Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope/Volume 2/Chapter 9

by Hester Lucy Stanhope

CHAPTER IX.

Lady Hester in an alcove in her garden—Lucky days observed by her—Consuls' rights—Mischief caused by Sir F. B.'s neglect in answering Lady Hester's Letters—Rashes common in Syria—Visit of an unknown Englishman—Story of Hanah Messâad—Lady Hester's love of truth—Report of her death —Michael Tutungi—Visit from the Chevalier Guys—His reception at Dayr el Mkhallas—Punishment of the shepherd, Câasem—Holyday of the Korbàn Byram—Fatôom's accouchement—Lady Hester's aversion to consular interference—Evenings at Jôon—Old Pierre—Saady.

Friday, February 16, 1838.—About two in the afternoon, on going to pay my visit to Lady Hester Stanhope, I proceeded to her bed-room, thinking, as usual, to find her there, but was told by her maids she was gone into the garden. The day was overcast, and there was every appearance of rain. I found her standing in one of the garden-walks, leaning on her stick (such as those which elderly ladies were accustomed formerly to use in England, and perhaps may now), and pale as a ghost. "Doctor," said she, "I have got out of my room that those beasts may clean it? but, if you don't go to them, they'll steal everything." After expressing my fears that she had chosen a bad day to come out, I left her. I saw her room put into as much order as the confusion in it would admit of. It was crowded with bundles one upon another, as before, which she dared not put into any other part of the house, lest they should be stolen.

Independent of her desire to be more clean and comfortable, I guessed at once why she had left her bed-room to go into the garden. It was the struggle which the sick often make—the resolution of an unsubdued spirit, that finds corporeal ailments weighing down the body, whilst the mind is yet unsubdued. It was Friday too, the day in all the week she held as most auspicious.

When I returned into the garden, I found her lying on a sofa, in a beautiful alcove, one of three or four that embellished her garden, and an attendant standing with his hands folded across his breast, in an attitude of respect before her. At these moments, she always wore the air of a Sultaness. In this very alcove, how often had she acted the queen, issued her orders, summoned delinquents before her, and enjoyed the semblance of that absolute power, which was the latent ambition of her heart! Hence it was that she at last got rid of all European servants, because they would not submit to arbitrary punishments, but would persist in raising their voices in self-justification. With the Turks it was not so. Accustomed, in the courts of governors and Pashas, to implicit obedience and submission, they resigned themselves to her rule as a matter of course. In transferring, however, their servility to her, as their mistress, they also transferred the vices and dangers which servility engenders: namely, lying, theft, sycophancy, intrigue, and treachery.

Saturday, February 17.—During the whole of this day I did not see Lady Hester, and I was not sorry for it. Her thoughts were now constantly running on the inexplicable silence of Sir Francis Burdett. "He is a man of honour," she would say. "I suppose he has to write to Ireland, and to the right and left about my property; or perhaps they have got hold of him, too;—who knows? I am sure something must have happened." As each succeeding steamboat arrived, a messenger was sent to Beyrout, but still no answer. Then she reflected what she should do, if Sir Francis at last should furnish her with proofs that no property had been left her:—beggary stared her in the face. In the mean time she had no means of raising a single farthing before the first of March, when she could draw for £300. But of this sum £200 were due to Mr. Dromacaiti, a Greek merchant at Beyrout, who had lent her money at an exorbitant interest, but on her word, and this, therefore, she would pay, I knew, if possible. During all this time, my family remained in almost total ignorance of what was going on within Lady Hester's walls as much as if they had been living in China. I was also, as I have said above, obliged to conceal, in a great measure, her illness from them. They rode and walked out on the mountains, fed their bulbuls, enjoyed the fine climate, and wondered what made me look so thin and careworn: for thought and care preyed on my spirits, and I wasted away almost as perceptibly as Lady Hester herself.

Sunday, February 18.—To-day Lady Hester was sitting up in the corner of her bed-room. Her look was deadly pale, and her head was wrapped up in flannels, just like her grandfather the last day he appeared in the House of Lords. Without intending it, everything she did bore a resemblance to that great man.

Ali had returned from Beyrout without a letter. "Did Ali Hayshem," she asked me, "set off at sunrise on Friday? I am glad he did. Do you know, I once sent Butrus to Beyrout to fetch money; and I said to him, 'If you get in on Monday night, don't come away on Tuesday or Wednesday; for those are unlucky days; loiter away those two days, and be here on Thursday night. However, he paid no attention to my instructions, and on Wednesday evening he made his appearance. 'Why did you come before Thursday?' I asked him. He answered, 'That the bag of money having been delivered to him, he had brought it immediately, and you see, Mylady, here it is: nobody, thank God! has robbed me.'—'That does not signify,' I told him; 'you will see there is no bereky [blessing] in it.' Do you know, doctor, I paid the people's wages immediately, and it was well I did; for some ten or twelve thousand piasters, chest and all, disappeared the next day. 'There, look!' said I to him; 'I told you that money never would turn to account.'"

