CHAPTER XII.
Journey of the Princess of Wales to Jerusalem—Burial at Abra—Dismissal of Ibrahim—Padre Nicolo—M. Ruffin appointed French consul at Sayda—Great drought—Festival of St. Elias—Alarm of robbers—Visit of the Author to the Shaykh Beshýr’s wife, and to Syt Frosýny Kerasâty—Further alarms—Festival of Byrám—Cottages taken for Lady Hester at the village of Rûm—Depilation—Flight of Mâlem Dubány—Return of Lady Hester from Antioch—Result of researches after the murderers of Col. Boutin—The Ansáry refuse to give them up—Mustafa Aga Berber collects troops to punish the Ansáry—Motives of Lady Hester’s voyage to Antioch—Visit of M. Regnault, French consul at Tripoli—M. Loustaunau and his predictions—History of Michael Ayda—Return of Giorgio from England, with Mr. N., as successor to the Author—Last visit of the latter to Acre—The governor of Smyrna put to death—Hawáry soldiers—Visit to the Emir Beshýr.
Journey of the Princess of Wales to Jerusalem—Burial at Abra—Dismissal of Ibrahim—Padre Nicolo—M. Ruffin appointed French consul at Sayda—Great drought—Festival of St. Elias—Alarm of robbers—Visit of the Author to the Shaykh Beshýr’s wife, and to Syt Frosýny Kerasâty—Further alarms—Festival of Byrám—Cottages taken for Lady Hester at the village of Rûm—Depilation—Flight of Mâlem Dubány—Return of Lady Hester from Antioch—Result of researches after the murderers of Col. Boutin—The Ansáry refuse to give them up—Mustafa Aga Berber collects troops to punish the Ansáry—Motives of Lady Hester’s voyage to Antioch—Visit of M. Regnault, French consul at Tripoli—M. Loustaunau and his predictions—History of Michael Ayda—Return of Giorgio from England, with Mr. N., as successor to the Author—Last visit of the latter to Acre—The governor of Smyrna put to death—Hawáry soldiers—Visit to the Emir Beshýr.
In the mean time, it was told me by Abûna Saba, the superior of the monastery of Dayr Mkhallas, who was just returned from Acre, that Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales had reached Acre under the following circumstances. The vessel, on board ofwhich she was, had put into Jaffa, as being the nearest port to Jerusalem. Mohammed Aga, the governor, was not there, and the vice-governor, Kengi Ahmed, (his father-in-law) refused to let Her Royal Highness land, saying that he respected her firmans, but dared not act upon them until they had been presented to his master, Sulymán Pasha.[98]Upon this the vessel sailed for Acre. Here the Princess inquired for Signor Catafago, of whom she had probably heard at Jaffa; but, on learning that he was absent, Her Royal Highness sent for Signor Malagamba, the English agent.
A complaint was laid against Kengi Ahmed Aga for having refused her entrance at Jaffa; but his conduct was justified by the pasha, who said that it was Her Royal Highness who had gone wrong by trying to get in at the window instead of the door; meaning that she had presented herself at a port which was not the seat of government. The pasha judged Signor Catafago to be the fittest person to act as Her Royal Highness’s conductor to Jerusalem: he therefore sent for him to Nazareth, ordering him to come immediately.
Soon after his arrival, which was on the same day, the princess landed, and paid a visit to the pasha, who received her with distinction, but in his common saloon;after which the necessary orders were issued by him that she should be furnished with tents, horses, and mules, for her suite and luggage, and with a takhtarwàn, or covered palanquin, and his own double tent for herself; and, likewise, that she should be entertained at the pasha’s cost at the different stations on the road. Abûna Saba told me that, on the princess’s visit to the pasha, she walked through the streets to the palace, taking the arm of two of her officers who wore red coats. There was one great piece of neglect in her people: they never officially advised the pasha that she proposed to visit him, otherwise he would not have received her in the room that he did.
Signor Malagamba, the English agent, had, it appears, so little polish in his manners, that he was entirely neglected by her Royal Highness, who found in Signor Catafago all the attention to her wishes that she could desire. Accordingly, in arranging the plan of the journey to Jerusalem, he obtained from her Royal Highness her consent that she should go by the way of Nazareth, and across Samaria, to Jerusalem. On quitting Acre, her Royal Highness presented the pasha with a snuff-box (my narrator told me) worth one hundred purses—more than £1500; but here the customary exaggeration of the Levantines probably added seven eights to the real value.
On the road to Nazareth there is a large village, called Shûf Omar. I conceive this to have been the place meant, in the evidence adduced against herRoyal Highness in the House of Lords, in 1820, under the name of Aûm: for there is no place called Aûm on the road from Acre to Nazareth, and none the sound of which comes so near it as Omar. Here her Royal Highness made her first station. As, in so large a cavalcade, composed of so many persons ignorant of Arabic, there was necessarily much confusion, it happened that one of her Royal Highness’s trunks, containing effects she would have been unwilling to lose, was stolen hereabouts. No sooner was it missed, than Signor Catafago set his people to work to discover the thief. This is not very difficult in a country, where, between town and town, or between village and village, there are no single houses, no extensive forests, and few places of concealment, except caverns, to issue from or return to; and where a single individual, not present at the customary evening conversation of his neighbours, would necessarily be compelled, from the usual interrogatories of his friends, to assign a sufficient reason for his absence. Signor Catafago immediately sent for the bailiffs of the village, and told them that, if the trunk were not produced forthwith, the village should be avanized. This is a common way of finding out a delinquent: for the peasants, rather than suffer in their own pockets, will soon discover the offenders and bring them to justice. Accordingly, on the following morning, Signor Catafago was told that the trunk would be found lying in a cavern by the side of the road.It was found and restored to the princess: and although it had been broken open, the contents were left in it.
