Journey of the Princess of Wales to Jerusalem--Burial
at Abra--Dismissal of Ibrahim--Padre Nicolo--M. Ruffin
appointed French consul at Sayda--Great drought--Festival
of St. Elias--Alarm of robbers--Visit of the Author to the
Shaykh Beshýr’s wife, and to Syt Frosýny Kerasâty--Further
alarms--Festival of Byrám--Cottages taken for Lady Hester at
the village of Rûm--Depilation--Flight of Mâlem Dubány--Return
of Lady Hester from Antioch--Result of researches after
the murderers of Col. Boutin--The Ansáry refuse to give
them up--Mustafa Aga Berber collects troops to punish the
Ansáry--Motives of Lady Hester’s voyage to Antioch--Visit of
M. Regnault, French consul at Tripoli--M. Loustaunau and his
predictions--History of Michael Ayda--Return of Giorgio from
England, with Mr. N., as successor to the Author--Last visit of
the latter to Acre--The governor of Smyrna put to death--Hawáry
soldiers--Visit to the Emir Beshýr.
In the mean time, it was told me by Abûna Saba, the superior of the
monastery of Dayr Mkhallas, who was just returned from Acre, that
Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales had reached Acre under the
following circumstances. The vessel, on board of which she was, had
put into Jaffa, as being the nearest port to Jerusalem. Mohammed Aga,
the governor, was not there, and the vice-governor, Kengi Ahmed, (his
father-in-law) refused to let Her Royal Highness land, saying that he
respected her firmans, but dared not act upon them until they had been
presented to his master, Sulymán Pasha.[98] Upon this the vessel sailed
for Acre. Here the Princess inquired for Signor Catafago, of whom she
had probably heard at Jaffa; but, on learning that he was absent, Her
Royal Highness sent for Signor Malagamba, the English agent.
A complaint was laid against Kengi Ahmed Aga for having refused her
entrance at Jaffa; but his conduct was justified by the pasha, who
said that it was Her Royal Highness who had gone wrong by trying
to get in at the window instead of the door; meaning that she had
presented herself at a port which was not the seat of government. The
pasha judged Signor Catafago to be the fittest person to act as Her
Royal Highness’s conductor to Jerusalem: he therefore sent for him to
Nazareth, ordering him to come immediately.
Soon after his arrival, which was on the same day, the princess landed,
and paid a visit to the pasha, who received her with distinction, but
in his common saloon; after which the necessary orders were issued by
him that she should be furnished with tents, horses, and mules, for
her suite and luggage, and with a takhtarwàn, or covered palanquin,
and his own double tent for herself; and, likewise, that she should be
entertained at the pasha’s cost at the different stations on the road.
Abûna Saba told me that, on the princess’s visit to the pasha, she
walked through the streets to the palace, taking the arm of two of her
officers who wore red coats. There was one great piece of neglect in
her people: they never officially advised the pasha that she proposed
to visit him, otherwise he would not have received her in the room that
he did.
Signor Malagamba, the English agent, had, it appears, so little polish
in his manners, that he was entirely neglected by her Royal Highness,
who found in Signor Catafago all the attention to her wishes that she
could desire. Accordingly, in arranging the plan of the journey to
Jerusalem, he obtained from her Royal Highness her consent that she
should go by the way of Nazareth, and across Samaria, to Jerusalem. On
quitting Acre, her Royal Highness presented the pasha with a snuff-box
(my narrator told me) worth one hundred purses--more than £1500; but
here the customary exaggeration of the Levantines probably added seven
eights to the real value.
On the road to Nazareth there is a large village, called Shûf Omar. I
conceive this to have been the place meant, in the evidence adduced
against her Royal Highness in the House of Lords, in 1820, under the
name of Aûm: for there is no place called Aûm on the road from Acre to
Nazareth, and none the sound of which comes so near it as Omar. Here
her Royal Highness made her first station. As, in so large a cavalcade,
composed of so many persons ignorant of Arabic, there was necessarily
much confusion, it happened that one of her Royal Highness’s trunks,
containing effects she would have been unwilling to lose, was stolen
hereabouts. No sooner was it missed, than Signor Catafago set his
people to work to discover the thief. This is not very difficult in a
country, where, between town and town, or between village and village,
there are no single houses, no extensive forests, and few places of
concealment, except caverns, to issue from or return to; and where a
single individual, not present at the customary evening conversation
of his neighbours, would necessarily be compelled, from the usual
interrogatories of his friends, to assign a sufficient reason for his
absence. Signor Catafago immediately sent for the bailiffs of the
village, and told them that, if the trunk were not produced forthwith,
the village should be avanized. This is a common way of finding out
a delinquent: for the peasants, rather than suffer in their own
pockets, will soon discover the offenders and bring them to justice.
Accordingly, on the following morning, Signor Catafago was told that
the trunk would be found lying in a cavern by the side of the road. It
was found and restored to the princess: and although it had been broken
open, the contents were left in it.
At Nazareth her Royal Highness was lodged in Signor Catafago’s house.
When she departed, he requested her to excuse him from accompanying
her farther, and deputed his son, Lewis Catafago, in his place. Her
Royal Highness offered him a handsome present for his trouble and
hospitality, which he refused, probably out of fear, under the plea
that he was but a servant of the pasha’s, and could not accept anything.
Her Royal Highness pursued her journey, and arrived safe at Jerusalem.
The same house was assigned to her which Lady Hester had occupied
when there. Thence she went to the river Jordan, and, returning to
Jerusalem, took the road to Jaffa, where the vessel awaited her. Among
the persons appointed to attend her Royal Highness on this interesting
tour in the Holy Land was Hadj Ali, whose name has already occurred
so often in these pages. He filled the same situation with her Royal
Highness which he had done with Lady Hester; and it is chiefly from him
and Abûna Saba that I have collected these trifling details.
About this time, an old man in Abra (nicknamed the doctor), but whose
real name was Abu Daûd, died. As soon as the breath was out of his
body, the women stripped the corpse, and put on it what had been his
Sunday clothes. His son, with much wailing (for custom allows not
silent grief), set up the usual cry of “Oh, my father! oh, my father!”
Friends of the family were then despatched to all the villages within
distance, to assemble the villagers, who make it a point of good
neighbourhood to attend on these melancholy occasions. They flocked in
by small parties; and, as soon as they came within hearing of the house
where the corpse lay, they began to cry aloud, continuing in one breath
and one tone from beginning to end--“Thou art gone, cousin: our tears
are hot: parting is bitter, but such is the will of God!” This cry was
continued up to the door. To a person unacquainted with Arabic, the cry
for a marriage and for a death (by the men) appears the same: the tones
are one, the words only are different.
