I send my cordial salutations to your royal highness’s suite.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] This is the parole that the Druzes take of their prisoners, to ensure their not fighting again.
[32] Hasbéyah and Rashéyah are two districts, situate midway between Tyr and Damascus, and comprehended in 30° 15′ and 33° 39′ N. lat. on the western flank of Gebel es Shaykh, the vast hump of Antilebanon: they are a part of the Cœle-syria of the Greeks and Romans. In Hasbéyah is the source of the Jordan. The castle, I believe, is one of the many yet remaining from the days of the Crusaders.
[33] The loss of the battle of Nasib somewhat altered the nature of these calculations. Had the Turks won that battle, all Syria would have united to expel Ibrahim Pasha; as it was, future conjunctures alone could enable them yet to display their hostile feelings against an innovator, who had few or no partisans in a country too primitive in its manners to rejoice in the introduction of a demi-civilization. This was written in July, 1839. The exploits of the English armaments, sent to expel Ibrahim Pasha from Syria, have since confirmed these details, which are left as they were first penned, although now necessarily devoid of all interest.
CHAPTER IX.
Vessel hired for Dr. M.’s departure—Lady Hester’s intention of writing her Memoirs—Letter from Lady Hester to Sir Francis Burdett—From Lady Hester to Count Wilsensheim—Events of the Druze insurrection—Inexpediency of M. Guys’s removal from Beyrout—Letter from Dr. M. to Count Wilsensheim—Letter from Lady Hester Stanhope to the Baron de Busech—Lady Hester immured—Principal reason of Dr. M.’s return to Europe—His adieux—Passage to Cyprus—Reception by Signor Baldassare Mattei—Provisions in Cyprus—Mademoiselle Longchamps—Letter from Lady Hester to Dr. M.—Commissions—Second Letter from Lady Hester to Dr. M.—Third Letter from Lady Hester to Dr. M.—Advice—Obligations—Violence of temper—Mr. U.—General Loustaunau—Logmagi and the muleteer—Fourth Letter from Lady Hester to Dr. M.—Correspondence of the first Lord Chatham—Lady Hester’s death—Conclusion.
Monday, July 16.—I went to Beyrout to see Monsieur Jorelle, the chancellor and chief interpreter of the French consulate (whose lady has inspired the pen of M. Lamartine in some beautiful lines to be found in his Souvenirs de l’Orient), in order to make the necessary arrangements for Lady Hester’s letters, should any come, and to acquaint him and others with her extraordinary resolution to immure herself. I executed her orders and delivered her message punctually; but, I must say, I did not believe she would put such a determination into execution. However, I was much deceived; for, on my return to Jôon, I found she had already employed Logmagi to hire a boat to convey me and my family to Cyprus, seeing I took no steps to do so myself. Now, therefore, that her mind was made up, and knowing that, when that was the case, nothing on earth could shake her resolution, I employed the short space that remained in setting her house in order, in writing her letters, and in taking her instructions for such things as would be useful to her in Europe.
I rode down to Sayda to see the vessel which had been hired. It was a small schooner of Castel Rosso, with a Greek crew, the most cut-throat looking dogs I ever beheld. The passage-money had been agreed for by Logmagi at one thousand piasters, for a run of one hundred miles—a round sum of money for the distance in that country, where a single passenger often goes across in a trading-vessel for two piasters, or about ten-pence English. The captain accompanied me to M. Conti’s, the French agent, where an agreement was drawn up that he was to remain in waiting fifteen days, at the expiration of which time, I, (if not ready to sail,) was to pay him thirty piasters a day for as many days as he was kept over his time. The sinister looks of the captain made me almost afraid to close the bargain with him. He had eyes protruding from their sockets so far, that, when he was arguing about the price of the passage, they stood out just as if the cavity of the skull had been puffed up with wind: and Lady Hester had, on some occasion, told me that was a sign of a murderer. I recollected, too, that it was in just such a schooner, a few years before, four or five Europeans had been murdered and thrown overboard in a passage from Syria to Cyprus;[34] and, coupling these circumstances together, I felt uneasy. It is true, the man was known to Monsieur Conti, as having once brought a freight of deals to Sayda; but only once. Logmagi, too, assured me he had frequented his house at Castel Rosso; and I was aware that, if I expressed any apprehensions to Lady Hester Stanhope, she would call them frivolous. I therefore signed the paper, and it was left to be registered in the chancery, for which the fees charged to the captain, as he told me afterwards, were some thirty or forty piasters. I was so far right in my conjectures about the captain’s murdering propensities, that, when we were on our passage, he related a story of his having been one of the crew of a vessel which took a Turkish ship, every one of which was butchered in cold blood.
My family was made acquainted with what I had done, and the business of packing began on the morrow.