CHAPTER XII.
Increased illness of Yusef—Servants leave—Visit to Mâlem Haym, minister of the pasha—His history—Description of Acre—Visit to the pasha—Hospitality of M. Catafago—Disposal of time—Excursion to Nazareth—Franciscan convent—Residence and family of M. Catafago—Villages and lands farmed out by him—The Convent library—Arrival of Shaykh Ibrahim (Burckhardt), the celebrated traveller—Visit to the plain of Esdraëlon—Fûly—Battle of Fûly—Departure of Shaykh Ibrahim for Egypt—Excursion to Segery—Visit to the Shaykh—Bargain for a horse—Accident to Lady Hester.
Increased illness of Yusef—Servants leave—Visit to Mâlem Haym, minister of the pasha—His history—Description of Acre—Visit to the pasha—Hospitality of M. Catafago—Disposal of time—Excursion to Nazareth—Franciscan convent—Residence and family of M. Catafago—Villages and lands farmed out by him—The Convent library—Arrival of Shaykh Ibrahim (Burckhardt), the celebrated traveller—Visit to the plain of Esdraëlon—Fûly—Battle of Fûly—Departure of Shaykh Ibrahim for Egypt—Excursion to Segery—Visit to the Shaykh—Bargain for a horse—Accident to Lady Hester.
It was on the 15th of June that we reached St. Jean d’Acre, after having been nine days on the road. We sat down to dinner in a large saloon, and after a cheerful evening retired to our chambers. The following day was given up to rest and domestic arrangements. The two Egyptian sayses, or grooms, who had walked by the side of the horses every day through the whole journey, were, beside their wages, rewarded with a present. Yusef, the sick man, received one hundred piasters for his trouble, and the tent-man and janissary were also recompensed, after their wages were paid, in proportion to their services. Yusef wasput to bed in the house of his sister, wife of one of the clerks of the public secretary; and the fatigue which he had undergone brought on such an increase of his fever that, on the next day, he was in a strong delirium.
It is the custom in the Levant, whenever a person is ill, and more especially when it is thought he will die, for all those who are relations or acquaintances of the family to visit him, and offer their condolence on the occasion. Accordingly, Yusef’s room was crowded; and, as I judged his case to be dangerous, and apprehended that the presence of so many people would disorder his brain still more, I resolved to break through so troublesome a custom, and to exclude every one but the necessary attendants. This was done forthwith; and, placing a servant at the chamber-door, where he remained sentry, I gave orders to admit nobody.
No sooner had our Cypriote servants gratified their curiosity at Jerusalem, than they had sought excuses to quit, and would have left us even at Ramlah to shift as we could in a country where it is not easy to supply one’s wants immediately, had it not been resolutely insisted on that they should remain as far as St. Jean d’Acre. We were now there, and one of the very first things done was to dismiss them. This was one of many other examples, showing how little reliance can be placed on the servants of the country, who know not what fidelity or attachment to Europeansis, whom they serve for gain only, and quit for convenience.[50]
Lady Hester on the second day signified her intention of paying a visit to the rich Jew, Mâlem Haym Shâady,[51]the banker and the minister of the pasha, and the same evening was fixed on for their meeting. We went after dinner, and were received at the street entrance by Mâlem Haym himself, a man without a nose, with one eye, and with one ear, who conducted us into a small room with a raised divà n at one end, and on either side chairs, in the European fashion. Mr. Catafago acted as interpreter, and, with the nephew of the minister, named Solomon, was the only person present besides ourselves. The conversation was lively, and probably laid the ground for that friendly correspondence which afterwards existed between Lady Hester and Mâlem Haym until his death. This man’s history has something too curious to be passed over in silence.
He was the son of an eminent Jew, who filled the post of katib or yazgy to several pashas of Damascus, to which post Haym and his brothers, Rafael, Yusef, and Manasseh, succeeded him. Katib in Arabic, and yazgy in Turkish, mean no more than writer, orscribe;[52]but the office confers more power than the name conveys. The katib is often at once government secretary and treasurer; and, as he is generally stationary in the pashalik for life, whilst the pashas, by removal or death, are often changed, it necessarily happens that he is a perfect master of the business of the pashalik, and of its revenues and resources; whilst the pashas, coming from distant provinces, enter upon a government of which the key is in the katibs’ hands, and are necessitated to keep them in their service, and to be guided by them.
