CHAPTER VI.
Lady Hester Stanhope’s belief in the coming of a Messiah—Her two favourite mares—Lady Hester’s destiny influenced by Brothers, the fortune-teller, and by one Metta, a Syrian astrologer—Duke of Reichstadt—Madame de Fériat—Story of a Circassian slave—Rugged paths in Mount Lebanon—Anecdote of Lord and Lady Bute—Anecdote of Mr. A., afterwards Lord S.—His father’s rise in the world—Lord Liverpool and the order of merit—Intimidation exercised over the Author’s household by Lady Hester—Sundry difficulties arising therefrom—Lady Hester’s opinion of X.’s mission—Mrs. Fry—Lady Hester’s defiance of consular authority, and confidence in her own resources—Lunardi recommended as a servant—The Author takes leave of Lady Hester—Conduct of the Franks at Sayda—The Author sails for Cyprus—Is hospitably received by Mr. Hanah Farkouah, a Syrian, and by Signor Baldassare Mattei—Marine villa at Larnaka—Mr. George Robinson—Captain Scott—Captain Dundas—Mr. Burns—The Author sails for Europe.
As many travellers have circulated the report that Lady Hester Stanhope had announced the coming of a Messiah, and that she had shown her two Arabian mares, as of a particular breed, which were never to be mounted until this second advent, making inferences therefrom little favourable to that lady’s sanity, it may not be amiss to state, in her own words, what she actually did say on this subject.
“All sects,” said her ladyship, “have predicted the coming of a Saviour or Messiah; this event, it is foretold, will be preceded by the overthrow of most of the kingdoms of Christendom: the work has already begun, and we may soon expect its completion. For is not the world in a state of revolution? Have not kings been driven from their thrones? Hundreds and thousands of distressed persons will come to me for assistance and refuge. I shall have to wade up to here” (pointing to her girdle) “in blood; but it is the will of God, and I shall not be afraid. The advent of the Murdah has occupied the minds of many people, and I think unsuccessfully. M. Lamartine talked about religion to me. I told him—‘Does not the Testament say, ‘But there is one shall come after me, who is greater than I am—who is that?’ He hummed and hahed, but could make no reply.[46] Is he not to appear as an earthly king, in honour and glory? The Jews expect him, the Turks expect him, the Ansarias expect him; all expect him but the Christians. What did Lord P********** shoot himself for, but from the impossibility of getting at the truth in this matter? And the great Duke de St. Simon, how did he puzzle his brain to no purpose! He knew a great deal—much more than Enfantin and all his followers. Enfantin got hold of his manuscripts, and Rodrigo, his secretary, copied them; but they could not make it out. The St. Simonians came to see me; they thought to get hold of me, but they were mistaken. I know the woman that will suit them; a great bint el hawa, a beautiful creature.
“You tell me of secret societies, which have risen up in Europe since the long war. Did not I know all that? I have been bred in the work of revolutions since I was first with Mr. Pitt. How many plots did he crush, within two or three days of their consummation, of which not a syllable was ever known! The great freemasons, doctor, exist all over the world: they know I am the person they want. Many of them have been sent as spies on my actions; but I shall stand in no need of them—it is they who will want me. When the course of events shall have brought things to a point, I shall have assistance enough. All the people who come here after me, are sent to say something: Lord B******, who saw me at Tiberias, was a freemason, and one of them.”
It is pretty plain, from all this, that Lady Hester Stanhope had a persuasion of the coming of a new Messiah: but whether she entertained it as a matter of spiritual faith, or as the groundwork of some great scheme she was bringing to bear, others must decide. Sometimes, one was almost forced to conclude that the constant workings of her brain had impaired it. Add to this, the feverish greediness with which she received all reports of insurrections, revolts, and political changes. Even her servants knew her weakness on these points; and there was not a fellow in her establishment who did not return home every night with some cock and bull story, to feed her diseased imagination; and it was an every-day piece of flattery to say that they had heard that all the power of the Sultan and his Pashas was nothing now, but that the Syt’s protection alone was worth having. Still let it not be supposed that, on any other subject, her faculties were in the least impaired. On every concern of human life, on all other matters, whether common or abstruse, she conversed like an oracle. But she had talked so often of the coming of a Murdah[47] into the world, to chastise the wicked, subdue Christendom and the Moslem countries, and remodel the face of the globe, that even her maids were inclined to believe it, or pretended to do so. Fatôom, the least of them, if praised by her mistress, would ask whether, when the Murdah came, she thought such an humble being as herself might be saved? Whether this was cunning or simplicity, may be doubted; but, from the subsequent misconduct of this girl, in robbing her ladyship, it was most likely the former. Lady Hester, however, encouraged the belief of her future greatness, and would often hold it out as a present temptation for good behaviour to her servants.
