CHAPTER XV.
Governor’s visit—Mons. Taitbout—Streets—Shops—City gate—Castles—Ports—Ancient Sidon—Population of Modern Sidon—Revenue—Fertility of the soil—Bridges—Invitation from the Emir of the Drûzes—Salsette frigate—Mamelukes, considered as spies, are dismissed—Departure for Gebel ed Drûz—Stefano, Messieurs Bertrand—Masbûd—Difficulty of obtaining money—River Hamà m—Dayr el Kamar—The Emir’s character—The Drûze country—The Drûzes—Their supposed tenets—Akel and Jahel—Customs and real tenets of the Drûzes—Their resemblance to Quakers—Their hypocrisy.
Governor’s visit—Mons. Taitbout—Streets—Shops—City gate—Castles—Ports—Ancient Sidon—Population of Modern Sidon—Revenue—Fertility of the soil—Bridges—Invitation from the Emir of the Drûzes—Salsette frigate—Mamelukes, considered as spies, are dismissed—Departure for Gebel ed Drûz—Stefano, Messieurs Bertrand—Masbûd—Difficulty of obtaining money—River Hamà m—Dayr el Kamar—The Emir’s character—The Drûze country—The Drûzes—Their supposed tenets—Akel and Jahel—Customs and real tenets of the Drûzes—Their resemblance to Quakers—Their hypocrisy.
Monsieur Taitbout, the French Consul, had made arrangements in the French caravansery for the lodging of us all. This caravansery is a quadrangular building, with few windows looking outward, and having but one gate. It was originally built for the residence of the French factors, but contained at this time only two or three families of that nation, being those who had returned to live there after the expulsion of the factory by El Gezzà r Pasha, and who were now starving for want of commerce. A visit to and from the governor were the only occurrences, in which Lady Hester took a part, that are worth notice. The governor received a watch as a present, in return for thesheep, rice, coffee, sugar, &c., which he had sent on our arrival.
The town appeared dull, having nothing to boast of but its gardens, which are indeed fruitful, and its water, which is excellent, but not yet a temptation to us, who, new to the East, had not learned to relish that wholesome beverage.
Turkish towns are very much alike. A large building, with an open place before it, generally denotes the palace of the governor; a few streets called the sûk or bazar, from eight to fourteen or twenty feet broad, contain rows of shops; and other streets, equally narrow, are occupied by the Mahometan inhabitants, who live in retired and jealous stillness; whilst a second quarter contains the Christians; and, in a few dirty lanes, inaccessible from the stench and filth to any but their tenants, live the Jews.
A Turkish shop is commonly no more than from six to nine feet square, in the shape of an alcove, the floor of which is raised waist high, and before which the customer stands in the open street, whilst the shopkeeper sits cross-legged on the shop-board, and has only to reach his hand to what his customer applies for. A single shutter falls down and shuts in the whole, and a few shelves contain the goods of every day’s demand. But, often, a small door leads to a warehouse behind, where articles of more value and bulk are to be found. Merchants upon a larger scale have warehouses by the waterside, where rice, tobacco,silk, and the like, are deposited. In the same room with the merchandize sits the merchant, upon a mat of a few feet square, on boards raised to a convenient height from the ground, where an inkstand and two or three half-bound account-books are the whole apparatus of sometimes very extensive dealings. There are no desks. Shopkeepers of the same trade generally live in a row. The artisans carry on their trades in the same sort of niches; and shoemakers, tailors, silversmiths, &c. may be seen in their shops, sitting cross-legged and working, so that passengers may almost learn a trade as they walk along.
The gate of the town is the general rendezvous of the chief people of the place, and the governors are accustomed to go and sit there on benches in the open air every day. The sentence that occurs so often in the Scriptures, “And the king sat at the gate,†shows how ancient this custom is. The name of the Sublime Porte is derived from this usage. Suliman Pasha of Acre might be seen every day sitting to administer justice at the city gate.
Sayda is supplied with water from the river Ewely, (pronounced Ouwely) a portion of which is conveyed by an aqueduct into the heart of the town, where the altitude of the water is found by pyramidal levels, and is then distributed by earthenware pipes to the houses of the inhabitants.
Sayda has two castles, which the firing of their own guns shakes to the foundation. It has likewise twoports; but its inner port can admit fishing-smacks only. The haven is dangerous, and vessels can with difficulty ride out a storm.
