Visit of Mr. Vesey Forster and Mr. Knox――Lady S. N.’s pension and Mr.
H.――Lady Hester undeservedly censured by English travellers――Mr. Anson
and Mr. Strangways――Mr. B. and Mr. C.――Captain Pechell――Captain
Yorke――Colonel Howard Vyse――Lord B.
Mr. Forster and Mr. Knox, two English gentlemen, came up to Jôon this
morning to pay a visit to Lady Hester. To my great surprise, I found
them seated at the porter’s lodge among the servants, who were
standing around them; a situation to which they accommodated
themselves with the good sense of men of the world. They had sent in a
message that two Franks were at the gate, having a letter for the Syt
Mylady, and were patiently awaiting the result.
I took the liberty of inquiring their names, and hastened to her
ladyship; whilst orders were given to conduct them immediately to the
strangers’ room. Lady Hester, who had got their letter in her hand,
told me one was a relation of Sir Augustus Forster, our ambassador at
Turin. “Go instantly to them,” said she, “for Sir Augustus is an old
friend of mine, and be particularly attentive to Mr. Forster――indeed,
to both of them. Tell them, I am very sorry I can’t see them; for,
when I get into conversation, I become animated, and then I feel the
effects of it afterwards; but assure them that they are welcome to
make their home of their present lodging for a couple of days or a
couple of hours, or as long as they like. Do they look gentlemanlike?”
she asked. “Ah!” continued she, “what a charm good-breeding gives to
mankind, and how odious vulgarity is after it! Only reflect! I, who
have been all my life accustomed to the most refined society, what I
must feel sometimes to have nothing to do but with beasts. But go, go!
and make them as comfortable as you can.”
They were in the strangers’ room, which stood in a small garden,
ornamented with a few rose-bushes, pomegranate and olive-trees, and
some flowering plants. It was a little enclosure, which had by no
means a disagreeable aspect, surrounded by a wall topped with prickly
thorn-bushes. Once inside this place, the new comer could know nothing
of what was passing without. Such were Lady Hester’s contrivances:
everything about her must wear an air of mystery.
I lost no time in conveying Lady Hester’s message to them, and, for
the short hour I enjoyed the pleasure of their conversation, had every
reason to rejoice in the opportunity of making their acquaintance. As
this visit of two travellers may serve as a specimen of what occurred,
with slight variations, on every similar occasion, when Englishmen
came to her house, who were little aware how much trouble their
unexpected arrival sometimes caused her, I shall detail what passed as
minutely as I can.
I had hardly paid my compliments to them, and inquired whether they
would take an English breakfast or something more solid, when a
message came from Lady Hester to say she wanted to see me for a
moment. This was always her way. The ruling passion of ordering what
was to be done and what was to be said on all occasions made her
impatient about things passing out of her sight.
“Well, doctor,” cried Lady Hester, “what age do they appear to be, and
where do they come from?” Having satisfied her on the first head, I
told her they were last from the Emir’s palace at Btedýn: then, after
some trifling observation, I added, the Emir complained to them that
M. Lamartine, in his recent work on Syria, had greatly compromised him
with Ibrahim Pasha, in having said that he, the Emir, had entertained
the most friendly dispositions towards Buonaparte and the French
during the siege of Acre. This the Emir denied, and averred that his
great friend was Sir Sydney Smith: meaning, probably, as I observed
from myself, to compliment his present guests at the expense of the
absent French. “He was very civil to the two travellers,” I added,
“and, understanding they were going to see your ladyship, he sent his
compliments to you.”――“Ah!” replied she, “that looks as if he were
fishing for friends, in case he should shortly have to fly; for they
say that Sherýf Pasha has been defeated in the Horàn, and the Emir
begins to tremble; for the Druzes will not spare him.”
I then told Lady Hester they had refused tea or coffee, but, as they
were come from a distance, would probably like something more
substantial: they had expressed, too, a wish for a glass of lemonade.
Here Lady Hester, suddenly raising herself in her bed, interrupted me
with “Good God!――lemonade! why, the maid said that the secretary had
been to ask for some violet syrup for them: now, which is it they
want? Can nobody ever take upon them to direct the simplest thing but
they must blunder? must everything fall upon me?”――“Well, but,”
observed I, “lemonade, or violet syrup, it does not much matter
which!”――“Not matter!――there it is again: and then who is there can
make lemonade?――not a soul but myself in the whole house: and poor I
am obliged to wear my little strength out in doing the most trivial
offices. Here I am; I wanted to write another letter to go by the
steamboat, and now all my thoughts are driven out of my head.
