Lady Hester Stanhope to Dr. ——, at Beyrout.
Djoûn, July 1, 1837.
Saturday night.
Dear Doctor,
I have sent you Botrôos Metta, with the mules necessary for your trunks and what you want immediately. Your heavy luggage had better go by sea.
I could wish you, first of all, to come here alone, to see a house at Sayda for your family, and to well understand each other before you bring them here. For your sake, I should ever wish to show civility to all who belong to you, but caprice I will never interfere with: for, from my early youth, I have been taught to despise it. Botrôos Metta, if he can be useful to Mrs. ——, may remain until your return; if not, he will come with you. I hope your health is quite recovered, and, in the end, that you will have no reason to regret your voyage.
Yours, sincerely,
Hester Lucy Stanhope.
So then, thought I, the past is never to be forgotten; and, hardly have we set foot on the shores of Syria, but war is declared against my wife. Lady Hester Stanhope made no mystery of her likes and dislikes; and Botrôos Metta, in his confabulations with Cabôor (as servants in general talk about their masters and mistresses) dwelt on the rising storm, which probably would soon burst. Cabôor bore no good will to her ladyship. He had picked up a little French, and his reflections on my situation were not deficient in shrewdness. “Ah!” he would exclaim, “it will be just as it was six years ago—my mistress crying, my lady emportée, and my master trying to satisfy both—no easy task! He will have one woman saying one thing in one ear, and the other saying the contrary in the other ear; well! he will be a clever gentleman if he reconciles them!”
As it would not have been proper to leave my family in an inn, I resolved to take them with me at once to Sayda, notwithstanding Lady Hester’s suggestion to the contrary. On the 3rd of July, at sunset, we commenced our journey; for the weather was too hot to travel in the daytime. It was pitch dark; nothing whatever was visible; we could not even see the path before us: but Abdhu, the mule-driver, and Botrôos, led the way, and each person had a driver by his side. We were, therefore, spared the horrors of the surrounding scenery, which M. de Lamartine describes in such imaginative diction. In four hours we reached Khaldy, where the tent was pitched on the seashore; and, after supping on a pâté à la Perigord, with which Madame Guys had kindly provided us, and taking a cup of nice Mocha coffee, we lay down in our clothes, and slept until the morning star made its appearance: then, remounting, we marched four hours more, which brought us to Nebby Yuness, where we breakfasted on coffee and milk and the remains of our provision basket. Here we rested until three in the afternoon, and then proceeded along the seashore to Sayda. When within about a quarter of a mile of the town-gates, we met M. Conti, the French consular agent, and from him learned that the earthquake had so damaged the city, and the French khan in particular, that he could not give us lodging in it, but politely offered us his garden, where, under the shade of the trees, we might pitch our tent. The gardens, or rather orchards of Sayda, occupy a flat strip of land which intervenes between the seashore and the foot of Mount Lebanon, from a quarter to half a mile in width, and stretching a league along the shore. M. Conti’s garden was on the verge of the sands, and near the spot where we met him. His offer was accordingly thankfully accepted; and, turning in at the orchard gate, in about half an hour our camp arrangements were completed, and Cabôor, with his cooking utensils round a gipsy’s fire, was busily occupied in preparing our supper.