Wednesday, June 20.—I rose rather late, and was told by my family that a curious figure of a European on a mule, followed by a servant dressed as a sailor, and coming from Lady Hester’s house, had passed our gate just before, with two mule-loads of luggage, altogether bearing the appearance of a travelling pedlar. “What can this mean?” thought I: “this cannot be the stranger I heard of in Sayda, for he was dressed in the costume of the country; but perhaps this is some travelling merchant, who has been to show his European wares to her ladyship.”
Sunset came, and, after dinner, I joined Lady Hester. She began, as I entered the saloon, with—“Well, doctor, I have got rid of him.”—“Of whom!” I asked. “Oh!” rejoined she, “such a deep one!—a Russian spy from the embassy at Constantinople: but he got nothing out of me, although he tried in all sorts of ways. I as good as told him he was a spy: and the Russians employ such clever men, that I thought it best you should not see him; for he would have pumped you without your suspecting his design, and have been more than a match for you. I dare say he is affronted because I packed him off so soon. I told him his fortune. You should have seen his splaws and have heard him talk—it was quite a comedy. He asked me if it was true that I could describe a person’s character merely by looking at him. ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘and, although I don’t see very well, and the candles give a very bad light, I will describe yours, if you like,’ and, without giving him time to stop me, I hit it off so exactly, that he exclaimed—‘Really, my lady, it is quite, quite wonderful!’ But, now he is gone, I must tell you that there is another person here—a sort of savant. Here, take this little book which he has given to me; but, you know, I don’t pretend to understand such things; it is something he has written about hieroglyphics: look at it, and then go and sit a little with him.”
After casting my eye over the work, I went to the strangers’ garden, and introduced myself. It was Dr. Lœve, the great orientalist and linguist, whom the newspapers had designated as librarian to his royal highness the D. of S., although I had thought that another gentleman of the medical profession held that honourable post. His knowledge of tongues was prodigious. I passed an hour or two with him, whilst he explained some of the objects of his Eastern researches. One thing struck me very forcibly, that, of all Europeans who study the literature of the East, the Jew has a decided advantage, inasmuch as his school studies in Hebrew render the transition to Arabic a step of no more difficulty than from Latin to Italian.
When I went back to Lady Hester, and told her that Dr. Lœve, as I thought, had been sent out at the expense of one of the oriental societies, or else at that of the Duke of S., and that he had spoken very highly of his royal highness’s library and learning, Lady Hester halloed out—“Oh! Lord, doctor—the D. of S. learned! If I were to see him, I would tell him when and where he was laid across his horse drunk.—But I loved all the princes—all, except George the Fourth;—they were so lively, so good-natured;—people who would laugh at a straw.”
Thursday, June 21.—I rode down to Shemaôony to see Wellington, but not without some misgivings; for the groom who accompanied me related several things which made me suspect that the road was no longer safe. He had heard that between Tyr and Acre there was no passing: “and,” said he, “what is to prevent any desperate villain, or gang of villains, from attacking anybody anywhere? Our very governors hardly dare stir out of the towns; and who is to go in pursuit of robbers now? They know that; for the country is ready to rise, and in four or five days we shall perhaps see strange doings.”
After visiting the black, whose state was far from improving, I entered Sayda. I learned that from some villages a hundred and fifty horsemen had marched off the preceding night to join the insurgents; that, at Garýfy, a distance of four hours from Jôon, cattle had been carried off; that between Acre and Sayda travelling had become dangerous. At a village called Helliléah, the people had shut up their houses, and taken refuge in the city: nay, the monks of Dayr el Mkhallas had packed up their valuables and church ornaments, and sent them to Sayda. The people in the gardens had also taken the alarm, and no longer slept there, as is customary in the summer season.
When I got back to the Dar, I told all this news to Lady Hester Stanhope. “Oh!” said she, “that’s not all—the people of Jôon are in a fright, and were going to desert the village; and Fatôom has been asking leave to bring her mother’s cow into my cow-house: but I sent word over to them to remain where they were, and that no harm should come to them.”
M. Guys, before setting off to Aleppo, had raised on a bill of her ladyship’s 27,000 piasters: these were in the house. “Would it be right,” said I, “to pay the servants the six months’ wages due to them, so that, if anything happens, each person may take care of his own?”—“Oh!” answered Lady Hester, “I don’t fear; I would throw all my doors open, if the Druzes were on the outside, and should not be afraid that anybody would touch me.”
My family in the mean time remained in total ignorance of what was going on around them; they ate, drank, slept, and walked out, totally unconscious of danger. I did not apprehend that these reports would come to their ears, for they understood very little Arabic, and, even if they had, the Arabs, generally speaking, have so much tact in knowing when they ought to be silent, that I thought myself safe in that respect: but I was mistaken. An old chattering washerwoman, in bringing home the linen, began a long speech, addressing herself to me, as I was smoking at the door, about the risk that women ran in being away from any habitation in these lawless times. “Do you know,” said she, “there are deserters in the woods and disabled soldiers in the high roads? And it was but yesterday that those ladies were an hour’s distance off in the forest, that leads to the river: for some neighbours of mine, who had taken their grists to the water-mill, saw them. By the Prophet! you do wrong to let them go so far. We had yesterday two of Ibrahim Pasha’s soldiers in the village begging, each with one hand only; for the Druzes had taken them prisoners and cut off their right hands;[31] but though they can’t fight, they are very dangerous men: for, you see, they are Egyptians.” The woman talked with much vehemence, and, although I silenced her, by answering that I would inquire into it, she had said enough to excite suspicion, in those who stood by listening, that something was not right, and I was obliged to disclose part of the truth.
Friday, June 22.—Lady Hester dictated a very uncivil letter to Signor Lapi, the Austrian referendary, in which she said things as if coming from me. It was not an unusual way with her to employ my name to repeat her opinions, by which people were offended, who afterwards vented their spite in some way or another: it was one of her many manœuvres to keep people aloof from each other when it suited her purposes. Twenty years before, I had a serious quarrel with Shaykh Ibrahim (Mr. Burckhardt) in the same way, she not having so high an opinion of that gentleman as people in general had: but this was independent of his literary merits, and on different grounds.