The conversation reverted to Colonel Campbell's letter. "I have told the secretary," said she, "to tell his father, that, if he dares make his appearance here again, I'll send a bullet through his body. Not one of them shall lay their vile hands on me or mine. I have strength enough to strangle him, and I would do it, though it should cost me my life. As for Mr. Moore, he may perhaps have a habeas corpus by him; but it is good for twenty-four hours only, and I should know how to manage. Consuls have no right over nobility; they may have over merchants, and such people: but they never shall come near me, and I would shoot the first that dared to do it. The English are a set of intermeddling, nasty, vulgar, odious people, and I hate them all. The very Turks laugh at them. Out of ridicule, they told one, if he was so clever, to straiten a dog's tail. Yes, he might straiten and straiten, but it would soon bend again; and they may bend me and bend me, if they can, but I fancy they will find it a difficult matter: for you may tell them that, when I have made up my mind to a thing, no earthly being can alter my determination. If they want a devil, let them try me, and they shall have enough of it.

"When the steamboat came, and brought no letter to-day from Sir Francis Burdett, you thought I should be ill on receiving the news: but I am not a fool. I suppose he is occupied with his daughter's legacy, or with parliamentary business."

I had received a letter from a lady, which I had occasion to read to her. When I had done, and she had expressed her thanks for the flower-seeds sent her, she added, "What I do not like in Mrs. U.'s letter is that foolish way of making a preamble about her not liking to leave so much white paper in all its purity, and all those turns and phrases which people use. That was very well for a Swift or a Pope, who, having promised to write to somebody once a fortnight, and having nothing to say, made a great number of points to fill up the paper; but a letter that has matter in it should be written with a distinct narration of the business, and that's all. Do you think such people as Mr. Pitt or Lord Chatham, my grandfather, liked those nonsensical phrases? No, they threw the letter aside, or else cast their eyes over it to see if, on the other page, there was anything to answer about."

February 19.—I was riding this morning with my family beyond the village, which is separated by a deep valley from Lady Hester's residence, when I saw two servants on the verge of the opposite hill, vociferating—"Come directly, come instantly!" and waving their white turbans. I reflected that, if I put my horse into a gallop, the people of the village would immediately conclude that Lady Hester was dying; and the news (as news always gains by distance) would be the next day at Sayda that she was dead: I therefore continued the same pace; and, although the servants redoubled their signs and cries, I steadily retraced my steps. When I had dismounted, I was told her ladyship was in a deplorable way, unlike any thing they had ever seen. I hurried to her bed-room. She was sitting on the side of her bed, weeping and uttering those extraordinary cries, which I have before compared to something hardly human. She clasped her hands and exclaimed repeatedly, "Oh God! oh, God! what misery! what misery!" When she was a little calmed, and I could collect from her what was the matter, she told me that, having fallen into a doze, she awoke with a sense of suffocation from tightness across her chest, and, being unable to ring or call, she thought she should have died: "thus," said she, "am I treated like a dog, with nobody to administer to my wants;" and so she went on in the usual strain. I was suffering at this time from the nettlerash, but treated it lightly, and thought Lady Hester would do so too: until, having unluckily alluded to it, a fresh source of uneasiness was inadvertently started. "Good God, doctor!" she cried, "to come out of doors with a nettlerash on you! go to your house immediately; get to bed, keep yourself warm, and remain there until it is cured. After four or five days, take such and such things; then go to the bath, then take some bark, &c., &c. How many persons have I known go mad and die from it! You treat it as nothing? why, you will drive me crazy. In God's name, never mind me; only go and take care of yourself. You will act in your own usual inconsiderate manner, and I shall have to bury another in this house. Oh, God! oh, God! what am I doomed to!" and then followed fresh cries and fresh lamentations.

Could Sir Francis Burdett have seen all this, and have known that five words of a letter, sent a month or two sooner, in answer to her inquiries about the property she thought was left her, would have probably saved all this excitement, he would have found reason to reproach himself for his long silence. I knew the workings of her mind full well, and that her proud spirit, wounded by the general neglect she met with, vented itself in tears, seemingly, for other causes than the real ones. I recollected a succession of similar scenes about twenty years before at Mar Elias, when she was expecting letters from the Duke of Buckingham; but then she was sounder in bodily health, and could better bear such convulsive paroxysms of grief: now, she was labouring under pulmonary disease, was old, was in distress, and the consequences might prove fatal.

I left her before dinner. "Good by, doctor!" she said, in a kind tone: "I cannot tell you how much I am obliged to you for everything you do for me; and send me a servant twice a day to let me know how you are. I shall be uneasy about you: I can't help it: from my childhood I have been so. How many times in my life have I spent days and days in trying to make others comfortable! I have been the slave of others, and never got any thanks for it."

I went to my house, collected all the money that remained, which was about eleven pounds, and sent it to her to meet the current expenses of the household: for so she wished, that I might not be annoyed, she said, and have the rash driven in on my brain.

I experienced no ill effects from the nettlerash. Few persons, new to the climate of Syria, escape a rash of some description, sometimes pustular, sometimes miliary, but most frequently in the form called prickly heat, which generally attacks them in summer or autumn, and is truly distressing by the pricking sensation it produces on the skin, as if thousands of needle-points were penetrating the cuticle. Little is required in such cases but cool diet, fruit, and diluents. I performed my quarantine of four days, in compliance with Lady Hester's wishes, and then returned to my customary mode of life.