It would appear that the extent of ancient Sidon was not so great as some travellers have imagined. At the foot of the mountain, east and north-east, I have myself traced the remains of several sepulchres, which, as having been on the outside of the city walls, prove that the city could not have extended so far. Thus, just above the modern village of Helliléah, east and by south of Sayda, is a sarcophagus, with some tombs, distant from the seashore one mile and a half. Due north, in a garden, is a sepulchre not half a mile from the town; so that, if the ancient city did not extend far to the north or east, and if there are no ruins to the south, as in fact I saw none, its boundaries are reduced to a very small space. Modern Sidon may be two miles in circumference.
Sayda,[79]according to some authors, is distant from Damascus sixty-six miles, west south west. Its population is carried by some persons as high as 15,000 souls, of whom 150 are Maronites, 300 Greek Catholics, from 100 to 150 Jews, and the remainder Turks: but, considering the size of the place, I should not be disposed to allow even half that number. Anative merchant, named Dubani, limited it to 4,500 or 5,000 souls, among whom were 100 Christian families. There are eight mosques, the largest of which was once a church of St. John. Here is also a palace, which formerly was the residence of the Emir of the Drûzes. It is now in ruins, but is still called Dar el Emir (the Emir’s place.). Close by the seashore stands likewise a large building, where are the sepulchres of several of the Emirs of that nation. As it was much neglected by the people of Sayda, and made the receptacle of filth of every kind, the Emir Beshýr, the reigning prince, obtained permission to block up the doors and windows.
Sayda pays annually to the pasha 200 purses, (each of 500 piasters), of which the customs and harbour dues (as they were farmed in 1818,) produced 100. Duties on imports were for Europeans 3 per cent., for Mahometan subjects of the Porte 4, and for Christians 4½. These latter, however, seldom pay more than the Turks.
The richness of the land in the environs of Sayda is very great. There is a patch of soil near the city so fertile as to produce for every mid or modius of corn, two gararas, a proportion of seventy-two fold, or one quintal out of as much land as a pair of oxen can plough in one day. And the same may be asserted of nearly all the plains and valleys that receive the alluvial soil from the mountains.
Two miles north of Sayda is the river Ewely. This river is crossed by a bridge of Saracen construction,which is about four hundred yards from the seashore. Two hundred yards higher up are the remains of another bridge, now almost undistinguishable, but which, to judge from a few large stones lying about, similar in size to those of other bridges along the coast, was the work of Roman or Greek hands.
Scarcely had we arrived in Sayda, when the Emir of the Drûzes sent a courier with a letter to request Lady Hester to honour him with a visit at his residence. Her ladyship accepted the invitation, as it was her intention to go into the Drûze country, even had he not invited her. The day being fixed for our departure, the Emir sent down twelve camels, twenty-five mules, four horses, and seven foot soldiers, as an escort; but, as circumstances prevented our immediate departure, they were kept a couple of days waiting at Lady Hester’s expense. On the 27th July, the Salsette, Captain H. Hope, touched at Sayda, and nothing could equal the joy that was felt on again seeing a gentleman to whom we were so much indebted.
Our Mamelukes, Yusef and Selim, although good Mussulmans, had not so far forgotten the practices of their native country, as not to love wine when they could meet with it. In consequence of this, the French Consul, who entertained the whole of Lady Hester’s suite, complained that they exceeded too far the bounds of sobriety, which remark excited the choler of the two renegadoes, and a covert warfare was carried on between them and the consul.
Among other hints which he dropped respecting them, he insinuated that their services under the pasha of Egypt would make their journey into Syria be looked upon as pure spying, and that Lady Hester would be no where received without suspicion, whilst she had these men in her train. The consequence was that their dismissal was resolved upon. They received each one thousand piasters, and were furnished with a letter to the pasha of Egypt, thanking him for their services. They quitted us with regret. Before their departure, they, however, exhibited a little of their Mameluke horsemanship to Captain Hope on the sands close to the town.
Captain H. himself essayed their mode of riding, but found their saddles somewhat inconvenient in a European dress. For myself I had ridden constantly with an Egyptian saddle, since our first arrival in that country, and I had, from habit, conceived a favourable idea of its commodiousness: for, hitherto, we had but occasionally quitted the plains; and it is to them that this saddle is adapted. But, when afterwards we traversed Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, I abandoned it for the saddle of Syria.
We here began to learn the importance that was attached to the appearance of the pipe. I had already adopted the habit of smoking, and I was now persuaded to barter the only pistol I had saved from the shipwreck for an amber mouthpiece, which took my fancy, and which I could get on no other terms.Milky opaque amber is most esteemed, and indeed it looks very beautiful. Rhinoceros’ tooth, bone, coloured glass, agate, and an imitation of amber, are the materials most commonly used.
