ORIENTAL INITIATION
ON October 16, 1810, Lady Hester Stanhope and her companions left Athens
on board of a Greek polacca. But, having been enlightened in regard to
the skill of the mariners who, in time of storm, fold their arms,
invoking St. George and leaving Heaven to take charge of the working of
the ship, they disembarked in all haste at Erakli--the ancient
Heraclea--and Lord Sligo and Bruce proceeded to Constantinople to seek
aid. They returned with a Turkish officer provided with a firman.
Barques awaited, of that type in which the prow is shallow and the poop
pointed, with those fine bronze-chested sailors, with flowing breeches
and scarlet tarboosh, whose deep voices add to the melancholy of the
passage the charm of unknown tongues.
On one of those November evenings which tinge the sky with delicate and
glowing roses, just when the countless minarets of the mosques of
Constantinople were fading into the night come unexpectedly, the barques
stopped at Topkhana. A sedan-chair for Lady Hester, and for the others
the walk through the steep and mountainous streets. The lugubrious
barking of the famished dogs wandering, in bands, in the deserted
quarters, the capricious flame of the lantern which precedes the
caravan, sometimes lighting up old leprous houses, at others throwing
into the shadow gardens of which hardly a glimpse could be had--it was
Pera.
What long strolls in the narrow streets in which the absence of
carriages made the voices sound strangely! Passing between the double
hedge of merchants who seemed to watch purchasers from the depths of
their shops like spiders crouching in their webs, Lady Hester and her
friends had the impression of moving about under the jeering eyes of a
row of servants.
One Friday, an Amazon calmly traversed the streets of Constantinople.
She was Lady Hester, who was on her way to attend the procession of the
Sultan Mahmoud so far as the mosque, and had found this convenient means
to avoid being annoyed by the populace, dirty and dusty, as could
possibly be desired. It was the first time that a woman, a European,
with face uncovered, promenaded thus equipped. It was necessary to be of
the stamp of Lady Hester, to have her contempt of opinion, her disdain
of social conventions, her insensate desire to get herself talked about,
her love of sensation, to attempt so bold an enterprise. It was
necessary to possess her tall figure, her impressive countenance, her
manly appearance, to succeed and pass without insults. The spectacle,
besides, was worth this risk.
Janissaries, in brand-new uniforms, keep in check the crowd while the
police distribute the blows of "Korbach." First came some dozens of
water-carriers, spilling in the dust the sacred liquid, without any
stint. Then a confused and important mass of servants, equerries,
executioners. Then, surrounded by footmen, mounted on a horse
magnificently caparisoned, a man with a proud and distant air, wearing a
dark beard. "Here is the Sultan!" exclaimed the doctor and his friends.
But it was only the officer who bore the Sultan's footstool.... The
mistakes are repeated for the sword-bearer and the pipe-bearer. "This
time, it is he!" Not yet. And the Captain Pacha, the Reis Effendi, the
Kakliya Bey, the Grand Vizier, enveloped in their priceless pelisses,
the hilts of their khandjars blazing with diamonds and throwing sparks,
pass nonchalantly on their chargers, which are half-crushed beneath the
weight of the harness, casting on the people bored glances.
On a sudden, there came the most profound silence, a silence mournful,
heavy, uneasy, and a singular murmur, monotonous and plaintive, like the
voice of the swell beating against the cliffs, rose from the prostrate
crowd--all these men, bringing the folds of their robes over their
chests with a concerted gesture, called down the blessings of Mahomet on
the Commander of the Faithful. And Mahmoud passed.... His escort,
dressed in garments of brocade plaited with golden and silver threads
and wearing plumed helmets, surrounded him with a rampart of fluttering
and nodding plumes and hid his person from the generality of mortals.
His stallion, of a snowy whiteness, disappeared beneath the
saddle-cloths and gala trappings which were studded with mother-of-pearl
and pearls and multi-coloured gems. The crowd rose again; Kislar Aga,
the Minister of Pleasures--happy Minister!--a hideous negro with a
bestial countenance, followed, surrounded by a hundred eunuchs, both
black and white. A bunch of eunuchs! Finally, a dwarf preceded three
hundred pages of haughty bearing, clad, in white satin.
