Saturday, April 21.—After a long conversation the preceding night with Lady Hester, the prince to-day prepared for his departure. I did not see him until noon, being engaged with Lady Hester for two or three hours, in hearing numberless fresh things which she had not had time to tell him, and which it now devolved on me to communicate: but when I joined him, he was ready to mount, and I was obliged to leave my commission unexecuted, as had happened before in the case of Mr. Forster.
“Tell the prince,” said she, “that he must not dawdle away his time on the road, because, on the 10th of next month (Mahometan), the caravan of the Hadj (or the Mecca pilgrims) will arrive at Damascus, and it is necessary he should be there to have the first choice of all the precious things that the pilgrims bring. The caravan is no great things this year, but he will be able to find some good otto of roses, and some sandal-wood oil, which makes a charming perfume. Then there is a dry leaf, that is a delightful scent to shut up in bags, or put into a drawer. I don’t know how it is, doctor, but I never liked French perfumes—they always made my head ache; but these Eastern ones are so delightful.”
She went on: “Let the prince know all about buying horses at Damascus. The horse-dealers there are the most consummate jockeys I have seen in any country: they will fatten and make up a horse, that the devil himself would not know him again. I remember a horse—a beautiful looking one—was brought to me, and the man made a great fuss, saying he had refused I don’t know how many purses for it, but that, if I fancied the animal, I should have it a bargain. I answered, ‘that I would not take it even for a gift.’ To look at him he was a superb creature; but I saw he was made up, and true enough; for he was purchased at a high price for the Pasha, and, on his road to Acre, died. There is Mustafa Bey, whose father was a pasha: well, since he has been out of favour with the government, even he has carried on this trade. He has his emissaries, who find out every young horse good for anything, or any other that can be made something of; and, when he has fattened them up a little, and changed the old ones so as not to be recognized, he brings them to market. As for the Emir Beshýr and his head-groom, tell the prince to have nothing to do with them. The Emir will give him a horse perhaps worth two or three purses, and the groom will swear it cost his master fifteen: so he had better accept none.
“There,” she continued, “I believe that’s all: but only think what it is to be a well-bred man. I merely told the prince that I thought he should not let his slave dine with him, and, lo! he writes me a note to say she had dined with him for the last time. And, doctor, I did not do this from ill nature, or from any other motive than because I think everybody should be kept in his place. The other little girl, poor thing, has been sadly used. The prince told me that, young as she is, she had not escaped the consequences of that miserable destiny to which slavery has exposed her.”
I now went to the prince, and, after a short conversation, about three in the afternoon, when the sun’s rays were losing their power, he departed. The prince had made a present of the little black slave to Lady Hester, but, with the mystery she liked to throw over everything, this was to be a secret in the house. Accordingly, Osman Chaôosh mounted an ass, apparently to accompany the prince’s suite for a short distance; but his orders were that, being out of sight of the house, he should turn off into the Sayda road, and, taking the little black with him, should conduct her to town, and leave her at Logmagi’s, where she was to be trained by Logmagi’s wives for her ladyship’s service. Thus separated from an indulgent mistress and friend, where she had nothing to do, she was made over to people who would probably treat her in a very different spirit.
The prince left 500 piasters to be divided amongst the servants. This was a degree of liberality that was quite at variance with the reports which had preceded his arrival: for it was currently related of him, that his parsimony discredited his rank. Lady Hester immediately ordered the money to be brought to her, and took the opportunity of distributing it in such a manner as to reward the diligent and punish the idle, making the privation to be felt most by those who, habitually indolent, would only run about when their mercenary spirit made them anticipate a present. It may appear strange to the English that her ladyship should take upon herself the regulation of servants’ vails: but the great Turks always do so, and no doubt she thought the custom worthy of imitation.
