CHAPTER XX.

DAMASCUS--HIS THIRD CONSULATE.

[Sidenote: _I find Richard has had a Cordial Reception._]

There was no husband to meet me, and I felt very indignant, just as had

happened at Rio last year to him. (Here I met Madame de Persigny.) I at

once started for Damascus by road, in a private carriage, and drove for

seven hours, putting up at Shtorra, where I was obliged to sleep. Next

day I drove on and on, and reached Damascus at sunset; went straight

to the inn, which by courtesy was called a hotel, known as Demetri's.

It had taken me fifteen days and nights without stopping from London

to Damascus. After an hour Richard came in, and I was glad that I had

waited for nothing but necessity, as I found him looking very old and

ill. He had arrived, and had had a most cordial reception, but he had

been dispirited by not getting a single one of my letters, which all

arrived in a heap afterwards. He had gone down over and over again

to meet me, and I had not appeared, and now the steamer that I had

come in, was the only one he did not go down to meet, so that when he

came in from his walk, it was a pleasant surprise to him to find me

ensconced comfortably in his room; and I found the enclosed scribbled

on the corner of his journal, anent my non-arrival--

"'Twas born, thou whisperest, born in heaven,

And heavenly births may never die;

While truth is pure of leasing's leaven,

I hear and I believe then--I!

Heaven-born, thy love is born to be

An heir of immortality.

"And yet I hear a small voice say,

But yesterday 'twas not begot;

It lives its insect-life to-day,

To-morrow death shall be its lot.

Peace, son of lies! cease, Satan, cease

To mumble timeworn lies like these!"

A few persons who disliked the appointment, and certain missionaries

who feared that he was anti-missionary, and have since handsomely

acknowledged their mistake, took measures to work upon Lord Clarendon

on the plea that he was too fond of Mohammedans, that he had performed

a pilgrimage to Mecca, and that their fanaticism would lead to troubles

and dangers. On becoming aware that he had lived in the East, and with

Moslems, for many years after his pilgrimage, Lord Clarendon, with

that good taste and justice which always characterized him, refused to

change his appointment until that fanaticism was proved. He had the

pleasure of reporting to him a particularly friendly reception. He

wrote before he left London--

"I now renew in writing the verbal statement, in which I assured your

lordship that neither the authorities nor the people of Damascus will

show for me any but a friendly feeling; that, in fact, they will

receive me as did the Egyptians and the people of Zanzibar for years

after my pilgrimage to Mecca. But, as designing persons may have

attempted to complicate the situation, I once more undertake to act

with unusual prudence, and under all circumstances to hold myself, and

myself only, answerable for the consequences."

Though he had not received his barat (_exequatur_) and firman till

October 27th, he exchanged friendly unofficial visits with his

Excellency, the _Wali_ (Governor-General) of Syria. Then he was

honoured with the visits of all the prelates of the Oriental Churches,

as well as by a great number of the most learned and influential

Moslems, and of the principal Christians. Amongst them were his

Highness the Amir Abd el Kadir, his Excellency the Bishop of the Greek

Orthodox Church, the Syrian Orthodox and the Syrian Catholic Bishops,

the Archimandrite Jebara of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Shaykh el

Ulemá (Abdullah Effendi el Hálabi), the Shaykh el Molawíyyeh of Koniah,

Ali Pasha el Aazam, and Antun Effendi Shami; Said Effendi Ustuwáneh,

President of the Criminal Court of Damascus and its dependencies;

Mohammed Effendi el Minnini, Vice-President of the Criminal Court of

Appeal; the Mufti Mahmúd Effendi Hamzeh; Shaykh Mohammed Effendi el

Hálabi, member of the Lower Court, and several others.

All these dignitaries evinced much pleasure and satisfaction at his

being appointed H.M.'s Consul in their City. Some of them, indeed,

earnestly requested him to interest the English public in forming a

company for making railways through Syria, that being the sole means of

bringing about the civilization of the country.

In conclusion, notwithstanding Abdullah Effendi, the Chief of the

Ulemá, being the most learned, influential, and Orthodox Moslem, and

though it is not consistent with his principles to call upon any

Christian before being visited, he did so; and, after an interview of

fifty minutes, departed with a promise to renew the visit.

Owing to the great quantity of fountains and tanks about the house,

neuralgia had set in, and Richard had not been getting any sleep; so

the following day we cast about for a better sort of living-place, and

a quarter of an hour away, through the gardens of Damascus, higher

up than Damascus, and just under and on the north of Jebel Kaysún,

the Camomile Mountain, in what is _called_ a wild and lawless Kurdish

village, we found a house that suited us,[1] and we took it, and moved

into it next day, starting with a small quantity of furniture, but soon

made it very comfortable. After all said and done, although some of the

houses in Damascus were very grand and very romantic, they were all

damp; cold in winter; suffocating, from being closed in, in summer. If

there is an epidemic, it is like being hived. If there is an _émeute_,

you are like a mouse in a trap. If there is a fire at night, you are

safely locked within the town gates. Ours was a freer and wilder life;

you could mount your horse, and be out in the desert in ten minutes, or

in Damascus either.

Mr. and Lady Adelaide Law arrived in Damascus, and I took her to Lady

Ellenborough and to Abd el Kadir. It was her father, Lord Londonderry,

whose diplomacy with Louis Napoleon delivered this great hero from

imprisonment in the Château d'Amboise, and he received her with

effusion. Later on came Lord Stafford (present Duke of Sutherland), Mr.

Crawley, and Mr. Barty Mitford.

[Sidenote: _We go to Palmyra, or Tadmor in the Desert._]

We were soon installed, and bought horses, and I began to study Arabic.

The first thing Richard determined to do was to go to Tadmor. This

journey was an awfully difficult thing in those days, though I am not

aware whether it is now. First of all, six thousand francs used to be

charged by the El Mezrab, who were the tribe who escorted for that

journey. It was the tribe of Lady Ellenborough and her Bedawin husband,

and she was more Bedawin than the Bedawi. There was no water, that is,

only two wells the whole way, and only known to them. The difficulties

and dangers were great; they travelled by night and hid by day. You

may say that camels were about ten days on the road, and horses about

eight days. The late Lady Ellenborough was the third of a small knot

of ladies, of whom I had hoped to make the fifth--Lady Mary Wortley

Montagu, Lady Hester Stanhope, Lady Ellenborough, and the Princesse de

la Tour d'Auvergne.

[Sidenote: _We go without an Escort._]

Lady Ellenborough was married to a Bedawin, brother to the Chief, and

second in command of the tribe of El Mezrab, a small branch of the

great Anazeh tribe. She aided the tribe in concealing the wells and

levying blackmail on Europeans who wished to visit Palmyra, which

brought in considerable sums to the tribe, whose demand was six

thousand francs a head (£240). Richard was determined to go, and we had

not the money to throw away; he asked me whether I would be willing to

risk it, and I said, what I always did, "Whither thou goest, I will

go." Lady Ellenborough was in a very anxious state when she heard this

announcement, as she knew it was the death-blow to a great source of

revenue to the tribe. She was very intimate with us, and distantly

connected by marriage with my family, and she would have favoured us,

if she could have done it without abolishing the whole system. She did

all she could to dissuade us; she wept over our loss, and she told us

that we should never come back--indeed, everybody advised us to make

our wills; finally, she offered us the escort of one of her Mezrabs,

that we might steer clear of the Bedawi raids, and be conducted quicker

to water, _if it existed_. Richard made me a sign to accept the escort,

and we did.

From our earliest married days, one of his peculiarities (used rather,

I suspect, for training me to observe him, and to understand his wants)

would be that he would not tell me directly to do a thing, but I used

to find in a book I was reading, or some drawer that I opened every

day, or in his own room, marked by a weight, a few words of what he

wanted, conveying no direct order, and yet I knew that it was one. I

grew quite accustomed to this, and used regularly to visit the places

where I was likely to find them, and if I missed there was a sort of

"Go seek" expression on his face, that told me that I had not hunted

properly, and I knew (by another expression) when I had succeeded.

I used to call these "African spoors." We could almost talk before

outsiders in this way, without speaking a word out loud.

On the same principle, he used to teach me to swim without my arms, and

afterwards to swim without my legs, using either one or the other, but

not both, in case of falling out of a steamer and being entangled.

I mention this, because we always talked before people without their

perceiving it, and he told me in this way exactly what to say to her;

but we provided ourselves with seventeen camels, laden with water, in

case of accident. We had each two horses, and everything necessary for

tenting out, and were armed to the teeth. We had a very picturesque

breakfast, affectionate farewells--the _Mushir_ and the whole cavalcade

to see us out of the town. We cleared Damascus and its environs by a

three hours' march; then Richard, according to his custom, called a

halt, and we camped out and picketed, because, he said, it would be so

easy to send back for anything, if aught were missing.

We eventually reached Da'as Agha, the Chief of Jerúd, who has a hundred

and fifty fighting men. These little villages in the middle of a desert

are sometimes very acceptable for the renewal of provisions. This Jerúd

was a large one, and was surrounded with salt and gypsum. After this

there was only one more village, Atneh, till the Great Karryatayn,

in the heart of the desert. Here we were told of some underground

curiosities, and we stopped to dig, and discovered an old catacomb.

The women only wear one garment; they are covered with coins, and bits

of stone made into necklaces and charms against the evil eye. After

this we had a long desert ride, and were caught in a dust-storm. A

dust-storm is no joke; you may lie down and perhaps make your horse

lie, and cover yourself up with rugs, but if it is a bad storm, like a

snowstorm, you may be buried. Richard advised our galloping through it,

laying the reins on the horses' necks, and letting them go where they

would, for, he said, they would know a great deal more than we should;

so, covering our faces up in our _kuffíyyehs_--for, as far as heads

and shoulders went, we dressed like natives--we gave our horses their

heads, and they went at a rattling pace, and about three hours took us

out of the storm. Richard and I were alone; all the rest lagged behind.

When the horses once got out of the storm (they seemed to understand

all about it--one was desert bred and took the lead), they relapsed

into a walk till they got cool. We then went by the compass in the

direction we meant to take, and were joined eventually by our followers.

We now had to sleep in our clothes, revolvers and guns at our sides,

and make our men take turn to watch, in case of an attack from a

_ghazú_, or Bedawi raid, and we took off the camels' bells. A _ghazú_

may pass you in the night, and if you are quite silent, and a foal does

not whinny, nor a dog bark, you are all right; but those are the two

things you have to dread. I ought to have said that, though we accepted

the escort, we were not hoodwinked. I kept taking stock of our Mezrab

between Damascus and our first halt, and I thought he had an uncanny

and _amused_ look; so I rode up to Richard, and told him, in a language

that was not understood, what I thought. Richard gave a grim smile, as

Ouida says, "under his moustache," and said, "Yes, I have thought all

that out too. Mohammed Agha, come here."

Whatever Richard told Mohammed to do, he did it thoroughly. If he

wanted a culprit that had run away, he would say, "Bring me So-and-so,

Mohammed." "Eywallah! ya Sidi Beg" (Yes, by Allah, my Lord Beg); and he

would go off, saying, "If he were in hell I would have him out." Once

he brought a man kicking and struggling under his arm, and put him down

before Richard, saying, "There he is, your Excellency."

This faithful Afghan had served him in India, and he had accidentally

found him in Damascus, and made him his chief _kawwás_. He now rode

up. Richard gave him a few orders in Afghani, which no one else

understood. He saluted and retired. When we got about three hours away

from Damascus in the open desert, the Bedawin had his mare and his

arms taken from him, and was mounted on a baggage mule. Every kindness

was shown to him, and he enjoyed every comfort that we had, but two

mounted guard over him day and night, and he was thus powerless. We

knew quite well that the Bedawin, on his thoroughbred mare, would have

curveted off in circles, pretending to look for wells, when in reality

he would have fetched the tribe down upon us, and we should have been

captured; orders would have been given to respect and treat us well,

and then we should have to be ransomed, and this would have _proved_

the impossibility of visiting Palmyra without a Bedawi escort at six

thousand francs a head, and the Foreign Office would have smartly

reproved, and perhaps recalled, their Consul for running such a risk.

