Governor’s visit--Mons. Taitbout--Streets--Shops--City
gate--Castles--Ports--Ancient Sidon--Population of Modern
Sidon--Revenue--Fertility of the soil--Bridges--Invitation from
the Emir of the Drûzes--Salsette frigate--Mamelukes, considered
as spies, are dismissed--Departure for Gebel ed Drûz--Stefano,
Messieurs Bertrand--Masbûd--Difficulty of obtaining
money--River Hamàm--Dayr el Kamar--The Emir’s character--The
Drûze country--The Drûzes--Their supposed tenets--Akel and
Jahel--Customs and real tenets of the Drûzes--Their resemblance
to Quakers--Their hypocrisy.
Monsieur Taitbout, the French Consul, had made arrangements in the
French caravansery for the lodging of us all. This caravansery is a
quadrangular building, with few windows looking outward, and having
but one gate. It was originally built for the residence of the French
factors, but contained at this time only two or three families of
that nation, being those who had returned to live there after the
expulsion of the factory by El Gezzàr Pasha, and who were now starving
for want of commerce. A visit to and from the governor were the only
occurrences, in which Lady Hester took a part, that are worth notice.
The governor received a watch as a present, in return for the sheep,
rice, coffee, sugar, &c., which he had sent on our arrival.
The town appeared dull, having nothing to boast of but its gardens,
which are indeed fruitful, and its water, which is excellent, but not
yet a temptation to us, who, new to the East, had not learned to relish
that wholesome beverage.
Turkish towns are very much alike. A large building, with an open
place before it, generally denotes the palace of the governor; a few
streets called the sûk or bazar, from eight to fourteen or twenty feet
broad, contain rows of shops; and other streets, equally narrow, are
occupied by the Mahometan inhabitants, who live in retired and jealous
stillness; whilst a second quarter contains the Christians; and, in
a few dirty lanes, inaccessible from the stench and filth to any but
their tenants, live the Jews.
A Turkish shop is commonly no more than from six to nine feet square,
in the shape of an alcove, the floor of which is raised waist high,
and before which the customer stands in the open street, whilst the
shopkeeper sits cross-legged on the shop-board, and has only to reach
his hand to what his customer applies for. A single shutter falls down
and shuts in the whole, and a few shelves contain the goods of every
day’s demand. But, often, a small door leads to a warehouse behind,
where articles of more value and bulk are to be found. Merchants
upon a larger scale have warehouses by the waterside, where rice,
tobacco, silk, and the like, are deposited. In the same room with the
merchandize sits the merchant, upon a mat of a few feet square, on
boards raised to a convenient height from the ground, where an inkstand
and two or three half-bound account-books are the whole apparatus of
sometimes very extensive dealings. There are no desks. Shopkeepers
of the same trade generally live in a row. The artisans carry on
their trades in the same sort of niches; and shoemakers, tailors,
silversmiths, &c. may be seen in their shops, sitting cross-legged and
working, so that passengers may almost learn a trade as they walk along.
The gate of the town is the general rendezvous of the chief people of
the place, and the governors are accustomed to go and sit there on
benches in the open air every day. The sentence that occurs so often in
the Scriptures, “And the king sat at the gate,” shows how ancient this
custom is. The name of the Sublime Porte is derived from this usage.
Suliman Pasha of Acre might be seen every day sitting to administer
justice at the city gate.
Sayda is supplied with water from the river Ewely, (pronounced Ouwely)
a portion of which is conveyed by an aqueduct into the heart of the
town, where the altitude of the water is found by pyramidal levels,
and is then distributed by earthenware pipes to the houses of the
inhabitants.
Sayda has two castles, which the firing of their own guns shakes to
the foundation. It has likewise two ports; but its inner port can
admit fishing-smacks only. The haven is dangerous, and vessels can with
difficulty ride out a storm.
It would appear that the extent of ancient Sidon was not so great as
some travellers have imagined. At the foot of the mountain, east and
north-east, I have myself traced the remains of several sepulchres,
which, as having been on the outside of the city walls, prove that
the city could not have extended so far. Thus, just above the modern
village of Helliléah, east and by south of Sayda, is a sarcophagus,
with some tombs, distant from the seashore one mile and a half. Due
north, in a garden, is a sepulchre not half a mile from the town; so
that, if the ancient city did not extend far to the north or east,
and if there are no ruins to the south, as in fact I saw none, its
boundaries are reduced to a very small space. Modern Sidon may be two
miles in circumference.