But the pashalik of Damascus has this singularity, that its pasha and chief persons are absent annually on the pilgrimage to Mecca, and consequently are more especially bound to confide their affairs to the hands of their servants. Moreover, the order of march, the ordinances and regulations for the pilgrims, the quantity of provisions required, the pasha’s disbursements, and various other things essential to be known on this important occasion, have somehow becomesecrets in the hands of these Jews, who it was told to us keep them registered in their own tongue. They thus become hieroglyphics to the Turks and Christians, who seek in vain to wrest the knowledge from the hands of the Jews, and so to stand in no farther need of them.
Haym was destined by his father to the priesthood, and we may suppose its holy functions do not incapacitate any one from filling secular offices, since he was both priest and minister. In the early part of his life the machinations of his enemies prevailed so far against him that he was summoned to Constantinople, to answer to certain accusations made against him; and, being condemned to a fine which he was unable to pay, he was thrown into prison. Haym had a sister, a woman of somewhat masculine appearance, but reputed to possess great qualities. Determined to release her brother, she undertook the journey from Syria to Constantinople; and, waiting for a convenient moment for her purpose, when the Grand Signor should be on his way to the mosque, where he goes publicly every Friday, she burst into the middle of the cavalcade, and threw herself at his feet, to petition for her brother’s release. Those who have witnessed the sultan’s procession to the mosque, the free use that is made of whips and cudgels to keep the populace in order, and the awe in which all stand of a monarch in whom a moment’s caprice or anger may beget a sentence of death, will admire the courage of her whocould brave it all. She succeeded, as she merited, and brought her brother back triumphantly to his home. And it is a proof of Haym’s prudence, that although he owed his freedom to his sister, and loved her exceedingly, he would not the more suffer her to meddle in the affairs of the pashalik.
When Ahmed Pasha, el Gezzà r, governed St. Jean d’Acre, Haym became his principal katib. The cruelties which that singular tyrant exercised on those in his service extended to Haym. He was accustomed to write down on a bit of paper, which he kept under his cushion, the names of those whom he intended to put to death or to mutilate by the loss of some member of the body; and this scrap he would produce, when the number became considerable enough to satisfy his bloodthirsty disposition. In this way he one day summoned Haym, among others, into his presence, and ordered his head to be cut off; but, immediately recalling the order, he desired that he should be deprived of his nose, one eye, and one ear. This was accordingly done. Haym was afterwards confined to the palace of the pasha, where he attended to the duties of his office by day, and by night was remanded to his apartment, and locked up. It was said that one of Haym’s great merits in the eyes of El Gezzà r was that, in writing despatches to the Porte, he mixed up respect and defiance in such a way that they breathed submission and yet showed the sword. Haym’s sufferings were not confined to these only.At one time he was condemned to be baked in an oven; or, as others say, he was actually put into a heated oven, and there made to suffer unutterable torments.
El Gezzà r died, and was succeeded by Suliman, the reigning pasha, whose mild administration has not been charged with any of the horrors of which his predecessor was guilty. Haym now enjoyed power and affluence, and universally bore the character of a sage minister.
We were regaled with sweetmeats and confectionary, which Haym’s wife had prepared with her own hands, as she herself informed us. I had observed, nailed to the post of one or two doors, as we entered, what seemed to be from its perforations a small tin nutmeg-grater, and I was curious to know the purpose of it. I was informed that each one contained a copy of the ten commandments, which are nailed to the doorways as charms. The visit was prolonged to a late hour of the night. On taking leave, ten pounds were left to be divided as vails among the servants. On the following morning the visit was returned, and Mâlem Haym gave in his turn the same sum to Lady Hester’s domestics. He likewise presented her ladyship with a cashmere shawl worth fifty pounds.
