CHAPTERVIII.
Petty annoyances in hot countries—Lady Hester refuses Duke Maximilian’s portrait—She insists on my leaving her—Continuation of the negro Wellington’s case—Progress of the Druze insurrection—Destruction of locusts—Mysterious visit at the Dar—Reasons why Lady Hester kept daring fellows in her service—Russian spies—Dr. Lœve’s visit—Dangerous state of the country—Lady Hester’s dream—Her resolution to immure herself—Visit from Mr. M.—Visit from Colonel Hazeta and Dr. Mill—Letter from Lord Palmerston to Lady Hester—Her answer—Inexpediency of having consular agents not natives of the country they represent—Successes of the Druzes—Lady Hester’s belief in fortune-telling—Letter from Sir Francis Burdett—Colonel Needham’s property—Lord Coutts—Subscribers to pay Mr. Pitt’s debts—Fright from a serpent—Battle of Yanta—Sir N. Wraxall a peer—Discourse upon heads—A spy—Letter to the Duke Maximilian of Bavaria.
Lady Hester got up in the evening. The heat was now so great, that the covers of books, as they lay on the table, would curl up at the corners, and the joinings of furniture split. A host of a kind of small May-bugs made their appearance at sunset, and largecockchafers, impudent as is every description of bug, fly, or bird, in this country, kept us all in a state of petty warfare, which was succeeded, when bed-time came, by a sleepless contest with those horrid tormentors, the musquitoes.
Lady Hester spoke a good deal about the property supposed to be left her. “Those,” she said, “who wrote me word about it would not deceive me; they were persons I have perfect reliance on. They were afraid to write names; but when they said that this property was come to me from the two plainest persons of my acquaintance, those two must have been Lord K. and his wife.”
The duke had asked me, when I was with him, whether I thought Lady Hester would be displeased if he sent her his portrait from Europe. I answered, “She could not but be pleased to have what, next to seeing him, would best recall his highness to her mind.” But, when I told Lady Hester of this, she said, “No; I must write to him, and prevent his sending it.”
Sunday, June 10, 1838.—I rode down to Sayda, not aware of the duke’s departure, and I found, to my astonishment, that the duke, tents, and everybody had disappeared, except the poor black, Wellington; so now, having nothing to distract my attention, I went and conversed with him. He asked for a loosedressing-gown, warm stockings, as the cold struck up to his bowels from the stones, and a pillow for his head. This, together with tea and sugar, a teapot, and some other little things, were sent down to him.
Tuesday, June 12.—Lady Hester’s fever was somewhat abated. According to the date, the steamboat had arrived at Beyrout, and her expectations were wound up to a fearful height, in the hope that this time, at all events, a letter must have come from Sir Francis Burdett. Before noon, an express was announced: he was bearer of a letter to me to say that the steamboat had brought nothing. I knew not how to communicate the sad intelligence to her ladyship. When she heard it, she made a turn in her bed, and, with an exclamation of “Oh, Lord!” she said—“Doctor, the die is cast: the sooner you take yourself off, the better. I have no money—you can be of no use to me—I shall write no more letters, shall break up my establishment, wall up the gate, and, with a girl and a boy to wait on me, resign myself to my fate.—Let me have none of your foolish reasoning on the subject. Tell your family they may make their preparations, and in a fortnight’s time you must be gone. Who knows? perhaps Prince Pückler Muskau, after all his pretended interest about my affairs, has never sent the correspondence to Europe: he told you in three months we should see the lettersin the papers; and yet the papers neither come, nor do we hear from him: and do you think, after this, one can have any confidence in anybody?”
Wednesday, June 13.—I was glad to pass twenty-four hours without seeing her ladyship; for she was in too melancholy a humour to derive consolation, except from her own reflections: there she was most sure to find relief; for, endued with a sanguine temperament, and always building castles in the air, her depression never was of long continuance. In the evening, when I went to her, she dwelt on the necessity of repose for me, now old age had come upon me, in order to reconcile me to a separation which she seemed to think would give me pain.
Thursday, June 14.—I rode down to see Wellington, the black. His quarantine was to last in all forty days. He was alone in the building before described, called the Shemaôony, lying with his mattress on the stones, in the open air, and with an invalided soldier to attend on him, who of course was condemned to the same length of quarantine as himself. Wellington thanked me for the things which had been sent him. “Ah, sir,” said he, “this is not like my own country. At New York I should, even in a hospital, be attended by a good nurse; I should have my comfortable cup of tea, my bread pudding; and what the doctor ordered me would be properly administered:but that man” (pointing to the soldier) “wants to kill me. He is tired of being as it were in prison, and last night he beat me—yes, he beat me, ill as I am, because I woke him to assist me in my helplessness. My swelling is broken too; and it wants rags and plasters, and I have not strength to dress it myself; for I am so weak! look, see how my arms and legs are reduced in size. Tell that lady who is so kind to me, that, when I get well, I will bring her some of the beads and cockle-shells, and other curiosities I bought at Jerusalem; and I have got some fine cotton stockings that I brought from New York,”—“Oh! but Wellington,” said I, interrupting him, “the lady is not in need of such things, although your feelings are not the less creditable on that account. She is a great lady, like the wife of your President, and she loves to do good to everybody.” “God bless her!” cried the poor fellow; “and it was so thoughtful of her to send me this soft pillow to put under my back, when I only asked for one for my head; for, do you know, it was the very thing I wanted, I have got such sores down my backbone from lying so long in the same position! Will you be so good as to explain to that man that he must make a fire, and boil the water here, when I want tea? for Lufloofy brings the water from the town, and it is quite cold before he gets here. And do, sir, tellhim he is not to beat me—but no! perhaps you had better not; for in the night he will be revenged on me, and who is to help me here? Oh, sir, if you knew what I suffer! I have not had a clean shirt, until those you sent me, since the day of our reaching this place.”
On leaving Wellington, I rode into Sayda, and going to Signor Lapi, where I found the governor’s secretary, I told them how the soldier maltreated the poor sick man. He immediately provided another attendant, an old Christian, named Anastasius, and, accompanying me to the Shemaôony himself, he menaced the soldier with a good bastinadoing, ordered him to the corner of the building farthest removed from Wellington’s bed, and threatened to have him shot if he dared molest either the black or Anastasius. Having settled this affair, I went to one of the city baths, called Hamàm el Gidýd, where I was obliged to hurry myself greatly to make way for the women, who, their time being come, were raising a clamour about the door. Baths are generally open for men until noon, and for women until sunset.