After spending a few days at Constantinople, Lady Stanhope abandoned her
house at Pera, which was too small, for a villa at Therapia. The waves
of the Bosphorus came to beat against the walls, and afar off the
transparent wintry light bathed the Asiatic coast and the shores of the
Black Sea. The visitors were numerous: Stratford Canning, English
Ambassador at the Sublime Porte; Mr. Henry Pearce, a friend of Bruce;
Mr. Taylor, who arrived from Egypt and Syria; Lord Plymouth and many
others. Constantinople was very gay; receptions and balls followed one
another, and only the dragomans, in their parti-coloured costumes, gave
to them an Oriental tinge. For the Turks rarely mix with Europeans,
fearing the length of their meals and the use of wine.
The doctor, upon whom his profession conferred special privileges,
received invitations from the Captain Pacha's medical attendant. Meals
which might nourish the vanity, if not the stomach. The fare was not
bad, but scarcely was a dish placed upon the table than diligent
servants pounced upon it and carried it away. And then the clear water,
however pure and fresh it might be, was not a beverage which was long
endurable.
Lady Hester was soon on a footing of intimacy with several distinguished
Turks. "One ought to see them," she wrote, "seated under the trees of a
public promenade, not distinguishing the Greek, Armenian or European
women, but looking at them _en bloc_ like sheep in a meadow." She
invited the Captain Pacha's brother to dinner, and, very quickly
familiarised with the use of knives, forks and chairs, he spent more
than half an hour at table--which is a great concession for a Turk--ate
of everything, including the good substantial English roast joints and
the heavy greasy puddings, enjoyed three or four glasses of wine and
appeared enchanted with all that his hostess offered him. It was true
that the hostess was not an ordinary one.
To charm her hours of leisure which all these occupations did not
contrive to fill, she went to visit the ships of the Turkish fleet, in
the dress of an officer. She wanted to see everything, examined
everything in detail, ferreted everywhere and returned delighted with
her expedition. To one of her friends, who, shocked at her masculine
garments, took the liberty of reproaching her on the subject, she
retorted with her customary impetuosity: "Breeches, a military cloak and
a hat with a plume are no doubt a more indecent costume than that of
your fine madams half-naked in their ball dresses."
From February the weather abruptly changed. Never was English spring
more severe. There was a foot of snow, and Lady Hester suffered cruelly
from the cold, for the brasiers which they carried about from one room
to another did not give even the illusion of warmth. She had a wild
desire to leave for Italy or for France, desire so much the more ardent
that the English were forbidden to enter these countries. She left no
stone unturned to approach M. de Latour-Maubourg, the French Ambassador
at Constantinople. It was a difficult task, for relations between French
and English were so strained that it was forbidden, even to private
individuals of the two nations, to have any intercourse with each other.
Lady Hester was like one of those thoroughbreds of which William Pitt
spoke. You are able to guide them with a hair and their pace is regular
and easy, but if you thwart them, they rear and become furious. The
obstacles excited instead of stopping her. She swore that she would see
M. de Latour-Maubourg, and she kept her word. She took long walks
through the Turkish country and rambled in the inextricable alleys of
Pera to throw off the scent of the spies whom Canning, become
suspicious, had launched in pursuit of her, poor devils who had never
been accustomed to such rough work. One day, when she was going to join
the French Ambassador on the shores of the Bosphorus, she was
followed ... On the morrow, Canning asked her:
"Lady Hester, where did you spend the day yesterday?"
She took the offensive:
"Has not your spy informed you?"
Canning began to laugh and lectured her:
"If you continue, I shall be obliged to write to England."
But Lady Hester did not allow herself to be intimidated easily.
"Ah well," replied she, "I shall also write a letter in my style: 'Dear
Sir,--Your young and excellent Minister, in order to prove his worth,
has begun his diplomatic career by causing ladies to be followed to
their rendezvous, and so forth.'"