Arrangements had been made to give Lady Hester every facility for seeing the city. Escorted by several persons, sent for that purpose, she visited the ramparts and the mosque, the two principal objects of curiosityin it. After the ineffectual siege of the French, Ahmed el Gezzà r had sense enough to see that, but for the assistance afforded him by Sir W. Sydney Smith, Acre must inevitably have fallen into Buonaparte’s hands, and he resolved on fortifying the city in a way that would leave him less to apprehend in future.
Acre has two sides towards the sea, and two towards the land; so that its site is not a peninsula, as is said by some travellers, but rather a tongue of land, breaking the line of the crescent of the bay. The whole circumference of the walls does not exceed a mile and a half, but few persons have an opportunity of obtaining a correct measure. From whatever road you approach there is but one gate whereby to enter. To the left of it is the port, a small and shallow harbour, formed by a mole, which projects so as to make, with the curve which the strand takes, the form of an oblong with rounded corners. But this part is not more than a cable’s length across, and no vessel of more than 150 tons could lie in safety in it. The mouth lies direct west, and the gales of wind from that quarter set in with such violence, that, in March 1815, I saw a polacca wrecked in this harbour. That vessel, moored by two cables and a hawser, which passed through certain openings in the wall above the mole, broke and dragged them all, and swamped close to the city gate, where she would have gone to pieces, had not the wind abated in the afternoon,and given time to take out her cargo. The only landing-place to the port is a flight of stairs, which has no outlet excepting by a passage that leads to the custom-house.
The Custom House is a single room, where the collector sits in a window seat, and, never putting pen to paper himself (perhaps not knowing how to write), transacts all the business of the chief part of the pashalik by means of one clerk. The then collector, Ayûb Selámy, was once a Christian; and, to save himself from the effects of a Turk’s anger, with whom he was in deadly dispute, he changed his religion. His wife and daughter still occupied his original dwelling at Jôon, a village about one league and a half from Sayda; and he secretly afforded them assistance, whilst he had espoused another woman, a Mahometan, by whom he had two or three children. As far as his worldly interest went, this man had no reason to regret his apostacy. From a farmer, he found himself exalted to one of the principal offices of the pashalik. But his air had always something that argued a man self-convicted of crime; and his demeanour had not, and perhaps could not have, that haughty look which characterizes the Mahometan-born, and which, from the authority they are accustomed to assume over Christians from their very infancy, becomes natural, and sits well upon them.
Adjoining the Custom House is the corn khan, or corn market, a quadrangular building about as largeagain as the corn market of London; with this difference, however, in the uses they are put to, that in the one the corn to be sold is exposed in bulk, in the other in sample. The ground fronts of each side of the quadrangle are in arcades, from which open doors to vaulted magazines. The magazines are hired for a small sum per month, and the merchant is in perfect security from fire or robbery. A single staircase leads up to the first, which is likewise the upper, story (as the Levant buildings generally rise but to one, and in a few instances to two stories.) A corridor in arcades goes round it, and doors open from the corridor into the chambers, which are let by the week or month to travellers, or merchants, or whoever chooses to hire them. At the khan gate is a lodge answering to our porters’ lodges. Here sits and sleeps the khanatty, or master of the khan; and the form observed by those who desire to take an apartment is to call the khanatty, ask him to show what apartments are vacant; then, paying for a week or a month in advance, to take the key of that which pleases them. These apartments are double, having a room fronting the corridor and another towards the outer wall, both vaulted. In the outer one is a fireplace. They have nothing but bare walls, are generally full of fleas, and disgust a European, accustomed to the comforts of a well regulated inn. But reflection and habit will at last reconcile him to them, and even make him prefer them to better places; for, providedhe complies with the custom of the country to carry about with him his carpet, bed, and quilt, his servant buys a broom and a rush mat for sixpence or a shilling, and in half an hour converts his room into a furnished apartment, without fear of interruption from any one. The site of this khan is on the harbour, for el Gezzà r wisely covered with useful edifices that part of it which was shallow enough to be fordable, thus shutting up the passage of an enemy along the skirts of the city towards the south-west. The corn is brought in the morning in sacks on camels’ backs, two sacks making a load. The buyers attend, and purchase and remove it before evening; so that there may often be seen in the court eight or ten heaps, which disappear in the course of the day.