To-day news had come that the Druzes had advanced as far as Hasbéyah and Rashéyah about a day’s journey from Sayda; that they had killed the governor, and had spread consternation throughout the district. This news was confirmed by KhosrôEffendi and Selim Effendi, two gentlemen in the governor’s service.
On my return, I had occasion to witness the successful results of the Emir Beshýr’s measure for the destruction of the locusts. Immense swarms of these insects had come from the south-east, and settled for many leagues around during the month of ——, laying their eggs in holes in the ground, which they bore, as far as I could observe, with a sort of auger, which nature has sheathed in their tails. Their eggs form a small cylinder about as big as a maggot, and in minute appearance like an ear of Turkey corn, all the little eggs, as so many pins’ heads, lying in rows with that beautiful uniformity so constant in all the works of the Creator. How many of these conglomerate little masses each female locust lays I know not, but those I handled were enough to equal in size a hazel-nut, and, united by some glutinous matter, they are hatched about May. But no sooner had the swarms laid their eggs, than, to prevent their hatching, an order was enforced all through the district where the locusts had settled, obliging every member of a family above a certain age to bring for so many days (say) half a gallon of eggs to the village green, where, lighted faggots being thrown on them, they were consumed. The order was in full force for, probably, three weeks, until it was supposed that the greatestpart of the eggs had been dug up and destroyed. The peasants know by certain signs where the females have laid their eggs: but the utmost vigilance may overlook some ovaries; and, as each clot of the size of a nut may produce 5,000 locusts (for the peasants told me that each separate cluster of the size of a maggot contained more than a hundred eggs), it may be easily imagined how they swarm as soon as they are hatched. What one first sees is a black heap, about the size of the brim of a coalheaver’s hat. A day or two after the heap spreads for some yards round, and consists of little black grasshopper-like things, all jumping here and there with such dazzling agility as to fatigue the eye. Soon afterwards they begin to march in one direction, and to eat; and then they spread so widely through a whole province that a person may ride for leagues and leagues, and his horse will never put a foot to the ground without crushing three or four at a step: it is then the peasants rush to their fields, if fortunate enough to meet the vanguard of this formidable and destructive army. With hoes, shovels, pickaxes and the like, they dig a trench as deep as time will permit across their march, and there, as the locusts, which never turn aside for anything, enter, they bury, burn, and crush them, until exhaustion compels them to desist, or until, as was the case this year, from previous destruction of theeggs, and from having only partial swarms to contend with, they succeed in nearly annihilating them. When they fly, the whole village population comes out with kettles, pots, and pans, and, by an incessant din, tries to prevent their settling. The greatest enemy to locusts is a high wind, which carries them to the sea and drowns them, or, opposing their course, drives them back to the desert, probably to perish for want of sustenance.
In the evening, Lady Hester was in very low spirits. She said many unpleasant things to me, calling it frankness. She made a long tirade on my obstinacy in not listening to her prophetic voice. She said—“Wherever you go, you will regret not having followed my counsels, whether in Syria or in Europe. I should not,” she added, “have bestowed so much time on you, but I wish you well, and am sorry you will not put yourself in my train. You can be of no use to me, for I shall want persons of determination, judgment, and courage—neither of which you possess: but I know from what cause all your errors come—from having given up your liberty to a woman.”—Such was her opinion of what she called the slavery of marriage.
Monday, June 18.—I was mounting my horse to go to Sayda, when a person on a sorry nag, dressed in the nizàm dress, passed my gate, followed by a servant.“Good morning,” said I, in Arabic (for it is a sin almost not to give a good day to friend or stranger in these countries), and, receiving a reply in the same language, I concluded he was some officer of the Pasha’s come on business, and I rode off. On arriving at Sayda, I was asked if I had met a Frank on the road, and replied no; until, by the description, I learned that the person in the nizàm dress was a European. “Of what nation he is,” said my informant, “I can’t tell; we spoke to him in three or four languages, but it was all the same to him—he answered fluently in all. There is his lodging” (and he pointed to a small tent pitched in the middle of the khan quadrangle); “for we told him we had not a room to give him, owing to the earthquake; but he said he preferred being near us to going into the town, and so there he slept. When he wanted a guide up to mylady’s house, we told him that he must first send to ask permission to visit her; but he maintained there was no occasion for that; so we left him to his own course.”
According to the news that I collected, the signs of the times were rather alarming. Whilst I was holding the above conversation, a peasant entered the khan gate with a brace of pistols in his girdle. “There they are,” whispered a Turk to me. “A fortnight ago, that peasant would have no more dared to come intotown with his arms—but now they hang them on a peg in their cottages, especially in and about Nablôos, and set the soldiers and the pasha at defiance; and the garrison here is as mute as a mouse. God knows how things will turn out! In the mountain there is even a fanatic shaykh who goes about haranguing the people, advising them to pay no moremirito Ibrahim Pasha. A man, too, has been murdered on the Beyrout road.”
When I returned to the Dar in the evening, I saw Lady Hester. Nothing was said about the stranger’s arrival, although, by the stranger’s garden-door being open, I knew he was installed there; but, according to the etiquette observed in the house, I made no inquiries, judging that this was to be a mysterious visit, with which I had nothing to do; so I went home. It must appear very strange to the reader, that there should be a European so near to me, who would have to dine alone when I would willingly have had his company; yet, without seriously offending Lady Hester, I could neither invite him, nor even pay him a visit—but such was her character. With her everything must be secret, and everything exclusive; and if ever there was a being who would have appropriated all authority to herself, and have shouldered out the rest of mankind from the enjoyment of anyprivilege but such as she thought fit to concede, it was Lady Hester Stanhope.
Tuesday, June 19.—This morning the conversation turned on the Druze insurrection. Lady Hester now assumed the air of a person who, having made extraordinary prophecies, saw that the time of their accomplishment had arrived. “I foretold all this,” said she: “in a short time you will not be able to ride from here to Sayda; the country will be overrun with armed men; but I shall be as cool, from first to last, as at afête. All the cowards may go: I want only those who can send a ball where I direct them. Why do I keep such men as Seyd Ahmed and some others? because I know they would mind no more killing a score of people than eating their dinner. You wanted me to get rid of them, and blamed mytubba[disposition] because I had such fellows about me, whose plots you are afraid of:—why, yes, they were uneasy and troublesome, because they had nothing to do: but I knew the time would come when they would be useful, as you will see.”