Saturday, February 24.—As I had anticipated, a report had become very general in Beyrout and in the Mountain that Lady Hester was dead, and I received a letter from M. Guys acquainting me with it. This report was confirmed by an English gentleman, who presented himself at my gate this day after breakfast. I was carpentering at the time, and went down the yard to him with my hatchet and chisel in my hand. He seemed not to know what to make of me, dressed as I was in Turkish clothes, with a beard, and with my sleeves turned up like a mechanic. He held out a letter to me, addressed in a fair hand to Lady Hester: I told him this was not her gate, and that a little beyond he would find it. He said he had heard she was dead: I assured him that was not the case, but that she was greatly indisposed. I regretted to myself that I could not ask him in, or enter into conversation with him; but Lady Hester had exacted from me a solemn promise that I never would hold any parley with English travellers, until I had first conferred with her on the subject, and had described them, so that she might obtain the necessary indications to enable her to guess what their business was, or until she had read their letter of introduction, if they bore one. So he quitted me, first asking whether I was an Englishman; to which I answered that I left him to judge. He appeared to be about twenty-one years of age: he had with him for his servant a Ragusan, whom my servant knew, and who, he assured me, was a drunken reprobate. Short as the stop at the gate was, the Ragusan found time to tell the other that he had famous wages: I think it was eight dollars a month. Now I gave mine, who was also a European, four, which was considered good pay, the rate being, in Lady Hester's house, from one to three. Europeans, however, always get more than people of the country, and have more wants to satisfy. How many travellers are obliged, on their landing in these countries, to take fellows into their service without a character, outcasts of society, and who in England would hardly be allowed to see the outside of a gaol!

Of this English gentleman Lady Hester never spoke to me, nor did she ever even allude to his visit: he did not see her, and, I presume, continued his road; but, if these pages ever meet his eye, he may be assured that he would have met with a hospitable reception, had she been well enough to receive him, or had I been at liberty to entertain him.

Whilst at dinner, a servant came to say Lady Hester would be glad to see me in the evening. I found her weak and wan: her cheeks were sunken, and her voice was less distinct than usual; for never was there a person who spoke generally with so clear an enunciation. Logmagi was with her. Instead of receiving her welcome, and those obliging expressions which she usually employed even after the most trifling ailment, she addressed me harshly, and seemed to take pains to mortify me by using slighting expressions in Arabic that Logmagi might understand what she said. The theme of her conversation was the debasement of men who suffered themselves to be controlled by their wives. Although to mortify people was one of her constant practices through life, whether in action, correspondence, or conversation, yet it never was done to gratify any malignant feelings of her own, but from a fearless disregard of the conventional rules of civilized society, where she hoped to rescue an individual from debasement, or counteract the machinations of designing and wicked men. On this principle it is true, likewise, that she would deliberately inflict those incurable insults which cover a man with a sort of shame for life; as may be shown, for example, by the case of Mr. Hanah Messâad, the son of the British agent at Beyrout, one of whose whiskers and eyebrows was shaved off before the whole village, for having made an assertion then supposed to be false, but which was afterwards, by her own confession to me, admitted to be true.

Hanah, or John Messâad, a handsome young man, a native of Beyrout, and the son of a former English vice-consul, was interpreter and secretary to Lady Hester for some time, and her ladyship has since bestowed great praise, in my presence, on his capacity, usefulness, and knowledge of languages. There was in her service also Michael Tutungi, son of an Armenian, who had been under-dragoman, as I understood, to the English embassy at Constantinople. Messâad, it was thought, was jealous of Michael.

It was reported in the family that Michael had been seen under a tree in very close conversation with a peasant girl, and the report was traced to Messâad. Now, the Emir Beshýr affected, or really felt, a great horror of all licentiousness, and never failed to bastinado severely every man detected, in his principality, in any such conduct. Lady Hester knew what imputations might be cast on her establishment, if such things were left unnoticed; and, fearing that Messâad's intrigues (of which she thought this report but a link) might injure Michael's character, and destroy his prospects of getting a place in the English embassy at Constantinople, to which he had some pretensions from his father's services, she resolved to save him by making a signal example of Messâad.

She, therefore, ordered all the villagers from Jôon to be assembled on the green in front of her house, and sent for Mustafa, the barber, from Sayda, with two or three other tradesmen to be witnesses. Seating herself on a temporary divan, with all the assembly in a circle around her, not a soul dreaming what was going to take place, and Michael and Messâad standing in respectful attitudes, with their arms crossed, and covered, down to the fingers' ends,^[1] with their benyshes, by her side, she began: "That young man," said she, pointing to Michael, "is accused of irregularities with" (here she mentioned the girl's name, and the place and time of the meeting). "Now, if any one of you knows him to have been guilty of similar actions, or if, from his general conduct, under similar circumstances, any one of you thinks the thing probable, speak out, for I wish to do justice. Messâad is his accuser: they are both my people, and equally entitled to impartiality." As nobody answered, she appealed to them all again, and all replied they did not believe it.

