[79] I had declined rather pettishly some articles of dress which Lady Hester had sent me, and to this she alludes.
[80] Maskara means a sort of show. This Arabic word is either derived from European languages, or they have borrowed a corresponding expression from it.
[Page 78]-87—The Emir Beshýr.
In relating these conversations, which place the character of the Emir Beshýr in so disadvantageous a light, it would be unfair not to call the attention of the reader to a work recently published (Memoirs of a Babylonian Princess), in which the Emir is held up as a model of all Christian virtues, and his reign as a reign of peace.
As a romance, the Memoirs of the Princess may challenge a comparison with many works of our best novelists. The authoress seems to have a most unbounded indulgence for the errors of others; but the Emir Beshýr, notwithstanding, must still be left with all his stains upon him, as a wily, sanguinary, and perfidious, but successful prince.
It is not pretended that Lady Hester Stanhope did not personally dislike the Emir Beshýr; and, as her hatreds were as cordial as her friendships, she never spared him when she spoke of him to others, whilst her language, no doubt, was at all times highly coloured: but, unhappily, there are too many notorious facts to justify the abuse she lavishes on him, as regards his cruelties; only, if it is any palliation of his conduct that he had to deal with chieftains who were as great adepts in machiavelism as himself, this excuse is conceded to him.
In vol. ii., p. 160, the Amira Asmar informs her readers that the Emir Beshýr had put his two nephews to death to punish their treason in attempting his downfall. Now everybody in Mount Lebanon knows that the nephews had their eyes put out, and, as it was affirmed, were subjected to the loss of organs equally dear to Oriental husbands with sight itself, but were not put to death, and possibly are living now.
In vol. ii., p. 158, we read, “The Emir had been in power forty years, and, by the firmness and liberality of his policy, had continued, during the long period, to consolidate the jarring and heterogeneous elements committed to his sway into something like a united body; insomuch that peace reigned in the mountain, and the Moslem thirsted not for the blood of his Christian fellow-subject. In short, Maronite, Motowli, Mahometan, and Druze, looked upon each other as brethren.” A little before this (vol. ii., p. 140), she tells us, “I was at length under the protection of a prince whose vigorous arm upheld the dignity of Christianity in the East, and bid its followers confess their God without fear.”
In another place (vol. ii., p. 187), we read, “Soon afterwards Lady Hester Stanhope rose, and, bidding us farewell, took her departure, attended by a large retinue. A spirited charger stood at the gate, champing the bit with fiery impatience. She put her foot in the stirrup, and, vaulting nimbly into the saddle, which she, after the Oriental fashion, bestrode like a man, started off at a rapid pace, galloping over rock and mountain.”