Easter Sunday, April 15.—About five o’clock in the afternoon the prince’s two European servants rode into the yard, followed by three or four mule-loads of baggage. An immense sack, containing bedding, and two or three trunks were unloaded. A trestle, with a deal top, was set up immediately as a table in his room, and his portfolio, ink, &c., were put on it, as if ready for any memorandums he might wish to note down, whilst fresh in his memory, showing the foresight of a traveller who was aware of the impossibility of finding a thing so necessary as a table in Eastern countries, where men make their knees their writing-desk. Close upon these arrived seven or eight more mules with his Tartar, the count’s servant, and the drivers, in all thirteen animals to keep. The rest of his suite remained in Sayda, Lady Hester having made a request to him that he would bring none of Mahomet Ali’s people with him, as she had no accommodation for them. The fact was, she did not wish them to come, lest they should get information from the servants respecting the different proscribed individuals who had from time to time found an asylum in her house. In about half an hour the prince’s arrival was announced, and I received him and Count Tattenbach at the entrance of the strangers’ garden.
The prince’s costume was picturesque, and, as far as a European dress will allow, was skilfully arranged for effect. An immense Leghorn hat, lined under the brim with green taffetas, shaded his very fair complexion. An Arab keffiyah was thrown over his shoulders in the shape of a scarf; and a pair of blue pantaloons of ample dimensions marked an approach towards the Turkish sherwàls, those indescribable brogues, which, from their immense width, take yards of cloth to make them. His boots were Parisian in their cut; and it was clear, from the excellent fit, that he felt his pretensions to a thorough-bred foot were now to be decided magisterially. It was singular enough that every traveller, who came to Dar Jôon after M. Lamartine’s book had appeared, seemed to think that Lady Hester Stanhope would necessarily make comments on his feet, and so tried to screw them into an arch, under the hollow of which water might run without wetting the sole. One man, an Italian, had gone so far as to wear laced half-boots like women’s brodekins, and stuck them in my face, whilst we were smoking a pipe together preparatory to his interview, as much as to say—“Will these qualify me as high born?” But the prince had no occasion to use such artifices to set off his person: he was a fine man, whose exterior denoted high birth, and could not but leave a favourable impression. The grand ordeal however was still to go through, and Lady Hester’s opinion was yet to decide on his pretensions.[13]
As soon as he had rested an hour, she received him and the count, and at sunset they left her to go to dinner: for she had long ceased to dine with anybody, excepting now and then, though rarely, when she admitted me to that honour. Between dinner and his return to Lady Hester, the prince told me that, from the loss of her teeth, Lady Hester’s articulation was somewhat indistinct, and that moreover she spoke sometimes in a very low tone of voice. He therefore wished me to let her fancy he was a little deaf, and hoped to be permitted to draw his chair close to her sofa.[14] This was settled to his satisfaction, and he again joined Lady Hester, and remained with her until an advanced hour in the night.
Monday, April 16.—The prince rose about eleven o’clock, and at noon I paid my respects to him. I found him in a dressing-gown with a fez on his head, tied round with a black bandelet, which set off his complexion. He dwelt for some time on the extraordinary powers and animation of Lady Hester Stanhope’s conversation. I then conducted him to the stables, and showed him the two mares, which he admired, but saw at once that the hollow back of one of them was a natural defect and not a miraculous formation. In the afternoon, when Lady Hester sent to say she was in her saloon, and was ready to receive him, he went, and remained with her until sunset.
After dinner a messenger came from Beyrout with a letter from Monsieur Guys to acquaint Lady Hester of the arrival of the steamboat, and that there was no letter for her. His letter also contained a message from Dr. Bowring, who was sojourning at Beyrout, signifying that he was desirous of paying a visit to her. Lady Hester dictated an answer immediately to this effect:—“Lady Hester Stanhope cannot receive any Englishman holding an official situation, whatever his merit, &c., may be; because, if she did, it would be a mortal blow to him under a —— government like the present. When she has settled all these intriguers, she will be ready to pay homage to Dr. Bowring’s talents, if he chooses to come, or to those of others like him.” Lady Hester desired me to read this letter over to the prince, before it went. He suggested that the term “—— government” was too strong. “Lady Hester,” he remarked, “is a woman privileged to say anything, we all know—but she might suppress that word, or change it, and put ‘stupid,’ or ‘short-sighted,’ or ‘so ignoble in its proceedings.’” He observed too the words, “those of others like him”—as being a slight on Dr. Bowring. “He is an excellent man,” added the prince, “and I like him; and moreover I promised to ask her to receive his visit: he will take it into his head that I have a hand in the refusal, thinking that I hate the English, or some such thing.”
