The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton, volume 1 (of 2) / By His Wife, Isabel Burton

Richard and Children.

"Burton at Damascus.

"My first sight of Captain Burton revealed not only the man in his complex character, but supplied the key to the perplexing vicissitudes of his extraordinary career.

"On his arrival in Damascus, Burton called at my house. My study adjoined the drawing-room, into which he was shown by a native servant. I heard him command the Arab to fetch me in harsh, peremptory tones, which were meant to be obeyed. The servant, not thinking that I was in the study, went to seek me elsewhere. I advanced, in noiseless Damascus slippers, to the drawing-room door, and I came upon a scene never to be forgotten.

"At one side of the room stood my curly-headed, rosy-cheeked little boy of five, on the other side stood Burton. The two were staring at each other. Neither was aware of my presence. Burton had twisted his face into the most fiendish-like aspect. His eyes rolled, exposing the whites in an alarming manner. The features were drawn to one side, so as to make the gashes on his jaw and brow appear more ghastly. The two cheeks were blown out, and Burton, raising a pocket-handkerchief to his left cheek, struck his right with the flat of his right hand, thus producing an explosion, and making the pocket-handkerchief fly to the left as if he had shot it through his two cheeks.

"The explosion was followed by a suppressed howl, something between the bark of a hyæna and a jackal. All the time Burton glared on the little fellow with the fiery eyes of a basilisk, and the child stood riveted to the floor as if spell-bound and fascinated, like a creature about to be devoured. Suddenly a very wonderful thing happened. The little boy, with a wild shout of delight, sprang into the monster's arms, and the black beard was instantly mingled with the fair curls, and Burton was planting kisses all over the flaxen pate. The whole pantomime was gone through as quick as lightning, and Burton, disentangling himself, caught sight of my Arab returning without me, and, instead of waiting for an explanation, hurled at him a volley of exasperating epithets, culled from the rich stores of spicy and stinging words which garnish Arabic literature. Burton had revealed himself to me fully before he saw me. The child's clear, keen instinct did not mislead it. The big, rough monster had a big child's heart behind the hideous grimaces. The child's unerring instinct was drawn by affinity to the child's heart in the man."

During our time a very interesting episode occurred at Damascus—a sad one, too. Lord and Lady Langdale had a daughter who was married to Count Téleki. It was not a very happy marriage. She made a journey to Syria and Palestine with her mother, a very nice cousin, and a young friend of his, for diversion. Like many travellers, unused to sun, hard riding, bad water, exposure, and fatigue, she got the usual fever and dysentery, and was brought down in a dying state to Damascus. She was of Agnostic principles, but in her last few hours she desired to be baptized a Catholic. I did all I could for her in the way of nursing, and Richard as far as his power went. When she died, her desk was found to contain a letter which had been written years before, when she had been very much excited by reading Buckle's "History of Civilization," and she wrote, "Should I die at Damascus, I should like to be buried by Buckle." It so happened that there was place for two next to Buckle, and she was buried there—a most impressive and touching funeral. Her coffin was covered with the Union Jack; Richard and all his dragomans and kawwáses, in full uniform, were present; and some time after, appeared the following note in a newspaper:—

Buckle's Grave.

"The London correspondent of the Manchester Guardian says, 'A traveller just arrived in London from Damascus gives some rather interesting details about the present condition and surroundings of Buckle's grave. Though it was left for so long after his death, without a stone even to mark it, that it had the altar-tomb of white marble and black basalt that was at length erected, and was now enclosed in a high wall with a padlocked gate. Next to Buckle's tomb are the tombs of two rather remarkable women. The first is that of the Countess Téleki (a daughter, I believe, of Lord Langdale), who especially desired that her grave should be next to Buckle's; and the next tomb is that of Lady Ellenborough, erected by her brother, Lord Digby, with an Arabic inscription from the Korán, placed on it by her later husband, the Arab sheikh, in singular proximity to the cross which forms part of the monument. On Buckle's tomb also, on which, however, there is no cross, there is an Arabic inscription, suggested by the famous Emir Abd el Kadir.'"

Syria.