Sayda,[79] according to some authors, is distant from Damascus
sixty-six miles, west south west. Its population is carried by some
persons as high as 15,000 souls, of whom 150 are Maronites, 300
Greek Catholics, from 100 to 150 Jews, and the remainder Turks: but,
considering the size of the place, I should not be disposed to allow
even half that number. A native merchant, named Dubani, limited it to
4,500 or 5,000 souls, among whom were 100 Christian families. There
are eight mosques, the largest of which was once a church of St. John.
Here is also a palace, which formerly was the residence of the Emir of
the Drûzes. It is now in ruins, but is still called Dar el Emir (the
Emir’s place.). Close by the seashore stands likewise a large building,
where are the sepulchres of several of the Emirs of that nation. As it
was much neglected by the people of Sayda, and made the receptacle of
filth of every kind, the Emir Beshýr, the reigning prince, obtained
permission to block up the doors and windows.
Sayda pays annually to the pasha 200 purses, (each of 500 piasters),
of which the customs and harbour dues (as they were farmed in 1818,)
produced 100. Duties on imports were for Europeans 3 per cent., for
Mahometan subjects of the Porte 4, and for Christians 4½. These latter,
however, seldom pay more than the Turks.
The richness of the land in the environs of Sayda is very great. There
is a patch of soil near the city so fertile as to produce for every
mid or modius of corn, two gararas, a proportion of seventy-two fold,
or one quintal out of as much land as a pair of oxen can plough in one
day. And the same may be asserted of nearly all the plains and valleys
that receive the alluvial soil from the mountains.
Two miles north of Sayda is the river Ewely. This river is crossed by a
bridge of Saracen construction, which is about four hundred yards from
the seashore. Two hundred yards higher up are the remains of another
bridge, now almost undistinguishable, but which, to judge from a few
large stones lying about, similar in size to those of other bridges
along the coast, was the work of Roman or Greek hands.
Scarcely had we arrived in Sayda, when the Emir of the Drûzes sent
a courier with a letter to request Lady Hester to honour him with a
visit at his residence. Her ladyship accepted the invitation, as it was
her intention to go into the Drûze country, even had he not invited
her. The day being fixed for our departure, the Emir sent down twelve
camels, twenty-five mules, four horses, and seven foot soldiers, as an
escort; but, as circumstances prevented our immediate departure, they
were kept a couple of days waiting at Lady Hester’s expense. On the
27th July, the Salsette, Captain H. Hope, touched at Sayda, and nothing
could equal the joy that was felt on again seeing a gentleman to whom
we were so much indebted.
Our Mamelukes, Yusef and Selim, although good Mussulmans, had not so
far forgotten the practices of their native country, as not to love
wine when they could meet with it. In consequence of this, the French
Consul, who entertained the whole of Lady Hester’s suite, complained
that they exceeded too far the bounds of sobriety, which remark excited
the choler of the two renegadoes, and a covert warfare was carried on
between them and the consul.
Among other hints which he dropped respecting them, he insinuated that
their services under the pasha of Egypt would make their journey into
Syria be looked upon as pure spying, and that Lady Hester would be
no where received without suspicion, whilst she had these men in her
train. The consequence was that their dismissal was resolved upon. They
received each one thousand piasters, and were furnished with a letter
to the pasha of Egypt, thanking him for their services. They quitted us
with regret. Before their departure, they, however, exhibited a little
of their Mameluke horsemanship to Captain Hope on the sands close to
the town.
Captain H. himself essayed their mode of riding, but found their
saddles somewhat inconvenient in a European dress. For myself I had
ridden constantly with an Egyptian saddle, since our first arrival in
that country, and I had, from habit, conceived a favourable idea of
its commodiousness: for, hitherto, we had but occasionally quitted
the plains; and it is to them that this saddle is adapted. But, when
afterwards we traversed Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, I abandoned it for
the saddle of Syria.
We here began to learn the importance that was attached to the
appearance of the pipe. I had already adopted the habit of smoking,
and I was now persuaded to barter the only pistol I had saved from
the shipwreck for an amber mouthpiece, which took my fancy, and which
I could get on no other terms. Milky opaque amber is most esteemed,
and indeed it looks very beautiful. Rhinoceros’ tooth, bone, coloured
glass, agate, and an imitation of amber, are the materials most
commonly used.
Syria is celebrated for producing the best tobacco of Turkey, and it
was, therefore, thought worth while to note down the districts and
villages most in repute: for, as it happens in the growth of grapes for
making wine, there are often patches of soil of a few acres only which
alone produce a particular quality. The information here given on the
subject is the result of several questions put, and observations made,
at different times in different journeys through the country.
