Lady Hester in an alcove in her garden――Lucky days observed by
her――Consuls’ rights――Mischief caused by Sir F. B.’s neglect in
answering Lady Hester’s Letters――Rashes common in Syria――Visit of an
unknown Englishman――Story of Hanah Messâad――Lady Hester’s love of
truth――Report of her death――Michael Tutungi――Visit from the Chevalier
Guys――His reception at Dayr el Mkhallas――Punishment of the shepherd,
Câasem――Holyday of the Korbàn Byràm――Fatôon’s _accouchement_――Lady
Hester’s aversion to consular interference――Evenings at Jôon――Old
Pierre――Saady.
Friday, February 16, 1838.――About two in the afternoon, on going to
pay my visit to Lady Hester Stanhope, I proceeded to her bed-room,
thinking, as usual, to find her there, but was told by her maids she
was gone into the garden. The day was overcast, and there was every
appearance of rain. I found her standing in one of the garden-walks,
leaning on her stick (such as those which elderly ladies were
accustomed formerly to use in England, and perhaps may now), and pale
as a ghost. “Doctor,” said she, “I have got out of my room that those
beasts may clean it? but, if you don’t go to them, they’ll steal
everything.” After expressing my fears that she had chosen a bad day
to come out, I left her. I saw her room put into as much order as the
confusion in it would admit of. It was crowded with bundles one upon
another, as before, which she dared not put into any other part of the
house, lest they should be stolen.
Independent of her desire to be more clean and comfortable, I guessed
at once why she had left her bed-room to go into the garden. It was
the struggle which the sick often make――the resolution of an unsubdued
spirit, that finds corporeal ailments weighing down the body, whilst
the mind is yet unsubdued. It was Friday too, the day in all the week
she held as most auspicious.
When I returned into the garden, I found her lying on a sofa, in a
beautiful alcove, one of three or four that embellished her garden,
and an attendant standing with his hands folded across his breast, in
an attitude of respect before her. At these moments, she always wore
the air of a Sultaness. In this very alcove, how often had she acted
the queen, issued her orders, summoned delinquents before her, and
enjoyed the semblance of that absolute power, which was the latent
ambition of her heart! Hence it was that she at last got rid of all
European servants, because they would not submit to arbitrary
punishments, but would persist in raising their voices in
self-justification. With the Turks it was not so. Accustomed, in the
courts of governors and Pashas, to implicit obedience and submission,
they resigned themselves to her rule as a matter of course. In
transferring, however, their servility to her, as their mistress, they
also transferred the vices and dangers which servility engenders:
namely, lying, theft, sycophancy, intrigue, and treachery.
Saturday, February 17.――During the whole of this day I did not see
Lady Hester, and I was not sorry for it. Her thoughts were now
constantly running on the inexplicable silence of Sir Francis Burdett.
“He is a man of honour,” she would say. “I suppose he has to write to
Ireland, and to the right and left about my property; or perhaps they
have got hold of him, too;――who knows? I am sure something must have
happened.” As each succeeding steamboat arrived, a messenger was sent
to Beyrout, but still no answer. Then she reflected what she should
do, if Sir Francis at last should furnish her with proofs that no
property had been left her:――beggary stared her in the face. In the
mean time she had no means of raising a single farthing before the
first of March, when she could draw for £300. But of this sum £200
were due to Mr. Dromacaiti, a Greek merchant at Beyrout, who had lent
her money at an exorbitant interest, but on her word, and this,
therefore, she would pay, I knew, if possible. During all this time,
my family remained in almost total ignorance of what was going on
within Lady Hester’s walls as much as if they had been living in
China. I was also, as I have said above, obliged to conceal, in a
great measure, her illness from them. They rode and walked out on the
mountains, fed their bulbuls, enjoyed the fine climate, and wondered
what made me look so thin and careworn: for thought and care preyed on
my spirits, and I wasted away almost as perceptibly as Lady Hester
herself.
Sunday, February 18.――To-day Lady Hester was sitting up in the corner
of her bed-room. Her look was deadly pale, and her head was wrapped up
in flannels, just like her grandfather the last day he appeared in the
House of Lords. Without intending it, everything she did bore a
resemblance to that great man.
Ali had returned from Beyrout without a letter. “Did Ali Hayshem,” she
asked me, “set off at sunrise on Friday? I am glad he did. Do you
know, I once sent Butrus to Beyrout to fetch money; and I said to him,
‘If you get in on Monday night, don’t come away on Tuesday or
Wednesday; for those are unlucky days; loiter away those two days, and
be here on Thursday night. However, he paid no attention to my
instructions, and on Wednesday evening he made his appearance. ‘Why
did you come before Thursday?’ I asked him. He answered, ‘That the bag
of money having been delivered to him, he had brought it immediately,
and you see, Mylady, here it is: nobody, thank God! has robbed
me.’――‘That does not signify,’ I told him; ‘you will see there is no
_bereky_ [blessing] in it.’ Do you know, doctor, I paid the people’s
wages immediately, and it was well I did; for some ten or twelve
thousand piasters, chest and all, disappeared the next day. ‘There,
look!’ said I to him; ‘I told you that money never would turn to
account.’”
