While on this subject, I may record one instance which came to my knowledge, and which was really too scandalous not to be made known.
A party of travellers, for I cannot style them
gentlemen, five or six in number, were travelling through Syria and Palestine, accompanied by a retinue of servants with tents, baggage, and every luxury and comfort that money could command. Arriving at one of the seaport towns, where dwelt an English agent (a good old man, who was a Syrian by birth), they pitched their tents outside of the town, and sending their insolent dragoman to the agent, informed him that it was their intention to remain a couple of days in that neighbourhood, and commanded him to procure them guides to shew them over the town and its vicinity, so that they might see all that was worth being seen. To this, the agent really assented; and “on hospitable thoughts intent,” dressed himself for the occasion, and, preceded by his cawass, went to the travellers’ tents to pay his respects, and to offer them any little services in his power. Finding that they required no further aid, he then told them, that although they had placed the possibility of being useful to them beyond his reach, he trusted that they would not wholly deprive him of the pleasure of their company; and invited them to dine at his house at an early hour the next day. This invitation the travellers, who had barely treated the old man with civility, thought proper to accept, and the next day they duly made their appearance.
Meanwhile, the poor consul, whose stock of crockery was rather scant, and whose knives and forks mustered but a meagre show, endeavoured, by buying or borrowing, to make things as tidy and complete as he possibly could; but it often happens, that in such small villages as that in which the agent resided, and where European vessels seldom resort, European merchandise is very rare; and such a thing as a plated spoon or a knife and fork, is not to be met with for love or money.
This was precisely the case in the instance before us; and the poor agent was put to his wit’s end in discovering that, after every effort, his stock of knives still fell short of the necessary complement by a knife. In this dilemma, he was quite at a nonplus what to do; till, finally, he resolved to throw himself upon the known courtesy of an Englishman, and explain exactly how matters stood; begging of the guests on their arrival to let their servants fetch from their own tents such implements for table use, as were indispensably requisite for the accommodation of all.
No sooner, however, had the poor agent explained the state of affairs by means of the interpreter, than the guests, one and all, fell into a violent passion, and asked the consul how he had dared to insult them by asking them to dinner, when he was not in a position to treat them as became persons of their rank and distinction. Saying this, they swept from the room in a towering passion, leaving the poor agent lost in amazement how to account for such conduct from persons who styled themselves English gentlemen, and overcome with shame and vexation that his neighbours should have been witness to such an outrage.
This anecdote requires no comment. Happily such instances of gross misconduct are of rare occurrence, but it plainly exemplifies the absurd system followed by government in placing native agents all over Syria and Turkey, to whom they do not afford means of maintaining a position which ought to command respect.
The present system of native agencies is altogether a mistake; they should be entrusted only to those who have previously had a European education. Most of those now employed have been reared in dread of the
very name of the local powers, and are inefficient in cases of controversy between subjects of two nations.
I may here be permitted to deviate a little from the subject of Lattakia and my travels, to make a few remarks on the uses and abuses of the protection-system, so largely practised all over Syria and Turkey.