Mode of Life of Lady Hester Stanhope--Imaginary treasures of
Gezzàr Pasha--Road to the Convent of Mar Elias--Description of
the Convent--Village of Abra--Interior of a cottage--Poverty
of the people--Change in the character of Lady Hester--Abra
purchased by a Greek Patriarch--Revenues--Tenure of
land--Occupations of the peasantry--Herdsmen--Village
overseer--Notions of propriety in the behaviour of
females--Dread of the plague--Precautions against the infection
suggested by Lady Hester to the Emir Beshýr--Visit of the
Shaykh Beshýr to Abra--Good breeding of the Turks--Greek
monasteries--The patriarch Macarius--M. Boutin--Hanýfy,
a female slave sent to Lady Hester--Specification of her
qualities--Discovery of an ancient sepulchre--Paintings in
it copied by Mr. Bankes, and by the Author--Various forms of
sepulchres.
We are now arrived at a new period in Lady Hester’s peregrinations, in
which, from a traveller, she becomes a sojourner in a strange land;
and, abandoning Europe and its customs altogether, conforms herself
entirely to the modes of life of the Orientals. Not that it is clear
whether she was fixed in such a determination at first; but, unwilling
to return to England, with which country she had become, for several
reasons, disgusted, and, finding no other on the Continent sufficiently
quiet to insure a permanent asylum, she thought she would remain
some time longer in Syria, where, looking down on the world from the
top of Mount Lebanon, she might calmly contemplate its follies and
vicissitudes, neither mixed up with the one, nor harassed by the other.
The state of retirement in which we now lived gave me time to turn my
attention more particularly to a consideration of the geographical
conformation of the country. A traveller, newly arrived in Syria, or
passing hastily through it, will find much difficulty in doing this:
for, although there are many prominent features to guide him, he will
necessarily have few books, and perhaps only a bad map or two to
refer to;[84] and he will sometimes seek in vain for the divisions of
provinces, for the precise termination of mountains, for the course of
rivers occasionally dried up, or for the sites of cities now overgrown
with grass, which are placed on paper so distinctly; besides which his
inquiries will always be impeded or stopped by the ignorance of those
through or to whom he is necessarily obliged to direct them.
A general notion of Syria can be obtained from no author better than
from Abulfeda, an impartial writer, dwelling in it, and distinguished
for his knowledge on the subject. His words are, “Syria is a
magnificent country, rich in its productions, blessed with fertility,
adorned with gardens, woods, meadows, valleys, and mountains, watered
by rivers, abundant in vegetables, game, flocks, and domestic animals.
It is seasonably refreshed and fertilized by annual rains, and bears on
its mountains perpetual snows.”
Strabo divides Syria into four provinces--Seleucia, Phœnicia, Palestine
(subdivided into Galilee, Samaria, and Judea), and Cœle-Syria.
Cœle-Syria was either Proper, or Common. Proper Cœle-Syria seems (for
there is some confusion in the account) to have comprehended those
extensive vales, embosomed between Mount Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon,
and the best demarcation of which is by following the course of the
river Leontes, or the modern Casmya, up between the modern provinces
of Shkyf and Bsharra, and the valley of the Bkâ, and by continuing on
with the course of the Orontes down to Antioch; then the country to
the right and left of these two rivers included between the mountains
will be Cœle-Syria Proper. Common Cœle-Syria consisted of the plains
spreading out towards Hems and Hamah to the north, and towards Damascus
to the south, cut off from the sea-coast by the intervention of
great mountains: whilst that slip of land between the mountains and
sea-coast, running the whole length of Syria, from Antioch down to
the river Eleutherus, or the modern Nahr el Kebýr,[85] is Seleucia;
Phœnicia, thence to the Promontorium Album, or modern Ras el Nakûra;
and Palestine from the Nakûra, down to the sandy Desert, which divides
it from Egypt: or by another division, Strabo makes Phœnicia to extend
from the river Eleutherus down to Damietta, and Palestine to be a
district of it.
It was also probable that there was another motive which induced Lady
Hester to delay yet awhile her departure. Among the many stories which
were related of the celebrated Pasha el Gezzàr, one was, that he had
amassed immense wealth, and, having in his lifetime hid it under
ground, had disappointed the Porte at his death in the acquisition of
it. She was possessed with the idea that she had obtained a clue to the
discovery of some of his treasures, and she had applied to the Turkish
government (as it was afterwards known) for permission to dig for them.
This I conceive to have been one main reason for her stay.
In the mean time, as for myself, my thoughts would often involuntarily
turn towards England, and then the prospect of a long residence in the
Levant somewhat disquieted me. But I banished these anticipations;
determined that no trivial cause should make me leave her ladyship
alone and unprotected in so distant a country. Not that my presence
could add materially to her safety; for there never was a person
who relied more on his own resources than she did; besides, gloomy
reflections could take no hold of an individual in this fine climate;
for they were forgotten as soon as he emerged from the house into the
air, where the inspiration of the balmy atmosphere and the scenes which
surrounded him always begat cheerful sensations.
The day after our arrival at Sayda, I rode up to the monastery, in
which we were to reside. I had never seen it before, not having
been with Lady Hester and Mr. B. when the French consul had led
them to it, during their former visit to Sayda. On quitting the
city gate, we passed through several hedged lanes, between orchards
and gardens filled with trees which shrink from the cold blasts of
northern climates. Oranges were as thick on the branches as apples
are accustomed to grow; and the broad leaf of the banana tree, which
flourishes in great vigour hereabout, was an object singularly
striking. The hedges were in most places rendered almost impenetrable
by the prickly leaf of the cactus indicus.
At the distance of half a mile we came to the skirts of the gardens, at
the foot of Mount Lebanon. It was not very steep, and about a quarter
of a mile brought us to the top of the first hill, where we looked
down before us into a deep valley; then, carrying our eyes up on the
opposite mountain, we descried a low building, which I was told was
the monastery. The descent was rugged, but the asses are accustomed to
mountains. The soil was bare, rocky, and apparently sterile; and here
and there an olive or a fig-tree was the only thing which it seemed
capable of nourishing. In ascending on the opposite side, the path,
over a loamy soil, was so slippery from recent rains, that I dismounted
and walked up, as the ass could not make good his footing.
[Illustration: CONVENT OF MAR ELIAS.]
On arriving at the monastery, I found it to be a quadrangular stone
building, of one story, with flat roofs or terraces, according to the
custom of the country, enclosing a small square paved court, which
had a little mould in the centre, with a few flowers, and two small
orange trees. The rooms were as neat as whitewashed walls could make
them, but without chairs or tables; and in one or two was a long sofa
bench of solid masonry against the wall on one side only. There was a
small chapel attached to the south-east corner, with an altar in it.
A discolouration in one of the walls, in which a staircase ran up to
the roof, led me to inquire what it was; when the servant told me that
the late patriarch was buried there, seated in an arm-chair. Although
his body was said to have been embalmed, it smelt most offensively;
and I anticipated that this unusual burial would give rise to many
ghost-stories. This chapel is dedicated to St. Elias, whose name the
building bears, being called Dayr Mar Elias, or the Monastery of St.
