Lady Hester had now abandoned the idea of going to Europe. Sometimes she thought of taking a journey overland to Bussora, and to embark there in an English ship for India, but finally determined on remaining some months longer in Syria. She told me that she had bethought herself of a small retired building, a short distance from Sayda, which, as being only an occasional residence of the proprietor, the patriarch of the Greek catholics, could, for a trifling sum, be hired for her use. She had seen this when at Sayda the preceding year, and she now wrote to M. Bertrand, desiring him to secure it for her.[79] The patriarch Athanasius was at this time residing at the monastery of Mar Elias, so his house was called; but, on learning Lady Hester’s wishes, he sent a polite message to signify that she was welcome to occupy it whenever and as long as she chose.
Soon after the arrival of the answer, all the luggage that could be well spared was shipped off for Sayda under the care of Hanah, or as he was usually called Giovanni, formerly Mr. B.’s servant, but now returned from Aleppo and become mine. It was intended that we should follow in the course of a few days: when a series of melancholy events succeeded each other so rapidly, that the new year had begun before we departed!
Two young children of Mr. Barker’s, named Harissa and Zabetta, were taken ill of a malignant fever. I attended them, and, observing the symptoms to be highly virulent, I insisted on separating the parents from them. Mr. and Mrs. Barker in consequence left Besnáda for Latakia, and the sole care of nursing the little patients devolved on their grandmother, Mrs. Abbott. On the 31st both died within five hours of each other. Shortly before this the janissary in attendance on Lady Hester had been taken off very suddenly, and also the child of a merchant, the partner of Mâlem Mûsa Elias, the British agent: so that there was some doubt whether the plague had not again got footing in the town. We were aware that it still raged with unabated violence in Hems, Damascus, and at a village near Antioch, not very far from Latakia, and through which places caravans were continually coming to Latakia. The summer and autumn were considered by the natives as peculiarly fine: for the weather had remained so settled that, for five months, there had been only two showers of rain.
On the 15th of November, just as we were on the point of setting out for Sayda, Lady Hester was attacked with a fever, and on the evening of the same day I fell ill also.[80]
I continued to get out for an hour or two in the course of the day, till the 18th; but my debility had then become so great, and the symptoms of low fever so aggravated, that I took to my bed, where I became occasionally delirious; and it was not until the twelfth day that I was able to quit my chamber, when I was carried to attend on Lady Hester, whose situation was so dangerous, that, in addition to a French doctor, who happened to come to Latakia at this time, an Italian surgeon, settled in the place, had also been called in. But Mr. Barker urged the necessity of my seeing her, although I much feared that my weak state would wholly incapacitate me from yet resuming my professional duties. For fifteen days after this I did not quit her day or night, never undressing the whole of that time: and, during this period, for twelve hours, I despaired of her life, and a communication was made to her by Mr. Barker to that effect. At last it pleased God, by the aid of a constitution naturally vigorous, to relieve her so far that I could pronounce her out of danger; nevertheless she was not able to stand till the 1st of January, the day of our departure from Latakia.
It was Lady Hester’s firm persuasion that her disorder was the plague, and some reasons induced me to believe so. For if there be (as the native physicians say) a sporadic disease constantly remarked at the beginning and close of the first year in which plague appears, but which, alike in most of its symptoms, loses for a time its infectious powers, and is not equally disposed to affect the glandular system, then had Lady Hester indeed the plague. Besides, on the 15th of November, four persons had died; on the 16th three: and there might have been as many deaths on the subsequent days for aught I know: which are so many proofs of the occasional reappearance of a modified disease, dependent on the peculiar constitution of the year.
In consequence of this grievous sickness which befel Lady Hester and myself, as well as of the many melancholy events that we had witnessed here, we became so disgusted with Latakia as to feel very anxious to leave the place. We had experienced great inconvenience from the want of many articles of comfort which had been sent off to Sayda with the luggage: and hence it was that our privations were of a rather serious kind. The weather, which had remained tolerably warm up to December 10th, on a sudden became windy, boisterous, and exceedingly wet; so that it was necessary to hire and borrow bed-coverings: and, as the house happened not to be weather-proof, Lady Hester’s chamber was often inundated, and a cope of felt was suspended beneath the ceiling to carry off the water: nay, it will hardly be believed that, in mine, I was occasionally obliged to rise two or three times to shift my bed from place to place, in the ineffectual attempt to find a dry corner.
Captain Macdonald,[81] a gentleman in the service of the East India Company, arrived at Latakia a day or two after the commencement of Lady Hester’s illness. He remained in Mr. Barker’s house until the departure of that gentleman and his family (December the 5th) for Aleppo, and his presence was a pleasing addition to our small society. Invited by M. Guys, the French consul, he afterwards took up his abode with him for a few days; until, on the 10th of December, he sailed, on a most tempestuous night, and, in an open boat, for Cyprus; but the boat could not keep the sea, and returned on the 12th. A day or two afterwards he finally succeeded in getting across; but not without considerable risk.
To add to the serious inconveniencies under which Lady Hester laboured, her maid, Mrs. Fry, fell ill of a nervous fever, brought on by unremitting attendance on her mistress and excessive fatigue. There were, it is true, at this period, as servants in the house, two women of the place, both useful in their way, if Lady Hester had but been able to speak to them: one an old woman, called Hadjy[82] (for she had been to Jerusalem,) who proved an excellent nurse; and the other, named Mariam, a young and handsome creature, who officiated as bathwoman and laundress. Mariam was a widow, and had two daughters, twelve and fourteen years old, who for loveliness might have vied with the two beauties of Athens, so much spoken of by Lord Byron and travellers: but all three had been attacked with bilious remittent fevers, and required, rather than rendered, assistance in the family.
Mr. Pearce, of whom mention has been made in the former part of this Journal, had now, after a complete ramble through Syria, reached Aleppo. Hearing of Lady Hester’s illness, he politely wrote to offer her whatever assistance he could render to her, requesting that she would command his services, even at Latakia, if necessary.