Chapter XIV

Departure from Cyprus, and Voyage to Marseilles--Dirtiness of
the French ship and her crew--Fare on board--Cruel treatment of
a political prisoner--Angora greyhound--Arrival at Pomegue, the
quarantine anchorage of Marseilles.

The Jean Baptiste brigantine polacca of 150 tons being now ready to sail, I embarked for Marseilles on the 9th of April, in the afternoon. It was not without considerable regret that I took leave of a gentleman whose unabated hospitality I had partaken of for seventy-six days. The vessel was laden with cotton, of which she had nearly 600 bales, so that they were stowed on the quarter-deck, in the waist, and on the forecastle; besides which the cabin was so full, that between the bales and the ceiling there was only room enough to creep to the sleeping berths. I was to pay for the state-room and my board 350 francs. Much had been said to me beforehand of the bad food and bad usage which passengers generally meet with on board of Provençal vessels; I therefore prepared myself contentedly for the worst.

On Friday the 10th of April, before sunrise, we got under weigh, with the wind at west; but, after tacking off and on, we found ourselves, at sunset, where we started from in the morning. We had on board a prisoner in chains, named Candie, who had been arrested at St. Jean d’Acre, by an order from Constantinople; and, as far as I could collect, was accused of having taken part in some of the troubles at Grenoble at the return of the Emperor Napoleon from Elba. The place assigned him was on the cables, which lay on the cargo close to the main hatchway; but, complaining that he feared being stifled when the hatches were closed in bad weather, he was transferred to the long boat; and, when the vessel was distant from the land, his chains were taken off. The Captain, the owner, his two sons, the mate, and a Maltese passenger, slept in the cabin; and, there being no room to sit, we ate constantly on deck, fair weather and foul. As there was no space for stools, or chairs, or benches, they all stood to eat, and to this position I should have been myself condemned, had not my habits of sitting in the Turkish fashion made a bale of cotton a very good sofa.

On the 12th, a strong wind from the East carried us on our course seventy or eighty miles. On the 13th, the wind again shifted to the west, and, up to the 23d, we were still beating to windward.

May set in with a change of wind to the north-east. For the first time, studding sails were set. We now got on rapidly, and on the night of the 3rd, we passed between Malta and Sicily.

On the 8th, the coast of Barbary was in sight the whole day. On the 11th and 12th we made little way; and on the 13th and 14th we were becalmed on the Casse, a bank over which ships of large burden cannot pass without danger. Here one of the sailors speared a fish, between three and four feet long, of a deep purple colour on the back, and with a snouted head, which some called a _paron_ and others a _requin_ (shark).

On the 15th we had an easterly wind, and advanced very fast towards our destination. On the 16th, at four o’clock in the afternoon, we discovered the high land over Toulon, and about sunset we descried the church of Nôtre Dame de la Garde, the village of Sinfours, and the rock at the entrance of Toulon harbour. We stood off during the night; and, on quitting the cabin in the morning, I found the vessel at the mouth of Marseilles harbour, just where the rocky land, so rugged and bare, presents itself to the sight. In an hour we were anchored at Pomegue, an inlet in a small island not altogether safe in blowing weather, but destined for vessels that have to perform quarantine. Thus we had been thirty-seven days on our passage; ten of which were spent in reaching Candia, thirteen more to Malta, six to Sardinia, and eight more to our anchorage.

In taking a review of the circumstances of the voyage, I cannot say that anything could have made it tolerable but the prospect of soon landing in Christendom. I was shut up in a vessel, and obliged to live in close society with men, whose habits, occupations, and education, differed entirely from my own: and, although a philosophic mind will not suffer its happiness to depend on such temporary inconveniences, I confess I found mine sometimes greatly affected by them.

The Provençal sailors are superstitious to excess; and, whenever the weather was bad, there was always a disposition to throw the blame of it on me, whom, as a Protestant, they reckoned no Christian. They were totally wanting in cleanliness. The cabin was full of fleas, and was never swept during the whole voyage. This however was perhaps more owing to the remissness of the captain, who did not enforce it, than to the cabin-boy and men, who themselves, when ill-humoured with the captain, complained of the dirtiness of the vessel. The Provençaux seem to have a habit of spitting not exceeded by the Spaniards or Americans, and, what is worse, they spit in every direction and on every spot, so that I had not a single resting-place on the deck, nor could I go one step without the apprehension of brushing with my long dress the saliva that was scattered and conglobated in every direction. This habit appeared more disagreeable to a person coming from Turkey, where the meanest pauper is never seen to spit, even when smoking.

Their cookery was to me extremely disagreeable. The principal ingredients in it were oil and garlic, the latter of which is considered so great a delicacy, not only by the seafaring people of Provence but by those who live on shore, that women even of respectable condition often carry the odour of it in their breath into society.