Ibrahim, the Egyptian, who had been sent to England with a couple of
Arabians, as a present to his Royal Highness the late Duke of York,
had, under my hands, recovered his health from a severe pulmonary
attack: but, not liking the monotonous life of Abra, he threw up his
service, and went to Damascus. Here poverty overtook him, and he
returned to me begging. I gave him a small allowance on Lady Hester’s
account, merely to keep him above want until her return: for I did
not wish to use harsh measures with a man just rescued from the
jaws of death, and for whom I supposed Lady Hester would have some
consideration, as having been in England, and for some time groom
in the Duke of York’s stables. However, to finish what I have to
say of this man, when Lady Hester returned from Antioch, she found
it impossible to keep him. I took him, therefore, before the cadi
of Sayda, to whom I made known the kindnesses which had been wasted
on this ungrateful fellow. I dwelt particularly on his habits of
drunkenness, which were hardly pardonable in any one, more especially
in a Mahometan; and I then begged, in Lady Hester’s name, that he might
be shipped off to Egypt, his own country, by the first opportunity.
This was done. His loose habits there brought on a repetition of his
cough; and he finally died of phthisis. I discovered afterwards that
this man had acted as sheriff’s officer at Alexandria on the occasion
of an execution of a thief, who was hanged by the English from the top
of the gateway that overlooks the parade. What would the Duke have
thought, if he had known that one of his grooms was a hangman!
On the 26th of July I had an attack of fever, which, however, left
me in four days; but I felt feeble for some time afterwards. At the
commencement of this fever I happened to have taken an emetic, and was
under its influence, when a holy father was announced to me. He proved
to be Father Nicholas, a friar of the order of St. Francis, who had
resided for many years at Zeluma, a village on the very summit of Mount
Lebanon; where, in the midst of the Drûzes and some Christian families,
he enjoyed such consideration as his convivial qualities entitled
him to. He announced himself as the envoy of the Emiry (feminine for
emir) Meleky by name, sister to the Emir Hyder, who, having run the
gauntlet through all the medical practitioners of Syria for some female
complaint with which she was afflicted, now wished me to undertake her
cure.
I entertained the jovial friar until the next morning, as well as my
sick state of body would permit me, and then dismissed him with a
letter to the princess, excusing myself on the score of ill health.
Monsieur Taitbout, the French consul at Sayda, had been superseded by
Monsieur Ruffin, son of a gentleman at Constantinople, who had, on one
occasion, held for a short time the situation of chargé d’affaires of
the French government to the Porte. Monsieur Ruffin arrived about this
period. He was accompanied by Madame Ruffin, a Parisian, who expressed
much disgust at the want of gallantry to the ladies which so strongly
marked the Levantine manners.
On the 28th of July Miss Williams fell ill, as it seemed, from
excessive heat. The customary heat of the climate had received an
adventitious augmentation from the great drought which had parched up
the soil. The spring, which usually supplied the convent with water,
was dried up. Peasants were seen transporting their sacks of corn from
places ten or twenty miles distant, to be ground at the water-mills on
the river Ewely, where the stream had yet power to turn the wheels:
for, in most places, even the rivers had ceased to flow. Wheat had
become exceedingly dear; and in Abra the peasants ate barley bread.
It had been an annual custom, with the bishops and patriarchs who had
made Mar Elias their residence, to celebrate the festival of that
saint by a solemn mass at the chapel of the convent. Lady Hester had
found that she could not dispense with this practice; and, accordingly,
on the 2nd of August, the peasantry of the neighbouring villages and
many persons from Sayda were seen flocking into Abra and spreading
their carpets on the village green, for bivouacking preparatory to
the morrow. In the morning, mass was said; upon which occasion the
priest collected from a farthing to twopence or threepence from each
individual; and if he made ten piasters by the festival he considered
himself well paid.
These festivals, as I have said before, are looked upon by the village
girls and young men as fairs are in England, and are attended often
with consequences as pernicious to their morals.
On the 1st of August it was reported that some Nablûsians (Samaritans),
compelled by the dearth which prevailed throughout the southern
district, had resorted to robbery and plunder for subsistence, and
were then marauding in Ahlým-el-Kharûb, within a few leagues of us.
Upon more strict inquiry, I found, however, that they were rather to
be denominated a gang of horse and ass stealers, as they hitherto had
confined their depredations to the brute species. I, nevertheless,
thought it necessary to use more than common vigilance, knowing that
Lady Hester’s bountiful conduct on several occasions had caused her
to pass for a person extremely rich. And as the common people of the
country conceived all riches to be either such as are in possessions
or in solid cash, they concluded that chests of gold were locked up in
the convent.
I, therefore, resolved to transfer my bed to the convent; and I
appointed one of the servants to watch on the roof of the chapel, where
he could, in the stillness of the night, hear the footsteps or voices
of persons prowling about.
[Illustration: PALACE OF THE SHAYKH BESHYR.]
On the 4th of August, I rode over to Muktárah, the palace of the Shaykh
Beshýr, to see his wife, who was ill. I arrived early in the afternoon;
but, as it was now Ramazán, and the shaykh, although a Drûze, chose to
keep that fast, he was still in bed. Before sunset he quitted his room,
and at sunset I dined with him. As his manner of living accords more
with the primeval simplicity of the Arabians than what is practised in
towns, it will not be amiss to describe the meal.
About four o’clock, it being now the hottest part of the year, the
servants began to throw pails of water over the paved court, which
occupied the centre of the lower rooms of the palace, and from which
there was, on one side, which was open, a beautiful and extensive
view of the adjoining mountains. In the midst of this watering the
shaykh appeared, dressed in a silk _kombáz_, or tunic, and a
lemon-coloured _jubey_, or cloth mantle: for he loved finery and
bright colours, which, it appeared to me, these mountaineers generally
do. Whilst the watering was going on, he walked about in the wet,
barefoot, to enjoy the cooling and refreshing sensation. Persons who
had business, suitors, complainants, &c., formed a large ring round
him. Calling these to him, one by one, he discussed and despatched
their affairs whilst walking. I stood by, as a looker-on.
This scene continued until sunset. He then washed his feet and hands,
and we sat down to dinner. I was on the shaykh’s left hand. The dinner
was very plentiful, the dishes of excellent flavour; and unlike the
manner of the Turks, they were all put on at once. The shaykh selected
a few good morsels with his fingers, and placed them on my plate. We
ate with our fingers, or with box-wood spoons, the handles tipped with
coral. We were six in party, and each, when he had done, rose, and
removed to the carpet spread out for sitting, where a servant brought
him water and a basin, and he washed his mouth and hands, with much
soaping of the beard, gargling of the throat, and rinsing of the mouth;
all which are received usages. The shaykh, in the mean time, kept his
seat; and, as one guest moved off, desired another to take his place.
These consisted of his secretaries: but, when they had done, the very
servants, who had waited on us, were told by the shaykh to sit down,
and they too dined--Giovanni, my servant, among the rest. All this was
done with much decorum, and little or nothing was said during eating.
When every one had finished, the tinned copper tray was lifted off; the
heptangular stool, or low table, on which it had stood, was carried
away; the spot was swept, and in a few minutes there were no traces of
dinner to be discovered, excepting in the occasional eructations of the
shaykh and of some others, who made no scruple of giving a free escape
to the gas bubbles from their overcharged stomachs. We then smoked
our pipes, that of the shaykh being of jessamine wood, and about ten
feet long. The shaykh then resumed the transaction of business, which,
during Ramazán, is chiefly done in the first part of the night. An hour
before sunrise another meal is served up, and rest is taken in the
day-time to relieve the ennui of fasting.
