LADY HESTER STANHOPE {82}
BEYROUT on its land side is hemmed in by the Druses, who occupy all the
neighbouring highlands.
Often enough I saw the ghostly images of the women with their exalted
horns stalking through the streets, and I saw too in travelling the
affrighted groups of the mountaineers as they fled before me, under the
fear that my party might be a company of income-tax commissioners, or a
press-gang enforcing the conscription for Mehemet Ali; but nearly all my
knowledge of the people, except in regard of their mere costume and
outward appearance, is drawn from books and despatches, to which I have
the honour to refer you.
I received hospitable welcome at Beyrout from the Europeans as well as
from the Syrian Christians, and I soon discovered that their standing
topic of interest was the Lady Hester Stanhope, who lived in an old
convent on the Lebanon range, at the distance of about a day’s journey
from the town. The lady’s habit of refusing to see Europeans added the
charm of mystery to a character which, even without that aid, was
sufficiently distinguished to command attention.
Many years of Lady Hester’s early womanhood had been passed with Lady
Chatham at Burton Pynsent, and during that inglorious period of the
heroine’s life her commanding character, and (as they would have called
it in the language of those days) her “condescending kindness” towards my
mother’s family, had increased in them those strong feelings of respect
and attachment which her rank and station alone would have easily won
from people of the middle class. You may suppose how deeply the quiet
women in Somersetshire must have been interested, when they slowly
learned by vague and uncertain tidings that the intrepid girl who had
been used to break their vicious horses for them was reigning in
sovereignty over the wandering tribes of Western Asia! I know that her
name was made almost as familiar to me in my childhood as the name of
Robinson Crusoe—both were associated with the spirit of adventure; but
whilst the imagined life of the castaway mariner never failed to seem
glaringly real, the true story of the Englishwoman ruling over Arabs
always sounded to me like fable. I never had heard, nor indeed, I
believe, had the rest of the world ever heard, anything like a certain
account of the heroine’s adventures; all I knew was, that in one of the
drawers which were the delight of my childhood, along with attar of roses
and fragrant wonders from Hindustan, there were letters carefully
treasured, and trifling presents which I was taught to think valuable
because they had come from the queen of the desert, who dwelt in tents,
and reigned over wandering Arabs.
This subject, however, died away, and from the ending of my childhood up
to the period of my arrival in the Levant, I had seldom even heard a
mentioning of the Lady Hester Stanhope, but now, wherever I went, I was
met by the name so familiar in sound, and yet so full of mystery from the
vague, fairy-tale sort of idea which it brought to my mind; I heard it,
too, connected with fresh wonders, for it was said that the woman was now
acknowledged as an inspired being by the people of the mountains, and it
was even hinted with horror that she claimed to be _more than a prophet_.
I felt at once that my mother would be sadly sorry to hear that I had
been within a day’s ride of her early friend without offering to see her,
and I therefore despatched a letter to the recluse, mentioning the maiden
name of my mother (whose marriage was subsequent to Lady Hester’s
departure), and saying that if there existed on the part of her ladyship
any wish to hear of her old Somersetshire acquaintance, I should make a
point of visiting her. My letter was sent by a foot-messenger, who was
to take an unlimited time for his journey, so that it was not, I think,
until either the third or the fourth day that the answer arrived. A
couple of horsemen covered with mud suddenly dashed into the little court
of the “locanda” in which I was staying, bearing themselves as
ostentatiously as though they were carrying a cartel from the Devil to
the Angel Michael: one of these (the other being his attendant) was an
Italian by birth (though now completely orientalised), who lived in my
lady’s establishment as doctor nominally, but practically as an upper
servant; he presented me a very kind and appropriate letter of
invitation.
It happened that I was rather unwell at this time, so that I named a more
distant day for my visit than I should otherwise have done, and after
all, I did not start at the time fixed. Whilst still remaining at
Beyrout I received this letter, which certainly betrays no symptom of the
pretensions to divine power which were popularly attributed to the
writer:—
“SIR,—I hope I shall be disappointed in seeing you on Wednesday, for
the late rains have rendered the river Damoor if not dangerous, at
least very unpleasant to pass for a person who has been lately
indisposed, for if the animal swims, you would be immerged in the
waters. The weather will probably change after the 21st of the moon,
and after a couple of days the roads and the river will be passable,
therefore I shall expect you either Saturday or Monday.
“It will be a great satisfaction to me to have an opportunity of
inquiring after your mother, who was a sweet, lovely girl when I knew
her.—Believe me, sir, yours sincerely,
HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.”