It will not be misplaced here to give a list of the dishes on which we chiefly lived during the passage, that other travellers may be induced from it to take the precaution of laying in their own provisions on a similar voyage. On Wednesdays and Fridays we lived on meagre fare, such as lentils or rice done in oil, or salt fish soup, or salt fish plain boiled; artichokes stuffed with onions, and parsley stewed in oil; or on split peas and slices of bread boiled into a soup with oil and water; or on cold boiled peas with oil. Hard Dutch cheese, or, which is still harder, Cyprus cheese, with two dates and a few raisins for each person, made up the dessert. On other days, there was rice boiled, or rice soup; ham and bacon omelettes; stockfish always; broad beans raw, which were to be eaten as children eat peas in England; boiled garden snails, which were considered a delicacy, and of which we had a bushel basket full. Two lambs were taken on board at Cyprus, and killed on the voyage. They were eaten in the following manner. On the first day the blood caught from the neck was fried, which looked like pieces of liver; but this I could not eat. Next the liver itself was fried or roasted, and the tripe done in _fricassée_, but so badly washed that it was impossible to touch it. After this we fared well for two or three days on lamb chops, vermicelli soup, _bouilli_ of lamb, &c., until the lamb was eaten. Towards the latter part of the voyage, when all the provisions were nearly gone, we were reduced to ham and salt fish soup, and boiled horse-beans in salad; whilst the water we drank came from a wine barrel, with a smack of the vinous sourness in it.

There was no remedy for these evils when once embarked; for the desire of avoiding anchorage dues prevents these vessels from entering any port on their way home.

But when it is considered that some regard was paid to my English habits, and that I had the liberty of disliking what did not please me, my situation was good compared to that of the poor prisoner, confined to the long-boat, and with no covering but an old sail. His food was always of the worst; and the spray of the sea, in bad weather, constantly flew over him, so as to wet him. In this man’s conversation I found the only resource I had in the ship. He had been bred to, and followed, the trade of a turner; but, in the revolution, he had signalized his love of liberty, and bore with him a medal equivalent in its import to what in ancient times a civic crown would have been. His conduct on the return of Napoleon had made him obnoxious to the royalists, and he had absented himself with a view to escape persecution, which however pursued him into the heart of Syria: for, at St. Jean d’Acre, whilst gaining a scanty livelihood by portrait painting, he was seized and shipped off for France.

He was more attached than any person I ever saw to freemasonry, which he seemed to have studied deeply, and his object in going to Palestine was, he said, to visit Jerusalem, as the place which gave birth to this singular fraternity. Whatever his motives were, he did not effect them.

The Provençal language (on board ship) is a most disagreeable jargon, as unintelligible even to those who understand French as to those who do not, and delighting in intonations of the voice, which always reminded me of a crying child.

I had brought with me an Angora greyhound. The beauty of a dog from that country consists in long silky hair at the ears and on the tail, the peculiar feature of all animals, whether goats, cats, or dogs, which come from Angora and its neighbourhood. Never did I feel so forcibly the proverb of “love me, love my dog,” as then; for the whole of the crew, when my back was turned, were constantly beating him, and worried him cruelly.

As soon as the vessel was moored, the captain proceeded to Marseilles (which is a league from Pomegue) with his papers; and next morning I was conveyed, with my effects, to the Lazaretto, thankful to the Almighty, for having permitted me, after so many perilous voyages and journeys, once more to revisit Europe.

ADDITIONAL NOTE.

“Beaten him.”--p. 325.

I have preserved the exact words in which Dr. Wolff told the story; but, in justice to Lady Hester Stanhope, I ought to observe that, in her ladyship’s residence at Mar Elias, there were no steps either in the house or at the entrance, and consequently the bearer of the letter could not be “kicked down stairs.” Neither am I disposed to believe that her ladyship bastinadoed him: she might have desired the porter to say that, if he returned again, he would be bastinadoed. In this way were many strange tales circulated, for which there were no other grounds than the assertion of some poor devil, who made out a pitiful case in order to get a _bakshysh_ for his supposed sufferings. A Syrian thinks a few piasters are fairly gained by a plausible lie.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] A few years afterwards she became more of a fatalist. See “Memoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope.”

[2] These trays are made in continuous circles, like the top of a beehive, and are very common in Syria.

[3] There are said to be about forty-four villages in the Bkâ.

[4] These had a resident Frank priest, who acted also as doctor. He was well known as having received all the European travellers, who have passed through Bâlbec, at his little monastery.

[5] The word _Shiys_ or _Shyas_ marks either the particular followers of Ali, who do not acknowledge the legitimacy of the first three Caliphs, or comprehends, generally, all heterodox persons, born in the bosom of Islamism, in opposition to the _Sunnys_, an expression by which all Moslems of the four orthodox sects are designated.--(_Tabl. Gen. de l’Emp. Ott._ vol. i. p. 95.)