Finding that Lady Hester seemed, for some unknown reason, to wish for my absence, I took my leave of her until Wednesday evening.
Wednesday, June 20.—I rose rather late, and was told by my family that a curious figure of a Europeanon a mule, followed by a servant dressed as a sailor, and coming from Lady Hester’s house, had passed our gate just before, with two mule-loads of luggage, altogether bearing the appearance of a travelling pedlar. “What can this mean?” thought I: “this cannot be the stranger I heard of in Sayda, for he was dressed in the costume of the country; but perhaps this is some travelling merchant, who has been to show his European wares to her ladyship.”
Sunset came, and, after dinner, I joined Lady Hester. She began, as I entered the saloon, with—“Well, doctor, I have got rid of him.”—“Of whom!” I asked. “Oh!” rejoined she, “such a deep one!—a Russian spy from the embassy at Constantinople: but he got nothing out of me, although he tried in all sorts of ways. I as good as told him he was a spy: and the Russians employ such clever men, that I thought it best you should not see him; for he would have pumped you without your suspecting his design, and have been more than a match for you. I dare say he is affronted because I packed him off so soon. I told him his fortune. You should have seen his splaws and have heard him talk—it was quite a comedy. He asked me if it was true that I could describe a person’s character merely by looking at him. ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘and, although I don’t see very well, and the candles give a very bad light, I will describeyours, if you like,’ and, without giving him time to stop me, I hit it off so exactly, that he exclaimed—‘Really, my lady, it is quite, quite wonderful!’ But, now he is gone, I must tell you that there is another person here—a sort ofsavant. Here, take this little book which he has given to me; but, you know, I don’t pretend to understand such things; it is something he has written about hieroglyphics: look at it, and then go and sit a little with him.”
After casting my eye over the work, I went to the strangers’ garden, and introduced myself. It was Dr. Lœve, the great orientalist and linguist, whom the newspapers had designated as librarian to his royal highness the D. of S., although I had thought that another gentleman of the medical profession held that honourable post. His knowledge of tongues was prodigious. I passed an hour or two with him, whilst he explained some of the objects of his Eastern researches. One thing struck me very forcibly, that, of all Europeans who study the literature of the East, the Jew has a decided advantage, inasmuch as his school studies in Hebrew render the transition to Arabic a step of no more difficulty than from Latin to Italian.
When I went back to Lady Hester, and told her that Dr. Lœve, as I thought, had been sent out at the expense of one of the oriental societies, or else at thatof the Duke of S., and that he had spoken very highly of his royal highness’s library and learning, Lady Hester halloed out—“Oh! Lord, doctor—the D. of S. learned! If I were to see him, I would tell him when and where he was laid across his horse drunk.—But I loved all the princes—all, except George the Fourth;—they were so lively, so good-natured;—people who would laugh at a straw.”
Thursday, June 21.—I rode down to Shemaôony to see Wellington, but not without some misgivings; for the groom who accompanied me related several things which made me suspect that the road was no longer safe. He had heard that between Tyr and Acre there was no passing: “and,” said he, “what is to prevent any desperate villain, or gang of villains, from attacking anybody anywhere? Our very governors hardly dare stir out of the towns; and who is to go in pursuit of robbers now? They know that; for the country is ready to rise, and in four or five days we shall perhaps see strange doings.”
After visiting the black, whose state was far from improving, I entered Sayda. I learned that from some villages a hundred and fifty horsemen had marched off the preceding night to join the insurgents; that, at Garýfy, a distance of four hours from Jôon, cattle had been carried off; that between Acre and Sayda travelling had become dangerous. At a villagecalled Helliléah, the people had shut up their houses, and taken refuge in the city: nay, the monks of Dayr el Mkhallas had packed up their valuables and church ornaments, and sent them to Sayda. The people in the gardens had also taken the alarm, and no longer slept there, as is customary in the summer season.
When I got back to the Dar, I told all this news to Lady Hester Stanhope. “Oh!” said she, “that’s not all—the people of Jôon are in a fright, and were going to desert the village; and Fatôom has been asking leave to bring her mother’s cow into my cow-house: but I sent word over to them to remain where they were, and that no harm should come to them.”
M. Guys, before setting off to Aleppo, had raised on a bill of her ladyship’s 27,000 piasters: these were in the house. “Would it be right,” said I, “to pay the servants the six months’ wages due to them, so that, if anything happens, each person may take care of his own?”—“Oh!” answered Lady Hester, “I don’t fear; I would throw all my doors open, if the Druzes were on the outside, and should not be afraid that anybody would touch me.”
My family in the mean time remained in total ignorance of what was going on around them; they ate, drank, slept, and walked out, totallyunconsciousof danger. I did not apprehend that these reports would come to their ears, for they understood very little Arabic, and, even if they had, the Arabs, generally speaking, have so much tact in knowing when they ought to be silent, that I thought myself safe in that respect: but I was mistaken. An old chattering washerwoman, in bringing home the linen, began a long speech, addressing herself to me, as I was smoking at the door, about the risk that women ran in being away from any habitation in these lawless times. “Do you know,” said she, “there are deserters in the woods and disabled soldiers in the high roads? And it was but yesterday that those ladies were an hour’s distance off in the forest, that leads to the river: for some neighbours of mine, who had taken their grists to the water-mill, saw them. By the Prophet! you do wrong to let them go so far. We had yesterday two of Ibrahim Pasha’s soldiers in the village begging, each with one hand only; for the Druzes had taken them prisoners and cut off their right hands;[31]but though they can’t fight, they are very dangerous men: for, you see, they are Egyptians.” The woman talked with much vehemence, and, although I silenced her, by answering that I would inquire into it, she had said enough to excite suspicion, in those who stood bylistening, that something was not right, and I was obliged to disclose part of the truth.
Friday, June 22.—Lady Hester dictated a very uncivil letter to Signor Lapi, the Austrian referendary, in which she said things as if coming from me. It was not an unusual way with her to employ my name to repeat her opinions, by which people were offended, who afterwards vented their spite in some way or another: it was one of her many manœuvres to keep people aloof from each other when it suited her purposes. Twenty years before, I had a serious quarrel with Shaykh Ibrahim (Mr. Burckhardt) in the same way, she not having so high an opinion of that gentleman as people in general had: but this was independent of his literary merits, and on different grounds.