Dr. Bowring was very angry at Lady Hester’s declining his visit, and she afterwards showed me some uncourteous verses, which, on quitting Beyrout, he left to be sent to her. I neglected to take a copy of them; but, as far as I recollect, they were to the effect that “He had found a welcome everywhere except at the door of a fellow-countrywoman.” If it be true, as was asserted by a gentleman at Beyrout, that Dr. Bowring had said in society, that as a member of the British Parliament, which assembly alone could give away the public money, he had a right to the hospitality of a pensioner of government, he grounded his claims on a very doubtful title. I took good care never to mention to Lady Hester Stanhope that I had been informed he had used such expressions: for I do not believe she would have rested in peace until she had coupled him with Lord Palmerston in her epistolary war. Doctor Bowring was not aware that she had thrown up her pension, and called herself no longer a British subject; nor did he know perhaps that, in addition to the prince, he had another advocate for his coming, in myself. I recollected that I had once been honoured with his acquaintance, slightly indeed; but I did my utmost to induce Lady Hester to write a favourable answer: she however was inexorable. Speaking of Dr. B., she said, “He is not come here about commerce and trade, as they pretend, rely upon it: it is all connected with some intrigue about Sir Sydney Smith’s wanting to re-establish the Knights of Malta.”
Tuesday, April 17.—Lady Hester began, “What a handsome man the prince has been, and is still, doctor! don’t you think so?” I told her I did, and that he seemed to me to be what, in romance, would be called a preux chevalier. “And how handy he is, too,” resumed her ladyship. “Do you know, when I wanted him to write some memorandums down, he fetched the pen and ink, opened the card-table, pulled out the legs, spread the things out before him—a servant could not do it better. And, only think! he writes without spectacles, though he is a good deal older than you are.”—“I supposed him to be about my age,” said I. “No, he is older,” continued Lady Hester: “he is a man upon sixty.”
“As to-morrow is Wednesday, when, you know, I see nobody, you must employ the time in giving him some advice about different things. He says he must go away, as he has announced his intention of being at the Emir Beshýr’s on Thursday; his suite and luggage are already on the way to Btedýn: and his Abyssinian—, if she should come here, doctor, tell Osman that I will not have her stir out of the strangers’ garden; she must not go peeping here and peeping there. A slave is a slave: and, whether her master makes a companion or a scullion-maid of her, it is of no difference to me: she should remain in her place; and, whether she belongs to a prince or a shopkeeper, it is all one, with this difference, that, if the prince is fond of her, I should wish her to be made quite comfortable. If she comes dressed in boy’s clothes, nobody must take any notice of her:—he is quite wrapt up in her.
“There are two sorts of Abyssinians,” continued Lady Hester; “one with Greek features in bronze, and one of a pug breed. The first have a noble demeanour, are born to command, and have hands and feet so beautiful, that nature has nothing superior: their arms, when they expand them, fly open like an umbrella: their gestures are clean (nets, as the French say) and perfect. I should not wonder if the prince contrives to bring her here for me to see her, and say whether her star is a good one.”
She then reverted to the prince’s person. “Did you observe his handsome figure?”—(drawing her hands over her own). “It is astonishing how well the German tailors, and particularly the Prussian ones, work: if it is but a cloth of five shillings a yard, no matter—it’s cut to fit beautifully. The army tailors in England can’t work a bit. What is a coat, with the seam of the shoulder coming right across the joint? how is a man to move his arm, or look well in it? The French army tailors are bad too: they make the coats too baboonish; but then they have a tail to them, a sort of something; it is at least the monkey who has seen the world: but with the English it is nothing at all. Then what a beautiful skin the prince has got! Do tell me what Miss L. said: do show me some of her splaws. You know the French must be coquettes, from the first lady among them down to the femme de chambre: now, do show me how she sat and talked. Now, there, doctor, go! for I must see him; and, if he does not leave us to-morrow, we shall have time to talk over what you have to say to him.”