Passing from the north door of the khan, you come to an open space, where likewise the sea once flowed. On the right hand is a mosque displaying much neatness, but neither large nor otherwise remarkable. Upon the square the pedlars sell their wares, greengrocers their garden stuff, and who pleases spreads his mat, which, in the Levant, is equivalent to a stall with us, by bestowing a trifling gratuity on the person who rents the ground from the governor.
Quitting the open place at the north side, you come to a short street, which leads, at about a hundred yards’ distance, to the khan or caravansery, inhabited by the Franks. It is a spacious quadrangle of stonebuildings on the four sides, which were probably uniform in their original structure, although since deformed by changes and repairs. The ground-floor serves for magazines, stabling, &c. The first and second stories have wooden galleries that go round them, and afford space for exercise during the heat of the day, and allow of communication from dwelling to dwelling without being exposed to the weather. How much of all these edifices has been ruined by the late bombardment I have no opportunity of knowing.
But the object most worthy of a stranger’s curiosity in St. Jean d’Acre is the mosque built by El Gezzà r, and which is called Jamâ el Gedýd. It is rich in granite, porphyry, and the finest marbles. The ruins of Cæsarea and Ascalon were ransacked for its embellishment. It has a liberal endowment, and professors of theology have their share in it. It has, besides, a most splendid library, collected by El Gezzà r.
Not less magnificent is the bath constructed by the same pasha. It yields to few, if to any, of the baths of either Damascus or of Aleppo in splendour; and is far superior to anything of the kind in Egypt. In the centre of the building, a dome, that covers the principal vapour or hot room, is supported by a circular colonnade, almost every pillar of which is either porphyry, fine granite, or precious marble. The floors,of variegated marbles, far exceed in beauty what the eyes of Europeans are accustomed to behold.[53]
The insufficiency of the old walls of Acre to protect the city from a bombardment induced El Gezzà r Pasha to obtain plans from European engineers for the building of others of more strength. The construction of these, which he thought to render impregnable, was, to him, the occupation of some years, and a work of oppression and terror to his subjects. Gangs, led to forced labour, succeeded each other; and when, towards the afternoon, the heat of the day was become oppressive, and lassitude, the consequence of eating and labour, began to overpower them, El Gezzà r would then issue forth among them; and, with a look rendered terrible from the ideas of stripes, imprisonment, torture, and death, that were associated with it, and, with a voice whose tones sunk to the very bottom of the heart, he would make the most sluggish active. In this way, Acre became the strongest fortress of Syria, and resisted for many years all assailants, until bombarded by the English fleet. The town is commanded from an eminence at the distance of half a mile from the walls. It was from this eminence that Buonapartedirected his chief batteries in his unsuccessful attack against the place.
Lady Hester next paid a visit to the pasha. Her reception was splendid, and very complimentary. Every possible offer of service was made towards the prosecution of her journey through his pashalik. A beautiful gray horse awaited her on her return from the palace, as a present, which, being a stallion, she gave to me.
It has been made a cause of reproach towards Lady Hester, that she received presents from the Turks. We do not pretend to defend this usage; but a person of any consequence must comply with it in Turkey, or be exposed to continual altercations, and have all to give with nothing to receive.[54]
Mr. Catafago’s hospitality was unremitting. As the hours of eating, customary with the English, vary widely from those of the Levantines, much embarrassmentmust have been experienced by that gentleman in his endeavours to suit our convenience. By questions (apparently of mere curiosity) he found out how, and at what hours, the English breakfasted and dined, and he studiously endeavoured to establish at his own table the same usages.[55]
The Turks almost invariably quit their beds before sunrise, on account of the early prayer; and native Christians very generally do likewise. They wash themselves, and take a cup of coffee, in quantity about as much as a small wine glass: this is accompanied by a pipe of tobacco. They then proceed to exercise or business, for both of which they are peculiarly fitted from the lightness of the body and clearness of the intellects consequent on an empty stomach. At noon, rich and poor all dine or breakfast; and, after a temperate repast, succeeded by a pipe and coffee, they retire to their harým to take a nap. About three, they rise again, and pursue their various occupations until sunset, when they sup. The evening is spent in visits, music, conversation, dancing, and the like, prolonged till a late hour. In this arrangement of their time, they approach the custom of the ancients.
