Residence at Bâlbec--Visit to the governor, the Emir
Jahjáh--Wretchedness of Bâlbec--Bath Scene--Encampment
of Lady Hester at Ras el Ayn--Sepulchral caverns--Greek
bishop of Bâlbec--Catholic priest--Climate--Departure from
Bâlbec--Ayn Ayty--Hurricane--Bsharry--Mineral springs--Dress of
women--Village of Ehden, conjectured by some to be the site of
Paradise--Resort of native Christians--Arrival of Selim, son of
Mâlem Musa Koblan, of Hamah--The Cedars of Lebanon--Maronite
monastery of Mar Antaniûs--Lady Hester enters it in spite of the
monks--Arrival at Tripoli.
We encamped under the south-west angle of the temple, in an open field,
through which ran the rivulet that traverses the town; but, considering
that the water we thus drank was no better than the washings of the
houses, and fearing also, from the concourse of women and children
who were constantly surrounding our encampment, that the plague might
be introduced among us, it was resolved to remove to a spot of ground
near the spring where the rivulet takes its rise, called Ras el Ayn,
the fountain head, about a mile from the town to the south-east. Here,
in the ruins of an old mosque, her ladyship’s tent was screened from
the wind; for tempests were now expected; whilst the rest of the party
encamped in the open fields.
The day after our arrival I paid a visit to the governor, Emir Jahjáh,
of the family of Harfûsh, whose exactions from travellers passing
through this place have been recorded by more than one sufferer. He was
a needy prince, who ruled, indeed, the district, but was surrounded by
too many chieftains as powerful as himself ever to feel secure. For, on
the one hand, the Pasha of Damascus, to whom he was tributary, was said
to take annually from him sixty purses: on the other, the Emir of the
Drûzes, towards the west, was watching, upon every occasion, to make
encroachments upon him; and the Emir of Derny, a neighbouring district
of Mount Lebanon, was his enemy whenever it served his turn to be so.
Jahjáh had been on one occasion displaced by his brother, the Emir
Sultan, backed by the Pasha of Damascus: but he afterwards restored
the usurped province to Jahjáh, and they were now living in amicable
relations with each other.
I found the emir in a house with little appearance of splendour about
it. The room in which he received me had no more than four whitewashed
walls, with a mud floor covered with a common rush mat. What his
harým was I had no opportunity of judging: but the harým of one of
his relations, to which I went to see a maid servant who was ill of a
tertian ague, was very much of a piece with this. His brother, Emir
Sultan, to whom I next paid a visit, seemed somewhat better lodged:
for his sofa was covered with yellow satin, with a cushion of the same
stuff to lean on, but his guests were obliged to sit on the floor on
a common mat. An earthenware jug to drink out of, a towel to wipe his
face and hands, a pipe and tobacco-bag, a sword, a pair of pistols, and
a gun--these formed the furniture of his, as they do that of the rooms
of many other chieftains in the East.
I dined with Emir Sultan, a compliment from him which I did not expect,
as the rules of the Metoualy religion prohibit eating and drinking from
vessels defiled by Christians. Wanting to drink during the repast, I
called for some water, which to the other guests was handed in a silver
cup. To me it was given in an earthenware jug: and, when we had risen
from table, this jug was broken by the servant close by the door of the
room, that no one of the house might make use of it afterwards. I felt
my choler rise at this unjust distinction made between man and man,
but I pretended not to observe it. Why it was done in sight of us all
I do not know, unless it were to remove the imputation which might lie
at his door if it could be surmised that an impure drinking-cup still
remained in his house.
Twice, when I was on a morning visit to Emir Sultan, the butcher
came, weighed his meat at the door of the room, and minced it in the
window-seat before him, in order, as I guessed, to avoid all suspicion
of poison, the constant dread of eastern potentates, or else to fulfil
to the letter some precept of his religion touching meats.