Being now relieved from the effects of my ride, I was taken to the
harým to see the shaykh’s wife, my patient. The entrance to the harým,
or the women’s side, was by so circuitous a way, that it took up ten
minutes to arrive at her chamber, which was at the very top of the
palace. We entered on a terrace paved with coloured stones, in the
centre of which was a circular basin, with a fountain in the middle. On
the side fronting the entrance was a dome, supported by four pillars,
painted in lively colours, and not without taste. Under it the women
would sit in the day-time, and overlook the courtyard below, where all
the busy scene, of cavaliers and men on foot, was open to their view.
One side of the terrace had a large saloon, the other an alcove, with
an open divan between two rooms, in one of which was the fair Drûze,
sitting up in bed, dressed, and with her horn on her head, which the
Drûze women never lay aside, up or in bed.
I was much struck with her beauty, and with a pair of rosy cheeks on a
very fair and clear skin, which looked very little like a person in ill
health. I was somewhat surprised at finding that the person in waiting
was the wife of Jahjah Atmy, our former host at Meshmûshy. Coffee and a
narkily were brought to me, and, whilst smoking, her case was examined.
I left her, and retired to rest, saw her the next morning, and then
departed for Abra, where I arrived about eight at night.
My servant-boy, Musa, tired of work, had contrived, during my absence,
to excite the pity of a woman travelling to Tyre, to whom he told a
story of his wish to return to his distressed mother. In this way he
reached Tyre, and betook himself to the house of the bishop. The bishop
suffered him to remain with his family, but secretly wrote to me a
letter, desiring to know whether he should send him back. As, however,
he had stolen nothing, and was evidently tired of his service, I only
requested the bishop to endeavour to forward him by safe hands to
Jerusalem, whither he had often expressed a wish to return.
During my absence, also, the alarm of robbers had increased; so I
distributed among the servants what arms were in the convent. In the
mean time, I began to be anxious about her ladyship, from whom no
letter had yet been received, nor could I hear anything certain of the
movements of her royal highness the Princess of Wales. Miss Williams
had recovered from her indisposition, but sickness and alarm had
already begun to make her discontented with her position.
Although the following letters relate to a date posterior to the close
of this narrative, they are nevertheless not altogether irrelevant, as
affording a strong illustration of Lady Hester Stanhope’s character. It
is Dr. Wolff himself who has related all these circumstances to me, and
who has favoured me with the copies of the letters.
“In the year 1823 I travelled with Captain the Honourable John Caradoc,
now Lord Howden, from Jerusalem to Sayda, from which latter place, as
being near to Lady Hester’s residence, I forwarded to Miss Williams
a letter from her sister, Mrs. David, which had been entrusted to me
by that lady, and to which I added a note from myself, saying that I
should be happy to forward her answer to her sister, at Malta. One hour
after, a letter arrived from Lady Hester herself, the contents of which
were as follows:--
_“‘To Dr. Wolff._
“‘I am astonished that an apostate should dare to thrust himself
into notice in my family. Had you been a learned Jew, you
never would have abandoned a religion, rich in itself although
defective, to embrace the shadow of one. Light travels faster
than sound: therefore the Supreme Being could never have allowed
his creatures to be left in utter darkness, until paid and
speculating wanderers deem it proper to raise their venal voice
to enlighten them.
“‘HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.’”
Dr. Wolff immediately returned the following answer:--
_To the Lady Hester Stanhope._
Saida, June, 1823.
Madam,
I have just received a letter which bears your Ladyship’s
signature; but I doubt its being genuine, as I never wrote to
your Ladyship, nor did I mention your name in my letter to Miss
Williams.
With regard to my views and pursuits, they give me perfect
tranquillity and happiness, and they must be quite immaterial to
your Ladyship.
Your humble servant,
JOSEPH WOLFF.
At the time this correspondence took place, Miss Williams may be
supposed to have grown disgusted with an Eastern life, and to have
wished to return to her sister. This feeling Lady Hester was probably
fully aware of; and to have admitted Dr. Wolff, who had seen that
sister, as a visitor at her house, was to open a means of communication
which might have led to Miss Williams’s return. With her customary
energetic tactics, Lady Hester therefore put an end to all such
contingencies.
That the reverend gentleman, whose philanthropic exertions in the cause
of humanity have already raised him to a height in men’s esteem, where
no praises of mine can reach him, does not feel the term “apostate,”
so harshly applied to him by Lady Hester Stanhope, as a reproach, is
evident from the readiness with which he made the communication, and is
a proof, if any were required, of his firm belief in the truths which
he preaches.
Dr. Wolff informed me, in furnishing me with these particulars, which I
had begged for insertion in my Travels, that the bearer of his letter
was bastinadoed by Lady Hester and kicked down stairs; and that the
poor fellow returned to Sayda lame, and told him that “the daughter of
the King of England had beaten him.”
I received, on the 9th of August, a letter from the village of Joon,
requesting my attendance on Syt Frosiny Kerasáty, the lady of Damietta,
of whom mention has already been made, when speaking of that city. I
went on the following day, and found that this lady, having lain in of
a boy, in Egypt, had thought it prudent to embark for Syria, there to
bring up the child. Syt Frosiny’s husband was by birth a Damascene; and
there is a common belief that the offspring of Syrians, born in Egypt,
if left there, never arrive at puberty. This was certainly verified
in the case of Mâlem Kerasáty’s family; for she had already borne him
three children, which had died in infancy. When pregnant with this
last, her husband had become paralytic, and she had no hope, if this
one did not survive, of bearing him another. Accompanied, therefore,
by her mother, who was blind, she embarked for Sayda, and had arrived
a few days before at the village of Joon, in the house of Mâlem Jusef
Sewayeh, whose father Mâlem Kerasáty had once served as clerk.
I was fearful of sleeping away from the convent, and returned to
dinner. Whilst dining at my cottage, the peasants came to inform me
that the gang of robbers had been seen passing the village. As it was
now dark, I recommended to them great vigilance, and, retiring to Mar
Elias, went to bed. Not very long afterwards, the man on the roof
of the chapel saw a person coming up a footpath at the back of the
convent. He hailed him; and, as he received no answer, fired. It was
not known until the day after that this was a poor pedlar, travelling
towards the mountain, totally ignorant why he was fired at, and not
aware that any one could possibly want an answer from him.