At Nazareth her Royal Highness was lodged in Signor Catafago’s house. When she departed, he requested her to excuse him from accompanying her farther, and deputed his son, Lewis Catafago, in his place. Her Royal Highness offered him a handsome present for his trouble and hospitality, which he refused, probably out of fear, under the plea that he was but a servant of the pasha’s, and could not accept anything.
Her Royal Highness pursued her journey, and arrived safe at Jerusalem. The same house was assigned to her which Lady Hester had occupied when there. Thence she went to the river Jordan, and, returning to Jerusalem, took the road to Jaffa, where the vessel awaited her. Among the persons appointed to attend her Royal Highness on this interesting tour in the Holy Land was Hadj Ali, whose name has already occurred so often in these pages. He filled the same situation with her Royal Highness which he had done with Lady Hester; and it is chiefly from him and Abûna Saba that I have collected these trifling details.
About this time, an old man in Abra (nicknamed the doctor), but whose real name was Abu Daûd, died. As soon as the breath was out of his body, the women stripped the corpse, and put on it what had been his Sunday clothes. His son, with much wailing (for custom allows not silent grief), set up the usual cry of “Oh, my father! oh, my father!” Friends of thefamily were then despatched to all the villages within distance, to assemble the villagers, who make it a point of good neighbourhood to attend on these melancholy occasions. They flocked in by small parties; and, as soon as they came within hearing of the house where the corpse lay, they began to cry aloud, continuing in one breath and one tone from beginning to end—“Thou art gone, cousin: our tears are hot: parting is bitter, but such is the will of God!” This cry was continued up to the door. To a person unacquainted with Arabic, the cry for a marriage and for a death (by the men) appears the same: the tones are one, the words only are different.
Ibrahim, the Egyptian, who had been sent to England with a couple of Arabians, as a present to his Royal Highness the late Duke of York, had, under my hands, recovered his health from a severe pulmonary attack: but, not liking the monotonous life of Abra, he threw up his service, and went to Damascus. Here poverty overtook him, and he returned to me begging. I gave him a small allowance on Lady Hester’s account, merely to keep him above want until her return: for I did not wish to use harsh measures with a man just rescued from the jaws of death, and for whom I supposed Lady Hester would have some consideration, as having been in England, and for some time groom in the Duke of York’s stables. However, to finish what I have to say of this man, when Lady Hester returned from Antioch, she foundit impossible to keep him. I took him, therefore, before the cadi of Sayda, to whom I made known the kindnesses which had been wasted on this ungrateful fellow. I dwelt particularly on his habits of drunkenness, which were hardly pardonable in any one, more especially in a Mahometan; and I then begged, in Lady Hester’s name, that he might be shipped off to Egypt, his own country, by the first opportunity. This was done. His loose habits there brought on a repetition of his cough; and he finally died of phthisis. I discovered afterwards that this man had acted as sheriff’s officer at Alexandria on the occasion of an execution of a thief, who was hanged by the English from the top of the gateway that overlooks the parade. What would the Duke have thought, if he had known that one of his grooms was a hangman!
On the 26th of July I had an attack of fever, which, however, left me in four days; but I felt feeble for some time afterwards. At the commencement of this fever I happened to have taken an emetic, and was under its influence, when a holy father was announced to me. He proved to be Father Nicholas, a friar of the order of St. Francis, who had resided for many years at Zeluma, a village on the very summit of Mount Lebanon; where, in the midst of the Drûzes and some Christian families, he enjoyed such consideration as his convivial qualities entitled him to. He announced himself as the envoy of the Emiry (feminine for emir) Meleky by name, sister to the Emir Hyder, who,having run the gauntlet through all the medical practitioners of Syria for some female complaint with which she was afflicted, now wished me to undertake her cure.
I entertained the jovial friar until the next morning, as well as my sick state of body would permit me, and then dismissed him with a letter to the princess, excusing myself on the score of ill health.
Monsieur Taitbout, the French consul at Sayda, had been superseded by Monsieur Ruffin, son of a gentleman at Constantinople, who had, on one occasion, held for a short time the situation of chargé d’affaires of the French government to the Porte. Monsieur Ruffin arrived about this period. He was accompanied by Madame Ruffin, a Parisian, who expressed much disgust at the want of gallantry to the ladies which so strongly marked the Levantine manners.
On the 28th of July Miss Williams fell ill, as it seemed, from excessive heat. The customary heat of the climate had received an adventitious augmentation from the great drought which had parched up the soil. The spring, which usually supplied the convent with water, was dried up. Peasants were seen transporting their sacks of corn from places ten or twenty miles distant, to be ground at the water-mills on the river Ewely, where the stream had yet power to turn the wheels: for, in most places, even the rivers had ceased to flow. Wheat had become exceedingly dear; and in Abra the peasants ate barley bread.
It had been an annual custom, with the bishops and patriarchs who had made Mar Elias their residence,to celebrate the festival of that saint by a solemn mass at the chapel of the convent. Lady Hester had found that she could not dispense with this practice; and, accordingly, on the 2nd of August, the peasantry of the neighbouring villages and many persons from Sayda were seen flocking into Abra and spreading their carpets on the village green, for bivouacking preparatory to the morrow. In the morning, mass was said; upon which occasion the priest collected from a farthing to twopence or threepence from each individual; and if he made ten piasters by the festival he considered himself well paid.
These festivals, as I have said before, are looked upon by the village girls and young men as fairs are in England, and are attended often with consequences as pernicious to their morals.
On the 1st of August it was reported that some Nablûsians (Samaritans), compelled by the dearth which prevailed throughout the southern district, had resorted to robbery and plunder for subsistence, and were then marauding in Ahlým-el-Kharûb, within a few leagues of us. Upon more strict inquiry, I found, however, that they were rather to be denominated a gang of horse and ass stealers, as they hitherto had confined their depredations to the brute species. I, nevertheless, thought it necessary to use more than common vigilance, knowing that Lady Hester’s bountiful conduct on several occasions had caused her to pass for a person extremely rich. And as the common people of the country conceived all riches tobe either such as are in possessions or in solid cash, they concluded that chests of gold were locked up in the convent.