The plague was occasionally making its appearance in different
families, so that I could visit no one without some degree of
apprehension. Respecting the modern town, this is the information I
collected. It contained now no more than from 120 to 150 families,
about thirty of which were Catholics.[4] The Mahometan inhabitants
were Metoualys or Shyas.[5] Nothing could present a more miserable
appearance than the streets. Five sixths of the old town were now
covered with rubbish. Wretchedness was depicted in the rags and looks
of the inhabitants, and poverty in the palace of the emir. It is said
that the emir himself, rendered desperate by the little quiet which the
pasha of Damascus allowed him, had, of his own accord, destroyed whole
streets, that his town might be no longer an object of covetousness
to him. Bâlbec is situated in 33° 50 N. I observed two mosques, Jamâ
el Malak and Baekret el Cadi. There were four gates to the town, which
was divided into seven parishes. The district of Bâlbec contained
twenty-five villages.
South and by east of the temple, at the distance of a quarter of a
mile, is an elevation which commands the town, and affords a beautiful
view of the ruins and of the surrounding country. On the top of this
eminence was a well, hewn out of the rock, of a square form, but now
filled up with rubbish. The quarries, which supplied the stone for
building the temple, are to the south-west of it. Viewed from this
spot, the plain of the Bkâ seems to run north-east and south-west. The
last visible point of Anti-Lebanon, seen from hence, lies north-east
and by north half east, and the snowy summit of Mount Lebanon bore
north-north-west.
I forbear to give any description of the Temple of the Sun. It was
in the same state in which Volney saw it in 1784. The immense stones
which form the escarpment of the south-west corner, and which are
always mentioned by travellers with so much wonder, somewhat disfigure
the edifice;[6] for their monstrous magnitude is so little in
correspondence with the stones which form the upper part of the wall
that they destroy all symmetry, and impress an idea of a building less
in size than its component parts were intended for.
Lady Hester’s first inquiry was generally for a bath; and, when she had
ascertained that there was one, having reposed herself for two or three
days, she was desirous of going to it: so it was to be cleaned out for
her reception. It was the afternoon, and, as is customary, the women,
who always bathe from noon to sunset, were in it. The bathmaster, eager
for the bakshysh, which he already anticipated he should get from a
person reputed so rich as Lady Hester, requested me to wait a little,
and said he would order the women out in a moment, and show it to me.
Accordingly, he went into the centre room, vociferating as he entered,
and then, driving them, undressed as they were, into a side chamber, he
called me in. A few naked children continued to run about; whilst the
women, curious to see a Frank, peeped out of their hiding-place, and
cared very little what part of their person was exposed to view. Had I
been anything but a medical man, neither the bathman nor I could have
risked such an adventure on such an occasion. Thus the women of the
east, veiled from head to foot, and shut up with bars and bolts, still
find means, under the excuse of doctors, dervises, and relations, to
admit men into places from which their jealous husbands in vain would
exclude them.
[Illustration: RAS EL AYN, BÂLBEC.]
The spot at which we were encamped was one of the most beautiful that
it is possible to behold. It was at the extremity of a valley, on the
first rise of the Anti-Lebanon, where several copious springs, bubbling
up in a circular basin of antique masonry, formed a considerable
rivulet, which watered the whole valley down to Bâlbec, one mile
off. The valley was covered with the dense foliage of fruit-trees,
cypresses, weeping-willows, plane, and fruit-trees of all kinds,
through which a shady path led to the town. Close to the spring were
the ruins of an old mosque, and the remains of a gateway, the lintel
and posts of which were single blocks of stone. It probably had
belonged to the temple; and the circular basins, which confined the
springs, were once, to appearance, surmounted by domes. Many large
loose stones lay round about. In looking from the bank, just above the
spring, a variety of objects filled up the landscape. In the farthest
distance were the two most elevated peaks of Mount Lebanon, covered
with snow, contrasted with a lower chain of the mountain, wooded
and dark-looking. Over the tops of the gardens rose, in magnificent
grandeur, the six columns, which were still standing, of the inner
temple. Dispersed in the field to the left of the mosque were the green
tents, with asses and mules tied up among them. It was but to turn
one’s back on these cheerful objects, when the barren declivities of
Anti-Lebanon presented themselves, heightening the beauty of the mixed
scenery at their foot by the contrast which they presented.