We stuck our Mezrab up for a show, to prove that we had a Bedawin

escort, whenever Bedawi raids were near, but he was not allowed to move

or to make a sign. Da'as joined us with ten of his men, and whenever

there was the smallest occasion for joy or self-congratulation, they

used to do a _Jeríd_. When I say the men are riding _Jeríd_, I mean

that they are galloping about violently, firing from horseback at full

speed, yelling, hanging over in their stirrups with their bridles in

their mouth, playing with and quivering their long feathered lances in

the air, throwing them and catching them again at full gallop, picking

things from the ground that they have thrown there, firing pistols,

throwing themselves under the horses' bellies and firing under them

at full gallop, yelling and shouting their war-cry, as Buffalo Bill's

cowboys do, only far more picturesque figures, with their many-coloured

dresses, and better mounted on their beautiful mares. The wildness of

the whole spectacle is very refreshing; but you have to be a good rider

yourself, as the horses simply go wild.

On one occasion we saw a large body, apparently of mounted Bedawi.

We waved and whistled our stragglers in, and drew up in line; the

others did the same. We fully expected a charge. By this time I

had transformed myself into a boy (Richard's son)--found it more

convenient for riding long distances, and for running away. It

_sounds_ indecent, but all Arab clothes are so baggy and draping that

it little matters whether you are dressed as a man or woman. So he

let me ride out with two other horsemen from the ranks forward (it

would have been undignified for _him_ to do so, being in command of

the party); they did the same, and this is what it proved to be--the

Shaykh and his fighting men on the part of a distant village, and a

priest on the part of the Archbishop of Karryatayn, with invitations.

All the men embraced, my hand was kissed, and we were escorted back

in great triumph, riding _Jeríd_ as before. We rode to the village of

the Shaykh, and we sent on others with our letters to Omar Beg, the

Brigadier at that time commanding troops at Karryatayn, because they

expected a revolt of the tribes.

We eventually arrived at Karryatayn. We were treated with great

hospitality by Omar Beg, and when we left he accompanied us a little

way with an immense cavalcade, which was very picturesque and pretty.

We saw a mirage that day in the desert, and were very tired, and had

to sleep with our arms, without undressing. We then had a somewhat

dangerous defile to pass through mountains, where we found a well.

I had invented a capital way of watering the beasts. Man can always

draw water, but nobody thinks of the horses, and in a cup or tin

pot you cannot get enough water for them. I had bags made of skins,

exactly like a huge tobacco-pouch with ropes, and whenever we came to

inaccessible water _these_ were lowered until every animal had drank

its fill. At each of these places, Jerúd, Atneh, and Karryatayn,

several who had been longing to go to Tadmor wanted to join us, secure

of protection, of food for themselves, and corn for their animals

without paying a farthing for it. We increased to a hundred and sixty

persons, and some had one and some two animals. I had one man with

me as my own servant, a Syrian Christian, who gave us a great deal

of trouble. He was very clever, and the best dancer; but the second

or third day after a hard day's ride, the horses were dead beat, and

instead of taking his horse and watering and feeding it, and putting

it in shelter as I desired, he drew his sword and cut its throat, in

hopes of being allowed to ride my second horse, so I ordered him off

to the baggage in the rear. No Moslem would have done such a thing.

I never liked him after. We could not turn the man out to die in the

desert, but the day that we got back to Damascus, my husband sent him

to prison, for that and thefts in the houses where we stayed.

We met with another _ghazú_ before we arrived, but we imposed on them

by calling a halt, planting the flag, showing our Bedawin, and ordering

breakfast to be spread. We then improvised a _tir_ by planting a lance

in the sand at a good distance, with a pumpkin at the top, or an

orange, and showed them how far our rifles would carry, and the _ghazú_

being mounted on mares, not camels, we were not attacked. A few of

ours curveted about, preparatory to bolting, but my husband called out

to the men to form into line, and then he shouted, "The first man who

leaves this line, I'll shoot him in the back as he rides away." That

made them settle down.

[Sidenote: _Tadmor._]

The first sight of Palmyra makes you think it is a regiment of cavalry

drawn out in single line on the horizon; it was the most imposing

sight I ever looked upon, though I have seen plenty of other ruins.

It is so gigantic, so extensive, so bare, so desolate, rising out of,

and partially buried in a sea of sand. There is something that almost

takes your breath away about this splendid City of the Dead. When you

are alone and gazing in silence upon her solitary grandeur, you feel

as if you were wandering in some unforgotten world, and respect and

wonder bid you hush like a child amidst the tombs of a long-closed and

forgotten churchyard. This was the Tadmor built by Solomon, as a safe

halt for the treasures of India and Persia passing through the desert

(2 Paralipomenon or Chronicles viii. 4), "And he built Tadmor in the

wilderness, and all the store cities, which he built in Hamar." Read

also 3 Kings or 1 King ix. 18.

I shall never forget the imposing sight of Tadmor. There is nothing

so deceiving as distance in the desert. At sea you may calculate it,

but in the desert you never can. A distant ruin stands out of the sea

of sand, the atmosphere is so clear that you think you will reach

it in half an hour; you ride all day and you never seem to get any

nearer to it, just as if it receded in proportion as you advanced. We

camped outside, close to the great colonnade. We had five tents, our

free-lances ten, the rest of the party theirs, and the animals close

by. There were four sulphurous streams; we kept one to drink, and one

to bathe, and two for the animals. There is a height of rock on which

is a castle; the mountain-top was cruised all around with an infinity

of labour to form a drawbridge and moat. The ascent is exceedingly

steep. On two sides is a fine range of mountains, on the other two a

desert of sand, stretching far away like a yellow sea. The ruins and a

small oasis caused by the foundation lie at our feet. It is possible

that Tadmor once spread over all the irrigated part of the plain.

A few orchards, and the splendid ruins, and a handful of wretched

people have huts plastered like wasps' nests within them. The whole

City must have been composed of parallel streets, and similar streets

crossing them, some formed by immense columns, and stretching far over

the plains, and cornered by temples and castles. The Temple of the

Sun was carved from great blocks of rock from the mountains; has some

fine cornices, some still perfect. In one direction there is a falling

wall on the slant, as if it was arrested in falling. It has a square

court of seven hundred and forty feet each side, encompassed by a wall

seventy feet high. The central door is thirty-two feet high and sixteen

wide. The temple still has one hundred columns standing. The few people

who live there are disgusting and ophthalmic.

The tombs are a great interest--tall square towers with a handsome

frontage. Inside are four stories. The ceilings are beautiful; the

entrances are lined with Corinthian columns and busts. There are tiers

to the very top for bodies. One contained one hundred bodies. One bore

a 102 B.C. date, one Anno Domini 2--evidently a very swell family,

and all speaking of sad ruined grandeur. The ruins are enormous and

extensive, and simply splendid. I cannot describe the sensation of

being in a great City of the Dead, and thinking over all the story of

Zenobia and her capture, especially by moonlight. The simoom blew our

tents nearly down part of the time. Richard discovered caves, and he

spent several days excavating. We found human curios, human bones, and

skulls with hair on them, which we brought home. There is a sulphurous

river, bright as crystal, and tepid with the properties of Vichy. Water

issues from a cavernous hole in the mountain, and streams through

Palmyra. A separate spring, of the same quality, bubbles up in the sand

near it. The Damascenes send for Vichy water; why don't they get it

from here? We also found some Greek statues; one of Zenobia, life size.

Some of our men were taken with _wahteb_, a disease peculiar to Syria,

and hereditary--a sort of convulsions or hysteria. They generally get a

firstborn to tread up and down the back, but I brought them to quicker

with doses of hot brandy and water. We returned by a different route

part of the way. There is a well-known river and outwork six hours'

ride away from Palmyra, called Selamíyyah, and bearing east-south-east

of the Mount of Hamah. Here begins a high rolling ground called El

Aláh, which we come to later on. We had very bad weather, and our tents

were nearly carried away at night. We had a wild-boar hunt on the way.

We fell in with fifty Bedawi; they were not strong enough to attack us,

but we had to stick to our baggage. Our usual day in the desert (in

which we lived off and on) was as follows:--

[Sidenote: _Camp Life--Our Travelling Day--Night Camps._]

The usual travelling day is that those who had anything to do rose two

hours before starting, but those who had not got into their saddles

at dawn. Being, as one may say, head _sais_, or groom, I saw the

horses groomed, fed, watered, and saddled. Our dragomans[2] attended

to striking the tents and the baggage. We started at dawn, and rode

until the sun was unbearable; we then halted for one or two hours.

The animals were ungirthed, fed, and watered, and we had our food and

smoke, and perhaps a short sleep; after which we mounted, and rode till

near sunset. We then halted for the night. The tents were pitched. If

we were near an inhabited place Richard sat in state on his divan and

received the Chiefs with _narghíleh_ and sherbet; I saluted, and walked

off with the horses. I had drilled my people so well that they were

all drawn up in line; at one word of command, off with the bridles,

and on with the head-stalls; at another word the saddles off, the

perspiring backs rubbed with a handful of _raki_, to prevent galls,

and the horse-cloths thrown on. They were then led about to cool for

a quarter of an hour, then ridden down to water, if there was any, or

watered out of the skins if there were not, and their nose-bags put on

with _tibn_--straw chopped up as fine as mincemeat, the hay of this

country--then picketed in a ring, heels out, heads in, hobbled fore and

aft, and grooms in the middle.

I would then go back to my husband, and sit on the divan at a

respectful distance and in respectful attitude, speak little, and be

invited to have a sherbet or _narghíleh_. I then saluted, and went

to see the horses groomed for the night, and get their suppers; then

I returned to my husband's tent, supper and bed, and to-morrow _da

capo_. The baggage animals, with provisions and water, are directed to

a given place so many hours in advance by the compass. One man of our

riding-party slings on the saddle-bags, containing something to eat and

drink; another hangs a water-melon or two to his saddle, another the

skins to draw water for the horses, and another or two, nose-bags with

corn. We ride on till about eleven, and dismount at the most convenient

place, and water as we go along, if there is any. The horses' girths

are slackened, their bridles changed for halters; they drink, if

possible, and their nose-bags are filled with one measure of barley. We

eat, smoke, and sleep for one hour or two; we then ride on again till

we reach our tents.

We are supposed to find them pitched, mattresses and blankets spread,

mules and donkeys free and rolling to refresh themselves, baggage

stacked, the gypsy-pot over a good fire, and perhaps a glass of

lemonade or a cup of coffee ready for us. It does sometimes happen

that we miss our camp, that we have the ground for bed, the saddle

for pillow, and the water-melon for supper. Richard used to take

all the notes, sketches, observations, and maps, and gather all the

information. The sketches and maps were Charles Drake's business, when

with us. I acted as secretary and aide-de-camp, and had the care of

the stable and any sick or wounded men; I could also help him with the

sextant, and with some of his scientific instruments.

A short day's riding would be eight hours, a very long one would be

thirteen, and we generally stayed at any place of interest till it was

exhausted. In this way we saw all Syria, Palestine, and the Holy Land

off the beaten tracks, and through the deserts, the Haurán and wild

places included. I do not like to say too much about it, because my two

volumes of "Inner Life of Syria," which were published in 1875, and

"Unexplored Syria," written by Richard, Charley Drake, and me (2 vols.,

1872), have mostly told everything. These will be republished in the

Uniform Library.