"I had business at Hums (Emesa), generally written Homs, and Hamáh (Hamath Epiphaneia), on the northern borders of the consular district of Damascus. From there I examined and sent home native facsimiles of the four unique basaltic stones, whose characters, raised in cameo, apparently represent a system of local hieroglyphics peculiar to this part of Syria, and form the connecting link between picture-writing and the true syllabarium. A friend was kind enough to give me some valuable papers, amongst them two maps noting the most important of the three hundred and sixty villages, which he had traced himself by aid of native information. These stud the plain known as El'Aláh; the same number of villages are allotted to the Lejá. This plain is a high rolling ground beginning at Selamíyyah, the well-known ruin and outwork of Palmyra, six hours' ride from, and bearing east-south-east of the Mound of Hamáh. It extends five days' journey to the north, and from east to west two or three days'. Some call it the 'Great Syrian Desert;' but the Seleucidæ here kept their immense studs of elephants and horses. The whole is virgin ground, as are also the eastern slopes of the Jebel Kalbíyyah, on the left bank of the Orontes, and of the country extending from the parallel of Hums to that of Selamíyyah. In the first five hours we had examined five ruins; and the basaltic buildings are exactly those of the Giant Cities of Bashan. We returned to Damascus by Jebel el Hulah; saw the fine crusading castle called Husn el Akrád, the plain of the Nahr el Kabír, the Eleutherus river. Our hardships were considerable; the country was under water, and the rushing torrents and deep ditches caused long detours. We had heavy and continuous rains, furious blasts, snow and sleet like Norway. One of the followers sickened and died, and we were all frostbitten. In all my trips and peregrinations, I had business to do as well as pleasure.

"Throughout Syria, when the basaltic soil runs to any depth, the earth is loose and treacherous, fatiguing to traverse in summer, and impassable in winter. In some places the water is sulphurous or brackish, but in most places without any unpleasant taste; it is strongly diuretic."

Unexplored Syria.

Taken from Richard's journals of excursions to the Libanus with Charley Drake and me, and once with Drake alone, the Tulúl el Safá, the Anti-Libanus, the Northern Libanus, and the 'Aláh. We collected eighty-one original Greek inscriptions in the Haurán mountain, and in the 'Aláh, a collection of Alpine plants from the Libanus, shells, and geological specimens. Charley Drake did the plans and sketches and maps, Richard and I the writing.

Richard wrote—

The Tulúl el Safá.

"The fact was we had long been tantalized by the sight of the forbidden Tulúl el Safá, or Hillocks of the Safá Pyramids, looking at the distance like baby finger-tops, dotting the eastern horizon within sight of our housetop, and, thinning out northwards, prolonged the lumpy blue wall of the Jebel Durúz Haurán, which appears to reflect the opposite line of the Anti-Libanus. Many also were the vague and marvellous reports which had reached our ears concerning a cave called by the few who knew it Umm Nírán, the mother of fires. The difficulty and danger of visiting these places arose in my time simply from the relations of the Wali's government with the hill tribes of Bedawin, who, mixed up with the Druzes, infest the Trachonic countries. The hill tribes proper are Agaylát, the Hasan, the Shurafát, the Azámát, and the Masá'id. The Safá is tenanted by the Shitayá, the Ghiyás, and the Anjad, whilst the Lejá belongs to the Sulút, as clients of the Druzes. These are nine hordes intermarried, who combine together in the warfare of the tribes. They are the liege descendants of the refractory robbers of the Trachonitis, who, to revenge the death of their Captain Naub, rose up against the garrison of three thousand Idumæans stationed in their country by Herod, son of Antipater. Their prowess as plunderers is still famous.

"To the scandal of every honest man, they are allowed to scour the plains, carry off the flocks, and harry the flocks and herds of the peasantry. They served as ready implements of revenge against all those disaffected to or disliked by the petty autocrat [Rashíd Pasha] who then disgraced the land by his rule. They are small and slightly made, with oval face, bright brown eyes, and restless roving look of the civilized pickpocket. The features high and well formed, the skin a clear olive yellow. They wear long love-locks of raven-wings' tint, well buttered. Their dress scanty and irregular. The action, like the eyes, is wild and startled; the voice is a sort of bark. When attacked, they put the women, children, and cattle in the rear, form a rude line, carefully guard against being out-flanked, and advance file-firing with great regularity. They attack strangers, and they have no sense of hospitality, and for this reason it was not really safe to ride alone three hours beyond the Eastern gate of Damascus. The Subá'a, therefore, made the plain of Damascus a battle-field, and the Wuld Ali levied black-mail in Cœle-Syria.