Our host had a country residence at Nazareth, the dwelling-place of Joseph and Mary. He invitedLady Hester to go thither; and, as this spot is considered as one of the great objects of curiosity among Christians, she accepted his invitation. We left Acre on the 22nd of June, at sunset. The night was dark and somewhat chilly. Our party was numerous: Mr. Catafago was our conductor. The road was as familiar to him as an English cross-road to any country gentleman in his own neighbourhood: yet, from some neglect on the part of Mr. Catafago’s groom, who led the cavalcade, we lost the way, and, to regain it, were compelled to ride through fields of Indian corn, and a wide tract of wild artichokes, which here are very abundant, but not pleasant as riding ground, from their prickly nature. Owing to this mistake, our journey proved very tedious, and it was nearly daylight before we arrived at Nazareth.
Nazareth is on Gebel Khalýl, which our translations call Galilee (Khalyly), and is about six leagues from Acre. The Franciscan friars are bound, by the rules of their order, not to admit women into their monasteries; but they have a salvo for their consciences in an imaginary wall of separation between their own cells and a part of the building which generally lies nearest to the entrance; and as Mr. C.’s house was too small to accommodate Lady Hester, this part of the monastery was fitted up for her reception, whilst a lodging was assigned for Mr. B. and myself adjoining the cells of the monks. All this had been previously arranged, and we found ourselves, on our arrival,quartered in a few moments. The community consisted of thirteen monks, nine of whom were Spaniards. But there was the same querulous abuse of the Turks, the same spiteful feeling towards the schismatic Christians, the same prying curiosity into our concerns, and, with the exception of two, the same cunning and the same ignorance, that I have observed in every religious community in the East, with which it has been my lot to associate. The monastery is a strong and spacious stone building, accessible only by the great entrance, and having few windows or openings externally: for jealousy and fear have tended to convert every place of this kind into a fortress.
Nazareth is a large village, half Christian half Mahometan. Ali Bey gives it 2,000 inhabitants. It is subject to two bailiffs, each superintending his respective sect. The inhabitants, as mountaineers, have the character peculiar to that race of people. They are brave, hospitable, and ceremonious, but vindictive, cunning, and interested. The only trees to be seen about Nazareth are fig and olive, and verdure is as scanty as foliage. The soil is either rocky or stoney, and so stoney that, in the neighbourhood of the village, there was not a single spot to be found where I could gallop my horse for daily exercise.
It was here that Mr. C. dwelt, like an ancient patriarch, in a house opposite to the monastery. He had round him his own family, which was numerous; also his brother and his wife’s sisters, one of whomwas married and had children, making, with the servants, not fewer than thirty or thirty-five persons. He farmed under the pasha as many as five villages, the rents, taxes, andmiriof which became his for a certain consideration, paid either annually or during some term agreed upon. He might take cognizance of petty delinquencies, and deliver the culprit over to the tribunal of the pasha; but in civil affairs his decision was to a certain extent law, provided it was connected with agricultural economy. Two of his villages, called Fûly, lay in the centre of the plain of Esdräelon, and the greatest part of the plain was farmed out by him. This spot, beautiful from its extent, its fertility, and its position, is of a fine rich black soil, and produces abundant crops; but its exposed situation, subjecting it to the inroads of the Bedouin Arabs, had rendered the land there of low price. Mr. C. had contrived, by yielding sometimes, by sometimes threatening, and especially by presents, liberally and judiciously dealt out among the shaykhs or chiefs of these Bedouins, to ensure the safety of the peasantry; and to him it was owing that villages before destitute of inhabitants were then the dwellings of industrious labourers.