Camping out is the most charming thing in the world, and its scenes

will always live in my memory. It is a very picturesque life, although

hard, but one gets so used to it, as quite to dislike a house. I can

never forget some of those lovely nights in the desert, as after supper

we all sat round in circles; the mules, donkeys, camels, horses, and

mares picketed about, screaming, kicking, and holloaing; the stacked

loads, the big fires, the black tents, the Turkish soldiers, the

picturesque figures in every garb, and wild and fierce-looking men in

wonderful costumes lying here and there, singing and dancing barbarous

dances (especially the sword-dance); or stories told, or Richard

reciting the "Arabian Nights," or poor Palmer chanting Arab poetry,

or Charley Drake practising magic to astonish the Mogháribehs, though

neither of these two were with us _then_. A glorious moon lights our

tripod and kettle; the jackals howl and chatter as they sniff the

savoury bones, and if you can remain breathless, it is the prettiest

thing to see them gambol in the moonlight, jumping over one another's

backs, but if one, smelling food, runs round your tent when all are

asleep, the shadow on the white canvas is so large that it frightens

you. A distant pack coming along sounds like the war-cry of the Bedawi

booming down upon you; their yell is unearthly as it sweeps by you,

passes, and dies away in the distance. I used to love the sound,

because it told me I was in camp, by far the most delightful form of

existence when the weather is not too cruel.

[Illustration: OUR DESERT-CAMP.]

Madame Omar Beg's two pets were a hyæna, which received me at the

gate, and a lynx that lay upon the divan. The first put its fore-paws

on my shoulders and smelt my cheek, and did "pouf" (like a bellows

blowing in your face) to frighten me; and the other sprang at me and

mewed and lashed its tail. For sheer fright I stood stock still and

they did nothing to me, and amused Madame Omar immensely when she came

in.

Camel-riding is very pleasant, if it is a _delúl_ with a long trot, but

a slow walk is horribly tedious, a baggage animal is bone-breaking,

and a gallop would be utter annihilation. A _shugduf_ or _takhtarawán_

shakes you till you are sore. The nicest mount is horse or mare--mare

safer; but Richard did a very wise thing--he chose _rahwáns_. They run

an American trot, and there is no more fatigue in riding them than

sitting in an armchair. You have only to sit still and let them go, and

they cover enormous spaces in the day; so he used to arrive perfectly

fresh when we were all tired out. I possessed a couple of stallions.

I was headstrong and foolish, and I would ride them, because I hated

the _rahwáns_' paces; so I took a great deal more out of myself than I

need have done, as they generally danced for a couple of hours before

they settled down to their work. However much you may love the desert

and camp life, when you have had your fill of it, I cannot tell how

refreshing it is to see the first belt of green, like something dark

lining the horizon, and to long to reach it. When you enter by degrees

under the trees, the orchards, the gardens of Damascus, you smell the

water from afar, and you hear its gurgling long before you come to the

rills and fountains; you scent and then see the fruit--the limes, figs,

citron, water-melon; you feel a madness to jump into the water, to eat

your fill of fruit, to go to sleep under the delicious shade.

[Sidenote: _Return Home after Desert._]

Such is entering Damascus. You forget the bitter wind, the scorching

sun, the blistering sand; you wonder if it is true that you are going

to have a bath, to change your clothes, to sleep in a real bed, without

having to watch against Bedawi, or if your brain is hurt by the sun, or

if your blinded eyes are seeing a mirage. Your tired, drooping horse

tells you it is true; he pricks his ears, he wants to break out into a

mild trot; done up as he is, he stops to drink at every rill, and, with

a low whinny of joy, gathers a mouthful of grass at every crop. You who

have never travelled in the desert do not know what _water_ means. I

have seen forty Bedawi race to a hole in a rock where as much rainwater

had gathered as would fill a hand-basin, fling themselves off their

horses, bend and put their lips to it, and then courteously make way

for each other. You will see people in the East sitting, in what would

appear to you a placid idiotcy of delight, by a little trickling stream

not a foot wide, with a _narghíleh_, and calling it _kayf_, which

means _dolce far niente_, or "sweet do-nothing."

OUR HOUSE.

"Though old as history itself, thou art fresh as the breath of Spring,

blooming as thine own rosebud, as fragrant as thine own orange flower,

O Damascus, Pearl of the East!"

Our house in Damascus overhung the road and opposite gardens, with

projecting lattice windows, was bounded on the right by a Mosque, on

the left by a _Hammám_ (Turkish bath), and front and back by gardens.

On the other side of the road, among the apricot orchards, I had

a capital stable for twelve horses, with a good room for _saises_

(grooms), and a small garden with the river running through it. As soon

as you got out of our village there was a bit of desert sand, and a

background of tall yellow-coloured mountain, called Jebel Kaysún, or

the Camomile Mountain, and that was what our village smelt of. When you

entered our house, you came into a square courtyard, coarsely painted

in broad stripes of red, white, and blue. All around were orange,

lemon, and jessamine trees, a fountain playing in the middle, opposite

the _liwán_, a raised room with one side taken out of it, open on to

the court, spread with carpets and divans, and the niches filled with

plants. Here, on hot days, one receives and offers coffee, lemonade,

sherbet, chibouques, _narghílehs_, and cigarettes. On one side is a

dining-room, on the other a cool sitting-room; all the rest is for

servants and offices. Upstairs, six rooms run round two sides of the

courtyard; a long terrace occupies the other two sides, joining and

opening into the room at either end. There is a cool house-top with

plants, to spread mats and divans, to sit amongst the flowers under the

trees and by the Mosque-minaret, to look either towards our mountain,

or over Damascus and the gardens, and inhale the desert-air from the

other side of Damascus.

[Illustration: THE BURTONS HOUSE IN SALAHÍYYAH, DAMASCUS.

_By Sir Frederick Leighton._]

We also made a beautiful arbour in the garden opposite, which contained

chiefly roses and jessamine. By lifting up the overladen vines and

citrons, and branches of the lemon and orange trees, and supporting

them on a frame-work, so that no sun could penetrate their luxuriance;

we had a divan made under them for the cool summer evenings near the

rushing river, and many happy hours of _kayf_ we passed there. The

Mosque next door to us, seemed to be built round and clung to a huge

vine tree, which spread up and down all over it and its terrace, and

the _Muezzin's_ Minaret and my study window were cheek by jowl. The

village was charming--domes and minarets peeping out of trees,

bubbling streams, the music of the water-wheel.

[Sidenote: _Native Life._]

Whenever we were in Eastern life, whether in Syria or elsewhere,

we always made a point of being thoroughly English and European in

our Consulate; but, when _not_ obligatory, we used to live a great

deal _with_ the natives, and _as_ the natives, for the purpose of

experience. We wore European dress in Damascus and Beyrout, and we wore

native dress up the country or in the desert. It was as easy for me to

wear men's dress as my own, because it was all drapery, and does not

in the least show the figure. There is nothing but the face to tell

by, and if you tuck up your _kuffíyyah_ you show only half a face, or

only the eyes. Thus we would eat what they ate. If I went to stay with

a harem, I always went in my own clothes; but if I went to the bazar,

I frequently used to dress like a Moslemah with my face covered, and

sit in the shops in the bazar, and let my Arab maid do all the talking

lest I might be suspected, that I might hear all the gossip, and enter

something into their lives. And the women frequently took me into the

mosques in the same way, knowing who I was.

We attended _every sort_ of ceremony, whether it was a circumcision, or

a wedding, or a funeral, or a dervishes' dance, or anything that was

going on, or any religious ceremony--my husband to the Cafés and the

Mosques, the evening story-tellers' haunts; I to the charm shops, where

the _khosis_ (fortune-tellers) hang out and administer love philters

or, in short, every sort of thing, and mix with all classes, religions,

and races and tongues. My husband's friendship with Mohammedans, and

his knowledge of Arabic and Persian, the language of literature,

put him in intimate relation with the Arab tribes and all the chief

authorities, and the _only man_ who could not get on with him was the

Turkish _Wali_, or Governor-General, Rashíd Pasha.

[Sidenote: _The Arabic Library at Damascus._]

I cannot do better than copy Spyr. R. Lambros's letter describing the

Arabic Library at Damascus, which was a rich find for Richard:--

"The library was founded by the Ommayads. The building is situate

near the stately Djami which bears their name. It has a great stone

vault supported upon four columns, and ornamented with mosaics. Not

so long ago it was restored with much taste under the superintendence

of the Governor of Syria, Achmet Hamdi Pasha, a favourite of the

Sultan Abdul Hamid. There is no proper catalogue of this library, nor

is it arranged. Several of the manuscripts are moth-eaten and much

injured by damp. Still there exist in it valuable papyri, as well

as manuscripts on parchment and paper. Among them, according to M.

Papadopulos, a conspicuous place is due to a history of Damascus in

nineteen large volumes. A great deal that is new is to be found in

them regarding the City and its walls, as well as about the fine

arts in Damascus. This codex is a jewel of Arabic literature, and an

inexhaustible source for the whole annals of the city.

"The collection of old Arabic papyri is rich. There are several that

throw light on obscure periods of Arabic history and poetry, or deal

with the general history of Arabs and their literature. 'Some of these

papyri are as late as the fifteenth century, and may be considered,'

says M. Papadopulos, 'as copies of various monuments in stone.' On

papyrus rolls are to be found whole collections of poems by celebrated

Arab authors, of whom Ibn Khaldoun is the most notable. Others contain

decrees of the Emirs of Damascus.

"M. Papadopulos mentions also a history on parchment of the Tartars,

by Abulghazi Bahadur, and a history and geography of Damascus and

Palmyra, by Abulfeda. Although M. Papadopulos gives no details

regarding these writings, one can identify the history of Abulghazi

as that which was discovered by Swedish officers in the captivity

after the battle of Pultowa, 1709, and translated into German, and

subsequently (1726) into French, and published in two volumes under

the title of 'Histoire Généalogique des Tatars.' Regarding the work

of Abulfeda one cannot, from the brief notice that M. Papadopulos

supplies, come to any certain conclusion, whether it be a portion of

the 'Annales Moslemici' or an unpublished production of the celebrated

Mohammedan prince and polyhistor.

"Among the other treasures of the library are a treatise of

Abul-Hassan, the Arabian astronomer of the thirteenth century; a roll

of Abumazar, the astronomer (_circa_ 855), on the observatories at

Bagdad and Damascus; a medical treatise of the teacher of Avicenna,

Abu-Sahaal; a meteorological bulletin relating to Damascus, by

Abul-Chaiz; papyrus rolls containing the Pentateuch, the Psalter, and

the Gospels, in Kufic characters; papyrus rolls and others, consisting

of Plato's 'Laws,' in Arabic, the 'Organon' of Aristotle, the work

of Hippocrates, 'De Aëre, Aquis, et Locis,' and one containing some

portions of the 'Birds' of Aristophanes (in Arabic?), and presenting

variants from the received text, and the Bible, in Syriac.

"But the great prize of the library, so far as one can judge from the

inadequate description given of it, is a Greek manuscript of the Old

and New Testament, comprising the Epistle of Barnabas and a portion of

the Shepherd of Hermas. As the discovery of it is highly interesting,

I will give an exact translation of the passage referring to it.

"'One of the most important of the so-called uncial manuscripts, which

contain the whole of the New Testament complete, is as follows:--

"'The manuscript is written on well-prepared parchment, and is 12½

inches wide and 13¾ inches tall. It consists of 380½ leaves, of which

200 contain the Old Testament (in the Septuagint version) incomplete;

but 180 the whole of the New Testament, the Epistle of Barnabas, and

a large portion of the Shepherd of Hermas. The manuscript is divided

into four columns, and in each column there are fifty lines. This

manuscript may be regarded as similar to the Codex Sinaiticus, and

consequently is worthy of a searching inquiry and investigation. The

discovery of this gem is due to us.'

"Every reader will see that it is really a gem. Not only is the

mere antiquity of the manuscript a point of importance, but also

the fact that it contains a portion, and a considerable portion,

of the Shepherd of Hermas, which has lately been seen in a new

light, thanks to the researches and criticisms of scholars like

Hilgenfeld and Harnack. It is well known that Hilgenfeld maintained

that he had found the Greek conclusion, still missing, of Hermas,

in a London publication of the well-known forger, Constantin

Simonides (Nutt, 1859). This supposed conclusion was, after the

appearance, simultaneously with Professor Hilgenfeld's conjecture,

of the collation of the Athos Codex by Lambros, accompanied by an

introduction by Mr. Armitage Robinson, utterly rejected by Professor

Harnack, and declared to be a pure forgery of Simonides--an opinion

in which I concur. Now comes the ancient manuscript from Damascus

as a new document. Does it contain the conclusion of the Shepherd?