By an arrangement made previous to Lady Hester’s departure from
Meshmûshy, Selim, the son of Mâlem Musa Koblán of Hamah, of whom
mention has been made during our stay at that place, was to meet her
here; but, as he had not come, my servant was despatched on a mule
with a letter to him. This necessarily detained us at Bâlbec; and,
when the ruins had been seen, the governor visited, and the prospects
round about admired, a stay here became somewhat irksome: as the plague
was so much increased that it was necessary to abstain from entering
people’s houses.
The death of a Sayd or Sherýf of the plague alarmed the governor so
much, that he removed soon afterwards with his household to a castle
at a small distance. But the motive he assigned was not considered
by us as the real one: for we thought that he was either afraid of
Selim’s coming, of which he had heard, considering that he might be an
emissary of the Pasha of Damascus, who had long endeavoured to lay hold
of his person: or else, apprehensive that in our exposed encampment we
might be plundered, he supposed, by removing himself from the town, he
should not be considered as responsible, or charged by the Porte with
reparation.
In the mean time, as it happened everywhere, Lady Hester never rode
through the streets, or approached the town, but she was immediately
followed by several persons. Ali, Emir of Derny,[7] was so far
attracted by curiosity as to depart from his dignity and ride round our
encampment, in the wish of getting a sight of her. Affairs with Emir
Jahjáh had brought him from his principality, which is on the north
extremity of Mount Lebanon, down to Bâlbec, and his martial air, as he
rode along with a dozen attendants, struck me very forcibly; but Lady
Hester did not see him.
At the beginning of November it came on to rain most violently, and
successive storms of thunder and wet confined us much under our tents.
In the intervals of fine weather, I rode out in every direction round
the town; but my researches were unsuccessful in discovering any
remains of antiquity that had not been before seen by other travellers.
About one hundred yards from the north-east wall of the city there
are several caverns, the appearance of which demonstrated that stone
was quarried there for building, and that, at the same time, or
subsequently, these caverns had been converted into sepulchres for the
dead. They are very numerous, and some were very spacious: but, in all,
the shape was nearly alike, being that of an arch of six feet from the
apex to the floor, and five and a half or six feet long. They contained
from three to ten pits or sarcophagi, and generally they were just deep
enough for the breadth of a human corpse. Some had two abreast. Some
sepulchres were flat-roofed, and one had a centre embossment which
might originally have been sculptured in relief. Many had in them small
niches as if for a lamp; and in one was an upright sarcophagus.
We found here some peasants filling sacks with saltpetre, which they
collected from these and other caverns, in and about the place: they
had amassed four ass loads. On the talus of one of the shafts of the
quarry there were, although with difficulty to be discovered, some old
Grecian characters.
I was sitting one day under a clump of trees, by the side of a rivulet,
smoking, when a Greek caloyer or priest approached, and saluted me.
It proved to be the bishop of Bâlbec, whom I had known, in the autumn
of 1812, at Yabrûd, the ordinary place of his residence; for the
fanaticism of the Metoualys, and the oppression of Jahjáh’s government,
obliged him to reside in a more tranquil spot. His diocese extended
from Hems to Malûla. He was a dark, ugly, squinting man, but very
loquacious, and seemingly a very good theologian. His name, which, as
a layman, had been Wakyn, was now Cyrillus: and this assumption of an
episcopal name is a common practice among Eastern divines.[8]
Giovanni was not yet returned from Hamah, and apprehensions were
entertained that he had been plundered by the Bedouin Arabs: yet, as he
was furnished with a paper saying by whom he was sent, and as he was
moreover known as having accompanied us to Palmyra, it was thought that
he would not be molested. During the whole of this time, the muleteers
and their mules were at a fixed pay per diem, which made the delay very
expensive.