Early one morning I started from Beyrout. There are no regularly
established relays of horses in Syria, at least not in the line which I
took, and you therefore hire your cattle for the whole journey, or at all
events for your journey to some large town. Under these circumstances
you have no occasion for a Tatar (whose principal utility consists in his
power to compel the supply of horses). In other respects, the mode of
travelling through Syria differs very little from that which I have
described as prevailing in Turkey. I hired my horses and mules (for I
had some of both) for the whole of the journey from Beyrout to Jerusalem.
The owner of the beasts (who had a couple of fellows under him) was the
most dignified member of my party; he was, indeed, a magnificent old man,
and was called Shereef, or “holy”—a title of honour which, with the
privilege of wearing the green turban, he well deserved, not only from
the blood of the Prophet that flowed in his veins, but from the
well-known sanctity of his life and the length of his blessed beard.
Mysseri, of course, still travelled with me, but the Arabic was not one
of the seven languages which he spoke so perfectly, and I was therefore
obliged to hire another interpreter. I had no difficulty in finding a
proper man for the purpose—one Demetrius, or, as he was always called,
Dthemetri, a native of Zante, who had been tossed about by fortune in all
directions. He spoke the Arabic very well, and communicated with me in
Italian. The man was a very zealous member of the Greek Church. He had
been a tailor. He was as ugly as the devil, having a thoroughly Tatar
countenance, which expressed the agony of his body or mind, as the case
might be, in the most ludicrous manner imaginable. He embellished the
natural caricature of his person by suspending about his neck and
shoulders and waist quantities of little bundles and parcels, which he
thought too valuable to be entrusted to the jerking of pack-saddles. The
mule that fell to his lot on this journey every now and then, forgetting
that his rider was a saint, and remembering that he was a tailor, took a
quiet roll upon the ground, and stretched his limbs calmly and lazily,
like a good man awaiting a sermon. Dthemetri never got seriously hurt,
but the subversion and dislocation of his bundles made him for the moment
a sad spectacle of ruin, and when he regained his legs, his wrath with
the mule became very amusing. He always addressed the beast in language
which implied that he, as a Christian and saint, had been personally
insulted and oppressed by a Mahometan mule. Dthemetri, however, on the
whole proved to be a most able and capital servant. I suspected him of
now and then leading me out of my way in order that he might have the
opportunity of visiting the shrine of a saint; and on one occasion, as
you will see by and by, he was induced by religious motives to commit a
gross breach of duty; but putting these pious faults out of the question
(and they were faults of the right side), he was always faithful and true
to me.
I left Saïde (the Sidon of ancient times) on my right, and about an hour,
I think, before sunset began to ascend one of the many low hills of
Lebanon. On the summit before me was a broad, grey mass of irregular
building, which from its position, as well as from the gloomy blankness
of its walls, gave the idea of a neglected fortress. It had, in fact,
been a convent of great size, and like most of the religious houses in
this part of the world, had been made strong enough for opposing an inert
resistance to any mere casual band of assailants who might be unprovided
with regular means of attack: this was the dwelling-place of the
Chatham’s fiery granddaughter.
The aspect of the first court which I entered was such as to keep one in
the idea of having to do with a fortress rather than a mere peaceable
dwelling-place. A number of fierce-looking and ill-clad Albanian
soldiers were hanging about the place, and striving to bear the curse of
tranquillity as well as they could: two or three of them, I think, were
smoking their _tchibouques_, but the rest of them were lying torpidly
upon the flat stones, like the bodies of departed brigands. I rode on to
an inner part of the building, and at last, quitting my horses, was
conducted through a doorway that led me at once from an open court into
an apartment on the ground floor. As I entered, an Oriental figure in
male costume approached me from the farther end of the room with many and
profound bows, but the growing shades of evening prevented me from
distinguishing the features of the personage who was receiving me with
this solemn welcome. I had always, however, understood that Lady Hester
Stanhope wore the male attire, and I began to utter in English the common
civilities that seemed to be proper on the commencement of a visit by an
uninspired mortal to a renowned prophetess; but the figure which I
addressed only bowed so much the more, prostrating itself almost to the
ground, but speaking to me never a word. I feebly strived not to be
outdone in gestures of respect; but presently my bowing opponent saw the
error under which I was acting, and suddenly convinced me that, at all
events, I was not _yet_ in the presence of a superhuman being, by
declaring that he was not “miladi,” but was, in fact, nothing more or
less god-like than the poor doctor, who had brought his mistress’s letter
to Beyrout.
Her ladyship, in the right spirit of hospitality, now sent and commanded
me to repose for a while after the fatigues of my journey, and to dine.
The cuisine was of the Oriental kind, which is highly artificial, and I
thought it very good. I rejoiced too in the wine of the Lebanon.
