Communications were at length restored; and M. Lascaris having received a letter from our consul-general at Smyrna, inviting him to a conference there with the Generals Lallemand and Savary, determined to comply, and allowed me meanwhile to visit my poor mother, whom I had not seen for six years.
My travels no longer offering any thing of interest to the public, I shall pass over the interval which elapsed between my separation from M. Lascaris and my return to Syria, and hasten to the melancholy conclusion.
While staying at Latakia with my mother, and daily expecting the arrival of a ship that might transport me to Egypt, where I had been ordered by M. Lascaris to rejoin him, I saw a French brig of war enter the port, and hastened to inquire for letters. Alas! those letters brought me the afflicting intelligence of the decease of my benefactor at Cairo. My grief baffled description: I entertained a filial affection for M. Lascaris; besides which, all my future prospects had expired with him. M. Drovetti, French consul in Alexandria, wrote to desire I would come to him as soon as possible; but it was forty days before I could find an opportunity of embarking, and when I reached Alexandria, M. Drovetti had set out for Upper Egypt; thither I followed, and overtook him at Asscout. He informed me that M. Lascaris having entered Egypt with an English passport, Mr. Salt, the English consul, had taken possession of all his effects. He persuaded me, therefore, to apply to that gentleman for payment of my stipend of five hundred tallarins per annum, which was nearly six years in arrear; and especially recommended me to insist strongly on the restitution of M. Lascaris’s manuscript journal, a document of vast importance.
I immediately returned to Cairo; but Mr. Salt received me very coldly, and told me that M. Lascaris having died under English protection, he had transmitted his property and papers to England. All my attempts were therefore futile; and after a long detention at Cairo, in the vain hope of obtaining either payment of my arrears or the papers of my patron, Mr. Salt atlast menaced me with procuring my arrest by the Egyptian authorities; and to the protection of M. Drovetti alone I owe my escape from this new peril. Weary of so profitless a struggle, I returned to Latakia and my family, more unhappy and less rich than I had at first quitted it on my expedition to Aleppo.
END OF FATALLA SAYEGHIR’S STORY.
NOTE.
It was my intention to have added here a few translations, for the purpose of giving the reader some idea of modern Arabian poetry; but I understand that an able hand, and one more practised than mine, is already employed on the task. A volume, entitledA Miscellany of French and Oriental Literature, by J. Augoub, will appear in a few days.[U]I was acquainted with the author, a young poet of the highest promise, prematurely snatched from his family and his fame. He was born in Egypt, and had been educated in France. The original fragments which he has left behind, and doubtless also these translations, breathe the deep and ardent colouring of his native skies, combined with the purity of French taste. These works, published by his widow, are the only legacy he has bequeathed to his family and his country.
I have inserted in these volumes a few fragments extracted from the publication here announced, assured that they will but stimulate the reader’s desire for a further acquaintance with them.
A. de Lamartine.
15th April, 1835.
15th April, 1835.