"Dust was thrown in the eyes of the civilized world whilst the Wali employed hordes of banditti to plunder its own hapless subjects, whilst the satellites had the audacity to publish, 'Le désert est cultivé, les Bedouins sont soumis, et le brigandage anéanti.' So it came to pass that all the broken-down Gassanian convents had never to our knowledge been visited by any European traveller. Mr. Porter was told that a hundred horsemen would not attempt a journey to El Diyúrá. We received no damage, and nighted in the old temple of Ba'al, called Harrán el'Awámid. However, the Ghiyás found us out, advanced in a steady line, treated us to a shower of bullets, severely wounding in the leg our gallant companion and friend, Bedr Beg. As we were well mounted and armed, and the riding ground good, we could have brought down as many of them as we pleased, for we were all armed with six-shooters, and eight shot rifles, but, as we wanted to avoid a blood-feud, we did not return fire. After Rashíd Pasha was gone, the mystery of their attacking us was cleared up.

"These convents are in an excellent state of preservation. What we have to complain of is that the spirit of clique too often succeeds in ignoring the real explorer, the true inventor, the most learned writer, and the best artist. The honour is denied to the right man. Party is successful against principle. The Pharisee, with his aggressive, vigorous, narrow-minded nature, with his hard thin character, all angles and stings, with his starch inflexible opinions upon religion, politics, science, literature, and art, with his broad assurance that his ways are the only right ways, rules with a rod of iron the large herd of humanity, headed by Messrs. Feeblemind and Ready-to-halt. We find in our national life, when the Battle of the Creeds, or rather of 'Non-Credo' versus 'Credo,' has been offered and accepted; when every railway station is hung with texts and strewed with tracts for the benefit of that British-public-cherished idol the working-class; when the South Kensington Museum offers professional instruction in science and art for women before they become mothers, suggesting that creation by law may be as reasonable as creation by miracle; when Secularism draws the sword against Denominationalism; briefly, when those who 'believe' and those who do not, can hardly keep hands off one another in a mêlée, it suggests a foretaste of the mystical Armageddon."

Richard and Charley Drake sketched and fixed the positions of some fifty ruins which are fated to disappear from the face of the earth. They took squeezes of from twenty to twenty-five Greek inscriptions, of which six or seven have dates, and explored the Harrah, or 'Hot-Country,' the pure white blank in the best maps, and took hydrographic charts, as they found that the guide-books and the maps teemed with mistakes.

"I thought," he said, "when I came here that Syria and Palestine would be so worn out that my occupation as an explorer was clean gone, but I soon found that although certain lines had been well trodden, that scarcely ever a traveller, and no tourists, have ever ridden ten miles off the usual ways. No one knows how many patches of unvisited and unvisitable country lie within a couple of days' ride of great cities and towns, such as Aleppo and Damascus, Hums, and Hamáh.

"Where the maps show a virgin white patch in the heart of Jaydur, the classical Ituræa, students suppose that the land has been examined, and has been found to contain nothing of interest. The reverse is absolutely the case. Finally, as will presently appear, there are valid reasons for that same, for the unexplored spots are either too difficult or too dangerous for the multitude to undertake. To visit carefully even the beaten tracks in the Holy Land occupies six months, and none except a resident can afford leisure or secure health for more, and the reason that these places have escaped European inspection is, that they do not afford provisions, or forage, or water; they are deadly with malarious fever, they are infested by the Bedawi. They do not often detain you for ransom, nor mutilate you; but they will spear you. They will not kill you in cold blood; that is only done for a Thar, which is the blood-feud between tribes. Still, under these mitigated circumstances, travellers may know that their escorts will turn tail, and will hardly care to expose themselves, their attendants, and baggage to a charge of Bedawin cavalry. Indeed, the running away of the escort is the traveller's safeguard. If the tribe could seize all, it knows that dead men are dumb, but it knows that the fugitives have recognized them, and that before evening the tale will be known through all the land.

"There is no reverence in this ancient place for antiquity. Syria would willingly change from ancient and Oriental to modern and European. The ruins of the 'Aláh are pulled to pieces to build houses for Hamáh. The classical buildings of Saccæa are torn down and made into rude hovels for the Druzes, who fled from the Anti-Libanus and Hermon. Syria, north of Palestine, is an old country, geographically and technologically and other ways, but it is absolutely new. A land of the past, it has a future as promising as that of Mexico or the Argentine Republic. The first railway that spans it will restore the poor old lethargic region to rich and vigorous life. 'Lazare, veni foras!'—it will raise this Lazarus of Eastern provinces, this Niobe of nations, from a neglected grave. There is literally no limit that can be laid down to the mother-wit, the ambition, the intellectual capabilities of its sons. They are the most gifted race that I have as yet ever seen, and when the curse shall have left the country—not the bane of superstition, but the bane and plague-spot of bad rule—it will again rise to a position not unworthy of the days when it gave to the world a poetry and a system of religion still unforgotten by our highest civilization.