Thus did this alarm continue night after night for a fortnight; but
no banditti ever attacked us: still I could not absent myself for
twenty-four hours together, since Miss Williams, unacquainted with the
language, necessarily felt much inquietude when I was away. One night,
I was awakened suddenly by the old Drûze woman, Um Riskh, who entered
my chamber, and begged me, for God’s sake, to get up. The robbers
immediately came into my mind; I seized the brace of pistols, which
I kept constantly at my bedside, and followed her into the court. I
opened the great door. “There he is!” she said. I looked, expecting to
see a man; but, to my astonishment, found that her agitation had been
caused by her having seen, from her window, her favourite pack-horse
cast, by having entangled his legs and neck in his halter, so as
nearly to have strangled himself. The rope was immediately cut, and
the _kedýsh_ saved; but, as we had made some bustle, I hastened
in doors, and found Miss Williams and the black slave trembling and
expecting every moment to see some huge, ferocious ruffian enter to cut
their throats. By degrees, the report of robbers lost ground, and at
last died away entirely. On the 10th of August, I went again to Joon,
to see the Syt Frosiny, who had caught an ague. Another lady was added
to the inmates of Joon Place, by the arrival of Yusef Sewáyeh’s wife,
married from a family well known to English travellers as occupying a
house in Damascus, which is shown as one of the best in the city. But
the contrast between the manners and dress of these two ladies was much
in favour of the Damiettan. Frosiny was in person somewhat small, but
well made, with an engaging smile ever on her countenance, a playful
wit, and with features that everybody pronounced charming. Syt Sewáyeh
was stout even to fatness, heavy in conversation, formal, bedecked from
her head to her fingers’ ends with jewels and precious stones. But what
seemed most unbecoming to her was the form of the turban, which is worn
by the women of Damascus of a prodigious size.
I was now revelling in all the abundance of the fruits growing in the
gardens of Sayda. The autumn was always to me the most delightful
season of the year; and, but for the musquitoes, would have left
little to desire as far as the enjoyment of the senses goes. Having
now so much leisure time on my hands, I delineated several fish which
were brought to me fresh from the nets; but, such was the heat of the
weather, that they often smelt before I could finish the drawing.[99]
About this time, Sulymán Pasha sent off Hassan Aga as bearer of some
very rich presents to Mohammed Ali, pasha of Egypt. This is the mode
of keeping up a friendly intercourse between potentates in the East.
In the same way, he was accustomed to send annually to Muly Ismael a
caravan of camels, loaded with rice, preserved dates, raisins, figs,
and such other articles of consumption as were with difficulty, or at
an increased price, to be had in Hamah and its neighbourhood.
M. Beaudin, Lady Hester’s dragoman, arrived also on the same day,
with news that her ladyship was on her return by sea. Fearful of the
continued heats of the season, she determined to pass a few weeks
higher up in the mountain, and had requested the Shaykh Beshýr to
assign her a village as her residence. Rûm was fixed on, and on the
20th I rode up to see if there was a house fit for her reception.
Rûm is a village of about forty families, Metoualis and Christians,
occupying the peaked summit of a conical mountain, about three miles
south-west of Meshmûshy. The road to it is most difficult, by a
path where it is necessary to clamber up rather than walk. Having
inadvertently quitted the path, I lost my way, and wandered about
among the rocks for some time, being obliged to dismount and lead my
horse. The place was in sight and over my head, but I still had much
difficulty in getting to it.
On my arrival, I addressed myself to the shaykh for whom I had a letter
and a buyurdy, and whom I found to be a most venerable old Drûze,
cousin of the shaykh Beshýr, and consequently a man of importance.
He received me with much civility. He had a son, named Habýb, a most
beautiful boy seven years old, who attached himself to me the moment
that we met. The shaykh’s name was Kelayb. As it was just breakfast
time, (noon) I sat down with him to four dishes, viz., melinjáns[100]
boiled and beat up with oil, eggs fried in oil, melinjáns sliced, fried
in oil, with some sour cream cheese. Custom had now reconciled me to
such a repast as this.
The houses of Rûm were of stone, but with mud floors, as elsewhere on
the mountain. The chief produce of the village was tobacco, which was
considered as the best in the district of Aklym el Tufáh, that being
the name of the district. Charcoal was likewise made from the stunted
oaks, arbutuses, turpentine trees, and underwood, in which the mountain
hereabouts abounded, and was an article of trade between the village
and Sayda.
I took three cottages for Lady Hester, desiring that the one belonging
to Joseph the Ironmonger (Yusef el Hadád) should be fitted up for her.
For these three the rent was fixed at thirty-eight piasters for the
season, and I paid eight more to a cottager, who was to admit Yusef el
Hadád as a lodger in the interim. The houses were all built on the east
side of the summit, to avoid the cold.
I returned in the evening, and on the following day sent up Miss
Williams and Hanyfy, the black slave, under the care of a servant,
to put the cottages in order. It was my custom to go almost weekly
to the public hot bath at Sayda. On entering the sudatory from the
tiring-room, the bathman would always ask me “Do you use _dewa_
to-day?” I knew very well that he meant “Do you depilate to-day?” As I
constantly said no, he suggested to me that a want of cleanliness in
this respect would not be excusable in a pauper if a Mahometan, and,
although I was a Christian, he was sure I should be more comfortable
for adopting the custom. As I knew how much importance was attached
to such matters, I did not like to persist in my refusal, and, on the
22d of September, for the first time I depilated. The preparation
with which this is done is a mixture of orpiment and quick lime,
smeared on for three or four minutes, or sometimes for a less time,
whilst the body is in a state of perspiration. As I was unused to the
application, I kept it on too long, and inflamed my skin most severely,
so as to be incommoded with the heat and redness for nearly a week.
This application does not prevent the return of hair where removed: it
merely corrodes or burns it off for a couple of months.
September 25th. In returning from Sayda I called at Mâlem Dubány’s
house on my way, and found that the master of the house had just fled
from his home, in consequence of a dispute with an aga of Sayda arising
from the following circumstances. Mâlem Yusef Dubány’s warehouse and
counting-house were in the caravansery, called Khan el Hummus, at the
gate of which a man had planted himself selling rice by retail, which
was an obstruction to the entrance. Dubány turned him away, and Mustafa
Aga replaced him. As some anger had been shown by both parties in the
dispute, Dubány thought proper to take refuge in the interior of Mount
Lebanon until the decision on the rights of the caravansery could be
obtained. Next day I learned that he was gone no farther than Khuska,
a village one league off. On the 28th an order came from the pasha,
confirming Dubány in what he had done, and he returned to his home. But
this anecdote will serve to prove how precarious personal liberty is
under the Turks, when an aga--a simple gentleman--not properly vested
with the authority of a magistrate, could venture to menace a Christian
who had offended him, and might do him some personal harm, as the
sudden flight of Dubány out of his reach plainly argued.
On Sunday, the 29th, a polacca brig came to an anchor in the outer
harbour, and about five o’clock Lady Hester arrived at the convent.
She had almost freighted the vessel with oats, for Antioch is the only
place that I heard of in Syria where they grew: nevertheless, oats were
not approved of for horses by those natives who could get barley, which
was preferred as more nourishing.
It will be necessary here to give a little account of Lady Hester’s
voyage to Antioch, and of her residence there. But we will first bring
the history of M. Boutin’s assassination to a conclusion, since it was
much connected with this voyage.
It will be recollected that Lady Hester had sent into the Ansáry
district, which is wholly mountainous, three persons who, after
having made such researches as they could, returned to communicate
their information to her ladyship. I never heard precisely what this
information was; but she thought it sufficient to ground upon it an
application to the pasha, that measures should be taken to bring the
murderers to punishment. She had not, perhaps, reflected how very
reluctant the pasha might be to require persons to be given up who
would be refused to him: in which case, if he did not compel their
obedience, his authority would be compromised.