Zezefôon!” (ding, ding, ding, went the bell) “Zezefôon! order the
gardener to bring me four or five of the finest lemons on the tree
next the alley of roses――you know where I mean――and prepare a tray
with glasses.” This was accordingly done, and Lady Hester, sitting up
in bed, went to work squeezing lemons and making lemonade.
In my way to her ladyship’s room from the strangers’, I had called the
cook, and directed him to dress a mutton-chop, to make a vermicelli
soup, a dish of spinach and eggs, a little tunny-fish salad, and with
a cold rice pudding (which I recollected and sent for from my house),
and some Parmesan cheese, I trusted there would be enough for a hasty
meal. Whilst making the lemonade, the following conversation went on.
“Now, doctor, what can be got for their _déjeûner à la fourchette_?
for there is nothing whatever in the house.” I mentioned what I had
ordered. “Ah! yes,” resumed Lady Hester, “let me see:――there is a stew
of yesterday’s, that I did not touch, that may be warmed up again, and
some potatoes may be added; and then you must taste that wine that
came yesterday from Garýfy, to see if you think they will like it. The
spinach my maid must do. Dyk” (the cook) “does not know how to dress
spinach, but I have taught Zezefôon to do it very well.” (Ding, ding,
ding.) “Zezefôon, you know how to boil spinach in milk, and you must
garnish it with five eggs, one in each corner, and one in the
centre.”――“Yes, Sytty.”――“And, Zezefôon, send the _yackney_” (stew)
“to Dyk, and let it be warmed up for the strangers. They must have
some of my butter and some of my bread. Likewise give out the silver
spoons and knives and forks; they are under that cushion on the
ottoman, there; and mind you count them when you give them to
Mohammed, or they will steal one, and dispute with you afterwards
about the number:――a pack of thieves! And let the cook send in the
dishes necessary: for I will not have any of mine go out.
“You must tell the travellers, doctor, and especially Mr. Forster, for
he is an Irishman, that I have a great deal of Irish and Scotch blood
in me, and no English. Tell him I have made great investigations on
the subject of the origin of the Scotch, and could prove to him that
they came originally from this country. Tell him how beautiful the
Irish women are, and that I, having had opportunities of seeing some
of the finest Circassians and Georgians of the harýms of great Turks
here and at Constantinople, think there are none like Irish women.
“If Mr. Forster asks you anything about the Druzes (as he seems to
interest himself concerning the religion of that people), say to him
that the Druzes, the Ansàries, the Ishmäelites――all these sects――must
and will remain a mystery to strangers. There was Monsieur Reynaud,
one of the forty _savants_ who wrote the great book on Egypt, and was
afterwards consul at Sayda――if any body could comprehend the secret,
he could; yet, although he had four of the Druze books in his
possession, and five learned persons of this country to assist him in
translating and explaining them through a whole winter, he could make
out nothing: because, even if you understand the text, you are still
not a bit the wiser. Suppose, for example, you open a page, and you
find these words――‘Do you use senna leaves?’ which is one of their
questions of recognition, like similar apparently vague questions in
freemasonry: what do you know about that? You may understand the
answer clearly enough, so far as mere words go; but it is useless
unless you understand the thing of which the words are a symbol; for
they are all symbolical. You must know that it refers to an insurgent,
who, in the cause of their faith, raised the standard of revolt,
centuries ago, in the land where senna grows, and that it implies, ‘Do
you adopt his tenets?’ and so of other passages. The chiefs of their
religion cannot make any disclosures; for, if they did, their lives
would be the forfeit. Tell him they are a bold, sanguinary race, who
will cut a man in pieces themselves, or see it done by others, and
never change colour. Why, one of them, not long since, killed or
wounded with his own hands five of Ibrahim Pasha’s soldiers, who were
sent to seize him as a refractory recruit.”