Almost all such travellers as came to see her, and who have in their published books spoken of her, mention the two favourite mares, which she kept in expectation of the coming of the Mahedi, and which she never suffered any person to mount. They were called Läila and Lulu. Läila was exceedingly hollow-backed, being born saddled, as Lady Hester used to say, and with a double backbone: she was a chestnut, and Lulu a gray. They were both thoroughbred: they had each a groom, and were taken the greatest care of. The green plat of ground on the east side of the house-wall was set apart entirely for exercising them twice a-day; and round this the grooms, with longes, were made to run them until they were well warmed. This spot was sacred; and, whilst they were at exercise, nobody, neither servant nor villager, was allowed to cross it, or to stand still to look at them, under the penalty of being dismissed her service. Such an order, from its nature, would necessarily be violated very often, but unknown to Lady Hester; for, as she never went out of her house, and could not overlook that side of it, a tacit understanding among the people made them true to their own secrets: but, from time to time, accident, or the unguarded disclosures of some of the maids, made her aware that her orders had been slighted, and then her anger exceeded all bounds. Few were the travellers who were admitted to these mares in their stable; and never was the permission granted, until it had been ascertained that their star would not be baneful to them.[48]
Horses in Syria, for about seven months in the year, are tethered out of doors, where they are fed and littered down. It was under a shed, covered with thatch, shut in at the two sides by a treillage, with three parterres of flowers and shrubs behind them, that these two beautiful animals stood. Every morning, in the summer, the grooms washed their tails, legs, and manes, in soap and water, and watered the ground beneath their feet, to keep them cool; but, during the winter months, they were stalled in their stables, and warm felts covered their delicate limbs. Apis, in his most glorious days, and surrounded by his priesthood, could not have been better attended to.
Lady Hester Stanhope one day assured me that, when her pecuniary difficulties pressed hardest upon her, had it not been for the sake of those two creatures, she should have given up her house and everything to her creditors, sold her pension to pay them, and quitted the country: but she resolved to wait for the consummation of events on their account. “Ah, doctor,” added she, “I recollect, when I was at Rome, seeing, in a beautiful bas-relief, that very mare, with her hollow back made like a saddle. Two Englishmen were standing by, and were criticising the very same thing that caught my attention. ‘How very beautiful,’ said one, ‘is that basso-relievo! but the ancients, somehow, never could set about a good thing without spoiling it. There is that hollow-backed horse—did you ever see such a thing?’ I heard it all, but I made my own observations; and now, you see, I have got a mare of the very same breed.”
There is reason to think, from what her ladyship let fall at different times, that Brothers, the fortune-teller, in England, and one Metta, a village doctor, on Mount Lebanon, had considerable influence on her actions, and, perhaps, her destiny. When Brothers was taken up, and thrown into prison (in Mr. Pitt’s time), he told those who arrested him to do the will of Heaven, but first to let him see Lady Hester Stanhope. This was repeated to her ladyship, and curiosity induced her to comply with the man’s request. Brothers told her that “she would one day go to Jerusalem, and lead back the chosen people; that, on her arrival in the Holy Land, mighty changes would take place in the world, and that she would pass seven years in the desert.” Trivial circumstances will foster a foolish belief in a mind disposed to encourage it. Mr. Frederick North, afterwards Lord Guildford, in the course of his travels, came to Brusa, whither Lady Hester had gone for the benefit of the hot baths. He, Mr. Fazakerly, and Mr. Gally Knight, would often banter her on her future greatness among the Jews. “Well, madam, you must go to Jerusalem. Hester, queen of the Jews! Hester, queen of the Jews!” was echoed from one to the other; and probably, at last, the coincidence of a name, a prophecy, and the country towards which she found herself going, were thought, even by herself, to be something extraordinary. Metta took up the book of fate from that time, and showed her the part she was to play in the East. This man, Metta, for some years subsequent to 1815, was in her service as a kind of steward. He was advanced in years; and, like the rest of the Syrians, believed in astrology, spirits, and prophecy. No doubt, he perceived in Lady Hester Stanhope a tincture of the same belief: and, on some occasion, in conversation, he said he knew of a book on prophecy, which he thought had passages in it that related to her. This book, he persuaded her, could only be had by a fortunate conjunction connected with himself; and he said, if she would only lend him a good horse, to take him to the place where it was, he would procure her a sight of it, but she was never to ask where he fetched it from. All this exactly suited Lady Hester’s love of mystery. A horse was granted him; he went off, and returned with the prophetic volume, which he said he could keep only a certain number of hours. It was written in Arabic, and he was to read and explain the text. The part which he expounded was—“That a European female would come and live on Mount Lebanon at a certain epoch, would build a house there, and would obtain power and influence greater than a Sultan’s; that a boy, without a father, would join her, whose destiny would be fulfilled under her wing; that the coming of the Mahedi would follow, but be preceded by war, pestilence, famine, and other calamities; that the Mahedi would ride a horse born saddled, and that a woman would come from a far country[49] to partake in the mission.” There were many other incidents besides which were told, but which I did not recollect.