The conversation reverted to Colonel Campbell’s letter. “I have told
the secretary,” said she, “to tell his father, that, if he dares make
his appearance here again, I’ll send a bullet through his body. Not
one of them shall lay their vile hands on me or mine. I have strength
enough to strangle him, and I would do it, though it should cost me my
life. As for Mr. Moore, he may perhaps have a _habeas corpus_ by him;
but it is good for twenty-four hours only, and I should know how to
manage. Consuls have no right over nobility; they may have over
merchants, and such people: but they never shall come near me, and I
would shoot the first that dared to do it. The English are a set of
intermeddling, nasty, vulgar, odious people, and I hate them all. The
very Turks laugh at them. Out of ridicule, they told one, if he was so
clever, to straiten a dog’s tail. Yes, he might straiten and straiten,
but it would soon bend again; and they may bend me and bend me, if
they can, but I fancy they will find it a difficult matter: for you
may tell them that, when I have made up my mind to a thing, no earthly
being can alter my determination. If they want a devil, let them try
me, and they shall have enough of it.
“When the steamboat came, and brought no letter to-day from Sir
Francis Burdett, you thought I should be ill on receiving the news:
but I am not a fool. I suppose he is occupied with his daughter’s
legacy, or with parliamentary business.”
I had received a letter from a lady, which I had occasion to read to
her. When I had done, and she had expressed her thanks for the
flower-seeds sent her, she added, “What I do not like in Mrs. U.’s
letter is that foolish way of making a preamble about her not liking
to leave so much white paper in all its purity, and all those turns
and phrases which people use. That was very well for a Swift or a
Pope, who, having promised to write to somebody once a fortnight, and
having nothing to say, made a great number of points to fill up the
paper; but a letter that has matter in it should be written with a
distinct narration of the business, and that’s all. Do you think such
people as Mr. Pitt or Lord Chatham, my grandfather, liked those
nonsensical phrases? No, they threw the letter aside, or else cast
their eyes over it to see if, on the other page, there was anything to
answer about.”
February 19.――I was riding this morning with my family beyond the
village, which is separated by a deep valley from Lady Hester’s
residence, when I saw two servants on the verge of the opposite hill,
vociferating――“Come directly, come instantly!” and waving their white
turbans. I reflected that, if I put my horse into a gallop, the people
of the village would immediately conclude that Lady Hester was dying;
and the news (as news always gains by distance) would be the next day
at Sayda that she was dead: I therefore continued the same pace; and,
although the servants redoubled their signs and cries, I steadily
retraced my steps. When I had dismounted, I was told her ladyship was
in a deplorable way, unlike any thing they had ever seen. I hurried to
her bed-room. She was sitting on the side of her bed, weeping and
uttering those extraordinary cries, which I have before compared to
something hardly human. She clasped her hands and exclaimed
repeatedly, “Oh God! oh, God! what misery! what misery!” When she was
a little calmed, and I could collect from her what was the matter, she
told me that, having fallen into a doze, she awoke with a sense of
suffocation from tightness across her chest, and, being unable to ring
or call, she thought she should have died: “thus,” said she, “am I
treated like a dog, with nobody to administer to my wants;” and so she
went on in the usual strain. I was suffering at this time from the
nettlerash, but treated it lightly, and thought Lady Hester would do
so too: until, having unluckily alluded to it, a fresh source of
uneasiness was inadvertently started. “Good God, doctor!” she cried,
“to come out of doors with a nettlerash on you! go to your house
immediately; get to bed, keep yourself warm, and remain there until it
is cured. After four or five days, take such and such things; then go
to the bath, then take some bark, &c., &c. How many persons have I
known go mad and die from it! You treat it as nothing? why, you will
drive me crazy. In God’s name, never mind _me_; only go and take care
of yourself. You will act in your own usual inconsiderate manner, and
I shall have to bury another in this house. Oh, God! oh, God! what am
I doomed to!” and then followed fresh cries and fresh lamentations.
Could Sir Francis Burdett have seen all this, and have known that five
words of a letter, sent a month or two sooner, in answer to her
inquiries about the property she thought was left her, would have
probably saved all this excitement, he would have found reason to
reproach himself for his long silence. I knew the workings of her mind
full well, and that her proud spirit, wounded by the general neglect
she met with, vented itself in tears, seemingly, for other causes than
the real ones. I recollected a succession of similar scenes about
twenty years before at Mar Elias, when she was expecting letters from
the Duke of Buckingham; but then she was sounder in bodily health, and
could better bear such convulsive paroxysms of grief: now, she was
labouring under pulmonary disease, was old, was in distress, and the
consequences might prove fatal.
I left her before dinner. “Good by, doctor!” she said, in a kind tone:
“I cannot tell you how much I am obliged to you for everything you do
for me; and send me a servant twice a day to let me know how you are.
I shall be uneasy about you: I can’t help it: from my childhood I have
been so. How many times in my life have I spent days and days in
trying to make others comfortable! I have been the slave of others,
and never got any thanks for it.”
I went to my house, collected all the money that remained, which was
about eleven pounds, and sent it to her to meet the current expenses
of the household: for so she wished, that I might not be annoyed, she
said, and have the rash driven in on my brain.
I experienced no ill effects from the nettlerash. Few persons, new to
the climate of Syria, escape a rash of some description, sometimes
pustular, sometimes miliary, but most frequently in the form called
prickly heat, which generally attacks them in summer or autumn, and is
truly distressing by the pricking sensation it produces on the skin,
as if thousands of needle-points were penetrating the cuticle. Little
is required in such cases but cool diet, fruit, and diluents. I
performed my quarantine of four days, in compliance with Lady Hester’s
wishes, and then returned to my customary mode of life.
