The same diet was renewed from the 4th of August to the 27th, and on the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th, I lived entirely on fruit and water, without even bread; grapes being added to what I have above enumerated.
I was walking one morning during Ramazán, which began this year on the 27th of August, to Mr. Barker’s house, when I stopped in my way at the bazàr to buy something, and lighted my pipe, as I sat dealing with the merchant, to beguile the time. After making my purchase, I walked on with my long pipe in my hand, smoking as I went, which is not very genteel, even in Turkey, where few above the trading classes smoke, except when seated. A Christian of the country, who was with me, told me with great trepidation that the Turks would not suffer me to smoke openly in the day time during Ramazán, and that I should get insulted if I continued to do so. He had scarcely said it (I sillily declaring that I would smoke if I chose) when I was addressed by several shopkeepers and people standing about, who called on their prophet to witness how the Ramazán was violated by a Nazarene. They told me to extinguish my pipe, and that if I were seen another time insulting their most sacred observances, they would break it about my head.[76] After much altercation, I walked on without extinguishing it; but my reflections afterwards told me I had done wrong, and I never, on any future occasion, wilfully opposed the minutest prejudice of their law.
During Ramazán, the Turks do not discontinue working: and in no religion with which I am acquainted are so many days in the year given to labour as in the Mahometan; for, if I may judge from what I heard in conversation, and from what I saw, they think that honest labour can have nothing unholy in it at any time, and they hold the same opinion as to innocent recreation. But, in the Greek church, the too frequent recurrence of holydays, and the strong injunctions of the priests not to work on those days, is destructive of industry, and serves to render the mechanic and artisan drunken and idle.[77]
The month of September passed over without any material accident, excepting the sickness of almost all the servants, which gave me much anxiety: for no sooner did one or two get well than others fell ill. The prevailing maladies were bilious remittent, terminating in intermittent fevers.
Madame Lascaris, shut up in Damascus, in the midst of a raging plague, lost her young companion. The Greek patriarch, a worthy prelate, known to almost all English travellers in this country, likewise fell a victim to it.
As Lady Hester had declared her intention of embarking here, I had disposed of my horses, as I have already related. About this time, the glanders appeared among hers, and carried off two in a short time: a third was led to the seashore and shot, which action was greatly blamed by the lower order of Turks: a fourth was made over to the town farrier, and died; and the disease bade fair to exterminate the whole stud.
In the mean time, amusements were not wanting to make the time pass very agreeably. To the north of Latakia is a bay formed by the receding of the land. Here vessels destined for Latakia can ride out severe gales from the south-west, the point from which they generally blow. Upon the shore of this bay stood a mosque and sanctuary, built over the tomb of a santon. The place is called Ebn Hani,[78] and Mr. Barker and his family used occasionally to go and spend three or four days there, at which times a ride by land, or a trip by sea, to visit them, was one source of recreation. In like manner, there was at all times wild boar hunting: with francolins, partridges, gazelles, and hares, to shoot at, as well as that delicious bird, the beccafico, when figs were in season. I never saw a place where a sportsman might have more diversion.
When we went to shoot beccaficos, the party separated in the gardens, about a mile from the town, and met at a given place, at eleven or twelve, to breakfast on what had been killed. It was on one of these occasions that we were sitting after this breakfast, (or dinner, as it is called there,) upon the brink of a garden-reservoir, into which, by a creaking Persian wheel, water was thrown from a well beneath; when, on observing a stramonium shrub close by, Mr. Barker remarked how amusing were the effects produced by putting the seeds of it into the pipe of a person smoking, whom it intoxicated, and caused to play various antics. A French gentleman, M. Narsiat, was of the party, and expressed a wish to observe these effects on some person: accordingly, a peasant, who, among others, had been looking on at our repast in the open air, was offered a sum of money if he would suffer himself to be made intoxicated; but he was not to receive it until such an effect had manifested itself. The fellow inquired what that effect would be, and it was described to him. He then allowed the quantity of seeds supposed necessary to be put, fresh from the plant, into his pipe, and began to smoke. Whether it was his knavery which made him sham the symptoms, or whether they were real, I cannot say; but he beat and knocked about some of his comrades, and then leaped into the reservoir of water: after which he came, in a perfectly sensible manner, up to us, and demanded the money.
Some of these peasants kept falcons for hawking, and would, for a trifle, go out and kill a partridge or two.
At the beginning of October, Mr. B. received letters which obliged him to return immediately to England. He, therefore, reluctantly prepared to quit a lady, in whose society he had so long travelled, and from whose conversation and experience of the world so much useful knowledge was to be acquired. He departed on the 7th of October for Aleppo, accompanied by his dragoman, M. Beaudin, with a cook, valet, and groom. I accompanied him a league or two on his road, and then returned to Latakia.