Here Lady Hester, having finished making the lemonade, stopped for a
moment to desire Zezefôon to take it out and send it to the strangers’
room. She then resumed, “Tell them, doctor, that no people will bear a
flogging like the Druzes. The Spartans were nothing to them: isn’t it
the Spartans that were such floggers? for I am such a dunce that I
never can recollect some things which every schoolboy knows; and I
always said I was a dunce in some things, although Mr. Pitt used to
say, ‘Hester, if you would but keep your own counsel, nobody could
detect it.’ But it is the truth, and when you talk to me of paper
money and the funds (although I may understand for the moment what you
try to explain to me), I forget it all the next morning: yet, on
subjects which my inclination leads me to investigate, nobody has a
better judgment. My father, with all his mathematical knowledge, used
to say I could split a hair. Talk to the point, was his cry: and I
could bring truth to a point as sharp as a needle. I divested a
subject of all extraneous matter, and there it was――you might turn and
twist it as you would, but you must always come back to that.
“The Druzes like me, and all the Emir Beshýr’s hatred of me arose from
my friendship for the Shaykh Beshýr.[37] After you left me, I went to
stay with him at Makhtâra, where he assigned me a wing of the palace
to live in. He was a clever man, and afterwards, in his troubles, came
to me for advice and succour: he offered me a third of his treasures,
but I refused them. When he fled, the Emir Beshýr got about a third of
them; an equal portion they say is buried: and the remainder was
carried off by his wife, but afterwards lost. Poor woman! she is dead
now. It was the attempt to relieve her, amongst other causes, that
drew me into embarrassments. She had fled――her husband was a captive
at Acre――and the Emir was pursuing her in every direction to take her
life. The snow was thick on the ground. She had with her a child at
the breast, one two years old, and another: two were with the father
in prison. I despatched people with clothes and money to relieve her
immediate wants; they found her in the Horàn, where she had taken
refuge with an old servant. Her daughter also applied to me for
assistance, but I was penniless, and could do nothing for her. Poor
girl! she was afterwards married, but Ibrahim Pasha cut off her
husband’s head, and she went raving mad. To complete the tragedy,
Hanah Abôod, one of those I sent to look after her, fell asleep out of
weariness, after having returned home on foot through the snow, and
got an inflammation in his eyes, which ended in total blindness. The
journey back occupied I think forty hours. I have been obliged
partially to maintain the poor fellow and Werdy, his wife, ever since.
“Perhaps, doctor, Mr. Forster and Mr. Knox may have heard of the
extraordinary conduct of the English government towards me; so let
them know that I am not low-spirited about it; and, although the Queen
may think herself justified in taking away my pension, I would not,
even if I were a beggar, change places with her. As for the Queen’s
interfering in my affairs, she might just as well go and stop Sir
Augustus Forster’s salary, on the plea that he had left his tailor’s
bill unpaid. My debts were incurred very often for things I did not
care about for myself. For example, what are books to me, who never
look into them? If I had been like you doctors, who tell your patients
to take turtle soup, and then contrive to be asked to dinner, it were
another thing: but my researches were for the good of others, and for
no advantage of my own.
“When I think what I have done, and what I could have done if I had
had more money! There was a book came into my hands, which the owner,
not knowing its value, offered for my acceptance as you would offer an
old brass candlestick. I consulted several persons about it; and, when
all assured me it was a valuable manuscript, I scorned to take
advantage of the man’s ignorance, and returned it to him, telling him
when I was rich enough I would buy it of him. Ought not a person to
act so?” “Undoubtedly,” I replied, “a person of principle would not
act otherwise.” “Principle!” she exclaimed; “what do you mean by
principle?――I am a Pitt.”
As I did not understand precisely why a Pitt should be above
principle, although it would seem there is a species of integrity
higher than principle itself, I held my tongue, and Lady Hester went
on. “I know where to find a book that contains the language spoken by
Adam and Eve:[38] the letters are a span high. Such things have fallen
into my hands as have fallen into nobody’s else. I know where the
serpent is that has the head of a man, like the one that tempted Eve.
The cave still exists not far from Tarsûs; and the villages all about
are exempted from the _miri_ in consideration of feeding the serpents.
Everybody in that neighbourhood knows it: isn’t it extraordinary? why
don’t you answer? is it, or is it not? Good God! I should go mad if I
were obliged to remain three whole days together in your society――I’m
sure I should. Such a cold man I never saw; there is no getting an
answer from you: however, think as you like. These serpents will march
through the country to fight for the Messiah, and will devour
everything before them.” Here she paused for about a minute, and then
added, “I think you had better not tell them anything about the
serpents; perhaps their minds are not prepared for matters of this
sort.”
