FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[1]Abulfeda’s description of it runs thus:—“The river, which flows to Damascus, takes its rise beneath a Christian church, called El Faÿgeh, and becomes at once a rivulet, which is increased in its course by many other small springs. It then unites with a stream, called the Barada, and forms one river, which, at its entrance into the plain of Damascus, divides itself into six or seven branches running to the different quarters of the town.” At this division there is a cascade, and an inscription on the rock in Cufic characters, which Mr. Burckhardt told me he had copied.[2]These walls were known to the ancients, and called parietes formacei. The same composition is still used at and near Lyons in France, and called pisé: as also in Cornwall.[3]The late Lord Guildford.[4]How different from the opinion Lady Hester Stanhope afterwards formed of him, when she knew him better![5]The fanaticism of the people of Damascus surpasses that of the inhabitants of Egypt, since a European cannot, without danger, show himself in the streets in the dress of his country, but is obliged to assume the costume of the East. A Christian or Jew cannot ride on horseback in the town: they are not permitted even to have an ass to ride upon.—Ali Bey’s Travels, vol. ii., p. 273.[6]This warning is generally made by the wordtestûr, which is bawled out by a eunuch who precedes you as you enter the harým.[7]She was without colour on her cheeks, and it would seem that rosy cheeks do not form part of Eastern beauty. Lady Hester used often to repeat a compliment which was paid to her own pale looks in Egypt. “My white face,” she would say, “in this country pleases the people amazingly, and the Turks consider the red faces of the English women odious. Witness the story told of those who were left behind by the English army after the expedition to Egypt in 1805, and were taken by the Turks. Their new masters washed them and washed them, hoping to get the brick-dust out of their cheeks; and, when they found it impossible, they sent them about their business. Black women, the Turks said, they knew and liked, and white ones; but red women they never heard of till then.”[8]In the plague of 1814, the bey’s wife and twenty of his household died. Suliman Bey had the plague, but got over it. About a year afterwards, he fell from the terrace of the house and was killed. Ahmed Bey never recovered his spirits after these accumulated misfortunes.[9]To this custom of looking out of one eye allusion is made in Solomon’s Song, c. iv., v. 9. “Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes.”[10]Fathah, the opening chapter of the Koran.[11]Dr. John Fiott Lee, F.R.S., of Hartwell House.[12]Sir David Dundas.[13]A term always used wherever the source of a rivulet is.[14]Abulfeda speaks of Carah in the following terms:—“Among the noted places is Carah. It is a large village between Damascus and Hems, and serves as a station for caravans. Most of the inhabitants are Christians.”[15]Ali Bey says the mean breadth is fifty feet (vid. p. 209, vol. ii.)[16]Abulfeda quotes Ebn Hokal, who says that “Hems is placed in a most fertile plain, and that it is more healthy than any part of the district of Damascus: he adds that neither serpents nor scorpions are found there.... Not quite a mile from the town runs the river Maklûb, or Oront, and upon its banks are orchards and vineyards.”[17]“The lake Cades is from north to south almost the third part of a day’s journey: and its breadth is that of the mound, which was built, to the north, (as is reported) by Alexander, and which is 1287 cubits long, and 18 in thickness. Were this mound destroyed, the lake would cease to be. There are fish in the lake.”—(Abulfeda, p. 157.) Ebn Abd el Hak gives a breadth of four miles.[18]Abulfeda says 965 yards, or more than half a mile long.[19]Ali Bey, (p. 275) speaking of the neighbourhood of Damascus, says, “The labourers or villagers in general are in easy circumstances ... if, under these burthens, this class of people are rich, what would they be under a just and liberal government?”[20]Of the dishes was one for which, whilst in Syria, I always retained a great liking. It is sour milk curdled, called leben, into which cucumber is cut, with grated mint leaves sprinkled on the surface.[21]Mention is made of this lady in the Memoirs of Buonaparte, published by Las Cases, vol. 3, part v., p. 148.“The Emperor said that he renewed at Turin, in the person of Madame de Lascaris, the gracious gallantry exercised at Troyes; and that, in both instances, he had reason to be gratified with the fruits of his liberality. The two families gave every proof of attachment and gratitude.”[22]For farther information respecting this extraordinary man, the reader is referred to the “Souvenirs de l’Orient,” of M. de Lamartine. What Lady Hester first thought of him may be gathered from an extract of a letter she wrote to a friend.“I have met with an extraordinary character here, Monsieur Lascaris de Vintimille. He is certainly flighty, but has considerable talents, and a perfect knowledge of the Arabic language; he is extremely poor, and very active. Should he fall into the hands of the French, we might in future have reason to repent it; at present he is quite English, and it might be worth while to keep him so. In theChancellerie de l’ordre de Malte, and likewise in the hands of l’avocat Torrigiani, are all the papers which refer to his family and to hishumble claims, which are merely a little pension that he may have bread to eat—he does not look to more. Now you are settling the affairs of this kind, it might be worth while to consider and represent this subject to government, as it would ensure them an agent in parts where few persons could live—I mean upon the borders of the desert; and I can assure you, this in future would be of great importance; for the Arabs are now so strong, as hardly to be managed by the pashas; besides, it would be a great act of humanity to a once great man. The French are sending agents in all directions (at an immense expense) into the desert, and why do not we do the same?”[23]A mustaby is a piece of solid masonry, about as high as, and twice the breadth of, a bench, built generally at the street-doors of houses for men to sit on and smoke, or wait, or sleep.[24]So the tribes of the Bedouins are collectively called which range the desert in the rear of the midland part of Syria, leading to Palmyra.[25]It may be worth mentioning that a servant, whom I employed for a few days at Damascus, was a poet, and had written many verses, some of which Shaykh Ibrahim (Mr. Burckhardt) bought as specimens of modern Arabic poetry. There are no Mecænases at Damascus, or it may be he was no Horace, for he was in great poverty.[26]This tribe is spoken of in Niebuhr’s travels, as pasturing in his time on the shores of the Persian Gulph at Sehat el Arab; unless there are more tribes than one of the same name.[27]It is to be observed that this journal is given as written from day to day, with recent impressions upon me; but, as I became acquainted, with the country and the people, many of these impressions on maturer reflection were considered as erroneous. I ought likewise to observe, that I have considerable doubt of the accuracy of the names of places in this journey to Palmyra, because I wrote them down by the sound, and had no one to give them to me in writing, a method I always pursued, for the sake of correctness, wherever it was possible.[28]M. Lascaris thought they had been Roman camps; but that these tels had once fortresses upon them may be collected from a passage in Abulfeda, (Tab. Syr. p. 24) who, speaking of Tel Basher near Aleppo, styles it “The fortress Tel Basher.”[29]I extract a description of Nasar and his father from the Travels (I think, for I have lost the reference,) of Captains Mangles and Irby. “Mahannah, his father, was a short, crooked-backed, mean-looking, old man, between 70 and 80 years of age, dressed in a common sort of robe: his son, Narsah, (Nasar) to whom he had in consequence of his age resigned the reins of government, was a good-looking man about 30 years of age, with very dignified and engaging manners.”—P. 261.[30]Subsequently, the Wahabees, having been defeated by the son of the Pasha of Egypt, were compelled to quit the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and the pilgrimage was again performed. The camels that were furnished by the Bedouins were as follow, according to a memorandum I took from the mouth of one of Mahannah’s people at the close of our journey:—Nasar’s tribe, 1,000; Dookhy Weled Aaly, 1,000; El Hawáreh, 2,500; Ismaar Shaykh Gerud, 400: Tuláa, Chief of Suchay, 1050; Regeb, Selim, and Abas, shaykhs of the villages of Caryetayn and Hems, a proportionate quota.[31]These bludgeons are what an Irishman would term a shilalee, with a round knob at the end: they are called Nabût.[32]I was on one occasion witness, whilst in the Desert, to the setting of the leg of a sheep, which had been accidentally broken. This was effected by means of two splints of rough wood. To save the animal from injury in walking, a network, consisting of ropes passed lozenge-fashion, as is sometimes seen on jars in England, was contrived, so as to go round the sheep’s body, and the sheep was then slung on one side of a camel, where it was carried in a state of great suffering. Whether it recovered or not I could not learn.[33]It is affirmed by many travellers that the Bedouins travel by the stars by night, and they are all made out to be astronomers; but, by night, they can obtain a general notion of their direction, as any common person will do in any country, and by day they rely on landmarks only. They know the use of the compass, and were only surprised at the one I showed them, in our second journey, on account of its smallness, being one of those which are of the size of a crown piece.[34]This observation is not to be taken in its full extent as far as regards places on mountains; for there the sudden chill of the air, after the sun’s rays are withdrawn, condenses the moisture elevated from the plains, and as suddenly checks the perspiration. Hence it has happened to me, in Syria, to find intermittents prevalent in very elevated spots, where not even a pool or a level spot was to be found for leagues around; arising (certainly not from marsh miasmata, but) from the sudden effect of cold on open pores, which, after all, is probably the cause of intermittent fevers in marshy situations, owing to the damp cold which they generate, rather than to any specific quality in decayed vegetable matter.[35]Rings of silver, worn just above the ancle in the manner that bracelets are worn above the wrist. The bracelets and jamblets are generally one solid ring, not tight, but moveable up and down. They are passed on the arm or legs, generally in youth, by soaping the extremity of the limbs, and by repeatedly rubbing them upwards until the rings slide over, where they remain until death or until they are filed off; for they scarcely can be removed in any other way.[36]I learned here the composition of an excellent sweet sauce for hare, which was made by pounding stoned raisins in a mortar and boiling or stewing them in chopped onions and butter, putting in the raisins when the butter and onions are first stewed. It is then kept over the fire for a few minutes, and is scarcely to be distinguished from currant jelly.[37]This Fathallah afterwards assumed the quality of a dragoman, and, from a MS. furnished by him, M. de Lamartine drew up his narrative of M. Lascaris’s adventures.[38]M. Lascaris remained but a very short time in Palmyra. After a variety of reverses, he died of a fever in Egypt five or six years afterwards.[39]I have in vain made researches on different maps after some place to which these ruins might belong. Mr. Burkhardt had told me that there was a temple in ruins on Gebel el Abiad; but I was now far away from that mountain.[40]In the fourth chapter of Ruth—“Boaz said unto the reapers—The Lord be with you: and they answered him the Lord bless you.” This is exactly the salutation of the Christians to this day: Allah mâkûm: Barak Allah. The salutation of the Mahometans is different: that is Salám alëikûm, Peace be unto you—and the reply is Alëikûm el salám—unto you be peace. The observance of this rule is so strict that if, in entering a room where Mahometans alone are seated, a Christian should presume to make use of the Mahometan salutation, they would not reply to him. We may infer that, when Mahomet first established his new religion, he endeavoured to draw a line between his proselytes and the Jews and Christians. Thus their day of worship was neither instituted on Saturday nor Sunday, but on Friday: so he appears to have appropriated a mode of salutation to them. Circumcision he did not get rid of, because he claimed to be a descendant of the patriarchs who had instituted or adopted it.