[6] The largest of the stones in the outer (western) wall is said to be 62 feet 9 inches, that in the quarry 68 feet in length, 17 feet 8 inches wide, 13 feet 10 inches thick. Wood and Dawkins, who aver that they give all their drawings and plans from measurement, are the best authors to rely on.

[7] Of this emir Ali, Burckhardt has these words (p. 168):--“the north declivity of Mount Libanus, a district governed at present (March, 1812,) by Ali Beg, a man famous for his generosity, liberality, and knowledge of Arabian literature.”

[8] Bâlbec has to boast of having given birth to a famous physician, named Beder-ed-dyn Bâlbeky, who lived in the third century of the hegira.

I marked in charcoal, on the walls of the inner temple, the name of Lady Hester with this laudatory quatrain:--

Quam multa antiquis sunt his incisa columnis
Nomina! cum saxo mox peritura simul.
Sed tu nulla times oblivia: fama superstes,
Esther, si pereant marmora, semper erit.

How many names, else never to be known,
Live for a while, inscribed upon this stone!
But, Hester, thine oblivion shall not fear:--
Fame will transmit it, though not written here.

However, her ladyship requested me immediately to efface the whole; and she declared she never had consented, when living with her uncle, to be praised in verse, or portrayed in painting.

[9] In the Syrian monasteries, the customary salutation between the friars who meet each other is that above mentioned, and the answer likewise.

[10] I have since read in some author that this column was of the Corinthian order, fifty-seven feet high and five feet in diameter, having a tablet for an inscription, now erased. I cannot recollect whether it was before or after we arrived at the column, that there stood a village (called Yyd or Nyd) not far out of the road, which we were desirous of entering: but the inhabitants hailed us from the roofs of the houses, and with muskets in their hands threatened to shoot any one who should approach them; for they were determined, they said, to let nobody, coming from Bâlbec, where the plague was, have intercourse with them.

[11] For the properties of this lake, see Eusebius de vitâ Constantini, iii. 55.

[12] Ayn Aty is called by Burckhardt Ainnete, one word, but I venture to think that he is incorrect.

[13] For _Aphaca_, a temple dedicated to Venus, on the top of Mount Lebanon, see Zosimus, i., 58.

[14] It must be observed that, in the East, a usual way of doing honour to distinguished guests is to spread something costly for them to tread or sit on. Thus, when it was thought that her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales would have visited Damietta, the English agent there, a rich merchant, had arranged that the path from the side of the Nile to his house door should be covered with Cashmere shawls. Carpets are seldom left spread out in a room, but are rolled up and moved from room to room as wanted, being generally small, and never made singly to cover a whole room.

[15] I dined with these gentlemen at different periods, and was generally expected to give about a crown as vails to the servants on coming away.

[16] We heard here, with pleasure, a eulogium passed on two of our countrymen, by the grateful widow and daughters of a M. Cuzi, who, in the prosecution of a journey, as intrepreter, with two English gentlemen, Major C. and Mr. F., fell a victim to a fever, and left a family who would have seen want staring them in the face, but for the liberal relief afforded them by these gentlemen.

[17] These hoods are made of cloth, and men use them in travelling as women use hoods in England: they being, in the like manner, not attached to a cloak, but worn separately.

[18] His name was Sulimán, the son of Ibrahim, katib of Hussn and Safýna, which is an adjoining district, and where he lived.

[19] It would appear that this is the place described by Abulfeda (page 102), under the name of Hussn el Keràd. His words are: “Hussn el Keràd is a fortified castle, facing Hems to the west, upon the mountain. This castle is a day’s journey from Hems, and the like distance from Tripoli.”

[20] One of Selim’s horses continually moved his head up and down. This is esteemed, in the East, a mark of a high-bred horse, and is supposed to have something holy in it, I believe because it resembles the motion which learned and devout Mahometans put on when reading the Corân.

[21] It perhaps may amuse some persons to know that parasites, or toadies, as they are now called, are as common in Syria as in other countries. Selim, wherever he went, was generally accompanied by a man, to whom, upon all occasions, he was accustomed to appeal for a confirmation of his assertions. This man accordingly would attest, with violent asseverations, anything, however hyperbolical or exaggerated, that Selim advanced.

[22] Räys means a captain of a vessel, or the superior of a community, or the head of any body of persons.

[23] Burkhardt spells it Amfy. His words are, “Below, on the sea-shore, at the extremity of a point of land, is a lone village, called Amfy, and near it the convent Dair Natour.”

[24] Jos. Antiq. Jud. l. viii. c. 13.

[25] This kind of marriage is called in Arabic El Menmah--conjugium temporarium.

[26] About £3 sterling. Roubles, rupees, rubías, are all the same word in different tongues.

[27] Strabo, xvi. 755. 1 Kings, v. Josh. xiii. 5. Ezekiel, xxvii. 9. Ptolemy places Byblus ten miles south of Botrus; this agrees very nearly with five hours’ march, ass’s pace.

