Our table was entirely supplied by the Emir, one of whose cooks was established in a house adjoining our residence; and nothing necessary to housekeeping was allowed to be bought. It was hinted, however, by one of his emissaries, that he expected at Lady Hester’s departure a present equivalent to all the expenses he had been at. This insinuation, according to the usages of the country, was neither to be considered unreasonable nor indecorous. Hospitality on so large a scale has something princely in it: but it loses all its merit in an Englishman’s eyes from the dishonourable sentiment which is rooted in every inhabitant of Turkey, from the Grand Signor down to his lowest subject, that they may look for a return of the same or of greater value than any favour which they confer: and, shameless on this point, where it is not given, they fail not to demand it. We have been somewhat circumstantial on this subject, because Eastern hospitality has become proverbial, and is, by most persons, supposed to be gratuitous; we shall often have occasion to show that it is not always so.
There was nothing which engaged Lady Hester’s attention more than the peculiarities of the Drûzes: and, among other things, she was desirous of verifying what she had heard of their feeding on raw flesh. Accordingly, on an appointed day, a sheep was bought, and notice given that such Drûzes as chose to partake of it would be welcome. A spot was fixed on for this extraordinary feast about half a mile from the burgh, and the time appointed was at the close of the day, when the inhabitants of Eastern countries generally make their fullest meal. I accompanied her ladyship. The sheep was killed, blown, skinned, and cut up: and, whilst yet reeking, was placed before the people assembled. As they knew wherefore they were invited, they probably added a few grimaces of pretended voraciousness to their customary manner: but the fact was well established before us that they eat mutton raw as we do when roasted. It may be observed that the sheep was of the large-tailed breed; and the tail itself, although a mass of fat, was cut into mouthfuls, and swallowed with the same avidity as the fleshy parts.[86]
My servant Jachimo, bearing in recollection the flesh-pots of Egypt, had been induced by the Mamelukes to accompany them back. On my arrival at Dayr-el-Kamar, a thin, lively, dirty-looking man had offered himself to replace him. He was named Butrus Abu Ayûb. In the early part of his life he had made a voyage to Marseilles, where he had learned Provençal and cooking: and he now presented himself as a person equal to the multifarious functions of a cook, valet, and interpreter, and dubbed himself Pierre. As this man was more or less a servant in the party for seven years afterwards, it is necessary to premise thus much concerning him. Among the various scenes of his motley life, he had been an under-interpreter, and then a subaltern officer, in Buonaparte’s Syrian army, and knew more anecdotes, he said, of that great man than he chose to tell me—enhancing the value of his communications that they might attract the notice of Lady Hester, who was so much amused with him that she soon afterwards took him for her cook.
Mr. B. had resolved in his own mind to obtain a sight of the secret worship of the Drûzes: and, one day, in riding out, he contrived to approach very near to a khalweh. There was some danger in the experiment, and he had been warned of the jealous seclusion of that people when in prayer. The event justified the caution. The Drûzes, who, as it is customary, were hanging about the precincts of the building to keep watch, immediately drove him off, with many expressions of dissatisfaction at his intrusion.
I went one evening to the only bath there was in the place. During my ablutions, the Shaykh El Aâkal arrived for the purpose of bathing also. He is the chief of the initiated Drûzes, and is held in much veneration by his sect, as his learning and exemplary life alone procure him his elevation, which is founded on no positive titular rank, but solely on consideration. He would not enter the vapour chamber until I had quitted it, for he would have been defiled by so doing.
The Mountain occasionally produces men and women who acquire considerable celebrity for the cure of diseases. At this time, there was a woman at Kilfair, near Hasbeyah, who had an antidote for the bite of rabid animals. The Emir in conversation had said that on the Mountain grew a plant, called Abu Mensheh, which was entirely efficacious as a cure for the bite of a mad dog. A Turk in 1815 died of hydrophobia at Sayda: I saw him just before his death; but the virtues of the plant, Abu Mensheh, were not relied on in his case.
I was one day entreated by a Christian in the service of the Emir to go and look at his favourite mare, dying, as he said, of the cholic. I found her lying down, and occasionally, by violent kicks, groans, and pitiable looks towards her belly, denoting the severity and place of her sufferings. The remedies usual among the Syrians, and mentioned in the case of Selim’s horse, which died on the road from Nazareth, had been ineffectually tried: I bled her in the neck, and ordered repeated clysters (both these remedies being not in use in farriery, among the Syrians), and I succeeded in curing her.
Once, when at dinner, soon after our arrival, we were alarmed on hearing the loud cries of a man beneath the window of the room where we were sitting. It overlooked the market-place; and a culprit was undergoing the chastisement of the bastinado. He made frequent appeals to her ladyship’s pity, whom he knew to be within hearing, by the epithet of meleky or queen, a title she now generally went by. The dragoman, M. Bertrand, strongly solicited her interference to suspend the punishment, and to obtain his pardon, which, by the received usage of Eastern nations, could not be denied to a guest. But Lady Hester immediately told him to desist from asking such a thing: for, she said, she saw no merit in interrupting the course of justice anywhere, and least of all where she was not acquainted with the nature and degree of the man’s crimes. We afterwards found that he had been detected in visiting too frequently, and at unseasonable hours, a woman whose character was stigmatized as disreputable: and it appeared that the Emir exerted unusual severity in guarding the morals of the women.
Mr. B. resolved, about this time, to make a journey to Aleppo. It was not unlikely that the fear of the Aleppo bouton[87] deterred Lady Hester from going also: the more especially as she rejected a second and more favourable opportunity for visiting this beautiful city. Her avowed reason was her dislike to Levantine Franks, a race of people neither Turks nor Europeans, and against whom she always inveighed with much acrimony. But my own conviction as to the real motive of Lady Hester Stanhope’s route to Damascus at this time was, that she had already formed a scheme of visiting, by herself, the Bedouin Arabs, and which she afterwards put into execution. It will be seen that, at Damascus, she contrived a plan for keeping me away also, and threw herself on the protection of the robbers of the Desert, alone and unescorted.
Mr. B., accompanied by his dragoman, M. Bertrand, set off by the direct road for Aleppo; and, a day or two afterwards, being the 27th of August, we departed for Damascus. Her ladyship previously distributed presents to the different persons who had been employed in her service during her stay at Dayr-el-Kamar. Of these presents, it may be well to enumerate a few, to exemplify the manner of paying for one’s entertainment in a gentleman’s house in Syria. To the Emir himself were sent 2,000 piasters in money, equal to £100, half of which he kept and returned half; to his chief secretary, the efficient director of the detail of most of his measures, a piece of Aleppo brocade, worth about 200 piasters; to his deputy, a stuff of less value. The maître d’hôtel, cook, and other servants, had their vails, each according to his station. There was one person, whom I have omitted to mention, who yet was a chief actor in all transactions during our stay here. On the day of our arrival, this gentleman was deputed to receive us at the mansion-gate, and signified that he should be always in attendance to execute Lady Hester’s commands. He was a respectable-looking Maronite priest, who had been educated at Rome, and spoke Italian with considerable purity and fluency. As he was often at a loss how to dispose of his time, I was indebted probably to his ennui for frequent conversations in my room, to which he came to loiter away the day. The information which he gave me chiefly regarded the people and country around us, and is already embodied in this journal.