Unfortunately the meagre notice supplied by M. Papadopulos neither

throws light on this point nor affords us sufficient information, nor

does it allow us to form any certain opinion on the whole question

of the importance of the Damascene Codex and its similarity to the

Sinaitic, which also contains, besides the Testament, a small portion

of the Shepherd. I hope, however, to be soon in a position to give

further intelligence on this important discovery.

"SPYR. R. LAMBROS."

ENVIRONS OF DAMASCUS.

[Sidenote: _The Environs of Damascus._]

The small rides and excursions round Damascus are innumerable and

beautiful; they lead through garden and orchard with bubbling water,

under the shady fig and vine, pomegranate and walnut. You emerge on

the soft yellow sand, and you throw off your superfluous strength, by

galloping as hard as you will. There is no one to check your spirits;

the breath of the desert is liberty. There is Mizzeh, a village placed

exactly on the borders of the green and yellow; one side looks into

trees and verdure, and the other side in the bare sand. After that, you

get into the desert, and to Kataná, a village three hours away, and

Hámah. Jeramánah is a Druze village. Jobar is a Moslem village with a

synagogue, dedicated to Elijah, and is a pilgrimage for Damascus Jews,

and built over a cave, where they believe the prophet used to hide

in time of persecution. A railed-off space showed where he anointed

Hazael. When the prophet was at Horeb, "the Lord said unto him, Go,

return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus, and when thou comest,

anoint Hazael to be King over Syria" (1 Kings xix. 15). Burzeh is a

beautiful little village almost hidden under the mountain, nestling

in verdure, and partly hidden by a cliff at the mouth of the glen.

A Moslem Wely, called Makám Ibrahím (place of Abraham), assembles

thousands of pilgrims on its festival day, where they practise the

_Da'aseh_, meaning the treading--that is, the Shaykh riding over the

prostrate bodies of the Faithful without hurting them--as at Cairo.

Josephus, or rather Nicolaus of Damascus, says, "Abraham reigned at

Damascus, being a foreigner who came with an army out of the land above

Babylon, called the land of the Chaldean, but after a long time he got

up and removed from that country, also with his people, and went into

the land of Canaan, but now the land of Judea. Now, the name of Abraham

is still famous in the country of Damascus, and there is shown a

village named from him 'the habitation of Abraham,' and Burzeh is this

village." It is still disputed whether Burzeh or Jobar is the true site

of Hobah. These rides will take you from our mountain in a semicircle

all round Damascus (at the distance of about an hour and a half from

Damascus during the whole time), which is in our centre.

The longer excursions are the Convent of Saídnaya, considered by the

Greeks to be Ptolemy's Danaba. There are also the Rock-tombs and

temples of Menin Helbon, said to be the Chalybon of the Bible, once

famed for its wine, exported to Tyre, noted by Ezekiel and Strabo,

and horrible stuff it is, if it was the same as it is now. Then there

is the village of Dhumayr, which contains a well-preserved temple,

built in A.D. 246. This is the first day's station for the Baghdad

camel-post, which Richard was responsible for. About two miles eastward

of that, and at the foot of the lowest range of Anti-Lebanon, called

Jebel el-Kaus, are the ruins of a little town and fort deserted for

centuries. The desert of Arabia stretches right away to the east and

south-east.

These are the little and middling runs. It was very pleasant for us,

as we used to get acquainted with all the Shaykhs and people for two

or three days' ride all round Damascus, and if we felt dull--which, by

the way, we never did--we could run out and pay them a visit, such as

Shaykh Sali's camp, passing El Bassúleh to Hijáneh. Lakes are marked on

the maps a day's journey from Damascus. There are four lakes supposed

to receive the Abana and Pharphar, but they are generally dry, the

rivers evaporating or disappearing in the sand. You ride across the

Ghutah plain, the Merj, and Abbs (the plains of Damascus) into the Wady

el Ajam. It is also pleasant to ride down to the coast, seventy-two

miles, and take a steamer going to Tyre, Sidon, and other coast places.

[Illustration: SALAHÍYYAH, DAMASCUS IN THE OASIS--THE DESERT BEYOND.]

[Sidenote: _How our Days were passed._]

Richard's day, as I said, was divided into reading, writing, studying,

and attending to his official work. There was one kind of duty

within the town, another without the town, to scour mountain and

desert, to ride hard, and to know everything that is going on in the

country, and _personally_, not through dragomans only. His talents

were particularly Eastern, and of a political and diplomatic kind; his

knowledge of Eastern character was as perfect as his languages. He

was as much needed out of the town as in it, and very often when they

thought he was far away, he was amongst them, and they wondered how he

knew things. I interested myself in all his pursuits, and I was a most

fortunate woman that he allowed me to be his companion, his secretary,

and his aide-de-camp. I looked after our house, servants, stables,

and animals. I did a little gardening. I helped my husband, read and

wrote, studied Arabic, received and returned visits, saw and learnt

Damascus through, till I knew it like my own pocket, looked after the

poor and sick of my village and its environs. Sometimes I galloped

over the plains, and sat in the Bedawi tents, sometime went up all the

mountains. Summer times I smoked _narghílehs_ by the waterside in a

neighbour's garden. Sometimes I went to pass two or three days with a

harem. Our lives were wild, romantic, and solemn. After sunset the only

sounds were the last call to prayer on the Minaret top, the howling of

the wild dogs, the cries of the jackals in the burial-ground outside

the village, the bubbling of the fountains, the hootings of the owls in

the garden, the soughing of the wind through the mountain gorges, and

the noise of the water-wheel in a neighbour's orchard. There was often

a free fight in the road below, to steal a mare, or to kill. We have

often gone down to take some poor wretch in, and bind up his sabre-cuts.

[Sidenote: _Our Reception Day._]

I used to have a large reception every Friday, and not only of the

Europeans, but the Authorities as well as the natives of every tongue,

race, and creed, who used to assemble in our Divan for _narghílehs_,

sherbet, and coffee. It used to begin at sunrise, and go on till

sunset. How I look back to those romantic days when the assembled

party, being afraid to remain in our quarters after the sun was down,

used to file down through the orchards and gardens to the safe shelter

of the Damascus gates at sunset, and the mattresses and cushions of

the divans were spread on the housetop, backed by the romantic Jebel

Kaysún, with a bit of desert sand between it and us, and on all the

other three sides a view over Damascus, and its surrounding oasis, and

the desert beyond!

Then the supper was prepared on the roof, and there remained with us

the two most interesting and remarkable characters of Damascus, the

two who never knew what fear meant--the famous Abd el Kadir and Lady

Ellenborough, known there as the "Hon. Jane Digby el Mezrab." Abd el

Kadir was a dark, handsome, thoroughbred-looking man, with dignified

bearing and cool self-possession. He dressed in snowy white, both

turban and burnous. Not a single ornament except his jewelled arms,

which were splendid. If you saw him on horseback you would single him

out from a million; he had the seat of a gentleman and a soldier.

He was every inch a Sultan. His mind was as beautiful as his face.

He spoke the perfection of Arabic, he was a true Moslem, and he and

Richard were both Master-Sufi. All readers will know his history. He

was the fourth son of the Algerine Marabout Abd el Kadir Mahi ed Din,

and was born in 1807. You all remember his hopeless struggles for

the independence of Algeria, his capture, his imprisonment in France

from 1847 to 1852--a treacherous act, and a tarnish to the French

Government. Lord Londonderry earnestly entreated Louis Napoleon to

set him free, which he did, going to the prison himself to let him

out, and treating him with the greatest honour. He pensioned him and

sent him to Damascus, where he was surrounded by five hundred faithful

Algerines. He divided his time into prayer, study, business, and very

little sleep. He loved the English, but he was loyal to Louis Napoleon.

When the massacre in 1860 took place, he used to sleep at his own door,

lest any poor Christian wretch should knock and petition to be saved

from slaughter, and for fear his Algerines, being Moslems, should turn

a deaf ear; and he saved many, sending guards down to the convents of

women, and to his friends.

[Sidenote: _A Most Interesting and Remarkable Woman._]

Our other friend was the Hon. Jane Digby, of the family of Lord Digby,

married to Lord Ellenborough, and divorced. She made her home in

Damascus, and eventually married a Bedawin Shaykh (Mijwal el Mezrab),

the tribe of Mezrab being a branch of the great Anazeh. She was a most

beautiful woman, though at the time I write she was sixty-one, tall,

commanding, and queen-like. She was _grande dame au bout des doigts_,

as much as if she had just left the salons of London and Paris, refined

in manner and voice, nor did she ever utter a word you could wish

unsaid. My husband said she was out and out the cleverest woman he

ever met; there was nothing she could not do. She spoke nine languages

perfectly, and could read and write in them. She painted, sculptured,

was musical. Her letters were splendid; and if on business, there

was never a word too much, nor a word too little. She had had a most

romantic, adventurous life, and she was now, one might say, Lady Hester

Stanhope's successor. She lived half the year in a romantic house

she had built for herself in Damascus, and half her life she and her

husband lived in his Bedawi tents, she like any other Bedawin woman,

but honoured and respected as the queen of her tribe, wearing one blue

garment, her beautiful hair in two long plaits down to the ground,

milking the camels, serving her husband, preparing his food, giving him

water to wash his hands and face, sitting on the floor and washing his

feet, giving him his coffee, his sherbet, his _narghílehs_, and while

he ate she stood and waited on him, and glorying in it; and when in

Damascus they led semi-European lives. She looked splendid in Oriental

dress, and if you saw her as a Moslem woman in the bazar you would have

said she was not more than thirty-four years of age. She was my most

intimate friend, and she dictated to me the whole of her biography,

beginning 15th March, 1871, and ending July 7th.

After I left a report came home that she was dead. I answered some

unpleasant remarks in the Press about her, throwing a halo over her

memory, in which I stated that I being the possessor of the biography,

no one had a right to say anything about her except myself. She

reappeared again, having only been detained in the desert by the

fighting of the tribes. Her relatives attacked her for having given

me the biography, and she, under pressure, denied it in print through

one of the missionaries, and then wrote and asked me to give it back

to her; but I replied that she should have had it with the greatest

pleasure, only having "given me the lie" in print, I was obliged for my

own sake to keep it, and she eventually died. I have got it now, but I

shall never publish it.

After this episode of my being publicly attacked about her biography,

_Chambers' Journal_, September 9th, 1876, produced the following

notice:--

[Sidenote: _A Romantic History._]

"Jane Elizabeth, Lady Ellenborough, if we may trust the matter-of-fact

pages of Lodge's 'Peerage,' is the only sister of the present Lord

Digby, being daughter of the late Admiral Sir Henry Digby, G.C.B.,

great-grandson of the fifth Lord Digby; her mother was a daughter of

Thomas William Coke, of Holkham, the veteran M.P. for Norfolk, and

well-known agriculturist, afterwards created Earl of Leicester. She

was born in April, 1807, and when little more than seventeen, was

married to the late Lord Ellenborough (the Governor-General of India);

but the union was dissolved by Act of Parliament in 1830.

"The rumour of her death was effectually contradicted a few months

later by a letter in her own handwriting, addressed to an English

lady, who was well acquainted with her in Damascus. This lady and her

husband had mourned old Lady Ellenborough for two or three months as

having died in the desert, and had quite given up all hope of ever

seeing her again, when one day she received from her a letter stating

that she was alive and in the best of health, and asking her to

contradict the rumour of her decease.