[28] So it is written in my notes, but I am inclined to think the name of this hamlet is Mynat Bergeh, or the port of Bergeh. It was in going to this place, that, finding one of the Turkish muleteers exceedingly careless, I dismounted, and laid a stick sharply across his shoulders. This was the only time, thus far in my travels, I ever struck a Mahometan; and, although he merely vented his dudgeon in words, I was very apprehensive that, on our arrival at Beyrout, he would take an opportunity of raising a mob against me. I would not advise a European ever to strike a Mussulman, whatever the provocation may be.

[29] Via Antoniana. This road was made by Aurelius. (Pococke.)

[30] Beyrout was taken from the Saracens, by Baldwin, in 1111, and lost in 1187. It was anciently a famous school of civil law.

[31] Some say the Adonis (Brown); some the Tamyras (Poc.); but Brown seems to have been exceedingly inaccurate in assigning names to places and things along the coast of Syria; and Pococke places the Tamyras, which we shall presently pass, and which is the modern Damûr, some miles too far North. The similarity of Tamyr and Damûr might have saved Pococke from this blunder.

[32] Dame Habûs.

[33] Vid. Niebuhr or Pococke.

[34] Supposed by Pococke to be the Porphirion of the Jerusalem Itinerary, eight miles from Sidon: but Nebby Yunez is from fifteen to eighteen, being six hours’ ride.

[35] Zâym means, I believe, the superior of any order: I should translate it by the word _president_. Capugi means a doorkeeper, and Capugi-bashi, a head doorkeeper. But these appellations do not convey to the mind the nature of the duties allotted to such persons by the government. A Capugi-bashi and a Zâym are great men, who are entrusted with the most important missions.

[36] Thus, whilst we were at Acre, there were Roman coins of the middle empire on sale at the goldsmiths’ by threes and twos: and as one three disappeared another supplied its place. It was plain that a jar of coins had lately been discovered, and it was said that Shaykh Messaûd of Hartha was the fortunate finder.

[37] “Avanized” is the Levant word for “mulcted.”

[38] “We reached the plain near a small village, inhabited only during the seed time.” Burckhardt, v. ii. p. 207. This village was that where we now sought shelter.

[39] Emiry is feminine, emir masculine.--These were the titles the pasha always gave her in speaking of her. I therefore conceived they were what she was legitimately entitled to in that country. Her _Presence_ is no more an absurd title than her Highness, her Grace, his Excellency, his Worship, and many other terms and qualities which use has consecrated to rank.

[40] By προσκύνησις I understand the salutation, in use among the Romans, of carrying the points of the fingers to the mouth, and kissing them, which is the customary mode still practised throughout Turkey from an inferior to a superior. Our word _adoration_ (os, oris) is derived from this gesture, and by no means implies prostration or genuflexion. Sir R. K. Porter, in his Travels in Persia, p. 665, I think, makes a mistake, in attributing this mode of salutation to another cause. His words are--“In front of the sovereign appears a man in a short tunic and plain bonnet, carrying his right hand to his mouth, to prevent his breath exhaling towards the august personage.” Sir R. seems not to have been aware that the answer to every question put by a great man to an inferior is accompanied by this very gesture. Facciolati (_Tot. Lat. Lex._) defines _adoratio_ by “precatio, manu ad os admotâ et flexo corpore facta.”

[41] Afterwards Pasha of Acre, until taken prisoner by Ibrahim Pasha.

[42] These Hawàrys were from Barbary, and the dingy colour of their complexions distinguished them from soldiers of other parts of the empire. I know not what pay the colonel, or the person whose duties answered to those of our colonels, had: but he was reputed to increase his income in this way. A regiment was composed of so many _bayraks_ or standards, each consisting of four men: but, instead of four, as rated, there were generally only two or three on actual service; and, in cases of muster, temporary substitutes were found.

[43] The word _kys_, or purse, means a specific sum of 500 piasters. On the 5th of April, whilst we were at Ascalon, news was brought of his death.

[44] The obstinacy of the English, and of Europeans in general who visit the East, often leads them into disagreeable and dangerous situations. When endeavours are used to divert them from any purpose where the difficulties which are represented are not quite obvious, and can only be foreseen by persons used to the country, they fancy their advisers are playing with them, and thus persist in their purpose, until they find themselves attacked by robbers, carried away by a torrent, or embedded in snow.

[45] Memoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope, 1st edit., vol. ii. p. 184.

[46] I here lost a glass-stoppered bottle, which I had entrusted to the hands of some one standing near me; and I observed, on every occasion where crystal bottles with glass stoppers once got into the possession of any one in Syria, they were never to be recovered. It was an article not attainable there but by gift, and possessed in the eyes of the inhabitants great value for holding elixirs, essences, &c.

[47] Yet it had required three hours fifteen minutes to do it in, on a former occasion.

[48] In hot climates, for an encampment no soil appears to me so good (and I had some experience) as a sandy soil, covered with tufted grass or turf.