She then turned to Messâad, and said: "Sir, you have accused this young man, who is about to be launched into the world, and has only his good name to help him on, of abominable things: where are your witnesses? Messâad, frightened out of his senses, replied, "that he had no witnesses; that he had seen, with his own eyes, what he had asserted, and, therefore, knew it to be so: but, as he was alone, it must rest on his own word." Her ladyship told him his word would not do against the concurring testimony of all the servants, and of a whole village; and she added, in a judge-like tone, "As your mouth and your eye have offended, the stigma shall remain on them. Servants, seize and hold him; and, barber, shave off one side of his mustachios and one eyebrow."

This was done. Michael was kept about a month or two, in order that the protection he enjoyed might seal his unblemished reputation, and then was packed off to Constantinople. "Thus," said Lady Hester, "I saved a young man from destruction. Messâad has now a good place under the Sardinian consul at Beyrout; his eyebrows and mustachios are grown again; he has married, and has a family; and I dare say the Sardinian consul, if he knows anything of the story, thinks not a bit the worse of him."

The above are the words in which Lady Hester, on the 20th of January, 1831, related this singular punishment, inflicted with the best intentions on poor Messâad. One evening, in 1837, when writing a letter to the same Messâad, for certain commissions which he had to execute for her ladyship, who was in the habit of employing him to buy pipes, cloth, and sundry other articles found in the shops at Beyrout, she spoke to me as follows. "You know, doctor, all that affair about Michael and Messâad, and how I had one side of his face shaved. Well, I found out afterwards that what Messâad had said was every bit of it true. I have made it up to him since as well as I could: he does not want abilities, and kept my house in excellent order whilst he was with me."

But this was not the first time Lady Hester had resorted to this singular mode of punishment; some years before, a chastisement for similar frailties, not unlike that which Messâad underwent, as far as regarded the eyebrows, fell to the lot of a peasant girl in her ladyship's service at a village called Mushmôoshy. This was in the year 1813. How fallible are the most clearsighted persons is the only comment which can be made on such unintentional errors!

For those who were not exempt from the common weaknesses of our nature she was a dangerous person to hold intercourse with. "Live at a distance from my lady," General Loustaunau used to say to Mrs. M. (when she wanted to remove from Mar Elias to Dar Jôon, in order to be near me); "live at a distance, or you will find, to your cost, that her neighbourhood is a hell." But be it said, to her honour, that it was from an unfeigned horror of everything mean, dishonest, or vicious, she so resolutely refused to keep terms with people who suffered themselves to be led into the commission of such acts; and her indignation descended with equal impartiality on friends and foes when they happened to deserve it. Her disposition to utter the truth, whether painful or disagreeable, overruled all other considerations.

Few people conversed with her, or received a letter from her, without being sensible of some expression or innuendo, which they were obliged to treat as a joke at the moment, but which was sure to leave its sting behind. Of upwards of a hundred letters which I have penned for her at her dictation to correspondents of every rank in life, there were few which did not contain some touch of merited sarcasm or reproof; except those which were expressly written to alleviate distress, or encourage the hopeful efforts of modest worth. Never was there so inflexible a judge, or one who would do what she thought light, come what would of it. Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum, might have been written on her escutcheon.

Sunday, February 25.—Having recovered her tranquillity, she was to-day all kindness. I mentioned to her the report rife in Beyrout respecting her death, as M. Guys had written it. She observed on it, "If I do die, those consuls, thank God, can have nothing to do with me! I am no English subject, and they have no right to seal up my effects. Why do I keep some of my servants, although I know them to be desperate rascals, but because they have one or two qualities useful to me? It would not do for every one to run the risk, but it will for me, who know how to manage them. For example: I have got two that I can depend upon for shooting a man, or giving a consul a good blow, if he dares to set his foot within my doors, so as to prevent his ever coming again; and such are what I want just now."

She turned over in her mind how she could raise a little money, and bethought herself of Mr. Michael Tutungi, the Armenian, of Constantinople, who had formerly served her in the capacity of dragoman. To him she had written in 1836, offering him the same situation he had held before, and, on his promise to come, had forwarded to him 500 dollars for the expenses of his journey and for some commissions: but he subsequently declined the engagement, neither had he executed the commissions. She therefore desired me to draw a bill on him, payable to M. Guys's order, and to request M. Guys to discount it; for, during my nettlerash, Lady Hester had given away the greatest part of the 1,190 piasters to a family ruined by the earthquake. It was in vain to represent to her that she was in want of the money herself: "I can't help it," she would say; "I am not mistress of myself on such occasions."

Tuesday, February 27.—Lady Hester got up, went into her garden, and felt better. She had at last found out that repletion, arising even from what would be called small quantities of food and drink in health, was very injurious in sickness; and she had grown more moderate in her diet, not swallowing one liquid upon another, nor eating four or five times a day. Honey and butter mixed was now what she derived most benefit from, and spermaceti linctuses. The moment she found anything soothed her cough, she immediately sent off an order to Beyrout for an immense quantity of it, or to Europe, if at Beyrout it was not to be had: she was never satisfied that her medicine-chest was full enough. It will hardly be credited that of Epsom salts she had a cask full, of the size of a firkin. She masticated aniseeds as a remedy against dyspepsia, and smoked them sprinkled on the tobacco of her pipe: of course, they were very injurious to her, but it was idle to remonstrate.