In crossing Mount Lebanon, in a direction from west to east, the soil
which is met with, for the first two leagues and a half, is white,
which, under the most favourable circumstances, never produces good
tobacco. To an extent of three leagues west and east from this point
onwards, the soil is red; and here a species of tobacco grows, known
throughout Turkey and the East by the epithet of Gebely (or mountain
tobacco), and in England called by the various names of Cham, Sham,
or Damascus, all which words have the same meaning, Sham being the
Arabic for Damascus, which the French, having no sh, spell Cham. But
not the whole tract with the red soil enjoys the same reputation;
for the growth of only ten or twelve villages is known to possess
the requisite qualities; which are, scintillation and self-burning,
like touch-paper; ashes impalpable as hair-powder; fumes somewhat
odoriferous; and a golden brown in the tint of the dried leaves.
Some more exact observations, which I made three years afterwards
in a journey across Mount Lebanon due east from Sidon, may, without
impropriety, be inserted here. Half a mile from Sidon is the foot of
the mountain. The soil is scanty and white, leaving the rock bare in
several places, which is partly limestone and partly sandstone and clay
together. These appearances continue from the village of Helelíah,
through Abra, Salhyah, Libbâa, as far as Aynàn before descending
into the rich plain of Bisery, a distance of nine or ten miles. The
soil becomes red at Isfarey, where also commence the good tobacco
plantations, and continues as far as the last ridge but one of the
mountain, which is a part of the highest chain, which chain runs north
and south, whilst almost all those between it and the sea branch off
perpendicularly from the main chain, and run east and west. About fifty
or one hundred yards above Kharýby the rock is a carbonate of lime, and
sometimes almost as white as chalk. At Baderán, which is on the highest
part of the penultimate ridge east-north-east of Sidon, there are
found, lying on the surface of the soil, numerous silicious pebbles,
some as big in circumference as a tumbler, some as a wineglass, and
resembling a flattened soap-ball. Their fracture presented a milky
quartz.
Tobacco, when exported to Egypt, is always carried in open boats, for
fear of heating. May not this be one of the reasons why the tobacco
brought to England resembles so little the same plant when smoked in
Syria?
Tobacco must be gathered in the decline of the moon, say the Syrian
planters.
It was on the 29th of July that we departed for Dayr el Kamar, the
residence of the Emir Beshýr. About one mile and a half from Sayda,
the delightful gardens which surround it terminated at a river, before
mentioned, of some size called Nahr el Ewely. Here we began to ascend
Mount Lebanon, its foot touching the seashore; at Sayda it is only
half a mile distant from it; and we were now on the territory of the
Drûzes. To our party were added two dragomans, by name Bertrand, and
both medical men, but who resigned the advantage of their practice
for a consideration which they judged paramount to it.[80] There was
likewise a cook of the name of Stefano, a Georgian; who, being carried
from his own country as a slave to Constantinople, had somehow obtained
his liberty, and resumed the religion of his parents.
To look at the soil, as we ascended the narrow paths of the mountain,
one would have thought that no culture could have made it productive:
yet industry had surmounted every obstacle; for vines, olive,
mulberry, and fig-trees, tobacco, and some other productions, bore
evidence of its richness.
We proceeded for three hours, having passed the village of Jûn,[81]
and encamped for the night at Masbûd. The Shaykh (for so the bailiff
or chief of a village is called) had received orders to supply us
with provisions, and we wanted for nothing. An unpleasant occurrence,
however, retarded us some hours the next morning. We had always found
difficulty in obtaining money, owing to the want of respectable
European merchants in the southern part of Syria, and to the distrust
excited by the frequent visits which adventurers from Christendom
pay to those countries. Lady Hester had drawn a bill on the English
vice-consul at Beyrout, Mâlem Messâad, which was refused, on account,
as he alleged, of his inability to raise the sum drawn for. The Syrian
Christian, who had cashed it at Sayda, came riding post after us; and,
as we were on the point of quitting Masbûd, demanded back his money,
which was forthwith counted out to him.
From Masbûd, a march of five hours brought us to Dayr el Kamar, having
halted by the way at a river, Nahr el Hamam, to refresh ourselves and
our horses. It was quite dark when we arrived. We were received in
a residence or palace of the Emir’s, which had been prepared for our
reception. The constant repetition of the terms prince and minister,
which were used by the new interpreters when speaking of the Emir and
his principal secretary, had raised ideas of the grandeur of these
people and their state, which the sight of our new residence first
weakened, and subsequent knowledge of them entirely overthrew.