Soon after the ending of the dinner the doctor arrived with miladi’s
compliments, and an intimation that she would be happy to receive me if I
were so disposed. It had now grown dark, and the rain was falling
heavily, so that I got rather wet in following my guide through the open
courts that I had to pass in order to reach the presence chamber. At
last I was ushered into a small apartment, which was protected from the
draughts of air passing through the doorway by a folding screen; passing
this, I came alongside of a common European sofa, where sat the lady
prophetess. She rose from her seat very formally, spoke to me a few
words of welcome, pointed to a chair which was placed exactly opposite to
her sofa at a couple of yards’ distance, and remained standing up to the
full of her majestic height, perfectly still and motionless, until I had
taken my appointed place; she then resumed her seat, not packing herself
up according to the mode of the Orientals, but allowing her feet to rest
on the floor or the footstool; at the moment of seating herself she
covered her lap with a mass of loose white drapery which she held in her
hand. It occurred to me at the time that she did this in order to avoid
the awkwardness of sitting in manifest trousers under the eye of a
European, but I can hardly fancy now that with her wilful nature she
would have brooked such a compromise as this.
The woman before me had exactly the person of a prophetess—not, indeed,
of the divine sibyl imagined by Domenichino, so sweetly distracted
betwixt love and mystery, but of a good business-like, practical
prophetess, long used to the exercise of her sacred calling. I have been
told by those who knew Lady Hester Stanhope in her youth, that any notion
of a resemblance betwixt her and the great Chatham must have been
fanciful; but at the time of my seeing her, the large commanding features
of the gaunt woman, then sixty years old or more, certainly reminded me
of the statesman that lay dying {90a} in the House of Lords, according to
Copley’s picture. Her face was of the most astonishing whiteness; {90b}
she wore a very large turban, which seemed to be of pale cashmere shawls,
so disposed as to conceal the hair; her dress, from the chin down to the
point at which it was concealed by the drapery which she held over her
lap, was a mass of white linen loosely folding—an ecclesiastical sort of
affair, more like a surplice than any of those blessed creations which
our souls love under the names of “dress” and “frock” and “bodice” and
“collar” and “habit-shirt” and sweet “chemisette.”
Such was the outward seeming of the personage that sat before me, and
indeed she was almost bound by the fame of her actual achievements, as
well as by her sublime pretensions, to look a little differently from the
rest of womankind. There had been something of grandeur in her career.
After the death of Lady Chatham, which happened in 1803, she lived under
the roof of her uncle, the second Pitt, and when he resumed the
Government in 1804, she became the dispenser of much patronage, and sole
secretary of state for the department of Treasury banquets. Not having
seen the lady until late in her life, when she was fired with spiritual
ambition, I can hardly fancy that she could have performed her political
duties in the saloons of the Minister with much of feminine sweetness and
patience. I am told, however, that she managed matters very well indeed:
perhaps it was better for the lofty-minded leader of the House to have
his reception-rooms guarded by this stately creature, than by a merely
clever and managing woman; it was fitting that the wholesome awe with
which he filled the minds of the country gentlemen should be aggravated
by the presence of his majestic niece. But the end was approaching. The
sun of Austerlitz showed the Czar madly sliding his splendid army like a
weaver’s shuttle from his right hand to his left, under the very eyes—the
deep, grey, watchful eyes of Napoleon; before night came, the coalition
was a vain thing—meet for history, and the heart of its great author was
crushed with grief when the terrible tidings came to his ears. In the
bitterness of his despair he cried out to his niece, and bid her “ROLL UP
THE MAP OF EUROPE”; there was a little more of suffering, and at last,
with his swollen tongue (so they say) still muttering something for
England, he died by the noblest of all sorrows.
Lady Hester, meeting the calamity in her own fierce way, seems to have
scorned the poor island that had not enough of God’s grace to keep the
“heaven-sent” Minister alive. I can hardly tell why it should be, but
there is a longing for the East very commonly felt by proud-hearted
people when goaded by sorrow. Lady Hester Stanhope obeyed this impulse.
For some time, I believe, she was at Constantinople, where her
magnificence and near alliance to the late Minister gained her great
influence. Afterwards she passed into Syria. The people of that
country, excited by the achievements of Sir Sidney Smith, had begun to
imagine the possibility of their land being occupied by the English, and
many of them looked upon Lady Hester as a princess who came to prepare
the way for the expected conquest. I don’t know it from her own lips, or
indeed from any certain authority, but I have been told that she began
her connection with the Bedouins by making a large present of money (£500
it was said—immense in piastres) to the Sheik whose authority was
recognised in that part of the desert which lies between Damascus and
Palmyra. The prestige created by the rumours of her high and undefined
rank, as well as of her wealth and corresponding magnificence, was well
sustained by her imperious character and her dauntless bravery. Her
influence increased. I never heard anything satisfactory as to the real
extent or duration of her sway, but it seemed that for a time at least
she certainly exercised something like sovereignty amongst the wandering
tribes. {92} And now that her earthly kingdom had passed away she strove
for spiritual power, and impiously dared, as it was said, to boast some
mystic union with the very God of very God!