[49] “Two miles south of Majdil are the ruins of six Roman baths of mineral water.”--_Mangles and Irby’s Travels_, p. 299.

[50] c. xiii., v. 3.

[51] I. Kings, c. vi.

[52] Lib. 10.

[53] The above notices of Ascalon are extracted from Noris, de Ep. Syromac, to whose learned researches the reader is referred for more copious information.

[54] How far this justifies the epithet of “prodigious thickness,” used by d’Arvieux, is for the reader to decide. Indeed, they are so much covered with sand, that I should not wonder if any cursory observer conceived them to be of four times that thickness.

[55] Looking at the result of Lady Hester’s search, some wag may be disposed to say--“Certainly, the fittest day in the year.”

[56] Named Ashur, if there be such a name in Arabic; for I do not recollect the like to it.

[57] “Participa ella del colosso, avanzando molto l’ordinaria statura d’uomo; sapendosi per osservanza degli eruditi, che cosi erano soliti farsi per i ré e pergli imperadori.”--_Statue antiche e moderne, No. 15._

It appears that the sculpture on the Gate of the Lions, as it is called, at Mycenæ, had a strong resemblance to the centre ornament of the statue.--See _Hughes’s Travels_, v. i. p. 229.

[58] The labours of Mr. Belzoni, in removing and embarking the head of Memnon in a barge, entirely set at naught all boasting of what was done at Ascalon. Columns of granite, indeed, are much heavier than Memnon’s head; but they are round, and may be made to roll easily in any direction.

[59] Those who have read Bruce’s and Salt’s travels will recollect that both of them speak of a particular rotundity in a certain part of a woman as a criterion of noble birth, and as giving an air of high breeding and gentility to the happy possessor. In this respect it must be allowed that Mariam might lay claim to a descent from a distinguished race.

[60] For Mariam, the Abyssinian woman’s parentage, see at page 164 vol. 3rd Lord Valentia’s travels, what is said of Ras Ayto, who raised Tecla Georgis to the throne. Subsequently, Elias gave me his Abyssinian name as Elias Jegurgos lidj, or Elias the son of George, and hers as Trungore Rashyelo lidj--urarefs or curnakyb Dinkanesh Rashyelo lidj--yeroda midjt--confusing all these terms in a way that left me in the dark as to which of them was her own name, and which that of her parents.

[61] Pococke, who saw the flourishing state of Tyre, even in 1737, not knowing how to reconcile with it the words of Ezekiel, xxvi. 14; and xxviii. 19, says, that the prophecy must be understood of the ancient city on the continent. He adds, “It is a place where they export great quantities of corn, and Malta itself is supplied from this place.” Vol. ii. p. 82, fol. Surely a port which supplies Malta must be a populous and thriving one! I know that evidence contrary to this may be brought from the relations of other travellers, and I believe the particular bias of a person’s mind has much to do with the colouring which he gives to objects. It would be well if commentators on prophecy would consider that Antioch, Ascalon, Berytus, Cæsarea, Decapolis, Emesa, Famagusta, Gebayl, Heliopolis, or Bâlbec, Laodicea, Palmyra, or Tadmûr, and other cities, the rivals in commerce and luxury of Tyre, will be found fallen from their flourishing greatness, many of them lower than it; and yet against the greater part of them there is no denunciation at all in the prophetic writings. On the other hand, we read (_Isaiah_ v. 1, c. xvii)--“Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap:” yet, in spite of its doom, so emphatically predicted, Damascus has flourished from that time until now. The editor of “The Monthly Review” for November, 1822, looking at the account of Tyre given by Mr. Buckingham, whose Travels he is reviewing, and who states that he saw 800 substantial houses, containing full 5,000 inhabitants, is staggered at the assertion, and confronts with it the testimony of Maundrell, Bruce, Jolliffe, and some others. He observes, very justly, that what were good comfortable houses in the eyes of Mr. Buckingham, accustomed from the age of nine years to roam about the world, might not be so in reality. But perhaps a means for settling his doubts may be found when he is told that the houses of Tyre were equally good with those at Jaffa and Acre, two neighbouring towns, which have not fallen under the prophet’s interdict, and that therefore no manifestation of the Divine wrath can be said to have descended more on it than on the two others. Cæsarea, where the good Centurion lived, has not now one house standing; yet the walls which encompass it were built by Saint Louis:--but then he was a Catholic.

[62] Murex.

[63] The Arabic saying is, “The month of August, the month of wind and wave.”

[64] Yet it may be safely affirmed that this gentleman had never read the story of Hippomenes and Atalanta.

[65] Mohammed Aga Abu Nabût, actuated by a more sanguinary feeling, was accustomed, in his petty wars, to give 150 for a head and 100 for a prisoner. The consequence was natural.