I occasionally visited the Catholic priest, a European. His house
contained the only oven for baking loaves in the place, and our bread
was baked there every two or three days. I was sitting with him one
day on a stone by the way side, in conversation, when a sayd or green
turbaned Mahometan passed us on an ass, carrying before him a dish
of lentils, which he apparently had bought for his dinner. “El mejd
lillah--(Glory be to God)”--was his salutation to us; to which the
priest immediately replied, “däyman--(for ever)”--and the sayd went on,
and the priest continued the conversation, both quite unconscious how
strange their puritanical language appeared.[9]
Bâlbec is an extremely cold and exposed place in the winter, but must,
from the dry air of the neighbouring downs, enjoy a very salubrious
climate.
The weather still continuing tempestuous, there was some hazard,
should our departure be delayed much longer, that the route over Mount
Lebanon to Tripoli would become impassable from the snow. Accordingly,
we left Bâlbec on the 7th or 8th of November at 11 o’clock, after
having remained there a fortnight. We crossed the plain in a north-west
direction. When we were half over it, we saw on our left, half a mile
out of the road, a single pillar: but, whether one of many others now
thrown down, or a votive column, I had not time to examine.[10] About
four we reached the foot of Lebanon, and passed the village of Dayr
Ahmar. We ascended, and, about half past five, arrived at the narrow
valley where stood the village of Ayn Aty; so named from a source of
water which springs from the rock just above: and there is, as we were
told, a small lake near the spot.[11]
The wind was north, and blew very cold, with rain and sleet. Pierre,
who had undertaken to be our guide, had promised that we should arrive
before sunset at our station: but it was already dark, and Lady Hester,
who suffered much from the inclemency of the weather, grew impatient
and angry with him. We continued to ascend through a scattered forest
of stunted oaks, with which the whole of the lowest chain is wooded.
Some were of a good circumference in the stem, but none were high.
Whilst it was yet light, I picked up two specimens of the rock, which
seemed to be a sort of marble in a bed of argil.
We arrived, at length, at the spring-head, Ayn Aty;[12] but such
a hurricane of wind and rain came on, just as the muleteers were
unloading, that they, one and all, threw down tents, trunks, and beds,
in confusion, and betook themselves for shelter to caverns in the
rocks, so that we saw no more of them all night. In vain did I call and
threaten; they heeded me not. The tent-men were desired to plant Lady
Hester’s tent, and leave the others for the moment to shift as they
could: but, so strong did the wind blow, that, as fast as they reared
it, it was blown down again. The maids could keep no candle alight:
even in a lantern it was extinguished, and the darkness was intense.
With some difficulty, Lady Hester’s tent was at last secured, then that
for the women. Her ladyship, who had meanwhile taken shelter under a
precipice, was at length comfortably placed under cover.
This was one of the most distressing nights we ever passed. When the
other tents were fixed, and, by means of fires, we had somewhat dried
ourselves, a laughable accident occurred from the terrors of Pierre,
who, having gone a short distance from the camp, could not from the
darkness find his way back again, and was heard amidst the fury of the
tempest bellowing lustily for help. Neither the dragoman nor myself
slept the whole of the night; as, on several occasions, the tent-ropes
flew, and it required all our authority to induce the _akàms_ or
tent-men to brave the weather and repair them.
November the 9th, as soon as it was light, the muleteers re-appeared,
confessing that they had hidden themselves for fear of being employed
through the night. We departed from Ayn Aty, clambering up the steep
paths to surmount the second chain; and, in about two hours, we came to
the summit, from which the valley of the Bkâ, as we looked down behind
us, seemed like a slip of fallow land, so much were its dimensions
narrowed by distance. In ascending Mount Lebanon, from the plain
between Dayr Ahmar and the spring Ayn Aty, the rock is of a compact
limestone, with a portion of iron intermixed: at least, so I judged
from its colour, which was, where exposed to the air, red, and within
flesh-coloured. On the very summit of the mountain, above the Cedars
and behind the village of Bsharry, I broke off a fragment of rock,
which was limestone also. Descending on the other side, we saw the
far-famed clump of Cedars on our right; and, leaving them, arrived at
sunset at Bsharry. The shaykh, named Ragel, received Lady Hester into
his house, although he had made some difficulty at first, owing to his
dread of the plague, which we might have brought with us from Bâlbec. I
was lodged in a house on the opposite side of the street, and the rest
were dispersed about as the shaykh chose to billet them.