A couple of black slave girls came at a signal, and supplied their
mistress as well as myself with lighted _tchibouques_ and coffee.
The custom of the East sanctions, and almost commands, some moments of
silence whilst you are inhaling the first few breaths of the fragrant
pipe. The pause was broken, I think, by my lady, who addressed to me
some inquiries respecting my mother, and particularly as to her marriage;
but before I had communicated any great amount of family facts, the
spirit of the prophetess kindled within her, and presently (though with
all the skill of a woman of the world) she shuffled away the subject of
poor, dear Somersetshire, and bounded onward into loftier spheres of
thought.
My old acquaintance with some of “the twelve” enabled me to bear my part
(of course a very humble one) in a conversation relative to occult
science. Milnes once spread a report, that every gang of gipsies was
found upon inquiry to have come last from a place to the westward, and to
be about to make the next move in an eastern direction; either therefore
they were to be all gathered together towards the rising of the sun by
the mysterious finger of Providence, or else they were to revolve round
the globe for ever and ever: both of these suppositions were highly
gratifying, because they were both marvellous; and though the story on
which they were founded plainly sprang from the inventive brain of a
poet, no one had ever been so odiously statistical as to attempt a
contradiction of it. I now mentioned the story as a report to Lady
Hester Stanhope, and asked her if it were true. I could not have touched
upon any imaginable subject more deeply interesting to my hearer, more
closely akin to her habitual train of thinking. She immediately threw
off all the restraint belonging to an interview with a stranger; and when
she had received a few more similar proofs of my aptness for the
marvellous, she went so far as to say that she would adopt me as her
_élève_ in occult science.
For hours and hours this wondrous white woman poured forth her speech,
for the most part concerning sacred and profane mysteries; but every now
and then she would stay her lofty flight and swoop down upon the world
again. Whenever this happened I was interested in her conversation.
She adverted more than once to the period of her lost sway amongst the
Arabs, and mentioned some of the circumstances that aided her in
obtaining influence with the wandering tribes. The Bedouin, so often
engaged in irregular warfare, strains his eyes to the horizon in search
of a coming enemy just as habitually as the sailor keeps his “bright
look-out” for a strange sail. In the absence of telescopes a
far-reaching sight is highly valued, and Lady Hester possessed this
quality to an extraordinary degree. She told me that on one occasion,
when there was good reason to expect a hostile attack, great excitement
was felt in the camp by the report of a far-seeing Arab, who declared
that he could just distinguish some moving objects upon the very farthest
point within the reach of his eyes. Lady Hester was consulted, and she
instantly assured her comrades in arms that there were indeed a number of
horses within sight, but that they were without riders. The assertion
proved to be correct, and from that time forth her superiority over all
others in respect of far sight remained undisputed.
Lady Hester related to me this other anecdote of her Arab life. It was
when the heroic qualities of the Englishwoman were just beginning to be
felt amongst the people of the desert, that she was marching one day,
along with the forces of the tribe to which she had allied herself. She
perceived that preparations for an engagement were going on, and upon her
making inquiry as to the cause, the Sheik at first affected mystery and
concealment, but at last confessed that war had been declared against his
tribe on account of its alliance with the English princess, and that they
were now unfortunately about to be attacked by a very superior force. He
made it appear that Lady Hester was the sole cause of hostility betwixt
his tribe and the impending enemy, and that his sacred duty of protecting
the Englishwoman whom he had admitted as his guest was the only obstacle
which prevented an amicable arrangement of the dispute. The Sheik hinted
that his tribe was likely to sustain an almost overwhelming blow, but at
the same time declared, that no fear of the consequences, however
terrible to him and his whole people, should induce him to dream of
abandoning his illustrious guest. The heroine instantly took her part:
it was not for her to be a source of danger to her friends, but rather to
her enemies, so she resolved to turn away from the people, and trust for
help to none save only her haughty self. The Sheiks affected to dissuade
her from so rash a course, and fairly told her that although they (having
been freed from her presence) would be able to make good terms for
themselves, yet that there were no means of allaying the hostility felt
towards her, and that the whole face of the desert would be swept by the
horsemen of her enemies so carefully as to make her escape into other
districts almost impossible. The brave woman was not to be moved by
terrors of this kind, and bidding farewell to the tribe which had
honoured and protected her, she turned her horse’s head and rode straight
away from them, without friend or follower. Hours had elapsed, and for
