Prince Pückler Muskau’s arrival at Jôon--His costume--Physiognomical
doctrines--The Prince’s remarks on Lady Hester--Dr. Bowring--Lady
Hester’s remarks on the Prince--Race of Abyssinian women--Remarks on
public grants, &c.--The polytheistic school of Germany--Remarks on
pensions, on Abyssinian slaves, &c.--Story of Sultan Abdallah, the
negro--Excursion on horseback--Horse-jockeys in Syria--Servants’
vails--Lord M. and Captain G.--Talismanic charm about Lady Hester--Her
visions of greatness.
Easter Sunday, April 15.--About five o’clock in the afternoon the
prince’s two European servants rode into the yard, followed by three
or four mule-loads of baggage. An immense sack, containing bedding,
and two or three trunks were unloaded. A trestle, with a deal top, was
set up immediately as a table in his room, and his portfolio, ink,
&c., were put on it, as if ready for any memorandums he might wish to
note down, whilst fresh in his memory, showing the foresight of a
traveller who was aware of the impossibility of finding a thing so
necessary as a table in Eastern countries, where men make their knees
their writing-desk. Close upon these arrived seven or eight more mules
with his Tartar, the count’s servant, and the drivers, in all thirteen
animals to keep. The rest of his suite remained in Sayda, Lady Hester
having made a request to him that he would bring none of Mahomet Ali’s
people with him, as she had no accommodation for them. The fact was,
she did not wish them to come, lest they should get information from
the servants respecting the different proscribed individuals who had
from time to time found an asylum in her house. In about half an hour
the prince’s arrival was announced, and I received him and Count
Tattenbach at the entrance of the strangers’ garden.
The prince’s costume was picturesque, and, as far as a European dress
will allow, was skilfully arranged for effect. An immense Leghorn hat,
lined under the brim with green taffetas, shaded his very fair
complexion. An Arab keffiyah was thrown over his shoulders in the
shape of a scarf; and a pair of blue pantaloons of ample dimensions
marked an approach towards the Turkish _sherwàls_, those indescribable
brogues, which, from their immense width, take yards of cloth to make
them. His boots were Parisian in their cut; and it was clear, from the
excellent fit, that he felt his pretensions to a thorough-bred foot
were now to be decided magisterially. It was singular enough that
every traveller, who came to Dar Jôon after M. Lamartine’s book had
appeared, seemed to think that Lady Hester Stanhope would necessarily
make comments on his feet, and so tried to screw them into an arch,
under the hollow of which water might run without wetting the sole.
One man, an Italian, had gone so far as to wear laced half-boots like
women’s _brodekins_, and stuck them in my face, whilst we were smoking
a pipe together preparatory to his interview, as much as to say--“Will
these qualify me as high born?” But the prince had no occasion to use
such artifices to set off his person: he was a fine man, whose
exterior denoted high birth, and could not but leave a favourable
impression. The grand ordeal however was still to go through, and Lady
Hester’s opinion was yet to decide on his pretensions.[13]
As soon as he had rested an hour, she received him and the count, and
at sunset they left her to go to dinner: for she had long ceased to
dine with anybody, excepting now and then, though rarely, when she
admitted me to that honour. Between dinner and his return to Lady
Hester, the prince told me that, from the loss of her teeth, Lady
Hester’s articulation was somewhat indistinct, and that moreover she
spoke sometimes in a very low tone of voice. He therefore wished me to
let her fancy he was a little deaf, and hoped to be permitted to draw
his chair close to her sofa.[14] This was settled to his satisfaction,
and he again joined Lady Hester, and remained with her until an
advanced hour in the night.
Monday, April 16.--The prince rose about eleven o’clock, and at noon I
paid my respects to him. I found him in a dressing-gown with a _fez_
on his head, tied round with a black bandelet, which set off his
complexion. He dwelt for some time on the extraordinary powers and
animation of Lady Hester Stanhope’s conversation. I then conducted him
to the stables, and showed him the two mares, which he admired, but
saw at once that the hollow back of one of them was a natural defect
and not a miraculous formation. In the afternoon, when Lady Hester
sent to say she was in her saloon, and was ready to receive him, he
went, and remained with her until sunset.
After dinner a messenger came from Beyrout with a letter from Monsieur
Guys to acquaint Lady Hester of the arrival of the steamboat, and that
there was no letter for her. His letter also contained a message from
Dr. Bowring, who was sojourning at Beyrout, signifying that he was
desirous of paying a visit to her. Lady Hester dictated an answer
immediately to this effect:--“Lady Hester Stanhope cannot receive any
Englishman holding an official situation, whatever his merit, &c., may
be; because, if _she did_, it would be a mortal blow to him under a
---- government like the present. When she has settled all these
intriguers, she will be ready to pay homage to Dr. Bowring’s talents,
if he chooses to come, or to those of others like him.” Lady Hester
desired me to read this letter over to the prince, before it went. He
suggested that the term “---- government” was too strong. “Lady
Hester,” he remarked, “is a woman privileged to say anything, we all
know--but she might suppress that word, or change it, and put
‘stupid,’ or ‘short-sighted,’ or ‘so ignoble in its proceedings.’” He
observed too the words, “those of others like him”--as being a slight
on Dr. Bowring. “He is an excellent man,” added the prince, “and I
like him; and moreover I promised to ask her to receive his visit: he
will take it into his head that I have a hand in the refusal, thinking
that I hate the English, or some such thing.”