Certain it is, that Lady Hester Stanhope had, for a long time, a persuasion that the Duke of Reichstadt would some day visit her, and she imagined he was the boy pointed out in the prophecy. After his death, she fixed on another, who is alluded to in one of her letters to me.
Metta died, leaving three sons; and, on his death-bed, in the presence of his wife and children, said to them, “You will tell the Syt, my lady, that I bequeath you, my children, to her. I have no friend in the world but her: you are poor, and she will provide for you.” The reader will, no doubt, call to mind the dying legacy of the poor Grecian philosopher, who bequeathed his penniless daughter to his friend, and desired he would marry her. This appeal is understood in the East. Metta had made his calculations with subtilty, for Lady Hester Stanhope never deserted the orphans; and, although one proved a sot, she bore with his idleness and dissipation, and brought them all three forward in the world.
When Lady Hester Stanhope recounted this story to me, I had not the least doubt left in my mind of her conviction that all these things would be fulfilled. “You,” she said, “are of such a cold disposition, that nothing one can say makes any impression on you. I had thought, from your letters, that you liked this country, and that, seeing the dreadful events which will shortly take place in Europe, you wished to secure a safe retreat with me, and felt the impulse of the doctrines I had so often talked to you about. I let people here believe (as they had got such an idea into their heads) that you had been sent by my family to arrange my affairs. In doing this, I had no view to my own interest. When the time comes, thousands like you will be ready to serve me; and, indeed, I should have no leisure then to talk to you, occupied, as I shall be, in fulfilling my master’s orders. All I thought was, that, if I could be of any use to you in procuring you a safe asylum, I should have done my duty by you.”
Quitting this subject, Lady Hester Stanhope related some anecdotes of the royal dukes, of Lady Augusta Murray, Mrs. Jordan, Mrs. Nugent, &c. This led her to speak of the influence women exercise over the actions of men, and of the power they secretly exert in affairs where the ostensible actors are grave statesmen. She told me that the Turkish women, veiled and shut up in harýms, were not less the springs of action in Mahometan countries, than European women are, flouncing about in saloons. Nor were they a bit less self-willed, even down to purchased slaves, who are generally supposed to be mere mechanical beings, all submission to their master’s will. She related a story, in proof of her assertion, the substance of which was this:—
There was a Circassian, who had been in the Sultan’s seraglio, but, for some cause, was sold, and fell into the hands of the Dey of Algiers. When he went to see her, in his own harým, and approached her to use such familiarities as he thought himself entitled to, she slapped his face, nor would she ever moderate her open aversion to him. At last, he was obliged to resell her. The would-be purchaser was a gentleman (the narrator of these facts to Lady Hester Stanhope), who, on going towards her, as she sat on a sofa, was so electrified at the sight of her beauty as to lose the power of utterance for some moments. His emotion pleased her; she liked him. He bought her; and they lived long and happily together. Afterwards, chance took her back again to Constantinople, and she entered the seraglio a second time, being sold by the man she had liked, who married another woman, and, for prudential reasons, was obliged to part with her. She rose to great wealth and power, but she never forgot him; and her interest was always at his service for himself and those he recommended.
On returning to my own cottage in the village, (which was generally after midnight), I was accompanied by a servant, who carried a lantern. On these occasions, I rode an ass, as being the most sure-footed creature for mountainous paths in the dark. In England we have no idea of a road to a person’s house such as this was; in itself, however, in no wise different from that which led to the Emir Beshýr’s palace, or to any other principal or princely dwelling on Mount Lebanon. These paths are no wider than is requisite for a mule or a horse; and, where the sides of the mountains are unusually steep, they always run in zigzags, and sometimes in steps. A slip, in such places, might be attended with very serious consequences, especially as in no case is there any protection afforded by means of a parapet-wall or other defence. It is not without very natural apprehension, therefore, that a stranger to the country trusts himself for the first time, even in the daylight, upon these difficult mountain paths; and there were two instances of Frenchmen, who were actually on their way from Sayda to Lady Hester’s residence, when they turned back in alarm from the apparent impracticability of the road. But habit soon begets indifference to obstacles of this kind, and the animals of the country are so sagacious and sure-footed, that anybody, who trusts to their skill rather than his own, may traverse all such dangerous ways in perfect safety.
I was about to say that, in going home at night, three or four mastiffs, which lay in the courtyard, commonly came out of the gate with me. Their delight was to scour the distance between the house and the village in search of jackals, wolves, and a species of panther, found during the winter in the low parts, but more commonly in the forests of the higher chain of Mount Lebanon. In these nocturnal courses I often heard the jackals, but had hitherto only encountered one wolf; on one occasion, however, at about two after midnight, on my way home, the dogs set up a sharp bark, and, from a shelving terrace of the rock above my head, a wolf made a desperate leap across the path down the declivity, with the dogs at his heels, and, like dark shadows, swift as lightning they disappeared. I heard their rush for about ten or fifteen seconds, and then, in about as many minutes more, the dogs returned panting; but I was not able, in the obscurity of the night, to see by their jaws whether they had overtaken the wolf or not. Wild boars are found in these mountains, as also foxes, antelopes, and forest animals.