"My object was to become acquainted with the Haurán and its Druzes, to see the Umm-Nírán Cave, called the 'fire cave,' of which one hears such extraordinary legends, and the Tulúl el Safá, which is the volcanic region, east of the Damascus swamps.

"The South Pacific Coast, and Mediterranean Palestine, are two pendants in the world, only the East is on a much smaller scale. The lakes and rivers, plains and valleys, cities and settlements, storms and earthquakes, in fact, all the geographical, physical, and the meteorological, as well as the social features of the two regions, show a remarkable general likeness with a difference of proportion.

"The world is weary of the past. In these regions there is hardly a mile without a ruin, hardly a ruin that is not interesting, and in some places, mile after mile and square mile after square mile of ruin show a luxuriance of ruin. There is not a large ruin in the country which does not prove, upon examination, to be the composition of ruins more ancient still. The mere surface of the antiquarian mine has only been scratched; it will be long years before the country can be considered explored, before even Jerusalem can be called 'recovered,' and the task must be undertaken by Societies, not by individuals.

"Of history, of picturesque legend, of theology and mythology, of art and literature, as of archaeology, of palæography, of palæogeography, of numismatology, and all the other 'ologies and 'ographies, they have absolutely no visible end. If the New World be bald and tame, the Syrian old world is, to those who know it well, perhaps a little too fiery and exciting, paling with its fierce tints and angry flush the fair vision which a country has a right to contemplate in the days to be. There is a disease here called 'Holy Land on the Brain,' which makes patients babble of hanging gardens and parterres of flowers. The 'green sickness' attacks tourists from Europe and North America, especially where the sun is scarce. It attacks the Protestant with greater violence than the Catholic (the Catholic from long meditation is prepared for it). The Protestant fit is excited and emotional, spasmodic and hysterical, ending in a long rhapsody about himself, his childhood, and his mother. It spares the Levantine, as 'yellow Jack' does the negro. His brain is too well packed with the wretched intrigues and petty interest of material life to have any room for excitement at 'the first glimpse of Emmanuel's Land.' The sufferer will perhaps hire a house at Siloam, and pass his evenings in howling from the roof, at the torpid little town of Jebus, 'Woe! woe to thee, Jerusalem!' Men fall to shaking hands with one another, and exchange congratulations for the all-sufficient reason that the view before them 'embraces the plain of Esdraelon.'

"A long and happy life should be still before it. The ruined heaps show us what has been; the appliances of civilization, provided with railways and tramways, will offer the happiest blending of the ancient and the modern worlds. It will become another Egypt, with the advantages of a superior climate, and far nobler races of men. Time was when I dreamt of the Libanus as my future pied à terre. When weary with warfare and wander, one could repose in peace and comfortable ease. I thought of pitching a tent for life on Mount Lebanon, whose raki and tobacco are of the best, whose Vino d'oro is compared with the best, whose winter climate is like an English summer, whose views are lovely, a place at the same time near and far from society—it was riant in the extreme;[4] but in the state of Syria in my time, the physical mountain had no shade, the moral mountain no privacy, the village life would have been dreary and monotonous, broken only by a storm, an earthquake, a murder, a massacre. Such is the rule of the Wali in this unfortunate time, when drought and famine, despotism and misrule, maddens its unfortunate inhabitants.

"We now determined the forms and bearings of the Cedar Block, the true apex of the Libanus. We then went to the unknown and dangerous region called Tulúl el Safá, the Hillocks of the Safá district, a mass of volcanic cones lying east of the Damascus swamps called lakes. Then we explored the northern Anti-Libanus, a region which is innocent of tourists and traveller, and appears a blank of mountains upon the best maps. Of my fellow-traveller Charley Drake I can only say that every one knows his public worth. At the end of my time here came three tedious months of battling unsupported, against all that falsehood and treachery could devise; the presence of this true-hearted Englishman, staunch to the backbone, inflexible in the cause of right, and equally disdainful of threats and promises, was our greatest comfort: I can only speak of him with enthusiasm. Our journey to the northern slopes of Lebanon, and the 'Aláh or the highland of Syria, is an absolute gain to geography, as the road lay through a region marked on our maps 'Great Syrian Desert,' and the basaltic remains in the extensive and once populous plain lying north-east and south-east of Hamah have been visited, sketched, and portrayed for the first time. We found lignite, true coal, bituminous schists and limestone, the finest bitumen or asphalt, mineral springs of all sorts, and ores of all kinds, and plants and rhubarb. And then the duty of a Consular officer in Syria is to scour the country, and see matters with his own eyes, and personally to investigate the cases which are brought before him at head-quarters, where everything except the truth appears.