some time she had been alone in the centre of the round horizon, when her
quick eye perceived some horsemen in the distance. The party came nearer
and nearer; soon it was plain that they were making towards her, and
presently some hundreds of Bedouins, fully armed, galloped up to her,
ferociously shouting, and apparently intending to take her life at the
instant with their pointed spears. Her face at the time was covered with
the _yashmak_, according to Eastern usage, but at the moment when the
foremost of the horsemen had all but reached her with their spears, she
stood up in her stirrups, withdrew the _yashmak_ that veiled the terrors
of her countenance, waved her arm slowly and disdainfully, and cried out
with a loud voice “Avaunt!” {96} The horsemen recoiled from her glance,
but not in terror. The threatening yells of the assailants were suddenly
changed for loud shouts of joy and admiration at the bravery of the
stately Englishwoman, and festive gunshots were fired on all sides around
her honoured head. The truth was, that the party belonged to the tribe
with which she had allied herself, and that the threatened attack as well
as the pretended apprehension of an engagement had been contrived for the
mere purpose of testing her courage. The day ended in a great feast
prepared to do honour to the heroine, and from that time her power over
the minds of the people grew rapidly. Lady Hester related this story
with great spirit, and I recollect that she put up her _yashmak_ for a
moment in order to give me a better idea of the effect which she produced
by suddenly revealing the awfulness of her countenance.
With respect to her then present mode of life, Lady Hester informed me,
that for her sin she had subjected herself during many years to severe
penance, and that her self-denial had not been without its reward. “Vain
and false,” said she, “is all the pretended knowledge of the
Europeans—their doctors will tell you that the drinking of milk gives
yellowness to the complexion; milk is my only food, and you see if my
face be not white.” Her abstinence from food intellectual was carried as
far as her physical fasting. She never, she said, looked upon a book or
a newspaper, but trusted alone to the stars for her sublime knowledge;
she usually passed the nights in communing with these heavenly teachers,
and lay at rest during the daytime. She spoke with great contempt of the
frivolity and benighted ignorance of the modern Europeans, and mentioned
in proof of this, that they were not only untaught in astrology, but were
unacquainted with the common and every-day phenomena produced by magic
art. She spoke as if she would make me understand that all sorcerous
spells were completely at her command, but that the exercise of such
powers would be derogatory to her high rank in the heavenly kingdom. She
said that the spell by which the face of an absent person is thrown upon
a mirror was within the reach of the humblest and most contemptible
magicians, but that the practice of such-like arts was unholy as well as
vulgar.
We spoke of the bending twig by which, it is said, precious metals may be
discovered. In relation to this, the prophetess told me a story rather
against herself, and inconsistent with the notion of her being perfect in
her science; but I think that she mentioned the facts as having happened
before the time at which she attained to the great spiritual authority
which she now arrogated. She told me that vast treasures were known to
exist in a situation which she mentioned, if I rightly remember, as being
near Suez; that Napoleon, profanely brave, thrust his arm into the cave
containing the coveted gold, and that instantly his flesh became palsied,
but the youthful hero (for she said he was great in his generation) was
not to be thus daunted; he fell back characteristically upon his brazen
resources, and ordered up his artillery; but man could not strive with
demons, and Napoleon was foiled. In after years came Ibrahim Pasha, with
heavy guns, and wicked spells to boot, but the infernal guardians of the
treasure were too strong for him. It was after this that Lady Hester
passed by the spot, and she described with animated gesture the force and
energy with which the divining twig had suddenly leaped in her hands.
She ordered excavations, and no demons opposed her enterprise; the vast
chest in which the treasure had been deposited was at length discovered,
but, lo and behold, it was full of pebbles! She said, however, that the
times were approaching in which the hidden treasures of the earth would
become available to those who had true knowledge.
Speaking of Ibrahim Pasha, Lady Hester said that he was a bold, bad man,
and was possessed of some of those common and wicked magical arts upon
which she looked down with so much contempt. She said, for instance,
that Ibrahim’s life was charmed against balls and steel, and that after a
battle he loosened the folds of his shawl and shook out the bullets like
dust.
It seems that the St. Simonians once made overtures to Lady Hester. She
told me that the Père Enfantin (the chief of the sect) had sent her a
service of plate, but that she had declined to receive it. She delivered
a prediction as to the probability of the St. Simonians finding the
“mystic mother,” and this she did in a way which would amuse you.
Unfortunately I am not at liberty to mention this part of the woman’s
prophecies; why, I cannot tell, but so it is, that she bound me to
eternal secrecy.
