To expect a frigate upon this coast till the plague is quite gone is out of the question, and to pop into a nasty infected ship would be folly. As far as country and a good house goes, we are very comfortable; as well off now as ill off last winter.
Believe me,
Dear Lord Sligo,
Yours sincerely,
Hester Lucy Stanhope.
In these distant countries the arrival of strangers was in those times an event of importance among the few Europeans of the place, and “Have you seen the mylady who is just come from Hamah?” was the question of the day.
By what I could learn from the mention of visits of this sort made by former travellers, there was no one, however distinguished his rank, who had not sought with avidity the society of these Europeans as his only resource among barbarians: for so the Turks are called by most persons who travel among them. Such was not the practice of Lady Hester. Unless a European, from situation or talents, had some claim to her acquaintance, she always refused to see him: and the wife of a factor, in the town where we now were, in vain solicited, during six months, the honour of being presented to her, although the only European-born woman in the place. I however was soon acquainted with them all: and, as there was an epidemic fever raging on our arrival, my professional aid was called for on all sides; the more especially as I gave it gratuitously.[70]
When we were settled, and time was allowed for examining the town and environs, I observed several remains of ancient edifices, which once adorned Laodicea, lying about in different directions, of some of which I took sketches. Going from the town to the port, (which two places are distant half a mile from each other) a single granite column was to be seen upright, but buried half its length among the graves of a cemetery. The soil was overgrown with flowers and weeds at this time. Close to it were five palm trees of different heights.
Two hundred paces to the north and east of this was a singular remnant of antiquity in an octagonal piece of marble, giving support to the main beam of a Persian waterwheel, one end of which rested upon it, as the other did upon the fluted shaft of a column. It was placed upside down, and had, on three of the eight faces, a long inscription in Greek capitals. The copying of it, from the unpleasant posture in which I was obliged to do it, took me up two mornings. Large blocks of stone and patches of a wall attested the former existence of some building on this spot.
There are several granite pillars scattered in and about the town. Thus, to the north of the citadel is one, and by the sea-side a piece of another. In one of the streets are no fewer than ten granite pillars, still upright, but without capitals. The intervals between them have been blocked up with masonry, and the whole forms the wall of a house. There are seven more incorporated in another wall; these and the ten above mentioned are scarcely half their length out of the ground, proving how great must be the heaps of ruins which now cover their bases.