this arises from a very honourable notion, that the memory of a deceased partner should be held in religious esteem; so as to prevent the outraging the feelings of their relatives upon the occasion of entering a second time into that estate, by any display or great rejoicing: indeed a man or a woman is supposed to marry a second time purely from motives of mutual advantage; to be a helpmate to each other, especially in the case of a man having had a family by his first wife, in which case, the children are often unavoidably neglected, as the husband’s occupations preclude the possibility of his devoting much time or thought to their welfare. A stepmother in Syria is not a proverb of harshness; stepmothers in that country, in direct contrariety to what is believed to be the case in Europe, are affectionate and kind to their step-children; and even in such rare instances as that of a man marrying again, when his first wife’s children are already nearly grown up, even then perfect harmony reigns between the different members of the family, for filial respect is so powerfully inculcated in a young Syrian’s breast, that however young the stepmother may be, she is always looked up to and respected as the wife of a father; and with regard to the wife herself, the rule acts the same, only vice versa, the children are regarded as the children of her husband; and however many children a second wife may have, the first one’s always claim the precedence. It is indispensable amongst all Syrian families, that every member should know and keep his or her respective place, and quarrels on this score are seldom if ever known.
We remained long enough in Aleppo to become familiar with all its quarters, Christian, Jewish, and European; the latter reside principally at Kittab, a
pleasant little hamlet of neatly constructed houses, which dates after the period of the shocking earthquake in 1822—an event which so alarmed the populace that for many weeks afterwards they thought themselves insecure within the walls of the city, many of the massive houses, though built upon arches, having given way, carrying everything before them, and crushing alike inmates and passers-by in the streets. Aleppo is perhaps the most fashionable town in the East, not even excepting Damascus. The fashions change there as often almost as they do in Paris, and all the young ladies are as particular about their dress as the more aristocratic belles in the North; the result of all this is, that an Aleppine lady proves usually an expensive wife; but I must acknowledge, that their extreme neatness, the snowy-white veils, and gaily-coloured tunics, add much to the picturesque appearance of the gardens on festive days, when the whole population throngs these favourite places of resort as much for air and exercise as from a wish to shew themselves, as it is only on this day many of them have an opportunity of escaping from the narrow and confined streets of the city.
“Shamm al Hawa,” is a favourite expression of Aleppines, for they dearly love the open country, and delight to rove amongst trees and flowers; Aleppo is a country I should have great hopes for with regard to the success of missionary labour. The Aleppines are too courteous to mock at or hold in derision the tenets of any man, or to interrupt a man when he speaks, nor indeed to listen inattentively. Many amongst them are naturally intelligent: and did any schools or institutions exist from which their families might derive any clear and indisputable benefit—education for their
children—instruction in any arts or sciences—physic and medical attendance for the sick and poverty-stricken (they are by no means an ungrateful people), their attention would most assuredly be arrested by such attentions to their own and their townsmen’s wants, and they would be brought to reflect that such kind benefactors must be trustworthy people, and people that love truth.
The last Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society gives the population of Aleppo to be 90,000 souls, of which number 19,000 are said to be Christians of various denominations, and yet there was only one Protestant missionary on the spot; the Rev. Mr. Benton having been obliged to revisit America for the benefit of his health. When it is considered that at Aintab, a considerable town, only a day distant from Aleppo, the efforts of a single missionary, the Rev. Dr. Smith, of the American mission, have been crowned with unprecedented success, and that chiefly amongst the Armenians, of whom there are also numbers established in Aleppo, it cannot but be regretted that so favourable a field should be neglected. The fact of this missionary being also a physician is another proof in support of what I shall endeavour to prove in a subsequent chapter, namely, the advantages derivable from the wide establishment of Medical Missions, a subject which I trust, under the Almighty blessing, will attract the attention of the Christian inhabitants of Great Britain.
Few towns in the East can rival Aleppo in a commercial sense. Every resident is more or less of a speculator; and thousands have lost and gained a fortune in the failures or successes of mercantile speculations. Even the women are imbued with this spirit of
enterprise; and the female broker is no inconsiderable person in a merchant’s appreciation. She penetrates into the restricted precincts of the harem, and displays, to the admiring gaze of its fair secluded inmates, jewels and tinselled fineries, such as would barely merit a moment’s pause or attention in the over-crowded bazaars, but when presented by themselves, prove an inducement to purchase; and this is a means of no small profit, above all to the poorer class of speculators who are obliged to restrict their purchases to their very limited means. Even children hawk about minor commodities, and little urchins who have scarcely a rag to cover their nudity, will offer to the stranger carefully hoarded up bits of glass and old coins picked up in some of the most deserted and ruinous portions of the city, hoping that amongst them a valuable antique may invite his attention.
We left Aleppo after a prolonged stay, and mounting our horses joined a caravan loaded with produce for the supply of the Antioch market. The first few hours, after leaving Aleppo, our road lay over a rocky pathway difficult to ride over, bleak and monotonous in the extreme; but soon the glorious plains of the Amuk spreading before us as far as the eye could reach, burst like a splendid panorama on our gaze. We rapidly descended to their level, and the remainder of our first day’s journeying was over a flat country, whose natural prolific soil, interspersed as it was at short distances with small tributary streams, would have been a sight to gladden the heart of any emigrant who should seek for rich pasturages for his cattle—abundant harvest of wheat and barley—rich orchards and valuable plantations.
All these doubtless once existed at a time when