Elias, although I could not learn that, within the memory of any one,
it had served for anything but the residence of the patriarch of the
Greek schismatics, or of the bishop of Sayda: nor were the rooms in any
respect adapted for the cells of friars.
The situation is picturesque, but lonely and barren, on the top of
a mountain without verdure, surrounded on every side with mountains
equally sterile; excepting a few olive and mulberry trees on a shelving
bank at the back of the building, which were not to be come at but
by a circuitous path, or by leaping down a perpendicular rock of
twenty feet. Though now on Mount Lebanon, where the imagination of the
reader will supply him with umbrageous cedars at every step, fiction
alone could throw their shade over Dayr Mar Elias. From its elevated
situation, the monastery commands a most extensive view of the sea,
from which it is distant in a straight line about two miles. But the
sea, on the Syrian coast, is only a vast waste, where small craft are
seen coasting before the wind, and now and then a three-masted vessel
in the distance. The magnificent spectacle of a passing fleet, so
common in the British Channel, is here unknown.
I found that, during the late rains, the roofs had leaked, and some of
our baggage had been damaged. This was an unpromising prospect for the
new residence; and several repairs, which were absolutely requisite
to render the rooms habitable, must necessarily retard Lady Hester’s
removal from Sayda some weeks. The four sides of the quadrangle were
not equally commodious. On the west were three good rooms, convertible
into saloons or bed-rooms; so that one as a drawing-room, one as her
ladyship’s bed-room, and one for her maid, occupied the whole of that
side. The north side was made up of a kitchen, a kelár or store-room,
and a corner room, in which the patriarch had died. The east side had
three small rooms, and an oil and wine cellar; and, as it had already
been decided that two of these were to be converted into a vapour
bath, the dwelling became reduced to five rooms. This confined space
rendered it necessary for me to look out for a cottage for myself in
the village, which was a quarter of a mile off, on somewhat higher
ground than the monastery: I therefore rode to it. Its name is Abrah,
or Abra. I little thought, on first beholding it, that I was destined
to spend there nearly three years of my life.
Abra consisted of forty cottages, each of one story, and of the rudest
construction. The cement for the unhewn stones, of which they were
built, was mud from the road. Rough trunks of poplars or other slight
trees formed the beams for the roofs, which were flat, and made in the
following manner. Over the trunks were laid rough stakes for rafters,
over these brushwood, and the coating was common loam, rolled and
trodden down, until it resisted in some degree the passage of wet: but
there were few roofs that appeared to be waterproof. Within, the walls
were covered with a rough plaster of mould and water without lime, and
this was whitewashed.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A SYRIAN COTTAGE: WOMEN GRINDING CORN.]
I entered the best cottage in the village. It consisted of a single
room. One end of it was occupied by two cows and an ass, the other
end, somewhat raised, by the family. The floor was of yellow clay,
beaten down to hardness. In the middle of the room was a small plaster
fireplace, about the size of a chafing-dish; the door and windows
served for chimneys. Three or four unbaked earthen jars, as big as
tubs, stood in a corner to contain wheat, barley, rice, figs, &c.;
a jar for water; a spinning-wheel; a wheel for winding off cotton;
a couple of copper saucepans; a handmill, to grind corn; with a mat
spread on the ground to sit on, formed the furniture and utensils of
the family, which consisted of a stout man, a pretty woman, her mother
with two children, and the grandmother. The walls of the rooms had
holes through them, high up, to let in the air; and, on a level with
the waist, were small recesses which served for putting away a dish, a
saucepan, or a drinking jug. Cupboards there were none; one chest alone
seemed to be sacred from the examination of any one. There was a bed
rolled up, but I discovered afterwards that the peasantry very seldom
had more than a cotton quilted coverlet, sleeping in their clothes.
Few have a change of their outward dress, although I had occasion
afterwards to observe that they were more particular than English
peasants in changing the linen next their skin.
The inhabitants of Abra were Greek Catholics. The village perhaps is
more pleasantly situate than the monastery. It had several plantations
of mulberry trees for silkworms, and of fig-trees. It is in the
division called Aklým-el-Tafâh, in the district of Gebâa, where one Ali
Aga resided at this time, as motsellem or governor. Though close to the
coast, and belonging, as a part of Ali Aga’s district, to the pashalik
of Acre, the peasants rather clung to the Emir of the Drûzes.
The patriarch owned two-thirds of the village. The villagers seemed
very poor. They had not even coffee to offer, which I never yet had
found wanting anywhere. Tobacco, from an old pipe and a still older
bag, seemed their only indulgence. When I told the owner of the cottage
that I was under the necessity of turning him out of his home, he
said he was willing to comply, if I would bring him an order from the
patriarch, his master, to that effect, and that he would soon build
himself another.
As I returned to Sayda, in descending the steep hill close under the
monastery or dayr, I observed a spring of clear water, running from a
stone lip in a stream not larger than my thumb; and this, I was told,
supplied the village and monastery. Close by was a cave, formerly a
sepulchre, as the recesses in the bottom and sides, still visible,
denoted. In it were several naked female peasants, who were washing
themselves with water from the spring. Though the path was within forty
yards of them, they did nothing but turn their backs, and squat on
their haunches until I had passed by.
The masons were sent up to Mar Elias, and the repairs were begun
immediately: but it was the middle of February before the house was
ready for Lady Hester’s reception; the building of a bath having more
especially occupied a great deal of time. Masons, carpenters, and
workmen of that class in these countries give infinitely more trouble
than they do in England. There it is necessary for their employer
himself to purchase every article they stand in need of. The mason, for
example, says he wants so much lime, so much powdered pottery, so many
tiles, &c.; all these are to be sought out and bargained for by the
employer. The mason, indeed, would take the trouble off your hands, but
he requires money in advance, and cheats besides.
Lady Hester was but indifferently lodged in the French caravansery,
where Damiani’s house was. Her spirits seemed lately to have been
somewhat depressed by her protracted illnesses. She had a relapse
of her ague, and was again confined to her room. To increase her
sufferings, her maid Mrs. Fry was attacked with a most violent
dysentery, which threatened her life: she, however, recovered slowly
under my hands. All communication with the French consul was dropped,
as also with every person in Sayda. Just at this time, M. Beaudin was
attacked with a paralytic affection, which deprived him of the use of
his limbs and speech. My troubles were now at their height. However, by
the end of January, Lady Hester felt strength enough to ride out into
the gardens; and never shall I forget this, as it were, her new return
to life. From that time her character changed deeply. She became simple
in her habits, almost to cynicism. She showed, in her actions and her
conversation, a mind severe indeed, but powerfully vigorous. Scanning
men and things with a wonderful intelligence, she commented upon
them as if the motives of human actions were open to her inspection.