There are in Nazareth many places which the traveller is taken to as objects of veneration or curiosity. The chapel built on the site of the Virgin Mary’s house, the room even that she inhabited, is shown, though the belief in these traditions calls forth a wonderfulexertion of faith. Indeed, the holy fathers yet bear in mind the scandal brought on their body in the eyes of the Mahometans and the Greek Christians, when Napoleon Buonaparte was led into the chapel of the monastery, and, on being shown the suspended pillar with other miraculous appearances, beheld them with indifference, and kept his hat on even to the very foot of the altar!
The apartment assigned to me was the library, where about fifty shelves of books, dusty from neglect, and worm-eaten for want of use, bore doubtful evidence to the studious propensities of the fathers. As a couple of days were sufficient to see what Nazareth contained, and as circumstances led me to imagine we might remain here for a time, I turned over the volumes to see whether I could find some book to assist me in learning Arabic. I was fortunate enough to light on Erpenius’s grammar and a dictionary, and I here commenced that study.
Thus the time passed pleasantly away. In the neighbourhood of Nazareth we visited Mount Tabor, and Cana, and rode to other places in the environs. Mr. B., accompanied by his Mameluke, Joseph, departed for the sea of Galilee. On his return, after an absence of two or three days, he informed us of a singular meeting with a person who called himself Shaykh Ibrahim. At Tabariah[56]he had been lodged at thehouse of a priest to which Europeans were generally conducted. The weather was sultry, and Mr. B., confined within doors, heard some one in altercation with his Mameluke at the entry of the house. Joseph was endeavouring to turn out a meanly dressed man with a long beard, who insisted, in his turn, on speaking with the Englishman within. Upon advancing to the door, Mr. B. was surprised to hear himself addressed in good English. Shaykh Ibrahim made himself known, and they spent the day together. The succeeding day Mr. B. returned to Nazareth, having invited Shaykh Ibrahim to visit us. It is unnecessary to say he was the celebrated Burckhardt.
On the morrow he arrived, and his appearance was calculated to interest those who beheld him, from the singularity of his dress, so different from that of a European. As there will be occasion to speak of him again more than once, it is necessary to introduce him particularly to the notice of the reader. He was a robust and rather an athletic man, of about five feet nine, with blue eyes, a broad German face, and a pleasing look. His teeth were very unevenly set. I did not, at that time, know that he was travelling for the African Society, as he affected to pass for an Arab, and did not care to betray his secret to those from whom he could reap no advantage by the disclosure, and might derive some inconvenience. There was something in his speech that did not amount to a foreign accent, and yet it was at times enough to makea listener suppose he might be Irish, so well had he learned to speak a language not vernacular. He remained, if I recollect rightly, two whole days at Nazareth. Lady Hester’s opinion of him was not a favourable one, and she never altered it. He took occasion, in conversation, to point out to Lady Hester the practicability of procuring certain objects of antiquity, which he supposed to come within the reach of her purse and influence, although not of his own. He was dressed as a peasant of Palestine, with a turban of about the length and fineness of a round towel. His shirt was coarse, long, and with pointed sleeves reaching considerably beyond his fingers’ ends. His legs were bare, and his feet were thrust into an old pair of shoes, somewhat resembling inn slippers. He had loose drawers, and a tunic or frock of white coarse cotton, reaching down to his feet, open in front, over which was a woollen cloak or abah, the favourite mantle of every person throughout Syria when travelling.
One day Mr. Catafago engaged Mr. B. and myself to accompany him to Fûly. Shaykh Ibrahim was of the party. We left Nazareth early. Lady Hester did not choose to go, not conceiving there could be anything interesting in a village. After riding over the flat space which lies to the west of Nazareth, we descended into the ravine that opens at its termination into the plain of Esdraelon, called by the natives Merge Ebn Omar. Mr. Catafago was on a bay Arabianmare, the costly gift of a chieftain of one of the districts of Nablûs. She was small but beautiful, and swift as the antelope. His son Lewis was mounted on another, her very counterpart. Nothing certainly could exist in creation more showy, to an uninformed eye, than these two mares; but we were told afterwards that they were by no means of the purest breed; and, although then incredulous, we afterwards saw mares and horses as greatly superior to these as they were to the small breed of Malta, from which many a horse has been selected to impose on people in England as of untainted blood of Arabia.