Bsharry is in itself a picturesque spot, and commands views of other
spots equally so. It was a burgh of two hundred houses, furnishing
when necessary five hundred muskets. From the martial character of
the inhabitants, who were hardy mountaineers, and accustomed from
their infancy to carry fire-arms; as also from its elevated situation,
difficult on all sides of access; it had, at different periods,
asserted its independence by force, although surrounded by Drûzes and
Metoualys, Turks, and Ansárys. They spoke of the present government
of the Emir Beshýr with disgust, and pretended that, if the love of
liberty, which was so strong in their forefathers, had still existed,
they should yet have been free.
In the environs of Bsharry, potatoes were cultivated and eaten by the
peasants as an article of daily food. Their introduction was of a few
years’ date only. Some Franks at Tripoli, I afterwards learned, were
accustomed to eat them occasionally; but elsewhere than at Bsharry I
did not observe them to be cultivated. Lady Hester caused some to be
planted at Abra, but the peasants prognosticated that they would die;
and indeed they came up very well, but the soil was too much burnt up,
and they could not find moisture enough to come to maturity.
The inhabitants of Bsharry were of the Maronite persuasion. They were
said to be all good sportsmen. I found few sick in the place, and was
told that persons lived to an advanced age. Among those who applied to
me there were cases of colic, sore eyes, and old sores, and one of a
venereal nature; but there were no _goitres_, and yet snow-water
is the only water drunk. I collected here a few ancient coins, which
was generally the payment I exacted from the sick. The river Kadýshy
takes its source above this village, out of a rocky amphitheatre, and
is precipitated by small cascades into a deep ravine, where it runs
until lost among the windings of the mountains.
To the north-east another spring, from the mountains that overhang
the environs of the village, fell in a pretty cascade, and, running
close to the east point of the village, contributed to increase the
stream of the Kadýsha. The water, where it formed the cascade, and
before it mixed with other rivulets, was said to affect goats, drinking
of it, with looseness; whilst men were exempt from this effect. The
roads around were stony and difficult, rendered wet and muddy by the
constant intersection of rivulets, which, at this season, were very
numerous. To the east of Bsharry there is a convent dedicated to Mar
Serkýz.
The women here, instead of veils of silk crape, wore over their heads
coloured handkerchiefs, principally red. The _tassy_ on the head
was of the shape of a truncated bell of silver, to which were appended
by the better sort of females jingling gold and silver coins, to divert
(as a lively young woman told me) their tiresome husbands. Their
pantaloons were red; and, from the frequent resort of Tripoline ladies
to these heights for change of air, they had adopted from them the
high-heeled slipper with red soles, affected by the Christian women of
that city, and by them borrowed from the Cypriotes.
In the same house with the shaykh lodged another shaykh of the same
family, named Girius, a man of better appearance than his colleague.
Seeing that I inquired for antiques, he produced an intaglio,
representing an owl, for which I offered him a considerable price; but
he was quite exorbitant in his demands. I had every reason to believe,
from what I afterwards heard at Tripoli, that this ring had once been
the property of an Englishman, Mr. Davison, who, on visiting the Cedars
of Mount Lebanon, lost it in the snow. It was picked up by a man sent
by the shaykh to look for it, after Mr. Davison had employed a peasant
in (as he said) a fruitless search for it and had departed.
We staid here the whole of the 10th, but Lady Hester did not show
herself out of doors, nor admit the females of the house into her room;
and from this circumstance originated a report, which was circulated at
Tripoli before our arrival, that she had guards to prevent people from
gazing on her as she passed along the road.