'Lady Ellenborough was fortunate in the possession of at least one

sincere friend, generously eager to defend her when attacked, and to

make out the best case possible for her. Mrs. Isabel Burton, who had

been intimately acquainted, and in the habit of daily intercourse

with this extraordinary woman, during a residence of some years in

Damascus, while her husband, Captain Burton, was the English Consul

at that city, appears to have contracted a warm attachment for her,

and speaks of her, in spite of all her faults, in terms of the highest

praise. To Mrs. Burton Lady Ellenborough confided the task of writing

her biography, and dictated it to her day by day until the task was

accomplished. In a letter to the _Pall Mall Gazette_, written in

March, 1873, when under the belief that Lady Ellenborough was dead,

Mrs. Burton says, in allusion to this biography, 'She did not spare

herself, dictating the bad with the same frankness as the good. I was

pledged not to publish this until after her death and that of certain

near relatives.'

"Mrs. Burton subsequently adds, 'I cannot meddle with the past

without infringing on the biography confided to me; but I can say a

few words concerning her life, dating from her arrival in the East,

as told me by herself and by those now living there; and I can add

my testimony as to what I saw, which I believe will interest every

one in England, from the highest downwards, and be a gratification

to those more nearly concerned. About sixteen years ago, tired of

Europe, Lady Ellenborough conceived the idea of visiting the East, and

of imitating Lady Hester Stanhope and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, not

to mention a French lady, Mdme. de la Tour d'Auvergne, who has built

herself a temple on the top of Mount Olivet, and lives there still.

Lady Ellenborough arrived at Beyrout and went to Damascus, where she

arranged to go to Baghdad across the Desert. A Bedouin escort for this

journey was necessary; and as the Mezrab tribe occupied the ground,

the duty of commanding the escort devolved upon Shaykh Mijwal, a

younger brother of Shaykh Mohammed, chief of this tribe, which is a

branch of the great Anezeh tribe. On the journey the young Shaykh fell

in love with this beautiful woman, who possessed all the qualities

that could fire the Arab imagination. Even two years ago she was

more attractive than half the young girls of our time. It ended by

his proposing to divorce his Moslem wives and to marry her; to pass

half the year in Damascus--which to him was like what London or Paris

would be to us--for her pleasure, and half in the Desert to lead his

natural life. The romantic picture of becoming a Queen of the Desert

and of the Bedouin tribes exactly suited her wild fancies, and was at

once accepted; and she was married, in spite of all opposition made

by her friends and the British Consulate. She was married according

to Mohammedan law, changed her name to that of the Honourable Mrs.

Digby El Mezrab, and was horrified when she found that she had lost

her nationality by her marriage, and had become a Turkish subject. For

fifteen years she lived as she died,[3] the faithful and affectionate

wife of the Shaykh, to whom she was devotedly attached. Half the year

was passed in a very pretty house, which she built at Damascus just

without the gates of the City; and the other six months were passed,

according to his nature, in the Desert in the Bedouin tents of the

tribe.

"'In spite of this hard life, necessitated by accommodating herself to

his habits--for they were never apart--she never lost anything of the

English lady, nor the softness of a woman. She was always a perfect

lady in sentiment, voice, manners, and speech. She never said or did

anything could wish otherwise. She kept all her husband's respect, and

was the Mother and the Queen of his tribe. In Damascus we were only

nineteen Europeans, but we all flocked around her with affection and

friendship. The natives did the same. As to strangers, she received

only those who brought a letter of introduction from a friend or

relative; but this did not hinder every ill-conditioned passer-by from

boasting of his intimacy with the House of Mezrab, and recounting the

untruths which he invented, _pour se faire valoir_, or to sell his

book or newspaper at a better profit. She understood friendship in

its best and fullest sense, and for those who enjoyed her confidence

it was a treat to pass the hours with her. She spoke French, Italian,

German, Slav, Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, and Greek, as she spoke her

native tongue. She had all the tastes of a country life, and occupied

herself alternately with painting, sculpture, music, or with her

garden-flowers, or poultry, or with her thoroughbred Arab mares, or

in carrying out some improvement. She was thoroughly a connoisseur

in each of her amusements or occupations. To the last she was fresh

and young; beautiful, brave, refined, and delicate. She hated all

that was false. Her heart was noble; she was charitable to the poor.

She regularly attended the Protestant church, and often twice on

Sundays. She fulfilled all the duties of a good Christian lady and an

Englishwoman. She is dead. All those who knew her in her latter days

will weep for her. She had but one fault (and who knows if it was

hers?), washed out by fifteen years of goodness and repentance. Let

us hide it, and shame those who seek to drag up the adventures of her

wild youth to tarnish so good a memory. _Requiescat in pace._'

"But Lady Ellenborough was _not_ dead. It will, of course, be obvious

that, along with Lord Brougham, she has been privileged to read the

obituary notice of her own career; and she is probably destined to see

many more summers and winters in her Arab home.

"It is evident, from the tenor of the last few sentences of the

foregoing letter, that the 'one fault' to which the writer alludes was

the elopement of Lady Ellenborough with Prince Schwartzenberg, and

that Mrs. Burton entirely disbelieves in the half-dozen or more of

apocryphal husbands intervening between Lord Ellenborough and the Arab

sheikh. At any rate, the eccentric lady is entitled to the benefit

of the doubt; and public curiosity respecting this extraordinary

woman must remain unsatisfied until the period shall arrive when her

friend and confidante, Mrs. Burton, will be at liberty to publish the

autobiography committed to her charge.

"It would be possible, without difficulty, to draw at once a

parallel and a contrast between the eccentric Lady Ellenborough and

the scarcely less eccentric niece of the younger Pitt, Lady Hester

Stanhope, whom I have named above, and who, more than half a century

ago, exchanged English life, habits, and sentiments, and possibly also

to some extent her faith as well, for those of the wild and romantic

East."

The others, besides Richard and myself, on the house roof were

frequently Charles Tyrwhitt-Drake, an indefatigable worker in the

Palestine Exploration; and E. H. Palmer, afterwards professor of Arabic

at Cambridge, and in 1882 murdered by the Bedawi in Arabia. We were

six, and I need not say how romantic those evenings were, what a halo

my memory throws around them, what conversation, what real adventures,

real life, real wit, real spirituality we enjoyed; and we often stayed

there till the moon was on the wane. The two Englishmen were living

with us, and Abd el Kadir, with an escort of his Algerines, who were

picketed in our court, would see the lady home on his road to his own

palace. Now I am the only survivor of those happy meetings.

[Illustration: THE BURTONS' HOUSE-ROOF AT DAMASCUS AND THE ADJOINING

MOSQUE-MINARET.]

RICHARD AND CHILDREN.

[Sidenote: _Richard's Love for Children._]

Richard's love for children was quite extraordinary. If there was a

child in the room, even a baby in arms, no one could get a word out of

him; but you would find him on the floor, romping with them, and they

were never afraid of him. I do not think there could possibly be a

better illustration than the very admirable and striking account given

by Salih, who was one of the missionaries in Damascus:--

"_Burton at Damascus._

"My first sight of Captain Burton revealed not only the man in his

complex character, but supplied the key to the perplexing vicissitudes

of his extraordinary career.

"On his arrival in Damascus, Burton called at my house. My study

adjoined the drawing-room, into which he was shown by a native

servant. I heard him command the Arab to fetch me in harsh, peremptory

tones, which were meant to be obeyed. The servant, not thinking that I

was in the study, went to seek me elsewhere. I advanced, in noiseless

Damascus slippers, to the drawing-room door, and I came upon a scene

never to be forgotten.

"At one side of the room stood my curly-headed, rosy-cheeked little

boy of five, on the other side stood Burton. The two were staring at

each other. Neither was aware of my presence. Burton had twisted

his face into the most fiendish-like aspect. His eyes rolled, exposing

the whites in an alarming manner. The features were drawn to one side,

so as to make the gashes on his jaw and brow appear more ghastly. The

two cheeks were blown out, and Burton, raising a pocket-handkerchief

to his left cheek, struck his right with the flat of his right hand,

thus producing an explosion, and making the pocket-handkerchief fly to

the left as if he had shot it through his two cheeks.

"The explosion was followed by a suppressed howl, something between

the bark of a hyæna and a jackal. All the time Burton glared on the

little fellow with the fiery eyes of a basilisk, and the child stood

riveted to the floor as if spell-bound and fascinated, like a creature

about to be devoured. Suddenly a very wonderful thing happened. The

little boy, with a wild shout of delight, sprang into the monster's

arms, and the black beard was instantly mingled with the fair

curls, and Burton was planting kisses all over the flaxen pate. The

whole pantomime was gone through as quick as lightning, and Burton,

disentangling himself, caught sight of my Arab returning without me,

and, instead of waiting for an explanation, hurled at him a volley

of exasperating epithets, culled from the rich stores of spicy and

stinging words which garnish Arabic literature. Burton had revealed

himself to me fully before he saw me. The child's clear, keen instinct

did not mislead it. The big, rough monster had a big child's heart

behind the hideous grimaces. The child's unerring instinct was drawn

by affinity to the child's heart in the man."

During our time a very interesting episode occurred at Damascus--a sad

one, too. Lord and Lady Langdale had a daughter who was married to

Count Téleki. It was not a very happy marriage. She made a journey to

Syria and Palestine with her mother, a very nice cousin, and a young

friend of his, for diversion. Like many travellers, unused to sun, hard

riding, bad water, exposure, and fatigue, she got the usual fever and

dysentery, and was brought down in a dying state to Damascus. She was

of Agnostic principles, but in her last few hours she desired to be

baptized a Catholic. I did all I could for her in the way of nursing,

and Richard as far as his power went. When she died, her desk was found

to contain a letter which had been written years before, when she had

been very much excited by reading Buckle's "History of Civilization,"

and she wrote, "Should I die at Damascus, I should like to be buried by

Buckle." It so happened that there was place for two next to Buckle,

and she was buried there--a most impressive and touching funeral. Her

coffin was covered with the Union Jack; Richard and all his dragomans

and _kawwáses_, in full uniform, were present; and some time after,

appeared the following note in a newspaper:--

BUCKLE'S GRAVE.

"The London correspondent of the _Manchester Guardian_ says, 'A

traveller just arrived in London from Damascus gives some rather

interesting details about the present condition and surroundings

of Buckle's grave. Though it was left for so long after his death,

without a stone even to mark it, that it had the altar-tomb of white

marble and black basalt that was at length erected, and was now

enclosed in a high wall with a padlocked gate. Next to Buckle's tomb

are the tombs of two rather remarkable women. The first is that of

the Countess Téleki (a daughter, I believe, of Lord Langdale), who

especially desired that her grave should be next to Buckle's; and the

next tomb is that of Lady Ellenborough, erected by her brother, Lord

Digby, with an Arabic inscription from the Korán, placed on it by her

later husband, the Arab sheikh, in singular proximity to the cross

which forms part of the monument. On Buckle's tomb also, on which,

however, there is no cross, there is an Arabic inscription, suggested

by the famous Emir Abd el Kadir.'"

SYRIA.

[Sidenote: _Richard's Notes on our Wilder Travels._]

Each year in January we rode out with the Meccan Caravan, or Haj, as

far as Ramsah, the third station, and one year returned to Damascus

_viâ_ Izra (the Edhra of the Handbook) and the celebrated Haurán valley

plain, inspecting the chief settlements and making acquaintance with

the principal Shaykhs. Richard writes--

"I had business at Hums (Emesa), generally written Homs, and Hamáh

(Hamath Epiphaneia), on the northern borders of the consular district

of Damascus. From there I examined and sent home native facsimiles of

the four unique basaltic stones, whose characters, raised in cameo,

apparently represent a system of local hieroglyphics peculiar to this

part of Syria, and form the connecting link between picture-writing

and the true syllabarium. A friend was kind enough to give me some

valuable papers, amongst them two maps noting the most important of

the three hundred and sixty villages, which he had traced himself by

aid of native information. These stud the plain known as El'Aláh; the

same number of villages are allotted to the Lejá. This plain is a

high rolling ground beginning at Selamíyyah, the well-known ruin and

outwork of Palmyra, six hours' ride from, and bearing east-south-east

of the Mound of Hamáh. It extends five days' journey to the north, and

from east to west two or three days'. Some call it the 'Great Syrian

Desert;' but the Seleucidæ here kept their immense studs of elephants

and horses. The whole is virgin ground, as are also the eastern slopes

of the Jebel Kalbíyyah, on the left bank of the Orontes, and of the

country extending from the parallel of Hums to that of Selamíyyah. In

the first five hours we had examined five ruins; and the basaltic

buildings are exactly those of the Giant Cities of Bashan. We returned

to Damascus by Jebel el Hulah; saw the fine crusading castle called

Husn el Akrád, the plain of the Nahr el Kabír, the Eleutherus river.