[41]They are used for this purpose in some places even now. If the reader happens to have in his library Dr. Clarke’s Travels in Syria, he may amuse himself by reading the Doctor’s lucubrations on these holes, which are (as much of his conjectural learning is) somewhat ridiculous; yet, as such, they were more read than the dictates of common sense would have been.[42]Mûly is explained by prince, captain, lord, or patron.[43]Yahyah Bey, of the house of Adam; the principal people of the place were branches of this family.[44]Besides, she had to fear the attacks of the Faydân, a powerful Bedouin tribe, at war with the Anizys, and whose superiority had been established in a recent battle, of which mention has been already made.[45]Her ladyship’s real motive for not going to Aleppo was the fear of the Aleppo tetter, which attacks strangers, and often disfigures the face.—See Russell’s Aleppo.[46]The butter generally used throughout Syria is made by the Bedouin women in the spring, and brought in skins, on camels, for sale to the principal villages and towns on the confines of the Desert, whence it is carried to all the inhabited country, and every good housewife lays in a store for the year. To do this, the butter must have, of course, a great deal of salt in it; and, as butter is only used in cookery, its salt flavour does not deteriorate it. But the great difficulty Lady Hester had to contend with was to procure fresh butter for breakfast, and she consequently had to teach her maids to make it, without a churn, and without all the requisites for such a purpose. This was a fatiguing business with servants, who never showed any anxiety to learn.[47]This dance was just such as is represented in the plates to Mr. Belzoni’s work on Egypt, published 1820; and I think he has mistaken a funereal ceremony for a dance of recreation.[48]The ancient Salaminias.[49]I should conjecture Jarryat Theap, were it somewhat more south, to be theCentum Putei. It is proper to observe, that little reliance can be placed on the names of places in this journey. They are spelt as they sounded to my ears when pronounced by the Bedouins, and were written down at the time. But, when it is considered that the Bedouins give entirely different sounds to the letters of the alphabet from what is customary in the towns, it is impossible not to have committed many errors where the words in Arabic were unknown to me.[50]The Faydân were said to have 2,000 tents.[51]Charlotte, wife of George III.[52]Abulfeda, p. 105.[53]Our sufferings on the journey were, after all, not very severe. Oxley, in his Researches in the interior of Australasia, underwent more; for, as he relates, about June the 1st, he found no water for thirty-six hours either for his people or horses, with a want of herbage likewise; but then he had no great heat to contend with.[54]See pp. 215 to 222 of Mr. Salt’s Travels, for a comparison of the sum paid by Lady Hester to go to Palmyra, with that paid by Mr. Salt at Arhecko, to get to Gondar, where, after all, he never arrived. Chateaubriand pretended that it cost him 5,000 piasters to go to the Dead Sea.In another book of Travels, published about 1829, I find the following passage; the author is speaking of Mahannah and his son:—“After much prevarication, during which they endeavoured to make us pay for the camels extra, they at length consented to our terms, as they said, for the love of the Malaka or queen, for such they were pleased to call Lady Hester, who gave £500 for this trip. Had we paid them as much money, no doubt, they would have called us two kings; for, like the Nubians, flûs, (money) is their idol.”[55]The yzzár is a covering of white calico or cambric muslin, precisely of the form of a sheet when spread out, which is so put on as to envelop the whole body, and is worn by every female of any respectability throughout Syria. It is called likewise setarah and melaêah.[56]Generally the legs of the culprit are passed through two nooses on a bar, which bar is held up at the two ends, the sufferer being on his back. This bar is called falak. Mr. B. on one occasion, being justly offended at the neglect of his groom, sent him to the governor, with a request that he might be punished: but the governor refused to do it, unless paid for it.[57]In confirmation of this position, let us see what an English gentleman says, who, in relating what he saw in Egypt, was evidently not aware that Turkish women of any degree above paupers never bathe incoldwater, and always use the hot baths of their own houses, if they have them, or of the city in which they reside. “At the end of the garden farthest from the palace, the pasha is amusing himself in erecting, round a large artificial sheet of water, an enclosed colonnade, with several apartments connected with it. In the centre of the colonnade, is a chamber with a large balcony for the use of the great man himself, from which he will enjoy the singular, and in Turkey alone not indelicate pleasure, of seeing his ladies bathe, and frequently, when he orders it, splash each other with water, and play various other pranks for his amusement.” Diary of a Tour through South India, Egypt, and Palestine, by a Field Officer of Cavalry, p. 238. Hatchard, 1823. Now, without having seen the sheet of water in question, I will venture to say, that, so long as there continues to be water in the basin, not a woman will ever bathe in it. The balcony is a place intended to sit and smoke in, and the water to contribute to the coolness always so eagerly sought after in such climates.[58]As soon then as it is known that danger of infection threatens, people shut themselves up in their houses, lay in a stock of provisions of every kind, admit nobody to enter, and suffer nobody to go out: for which purpose the master of the house keeps the key of the street door. A Turk, (and some one is always to be found among the poor) for a small gratuity, purchases and brings every day meat, vegetables, and such things as form no part of the dry stock. All letters are received in vinegar, or over the fumes of nitre and sulphuric acid, or of assafetida, or of burnt feathers and the like. All cats are killed. Bread is aired for a day before being used: meat and vegetables are put in water to soak, and the hairs, &c. are carefully picked off by small tongs. Where a family is large, and has a spacious house or garden, there are no great hardships: as there is only the confinement and the interruption of business to complain of. But they fall very heavily on the poor, whose labour is suspended for so long a period, sometimes six months or more, and who are thus reduced to the miserable alternative of dying of the plague or of hunger. There is one great disadvantage resulting from the strictness of these regulations. No doctor can visit such as are infected; for, if he do, all other patients will refuse him admittance to their houses. If he be a stranger, and consequently a lodger, even the door of his own house would be shut against him. Hence no researches can be made on the disease, no experiments tried: and, excepting what light the French expedition in Egypt may have thrown on it, and the experiments of a few devoted men in the hospitals at Constantinople—mankind is no wiser than it was an age ago. In a word, the plague makes about as much impression in Turkey as a malignant epidemic in England. Its ravages are generally confined to the Mahometans, whose system of fatalism allows them to make use of few or no precautions against it; although there are many who do not hold so strong to their principles but they would willingly shut themselves up if they dared. But the zealots of the Mahometan religion immediately cry shame upon them, and thus compel them to submit to their destiny. Such however have a strong struggle between their fears of death and the dread of imputed dereliction of the tenets of their holy prophet.[59]When he leaneth on my hand.—ii Kings, v. xviii.[60]History of Insects, orderTrichoptera.[61]Abulfeda, who lived not far from Calât el Medýk, and most likely had often been there, describes these inundations as permanent. His words are—“The lake of Apamea (Calât el Medýk) consists of innumerable small pools and reed banks: but of these two are most remarkable, one to the south and one to the north. That to the south is more peculiarly called the Apamean lake, and is nearly half a league broad, but nowhere deeper than the height of a man. The soil is boggy, the banks are hedged with reeds and osiers. The papyrus is found here. The other lake is called the lake of the Christians, because the fishermen who live on it are chiefly of that religion. It is four times as large as the first mentioned.”[62]The grass near our tents was rich to rankness, and of the height of a man. This vale once fed 500 elephants and 30,000 mares. (See Strabo, l. xvi.)[63]In the preface to the second volume of Burckhardt’s Travels in Syria, the discovery of the site of Apamea is attributed to that gentleman, who was not, however, active enough to go in search of the ruins, which are not difficult to find. I, unluckily, was not aware that these ruins had not been seen or described by any modern traveller, and therefore did not make so correct an account of them as I otherwise should have done. The situation does not accord entirely with Strabo’s description. He says (l. xvi.)—“Apamea stands in a level hollow, as it were on an island, made by the Orontes and two adjoining lakes.” Strabo argues that it was once a very great city, because it was called by the Macedonians Pella, and Pella was their capital. For Apamea, see also Sozomeni Hist. vii. 15. Pococke says (because he did not chance to hit on these ruins)—“Upon the whole, it is not certain where Apamea was situated.”[64]These hills extend from Calât el Medýk to Ryah.[65]Colonel Boutin, a Frenchman, was assassinated soon afterwards, in these very mountains, in consequence of quitting the high road.[66]“In summer the inundation subsides, but the lakes remain, and to the quantity of stagnant water thus formed is owing the pest of flies and gnats above mentioned.” Burckhardt’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 135.[67]It appears that at the distance of bow-shot from Shogr there was another castle.[68]Laodicea, as I conceive. Josep. de Bel. Jud., i. xxi., relates that Herod built an aqueduct near this spot.[69]Or Sehyûn (Abulfeda, p. 122). This is called by him an impregnable fortress, and one of the most celebrated in Syria. In the neighbourhood is a valley where grows an abundance of fruits.[70]“The news that a foreign hakým or doctor was passing through the country was very soon spread abroad, and at every halt our camp was thronged with the sick, not only of the village near to which we were encamped, but of all the surrounding villages.” Morier’s Second Journey through Persia, p. 52.[71]It was built by Seleucus Nicator, and named after his mother (Strab. i. xvi). Formerly it was famous for its vineyards, which occupied the hills behind the city.[72]Abulfeda speaks of this building (p. 113). “In it (i. e.Ladakyah) is a monastery ... called El Farûs, a beautiful structure.”[73]“Then answered Amos and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit.”—Amos, vii. 14.[74]Kumrukgi, the collector of the customs and captain of the port.[75]I observe, in a recent publication, however, that an Egyptian pasha caused several Arabian chiefs at Sennāar to be impaled. These were Mahometans, and therefore my assertion is not quite correct.[76]It was remarkable that these words were said to me by a man who was so like me in person, that I once had been spoken to for him, even by the fanatic shaykh, who, finding his mistake, went away repeating “Istagfar Allah—deliver me, Lord:”i. e.forgive me for having given the selàm to a Christian instead of a Mussulman.[77]Vide Gibbon, vol. x., p. 103, 8vo.[78]Ebn Hani is probably the site of the ancient Heraclia.[79]One motive for going to Sayda was to prosecute a search for hidden treasures at Sayda and Ascalon, of which an account will be given in its proper place.[80]We had been out shooting francolins two days before, and, after being much heated with walking, I had seated myself on the edge of the river to wait for Mr. Barker, whom I saw coming up. I there received a check of perspiration, to which I attributed my illness.