From Bsharry[13] we proceeded to Ehden. The rainy season was now set
in, and the weather was exceedingly cold in these high regions. Eden,
or, as it is more properly written, Ehden, has been fancifully supposed
by some travellers to be the ancient Paradise; but it has no claim
whatever to such a pre-eminence, excepting in name, as there are many
villages in the mountain equally, or even more, romantic. Its elevated
situation renders it a pleasant summer residence, and the Franks of
Tripoli resort to it annually in the hot months. In their eyes and
those of the native Christians, it is no small recommendation to these
almost inaccessible spots, that they live here quite away from the
Turks, whose gravity and sobriety in the cities greatly repress their
conviviality. Ehden abounds in lofty and spreading walnut-trees and
mulberry plantations. Meandering rivulets purl through it in every
direction. The cottages are substantially and neatly built, and we
were nowhere more pleasantly lodged during the journey than here. The
curate’s widow gave up her best room for me. It was a stone-walled
house, with a flat roof and a floor of compact cement. The windows were
without casements. The whole village was much more neatly built than
any of those that we had hitherto seen.
There was a man in this village named Yusef Kawàm, who afforded much
amusement. He might be said to officiate in the capacity of parasite
to anybody who visited Ehden, and who would pay him for playing the
character.
It was resolved to wait here for Selim, whose departure from home had
been announced to Lady Hester by letter. She was lodged in a small
convent, which had once belonged to the Jesuits; and every arrangement
for the comfort of so numerous a party had been made by the shaykh
of the village, named Latûf el Ashy, who, having passed his youth at
Tripoli, as a clerk in a mercantile house, spoke a little French. Two
days afterwards Selim arrived, accompanied by a boy fourteen years old,
Sulymán, the son of Mâlem Skender, of Hems, of whom mention was made
in a preceding part. Selim had two servants with him, and Sulymán one.
Selim alighted at the shaykh’s door, where an apartment was provided
for him, and where I waited to receive him. On hearing the noise of
his horse’s feet, I ran to welcome him as an old acquaintance, and
conducted him up the steps into his room. A few minutes afterwards
I was surprised to find Sulymán did not follow, and desired one of
the servants to see if he had gone into a wrong room. He returned and
whispered to me that Sulymán was at the foot of the steps, and would
not come in, unless I went and fetched him in the same form as I had
done Selim. Surprised at this boy’s ridiculous ceremoniousness, I would
have laughed at him, but I found that he was in good earnest. This
circumstance is mentioned as illustrative of the pride of Christians in
the Levant, which swells where their demands on people’s civility are
likely to be complied with, and shrinks into nothing before Turks, or
where they expect a repulse.
The mornings were spent by Selim and myself in sitting and smoking
by the side of the stream on a carpet spread for the purpose, or in
riding. He had with him a very beautiful horse, which he backed with
much elegance. Conducted by the shaykh, we went to view the Cedars;
but they have been too often described to render it necessary to say
anything about them. The neighbouring convent keeps so far a guard over
these sacred trees, that no native peasant dares injure and cut them.
Travellers, however, did not scruple to take away as large a branch or
piece as suited their wants; but latterly some restraint has been put
upon them, and it is now necessary to obtain an order for that purpose.
These Cedars have a very dubious reputation, and no great beauty to
recommend them. Those which grow in the grounds of Warwick Castle are
(the traditions attached to the others excepted) almost equally worth
seeing.
We remained at Eden a week, and went thence to the monastery of Mar
Antaniûs, (St. Anthony) situate about half a league to the south of the
village, on one of the most romantic sites that can be found in any
country, half way down a deep and precipitous ravine: and, although we
could look down upon it from Ehden, yet, to get there, it was necessary
for persons on horseback to make a circuit of two leagues. At the
bottom of the ravine, which is well wooded, is a river, the Kadýshy;
and the summits of the mountains quite overhang the monastery, which
stands on a ledge of the rock scarcely broad enough for its base, and
which is only accessible by a path, so narrow that habit alone could
make persons pass it with indifference. From the rock, in the very
centre of the monastery, issues a stream of water, that, in summer,
must give a delicious coolness to the cloister, but now produced a cold
and comfortless chill.