I, therefore, resolved to transfer my bed to the convent; and I appointed one of the servants to watch on the roof of the chapel, where he could, in the stillness of the night, hear the footsteps or voices of persons prowling about.
PALACE OF THE SHAYKH BESHYR.
PALACE OF THE SHAYKH BESHYR.
On the 4th of August, I rode over to Muktárah, the palace of the Shaykh Beshýr, to see his wife, who was ill. I arrived early in the afternoon; but, as it was now Ramazán, and the shaykh, although a Drûze, chose to keep that fast, he was still in bed. Before sunset he quitted his room, and at sunset I dinedwith him. As his manner of living accords more with the primeval simplicity of the Arabians than what is practised in towns, it will not be amiss to describe the meal.
About four o’clock, it being now the hottest part of the year, the servants began to throw pails of water over the paved court, which occupied the centre of the lower rooms of the palace, and from which there was, on one side, which was open, a beautiful and extensive view of the adjoining mountains. In the midst of this watering the shaykh appeared, dressed in a silkkombáz, or tunic, and a lemon-colouredjubey, or cloth mantle: for he loved finery and bright colours, which, it appeared to me, these mountaineers generally do. Whilst the watering was going on, he walked about in the wet, barefoot, to enjoy the cooling and refreshing sensation. Persons who had business, suitors, complainants, &c., formed a large ring round him. Calling these to him, one by one, he discussed and despatched their affairs whilst walking. I stood by, as a looker-on.
This scene continued until sunset. He then washed his feet and hands, and we sat down to dinner. I was on the shaykh’s left hand. The dinner was very plentiful, the dishes of excellent flavour; and unlike the manner of the Turks, they were all put on at once. The shaykh selected a few good morsels with his fingers, and placed them on my plate. We ate with our fingers, or with box-wood spoons, the handles tipped with coral. We were six in party, and each, when he had done, rose, and removed to the carpetspread out for sitting, where a servant brought him water and a basin, and he washed his mouth and hands, with much soaping of the beard, gargling of the throat, and rinsing of the mouth; all which are received usages. The shaykh, in the mean time, kept his seat; and, as one guest moved off, desired another to take his place. These consisted of his secretaries: but, when they had done, the very servants, who had waited on us, were told by the shaykh to sit down, and they too dined—Giovanni, my servant, among the rest. All this was done with much decorum, and little or nothing was said during eating. When every one had finished, the tinned copper tray was lifted off; the heptangular stool, or low table, on which it had stood, was carried away; the spot was swept, and in a few minutes there were no traces of dinner to be discovered, excepting in the occasional eructations of the shaykh and of some others, who made no scruple of giving a free escape to the gas bubbles from their overcharged stomachs. We then smoked our pipes, that of the shaykh being of jessamine wood, and about ten feet long. The shaykh then resumed the transaction of business, which, during Ramazán, is chiefly done in the first part of the night. An hour before sunrise another meal is served up, and rest is taken in the day-time to relieve the ennui of fasting.
Being now relieved from the effects of my ride, I was taken to the harým to see the shaykh’s wife,my patient. The entrance to the harým, or the women’s side, was by so circuitous a way, that it took up ten minutes to arrive at her chamber, which was at the very top of the palace. We entered on a terrace paved with coloured stones, in the centre of which was a circular basin, with a fountain in the middle. On the side fronting the entrance was a dome, supported by four pillars, painted in lively colours, and not without taste. Under it the women would sit in the day-time, and overlook the courtyard below, where all the busy scene, of cavaliers and men on foot, was open to their view. One side of the terrace had a large saloon, the other an alcove, with an open divan between two rooms, in one of which was the fair Drûze, sitting up in bed, dressed, and with her horn on her head, which the Drûze women never lay aside, up or in bed.
I was much struck with her beauty, and with a pair of rosy cheeks on a very fair and clear skin, which looked very little like a person in ill health. I was somewhat surprised at finding that the person in waiting was the wife of Jahjah Atmy, our former host at Meshmûshy. Coffee and a narkily were brought to me, and, whilst smoking, her case was examined. I left her, and retired to rest, saw her the next morning, and then departed for Abra, where I arrived about eight at night.
My servant-boy, Musa, tired of work, had contrived, during my absence, to excite the pity of a woman travelling to Tyre, to whom he told a storyof his wish to return to his distressed mother. In this way he reached Tyre, and betook himself to the house of the bishop. The bishop suffered him to remain with his family, but secretly wrote to me a letter, desiring to know whether he should send him back. As, however, he had stolen nothing, and was evidently tired of his service, I only requested the bishop to endeavour to forward him by safe hands to Jerusalem, whither he had often expressed a wish to return.
During my absence, also, the alarm of robbers had increased; so I distributed among the servants what arms were in the convent. In the mean time, I began to be anxious about her ladyship, from whom no letter had yet been received, nor could I hear anything certain of the movements of her royal highness the Princess of Wales. Miss Williams had recovered from her indisposition, but sickness and alarm had already begun to make her discontented with her position.
Although the following letters relate to a date posterior to the close of this narrative, they are nevertheless not altogether irrelevant, as affording a strong illustration of Lady Hester Stanhope’s character. It is Dr. Wolff himself who has related all these circumstances to me, and who has favoured me with the copies of the letters.