[81]This gentleman afterwards changed his name to Kinneir, and is author of a volume of travels in Asia.[82]Hadj, a pilgrim;hadjy, feminine.[83]Mount Cassius, near to Seleucia.—Str. l. xvi.[84]Of all the maps of Syria which I have yet seen, that of d’Anville, or more particularly that portion of it which he calls the map of Phœnicia, is the one chiefly to be relied on. Recent maps have generally been drawn up, with supposed corrections after late travellers; d’Anville seems to have drawn up his from a comparison of both modern and ancient authorities, and no subsequent geographer has equalled him.[85]There is another Nahr el Kebýr close to Laodicea, which must not be mistaken for this, situated a little to the north of Tripoli.[86]For the truth of this, I appeal to those letters written by her to Mr. Coutts, the banker, at this period; to his grace the late Duke of Buckingham; to the Honourable General R. Grenville; and to others.[87]Upon some occasions, where land was newly appropriated for tillage, it was customary for the peasants to draw lots for particular parcels, these having been first staked out by the head men of the village.[88]Tanûr, in Arabic, means a large earthenware jar, as big as a barrel, but deeper, which, let into the ground up to the rim, is heated within by brushwood or brambles, and serves to bake bread. It is generally covered with a shed, and serves for the use of all or a portion of the village, according as there is one or more. It is in this way I conceive that the passage “or ever your pots be made hot with thorns” is to be explained, by brambles thrown into the tanûr.[89]C’est une chose terrible, que, depuis que les femmes se mêlent de faire des enfans, elles ne savent pas encore accoucher toutes seules.—Mem. et Corresp. de Madame d’Epinay, p. 272.[90]“And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, and he said, when ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools,” &c.[91]Funem umbilicalem nunquam ligant, nisi retardetur secundarum disjunctio; quo in casu, funem, cultello divisum, parturientis femori nodo annectunt: nec memini, per tres annos, quibus hoc pago commoratus sum, ullam feminam hæmorrhagiâ mortuam esse.[92]Extract from Let. xxiii. of a work entitled “Letters of a Prussian Traveller;” Sayda, Sept. 1814.“The day before our departure, the French Consul introduced us to a Christian in the Levantine costume,” (Damiani) “who, during the late war, acted as interpreter to Sir Sydney Smith, and is now major-domo to Lady Hester Stanhope, who, for several years past, has been travelling in the Levant. He informed us she was in a convent near the Drûze mountains, where she had been confined by indisposition, from which, however, she was fast recovering. When this lady visited Sayda, she wore a Turkish dress, and rode an Arabian charger, to the astonishment and admiration of the Turks, who hold her in the highest estimation; and we heard, in many places, that she was actually imagined to be an English princess.”[93]Franks, of course, decline performing this ceremony.[94]I was generally in the sepulchre, from ten in the morning until four in the afternoon, and was obliged to have three assistants, two holding candles, whilst a third sponged the paintings, as I copied them, in order to bring out the colours, which method I learned from Mr. Bankes. Every thing was begun and completed on the spot, nothing being worked up at home; a custom too common with some persons, whose recollection is made to supply the place of reality.[95]The sepulchre shown as that of Our Saviour at Jerusalem, as well as that of Nicodemus at Bethlehem, is of this kind.[96]It was found near the spring which supplies the village of Abra with water. A French gentleman, at that time residing near the village, heard of the circumstance as a matter of gossip among the servants of his house, but too late to save it. It had been broken to pieces by the peasant boys, who attached no more value to it than to a common piece of useless pottery. A gold ring and a pair of ear-rings of the same metal were in it, and were sold to the goldsmiths of Sayda, who melted them down to make more modern trinkets.[97]“Near it there are many sepulchres cut in the rock; some of them like stone coffins above ground: others are cut into the rocks like graves, having stone covers over them.”—Maundrell.[98]“The chests were carved on the outside with ox heads, and wreaths hanging between them, after the manner of adorning heathen altars.”—Maundrell, p. 11, f. ed.[99]A flat tablet, once in my possession, was found, together with the earthenware coffin, near Abra spring. I could not gain correct information as to the position which it occupied.[100]I have found among my papers the copy of an inscription which I believe to have been taken from one of them. It is as follows:ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟΣΔΙΟΝΥΣΙΟΥΦΙΛΙΟΣ ΛΕΟΝΙΔΟΥΑΛΥΠΟΙΧΑΙΡΕΤΕ.[101]Maundrell seems to have thought that they were calculated for places of security, for he says (page 117, Oxford, 1732, 8vo.)—“We were carried ... to see a place ... which very well deserves a traveller’s attention. At about the distance of a mile from the sea there runs along a high rocky mountain, in the side of which are hewn a multitude of grots, all very little differing from each other. They have entrances of about two feet three quarters. On the inside you find in most of them a room of about four yards square, on the one side of which is the door, on the other there are as many little cells, elevated about two feet above the floor.... The great doubt concerning them is whether they were made for the dead or for the living.”[102]Maundrell bears testimony to the neat workmanship of places of this description in Syria. He says, “But, within, you arrive in a large and fair room about seven or eight yards square, cut out of the natural rock. Its sides and ceiling are so exactly square, and its angles so just, that no architect, with lead and plummet, could build a room more regular, and the whole is so firm and entire that it may be called a chamber hollowed out of one piece of marble.”[103]Pauca adhuc dicenda restant de floribus, coronis, et sertis variis, quæ in hoc multisq: aliis sepulchris picta et sculpta reperiuntur. Nimirum pertinet ad morem veterum Romanorum, à Græcis derivatum, non solum coronandi mortuos suos, sed etiam sepulchra eorum quotannis honorandi sparsione florum, rosarum, et unguentorum; quoniam existimabant hæc defunctis esse gratissima. Mos hic adeo erat receptus, ut quidam, moribundus, hæredes suos, in tabulis testamenti, officii hujus præstandi necessitate adstringeret; ingenti pecuniæ summâ huic fini destinatâ. Quod testantur, non solum auctores Græci et Latini, sed etiam—inscriptiones et ornamenta sepulchralia, quæ, ut hodieque ex antiquis monumentis apparet, ex coronis, sertis, frondibus, et floribus, constabant. Neque solum præcipiebant ut sibi quotannis rosis et odoribus parentaretur, sed etiam, eum in finem, sibi comparabant hortos, sepulchris suis vicinos, ut ex illorum reditibus parentalia ille fierent: quod ex sequenti inscriptione colligitur. Long: Patrollus, secutus pietatem col: centum hortos cum ædificio huic sepul. juncto vivus donavit, ut ex reditu eorum largius rosæ et escæ patrono suo et quandoque sibi parentaretur.—Forma usitata est in antiq: inscrip.—Ut quotannis rosas ad monumentum ejus deferant. Rosæ, minirum, præ omnibus aliis floribus in maximo habebantur pretio. Sed, &c.—Vid. eod. vol.De jure maniumà Jacobo Gutheri, lib. 2. cap. xxviii. Again,—Porro solenne fuit antiquis Græcis et Romanis cænas ferales apparare statis et anniversariis sæpe temporibus, cùm in honorem ac memoriam defuncti, tùm ut per vini cibique lenimen ejus desiderium levaretur. Petebat autem stulta gentilitas mortuorum animas ab inferis reduces iis vesci et delectari.[104]The provisions for the monastery were:—4 kilos of borgûl; 75 rotolos of oil; 2 cwt. of figs; butter, dibs, raisins, wood, and charcoal in proportion: also flour, rice, &c.[105]I chanced afterwards to hear the same ballad sung on other occasions, but I remarked that those who sung it always arranged themselves in file, and assumed an attitude such as is seen on Egyptian monuments, where all the arms and legs have the same position.[106]“And here we may remark that, in our minds, the notion is altogether ill-founded, which attributes a preventive efficacy in cases of fever to certain drugs; such as camphor, aromatic oils, and perfumes, which are probably all of them worse than nothing.”—Quarterly Review, No 54, for Oct. 1822, p. 527. The names in Arabic for the plague are webá, the plague; cubbeh, a cupola, as marking the shape of the swelling; (Koubeh and webá, or vebi, are terms now used to designate the plague.—Brown’s Travels;) also el derebeh el tâaûn, which was the term most in use; el fená.[107]Sir James Porter, in hisLetters from the Levant, speaking of the importation of silk during the time of plague (page 446), says: “We may safely affirm that the plague scarce ever rages in those parts of the country where silk is—namely, at and about Antioch, at Tripoli, and Latakia. An accident may indeed appear once in fifteen or twenty years.” Is it possible that an ambassador, residing in the capital of the empire, and enabled by his situation to procure every kind of information he might desire, should yet have taken up with notions so diametrically opposite to the truth! although it must be confessed, that those who can afford it do build themselves huts of canes and branches of trees, in which they rear their worms; and the reason of this is, that the smells arising from cooking, and other offensive odours, may not, as was the case in my fumigation, kill the worms.[108]Ayn means spring, and Ayn Bisra means Bisra spring. Who would think that Maundrell contrives, out of these two words, to makeAmbuslee, which he gives as the name of the village?[109]These families are all descendants of four brothers, who fixed their residence here about a century ago, promising to till the neighbouring slopes, upon condition of being exempted from all taxes. The head of the family, named Jahjáh Abu Yusef, and who had given up his house for us, pretended that he still retained the firman, or grant, although the emirs of the Drûzes had encroached on the privileges granted by it. Hence they were now compelled to pay the miri, or tax for sown land; but their houses were still free from land-tax.[110]I bought of one, for three shillings, a powder-horn, made with his own hand.[111]Fakhr-ed-dyn flourished in the reign of Sultan Murad. He was fourth emir of the Drûzes. In March, 1816, I visited this castle, in company with Mr. W. Bankes.[112]I believe there was an Athenian law of the same nature, on which the incidents of one of Terence’s comedies are founded.[113]Service in Syria is the last resource of the wretched, but not all kinds of service; for that of a great family is often considered as very desirable for youth of both sexes. There was also a peasant lad hired, named Elias, concerning whom I learned the following anecdote. His mother, when in childbirth, fearing her situation to be dangerous, had made a vow to St. Athanasius on the Mountain, that, if she survived, not a razor should touch the head of her offspring until she had made a pilgrimage to his shrine, distant about five days’ journey from Meshmûshy, where she lived. Poverty prevented her from fulfilling her vow; and the boy arrived at the age of 7 or 8 years, a period at which it is considered as disgraceful not to have the head shaved: for it is the custom in the East at that age to leave only a small lock on the forehead, in the same way as the head of old Time is represented by painters. So, to get over the difficulty, she made use of scissors, affirming that she had sacredly kept her vow; for scissors were not a razor. “Avec le ciel il y a des accommodements.”[114]The appearance of vineyards in Syria and in the Pays de Vaud in Switzerland is precisely alike. The manner of cultivation likewise seemed to be the same.[115]For lading, a calabash is generally used, which is a species of pumpkin, which, when dried, has had its pulp and seeds scooped out, and becomes fit for the purposes of a ladle.[116]Three quintals of grapes are necessary to make one quintal of dibs, which sells at one pound per quintal.—Burckhardt, p. 156.[117]“When thou beatest thine olive trees, thou shalt not go over the boughs again: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.”