I have already observed that Monsieur Guys had mentioned, with some
surprise, the serious manner in which Lady Hester spoke of these
serpents; and, although he did not express it, yet he half intimated
that he thought her intellects a little disordered: we shall see
hereafter if they were so.
Lady Hester resumed: “But now, doctor, if you can spare a minute, you
must write a line by the messenger to Monsieur Guys, and tell him I
had begun a letter to him, but that the arrival of two English
travellers, one of whom revived a number of recollections, had obliged
me to stop short, and I could write no more. Doctor, this Mr. Forster
must be one of the children of the Irish Speaker. He was left with
ten; and I remember very well one day that H******** was standing
before me at a party, making a number of bows and scrapes, turning up
his eyes, and cringing before me so, that when we got home, Mr. Pitt
said to me, ‘Hester, if I am not too curious, what could H********
have to say that animated him so much: what could he be making such
fine speeches about: what could call forth such an exuberance of
eloquence in him?’――‘Oh! it was nothing,’ answered I; ‘he was telling
me that all the power of the Treasury was at my service――that he would
take care that Lady S**** N*****’s pension should be got through the
different offices immediately――that he had nothing so much at heart as
to execute my orders――that he would see all that was necessary should
be done according to my wishes, and so on; but, as I despise the man,
I only laughed at him and turned my back on him; for I drink at the
fountain head.’
“‘Now, this is really too good a thing,’ interrupted Mr. Pitt, lifting
up his eyes in astonishment. ‘It was but this very day, at three
o’clock, that he was urging me not to let this very pension be given,
or at least to prolong the business for a year, if it were possible;
till, by tiring her patience, the thing might be dropped, or something
turn up to set it aside; adding, that it would be opening the door to
abuses, and, if I granted this too readily, I should have Forster’s
ten children to provide for.’”
Lady Hester went on: “From that day, I knew my man. I then said to Mr.
Pitt, ‘Let me show him who he has to deal with; do give your orders
that the thing may be done immediately.’――‘Oh! but it is too late
to-night,’ said Mr. Pitt. ‘No, it is not,’ I cried; ‘for I see a light
in the Treasury.’ So I rang, and sent for” (here her ladyship
mentioned a name which I could not catch, but I think it was Mr.
Chinnery)――. When he came, I said to him, ‘Will you be so good, sir,
the first thing in the morning, to see that all the signatures are put
to Lady S. N.’s paper: there is Mr. Pitt; ask him if it is so or not.’
Mr. Pitt of course assented, and there the matter ended. Doctor, I had
a great deal of trouble with those sort of people, like H――――. Now, if
Mr. Forster is about thirty-five years old, he must be one of that
family.[39]
“Do tell Mr. Forster what a pack of beasts those servants are. Ask him
if he ever heard of women throwing themselves down to sleep in the
middle of a courtyard, or on the floor of a kitchen, dragging their
quilt after them from place to place: tell him that is what mine do,
and that I am obliged to wait a quarter of an hour for a glass of
water.
“You may talk to them a little about stars, but I dare say you will
commit some horrible blunder, as you always do, and that is what makes
me so afraid of your having to say anything that concerns me. Tell Mr.
Forster that in people’s stars lie their abilities, and that you may
bring up a hundred men to be generals and another hundred to be
lawyers, but out of these perhaps four or five only will turn out good
for anything. When a grand Llama is to be chosen, why do they go about
until they have found a particular boy with certain marks, known to
the learned of that country――a child born under a certain star? It is
because, when they have found such a one, he has no occasion for
instruction; he is born the man for their purpose.
“Thus, the Duke of Wellington is not a general by trade――I mean by
instruction; for, if examined before a court-martial on all the
branches of military tactics, perhaps he would be found deficient.
Hundreds may know more of them than he does: but he is a general by
his star. He acts under a certain impulse, which makes him hit on the
stratagem he ought to practise, and, without the help of previous
study or even the suggestions of experience, he knows that his
manœuvre is right. It was thus with me when I was young. People might
preach and talk; but, when I saw them doing things or reasoning about
them, I could at once distinguish the things that were right from the
things that were wrong; but I could not say why or wherefore. My
father said I was the best logician he ever saw――I could split a hair.
The last time he saw me, he repeated the same words, and said I had
but one fault, which was being too fond of royalty.”
