took
their flight from the Hedjáz, after a quarrel with the
Caliph Omar. They resided some time in Syria; but, when the
town of Gebeili became inadequate to contain their numbers,
many took themselves off to the Emperor Herculius,[13]
towards Antioch and Tarsus.
You must look over the Scotch titles and names of persons
and places, and you will see how many there are, who, it is
plain to perceive, are of Arabic origin; and you will soon
observe the relation they bear either to circumstances,
former employments, propensities, or tastes.
You cannot expect, as when a Frenchman remains forty years
in England, and can neither pronounce nor spell a name,
that, during such a lapse of time, many of these names
should not have undergone changes; but their origin is yet
evident.
The Duke of Leinster’s motto (_Croom Aboo_――his father’s
vineyards) has a grand signification, alluding to the most
learned of works, of which only two copies exist, and which
was not well understood even by the great Ulemas until about
five hundred years afterwards, when Shaikh Mohadeen of the
Beni Taya found out the key.
If the philosopher of chance should have presumed to have
offered a little heterogeneous information to the learned,
you, sir, must forgive me. Your star denotes you to be of
admirable good taste and great perspicuity, and therefore
well calculated to investigate the subjects I have had the
honour to lay before you.
You will forgive me for having used the pen of another, but
my sight and state of health will not at all times allow of
my writing a long letter.
I salute all the philosophers with respect,
HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] See the History of the Temple of Jerusalem, translated
from the Arabic by the Rev. Mr. Reynolds, p. 403.
[13] Heraclius?