Lady Hester told me that since her residence at Djoun she had been
attacked by a terrible illness, which rendered her for a long time
perfectly helpless; all her attendants fled, and left her to perish.
Whilst she lay thus alone, and quite unable to rise, robbers came and
carried away her property. {99} She told me that they actually unroofed
a great part of the building, and employed engines with pulleys, for the
purpose of hoisting out such of her valuables as were too bulky to pass
through doors. It would seem that before this catastrophe Lady Hester
had been rich in the possession of Eastern luxuries; for she told me that
when the chiefs of the Ottoman force took refuge with her after the fall
of Acre, they brought their wives also in great numbers. To all of these
Lady Hester, as she said, presented magnificent dresses; but her
generosity occasioned strife only instead of gratitude, for every woman
who fancied her present less splendid than that of another with equal or
less pretension, became absolutely furious: all these audacious guests
had now been got rid of, but the Albanian soldiers, who had taken refuge
with Lady Hester at the same time, still remained under her protection.
In truth, this half-ruined convent, guarded by the proud heart of an
English gentlewoman, was the only spot throughout all Syria and Palestine
in which the will of Mehemet Ali and his fierce lieutenant was not the
law. More than once had the Pasha of Egypt commanded that Ibrahim should
have the Albanians delivered up to him, but this white woman of the
mountain (grown classical not by books, but by very pride) answered only
with a disdainful invitation to “come and take them.” Whether it was
that Ibrahim was acted upon by any superstitious dread of interfering
with the prophetess (a notion not at all incompatible with his character
as an able Oriental commander), or that he feared the ridicule of putting
himself in collision with a gentlewoman, he certainly never ventured to
attack the sanctuary, and so long as the Chatham’s granddaughter breathed
a breath of life there was always this one hillock, and that too in the
midst of a most populous district, which stood out, and kept its freedom.
Mehemet Ali used to say, I am told, that the Englishwoman had given him
more trouble than all the insurgent people of Syria and Palestine.
The prophetess announced to me that we were upon the eve of a stupendous
convulsion, which would destroy the then recognised value of all property
upon earth; and declaring that those only who should be in the East at
the time of the great change could hope for greatness in the new life
that was now close at hand, she advised me, whilst there was yet time, to
dispose of my property in poor frail England, and gain a station in Asia.
She told me that, after leaving her, I should go into Egypt, but that in
a little while I should return into Syria. I secretly smiled at this
last prophecy as a “bad shot,” for I had fully determined after visiting
the Pyramids to take ship from Alexandria for Greece. But men struggle
vainly in the meshes of their destiny. The unbelieved Cassandra was
right after all; the plague came, and the necessity of avoiding the
quarantine, to which I should have been subjected if I had sailed from
Alexandria, forced me to alter my route. I went down into Egypt, and
stayed there for a time, and then crossed the desert once more, and came
back to the mountains of the Lebanon, exactly as the prophetess had
foretold.
Lady Hester talked to me long and earnestly on the subject of religion,
announcing that the Messiah was yet to come. She strived to impress me
with the vanity and the falseness of all European creeds, as well as with
a sense of her own spiritual greatness: throughout her conversation upon
these high topics she carefully insinuated, without actually asserting,
her heavenly rank.
Amongst other much more marvellous powers, the lady claimed to have one
which most women, I fancy, possess, namely, that of reading men’s
characters in their faces. She examined the line of my features very
attentively, and told me the result, which, however, I mean to keep
hidden.
One favoured subject of discourse was that of “race,” upon which she was
very diffuse, and yet rather mysterious. She set great value upon the
ancient French {102} (not Norman blood, for that she vilified), but did
not at all appreciate that which we call in this country “an old family.”
She had a vast idea of the Cornish miners on account of their race, and
said, if she chose, she could give me the means of rousing them to the
most tremendous enthusiasm.
Such are the topics on which the lady mainly conversed, but very often
she would descend to more worldly chat, and then she was no longer the
prophetess, but the sort of woman that you sometimes see, I am told, in
London drawing-rooms—cool, decisive in manner, unsparing of enemies, full
of audacious fun, and saying the downright things that the sheepish
society around her is afraid to utter. I am told that Lady Hester was in
her youth a capital mimic, and she showed me that not all the queenly
dullness to which she had condemned herself, not all her fasting and
solitude, had destroyed this terrible power. The first whom she
crucified in my presence was poor Lord Byron. She had seen him, it
appeared, I know not where, soon after his arrival in the East, and was
vastly amused at his little affectations. He had picked up a few
sentences of the Romanic, with which he affected to give orders to his
Greek servant. I can’t tell whether Lady Hester’s mimicry of the bard
was at all close, but it was amusing; she attributed to him a curiously
coxcombical lisp.