I observed here to Lady Hester, that in many things she reminded me of
the ancient philosophers, to whom she bore a strong resemblance on
most points; but that in this one particular she differed from them
widely, as most of them were strenuously opposed to royalty and
monarchical power. “My liking for royalty,” she answered, “is not,
indiscriminate, but I believe in the divine right of kings; for I have
found it out. And you may ask Mr. Forster also why the bottle of oil
came from India to anoint the kings of France. I dare say they never
heard of Melek es Sayf, a hero whose exploits and name are hardly
inferior in the East to those of Solomon. Is it not extraordinary,
that in Europe they know nothing of those people――of him and his forty
sons, all of whom were men of note in their time? This must be so; for
some of the gates of Cairo are named after them.
“If you happen to speak about the Albanians and the other soldiers
that I had here, tell them I did not see them all; I only saw the most
desperate, and those whose violence was to be kept under. When I
admitted them to my presence, I was always alone, and they always wore
their arms; but I never feared them.”
Thus Lady Hester went on talking: the dish of potatoes, the dessert,
and several other things were forgotten. So, reminding her that Mr.
Forster and Mr. Knox must be all this time marvelling what could have
detained me, I at last made my escape. In the mean while, the
breakfast had been served up as well as the resources of the place
would admit. The scene must have been highly curious to her ladyship’s
guests, who could not fail to be amused as well as surprised at the
sight of a deal table, rush-bottomed chairs, cheese put on first and a
pudding in a copper dish after it, with other anomalies that would
have made even a third-rate Brummell shudder. But the occasions for
eating in the European way in Lady Hester’s house occurred very
rarely, and the servants, who were habituated to Turkish usages or to
the mongrel service of some Levantine dragoman, had no notions of the
regulations of an English table. In my own house, I had two tolerably
well-trained boys; but there was an interdict against their ever
crossing the threshold of Lady Hester’s gate, in order that no
information of what was going on within her walls should be carried
out to the female part of my family. In the most common concerns, Lady
Hester’s servants made much bustle and did little. They ran in
different directions, jostled and crossed each other half a dozen at a
time for the same thing, entirely reversing one of her favourite
maxims, that everything in a great person’s house should be done as if
by magic, and nobody should know who it was set it a going. These
servants had but one spring of action, and that was the _bakshysh_, or
present, which they all looked for on the departure of a stranger. It
was a painful thought to me, as these gentlemen left the gate, that,
when they were about to mount their horses, the mercenary spirit of
such a set of varlets might be charged to the connivance of the
mistress.
The two travellers made a miserable repast, and, when it was over,
signified their desire to take leave. It seems they had taken Lady
Hester’s invitation “to make the place their home for two hours or two
days” in its literal acceptation; and it is scarcely necessary to say
that there was no time for me to enter into an explanation on the
subject, nor, indeed, to deliver a tenth part of the discursive matter
with which Lady Hester had charged me. It was from these gentlemen I
learned, for the first time, that a committee had been appointed, on
the motion of Mr. D. W. Harvey, for inquiring into the pensions on the
civil list. It had so happened that no newspapers had reached us for a
long time, and, consequently, this was the first intimation her
ladyship had received of a measure in which it might be supposed she
felt no inconsiderable interest, although in reality she did not.
As Mr. Forster and his friend had to cross a deep valley and mount a
steep ascent before they could take the road to Beyrout, to which town
they were now going, I sent Ali Hayshem, the messenger, to put them on
their way. He returned in the course of an hour or two, and was
despatched the same evening on foot, with letters to Beyrout, where he
arrived next day before Messieurs Knox and Forster. He told me, on his
return, that their surprise was very great on finding him at the inn,
knowing that they had left him behind them, the morning before, up the
mountain. Ali’s account of Mr. Forster’s regimentals, in which he saw
him dressed at Beyrout, was very flaming: and from that day, in
speaking of the two, he always distinguished him from Mr. Knox by the
title of ‘the general.’
Lady Hester deeply regretted that she was not able to see these
gentlemen. “Ah!” said she, “how many times have I been abused by the
English when I did not deserve it, and for nothing so much as for not
seeing people, when perhaps it was quite out of my power! There was
Mr. Anson and Mr. Strangways, who, because I refused to see them, sat
down under a tree, and wrote me such a note! Little did they know that
I had not a bit of barley in the house for their horses, and nothing
for their dinner. I could not tell them so; but they might have had
feeling enough to suppose it was not without some good reason that I
declined their visit. Many a pang has their ill-nature given me, as
well as that of others. I have got the note[40] still somewhere.