[1]Abulfeda’s description of it runs thus:—“The river, which flows to Damascus, takes its rise beneath a Christian church, called El Faÿgeh, and becomes at once a rivulet, which is increased in its course by many other small springs. It then unites with a stream, called the Barada, and forms one river, which, at its entrance into the plain of Damascus, divides itself into six or seven branches running to the different quarters of the town.” At this division there is a cascade, and an inscription on the rock in Cufic characters, which Mr. Burckhardt told me he had copied.

[2]These walls were known to the ancients, and called parietes formacei. The same composition is still used at and near Lyons in France, and called pisé: as also in Cornwall.

[3]The late Lord Guildford.

[4]How different from the opinion Lady Hester Stanhope afterwards formed of him, when she knew him better!

[5]The fanaticism of the people of Damascus surpasses that of the inhabitants of Egypt, since a European cannot, without danger, show himself in the streets in the dress of his country, but is obliged to assume the costume of the East. A Christian or Jew cannot ride on horseback in the town: they are not permitted even to have an ass to ride upon.—Ali Bey’s Travels, vol. ii., p. 273.

[6]This warning is generally made by the wordtestûr, which is bawled out by a eunuch who precedes you as you enter the harým.

[7]She was without colour on her cheeks, and it would seem that rosy cheeks do not form part of Eastern beauty. Lady Hester used often to repeat a compliment which was paid to her own pale looks in Egypt. “My white face,” she would say, “in this country pleases the people amazingly, and the Turks consider the red faces of the English women odious. Witness the story told of those who were left behind by the English army after the expedition to Egypt in 1805, and were taken by the Turks. Their new masters washed them and washed them, hoping to get the brick-dust out of their cheeks; and, when they found it impossible, they sent them about their business. Black women, the Turks said, they knew and liked, and white ones; but red women they never heard of till then.”