February 29.—Lady Hester's first topic of conversation to-day was her maids. "What a hywán [beast] is that Sâady!" she said: "when she awakes in the morning, she crawls on all-fours exactly like an animal. I am convinced she is nothing more: her back is only fit to carry a pair of panniers." I agreed with her ladyship, and told her what I had seen her do the day before. With one springing lift she raised from the floor to her head a circular mankàl or chafingdish, two feet in diameter, and piled up with live coals—and, without holding it, but merely balancing it on her head, she stooped perpendicularly, and seized with her two hands another mankàl of baked earth of equal size, filled with live coals also, and, lifting it, carried them both at once into the drawing-room to warm the apartment. These are the feats of dexterity and strength in which Syrian women excel, and in which they far surpass all European maids.

March 1.—Monsieur Henry Guys, the French consul, having been advanced to the superior situation of Aleppo, and being about to quit our part of the country, arrived unexpectedly at Jôon to take his leave. It was Tuesday, and just after sunset, when lie entered the gate. Lady Hester had, about a quarter of an hour before, hurried me away from her, as the sun was going to set, and it would have been unlucky, had I left her a minute after the sun was down. "I shall not see you to-morrow," said she, "as it will be Wednesday:" therefore, when she was told that Monsieur Guys was come, it discomposed her very much, and she sent word that, whatever his business was, she could not see him until after sunset next day.

As M. Guys was thus transferred to me for twentyfour hours, I took the opportunity of letting him know how disquieted I felt at having such great responsibility on my shoulders, whilst Lady Hester was so ill, and surrounded by a set of servants whom I considered as so many cut-throats.

My position was extremely uncomfortable. Should Lady Hester die, I foresaw that I should be exposed, alone as I was, to many difficulties and dangers. The Druze insurrection afforded every facility to an assassin or robber for putting himself beyond the reach of justice: since, in about five or six hours, he could find a sure refuge from capture. He revived my spirits by assuring me I need be under no alarm. "All of them are known," said he, " and have their families and relations hereabouts: that one circumstance must always be a check upon them. If they were not natives of the province, then I should say you were not safe among them. As for Lady Hester, you know her determined character—if she is resolved to keep them, you cannot help it. There is one," added he, "whom I could wish not to be here; I thought him gone a year ago:" this was the one whom Lady Hester relied on for sending a bullet through the consul's body.

There is a large stone edifice of great extent, distant about three-quarters of a mile, as the crow flies, from the village of Jôon, more like a fortress than the peaceable habitation of cenobites. It is the monastery of Dayr el Mkhallas, or the Saviour, and contains about fifty friars of the Greek Catholic church, which repudiates the pope, recognizing as its spiritual head its own patriarch. M. Guys enjoyed the unlimited confidence of these people as the well-tried and efficient friend of the Catholic church throughout Syria; and it was no sooner known that he was in the neighbourhood, than the superior of the monastery gave him to understand that a visit from him would be received as a great honour by the monks. M. Guys devoted the morning to this gratifying object, and his reception was in the highest degree flattering. When he arrived at the foot of the Mount, on the summit of which the monastery stands, he was saluted by a merry chime of church-bells, and then the whole body of the friars, with the cross borne before them, came out in procession to meet him. The greatest ceremony was observed on the occasion, and sherbet, coffee, pipes, aspersion of rose-water, and homage, were lavished on him, not less in the hope of securing a continuation of his good offices, than as expressive of gratitude for past kindnesses: for no man holding official rank in Syria has ever enjoyed more popularity, or obtained more general consideration, than the Chevalier Guys. Descended from an ancient family of Provence, in which the consular rank may be almost said to have become hereditary, the Levant saw, at the beginning of the present century, the rare occurrence of three brothers holding consulships at the same time.

After dinner, M. Guys was summoned by Lady Hester Stanhope, and I availed myself of the opportunity it afforded me of remaining at home for the evening. The next morning he departed before I was up; but, being anxious to ascertain his opinions of Lady Hester's situation, I mounted my horse, and, by taking a short but somewhat dangerous path down the mountains, I overtook him. Nothing particular, however, had transpired in their conversation, which lasted for four hours; but he told me that he was shocked to find her so much altered, and that he had never heard such a hollow sepulchral cough. He added that, frequently during the time he was with her, she fell back on the sofa from exhaustion. She spoke, too, a good deal, and in rather an odd way, of extraordinary sights she had seen, of two apparitions that had appeared to her, and of serpents near Tarsus, which go in troops devouring all before them, and with a tone of conviction as if she believed it all. "What does it mean," he asked me—"and why do you let her smoke so much?"