“Among the visitors I have had was the duchess of Gontaut’s brother,
she that brought up the Duke of Bordeaux. I supposed she must have
talked of me to her brother, whom I never recollect: however, he came
with his two sons; but I would not see him. It was that time when
Monsieur Guys, after sitting and staring at me some minutes,
exclaimed――‘Madam, when I see you dressed in that abah’ (the Bedouin
cloak), ‘in that _keffiah_’ (the Bedouin vizor), ‘and when I think you
are that Lady Hester Stanhope, _qui faisoit la pluie et le beau temps
à Londres_, I am lost in wonder how you could have come and fixed
yourself in these desolate mountains.’
“Another of Charles the Tenth’s courtiers came here, but a higher
personage, whom I also refused to see: he was dreadfully savage about
it too. I fancy Charles the Tenth had a secret intention of resigning
the crown, and of coming to this country to finish his days in the
Holy Land like another St. Louis? and I think this man had something
to ask me about it: however, I refused to see him. But it was not
caprice, nor, as this proves, was it Englishmen alone I denied myself
to. Sometimes I was not well enough to sustain a conversation――sometimes
I had no provisions in the house, perhaps no servant who knew how to
set a table; but travellers never fancied that there could be any
other reason for my refusal, but the determination to affront them.
God knows, when I could, I was willing to receive anybody.
“Once I had a visit from two persons whom we will call Mr. A. and Mr.
B., or Mr. B. and Mr. C.――what letter you like. I thought Mr. B. very
stupid, but, good God! doctor, there never was anything so vulgar as
Mr. C. When I got his note to ask leave to come, the name deceived me;
I thought he might be a son of Admiral C. But when he came into the
room with his great thighs and pantaloons so tight that he could
hardly sit down, I thought he was more like a butcher than anything
else. He was a man entirely without breeding, with his Ma’ams and
ladyships. I asked him a few questions, as――‘Pray, sir, will you allow
me to ask if you are a relation of Admiral C’s.?’――‘No, ma’am, I am no
relation at all.’――‘Will you permit me to inquire what is the motive
of your visit to me?’――‘Only to see your ladyship, ma’am.’――‘Do you
come to this country with any particular object?’――‘To be a
merchant.’――‘You are probably conversant in mercantile affairs?’――‘No,
ma’am, I am come to learn,’――and so on. After some time, I told them
that I never saw people in the morning, and would take my leave of
them, as they probably would wish to set off early; and I desired them
to order what they liked for their breakfast. Next morning, when I
thought, as a matter of course, they were gone, in came a note from
them to say, they were not going till next day, and then another to
say they did not know, and then a third to say that, as they expected
ships, and God knows what, they must go.――Good God! they might go to
the devil for me: I had taken my leave of them, and there was an end
of it. Mr. C. was a downright vulgar merchant’s clerk, come to Syria,
I suppose, to set up for himself. Lord St. Asaph said to me――‘Lady
Hester, you really should consider who you are, and not allow people
of that description to pay visits to you.’
“There was a man who bore a great resemblance to the Duke of Cambridge
and the Duke of Clarence, but something between both, who passed two
or three years in this neighbourhood and sometimes came to see me; he
was good-natured, and I liked him. He went about with a sort of
pedlar’s box, full of trinkets and gewgaws to show to the peasant
woman, thus bringing the whole population of the village out of their
houses: and then giving away beads and earrings to get the young girls
around him.
“Of the English, who have visited me here, I liked Captain Pechell and
Captain Yorke very much, and thought them both clever men.
“Colonel Howard Vyse one day came up to the village and wrote me a
note, and did everything he could to see me. He was an old
Coldstream:――it broke my heart not to see him; but it would have
revived too many melancholy reflections. Poor man! I believe he was
very much hurt; but I could not help it.
“A man came here――I believe the only one who was saved out of a party
that was killed going across the Desert――and asked me for a letter to
the Arabs. I sent him away, telling him that he might just as well
come and ask me for a pot of beer. What had I to do with their schemes
and their navigation of the Euphrates? Yet, for this, this officer
wrote verses upon the wall of the room against me.