Dr. Bowring was very angry at Lady Hester’s declining his visit, and
she afterwards showed me some uncourteous verses, which, on quitting
Beyrout, he left to be sent to her. I neglected to take a copy of
them; but, as far as I recollect, they were to the effect that “He
had found a welcome everywhere except at the door of a fellow-
countrywoman.” If it be true, as was asserted by a gentleman at
Beyrout, that Dr. Bowring had said in society, that as a member of the
British Parliament, which assembly alone could give away the public
money, he had a right to the hospitality of a pensioner of government,
he grounded his claims on a very doubtful title. I took good care
never to mention to Lady Hester Stanhope that I had been informed he
had used such expressions: for I do not believe she would have rested
in peace until she had coupled him with Lord Palmerston in her
epistolary war. Doctor Bowring was not aware that she had thrown up
her pension, and called herself no longer a British subject; nor did
he know perhaps that, in addition to the prince, he had another
advocate for his coming, in myself. I recollected that I had once been
honoured with his acquaintance, slightly indeed; but I did my utmost
to induce Lady Hester to write a favourable answer: she however was
inexorable. Speaking of Dr. B., she said, “He is not come here about
commerce and trade, as they pretend, rely upon it: it is all connected
with some intrigue about Sir Sydney Smith’s wanting to re-establish
the Knights of Malta.”
Tuesday, April 17.--Lady Hester began, “What a handsome man the prince
has been, and is still, doctor! don’t you think so?” I told her I did,
and that he seemed to me to be what, in romance, would be called a
_preux chevalier_. “And how handy he is, too,” resumed her ladyship.
“Do you know, when I wanted him to write some memorandums down, he
fetched the pen and ink, opened the card-table, pulled out the legs,
spread the things out before him--a servant could not do it better.
And, only think! he writes without spectacles, though he is a good
deal older than you are.”--“I supposed him to be about my age,” said
I. “No, he is older,” continued Lady Hester: “he is a man upon sixty.”
“As to-morrow is Wednesday, when, you know, I see nobody, you must
employ the time in giving him some advice about different things. He
says he must go away, as he has announced his intention of being at
the Emir Beshýr’s on Thursday; his suite and luggage are already on
the way to Btedýn: and his Abyssinian--, if she should come here,
doctor, tell Osman that I will not have her stir out of the strangers’
garden; she must not go peeping here and peeping there. A slave is a
slave: and, whether her master makes a companion or a scullion-maid of
her, it is of no difference to me: she should remain in her place;
and, whether she belongs to a prince or a shopkeeper, it is all one,
with this difference, that, if the prince is fond of her, I should
wish her to be made quite comfortable. If she comes dressed in boy’s
clothes, nobody must take any notice of her:--he is quite wrapt up in
her.
“There are two sorts of Abyssinians,” continued Lady Hester; “one with
Greek features in bronze, and one of a pug breed. The first have a
noble demeanour, are born to command, and have hands and feet so
beautiful, that nature has nothing superior: their arms, when they
expand them, fly open like an umbrella: their gestures are clean
(_nets_, as the French say) and perfect. I should not wonder if the
prince contrives to bring her here for me to see her, and say whether
her star is a good one.”
She then reverted to the prince’s person. “Did you observe his
handsome figure?”--(drawing her hands over her own). “It is
astonishing how well the German tailors, and particularly the Prussian
ones, work: if it is but a cloth of five shillings a yard, no
matter--it’s cut to fit beautifully. The army tailors in England can’t
work a bit. What is a coat, with the seam of the shoulder coming right
across the joint? how is a man to move his arm, or look well in it?
The French army tailors are bad too: they make the coats too
baboonish; but then they have a tail to them, a sort of something; it
is at least the monkey who has seen the world: but with the English it
is nothing at all. Then what a beautiful skin the prince has got! Do
tell me what Miss L. said: do show me some of her splaws. You know the
French must be coquettes, from the first lady among them down to the
_femme de chambre_: now, do show me how she sat and talked. Now,
there, doctor, go! for I must see him; and, if he does not leave us
to-morrow, we shall have time to talk over what you have to say to
him.”
I informed the prince Lady Hester was ready to receive him, and he
went to her. He remained from two o’clock until half-past six,
writing, as she told me afterwards, from her dictation, several things
that she wished to be known, in order that he might not forget them.