“In the year 1823 I travelled with Captain the Honourable John Caradoc, now Lord Howden, from Jerusalem to Sayda, from which latter place, as beingnear to Lady Hester’s residence, I forwarded to Miss Williams a letter from her sister, Mrs. David, which had been entrusted to me by that lady, and to which I added a note from myself, saying that I should be happy to forward her answer to her sister, at Malta. One hour after, a letter arrived from Lady Hester herself, the contents of which were as follows:—
“‘To Dr. Wolff.“‘I am astonished that an apostate should dare to thrust himself into notice in my family. Had you been a learned Jew, you never would have abandoned a religion, rich in itself although defective, to embrace the shadow of one. Light travels faster than sound: therefore the Supreme Being could never have allowed his creatures to be left in utter darkness, until paid and speculating wanderers deem it proper to raise their venal voice to enlighten them.“‘Hester Lucy Stanhope.’”
“‘To Dr. Wolff.
“‘I am astonished that an apostate should dare to thrust himself into notice in my family. Had you been a learned Jew, you never would have abandoned a religion, rich in itself although defective, to embrace the shadow of one. Light travels faster than sound: therefore the Supreme Being could never have allowed his creatures to be left in utter darkness, until paid and speculating wanderers deem it proper to raise their venal voice to enlighten them.
“‘Hester Lucy Stanhope.’”
Dr. Wolff immediately returned the following answer:—
To the Lady Hester Stanhope.Saida, June, 1823.Madam,I have just received a letter which bears your Ladyship’s signature; but I doubt its being genuine, as I never wrote to your Ladyship, nor did I mention your name in my letter to Miss Williams.With regard to my views and pursuits, they give me perfect tranquillity and happiness, and they must be quite immaterial to your Ladyship.Your humble servant,Joseph Wolff.
To the Lady Hester Stanhope.
Saida, June, 1823.
Madam,
I have just received a letter which bears your Ladyship’s signature; but I doubt its being genuine, as I never wrote to your Ladyship, nor did I mention your name in my letter to Miss Williams.
With regard to my views and pursuits, they give me perfect tranquillity and happiness, and they must be quite immaterial to your Ladyship.
Your humble servant,
Joseph Wolff.
At the time this correspondence took place, Miss Williams may be supposed to have grown disgusted with an Eastern life, and to have wished to return to her sister. This feeling Lady Hester was probably fully aware of; and to have admitted Dr. Wolff, who had seen that sister, as a visitor at her house, was to open a means of communication which might have led to Miss Williams’s return. With her customary energetic tactics, Lady Hester therefore put an end to all such contingencies.
That the reverend gentleman, whose philanthropic exertions in the cause of humanity have already raised him to a height in men’s esteem, where no praises of mine can reach him, does not feel the term “apostate,” so harshly applied to him by Lady Hester Stanhope, as a reproach, is evident from the readiness with which he made the communication, and is a proof, if any were required, of his firm belief in the truths which he preaches.
Dr. Wolff informed me, in furnishing me with these particulars, which I had begged for insertion in my Travels, that the bearer of his letter was bastinadoed by Lady Hester and kicked down stairs; and that the poor fellow returned to Sayda lame, and told him that “the daughter of the King of England had beaten him.”
I received, on the 9th of August, a letter from the village of Joon, requesting my attendance on Syt Frosiny Kerasáty, the lady of Damietta, of whom mention has already been made, when speaking ofthat city. I went on the following day, and found that this lady, having lain in of a boy, in Egypt, had thought it prudent to embark for Syria, there to bring up the child. Syt Frosiny’s husband was by birth a Damascene; and there is a common belief that the offspring of Syrians, born in Egypt, if left there, never arrive at puberty. This was certainly verified in the case of Mâlem Kerasáty’s family; for she had already borne him three children, which had died in infancy. When pregnant with this last, her husband had become paralytic, and she had no hope, if this one did not survive, of bearing him another. Accompanied, therefore, by her mother, who was blind, she embarked for Sayda, and had arrived a few days before at the village of Joon, in the house of Mâlem Jusef Sewayeh, whose father Mâlem Kerasáty had once served as clerk.
I was fearful of sleeping away from the convent, and returned to dinner. Whilst dining at my cottage, the peasants came to inform me that the gang of robbers had been seen passing the village. As it was now dark, I recommended to them great vigilance, and, retiring to Mar Elias, went to bed. Not very long afterwards, the man on the roof of the chapel saw a person coming up a footpath at the back of the convent. He hailed him; and, as he received no answer, fired. It was not known until the day after that this was a poor pedlar, travelling towards the mountain, totally ignorant why he was fired at, andnot aware that any one could possibly want an answer from him.
Thus did this alarm continue night after night for a fortnight; but no banditti ever attacked us: still I could not absent myself for twenty-four hours together, since Miss Williams, unacquainted with the language, necessarily felt much inquietude when I was away. One night, I was awakened suddenly by the old Drûze woman, Um Riskh, who entered my chamber, and begged me, for God’s sake, to get up. The robbers immediately came into my mind; I seized the brace of pistols, which I kept constantly at my bedside, and followed her into the court. I opened the great door. “There he is!” she said. I looked, expecting to see a man; but, to my astonishment, found that her agitation had been caused by her having seen, from her window, her favourite pack-horse cast, by having entangled his legs and neck in his halter, so as nearly to have strangled himself. The rope was immediately cut, and thekedýshsaved; but, as we had made some bustle, I hastened in doors, and found Miss Williams and the black slave trembling and expecting every moment to see some huge, ferocious ruffian enter to cut their throats. By degrees, the report of robbers lost ground, and at last died away entirely. On the 10th of August, I went again to Joon, to see the Syt Frosiny, who had caught an ague. Another lady was added to the inmates of Joon Place, by the arrivalof Yusef Sewáyeh’s wife, married from a family well known to English travellers as occupying a house in Damascus, which is shown as one of the best in the city. But the contrast between the manners and dress of these two ladies was much in favour of the Damiettan. Frosiny was in person somewhat small, but well made, with an engaging smile ever on her countenance, a playful wit, and with features that everybody pronounced charming. Syt Sewáyeh was stout even to fatness, heavy in conversation, formal, bedecked from her head to her fingers’ ends with jewels and precious stones. But what seemed most unbecoming to her was the form of the turban, which is worn by the women of Damascus of a prodigious size.
