"I believe you know it was always our idea that we must put on native habits wherever we went, so far at least as to encounter no needless friction. I had not then considered how seriously such change may after a time affect one's own character, and the thought sometimes crosses the mind anxiously.
"We smoke. Well. I say to myself, 'I must try not to be wedded to this practice: I hope to leave it off the moment it proves inexpedient.'…. I have taken to the Syrian gown and slippers; to walk actively in these is arduous and, I suppose, very singular. Here is a question: May not my bodily habit change with it? and may not that affect my mind?… The gown is ridiculously feminine, beyond what I had been aware; not merely in length and amplitude, but above the girdle it is puffed out into two bosoms, which are used as pockets" (no doubt the sinus of the Romans). "… Some things which in company we do as seldom as possible, such as to blow the nose, or (worse still) to spit, seem to be utterly forbidden here…. The natives are reserved in the use of a pocket-handkerchief as the most fastidious English lady…. I believe Xenophon praises the Persians for never spitting in company." (Would that our own working classes could, in this respect, be more Persian in their habits!) "Are not all Eastern manners probably a plant of very ancient growth?" Then, on religion: "I did not understand till lately how unintelligible to people here is a religion which is not external and almost obtrusive. We are certainly thought much better of, because, two of our party having pretty good voices, we commonly sing praises in daily worship…. To pray standing, or, as I should rather say, lying flat, at the corners of the streets is not ostentation here: for so many do it that it has no pre- eminence…. I always looked to see a missionary church formed in these countries; but I did not foresee what I now discern, that it would not be recognized as Christians at all, but be esteemed a mere Anglicism, not by papists merely, but by Moslems too. I do not know, after all, whether that could be ever a permanent obstacle. I believe not; for it is not the name, but the goodness of Christianity that must prevail. However, the now current idea here is, that the English are very good men, but have no religion—which means, as I said, no exterior; and in so far our exterior inspires something of respect…. I had resolved to read the Koran through—not in the original, but in a translation—that I might get some insight into the Mussulman mind…. But I confess to you I have broken sheer down in the attempt, … the book makes no impression on my mind. I cannot find where I left off when I recur to it. That so tedious and shallow a work can meet such praises gives me a lower and lower idea of the power of mind in these nations. I now think that the Arabs are captivated by the tinkle and epigrammatic point of an old and sacred dialect, while Turks and Persians take its literary beauty as a religious fact to be believed, not to be felt. How wonderful is the power of tradition!"
In July, Newman and his party were still at Aleppo. By now they had become well accustomed to the native foods, but had at last come to the conclusion that the meat (mutton) was certainly not good; unfortunately it formed a large proportion of the stews. One dish consisted of rice, dressed with butter and salt This is called "Piláu" (pronounced "ow"), and apparently is the same as that common in Russia to-day, which is delicious.
"This piláu is, fundamentally, rice dressed with butter and salt: the rice is thrown into boiling water, and is boiled for twenty minutes only. This is the highest luxury of the Bedouins. We saw a company of them dine on it. They scraped the hot outside of the rice with the tips of their fingers, squeezed it into a ball in their hand, and shot the ball into their mouth. The dexterity of this, so as not to burn their fingers, miss their mouths, nor drop about their garments, is astonishing…. Carrots with lemon or sour milk make delicious fritters…."
It was during this month that the news came to them from Bagdad that Mr. Groves (who, it will be remembered, had been there for some time, expecting them later to join him) had just lost his wife from plague; that she had been the only one who had caught the disease. Newman himself, about this time, had a sharp attack of fever. Dr. Cronin was much alarmed about him; indeed, he believed him to be dying, and leeched his temples and bled his right arm. Then he tried calomel, and he said that he had resolved on opening his temporal artery if his pulse had kept as rapid as at first it was.
[Illustration: DR. CRONIN
ONE OF THOSE WHO WENT TO SYRIA WITH FRANCIS NEWMAN IN 1830
BY KIND PERMISSION OF MRS. CRONIN
PHOTO BY MESSRS. WEBSTER, CLAPHAM COMMON]
In Aleppo, he tells us in one of his letters home, "madmen are looked on as sacred characters… there are no madhouses in the land…. Certainly in England the results of turning all the mad loose would be awful.
"But when one sees the entire satisfaction there is here with so ugly and revolting a state of things, and the inability people have to conceive the inconvenience of it… I am driven to speculate…. Is insanity excessively rare here, so that outrages, if they do occur, are naturally very few? or is the insanity… always of the imbecile kind? Or is insanity, at its worst, mollified by the respectful treatment which it meets, as vicious horses by kindness?
"… Here is a people without lunatic asylums. Well, their lunatics are few or harmless; what a comfortable coincidence! If insanity among us is caused by strong passions in one class and by intoxication in another, while the Turkish populations are nearly free from both… it implies a higher average morality…. Add to this there are no abandoned women here."
Five months after the first attack of fever Newman was taken ill of a far worse one, which gave a great shock to his nervous system. He was in real danger of losing his life this time, possibly because, Dr. Cronin being absent, there was no one to treat him. He suffered, too, greatly from continual sleeplessness. When he was recovering, Dr. Cronin, who by now had returned, ordered horse exercise for him, and Mr. Parnell very generously bought a horse for him.