“But, my dear sir,” said I, “I do not attempt to justify—I only endeavour to mitigate the matter, and you will recollect that the very circumstance which in one point of view aggravates, in another alleviates the fault: the living in his house afforded those interviews, and exposed me to those temptations under which I was near sinking—I should never have sought them: but he must be more or less than man, that could have resisted them; and though I have a high sense of Mr. Consul’s strict honour and virtue, as well as prudence, he must excuse me, though I doubt whether he could himself have resisted so long and so effectually as I did. I am sure there are many who will censure, that could not.”
The Consul smiled, and, turning the discourse from its direct line, observed, that it was absolutely necessary I should desist, else he would be obliged to use his influence and power to protect Mr. ——-.
In answer to this, I gave him my honour in the first place, that I would proceed no farther in the business; and that, on the contrary, I was determined to set out upon my journey to India directly, if means could be contrived for my conveyance; adding, that I should consider it as a great favour, in addition to those I had already received at his hands, if he would contrive some means to set me forward in my route.
To this he answered, that as the making up of a caravan would be extravagantly expensive, he knew no means that were not attended with certain hardship and eventual danger; but finding me determined at almost any danger or hazard to set off, he proposed to send for a man who knew every resource in that way, and when he came would talk farther on the business; and in the mean time, recommended great circumspection to me while I continued at Mr. ————’s house, to which I very solemnly pledged my word.
Being now constrained by every consideration, as well of prudence and decency as of inclination, to leave Aleppo immediately: I determined that no common impediments should stop me, and waited with impatience the arrival of the person on whom the Consul rested his hopes of dispatching me.
He came in the evening, and after a conference with the Consul, he introduced him to me, and acquainted me that he was a Tartar, and one of the vast number of that description who are employed by the Turkish State in carrying dispatches from Court to the various Viceroys and Bashaws, and interchangably between them again; that they were men on whose fidelity the utmost reliance could be had; and that this man, who had an excellent character, had agreed to take me to Bagdad, provided I would submit to the disguise of a Tartar.
The agreement between us I entirely submitted to the discretion of the Consul, who had the goodness to settle it thus:—The Tartar was to deliver me safe at Bagdad; to supply me and my servant, who acted as interpreter, with an ample sufficiency of provisions and horses on the road; to exchange my horse for me as often as I pleased, and to go at such rate, whether faster or slower, as I thought proper: for this he was to receive one hundred pounds; and I further promised, as an encouragement to him, that if he acted to my satisfaction, I would, on our arrival at Bagdad, add a douceur of twenty pounds.
The next day he came, and I had a distinct view of this my new fellow traveller and supposed master, for in several places I was to pass for his slave. He was one of those striking character figures that a painter would like to take a sketch of—and methought Tartar was written legibly in every lineament of his countenance and person.—He was tall, muscular and bony—his figure bespoke great hardihood, strength and activity—nor could the trowsers which he wore conceal the Herculean texture of his limbs—his shoulders were expanded to an enormous breadth—he was unincumbered with flesh, or indeed rather extremely lean—his forehead, though partly concealed beneath his turban, was very high—his nose large, hooked, sharp, and prominent—a pair of small, fierce, black, penetrating eyes, barely separated by the nose, and a formidable pair of mustachios, which he carefully sleeked with pomatum into a point resembling an awl-blade, and which moved like the whiskers of a purring cat, with every word he spoke, gave a whimsical ferocity to the countenance, beyond the reach of description, and rendered him altogether as discouraging a confidential friend, as ever a Christian trusted his life to since Mahomet first set up the trade of a prophet. He surveyed me with great attention—opened his mouth two or three times like a gasping pike, as if to speak—stroaked his whiskers as often—and at last pronounced that he would undertake to conduct me; adding, in allusion to my black hair and dark complexion, that I looked more like a native, than any Frank he had ever seen. He ordered me to cut my hair quite short, to provide myself with a Tartar dress and cap, in the fashion of his own; and saying he would call on me in proper time, departed.
Thus equipped, we set out, not without great pain and regret on my part; pain at leaving a most beautiful young woman, whom I pitied and esteemed, subject to the resentment of a husband, at once jealous from nature, peevish from habit, and enraged from her open and unequivocal demonstrations of hatred; and regret at having been betrayed by situation into such a very serious dilemma.
After my departure from Aleppo, this affair was represented in a variety of unfavourable lights to the different new comers from England; and as a story is that commodity which of all others honest people do not love to steal any thing from, in its passage through their hands, it found its way in various forms (none of them however tending to soften it) to many of my friends and connections, those from whom of all others I wished to conceal it. Labouring under such calumnies, it cannot be considered as a violation of decorum, or unnecessary infraction upon delicacy, if I state the truth, in order, though I cannot acquit myself of censurable conduct, at least not silently to submit to unlimited calumny, and charges of crimes which I hope I have too much honour and integrity to commit.