In her usual manner, when he had left her, and had nearly reached his
own room, she sent a servant to recall him, as having forgotten
something. No one ever got clear off from her at the first _congé_.
The correspondence about her pension occupied much of Lady Hester’s
thoughts. She had requested me to make a copy of the whole, and to
give it to the prince; this employed me almost all night. When showing
her the copies, she said, “Is there any stability in anything, if
king’s deeds are to be reversed in this way? In Turkey, a Sultan’s
firmans are respected, even down to a grant of five piasters, though
they may kill him afterwards on his throne; but nothing in England is
safe. If they take away my pension, they’ll take Blenheim next, ay,
and Strathfieldsaye too: I should like to write to the Duke of
Wellington and tell him so.”
The prince pronounced himself rather indisposed, and thus had a
sufficient pretext for remaining over Wednesday. He little knew the
consequence of being unwell when under her ladyship’s roof; her
sovereign remedy, a black dose, was immediately prepared for him,
which he was to take next morning. But, it having been decided that he
should remain, the ποδάρκης [Greek: podarkês] Ali was despatched
over-night to the Emir Beshýr, with a verbal message to put off the
prince’s going until Friday. Here, as upon all occasions, Lady Hester
must give her instructions. It was six in the evening, and Ali had
five hours’ quick walking to perform by moonlight over mountains that
would frighten a European to look at; but he was to set off instantly,
and to endeavour to arrive before the prince was gone to bed. He was
to see the Emir, and to say, “Such are mylady’s words.” Ali started,
and was back by ten next morning.
Wednesday, April 18.--“The Emir,” said Ali, in giving an account of
his commission, “had retired to his harým when I got there, so that he
could not be disturbed; but this morning, with the morning star, he
was up, and I was called in. I had not seen him for three or four
years: his beard is as white as snow. Approaching, I raised both my
hands to my mouth and forehead, went close to him, and kissed the hem
of his garment. ‘What are you come for, my son?’ said he; ‘I hope her
Felicity, my lady, is well.’--‘She salutes your Felicity,’ said I,
‘and has sent me, her slave and yours, to say that the German prince,
her guest, being unwell, is obliged to defer the honour of paying his
respects until Friday.’--‘The prince’s pleasure is mine,’ replied the
Emir; ‘and, whenever he comes, this palace is his, and I shall be
proud of his visit:’ and then,” said Ali, “I came back.” But Ali had
likewise another commission, which he executed equally well. Wherever
he found the prince’s suite, either on the road or at the Emir
Beshýr’s, he was to order the two Abyssinians to be conducted back to
their master, as he was unwilling they should remain alone for two or
three days among strangers: this was done.
At half-past one, the slaves arrived. One was a black girl about
twelve years old, and she was dressed in boy’s clothes; the other, the
Abyssinian, a young woman, was veiled from head to foot in the
Egyptian manner. The Turkish servants seemed to consider female slaves
as a necessary part of a great man’s retinue: they spoke of it as a
matter of course. “His wife is come,” cried one: “a chair is wanted
for the prince’s shariáh” (concubine), said another: for the term
shariáh is not used in a disrespectful sense in the East. There was as
much bustle about her as if she had been a European princess, because
thus is it done to those whom their masters choose to honour. “Will my
lady take it ill, that I have brought her here?” the prince asked me.
I told him no; for so, anticipating the question, she had desired me
to say; adding, “there is not a great man in these countries who does
not travel with his harým in his train, when his means will allow of
it; and in the eyes of the Mussulmans he is not compromised by having
his slaves here, nor am I in receiving them.”
The prince confined himself to his chamber somewhat late. I seized the
opportunity of enjoying the pleasing society of Count Tattenbach,
whose amiable manners increased the pleasure which the presence of the
prince had spread over the solitude of Jôon: when the latter joined us
in the saloon, I paid my respects to him. At Lady Hester’s desire, I
requested from him some information respecting the polytheistic
school, which, from a biographical notice of Heyne, inserted in the
Révue de Paris, she had learned existed in Germany. The prince told me
Heyne was the chief of that sect, and that its tenets were of a rather
general and vague nature, implying the probability of the existence of
many intermediate links in the chain of beings between God and man,
and of many subordinate deities. “I myself,” he added, “if I am not
one of them, am disposed to think that around us invisible spirits may
be hovering higher in degree of creation than ourselves. When I
reflect on man’s capacities and reasoning powers--just enough, as they
are, to make him sensible how little he is--I sometimes am inclined to
think that perhaps this is hell we live in.”
It appeared that M. Lamartine and his work on the East had been a
subject of conversation between him and Lady Hester, and he told me
the comments she had made on some passages: “I shall certainly,” said
he, “put them into my journal. However,” he added, “I ought to
observe, and I hope you will tell my lady so, that, as it will be
impossible to have visited her without writing something about her, I
shall say nothing that I have not first submitted to her inspection.”