The following day, I walked out with my family into a deep valley, between two lofty mountains, wooded with low ilexes, locust-trees, oaks, arbutuses, &c. There was a goatherd leading a herd of goats; and, just as we reached them, we saw a large mastiff go down the side of the ravine in chase of some animal. The goatherd told me it was a panther, which he had roused in throwing a stone at one of his goats. The dog, after a pursuit of some hundred yards, came back. The man added, that these panthers were not dangerous in the daytime, but might be after dark, if very hard pressed for food. He and his companion, however, seemed very indifferent about it, as if accustomed to see them often. These goatherds remain, during the whole of the winter season, on some particular range of the lower mountains, and fold their herds by night in caverns in the rocks, of which there are many natural ones. Dogs, and a hedge of prickly brambles, form their protection. In the summer, they go back to their villages higher up. Those we met came from a village called Muzrat es Shoof, about three or four leagues off, and near the snow.
March 9.—We went to Dayr Mkhallas, to revisit Miss Williams’s tomb. I was entreated the same day, by a peasant woman, to go to her husband, who was lying ill of a malignant fever. He was then in the agonies of death, and died the same evening; but I had occasion to remark that he had six fingers on each hand. I was told this day, also, of the mode of curing sore throat as practised in the village. A handkerchief was drawn tightly round the neck, until the patient was half strangled, and this effected such a revolution in the circulation, that the inflammation subsided in a few hours. I had the information from the mouth of a respectable man who had recently been operated upon.
March 10 and 11 were spent with Lady Hester, who was at one time in a state of high irritation against her blacks, and, at another, busy as a housekeeper in directing the package of three cases of dried fruits, honey, syrups, snobars, or fir-apple pips, preserved apricots, and other delicacies, intended for Dr. Dusap, in Egypt.
March 11.—In the midst of her package she related the following anecdote to me; it happened at Malta, and I recollected the day very well. Her ladyship had said to me, “On such a day I am going to dine at Lord Bute’s; he has not invited you, and it will be a very good opportunity for you to see the medical and other acquaintances you may have made here: so invite whom you like to dinner, and I will give orders to François about it. You will lose nothing by not going to Lord B.’s; for he is a proud man, and expects that doctors and tutors should never speak but when spoken to. Mr. K. hardly opens his mouth in his presence, except when my lord asks him a question, or refers to him about a passage in Virgil, or some book or another: but then how easily is a clergyman, who has lived with great people, to be known, and what superior manners he has! Always possessing himself, and always unassuming, he is sure to be well received everywhere.”
“I was dining,” said Lady Hester, “at Lord B.’s on that occasion, and at dinner Lord B. asked me what I thought of D*******, the banker’s son. ‘Oh!’ cried I, ‘I think of him as I do of all bankers’ sons I see skipping about the continent, that they had much better be behind the counter; for, if they are intended to follow their father’s trade, this skipping about only unfits them for it, and they never after can be brought to sit in some dark room, in a narrow street in the city; and, if they are intended to be fine gentlemen, it is ten to one but they ruin themselves: or, if they do not, that their house gets a bad name:—am I not right, my lord?’ ‘Why, you know, Lady, Hester,’ answered Lord B., ‘I generally agree with you, but on this point I am not quite sure. Then you don’t like bankers, Lady Hester?’ ‘Not particularly, my lord,’ said I; but, as I looked up, I saw Lord Ebrington screwing up his mouth, and Lady B. looking very odd, whilst Lord B. looked very cunning; the butler, all the while, standing first on one leg and then the other, in a state of the strangest uneasiness. All of a sudden old C***** came into my head, and I saw what a blunder I had made.
“In going out of the room, Lady B. said, ‘Lady Hester, you are always wild as you have been, but I know you never mean any harm in what you say.’ And here the matter ended, as I thought. Lady B., however, did not forget it, as you shall hear. I kept up a correspondence with her for fifteen or twenty years, and her letters were full of protestations of service. In 1827 I found myself at one time, as I have already told you, very short of money, and I wrote to Lady B. to ask her to lend me three hundred pounds: the answer was, that she had not so much at her disposal, without inconveniencing herself. After this I never wrote to her again; but I had a great mind to send her a letter to say, I did not think the proud Lord B. would have left his widow so poor as to make three hundred pounds an object to her, when I recollected to have seen as much given away to an old butler or a poor housekeeper.”