I was now revelling in all the abundance of the fruits growing in the gardens of Sayda. The autumn was always to me the most delightful season of the year; and, but for the musquitoes, would have left little to desire as far as the enjoyment of the senses goes. Having now so much leisure time on my hands, I delineated several fish which were brought to me fresh from the nets; but, such was the heat of the weather, that they often smelt before I could finish the drawing.[99]
About this time, Sulymán Pasha sent off Hassan Aga as bearer of some very rich presents to Mohammed Ali, pasha of Egypt. This is the mode of keeping up a friendly intercourse between potentates in the East. In the same way, he was accustomed to send annually to Muly Ismael a caravan of camels, loaded with rice, preserved dates, raisins, figs, and such other articles of consumption as were with difficulty, or at an increased price, to be had in Hamah and its neighbourhood.
M. Beaudin, Lady Hester’s dragoman, arrived also on the same day, with news that her ladyship was on her return by sea. Fearful of the continued heats ofthe season, she determined to pass a few weeks higher up in the mountain, and had requested the Shaykh Beshýr to assign her a village as her residence. Rûm was fixed on, and on the 20th I rode up to see if there was a house fit for her reception. Rûm is a village of about forty families, Metoualis and Christians, occupying the peaked summit of a conical mountain, about three miles south-west of Meshmûshy. The road to it is most difficult, by a path where it is necessary to clamber up rather than walk. Having inadvertently quitted the path, I lost my way, and wandered about among the rocks for some time, being obliged to dismount and lead my horse. The place was in sight and over my head, but I still had much difficulty in getting to it.
On my arrival, I addressed myself to the shaykh for whom I had a letter and a buyurdy, and whom I found to be a most venerable old Drûze, cousin of the shaykh Beshýr, and consequently a man of importance. He received me with much civility. He had a son, named Habýb, a most beautiful boy seven years old, who attached himself to me the moment that we met. The shaykh’s name was Kelayb. As it was just breakfast time, (noon) I sat down with him to four dishes, viz., melinjáns[100]boiled and beat up with oil, eggs fried in oil, melinjáns sliced, fried in oil, with some sour cream cheese. Custom had now reconciled me to such a repast as this.
The houses of Rûm were of stone, but with mud floors, as elsewhere on the mountain. The chief produce of the village was tobacco, which was considered as the best in the district of Aklym el Tufáh, that being the name of the district. Charcoal was likewise made from the stunted oaks, arbutuses, turpentine trees, and underwood, in which the mountain hereabouts abounded, and was an article of trade between the village and Sayda.
I took three cottages for Lady Hester, desiring that the one belonging to Joseph the Ironmonger (Yusef el Hadád) should be fitted up for her. For these three the rent was fixed at thirty-eight piasters for the season, and I paid eight more to a cottager, who was to admit Yusef el Hadád as a lodger in the interim. The houses were all built on the east side of the summit, to avoid the cold.
I returned in the evening, and on the following day sent up Miss Williams and Hanyfy, the black slave, under the care of a servant, to put the cottages in order. It was my custom to go almost weekly to the public hot bath at Sayda. On entering the sudatory from the tiring-room, the bathman would always ask me “Do you usedewato-day?” I knew very well that he meant “Do you depilate to-day?” As I constantlysaid no, he suggested to me that a want of cleanliness in this respect would not be excusable in a pauper if a Mahometan, and, although I was a Christian, he was sure I should be more comfortable for adopting the custom. As I knew how much importance was attached to such matters, I did not like to persist in my refusal, and, on the 22d of September, for the first time I depilated. The preparation with which this is done is a mixture of orpiment and quick lime, smeared on for three or four minutes, or sometimes for a less time, whilst the body is in a state of perspiration. As I was unused to the application, I kept it on too long, and inflamed my skin most severely, so as to be incommoded with the heat and redness for nearly a week. This application does not prevent the return of hair where removed: it merely corrodes or burns it off for a couple of months.
September 25th. In returning from Sayda I called at Mâlem Dubány’s house on my way, and found that the master of the house had just fled from his home, in consequence of a dispute with an aga of Sayda arising from the following circumstances. Mâlem Yusef Dubány’s warehouse and counting-house were in the caravansery, called Khan el Hummus, at the gate of which a man had planted himself selling rice by retail, which was an obstruction to the entrance. Dubány turned him away, and Mustafa Aga replaced him. As some anger had been shown by both parties in the dispute, Dubány thought properto take refuge in the interior of Mount Lebanon until the decision on the rights of the caravansery could be obtained. Next day I learned that he was gone no farther than Khuska, a village one league off. On the 28th an order came from the pasha, confirming Dubány in what he had done, and he returned to his home. But this anecdote will serve to prove how precarious personal liberty is under the Turks, when an aga—a simple gentleman—not properly vested with the authority of a magistrate, could venture to menace a Christian who had offended him, and might do him some personal harm, as the sudden flight of Dubány out of his reach plainly argued.
On Sunday, the 29th, a polacca brig came to an anchor in the outer harbour, and about five o’clock Lady Hester arrived at the convent. She had almost freighted the vessel with oats, for Antioch is the only place that I heard of in Syria where they grew: nevertheless, oats were not approved of for horses by those natives who could get barley, which was preferred as more nourishing.
It will be necessary here to give a little account of Lady Hester’s voyage to Antioch, and of her residence there. But we will first bring the history of M. Boutin’s assassination to a conclusion, since it was much connected with this voyage.