The next morning we viewed, from the terrace of the house, the whole
of the burgh of Dayr el Kamar. It may contain four thousand souls. The
houses are none of them more than two stories high, built of rough hewn
stones, oftener cemented with mud than mortar. The only good residence
in the place was that destined for us, which had been built by a person
named Girius Baz, who had figured a great deal in the politics of the
mountain not long before. He had been strangled by the order of the
Emir, and his property confiscated. The palace of the Emir, and which
from its size deserves the name, is at a distance of one mile from Dayr
el Kamar, nearly on the summit of a small mountain, like every part of
Mount Lebanon, not accessible but by the most rugged paths, such as
would be considered impassable in England. The general character of the
Emir, as described to us by persons at Sayda, was comprehended in a few
prominent features. He was born of Mussulman parents, but was supposed
to have apostatized to Christianity. He had mounted his throne in
blood; had put out the eyes of his three nephews, fearing they would
aspire to it, and had reigned a tyrant and a hypocrite.
The people, of whom this Emir is the head, as was said above, are
called Drûzes, and the territory which he rules obtains the name of
Beled el Drûz, or the Drûze country. This territory lies chiefly on
Mount Lebanon, and is comprehended between 33° 20´ and 30° 10´ north
latitude, including a breadth of not more than twenty-five or thirty
miles.
The religion of the Drûzes is a mystery among historians and
travellers, and their tenets are so cautiously concealed from all
but certain persons of their own sect that little credit is to be
given to the relation of any author on the subject.[82] Some general
facts, however, are known; as that they owe their origin to Hakym be
Omrhu, Caliph, or Sultan of Egypt, in an early year of the Hegira,
and that they are divided into two bodies, called the Initiated and
Non-initiated, or Jahel and Aâkel. The Jahel are those who follow the
common pursuits of mankind, and acknowledge, as the rules of society,
the received customs of the country, putting no more restraints on
their conduct than what these and the laws impose. Their sabbath is on
Friday. The Drûzes have, at times, been totally independent, as during
the reign of Fakr ed dyn; and are, in a certain degree, always so,
from the nature of their mountains. To become an Âakel, it is necessary
for a Jahel to go through a probation of some years; when, if thought
worthy, he is admitted to a participation in the rights of the adepts.
The deportment of these is grave, and they are tied down to a plainness
of dress and a sanctity of manners which give them a look that
necessarily imposes somewhat on the beholder. One unvarying part of it
is the white turban, made of a long band of linen or cotton, repeatedly
folded around the tarbûsh (or red skull cap.). They likewise affect the
black abah or cloak. An Âakel holds himself bound to the performance of
all moral duties, so that the institution is in itself meritorious.
[Illustration: A DRUZE ÂAKEL.]
Their enemies, however, say that their sanctity consists in observing
certain days of prayer, in letting their beard grow, in seldom or never
being seen to smoke or to drink coffee; in studiously concealing from
vulgar eyes their peccadilloes, and in withdrawing from public view to
perform their devotions; which, add they, are most impure abominations,
for they are grounded on a belief in the transmigration of souls,
in non-entity after death, and in the lawfulness of incestuous
cohabitation between daughters and fathers, or brothers and sisters.
Neither do their revilers scruple to aver that they are idolaters, and
worship the image of a calf. My subsequent knowledge of them leads
me to subscribe to no such opinion, but to conceive that religious
feelings, or pretended ones, lead some of them to a real or apparent
sanctity, as in other sectaries and in all religions. And, although no
deity is too gross for ignorance and superstition, no mode of worship
so absurd that sophistry cannot find arguments to accredit it, and no
avenging power so imbecile that priestcraft will not erect a tribunal
upon its terrors, still there is, in general, such a positive and
indignant denial of idolatry from all respectable Drûzes, that we do
not think travellers are warranted in propagating the report. In a
visit to Shaykh Daher, at the village of Rûm, one of the most venerable
of the Drûze shaykhs, and one most in repute for his learning, the
conversation turned on religious subjects, and I requested him to solve
me certain points, upon which, like other Europeans, I had hitherto
been able to obtain no correct information.
“I know,” he interrupted me, “what you are going to ask. Like most new
comers, you have been probably entertained with a number of strange
stories respecting us, by the consuls and European merchants of the
seaports, who treasure up these anecdotes as the best food for such
travellers, as come prepared to listen only to the marvellous. These
Franks are no more acquainted with our domestic habits or religious
tenets than I am with what is transacted in the privy council of
England. They will tell you we are an incestuous nation, idolaters,
and I know not what: but let me ask you whether there have been, among
such as have apostatized from us, any who have made authenticated
disclosures of this nature. Rather regard our simple habits of life as
proofs to the contrary. We seek no proselytes: we wear no garments of
gold or silver, and affect the colours of blue, white, and black, as
being the least showy. Our tarbûshes (skullcaps) and turbans differ
from those of the jahel or uninitiated of our people, and of people in
general, as a distinctive mark by which we may be known. We are mild
and peaceable in our habits, but can go to war to defend ourselves.