During this time, Latour-Maubourg was working actively to obtain the
authorisation desired and sent letter upon letter to Paris. Meanwhile,
Lady Hester, Bruce and the doctor set out for the sulphur baths of
Broussa; Broussa the green, Broussa the divine, with its white houses
lost in the forests of pointed minarets, of tall cypress-trees and broad
plane-trees; Broussa which sleeps at the foot of Olympus in an ocean of
orchards eternally in flower and in fruit, to the thirst-quenching
sounds of the countless cascades descending from the mountains.
Some months later, they returned to Constantinople, or rather to Bebec,
the lease of the villa at Therapia having expired. All the wealthy Turks
had their summer residences on the shores of the Bosphorus, and hours
passed, carelessly and quickly, in watching row past the richly
decorated barges, with their flashing draperies, which conveyed from
door to door the beautiful visitors. But to obtain provisions was a
difficult matter; the doctor suffered from the heat and regretted the
good dinners in the English fashion. Here there was nothing but mutton,
nothing but mutton, and if it had only been eatable! There was certainly
some fish to be had which could be fried, but the fishermen were so
powerful!...
Lady Hester not caring to spend another winter at Constantinople and not
receiving any reply from France, decided to sail for Egypt. The climate
attracted her, and perhaps also the recollection of Moore, which urged
her to go towards the places through which he had passed. Then began for
the doctor a punishment of another kind. He had certainly succeeded as
a doctor at Constantinople. A marvellous cure, vanity quite apart,
performed on the Danish Minister, had made him the fashion. One morning
he had awakened to find himself famous. The Captain Pacha made him
attend his wife, who, after all, died. He had illustrious patients, even
the Princess Morousi, wife of the former Hospodar of Wallachia! He
became the habitué of the harems and began, as so many others had, to
taste the charm of the women of the Orient. He admired everything in
them; their skin fragrant and soft, their long hair to which the henna
imparted reddish reflections, their slight (?) embonpoint which rendered
their contours softer and accentuated the languidness of their
movements. He began a crusade against the use of European corsets, since
his deities did not wear them. And arrived at the highest point of
poetic enthusiasm, he cried:
"The ottoman is their throne and the flower which bends its head their
model!"
Decidedly, he was in the mood to lose the notion of the straight line!
And now all of a sudden, because this tall woman, who assuredly had not
soft movements, had decided upon it, he was obliged to depart!
His beautiful patients brought him on his departure their fees concealed
in the embroideries which their white hands had themselves executed. And
if, in the course of his voyage, the doctor chanted the praises of the
Turks, nay, even of the Armenians, and was very cold in referring to the
Greeks, do not seek for political reasons. It is quite simply that the
first were much more generous!
Lord Sligo, the best-hearted of men, the warmest of friends, had
returned to Malta in the course of the winter. But Lady Hester found
another escort in the person of Mr. Pearce, who solicited the honour of
joining the expedition.
On October 23, 1811, accompanied by seven Greek servants, amongst whom
was a young man, Giorgio Dallegio, of dark complexion, active, alert,
speaking three or four languages, and who was not slow in attracting
Lady Hester's attention, the travellers embarked for Alexandria, on
board of a Greek vessel, with a Greek crew, alas! Rut they had no
choice. Contrary winds retained them near Rhodes until November 23. Four
days later, a nice little storm of the first class came on. As though
this was not enough work, they sprung a leak, and at night the master
began to shout: "All hands to the pumps." All hands to the pumps is very
quickly said, but Levantine vessels rarely possess pumps, and when they
have them they are worthless, which, by chance, was the case now. Bruce,
Pearce, the doctor and the seven servants set to work and emptied in
regular order the buckets into the sea. Lady Hester, to whom a little
air of danger was attractive, encouraged them by voice and gesture and
distributed wine, which was of more value. Day broke; the sea was of a
leaden hue, the sky of a dirty grey. The Greeks threw themselves into
the bottom of the boat, calling upon all the saints of Christianity:
"_Panagia mou! Panagia mou_!" but taking good care not to put into
action the useful proverb: "Aid thyself, Heaven will aid thee!" The
south-western point of Rhodes appeared; the vessel no longer answered to
her helm; through the rent which had grown wider the water was entering
with a sinister gurgle, weighing down the ship which, like a great gull
wounded unto death, was leaning in an alarming manner and was lying on
its side. The masts cracked. Then the master--who was no use except to
shout--roared in a voice of thunder:
"Launch the cutter."