Saturday, February 24.――As I had anticipated, a report had become very
general in Beyrout and in the Mountain that Lady Hester was dead, and
I received a letter from M. Guys acquainting me with it. This report
was confirmed by an English gentleman, who presented himself at my
gate this day after breakfast. I was carpentering at the time, and
went down the yard to him with my hatchet and chisel in my hand. He
seemed not to know what to make of me, dressed as I was in Turkish
clothes, with a beard, and with my sleeves turned up like a mechanic.
He held out a letter to me, addressed in a fair hand to Lady Hester: I
told him this was not her gate, and that a little beyond he would find
it. He said he had heard she was dead: I assured him that was not the
case, but that she was greatly indisposed. I regretted to myself that
I could not ask him in, or enter into conversation with him; but Lady
Hester had exacted from me a solemn promise that I never would hold
any parley with English travellers, until I had first conferred with
her on the subject, and had described them, so that she might obtain
the necessary indications to enable her to guess what their business
was, or until she had read their letter of introduction, if they bore
one. So he quitted me, first asking whether I was an Englishman; to
which I answered that I left him to judge. He appeared to be about
twenty-one years of age: he had with him for his servant a Ragusan,
whom my servant knew, and who, he assured me, was a drunken reprobate.
Short as the stop at the gate was, the Ragusan found time to tell the
other that he had famous wages: I think it was eight dollars a month.
Now I gave mine, who was also a European, four, which was considered
good pay, the rate being, in Lady Hester’s house, from one to three.
Europeans, however, always get more than people of the country, and
have more wants to satisfy. How many travellers are obliged, on their
landing in these countries, to take fellows into their service without
a character, outcasts of society, and who in England would hardly be
allowed to see the outside of a gaol!
Of this English gentleman Lady Hester never spoke to me, nor did she
ever even allude to his visit: he did not see her, and, I presume,
continued his road; but, if these pages ever meet his eye, he may be
assured that he would have met with a hospitable reception, had she
been well enough to receive him, or had I been at liberty to entertain
him.
Whilst at dinner, a servant came to say Lady Hester would be glad to
see me in the evening. I found her weak and wan: her cheeks were
sunken, and her voice was less distinct than usual; for never was
there a person who spoke generally with so clear an enunciation.
Logmagi was with her. Instead of receiving her welcome, and those
obliging expressions which she usually employed even after the most
trifling ailment, she addressed me harshly, and seemed to take pains
to mortify me by using slighting expressions in Arabic that Logmagi
might understand what she said. The theme of her conversation was the
debasement of men who suffered themselves to be controlled by their
wives. Although to mortify people was one of her constant practices
through life, whether in action, correspondence, or conversation, yet
it never was done to gratify any malignant feelings of her own, but
from a fearless disregard of the conventional rules of civilized
society, where she hoped to rescue an individual from debasement, or
counteract the machinations of designing and wicked men. On this
principle it is true, likewise, that she would deliberately inflict
those incurable insults which cover a man with a sort of shame for
life; as may be shown, for example, by the case of Mr. Hanah Messâad,
the son of the British agent at Beyrout, one of whose whiskers and
eyebrows was shaved off before the whole village, for having made an
assertion then supposed to be false, but which was afterwards, by her
own confession to me, admitted to be true.
Hanah, or John Messâad, a handsome young man, a native of Beyrout, and
the son of a former English vice-consul, was interpreter and secretary
to Lady Hester for some time, and her ladyship has since bestowed
great praise, in my presence, on his capacity, usefulness, and
knowledge of languages. There was in her service also Michael Tutungi,
son of an Armenian, who had been under-dragoman, as I understood, to
the English embassy at Constantinople. Messâad, it was thought, was
jealous of Michael.
It was reported in the family that Michael had been seen under a tree
in very close conversation with a peasant girl, and the report was
traced to Messâad. Now, the Emir Beshýr affected, or really felt, a
great horror of all licentiousness, and never failed to bastinado
severely every man detected, in his principality, in any such conduct.
Lady Hester knew what imputations might be cast on her establishment,
if such things were left unnoticed; and, fearing that Messâad’s
intrigues (of which she thought this report but a link) might injure
Michael’s character, and destroy his prospects of getting a place in
the English embassy at Constantinople, to which he had some
pretensions from his father’s services, she resolved to save him by
making a signal example of Messâad.
She, therefore, ordered all the villagers from Jôon to be assembled on
the green in front of her house, and sent for Mustafa, the barber,
from Sayda, with two or three other tradesmen to be witnesses. Seating
herself on a temporary divan, with all the assembly in a circle around
her, not a soul dreaming what was going to take place, and Michael and
Messâad standing in respectful attitudes, with their arms crossed, and
covered, down to the fingers’ ends,[34] with their benyshes, by her
side, she began: “That young man,” said she, pointing to Michael, “is
accused of irregularities with” (here she mentioned the girl’s name,
and the place and time of the meeting). “Now, if any one of you knows
him to have been guilty of similar actions, or if, from his general
conduct, under similar circumstances, any one of you thinks the thing
probable, speak out, for I wish to do justice. Messâad is his accuser:
they are both my people, and equally entitled to impartiality.” As
nobody answered, she appealed to them all again, and all replied they
did not believe it.