Lady Hester related to me a dream that some one had had about her, in which a hand waving over her head, and several crowned heads humbled before her, were interpreted to indicate the greatness that just now, as she flattered herself, awaited her. What reason she had for thinking that relief from all her troubles was near at hand the reader has had opportunity of judging. She was always disposed, however, to see things in their brightest aspect—yesterday plunged into difficulties, and to-day extricating herself, if not in reality at least in imagination. “I am,” said she,“like the man in the Eastern story, who, imprisoned in a dungeon, and nearly starved to death, found in a poor sailor an old acquaintance, who conveyed to him secretly a basin of warm soup: but, just as he was putting it to his mouth, a rat fell from the ceiling, and knocked it out of his hand. Reduced thus to the lowest pitch of wretchedness, and seeing nothing left for him but to die, at the critical moment came a firmán from Constantinople to cut off the head of the pasha who had thrown him into prison, and he was saved. So it is with me: I cannot be worse off than I am; I shall, therefore, when the next steamboat comes, see what it brings; and, if I hear no news about the property that was left me, I shall get rid of you and everybody, and of all the women; and, with one black slave and Logmagi, I shall order the gateway to be walled up, leaving only room enough for my cows to go in and out to pasture, and I shall have no communication with any human being. I shall write to Lord Palmerston before you go, and tell him that, as he has thrown an aspersion on my name, I shall remain walled in here until he publicly removes it: and if he, or anybody, writes to me, there will be no answer; for, when you are gone, I shall have nobody to write for me.—This sort of life perhaps will suit me best, after all. I have often wished that I could have a room in my garden, and, lying there with onlysome necessary covering, slip from my bed as I was into my garden, and after a turn or two slip back again: I do assure you I should neither be low-spirited nor dull.”
To-day a letter was brought from an English traveller, Mr. M., to Lady Hester, the purport of which was that a gentleman of an ancient and honourable family was desirous of paying his respects to her. Lady Hester asked me to go down to Sayda, to call on him and say she should be happy to see him: accordingly, next morning, I went. I found a gentleman, of about forty or forty-two years of age, installed at the customary lodging of the English, and, after delivering my message and conversing with him a little while, I left him to see Wellington, the black, and go in search of news. I learned from Khosrô Effendi, the government secretary, that one of Ibrahim’s regiments, sent to quell the rising in Hasbéyah and Rashéyah, had been compelled, by the superior numbers of the insurgents, to shut themselves up in the castle, and were there closely besieged, expecting a reinforcement from Damascus to their relief.[32]
Towards Jerusalem some manifestations of risinghad been made, and nearer to Jôon some bodies of insurgents, in their way from different villages to join the main body in Rashéyah and the Horàn, had, in passing Btedýn, the Emir Beshýr’s residence, uttered loud and reviling menaces and cries. The Emir, being deprived of arms to put his dependants in a state of defence, had sent to Beyrout to demand 400 muskets, and had induced the Patriarch of the Maronite Christians to assemble some of the chief shaykhs, and to bind them with an oath not to join the Druzes. He had despatched couriers to the Metoualy country (the mountains running parallel with the sea from Sayda to Acre, and in some measure a continuation of Mount Lebanon), calling on the chieftains to hold their allegiance to Ibrahim Pasha. But it was considered that all these were measures of little use, should the Christians and Metoualis see a chance of expelling their oppressors. The inhabitants of the peaceable villages kept themselves in readiness on the first alarm to fly to the towns for security. Looking, however, dispassionately at the probabilities of success between the rival parties, it is not likely, considering that the Egyptian satrap holds all the strong places, that the Druzes can do anything more than carry ona harassing warfare, unless powerful aid comes from without, and ships of war blockade Acre, Beyrout, and the other ports.[33]
I saw Wellington: his case presented little hope. Dysentery had supervened, and, feeble as he already was, I judged it impossible that he could survive.
Sunday, June 24.—Mr. M. came up, and remained, I forget whether two or three days. He told me he was of Trinity College, Cambridge, but had been a long time abroad. Lady Hester said of him, “I like to converse with such people as are what you call country squires—one hears a great many anecdotes from them. Sometimes he makes very sensible remarks, and sometimes he is very strange. He asked me if I knew the Emir Beshýr; and, when I was giving him some information about him, all of a sudden he asked me if I liked dancing when I lived in England.He goes from one thing to another, like a dog in a fair:” (I laughed):—“yes, doctor, just like a dog that goes from one booth to another, sniffing here and there, and stealing gingerbread nuts. When he sat with me in the evening, he was constantly turning his head to the window, which was open, as if he thought somebody was coming in that way.”
Tuesday, June 26.—Mr. M. went away.
Wednesday, June 27.—A letter came from two more travellers, dated from the quarantine ground, where the black lay ill. Colonel Hazeta, the writer, informed her ladyship that he had travelled overland from Calcutta, and was commissioned to deliver to her a letter from her nephew, Colonel T. Taylor; but he alleged the impossibility of being the bearer of it himself, owing to the necessity he was under of proceeding onward to Beyrout, and performing his quarantine there. He was accompanied by Dr. Mill.
Thursday, June 28.—I received a note, acquainting me with the death of Wellington, and I rode down to inform myself of the circumstances of his end. By Signor Lapi’s care he was decently interred in the Catholic burial-ground at Sayda. What religion he was of I never heard him say; but he was what is called a pious youth, and told me his mother had brought him up in the practice of virtue and godliness; and, from what I saw of him, I believe he spoketruly; for he was of great singleness of mind, artless, ingenuous, and grateful to the duke, his master, and to Lady Hester, for the kindnesses they had shown him. But who shall console his poor mother!
I collected a little news, from which the Pasha’s affairs seemed to wear a better aspect. He had marched, it was said, with two regiments and some field-pieces against the rebels at Hasbéyah, and had sacked the place. The Horàn, it was reported, was also reduced to obedience.
Friday, June 29.—To-day Lady Hester wrote a letter to Lord Palmerston, in answer to one she had received from him, which I shall first transcribe.
Lord Palmerston to Lady Hester Stanhope.
Foreign Office, April 25, 1838.Madam,I am commanded by the Queen to acquaint you that I have laid before her Majesty your letter of the 12th of February, of this year.It has been my duty to explain to her Majesty the circumstances which may be supposed to have led to your writing that letter; and I have now to state to your ladyship that any communications which have been made to you on the matters to which your letter refers, either through the friends of your family or through her Majesty’s agent and consul-general at Alexandria,have been suggested by nothing but a desire to save your ladyship from the embarrassments which might arise, if the parties who have claims upon you were to call upon the consul-general to act according to the strict line of his duty, under the capitulations between Great Britain and the Porte.I have the honour to be, madam, your ladyship’s most obedient humble servant,Palmerston.
