Being an Oriental city, it was naturally full of intrigue and various citizens, notably the Jews, tried to claim European nationality so as to evade the exactions of the Turkish Government, but as far as we could judge they seemed very prosperous. We visited several houses, Turkish, Christian, and Jewish, very pretty, built round courts with orange trees and basins of water in the centre. The rooms were painted, or inlaid with marble—one of the Jewish houses quite gorgeous with inlaying, mother-of-pearl work, and carved marble; in one room a marble tree, white, with a yellow canary-bird perching in its branches. I think it was this house which boasted a fresco of the Crystal Palace to show that its owner lived under the “High Protection of the British Government.” Perhaps the family has now substituted a painting of the Eiffel Tower to propitiate the French.
We went to a mountain-spot overlooking the town below the platform called Paradise, from which tradition says that Mohammed looked down on the city, but thought it so beautiful that he refrained from entering it lest having enjoyed Paradise in this life he should forfeit a right to it hereafter. It is a pretty story, but I fear that history records that he did visit Damascus, for which I trust that he was forgiven, as the temptation must have been great.
DAMASCUS. LADY ELLENBOROUGH
We were much interested while at Damascus in hearing more about Lady Ellenborough, who had lived in the house occupied by the Consul, Mr. Dickson, who was very kind to us during our stay.
Lady Ellenborough was quite as adventurous a lady as Lady Hester Stanhope, and her existence on the whole more varied. She was the daughter of Admiral Sir Henry Digby, and when quite a young girl married Lord Ellenborough, then a widower. After six years’ experience of matrimony she was divorced, it was said in consequence of her flirtations with the then Prince Schwarzenberg. However, that may have been, she was at one time married to a Bavarian Baron Venningen. How she got rid of him I do not know, but she was well known as the “wife” of Hadji Petros the brigand, whose son I have mentioned as among our friends at Athens. While in Greece she fell a victim to the fascination of the handsome Sheikh Mejmel el Mazrab, who had brought over Arab horses for sale. She went off with him, and her marriage to him is duly recorded in Burke’s Peerage. She lived with him partly at Damascus and partly in the desert, evidently much respected by her neighbours, who called her “Lady Digby” or “Mrs. Digby” as being sister of Lord Digby. She was a good artist and is said to have been very clever and pleasant. She dressed like a Bedouin woman, and when she attended the English church service came wrapped in her burnous; but Mr. Dickson’s father, who was then the clergyman, always knew when she had been there by finding a sovereign in the plate. She died in 1881. I never heard that she had a child by any of her husbands.
Among the glories of Damascus is the great Mosque, once a Christian church, and hallowed by both Christian and Moslem relics. When we were there it still had an inscription high up, I think in Greek characters, stating that the Kingdoms of this World should become the Kingdoms of Christ. There was a fire some time after we saw it, but I trust that the inscription is still intact. Among the many other places which we saw was the wall down which St. Paul escaped in a basket, and as we looked thence into the desert Mr. Dickson told us that until a short time before, a camel post started regularly from a gate near by, bearing an Indian mail to go by way of Bagdad. Before the Overland Route was opened this was one of the speediest routes, and was continued long after the necessity had ceased to exist.
ORIENTAL METHODS OF TRADE
Time was some difficulty in Damascus, as Europeans generally reckoned by the usual clock, while the natives, Syrians and Arabs, counted, as in Biblical days, from sunrise to sunset and their hours varied from day to day—not that punctuality worried them much. In making an appointment, however, in which men of East and West were both involved it was necessary to specify which sort of time was approximately intended. Mr. Meshaka kindly took us to make some purchases, and he introduced us to one shop in which the proprietor—an Oriental, but I forget of exactly what nationality—had really established fixed prices on a reasonable scale. While we were looking round some Americans came in and began asking prices. The shopkeeper told them his principle of trade, whereupon said one of them: “That will not do at all. You must say so much more than you want and I must offer so much less. Then we must bargain until we come to an agreement.”
While they were considering their purchases I asked the price of some tiny models, in Damascus ware, of the women’s snow-shoes. The man answered me aloud, and then came up and whispered that they were a fifth of the price, but he was obliged to put it on nominally “because of those people”! How can dealers remain honest with such inducements to “profiteering”? However, there is not much risk of their abandoning their ancient methods of trade. I recollect Captain Hext (our P. and O. fellow-traveller) telling me of one of his experiences somewhere in the Levant. While his ship stopped at a port one of the usual local hawkers came on board and showed him a curio which he wished to possess. Captain Hext and the man were in a cabin, and the man reiterated that the object in question was worth a considerable sum, which he named. While Captain Hext was hesitating a note for him was dropped through the cabin-window by a friend well versed in the habits of those regions. Acting on the advice which it contained, he said to the hawker, “By the head of your grandmother is this worth so much?” The man turned quite pale, and replied, “By the head of my grandmother it is worth”—naming a much lower sum—which he accepted, but asked Captain Hext how he had learnt this formula (which of course he did not reveal) and implored him to tell no one else or he would be ruined. I am not quite sure whether it was the “head” or the “soul” of his grandmother by which he had to swear, but I think head.
We drove back from Damascus via Shtora to Beyrout, where the Consul told us of the strange requirements of visitors. One told him that he had been directed to pray for some forty days in a cave—and expected the Consul to find him the cave!