[66] The mode used by the soldiers, when plundering a village, to discover where the peasants have hidden their corn and effects, is ingenious enough. They know that such things are generally concealed in holes in their cottages, but the difficulty is to discover where to dig. The floors are of clay mixed up with chaff. The soldiers make three or four piles of stones in different parts of the room, each pile consisting of several large stones placed one upon another. They then jar the floor by jumping or stamping on it, and wherever a pile falls there is the hole, because the jar is felt only where there is a hollow.

[67] This fact, and what occurred to me at Latakia, will enable travellers to judge when and where they can smoke openly in Ramazán time.

[68] This slave was bought in Upper Egypt and cost fifty dollars--four dollars were paid as dues at the towns coming down the Nile, and two at Cairo: making the total cost fifty-six.

[69] The Gazette of the battle of Waterloo reached Egypt a day or two after our arrival.

[70] This collection was afterwards bought for the Royal Museum at Munich.

[71] Khawágy is the appellation given to Christian merchants or gentlemen; its meaning is _merchant_, and it is the most civil title that Christians, whether subjects of the Porte or Europeans, ever get from Mahometans. Aga, Bey, Mûly, Shaykh, &c., they reserve for themselves.

[72] My stay at Damietta was short, yet, among the sick whom I was called upon to see, were six with pulmonary complaints. These were Hyláneh Karysáty, with spitting of blood; Khawágy Isaac, with asthma; the brother of Hyláneh Karysáty, with consumption; Michael Surûr, bronchitis; his sister, with that disposition confirmed; Khawágy Karysáty, the husband of the lady, with spitting of blood. In Alexandria, Mrs. Schutz died of consumption; her sister was ill, and lived in daily apprehension of sharing her fate: Miss Maltass, an English lady, died of it; and there were other examples, both of natives and foreigners, which I neglected to note.

[73] San, the ancient Tanis, capital of Tanites, a province of Egypt.

[74] Burckhardt, in one of his works, amongst the various theories that have been advanced by different travellers to account for the enormous heaps of broken pottery which are found among the ruins of Egyptian and other cities, has alone given a plausible one. He supposes (I quote from memory) the ancient Egyptians to have built their walls of those cylindrical pots (like English chimneypots) which, placed horizontally one upon another, are still very generally used throughout Syria for the parapets of terraces of houses; whereby air is admitted, the view excluded, and little weight added to the subjacent walls. Broken into shards, they would be sufficient to account for the vast heaps in question.

[75] An explanation of this term has already been given. This appellation, with that of mâlem, or master, and khodja, or goodman, is what is bestowed on Christians, when spoken of or to in a civil manner. A proud, an angry, or a rude Mahometan addresses them generally by the term Nusrány, Nazareen, or Christian; Kafir, or infidel; and gaûr, signifying the same thing. To true believers only belong the titles of aga or effendi (which are Turkish words), and shaykh or sayd; much less would an infidel dare to usurp the loftier titles of bey, mûly, emir, &c. _Ga_ in _gaûr_ is like _ga_ in gander. The word is pronounced ga-oor, and not jaoor, as Lord Byron seems erroneously to have sounded it.

[76] The rice was now in ear.

[77] Young and handsome, he looked extremely well. Mâlem Surûr one day showed me his wardrobe, which was exceedingly well furnished. The Levantines are as nice, and perhaps nicer, in their distinction of colours than the French. Take, for example, Shems el Aser (the setting sun); mantûra, rosy pink; zinjàby, between dove and ash-colour, &c., all tints exceedingly delicate.

[78] This catalogue, on my return to England, I lent to Dr. Nichol, Hebrew professor at Oxford: at his death it probably was burnt, as a paper of no value.

[79] The word bakhshýsh is so often in the mouths of the Syrians and Egyptians, that the reader will be anxious to know its precise meaning. The verb _bakhshesh_ means “to give gratuitously:” and the native of these countries, after every thing he does for you, generally says--Please to give me a bakhshýsh, or please to bakhshýsh me. It is the first word that a stranger learns and the last that he hears: so that it is not astonishing if very soon it becomes familiar to his ear.

[80] I conceive these Ansárys to be descendants of the Iturei spoken of by Strabo in his 16th book, and who were in part subdued by Pompey.

[81] This is supposing the Ansárys to be those same mountaineers, one of whom stabbed our crusading king, and hence introduced the word _assassin_ into our language.

[82] Dukhýl means a suppliant, according to the dictionary.

[83] Black slaves often are named from substances in colour and quality very unlike themselves. Thus _merján_ means coral, and _anbar_ or amber was another name of one of Ahmed bey’s black slaves.

[84] The very adjunct of _Nykhu_, a nickname the most offensive to delicate ears in the Arabic language, would have been sufficient to designate this man as an impostor.

[85] Among the remedies which had been used to remove the anasarcous swelling of his feet and legs were the actual cautery on the instep and the application of pounded small white snails (called in Arabic _halazony_), in poultices to his feet.