Rush of twenty-five persons. The doctor had still the presence of mind
to run and fetch his fees hidden in the cabin. The wind tossed the
little vessel about like the parings of an onion; waves covered her
incessantly, and the doctor found that there were a great many "tubs"
for one man.
The last hope of the shipwrecked was a rock half a mile away. By dint of
efforts and of savage struggles for life, they reached the reef. It was
not, however, the refuge they had longed for. The seas swept the greater
part of it; a narrow excavation was the only sheltered spot. Lady Hester
and her maid established themselves there as their right. Night came. No
water, except the waterspouts which the sky cast down without counting,
no provisions! At midnight, the wind having fallen a little, the master
suggested that he should go with the crew to fetch help from Rhodes,
adding that, if everyone wanted to come, he would answer for nothing.
Willingly or unwillingly, Lady Hester and her friends allowed them to
go, making them promise to light a fire so soon as they reached the
land. In what bitter reflections did the unfortunates indulge as they
shivered there in the darkness, rinsed by the waves, lashed by the rain,
buffeted by the wind, stupefied by the moaning voices of the raging sea!
The doctor, as he tightened his belt by a hole, did not rail against
those brutes of Greeks. At last a flame perforated the night. Then
nothing more. A timid sun succeeded in piercing the curtains of clouds,
then declined towards the horizon. It was thirty hours since the
shipwrecked had eaten anything. The doctor was sure that these brutes
had abandoned them without remorse. Suddenly, the piercing sight of Lady
Hester descried a black speck which finally became a boat. The
calumniated crew, with the exception of the master, who had preferred to
direct the rescue from a distance, was returning, bringing bread, cheese
and water. But the sailors had consoled themselves abundantly on land
with arrack; they were drunk, and their insolence increased every
minute. All the alcohol which they had consumed rendered them
indifferent to the squalls of wind and rain which had begun again. Deaf
to the entreaties of the passengers, they decided to embark forthwith.
Lady Hester and her friends preferred to run the risk of sudden death
rather than perish slowly of inanition on that forlorn rock. They landed
safe and sound, to the general astonishment, and took refuge in a
neighbouring hamlet, miserable and leprous. Filthy houses! The English
would not have been willing to use them as pigsties. The rain penetrated
them, and the bed of manure spread on the ground exhaled a nauseating
odour. And an increasing invasion of shaggy rats and of voracious fleas!
The doctor set out for Rhodes in all haste in order to bring back money
and provisions. The bey received him very badly, though it is true that
the doctor cut a very sorry figure in his garments of a rescued
traveller. Meantime, Lady Hester, who had endeavoured to leave the hovel
in which she was stranded, had fallen ill on the way. She had nothing by
way of luggage except General Moore's miniature, a snuff-box given her
by Lord Sligo, and two pelisses. Precious souvenirs, no doubt, but of no
utility. The consul, who was an old man of seventy-five, was unable to
do anything for them, and the bey pretended to be so poor that, after
having granted them thirty pounds, he begged them not to trouble him
further. Thirty pounds! It was little for eleven persons naked and
famished.
The loss the most irreparable was that of the medicine chest. Finally,
however, everything was arranged. Lady Hester, whose adventurous
character accommodated itself to the unexpected, praised the Turks
warmly: "I do not know how it is done, but I am always at ease with them
and I obtain all that I ask for. As for the Greeks, it is quite
different; they are cheats, cheats...." The doctor had made a good
recruit.
Lady Hester, who resigned herself to the misadventures of the others as
readily as she did to her own, wrote, in speaking of Bruce, Pearce and
Meryon, to one of her friends: "They are quite well; they have saved
nothing from the wreck; but do not imagine that we are melancholy, at
any rate, for we have all danced, myself included, the Pyrrhic dance
with the peasants of the villages which were on our way!" What an
exceptional character! A woman who has lost all her trunks and who
dances the Pyrrhic dance!
The doctor, who had been despatched on a confidential mission to Smyrna,
to bring back money, without which one can do nothing in the Orient, and
clothes, without which one can go nowhere, returned with boxes and
coffers.