He spoke in very ill humour about his dose of salts, which, as he
thought, had done him no good; but he was much mistaken if he supposed
that any objections he could have raised to being dosed, short of
making his escape, would have saved him.
The correspondence with Lord Palmerston became a subject of
conversation. “Why should my lady throw up her pension?” said he; “it
is perfectly ridiculous to suppose that M. Guys or any other consul
cares about Colonel Campbell’s silly threats: as if he were to dictate
to them, and prevent them from setting their signature to a life
certificate, or any other document. He might say--‘That certificate
will not be held good in England, when presented;’ but beyond that, it
was a piece of presumption, which M. G. very justly called the act of
a _malotru_. A pension is no bad thing. I once neglected an
opportunity of having a good sinecure: for we have them in Prussia as
well as in England. Prince Hardenberg, who was my father-in-law, and
whose favourite I was, offered me a place, with nothing to do, and
great pay. I refused it out of delicacy, but I have since repented of
it; for, so long as they are to be given away, it is as well for one
to take them as another.” I do not know whether the prince’s casuistry
is conclusive, but I know it is entertained by many persons, although
it did not accord with Lady Hester’s notions. After dinner, the prince
went to her Ladyship, and remained till a late hour.
Thursday, April 19.--There came to-day a Mograbyn, or Barbary shaykh,
a resident of Zyb, near Acre, a place where many shaykhs live, men
versed in the Mahometan tenets and traditions, and reputed of great
piety. He introduced himself to me as a person in the habit of
receiving gifts in money from her ladyship, and of having
conversations with her. I gave him to understand that the moment was
not a propitious one, and thought I had got rid of him, as he mounted
his mare and rode away.
The prince sent Count Tattenbach to ask me to come and sit with him in
the evening. His Abyssinian slave was at one end of the divan and he
at the other. She appeared to be about seventeen, had regular
features, and, as well as I could see by candlelight, where bronze
features are rather indistinct, was, on the whole, a handsome girl.
She was called _Mahbôoby_ (_Aimée_). “Poor thing!” thought I, “the
position to which you are raised would be envied by many a European
fine woman, and to you it brings nothing but _ennui_. Your lord may
adore you--perhaps does; but he cannot say five words to you in any
language that you understand, although he speaks several with great
purity; and every action of his life is contrary to the usages in
which you have been brought up. Happier far would have been your lot,
had your purchaser been some Turkish aga, or some shopkeeper, who, in
making you mistress of a small household, would have found you
employment conformable to your habits, and have left you to the
natural and domestic occupations to which you have been accustomed: he
would have placed you where your position, lawful in the eyes of your
neighbours, would have been an honour to you, instead of its being,
where you will go, a matter of scandal and reproach. Time, however,
may bring you acquainted with some language in which you and your
master may exchange ideas, education may ripen them, and then,
perhaps, you will have acquired tastes congenial to his, and the tie
that unites you may be strengthened by something more lasting than at
present.”
Whilst the conversation was going on, Mahbôoby fell asleep, and forgot
for a time her greatness and her troubles. The little negress, about
twelve years old, dressed as a boy, sat in a corner of the room, and
was remarkable for her air, at once sprightly without being vulgar.
The prince was summoned to go to Lady Hester. Our rising awoke the
Abyssinian girl, and hardly were we out of the room when I heard their
two tongues running glibly, as if relieved from the constraint which
his presence and mine had put on them.
In the course of the day, he had taken the Abyssinian into Lady
Hester’s garden to walk. I was in the saloon at the time with her
ladyship, the windows of which looked into the garden. Zezefôon, who
knew what a sacred place the garden was held, and who was jealous that
a slave like herself should be acting the mistress where she was a
menial, came in a hurry to say that the prince and Mahbôoby were in
the garden. Lady Hester grew fidgety immediately at this intrusion on
her privacy, so little in accordance with her exclusive principles. “I
can’t bear,” said she, “that anybody should be hanging about me in
that manner; perhaps he may come in here as he goes past the door. It
will not do; I must have my place to myself, if it is no bigger than a
barn, and no better--no matter, so as nobody comes there but when I
send for him: tell him, doctor, that I can’t bear it.” I observed
that, to a man of his rank, it would seem rude for such a prohibition
to come from me. “Well,” said she, “I will tell him myself; but there
is one thing I wish you to say to him for me, for that I can’t say
myself. You know he will be writing all about me; and, although I do
not care what he says of my temper, understanding, doings, and all
that, I shouldn’t like him to say anything about my person, either as
to my looks, figure, face, or appearance: it will be better for him
merely to write that he had nothing to observe about my personal
appearance, as there were few people in society but might recollect
what I was, and to dwell on the looks of a sick woman could have
nothing very pleasing in it.”