It will be recollected that Lady Hester had sent into the Ansáry district, which is wholly mountainous, three persons who, after having made suchresearches as they could, returned to communicate their information to her ladyship. I never heard precisely what this information was; but she thought it sufficient to ground upon it an application to the pasha, that measures should be taken to bring the murderers to punishment. She had not, perhaps, reflected how very reluctant the pasha might be to require persons to be given up who would be refused to him: in which case, if he did not compel their obedience, his authority would be compromised.
The Ansárys inhabit that chain of mountains which runs as a continuation of Mount Lebanon, from Dayr Hamýry to Antioch, comprehended between the two parallels 34° 40´ and 36° 20´ north latitude. They are tributary to the pashas of Tripoli and Damascus, but their obedience is uncertain and their contempt of authority general, because necessarily suffered to go unpunished. In the centre of their mountains, they have certain strongholds, where the troops of the plains, which had been occasionally sent against them, had always been foiled. It was known in what village the murder had been committed; but to every order to give up the murderers some evasive answer had been returned. To Lady Hester’s urgent request, therefore, that more strenuous measures should be resorted to, the pasha replied civilly, but evasively, that the troops could not endure the cold mountains in the winter, but, when spring came, her wishes should be complied with.
When spring did come, Lady Hester failed not to remind the pasha of his promise; and I heard afterwards that an order to the same effect, originating in the French authorities at Constantinople, was sent him. But to the French none of the honour of revenging their countryman’s death belonged, for Lady Hester alone, by the information she had collected, could direct them where to march.[101]Whether, however, moved by her ladyship or by others, at last the pasha was roused to action; and, towards the middle of the year, troops were seen marching on the road to Tripoli. These troops were very generally impressed with the idea that it was Lady Hester who had caused them to march: for they said in the towns, as they went along, that they were ordered on the Syt’s business.
It was evident that the pasha meditated a formidable irruption into the Ansáry mountains; and the command was given to Mustafa Aga Berber, as governor of their district, and as, moreover, a brave officer, fit to cope with these mountaineers. The Ansárys are that people who, during the crusades, furnished those assassins who devoted themselves to certain death for the sake of destroying the enemies of their faith. The reader will recollect the old man of the mountain and all the traditions connected with that mysterious person, and he will then know those whom Berber was to attack.
Mustafa Aga Berber at last marched, and, entering the Ansáry mountains, carried fire and sword into their villages. It is supposed that, to the motives furnished him by the cause on which he went, he added personal hatred, on account of their religion;for Berber was a rigid Mahometan, and the Ansárys, being out of the pale of the Mahometan faith, are hated by the Turks so cordially that they are said to consider it meritorious to put an Ansáry to death. Berber, therefore, was going to a work of faith. I am ignorant of the details of his proceedings, but it came to my ears by general report that he burnt the villages of the assassins, sent several heads to the pasha as trophies of his victories, and several women to Tripoli as slaves. There was the tomb of a shaykh, who, for his sanctity, was held as a saint by the Ansárys: this he caused to be broken into, and the body or bones to be taken out and consumed by fire. He burnt also the house of shaykh Khalýl, who was a considerable personage among them. One of the places which he besieged was called Hamam. By some it was said that he was never able to get hold of the assassins themselves, and had substituted other heads for them, whilst others affirmed that the assassins were taken and put to death. Berber, however, returned triumphant to Tripoli: and it was soon afterwards that Lady Hester set out for Antioch.
When Berber was about to depart on this expedition, he wrote a letter to Lady Hester, saying that, as he was going to fight for her, it was but fair that she should arm her knight: accordingly, Lady Hester sent him a brace of handsome English pistols. Now that he was returned, we may suppose that Lady Hester was desirous of seeing him, and of learningthe details of his expedition. On the 18th of July she embarked. The voyage was considered by most persons as connected with the Ansáry affair; but such as knew some circumstances of Lady Hester’s life imagined that she absented herself from Sayda to avoid the Princess of Wales. She herself always said that the real object of her journey to Antioch was to see Mr. Barker, in order to settle her money affairs: but, as on many other occasions, so on this, I was quite able to satisfy my mind as to her real motive, although she judged it prudent not to avow it. The hope of a little diversion to her mind might have formed a part; the wish of seeing Mr. Barker also had its weight; but the reason assigned respecting the Princess of Wales seems to me most correct: for Lady Hester probably knew, long before, that the Princess was coming to Jerusalem, and she might fear that, once in the country, she would extend her journey to Mar Elias; where such a visit would also have brought upon her so much expense as to induce her to go out of the way. But certainly no one but herself would ever have thought of taking refuge in the midst of the very people upon whose countrymen, perhaps whose relations, she had been the means of bringing such calamities.
When Lady Hester embarked at Sayda, the strand was covered with spectators. The vessel she had hired was a largeshaktûr. Upon the ballast, which was sand, were laid some mats, and upon these herladyship’s bed without any bedstead. At the head and foot, mats were put up as screens. Towards the stern was the heavy luggage, where lay the three women, and towards the stem was the favourite black horse, with the ass she was accustomed to ride. The vessel sailed the same evening, and on the following day at sunset Lady Hester was on shore at Tripoli, in the house that had been prepared for her at the strand, which is about a mile from the city.