Our hardships were considerable; the country was under water, and the

rushing torrents and deep ditches caused long detours. We had heavy

and continuous rains, furious blasts, snow and sleet like Norway.

One of the followers sickened and died, and we were all frostbitten.

In all my trips and peregrinations, I had business to do as well as

pleasure.

"Throughout Syria, when the basaltic soil runs to any depth, the

earth is loose and treacherous, fatiguing to traverse in summer,

and impassable in winter. In some places the water is sulphurous or

brackish, but in most places without any unpleasant taste; it is

strongly diuretic."

UNEXPLORED SYRIA.

Taken from Richard's journals of excursions to the Libanus with

Charley Drake and me, and once with Drake alone, the Tulúl el Safá,

the Anti-Libanus, the Northern Libanus, and the 'Aláh. We collected

eighty-one original Greek inscriptions in the Haurán mountain, and in

the 'Aláh, a collection of Alpine plants from the Libanus, shells, and

geological specimens. Charley Drake did the plans and sketches and

maps, Richard and I the writing.

Richard wrote--

[Sidenote: _The Tulúl el Safá._]

"The fact was we had long been tantalized by the sight of the

forbidden Tulúl el Safá, or Hillocks of the Safá Pyramids, looking at

the distance like baby finger-tops, dotting the eastern horizon within

sight of our housetop, and, thinning out northwards, prolonged the

lumpy blue wall of the Jebel Durúz Haurán, which appears to reflect

the opposite line of the Anti-Libanus. Many also were the vague and

marvellous reports which had reached our ears concerning a cave called

by the few who knew it Umm Nírán, the mother of fires. The difficulty

and danger of visiting these places arose in my time simply from the

relations of the _Wali's_ government with the hill tribes of Bedawin,

who, mixed up with the Druzes, infest the Trachonic countries. The

hill tribes proper are Agaylát, the Hasan, the Shurafát, the Azámát,

and the Masá'id. The Safá is tenanted by the Shitayá, the Ghiyás,

and the Anjad, whilst the Lejá belongs to the Sulút, as clients of

the Druzes. These are nine hordes intermarried, who combine together

in the warfare of the tribes. They are the liege descendants of the

refractory robbers of the Trachonitis, who, to revenge the death of

their Captain Naub, rose up against the garrison of three thousand

Idumæans stationed in their country by Herod, son of Antipater. Their

prowess as plunderers is still famous.

"To the scandal of every honest man, they are allowed to scour the

plains, carry off the flocks, and harry the flocks and herds of the

peasantry. They served as ready implements of revenge against all

those disaffected to or disliked by the petty autocrat [Rashíd Pasha]

who then disgraced the land by his rule. They are small and slightly

made, with oval face, bright brown eyes, and restless roving look

of the civilized pickpocket. The features high and well formed, the

skin a clear olive yellow. They wear long love-locks of raven-wings'

tint, well buttered. Their dress scanty and irregular. The action,

like the eyes, is wild and startled; the voice is a sort of bark. When

attacked, they put the women, children, and cattle in the rear, form

a rude line, carefully guard against being out-flanked, and advance

file-firing with great regularity. They attack strangers, and they

have no sense of hospitality, and for this reason it was not really

safe to ride alone three hours beyond the Eastern gate of Damascus.

The Subá'a, therefore, made the plain of Damascus a battle-field, and

the Wuld Ali levied black-mail in Cœle-Syria.

"Dust was thrown in the eyes of the civilized world whilst the _Wali_

employed hordes of banditti to plunder its own hapless subjects,

whilst the satellites had the audacity to publish, 'Le désert est

cultivé, les Bedouins sont soumis, et le brigandage anéanti.' So it

came to pass that all the broken-down Gassanian convents had never

to our knowledge been visited by any European traveller. Mr. Porter

was told that a hundred horsemen would not attempt a journey to El

Diyúrá. We received no damage, and nighted in the old temple of Ba'al,

called Harrán el'Awámid. However, the Ghiyás found us out, advanced in

a steady line, treated us to a shower of bullets, severely wounding

in the leg our gallant companion and friend, Bedr Beg. As we were

well mounted and armed, and the riding ground good, we could have

brought down as many of them as we pleased, for we were all armed with

six-shooters, and eight shot rifles, but, as we wanted to avoid a

blood-feud, we did not return fire. After Rashíd Pasha was gone, the

mystery of their attacking us was cleared up.

"These convents are in an excellent state of preservation. What we

have to complain of is that the spirit of clique too often succeeds

in ignoring the real explorer, the true inventor, the most learned

writer, and the best artist. The honour is denied to the right

man. Party is successful against principle. The Pharisee, with his

aggressive, vigorous, narrow-minded nature, with his hard thin

character, all angles and stings, with his starch inflexible opinions

upon religion, politics, science, literature, and art, with his broad

assurance that _his_ ways are the only right ways, rules with a rod

of iron the large herd of humanity, headed by Messrs. Feeblemind and

Ready-to-halt. We find in our national life, when the Battle of the

Creeds, or rather of 'Non-Credo' _versus_ 'Credo,' has been offered

and accepted; when every railway station is hung with texts and

strewed with tracts for the benefit of that British-public-cherished

idol the working-class; when the South Kensington Museum offers

professional instruction in science and art for women before they

become mothers, suggesting that creation by law may be as reasonable

as creation by miracle; when Secularism draws the sword against

Denominationalism; briefly, when those who 'believe' and those who do

not, can hardly keep hands off one another in a _mêlée_, it suggests a

foretaste of the mystical Armageddon."

Richard and Charley Drake sketched and fixed the positions of some

fifty ruins which are fated to disappear from the face of the earth.

They took squeezes of from twenty to twenty-five Greek inscriptions,

of which six or seven have dates, and explored the Harrah, or

'Hot-Country,' the pure white blank in the best maps, and took

hydrographic charts, as they found that the guide-books and the maps

teemed with mistakes.

"I thought," he said, "when I came here that Syria and Palestine would

be so worn out that my occupation as an explorer was clean gone, but

I soon found that although certain lines had been well trodden, that

scarcely ever a traveller, and _no tourists_, have ever ridden ten

miles off the usual ways. No one knows how many patches of unvisited

and unvisitable country lie within a couple of days' ride of great

cities and towns, such as Aleppo and Damascus, Hums, and Hamáh.

"Where the maps show a virgin white patch in the heart of Jaydur, the

classical Ituræa, students suppose that the land has been examined,

and has been found to contain nothing of interest. The reverse is

absolutely the case. Finally, as will presently appear, there are

valid reasons for that same, for the unexplored spots are either too

difficult or too dangerous for the multitude to undertake. To visit

carefully _even_ the _beaten_ tracks in the Holy Land occupies six

months, and none _except a resident_ can afford leisure or secure

health for more, and the reason that these places have escaped

European inspection is, that they do not afford provisions, or forage,

or water; they are deadly with malarious fever, they are infested by

the Bedawi. They do not often detain you for ransom, nor mutilate you;

but they will spear you. They will not kill you in cold blood; that is

only done for a _Thar_, which is the blood-feud between tribes. Still,

under these mitigated circumstances, travellers may know that their

escorts will turn tail, and will hardly care to expose themselves,

their attendants, and baggage to a charge of Bedawin cavalry. Indeed,

the running away of the escort is the traveller's safeguard. If the

tribe could seize all, it knows that dead men are dumb, but it knows

that the fugitives have recognized them, and that before evening the

tale will be known through all the land.

"There is no reverence in this ancient place for antiquity. Syria

would _willingly_ change from ancient and Oriental to modern and

European. The ruins of the 'Aláh are pulled to pieces to build houses

for Hamáh. The classical buildings of Saccæa are torn down and made

into rude hovels for the Druzes, who fled from the Anti-Libanus and

Hermon. Syria, north of Palestine, is an old country, geographically

and technologically and other ways, but it is absolutely new. A land

of the past, it has a future as promising as that of Mexico or the

Argentine Republic. The first railway that spans it will restore the

poor old lethargic region to rich and vigorous life. 'Lazare, veni

foras!'--it will raise this Lazarus of Eastern provinces, this Niobe

of nations, from a neglected grave. _There is literally no limit that

can be laid down to the mother-wit, the ambition, the intellectual

capabilities of its sons. They are the most gifted race that I have

as yet ever seen, and when the curse shall have left the country--not

the bane of superstition, but the bane and plague-spot of bad rule--it

will again rise to a position not unworthy of the days when it gave to

the world a poetry and a system of religion still unforgotten by our

highest civilization._

"My object was to become acquainted with the Haurán and its Druzes,

to see the Umm-Nírán Cave, called the 'fire cave,' of which one hears

such extraordinary legends, and the Tulúl el Safá, which is the

volcanic region, east of the Damascus swamps.

"The South Pacific Coast, and Mediterranean Palestine, are two

pendants in the world, only the East is on a much smaller scale. The

lakes and rivers, plains and valleys, cities and settlements, storms

and earthquakes, in fact, all the geographical, physical, and the

meteorological, as well as the social features of the two regions,

show a remarkable general likeness with a difference of proportion.

"The world is weary of the past. In these regions there is hardly a

mile without a ruin, hardly a ruin that is not interesting, and in

some places, mile after mile and square mile after square mile of ruin

show a luxuriance of ruin. There is not a large ruin in the country

which does not prove, upon examination, to be the composition of ruins

more ancient still. The mere surface of the antiquarian mine has

only been scratched; it will be long years before the country can be

considered explored, before even Jerusalem can be called 'recovered,'

and the task must be undertaken by Societies, not by _individuals_.

"Of history, of picturesque legend, of theology and mythology, of art

and literature, as of archaeology, of palæography, of palæogeography,

of numismatology, and all the other 'ologies and 'ographies, they have

absolutely no visible end. If the New World be bald and tame, the

Syrian old world is, to those _who know it well_, perhaps a little too

fiery and exciting, paling with its fierce tints and angry flush the

fair vision which a country has a right to contemplate in the days to

be. There is a disease here called 'Holy Land on the Brain,' which

makes patients babble of hanging gardens and parterres of flowers.

The 'green sickness' attacks tourists from Europe and North America,

especially where the sun is scarce. It attacks the Protestant with

greater violence than the Catholic (the Catholic from long meditation

is prepared for it). The Protestant fit is excited and emotional,

spasmodic and hysterical, ending in a long rhapsody about himself,

his childhood, and his mother. It spares the Levantine, as 'yellow

Jack' does the negro. His brain is too well packed with the wretched

intrigues and petty interest of material life to have any room for

excitement at 'the first glimpse of Emmanuel's Land.' The sufferer

will perhaps hire a house at Siloam, and pass his evenings in howling

from the roof, at the torpid little town of Jebus, 'Woe! woe to thee,

Jerusalem!' Men fall to shaking hands with one another, and exchange

congratulations for the all-sufficient reason that the view before

them 'embraces the plain of Esdraelon.'

"_A long and happy life should be still before it. The ruined heaps

show us what has been; the appliances of civilization, provided

with railways and tramways, will offer the happiest blending of

the ancient and the modern worlds. It will become another Egypt,

with the advantages of a superior climate, and far nobler races

of men._ Time was when I dreamt of the Libanus as my future _pied

à terre_. When weary with warfare and wander, one could repose in

peace and comfortable ease. I thought of pitching a tent for life

on Mount Lebanon, whose _raki_ and tobacco are of the best, whose

_Vino d'oro_ is _compared_ with the best, whose winter climate is

like an English summer, whose views are lovely, a place at the same

time near and far from society--it was _riant_ in the extreme;[4]

but in the state of Syria in _my_ time, the physical mountain had no

shade, the moral mountain no privacy, the village life would have

been dreary and monotonous, broken only by a storm, an earthquake, a

murder, a massacre. Such is the rule of the _Wali_ in this unfortunate

time, when drought and famine, despotism and misrule, maddens its

unfortunate inhabitants.

