The reader is already in some degree familiar with the name of Mustafa, the barber, well-known in Sayda for his skill in shaving, phlebotomizing, and curing sores and wounds. He had four or five sons, and he had taken his donkey and ridden up to Jôon to beg of Lady Hester Stanhope to admit one or two of them into her household, in order to save them from the conscription. In the interim, two others had taken refuge in the French khan, and one had fled to Tyr; but the father said he expected hourly to be seized and put to the torture, if some means were not afforded him for protecting his children. “A letter from the Syt mylady to the commandant,” added Mustafa, “would be sufficient to save my two boys who are in the French khan, and it is so easy for her to write it.” Lady Hester, being ill, could not see Mustafa, and I went to her and stated his supplication. She considered the matter over, and, as Mustafa was rather a favourite, she said at first—“I think I will write to the commandant; for poor Mustafa will go crazy if his children are taken away from him. I have only to say that I wish the commandant to bakshýsh” (make a present of) “these boys to me, and I know he will do it:” then, reflecting a little while, she altered her mind. “No, doctor,” says she, “it will not do: I must not do anything in the face of the laws of the country; and, besides, I shall have all the fathers and mothers in Sayda up here. Go, tell him so.” I did, and Mustafa returned very much dispirited to Sayda.
He had scarcely got back to his shop, when, as he had anticipated, he was summoned before the motsellem, and questioned about his children. With an assumed air of cheerfulness and submission, he answered that they were within call, and, if necessary, he would fetch them immediately. The motsellem, by way of precaution, was about to send a guard of a couple of soldiers, to see that no trick was played him; but Mustafa, laughing, exclaimed—“Oh! don’t be afraid of me: I shan’t run off. That man” (pointing to a small merchant of his acquaintance standing by)—“that man will be bail for my appearance.” The man nodded his head, and said—“There is no fear of Mâalem Mustafa: I will be responsible for him.”
Mustafa went towards his house, and, as soon as he was out of sight, looking round to make sure that he was not followed, he hurried to one of the outlets of the town, entered a lane between the gardens, and, mounting again on his own donkey, which he had left with a friend in case of such an emergency, rode off. Not appearing within the expected time, search was made for him, and, when he was not to be found, the man, who so incautiously vouched for his reappearance, was seized, bastinadoed, and thrown into gaol. Mustafa, in the mean time, had taken the road to Jôon,—not to Lady Hester’s residence, but to Dayr el Mkhallas, the monastery, where he had a good friend in the abbot, and was immediately sheltered in a comfortable cell. Nor did he, when he heard what cruelties had been inflicted on his bail, move one inch from his retreat, but there remained for about six weeks, until, by negociations with the commandant and by the sacrifice of a good round sum, he was informed that his children were safe, and that he might return unmolested.
The secretary told me that, in some cases, mothers were suspended by the hair of their head, and whipped, to make them confess where their children were concealed. Surely such horrors are enough to make men hold these sanguinary tyrants in abhorrence, who, whatever their pretended advances towards civilization may be, never suffer it to soften the barbarity of their natures. Of civilization, they have borrowed conscription, custom-houses, quarantines, ardent spirit and wine-drinking, prostitution, shop licensing, high taxation, and some other of our doubtful marks of superiority; but whatever is really excellent in an advanced state of society they have forgotten to inquire about. The secretary added that, when down at Sayda, he had seen a lad, nursed in the lap of luxury, the only child of respectable parents, at drill on the parade outside of the town, with two soldiers who never quitted him. The drilling was enforced by cuts of the korbàsh. So long as the recruits remain in Sayda, their parents are allowed to supply them with a meal and other little comforts; but, when transported to Egypt, and perhaps to the Hedjàz, they are exposed to hardships unknown to European troops. Their pay is fifteen piasters (3s. 2d. English) a month.