March 2.—Lady Hester was now getting better slowly, but, as usual, her strength no sooner began to return than it brought out all the unmanageable points of her character in full relief. Something happened in the house which ruffled her, and produced a discussion between us, I hardly know how; but it ended by her calling me a crabbed old fool: upon which I observed, that I never heard such expressions from the lips of ladies before. This set her off upon her inexhaustible theme of fearless speaking. "If you were a duke," said she, "I would use exactly the same expressions."—"Your ladyship's talents," I ventured to observe again, "are inexpressibly great, but, without questioning that, I only lament the intemperate use of them." Taking up this observation, she dwelt at great length upon the "sweetness of her temper," and I made my peace at last, by saying that a physician should be the last person to complain of the irritability of his patients. Apophthegms of this submissive character were never lost upon her, provided they were true, as well as apologetic; so pipes were ordered, and we entered into an armistice for the rest of the evening.

A curious but characteristic incident occurred about this time. In the ravines of the mountains, where the few living creatures that are to be found may be supposed to be drawn into closer communion by a common sense of loneliness, a shepherd named Câasem, who was nearly fifty years old, formed a liaison with a village girl, whose occupation consisted in leading a cow about in the solitary green nooks where any scanty herbage was to be secured. The circumstance reached Lady Hester's ears before it was known to anybody else, and she immediately ordered the man to be flogged at break of day, with instructions that nobody should tell him why or wherefore. "He will know what it is for," she exclaimed; then turning reproachfully to Logmagi, to whom the execution of the order was entrusted, she added:—"How is it you leave me to be the first to discover these disgraceful acts, giving the Emir Beshýr an excuse to say that I encourage depravity in my servants, when it is your duty to know everything that passes about my premises?" Logmagi went, gave the shepherd a beating, and sent him about his business. Lady Hester used to justify severities of this description on the ground that it prevented the recurrence of similar licentiousness, and "kept the fellows in order."

March 5.—This being the vigil of the Korbàn Byràm, or the Mahometan Easter, which is their great holyday, Lady Hester, who had previously given her orders to a person who had some reputation as a pastrycook, despatched at twelve at night three servants, each with a sennyah, or round tray, on which they were to bring back from Sayda by daylight the baklâawy, mamool, and karýby, three delicious sorts of sweet cakes, which are scarcely exceeded in delicacy by the choicest pastry of Europe.

At noon, the servants, dressed in all their new finery, sat down to a copious dinner composed of the most luxurious Eastern dishes. But there was no wine; for, whatever transgressions these people may commit in that way in private, they never touch wine in public. Logmagi and some others were known not to be much troubled with such scruples, when they could indulge themselves in secret: but Logmagi always excused himself on the score of being a Freemason, which is held in Turkey to be equivalent to a jovial fellow who does not care much what he does. The women, also, had their own feast, and a piece of gold the value of twenty piasters was presented to each of the servants. The day was literally abandoned to pleasure; but what a contrast do the sober manners of Mahometans form to those of Europeans? Gambling and noisy revels are out of the question in the tranquil and easy delights in this simple race. Dancing is generally confined to the boys, or to some buffoon who gets up and wriggles about to the music of a small tambourine, beaten with a single stick and producing a dull sound, which they consider musical, and which habit renders not disagreeable even to European ears. Every man smokes his pipe; and a good story-teller (for such a one is rarely wanting in a party of a dozen,) relates some traditionary tale, which absorbs for the time all the faculties of his hearers. The cook was one of this sort, a Christian of the village of Abra, a shrewd fellow, who went by the name of Dyk, or the Cock, from his rather strutting air, or from the vigorous exercise of his authority over his wife, whom he beat every now and then to keep her in proper discipline—a redeeming quality in the eyes of Lady Hester, who otherwise would have dismissed him from her service.

Lady Hester's astrological powers were put to a practical test to-day. Fatôom, one of her maid servants, whose name has frequently occurred in these pages, required my medical services, under the following circumstances. About six years before, having, in league with Zeyneb, a black girl, and some men of the village, robbed her mistress of several valuable effects, she was turned away: but, upon exhibiting great repentance, she was taken back again. Lady Hester found no difficulty, as may be supposed, in extracting from her a confession of the system of plunder that had been carried on, and the names of her accomplices. "I could hang them all," was her constant expression in speaking of them. Fatôom had been in her ladyship's service ten or eleven years, and was not yet twenty; and, being very pretty, and decked out in the finery to which she was enabled to help herself by her share of the plunder, she had vanity enough, when she was turned away, to hope that she should get at least an aga for a husband: but she was disappointed, and was obliged to put up with a small farmer. She consequently came back a married woman, in poor plight as to circumstances, with the prospect of having her difficulties aggravated by a speedy increase to her cares. On this day, 5th March, Fatôom complained of pains. There was not a moment to be lost: the midwife was instantly sent for; Fatôom was hurried away to her mother's in the village, and, before the expiration of a quarter of an hour, she gave birth to a boy.

As soon as Lady Hester learned the result, she requested me to go and see her. I found Fatôom sitting on a mattress on the floor (for nobody in the East has a bedstead) with from fifteen to twenty women squatted around her, the midwife supporting her back, and the child lying by her, covered with a corner of the quilt. Fatôom, very yellow, looked as if she had been in a great fright, and was astonished there was so little in it. After feeling her pulse, and delivering to her mother a basket of good things, such as lump sugar, six or eight sorts of spices, &c., with which it is customary to make the caudle upon these occasions, as also a new counterpane, and two silk pillows, for her lying-in present, I took a glance at the village gossips. There they were, holding forth much in the same way as the peasantry in other countries, with this difference, that here my presence was no restraint, and the minutest details of the recent event were discussed with as little reserve as if they had been talking of the ordinary incidents of the day.