March 12.—Lady Hester related another story. “Mr. A******** wanted to be made—would you believe it, doctor?—wanted to be made Lord Raleigh, and I was determined he should not, if I could help it. One morning, Mr. Pitt came into the drawing-room to speak to me, so I said to him, ‘What a pretty caricature they have made about A.;’ and I described, as if I had seen it, a caricature in which figured Queen Elizabeth and Mr. A. and the king; and, with as much humour as I could, made such a ridiculous picture that Mr. Pitt was quite amused. Just as I had finished my description, somebody came in, and interrupted the conversation; and, Mr. Pitt going out to dinner, I saw no more of him. He, thinking what I told him was a fact, repeated the story to Mr. A. and others. Immediately half-a-dozen people were despatched to all the caricature shops to buy up the whole impression at any price; but, as the whole was my invention, of course they found none: for I had intended to say, ‘Fancy how ridiculous a business it will appear, if such a caricature is published, which is very likely.’ So, when I saw Mr. Pitt next day, I told him; but the fright they had been thrown into was so great that another title was chosen. Subsequently, Mr. Pitt never would speak to Lord S.
“The rise of Mr. A.’s father in the world was this. Lord Chatham’s first coachman being taken ill, the postillion was sent to the town for the family doctor; but, not finding him, and not knowing what to do, he returned, bringing with him Mr. A., then a practitioner of the place, and excused himself to my grandfather by saying, he hoped his lordship would not be offended; for everybody told him Mr. A. was a good doctor. Lord Chatham spoke to him, and desired him to go and see the coachman, which he did, and then returned again to report what was the matter with him. Lord Chatham was so pleased with Mr. A., that he took him as apothecary for the servants, then for himself; and, finding he spoke good sense on medicine, and then on politics, he at last made him his physician.
“Mr. Pitt having some intention of creating an Order of Merit, desired the cabinet ministers each to give their opinions in turn upon the coloured ribbon that should be used for the decoration. Among the rest, Lord Liverpool said he had prepared his, and that he would call in the evening to show it to him and me. He accordingly came. ‘You see,’ he observed with much self-complacency, ‘I have endeavoured to combine such colours as will flatter the national vanity. Here is red for the English flag, blue for liberty, and white to denote the purity of motive.’ There were several persons present, and some of the toadies were full of admiration. One cried, ‘Twas excellent;’ another, that ‘The king would be greatly pleased with it;’ a third, ‘You had better take it down to Windsor;’ and so on. ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘the king will be delighted with it. I myself think the colours charming; for I know exactly how they will look, as I have seen them very often.’ ‘Seen them!—where?’ asked Lord L. ‘Why, in the French soldiers’ cockades,’ answered I.
“Poor Lord Liverpool, who was a good sort of man, but who had been putting himself forward in a thing he was not fit for, and had stupidly overlooked the tri-coloured flag, was thunderstruck. ‘What shall I do, Lady Hester?’ cried he; ‘I have already got five hundred yards of ribbon made: what can I do with it?’ ‘Why,’ rejoined I, ‘it will serve, my lord, to tie up your breeches: for, you know, you have always such a load of papers in your breeches’ pockets, that I quite fear to see them some day fall down.’ And so it was, doctor; he used to ram his hands into his pockets, first on one side and then on the other, in search of some paper or another, just as if he was groping for an eel at the bottom of a pond.”
March 13.—The example set by Lady Hester Stanhope’s maid, the day she came and openly abused us, had a bad effect on Aysha, our black woman; and, at length, after putting up with much impertinence, we sent her back to her ladyship, with a note to say we could not manage her. Lady Hester seized the opportunity thus offered, of letting us feel how much our comfort would be rendered dependent on her pleasure: for we were informed, when looking out in the village for a maid to take the black’s place, that one of Lady Hester’s people had circulated a report that it would be dangerous for any one to serve us, because whoever did so ran a chance of being turned out of the village; adding, that great folks like her, when a thing displeased them, sometimes made an elephant of a flea. So we sent to a village about four miles off, and got a peasant girl; but she had not been with us twenty-four hours, when, frightened at what she heard, she went to the secretary to ask whether there was any danger likely to accrue to her by remaining in our service. A week passed on, and every day fresh reports were circulated, that some mischief was intended against us.
The reader will recollect that Lady Hester Stanhope, in one of her letters (see page 55), speaks of the repeated annoyances which the Emir Beshýr practised against her, by interdicting the village people from supplying her wants, and of the steps she was obliged to take, even of writing to our ambassador at Constantinople, in order to counteract them. It appears that his example was not lost upon her, and that she did not disdain to resort to the same measures against us. For a whole week she did not send the horse for me, nor hold any communication with me, so that I was precluded from making such representations to her as otherwise I could have done. In the mean time, we packed up our things, and resolved to depart as soon as we could.