[8]In the plague of 1814, the bey’s wife and twenty of his household died. Suliman Bey had the plague, but got over it. About a year afterwards, he fell from the terrace of the house and was killed. Ahmed Bey never recovered his spirits after these accumulated misfortunes.

[9]To this custom of looking out of one eye allusion is made in Solomon’s Song, c. iv., v. 9. “Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes.”

[10]Fathah, the opening chapter of the Koran.

[11]Dr. John Fiott Lee, F.R.S., of Hartwell House.

[12]Sir David Dundas.

[13]A term always used wherever the source of a rivulet is.

[14]Abulfeda speaks of Carah in the following terms:—“Among the noted places is Carah. It is a large village between Damascus and Hems, and serves as a station for caravans. Most of the inhabitants are Christians.”

[15]Ali Bey says the mean breadth is fifty feet (vid. p. 209, vol. ii.)

[16]Abulfeda quotes Ebn Hokal, who says that “Hems is placed in a most fertile plain, and that it is more healthy than any part of the district of Damascus: he adds that neither serpents nor scorpions are found there.... Not quite a mile from the town runs the river Maklûb, or Oront, and upon its banks are orchards and vineyards.”

[17]“The lake Cades is from north to south almost the third part of a day’s journey: and its breadth is that of the mound, which was built, to the north, (as is reported) by Alexander, and which is 1287 cubits long, and 18 in thickness. Were this mound destroyed, the lake would cease to be. There are fish in the lake.”—(Abulfeda, p. 157.) Ebn Abd el Hak gives a breadth of four miles.

[18]Abulfeda says 965 yards, or more than half a mile long.

[19]Ali Bey, (p. 275) speaking of the neighbourhood of Damascus, says, “The labourers or villagers in general are in easy circumstances ... if, under these burthens, this class of people are rich, what would they be under a just and liberal government?”

[20]Of the dishes was one for which, whilst in Syria, I always retained a great liking. It is sour milk curdled, called leben, into which cucumber is cut, with grated mint leaves sprinkled on the surface.

[21]Mention is made of this lady in the Memoirs of Buonaparte, published by Las Cases, vol. 3, part v., p. 148.“The Emperor said that he renewed at Turin, in the person of Madame de Lascaris, the gracious gallantry exercised at Troyes; and that, in both instances, he had reason to be gratified with the fruits of his liberality. The two families gave every proof of attachment and gratitude.”

[21]Mention is made of this lady in the Memoirs of Buonaparte, published by Las Cases, vol. 3, part v., p. 148.

“The Emperor said that he renewed at Turin, in the person of Madame de Lascaris, the gracious gallantry exercised at Troyes; and that, in both instances, he had reason to be gratified with the fruits of his liberality. The two families gave every proof of attachment and gratitude.”

[22]For farther information respecting this extraordinary man, the reader is referred to the “Souvenirs de l’Orient,” of M. de Lamartine. What Lady Hester first thought of him may be gathered from an extract of a letter she wrote to a friend.“I have met with an extraordinary character here, Monsieur Lascaris de Vintimille. He is certainly flighty, but has considerable talents, and a perfect knowledge of the Arabic language; he is extremely poor, and very active. Should he fall into the hands of the French, we might in future have reason to repent it; at present he is quite English, and it might be worth while to keep him so. In theChancellerie de l’ordre de Malte, and likewise in the hands of l’avocat Torrigiani, are all the papers which refer to his family and to hishumble claims, which are merely a little pension that he may have bread to eat—he does not look to more. Now you are settling the affairs of this kind, it might be worth while to consider and represent this subject to government, as it would ensure them an agent in parts where few persons could live—I mean upon the borders of the desert; and I can assure you, this in future would be of great importance; for the Arabs are now so strong, as hardly to be managed by the pashas; besides, it would be a great act of humanity to a once great man. The French are sending agents in all directions (at an immense expense) into the desert, and why do not we do the same?”

“I have met with an extraordinary character here, Monsieur Lascaris de Vintimille. He is certainly flighty, but has considerable talents, and a perfect knowledge of the Arabic language; he is extremely poor, and very active. Should he fall into the hands of the French, we might in future have reason to repent it; at present he is quite English, and it might be worth while to keep him so. In theChancellerie de l’ordre de Malte, and likewise in the hands of l’avocat Torrigiani, are all the papers which refer to his family and to hishumble claims, which are merely a little pension that he may have bread to eat—he does not look to more. Now you are settling the affairs of this kind, it might be worth while to consider and represent this subject to government, as it would ensure them an agent in parts where few persons could live—I mean upon the borders of the desert; and I can assure you, this in future would be of great importance; for the Arabs are now so strong, as hardly to be managed by the pashas; besides, it would be a great act of humanity to a once great man. The French are sending agents in all directions (at an immense expense) into the desert, and why do not we do the same?”

[23]A mustaby is a piece of solid masonry, about as high as, and twice the breadth of, a bench, built generally at the street-doors of houses for men to sit on and smoke, or wait, or sleep.

[24]So the tribes of the Bedouins are collectively called which range the desert in the rear of the midland part of Syria, leading to Palmyra.

[25]It may be worth mentioning that a servant, whom I employed for a few days at Damascus, was a poet, and had written many verses, some of which Shaykh Ibrahim (Mr. Burckhardt) bought as specimens of modern Arabic poetry. There are no Mecænases at Damascus, or it may be he was no Horace, for he was in great poverty.

[26]This tribe is spoken of in Niebuhr’s travels, as pasturing in his time on the shores of the Persian Gulph at Sehat el Arab; unless there are more tribes than one of the same name.

[27]It is to be observed that this journal is given as written from day to day, with recent impressions upon me; but, as I became acquainted, with the country and the people, many of these impressions on maturer reflection were considered as erroneous. I ought likewise to observe, that I have considerable doubt of the accuracy of the names of places in this journey to Palmyra, because I wrote them down by the sound, and had no one to give them to me in writing, a method I always pursued, for the sake of correctness, wherever it was possible.

[28]M. Lascaris thought they had been Roman camps; but that these tels had once fortresses upon them may be collected from a passage in Abulfeda, (Tab. Syr. p. 24) who, speaking of Tel Basher near Aleppo, styles it “The fortress Tel Basher.”

[29]I extract a description of Nasar and his father from the Travels (I think, for I have lost the reference,) of Captains Mangles and Irby. “Mahannah, his father, was a short, crooked-backed, mean-looking, old man, between 70 and 80 years of age, dressed in a common sort of robe: his son, Narsah, (Nasar) to whom he had in consequence of his age resigned the reins of government, was a good-looking man about 30 years of age, with very dignified and engaging manners.”—P. 261.

[30]Subsequently, the Wahabees, having been defeated by the son of the Pasha of Egypt, were compelled to quit the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and the pilgrimage was again performed. The camels that were furnished by the Bedouins were as follow, according to a memorandum I took from the mouth of one of Mahannah’s people at the close of our journey:—Nasar’s tribe, 1,000; Dookhy Weled Aaly, 1,000; El Hawáreh, 2,500; Ismaar Shaykh Gerud, 400: Tuláa, Chief of Suchay, 1050; Regeb, Selim, and Abas, shaykhs of the villages of Caryetayn and Hems, a proportionate quota.

[31]These bludgeons are what an Irishman would term a shilalee, with a round knob at the end: they are called Nabût.

[32]I was on one occasion witness, whilst in the Desert, to the setting of the leg of a sheep, which had been accidentally broken. This was effected by means of two splints of rough wood. To save the animal from injury in walking, a network, consisting of ropes passed lozenge-fashion, as is sometimes seen on jars in England, was contrived, so as to go round the sheep’s body, and the sheep was then slung on one side of a camel, where it was carried in a state of great suffering. Whether it recovered or not I could not learn.

[33]It is affirmed by many travellers that the Bedouins travel by the stars by night, and they are all made out to be astronomers; but, by night, they can obtain a general notion of their direction, as any common person will do in any country, and by day they rely on landmarks only. They know the use of the compass, and were only surprised at the one I showed them, in our second journey, on account of its smallness, being one of those which are of the size of a crown piece.