In the mean time, Lady Hester saw the prince twice a day, once before
dinner, and afterward in the evening, when he generally remained until
a late hour. I could observe she already began to obtain an ascendency
over him, such as she never failed to do over those who came within
the sphere of her attraction: for he was less lofty in his manner than
he had been at first, and she seemed to have gained a step in height,
and to be disposed to play the queen more than ever.
Woe to him who dared to show pretensions equal to hers! she would
drive him from stronghold to stronghold, until he must capitulate upon
any terms. The count at first had accompanied the prince in his
interviews, but she gradually contrived to get rid of him in a certain
degree, under the plea that his ill health and his wound would not be
benefitted by sitting up: as she made it a rule, if possible, never to
see more than one person at a time. She would say, “Do you suppose
people will talk with freedom when any one is by?--and, besides, it
distracts attention, first turning to one and then to another.”
An incident of some interest occurred about this time: Mahbôoby was
conducted to Lady Hester by the prince to have her star read, and this
is what her ladyship said to me afterwards on that subject: “I told
you, doctor, there were two sorts of Abyssinians, one with Greek
features, the other of the pug breed: Mahbôoby is not of the first
class, but of the last. She will be good-tempered, faithful, and
obedient: should the prince be ill, I’ll venture to say she will sit
by him to guard him, and watch over him without sleeping for months
together: but she will never do for a housekeeper, never for a
mistress; she will learn nothing. Her awkward gait, her roll in the
fashion of the felláhs, and all that, are habits she will not easily
get rid of. What the prince should have done was to have placed her
for a year or two in a family at Cairo, where French was spoken, or
Italian, and there, with another to wait on her, when she had acquired
the language, he should have taken her to himself, and have sold or
given away the other; but I question whether servants in Germany will
wait on her. He bought her from a Frenchman, who had purchased some
slaves on speculation to sell them. There were two others; but he saw
they were devils; and, not wishing to have the trouble of putting up
with a bad temper, or of putting it down, he took the one he thought
good-natured. She is horribly dressed, but she is well made. It is a
thing that will not last.”
During the morning, Count Tattenbach gave me the relation of a long
illness which he had undergone in the neighbourhood of that unhealthy
spot, Sparta: it was a malignant fever. Such fevers are the curse of
those otherwise happy climates: for let not the native of a cold
country, like England, when he reads the flowery description of blue
skies and blue seas, of lands where eternal summer reigns, where the
orange and the olive grow, fancy that Nature has forgotten her
general rule of equalizing her gifts. The favours she would at first
sight seem to have bestowed on one region of the earth in preference
to another have generally some counterpart in scourges and
visitations, from which climates apparently less blessed are exempted.
Count Tattenbach was confined six months to his bed with fever and
dysentery.
I mentioned this to Lady Hester, and, in conformity with her system,
that every person’s star, whilst descending to its nadir, even
although otherwise a favourable one, may have sinister influences,
which change to brighter prospects as the star again mounts to its
zenith, she told me to comfort him by the assurance that he had seen
the most unfortunate years of his life, and might now hope for better
ones. “Tell him the story,” continued she, “of Abdallah, the black
slave” (and this was a very favourite story of hers), “who was sultan
for a day: you have heard of it twenty times, and I dare say you don’t
recollect it.” I confessed I did not. “Well, then,” resumed she,
“there was a black who had been bought by a cruel master, who treated
him with constant harshness: he put him to the most severe tasks, and,
not contented with the customary service of a slave, he made a beast
of burden of him, by putting a pack-saddle on his back, and loading
him like an ass. The poor Abdallah bore all his hardships without
repining; when one day, whilst he was in the fields, carrying manure
with his panniers on his back, the _tyr el hakem_ hovered over his
head, and was seen by the inhabitants of the place. The tyr el hakem
is a bird known in the East; and the people have a rooted belief that
the individual, over whose head it hovers, is, or will come to be a
sovereign. The reigning sultan died just at the time, and, the report
having spread of the omen manifested in favour of Abdallah, nothing
would content the populace, but that Abdallah should be proclaimed his
successor: but Abdallah was a poor, uneducated creature, and, sensible
of his incapacity for so elevated a station, he prayed to God that, if
he were to be sultan, his reign might expire shortly. God granted his
prayer; for he died the same day that he was proclaimed; and, to this
hour, the curious and pious Mussulmans who visit Constantinople go to
see the tomb of Sultan Abdallah, the negro. Thus,” continued Lady
Hester, “those who are depressed by wretchedness and misfortune, may,
in an hour, if such is the will of God, be elevated to the pinnacle of
greatness.”
As I did not very clearly perceive what analogy there was between
Count Tattenbach’s typhus fever and the black’s sufferings, although I
complied with Lady Hester’s wish in relating the story, I generalized
it, and left out the particulars of the pack-saddle. The count was
grateful to her for the interest she took in his past sufferings;
and, to prove it to her, as she considered him hardly convalescent, he
politely consented to take another black dose.