Lady Hester, Bruce and Pearce threw themselves upon him like children
and arrayed themselves as fancy dictated. They donned magnificent and
strange costumes, which seemed to form part of a vast Turkish emporium.
The doctor completed his accoutrement by thrusting a yataghan through
his girdle.
Lady Hester, finding herself very much at her ease with her Turkish
robe, her turban and her burnous, decreed that she should travel thus
henceforth. And the wearing of this masculine costume was to remove many
difficulties in permitting her to move everywhere with her face
uncovered. From his stay in Rhodes the doctor preserved two principal
recollections: first, that the English raise the cost of living wherever
they go; next, that the women of the island weave very durable silk
shirts, which can be worn for three years without tearing them.
Captain Henry Hope, commanding the frigate _Salsette_, in the harbour of
Smyrna, having learned of Lady Hester's shipwreck, came to fetch her to
convey her to Egypt. At the beginning of February, 1812, the _Salsette_
entered the port of Alexandria. Colonel Misset, the English Resident,
was full of kindness and attentions; he laughed till the tears came into
his eyes at the singular costumes of the travellers and gave them advice
as to their behaviour. Lady Hester took a violent dislike to the town.
"The place is hideous," said she twenty-four hours after her arrival;
"and if all Egypt resembles it, I feel that I shall not stay there
long."
The French occupation was remembered by everyone, but the Christians of
Alexandria had peculiar taste and coldly confessed their preference for
Turkish rule. What a difference between the justice meted out by the
French and that by the Turks! With the cadi, when a man was accused of
murder, the case was not protracted. He was confronted with the
witnesses, and then and there he was either released, or imprisoned, or
bastinadoed or executed. If he were thrown into prison, the amount of
compensation was immediately fixed, at five, ten, one hundred piastres,
according to the importance of the victim and the means of the assassin.
The latter circumvented influential friends; it was necessary for the
friends to be influential.
"Come," said they, "a thousand piastres, between us, if you say a word
for him."
They made discreet inquiries of the Governor's mistress for the time
being, whom a diamond ring persuaded to intercede for the unfortunate
man. Entreated on the right, supplicated on the left, solicited at the
baths, tormented in his harem, harpooned by some, harassed by others,
the Governor ended by demanding mercy, remitted the fine and released
the prisoner. At any rate, they knew what to expect; it was clear,
plain, precise, if not just. While with the French--Oh! There now! A
poor little crime of no importance at all dragged on for months, for
years.... And how could you expect that a lawsuit would not be
perpetuated when there were so many notaries, so many attorneys, so many
advocates, clerks, registrars and scribes interested in prolonging.
Lady Hester proceeded to Rosetta--town with this charming name, guarded
by its ramparts of red bricks and its groves of palm-trees, from where
she intended to ascend the course of the Nile so far as Cairo. She hired
two boats, and the wonderful voyage began. Wide, powerful, calm,
impressive and deep, it was truly the king of rivers, the river which
gives life, the river which saves.... Flotillas of earthen jars tied
together by branches followed the current of the stream. _Kanjes_
bearing beehives, piled up in the form of pyramids, descended slowly.
They were the bees which had flown to meet the spring, and which, having
left two months earlier for the plains of Upper Egypt, where the
sainfoin and the clover were already ripening, were now returning with
their golden booty towards the Delta. The travellers met innumerable
barges with curved prows and rafts laden with big restless oxen. At the
villages they revictualled in flour, eggs and poultry. They took their
meals on board and the days slipped by like hours. Sometimes the banks
were high and the water very low, and curious persons landed to get a
view of the land. They returned very quickly towards the boat,
disappointed by the sadness and the monotony of the immense plains with
their trifling undulations, rebuffed by the hostile reception of the
hamlets: mass of mud, huts of loam, labyrinth of alleys where the foot
slips in dried camel-dung, headlong flight of the women who hide
themselves, squalling of children at the maternal heels, grumbling of
fellahs suspecting the tax-gatherers, baying of dogs, putrid odour which
rises from beings and things which decomposition lies in wait for.
