At Dayr Mkhallas resided the patriarch of the Greek Catholics, proprietor of Dayr Mar Elias, and successor of him who died there just before our arrival. His name was Macarius, which he had assumed on his elevation to the patriarchal dignity. He was a man of little conversation, and rather awkwardly professed his hope that Lady Hester would long continue to occupy his humble residence. These dignitaries of the Eastern church are accessible to the lowest person, and are not those of old, who could make an emperor tremble on his throne: the most they can now do is to tamper in the intrigues of the mountain, a field too small to give scope to the ambition of a churchman; but even now they are approached with the greatest respect, and persons of their own sect kiss the ground before a patriarch, and then his robe.[93] He is waited upon by priests and deacons, who light his pipe, and do other menial offices about his person. In the East, all distinctions of rank are lost in the presence of a superior, if he be a great man, whether Christian or Moslem. Before a pasha, his vizir, or kekhyah, stands, nor dares sit, unless told to do so. In the same manner, a patriarch keeps his bishop on his legs; but, let the pasha or the patriarch disappear, the kekhyah and bishop will play the same farce with those next inferior to themselves. As the Porte acknowledges but one legitimate Christian church, which is the Greek, the Catholic patriarch cannot be seen in public in his robes, or, indeed, reside anywhere comfortably, but in Mount Lebanon.
On the 28th of March, M. Boutin, a French gentleman, arrived at Sayda, and lodged at his consul’s. Lady Hester had known him at Cairo, where, on occasion of a dinner at the house of the French consul, she had turned into ridicule the mysterious air which he assumed, and had laughingly denounced him as a spy of Buonaparte’s, as, in fact, he was: for he had served as colonel of engineers, and was now on a mission connected with his department. He was said to have been a great friend of Moreau’s. He was much urged to remain at Sayda until the plague, which now began to reappear everywhere, should have subsided: but, not being willing to do so, he departed about the 5th or 6th of April, taking with him a servant of Lady Hester’s, whom she ceded to him as likely to be useful on the journey; and so he would have been, but they were destined never to return. The servant was carried off by the plague, and M. Boutin was assassinated by his own Turkish domestics in an unfrequented part of the Ansáry mountains! His story will be related in another place.
It was now the time of Lent, which was kept with much strictness by the Greek Catholics: but their rigid observance of fasts savoured strongly of pride; and, even in my own little family, between Giovanni, who was a Roman Catholic, and the kitchen girl, who was a Greek Catholic, I was often made very angry. Whatever I left at dinner was thrown to the dogs. What was cooked for me would neither do for man nor maid: and what was cooked for the man would not do for the maid, because their fasts fell at different times, according to the old and new style. Yet would they drink drams, lie, cheat, or do anything morally wrong, and then look me in the face, and justify their conduct, because, forsooth, they had not broken the fast.
The rains this year had continued somewhat later than usual; but the weather was now become very fine and warm, and the breeding of silkworms had begun to busy the whole of the peasantry. On the first days of April, the worms were hatched from their eggs, by being carried for a day or two in the bosoms of the women; that kind of warmth, or that degree of it, being found to be most fit for the purpose.
Nasýfa, widow of Murad Bey, once the ruler of Egypt, whose acquaintance Lady Hester had made whilst she was at Cairo, sent her about this time a black slave, named Hanýfy. She was thirteen years old, and exceedingly well made. Much pains were taken to render her a good servant; and, as she had been bred a Mahometan, her ladyship never would allow any attempts to be used to convert her to Christianity, but caused an old imàm of Sayda to come, day by day, to give her instructions in her religion, and to teach her the forms of prayer. Many pious persons may be disposed to blame Lady Hester, who thus shut out from a young mind the light of the Gospel; but she was accustomed to say, “I am a philosopher and not a missionary, and, between millions of Mahometans and millions of Christians, who dispute which is the right way to Heaven, I never pretend to set myself up as a judge which is the best.”
When Hanýfy came from Egypt to Syria, a letter was sent with her, describing her merits by negatives; there being, in a new bought slave, few positive qualities ascertainable, until he or she has been some time in the possession of a purchaser. This letter was written by the person at Cairo into whose trust Hanýfy had been delivered, and by whose wife all proper examination had been made of her fitness for her new station. The slave-sellers are accustomed to give three days’ trial, and the result was that, Hanýfy did not snore, did not talk or walk in her sleep, had a pleasant voice, seemed docile; that her back was not crooked; and that she had no bodily deformity. Such was the character she brought with her; and whether she was virtuous and good never seemed to have troubled the inquirer’s mind.
Just at this time, I was exceedingly delighted by an unexpected discovery of an ancient sepulchre, made not far from my residence. As I now spoke Arabic, the news of the day often formed a subject of conversation between me and the villagers, my neighbours. One evening, a peasant, who was sufficiently aware of the curiosity which European travellers feel upon matters connected with the ancient history of these countries, informed me, that a cavern, full of painted figures, had been discovered, the preceding evening, within a short distance of Sayda. He added other circumstances sufficient to excite in me a desire to see it. Having, therefore, acquainted myself with the situation of the place, I went to it on the following morning.
The spot to which I had been directed was about half a mile to the north-east of Sayda, close to a deep glen, named Wady Abu Ghyás, and within a hundred yards of one of the gardens to the east. A camel, whilst grazing here, sunk into a hole knee-deep, where it remained without being able to extricate itself. The driver, having relieved it from its distressing situation, was naturally induced to look down, and examine the hole; and, as it appeared to go to some depth, the constant notion which prevails (as has been before said) among all classes of people in the East, of hidden treasures, led him to fancy that it might be an opening to something of this kind; so he proceeded to enlarge it. The soil readily yielded, and presented the appearance of an underground chamber. Eager to realize the good fortune which awaited him, as he now supposed, he procured a light, and, letting himself down into the opening, found himself in a spacious vault, the walls of which were covered with painted figures almost as large as life. He cautiously proceeded to examine the place, when, having convinced himself that his search would turn to no profitable end, he ascended to the open day, and went and communicated his discovery to the people of a caravansery, the resort, as in the inns of other countries, of many idlers. Some of these returned with him to the cavern: and the superstition of a part of them immediately converted the figures into a representation of Christian mysteries, a circumstance not worth mentioning, if it were not that this notion was afterwards the cause of their being defaced by the Turks.
INTERIOR OF A GREEK SEPULCHRE.