The supper sent from his kitchen was prepared, as he told us, by the hands of his four wives, who vied with each other in cooking some delicacy. The reader may be curious to know what these delicacies were. From one it was a dish of rolled vine leaves, containing minced meat. From another, kusas (known in England as the vegetable-marrow) stuffed with rice and minced meat. From the third, a lamb roasted whole. From the fourth, an immense dish of boiled rice, surrounding and covering four boiled chickens. Besides these, there was the pilaw of the country, with morsels of meat stirred up among it. All this made but a homely supper, yet it is the best that the culinary art of the temperate Arabs is capable of furnishing.
At nightfall, Selim, one of the Mamelukes, suggested the necessity of having guards planted round our encampment to prevent any attempt of thieves. Selim, it was to be conjectured, in the number of years that he had lived with the Turks and Egyptians, had experienced nothing but treachery from them; for he beheld every action of a Turk with distrust. The civility of Abu Ghosh he considered as extremely questionable; and he asserted that we had everything to apprehend from men generally robbers and always extortioners, and who must have filled their imagination with notions of the vast wealth contained in our trunks. Her ladyship accordingly thought the best plan would be to ask Abu Ghosh himself for guards; and the old shaykh not only complied immediately with her request, placing five around the tents, but said that he should keep watch himself; and, ordering a large fire to be made, occasionally sleeping, occasionally sitting up smoking, he kept his post all night. The temperature of the atmosphere was very different from what we had found it in the plains, and the night was chilling and misty.
The following morning, on quitting Abu Ghosh, a handsome present was made him, and his guards were likewise well paid. Her ladyship and he parted great friends, and it will be seen hereafter that he invariably entertained a great respect for her. He had known Sir Sydney Smith, and the prowess of that gallant officer not a little contributed to heighten his admiration of the bravery of the English. We were escorted by one of the brothers of Abu Ghosh, and continued our journey through mountains less wild than on the preceding day, as we were now apparently on a more level surface, and in a less woody district. But the view was always rocky, the road stoney, and the soil barren and unfriendly to cultivation.
At some period of her life, when such an event appeared very improbable, Lady Hester Stanhope had been told by Brothers, the fortune-teller, that she was to make the pilgrimage of Jerusalem, to pass seven years in the Desert, to become the queen of the Jews, and to lead forth a chosen people. She now saw the first part of the prophecy verified; and she often openly, but laughingly, avowed that she had so much faith in the prediction as to expect to see its final accomplishment. We approached Jerusalem, all more or less awed by the recollection of the scenes which had been acted on this memorable spot, a feeling which the appearance of it is well calculated to inspire. For several miles around it, the mountains are bare, rugged, and rocky, presenting a uniformly deserted appearance. The city is seen standing as if cut off from the rest of the world, and its high walls, on the outside of which no object meets the eye but here and there an insulated church, add to the gloominess of the prospect. We entered by the gate of Bethlehem.
The monastery of the Franciscans generally receives all European travellers, excepting women, who, by a rule of the order, are not allowed to lodge within its walls: and Lady Hester Stanhope was conducted to a house that adjoined it.
This consisted of a few rooms, bare of everything but fleas, which, in Syria, always abound in places where the inmates are so often changing, and which hours of sweeping could not destroy. Mr. B. and myself were accommodated with two chambers in the monastery. These, adjoining each other, seemed to have been long appropriated to this purpose, as on the doors, especially of one, were carved the names of different Europeans who had visited the Holy Land. The oldest name on the oak door is as early as 1690. It showed no great consideration in the superior of the monastery to consign his guests to rooms, which, we learned, are at other times the hospital of the sick, and consequently may abound in malignant effluvia.
The first day was devoted to repose, and to such arrangements as were necessary to make our stay comfortable. We were very soon surrounded by the dragomans of the monastery, the greatest harpies that Jerusalem can boast of, and, as we had reason to think, equally devoid of principle and of morality. But Lady Hester, with her accustomed promptitude and decision, immediately ordered the house to be cleared of them, as a set of hangers-on that would be very troublesome; and so indeed they afterwards proved; for it was impossible to stir out of doors without being immediately followed by them, and their company was a sufficient indication to the Turks that we were fair game for plunder, which, had we been alone, would have been less evident; since it only depended on ourselves to remain silent, and then our dresses disguised us very well.
On the second day Lady Hester Stanhope sent word to the motsellem, or governor, that she was desirous of paying him a visit. We mounted hack horses, which were hired at fifty paras per diem. These horses are plentiful in Jerusalem, and the cavalcade, amounting to nearly twenty persons, wore a very respectable appearance. I may venture to assert, that no European travellers had then ever made so splendid a show. The governor, whose name was Kengi Ahmed, father-in-law of the governor of Jaffa, received us very formally, in a saloon at the top of his palace, where a window opened on the court of the Great Mosque, the supposed Temple of Solomon. On coming away about two guineas were distributed among the servants, whose cupidity was so unceremonious, that we ran some risk of being knocked down from the eagerness with which they pressed forwards to get a share of the vails.
There was residing at Jerusalem a Bey of the Mamelukes, who had escaped from the massacre of his brethren by Mohammed Ali Pasha at the castle of Cairo. He was living in a small house, in a very retired way, and chiefly upon the alms of benevolent Turks. Lady Hester had informed him, by a servant, that she should visit him; and from the governor’s house we accordingly passed to his. The entrance announced his poverty. We found him in a small room, which was matted, and had a carpet with two or three cushions at one end. His horse’s bridle and a pair of pistols hung on a peg.
He received his visitors without any embarrassment, and, in the course of conversation, related a part of his extraordinary history. He was a purchased slave of Elfy Bey’s, whom he accompanied to England, and he still recollected several words of English. On his return from that country, he was created a Bey by Elfy, his master. On the bloody day in which so many Mamelukes were cut off by Mohammed Ali, he was, like the rest, advancing through the avenues to the castle, when he perceived that they were fired on by Albanian soldiers from the walls. His presence of mind was sufficient to tell him that to remain was certain death, and that any risk, however great, was to be run for the chance of escape. The avenue, leading from the great entrance of the castle, goes upon an ascent until it terminates in a platform. Round the platform, breast high, runs a wall that looks down on the open space before the castle gates. Its height from the ground must be very considerable. He drove his horse at it, and leaped over.