Another person whose style of speaking the lady took off very amusingly
was one who would scarcely object to suffer by the side of Lord Byron—I
mean Lamartine, who had visited her in the course of his travels. The
peculiarity which attracted her ridicule was an over-refinement of
manner: according to my lady’s imitation of Lamartine (I have never seen
him myself), he had none of the violent grimace of his countrymen, and
not even their usual way of talking, but rather bore himself mincingly,
like the humbler sort of English dandy. {103}
Lady Hester seems to have heartily despised everything approaching to
exquisiteness. She told me, by the bye (and her opinion upon that
subject is worth having), that a downright manner, amounting even to
brusqueness, is more effective than any other with the Oriental; and that
amongst the English of all ranks and all classes there is no man so
attractive to the Orientals, no man who can negotiate with them half so
effectively, as a good, honest, open-hearted, and positive naval officer
of the old school.
I have told you, I think, that Lady Hester could deal fiercely with those
she hated. One man above all others (he is now uprooted from society,
and cast away for ever) she blasted with her wrath. You would have
thought that in the scornfulness of her nature she must have sprung upon
her foe with more of fierceness than of skill; but this was not so, for
with all the force and vehemence of her invective she displayed a sober,
patient, and minute attention to the details of vituperation, which
contributed to its success a thousand times more than mere violence.
During the hours that this sort of conversation, or rather discourse, was
going on our _tchibouques_ were from time to time replenished, and the
lady as well as I continued to smoke with little or no intermission till
the interview ended. I think that the fragrant fumes of the latakiah
must have helped to keep me on my good behaviour as a patient disciple of
the prophetess.
It was not till after midnight that my visit for the evening came to an
end. When I quitted my seat the lady rose and stood up in the same
formal attitude (almost that of a soldier in a state of “attention”)
which she had assumed at my entrance; at the same time she let go the
drapery which she had held over her lap whilst sitting and allowed it to
fall to the ground.
The next morning after breakfast I was visited by my lady’s secretary—the
only European, except the doctor, whom she retained in her household.
This secretary, like the doctor, was Italian, but he preserved more signs
of European dress and European pretensions than his medical fellow-slave.
He spoke little or no English, though he wrote it pretty well, having
been formerly employed in a mercantile house connected with England. The
poor fellow was in an unhappy state of mind. In order to make you
understand the extent of his spiritual anxieties, I ought to have told
you that the doctor {105} (who had sunk into the complete Asiatic, and
had condescended accordingly to the performance of even menial services)
had adopted the common faith of all the neighbouring people, and had
become a firm and happy believer in the divine power of his mistress.
Not so the secretary. When I had strolled with him to a distance from
the building, which rendered him safe from being overheard by human ears,
he told me in a hollow voice, trembling with emotion, that there were
times at which he doubted the divinity of “milèdi.” I said nothing to
encourage the poor fellow in that frightful state of scepticism which, if
indulged, might end in positive infidelity. I found that her ladyship
had rather arbitrarily abridged the amusements of her secretary,
forbidding him from shooting small birds on the mountain-side. This
oppression had aroused in him a spirit of inquiry that might end fatally,
perhaps for himself, perhaps for the “religion of the place.”
The secretary told me that his mistress was greatly disliked by the
surrounding people, whom she oppressed by her exactions, and the truth of
this statement was borne out by the way in which my lady spoke to me of
her neighbours. But in Eastern countries hate and veneration are very
commonly felt for the same object, and the general belief in the
superhuman power of this wonderful white lady, her resolute and imperious
character, and above all, perhaps, her fierce Albanians (not backward to
obey an order for the sacking of a village), inspired sincere respect
amongst the surrounding inhabitants. Now the being “respected” amongst
Orientals is not an empty or merely honorary distinction, but carries
with it a clear right to take your neighbour’s corn, his cattle, his
eggs, and his honey, and almost anything that is his, except his wives.
This law was acted upon by the princess of Djoun, and her establishment
was supplied by contributions apportioned amongst the nearest of the
villages.
I understood that the Albanians (restrained, I suppose, by the dread of
being delivered up to Ibrahim) had not given any very troublesome proofs
of their unruly natures. The secretary told me that their rations,
including a small allowance of coffee and tobacco, were served out to
them with tolerable regularity.
I asked the secretary how Lady Hester was off for horses, and said that I
would take a look at the stable. The man did not raise any opposition to
my proposal, and affected no mystery about the matter, but said that the
only two steeds which then belonged to her ladyship were of a very humble
sort. This answer, and a storm of rain then beginning to descend,
prevented me at the time from undertaking my journey to the stable, which
was at some distance from the part of the building in which I was
quartered, and I don’t know that I ever thought of the matter afterwards
until my return to England, when I saw Lamartine’s eye-witnessing account
of the horse saddled by the hands of his Maker!
