[2] These walls were known to the ancients, and called parietes formacei. The same composition is still used at and near Lyons in France, and called pisé: as also in Cornwall.
[3] The late Lord Guildford.
[4] How different from the opinion Lady Hester Stanhope afterwards formed of him, when she knew him better!
[5] The fanaticism of the people of Damascus surpasses that of the inhabitants of Egypt, since a European cannot, without danger, show himself in the streets in the dress of his country, but is obliged to assume the costume of the East. A Christian or Jew cannot ride on horseback in the town: they are not permitted even to have an ass to ride upon.—Ali Bey’s Travels, vol. ii., p. 273.
[6] This warning is generally made by the word testûr, which is bawled out by a eunuch who precedes you as you enter the harým.
[7] She was without colour on her cheeks, and it would seem that rosy cheeks do not form part of Eastern beauty. Lady Hester used often to repeat a compliment which was paid to her own pale looks in Egypt. “My white face,” she would say, “in this country pleases the people amazingly, and the Turks consider the red faces of the English women odious. Witness the story told of those who were left behind by the English army after the expedition to Egypt in 1805, and were taken by the Turks. Their new masters washed them and washed them, hoping to get the brick-dust out of their cheeks; and, when they found it impossible, they sent them about their business. Black women, the Turks said, they knew and liked, and white ones; but red women they never heard of till then.”
[8] In the plague of 1814, the bey’s wife and twenty of his household died. Suliman Bey had the plague, but got over it. About a year afterwards, he fell from the terrace of the house and was killed. Ahmed Bey never recovered his spirits after these accumulated misfortunes.
[9] To this custom of looking out of one eye allusion is made in Solomon’s Song, c. iv., v. 9. “Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes.”
[10] Fathah, the opening chapter of the Koran.
[11] Dr. John Fiott Lee, F.R.S., of Hartwell House.