March 21.—Our situation was now becoming more and more uncomfortable. We took long walks every day, talking over our troubles, and contriving how we should free ourselves from the thraldom under which we were suffering; for we were as effectually in prison as if we had been under bars and bolts. This may seem incomprehensible to Europeans; but, in the East, where the will of a powerful chieftain hangs like a spell over every individual within his reach, it is in vain to argue about people’s rights. Besides, out of consideration for Lady Hester Stanhope’s name, I did not wish to come to an open difference with her; and I could not say precisely that she sought to injure us, as, upon every occasion when I spent the day with her, she alleged the most plausible reasons for her conduct, invariably treating me individually with marked kindness. She was hostile to women; and, calling all their motives of action mere caprices, she engaged in a Quixotical warfare to set them down. “I would have done the same,” said she, “if it had been Sir —— —— and Lady ——, instead of you and Mrs. ——, had she been here, and chosen to lead him the same dance as she did when he took a house for her at Tunbridge Wells, and then she would not live in it, or when she rode across the lawn on a donkey during a dinner-party, just after he had excused her absence to the company on the score of indisposition. For what can be more absurd in a woman than to have followed you, as Mrs. —— has done, all this distance, when you came upon my affairs, and then to prevent you from acting in them in a way that would be useful to me and yourself?”
On the faith of Lady Hester’s long friendship for me, I had sailed from Europe with only money enough to pay our passage, and a few pounds over; I, therefore, was tied down to the spot until I had received a remittance from England, which after-reflection had made me order to be sent. On March 23rd, a letter from Cyprus announced the receipt, from Marseilles, of 2000 francs to my address. This sum was barely sufficient to defray our passage back; in addition to which, the personal opposition of Lady Hester Stanhope was yet to be overcome. No one in the village would dare to let his camels or mules to us, and I knew that, at Sayda, every consular agent would decline mixing himself up in any business against Lady Hester, apprehensive of the harassing consequences to which it would inevitably expose him: for it was well known that, in speaking of people who attempted to thwart her, her constant expression was, “If they want a devil, let them try me, and they shall have enough of it!”
March 24.—I was informed by Mr. Jasper Chasseaud, her ladyship’s secretary, that she had given him orders to say to such as applied for information, that she did not prevent any one from working for us; but that such as were employed by us in any capacity whatever were never to serve her again. This was tantamount to an excommunication.
April 1.—It was now ten or eleven days since I had seen Lady Hester, when I received a message from her to say she wished me to call on her; but, for the first time, she neglected to send a horse. However, I was resolved not to notice this omission, and so walked over to the Dar. She received me civilly. A long discussion began, during which her manner was haughty and her tone loud. It is not necessary to repeat all that passed; and the reader will already have become tired of these petty disputes, which can possess no general interest, except in so far as they help to illustrate the peculiar character of a lady, who, released from the control of law and opinion, which restrained the development of her natural temper in England, was here enabled to give free vent to her disposition with perfect impunity. After a time she grew calm. I then said I had made every preparation for my departure, and wished to set off before the season of the plague; for, as that malignant disease had been sporadic in the preceding year, it is well known in the Levant that, during the following one, it would probably prove general.
April 2.—I made out a list of medicines for Lady Hester Stanhope’s use, answered letters she had received from Europe, and remained with her until midnight. She related to me, at length, the whole of what she considered the mysterious affair of X.’s coming to this country. Her idea was, that the Duke of B******, together with the Duke of S***** and other arch-masons, having, at a meeting, talked over the neglect which Mr. Pitt’s friends and others showed her, and the loss which her political talents were of, in a place where she could not use them for the benefit of England, had resolved to send an emissary to see what her wants were, and to pay her debts. X. was chosen. “As to the man himself,” said Lady Hester, “I thought, by the manner in which he held his whip, that he must once have been a courier. When he was here, he took measurement of my rooms for paper, carpets, &c.; noted down my wants, and said they would all be attended to. I accordingly gave him a letter for the Duke of S*****, enclosing one for you, which was to be given to you only in the event of a proper provision being made for me. If X. took all these great people’s names in vain, it is odd that they never noticed it; for it might be, after all, nothing more than an intrigue of X.’s, who, having heard how successful Mr. F*****’s application had been, thought that, by means of letters from me, and by such interest, he could slip into a good place too.”
She then spoke of Lord St. Asaph, of Mr. Compton of Yorkshire, of Captain Blair, and others; also of her old servant, Mrs. Fry, who had served her so long and so faithfully, regretting she was not able to make her any allowance, owing to the unsettled state of her own affairs.
She discoursed on her health, and recapitulated the different illnesses she had got over. She told me that she used to say to Miss Williams—“‘Mind, if I die, you are not to let Mr. A. have anything to do with my affairs.’ ‘Oh! but, my lady, how could I help it?’ Miss Williams would reply; ‘the consular authority....’ ‘D—— the consular authority!’ I used to say to her; ‘hire some strong peasant to drive him away with a good stick, if he makes his appearance. Sell everything that I leave in the house, if you can’t raise money enough any other way, to pay somebody to do it, and let my body be thrown into the sea.’ But, doctor,” she continued, “I’ll take care he shan’t have anything to do with burying my body; for, sooner than that, I’ll order myself to be burned, without priest or prayer. I can’t bear that man. What right has he over me? as I said to him, ‘Show me your firman, if that authorises you to interfere with the nobility—you are here for merchants and such people!’[50] No! as long as I have breath in my body, no consul shall ever presume to enter my doors without my leave. I broke a good stick over the shoulders of a fellow he sent me, and told the rascal to tell his master I would have done the same to him had he come in person.”