About four o’clock in the afternoon, I accompanied the prince and the
count for a ride, and took them to a spot where, from a lofty peak,
they looked down on a secluded valley, singularly striking, from the
wild, mountainous scenery in which it is embosomed. In the bottom of
the ravine stands a monastery of schismatic Catholics, called _Dayr
Sëydy_. The prince proved himself a bold rider, as he often kept his
horse in a trot over places where a person, used only to European
roads, would have thought his neck in danger at a foot-pace. In our
way I showed him _Dayr el Benát_, a convent; a fine old _ilex_, or
evergreen oak, whose main branches stretch out horizontally about
forty feet from the trunk, and whose trunk measures seven French
metres in circumference; also a willow, with beautiful bloom, like
orange flowers (_saule du Levant aux fleurs odoriférantes_). We
returned just after sunset with a good appetite, I having slipped over
my horse’s head, saddle and all, in one of the steep descents, where
the prince trotted on like a fearless horseman, as he is. After dining
with my family, I joined him again. He was dictating his journal to
the young count: Mahbôoby was lying on an ottoman in the corner of the
room covered over with a quilt, and the black girl with her, one with
her head peeping out at one extremity, and one at the other, a
favourite mode of sleeping two in a bed in the Levant. What advantage
it has over the European manner I never could discover. Lying at full
length, and sleeping at all hours, whether by day or by night, are the
great enjoyments of the blacks, as has been already observed.
Travellers in these countries, however exalted their rank, are
compelled, under many circumstances, to overlook such apparent
violations of decorum, and descend from their stilted forms of good
breeding to those homely approaches to a state of nature.
Saturday, April 21.--After a long conversation the preceding night
with Lady Hester, the prince to-day prepared for his departure. I did
not see him until noon, being engaged with Lady Hester for two or
three hours, in hearing numberless fresh things which she had not had
time to tell him, and which it now devolved on me to communicate: but
when I joined him, he was ready to mount, and I was obliged to leave
my commission unexecuted, as had happened before in the case of Mr.
Forster.
“Tell the prince,” said she, “that he must not dawdle away his time on
the road, because, on the 10th of next month (Mahometan), the caravan
of the Hadj (or the Mecca pilgrims) will arrive at Damascus, and it is
necessary he should be there to have the first choice of all the
precious things that the pilgrims bring. The caravan is no great
things this year, but he will be able to find some good otto of roses,
and some sandal-wood oil, which makes a charming perfume. Then there
is a dry leaf, that is a delightful scent to shut up in bags, or put
into a drawer. I don’t know how it is, doctor, but I never liked
French perfumes--they always made my head ache; but these Eastern ones
are so delightful.”
She went on: “Let the prince know all about buying horses at Damascus.
The horse-dealers there are the most consummate jockeys I have seen in
any country: they will fatten and make up a horse, that the devil
himself would not know him again. I remember a horse--a beautiful
looking one--was brought to me, and the man made a great fuss, saying
he had refused I don’t know how many purses for it, but that, if I
fancied the animal, I should have it a bargain. I answered, ‘that I
would not take it even for a gift.’ To look at him he was a superb
creature; but I saw he was made up, and true enough; for he was
purchased at a high price for the Pasha, and, on his road to Acre,
died. There is Mustafa Bey, whose father was a pasha: well, since he
has been out of favour with the government, even he has carried on
this trade. He has his emissaries, who find out every young horse good
for anything, or any other that can be made something of; and, when
he has fattened them up a little, and changed the old ones so as not
to be recognized, he brings them to market. As for the Emir Beshýr and
his head-groom, tell the prince to have nothing to do with them. The
Emir will give him a horse perhaps worth two or three purses, and the
groom will swear it cost his master fifteen: so he had better accept
none.
“There,” she continued, “I believe that’s all: but only think what it
is to be a well-bred man. I merely told the prince that I thought he
should not let his slave dine with him, and, lo! he writes me a note
to say she had dined with him for the last time. And, doctor, I did
not do this from ill nature, or from any other motive than because I
think everybody should be kept in his place. The other little girl,
poor thing, has been sadly used. The prince told me that, young as she
is, she had not escaped the consequences of that miserable destiny to
which slavery has exposed her.”
I now went to the prince, and, after a short conversation, about three
in the afternoon, when the sun’s rays were losing their power, he
departed. The prince had made a present of the little black slave to
Lady Hester, but, with the mystery she liked to throw over everything,
this was to be a secret in the house. Accordingly, Osman Chaôosh
mounted an ass, apparently to accompany the prince’s suite for a
short distance; but his orders were that, being out of sight of the
house, he should turn off into the Sayda road, and, taking the little
black with him, should conduct her to town, and leave her at
Logmagi’s, where she was to be trained by Logmagi’s wives for her
ladyship’s service. Thus separated from an indulgent mistress and
friend, where she had nothing to do, she was made over to people who
would probably treat her in a very different spirit.