She then turned to Messâad, and said: “Sir, you have accused this
young man, who is about to be launched into the world, and has only
his good name to help him on, of abominable things: where are your
witnesses?” Messâad, frightened out of his senses, replied, “that he
had no witnesses; that he had seen, with his own eyes, what he had
asserted, and, therefore, knew it to be so: but, as he was alone, it
must rest on his own word.” Her ladyship told him his word would not
do against the concurring testimony of all the servants, and of a
whole village; and she added, in a judge-like tone, “As your mouth and
your eye have offended, the stigma shall remain on them. Servants,
seize and hold him; and, barber, shave off one side of his mustachios
and one eyebrow.”
This was done. Michael was kept about a month or two, in order that
the protection he enjoyed might seal his unblemished reputation, and
then was packed off to Constantinople. “Thus,” said Lady Hester, “I
saved a young man from destruction. Messâad has now a good place under
the Sardinian consul at Beyrout; his eyebrows and mustachios are grown
again; he has married, and has a family; and I dare say the Sardinian
consul, if he knows anything of the story, thinks not a bit the worse
of him.”
The above are the words in which Lady Hester, on the 20th of January,
1831, related this singular punishment, inflicted with the best
intentions on poor Messâad. One evening, in 1837, when writing a
letter to the same Messâad, for certain commissions which he had to
execute for her ladyship, who was in the habit of employing him to buy
pipes, cloth, and sundry other articles found in the shops at Beyrout,
she spoke to me as follows. “You know, doctor, all that affair about
Michael and Messâad, and how I had one side of his face shaved. Well,
I found out afterwards that what Messâad had said was every bit of it
true. I have made it up to him since as well as I could: he does not
want abilities, and kept my house in excellent order whilst he was
with me.”
But this was not the first time Lady Hester had resorted to this
singular mode of punishment; some years before, a chastisement for
similar frailties, not unlike that which Messâad underwent, as far as
regarded the eyebrows, fell to the lot of a peasant girl in her
ladyship’s service at a village called Mushmôoshy. This was in the
year 1813. How fallible are the most clearsighted persons is the only
comment which can be made on such unintentional errors!
For those who were not exempt from the common weaknesses of our nature
she was a dangerous person to hold intercourse with. “Live at a
distance from my lady,” General Loustaunau used to say to Mrs. M.
(when she wanted to remove from Mar Elias to Dar Jôon, in order to be
near me); “live at a distance, or you will find, to your cost, that
her neighbourhood is a hell.” But be it said, to her honour, that it
was from an unfeigned horror of everything mean, dishonest, or
vicious, she so resolutely refused to keep terms with people who
suffered themselves to be led into the commission of such acts; and
her indignation descended with equal impartiality on friends and foes
when they happened to deserve it. Her disposition to utter the truth,
whether painful or disagreeable, overruled all other considerations.
Few people conversed with her, or received a letter from her, without
being sensible of some expression or innuendo, which they were obliged
to treat as a joke at the moment, but which was sure to leave its
sting behind. Of upwards of a hundred letters which I have penned for
her at her dictation to correspondents of every rank in life, there
were few which did not contain some touch of merited sarcasm or
reproof; except those which were expressly written to alleviate
distress, or encourage the hopeful efforts of modest worth. Never was
there so inflexible a judge, or one who would do what she thought
right, come what would of it. _Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum_, might have
been written on her escutcheon.
Sunday, February 25.――Having recovered her tranquillity, she was
to-day all kindness. I mentioned to her the report rife in Beyrout
respecting her death, as M. Guys had written it. She observed on it,
“If I do die, those consuls, thank God, can have nothing to do with
me! I am no English subject, and they have no right to seal up my
effects. Why do I keep some of my servants, although I know them to be
desperate rascals, but because they have one or two qualities useful
to me? It would not do for every one to run the risk, but it will for
me, who know how to manage them. For example: I have got two that I
can depend upon for shooting a man, or giving a consul a good blow, if
he dares to set his foot within my doors, so as to prevent his ever
coming again; and such are what I want just now.”
She turned over in her mind how she could raise a little money, and
bethought herself of Mr. Michael Tutungi, the Armenian, of
Constantinople, who had formerly served her in the capacity of
dragoman. To him she had written in 1836, offering him the same
situation he had held before, and, on his promise to come, had
forwarded to him 500 dollars for the expenses of his journey and for
some commissions: but he subsequently declined the engagement, neither
had he executed the commissions. She therefore desired me to draw a
bill on him, payable to M. Guys’s order, and to request M. Guys to
discount it; for, during my nettlerash, Lady Hester had given away the
greatest part of the 1,190 piasters to a family ruined by the
earthquake. It was in vain to represent to her that she was in want of
the money herself: “I can’t help it,” she would say; “I am not
mistress of myself on such occasions.”
Tuesday, February 27.――Lady Hester got up, went into her garden, and
felt better. She had at last found out that repletion, arising even
from what would be called small quantities of food and drink in
health, was very injurious in sickness; and she had grown more
moderate in her diet, not swallowing one liquid upon another, nor
eating four or five times a day. Honey and butter mixed was now what
she derived most benefit from, and spermaceti linctuses. The moment
she found anything soothed her cough, she immediately sent off an
order to Beyrout for an immense quantity of it, or to Europe, if at
Beyrout it was not to be had: she was never satisfied that her
medicine-chest was full enough. It will hardly be credited that of
Epsom salts she had a cask full, of the size of a firkin. She
masticated aniseeds as a remedy against dyspepsia, and smoked them
sprinkled on the tobacco of her pipe: of course, they were very
injurious to her, but it was idle to remonstrate.