Syria is celebrated for producing the best tobacco of Turkey, and it was, therefore, thought worth while to note down the districts and villages most in repute: for, as it happens in the growth of grapes for making wine, there are often patches of soil of a few acres only which alone produce a particular quality. The information here given on the subject is the result of several questions put, and observations made, at different times in different journeys through the country.
In crossing Mount Lebanon, in a direction from west to east, the soil which is met with, for the first two leagues and a half, is white, which, under the most favourable circumstances, never produces good tobacco. To an extent of three leagues west and east from this point onwards, the soil is red; and here a species of tobacco grows, known throughout Turkey and the East by the epithet of Gebely (or mountain tobacco), and in England called by the various names of Cham, Sham, or Damascus, all which words have the same meaning, Sham being the Arabic for Damascus, which the French, having no sh, spell Cham. But not the whole tract with the red soil enjoys the same reputation; for the growth of only ten or twelve villages is known to possess the requisite qualities; which are, scintillation and self-burning,like touch-paper; ashes impalpable as hair-powder; fumes somewhat odoriferous; and a golden brown in the tint of the dried leaves.
Some more exact observations, which I made three years afterwards in a journey across Mount Lebanon due east from Sidon, may, without impropriety, be inserted here. Half a mile from Sidon is the foot of the mountain. The soil is scanty and white, leaving the rock bare in several places, which is partly limestone and partly sandstone and clay together. These appearances continue from the village of HelelÃah, through Abra, Salhyah, Libbâa, as far as Aynà n before descending into the rich plain of Bisery, a distance of nine or ten miles. The soil becomes red at Isfarey, where also commence the good tobacco plantations, and continues as far as the last ridge but one of the mountain, which is a part of the highest chain, which chain runs north and south, whilst almost all those between it and the sea branch off perpendicularly from the main chain, and run east and west. About fifty or one hundred yards above Kharýby the rock is a carbonate of lime, and sometimes almost as white as chalk. At Baderán, which is on the highest part of the penultimate ridge east-north-east of Sidon, there are found, lying on the surface of the soil, numerous silicious pebbles, some as big in circumference as a tumbler, some as a wineglass, and resembling a flattened soap-ball. Their fracture presented a milky quartz.
Tobacco, when exported to Egypt, is always carried in open boats, for fear of heating. May not this be one of the reasons why the tobacco brought to England resembles so little the same plant when smoked in Syria?
Tobacco must be gathered in the decline of the moon, say the Syrian planters.
It was on the 29th of July that we departed for Dayr el Kamar, the residence of the Emir Beshýr. About one mile and a half from Sayda, the delightful gardens which surround it terminated at a river, before mentioned, of some size called Nahr el Ewely. Here we began to ascend Mount Lebanon, its foot touching the seashore; at Sayda it is only half a mile distant from it; and we were now on the territory of the Drûzes. To our party were added two dragomans, by name Bertrand, and both medical men, but who resigned the advantage of their practice for a consideration which they judged paramount to it.[80]There was likewise a cook of the name of Stefano, a Georgian; who, being carried from his own country as a slave to Constantinople, had somehow obtained his liberty, and resumed the religion of his parents.
To look at the soil, as we ascended the narrow paths of the mountain, one would have thought that no culture could have made it productive: yet industry had surmounted every obstacle; for vines, olive,mulberry, and fig-trees, tobacco, and some other productions, bore evidence of its richness.
We proceeded for three hours, having passed the village of Jûn,[81]and encamped for the night at Masbûd. The Shaykh (for so the bailiff or chief of a village is called) had received orders to supply us with provisions, and we wanted for nothing. An unpleasant occurrence, however, retarded us some hours the next morning. We had always found difficulty in obtaining money, owing to the want of respectable European merchants in the southern part of Syria, and to the distrust excited by the frequent visits which adventurers from Christendom pay to those countries. Lady Hester had drawn a bill on the English vice-consul at Beyrout, Mâlem Messâad, which was refused, on account, as he alleged, of his inability to raise the sum drawn for. The Syrian Christian, who had cashed it at Sayda, came riding post after us; and, as we were on the point of quitting Masbûd, demanded back his money, which was forthwith counted out to him.
From Masbûd, a march of five hours brought us to Dayr el Kamar, having halted by the way at a river, Nahr el Hamam, to refresh ourselves and our horses. It was quite dark when we arrived. We were receivedin a residence or palace of the Emir’s, which had been prepared for our reception. The constant repetition of the terms prince and minister, which were used by the new interpreters when speaking of the Emir and his principal secretary, had raised ideas of the grandeur of these people and their state, which the sight of our new residence first weakened, and subsequent knowledge of them entirely overthrew.
