It is probable that her ladyship’s grievances will find their way into the public papers; for Prince Pückler Muskau, when on his visit here, was so struck with the indignities of which she continued to be the victim, that he was resolved to give some true details of it to the public. Her ladyship had found in him a man at once intelligent and kind; ready indeed to offer her his assistance to a greater extent than she was willing to accept in everything relative to her affairs.
It is very extraordinary that, at that time, Lady Hester knew nothing of the avarice imputed to him, of which it was impossible she could have the least suspicion; for his stay at her house was marked by a degree of liberality in everything befitting a prince, and absolutely at variance with the reports spread about him in the places through which he has passed—reports, which astonished her ladyship as much as they did me, since nothing of the kind was seen here.
Thank God! I leave her in better health, and lively as always, just as if nothing had happened.
I have the honour to be, Sir Count,
Your most obedient humble servant,
——
Sunday, July 29.—The last letter which Lady Hester wrote before I left her was the following, to Charles Baron de Busech:—
Jôon, July 29, 1838.
Sir Baron,
Mortified as I was that circumstances prevented me from felicitating you in person on the re-establishment of your health, I am nevertheless rejoiced that you all hastened to quit Syria, seeing that the warfare between Ibrahim Pasha and the Druzes has become exceeding rancorous, and would have made travelling through the country far from agreeable. The scene of action has lately been at Rashéyah, where the Druzes have performed miracles. The Emir Beshýr’s son marched with a reinforcement to assist Ibrahim Pasha, and of this the Druzes killed just enough in the twinkling of an eye to convince the whole body that, if they, the Druzes, had not chosen to recollect they were fighting with neighbours, they could have exterminated them. The Emir’s son had his horse killed under him, and that prince took refuge very quickly in the mountain.
When the Druzes found out that the Pasha’s artillery in the valleys cut them up dreadfully, and that personal courage was of no value, they retreated to the Horàn, where the inequality of the ground was more favourable to them. At this moment, Ibrahim Pasha is in pursuit of them, and has given orders to his Bedouin robbers, whom he brought from Egypt (a tribe which is called the Hanâdy), to run down the greatest hero the Druzes have got, and to bring him alive; being so struck with the courage of the man, that he would willingly employ him in his own service. Poor Pasha! I fancy he has made a bad calculation, in thinking that one of the family of Arriàn, men accustomed like their ancestors to rule with sovereign authority in their castle at Gendal, would ever become a vile slave to save his wife. Shibly el Arriàn is not only a hero in battle but a Demosthenes in council: he makes even the great tremble by the language he holds.[37]