"We now determined the forms and bearings of the Cedar Block, the true

apex of the Libanus. We then went to the unknown and dangerous region

called Tulúl el Safá, the Hillocks of the Safá district, a mass of

volcanic cones lying east of the Damascus swamps called lakes. Then

we explored the northern Anti-Libanus, a region which is innocent of

tourists and traveller, and appears a blank of mountains upon the best

maps. Of my fellow-traveller Charley Drake I can only say that every

one knows his public worth. At the end of my time here came three

tedious months of battling unsupported, against all that falsehood and

treachery could devise; the presence of this true-hearted Englishman,

staunch to the backbone, inflexible in the cause of right, and equally

disdainful of threats and promises, was our greatest comfort: I can

only speak of him with enthusiasm. Our journey to the northern slopes

of Lebanon, and the 'Aláh or the highland of Syria, is an absolute

gain to geography, as the road lay through a region marked on our maps

'Great Syrian Desert,' and the basaltic remains in the extensive and

once populous plain lying north-east and south-east of Hamah have been

visited, sketched, and portrayed for the first time. We found lignite,

true coal, bituminous schists and limestone, the finest bitumen or

asphalt, mineral springs of all sorts, and ores of all kinds, and

plants and rhubarb. And then the duty of a Consular officer in Syria

is to scour the country, and see matters with his own eyes, and

personally to investigate the cases which are brought before him at

head-quarters, where everything except the truth appears.

"After our visit to Ba'albak and the northern Libanus, we 'did' the

southern parts of the mountain, the home of the Druzes as opposed

to that of the Maronites; then we ascended Hermon, then we had our

gallop to the Waters of Merom, that hideous expanse of fetid mire and

putrefying papyrus. We paid a visit to the only Bedawin Amir in this

region, the Amir Hasan el Fa'úr of the Benú Fadl tribe, and then we

visited most of the romantic and hospitable Druze villages which cling

to the southern and eastern folds of Hermon."

[Sidenote: _Our Home in the Anti-Lebanon._]

We used to spend all the summers in the Anti-Lebanon. Bludán is a

little Christian village, Greek orthodox, which clings to the Eastern

flank of the mountain overlooking the Zebedáni valley, which is well

known to travellers, because it leads from Damascus to Ba'albak. In it

we found the _official_ sources of the Barada, the river of Damascus,

but its _real_ source is a pool just behind our quarters, fed in winter

by the torrent of Jebel el Shakíf. The Bludán block is a few miles

north of the site of Abila, the highest summit of Anti-Lebanon, and

is fronted on the west by Jebel el Shakíf, or "Mountain of Cliffs,"

with gaps and gorges. Bludán lies twenty-seven miles to the north-west

across country, away from Damascus.

Ours was a large claret-case-shaped house of stone; the centre was a

large barn-like limestone hall with a deep covered verandah; a wild

waste of garden extends all round the house, a bare ridge of mountain

behind; a beautiful stream with two small waterfalls rushes through

the garden. It is five thousand feet high--an eagle's nest, commanding

an unrivalled view. The air was perfect, only hot at three p.m. for

an hour or two, and blankets at night. There was stabling for eight

horses; no windows, only wooden shutters to close at night. We see five

or six ranges of mountains, one backing the other, of which the last

looks down upon the Haurán. We can see Jebel Sannin, which does not

measure nine thousand feet above sea-level, monarch of the Lebanon, and

on the left, Hermon, king of the Anti-Lebanon. The Greek villages cling

like wasps' nests to our mountain, and Zebedáni, on the plain beneath,

contains thirty-five thousand Mohammedans.

[Illustration: THE BURTONS' HOUSE AT BLUDÁN, IN ANTI-LEBANON.

_By Charles Tyrwhitt-Drake._]

[Sidenote: _Our Day._]

The utter solitude, the wildness of the life, the absence of _luxe_,

and no society, the being thoroughly alone with Nature and one's

own thoughts, was all too refreshing; we led half-Eastern lives and

half-farmhouse life. We made our own bread, we bought butter and

milk from the Bedawi, we bought sheep or kids from passing flocks. We

woke at dawn, and after a cup of tea, we used to take the dogs, and

have long walks over the mountains with our guns.

The game were bears (very scarce), gazelles, wolves, wild boars, and

a small leopard called _nimr_, but for these we had to go far, and

watch in silence before dawn. But Richard had opinions about sport;

he only wanted to kill a beast that would kill us if we did not kill

it, and the smaller game, partridges, quails, woodcocks, hares, and

wild duck, we never shot unless we were hungry, and we would not have

the gazelles hunted. He had the greatest contempt for the Hurlingham

matches, and the battue slaughters in English parks, where, instead

of honestly walking for your game, and bringing it home to eat, the

young men of to-day have a gentle stroll to eat _pâté de foie gras_,

drink champagne, and the keeper hands them a gun with a pheasant almost

tied to the end of it to blow to pieces. And what Richard thought

about sport I heartily agreed with. The hot part of the day was spent

in reading, writing, and studying Arabic. He sent home from Bludán,

during 1870, "Vikram and the Vampire" (Hindú tales), "Paraguay," and

"Proverbia Communia Syriaca" (Royal Asiatic Society, 1871)--three works

he had been long preparing.

His three literary necessities were Shakespeare, the Bible, and Euclid,

and they were bound up together, with three large clasps, like a

breviary, and went everywhere. _His_ method of language-learning he

has described in his autobiography. He taught me this way. He made me

learn ten new words a day by heart. "When a native speaks, then say

the words after him to get his accent. Don't be English--that is, shy

or self-conscious--if you know five words, air them wherever you can;

next day you will know ten, and so on till you can speak. Don't be like

the Irishman who would not go into the water until he could swim. Then

take a very easy childish book, in the colloquial language of the day,

and translate it word for word underneath the original, and you will be

surprised how soon you find yourself unconsciously talking."

At twelve we had our first meal; in the afternoon native Shaykhs, or

English from Beyrout or Damascus, came to visit us, or rare tourists

would crawl up to see what sort of people we were, and how we lived.

They all used to say, "Well, it is glorious, but the thing is to get

here." We set up a _tir_ (shooting-place) in the garden, and used to

practise pistol or rifle shooting, or fence, or put on the _cavesson_,

and lunge the horses if they had had no exercise. When the sun became

cooler, all the poor within sixteen miles round would come to be

doctored; the hungry, the thirsty, the ragged, the sick and sorry,

filled our garden, and Richard used to settle grievances, and they all

got money or clothing, food or medicine, and sympathy. Before dinner

we used to assemble in the garden to eat a few mouthfuls of _leban_

salad and drink a liqueur glass of _raki_, which was quite necessary to

give us sufficient appetite. Divans were then spread on the housetop,

and we used to watch the moon lighting up Hermon, whilst we smoked the

after-dinner _narghíleh_. The horses were picketed out all these summer

nights, and the _saises_ slept with them. The last thing was to have

night prayers, and then to go the rounds to see that everything was

right, turn out the dogs on guard, and then to bed.

The mails came once a fortnight, and Richard would ride into Damascus

and see that all was well. Sometimes we used to give a picnic to

some of our Moslem neighbours, and we would gallop out in the plain,

and stay in the black tents of the Arabs. I used to have to ride

down to the Moslem village Zebedáni every Sunday for church. The

path was steep, and covered with rolling stones, so that the horses

used mostly to slide down, and it occupied about an hour and a half.

The most curious part was that the Shaykhs and chief Moslems always

accompanied me to Mass. The thing that astonished the Shaykhs the most,

was the small acolytes being able to read and sing in Latin, and they

constantly exclaimed, "Máshálláh!"

We were much grieved about this time to hear the sad news of poor Lord

Clarendon's death. Few amongst us that have not some happy recollection

of that kind, true heart. He belonged to a breed of gentlemen that with

one or two exceptions may be said to have died out. R.I.P. At this

juncture Mr. E. H. Palmer and Charley Drake had come back from Sinai

and the Tih Desert, and came to stay with us.

[Sidenote: _With Drake and Palmer in the Lebanon._]

We wandered about for a long time together. On a long day we might

easily zigzag forty or fifty miles, and thirty or thirty-six on a short

day. We never rode straight to a place, and always rode two horses, as

there is so much to be seen on both sides of a direct way.

Ba'albak is far more beautiful, though much smaller than Tadmor, and

can be seen without any danger. Tadmor is more romantic, picturesque,

more startling, and there is the attraction of the danger, and being in

the absolute desert. Londoners and Parisians would consider Ba'albak

in the desert, but we from Damascus do not. This was the holy place of

the old Phœnicians, and I do not know a finer sight, from a distant

height, when Ba'albak is lit up by the setting sun. The fertile plain

of the Buká'a, with its black Turcoman tents and camels, lies in the

distance. There is a big stone still lying there, which would weigh

eleven thousand tons. The Hajar el Hablah, or pregnant stone, is a huge

unfinished block. Our measurements were seventy feet long, fourteen

feet two inches high, and thirteen feet eleven inches broad. The

extraordinary sight makes you exclaim, "Something must have frightened

them before they had time to carry it off."

Riding about, you come to the Turcomans' tents, who have wandered about

Syria since the days of the Crusaders, and have preserved, like their

neighbours the _Nuwar_ (gypsies), their ancestral language and customs.

We then went to live for a short while with the Maronites, two hundred

thousand people, under the rule of their Patriarch, and we camped for

some time under the cedars of Lebanon. There are only nine of these

large and ancient trees left; the four largest are in the form of a

cross, and three smaller. There are 555 trees (newer than these nine),

all told, and they are 7368 feet above sea-level. While stopping with

his "Beatitude the Maronite Primate of Antioch, and of all the East,"

whom his flock calls "our Patriarch, our Pope, and our Sultan," we saw

for once the simplicity and sincerity of the Apostolic ages.

B'sherri, Jezzín, and Sadád produce a manly, independent race of

Christians, fond of horses and arms, with whom I am not ashamed to own

community of faith. In all my life I have never seen worse riding than

the Kasrawán; it consists of nothing but _débris_ of rock, fields,

valleys, and mountains, all of the largest jagged stones. Our horses

had to do the work of goats, and jump from one bit of rock to another,

and it lasted over twelve hours at once. We lost our camp, but after

seeing our exhausted horses groomed, fed, watered, and tethered in

a warm spot, we were glad to eat a water-melon, and sleep on our

saddle-cloths in the open. The next day was just as bad until we

reached Affka, but the scenery was glorious. We had three days of this

awful riding, which the Syrians call "Darb el Jehannum," the "road of

hell." We visited Mr. Palgrave's old quarters, a monastery of fifty or

sixty Jesuits, where Mr. Palgrave was a Jesuit for seventeen years.

Here we all got fever.

[Sidenote: _Religious Disturbances._]

Upon the 26th of August, Richard received at night, by a mounted

messenger, the two following letters from Mr. Wright, Chief Missionary

at Damascus (No. 2), and from Mr. Nasif Meshaka, Chief Dragoman of the

British Consulate (No. 1). I give them as they were written:--

No. 1.

"DEAR SIR,

"The Christians in Damascus are in great alarm; most of them have left

for Saídnayah, and others are about to leave for elsewhere. Their

alarm was occasioned from the following facts: signs of crosses were

made in the streets in the same way which preceded the massacre of

1860. On the 23rd instant a certain Mohammed Rashíd, a Government

inspector (_teftish_), being in disguise, caught a young Jew, twelve

years old, in the service of Solomon Donemberg, a British-protected

subject, making signs of crosses in a cabinet of a mosque at Suk

el Jedíd. Yesterday another young Jew, in the service of Marco, a

French Jew, was caught also. Both of these two boys were taken to the

Government; being under age, they were at once released by order of

Mejlis Tamiz Hukúk. It is believed that the Moslems are the authors

of these signs, either directly or indirectly, to stop the Government

from taking the Redíf (militia), which is managed in a very oppressive

manner, that is, leaving many families without males to support them.