The Ansárys inhabit that chain of mountains which runs as a
continuation of Mount Lebanon, from Dayr Hamýry to Antioch,
comprehended between the two parallels 34° 40´ and 36° 20´ north
latitude. They are tributary to the pashas of Tripoli and Damascus, but
their obedience is uncertain and their contempt of authority general,
because necessarily suffered to go unpunished. In the centre of their
mountains, they have certain strongholds, where the troops of the
plains, which had been occasionally sent against them, had always been
foiled. It was known in what village the murder had been committed;
but to every order to give up the murderers some evasive answer had
been returned. To Lady Hester’s urgent request, therefore, that more
strenuous measures should be resorted to, the pasha replied civilly,
but evasively, that the troops could not endure the cold mountains in
the winter, but, when spring came, her wishes should be complied with.
When spring did come, Lady Hester failed not to remind the pasha of
his promise; and I heard afterwards that an order to the same effect,
originating in the French authorities at Constantinople, was sent him.
But to the French none of the honour of revenging their countryman’s
death belonged, for Lady Hester alone, by the information she had
collected, could direct them where to march.[101] Whether, however,
moved by her ladyship or by others, at last the pasha was roused to
action; and, towards the middle of the year, troops were seen marching
on the road to Tripoli. These troops were very generally impressed with
the idea that it was Lady Hester who had caused them to march: for they
said in the towns, as they went along, that they were ordered on the
Syt’s business.
It was evident that the pasha meditated a formidable irruption into the
Ansáry mountains; and the command was given to Mustafa Aga Berber, as
governor of their district, and as, moreover, a brave officer, fit to
cope with these mountaineers. The Ansárys are that people who, during
the crusades, furnished those assassins who devoted themselves to
certain death for the sake of destroying the enemies of their faith.
The reader will recollect the old man of the mountain and all the
traditions connected with that mysterious person, and he will then know
those whom Berber was to attack.
Mustafa Aga Berber at last marched, and, entering the Ansáry mountains,
carried fire and sword into their villages. It is supposed that, to
the motives furnished him by the cause on which he went, he added
personal hatred, on account of their religion; for Berber was a rigid
Mahometan, and the Ansárys, being out of the pale of the Mahometan
faith, are hated by the Turks so cordially that they are said to
consider it meritorious to put an Ansáry to death. Berber, therefore,
was going to a work of faith. I am ignorant of the details of his
proceedings, but it came to my ears by general report that he burnt the
villages of the assassins, sent several heads to the pasha as trophies
of his victories, and several women to Tripoli as slaves. There was the
tomb of a shaykh, who, for his sanctity, was held as a saint by the
Ansárys: this he caused to be broken into, and the body or bones to
be taken out and consumed by fire. He burnt also the house of shaykh
Khalýl, who was a considerable personage among them. One of the places
which he besieged was called Hamam. By some it was said that he was
never able to get hold of the assassins themselves, and had substituted
other heads for them, whilst others affirmed that the assassins
were taken and put to death. Berber, however, returned triumphant
to Tripoli: and it was soon afterwards that Lady Hester set out for
Antioch.
When Berber was about to depart on this expedition, he wrote a letter
to Lady Hester, saying that, as he was going to fight for her, it was
but fair that she should arm her knight: accordingly, Lady Hester sent
him a brace of handsome English pistols. Now that he was returned,
we may suppose that Lady Hester was desirous of seeing him, and of
learning the details of his expedition. On the 18th of July she
embarked. The voyage was considered by most persons as connected
with the Ansáry affair; but such as knew some circumstances of Lady
Hester’s life imagined that she absented herself from Sayda to avoid
the Princess of Wales. She herself always said that the real object of
her journey to Antioch was to see Mr. Barker, in order to settle her
money affairs: but, as on many other occasions, so on this, I was quite
able to satisfy my mind as to her real motive, although she judged it
prudent not to avow it. The hope of a little diversion to her mind
might have formed a part; the wish of seeing Mr. Barker also had its
weight; but the reason assigned respecting the Princess of Wales seems
to me most correct: for Lady Hester probably knew, long before, that
the Princess was coming to Jerusalem, and she might fear that, once in
the country, she would extend her journey to Mar Elias; where such a
visit would also have brought upon her so much expense as to induce her
to go out of the way. But certainly no one but herself would ever have
thought of taking refuge in the midst of the very people upon whose
countrymen, perhaps whose relations, she had been the means of bringing
such calamities.
When Lady Hester embarked at Sayda, the strand was covered with
spectators. The vessel she had hired was a large _shaktûr_. Upon
the ballast, which was sand, were laid some mats, and upon these her
ladyship’s bed without any bedstead. At the head and foot, mats were
put up as screens. Towards the stern was the heavy luggage, where lay
the three women, and towards the stem was the favourite black horse,
with the ass she was accustomed to ride. The vessel sailed the same
evening, and on the following day at sunset Lady Hester was on shore
at Tripoli, in the house that had been prepared for her at the strand,
which is about a mile from the city.
As the consideration in which the government held Lady Hester was very
well known, all those who generally take their tone from the great man
hastened down to pay their respects. Besides these, came the English
Consul, the Greek bishop, and the French Consul. Having seen the
governor, and heard the particulars of his expedition, after a stay of
five days, Lady Hester re-embarked, and sailed for Antioch. The räis
(or captain) objected to enter the port of Swadiah, which is nearest to
Antioch, and dropped anchor at Bussýl, the ancient Posidium, a small
port to the south of it. Mr. Barker, who had been waiting at Swadiah
twenty days, living under tents, hastened immediately to Bussýl, and
mules were provided for the luggage. Lady Hester landed, and, in a
short time, arrived on her ass at Antioch, which is distant six or
seven leagues from Bussýl. Mr. Barker had caused a house to be prepared
for her, and another for himself, but staid only five days at Antioch,
and then departed for Aleppo, being obliged to return on account of
the Prince Regent’s birthday, which he wished to celebrate in his
consular house. Here Lady Hester spent seventy days, and the language
she held after her return, when speaking of the Ansárys, was, that she
considered them as an industrious but oppressed people. Few Europeans
had at that epoch ever met with common civility at Antioch, much less
with honours and consideration. It seems, however, that Lady Hester was
not less regarded there than elsewhere.
She visited whatever was curious. Much of the time that she was there
was spent in a retired cottage out of the town, where she might be
truly said to show a fearless disposition and much courage: for a few
Ansárys, had they been so disposed, could have carried her off or
murdered her any hour of the night or even of the day; and some well
disposed persons secretly informed her, when there, that her life
was in danger. But the terror excited by the late severe vengeance
exercised on their nation probably saved her; and, more than all, the
magnanimous conduct which she pursued towards them; for, at her cottage
in the woods, she took an occasion, when several peasants were around
her, to harangue them; telling them that she had indeed revenged the
death of a Frenchman, and of a man who was her country’s enemy, because
she knew that all just persons abhorred the deeds committed against the
defenceless in the dark--deeds such as must be disowned by the brave
and the good everywhere.