Sometimes she looked into futurity like the sybil of old; and, as she
reasoned on the great changes which were taking place in Europe, she
scattered her prophetic leaves, which, as subsequent events have shown,
may almost be supposed to be the effect of inspiration.[86]
I endeavoured to collect such information respecting the taxes and
revenue of the village of Abra as might illustrate the general nature
of property in Mount Lebanon. It was not so easy to do this as might at
first be imagined: for the peasants and more particularly the bailiff
of the village (or Kûly, as he is called in Arabic) fancied that Lady
Hester had an intention of purchasing it of the patriarch. And, as the
thing was desirable for them, on account of the increased opportunities
which must necessarily occur for cheating, they were apt to answer my
inquiries as best suited their purpose of inducing her to buy. The
population amounted to about forty families, most of them descendants
of peasants who had for generations inhabited the same spot. The man
who for twenty years only had been settled in the village was still
looked on, when disputes called forth the expression of any spiteful
remarks, as an alien. I have heard a woman, with scarcely a rag on her
back, when quarrelling with another, cite the respectability of her
descent from ancestors established time immemorial in Abra.
The village of Abra was bought by a patriarch of the Greek Catholics,
not many years before our arrival in Syria, from a Drûze family, whose
property it was. As far as I could gather, it cost him eighteen purses,
£450 sterling. I could not learn its extent in acres; but the whole
of the land belonging to it produced eighteen gararas of corn, a
garara being equal to seventy-two mids, each mid equal to a gallon or
thereabouts.
Abra, being a limitrophe village, bordering on the Metûaly district
to the south, on the Drûze district to the east and north, and on the
parish of Sayda to the west, seemed to share in the vexations of all
three governments. To the motsellem of Gebâa it paid two hundred and
forty-five piasters a year, which was the miri of the land: to the Emir
Beshýr two hundred piasters a-year, the miri of the houses: to the
governor of Sayda one hundred and fifty piasters a-year. These sums
were collected by the kûly or shaykh at stated periods, and delivered
to the persons respectively claiming them.
The patriarch received, as yearly rent of the houses, from five to ten
piasters each. Thus, when I threw two cottages into one, I paid for
two as though not consolidated. The tenant made all repairs, excepting
when the main beam of the ceiling broke, which was supplied by the
proprietor.
The proprietor received of whatever grew from the leaf a half: as, of
tobacco, figs, oil, mulberry leaves for feeding silkworms (which last
two were commuted for a certain portion of the products, viz., silk
and oil) and a quarter of all kinds of corn. Besides these certain
receipts, he had incidental ones on particular occasions, and certain
perquisites: all which may be put down as follows:
piasters.
Corn, eight gararas, 800
Each time the patriarch had a festival, as at Easter
and Christmas, the peasants presented him with
eggs and fowls, valued at 40
Work done for the patriarch by the peasants gratis
always on Sundays 50
Green corn or other pasture allowed him for his
cattle 15
Oil, one quintal (worth three hundred piasters)
half the produce 150
Tobacco 100
Silk, five rotolos from the leaves growing in the
village, and eight rotolos from leaves bought
in the gardens of Sayda, at eighty piasters the
rotolo, makes one thousand and forty piasters--half
of which is 520
Rent for houses, forty one families at seven and
a half piasters each house, 300
----
1975
The patriarch therefore had here a gain of thirteen hundred and
eighty-nine piasters, or about £68 per annum. There were of course
other sources of gain, with which I was not acquainted, and I may have
even underrated the different products which I have enumerated.
I could never clearly understand the nature of the tenure of the land
and other property. Thus the patriarch was the proprietor of the houses
and could build or pull them down, or eject a tenant from them, when he
liked. All trees, not bearing fruit, seemed to be his: for, whenever
the peasants were in want of a rafter or joist, it was necessary to
apply to the kûly for permission to cut. Yet, in those bearing fruit,
as olive or mulberry trees, the peasants had a right of possession, and
of transmission to their children; of which I saw repeated examples.
With regard to the soil, that, too, was not the patriarch’s; for each
family would speak of certain pieces of land as belonging to them.
Still it was odd that, when Lady Hester wanted a field any where for
sowing or for any other use, it was always given to her, let her have
cast her eye on what piece she would. I concluded therefore that the
purchaser of a village became the proprietor of the tithe, rather
than the possessor of the soil, which was partitioned into smaller or
greater farms or estates, as prosperity and adversity appropriated or
alienated it, by purchase or sale, from man to man.[87]
A small village like Abra, away from any high road, was seldom visited
by strangers. Occasionally, a pedlar selling soap, kadámy, or parched
peas, and a little halàwy or sweetmeat, would pass through, crying his
wares: for the purchase of which he would receive money, or, in default
of it, eggs, or chickens, which he resold, in the towns, to advantage.
Sometimes a pauper, after begging from house to house, would sleep
through the night in the village tanûr or oven, a favourite lodging
both in towns and villages for the wretched.[88]
The life which these peasants lead is simple enough. At sunrise the
husband goes to his field to plough, or sow, or reap, or plant his
tobacco, or to cut leaves for his silkworms. The women wash, bake,
grind at the handmill, feed the silkworms, gather the figs, the
olives, and, if _fathy_, as they call it, or having nothing to
do, they spin. Were I desired to describe a peasant woman in her most
customary occupation, I should represent her as seated at the door of
her cottage, spinning with a hand-spindle, and having a long cane lying
by her side to drive away the chickens, which she talks to and scolds
as if they were children, giving to each a name. When at the tanûr,
baking, she gossips. She generally cooks once in the twenty-four hours,
for the evening repast, to which her husband returns when his day’s
work is over.
Midwifery at Abra was entirely in the hands of women.[89] A woman
lay-in of her first child soon after I came to the village. She
was half an hour in labour. All the married females of the village
assembled on the occasion, and they instructed her how to act in her
new situation. She was placed in the chair used on these occasions,
a sketch of which I have annexed, having caused it to be brought to
me for that purpose, and having thought it sufficiently curious to
interest the Scriptural reader, who might find in it the explanation of
a passage otherwise not quite intelligible.[90]
[Illustration: MIDWIFERY CHAIR.]
A rope was made fast to the ceiling, by which the woman held, and
hauled on it during her travail: at the same time the bystanders
supported her under her armpits.[91]
It has occurred to all travellers, among people styled uncivilized, to
observe with how much less pain and trouble the process of gestation
and parturition goes on than among ourselves and other so called
polished nations: as also how little care is bestowed on women during
the days succeeding childbirth in comparison with the nursing they are
said to require with us. But, what is more extraordinary still, such
women, so neglected, seem to be less liable to bad accidents than those
over whose welfare, physicians, midwives, nurses, and fond and foolish
husbands, have watched with tender and unremitting anxiety. Does not
this, or ought it not at least, to awake some doubts in our mind, as to
which party pursues the right method; and whether over-officious zeal
in some and mercenary motives in others have not tended to make of a
natural act a very complicated and artificial one? for otherwise it
would imply a defect of wisdom in our Creator to have left the great
work of peopling the earth subject to the control and help of man.
There are daily examples occurring of parturient women, whether with a
view to hide their shame arising from a guilty connection, or whether
from accident of warfare, or navigation, who are left without aid from
their own sex or obstetrical assistance from the other: yet they bring
their offspring into the world in safety, and are often observed to
recover from this (certainly) painful act, quicker than if delivered
by the rules of art. But these are partial and individual instances,
and are nothing in the account with whole nations, where the office of
accoucheur or midwife is hardly known, and where women think no more
of bringing a child into the world, than of the maturation of a boil,
which, when ripened, will heal and discharge its contents as a matter
of course.
