I did not arrive until after sunset, when I found the encampment, in consequence of the tempest, in the greatest confusion, which continued to augment as the night advanced.
The station was at the western gate of Häyfa, on the outside, being that which we had occupied on our previous passage. On entering the dinner-tent, I observed a stranger, in a long threadbare Spanish cloak, whom, by his salutation, I guessed to be a Frenchman. He seemed to be nearly sixty years of age, his hair grizzly and uncombed, and his whole person apparently very dirty. He held under his left arm a book, which he never seemed to let go or lay down. We took our dinners in great haste, as the storm increased so much that the lights could not be kept in, and it was necessary, in the sailor’s phrase, to make all snug, and prepare for a busy night. The stranger soon went away; and I then learned that he was a Frenchman, who had now, for two years, lived in a shed in the orchards of Häyfa, where the alms of the inhabitants maintained him. The book he carried constantly under his arm was a Bible, which he read incessantly, and, whenever questioned by any one who knew his failings, he would interpret texts from it as applicable to the existing state of the world. But Buonaparte was the chief subject of his prophecies.
No sooner had Lady Hester made her appearance at Acre, and the town-talk of Häyfa had informed him of the preparations that were making for her escort, than, ignorant of her real destination to Ascalon, he fancied, like many others, that she could be going nowhere else than to perform the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He accordingly searched out a number of texts wherein he pretended that her coming was announced, and was prepared to greet her with them on her passage through Häyfa. Her ladyship had admitted him just before my arrival, and had treated him with that kindness which the unfortunate ever obtained from her. His history has already been related in a recent publication.[45]
The storm continued, and the wind was so powerful that it blew up the tents like so many umbrellas. Mâlem Musa’s, which was twelve or fourteen feet in diameter, was thrown down on him, and he lay buried under it for some minutes, roaring for assistance, until extricated by the tent-men. Lady Hester, for better security, had betaken herself to her own tent, and had quitted the large one. In spite of the additional precautions which were used, by fixing stays on the windward side of it, and by placing large stones on the pickets, she was twice half smothered. Anxious for her safety, I remained on foot the whole of that night, and was exposed to the fury of the contending elements. Early in the evening, Signor Catafago had taken refuge in the town at the Carmelite monastery: Derwish Aga, the Zäym, had done the same; and not a soldier was left. The mesalgy’s beacon could not be kept alight, and the akàms or tent-men were worn out by so often setting up the blown down tents.
About midnight, Werdy, one of the women, came in haste to inform me that there was a Frank in the dinner tent, just arrived from Acre: I repaired to him immediately, and I found a young man in the act of putting on a British naval uniform coat. I saluted him in Italian, without reflecting that I was addressing him in a language foreign to his dress: but I was right. He told me in the same breath that he was a Dalmatian, in the English service, who had accompanied the Princess of Wales in the capacity of dragoman from Palermo to Constantinople, in her voyage of 1813, and that he was now come to conduct Lady Hester and all of us to England. I was rather surprised at his embassy; more especially when I learned from whom he came: but, having given orders for providing him a supper, which was no easy matter in such a storm, I took his despatches, and carried them to Lady Hester. In the midst of the hurricane, she immediately read them. They were from Sir Sydney Smith, and were most voluminous, relating to matters very different from Lady Hester’s return: but, as they are foreign to this narrative, I shall not enter into particulars.
Sir Sydney, however, had taken this opportunity of sending various presents to persons whom he had known in Syria. These were a pair of pistols to Abu Ghosh, the chieftain who lived on the mountains of Judea, in the road to Jerusalem from Jaffa; a dressing-box for the Emir Beshýr’s wife; an English bible to the public library of Jerusalem (there being no such institution); and a picture of the pope for the Holy Sepulchre. He likewise displayed his indignation at cruelty, but not his prudence, in telling the Emir Beshýr, in a letter which he wrote to him, how much he regretted that the sons of his brother had been deprived of their eyesight by his order. The picture of the pope which he gave was to be in the keeping of the Copt, Greek, Syrian, and Catholic bishops; but, in so doing, he showed little knowledge of the state of things at Jerusalem. These different sects have nothing in common among them but their quarrels.
The following memorandums of the correspondence contained in the despatches which passed between Sir Sydney Smith and Lady Hester Stanhope, by the hands of M. Thomaso Coschich, were written down at the time. They contain the substance of all the letters.
Sir Sydney Smith to Lady Hester Stanhope, Latakia.
Vienna, Dec. 8, 1814.
My dear Cousin,