We had never seen any soil so rich as the plain of Esdraelon then appeared; its extent fully sufficed to impress the mind with ideas of the immense produce to be obtained; and its fertility was evident from the rich mould under our feet. Its boundaries are of a kind to awaken feelings at once sublime and sacred. At one end is Mount Tabor, a truncated cone, wooded and verdant to the summit; and at the other extremity, as it appeared from the distance where we stood, is a narrow defile leading to the desert or to some unexplored district; on one side we were hemmed in by hills and low mountains, through which, towards the north, we had entered the plain; and towards the east lay the great and terrible wilderness, with Mount Gilboa between.
We had scarcely reached the skirts of the plain, when we started off in a gallop. Shaykh Ibrahimwas mounted on a roan mare, that had cost him two hundred piasters (ten pounds), and which had all the requisites of leanness and poor equipment to escape the avidity of the Bedouin Arabs. The evenness of the plain was delightful after the rugged paths we had just quitted. Some idea may be given of the complete level that prevails in this and other plains about Nazareth and Acre, from the fact that in a distance of some miles neither stone nor hillock is to be found. Fûly is a poor hamlet, consisting of houses of one story, with flat roofs, built with stones cemented with mud only, and apparently gathered (without any regard to symmetry) from several heaps of decayed stone-work, covering a considerable space near the hamlet; whence it is to be inferred that an ancient place of some size must formerly have occupied the same spot.
Mr. Catafago, who knew what slender accommodation Fûly afforded, had ordered a tent to be brought with us, which was immediately pitched. Coffee was made; the chief peasantry soon collected; and, whilst Mr. Catafago was arranging his farming concerns with some of them, we listened to the history of the battle of Fûly, given us by several of the natives who had witnessed it, and whose story, where not quite true, was corrected by Joseph and Selim, the latter having accompanied General Buonaparte’s army on that expedition.
It will be recollected that Buonaparte, having made himself master of Egypt, invaded Syria. A rapidmarch brought him, by uninterrupted successes, under the walls of Acre, to which he laid siege, and was vigorously opposed by the Turkish garrison, assisted by Sir W. Sydney Smith, who threw reinforcements into the place, and continually found means of annoying the French from the sea. Upon the alarm which pervaded Syria at Buonaparte’s progress, a body of troops had been raised at Damascus, from different corps, principally of cavalry, collected from all the garrison towns of that country. This army, consisting of ten thousand men, was defeated at the village of Fûly by General Junot with a corps of only six thousand.
Some anecdotes were related of the French which are too trifling to be introduced here. The following, however, is illustrative of the character of Junot, who commanded the division at Nazareth. A French officer, mortally wounded, expressed a desire to confess, and sent for a priest from the monastery. A certain Père Hilarion went to him: he administered his ghostly consolation, and the officer breathed his last. On the following morning Junot heard of this. He went over to the monastery, called for Père Hilarion, and, seizing him by the beard, swore, with a tremendous oath, that he would cut his throat for having dared to introduce priestcraft among his soldiers, in order to make cowards of them. Having frightened him greatly, he let him go; but afterwards, wherever he met him, he drew his sabre and pretendedto sharpen it, as if going to put his threats into execution.
After spending a delightful day, we mounted to return home, and lengthened the way by a circuitous route through another of Mr. Catafago’s villages. We arrived late at Nazareth. It was at this time that Mr. Pearce, whom we left at Jaffa ill, joined our party again. He had been to Jerusalem, and had passed through the district and burgh of Nablûs (the ancient Samaria) to Nazareth. This addition to the party, which was now numerous, rendered the stay there very agreeable.
After two or three days, Shaykh Ibrahim took his departure for Egypt, to which country he intended to make his way at the back of the Dead Sea, which design he afterwards executed, and crossed the desert el Ty to Cairo. Mr. Pearce likewise left us, and directed his steps to another part of the country.