As the consideration in which the government held Lady Hester was very well known, all those who generally take their tone from the great man hastened down to pay their respects. Besides these, came the English Consul, the Greek bishop, and the French Consul. Having seen the governor, and heard the particulars of his expedition, after a stay of five days, Lady Hester re-embarked, and sailed for Antioch. The räis (or captain) objected to enter the port of Swadiah, which is nearest to Antioch, and dropped anchor at Bussýl, the ancient Posidium, a small port to the south of it. Mr. Barker, who had been waiting at Swadiah twenty days, living under tents, hastened immediately to Bussýl, and mules were provided for the luggage. Lady Hester landed, and, in a short time, arrived on her ass at Antioch, which is distant six or seven leagues from Bussýl. Mr. Barker had caused a house to be prepared for her, and another for himself, but staid only five days atAntioch, and then departed for Aleppo, being obliged to return on account of the Prince Regent’s birthday, which he wished to celebrate in his consular house. Here Lady Hester spent seventy days, and the language she held after her return, when speaking of the Ansárys, was, that she considered them as an industrious but oppressed people. Few Europeans had at that epoch ever met with common civility at Antioch, much less with honours and consideration. It seems, however, that Lady Hester was not less regarded there than elsewhere.
She visited whatever was curious. Much of the time that she was there was spent in a retired cottage out of the town, where she might be truly said to show a fearless disposition and much courage: for a few Ansárys, had they been so disposed, could have carried her off or murdered her any hour of the night or even of the day; and some well disposed persons secretly informed her, when there, that her life was in danger. But the terror excited by the late severe vengeance exercised on their nation probably saved her; and, more than all, the magnanimous conduct which she pursued towards them; for, at her cottage in the woods, she took an occasion, when several peasants were around her, to harangue them; telling them that she had indeed revenged the death of a Frenchman, and of a man who was her country’s enemy, because she knew that all just persons abhorred the deeds committed against the defencelessin the dark—deeds such as must be disowned by the brave and the good everywhere.
Lady Hester returned to Sayda in a polacca brig, which she found lying in Latakia harbour waiting for a freight. As the heat was still too great to remain at Abra, she set off on the 6th of October for Rûm. On the 13th she returned from Rûm to receive M. Regnault, the French consul at Tripoli, who was, by invitation, come on a visit to her. He was a short, humpbacked man, formerly one of the twelve of the Institute of Egypt. His language and manners were pleasing. He was somewhat facetious, and had amiability enough to make his ugliness forgotten in the course of a few hours’ conversation.
M. Loustaunau, a sketch of whose life has been given in another work, and whom Lady Hester had long since dubbedthe Prophet, was still living on her bounty. He was ever brooding over portentous events about to happen to her ladyship: of whom he now always spoke as a person destined by the Almighty to play a great part in the world. On all subjects he discovered remarkable good sense, excepting on the Bible, the texts of which he perverted in a most extraordinary manner, to accommodate them to the events of her life, past, present, and future.
Lady Hester and M. Regnault visited the French consul at Sayda. She wore a splendid black abah, with gold brandenburghs and tassels, and, whilst sitting on a carpet on the ground, after the Turkish fashion, she reclinedon a short crutch beautifully inlaid with mother of pearl, after the manner of the great personages of the East. Such was the crowd which assembled round her when she entered the town that one would have said it was the first time they had ever seen her. Adults and children, Turks and Christians, all were actuated by the same spirit of curiosity to behold the woman who could stir up a whole province to take revenge upon the Ansárys for the death of a Frank.
Lady Hester’s acts of beneficence to a number of individuals, coupled with this last generous and disinterested labour for M. Boutin, had caused her name to spread very widely through the country, and herself to be regarded as the protectress of the unfortunate and the almoner of the poor. On her return to the convent, she found a suppliant at her gate, whose history will claim some sympathy.
Michael Ayda was the son of an Egyptian merchant, whose father was receiver of the customs at Damietta, and afterwards katib to Gezzàr Pasha, by whom, in a fit of bloodthirstiness, he was put to death. Michael and his sister, with another brother, were left orphans to the care of their uncle, Girius Ayda, who, having been an active adherent of the French when in possession of Egypt, was obliged, on their evacuation of his country, to abandon it, and retired with them to France. He there obtained a pension from Buonaparte and the rank of general in the army.
Michael was then about nine years old. He was young and apt for literary acquirements, so that, as he grew up, he retained the Arabic language and acquired the French. At the age of seventeen, he became a teacher of Arabic, and copyist at the royal library in Paris, where he read the best authors in his native tongue, and acquired a correct knowledge of the Arabian poets. He had often heard speak of the great wealth which his father possessed; and he cherished the resolution within himself that, when arrived at man’s estate, he would go to Egypt, and try if any of it could be recovered from the hands of those who, he was told, unjustly kept possession of it. Accordingly, in May, 1816, he carried his resolution into effect, and sailing from Marseilles landed at Alexandria.
Another uncle, who was living at Alexandria, had opposed by letter, and with all the means in his power, this voyage to Egypt. Michael Ayda therefore imagined that his relations in Egypt were in a league together, to prevent the recovery of his property. After his arrival at Alexandria, he brooded over this idea so deeply that, added to the strangeness of the people among whom he found himself, and the stories which he had heard from his boyhood of the barbarity of the Turks, it turned his brain. He fancied that the object of his journey was known to everybody, and that persons set on by his uncle were conspiring against his life.
Being, therefore, on the way from Alexandria toDamietta by land, he one night thought that he observed one of the mule-drivers secretly approaching him with a knife in his hand, and fancied that it could be with no other intention than to murder him. Frantic almost to madness, he sprang upon his feet, fled, and, after wandering about for nearly twenty-four hours, arrived, worn out with fatigue and hunger, at Damietta. The cousin in some way heard that a person of his own name was arrived from France, and, finding him out, received him with the kindness of a near relation, clothed him, and expressed himself willing to give him every information respecting his father’s property. But Michael Ayda was too deeply impressed with the supposed cruel intentions of his cousin ever to feel at peace, and, in the course of a couple of days, he entered a mosque, and proclaimed himself in the middle of the assembled congregation as one resolved to become a Mahometan.