Foreign Office, April 25, 1838.
Madam,
I am commanded by the Queen to acquaint you that I have laid before her Majesty your letter of the 12th of February, of this year.
It has been my duty to explain to her Majesty the circumstances which may be supposed to have led to your writing that letter; and I have now to state to your ladyship that any communications which have been made to you on the matters to which your letter refers, either through the friends of your family or through her Majesty’s agent and consul-general at Alexandria,have been suggested by nothing but a desire to save your ladyship from the embarrassments which might arise, if the parties who have claims upon you were to call upon the consul-general to act according to the strict line of his duty, under the capitulations between Great Britain and the Porte.
I have the honour to be, madam, your ladyship’s most obedient humble servant,
Palmerston.
Lady Hester Stanhope to Lord Palmerston.
Jôon, Mount Lebanon, July 1, 1838.My Lord,If your diplomatic despatches are as obscure as the one which now lies before me, it is no wonder that England should cease to have that proud preponderance in her foreign relations which she once could boast of.Your lordship tells me that you have thought it your duty to explain to the Queen the subject which caused me to address her Majesty: I should have thought, my lord, that it would have been your duty to have made those explanations prior to having taken the liberty of using her Majesty’s name, and alienated from her and her country a subject, who, the great and small must acknowledge, (however painful it maybe to some) has raised the English name in the East higher than any one has yet done, besides having made many philosophical researches of every description for the advantage of human nature at large, and this without having spent one farthing of the public money. Whatever may be the surprise created in the minds of statesmen of the old school respecting the conduct of government towards me, I am not myself in the least astonished; for, when the son of a king, with a view of enlightening his own mind and the world in general, had devoted part of his private fortune to the purchase of a most invaluable library at Hamburgh, he was flatly refused an exemption from the custom-house duties; but, if report speaks true, had an application been made to pass bandboxes, millinery, inimitable wigs, and invaluable rouge, it would have been instantly granted by her Majesty’s ministers, if we may judge by precedents. Therefore, my lord, I have nothing to complain of; yet I shall go on fighting my battles, campaign after campaign.Your lordship gives me to understand that the insult which I have received was considerately bestowed upon me to avoid some dreadful, unnameable misfortune which was pending over my head. I am ready to meet with courage and resignation every misfortune it may please God to visit me with, but certainly not insult from man. If I can be accused of high crimes andmisdemeanours, and that I am to stand in dread of the punishment thereof, let me be tried, as I believe I have a right to be, by my peers; if not, then by the voice of the people. Disliking the English because they are no longer English—no longer that hardy, honest, bold people that they were in former times—yet, as some few of this race must remain, I should rely in confidence upon their integrity and justice, when my case had been fully examined.It is but fair to make your lordship aware, that, if by the next packet there is nothing definitively settled respecting my affairs, and that I am not cleared in the eyes of the world of aspersions, intentionally or unintentionally thrown upon me, I shall break up my household and build up the entrance-gate to my premises: there remaining, as if I was in a tomb, till my character has been done justice to, and a public acknowledgment put in the papers, signed and sealed by those who have aspersed me. There is no trifling with those who have Pitt blood in their veins upon the subject of integrity, nor expecting that their spirit would ever yield to the impertinent interference of consular authority.Meanly endeavouring (as Colonel Campbell has attempted to do) to make the origin of this business an application of the Viceroy of Egypt to the English Government, I must, without having made any inquiriesupon the subject, exculpate his highness from so low a proceeding. His known liberality in all such cases, from the highest to the lowest class of persons, is such as to make one the more regret his extraordinary and reprehensible conduct towards his great master, and that such a man should become totally blinded by vanity and ambition, which must in the end prove his perdition—an opinion I have loudly given from the beginning.Your lordship talks to me of the capitulations with the Sublime Porte: what has that to do with a private individual’s having exceeded his finances in trying to do good? If there is any punishment for that, you had better begin with your ambassadors, who have often indebted themselves at the different courts of Europe as well as at Constantinople. I myself am so attached to the Sultan, that, were the reward of such conduct that of losing my head, I should kiss the sabre wielded by so mighty a hand, yet, at the same time, treat with the most ineffable contempt your trumpery agents, as I shall never admit of their having the smallest power over me—if I did, I should belie my origin.Hester Lucy Stanhope.
Jôon, Mount Lebanon, July 1, 1838.
My Lord,
If your diplomatic despatches are as obscure as the one which now lies before me, it is no wonder that England should cease to have that proud preponderance in her foreign relations which she once could boast of.
Your lordship tells me that you have thought it your duty to explain to the Queen the subject which caused me to address her Majesty: I should have thought, my lord, that it would have been your duty to have made those explanations prior to having taken the liberty of using her Majesty’s name, and alienated from her and her country a subject, who, the great and small must acknowledge, (however painful it maybe to some) has raised the English name in the East higher than any one has yet done, besides having made many philosophical researches of every description for the advantage of human nature at large, and this without having spent one farthing of the public money. Whatever may be the surprise created in the minds of statesmen of the old school respecting the conduct of government towards me, I am not myself in the least astonished; for, when the son of a king, with a view of enlightening his own mind and the world in general, had devoted part of his private fortune to the purchase of a most invaluable library at Hamburgh, he was flatly refused an exemption from the custom-house duties; but, if report speaks true, had an application been made to pass bandboxes, millinery, inimitable wigs, and invaluable rouge, it would have been instantly granted by her Majesty’s ministers, if we may judge by precedents. Therefore, my lord, I have nothing to complain of; yet I shall go on fighting my battles, campaign after campaign.
Your lordship gives me to understand that the insult which I have received was considerately bestowed upon me to avoid some dreadful, unnameable misfortune which was pending over my head. I am ready to meet with courage and resignation every misfortune it may please God to visit me with, but certainly not insult from man. If I can be accused of high crimes andmisdemeanours, and that I am to stand in dread of the punishment thereof, let me be tried, as I believe I have a right to be, by my peers; if not, then by the voice of the people. Disliking the English because they are no longer English—no longer that hardy, honest, bold people that they were in former times—yet, as some few of this race must remain, I should rely in confidence upon their integrity and justice, when my case had been fully examined.