[34]This observation is not to be taken in its full extent as far as regards places on mountains; for there the sudden chill of the air, after the sun’s rays are withdrawn, condenses the moisture elevated from the plains, and as suddenly checks the perspiration. Hence it has happened to me, in Syria, to find intermittents prevalent in very elevated spots, where not even a pool or a level spot was to be found for leagues around; arising (certainly not from marsh miasmata, but) from the sudden effect of cold on open pores, which, after all, is probably the cause of intermittent fevers in marshy situations, owing to the damp cold which they generate, rather than to any specific quality in decayed vegetable matter.

[35]Rings of silver, worn just above the ancle in the manner that bracelets are worn above the wrist. The bracelets and jamblets are generally one solid ring, not tight, but moveable up and down. They are passed on the arm or legs, generally in youth, by soaping the extremity of the limbs, and by repeatedly rubbing them upwards until the rings slide over, where they remain until death or until they are filed off; for they scarcely can be removed in any other way.

[36]I learned here the composition of an excellent sweet sauce for hare, which was made by pounding stoned raisins in a mortar and boiling or stewing them in chopped onions and butter, putting in the raisins when the butter and onions are first stewed. It is then kept over the fire for a few minutes, and is scarcely to be distinguished from currant jelly.

[37]This Fathallah afterwards assumed the quality of a dragoman, and, from a MS. furnished by him, M. de Lamartine drew up his narrative of M. Lascaris’s adventures.

[38]M. Lascaris remained but a very short time in Palmyra. After a variety of reverses, he died of a fever in Egypt five or six years afterwards.

[39]I have in vain made researches on different maps after some place to which these ruins might belong. Mr. Burkhardt had told me that there was a temple in ruins on Gebel el Abiad; but I was now far away from that mountain.

[40]In the fourth chapter of Ruth—“Boaz said unto the reapers—The Lord be with you: and they answered him the Lord bless you.” This is exactly the salutation of the Christians to this day: Allah mâkûm: Barak Allah. The salutation of the Mahometans is different: that is Salám alëikûm, Peace be unto you—and the reply is Alëikûm el salám—unto you be peace. The observance of this rule is so strict that if, in entering a room where Mahometans alone are seated, a Christian should presume to make use of the Mahometan salutation, they would not reply to him. We may infer that, when Mahomet first established his new religion, he endeavoured to draw a line between his proselytes and the Jews and Christians. Thus their day of worship was neither instituted on Saturday nor Sunday, but on Friday: so he appears to have appropriated a mode of salutation to them. Circumcision he did not get rid of, because he claimed to be a descendant of the patriarchs who had instituted or adopted it.

[41]They are used for this purpose in some places even now. If the reader happens to have in his library Dr. Clarke’s Travels in Syria, he may amuse himself by reading the Doctor’s lucubrations on these holes, which are (as much of his conjectural learning is) somewhat ridiculous; yet, as such, they were more read than the dictates of common sense would have been.

[42]Mûly is explained by prince, captain, lord, or patron.

[43]Yahyah Bey, of the house of Adam; the principal people of the place were branches of this family.

[44]Besides, she had to fear the attacks of the Faydân, a powerful Bedouin tribe, at war with the Anizys, and whose superiority had been established in a recent battle, of which mention has been already made.

[45]Her ladyship’s real motive for not going to Aleppo was the fear of the Aleppo tetter, which attacks strangers, and often disfigures the face.—See Russell’s Aleppo.

[46]The butter generally used throughout Syria is made by the Bedouin women in the spring, and brought in skins, on camels, for sale to the principal villages and towns on the confines of the Desert, whence it is carried to all the inhabited country, and every good housewife lays in a store for the year. To do this, the butter must have, of course, a great deal of salt in it; and, as butter is only used in cookery, its salt flavour does not deteriorate it. But the great difficulty Lady Hester had to contend with was to procure fresh butter for breakfast, and she consequently had to teach her maids to make it, without a churn, and without all the requisites for such a purpose. This was a fatiguing business with servants, who never showed any anxiety to learn.

[47]This dance was just such as is represented in the plates to Mr. Belzoni’s work on Egypt, published 1820; and I think he has mistaken a funereal ceremony for a dance of recreation.

[48]The ancient Salaminias.

[49]I should conjecture Jarryat Theap, were it somewhat more south, to be theCentum Putei. It is proper to observe, that little reliance can be placed on the names of places in this journey. They are spelt as they sounded to my ears when pronounced by the Bedouins, and were written down at the time. But, when it is considered that the Bedouins give entirely different sounds to the letters of the alphabet from what is customary in the towns, it is impossible not to have committed many errors where the words in Arabic were unknown to me.

[50]The Faydân were said to have 2,000 tents.

[51]Charlotte, wife of George III.

[52]Abulfeda, p. 105.

[53]Our sufferings on the journey were, after all, not very severe. Oxley, in his Researches in the interior of Australasia, underwent more; for, as he relates, about June the 1st, he found no water for thirty-six hours either for his people or horses, with a want of herbage likewise; but then he had no great heat to contend with.

[54]See pp. 215 to 222 of Mr. Salt’s Travels, for a comparison of the sum paid by Lady Hester to go to Palmyra, with that paid by Mr. Salt at Arhecko, to get to Gondar, where, after all, he never arrived. Chateaubriand pretended that it cost him 5,000 piasters to go to the Dead Sea.In another book of Travels, published about 1829, I find the following passage; the author is speaking of Mahannah and his son:—“After much prevarication, during which they endeavoured to make us pay for the camels extra, they at length consented to our terms, as they said, for the love of the Malaka or queen, for such they were pleased to call Lady Hester, who gave £500 for this trip. Had we paid them as much money, no doubt, they would have called us two kings; for, like the Nubians, flûs, (money) is their idol.”

In another book of Travels, published about 1829, I find the following passage; the author is speaking of Mahannah and his son:—“After much prevarication, during which they endeavoured to make us pay for the camels extra, they at length consented to our terms, as they said, for the love of the Malaka or queen, for such they were pleased to call Lady Hester, who gave £500 for this trip. Had we paid them as much money, no doubt, they would have called us two kings; for, like the Nubians, flûs, (money) is their idol.”

[55]The yzzár is a covering of white calico or cambric muslin, precisely of the form of a sheet when spread out, which is so put on as to envelop the whole body, and is worn by every female of any respectability throughout Syria. It is called likewise setarah and melaêah.

[56]Generally the legs of the culprit are passed through two nooses on a bar, which bar is held up at the two ends, the sufferer being on his back. This bar is called falak. Mr. B. on one occasion, being justly offended at the neglect of his groom, sent him to the governor, with a request that he might be punished: but the governor refused to do it, unless paid for it.

[57]In confirmation of this position, let us see what an English gentleman says, who, in relating what he saw in Egypt, was evidently not aware that Turkish women of any degree above paupers never bathe incoldwater, and always use the hot baths of their own houses, if they have them, or of the city in which they reside. “At the end of the garden farthest from the palace, the pasha is amusing himself in erecting, round a large artificial sheet of water, an enclosed colonnade, with several apartments connected with it. In the centre of the colonnade, is a chamber with a large balcony for the use of the great man himself, from which he will enjoy the singular, and in Turkey alone not indelicate pleasure, of seeing his ladies bathe, and frequently, when he orders it, splash each other with water, and play various other pranks for his amusement.” Diary of a Tour through South India, Egypt, and Palestine, by a Field Officer of Cavalry, p. 238. Hatchard, 1823. Now, without having seen the sheet of water in question, I will venture to say, that, so long as there continues to be water in the basin, not a woman will ever bathe in it. The balcony is a place intended to sit and smoke in, and the water to contribute to the coolness always so eagerly sought after in such climates.

[58]As soon then as it is known that danger of infection threatens, people shut themselves up in their houses, lay in a stock of provisions of every kind, admit nobody to enter, and suffer nobody to go out: for which purpose the master of the house keeps the key of the street door. A Turk, (and some one is always to be found among the poor) for a small gratuity, purchases and brings every day meat, vegetables, and such things as form no part of the dry stock. All letters are received in vinegar, or over the fumes of nitre and sulphuric acid, or of assafetida, or of burnt feathers and the like. All cats are killed. Bread is aired for a day before being used: meat and vegetables are put in water to soak, and the hairs, &c. are carefully picked off by small tongs. Where a family is large, and has a spacious house or garden, there are no great hardships: as there is only the confinement and the interruption of business to complain of. But they fall very heavily on the poor, whose labour is suspended for so long a period, sometimes six months or more, and who are thus reduced to the miserable alternative of dying of the plague or of hunger. There is one great disadvantage resulting from the strictness of these regulations. No doctor can visit such as are infected; for, if he do, all other patients will refuse him admittance to their houses. If he be a stranger, and consequently a lodger, even the door of his own house would be shut against him. Hence no researches can be made on the disease, no experiments tried: and, excepting what light the French expedition in Egypt may have thrown on it, and the experiments of a few devoted men in the hospitals at Constantinople—mankind is no wiser than it was an age ago. In a word, the plague makes about as much impression in Turkey as a malignant epidemic in England. Its ravages are generally confined to the Mahometans, whose system of fatalism allows them to make use of few or no precautions against it; although there are many who do not hold so strong to their principles but they would willingly shut themselves up if they dared. But the zealots of the Mahometan religion immediately cry shame upon them, and thus compel them to submit to their destiny. Such however have a strong struggle between their fears of death and the dread of imputed dereliction of the tenets of their holy prophet.