"After our visit to Ba'albak and the northern Libanus, we 'did' the southern parts of the mountain, the home of the Druzes as opposed to that of the Maronites; then we ascended Hermon, then we had our gallop to the Waters of Merom, that hideous expanse of fetid mire and putrefying papyrus. We paid a visit to the only Bedawin Amir in this region, the Amir Hasan el Fa'úr of the Benú Fadl tribe, and then we visited most of the romantic and hospitable Druze villages which cling to the southern and eastern folds of Hermon."

The utter solitude, the wildness of the life, the absence of luxe, and no society, the being thoroughly alone with Nature and one's own thoughts, was all too refreshing; we led half-Eastern lives and half-farmhouse life. We made our own bread, we bought butter and milk from the Bedawi, we bought sheep or kids from passing flocks. We woke at dawn, and after a cup of tea, we used to take the dogs, and have long walks over the mountains with our guns.

The game were bears (very scarce), gazelles, wolves, wild boars, and a small leopard called nimr, but for these we had to go far, and watch in silence before dawn. But Richard had opinions about sport; he only wanted to kill a beast that would kill us if we did not kill it, and the smaller game, partridges, quails, woodcocks, hares, and wild duck, we never shot unless we were hungry, and we would not have the gazelles hunted. He had the greatest contempt for the Hurlingham matches, and the battue slaughters in English parks, where, instead of honestly walking for your game, and bringing it home to eat, the young men of to-day have a gentle stroll to eat pâté de foie gras, drink champagne, and the keeper hands them a gun with a pheasant almost tied to the end of it to blow to pieces. And what Richard thought about sport I heartily agreed with. The hot part of the day was spent in reading, writing, and studying Arabic. He sent home from Bludán, during 1870, "Vikram and the Vampire" (Hindú tales), "Paraguay," and "Proverbia Communia Syriaca" (Royal Asiatic Society, 1871)—three works he had been long preparing.

His three literary necessities were Shakespeare, the Bible, and Euclid, and they were bound up together, with three large clasps, like a breviary, and went everywhere. His method of language-learning he has described in his autobiography. He taught me this way. He made me learn ten new words a day by heart. "When a native speaks, then say the words after him to get his accent. Don't be English—that is, shy or self-conscious—if you know five words, air them wherever you can; next day you will know ten, and so on till you can speak. Don't be like the Irishman who would not go into the water until he could swim. Then take a very easy childish book, in the colloquial language of the day, and translate it word for word underneath the original, and you will be surprised how soon you find yourself unconsciously talking."

At twelve we had our first meal; in the afternoon native Shaykhs, or English from Beyrout or Damascus, came to visit us, or rare tourists would crawl up to see what sort of people we were, and how we lived. They all used to say, "Well, it is glorious, but the thing is to get here." We set up a tir (shooting-place) in the garden, and used to practise pistol or rifle shooting, or fence, or put on the cavesson, and lunge the horses if they had had no exercise. When the sun became cooler, all the poor within sixteen miles round would come to be doctored; the hungry, the thirsty, the ragged, the sick and sorry, filled our garden, and Richard used to settle grievances, and they all got money or clothing, food or medicine, and sympathy. Before dinner we used to assemble in the garden to eat a few mouthfuls of leban salad and drink a liqueur glass of raki, which was quite necessary to give us sufficient appetite. Divans were then spread on the housetop, and we used to watch the moon lighting up Hermon, whilst we smoked the after-dinner narghíleh. The horses were picketed out all these summer nights, and the saises slept with them. The last thing was to have night prayers, and then to go the rounds to see that everything was right, turn out the dogs on guard, and then to bed.

The mails came once a fortnight, and Richard would ride into Damascus and see that all was well. Sometimes we used to give a picnic to some of our Moslem neighbours, and we would gallop out in the plain, and stay in the black tents of the Arabs. I used to have to ride down to the Moslem village Zebedáni every Sunday for church. The path was steep, and covered with rolling stones, so that the horses used mostly to slide down, and it occupied about an hour and a half. The most curious part was that the Shaykhs and chief Moslems always accompanied me to Mass. The thing that astonished the Shaykhs the most, was the small acolytes being able to read and sing in Latin, and they constantly exclaimed, "Máshálláh!"