It is but fair to make your lordship aware, that, if by the next packet there is nothing definitively settled respecting my affairs, and that I am not cleared in the eyes of the world of aspersions, intentionally or unintentionally thrown upon me, I shall break up my household and build up the entrance-gate to my premises: there remaining, as if I was in a tomb, till my character has been done justice to, and a public acknowledgment put in the papers, signed and sealed by those who have aspersed me. There is no trifling with those who have Pitt blood in their veins upon the subject of integrity, nor expecting that their spirit would ever yield to the impertinent interference of consular authority.
Meanly endeavouring (as Colonel Campbell has attempted to do) to make the origin of this business an application of the Viceroy of Egypt to the English Government, I must, without having made any inquiriesupon the subject, exculpate his highness from so low a proceeding. His known liberality in all such cases, from the highest to the lowest class of persons, is such as to make one the more regret his extraordinary and reprehensible conduct towards his great master, and that such a man should become totally blinded by vanity and ambition, which must in the end prove his perdition—an opinion I have loudly given from the beginning.
Your lordship talks to me of the capitulations with the Sublime Porte: what has that to do with a private individual’s having exceeded his finances in trying to do good? If there is any punishment for that, you had better begin with your ambassadors, who have often indebted themselves at the different courts of Europe as well as at Constantinople. I myself am so attached to the Sultan, that, were the reward of such conduct that of losing my head, I should kiss the sabre wielded by so mighty a hand, yet, at the same time, treat with the most ineffable contempt your trumpery agents, as I shall never admit of their having the smallest power over me—if I did, I should belie my origin.
Hester Lucy Stanhope.
Here let me ask the reader whether Lady Hester had not indeed a right to be indignant with the minister who then directed the foreign affairs of thecountry, for the illiberal manner in which he gratified his spleen and mortified vanity. He had not the power of directly stopping the payment of her pension, it being a parliamentary grant; but he had recourse to the unworthy artifice of directing his agent not to sign the certificate of her life, without which her pension could not be paid. Nothing can be added to the well-merited castigation inflicted upon him, and he has brought down upon himself the condemnation of all men of good breeding and generous sentiment. What his present feelings on the subject may be it is impossible to say; but I would fain hope that there are few who are disposed to envy him, much less to follow his example.
This day an English sloop of war hove-to off Sayda. The captain of her sent for the English consular agent alongside, and what took place on this occasion may serve as an example of the necessity of having Englishmen, and not foreigners, as consular agents in distant countries. The precise object that the captain of the sloop had in view of course can only be known to himself; but what queries he put to Mr. Abella, the agent, and what answers he received, very soon transpired. Since, how could it be otherwise, when the agent was a native of Syria, and understood no language but Arabic? Being, therefore, summoned to the ship, which he could not go aboard, as shecould not communicate with persons from the shore until her bill of health had been examined by the health officers, he was first of all compelled to take some one as an interpreter between the captain and himself, and then to hold his parley from the boat to the ship’s quarter; but, as the interpreter might only speak Italian, and the captain only English, a third aid is required, and we will suppose an officer to be called, who takes the question from the captain’s mouth in English, repeats it in Italian to the agent’s interpreter, who translates it into Arabic; and then the answer goes back through the same channels: so that it must necessarily happen that the sense and the wording undergo a material change. But there is yet a greater evil. If the questions relate to matters of importance, as the progress of the Druze insurrection (for example), or the probability of Ibrahim Pasha’s success or defeat, how is the consular agent, so circumstanced, to give a faithful account? for, should he divulge matters unfavourable to the Pasha’s cause, his well-being, and perhaps his life, may be endangered: since, although he himself, as an agent in the English service, receives a certain protection, he may have brothers and relations who are at the Pasha’s mercy: nay, he himself, perhaps an agent to-day and dismissed to-morrow, may be left to cope with powerful enemies for the rest of his life.
Now, the French government secures Frenchmen for consuls and agents, and the English government, one would think, ought to act on the same principle. Let it not be said that men could not be found—native Englishmen—willing to banish themselves to these countries, and that for a very trifling salary. Among the half-pay officers of the army and navy might be selected numbers, who, even for so small a stipend as two hundred a year, would willingly accept such situations; because a very short residence would show them that, with economy, a hundred a year in the Levant is equivalent to two at home.
In affairs, where the conflicting interests of English and Mahometans, or disputes between travellers and natives, are to be settled, it is absurd to suppose that an agent, accustomed to cringe and fawn to the Turks all his life, will, or can, ever obtain redress for the party whose country he represents: it is impossible!
Saturday, June 30.—Lady Hester had sent to Dayr el Kamar for old Pierre, and he arrived this day. He brought news of a very different nature from that which I had learned at Sayda on the preceding Thursday. Ibrahim Pasha had been defeated by the insurgents, and had retreated as far as Zahly, a burgh overlooking the Bkâa, on the north-east slope of Mount Lebanon. In consequence of this, the road from Dayr el Kamar to Damascus was too dangerousto pass, and all the muleteers were stopped at those two places, afraid to cross the intervening plain.
I was surprised in the evening, when conversing with her ladyship, to see how the strongest minds are borne into the regions of fancy by what, with people of common sense, would be considered as mere visionary absurdities. I believe I have related elsewhere how a person, having gained the confidence of Lady Hester, told her he knew of a book that foretold the destinies of persons, which book he procured at her desire, and out of it offered to answer any questions she chose to put about anybody. “I would not,” said Lady Hester, when narrating the story, “ask him what would happen in Syria, because I conceive the course of events may be predicted by a man of great sagacity in any country, where he has cast a wistful eye on things passing around him; but I fixed on you, and asked him, ‘What is the doctor doing in Europe?’ The man opened his book, and read, and explained thus:—‘I see an elderly person sitting up in his bed, and by the bed-side a young woman kneeling, whilst she entreats and implores the elderly person not to take some journey, or go on some voyage,’ which of the two he could not precisely say. Now, doctor, that you know was exactly the case: for did not Mrs. M. some one day cry and beg of you not to go and join me? I am sure it was so. I next asked him about myself.He consulted his book, and said, I was to be witness to great battles, or be near where they were fought, and that one of the contests would be so bloody that, on one side, not a person would be left to tell the story: this battle, moreover, was to be fought on a plain three miles long and three broad, near Zahly, and upon Mount Lebanon. But,” added Lady Hester, “I never could find any solution to this prophecy until now; and the battle between Ibrahim Pasha and the insurgents clearly was the one meant. Neither could I discover where the plain was three miles long, and three broad, and I sent people to the neighbourhood of Zahly; but nobody knew anything of such a place, until at last information was brought me that there existed a plain as described in the heart of the mountain, like a basin, and which was shut out from the rest of the world. The book also said that a boy of royal blood would come from distant regions, would kiss my stirrup, and place himself under my guidance. All this was prophesied some years ago, and I always interpreted the bed-scene as relating to Mrs. M. That came to pass; for, though you will not confess it, I am sure it was so; and now the other part has been fulfilled too.”