February 29.――Lady Hester’s first topic of conversation to-day was her
maids. “What a _hywán_ [beast] is that _Sâady_!” she said: “when she
awakes in the morning, she crawls on all-fours exactly like an animal.
I am convinced she is nothing more: her back is only fit to carry a
pair of panniers.” I agreed with her ladyship, and told her what I had
seen her do the day before. With one springing lift she raised from
the floor to her head a circular _mankàl_ or chafingdish, two feet in
diameter, and piled up with live coals――and, without holding it, but
merely balancing it on her head, she stooped perpendicularly, and
seized with her two hands another mankàl of baked earth of equal size,
filled with live coals also, and, lifting it, carried them both at
once into the drawing-room to warm the apartment. These are the feats
of dexterity and strength in which Syrian women excel, and in which
they far surpass all European maids.
March 1.――Monsieur Henry Guys, the French consul, having been advanced
to the superior situation of Aleppo, and being about to quit our part
of the country, arrived unexpectedly at Jôon to take his leave. It was
Tuesday, and just after sunset, when he entered the gate. Lady Hester
had, about a quarter of an hour before, hurried me away from her, as
the sun was going to set, and it would have been unlucky, had I left
her a minute after the sun was down. “I shall not see you to-morrow,”
said she, “as it will be Wednesday:” therefore, when she was told that
Monsieur Guys was come, it discomposed her very much, and she sent
word that, whatever his business was, she could not see him until
after sunset next day.
As M. Guys was thus transferred to me for twenty-four hours, I took
the opportunity of letting him know how disquieted I felt at having
such great responsibility on my shoulders, whilst Lady Hester was so
ill, and surrounded by a set of servants whom I considered as so many
cut-throats.
My position was extremely uncomfortable. Should Lady Hester die, I
foresaw that I should be exposed, alone as I was, to many difficulties
and dangers. The Druze insurrection afforded every facility to an
assassin or robber for putting himself beyond the reach of justice:
since, in about five or six hours, he could find a sure refuge from
capture. He revived my spirits by assuring me I need be under no
alarm. “All of them are known,” said he, “and have their families and
relations hereabouts: that one circumstance must always be a check
upon them. If they were not natives of the province, then I should
say you were not safe among them. As for Lady Hester, you know her
determined character――if she is resolved to keep them, you cannot help
it. There is one,” added he, “whom I could wish not to be here; I
thought him gone a year ago:” this was the one whom Lady Hester relied
on for sending a bullet through the consul’s body.
There is a large stone edifice of great extent, distant about
three-quarters of a mile, as the crow flies, from the village of Jôon,
more like a fortress than the peaceable habitation of cenobites. It is
the monastery of _Dayr el Mkhallas_, or the Saviour, and contains
about fifty friars of the Greek Catholic church, which repudiates the
pope, recognizing as its spiritual head its own patriarch. M. Guys
enjoyed the unlimited confidence of these people as the well-tried and
efficient friend of the Catholic church throughout Syria; and it was
no sooner known that he was in the neighbourhood, than the superior of
the monastery gave him to understand that a visit from him would be
received as a great honour by the monks. M. Guys devoted the morning
to this gratifying object, and his reception was in the highest degree
flattering. When he arrived at the foot of the Mount, on the summit of
which the monastery stands, he was saluted by a merry chime of
church-bells, and then the whole body of the friars, with the cross
borne before them, came out in procession to meet him. The greatest
ceremony was observed on the occasion, and sherbet, coffee, pipes,
aspersion of rose-water, and homage, were lavished on him, not less in
the hope of securing a continuation of his good offices, than as
expressive of gratitude for past kindnesses: for no man holding
official rank in Syria has ever enjoyed more popularity, or obtained
more general consideration, than the Chevalier Guys. Descended from an
ancient family of Provence, in which the consular rank may be almost
said to have become hereditary, the Levant saw, at the beginning of
the present century, the rare occurrence of three brothers holding
consulships at the same time.
After dinner, M. Guys was summoned by Lady Hester Stanhope, and I
availed myself of the opportunity it afforded me of remaining at home
for the evening. The next morning he departed before I was up; but,
being anxious to ascertain his opinions of Lady Hester’s situation, I
mounted my horse, and, by taking a short but somewhat dangerous path
down the mountains, I overtook him. Nothing particular, however, had
transpired in their conversation, which lasted for four hours; but he
told me that he was shocked to find her so much altered, and that he
had never heard such a hollow sepulchral cough. He added that,
frequently during the time he was with her, she fell back on the sofa
from exhaustion. She spoke, too, a good deal, and in rather an odd
way, of extraordinary sights she had seen, of two apparitions that had
appeared to her, and of serpents near Tarsûs, which go in troops
devouring all before them, and with a tone of conviction as if she
believed it all. “What does it mean,” he asked me――“and why do you let
her smoke so much?”
March 2.――Lady Hester was now getting better slowly, but, as usual,
her strength no sooner began to return than it brought out all the
unmanageable points of her character in full relief. Something
happened in the house which ruffled her, and produced a discussion
between us, I hardly know how; but it ended by her calling me a
crabbed old fool: upon which I observed, that I never heard such
expressions from the lips of ladies before. This set her off upon her
inexhaustible theme of fearless speaking. “If you were a duke,” said
she, “I would use exactly the same expressions.”――“Your ladyship’s
talents,” I ventured to observe again, “are inexpressibly great, but,
without questioning that, I only lament the intemperate use of them.”
