Though she failed to get across the Arabian Desert, the countess,
previous to her arrest, had some of the strangest and most picturesque
experiences that ever have befallen a white woman. Probably no other
European woman has traveled, as she did, for weeks on end as the
honored guest of a Bedouin Sultan (who insisted on believing her to
be a sister of the Czar of Russia), living the nomadic life of the
tribe and riding on camel-back, nor lived, as did the countess, all by
herself, in the heart of old-world Damascus, an experiment that does
not commend itself even to the foreign consuls. What she saw of the
brutalities of the Turkish mobilization alone makes as thrilling a tale
as any that has been told since the war began.
Meanwhile the countess has been the victim of an astonishing accident,
as a result of which she is still chary about using her right arm.
"One day here at Cartagena," she writes, "while swimming some distance
out at sea, I was followed and attacked by a big dolphin. Luckily an
officer at the fortress had seen it, and he fired on the dolphin. But
before killing him, one bullet went through my right arm! I must say in
fairness to the dolphin that it really was not he who first attacked
me. I saw him following me, and I thought I could have a little ride
on his back, knowing that dolphins are good-natured, as a rule. But he
misunderstood my attentions and turned on me, and, had not the second
shot been fired an instant later, I should have been lost."
The countess made the journey to Beyrout via Port Said.
From Beyrout she went by train to Damascus (a day's journey), where she
had planned to live for a time and improve her knowledge of Arabic,
which is one of the six languages which she speaks, before setting out
for the desert. To begin with, she put up at the only European hotel in
this famous city of the East, and found its proprietor to be a strange
character, indeed. Untidy of person and appallingly rude in manner, "he
reigned there," writes the countess, "with absolute despotism. This
his monopoly of the European hotel business in Damascus enabled him to
do, as the Arab hostelries are impossible for foreigners.
"Here is a little example of his delightful ways. One day an English
visitor asked for a bath and, as answer, was told to get his luggage
ready and leave the hotel in two hours' time, as his hotel had no
room for people who were dirty enough to need a bath! It seemed to be
a special passion and sport of his to turn people out of his hotel,
and any one to whom he took the smallest dislike was ejected without
the slightest consideration. Those who won his favor, however, he
entertained with jokes and stories worthy of an old pirate!"
She met both the English and Russian consuls, who placed themselves at
her service and introduced her to other Europeans likely to advise her
wisely in the matter of engaging her caravan and getting acquainted
with friendly Arab chiefs, who would be able to give her a certain
amount of protection at the outset of her journey, and eventually she
found an old Syrian woman willing to let her house and act as cook and
general factotum.