We were much grieved about this time to hear the sad news of poor Lord Clarendon's death. Few amongst us that have not some happy recollection of that kind, true heart. He belonged to a breed of gentlemen that with one or two exceptions may be said to have died out. R.I.P. At this juncture Mr. E. H. Palmer and Charley Drake had come back from Sinai and the Tih Desert, and came to stay with us.

Ba'albak is far more beautiful, though much smaller than Tadmor, and can be seen without any danger. Tadmor is more romantic, picturesque, more startling, and there is the attraction of the danger, and being in the absolute desert. Londoners and Parisians would consider Ba'albak in the desert, but we from Damascus do not. This was the holy place of the old Phœnicians, and I do not know a finer sight, from a distant height, when Ba'albak is lit up by the setting sun. The fertile plain of the Buká'a, with its black Turcoman tents and camels, lies in the distance. There is a big stone still lying there, which would weigh eleven thousand tons. The Hajar el Hablah, or pregnant stone, is a huge unfinished block. Our measurements were seventy feet long, fourteen feet two inches high, and thirteen feet eleven inches broad. The extraordinary sight makes you exclaim, "Something must have frightened them before they had time to carry it off."

Riding about, you come to the Turcomans' tents, who have wandered about Syria since the days of the Crusaders, and have preserved, like their neighbours the Nuwar (gypsies), their ancestral language and customs. We then went to live for a short while with the Maronites, two hundred thousand people, under the rule of their Patriarch, and we camped for some time under the cedars of Lebanon. There are only nine of these large and ancient trees left; the four largest are in the form of a cross, and three smaller. There are 555 trees (newer than these nine), all told, and they are 7368 feet above sea-level. While stopping with his "Beatitude the Maronite Primate of Antioch, and of all the East," whom his flock calls "our Patriarch, our Pope, and our Sultan," we saw for once the simplicity and sincerity of the Apostolic ages.

B'sherri, Jezzín, and Sadád produce a manly, independent race of Christians, fond of horses and arms, with whom I am not ashamed to own community of faith. In all my life I have never seen worse riding than the Kasrawán; it consists of nothing but débris of rock, fields, valleys, and mountains, all of the largest jagged stones. Our horses had to do the work of goats, and jump from one bit of rock to another, and it lasted over twelve hours at once. We lost our camp, but after seeing our exhausted horses groomed, fed, watered, and tethered in a warm spot, we were glad to eat a water-melon, and sleep on our saddle-cloths in the open. The next day was just as bad until we reached Affka, but the scenery was glorious. We had three days of this awful riding, which the Syrians call "Darb el Jehannum," the "road of hell." We visited Mr. Palgrave's old quarters, a monastery of fifty or sixty Jesuits, where Mr. Palgrave was a Jesuit for seventeen years. Here we all got fever.

No. 1.

"Dear Sir,

"The Christians in Damascus are in great alarm; most of them have left for Saídnayah, and others are about to leave for elsewhere. Their alarm was occasioned from the following facts: signs of crosses were made in the streets in the same way which preceded the massacre of 1860. On the 23rd instant a certain Mohammed Rashíd, a Government inspector (teftish), being in disguise, caught a young Jew, twelve years old, in the service of Solomon Donemberg, a British-protected subject, making signs of crosses in a cabinet of a mosque at Suk el Jedíd. Yesterday another young Jew, in the service of Marco, a French Jew, was caught also. Both of these two boys were taken to the Government; being under age, they were at once released by order of Mejlis Tamiz Hukúk. It is believed that the Moslems are the authors of these signs, either directly or indirectly, to stop the Government from taking the Redíf (militia), which is managed in a very oppressive manner, that is, leaving many families without males to support them. Such kinds of Redíf prefer rather to be hanged than seeing their harims without support or any one to maintain them in their absence. A certain Nicolas Ghartous, a Protestant from Ain Shára, reported to me yesterday that while waiting on Mr. Anhouri, near the barracks of the Christian quarter, being dressed like a Druze, three soldiers of the same barracks came to him and said, 'Yakík el 'ijl,' a technical term used by the Druzes, meaning, 'Are you ready for another outbreak?' Ghartous replied, 'We are at your disposal.' The soldiers replied, 'Prepare yourself, and we will reap our enemies from here to the Báb Sharki' (the Christian quarter), and thus they departed. Hatem Ghanem, a Catholic member in the Haurán, came here to recover some money due to him by Atta Zello of the Meydán Aghas. While claiming the money he was beaten, and his religion and Cross were cursed by his debtor, who was put in prison at the request of the Catholic Patriarchate. Twenty to thirty Redífs of the Meydán ran away to the Lejá'a, to take refuge there. The Redífs will be collected next Saturday, the 27th instant, some say at the Castle of Damascus, others at Khabboon and Mezzeh. The report is current that on that day there will be no work in town, and that there will be an outbreak. Although Ibraham Pasha, the new Governor, arrived on the 23rd instant, he will not undertake his duties till the return of the Wali. The Governor, as well as some Frenchmen, through M. Roustan, who is now at Jerusalem, intend to propose to the Wali to leave Holo Pasha to continue occupying his present function under the present circumstances. The Mushir left on the 19th instant. The Wali is absent. The Muffetish, whom you know his inefficiency, is the Acting Governor-General. Consuls are absent (that is, the French and English). The presence of the high functionaries, and especially the Consuls, is a great comfort to the Christians in general."