The prince left 500 piasters to be divided amongst the servants. This
was a degree of liberality that was quite at variance with the reports
which had preceded his arrival: for it was currently related of him,
that his parsimony discredited his rank. Lady Hester immediately
ordered the money to be brought to her, and took the opportunity of
distributing it in such a manner as to reward the diligent and punish
the idle, making the privation to be felt most by those who,
habitually indolent, would only run about when their mercenary spirit
made them anticipate a present. It may appear strange to the English
that her ladyship should take upon herself the regulation of servants’
vails: but the great Turks always do so, and no doubt she thought the
custom worthy of imitation.
When the cavalcade was gone, I retired to my house, and, after dinner,
went to Lady Hester. She appeared greatly pleased that her guest had
staid so long, as she knew it would mortify the Emir Beshýr, to whom
the prince had sent three successive messengers, each time to put off
his visit twenty-four hours longer; whilst it would have a good effect
in the eyes of the people, who saw that he contrived expedients to
stay on at her ladyship’s, although from day to day he made
preparations for going. “He must go to-morrow,” Lady Hester would say
to me; “he kills me by these long conversations, and he is so
tiresome, asking for this explanation and that explanation. I said to
him last night, when he could not comprehend something, ‘_Est ce que
votre esprit est dans les ténèbres?_’ This is the way I talk to
princes--but to you, forsooth, I must not say so: I must not call you
a fool when you are one, but you must go and sulk, and turn crusty;
but I will though;--neither you, nor the greatest king on earth, shall
make me alter my ways a tittle. Why, how did I talk to Lord M*******
about G***, when he broke his word about giving him a ship? I
remember, we had dined at the Admiralty: I had been sitting in the
drawing-room with Lady M******* _tête-à-tête_--a tolerable bore, by
the way--and they all came in from the dining-room. All the mylords
were standing about, sipping their coffee, when Lord M. said to me in
his broad Scotch--‘So, I understond, Lady Hostor, you are vorry ongry
with me aboot Coptain G----;’ upon which I gave him such a
dressing--and all unprepared--for I was not thinking about it the
least in the world. There I was in the middle of the room--for I stood
up--like my grandfather, and out it all came. That was a separate
affair from the Scotch job, when Mr. Pitt said that, during the
twenty-five years he had known Lord M., he never saw him get such a
trimming.
“People don’t like to take advice, or to be told of their faults; but
if any one has a piece of bad money, you tell him of it, and he
changes it away or gets rid of it: for, if he keeps it, he is no
richer for it, and, if already a poor man, he may think he is worth
more than he really is, and you do him a charity to tell him that what
he has got is good for nothing: he may treasure it up, but it will
never be worth a farthing.
“Had you followed my advice six years ago, when you came to this
country, I fancy you would have had a very different reputation here.
If you think that I am always trying to mortify people, when I am
saying things for their good, you are much mistaken. If I wanted to
humble any one, should I go as high as the window-seat to pull him
down? no, it would be something higher than that. As I told the Emir
Beshýr, ‘You may rest perfectly quiet; I shall not trouble myself
about you; but, if I did, I would pull you and your mountain down
together.’ I must do everything _en grand_, as Dr. Canova said of me.
He was the Pasha’s doctor, and he remarked to somebody, in speaking of
me--‘I must see her, because, whether for good or bad, she is a person
who does everything _en grand_: there is nothing little about her.’
“There is perhaps no one in the world who has ever done justice to
everything in the creation, man or brute--even down to an ant--like
me; even to the spirits that haunt the air: and I have gone out of my
way to serve you and a thousand others, because I must be just to
everybody. If I abuse people, I can also bear testimony to their good
qualities. My observations are dictated by truth, and even in persons
I dislike, I can equally see their merits; but, because they have
merits, it does not follow that I must like them. People are not
obliged to make a nosegay of a medicinal herb, however valuable its
properties may be. But I must give the devil his due, even to his
beauty and his talents, though he has all the vices attributed to him,
and if I turn devil, my vices will be better than the virtues of most
people--for I do not say of all. If it were not so, should I have
resisted, as I did, all the flattery that was heaped upon me in Mr.
Pitt’s time? but it never turned my head for a moment: I was as cool
as I am now. Nobody could ever come over me; and, knowing that, I
will not pass for being capable of meanness and vulgarity, which only
those ever attributed to me who are mean and vulgar themselves. If
there is any one who thinks he is better than I am, or knows more than
I do, let him come forward, and, if he can show that I am in the
wrong, then I will knock under, but not till then. God has given me my
estate in my head--that nobody can take from me: and do you think that
I, with my high rank and talents, could be accountable for my actions,
opinions, or expressions, to any human being, any more than the sun
could have its brightness interfered with by a common star? What I am,
you, if you live long enough, will see: and then you, and a thousand
others, may think yourselves happy to kiss the dust under my slippers;
so pray put all those ideas out of your head, that I can be unjust to
any one.”