As his air was bewildered, some of the shaykhs took him into a room, conversed with him, found out who he was, and sent to the cousin to know whether it was with his knowledge that Michael Ayda was about to take so important a step. The cousin hastened to the spot, and did all in his power to dissuade him, but in vain. The young man persisted in his purpose, submitted to the necessary but painful operation which his new faith required, and, at his own desire, was shipped for Syria in order to be out of the reach of his ideal enemies. He landed at Beyrout,and his story soon reached Dayr el Kamar, where his uncle, named Nicola Turk, resided. This gentleman employed two stout and trusty men, who intercepted the caravan, by which he was going from Beyrout to Damascus, at Hamel-merge, in the Bkâ, and, by persuasions and threats, induced the muleteers to whose care he was entrusted to give him up. They carried him to Dayr el Kamar. He was there made by his uncle to abjure the Mahometan religion before the patriarch, and was restored to the privileges of a Christian.
This last act rendered his life forfeit to the Turkish law, and he now dared not stir beyond the precincts of the emir’s district without running the hazard of being seized and impaled. His object, therefore, in throwing himself at Lady Hester’s feet was to solicit her protection, and to beseech her to afford him an opportunity of embarking for Europe: but Lady Hester held it as a rule of conduct never to interfere in the religion of other persons, and, although she was willing to assist him, it was not in abetting his double apostacy. She endeavoured to show the young man, however, that his real interests lay in adhering to the Turkish religion, if indeed he was desirous of prosecuting the business which had brought him from France. If he remained a Christian, he ran the risk of being impaled, and must abandon the hope of the recovery of any of his father’s property. Ayda was irresolute, half inclining to the faith of his familyand relations, and yet desirous of avoiding the life of misery and apprehension to which he should be exposed. Lady Hester told him finally that she could receive him only as a Turk, and that, once a confirmed Mahometan, he could not return again to the church through the medium of a priest of this country. He became, for some time, a tenant of one of her cottages; but melancholy had taken such deep possession of him that he was totally unfitted for active life. Here he devoted himself to Arabic poetry, and, by the aid of some books which I lent him, he speedily acquired a knowledge of Italian and English: but he was grievously superstitious; much imbued with the prejudices of the Levantines, although he had as yet never lived among them; and a believer in magic, alchemy, and all mystic sciences.
On the 28th of October, M. Didot, son of the celebrated printer, Firmin Didot of Paris, being on his travels through Sayda, was invited to the convent. With him was M. Le Grange, who had been studying Arabic two or three years at Zúk, a large village in the Keserwàn, in order to qualify himself for the situation ofinterprète de la cour pour les langues Orientales.
It may be illustrative of the characters of the mountaineers on Lebanon to observe, that, about this time, the story of the Wapping baker, who appeared to a ship’s crew in the flames of Mount Ætna, as they were sailing past Sicily, and was afterwards found to have died on the day on which he had been seen, hadgot into circulation, and seemed to have made a deeper impression on the minds of all ranks of people than any piece of European news I ever heard discussed among them.
Lady Hester grew every year more fond of the hot bath. She would go into it two days following, staying in three or four hours at a time.
November the 15th, one of the little running footboys came panting up to me, crying,Ana abasherak, Ana abasherak—I bring you good tidings. This is a common way with persons of all ranks in the East, to endeavour to be first to tell good news; in which case a recompence is generally expected and given. The news was, that Giorgio Dalleggio, the Greek servant, sent to England, in June, 1815, was arrived in Sayda harbour, and that Mr. N., surgeon, who was come out as my successor, had arrived with him.
Giorgio had brought with him twenty-seven cases, which were all landed without examination by the custom-house officers of the place, a mark of civility invariably shown to Lady Hester during the whole of her residence in Syria; and which she returned twofold by an occasional present to the kumrukgy, or collector of the customs. Their voyage had been favourable, having left the River Thames on the 2nd of August. West of Malta they were fired into three times by the Tagus frigate, Captain Dundas, owing to some breach of the regulations existing between merchant vessels, when under convoy, and king’s ships: becausemasters of merchant vessels, for the sake of gaining a few leagues in a long voyage, will often expose their freight and passengers to the danger of capture.
When Giorgio Dalleggio gave the history of his reception in England, it appeared that he had been much caressed. This had caused him to forget the benefits he had received from his mistress and to despise her service. He said that his Royal Highness the Duke of York was his intimate friend, and that everything he saw in England was inferior to what he had seen in Constantinople. The Princess Charlotte of Wales, on his delivering a letter from Lady Hester, gave him a silver chain. He remarked, when speaking of it, that, if these were the presents English princesses made, what was he to think of such mean people: he accepted it, he declared, only not to give her pain by his refusal. And soon after, when setting out for Damascus, he asked Lady Hester whether he should take the chain with him or not, and then answered himself by saying, “Well, I shall take it, but I will not say it was from her, lest I should give the Turks a mean opinion of English royalty.” He asserted that the palaces in England were not so good as the prisons in Turkey.[102]
Two Bedouins arrived on the 17th, with a letter from the emir of the Anizys, Mahannah-el-Fadel, bringing with them a colt, as a present to Lady Hester. The object of their mission was of some importance. Shaykh Nasar, in some dissensions that had sprung up between Mahannah and the governor of Hamah, had plundered the granaries of the governor of that place, after a battle in which Farez (Mahannah’s son) was slain. The governor complained of the aggression to the pasha of Damascus; upon which the pasha vowed he would have Nasar’s life, if ever he should be caught. Nasar, therefore, supplicated Lady Hester to intercede with the pasha for him; and hinted that, in case of her succeeding, it would be well to demand some pledge of his good faith in the performance of his promises; adding that, although the pasha’s words were honeyed, there was always a sword under them. It was a fine sight to behold the Bedouins come and seek protection of a woman and a stranger.
This letter is not devoid of interest, as showing the style of Bedouin writing: for, although it is probable that some itinerant writer penned it, Mahannah dictated it.