[86] It was as follows:--Aloes and myrrh in powder, three parts: pitch and frankincense, two parts. Some time subsequently M. Belzoni observed, on my showing him this receipt, that frankincense formed no part of the embalming powder used by the Egyptians, it being forbidden by their religion.

[87] In examining the head of a mummy opened by M. Belzoni at the Egyptian Museum in Piccadilly, I mentioned to him the way in which I had extracted the brains of the patriarch; which led to an examination of the skull of the mummy before us, to see if it were possible to find out by what means the Egyptians extracted the brains previous to embalming. No division of the scalp or inequality of the bone, as if it had been forcibly opened, could be discovered on any part of the head. There was no passage even for a probe up through the palate or the substance of the sphenoidal bone; but the right nostril was larger than the left, and, on introducing a crooked probe, I could carry it up into the cavity of the skull, and I suspect that to have been the opening by which the brain was extracted.

[88] In this respect the Mahometans are exceedingly praiseworthy. A body, previous to interment, is carefully washed, and prepared for going to the grave with scrupulous attention to cleanliness.

[89] Derwish el Seghýr was an ear-sucker! Ear-sucking is practised in deafness, abscess of the ears, and in other complaints of that organ.

[90] Near the village of Garýfy there is abundance of quartz lying on the surface of the soil. This village is nearly in the centre of Mount Lebanon.

[91] Afterwards Lord Guildford.

[92] When a person is named Shems, it does not mean that he bears simply that name. Shems-ed-dyn (or the sun of religion) is his true appellation. So no man in Turkey is commonly called Aladdin, or Ali-ed-dyn, as it should be written, but Ali only; and Aladdin, his name in full length, would be inserted in writing only.

[93] In 1815, there was not in all Syria a factor (unless the English consul may be styled one) who spoke English.

[94] “And Laban said, it must not be so done in our country, to give the younger before the first born.” Genesis, xxvi. 29.

[95] Two blows, one on each foot, make a pair.

[96] In 1824, member of parliament for the University of Cambridge.

[97] When Lady Hester was in the Desert, she entered into an arrangement with the emir and his son Nasar, that, whatever person applied to them for a passage to Palmyra, and made use of her name without being furnished with a letter from her, such a one was no friend of hers. Of those who produced letters from her she wished them to understand there might be two classes, who would be distinguished by a double seal or single seal. “If there comes to me,” said Lady Hester, “a great man, on whom I can rely, and whose word you may trust as my own, who wants to live among you, to see your mock fights or a camel killed and eaten, to ride on a dromedary in his housings, &c., I will send him with two seals: but if it be another sort of person, I will send him with one.”

Lady Hester had mentioned this conversation to Mr. Bankes. When therefore Mr. Bankes was furnished with a letter by her ladyship, curious to know under which denomination he was sent, he caused his letter to be read to him by a man at Hamah, a stranger whom he accidentally met; and, finding that there was but one seal, and that he was mentioned neither as a prince nor nobleman, he would not present it.

Some persons, who heard of this, went so far as to say that Lady Hester wanted to shut people out of the Desert; but it must be evident that all she wanted was not to compromise herself.

So much was Mr. Bankes’s pride hurt by this adventure that, when finally he had achieved his journey to Palmyra, he left Lady Hester’s letters with Mr. Barker, as a deposit,--to show (he said) that her influence had nothing to do with his getting thither.

Arrived at Hamah, he neither delivered the letters to Muly Ismael and to Nasr, nor suffered Pierre to remain with him; but, having met there the Pasha of Damascus, Hafiz Ali, who showed him great civility and wrote to the Bedouins to recommend him to their protection, he set off with his customary guard, the renegado Albanian. He was arrested in his progress, at the Belàz mountain, by Shaykh Nasar, who demanded of him who he was, and whither he was going. Mr. Bankes in vain said that the pasha would punish those who molested him. Nasar required of him a vast sum of money, as the price of his passage; and, on Mr. Bankes’s refusal, conducted him back to Hamah, without doing him any harm. Mr. Bankes afterwards made a second attempt, which also was not attended with complete success. Hearing that Sir William Chatterton and Mr. Leslie were on their way to Hamah, he waited some time for them; but, eager to effect his purpose, he at last departed alone, having agreed to pay 1,100 piasters (£45 sterling). On his arrival at Palmyra, Hamed, another son of Mahannah, insisted on having an additional present; and, on Mr. Bankes’s refusal, imprisoned him. It was also said that Mr. Bankes was forced to pay thirty _ikliks_ to be permitted to copy an inscription over the gate of the Temple of the Sun: but Nasar restored the money to Mr. Bankes on his return to Hamah.

Some time before this, a rupture had taken place between Lady Hester and Mr. Bankes; and, on Mr. Bankes’s writing to me a request that, in case of going to England, I would take charge of a tin box containing some of his drawings and his fresco paintings, both which were still at Mar Elias, Lady Hester advised me to have nothing to do with them, but to transmit them to him, which I did, with an excuse on the score that the trust was too great.