Such kinds of Redíf prefer rather to be hanged than seeing their

harims without support or any one to maintain them in their absence. A

certain Nicolas Ghartous, a Protestant from Ain Shára, reported to me

yesterday that while waiting on Mr. Anhouri, near the barracks of the

Christian quarter, being dressed like a Druze, three soldiers of the

same barracks came to him and said, 'Yakík el 'ijl,' a technical term

used by the Druzes, meaning, 'Are you ready for another outbreak?'

Ghartous replied, 'We are at your disposal.' The soldiers replied,

'Prepare yourself, and we will reap our enemies from here to the Báb

Sharki' (the Christian quarter), and thus they departed. Hatem Ghanem,

a Catholic member in the Haurán, came here to recover some money due

to him by Atta Zello of the Meydán Aghas. While claiming the money

he was beaten, and his religion and Cross were cursed by his debtor,

who was put in prison at the request of the Catholic Patriarchate.

Twenty to thirty Redífs of the Meydán ran away to the Lejá'a, to take

refuge there. The Redífs will be collected next Saturday, the 27th

instant, some say at the Castle of Damascus, others at Khabboon and

Mezzeh. The report is current that on that day there will be no work

in town, and that there will be an outbreak. Although Ibraham Pasha,

the new Governor, arrived on the 23rd instant, he will not undertake

his duties till the return of the _Wali_. The Governor, as well as

some Frenchmen, through M. Roustan, who is now at Jerusalem, intend to

propose to the _Wali_ to leave Holo Pasha to continue occupying his

present function under the present circumstances. The _Mushir_ left

on the 19th instant. The _Wali_ is absent. The _Muffetish_, whom you

know his inefficiency, is the Acting Governor-General. Consuls are

absent (that is, the French and English). The presence of the high

functionaries, and especially the Consuls, is a great comfort to the

Christians in general."

No. 2.

"DEAR SIR,

"I have just got in from Rasheiya, and before I sat down several

Christians and one Moslem came in to ask if I knew what was coming.

They seemed to be very much afraid; but, except that people don't act

logically, I see no reason for fear. The fear, however, _does_ seem

_very_ great. I know nothing. Any English of us here should be ready

at the worst to fight our corner. Many thanks for your prompt action

in our affairs. It is something to have

'One firm, strong man in a blatant land,

Who can act and who dare not lie.'

"W. W."

It appeared that one of those eruptions of ill-feeling, which are

periodically an epidemic in Damascus, resulting from so many religions,

tongues, and races, was about to simmer into full boil between Moslem

and Christian. The outsiders are fond of stirring up both, for they

reap all the benefit. It appeared that a slaughter-day was fixed for

the 27th of August, 1870; all the Chief Authorities, by an accidental

combination of affairs, were absent as well as the Consuls. Wednesday

is the Moslem's unlucky day, and also, I believe, the 23rd; it is

thought it will be the day of the end of the world. There would be

nobody to interfere, and nobody to be made responsible. It was the

night of the 26th when he got these letters. Richard ordered the horses

to be saddled, the weapons to be cleaned. In ten minutes he told me

what his plans and arrangements were. He said, "We have never before

been in a Damascus riot, but if it takes place it will be like the

famous affair of 1860. I shall not take you into Damascus, because _I_

intend to protect Damascus, and you must protect Bludán and Zebedáni.

I shall take half the men, and I shall leave you half. You shall go

down into the plain with me to-night, and we shall shake hands like

two brothers and part; tears or any display of affection will tell the

secret to our men."

So it was done, and at six o'clock the next morning he walked into

the _mejlis_ (council chamber). He was on good terms with them all,

so he told them frankly what was going on, and said, "Which of you is

to be hanged if this is not prevented? It will cost you Syria, and

unless you take measures at once, I shall telegraph to Constantinople."

This had the desired effect. "What," they asked, "would you have us

to do?" He said, "I want you to post a guard of soldiers in every

street; order a patrol all night. I will go the rounds with Holo

Pasha. Let the soldiers be harangued in the barracks, and told that

on the slightest sign of mutiny the offenders will be sent to the

Danube (their Cayenne). Issue an order that no Jew or Christian shall

leave the house till all is quiet." All these measures were taken by

ten o'clock a.m., and continued for three days. Not a drop of blood

was shed, and the frightened Christians who had fled to the mountains

began to come back. There is no doubt that my husband saved Damascus

from a very unpleasant episode. Mr. L. Wright, Mr. Scott, and the other

missionaries, his own dragomans, and a few staunch souls who remained

quietly with him, appreciated his conduct, and he received many thanks

from those on the spot. The diligence was so much in request (nearly

all the Christians and Europeans had tried to leave) that a friend of

mine could not get a seat for three weeks; yet these people, so soon as

they sighted the Mediterranean, were brave and blatant. "Oh! _we_ were

not at all frightened; there was _no_ danger whatever!" Mr. Eldridge,

who had lived for ten years safely on the coast, and had never ventured

up to Damascus in his life, a civilian whose dislike to the smell of

powder was notorious, wrote me a pleasantly chaffing letter, hoping I

had recovered my fever and fright, and giving Richard instructions how

to behave in time of danger. When Richard had gone I climbed back to

our eyrie, which commanded the country, and collected every available

weapon and all the ammunition. The house was square, looking every way.

I put a certain number of men on each side with a gun each, a revolver,

and bowie-knife. I put two on the roof with a pair of elephant guns

carrying four-ounce balls, and took the terrace myself. I planted

the Union Jack on the flag-staff at the top of the house, turned our

bull-terriers into the garden, locked up a little Syrian maid, Khamoor

(the Moon), who was very pretty (Richard used to say her eyes were of

the owlified largeness of the book of beauty), in the safest room,

and my English maid, who was as brave as a man, was to supply us with

provisions. I knew that I could rely upon our own men, so I filled all

the empty soda-water bottles full of gunpowder, and laid fusees ready

to stick in and light, and throw amongst the crowd. I then rode down

to the American mission--the only other people near--to tell them if

there was the slightest movement to come up and shelter with me; and

then into the village of Bludán, to tell the Christians there to come

and camp in our garden; and lastly to Zebedáni, where there were a few

Christians living amongst the thirty-five thousand Moslems, and I sent

them up at once, because there would be no time for _them_ to reach me

if danger came suddenly. The others were close by. I then rode down to

the Moslem Shaykhs, and asked them what _they_ thought. They told me

there _would_ be a fight. "One half of our village will fight _with_

you and yours, the other half will destroy the Christians here and at

Bludán. They will hesitate to attack _your_ house, but if matters are

so bad as that, they shall pass over our dead bodies, and those of all

our house, before they reach _you_." And every night they came up and

picketed round the garden till my husband came back.

This lasted three days, and all subsided without accident. At this

time also there was a tremendous row between a Moslem and a Christian

woman; he tore the woman's ear down, smashed her black and blue,

bruised her, and took all her gold ornaments from her. The case of

Hassan Beg, on whose account my husband was reported, by the British

Syrian School missionaries, to be recalled _on account of my conduct_,

happened a whole year before my husband's recall. After this, when we

rode desert-wards, the tribes used in the evening to dance especially

for Richard. The men formed a squad like soldiers; they plant the right

foot in time to tom-tom music, with a heavy tread, and an exclamation

like that used by our street-menders when the crowbar comes down with a

thud upon the stones. When they are numerous it sounds like the advance

of an army, and they would burst out into song, of which the literal

translation would be--

"Máshálláh! Máshálláh! At last we have seen a man!

Behold our Consul in our Shaykh!

Who dare to say 'Good morning' to us (save Allah) when he rules?

Look at him, look at the Sitt!

They ride the Arab horses!

They fly before the wind!

They fire the big guns!

They fight with the sword!

Let us follow them all over the earth!"

(Chorus) "Let us follow, let us follow," etc., etc.

[Sidenote: _Holo Pasher gives us a Panther._]

We were very fond of animals, and especially of wild ones. Holo

Pasha had given us a panther cub trapped in the desert to show his

appreciation of what Richard had done. We brought him up like a cat.

He grew to be a splendid beast, and never did any of us harm, but he

frightened the other animals a little sometimes. We kept him very

well fed, in order that he might never attack them. Our cat was very

frightened of him, and the only animals that he was frightened of

were the bull-dogs. He used to sleep by our bedside. He had bold bad

black eyes, that seemed to say, "Be afraid of me." He used to hunt me

round the garden, playing hide-and-seek with me as a cat does a mouse.

When he bit too hard, I used to box his ears, when he was instantly

good. But he grew up and was large. There was a certain baker that the

bull-terriers used to bite, and the panther, who also saw in him what

we did not, worried him. At last the peasantry, who were frightened of

him, gave him poison in meat. He withered away, and nothing we could do

did him any good, and one day, when I went to look round the stables,

he put his paw up to me. I sat down on the ground, and took him in

my arms like a child. He put his head on my shoulder, and his paws

round my waist, and he died in about half an hour. Richard and I were

terribly grieved.

There are charming rides across the Anti-Lebanon through a mountain

defile to Ain el Bardi, where we found black tents and flocks feeding

by the water. There is very much to be seen in the plain of El Buká'a,

beginning at Mejdel. Anjar is a little village on a hillock standing

alone; on its top is a small gem of a temple built by Herod Agrippa in

honour of Augustus, with a very graceful broken column; below it are

the ruins of Herod's Palace, and a twenty minutes' further ride in the

plain lie the ruins of Chalcis. From the temple above named we could

see the greater part of the Buká'a, walled in at either side by the

Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon, and dotted with seventy-two villages.

Anjar is bisected by the Litani river, falsely called the Leontes.

Having feasted our eyes, we rode on to the square ruins of Chalcis in

the plain, and to Neby Za'úr to see the tomb, and we carried off skulls

and bones. We crossed the plain, ascended the Lebanon, and when near

its summit turned to our left across a mountain called Jebel Barúk, in

the territory of El Akkúb.

[Sidenote: _The Druzes--Their Stronghold._]

A favourite ride was into the Druze country, beginning at Barúk, a

stronghold in a wild glen. They are a fine, tall, strong, and manly

race, who can ride and fight and shoot, and are fit to be our allies.

There is no cant about them; they are honest and plain-spoken, and do

not know intriguing, lying, stealing, or spying. A Druze house has

huge black rafters in the ceiling, and straight tall columns down the

middle; there is a private room for council. The women have one blue

garment, and one white veil showing one eye. They are chaste, and good

wives and mothers. They have clean, comfortable homes, and give a warm

welcome, and we rested here for some time. People often say, "What is

the real religion of the Druzes?" No one ever knew who was not a Druze;

they conform to the national religion, the Moslem. In speaking to you

or me, they would appear to have a particular leaning to our respective

faiths. They have a secret creed of their own, which, although women

are admitted to the council chamber, is as mysterious as Freemasonry.

Some Moslems pretend that they worship Eblis, and some Christians say

the bull-calf El Ijl.

On our road we came to another stronghold, like an ancient convent,

where lives Melhem Beg Ahmad, a Druze chief, a dare-devil-fine-old-man,

who, when he mounts, takes his bridle in his teeth, puts his musket to

his shoulder, and charges down a mountain that an English horse would

have to be led down. He lives in great style; he threw his cap in the

air, drank to our health a thousand times, and his sons waited on us

at dinner. Muktára hangs on a declivity in a splendid ravine in wild

mountains in the territory of Esh Shuf. The house we were going to is

like a large Italian _cascine_, nestled amidst olive groves, that are,

so to speak, the plumage of the heights. It is the Syrian palace of the

Jumblatts, the focus and centre of the Lebanon Druzes. Here reside this

princely family, headed then by a Chieftainess, the "Sitt Jumblatt."