Before dismissing the subject of this voyage, it will not be amiss to note the remarks which we made concerning the crew. On their knowledge of navigation I cannot decide, knowing little of the matter myself; but they appear to be practical, although not theoretical, sailors. Nothing can exceed their activity in going aloft; although they pay little attention to nicety in trimming their sails and yards, and have no discipline. As to the vessel, her rigging was defective, her decks dirty. The crew lived well enough, on rice, cheese, onions, and good biscuit; with sometimes the addition of figs, raisins, &c.
How far animal food is necessary for the support of seamen, persons more experienced in these things must decide. But if an humble opinion may be ventured, I profess I cannot see why salt meat, juiceless, and saturated with brine even to loathing, should be made the main nourishment of a crew on a long voyage, to the great injury of their health, when farinaceous food of all sorts is so plentiful and so salutary, which would form, with the addition of dry fruits, and the many other articles now allowed in his Majesty’s navy, a species of sustenance much better adapted to long voyages, and diminishing not a jot the strength of a man, as is generally supposed. For whence is it that the Egyptian, so lusty and muscular, derives his great strength, but from rice and cold water; or the Irishman, but from potatoes and buttermilk? Oh! that this truth could be forcibly impressed on those persons who fancy that strength lies only in animal food, and in spirits, wine, and beer; for let them be assured that all fermented liquors are destructive of it.
In this trip I learned to box the compass in Arabic, which is less difficult than in English. The card is divided into sixteen rhumbs, not as with us into thirty-two; and the alternate rhumbs have no names, but are indifferently called joze or halves, with the addition of the point next adjoining. Thus it must necessarily be wanting in accuracy to designate the wind and the course.
CHAPTER X.
Mode of Life of Lady Hester Stanhope—Imaginary treasures of Gezzàr Pasha—Road to the Convent of Mar Elias—Description of the Convent—Village of Abra—Interior of a cottage—Poverty of the people—Change in the character of Lady Hester—Abra purchased by a Greek Patriarch—Revenues—Tenure of land—Occupations of the peasantry—Herdsmen—Village overseer—Notions of propriety in the behaviour of females—Dread of the plague—Precautions against the infection suggested by Lady Hester to the Emir Beshýr—Visit of the Shaykh Beshýr to Abra—Good breeding of the Turks—Greek monasteries—The patriarch Macarius—M. Boutin—Hanýfy, a female slave sent to Lady Hester—Specification of her qualities—Discovery of an ancient sepulchre—Paintings in it copied by Mr. Bankes, and by the Author—Various forms of sepulchres.
We are now arrived at a new period in Lady Hester’s peregrinations, in which, from a traveller, she becomes a sojourner in a strange land; and, abandoning Europe and its customs altogether, conforms herself entirely to the modes of life of the Orientals. Not that it is clear whether she was fixed in such a determination at first; but, unwilling to return to England, with which country she had become, for several reasons, disgusted, and, finding no other on the Continent sufficiently quiet to insure a permanent asylum, she thought she would remain some time longer in Syria, where, looking down on the world from the top of Mount Lebanon, she might calmly contemplate its follies and vicissitudes, neither mixed up with the one, nor harassed by the other.
The state of retirement in which we now lived gave me time to turn my attention more particularly to a consideration of the geographical conformation of the country. A traveller, newly arrived in Syria, or passing hastily through it, will find much difficulty in doing this: for, although there are many prominent features to guide him, he will necessarily have few books, and perhaps only a bad map or two to refer to;[84] and he will sometimes seek in vain for the divisions of provinces, for the precise termination of mountains, for the course of rivers occasionally dried up, or for the sites of cities now overgrown with grass, which are placed on paper so distinctly; besides which his inquiries will always be impeded or stopped by the ignorance of those through or to whom he is necessarily obliged to direct them.
A general notion of Syria can be obtained from no author better than from Abulfeda, an impartial writer, dwelling in it, and distinguished for his knowledge on the subject. His words are, “Syria is a magnificent country, rich in its productions, blessed with fertility, adorned with gardens, woods, meadows, valleys, and mountains, watered by rivers, abundant in vegetables, game, flocks, and domestic animals. It is seasonably refreshed and fertilized by annual rains, and bears on its mountains perpetual snows.”
Strabo divides Syria into four provinces—Seleucia, Phœnicia, Palestine (subdivided into Galilee, Samaria, and Judea), and Cœle-Syria. Cœle-Syria was either Proper, or Common. Proper Cœle-Syria seems (for there is some confusion in the account) to have comprehended those extensive vales, embosomed between Mount Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and the best demarcation of which is by following the course of the river Leontes, or the modern Casmya, up between the modern provinces of Shkyf and Bsharra, and the valley of the Bkâ, and by continuing on with the course of the Orontes down to Antioch; then the country to the right and left of these two rivers included between the mountains will be Cœle-Syria Proper. Common Cœle-Syria consisted of the plains spreading out towards Hems and Hamah to the north, and towards Damascus to the south, cut off from the sea-coast by the intervention of great mountains: whilst that slip of land between the mountains and sea-coast, running the whole length of Syria, from Antioch down to the river Eleutherus, or the modern Nahr el Kebýr,[85] is Seleucia; Phœnicia, thence to the Promontorium Album, or modern Ras el Nakûra; and Palestine from the Nakûra, down to the sandy Desert, which divides it from Egypt: or by another division, Strabo makes Phœnicia to extend from the river Eleutherus down to Damietta, and Palestine to be a district of it.
It was also probable that there was another motive which induced Lady Hester to delay yet awhile her departure. Among the many stories which were related of the celebrated Pasha el Gezzàr, one was, that he had amassed immense wealth, and, having in his lifetime hid it under ground, had disappointed the Porte at his death in the acquisition of it. She was possessed with the idea that she had obtained a clue to the discovery of some of his treasures, and she had applied to the Turkish government (as it was afterwards known) for permission to dig for them. This I conceive to have been one main reason for her stay.