In the course of the day, Lady Hester received a letter from Dr. Mill and Colonel Hazeta, to say that their quarantine was over, and that they would be at Jôon on the 1st of July.
Sunday, July 1.—They arrived early in the morning. After they had breakfasted, I received a note from Dr. Mill to say that he was about to read the morning prayers in his room, and to invite me and any others so disposed to join him.
These gentlemen remained two days, but a press of business prevented me from making memorandums. They always went together, when Lady Hester sent word she was ready to receive them: and this vexed her a great deal. Dr. Mill’s profound knowledge of languages, and his extensive reading, had given her hopes that she might have cleared up some difficulties respecting Eastern history, and have discussed certain religious points about which she had not perfectly made up her mind; but Colonel Hazeta, who was a man of the world, and could take no part in abstruse subjects, was a barrier to such conversation.
Friday, July 6.—Lady Hester was very low spirited, and her cough troublesome. She was unable to converse, and I left her at ten in the evening. Ali, the messenger, had gone to Beyrout two or three days before to carry the letter to Lord Palmerston, and to await the arrival of the steamboat, which was expected. His delay in returning had created great despondency in her; and, as the air was balmy and serene and it was a moonlight night, I sat on my terrace, which overlooked the path by which Ali must pass, fondly hoping that he would make hisappearance with the long looked-for letter from Sir Francis Burdett. Presently I heard the dogs bark, and sawFreeky, the stoutest of our mastiffs, and generally the leader, rush towards the brow of the mountain which overlooked the valley through which Ali must come. Their barking grew fainter, and on a sudden ceased, and I then knew they had met some one belonging to the household. In about a quarter of an hour I recognized Ali, who, entering the gate, delivered his oilskin portfolio to me, and, under a cover to myself from the French chancellor, I found a packet for Lady Hester. I immediately sent it to her, and waited anxiously for the morning to learn what good news it brought.
Saturday, July 7.—It was Sir Francis Burdett’s long-expected, long-procrastinated answer, the delay of which had caused so many wretched nights and days to poor Lady Hester, and prevented her from forming any settled plans. Alas! now that it was come, it proved very unsatisfactory; yet, notwithstanding, Lady Hester invented a thousand excuses for him. “It is evident, doctor,” said she, “that he could not write what he wanted to write: he wishes me all the happiness that a mortal can share, but says not a word that I did not know before. I have told you that Colonel Needham left Mr. Pitt a large property in Ireland by his will; but it so happened thatMr. Pitt died three days before Colonel Needham, and consequently the death of the legatee before the testator, in a legal point of view, put an end to the right. I knew that as well as he did; but that was not what I inquired about: for when Lord Kilmorey died, to whom the property went, I supposed that, as it was originally intended for Mr. Pitt, he might have said, ‘As I have no children, this may as well revert to where it was originally intended to go:—’ just as Mrs. Coutts did not get her property from Mr. Coutts, but with the understanding that it was to be left afterwards to some of his grandchildren. One time, when Lady B. was so odd in her conduct, Mr. C. had some thoughts of making his grandson his heir, and asked me to get him created Lord C.; but the pride of Lord Bute, and other reasons, prevented this.”
She went on. “I dare say Sir Francis was puzzled how to act. He was afraid some of my relations would say, ‘What business have you to interfere in family affairs?’ and so perhaps, thinking he might get into a duel, or some unpleasant business, he writes in an evasive manner. But never mind! when thecorrespondencegets into the newspapers, somebody will be found somewhere who will know something about the matter. Why, doctor, when Mr. Pitt died, there were people from the bank who came to tell meof the money he had there, and advised me to take it—they came twice: I suppose it was money somebody had put in for him. But how Sir Nathaniel Wraxall could ever get into his head that Lord C. lent him any, I can’t imagine—a man who was so stingy, that nothing ever was like it. No! when Mr. Pitt went out of office, six great men subscribed a sum to pay his debts, but Lord C. was not one of them.”
Sunday, July 8.—To-day was marked by a little fright not uncommon in these countries. Mrs. M. was reading the morning service with the children, when, on looking up, she observed, outside of the window, which was open, an immense number of sparrows making sharp cries, fluttering about the terrace, and hovering round some object, which she immediately perceived to be the body of a huge serpent, hanging in one coil from the rafters of the terrace, and suspended by the head and the tail. Sayd Ahmed, the porter, or Black Beard, as he was usually called from that large jet black appendage to his chin, was known to be a deadly enemy to serpents, and my wife had the presence of mind to say to one of the children, “Steal gently out of the door, without alarming the serpent, and run and call Black Beard here directly, telling him what he is wanted for, that he may bring some weapon with him.” John did as hewas bid, and, not finding him in the lodge, called the first servant he saw. No less than seven ran together; and the cook, who had seized the porter’s blunderbuss, which was kept ready loaded on a peg, advanced to where the serpent was yet hanging precisely in the same position, aimed at it, and shot it through the body. The serpent fell, and was soon killed by blows from the bludgeons of the others. It proved, on measurement, to be seven feet and a half long: its colour was dark brown, somewhat mottled along the back, and gray under the belly: and it was the largest, excepting the boa-constrictor exhibited by T. Gully, that I had ever seen.
The alarm excited by this enormous reptile was scarcely over, when, two or three hours after sunset, a man was seen crouching under the garden-wall, about two hundred yards from the house; and my family, who supposed it was a deserter, or a robber concealing himself for some wicked purpose, informed me of it: but, as the dogs did not bark, I knew he must be one of the people, come there to receive stolen goods from the maids. Probably he saw he was observed, for he made off through the vines which grew thickly round the place.
News was brought that Ibrahim Pasha had enticed the insurgents into the plain, attacked them at a village calledYanta, near the Bkâa, and killed andwounded nearly a thousand men; for the Druzes had no artillery, and, being undisciplined, were no match for regular troops in an open country. The Emir Beshýr, in the mean time, although it was said that he had been repeatedly summoned to take the field, was either unwilling or afraid to stir from his palace.