We accommodate ourselves to the prejudices and customs of those among
whom we live; hence you see us oftentimes praying in mosques, and
enduring the privations of Ramazàn. We are said to have two doors to
our houses, because we will not allow our women to go out by the same
way that a stranger enters; and that a woman, in case of violence from
a man, may more readily escape: but these are reports too absurd to
require refutation. Retired and modest behaviour in our wives is their
brightest ornament; and we wish them not to meet the gaze of visitors:
hence we afford them every facility for escaping observation.
“Continence we hold as a virtue, and we endeavour to resist the
blandishments of women. On this account there are certain of us who
marry, but cohabit not with their wives. In such a case, previous to
wedlock, the wife is made to understand that she will be in the light
of a housekeeper only: and, as she is generally an aâkely,[83] her aim
is consonant with that of the man whom she espouses. We smoke not,
nor drink coffee, because they are indulgences without any advantage.
We eat no meats but what are cooked by the initiated: for our object
is to avoid intercourse with those with whom we must labour under
restraint. Money received in the shape of a tax or an impost we hold to
be unlawful: and this prohibition defends us at least from some vices
which originate in money-getting.”
In fine, from what I could learn from the conversation of another
shaykh, named Kalyb, the tenets of the Drûzes are as follow. The books
held sacred by them are four: the Old and New Testament; the Koran;
and their own, which is the essence, say they, of the other three.
They have two questions, which I believe to be a sort of countersign
of their religion. Which was created first, the egg or the hen? Which
was made first, the hammer or the anvil? and which seem to be puzzles,
to bring man to a sense of his own incapacity to scan the works of the
Creator. According to them, one is not prior to the other, and hence
they believe the world was created, peopled, and stocked at once with
rational and brute animals; which to Omnipotence is just as easy as any
other way. Their paradise is eternal, and so is their hell; and the
bliss of the one or the pains of the other are inconceivably great, but
of what kind they were I could not learn. They do not believe in the
transmigration of the soul: for they say the soul is of too divine a
nature to take up its habitation in the body of a beast.
A Drûze, who is an âakel, if he make a promise, is bound to perform it,
even at the hazard of his life. A Drûze may become an âakel, and wear
the turban peculiar to an âakel, at any age, provided his conversation
and actions are such as render him worthy of being so. Fornication,
adultery, and murder, are insuperable obstacles. He that has divorced
a woman must never see her again; and, if he should chance to enter a
room where she is, she must retire immediately.
There is a very prevalent notion among them that there are Drûzes in
England, or else that the tenets of some sect (they mean the Quakers)
are very much like their own. When familiarity had in some degree
emboldened me, I said to Shaykh Kalyb that, as I had so often been
told that the Drûzes worshipped a calf as a divinity, I supposed their
religion was something like that of the Hindoos, who worshipped the
same animal. But he assured me positively that, if that animal were
sacred in their eyes, they could not eat of it, which I very well knew
they did; and that those who had said they had seen images of a calf
among them must have been mistaken.
I thanked the shaykh for his information, which I thought was as likely
to be true as that of those who averred the contrary. But that I may
not be accused of favouring the Drûzes, for whom I confess I felt a
partiality, it becomes me not to conceal what was related to me by a
Christian in great estimation for his learning, on Mount Lebanon.
He said that, during the incursions made by El Gezzàr Pasha into the
Drûze country, in which their temples and houses were ransacked, books
relating to their religion had been found and carried to Acre. In one
of these is the following passage:--“The Ansáry are fools, because they
allow crimes to be venial that are not secret:” from which it is to
be inferred that the Drûzes hold what is done in secret to be lawful
and just, even if it be what is generally considered as criminal. “And
this, moreover,” (added the reverend gentleman, my informant,) “is
conformable to their practice, in which incest, murder, and other
crimes, have been committed very commonly where the proof of the
commission was not easily to be made out.”
It is certain, however, that, when assembled at their khalweh or megesy
on a Thursday evening, the vigil of their Sabbath, after a time the
jahel quit the place, and the âakel remain alone: upon which occasions
some of them walk round the building, and take great care that no
curious person be lurking near. Besides the Drûzes of Mount Lebanon,
there are several villages of them in Gebel Aâly near Aleppo, at
Hasbeyah, in the Horàn, and at Wadytain, where they first settled, all
which districts are to the south and south-west of Damascus.