The next morning we viewed, from the terrace of the house, the whole of the burgh of Dayr el Kamar. It may contain four thousand souls. The houses are none of them more than two stories high, built of rough hewn stones, oftener cemented with mud than mortar. The only good residence in the place was that destined for us, which had been built by a person named Girius Baz, who had figured a great deal in the politics of the mountain not long before. He had been strangled by the order of the Emir, and his property confiscated. The palace of the Emir, and which from its size deserves the name, is at a distance of one mile from Dayr el Kamar, nearly on the summit of a small mountain, like every part of Mount Lebanon, not accessible but by the most rugged paths, such as would be considered impassable in England. The general character of the Emir, as described to us by persons at Sayda, was comprehended in a few prominent features. He was born of Mussulman parents, but was supposed to have apostatized to Christianity. He had mounted histhrone in blood; had put out the eyes of his three nephews, fearing they would aspire to it, and had reigned a tyrant and a hypocrite.
The people, of whom this Emir is the head, as was said above, are called Drûzes, and the territory which he rules obtains the name of Beled el Drûz, or the Drûze country. This territory lies chiefly on Mount Lebanon, and is comprehended between 33° 20´ and 30° 10´ north latitude, including a breadth of not more than twenty-five or thirty miles.
The religion of the Drûzes is a mystery among historians and travellers, and their tenets are so cautiously concealed from all but certain persons of their own sect that little credit is to be given to the relation of any author on the subject.[82]Some general facts, however, are known; as that they owe their origin to Hakym be Omrhu, Caliph, or Sultan of Egypt, in an early year of the Hegira, and that they are divided into two bodies, called the Initiated and Non-initiated, or Jahel and Aâkel. The Jahel are those who follow the common pursuits of mankind, and acknowledge, as the rules of society, the received customs of the country, putting no more restraints on their conduct than what these and the laws impose. Their sabbath is on Friday. The Drûzes have, at times, been totally independent, as during the reign of Fakr ed dyn; and are, in a certain degree, alwaysso, from the nature of their mountains. To become an Âakel, it is necessary for a Jahel to go through a probation of some years; when, if thought worthy, he is admitted to a participation in the rights of the adepts. The deportment of these is grave, and they are tied down to a plainness of dress and a sanctity of manners which give them a look that necessarily imposes somewhat on the beholder. One unvarying part of it is the white turban, made of a long band of linen or cotton, repeatedly folded around the tarbûsh (or red skull cap.). They likewise affect the black abah or cloak. An Âakel holds himself bound to the performance of all moral duties, so that the institution is in itself meritorious.
A DRUZE ÂAKEL.
A DRUZE ÂAKEL.
Their enemies, however, say that their sanctity consists in observing certain days of prayer, in letting their beard grow, in seldom or never being seen to smoke or to drink coffee; in studiously concealing from vulgar eyes their peccadilloes, and in withdrawing from public view to perform their devotions; which, add they, are most impure abominations, for they are grounded on a belief in the transmigration of souls, in non-entity after death, and in the lawfulness of incestuous cohabitation between daughters and fathers, or brothers and sisters. Neither do their revilers scruple to aver that they are idolaters, and worship the image of a calf. My subsequent knowledge of them leads me to subscribe to no such opinion, but to conceive that religious feelings, or pretended ones, lead some of them to a real or apparent sanctity, as in other sectaries and in all religions. And, although no deity is too gross for ignorance and superstition, no mode of worship so absurd that sophistry cannot find arguments to accredit it, and no avenging power so imbecile that priestcraft will not erect a tribunal upon its terrors, still there is, in general, such a positive and indignant denial of idolatry from all respectable Drûzes, that we do not think travellers are warranted in propagating the report. In a visit to Shaykh Daher, at the village of Rûm, one of the most venerable of the Drûze shaykhs, and one most in repute for his learning, the conversation turned on religious subjects, and I requested him to solve me certainpoints, upon which, like other Europeans, I had hitherto been able to obtain no correct information.