Lady Hester returned to Sayda in a polacca brig, which she found lying
in Latakia harbour waiting for a freight. As the heat was still too
great to remain at Abra, she set off on the 6th of October for Rûm.
On the 13th she returned from Rûm to receive M. Regnault, the French
consul at Tripoli, who was, by invitation, come on a visit to her.
He was a short, humpbacked man, formerly one of the twelve of the
Institute of Egypt. His language and manners were pleasing. He was
somewhat facetious, and had amiability enough to make his ugliness
forgotten in the course of a few hours’ conversation.
M. Loustaunau, a sketch of whose life has been given in another work,
and whom Lady Hester had long since dubbed _the Prophet_, was
still living on her bounty. He was ever brooding over portentous
events about to happen to her ladyship: of whom he now always spoke as
a person destined by the Almighty to play a great part in the world.
On all subjects he discovered remarkable good sense, excepting on the
Bible, the texts of which he perverted in a most extraordinary manner,
to accommodate them to the events of her life, past, present, and
future.
Lady Hester and M. Regnault visited the French consul at Sayda. She
wore a splendid black abah, with gold brandenburghs and tassels, and,
whilst sitting on a carpet on the ground, after the Turkish fashion,
she reclined on a short crutch beautifully inlaid with mother of
pearl, after the manner of the great personages of the East. Such was
the crowd which assembled round her when she entered the town that
one would have said it was the first time they had ever seen her.
Adults and children, Turks and Christians, all were actuated by the
same spirit of curiosity to behold the woman who could stir up a whole
province to take revenge upon the Ansárys for the death of a Frank.
Lady Hester’s acts of beneficence to a number of individuals, coupled
with this last generous and disinterested labour for M. Boutin, had
caused her name to spread very widely through the country, and herself
to be regarded as the protectress of the unfortunate and the almoner of
the poor. On her return to the convent, she found a suppliant at her
gate, whose history will claim some sympathy.
Michael Ayda was the son of an Egyptian merchant, whose father was
receiver of the customs at Damietta, and afterwards katib to Gezzàr
Pasha, by whom, in a fit of bloodthirstiness, he was put to death.
Michael and his sister, with another brother, were left orphans to the
care of their uncle, Girius Ayda, who, having been an active adherent
of the French when in possession of Egypt, was obliged, on their
evacuation of his country, to abandon it, and retired with them to
France. He there obtained a pension from Buonaparte and the rank of
general in the army.
Michael was then about nine years old. He was young and apt for
literary acquirements, so that, as he grew up, he retained the Arabic
language and acquired the French. At the age of seventeen, he became
a teacher of Arabic, and copyist at the royal library in Paris, where
he read the best authors in his native tongue, and acquired a correct
knowledge of the Arabian poets. He had often heard speak of the great
wealth which his father possessed; and he cherished the resolution
within himself that, when arrived at man’s estate, he would go to
Egypt, and try if any of it could be recovered from the hands of those
who, he was told, unjustly kept possession of it. Accordingly, in
May, 1816, he carried his resolution into effect, and sailing from
Marseilles landed at Alexandria.
Another uncle, who was living at Alexandria, had opposed by letter,
and with all the means in his power, this voyage to Egypt. Michael
Ayda therefore imagined that his relations in Egypt were in a league
together, to prevent the recovery of his property. After his arrival
at Alexandria, he brooded over this idea so deeply that, added to the
strangeness of the people among whom he found himself, and the stories
which he had heard from his boyhood of the barbarity of the Turks, it
turned his brain. He fancied that the object of his journey was known
to everybody, and that persons set on by his uncle were conspiring
against his life.
Being, therefore, on the way from Alexandria to Damietta by land, he
one night thought that he observed one of the mule-drivers secretly
approaching him with a knife in his hand, and fancied that it could
be with no other intention than to murder him. Frantic almost to
madness, he sprang upon his feet, fled, and, after wandering about for
nearly twenty-four hours, arrived, worn out with fatigue and hunger,
at Damietta. The cousin in some way heard that a person of his own
name was arrived from France, and, finding him out, received him with
the kindness of a near relation, clothed him, and expressed himself
willing to give him every information respecting his father’s property.
But Michael Ayda was too deeply impressed with the supposed cruel
intentions of his cousin ever to feel at peace, and, in the course
of a couple of days, he entered a mosque, and proclaimed himself in
the middle of the assembled congregation as one resolved to become a
Mahometan.
As his air was bewildered, some of the shaykhs took him into a room,
conversed with him, found out who he was, and sent to the cousin to
know whether it was with his knowledge that Michael Ayda was about to
take so important a step. The cousin hastened to the spot, and did all
in his power to dissuade him, but in vain. The young man persisted in
his purpose, submitted to the necessary but painful operation which
his new faith required, and, at his own desire, was shipped for Syria
in order to be out of the reach of his ideal enemies. He landed at
Beyrout, and his story soon reached Dayr el Kamar, where his uncle,
named Nicola Turk, resided. This gentleman employed two stout and
trusty men, who intercepted the caravan, by which he was going from
Beyrout to Damascus, at Hamel-merge, in the Bkâ, and, by persuasions
and threats, induced the muleteers to whose care he was entrusted to
give him up. They carried him to Dayr el Kamar. He was there made by
his uncle to abjure the Mahometan religion before the patriarch, and
was restored to the privileges of a Christian.
This last act rendered his life forfeit to the Turkish law, and
he now dared not stir beyond the precincts of the emir’s district
without running the hazard of being seized and impaled. His object,
therefore, in throwing himself at Lady Hester’s feet was to solicit
her protection, and to beseech her to afford him an opportunity of
embarking for Europe: but Lady Hester held it as a rule of conduct
never to interfere in the religion of other persons, and, although
she was willing to assist him, it was not in abetting his double
apostacy. She endeavoured to show the young man, however, that his
real interests lay in adhering to the Turkish religion, if indeed he
was desirous of prosecuting the business which had brought him from
France. If he remained a Christian, he ran the risk of being impaled,
and must abandon the hope of the recovery of any of his father’s
property. Ayda was irresolute, half inclining to the faith of his
family and relations, and yet desirous of avoiding the life of misery
and apprehension to which he should be exposed. Lady Hester told him
finally that she could receive him only as a Turk, and that, once a
confirmed Mahometan, he could not return again to the church through
the medium of a priest of this country. He became, for some time, a
tenant of one of her cottages; but melancholy had taken such deep
possession of him that he was totally unfitted for active life. Here he
devoted himself to Arabic poetry, and, by the aid of some books which
I lent him, he speedily acquired a knowledge of Italian and English:
but he was grievously superstitious; much imbued with the prejudices of
the Levantines, although he had as yet never lived among them; and a
believer in magic, alchemy, and all mystic sciences.
On the 28th of October, M. Didot, son of the celebrated printer, Firmin
Didot of Paris, being on his travels through Sayda, was invited to the
convent. With him was M. Le Grange, who had been studying Arabic two
or three years at Zúk, a large village in the Keserwàn, in order to
qualify himself for the situation of _interprète de la cour pour les
langues Orientales_.