No. 2.

"Dear Sir,

"I have just got in from Rasheiya, and before I sat down several Christians and one Moslem came in to ask if I knew what was coming. They seemed to be very much afraid; but, except that people don't act logically, I see no reason for fear. The fear, however, does seem very great. I know nothing. Any English of us here should be ready at the worst to fight our corner. Many thanks for your prompt action in our affairs. It is something to have

'One firm, strong man in a blatant land,
Who can act and who dare not lie.'

"W. W."

It appeared that one of those eruptions of ill-feeling, which are periodically an epidemic in Damascus, resulting from so many religions, tongues, and races, was about to simmer into full boil between Moslem and Christian. The outsiders are fond of stirring up both, for they reap all the benefit. It appeared that a slaughter-day was fixed for the 27th of August, 1870; all the Chief Authorities, by an accidental combination of affairs, were absent as well as the Consuls. Wednesday is the Moslem's unlucky day, and also, I believe, the 23rd; it is thought it will be the day of the end of the world. There would be nobody to interfere, and nobody to be made responsible. It was the night of the 26th when he got these letters. Richard ordered the horses to be saddled, the weapons to be cleaned. In ten minutes he told me what his plans and arrangements were. He said, "We have never before been in a Damascus riot, but if it takes place it will be like the famous affair of 1860. I shall not take you into Damascus, because I intend to protect Damascus, and you must protect Bludán and Zebedáni. I shall take half the men, and I shall leave you half. You shall go down into the plain with me to-night, and we shall shake hands like two brothers and part; tears or any display of affection will tell the secret to our men."

So it was done, and at six o'clock the next morning he walked into the mejlis (council chamber). He was on good terms with them all, so he told them frankly what was going on, and said, "Which of you is to be hanged if this is not prevented? It will cost you Syria, and unless you take measures at once, I shall telegraph to Constantinople." This had the desired effect. "What," they asked, "would you have us to do?" He said, "I want you to post a guard of soldiers in every street; order a patrol all night. I will go the rounds with Holo Pasha. Let the soldiers be harangued in the barracks, and told that on the slightest sign of mutiny the offenders will be sent to the Danube (their Cayenne). Issue an order that no Jew or Christian shall leave the house till all is quiet." All these measures were taken by ten o'clock a.m., and continued for three days. Not a drop of blood was shed, and the frightened Christians who had fled to the mountains began to come back. There is no doubt that my husband saved Damascus from a very unpleasant episode. Mr. L. Wright, Mr. Scott, and the other missionaries, his own dragomans, and a few staunch souls who remained quietly with him, appreciated his conduct, and he received many thanks from those on the spot. The diligence was so much in request (nearly all the Christians and Europeans had tried to leave) that a friend of mine could not get a seat for three weeks; yet these people, so soon as they sighted the Mediterranean, were brave and blatant. "Oh! we were not at all frightened; there was no danger whatever!" Mr. Eldridge, who had lived for ten years safely on the coast, and had never ventured up to Damascus in his life, a civilian whose dislike to the smell of powder was notorious, wrote me a pleasantly chaffing letter, hoping I had recovered my fever and fright, and giving Richard instructions how to behave in time of danger. When Richard had gone I climbed back to our eyrie, which commanded the country, and collected every available weapon and all the ammunition. The house was square, looking every way. I put a certain number of men on each side with a gun each, a revolver, and bowie-knife. I put two on the roof with a pair of elephant guns carrying four-ounce balls, and took the terrace myself. I planted the Union Jack on the flag-staff at the top of the house, turned our bull-terriers into the garden, locked up a little Syrian maid, Khamoor (the Moon), who was very pretty (Richard used to say her eyes were of the owlified largeness of the book of beauty), in the safest room, and my English maid, who was as brave as a man, was to supply us with provisions. I knew that I could rely upon our own men, so I filled all the empty soda-water bottles full of gunpowder, and laid fusees ready to stick in and light, and throw amongst the crowd. I then rode down to the American mission—the only other people near—to tell them if there was the slightest movement to come up and shelter with me; and then into the village of Bludán, to tell the Christians there to come and camp in our garden; and lastly to Zebedáni, where there were a few Christians living amongst the thirty-five thousand Moslems, and I sent them up at once, because there would be no time for them to reach me if danger came suddenly. The others were close by. I then rode down to the Moslem Shaykhs, and asked them what they thought. They told me there would be a fight. "One half of our village will fight with you and yours, the other half will destroy the Christians here and at Bludán. They will hesitate to attack your house, but if matters are so bad as that, they shall pass over our dead bodies, and those of all our house, before they reach you." And every night they came up and picketed round the garden till my husband came back.

