Loss of journals—Difficulties in learning Eastern languages—Signor Damiani; his simplicity—Porters—Residence at the Franciscan convent—Lady Hester’s dress—Not distinguishable from a Turk—Description of Jaffa—Buildings—Environs of Jaffa—Orchards—Mohammed Aga: his revenues: his expenditure—Pilgrims: their sufferings—Object of their pilgrimage—Departure for Jerusalem—Mr. Pearce leaves the party—Peasants reaping—Ramlah—Its monastery—Locusts—Lyd—Departure from Ramlah—Sober exhortation of a drunken priest—Mountains of Judæa—Abu Ghosh—Supper—Guards—Selim’s apprehensions—Cold—Brothers’s prophecy—Jerusalem—Lady Hester’s lodgings—Dragomans—Visit to the governor—Kengi Ahmed—Emir Bey; his history—Holy Sepulchre—Mount Calvary—Visit to the Jews’ quarter—Bethlehem—Monastery—Bethlehemites reputed to be robbers—Horses—Accident to Mr. B.—Mufti’s dinner—Memorable places.
It was my misfortune, in the year 1813, to ship from Latakia for England two cases of effects, in which were my memorandums and journals from the time of quitting Rhodes until our landing in Syria. The plague at that time was making great ravages in Malta; and these cases, having been landed there to be reshipped on another vessel, were lost; and to this cause it is owing that my narrative, up to the period of our arrival at Jaffa, is for the most part written from letters, scattered notes, and memory, and must, consequently, be liable to numerous errors. The foregoing pages may therefore be considered in the light of an introduction to our future course of proceeding, and the peculiar mode of life which Lady Hester will hereafter be seen to lead on Mount Lebanon.
It was now two years and three months since her ladyship had quitted England. We had become accustomed to the manners and costumes of the Turks; and our ears, which at first were offended by the undistinguishable mixture of so many languages, had now learned to admire the sonorous tones of the Turkish, and to relish the nasal and guttural ones of the Arabic; nay, we had made that great step towards speaking them which consists in having a perception of the articulation of words. From this perception the progress to articulating one’s self is rapid.
I had likewise surmounted another difficulty, which is apt to stand in the way of a young traveller’s improvement, and which is said to accompany the English more than the people of any other nation;—that of fancying the inhabitants of other countries their inferiors in breeding, dress, mode of living, and intellectual acquirements. I could already see that a Turk, however perfidious he might be, was certainly well bred; and that an Arab, even though he were a liar, had still his glow of imagination and his eloquence. I had learned too by what scale to measure the expressions of such a people; and, having once obtained the customary variation from truth, I found no difficulty in most instances in arriving at the same degree of correctness as in other countries. I had discovered that, to view things with a just eye, a traveller must have neither self-love nor national prejudice: although it was long before I could conquer a feeling of anger which would arise when a Turk treated me with disrespect, merely because I was a Christian. But to return to my narrative.
There was an English agent at Jaffa named Antonio Damiani, born in the country, but of Frank parentage, his father having been in the service of the English at the same port before him. Our räis (or captain) had hoisted an English flag, which anticipated the news of Lady Hester Stanhope’s arrival: for the intelligence of her ladyship’s intended visit to Syria had reached Signor Damiani from Egypt long before our departure. His house, an old roomy building, was immediately prepared for her reception. The baggage was then landed, and conveyed by porters from the wharf.[27]
Her ladyship disembarked in the evening, and was received by the venerable agent with that patriarchal simplicity noticed by a celebrated traveller (Dr. Clarke), and which Mr. D. no doubt eminently possessed; since it was confirmed to us by his own assurance: nor did he fail to tell us that he was actuated in all he did by a disinterested love for the British nation in general, positively declaring that his agency was no source of emolument to him but rather a loss. No credit therefore should be given to those malicious persons who afterwards informed us that his father and he had made a vast fortune under the protection of the English. Besides, he assured us that the honour of having Lady Hester in his house was a sufficient recompense for any trouble or expense he might be at, and he hoped (as he told us three or four times) that she would not think of making him too large a present. Damiani was nearly sixty, and dressed in the Turkish costume, or, as it is designated among the Levantine Franks, the long dress, except that, instead of the turban, he wore an old cocked-hat, with his hair tied in a thick pig-tail, so as to give him the look of a boatswain in Greenwich Hospital. This was the dress of most of the Franks previous to the French Revolution: and whilst English commerce flourished in the Levant. He was a widower, and had a married son about twenty years of age, or somewhat more.
