The month of August was ushered in by quotidian and tertian agues, which prevailed very generally. Ophthalmia was also very common, but yielded to antiphlogistic treatment and common collyria.
It was on the 10th of August that news reached Lady Hester, by letter from Tripoli, of the death of Mr. Cotter, one of two English gentlemen, who, shortly after landing in Syria from the Archipelago, had, with the other, Mr. Davison, been seized with a malignant fever at the monastery of Dayr Natûr, near Tripoli, which city they had been unable to enter, owing to the plague. Her ladyship hastened to offer an asylum to Mr. Davison, should he be disposed to avail himself of it; but it was said that he had departed for Jerusalem.
August 20.—Mr. Barker, the British consul at Aleppo, had resolved on spending part of the autumn with his family at Latakia; they arrived about this time, and their society was a great acquisition. There is a village on the first rise of the mountains to the north-east, called Besnáda, celebrated for the view which it affords, for its air, and for its water; there Mr. Barker fitted up a cottage, and, with the addition of a tent or two, found room enough for his large establishment.
A melancholy event occurred at the end of this month to a young Christian, who fell a victim to his indiscretion. He was the brother of Abdallah, katib of the Collector of the Customs, and ranking, from his situation, as one of the most respectable of the Christians. This gentleman, who was about twenty-five years old, and of a fair complexion (forming a strong contrast with the browner faces of his nation), was seen one morning to come out of the harým of a Turkish Effendi, just before sunrise. A Mussulman, who suspected that he was carrying on an intrigue with a Turkish lady, had watched him, and, information being laid against him, he was seized and imprisoned. His imprisonment made a great noise; and Abdallah, fearing that his brother’s life might be in danger, despatched a courier to Acre, to intercede for him with the pasha.
The Moslems will not easily pardon any man for an illicit intercourse with their women, but a Christian never. As there existed much hatred between the Motsellem and the Kumrukgi, the latter could obtain no mitigation of punishment by his intercessions.
The next morning, the prisoner was reported to have been cruelly bastinadoed: and the third morning he was said to have died. In fact, he was despatched hastily, lest the return of the courier should prevent the revenge which the Turks will ever take on Christians for an affront not to be wiped out but with their blood.
Various are the opinions entertained as to the effects of fruit on the human frame. The question is of too general a nature to make it necessary to apologize for inserting in this place the results of a fruit diet, persisted in from the 1st of July to the 20th, and renewed from the 4th of August to the 27th. In Syria, there is not a Christian or a Frank, who, in speaking of his own or his neighbour’s maladies, does not ascribe them to fruit, either from its qualities, or from the time of day, or the season of the year, in which it was eaten. At Damascus, this notion was carried so far by the Christians, as to attribute to fruit the numberless sore eyes that afflict the inhabitants. Not so the Turks: they eat fruit abundantly at all times, and give it unrestrictedly to their children and to their sick, as the most palatable and cooling diet, especially in fever.
Pringle and Tissot, two authors who recommend fruit in health and in sickness, had greatly weakened my belief in its supposed pernicious effects: and I was resolved to ascertain, on my own person, what the actual result might be in this hot climate. Accordingly, about the 1st of July, I entered upon a diet, almost entirely composed of fruit. I was enabled to adhere strictly to it; because, since our arrival at Latakia, I kept my own table, and was not, therefore, compelled, from the necessity of doing like others, and from deference to opinion and custom, to violate the rules I had laid down for myself; and the little communication which I had with the inhabitants of the place, owing to the danger of plague, prevented all interruption from invitations to the meals of other people.
It is to be premised that, although I consider the air of Latakia excellent, yet the constitution of the atmosphere this year was by no means healthy, and little favourable to dietetic experiments. The thermometer stood, upon an average at noon, at 84° F. This degree of heat rendered fruit highly agreeable. I slept during the night in the open air, with a mosquito net. I breakfasted on coffee and milk, with bread and honey. At noon, I generally ate an entire sweet melon, and drank a pint of cold well-water, the place affording no other. My dinner invariably consisted of about a dozen fresh figs, a portion of a sweet, or water melon, and a pint of cold water. At ten o’clock at night, I again ate part of a sweet or water-melon, drank another pint of water, and retired to sleep.
This regimen was continued for twenty days. My digestion experienced no alteration whatever; my sleep was delicious; and, during the whole time, I knew not what it was to have a foul mouth in the morning, dreams in the night, or the slightest symptom of disorder in my health. The exercise that I took was, with the exception of swimming, a brisk trot on horseback of a mile or two every day.