After a pause, she resumed:--“I must have something extraordinary
about me, for Mr. Pitt listened to me, the Turks listen to me, the
Arabs listen to me, and wherever I go I have a talisman, which makes
it so, and so it must be. When I was young, people might say there was
something brilliant about me, which caught everybody’s attention. Now,
my looks are gone; but if I had not a tooth in my head, which will
very soon be the case, I shall go on in my old way and change for
nobody; so do not think with your grumpiness that I shall alter: and
now go to bed. I am very much obliged to you for writing copies of all
those long letters for the prince; but some day I hope I shall have it
in my power to thank you: so, good night.” I rose to go, and she went
on--“And will you be so good as to give that blackguard, Mohammed, a
good scolding about my pipes?--Oh! and send for the secretary to come
up the day after to-morrow. I got rid of him whilst the prince was
here: I did not choose to have him spying about, to carry all his
spyifications to his father, for him to send them to Beyrout:--and the
day after to-morrow I shall look over Fatôom’s store-room, to see if
there are any good blue plates for visitors;--and mind you have the
banana _beignets_ made in the way I told you, for Mrs. M. to
taste:--isn’t it extraordinary that I should know so much about
cooking? I, who got a slap in the face if ever I went into the kitchen
or spoke to a servant. I was not bred up to the plough; I was not bred
up a carpenter, nor a mason, nor a blacksmith, nor a gardener; and yet
I know all these trades: isn’t it very extraordinary? And, doctor, ask
John if he will paint that border for me--there’s the pattern on the
book-cover: and let me know if my two mares have got any more green
barley to eat. Poor things!--every year but this they have always had
enough to last till the end of May: I don’t know what they will do.
Oh! Fatôom was so delighted with her forty piasters! Did you rate that
other beast as I told you? I have brought her down prettily to-day: I
told her, if she was taken to market, she would not fetch so much as a
skin[15] of good oil: it mortified her famously. And, doctor, I must
cut out some linen for the little new black; for there is nobody can
do it but myself. So, good night: only, when you go out, do just send
for the store-room man, and ask if the wheat, that was put in the sun,
is dry enough to go to the mill.--What a pack of ignorant people they
are in Europe: they don’t know, I verily believe, what the bread they
eat comes from.--Only look at my pocket-handkerchiefs;--not one that
is not full of holes.--Stop, how is the money? God knows what we shall
do: but never mind--when I get my £25,000 a-year, I’ll humble those
consuls till they kiss my babôoches.”
Thus would she go on, on a score of different subjects, of which her
head was always full, talking until two or three in the morning; and
always talking most, just after the person who was with her had risen
to go away. Her greatest delight was to sit and harangue when her
hearers stood around her: it fostered the dreams of greatness which
floated in her brain; and, when she saw the homage the natives paid
her, and looked on their oriental humility, she fancied herself, for a
moment, the Queen of the East.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Lady Hester’s doctrines went farther than the shape of
the foot; they went even to the tread. “Did I never
tell you the story,” said she one day, “of Lord B.’s
friend? He was sleeping at some inn, I don’t know
where, when, in the morning, as he was lying thinking
in bed, he heard a step over his head: he immediately
rang the bell in a state of agitation, and begged to
see the landlord directly. ‘Sir,’ cried he to him,
‘you must tell me who the person is that slept over
my head. I know it is a woman, and the one too I have
been looking for all my life; her footstep has that
in it which will fulfil my warmest hope: if she is
single, I must marry her, or else it will be the death
of me.’ He did marry her, and they were the happiest
couple imaginable: he found in her all that his most
sanguine expectations had fancied, and she made him a
most excellent wife.”
Lady Hester delighted in anecdotes that went to show
how much and how justly we may be biassed in our
opinions by the shape of any particular part of a
person’s body, independent of the face. She used
to tell a story of ----, who fell in love with a
lady on a glimpse of those charms which gave such
renown to the Cnidian Venus. This lady--luckily or
unluckily--happened to tumble from her horse, and by
that singular incident fixed the gazer’s affection
irrevocably. Another gentleman, whom she knew, saw a
lady at Rome get out of her carriage, her head being
covered by an umbrella, which the servant held over
her on account of the rain, and, seeing nothing but
her foot and leg, swore he would marry her--which he
did.
[14] It must be recollected that Lady Hester’s guests
were always placed on a sofa opposite to her.--(See
frontispiece.) On some occasions, she had singular
ways of talking, sometimes as if she was addressing
herself to the wall, sometimes to her lap; and,
latterly, when most of her teeth were gone, she
mumbled a little. The prince at another time regretted
that he lost more than half she said.
[15] Oil, in Syria, is sold in goat-skins, made air-tight
like Macintosh pillows.