“Then Mr. Croix de la Barre came, but I could not see him. He said he
wanted to talk politics with me, and learn the customs and manners of
the natives. I should tire you, doctor, if I were to tell you how many
have come. I saw Lord B******, when he was travelling, at the baths of
Tiberias, where Abdallah Pasha happened to be. Lord B. proposed
calling on the pasha, and equipped himself for that purpose with a
pair of pistols and a _yatagàn_ in his girdle, after the fashion of a
Turkish subaltern; for the Franks, who surrounded him as dragomans and
menials, had taught him to adopt what accorded with their ideas of
finery, and not what was suitable to his rank. Luckily, he mentioned
his intention the day before to me, and I told him that there was a
full dress of ceremony in Turkey as well as in Europe, and I lent him
the most essential part of it, a _benýsh_,[41] with which he presented
himself. At first there was some hesitation, on his entering the room
with his people, as to which was the great Mylord; for his lordship’s
doctor, who sat down close by him, and poked his head forward with an
air of great attention to what the pasha said, made him doubt whether
the doctor was not the chief personage; it being a part of Oriental
etiquette that no dependant should obtrude himself into the least
notice in his superior’s presence: nay, generally speaking, it is
required that doctors, secretaries, dragomans, and the like, should
remain standing during such interviews. This difficulty being got
over, the pasha, after some questions about Lord B.’s health, asked
him what brought him to Tiberias, a part of his province the least
beautiful and most barren. The question would have led most persons to
say that, knowing the pasha was there, he seized the opportunity of
paying his respects to him, or some such complimentary speech. But
Lord B., with a _naïveté_ somewhat plebeian, replied, that he came to
see the baths. The pasha coldly desired that proper persons should
show them to him, and soon after broke up the interview. The very
attendants of his Highness were struck with the incivility and want of
tact which Lord B. showed, and it was one of them who told me the
story. But this was not all: the pasha, who is fond of consulting
European doctors, requested Lord B., who was to depart next day, to
leave his doctor behind for twenty-four hours; which request Lord B.
refused. After he was gone, the pasha sent me a pelisse of
considerable value, with a request that I should present it in his
name to Lord B., but I returned it, saying Lord B. was gone; for I did
not think his incivility deserved it. So much for English breeding!
and then let them go and call the Turks barbarians.
“Mr. Elliot came to see me from Constantinople, in order to make the
pashas and governors of the neighbouring provinces treat me well. He
fell ill, and I sent for the doctor of a frigate that was on the
coast for him――a man who could kick his forehead with his toe. I
quizzed Mr. Elliot a great deal.
“But now, doctor, what did Mr. Forster say about the Scotch? If he
agrees with me that they sprang from hereabouts, I might have given
him some useful hints on that subject: but we will write him a
letter[42] about it.”
When I told her that Mr. Forster had spoken of a work of Sir Jonah
Barrington’s on Ireland, in which it was said that Mr. Pitt got up the
Irish rebellion in order to make the necessity of the Union more
palatable to parliament, she observed that, if she met him, she would
settle his business for him. “Mr. Pitt liked the Irish,” said she.
“There were some fools who thought to pay their court by abusing them,
and would talk of men’s legs like Irish porters, or some such stuff:
but I always answered, they would be very much pleased to have their
own so, which was much better than having them like a pair of tongs:
and I was certain to observe a little smile of approbation in Mr.
Pitt’s eyes, at what I had said.”
In this way her ladyship would run on from topic to topic――with a
rapidity and fluency which frequently rendered it difficult to
preserve notes of even the heads of her discourse. Her health was
slightly improved: she attended a little more closely to my advice,
but still would never allow me to see her until her coughing fit was
over, which usually lasted for about a couple of hours. Notwithstanding
this, her pulse maintained a degree of vigour which was very
extraordinary, considering the state of attenuation to which she was
reduced. She had a great reluctance in touching on her bad symptoms,
but dwelt readily on such as were favourable. “I certainly have got
small abscesses,” she answered to me, “but it is not consumption:
because there are hours in the day when my lungs are perfectly free,
as there are others when I can hardly breathe. Sometimes, doctor, my
pulse is entirely gone, or so thin――so thin!――as to be but just
perceptible, and no more. You pretend to find it very readily and tell
me it is not bad: but Zezefôon can’t feel it, and Sàada can’t feel it,
and old Pierre has tried, and says the same. I think, too,” continued
she, “I was a little delirious this morning; for, when I awoke, I
asked where Zezefôon had gone, although there she was, sitting up on
her mattress by my bedside before my eyes.”