I read out of Wraxall’s Memoirs a page or two, which set Lady Hester talking, in her usual way, about old times. She related several anecdotes of the last Lord Chatham, of Lord Camden, of Lord Harrington, and of her father, but I forbear repeating them. “I dare say,” said she, “I have seen Sir Nathaniel when he dined at Mr. Pitt’s; but there came so many of them, one after another, rap, tap, tap, rap, tap, tap! and, as soon as the last entered, dinner was served immediately: I could not know every body. If I had known him, I would have made him a peer, he writes so well, and his opinions and remarks are so just! I don’t agree with him in one thing: the late Lord Chatham was not exactly like his father. His nose was more pointed, and my grandfather’s was thicker in the bone towards the top, and with more of a bump.”
When Lady Hester assumed the Turkish dress, she had her head shaved, as it is not possible to wear the red fez and a turban in any comfort with the hairon. The conversation led her to speak of heads; when, on a sudden, she pulled off her turban, fez and all, and told me to examine her skull. Having no precise knowledge of phrenology, I could only make very general observations: but the examination, no doubt, would have been an excellent study for a craniologist. The frontal bone certainly was prominent: but, with this exception, and a marked cavity in the temporal bones, the skull was remarkably smooth in carrying the hand over it, and pleasing to the eye from its perfect form; perfect, as we should say of a cupola that crowned an edifice with admirable proportions.
She asked me, laughing, if I could see the thieving propensity strongly marked. Then she said, “I don’t think there are any improprieties; do say!”—“People,” she added, “have told me the fighting bump is as big as a lion’s:”—I felt it, but it did not correspond with the assertion. The general appearance was this: her head was somewhat small, her features somewhat long; her ear was by no means handsome, being rather large and the convolutions of it irregular.
After she had put her turban on again, she observed, “It is an erroneous opinion that a big head always denotes much sense. I knew a countess, who put her husband to the blush by her ignorance everyday of her life. She would read and pore over a book, in order to get ready something learned to say at dinner-time, and yet was sure to make some blunder. Thus, for example, she would be talking of a sea-fight, and then go to ancient history, and say something of the battle of Actium, where Scipio Africanus distinguished himself. ‘No, my dear,’ the husband would say, ‘you don’t mean Scipio—you forget,’ and so on. Well, this countess I recollect seeing at Dobree’s, the hatter in Bond Street:—he made the best beavers of any man in London, and generally charged half a guinea more than anybody else; but he was terribly impudent. She was trying on a beaver, the largest in the shop, and it would not fit her; and she was saying she must have it made larger, when Dobree gave it a blow with his measure, and knocked it off the counter, saying, ‘Ma’am, why, do you think I make hats half a yard in diameter? there ought to be no head that there hat won’t fit.’ Her head was enormous, doctor, spreading out all round here” (and Lady Hester put the forefinger and thumb of each hand in a semicircle to each temple), “so she was a pretty good proof that big heads have no memory. Your head is the same, and you have no memory whatever—were you always so from a boy?... Now I have reflected, and there was Mr. Coutts; he had a small head, but what a memory!and what sharpness and intelligence! Mr. Fox’s was small in proportion to his face: Mr. Pitt’s was neither small nor large: Lord Chatham, my grandfather’s, was large.
“The fact is, as it appears to me, that size has nothing to do with it, but all depends on the building of the skull; just as, in the making of a cupola or a dome, if the hemisphere is constructed in a proper way, it will render an echo, and, if any error is made in the arch, sound is no longer propagated in it: so, a skull, formed in a certain way, with the brain lodged in it, seems to give just echoes to the senses, and to form what is called a good understanding. All depends on construction, not size; and a little head, well made, will have twenty times the sense of a great one, badly built.”
Monday, July 9.—I went to Sayda. On my way I passed a man on foot, raggedly dressed, evidently weary with walking, and come from a distance: the walking groom who was with me loitered behind, and a recognition seemed to take place between them: they talked together for about a quarter of an hour, and then the groom resumed his station. “Do you know that poor wretch?” said I: “where does he come from?”—“He is a sort of kinsman of mine,” replied the lad; “for he was once a farrier’s boy like myself, and we are both nicknamedel beitàr: he is justcome from Damascus, or thereabouts.”—“How?” said I: “I thought the road was impassable.”—“So it is,” quoth the groom; “but he was not fool enough, I dare say, to come by the road: there are plenty of by-paths across the country.”—“Is there no news of the Pasha and the Druzes?” asked I. “Humph!” said the groom; “he does not dare to tell me if there is; but what he has let out is pretty much what was known already. A battle has been fought at Yanta, and things go badly.”
At night, on returning to the Dar, I was much surprised to see the same pauper sitting on the mustaby in front of the porter’s lodge. Logmagi was smoking hisnarkeely, and, seeing me stare at the man, observed, with a quiet air—“Here is a pretty fellow! come to offer himself as a cook; but I think he would hardly make a scullion: however, I suppose I must mention it to her felicity the Syt.” I immediately guessed the matter; he had been sent as a spy to the camp. This was Lady Hester’s way.
Her ladyship had now made up her mind to execute her threat of walling up her gateway. “You can be no longer of any use to me,” said she to me, “and therefore had better go as soon as you can, before the bad weather comes on. As for my health, I am as well, I dare say, as I shall be, and nothing that I cantake of you European doctors will make me better; so don’t fidget yourself on my account. All that remains to do now is to fill up the few days you have left in doing some necessary things for me. Let me see—I must write to the Duke Maximilian, to Count Wilsensheim (and you too had better write to him, or to the baron, that they may not think you left me unprotected; for you know how apt people are to put bad constructions on everything)—and then there must be a letter to Prince Pückler Muskau, and one to Sir Francis Burdett, besides a short one to Mr. Moore. And then you must pay the servants, and send them away: but that we will talk about afterwards. I shall keep none but the two boys, a man to fetch water, the gardener, and the girls. But you had better go to Sayda, and see about a vessel for carrying you to Cyprus. I should not like you to sail from Beyrout; for those people will be only bothering you about my debts, and at present there is nothing to be said but what has been said already. You must send, too, for a mason to come and wall up the gateway.”
Tuesday, July 10.—I did not go to Sayda to see about a boat, for I was resolved not to leave Lady Hester unless she insisted on it. The morning was employed in writing the following letter to the Duke Maximilian:—