The friars are Maronites, fifty or sixty in number, including residents
and mendicants. Many miracles are attributed, by the inhabitants of
the surrounding country, to the tutelary saint of the place: such
as the cure of lunacy, epilepsy, and fits; the incorruptibility of
corpses buried in the monastery; and, more especially, the certain
manifestation of his anger towards anything of the female sex that
presumes to cross the threshold of this holy place. I believe this to
have been the chief reason that induced Lady Hester to turn out of her
road to visit it. So tenacious of violation is Saint Anthony in this
respect, that the hen-fowls are cooped up, lest they should stray into
the sacred precincts, whilst the cocks run at large.
On our arrival, Lady Hester was accordingly lodged in a house about
fifty yards distant, built for visitors; whilst we were received into
the monastery. As soon as she had rested a little, she sent a message
to the superior, announcing her intention of trying the Saint’s
gallantry, and, saying that she would, on the following day, give a
dinner to him and to the shaykhs, who had escorted her from Eden, in a
room of the monastery itself. She hinted at the authority with which
she was furnished from the Sultan to visit what places she chose; and
that, consequently, any opposition on their part would be opposition
to him. But there were not wanting some priests who openly avowed
their abhorrence of such impiety, whilst the greater number secretly
murmured at this sacrilege on the part of a heretic, and that heretic
a woman. Selim, who was a man of great discernment and knowledge of
the world, which he concealed under a mock frivolity and gaiety, which
made many persons imagine him to be half mad, pretended that, on such a
grand occasion, nothing less than a Cashmere shawl must cover the sofa
whereon Lady Hester was to sit, and that no common carpet would serve
to rest her feet on.[14] For he was much afraid that some trick would
be practised by the monks, either on the sofa or carpet, in order to
preserve the miraculous consistency of their saint. My own foresight
went no farther than to desire that the ass should be carefully watched
previous to her riding from the adjoining house to the monastery: for
the path was on the edge of a low precipice, and a bramble under its
tail, or a pin in the crupper, would have been sufficient to endanger
the rider’s life. When the dinner hour arrived, Lady Hester mounted;
and, being determined that the monks should have no subterfuge, she
would not dismount until she had ridden on her _she_-ass into the
very hall of the building; and I verily believe, if the wiser sort did
not, that at least the servants of the monastery, and her ladyship’s
own, expected to see the pavement gape beneath her feet and swallow
her up. She visited the refectory and every place where she could put
her head; but at one door there was a momentary altercation between
the two parties of monks, who were for and against her entering. We
then sat down to dinner, and, at the expiration of four hours, Lady
Hester retired. The news of her courage, as it was construed by some,
and her sacrilege, as it was called by others, soon spread through the
mountain, and was long the topic of general conversation.
This monastery had a printing-press, which lay useless, owing to the
recent death of an old monk called Seraphim, who was the founder
and worker of it, having himself made the font of the types. I was
presented with a specimen of his labours, being a single sheet
containing a notice of the miracles that had been wrought by the
tutelary saint.
The glebe of Mar Antaniûs produces, as I was informed, to the amount of
fifteen purses in silk.
Canubin and other convents in this district, although well worthy
of the traveller’s attention, were not visited by us on account of
the weather. We left the friars, who were greatly satisfied with her
ladyship’s generosity, and proceeded, with the rain upon us, to a
village called Keffer-zayny, on our road to Tripoli. Lady Hester fell
from her ass in the way, but received no hurt, for two lads always
walked by her, one on either side, who supported her knees and back
in craggy and difficult places. The ass was without a bridle, and was
left, with the sagacity for which that animal is known, to pick his own
way. We were escorted by a guard of armed men. The difficulties of
the road were more than commonly great. A man, dressed in a splendid
scarlet robe, presented himself to Lady Hester in the evening, and
created a great deal of merriment by his assumed airs of importance.
On the following day we arrived at Tripoli, amidst a tremendous storm
of thunder and rain. The report of Lady Hester’s approach had spread
through the city, and the streets through which she had to pass were
lined with spectators, whose curiosity must have been great to induce
them to stand the pelting of such a storm.