[59]When he leaneth on my hand.—ii Kings, v. xviii.

[60]History of Insects, orderTrichoptera.

[61]Abulfeda, who lived not far from Calât el Medýk, and most likely had often been there, describes these inundations as permanent. His words are—“The lake of Apamea (Calât el Medýk) consists of innumerable small pools and reed banks: but of these two are most remarkable, one to the south and one to the north. That to the south is more peculiarly called the Apamean lake, and is nearly half a league broad, but nowhere deeper than the height of a man. The soil is boggy, the banks are hedged with reeds and osiers. The papyrus is found here. The other lake is called the lake of the Christians, because the fishermen who live on it are chiefly of that religion. It is four times as large as the first mentioned.”

[62]The grass near our tents was rich to rankness, and of the height of a man. This vale once fed 500 elephants and 30,000 mares. (See Strabo, l. xvi.)

[63]In the preface to the second volume of Burckhardt’s Travels in Syria, the discovery of the site of Apamea is attributed to that gentleman, who was not, however, active enough to go in search of the ruins, which are not difficult to find. I, unluckily, was not aware that these ruins had not been seen or described by any modern traveller, and therefore did not make so correct an account of them as I otherwise should have done. The situation does not accord entirely with Strabo’s description. He says (l. xvi.)—“Apamea stands in a level hollow, as it were on an island, made by the Orontes and two adjoining lakes.” Strabo argues that it was once a very great city, because it was called by the Macedonians Pella, and Pella was their capital. For Apamea, see also Sozomeni Hist. vii. 15. Pococke says (because he did not chance to hit on these ruins)—“Upon the whole, it is not certain where Apamea was situated.”

[64]These hills extend from Calât el Medýk to Ryah.

[65]Colonel Boutin, a Frenchman, was assassinated soon afterwards, in these very mountains, in consequence of quitting the high road.

[66]“In summer the inundation subsides, but the lakes remain, and to the quantity of stagnant water thus formed is owing the pest of flies and gnats above mentioned.” Burckhardt’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 135.

[67]It appears that at the distance of bow-shot from Shogr there was another castle.

[68]Laodicea, as I conceive. Josep. de Bel. Jud., i. xxi., relates that Herod built an aqueduct near this spot.

[69]Or Sehyûn (Abulfeda, p. 122). This is called by him an impregnable fortress, and one of the most celebrated in Syria. In the neighbourhood is a valley where grows an abundance of fruits.

[70]“The news that a foreign hakým or doctor was passing through the country was very soon spread abroad, and at every halt our camp was thronged with the sick, not only of the village near to which we were encamped, but of all the surrounding villages.” Morier’s Second Journey through Persia, p. 52.

[71]It was built by Seleucus Nicator, and named after his mother (Strab. i. xvi). Formerly it was famous for its vineyards, which occupied the hills behind the city.

[72]Abulfeda speaks of this building (p. 113). “In it (i. e.Ladakyah) is a monastery ... called El Farûs, a beautiful structure.”

[73]“Then answered Amos and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit.”—Amos, vii. 14.

[74]Kumrukgi, the collector of the customs and captain of the port.

[75]I observe, in a recent publication, however, that an Egyptian pasha caused several Arabian chiefs at Sennāar to be impaled. These were Mahometans, and therefore my assertion is not quite correct.

[76]It was remarkable that these words were said to me by a man who was so like me in person, that I once had been spoken to for him, even by the fanatic shaykh, who, finding his mistake, went away repeating “Istagfar Allah—deliver me, Lord:”i. e.forgive me for having given the selàm to a Christian instead of a Mussulman.

[77]Vide Gibbon, vol. x., p. 103, 8vo.

[78]Ebn Hani is probably the site of the ancient Heraclia.

[79]One motive for going to Sayda was to prosecute a search for hidden treasures at Sayda and Ascalon, of which an account will be given in its proper place.

[80]We had been out shooting francolins two days before, and, after being much heated with walking, I had seated myself on the edge of the river to wait for Mr. Barker, whom I saw coming up. I there received a check of perspiration, to which I attributed my illness.

[81]This gentleman afterwards changed his name to Kinneir, and is author of a volume of travels in Asia.

[82]Hadj, a pilgrim;hadjy, feminine.

[83]Mount Cassius, near to Seleucia.—Str. l. xvi.

[84]Of all the maps of Syria which I have yet seen, that of d’Anville, or more particularly that portion of it which he calls the map of Phœnicia, is the one chiefly to be relied on. Recent maps have generally been drawn up, with supposed corrections after late travellers; d’Anville seems to have drawn up his from a comparison of both modern and ancient authorities, and no subsequent geographer has equalled him.

[85]There is another Nahr el Kebýr close to Laodicea, which must not be mistaken for this, situated a little to the north of Tripoli.

[86]For the truth of this, I appeal to those letters written by her to Mr. Coutts, the banker, at this period; to his grace the late Duke of Buckingham; to the Honourable General R. Grenville; and to others.

[87]Upon some occasions, where land was newly appropriated for tillage, it was customary for the peasants to draw lots for particular parcels, these having been first staked out by the head men of the village.

[88]Tanûr, in Arabic, means a large earthenware jar, as big as a barrel, but deeper, which, let into the ground up to the rim, is heated within by brushwood or brambles, and serves to bake bread. It is generally covered with a shed, and serves for the use of all or a portion of the village, according as there is one or more. It is in this way I conceive that the passage “or ever your pots be made hot with thorns” is to be explained, by brambles thrown into the tanûr.

[89]C’est une chose terrible, que, depuis que les femmes se mêlent de faire des enfans, elles ne savent pas encore accoucher toutes seules.—Mem. et Corresp. de Madame d’Epinay, p. 272.

[90]“And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, and he said, when ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools,” &c.

[91]Funem umbilicalem nunquam ligant, nisi retardetur secundarum disjunctio; quo in casu, funem, cultello divisum, parturientis femori nodo annectunt: nec memini, per tres annos, quibus hoc pago commoratus sum, ullam feminam hæmorrhagiâ mortuam esse.

[92]Extract from Let. xxiii. of a work entitled “Letters of a Prussian Traveller;” Sayda, Sept. 1814.“The day before our departure, the French Consul introduced us to a Christian in the Levantine costume,” (Damiani) “who, during the late war, acted as interpreter to Sir Sydney Smith, and is now major-domo to Lady Hester Stanhope, who, for several years past, has been travelling in the Levant. He informed us she was in a convent near the Drûze mountains, where she had been confined by indisposition, from which, however, she was fast recovering. When this lady visited Sayda, she wore a Turkish dress, and rode an Arabian charger, to the astonishment and admiration of the Turks, who hold her in the highest estimation; and we heard, in many places, that she was actually imagined to be an English princess.”

[92]Extract from Let. xxiii. of a work entitled “Letters of a Prussian Traveller;” Sayda, Sept. 1814.

“The day before our departure, the French Consul introduced us to a Christian in the Levantine costume,” (Damiani) “who, during the late war, acted as interpreter to Sir Sydney Smith, and is now major-domo to Lady Hester Stanhope, who, for several years past, has been travelling in the Levant. He informed us she was in a convent near the Drûze mountains, where she had been confined by indisposition, from which, however, she was fast recovering. When this lady visited Sayda, she wore a Turkish dress, and rode an Arabian charger, to the astonishment and admiration of the Turks, who hold her in the highest estimation; and we heard, in many places, that she was actually imagined to be an English princess.”

[93]Franks, of course, decline performing this ceremony.

[94]I was generally in the sepulchre, from ten in the morning until four in the afternoon, and was obliged to have three assistants, two holding candles, whilst a third sponged the paintings, as I copied them, in order to bring out the colours, which method I learned from Mr. Bankes. Every thing was begun and completed on the spot, nothing being worked up at home; a custom too common with some persons, whose recollection is made to supply the place of reality.

[95]The sepulchre shown as that of Our Saviour at Jerusalem, as well as that of Nicodemus at Bethlehem, is of this kind.