Having returned to Lady Hester with an account of what I had seen, she immediately set about casting the infant's nativity, first ascertaining accurately the hour at which he was born—a quarter before two. "He will have," said she, "arched eyebrows, rolling eyes, and a nose so and so: he will be a devil, violent in his passions, but soon pacified: his fingers will be long and taper, without being skinny and bony:" and thus she went on, in a manner so impressed with faith and earnestness, that it is not to be wondered at how persons of good judgment have lent their ears to astrologers, where the study has been fortified by a previous knowledge of man, his temperaments, and the innate and external characteristics of passions, of virtue, and of vice. She gave him the name of Selim, and sent word to say his star agreed with hers very well. This was good news for Fatôom, as it was equivalent to Lady Hester's taking charge of the infant.

The cradle had already been prepared: it was of wood, painted green, something like a trough, and perforated at the bottom, as is usual in the East. A tube of wood with a bowl to it, exactly of the form of a tobacco-pipe, is tied to the child's waist, a rude but ingenious contrivance to save trouble to the nurse, the bowl serving as the immediate recipient, and the tube passing through the side of the cradle.^[2]

March 7.—This being Wednesday, Lady Hester, as usual, was invisible. What she did on these mysterious days I never heard: for a person once away from her might as well divine how the man in the moon was employed as guess how she was passing her time.

Thursday, March 8.—I saw Lady Hester about four o'clock: she was in a very irritable state: she complained bitterly, as usual, of her servants—of their neglect, ignorance, and heartlessness: she said she would rather be surrounded by robbers; for there is some principle amongst thieves. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "that I could find one human being who knew his Creator!"

She went on:—"I have had a very bad night, and whether I shall live or die, I don't know: but this I tell you beforehand, that, if I do die, I wish to be buried, like a dog, in a bit of earth just big enough to hold this miserable skin, or else to be burnt, or thrown into the sea. And, as I am no longer an English subject, no consuls, nor any English of any sort, shall approach me in my last moments; for, if they do, I will have them shot. Therefore, the day before I die, if I know it, I shall order you away, and not only you, but everything English; and if you don't go, I warn you beforehand, you must take the consequences. Let me be scorched by the burning sun^[3]—frozen by the cold blast—let my ashes fly in the air—let the wolves and jackals devour my carcase;—let"—here the agitation she was in, and which had kept increasing, brought on a severe fit of coughing, and it was a quarter of an hour before she could recover strength enough to speak again. Her exhaustion reduced her to a little calm.

After dinner I saw her again, but now her irritability had passed away. "Take your chair," said she, "here by the bed—turn your back to the window to save your poor eyes from the light—never mind me: there—I am afraid I have overworked them by so much writing. But I know, if you did not write for me, you would be writing or reading for yourself: you are just like my sister Griselda."

She went on:—"You are angry with me, I dare say, because I told you I would not have you near me when I am dying: but I suppose I may do as I please. No English consul shall touch me or my effects: no: when I was going, sooner than that, I will call in all the thieves and robbers I can find, and set them to plunder and destroy everything. But I shall not die so:—I shall die as St. Elias and Isaac did; and, before that, I shall have to wade through blood up to here" (and she drew her hand across her neck), "nor will a spark of commiseration move me. The bab el tobi [gate of pardon] will then be shut; for neither king, nor priest, nor peasant, shall enter when that hour comes. You and others will then repent of not having listened to my words."

Saturday, March 10.—Let us take this night as a sample of many others, to show sometimes what was doing in a solitary residence on Mount Lebanon, in which the vivid fancies of European writers had conjured up an imaginary mode of existence wholly different from the sad reality. From eight o'clock at night until one in the morning, Lady Hester Stanhope had kept the house in commotion, upon matters which would seem so foreign to her rank, her fortune, and her supposed occupations, that, when enumerated, they will hardly be believed. First, there was a deliberation of half an hour to decide whether it would be best to send the mules on the next day or the day after for wheat: then several servants were to be questioned, one after another, in order to compare their conflicting testimony, whether her fields of barley had come up, and how high, and what crops they promised; next, whether the oranges, now fit to be gathered, should be put under the gardener's care, or into a store-room in the house. Then ensued a conversation with me, whether Fatôom was not playing some deep game in pretending to be separated from her husband; and so on, with a score of other topics equally unimportant, but with all of which she worried herself so effectively, that it seemed as if she wilfully sought refuge in such petty annoyances, for the sake of escaping from secret heart-burnings, which she did not choose to betray. In this way she had the secretary called up twice from his bed, and the bailiff once, keeping the rest of the servants in continual motion, whilst I was obliged, in civility, to sit and listen to it all.