In a cold climate, and among a disgusting people, Dr. Clarke in
his travels in Scandinavia (p. 403) says--“The journeys with raids
(sledges) are of course liable to danger and to the utmost degree of
fatigue: yet women, far advanced in pregnancy, are often the drivers;
and such is their easy labour in parturition, that childbirth hardly
occasions any interruption to the progress of the raid.”
In England, the causes of unfavourable gestation and parturition,
together with the subsequent danger to which women are supposed to be
liable, I consider to be, first, stays; secondly, neglect of exercise
and its consequences in impeded functions of the bowels; thirdly,
the medicating of sickness; fourthly, unnecessary interference of
accoucheurs; fifthly, heated rooms and the want of fresh air; sixthly,
hurried and forced delivery; seventhly, hot beds; eighthly, unnecessary
and prolonged confinement.
As there were no enclosed fields in the country, cattle turned out
to graze were tended by a herdsman. Hence the place of herdsman to a
village was of some importance in the eyes of the peasants, and was
annually assigned to a man of approved vigilance. For this service
he received by the year, from each owner of a pair of oxen, one mid
and a half of wheat; for sheep and asses something less; and thus
in proportion for all animals that graze. Every day, when daylight
appeared, he walked through the village, and each cottager drove out
of his cottage-stable his ass, goats, or oxen, which he purposed
to send to pasture that day. The herd was thus assembled, and the
herdsman, called in Arabic _râay_, conducts them afield, taking
care to prevent them from straying into corn-fields, vineyards, and
the like. For such trespasses he was fined according to the decision
of the _natûr_ (or overseer) of the village. The natûr was always
known by a stout stick, which he carried about with him; and his chief
employ was to patrole day and night through the corn fields, orchards,
vineyards, &c., to see that no damage was done.
Women seldom mixed in public diversions. On one occasion, after I had
resided some time in the village, and was in some degree looked up to,
Butrûs, a peasant, came running into my cottage, with a stick in his
hand, and out of breath. “For God’s sake,” (cried he) “there is my
niece, Mariam, in the street, among a parcel of strange men, skipping
about to a fellow who is beating a drum;--do interpose, sir, and send
her away. The village will get a bad name, and they will say of her
that Bint Sulyba (the daughter of Sulyba) is a street-walker.” This
anecdote will serve to show the kind of demeanour which was expected in
women, even of the lowest class, and in a small village. In France, an
itinerant piper, in a similar place, would have all the lads and lasses
dancing around him, and the old folks looking on.
It was about the 20th of February, 1814, that Lady Hester took
possession of the monastery of Mar Elias, and I of my cottage at
Abra. I had added to it a second cottage for a servants’ room, opened
a larger door, and endeavoured to make it habitable. Lady Hester’s
establishment was now very much reduced. As Beaudin recovered but
slowly, she hired for a time, as interpreter, the same Damiani whose
house we had inhabited.[92] Pierre was gone home to Dayr el Kamar, and
had sent down as cook in his place a woman named Um Risk, who remained,
as it will afterwards be seen, three years with her ladyship. Mariam
had gone back to Latakia, and Stefano, who was in love with her, had
followed her. I might be accused of inserting very frivolous details,
were it not that the domestic incidents which, in travelling in Europe,
would be but a counterpart of what occurs in every man’s family every
day, are here often novel, and always serve to render the picture of
Turkish manners more complete. Lady Hester had no horses and no grooms:
she rode out daily on a small ass, and was now fast recovering from the
debility which successive illnesses had brought upon her.
In the mean time, people were busy in their conjectures as to the
reappearance of plague. It had not discontinued raging at Damascus,
and St. Jean d’Acre was said to be newly infected. Every reason led
to suppose that it would reappear at Sayda this year: we accordingly
prepared for it in the manner usual in the country. In times of
insecurity, whether from plague or insurrection, or any other cause,
the markets were in part or entirely shut up, and he who had not had
the precaution to provide against such contingencies found himself
sorely straitened. It is with this view that annually a store is
made, sufficient for the year’s consumption, by every family that can
afford it. About two hundred head of poultry were bought, with some
sheep and lambs; rice, flour, wheat, figs, raisins, in fact everything
that could be called dry stores, was laid in, enough for six or eight
months, with oil, butter, candles, soap, &c. Thus provided, it was
considered that, in a spot so retired, and so out of everybody’s way,
we could not very easily be exposed to danger. We were precisely like
the crew of a well-victualled ship at sea: we had everything necessary
within the walls; with this advantage, that instead of salt beef and
hard biscuit we had abundance of fresh provisions. Individually, I
must confess I did not look forward to this confinement with much
satisfaction. Solitude is no disagreeable thing with a good library:
rather otherwise; but books were not to be procured; Lady Hester never
had any, and I had lost mine in the shipwreck.
Endowed with a very active mind, and convinced that neglect alone of
many common precautions against the introduction of the plague caused
the loss of a great number of lives, her ladyship bethought herself
of writing to the Emir Beshýr, to advise him how to guard against its
encroachments. She considered that the establishment of a patrole,
which should watch all the outlets of the mountain, would be sufficient
to keep out persons suspected of infection; and she suggested that
a post should be established, as in Europe, by which all letters
should be transmitted to and from the mountain, subject, in every
direction where danger lay, to be fumigated or immersed in vinegar.
Some correspondence passed on this subject, and M. Beaudin was sent
to explain what was not clearly understood; but nothing was adopted
otherwise than had been customary in former cases. It is not unusual
for Europeans, impressed with the notion that the Turks are an ignorant
people, to offer them advice on many subjects, which, after all, are
connected with a country with whose government, manners, usages, and
climate they are unacquainted, and in which they arrive as strangers.
A month passed away at the monastery without any particular occurrence.
I built a wall round my cottage, as a farther protection against danger
from the plague, in imitation of Lady Hester, who had built one round
her residence. The rains had occasionally been very violent, and the
roofs of two cottages fell in from the additional weight given by a
thorough soaking to the mould with which they were covered. There was
not a roof in the village that was not leaky.
It will be recollected that, two years before, Lady Hester paid a visit
to the Shaykh Beshýr, the chief of the Drûzes, at Mukhtâra. It was a
custom with him to make a circuit annually through the Drûze villages,
to administer justice, correct abuses, and collect his rents. For
though, as the supreme power was vested in the emir, he could not,
properly, arrogate to himself more than the rights of a landlord, still
it would seem that, acknowledged as the second person of the mountain,
he was in fact the equal of the emir, and, acting accordingly, what he
dared not do himself, he caused to be done by his influence. For his
domains in villages, farms, orchards, vineyards, and plantations, were
always equal to those of the emir himself, and, being by religion a
Drûze, he was looked up to by that people as their lawful master.