Taking up this observation, she dwelt at great length upon the
“sweetness of her temper,” and I made my peace at last, by saying that
a physician should be the last person to complain of the irritability
of his patients. Apophthegms of this submissive character were never
lost upon her, provided they were true, as well as apologetic; so
pipes were ordered, and we entered into an armistice for the rest of
the evening.
A curious but characteristic incident occurred about this time. In the
ravines of the mountains, where the few living creatures that are to
be found may be supposed to be drawn into closer communion by a common
sense of loneliness, a shepherd named Câasem, who was nearly fifty
years old, formed a _liaison_ with a village girl, whose occupation
consisted in leading a cow about in the solitary green nooks where any
scanty herbage was to be secured. The circumstance reached Lady
Hester’s ears before it was known to anybody else, and she immediately
ordered the man to be flogged at break of day, with instructions that
nobody should tell him why or wherefore. “He will know what it is
for,” she exclaimed; then turning reproachfully to Logmagi, to whom
the execution of the order was entrusted, she added:――“How is it you
leave me to be the first to discover these disgraceful acts, giving
the Emir Beshýr an excuse to say that I encourage depravity in my
servants, when it is your duty to know everything that passes about my
premises?” Logmagi went, gave the shepherd a beating, and sent him
about his business. Lady Hester used to justify severities of this
description on the ground that it prevented the recurrence of similar
licentiousness, and “kept the fellows in order.”
March 5.――This being the vigil of the _Korbàn Byràm_, or the Mahometan
Easter, which is their great holyday, Lady Hester, who had previously
given her orders to a person who had some reputation as a pastrycook,
despatched at twelve at night three servants, each with a _sennýah_,
or round tray, on which they were to bring back from Sayda by daylight
the _baklâawy_, _mamool_, and _karýby_, three delicious sorts of sweet
cakes, which are scarcely exceeded in delicacy by the choicest pastry
of Europe.
At noon, the servants, dressed in all their new finery, sat down to a
copious dinner composed of the most luxurious Eastern dishes. But
there was no wine; for, whatever transgressions these people may
commit in that way in private, they never touch wine in public.
Logmagi and some others were known not to be much troubled with such
scruples, when they could indulge themselves in secret: but Logmagi
always excused himself on the score of being a Freemason, which is
held in Turkey to be equivalent to a jovial fellow who does not care
much what he does. The women, also, had their own feast, and a piece
of gold the value of twenty piasters was presented to each of the
servants. The day was literally abandoned to pleasure; but what a
contrast do the sober manners of Mahometans form to those of
Europeans? Gambling and noisy revels are out of the question in the
tranquil and easy delights in this simple race. Dancing is generally
confined to the boys, or to some buffoon who gets up and wriggles
about to the music of a small tambourine, beaten with a single stick
and producing a dull sound, which they consider musical, and which
habit renders not disagreeable even to European ears. Every man smokes
his pipe; and a good story-teller (for such a one is rarely wanting in
a party of a dozen,) relates some traditionary tale, which absorbs for
the time all the faculties of his hearers. The cook was one of this
sort, a Christian of the village of Abra, a shrewd fellow, who went by
the name of _Dyk_, or the Cock, from his rather strutting air, or from
the vigorous exercise of his authority over his wife, whom he beat
every now and then to keep her in proper discipline――a redeeming
quality in the eyes of Lady Hester, who otherwise would have dismissed
him from her service.
Lady Hester’s astrological powers were put to a practical test to-day.
Fatôom, one of her maid servants, whose name has frequently occurred
in these pages, required my medical services, under the following
circumstances. About six years before, having, in league with Zeyneb,
a black girl, and some men of the village, robbed her mistress of
several valuable effects, she was turned away: but, upon exhibiting
great repentance, she was taken back again. Lady Hester found no
difficulty, as may be supposed, in extracting from her a confession of
the system of plunder that had been carried on, and the names of her
accomplices. “I could hang them all,” was her constant expression in
speaking of them. Fatôom had been in her ladyship’s service ten or
eleven years, and was not yet twenty; and, being very pretty, and
decked out in the finery to which she was enabled to help herself by
her share of the plunder, she had vanity enough, when she was turned
away, to hope that she should get at least an aga for a husband: but
she was disappointed, and was obliged to put up with a small farmer.
She consequently came back a married woman, in poor plight as to
circumstances, with the prospect of having her difficulties aggravated
by a speedy increase to her cares. On this day, 5th March, Fatôom
complained of pains. There was not a moment to be lost: the midwife
was instantly sent for; Fatôom was hurried away to her mother’s in the
village, and, before the expiration of a quarter of an hour, she gave
birth to a boy.
As soon as Lady Hester learned the result, she requested me to go and
see her. I found Fatôom sitting on a mattress on the floor (for nobody
in the East has a bedstead) with from fifteen to twenty women squatted
around her, the midwife supporting her back, and the child lying by
her, covered with a corner of the quilt. Fatôom, very yellow, looked
as if she had been in a great fright, and was astonished there was so
little in it. After feeling her pulse, and delivering to her mother a
basket of good things, such as lump sugar, six or eight sorts of
spices, &c., with which it is customary to make the caudle upon these
occasions, as also a new counterpane, and two silk pillows, for her
lying-in present, I took a glance at the village gossips. There they
were, holding forth much in the same way as the peasantry in other
countries, with this difference, that here my presence was no
restraint, and the minutest details of the recent event were discussed
with as little reserve as if they had been talking of the ordinary
incidents of the day.