It may be illustrative of the characters of the mountaineers on Lebanon
to observe, that, about this time, the story of the Wapping baker, who
appeared to a ship’s crew in the flames of Mount Ætna, as they were
sailing past Sicily, and was afterwards found to have died on the day
on which he had been seen, had got into circulation, and seemed to
have made a deeper impression on the minds of all ranks of people than
any piece of European news I ever heard discussed among them.
Lady Hester grew every year more fond of the hot bath. She would go
into it two days following, staying in three or four hours at a time.
November the 15th, one of the little running footboys came panting
up to me, crying, _Ana abasherak, Ana abasherak--I bring you good
tidings_. This is a common way with persons of all ranks in the
East, to endeavour to be first to tell good news; in which case a
recompence is generally expected and given. The news was, that Giorgio
Dalleggio, the Greek servant, sent to England, in June, 1815, was
arrived in Sayda harbour, and that Mr. N., surgeon, who was come out as
my successor, had arrived with him.
Giorgio had brought with him twenty-seven cases, which were all landed
without examination by the custom-house officers of the place, a mark
of civility invariably shown to Lady Hester during the whole of her
residence in Syria; and which she returned twofold by an occasional
present to the kumrukgy, or collector of the customs. Their voyage had
been favourable, having left the River Thames on the 2nd of August.
West of Malta they were fired into three times by the Tagus frigate,
Captain Dundas, owing to some breach of the regulations existing
between merchant vessels, when under convoy, and king’s ships: because
masters of merchant vessels, for the sake of gaining a few leagues in
a long voyage, will often expose their freight and passengers to the
danger of capture.
When Giorgio Dalleggio gave the history of his reception in England,
it appeared that he had been much caressed. This had caused him to
forget the benefits he had received from his mistress and to despise
her service. He said that his Royal Highness the Duke of York was his
intimate friend, and that everything he saw in England was inferior to
what he had seen in Constantinople. The Princess Charlotte of Wales, on
his delivering a letter from Lady Hester, gave him a silver chain. He
remarked, when speaking of it, that, if these were the presents English
princesses made, what was he to think of such mean people: he accepted
it, he declared, only not to give her pain by his refusal. And soon
after, when setting out for Damascus, he asked Lady Hester whether he
should take the chain with him or not, and then answered himself by
saying, “Well, I shall take it, but I will not say it was from her,
lest I should give the Turks a mean opinion of English royalty.” He
asserted that the palaces in England were not so good as the prisons in
Turkey.[102]
Two Bedouins arrived on the 17th, with a letter from the emir of the
Anizys, Mahannah-el-Fadel, bringing with them a colt, as a present to
Lady Hester. The object of their mission was of some importance. Shaykh
Nasar, in some dissensions that had sprung up between Mahannah and the
governor of Hamah, had plundered the granaries of the governor of that
place, after a battle in which Farez (Mahannah’s son) was slain. The
governor complained of the aggression to the pasha of Damascus; upon
which the pasha vowed he would have Nasar’s life, if ever he should be
caught. Nasar, therefore, supplicated Lady Hester to intercede with the
pasha for him; and hinted that, in case of her succeeding, it would
be well to demand some pledge of his good faith in the performance of
his promises; adding that, although the pasha’s words were honeyed,
there was always a sword under them. It was a fine sight to behold the
Bedouins come and seek protection of a woman and a stranger.
This letter is not devoid of interest, as showing the style of Bedouin
writing: for, although it is probable that some itinerant writer penned
it, Mahannah dictated it.
To our dear Sister the Syt Hester, whom may the Almighty save,
and whose days may he prolong unto us, whom she has breathed
upon--this letter, with our most profound respect, comes
greeting--Amen, O God of the Universe! Next, shouldst thou, our
sister, inquire after us, thy brother, we, praise be to God,
are well, but ever anxious after thy perfect safety, which is
the sum of our wishes and prayers.
From the time that you were with us, we have been in bloody
affrays with the pasha. He it is that slew our son Farez and our
men. This was God’s doings, but we stopped the rout, and God,
the most High, scattered them; so that we are, just now, quiet.
But it behoves us that we should inform your Felicity, and give
you tidings also of the state of Nasar. For two years past he
has escorted the pilgrims (to Mecca): but we have no news that
you are coming unto us. The bearer of this is our chieftain,
Abd-el-Rasák, and if you wish for a mare, send word by him, and
let us know: for we wait the commands of your Felicity.
MAHANNAH-EL-FADEL.
Whilst the Bedouins were sitting with me, on Tuesday, the 19th
November, about half past eleven in the morning, the sky became by
degrees overcast, and, unapprized of such an event, I did not at first
perceive that the sun was eclipsed. I blackened a piece of glass with
smoke, and made the Bedouins look through it; but they seemed to me
to express no irrational astonishment whatever. The cottagers in the
village brought out pans and kettles, and beat them to avert the evil
influence of the heavens.
The twenty-seven cases which Giorgio had brought out from England for
Lady Hester contained numberless articles of every kind, which she had
ordered to be bought for her, to distribute as presents amongst her
various friends and acquaintances in Turkey. With her usual method and
expedition in business, these different objects were, in a week’s
time, unpacked, ticketed, and arranged, so as to require nothing but
the delivery of them to those for whom she intended them. My attention
was chiefly occupied by Mr. N., to whom the country and its inhabitants
were to be made familiar as speedily as possible, and who looked to me
for such information on the climate and the diseases incident to it as
my long residence in it might be supposed to have given me.
It was now finally resolved that I should embark by the earliest
occasion for Europe: but, as there was a thermometer and a barometer,
among some other things, which Lady Hester intended to give to Mâlem
Haym, of Acre, I made one more journey to that place, as well to take
leave of my friends there, as to explain to the Mâlem the nature of
these two tubes, and where best to suspend them. Accordingly, on the
24th of November, I set off for Acre at noon, and slept that night at
the Khudder, opposite Sarfend. I reached the Guffer Nakûra the next
day, and, early on the third, arrived at Acre.
Having finished my business with Mâlem Haym, I then paid my last visits
to my acquaintance. At one of their houses I met with a native of Acre,
who, having accompanied the French in their flight from Syria, under
Buonaparte, had become a soldier, and, by bravery and conduct, risen to
be captain in the Imperial guard, and member of the Legion of Honour.
Yet this man, had he remained in his native place, would have been at
best an humble shopkeeper, subject to the abuse, and occasionally to
the blows, of his masters, the Turks.[103]
There was a strong feeling of party excited throughout the sea-ports
of Syria about this time, by the death of the governor of Smyrna. It
was a useful lesson to consuls and to other Europeans, not to hold out
inducements to a Mahometan to violate the precepts of his religion. A
Turk, who drinks, goes to balls and parties at European houses, flirts
with Greek women, and forgets the gravity peculiar to his nation, may
go on thus for a time; but eventually the Porte never pardons such
flagrant violations of the precepts of the Prophet, and deprives him of
his place or of his life. His successor is then chosen from those who
are known to be very anti-Christian; or, if not naturally so disposed,
he is obliged, in self-defence, to keep the Franks at a great distance,
marking them as objects of contempt in every thing he does. This real
or apparent severity is adopted throughout the country, and thus is
generated mutual hatred, which, had that reserve been practised which
is proper between people who can never thoroughly amalgamate, would not
have happened.