In his tour he combined pleasure and business. He was accompanied by
about fifty attendants, on foot and on horseback, some with guns, some
with hawks and dogs, and he sported from village to village. This was
his manner: his footmen scoured the neighbouring hills, and drove the
game (chiefly red-legged partridges and antelopes) into the valleys,
through which he rode in the midst of his falconers and dogs. In the
mean time those on foot made the mountains re-echo with shouts; whilst
the horsemen occupied the sides of the hills, between the ridges where
the footmen were, and drove down the game that was started into the
valleys in which the shaykh rode, where it was hawked, or shot, or
run down by the dogs. In this way he arrived at Abra on the 20th of
March, some servants having preceded him to prepare a cottage for his
reception. A few carpets were spread over the mud floor, a cushion or
two placed against the wall for his sofa, and this was all that was
thought necessary to make him comfortable; nor had he at night a bed
to sleep on. When the shaykh was accommodated, his katibs and chief
attendants laid their hands on the next best cottages; nor did the
peasantry dare on such occasions to do otherwise than yield them up
immediately. There was, however, no confusion, and a stranger passing
through the village would not have perceived any stir more than usual.
Immediately on his arrival, the peasantry hastened to ask permission
to be admitted to tell their grievances; but, on the circuit of this
year, he confessed his dread of the plague by dispensing with the usual
custom of having the hem of his robe, or his hand, kissed by all those
who entered.
In the evening Lady Hester sent the dragoman to the shaykh with a
message, expressing her regret at not being able to see him, from
indisposition: the shaykh, in return, signified the pleasure he felt
that she had finally fixed her abode among his people. It cannot be
denied that the Orientals are well bred. His conduct on this occasion
was very delicate. Fearful that Lady Hester would think it necessary
to send him provisions for the night (as is customary on the arrival
of any great person who is travelling) he had previously ordered them
to be prepared. He was likewise exceedingly strict in commanding that,
for the accommodation of himself or his people, not the slightest
disturbance should be given to any person or thing appertaining to
Lady Hester. He left Abra on the morrow.
I occasionally rode out in the neighbourhood; and, among other places,
went to a large monastery, distant about two hours, called St.
Saviour’s, or Dayr Mkhallas. The monasteries in the mountain, of which
there are several, are generally very respectable but plain structures.
They are, for the most part, quadrangular, with vaulted cells opening
into the court, but which are arranged with little regard to symmetry.
St. Saviour’s was of the first rank, having a fraternity of fifty
friars; and, from its situation on the very top of a mountain, wears
an imposing appearance. The road to it was a rugged mule path, which
wound and turned in a way unknown in England. Within a short distance,
but with the intervention of a deep valley, was the village of Jôon,
inhabited by Christians and Metoualis.
The monasteries of the Greek Catholics are as follow:--Dayr Mkhallas
(Our Saviour’s, near Jôon), with seventy friars; Dayr Sayda (our
Lord’s) with twelve friars; Dayr el Mezairy, near Gezýn, with six
friars; Dayr Arnêk, above Dayr el Kamar, with six friars; Dayr
Aishmayeh, with five friars; Dayr Ayn el Joze (or the walnut-spring,)
in the Bkâa, with twelve friars; Dayr el Benât, (the maids’) for women,
near Dayr Mkhallas, with thirty to thirty-five nuns.
The Greek Catholics are called, indifferently, _malky_, or
_kuwetly_, of the meaning of which words I must confess myself
ignorant. They have bishops at all the cities along the coast, also at
Bâalbek, at Carah, at Nebk, &c. There is a sect of the _kuwetly_,
which goes by the name of the _Shuwarya_. The Greek Catholic monks
adopt the order of St. Basilius, and they smoke tobacco, drink wine,
and eat flesh.
[Illustration: A GREEK MONK.]
These Greek schismatics retain the dress peculiar to the monks of
the Greek Church--a felt hat without a brim, the hair of the head
unshorn, and a black woollen gown, girded with a black leather belt.
They have blue cotton drawers, and, in the winter, are allowed to
wear a coarse jacket over their gown. Their shoes are black, which,
in a country where everybody but a priest wears them yellow or red,
becomes a singularity also. There are several monasteries of these
monks in Mount Lebanon. Of these, the largest is that of St. Saviour,
near to the village of Jôon, where reside the superior-general and
the patriarch. The Maronites, with whom they are intermingled over
the mountain, and who likewise own the supremacy of the pope, hold
them nevertheless in aversion, principally, perhaps, because the Greek
Catholics are permitted by their rules to smoke, drink coffee, and
eat meat, (when not in seasons of fasting) whilst the Maronites are
interdicted from every one of these indulgences throughout the year.
There are to be found among the Malkys men of great acuteness, and
who are well versed in church learning; but the major part of them
are no better than peasants, being employed in rearing silkworms, in
ploughing land, and other works of husbandry. Such, indeed, are always
their occupations during their noviciate; and, in case they exhibit no
striking talents, for the rest of their lives also. It must be observed
that every article of food and raiment is manufactured by their own
body.
At Dayr Mkhallas resided the patriarch of the Greek Catholics,
proprietor of Dayr Mar Elias, and successor of him who died there
just before our arrival. His name was Macarius, which he had assumed
on his elevation to the patriarchal dignity. He was a man of little
conversation, and rather awkwardly professed his hope that Lady Hester
would long continue to occupy his humble residence. These dignitaries
of the Eastern church are accessible to the lowest person, and are not
those of old, who could make an emperor tremble on his throne: the most
they can now do is to tamper in the intrigues of the mountain, a field
too small to give scope to the ambition of a churchman; but even now
they are approached with the greatest respect, and persons of their own
sect kiss the ground before a patriarch, and then his robe.[93] He is
waited upon by priests and deacons, who light his pipe, and do other
menial offices about his person. In the East, all distinctions of rank
are lost in the presence of a superior, if he be a great man, whether
Christian or Moslem. Before a pasha, his vizir, or kekhyah, stands, nor
dares sit, unless told to do so. In the same manner, a patriarch keeps
his bishop on his legs; but, let the pasha or the patriarch disappear,
the kekhyah and bishop will play the same farce with those next
inferior to themselves. As the Porte acknowledges but one legitimate
Christian church, which is the Greek, the Catholic patriarch cannot be
seen in public in his robes, or, indeed, reside anywhere comfortably,
but in Mount Lebanon.
On the 28th of March, M. Boutin, a French gentleman, arrived at Sayda,
and lodged at his consul’s. Lady Hester had known him at Cairo, where,
on occasion of a dinner at the house of the French consul, she had
turned into ridicule the mysterious air which he assumed, and had
laughingly denounced him as a spy of Buonaparte’s, as, in fact, he was:
for he had served as colonel of engineers, and was now on a mission
connected with his department. He was said to have been a great friend
of Moreau’s. He was much urged to remain at Sayda until the plague,
which now began to reappear everywhere, should have subsided: but, not
being willing to do so, he departed about the 5th or 6th of April,
taking with him a servant of Lady Hester’s, whom she ceded to him as
likely to be useful on the journey; and so he would have been, but
they were destined never to return. The servant was carried off by the
plague, and M. Boutin was assassinated by his own Turkish domestics in
an unfrequented part of the Ansáry mountains! His story will be related
in another place.
It was now the time of Lent, which was kept with much strictness by the
Greek Catholics: but their rigid observance of fasts savoured strongly
of pride; and, even in my own little family, between Giovanni, who was
a Roman Catholic, and the kitchen girl, who was a Greek Catholic, I
was often made very angry. Whatever I left at dinner was thrown to the
dogs. What was cooked for me would neither do for man nor maid: and
what was cooked for the man would not do for the maid, because their
fasts fell at different times, according to the old and new style.
