J’ai fait une bêtise. J’ai adressé la lettre. Mes idées sont toutes sur la médaille.
The same to the same.
Djoun, July 3, 1836.
Monsieur,
I intended to have written to you yesterday, when your letter reached me, to have told you that I have found out still more robberies, and such intrigues!—but say nothing for the present: only, I foresee, I shall be put to great expense every way; and, if it does not inconvenience you to wait for the amount of the bill that was protested, until the £2,000 are paid into your bankers’ hands, it would considerably advance my business.
I have had farther accounts about the money concealed from me. Very good! When I get it, I shall give you plenty of commissions for France.
How kind you are to think about my eyesight, which sickness and trouble have so injured! Nevertheless, it is better than it was last year.
I will send you back the book by the express who will go for the money. What day would you like he should be with you? Half of what the writer says is incorrect.[74] Before I went to Palmyra, I made an excursion into the Desert with Lascaris alone, keeping the doctor and the married servants, under one pretext or another, from accompanying me. Lascaris and I were pursued by the Fedâan Bedouins, who were hostile to Mohammed el Fadi; and, although our horses never drank for two days, we rode from ten in the morning until after midnight, without eating or drinking, to get out of their district. Then, again, the dispute between Lascaris and me was about a groom, who, not knowing who he was, would not let him enter my stables at Hamah. His pride would not stop to listen to reason, and he ran away (et il s’est enfuit). I met him several years afterwards at Tripoli, and he made me cry for an hour by the excess of his grief, and the excuses which he made me: so much so, that I, who hardly ever shed tears, was astonished at myself. Poor man! There, indeed, was a true courtier, with the most elegant manners, and an inconceivable fund of knowledge, without pedantry. It was not Napoleon that he was so much attached to; it was to him who had the portefeuille. You know very well what he did for him.
Accept, monsieur, the expression of my esteem and regard.