“I know,†he interrupted me, “what you are going to ask. Like most new comers, you have been probably entertained with a number of strange stories respecting us, by the consuls and European merchants of the seaports, who treasure up these anecdotes as the best food for such travellers, as come prepared to listen only to the marvellous. These Franks are no more acquainted with our domestic habits or religious tenets than I am with what is transacted in the privy council of England. They will tell you we are an incestuous nation, idolaters, and I know not what: but let me ask you whether there have been, among such as have apostatized from us, any who have made authenticated disclosures of this nature. Rather regard our simple habits of life as proofs to the contrary. We seek no proselytes: we wear no garments of gold or silver, and affect the colours of blue, white, and black, as being the least showy. Our tarbûshes (skullcaps) and turbans differ from those of the jahel or uninitiated of our people, and of people in general, as a distinctive mark by which we may be known. We are mild and peaceable in our habits, but can go to war to defend ourselves. We accommodate ourselves to the prejudices and customs of those among whom we live; hence you see us oftentimes praying in mosques, and enduring the privations of Ramazà n. We are said to have two doors to our houses, becausewe will not allow our women to go out by the same way that a stranger enters; and that a woman, in case of violence from a man, may more readily escape: but these are reports too absurd to require refutation. Retired and modest behaviour in our wives is their brightest ornament; and we wish them not to meet the gaze of visitors: hence we afford them every facility for escaping observation.
“Continence we hold as a virtue, and we endeavour to resist the blandishments of women. On this account there are certain of us who marry, but cohabit not with their wives. In such a case, previous to wedlock, the wife is made to understand that she will be in the light of a housekeeper only: and, as she is generally an aâkely,[83]her aim is consonant with that of the man whom she espouses. We smoke not, nor drink coffee, because they are indulgences without any advantage. We eat no meats but what are cooked by the initiated: for our object is to avoid intercourse with those with whom we must labour under restraint. Money received in the shape of a tax or an impost we hold to be unlawful: and this prohibition defends us at least from some vices which originate in money-getting.â€
In fine, from what I could learn from the conversation of another shaykh, named Kalyb, the tenets of the Drûzes are as follow. The books held sacred by them are four: the Old and New Testament; the Koran;and their own, which is the essence, say they, of the other three. They have two questions, which I believe to be a sort of countersign of their religion. Which was created first, the egg or the hen? Which was made first, the hammer or the anvil? and which seem to be puzzles, to bring man to a sense of his own incapacity to scan the works of the Creator. According to them, one is not prior to the other, and hence they believe the world was created, peopled, and stocked at once with rational and brute animals; which to Omnipotence is just as easy as any other way. Their paradise is eternal, and so is their hell; and the bliss of the one or the pains of the other are inconceivably great, but of what kind they were I could not learn. They do not believe in the transmigration of the soul: for they say the soul is of too divine a nature to take up its habitation in the body of a beast.
A Drûze, who is an âakel, if he make a promise, is bound to perform it, even at the hazard of his life. A Drûze may become an âakel, and wear the turban peculiar to an âakel, at any age, provided his conversation and actions are such as render him worthy of being so. Fornication, adultery, and murder, are insuperable obstacles. He that has divorced a woman must never see her again; and, if he should chance to enter a room where she is, she must retire immediately.
There is a very prevalent notion among them that there are Drûzes in England, or else that the tenetsof some sect (they mean the Quakers) are very much like their own. When familiarity had in some degree emboldened me, I said to Shaykh Kalyb that, as I had so often been told that the Drûzes worshipped a calf as a divinity, I supposed their religion was something like that of the Hindoos, who worshipped the same animal. But he assured me positively that, if that animal were sacred in their eyes, they could not eat of it, which I very well knew they did; and that those who had said they had seen images of a calf among them must have been mistaken.
I thanked the shaykh for his information, which I thought was as likely to be true as that of those who averred the contrary. But that I may not be accused of favouring the Drûzes, for whom I confess I felt a partiality, it becomes me not to conceal what was related to me by a Christian in great estimation for his learning, on Mount Lebanon.
He said that, during the incursions made by El Gezzà r Pasha into the Drûze country, in which their temples and houses were ransacked, books relating to their religion had been found and carried to Acre. In one of these is the following passage:—“The Ansáry are fools, because they allow crimes to be venial that are not secret:†from which it is to be inferred that the Drûzes hold what is done in secret to be lawful and just, even if it be what is generally considered as criminal. “And this, moreover,†(added the reverend gentleman, my informant,) “is conformable totheir practice, in which incest, murder, and other crimes, have been committed very commonly where the proof of the commission was not easily to be made out.â€
It is certain, however, that, when assembled at their khalweh or megesy on a Thursday evening, the vigil of their Sabbath, after a time the jahel quit the place, and the âakel remain alone: upon which occasions some of them walk round the building, and take great care that no curious person be lurking near. Besides the Drûzes of Mount Lebanon, there are several villages of them in Gebel Aâly near Aleppo, at Hasbeyah, in the Horà n, and at Wadytain, where they first settled, all which districts are to the south and south-west of Damascus.