FOOTNOTES:
[37] The reader ought to be informed that, a few years
before this time, Beshýr Jumbalàt, a man of the first
family of the Druzes, had risen by his possessions
and influence to such power in Mount Lebanon as to
excite the jealousy of the Emir Beshýr, the recognized
prince of the Druzes, by right of investiture from
the Porte. The Emir (who is a Mussulman) entertained
such fears of being supplanted by a chief of his power
and popularity, that, after a variety of intrigues
and plots, he at last succeeded in effectually
awakening the distrust of Abdallah, the Pasha of Acre,
who finally united with the Emir in a plan for his
destruction. The person of the unfortunate Beshýr
Jumbalàt was accordingly seized, his palace razed to
the ground, and his possessions confiscated; nor was
their jealousy set at rest until they ultimately got
rid of him by strangulation.
[38] Ben Jonson, in his “Alchemist,” alludes to such a
book, “Ay, and a treatise penned by Adam.”
[39] It may be right to mention that Mr. Forster, as I
believe, is not one of the family alluded to in this
anecdote: but, as Lady Hester’s remarks hinged on his
name, I thought it best to retain it.
[40] This note I afterwards read and copied. These two
gentlemen presented themselves at the gate, and Lady
Hester dictated the following message to them, which
Miss Williams wrote:――“Lady Hester Stanhope presents
her compliments to Mr. Anson and Mr. Strangways, and
acquaints them that she is little in the habit of
seeing European travellers, therefore declines the
honour of their visit.” To this was returned following
answer:――“Mr. Anson presents his compliments to Lady
Hester Stanhope, and begs to assure her he has not
the slightest wish to intrude where his visit is
accounted disagreeable: but having, during a three
months’ residence among the Arabs, met with universal
hospitality, he took for granted that he would not
have met with the first refusal in an English house.”
[41] The benýsh is a large mantle, reaching to the ground,
ample, and folding over, with bagging sleeves hanging
considerably below the tips of the fingers. When worn,
it leaves nothing seen but the head and face. This is
synonymous with a dress coat.
[42] A long letter was subsequently written, in which she
explained her theory of the origin of the Scotch; and,
having learned by a note from Mr. Forster that they
would return from Beyrout to Sayda in their way to
St. Jean d’Acre, I rode down to Sayda in the hope of
meeting him. Circumstances, however, made them set off
a day sooner than they intended and I missed them. The
letter Lady Hester took back into her own possession,
and seemed to set so much value on it that she would
not even give me a copy. At the time I could have
repeated the substance of it with tolerable accuracy
from memory; but, as she strictly regarded it in the
light of a private communication, I did not consider
myself justified in making any use of it without her
sanction. It will be sufficient to say that she found
a great resemblance between the names of the Scotch
nobility and certain terms in the Arabic language,
indicating patronymics, dignities, offices, &c. Her
general notion was that Scotland had been peopled
by the flight of some tribes of Arabs in the middle
ages. She once had an intention of writing to Sir
Walter Scott, to urge him to make some researches
on that head, and she showed me a list of Scotch
names apparently of Arabic origin. Thus she would
say Gower meant Gaôor, or infidel; and by a stretch
of deduction, commonly indulged in even to still
greater excess by people who have a favourite theory
to sustain, she would argue that, as Mr. Pitt used to
say that Lord Granville was the counterpart of the
statue of Antinous, with the same face and the same
_pose_ when he stood talking unconcernedly, therefore
the race of Antinous, which was also Eastern, was
continued in him.
END OF VOL. II.
FREDERICK SHOBERL, JUNIOR,
PRINTER TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT,
51, RUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET, LONDON.
Transcriber’s Note
This book was written in a period when many words had not become
standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling
variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been
left unchanged unless indicated below. Obsolete and alternative
spellings were left unchanged.
Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the end of
the chapter. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down,
or partially printed letters and punctuation, were corrected. Final
stops missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were added.
Punctuation was adjusted to standard usage. Duplicate letters and
words at line endings or page breaks were removed.
Footnotes [3] and [22] were missing anchors in the text. Anchors were
added where they may have belonged.
The following items were changed:
that to than, line 756
Pourcignac to Pourceaugnac, Footnote [17]
Dairies to Diaries, Footnote [22]
he to she, line 4836
crew to grew, line 4909
venemous to venomous, line 5256
espistle to epistle, line 5622
Bankes to Banks, line 5805