Old Pierre had been sent for from Dayr el Kamar. As a person who figures occasionally in these domestic scenes, I must make the reader a little acquainted with his history. In the year 1812, when Lady Hester was travelling from Jerusalem along the coast towards Damascus, we reached Dayr el Kamar, where Pierre came and offered himself to me as a servant. I took him; but his various talents as a cook, a guide, and an interpreter, and most of all as an adventurer, who had an extraordinary fund of anecdotes to relate, soon brought him into notice with Lady Hester, and she asked him of me for her own service. He accompanied us to Palmyra and through different parts of Syria, resided with her at Latakia and Mar Elias, and remained in her service many years. Having amassed a little money, he obtained permission to retire to Dayr el Kamar, where he kept a cook's-shop, or, if you will, a tavern.

But Lady Hester never lost sight of him. From time to time, when any traveller left her house to traverse Mount Lebanon, or to journey to Damascus and Aleppo, or even to Palmyra, Pierre was recommended as interpreter and guide, and, I understand, always discharged his duties to the satisfaction of his employers. He is known to many Englishmen, among the rest to the Rev. Mr. Way, who seems to have been very good to him; and Pierre, on his side, retains a most grateful remembrance of that gentleman's bounty.

Pierre springs from a good family, by the name of Marquis or Marquise, originally of Marseilles, and afterwards established as merchants in Syria. When he was a boy, he accompanied an uncle to France, who took him to Paris. The uncle wore the Levantine dress; and, having some business to transact connected with government, was on one occasion summoned to Versailles, where the court was. Chance or design threw Pierre in the way of the king, Louis XVI., who talked to him about the Levant, as did also Monsieur, afterwards Louis XVIII. Of this conversation Pierre never failed to make considerable boast.

On his return to Syria, Pierre lived with his relations, until Buonaparte laid siege to Acre, where his knowledge of the French language recommended him to the notice of that general. He bore a commission in his army; and, on the retreat of the French into Egypt, accompanied them, and remained there until the final evacuation, when he obtained a pension; but of which, he declared, he had never touched a sou, in consequence of residing abroad.

Mons. Urbain, a contributor to the Temps, happening to meet with Pierre when he was travelling in Syria, was so highly diverted with his anecdotes, that, on his return to France, he wrote no less than three feuilletons, or notices on Le Vieux Pierre; at least, so I was informed by Monsieur Guys.

Pierre had been sent for by Lady Hester Stanhope, and she assigned him a room close to the doors of her own quadrangle, that he might be always within call, Pierre was a man exceedingly thin, with an aquiline nose, and a steady eye, full of gasconade to be mistaken for courage, wonderfully loquacious, and deeply imbued with all the mystic doctrines that Lady Hester sometimes preached about. But Pierre's chief merit lay in his star, which, she assured me, was so propitious to her, that it could calm her convulsions, and lay her to sleep, when books, narcotics, and everything else failed.

Glancing in these desultory memorials from one person to another, I may here mention, that one of the maids, named Sâady, incurred the particular aversion of Lady Hester, just as strongly as Pierre was favoured with her partiality. Poor Sâady never entered her presence without being saluted by some epithet of disgust or opprobium: yet Sâady worked from morning till night, and seldom got to bed until three, four, or five o'clock in the morning. But Lady Hester insisted on the necessity of treating her servants in this way for the purpose of keeping them on the alert; and she would frequently quote her grandfather's example to prove how powerful particular aversions were in people of exalted minds—such as hers and his. In this way she kept herself in a state of constant irritation, as if she were determined obstinately to oppose the inroads of disease by increased exertion, exactly in proportion as her physical strength became more and more weakened and reduced.

Monday, March 12.—Two servant boys were flogged by Logmagi for having quitted the courtyard both at the same time, when one at least was wanted to carry messages from the inner to the outer courts. These punishments were inflicted by making the delinquent lie at his full length flat on the ground, his head being held by one servant, and his feet by another while the stripes were administered. My disposition revolted at these whippings; although perhaps they were necessary, as Lady Hester said. The servants would not have borne them, but that they had in fact no choice, knowing well that they must either remain and be flogged, or be sent to the Nizàm, where they would be flogged twice as much, with the risk of being killed to boot.

Wednesday, March 14.—Lady Hester was in very low spirits this evening, and, as night advanced, she had a paroxysm of grief, which quite terrified me. With a ghastly and frenzied look, she kept crying until my heart was rent with her wretchedness. When I left her for the night, although she was somewhat composed, her image haunted me, even when sleep had closed my eyes.

1. No dependant stands before his superior in the East without covering his hands with his robe or with the hanging sleeves customary among Orientals. In sitting, the feet and legs are likewise hidden; at least, so good-breeding requires, and persons alone who are on terms of familiarity would thrust them out, or let them hang pendent.
2. In the cottages of Mount Lebanon there are many things occurring daily which would greatly surprise an English practitioner. A luxation of the shoulder-joint in an infant, real or supposed, was cured, they told me, by taking the child by the wrist and swinging it round with its feet off the ground, until the bone got into place again. I assisted, for the second time, at the cure of a sore throat, in a man thirty-six years of age, who suffered a pocket-handkerchief to be drawn tightly round his neck until his face turned black and he was half strangled. The man declared the next day he was well, and the operator assured me it was a never-failing remedy.

3. Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis

   Arbor æstiva recreatur aura," &c.

   Yet Lady Hester had never read Horace.