We had regretted much not having purchased horses in or about Jerusalem. Nazareth, however, and its environs, boast a very fine race of what in England would be called half-bred. It happened that a Jew, on his way from Acre to Suffad, passed a night at Nazareth, and, hearing of my wish to buy a horse, invited me to accompany him as far as Segery, a village halfway from Nazareth to Tabariah, where he assured me I should easily suit myself.
The first village we saw proved to be Cana. A spring, or conduit, attracted my attention, and recalledthe miracle that has rendered the name of Cana sacred. Arrived at Segery, I was taken to the house of the bailiff, or shaykh of the village, who was known to have a young horse for sale. The shaykh, as it happened, was ill in bed. He entertained us with coffee and pipes; and, having touched slightly on the merits of his colt, which was led out for me to look at, he talked at large of his malady, and earnestly solicited my advice respecting it. He had already discovered that I was eager to purchase, and he now perceived that the colt had met my fancy. He asked me, with a seeming air of friendly consideration, a price, which, by the kind interference of the Jew, whose regard for me would not allow me to be imposed upon, was diminished to one half, and I was pleased to think what an excellent bargain I had made. The Jew pursued his journey, and I bent my way back, with my new purchase ridden by the shaykh’s servant, who was commissioned to receive the money. I had read much of the pedigrees of Arab horses, and the shaykh (who saw my foible) supplied me with one sufficiently long to gratify my utmost ambition.
On my arrival at Nazareth, I went to the cadi, and stated to him the nature of the purchase I had made, with my desire that his name should be affixed to the pedigree, together with the seals of two witnesses, as the proof of its authenticity. He read the pedigree, put his name to it, and, instead of two, procured the signature of five witnesses. The servant received the money(£13), and I thought I had made a bargain at once advantageous and complete in every single circumstance. At this distance of time, I laugh to think how much I was duped in the whole proceeding; for, putting out of the question the price which I paid, much more than the value of the horse, I subsequently knew that a cadi, and more especially a cadi of a country burgh, would not scruple to put his hand to a document of much more importance than this without believing one word of its contents.[57]
Lady Hester, having now seen what was worthy of notice in and about Nazareth, prepared to quit it. On the 5th of July, when the necessary number of camels had been provided and loaded, they were sent off about four in the afternoon for Acre. About an hour or two after sunset we followed. The evening was dark, and the priests, both to do honour to their departing guests, and because the street is tortuous and the road uneven, accompanied us two or three hundred yards with lanterns, and then left us. It would appear that the horses experienced the effect common on the sudden disappearance of light, and for a moment could not see. Lady Hester’s horse trod on a large stone lying in the road, and slipped upon hisside. The thing was instantaneous, and her ladyship was thrown with her horse partly upon her. We all dismounted, and extricated her; dismay seized every one, when it was found that one leg was severely hurt. She was carried back to the monastery and put to bed. A messenger was immediately despatched to bring back the baggage; and, as we were in a manner in want of many most essential articles until its return, the delay was very distressing. To the merriment and bustle of a departure had now succeeded solicitude and anxiety. Each person again took up his old quarters, but with very different feelings from those with which he had left them.
Lady Hester’s leg, however, was only bruised, and not fractured; and, at the end of a week, she was so far recovered, that we again departed: but it was thought better to avail ourselves of daylight; and on the 13th, in the evening, we arrived at Acre a second time, having been obliged, on account of her ladyship’s weakness, to make the journey in two days.
At the place where we reposed the first night, Selim, the Mameluke, met with a misfortune. We were scarcely arrived, and had tethered our horses, when his showed symptoms of colic. To cure him, he resorted to the means used in Syria and in Egypt, which, in my opinion, hastened his death. He mounted him and rode him in furious and short gallops backward and forward until the poor steed was covered withlather. His sufferings were evidently increased by this violent exercise. A decoction of cummin and aniseed, a remedy of the country, was then administered. He lingered in great pain until morning, and then died.