Mr. Lewis Catafago, of Acre, who had conducted her Royal Highness the
Princess of Wales to Jerusalem, bore testimony to her condescension
and affability during the journey. The priests of the monastery there
had circulated reports in prejudice of her generosity, by declaring
that the corn supplied for her horses had been left unpaid for;
although it was very well known that, besides paying very liberally for
whatever was consumed by herself and suite, she settled an annual sum
on the monastery.
On the 29th, I left Acre, and slept a few hours at Ras-el-Ayn. Whilst
it was yet dark, I resumed my journey, and reached the river Khasmia
about two hours before sunrise. Giovanni spread my carpet in the open
field, in front of a ruined caravansery, where I lay down, in the hope
of getting another nap: but I had hardly composed myself to rest, when
the noise of horses’ feet and of loud and dissonant voices startled me,
and I sat up. Soon afterwards, about a hundred Hawáry horse soldiers
rode up to the spot where I was; and it was so very dark that I cried
out to prevent them from riding over me. As Giovanni was seated against
a ruined wall, where he had made a fire to boil me some coffee, I was
taken for a traveller, and not the slightest molestation was offered
me. Each soldier dismounted at the place he liked best, unstrapped the
foot-ropes from behind his saddle, to tether his horse; and immediately
a hundred voices were heard of Mohammed, Yusef, Mahmoud, Selim, Ali,
&c., crying, “Hand me a stone, to drive in my tethering-pin!”--“Will
you lend me yours, when you have done?”--with the like exclamations;
and the iron pins were heard yielding a clang through the field to
the strokes which drove them into the ground. Thus, in ten minutes,
the whole troop was encamped. Then followed the noise of fighting and
neighing among some of the horses, which had been tied too near to
each other; for these soldiers ride chiefly stallions: but silence
succeeded as soon as each soldier had unstrapped his corn-bag, and had
hung it on his horse’s head, whilst the riders drew from their wallets
such provisions as they had brought from their last station. As each
man carries his all on his horse, there were no baggage animals, and
no tents to pitch. All squatted on the ground, to eat and smoke their
pipes, and many lay down to sleep on the ground in their cloaks or
sheepskin pelisses.
They took little or no notice of me; some few made acquaintance with
Giovanni, whose pot of coffee they soon emptied, but not before he had
given me what I required for myself. By their conversation, which I
overheard, I found that they were a part of the troops who had assisted
in ravaging the Ansáry territories under Mustafa Aga Berber, and Lady
Hester’s name was often mentioned.
As soon as day dawned, I left them, and continued on my way to Abra.
This rencontre will serve to show that the alarms and descriptions
of travellers respecting the Turkish soldiery may sometimes be
exaggerated.
On the 3rd of December, I went down to Sayda. At about an hour before
sunset, there came on a most heavy fall of rain; so that, using all the
haste I could to quit the city, I found a little rivulet, which crossed
the road on going through the orchards, so swollen that my horse could
hardly ford it without falling. Such are the rains in these countries.
M. Beaudin departed the same day for Acre, with five camel-loads of
presents, for the pasha, for Mâlem Haym, and other individuals. The
rain continued, without intermission, until the 8th.
On the 9th, Lady Hester had a suppliant at the convent, in the person
of Mohammed Aga Tersýty, who came to demand money. He had been driven
out of one of the towns between Hamah and Damascus by the new pasha,
who had cut off his uncle’s head, and avanized his family. I omitted to
mention, in its proper place, that the pasha of Damascus, Sayd Solymán,
had been replaced by Hafyz Ali Pasha, formerly Lord High Admiral.
This pasha took the road for Damascus, through Asia Minor, with his
myrmidons, and had no sooner arrived on the skirts of his pashalik
beyond Hamah, than he began to reform many abuses that had crept into
the administration. A new pasha generally enters into office with
sanguinary measures. As he advanced, he confiscated the property of
some, put others to death, and made the guilty of all sorts (or perhaps
the rich) tremble. Mohammed Aga, Tersýty’s uncle, was one of these:
and the nephew probably had his reasons for flight.
On the 13th, I took Mr. N. into the mountain, to show him a little
of the country, and to introduce him to some of the persons who were
occasionally in correspondence with Lady Hester. On our way, hearing
that the Emir Beshýr was not at Dayr-el-Kamar, we turned from the road
through the village Aynût to another, called Hazrûs, whither he had
gone. He was out with his falcons, and we went on to Garýfy, where we
passed the night at Shaykh Shems’s. Mr. N. was so dreadfully tormented
with the fleas, that, in the morning, his body looked as if he had the
measles. This arose from his unwillingness to forego the English habit
of undressing to his shirt, and sleeping on a bed. For myself, I slept
on my small carpet, with my clothes on.
The next morning we returned to Hazrûs. Here we saw the emir, of whom
I took leave preparatory to my voyage to England; and, having told him
that we wished to see his palace at Bteddýn, which he requested we
would do with all liberty, we left him. We took a different road from
that which we had followed on the preceding day through Ayn Bayl, and
Zimaruka, where reside some of the family of Zayn ed Dyn, Drûzes who
have enjoyed the enviable privileges of supplying for many generations
the common executioner. But it will hardly be believed that this family
derives much importance from the office; so that they would no more
wish to lose it than a chieftain his fief. Nothing could exceed the
romantic scenery we this day saw. The path lay principally by the side
of the bed of a torrent, in a deep ravine between two lofty mountains,
from which, in the lapse of ages, large fragments of rock had detached
themselves, and lay below in majestic confusion. The late rains had
somewhat swelled the stream, and it occasionally foamed in cascades
over the broken masses. Arriving at night at Dayr el Kamar, we were
provided with lodging in the old palace, the residence of the emir
before building that of Bteddýn.
I sent for Pierre, who proceeded to see that our supper was provided
in the best style, and M. Ayda came to spend the evening with us. The
next day we visited Bteddýn palace, which is really a very pleasing
specimen of the irregularities and decorations of the present Syrian
architecture. The most beautiful room is the _kâa_, which is
not inferior in richness of ornament to some of the first rooms at
Damascus. We made the acquaintance of Abûna Stefàn (or Father Stephen),
a priest and a physician, in which latter capacity he was now in
attendance on the emir’s lady. We were however called upon to intrude
on his department by a request from the princess to enter the harým and
prescribe for one of her women. But, as we saw only one room in the
harým, our visit did not answer the purposes of curiosity which we had
hoped to derive from it. We returned the next day to Abra.
Christmas-day now came, and my departure was fixed for the next week;
but the necessary preparations for a long voyage, and the number of
letters which Lady Hester had to write, detained me until the 18th of
January. It was not without great melancholy that I beheld the day
arrive, which was to separate me from a country, where I had seen so
many strange things, and from a person whose exalted courage, talents,
and character, had gained an entire ascendency over my mind.