In a large suburb, called Salhiah, were the first houses we approached. A broad paved road, evidently Roman remains, gave an impression of grandeur to the entrance of the city, which the streets, upon advancing farther, were not calculated to maintain. They were narrow, mean, and unpaved, obstructed with filthy puddles and unseemly ordure.
I came to the quarter of the city where the Christians live, and alighted at the house of a gentleman to whom I was recommended. He told me I must go in person to the serai, or governor’s palace, where I should immediately be furnished with an order for a house. But his tribulation was excessive when he heard that I intended to present myself to the governor without a benýsh, or coat of ceremony.[89] He begged me to wear one of his, and dwelt much on the necessity of not appearing before him in a dusty riding-dress: but, as I was not then acquainted with the extreme punctiliousness of the Turks, I declined his offer.
Accompanied by my guard, I rode strait to the palace, and entered a spacious courtyard. Neighing steeds were picketed in a row on one side of it: and gaily dressed officers and attendants were smoking in the corridors above them. Busy faces were seen crossing and re-crossing the area of the court, whilst everything argued the presence of a viceroy.
I dismounted at the door of the seráfs, to whom the letter I bore was addressed. These seráfs, or bankers, were Jews, the brothers of that Mâlem Haÿm Shäaty, of whom so much has been said, under the head of Acre. I was shown into a little room, about twelve or fourteen feet square, where I found Mâlem Rafaël, squatting, cross-legged, with an inkstand only before him, transacting the affairs of a large province. The apparatus of desks, tables, records, journals, and all the necessaries of a public office in England, is here almost unknown; nor are books and papers lying in confusion round an official person a necessary mark of business. Mâlem Rafael despatched some other matters, and then took my letter and read it. He said some civil things, and told me to follow him. We went into an adjoining office, a larger room, where sate the kakhyah, Ibrahim Pasha, the pasha’s prime minister. We stood before him for a while, when the Jew desired me to be seated, and remained standing himself. Some discourse, in a low tone, passed between him and the kakhyah, after which the Jew beckoned me to follow him out. We returned to his own room, and he desired a servant to lead me to a house in the Christian quarter, which was destined fur us. I here left my guide, the soldier, telling him to come in a day or two, and claim his reward for his trouble. The house was a very good one: indeed one of the best in the Christian quarter. Being very much fatigued, and it being now late, I dined, and retired to rest.
As I was furnished with an order for turning out the inhabitants of the house, they saved me the pain that such a proceeding must necessarily cause, by removing themselves and such little articles as they wished to take with them to an adjoining street, not without expressing much discontent.
September 1.—I rode out of Damascus to meet Lady Hester.
The reader is aware that, throughout the East, women, above the level of peasantry, dare not go unveiled. It is therefore always with sentiments of contempt that European ladies, who may chance to visit or to reside at the seaports of the Ottoman Empire, are beheld by the natives when they are seen unveiled out of doors. But the protection afforded by consuls, on the one hand, and the necessity of being on a good understanding with the Frank merchants, from whom they gain so much, on the other, together with other causes, induce them to tolerate the custom. It is not so in the interior, where the intercourse is less; and it was an opinion then current in the Levant that no man even could venture to appear at Damascus, the inhabitants of which place were considered as most bigoted, in European clothes. Lady Hester, therefore, needed no little courage to undergo the trial that awaited her. A woman, unveiled, and in man’s attire, she entered in broad daylight one of the most fanatic towns in Turkey.
From the moment of quitting Dayr el Kamar, the Turkish chokadàr had once or twice hinted to Mr. Bertrand, the interpreter, that it would be necessary for her ladyship to veil herself on entering Damascus, otherwise the populace might insult her. Mr. Bertrand, moved by his own terrors, did not fail to back the chokadàr’s opinion, and was utterly dismayed when he understood, from her own mouth, that she should brave public opinion, dressed as she was, and by day. I think it was at this time that she began to wear a fine Bagdad abah, or mantle, which Mrs. Rich[90] had sent her. About four in the afternoon the cavalcade which consisted of fifteen or eighteen horsemen and as many loaded mules, reached the suburbs, where I met it as it advanced. The people gazed at us, and all eyes were turned towards her ladyship. Her feminine looks passed with many, without doubt, for those of a beardless youth. More saw at once that it must be a woman; but, before they could recover from their astonishment, we had passed on. Thus we arrived, followed by a few boys only, at the Christian quarter of the city, and went to the house which had been prepared, as above mentioned, for her reception.
ADDITIONAL NOTE.
“Reached Bebec.”—p. 85.