The Arabs say that if Mahomet had tasted the water of the Nile, he would
have wished to remain in this world to drink it. But the doctor
preserved his preference for the growths of France, nay, even for the
resinous wines of Chio.
At Boulak the voyage stopped. The harbour was swarming with those tiny
donkey-drivers who make such incredible charges. Shaking their saddles
with the tall pummels decorated with tassels, mirrors and pendants,
waving their glass trinkets, decked out, ornamented, like shrines, their
mischievous eyes watching the customer, making ready to rush so soon as
they catch sight of a Turkish soldier, whose stern countenance implies
an empty purse (an astute trick of their masters!), they hailed in our
travellers a fine windfall.
Scarcely was Lady Hester installed with Bruce in a house at Cairo than
she prepared for her visit to the pacha. She adopted for this solemn
occasion a Berber costume, of which the wild magnificence suited her
proud and independent demeanour. Trousers of dazzling silk laminated
with gold, heavy robe of purplish velvet ornamented with rude and
sumptuous embroidery, shawl of cashmere forming turban and girdle, sabre
with hilt encrusted with precious stones. It had cost her more than
£300. Bruce treated himself to a sword worth 1000 piastres. As for the
doctor, he was satisfied with the modest apparel of an Effendi.
The Pacha sent five horses richly caparisoned in the Mameluke fashion,
on which Lady Hester and her suite mounted to go to the palace. They
alighted only in the second court.
Mehemet Ali, who had never seen Englishwomen, was greatly delighted at
this interview, and awaited his fair visitor in a pavilion in the midst
of the gardens of the harem. He rose to go to meet her and made her sit
on divans of scarlet satin which were covered with precious
filigree-work. Mosaics rambled over the open walls, singing all the
gamut of blues: warm blues, blues deep and velvety, mauve blues, blues
with reflections of silver. Stained-glass windows muffled the light
received by the transparent enamels and arabesques of gold where slept
dead turquoises, monstrous rubies and emeralds. A jet of water fell back
weeping into a shining basin.
Black slave girls handed crystal cups in which slowly dissolved sherbets
made of pistachio-nuts. Lady Hester refused the pipe which was offered
her; she was later on to smoke like a stove. By the aid of an
interpreter, Mehemet Ali, who was a man of slight figure and richly
dressed, talked with her for nearly an hour. This magnificent specimen
of the English race was to fill him with admiration for a country which
produced such women. Fascinated by her abnormal dimensions, attracted by
the strength, the determination and the will which could be read on her
haughty features, he compared her mentally to those comical beings who
peopled his harem and asked himself if humanity were not composed of
men, women and Englishwomen--an intermediary sex. Moreover, he reviewed
his troops before her and made her a present of a magnificent Arab
stallion. However, the handsome Mamelukes so celebrated had disappeared
in the horrible massacre of the preceding year. Abdah Bey, who was the
flower of the Court, was unwilling to be behindhand and presented her
with a thoroughbred. These two horses were sent later to England: one to
the Duke of York, for whom Lady Hester had retained a kindly preference,
the other to Viscount Ebrington, under the care of the servant Ibrahim.
Bruce was not forgotten in this exchange of compliments and received a
sabre and a cashmere.
The spring advanced, the amusements multiplied: opening of a mummy and
extraction of a tooth in a perfect state of preservation by a French
surgeon--foolish diversion!--Egyptian dancing-girls, excursions to the
Pyramids of Gizeh under the escort of the Mamelukes.
At length, on May 11, 1812, the faithful friends of Lady Hester: Bruce
and Pearce, who took a liking to the adventure, the doctor--who
regretted already the amber-coloured Egyptian women, moulded in their
chemises of blue cotton, Venuses tanned by the sting of a too ardent
sun--embarked at Damietta for Palestine, for Jerusalem. Two French
Mamelukes, as bodyguards, with their syces, the English lady's-maid, a
groom, three men-servants, a porter, followed.
And all this company was not too much to transport the six great green
tents decorated with flowers, the numerous chests of palm-wood, light and
tough, which contained all the outfit of the caravan to replace what had
disappeared in the shipwreck off Rhodes.