Having returned to Lady Hester with an account of what I had seen, she
immediately set about casting the infant’s nativity, first
ascertaining accurately the hour at which he was born――a quarter
before two. “He will have,” said she, “arched eyebrows, rolling eyes,
and a nose so and so: he will be a devil, violent in his passions, but
soon pacified: his fingers will be long and taper, without being
skinny and bony:” and thus she went on, in a manner so impressed with
faith and earnestness, that it is not to be wondered at how persons of
good judgment have lent their ears to astrologers, where the study has
been fortified by a previous knowledge of man, his temperaments, and
the innate and external characteristics of passions, of virtue, and of
vice. She gave him the name of Selim, and sent word to say his star
agreed with hers very well. This was good news for Fatôom, as it was
equivalent to Lady Hester’s taking charge of the infant.
The cradle had already been prepared: it was of wood, painted green,
something like a trough, and perforated at the bottom, as is usual in
the East. A tube of wood with a bowl to it, exactly of the form of a
tobacco-pipe, is tied to the child’s waist, a rude but ingenious
contrivance to save trouble to the nurse, the bowl serving as the
immediate recipient, and the tube passing through the side of the
cradle.[35]
March 7.――This being Wednesday, Lady Hester, as usual, was invisible.
What she did on these mysterious days I never heard: for a person
once away from her might as well divine how the man in the moon was
employed as guess how she was passing her time.
Thursday, March 8.――I saw Lady Hester about four o’clock: she was in a
very irritable state: she complained bitterly, as usual, of her
servants――of their neglect, ignorance, and heartlessness: she said she
would rather be surrounded by robbers; for there is some principle
amongst thieves. “Oh!” she exclaimed, “that I could find one human
being who knew his Creator!”
She went on:――“I have had a very bad night, and whether I shall live
or die, I don’t know: but this I tell you beforehand, that, if I do
die, I wish to be buried, like a dog, in a bit of earth just big
enough to hold this miserable skin, or else to be burnt, or thrown
into the sea. And, as I am no longer an English subject, no consuls,
nor any English of any sort, shall approach me in my last moments;
for, if they do, I will have them shot. Therefore, the day before I
die, if I know it, I shall order you away, and not only you, but
everything English; and if you don’t go, I warn you beforehand, you
must take the consequences. Let me be scorched by the burning
sun[36]――frozen by the cold blast――let my ashes fly in the air――let
the wolves and jackals devour my carcase;――let”――here the agitation
she was in, and which had kept increasing, brought on a severe fit of
coughing, and it was a quarter of an hour before she could recover
strength enough to speak again. Her exhaustion reduced her to a little
calm.
After dinner I saw her again, but now her irritability had passed
away. “Take your chair,” said she, “here by the bed――turn your back to
the window to save your poor eyes from the light――never mind me:
there――I am afraid I have overworked them by so much writing. But I
know, if you did not write for me, you would be writing or reading for
yourself: you are just like my sister Griselda.”
She went on:――“You are angry with me, I dare say, because I told you I
would not have you near me when I am dying: but I suppose I may do as
I please. No English consul shall touch me or my effects: no: when I
was going, sooner than that, I will call in all the thieves and
robbers I can find, and set them to plunder and destroy everything.
But I shall not die so:――I shall die as St. Elias and Isaac did; and,
before that, I shall have to wade through blood up to here” (and she
drew her hand across her neck), “nor will a spark of commiseration
move me. The _bab el tobi_ [gate of pardon] will then be shut; for
neither king, nor priest, nor peasant, shall enter when that hour
comes. You and others will then repent of not having listened to my
words.”
Saturday, March 10.――Let us take this night as a sample of many
others, to show sometimes what was doing in a solitary residence on
Mount Lebanon, in which the vivid fancies of European writers had
conjured up an imaginary mode of existence wholly different from the
sad reality. From eight o’clock at night until one in the morning,
Lady Hester Stanhope had kept the house in commotion, upon matters
which would seem so foreign to her rank, her fortune, and her supposed
occupations, that, when enumerated, they will hardly be believed.
First, there was a deliberation of half an hour to decide whether it
would be best to send the mules on the next day or the day after for
wheat: then several servants were to be questioned, one after another,
in order to compare their conflicting testimony, whether her fields of
barley had come up, and how high, and what crops they promised; next,
whether the oranges, now fit to be gathered, should be put under the
gardener’s care, or into a store-room in the house. Then ensued a
conversation with me, whether Fatôom was not playing some deep game in
pretending to be separated from her husband; and so on, with a score
of other topics equally unimportant, but with all of which she worried
herself so effectively, that it seemed as if she wilfully sought
refuge in such petty annoyances, for the sake of escaping from secret
heart-burnings, which she did not choose to betray. In this way she
had the secretary called up twice from his bed, and the bailiff once,
keeping the rest of the servants in continual motion, whilst I was
obliged, in civility, to sit and listen to it all.
Old Pierre had been sent for from Dayr el Kamar. As a person who
figures occasionally in these domestic scenes, I must make the reader
a little acquainted with his history. In the year 1812, when Lady
Hester was travelling from Jerusalem along the coast towards Damascus,
we reached Dayr el Kamar, where Pierre came and offered himself to me
as a servant. I took him; but his various talents as a cook, a guide,
and an interpreter, and most of all as an adventurer, who had an
extraordinary fund of anecdotes to relate, soon brought him into
notice with Lady Hester, and she asked him of me for her own service.