Alluding to my departure, she observed—“Here I shall be left to myself and my own resources: but I am like a cork; and, though I may be kept down by my troubles for a little while, I soon come to the surface again. As for keeping slaves, I only do as all the great people here do; and as for being harsh to them, about which you talk so much, what am I to do? If they don’t mind me when I tell them to do a thing, I suppose I must do something more than talking, or else I should be murdered. And if I get rid of slaves, why then I must take the people of the country, who are all thieves—not thieves in great things, but light-fingered, so that nothing in a single room in the house is safe from them: such as will slip a wax candle, or the mouthpiece of a pipe, or any little thing, into their pocket, and sell it the next morning.”
April 3.—Our departure being no longer opposed, Lady Hester Stanhope requested me to take a vessel from Sayda to Cyprus, and not from Beyrout. “It is as well,” she observed, “to avoid the Franks there, who will bother you with a thousand questions: and, now the matter is settled between us, the less said of it the better.” As I assented to all this, she promised to send next day to engage a vessel; and M. Gerardin, the French consular agent residing at Sayda, was employed for the purpose. I begged her to accept the furniture, china, and glass, we had brought with us; but she refused, alleging that the sight of what had belonged to me would only give her pain. During our conversation there happened a violent storm of thunder and lightning, and the wet came through the roof into the room, so that it was necessary to place pans to catch the water. On returning home, my own bed-room was flooded, as if half-a-dozen pails of water had been thrown over it. The violent gusts of wind would render it dangerous to have tiled roofs[51] to the houses, although it is seldom that a winter passes without the water penetrating through the flat ones, which are general in most parts of Syria. The hurricane carried away one side of the matting that had been raised to screen our courtyard from the sun.
April 5.—Our passage was engaged in a shaktoor, Captain Hassan Logmagi, from Sayda to Cyprus, for three hundred piasters. I went to Lady Hester’s at eleven in the morning, and stayed until half-past twelve at night. She begged that all that had passed might be forgotten.
I had bethought myself of an excellent young man, named Lunardi, whose care of his master, Mr. John Webb, of Leghorn, I had witnessed in my professional attendance on that gentleman, during my residence at Pisa, and I recommended him to Lady Hester. She seemed to think, by the description I gave of him, that he would suit her, and I wrote immediately to the mercantile house of Webb, James, and Co., at Leghorn, offering him the place.[52]
April 6.—This was the last day I passed with Lady Hester Stanhope: she was in bed, not being very well, and I drank tea with her. It was the only time she had taken tea during the many evenings I had sat with her, and I thought she had abandoned it altogether: however, she had not wholly forgotten this part of English life. Although in bed, she did the honours, as ladies do in England, sitting up and pouring out the tea, handing the cup to me, presenting me the cakes, &c.; all which things surprised the black slave, in a country where they are not used to see great people do anything with their own hands: and it was the same when I dined with her. There were three sorts of excellent rich cakes, made of almond paste in different ways. Travellers in the East may perhaps recollect mâmool, gharyeby, and baklâawy. She asked me how I liked them, and, on my answering that they were delicious, she said I should find a chest of each sort prepared for the use of my family on the passage; and, true enough, they had been sent to Mrs. —— after I had come away from home.
After this, she produced the list of her debts, which I read over to her, she making observations as I proceeded, on the manner in which she had been led to contract them. Being on the eve of my departure, I had not time to write down what she said until I was in the vessel; but, as far as I recollected, the first was dated in 1827. The whole, however, originated in charitable and benevolent motives. Among the distressed persons whom she had assisted figured Abdallah Pasha himself, when, upon being amerced by the Porte, he had applied to her for a large sum of money, which she had lent him. The next were the wife and family of the Sheykh Beshýr, who, when the Sheykh was imprisoned, were driven from their princely palace, and compelled to wander and hide themselves in distant parts of Syria. To them she sent money and clothes. Then there was the widow of Girius Baz, principal secretary of the Emir Beshýr, who was reduced, by the decapitation of her husband, and the confiscation of his property, from affluence to poverty. Other individuals of less note had shared her bounty. All her debts bore interest at from 15 to 25 per cent. When once she got into the nets of the money-lenders, she had never been able to extricate herself again, and the evil had gone on increasing up to the present time, when she owed, according to a rough calculation, nearly £14,000.
As soon as she had done talking of her debts, she asked me to go and replace the list in Miss Williams’s writing-desk, from which it had been taken, and which was in an adjoining room. I did so; but, on returning to her chamber-door, to re-enter and take my leave of her, I found it bolted, and one of the maids waiting on the outside, who told me Lady Hester would see me no more, to spare both of us the pain of saying farewell. I was somewhat affected for the moment, but reflection told me she had acted rightly. Two of her black slaves, who had got intimation of what was passing, came and kissed my hand: the rest of the people were all asleep, except the porter, who let me out: and, mounting my donkey, I left the house, as I then thought, for ever.