Yet would they drink drams, lie, cheat, or do anything morally wrong,
and then look me in the face, and justify their conduct, because,
forsooth, they had not broken the fast.
The rains this year had continued somewhat later than usual; but
the weather was now become very fine and warm, and the breeding of
silkworms had begun to busy the whole of the peasantry. On the first
days of April, the worms were hatched from their eggs, by being carried
for a day or two in the bosoms of the women; that kind of warmth, or
that degree of it, being found to be most fit for the purpose.
Nasýfa, widow of Murad Bey, once the ruler of Egypt, whose acquaintance
Lady Hester had made whilst she was at Cairo, sent her about this
time a black slave, named Hanýfy. She was thirteen years old, and
exceedingly well made. Much pains were taken to render her a good
servant; and, as she had been bred a Mahometan, her ladyship never
would allow any attempts to be used to convert her to Christianity,
but caused an old imàm of Sayda to come, day by day, to give her
instructions in her religion, and to teach her the forms of prayer.
Many pious persons may be disposed to blame Lady Hester, who thus shut
out from a young mind the light of the Gospel; but she was accustomed
to say, “I am a philosopher and not a missionary, and, between millions
of Mahometans and millions of Christians, who dispute which is the
right way to Heaven, I never pretend to set myself up as a judge which
is the best.”
When Hanýfy came from Egypt to Syria, a letter was sent with her,
describing her merits by negatives; there being, in a new bought slave,
few positive qualities ascertainable, until he or she has been some
time in the possession of a purchaser. This letter was written by the
person at Cairo into whose trust Hanýfy had been delivered, and by
whose wife all proper examination had been made of her fitness for
her new station. The slave-sellers are accustomed to give three days’
trial, and the result was that, Hanýfy did not snore, did not talk or
walk in her sleep, had a pleasant voice, seemed docile; that her back
was not crooked; and that she had no bodily deformity. Such was the
character she brought with her; and whether she was virtuous and good
never seemed to have troubled the inquirer’s mind.
Just at this time, I was exceedingly delighted by an unexpected
discovery of an ancient sepulchre, made not far from my residence.
As I now spoke Arabic, the news of the day often formed a subject of
conversation between me and the villagers, my neighbours. One evening,
a peasant, who was sufficiently aware of the curiosity which European
travellers feel upon matters connected with the ancient history of
these countries, informed me, that a cavern, full of painted figures,
had been discovered, the preceding evening, within a short distance of
Sayda. He added other circumstances sufficient to excite in me a desire
to see it. Having, therefore, acquainted myself with the situation of
the place, I went to it on the following morning.
The spot to which I had been directed was about half a mile to the
north-east of Sayda, close to a deep glen, named Wady Abu Ghyás, and
within a hundred yards of one of the gardens to the east. A camel,
whilst grazing here, sunk into a hole knee-deep, where it remained
without being able to extricate itself. The driver, having relieved it
from its distressing situation, was naturally induced to look down, and
examine the hole; and, as it appeared to go to some depth, the constant
notion which prevails (as has been before said) among all classes of
people in the East, of hidden treasures, led him to fancy that it might
be an opening to something of this kind; so he proceeded to enlarge
it. The soil readily yielded, and presented the appearance of an
underground chamber. Eager to realize the good fortune which awaited
him, as he now supposed, he procured a light, and, letting himself
down into the opening, found himself in a spacious vault, the walls
of which were covered with painted figures almost as large as life.
He cautiously proceeded to examine the place, when, having convinced
himself that his search would turn to no profitable end, he ascended
to the open day, and went and communicated his discovery to the people
of a caravansery, the resort, as in the inns of other countries, of
many idlers. Some of these returned with him to the cavern: and the
superstition of a part of them immediately converted the figures into
a representation of Christian mysteries, a circumstance not worth
mentioning, if it were not that this notion was afterwards the cause of
their being defaced by the Turks.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A GREEK SEPULCHRE.]
It was on the morning succeeding the discovery that I went to the spot.
The chamber was crowded with people, brought thither by the report
which had been circulated the preceding evening in Sayda respecting
it. The Turks had already picked out the eyes of one of the most
beautiful figures, and otherwise defaced it. Being known in the
neighbourhood, my interference had some effect in stopping them from
proceeding farther, and I succeeded in convincing such as were then
present that the paintings had no Christian symbol, and consequently
could not be, as they imagined, any representation of the Holy Supper,
or of the Virgin Mary, &c. as they thought them. But party succeeded
party, and the task of reasoning with them all was impossible; for,
to portraits of the human figure, whether Christian or pagan, the
Turks are always enemies. Having no drawing materials, I could only
take a hasty sort of outline in ink, which sketch, however, afterwards
served me somewhat in the restoration of parts of some of the figures,
subsequently destroyed. I again visited the cavern on the following
day. Just at this time the plague broke out, and, raging terribly,
spread consternation in the village of Abra, and in the town of Sayda.
Called away by my medical duties towards others, and by the feeling of
self-preservation, which forbade me to risk the danger resulting in
pestiferous times from the contact of strange persons, so inevitable in
a confined place, the sepulchre was abandoned. I will here anticipate
the order of my journal, and relate how I afterwards made copies of
these paintings, a rough sketch of which is here given.
The plague ceased in the month of July. I then bethought myself again
of the sepulchre, and revisited it. Much injury had been done to
the paintings. The only chance which remained of rescuing them from
oblivion was the arrival of some traveller in these parts who could
draw. This hope was not realized until the year 1816, when, in the
month of March, Mr. William Bankes, the late Member of Parliament
for Cambridge University, came to Mar Elias; and, having convinced
me, by several drawings which he showed me, that he was an excellent
draftsman, I conducted him to the sepulchre. This gentleman compared
the paintings in it to those at Herculaneum.
During the lapse of a few months, considerable damage had been caused
by the alluvion of mould driven in by the rains. The figures nearest
the entrance were covered by it up to the shoulders, and the floor
was sodden with wet. Mr. Bankes, nevertheless, executed in two days
a perspective view of the interior, in colours. But he carried his
projects yet farther: for he formed the design of removing some of
these fresco-paintings from their places, and, accordingly, employed a
mason to cut them out from the piers of the walls; which was effected
in two instances.
Soon after this he departed, and, just at the time, a supply of drawing
materials reached me from England. In watching the delineations I
had seen made by him, I had conceived them to be inadequate to the
purpose of giving a complete representation of the sepulchral chamber,
more especially as the ceiling had been entirely left out, and some
other omissions made, which seemed to me material. I accordingly set
diligently to work, and copied them as well as I could.[94]
For the better elucidation of our subject, it will be proper to say a
few words on the different kinds of tombs and sepulchres common to the
country of which we are now speaking.
The traveller, who visits the Levant, cannot fail to be struck with
the numerous excavations which are found near the site of almost every
ancient city. These are readily understood from their form to have been
sepulchres. They occur in a variety of shapes: some are simple oblong
sarcophagi, hewn out of the rock, and only capacious enough to hold
one human body; others are spacious grottoes several yards in length
and width, in the sides of which recesses or cells were hollowed out
as receptacles of the dead; whilst, intermediate to these two, is a
multitude of others, the size of which, and the more or less labour
bestowed in making them, depended, it may be conjectured, on the means
of those who caused them to be excavated.