[98] Lady Hester Stanhope, under precisely the same circumstances, contrived to effect her entry. These difficulties were never raised against common persons.

[99] These fish were afterwards shown to Monsieur Cuvier, but, as being common to all the Mediterranean, proved not to be curious. The traveller in those countries should be apprized that drawings of the fish of the Syrian rivers, and of the inland seas and lakes, would be esteemed a great curiosity. Dr. Clark says, “An Arab fisherman at Jaffa, as we were standing upon the beach, came running to us with a fish he had just taken out of the water; and, from his eagerness to show what he had caught, we supposed it could not be very common. It was like a small tench, but of a dark and exceedingly vivid green colour, such as we had never seen before nor since; _neither is it described by any author we are acquainted with_. We had no means of preserving it, and therefore would not deprive the poor man of an acquisition with which he seemed so delighted; but gave him a trifle for the gratification its very extraordinary appearance afforded us, and left it in his hands.”--_Dr. Clark’s Travels_: vol. ii., chap. xviii., p. 643: quarto edition.

Dr. Clark, on seeing a drawing I had made of the _Aroos_, in French _Demoiseau_, declared it to be the same fish that he speaks of in the above extract. He is, however, mistaken in supposing it to be rare on the coast of Syria. I have seen five at a time for sale, and his assertion is totally incorrect.

[100] The melinján is a vegetable of a pear shape and of a deep lilac colour, as large as a bon-chretien pear, called in French _aubergine_.

[101] As a proof of this we here subjoin the translation of an extract from the _Courrier Français_, under date of April 29, 1830, and part of a sketch of Colonel Boutin’s life, which appeared in that newspaper.--“Towards the year 1811, Colonel Boutin received orders from the Emperor to visit the East. He was entrusted with a mission to explore Syria, to learn Arabic, and, at a fit opportunity, to penetrate into Arabia and describe that country. On that occasion he made the acquaintance of Pitt’s niece, Lady Hester Stanhope, subsequently crowned Queen of Palmyra by the Bedouins in 1821. He met from her with a most honourable reception, and, proud of her powerful protection, he was on the point of succeeding in his enterprise, when he was assassinated in the neighbourhood of Damascus by the Arabs, who sought to rob him of a bag of coins which he had in his possession. France knows how the murder of this illustrious traveller was avenged by her ladyship, who caused his assassins to be decapitated and obtained the restitution of his baggage, which she effected purely by her personal influence and efforts.” To this extract may be added another mark of the gratitude of the French nation, by whom her noble conduct was better appreciated than by her own countrymen. She received the thanks of the French Chamber of Deputies, after a speech made relative to this affair by the Comte Delaborde, and I regret that I have not been able to meet with the notice of it in the French newspapers of the day.

[102] In the same manner, Ibrahim, a groom who took over two horses which Lady Hester sent to the Duke of York and to Lord Ebrington, used to affirm that his Royal Highness the Duke shook hands with him, and that the Duchess danced with him.

[103] His name was Seraphim; and he spoke of Colonel Campbell as a person he knew at Elba, whither he had accompanied the Emperor Napoleon.

[104] Messieurs Stratton, Fuller, Idliff, and Rennell, had been here in their way from Greece to Egypt; as well as Lord Belmore and family.

[105] It never happened to me to see carpets in Turkey so large as those which, under the name of Turkey carpets, cover English dining-rooms.

[106] I was informed that, in the village of Trisolias, there was a woman, thirty-five years of age, with a tail. She was the daughter of a papas, named Yennion. My informant was the archimandrites, a man respectable from his situation and age. When entreated by me to allow me to make use of his name or to furnish me with a letter, as a means of seeing her, he refused both requests.

[107] He was, likewise, a knight of the holy sepulchre; having made good his pretensions to a noble descent (by money of documents) in the following manner. He asserted that his name, Brins, is but the Arabic manner of spelling Prince; there being no letter P in the alphabet of that language: and that his ancestors were princes of Tripoli, a principality erected in the time of the crusades. His plea was thought so good, that he was created a knight; and, as a proof of it, he showed me his diploma to that effect.

[108] One of the servants accused Andrea, the dragoman, as having prompted him to the theft. He described how he had effected it, how he carried the money to his house, and delivered it into Andrea’s hand, who recompensed him immediately for his trouble. Fortunately for Andrea, his wife that very night lay-in, and, as is usual in Greece, his house was full of friends, who bore witness to the falsehood of such testimony.

[109] About this time, by the Trieste newspapers, the news of Lord Stanhope’s death (on the 26th December, 1816) came to Cyprus. I forwarded the melancholy information to Lady Hester on the 2nd and 3rd of April.

Transcriber’s Notes:

1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been corrected silently.

2. Where hyphenation is in doubt, it has been retained as in the original.

3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have been retained as in the original.

4. Superscripts are represented using the caret character, e.g. D^r. or X^{xx}.

5. Italics are shown as _xxx_.