[96]It was found near the spring which supplies the village of Abra with water. A French gentleman, at that time residing near the village, heard of the circumstance as a matter of gossip among the servants of his house, but too late to save it. It had been broken to pieces by the peasant boys, who attached no more value to it than to a common piece of useless pottery. A gold ring and a pair of ear-rings of the same metal were in it, and were sold to the goldsmiths of Sayda, who melted them down to make more modern trinkets.

[97]“Near it there are many sepulchres cut in the rock; some of them like stone coffins above ground: others are cut into the rocks like graves, having stone covers over them.”—Maundrell.

[98]“The chests were carved on the outside with ox heads, and wreaths hanging between them, after the manner of adorning heathen altars.”—Maundrell, p. 11, f. ed.

[99]A flat tablet, once in my possession, was found, together with the earthenware coffin, near Abra spring. I could not gain correct information as to the position which it occupied.

[100]I have found among my papers the copy of an inscription which I believe to have been taken from one of them. It is as follows:ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟΣΔΙΟΝΥΣΙΟΥΦΙΛΙΟΣ ΛΕΟΝΙΔΟΥΑΛΥΠΟΙΧΑΙΡΕΤΕ.

[100]I have found among my papers the copy of an inscription which I believe to have been taken from one of them. It is as follows:

ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟΣΔΙΟΝΥΣΙΟΥΦΙΛΙΟΣ ΛΕΟΝΙΔΟΥΑΛΥΠΟΙΧΑΙΡΕΤΕ.

[101]Maundrell seems to have thought that they were calculated for places of security, for he says (page 117, Oxford, 1732, 8vo.)—“We were carried ... to see a place ... which very well deserves a traveller’s attention. At about the distance of a mile from the sea there runs along a high rocky mountain, in the side of which are hewn a multitude of grots, all very little differing from each other. They have entrances of about two feet three quarters. On the inside you find in most of them a room of about four yards square, on the one side of which is the door, on the other there are as many little cells, elevated about two feet above the floor.... The great doubt concerning them is whether they were made for the dead or for the living.”

[102]Maundrell bears testimony to the neat workmanship of places of this description in Syria. He says, “But, within, you arrive in a large and fair room about seven or eight yards square, cut out of the natural rock. Its sides and ceiling are so exactly square, and its angles so just, that no architect, with lead and plummet, could build a room more regular, and the whole is so firm and entire that it may be called a chamber hollowed out of one piece of marble.”

[103]Pauca adhuc dicenda restant de floribus, coronis, et sertis variis, quæ in hoc multisq: aliis sepulchris picta et sculpta reperiuntur. Nimirum pertinet ad morem veterum Romanorum, à Græcis derivatum, non solum coronandi mortuos suos, sed etiam sepulchra eorum quotannis honorandi sparsione florum, rosarum, et unguentorum; quoniam existimabant hæc defunctis esse gratissima. Mos hic adeo erat receptus, ut quidam, moribundus, hæredes suos, in tabulis testamenti, officii hujus præstandi necessitate adstringeret; ingenti pecuniæ summâ huic fini destinatâ. Quod testantur, non solum auctores Græci et Latini, sed etiam—inscriptiones et ornamenta sepulchralia, quæ, ut hodieque ex antiquis monumentis apparet, ex coronis, sertis, frondibus, et floribus, constabant. Neque solum præcipiebant ut sibi quotannis rosis et odoribus parentaretur, sed etiam, eum in finem, sibi comparabant hortos, sepulchris suis vicinos, ut ex illorum reditibus parentalia ille fierent: quod ex sequenti inscriptione colligitur. Long: Patrollus, secutus pietatem col: centum hortos cum ædificio huic sepul. juncto vivus donavit, ut ex reditu eorum largius rosæ et escæ patrono suo et quandoque sibi parentaretur.—Forma usitata est in antiq: inscrip.—Ut quotannis rosas ad monumentum ejus deferant. Rosæ, minirum, præ omnibus aliis floribus in maximo habebantur pretio. Sed, &c.—Vid. eod. vol.De jure maniumà Jacobo Gutheri, lib. 2. cap. xxviii. Again,—Porro solenne fuit antiquis Græcis et Romanis cænas ferales apparare statis et anniversariis sæpe temporibus, cùm in honorem ac memoriam defuncti, tùm ut per vini cibique lenimen ejus desiderium levaretur. Petebat autem stulta gentilitas mortuorum animas ab inferis reduces iis vesci et delectari.

[104]The provisions for the monastery were:—4 kilos of borgûl; 75 rotolos of oil; 2 cwt. of figs; butter, dibs, raisins, wood, and charcoal in proportion: also flour, rice, &c.

[105]I chanced afterwards to hear the same ballad sung on other occasions, but I remarked that those who sung it always arranged themselves in file, and assumed an attitude such as is seen on Egyptian monuments, where all the arms and legs have the same position.

[106]“And here we may remark that, in our minds, the notion is altogether ill-founded, which attributes a preventive efficacy in cases of fever to certain drugs; such as camphor, aromatic oils, and perfumes, which are probably all of them worse than nothing.”—Quarterly Review, No 54, for Oct. 1822, p. 527. The names in Arabic for the plague are webá, the plague; cubbeh, a cupola, as marking the shape of the swelling; (Koubeh and webá, or vebi, are terms now used to designate the plague.—Brown’s Travels;) also el derebeh el tâaûn, which was the term most in use; el fená.

[107]Sir James Porter, in hisLetters from the Levant, speaking of the importation of silk during the time of plague (page 446), says: “We may safely affirm that the plague scarce ever rages in those parts of the country where silk is—namely, at and about Antioch, at Tripoli, and Latakia. An accident may indeed appear once in fifteen or twenty years.” Is it possible that an ambassador, residing in the capital of the empire, and enabled by his situation to procure every kind of information he might desire, should yet have taken up with notions so diametrically opposite to the truth! although it must be confessed, that those who can afford it do build themselves huts of canes and branches of trees, in which they rear their worms; and the reason of this is, that the smells arising from cooking, and other offensive odours, may not, as was the case in my fumigation, kill the worms.

[108]Ayn means spring, and Ayn Bisra means Bisra spring. Who would think that Maundrell contrives, out of these two words, to makeAmbuslee, which he gives as the name of the village?

[109]These families are all descendants of four brothers, who fixed their residence here about a century ago, promising to till the neighbouring slopes, upon condition of being exempted from all taxes. The head of the family, named Jahjáh Abu Yusef, and who had given up his house for us, pretended that he still retained the firman, or grant, although the emirs of the Drûzes had encroached on the privileges granted by it. Hence they were now compelled to pay the miri, or tax for sown land; but their houses were still free from land-tax.

[110]I bought of one, for three shillings, a powder-horn, made with his own hand.

[111]Fakhr-ed-dyn flourished in the reign of Sultan Murad. He was fourth emir of the Drûzes. In March, 1816, I visited this castle, in company with Mr. W. Bankes.

[112]I believe there was an Athenian law of the same nature, on which the incidents of one of Terence’s comedies are founded.

[113]Service in Syria is the last resource of the wretched, but not all kinds of service; for that of a great family is often considered as very desirable for youth of both sexes. There was also a peasant lad hired, named Elias, concerning whom I learned the following anecdote. His mother, when in childbirth, fearing her situation to be dangerous, had made a vow to St. Athanasius on the Mountain, that, if she survived, not a razor should touch the head of her offspring until she had made a pilgrimage to his shrine, distant about five days’ journey from Meshmûshy, where she lived. Poverty prevented her from fulfilling her vow; and the boy arrived at the age of 7 or 8 years, a period at which it is considered as disgraceful not to have the head shaved: for it is the custom in the East at that age to leave only a small lock on the forehead, in the same way as the head of old Time is represented by painters. So, to get over the difficulty, she made use of scissors, affirming that she had sacredly kept her vow; for scissors were not a razor. “Avec le ciel il y a des accommodements.”

[114]The appearance of vineyards in Syria and in the Pays de Vaud in Switzerland is precisely alike. The manner of cultivation likewise seemed to be the same.

[115]For lading, a calabash is generally used, which is a species of pumpkin, which, when dried, has had its pulp and seeds scooped out, and becomes fit for the purposes of a ladle.

[116]Three quintals of grapes are necessary to make one quintal of dibs, which sells at one pound per quintal.—Burckhardt, p. 156.

[117]“When thou beatest thine olive trees, thou shalt not go over the boughs again: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.”

Transcriber’s Notes:1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been corrected silently.2. Where hyphenation is in doubt, it has been retained as in the original.3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have been retained as in the original.

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