It was midnight when I got home. I found that, during my absence, Lady Hester Stanhope had ordered to be sent, besides the cakes and baklâawy (which, of all pastry in the world, is, in many people’s estimation, as in mine, the most delicious), a very fine amber-headed pipe, and a large quantity of the best Gebely tobacco from her own store, and had, moreover, given numberless directions for our comfort on board; which acts of kindness, I trust, my family, as well as myself, appreciated as they deserved.
April 7.—In the morning, mounted on asses, having sent our baggage by camels, we set off for Sayda, where we arrived about noon, and were lodged in a spare room in the French khan. The French agent, with whom I had been on terms of acquaintance for some years, during my previous residence in Syria, well aware of our dispute with Lady Hester Stanhope, prudently resolved to pay his court to her by not being very courteous to us. All the Frank families imitated his example, and, instead of receiving ten or fifteen visits, which we should otherwise have expected, not one single person called upon us. So much for friendships in the Levant.
April 8.—At sunset, the time which Turkish mariners always choose for setting sail, we embarked on board of the shaktoor, abundantly furnished with provisions, which had also been supplied by Lady Hester Stanhope’s orders. We did not reach Cyprus until the morning of the 12th, owing to the extreme fineness of the weather; for, having stood along shore as far as Beyrout during the night, to profit by the land breeze, our vessel’s head being once put on her course, we had no occasion to alter a cord during the whole passage. Our räis, or skipper, behaved with great attention; but I little dreamed, at the time, that this räis was, at some future day, to cross my path again, as will be seen in a subsequent part of the diary.
On landing, I found that the inn, where we had lodged about four months before, was broken up; so that we were obliged to remain on the strand with our trunks and baggage, not knowing where to go. I wrote a pencil note to the English vice-consul, in whose house I had once lived two months; but he sent me word that he was unable to lodge us, or even to procure us a lodging. I addressed myself to his dragoman, who had brought this answer, and offered to pay handsomely for any place where we could be housed, knowing, from my former visit to the island, that he himself had a spacious dwelling; but he declared he knew not where to put us, nor could he find any one to take us in. These accumulated disappointments made me at last begin to apprehend that Lady Hester’s unkind interdict had reached even Cyprus, whose doors were thus inhospitably closed against us. We were almost in despair, when, at length, Mr. Hanah Farkouah, the Syrian, who had been passenger in the same ship with us from Marseilles, hearing accidentally of our situation, came down and conducted us to his own house, where he entertained us with great kindness for nine days. But, as we were somewhat confined for room, M. Balthazar Mattei, a rich merchant, who had a large mansion, which he had recently built close to the sea, made us an offer of it. It was then, and probably is still, the best residence in Cyprus; but, as it had never been inhabited, we felt, at first, some delicacy in availing ourselves of his friendly proposition, especially as it is considered a discourtesy in the East to leave the house of one host for that of another: but all our objections were finally overruled.
M. Mattei’s marine villa consisted of thirteen rooms, a kitchen, and offices, and had a corridor sixty feet long, where we could escape from the oppressive heat of the day, besides a spacious terrace, where we could inhale the sea-breeze in the evening. It stood about ten yards from the sea, which was checked in its nearer approach by a stone breakwater. The saloon was of black and white marble. Its windows projected, as a kiosk, almost over the waves; and from it we enjoyed an expanded view of the bay and the shipping; whilst, from a lofty belvidere, we had a charming panorama of the town and country. It would not be easy to find a more agreeable mansion for a hot climate in any country.
We remained here four months and a half, living on the most amicable terms with the inhabitants, and revelling in the abundance for which this happy island is famed. Not a drop of rain fell during the whole time. We were favoured, at different periods, with the visits of two English travellers, who touched at Cyprus: Mr. George Robinson, whose “Three Years Residence in the East” is, no doubt, familiar to the reader, and Captain Scott, who also has given a work to the public. Her Majesty’s ship, Belvidere, Captain Dundas, cast anchor in the roads, and I accompanied the English vice-consul in paying his respects to the British flag. Mr. Burns, the surgeon, as I believe of the frigate, left an agreeable impression on my memory; but these casual meetings in foreign countries are like the oases in the desert: it is refreshing to light on one, and, that left behind, with little chance of ever seeing it again, we go on until our good fortune presents us with another. It was thus that three more Englishmen were seen for half an hour, in their way from Syria to Anatolia; but they, too, sailed away, and, as their vessel was lost to view, I felt that regret which a lively conversation inspires, with no hope of its renewal.[53]
No merchant ship offered to take us to Europe until August; on the twenty-fourth of which month we embarked for the Gulf of Spezia, where, after a voyage of thirty-five days, we performed quarantine: and thus ended, apparently for ever, my connexion with Lady Hester Stanhope.