Through the whole length of the coast of Syria, from Laodicea to Jaffa,
we had remarked these sepulchres, and had observed them, likewise, in
the interior of the country: as at Heliopolis or Bâlbec, at Malûla, a
village on the road from Damascus to Emesa, at Jerusalem, at Damascus,
and at other places: but, in every instance, they were open; always
in a state of decay, from the effects of time and the weather, and
seemed long to have been the haunts of jackalls, or the pens of sheep
and goats. In all of them little remained beside the bare rock, out of
which they had been chiselled.
A concise description of the various forms observable in these
sepulchres may not be unnecessary, as introductory to our particular
subject.
The rudest sarcophagi, and such as we may suppose served for the tombs
of the common people, were oblong parallelograms (_fig. 3_), large
enough to receive (besides the corpse) a case or coffin enclosing
it: these were hewn out on the surface of any convenient rock.[95]
Such seem to have been covered with a double pent lid (_fig. 1 and
4_), which had within a concavity corresponding to the exterior, and
in them perhaps were placed _terra cotta_ coffins; a conjecture
rendered probable by the discovery made in 1805 of a coffin[96] of
this material, found entire in one of these sarcophagi near the city of
Sidon.
There was a second sort of sarcophagus (_fig. 6_), of the same
shape, as to the interior, with the first mentioned, and hewn likewise
out of the rock; but the rock was chiselled away externally, so as to
leave it entirely in relief and insulated.[97] The lids and sides of
this sort were plain in some, and in others sculptured into ornaments,
mostly consisting of bulls’ heads and festoons of flowers.[98] Of
the plain kind several are still remaining on the road from Sayda to
Beyrout, near what is called the Guffer or toll-house. This spot has
obtained the name of the Jews’ Sepulchres (Kabûr el Yahûd). Numberless
fragments of this kind of sarcophagus are to be seen in and near every
town in Syria, often of marble, and sculptured in the most finished
manner.
[Illustration: VARIOUS SARCOPHAGI HEWN OUT OF ROCKS.]
A third kind of sarcophagus is that hewn horizontally, like an oven,
in the sides of rocks. In these were placed earthenware coffins, like
that described in the preceding page. The whole length of the cavity
was, in one instance which I measured, somewhat more than that of the
human body. At the mouth, or at the bottom, or somewhere near it, there
was placed a tablet or a stele (_fig. 5_), with the name of the
deceased on it.[99]
Another kind consisted of an arched alcove, excavated in the side of
a rock, the base in its whole length being a sarcophagus. Sometimes
these were single; at other times they were triple, and then occupied
the three sides of a subterraneous chamber; the doorway filling up the
fourth. (_Fig. 7_)
After these come the sepulchres on a larger scale, containing several
recesses (_fig. 8_), in which the sarcophagi are perpendicular to
the sides, and not, as just seen, parallel. In some instances these
sarcophagi are excavated breast high from the ground, and are of a
length and height just sufficient for the sliding in of a coffin. Of
these there is one in a garden near Sayda, in tolerable preservation.
The chamber is subterranean; and although the inscriptions[100] over
the mouth of each sarcophagus are still legible, yet the stucco which
coated the walls is, from the moisture which oozes through the ceiling,
quite discoloured, and, in many places, crumbled away. In the immediate
vicinity of the same city are perhaps a hundred sepulchral chambers,
the general conformation of which varies only in the greater or less
number of the cells.
These form a sixth class, wherein the cells are squares or
parallelograms, having their sarcophagi sunk from the level of the
floor. (_Fig. 9_) Most of them have an arched entrance, where
once hung a door. In one or two only can be discovered some indistinct
remains of the sculpture which adorned the entrance or the interior. In
a few of them some bones are found, but all seem to have been rifled,
and marks of the pickaxe are often visible in the sides and in the
floors, proceeding, no doubt, from the attempts which have been made to
find treasures, supposed to have been concealed in them.
In some places two or more sepulchres are connected with each other
by a door of communication, although examples of this are fewer along
the coast than in the interior. Near the sea, throughout the whole
length of Mount Lebanon and the mountainous chain northward of it,
an argillaceous rock, easy to work and easy of access, afforded great
facilities for these excavations, and probably induced each separate
family to choose its own tomb apart from that of another: in the
interior of the country other causes seem to have operated. Thus, in
the modern village of Malûla, on the road from Damascus to Emesa, the
modern Hems, where a solitary projecting rock seems to have confined
these excavations within a narrow compass, we find innumerable chambers
hewn into a variety of forms, close to and above each other, and in
many cases communicating. The outer one, by which entrance is obtained
to the others, in some instances has its door several yards from the
ground, and is accessible only by a ladder, or by steps cut out of the
rock, probably to prevent sacrilegious profanation.[101]
Before we come to the sepulchral chamber with the paintings, I will
first say a few words of another of the same kind, discovered posterior
to that above mentioned. Its existence was made known to me by one of
the boys, who assisted in holding the candles during the time I was
employed in drawing. A description of it will serve as a useful step to
the gradations which we have been trying to establish in tracing these
sepulchres from their simple to their most perfect shape.
It is situate, like the other, on the first rise of Mount Lebanon,
within a mile and a half of Sayda, and almost due east of it, above
and near to the small village of Heleléyah, and close to the footpath
leading from that village to Dayr Mar Elias. The entrance was almost
choked up with mould, washed in (as in the foregoing instance) by the
winter rains. Being provided with candles, I entered, and found it to
be a low vaulted chamber. In the sides and extremity of it were cells,
having in their floors sarcophagi, which sarcophagi had evidently
been rifled many generations ago. On the ceiling was painted, towards
the four corners, a something not unlike a carpenter’s square. The
south-east side was totally defaced, and the bottom nearly so. The
chamber was hewn out of an argillaceous rock: but it seemed to have
been executed with no great care, as the sides and arches of the
recesses had many inequalities.
I now proceed to the description of the cavern at Abu Ghyás; this
being, as we have already observed, the name given to the sepulchral
chamber, near the glen so called.
The ground plan (_see fig. 9, p. 346, and p. 340_) represents an
oblong chamber, 27 feet long by 10 feet wide. On each side were four
recesses or cells; and at the bottom, facing the entrance, two. Each
recess contained two sarcophagi, two of which were free from rubbish;
but, in the remaining cells, the mould covered them so completely as to
render it impossible to come at them.
The ceiling was slightly arched, and, from the centre of it to the
floor, the height was nine feet. The whole was hewn out of a rock, and
worked with much exactitude.[102] It is probable that the descent into
it was by steps; but these were now entirely hid by the mould washed
in through the aperture, and which, accumulated near the entrance,
threatened to choke up the vault altogether. The four sarcophagi not
covered with mould were in length about 6 feet 8 inches by two feet
wide. In them I found a few human bones. They had no coating, nor any
remains to show of what materials the coffins, once deposited in them,
had been. The lids of the sarcophagi in the left hand corner were still
lying on them in broken fragments, and appeared to have been each
composed of one single block of stone, without any sculptured ornaments
on it. These sarcophagi, like those we have before described, bore
evident marks of having been opened forcibly; for the sake, probably,
of the gold ornaments usually left on the persons of the dead; or
possibly from fanaticism.