When the cavalcade was gone, I retired to my house, and, after dinner, went to Lady Hester. She appeared greatly pleased that her guest had staid so long, as she knew it would mortify the Emir Beshýr, to whom the prince had sent three successive messengers, each time to put off his visit twenty-four hours longer; whilst it would have a good effect in the eyes of the people, who saw that he contrived expedients to stay on at her ladyship’s, although from day to day he made preparations for going. “He must go to-morrow,” Lady Hester would say to me; “he kills me by these long conversations, and he is so tiresome, asking for this explanation and that explanation. I said to him last night, when he could not comprehend something, ‘Est ce que votre esprit est dans les ténèbres?’ This is the way I talk to princes—but to you, forsooth, I must not say so: I must not call you a fool when you are one, but you must go and sulk, and turn crusty; but I will though;—neither you, nor the greatest king on earth, shall make me alter my ways a tittle. Why, how did I talk to Lord M******* about G***, when he broke his word about giving him a ship? I remember, we had dined at the Admiralty: I had been sitting in the drawing-room with Lady M******* tête-à-tête—a tolerable bore, by the way—and they all came in from the dining-room. All the mylords were standing about, sipping their coffee, when Lord M. said to me in his broad Scotch—‘So, I understond, Lady Hostor, you are vorry ongry with me aboot Coptain G——;’ upon which I gave him such a dressing—and all unprepared—for I was not thinking about it the least in the world. There I was in the middle of the room—for I stood up—like my grandfather, and out it all came. That was a separate affair from the Scotch job, when Mr. Pitt said that, during the twenty-five years he had known Lord M., he never saw him get such a trimming.
“People don’t like to take advice, or to be told of their faults; but if any one has a piece of bad money, you tell him of it, and he changes it away or gets rid of it: for, if he keeps it, he is no richer for it, and, if already a poor man, he may think he is worth more than he really is, and you do him a charity to tell him that what he has got is good for nothing: he may treasure it up, but it will never be worth a farthing.
“Had you followed my advice six years ago, when you came to this country, I fancy you would have had a very different reputation here. If you think that I am always trying to mortify people, when I am saying things for their good, you are much mistaken. If I wanted to humble any one, should I go as high as the window-seat to pull him down? no, it would be something higher than that. As I told the Emir Beshýr, ‘You may rest perfectly quiet; I shall not trouble myself about you; but, if I did, I would pull you and your mountain down together.’ I must do everything en grand, as Dr. Canova said of me. He was the Pasha’s doctor, and he remarked to somebody, in speaking of me—‘I must see her, because, whether for good or bad, she is a person who does everything en grand: there is nothing little about her.’
“There is perhaps no one in the world who has ever done justice to everything in the creation, man or brute—even down to an ant—like me; even to the spirits that haunt the air: and I have gone out of my way to serve you and a thousand others, because I must be just to everybody. If I abuse people, I can also bear testimony to their good qualities. My observations are dictated by truth, and even in persons I dislike, I can equally see their merits; but, because they have merits, it does not follow that I must like them. People are not obliged to make a nosegay of a medicinal herb, however valuable its properties may be. But I must give the devil his due, even to his beauty and his talents, though he has all the vices attributed to him, and if I turn devil, my vices will be better than the virtues of most people—for I do not say of all. If it were not so, should I have resisted, as I did, all the flattery that was heaped upon me in Mr. Pitt’s time? but it never turned my head for a moment: I was as cool as I am now. Nobody could ever come over me; and, knowing that, I will not pass for being capable of meanness and vulgarity, which only those ever attributed to me who are mean and vulgar themselves. If there is any one who thinks he is better than I am, or knows more than I do, let him come forward, and, if he can show that I am in the wrong, then I will knock under, but not till then. God has given me my estate in my head—that nobody can take from me: and do you think that I, with my high rank and talents, could be accountable for my actions, opinions, or expressions, to any human being, any more than the sun could have its brightness interfered with by a common star? What I am, you, if you live long enough, will see: and then you, and a thousand others, may think yourselves happy to kiss the dust under my slippers; so pray put all those ideas out of your head, that I can be unjust to any one.”