We were four days on the road to Damascus, a journey generally of two: for, besides the advantage of seeing more leisurely the country as we proceeded, we were anxious to assure ourselves of the tranquillity of the city before we entered; news having reached us that civil warfare was raging between a newly-arrived pasha and a rebel disdar aga, or commandant of the garrison. Sayd Sulimàn, formerly Selictár Aga or sword-bearer to Sultan Selim, had been appointed pasha of Damascus, and had recently arrived to take possession of his new dignity. The military commander, I know not upon what grounds, refused submission to his new master, and, throwing himself into the castle with the troops under his command, assumed a posture of defiance.
So weak was the citadel, as scarcely to deserve to bear the name. Its chief protection was a ditch, and the want of cannon on the part of the assailants. We were told that three six-pounders were the artillery planted to batter in breach. Persons accustomed to the scale of warfare in European countries will laugh at these pigmy sieges; but it is of use to detail them, as illustrative of the politics of the country, and to show, when heretofore Buonaparte advanced with such rapid strides through Syria, what were the castles that retarded his progress.
As little resistance was made on the part of the besieged, who were picked off as fast as they appeared on the battlements, the citadel was taken, and on the following morning the aga was put to death. It was said that, from some fear of resistance on his part, he was strangled by throwing a noosed cord over his head, conveyed unperceived behind him through the gratings of his prison window; the end being drawn tight by two soldiers placed ready on the outside for that purpose.
It will not be out of place to mention here that the notions entertained in Europe, of the manner of putting to death by the bowstring, are extremely erroneous. It is supposed that a condemned person submits to his fate without a murmur, and kisses the sentence that announces to him his doom. But repeated inquiries lead me to affirm that it is otherwise, and that Mahometans seldom die magnanimously by the hand of an executioner: they often utter piercing cries, or else, a prey to despair, become insensible: the executioner generally stabs or shoots them first, and then, if not quite dead, strangles them with the shawl snatched from his head, or with the girdle from his waist, or with the first rope at hand.
We left Dayr el Kamar on the 27th of August, and, uncertain of the tranquillity of Damascus, our journey was far from a hurried one. The road lay along the sides of the mountains, sometimes approaching to the tops, sometimes descending towards the valleys. After an hour’s march we came to the edge of a precipice, at the bottom of which is a deep valley, well planted with mulberry-trees, through which runs, with considerable rapidity, the river Ewely, of which mention has been already made as emptying itself at Sayda. Farther on we passed a village, beyond which our course, hitherto north-east, took a northerly direction, and we kept along the edge of a valley until we reached El Barûk.
El Barûk is a populous village, situated about 300 yards from the sources of the river Ewely, which, rising in four or five springs, form immediately a stream capable of turning a mill. This stream runs through a small valley, entirely embosomed among the mountains, so that, on every side, the view is bounded, at the distance of two or three hundred yards, by precipitous rocks. This valley, unlike the other parts of the mountain we had passed through, is of a fine soil, and not stony: numerous rivulets, sometimes directed for the culture of the ground, sometimes running neglected along, increase the fertility and beauty of the place: melon plants were crawling across the very road on which our horses trod, and fruits of all the sorts that were in season at the time were hanging luxuriantly around: but, as this spot is much elevated above the level of the sea, we found few of them as yet ripe. The village, built a few yards up the mountain, overlooks the plantations. Its inhabitants are chiefly Drûzes, with a few Christians and some Moslems. Vineyards surround the village. Colonel Boughton, an Englishman, had left some recollections of his passage through this place, and the villagers spoke much of him.
The cold and crystal sources of the river Ewely have obtained a name for themselves independent of that of the river, being always spoken of as Ayûn el Bered, or the cold springs. The evening air was very chill: our tents were pitched close to the springs on a green plot of ground which the dampness of the spot and the fogs of the mountain keep in perpetual verdure—the situation was altogether picturesque.
In a general view of that part of Mount Lebanon over which we had passed, it appeared to me, that the summits and sides of the different chains of which it is composed were for the most part arid, rocky, and thinly studded with trees; whilst in the valleys, and more especially in those which had a river running through them, there was much fertility and verdure. But the mountaineers seemed not to choose these valleys, however fertile, for the sites of their villages, but to prefer the slope or summit of a mountain; the reason for which I conceive is, that the great heats of summer are tempered by the constant breezes from the sea; besides, that their commanding situations, sometimes very difficult of access, serve them as a means of defence in troublesome times.
Scanty as the soil was on the heights, the mountaineers had, by their industry, turned it to great advantage. The population of a given number of square miles, taken anywhere on it, was not exceeded by the number of inhabitants, on an equal space, in the plains; the cause of which was owing, in a great measure, to the protection which Christians enjoyed from the Emir Beshýr, who, if not himself a Christian, which some dared openly to affirm, made no distinction between them and his Drûze or Mahometan subjects.
I had forgotten to mention that, previous to quitting Dayr-el-Kamar, Lady Hester had written to apprize the pasha of Damascus of her purposed visit to his capital. In answer, she had received a courteous invitation; and a chokadàr, or page, the bearer of it, was commissioned to be our conductor to Damascus. He was shivering with cold at this place, as he sat smoking his pipe, cross-legged on his carpet, in front of his tent. He nevertheless wore two pair of thick cloth breeches, two pelisses, and other clothes in proportion. He was however good-humoured, and amused us.