This lasted three days, and all subsided without accident. At this time also there was a tremendous row between a Moslem and a Christian woman; he tore the woman's ear down, smashed her black and blue, bruised her, and took all her gold ornaments from her. The case of Hassan Beg, on whose account my husband was reported, by the British Syrian School missionaries, to be recalled on account of my conduct, happened a whole year before my husband's recall. After this, when we rode desert-wards, the tribes used in the evening to dance especially for Richard. The men formed a squad like soldiers; they plant the right foot in time to tom-tom music, with a heavy tread, and an exclamation like that used by our street-menders when the crowbar comes down with a thud upon the stones. When they are numerous it sounds like the advance of an army, and they would burst out into song, of which the literal translation would be—

"Máshálláh! Máshálláh! At last we have seen a man!
Behold our Consul in our Shaykh!
Who dare to say 'Good morning' to us (save Allah) when he rules?
Look at him, look at the Sitt!
They ride the Arab horses!
They fly before the wind!
They fire the big guns!
They fight with the sword!
Let us follow them all over the earth!"
(Chorus) "Let us follow, let us follow," etc., etc.

We were very fond of animals, and especially of wild ones. Holo Pasha had given us a panther cub trapped in the desert to show his appreciation of what Richard had done. We brought him up like a cat. He grew to be a splendid beast, and never did any of us harm, but he frightened the other animals a little sometimes. We kept him very well fed, in order that he might never attack them. Our cat was very frightened of him, and the only animals that he was frightened of were the bull-dogs. He used to sleep by our bedside. He had bold bad black eyes, that seemed to say, "Be afraid of me." He used to hunt me round the garden, playing hide-and-seek with me as a cat does a mouse. When he bit too hard, I used to box his ears, when he was instantly good. But he grew up and was large. There was a certain baker that the bull-terriers used to bite, and the panther, who also saw in him what we did not, worried him. At last the peasantry, who were frightened of him, gave him poison in meat. He withered away, and nothing we could do did him any good, and one day, when I went to look round the stables, he put his paw up to me. I sat down on the ground, and took him in my arms like a child. He put his head on my shoulder, and his paws round my waist, and he died in about half an hour. Richard and I were terribly grieved.

There are charming rides across the Anti-Lebanon through a mountain defile to Ain el Bardi, where we found black tents and flocks feeding by the water. There is very much to be seen in the plain of El Buká'a, beginning at Mejdel. Anjar is a little village on a hillock standing alone; on its top is a small gem of a temple built by Herod Agrippa in honour of Augustus, with a very graceful broken column; below it are the ruins of Herod's Palace, and a twenty minutes' further ride in the plain lie the ruins of Chalcis. From the temple above named we could see the greater part of the Buká'a, walled in at either side by the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon, and dotted with seventy-two villages. Anjar is bisected by the Litani river, falsely called the Leontes. Having feasted our eyes, we rode on to the square ruins of Chalcis in the plain, and to Neby Za'úr to see the tomb, and we carried off skulls and bones. We crossed the plain, ascended the Lebanon, and when near its summit turned to our left across a mountain called Jebel Barúk, in the territory of El Akkúb.