After the expiration of two or three weeks, the shaykhs or head-men of the villages in Mount Lebanon, received orders to levy their contingent of recruits, and pretty much the same scenes were acted over again. From the village of Jôon eight conscripts were required; for, although the population might be five hundred persons, there were but few Mahometan families. No sooner had the estafette, who brought the order, alighted at the Shaykh’s door, than the mussulman peasants to a man seemed to guess what its contents were, and every one who thought himself liable to serve made off to the forests. Among the lads put down on the roll were two, the brothers of Fatôom and Sâada, Lady Hester’s maids. The girls fell on their knees, kissed her feet and the hem of her robe, and prayed her, for God’s sake, to save them. Lady Hester returned the same answer she had done to Mustafa, the barber, and to the other applicants, that she could not act contrary to the laws of the country, and that they must take their chance.
Three or four days had elapsed, when, quitting my house in the morning to go to Lady Hester’s, I found that all her people were full of an extraordinary dream she had had. She had seen in her vision a man with a white beard, who had conducted her among the ravines of Mount Lebanon to a place, where, in a cavern, lay two youths apparently in a trance, and had told her to lead them away to her residence. She attempted to raise them, and at the same moment the earth opened, and she awoke. As soon as I saw Lady Hester, she recounted to me her dream to the same effect, but with many more particulars. Being in the habit of hearing strange things of this kind from her, I thought nothing of it, although I well knew there was something intended by it, as she never spoke without a motive.
Next morning I saw, as I passed the porter’s lodge, two peasant lads sitting in it, and, as soon as I got to Lady Hester’s room, she asked me if I had observed them.—“Isn’t it wonderful, doctor,” said Lady Hester, “that I should have had exactly the same dream two nights following, and the second time so strongly impressed on my mind, that I was sure some of it would turn out true: and so it has. For this very morning, long before daylight, I had Logmagi called, and, describing to him the way he was to go in the mountain until he should come to a wild spot which I painted to him, I sent him off; and, sure enough, he found those two lads you saw, concealed, not in a cavern, but in a tree, just where I had directed him to go.
“They are two runaway conscripts, and, although I know nothing of them, yet I seem to feel that God directed me to bring them here. Poor lads! did you observe whether they looked pale? they must be in want of nourishment; for the search that is going on everywhere after deserters is very hot. Logmagi himself had no very pleasant duty to perform; for, if they had mistaken him for a man in search of them, one against two in the heart of the mountain ran some risk of his life. You know, one deserter the other day wounded three soldiers who attempted to take him, and another killed two out of five, and, although taken, was not punished by the Pasha, who exchanged willingly an athletic gladiator, who had proved his fighting propensities, for two cowards.”
These lads, whom Lady Hester pretended not to know, were the two brothers of Fatôom and Sâada: they were put into a room in an inner enclosure, where they had comfortable quarters assigned them, and were kept for two months hid from observation; by which means they escaped the conscription of that year. At the end of their term, they were one day turned out, told they might go home in safety, and warned that, if ever they made their appearance near the house, they would be flogged. Such were Lady Hester’s eccentric ways; and just as they were wasting their breath in protestations of gratitude, they were frightened out of their senses. No doubt, the reason was that, as from their long stay in the premises, they were more or less acquainted with every locality, it might be that they had formed plans to carry off stolen goods, which Lady Hester thus had the foresight to frustrate. She never told me that her dream was an invention, but I believe that it was.
In addition to the loss of a son, or a husband, or a brother, which the dozen families of Jôon (for there were no more) had to complain of, these same families were taxed at the rate of one, two, or three hundred piasters each, in order to furnish the equipment of the soldiers draughted from among them. For, under the pretext of sending off each recruit with a good kit and with a little money in his pocket, a benevolence tax was invented, the greatest part of which, after the parings of the collectors, went to the Pasha’s treasury, and the half-naked recruit was left to take his chance. Oh! that a European soldier could see what these men are compelled to live on—how they sleep, how they are flogged—and how they are left to die!—and yet suicide is unknown among them.