The cells were painted, and each in a different pattern, but always in
plain or flowered stripes parallel to each other. It will be observed
that one of the recesses or cells was longer than the rest. Was it that
the heads of a family, or the founders of a sepulchre, laid claim to
this distinction?
Between every two cells was a pier, so that each side consisted of
four cells with intermediate piers, and the bottom of two, with one
intermediate pier. These were surmounted by a cornice, comprehended in
a double border, between which were painted festoons of red roses, tied
at each end, and hung on a light blue ground. The piers, which measured
57 inches in height, but varied in breadth from 27 to 40 inches, were
ornamented with figures in fresco, 4½ feet in length, painted on a
fawn or stone-coloured ground. In three of them the colouring admitted
of being examined very closely: but the other six were done in a bold
manner, and would not bear the eye too near to them. Seven of the nine
figures were represented carrying a dish, as if for a repast. Over
the first was the word ΓΛΥΚΩΝ; on the second pier was a female with
a scroll in her hand, apparently a priestess; on the third a female
resting on an urn. There was a peculiarity observable in this and two
other figures, that lines seemed to have been drawn by the artist for
his guidance as to the proportions of the body. The next figure had the
word ΚΟΛΟΚΕΡΟϹ: the next ΕΛΙΚΩΝ: the next ΠΕΤΗΝΟϹ: one was without a
name: and the last had ΝΗΡΕΥϹ.
The ceiling was not the least curious part of the sepulchre. It has
been said that it was arched. On a slate-coloured or light blue ground,
scattered roses, with here and there some single flowers of a different
kind, were painted in red. Among these were mingled, without any regard
to order, wreaths of roses, knotted at the end, which, at first sight,
seemed like so many centipedes. Birds of various kinds, with their
wings shut, and winged boys in the act of flying, were interspersed.
Thus, then, I have endeavoured to describe, more minutely perhaps
than was necessary, the interior of this tomb. But to some persons,
lovers of antiquity, such details may not be uninteresting; and I shall
perhaps be excused, if, in explanation of the figures and ornaments
painted on the walls, I add an ancient inscription, which seems
illustrative of them. It is as follows:--
Tib: Claudius Drusi F. Cæs. Aug. Germ. Pont. Max. Trib. Pot.
ii Con. Desig. iii Imp. iii P. P. Dec. vij Collegii Fabri M.
R. H. S. M. et libertate donavit sub conditione ut quotannis
rosas ad monumentum ejus deferant, et ibi epulentur dumtaxat in
v. Id. Jul. Quod si negligerint, tunc ad viij ejusdem Collegii
pertinere debebit conditione supradictâ.--
Tiberius Claudius, son of Drusus, Cæsar, Augustus, Germanicus,
High Pontiff, twice Tribune, thrice Consul Elect, thrice
Imperator, Father of his country--hereby hath given to seven
decurions of the Faber (smith’s?) College of the municipality
of Ravenna a thousand Sestertii (£8 1s. 5½d.) and their
liberty, on condition that, every year, they carry to his
tomb roses, and make one repast in it on the 5th of the ides
of July only. But, should they neglect to do this, then will
it belong to eight others of the same College upon the above
conditions.--_Inscription on the tomb of Drusus_: vid.
_Lives of Suetonius, by_ Henri Ophellot de la Pause, p.
100, vol. iii. 8vo.
This inscription throws light on our subject in two ways--first, from
it we learn that it was customary for the living to make feasts in
the sepulchres of their deceased relations and friends; and next, to
scatter roses over their graves. It is not unlikely, therefore, that
the sum appropriated to this purpose might, in the course of years,
cease to be paid; and, instead, a representation of that which was
before substantially done be substituted: when, as in this case,
we should have, painted on the walls, servants carrying dishes, a
priestess reading, and another making libations. The ceiling would be
sprinkled with roses; and, in a word, we should have the same picture
which we actually find here.
But, that such was the custom, we have farther proof in a dissertation
on this very subject inserted in the _Thes: Antiq: Rom:_ vol.
xii., p. 1074, fol. _Lug: Bat:_ 1699: for, in a description of the
ancient sepulchres of the family of the Nasones, by J. P. Bellorius,
(after having spoken of the several rites customary on the death of
great persons,) he goes on in the following words, which are here a
translation, the original text being subjoined.[103]
We will only add a few words more touching the flowers, wreaths,
and different kinds of garlands, which are found, either
_painted_ or sculptured, in many sepulchres. This, indeed,
appertains to a custom of the old Romans, by them borrowed from
the Greeks, of not only binding a wreath round the temples of
the dead, but also of honouring their tombs by annually strewing
flowers and roses, and by sprinkling odours [in them]; for
they had a notion that this was grateful to the defunct. And
such usages were so prevalent, that many, on the approach of
death, tied down their heirs, by clauses in their wills, to
the performance of this duty; a large sum of money being set
apart for the purpose. This we learn, not only from ancient
authors, both Greek and Latin, but likewise from sepulchral
inscriptions and decorations: which last, as we gather from
ancient tombs still remaining, consisted of wreaths, garlands,
foliage, and flowers. Nor did they merely enjoin that these
annual obsequies should be celebrated by roses and odours;
but, moreover, with this very view, they purchased gardens [or
orchards] adjoining their sepulchres, and appropriated the
rents of them to their obsequies: which may be inferred from
the following inscription.--Long: Patrollus, influenced by the
religious observances of his order, did, during his lifetime,
make a donation of a hundred fruit orchards, with the building
adjoining this sepulchre, in order that, from their rents, an
abundant supply of roses and herbs might be appropriated to his
patron’s obsequies [might adorn his patron’s grave,] and, some
day, his own.
The formula most used in ancient inscriptions is--‘That roses be
brought annually to his monument:’ because roses were considered
more costly than other flowers.
These remarks are quite in point, and make sufficiently clear the
purpose of the ornaments painted in this sepulchre. For, when the
survivors of a dead person were unable, for want of funds set apart
for that purpose, to bring fresh roses, garlands, &c., and to give
banquets in his honour, we may suppose that they then caused, as being
next to the reality, a representation of such funereal ceremonies to be
depicted on the walls of his sepulchre.
But what is somewhat in confirmation of this ancient custom is a usage
which still obtains among the Christians and Mahometans of Egypt.
Every year they perform funereal rites at the tombs of their deceased
relations. These consist in going to the cemetery, a whole family
together; and there, under a tent, or, if rich people, in a small
structure raised for that purpose over the tomb, they pass several
days, moaning and howling at certain intervals, and then quietly
amusing themselves in eating, smoking, conversation, or whatever else
they please to do.
Of the antiquity of tombs hollowed out in rocks we have the testimony
of the Holy Scriptures, as used by the Jews, and of Herodotus, as
common among the Egyptians. The Greeks originally burned their dead:
and it was, probably, at the time of the invasion of the Persian empire
by Alexander, that the custom of using stone coffins was first adopted
by them.