He accompanied us to Palmyra and through different parts of Syria,
resided with her at Latakia and Mar Elias, and remained in her service
many years. Having amassed a little money, he obtained permission to
retire to Dayr el Kamar, where he kept a cook’s-shop, or, if you will,
a tavern.
But Lady Hester never lost sight of him. From time to time, when any
traveller left her house to traverse Mount Lebanon, or to journey to
Damascus and Aleppo, or even to Palmyra, Pierre was recommended as
interpreter and guide, and, I understand, always discharged his duties
to the satisfaction of his employers. He is known to many Englishmen,
among the rest to the Rev. Mr. Way, who seems to have been very good
to him; and Pierre, on his side, retains a most grateful remembrance
of that gentleman’s bounty.
Pierre springs from a good family, by the name of Marquis or Marquise,
originally of Marseilles, and afterwards established as merchants in
Syria. When he was a boy, he accompanied an uncle to France, who took
him to Paris. The uncle wore the Levantine dress; and, having some
business to transact connected with government, was on one occasion
summoned to Versailles, where the court was. Chance or design threw
Pierre in the way of the king, Louis XVI., who talked to him about the
Levant, as did also Monsieur, afterwards Louis XVIII. Of this
conversation Pierre never failed to make considerable boast.
On his return to Syria, Pierre lived with his relations, until
Buonaparte laid siege to Acre, where his knowledge of the French
language recommended him to the notice of that general. He bore a
commission in his army; and, on the retreat of the French into Egypt,
accompanied them, and remained there until the final evacuation, when
he obtained a pension; but of which, he declared, he had never touched
a sou, in consequence of residing abroad.
Mons. Urbain, a contributor to the _Temps_, happening to meet with
Pierre when he was travelling in Syria, was so highly diverted with
his anecdotes, that, on his return to France, he wrote no less than
three _feuilletons_, or notices on _Le Vieux Pierre_; at least, so I
was informed by Monsieur Guys.
Pierre had been sent for by Lady Hester Stanhope, and she assigned him
a room close to the doors of her own quadrangle, that he might be
always within call. Pierre was a man exceedingly thin, with an
aquiline nose, and a steady eye, full of gasconade to be mistaken for
courage, wonderfully loquacious, and deeply imbued with all the mystic
doctrines that Lady Hester sometimes preached about. But Pierre’s
chief merit lay in his star, which, she assured me, was so propitious
to her, that it could calm her convulsions, and lay her to sleep, when
books, narcotics, and everything else failed.
Glancing in these desultory memorials from one person to another, I
may here mention, that one of the maids, named Sâady, incurred the
particular aversion of Lady Hester, just as strongly as Pierre was
favoured with her partiality. Poor Sâady never entered her presence
without being saluted by some epithet of disgust or opprobium: yet
Sâady worked from morning till night, and seldom got to bed until
three, four, or five o’clock in the morning. But Lady Hester insisted
on the necessity of treating her servants in this way for the purpose
of keeping them on the alert; and she would frequently quote her
grandfather’s example to prove how powerful particular aversions were
in people of exalted minds――such as hers and his. In this way she kept
herself in a state of constant irritation, as if she were determined
obstinately to oppose the inroads of disease by increased exertion,
exactly in proportion as her physical strength became more and more
weakened and reduced.
Monday, March 12.――Two servant boys were flogged by Logmagi for having
quitted the courtyard both at the same time, when one at least was
wanted to carry messages from the inner to the outer courts. These
punishments were inflicted by making the delinquent lie at his full
length flat on the ground, his head being held by one servant, and his
feet by another while the stripes were administered. My disposition
revolted at these whippings; although perhaps they were necessary, as
Lady Hester said. The servants would not have borne them, but that
they had in fact no choice, knowing well that they must either remain
and be flogged, or be sent to the Nizàm, where they would be flogged
twice as much, with the risk of being killed to boot.
Wednesday, March 14.――Lady Hester was in very low spirits this
evening, and, as night advanced, she had a paroxysm of grief, which
quite terrified me. With a ghastly and frenzied look, she kept crying
until my heart was rent with her wretchedness. When I left her for the
night, although she was somewhat composed, her image haunted me, even
when sleep had closed my eyes.
FOOTNOTES:
[34] No dependant stands before his superior in the East
without covering his hands with his robe or with the
hanging sleeves customary among Orientals. In sitting,
the feet and legs are likewise hidden; at least, so
good-breeding requires, and persons alone who are on
terms of familiarity would thrust them out, or let
them hang pendent.
[35] In the cottages of Mount Lebanon there are many things
occurring daily which would greatly surprise an
English practitioner. A luxation of the shoulder-joint
in an infant, real or supposed, was cured, they told
me, by taking the child by the wrist and swinging it
round with its feet off the ground, until the bone got
into place again. I assisted, for the second time, at
the cure of a sore throat, in a man thirty-six years
of age, who suffered a pocket-handkerchief to be drawn
tightly round his neck until his face turned black
and he was half strangled. The man declared the next
day he was well, and the operator assured me it was a
never-failing remedy.
[36] “Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis
Arbor æstivâ recreatur aurâ,” &c.
Yet Lady Hester had never read Horace.