When I returned to my apartment (which, as my hostess told me, was the
only one in the whole building that kept out the rain) her ladyship sent
to say that she would be glad to receive me again. I was rather
surprised at this, for I had understood that she reposed during the day,
and it was now little later than noon. “Really,” said she, when I had
taken my seat and my pipe, “we were together for hours last night, and
still I have heard nothing at all of my old friends; now _do_ tell me
something of your dear mother and her sister; I never knew your father—it
was after I left Burton Pynsent that your mother married.” I began to
make slow answer, but my questioner soon went off again to topics more
sublime, so that this second interview, which lasted two or three hours,
was occupied by the same sort of varied discourse as that which I have
been describing.
In the course of the afternoon the captain of an English man-of-war
arrived at Djoun, and her ladyship determined to receive him for the same
reason as that which had induced her to allow my visit, namely, an early
intimacy with his family. I and the new visitor, who was a pleasant,
amusing person, dined together, and we were afterwards invited to the
presence of my lady, with whom we sat smoking and talking till midnight.
The conversation turned chiefly, I think, upon magical science. I had
determined to be off at an early hour the next morning, and so at the end
of this interview I bade my lady farewell. With her parting words she
once more advised me to abandon Europe and seek my reward in the East,
and she urged me too to give the like counsels to my father, and tell him
that “_She had said it_.”
Lady Hester’s unholy claim to supremacy in the spiritual kingdom was, no
doubt, the suggestion of fierce and inordinate pride most perilously akin
to madness, but I am quite sure that the mind of the woman was too strong
to be thoroughly overcome by even this potent feeling. I plainly saw
that she was not an unhesitating follower of her own system, and I even
fancied that I could distinguish the brief moments during which she
contrived to believe in herself, from those long and less happy intervals
in which her own reason was too strong for her.
As for the lady’s faith in astrology and magic science, you are not for a
moment to suppose that this implied any aberration of intellect. She
believed these things in common with those around her, for she seldom
spoke to anybody except crazy old dervishes, who received her alms, and
fostered her extravagancies, and even when (as on the occasion of my
visit) she was brought into contact with a person entertaining different
notions, she still remained uncontradicted. This _entourage_ and the
habit of fasting from books and newspapers were quite enough to make her
a facile recipient of any marvellous story.
I think that in England we are scarcely sufficiently conscious of the
great debt we owe to the wise and watchful press which presides over the
formation of our opinions, and which brings about this splendid result,
namely, that in matters of belief the humblest of us are lifted up to the
level of the most sagacious, so that really a simple cornet in the Blues
is no more likely to entertain a foolish belief about ghosts or
witchcraft, or any other supernatural topic, than the Lord High
Chancellor or the Leader of the House of Commons. How different is the
intellectual régime of Eastern countries! In Syria and Palestine and
Egypt you might as well dispute the efficacy of grass or grain as of
magic. There is no controversy about the matter. The effect of this,
the unanimous belief of an ignorant people upon the mind of a stranger,
is extremely curious, and well worth noticing. A man coming freshly from
Europe is at first proof against the nonsense with which he is assailed,
but often it happens that after a little while the social atmosphere in
which he lives will begin to infect him, and if he has been unaccustomed
to the cunning of fence by which Reason prepares the means of guarding
herself against fallacy, he will yield himself at last to the faith of
those around him, and this he will do by sympathy, it would seem, rather
than from conviction. I have been much interested in observing that the
mere “practical man,” however skilful and shrewd in his own way, has not
the kind of power that will enable him to resist the gradual impression
made upon his mind by the common opinion of those whom he sees and hears
from day to day. Even amongst the English (whose good sense and sound
religious knowledge would be likely to guard them from error) I have
known the calculating merchant, the inquisitive traveller, and the
post-captain, with his bright, wakeful eye of command—I have known all
these surrender themselves to the _really_ magic-like influence of other
people’s minds. Their language at first is that they are “staggered,”
leading you by that expression to suppose that they had been witnesses to
some phenomenon, which it was very difficult to account for otherwise
than by supernatural causes; but when I have questioned further, I have
always found that these “staggering” wonders were not even specious
enough to be looked upon as good “tricks.” A man in England who gained
his whole livelihood as a conjurer would soon be starved to death if he
could perform no better miracles than those which are wrought with so
much effect in Syria and Egypt; _sometimes_, no doubt, a magician will
make a good hit (Sir John once said a “good thing”), but all such
successes range, of course, under the head of mere “tentative miracles,”
as distinguished by the strong-brained Paley.