Lady Hester being accommodated as above mentioned, we took up our residence at the Franciscan monastery, or, as it is called in the Levant, the Convent of the Holy Land. No time was lost in making the necessary preparations for our departure to Jerusalem. Eleven camels were hired for the luggage at seven piasters twenty paras each, and thirteen horses for the party, at six piasters each. The governor of Jaffa, Mohammed Aga, at her ladyship’s request, sent two horsemen to accompany us.
In addition to her more splendid habiliments, Lady Hester had, whilst at Cairo, procured a travelling Mameluke dress. It consisted of a satin vest, with long sleeves, open to the bend of the arm, which reached to the hips only, and folding over at the chest was attached with a single button at the throat and waist; over this again she wore a red cloth jacket, in shape like a scanty spencer, with short sleeves, and trimmed with gold lace. The trowsers were of the same cloth, gorgeously embroidered with gold at the pockets, as well before as behind. They were large and loose, as is the fashion in Turkey, and, when worn, formed, by their numerous folds, a very beautiful drapery. Over the whole, when on horseback, she wore the burnooz or white-hooded cloak, the pendent tassels and silky look of which gave great elegance to her figure. The turban was a Cashmere shawl, put on with the peculiar fulness which the Mamelukes affect in their head-dress, and which is very becoming. This dress, as far as regards the sherwals (or trowsers) which were of the same colour as the jacket, is peculiar to Egypt: for throughout Syria the sherwals are almost always blue, and generally dark. But this Egyptian costume was more proper for her ladyship, because her saddle and bridle were Egyptian; being of crimson velvet embroidered in gold.
She was generally mistaken for some young bey with his mustachios not yet grown; and this assumption of the male dress was a subject of severe criticism among the English who came to the Levant. Strangers, however, would frequently pass her without any notice at all; a strong proof that she felt no awkwardness in wearing a dress which would otherwise have attracted general attention. The fairness of her complexion was sometimes mistaken for the effect of paint. I have already described the superb velvet dress in which she visited the pasha of Egypt, and afterwards the pashas of Acre and Damascus. It was as rich as anything of the kind possibly could be. But, after a longer residence in the country, the distinctions of rank were better understood, together with the costume affected by each, whether men of letters, merchants, military or naval officers, or men of independent fortune: it was then easy to see that she had adopted a dress not appropriate to her station. It was therefore laid aside some time afterwards, and long robes were substituted. The riding dress, used by people of consequence throughout the empire, was nevertheless worn when requisite.
Jaffa does not rank as a city from its size; for many villages in Syria are as large: it is, however, the residence of the governor of an extensive district. This district comprehends four towns, Ramlah, Gaza, Lydd and Jaffa; besides several large villages. It formerly composed a part of the pashalik of Damascus, was some time a pashalik by itself, but had now for many years been ceded to the pasha of Acre, under whose jurisdiction its natural situation seems to place it. It embraces the sea-coast of the southern part of Palestine, and is one of the most beautiful tracts of country in all Syria. Jaffa stands upon a small rocky eminence close to the sea; and may be a mile or a mile and a half in circumference. It might, perhaps, contain three thousand inhabitants. It had an agent for the English, but for no other nation. It was walled on all sides, excepting on that towards the sea; and had bastions at the angles where cannon were mounted. The cannon had painted muzzles, and were pointed through whitewashed embrasures, in order that they might be distinguished at a distance. The wall was encompassed by a dry ditch, of no great breadth or depth. The fortifications were, for the greater part, new, and were the work of the then governor, who kept them in good repair, and, as it was said, conceived himself master of a place that was impregnable: but walls not eight feet thick, and a ditch not as many yards broad, were not likely to realize his expectations. To the S. W. and S. there are several eminences which overlook the principal works within musket-shot. The houses are in terraces, one above another, and crowded together. The streets are most irregular; and, owing to the inequalities of the ground, and the steep descent from the land to the sea, the communication between them is either very circuitous, or by a flight of fifty or sixty steps.