For two piasters I hired a boat with four men, for the purpose of obtaining, if possible, some specimens of the Tyrian dye. The man who steered her was the harbour-master, Räis el myna, who, brought up to the trade of a fisherman, had, nevertheless, acquired considerable celebrity along the coast of Syria for his skill in lithotomy. His name was Bûlus Abu Hanah. From the moment of my arrival at Tyre, he had hung about me, hoping to obtain from me an English penknife, that being the instrument with which he operated. He showed me a stone of seventeen drachms Turkish, or an ounce and a half English, and another a little smaller, which he had extracted. His operations amounted to twenty-five, and his average of deaths was not different from those on record by some celebrated European surgeons. He acknowledged that no previous study had led him to undertake this bold operation; but that, having observed with what facility it had been done by some itinerant lithotomists who came to Tyre, he ventured to undertake it first upon his own nephew. His success in that instance emboldened him, and he now refused no case that presented itself, where he saw a prospect of cure. It will scarcely be believed that the very delicate operation for the cataract is likewise performed in Syria by itinerant oculists.
Our search after the Tyrian dye was unsuccessful: this not being, it was said, the proper season for fishing for it. But a promise was made me that I should be supplied with some in the spring of the ensuing year; in return for which I was to send the harbour-master an English penknife. He did not execute his promise the following year, but I did mine.
As I desired him to bring to me everything that his nets caught, one of the men bethought himself that a collection of sea-weeds would interest me. He showed me thirteen sorts. Two of them are used for dyeing; of these one, called hashýsh ed dúdy, or sindean el bahr, dyes a crimson, and is of a purple hue. Although the history of the Tyrian dye is a certain one, I would nevertheless ask whether there might not have been a crimson extracted from a sea-weed as well as a fish.[62]
On Monday, the 8th of August, I embarked, about one in the morning. At sunrise we weighed anchor, and, coasting the shore, came to the Nakûra (of which mention has been made in former passages) about four leagues South of Tyre. Here the vessel was anchored in a nook close in to the shore, for the purpose of receiving her cargo of wood, consisting of cordbats as thick as a man’s leg, and about a yard long, which were cut on the mountain close to the villages of Nakûra and Alma, and sold on the spot for from five to eight piasters the hundred.
Whilst the vessel was loading, which was done by the crew, who carried the wood on their shoulders through the surf, the passengers went on shore, and I among the number. We were about one mile to the North of the Nakûra toll-house, when, at a little distance from the sea-shore, I observed two pillars standing, the remains of some ancient building. The name the ruin goes by is Um el Hamûd; but I was surprised to find that two such objects should have hitherto escaped my notice, when I had now passed this road three times. I have not, therefore, inserted them in our itinerary, in their proper place. On a line with the pillars, close to the sea-shore, so as to be washed by the surf, were two or three small springs of water, which from their situation are constantly brackish.
Some Metoualys, who were inhabitants of the mountain hereabouts, came down to look at us. They had muskets, the use of which Gezzàr Pasha had prohibited at the time when he laid waste their country, and put their chiefs to death. But their rough and almost insolent manner towards Moslems here argued very clearly that they had in a certain degree recovered their independence.
Gezzàr persecuted this race of people almost to extermination. The troops which he sent against them were commanded by Selim Pasha, a Mameluke, who afterwards headed the insurrection of the Mamelukes against that pasha. Upon this occasion, Faris and Nasýf, two chieftains of a Metoualy family, in which had been vested the government from time immemorial, were put to death, and others were imprisoned at Acre. Selim Pasha sent 745 heads to his master, which were piled up outside the gate of Acre.
But the greatest cruelty was exercised on those who were led to Acre as prisoners; for Gezzàr Pasha ordered them to be impaled immediately. This horrible massacre was recounted to me in the following manner. It was two or three hours past sunset when the prisoners were brought in. Pierre, one of our servants, whom I have often mentioned, was living at Acre at that time; and, happening to be walking towards the city gate on his own affairs, with his lantern in his hand, he was laid hold of, as were many others, by the soldiers, to stand by and guard the prisoners, whilst the others were executed. Of these there were twenty-seven. Three, bound hand and foot, were his charge: and, when he saw the horrid work that was preparing, he trembled not much less than did the prisoners themselves. Several were already impaled on rough stakes hastily sharpened, when at length a man, whom Pierre described as of great strength, feeling the first blow of the mallet which drove the stake into his body, (his legs having been untied previously to stretch them wide open,) gave a sudden spring, extricated himself from the grasp of his executioners, and ran off. He plunged into the sea, and in the darkness of the night saved himself or was drowned; for he was heard of no more. The executions continued until the night was far advanced: some of these miserable creatures lived until the next, and some until the third day.
At night our cargo was completed, and the shekýf (so the little craft was called) was hauled off into deep water. After midnight, as soon as the land breeze was felt, we set sail for Rosetta, our course being West South West. A shekýf resembles somewhat, in size and construction, a smuggler’s lugger, being without a deck. The wood filled her up to the very gunwale; and, upon this hard and uneven material, twelve passengers, with a crew of the same number, were to find berths. The small boat, which was lifted in, was awarded to me by the captain, against the pretensions of a Turk, who, however, did not yield so advantageous a situation without much grumbling. There was a soldier with one hand, with a military voice and very haughty demeanour, but whom the räis smoothed into a most obliging person by frequently applying to him the title of aga: although his pride never could submit to be civil to two Jews, who were driven from side to side until the rest of the passengers had accommodated themselves: yet one of these was a rabbin, a man of learning, and whose conversation afterwards was my greatest comfort on the passage. There was, likewise, an Egyptian shaykh, whose neck was ornamented by three rows of large Mecca beads: and with him were his wife and daughter, both dreadfully sea-sick, with an old man servant, seventy years of age, infirm and helpless. Two Alexandrian pedlars, and two poor creatures of no trade or craft whatever, with Giovanni, who was like a corpse from the moment he got on board, completed our heterogeneous party.
During the whole of Monday, our course was nearly the same, with a capful of wind. In the night it fell calm. The land breeze was then felt, and with that we advanced a little. But, on Tuesday, the 9th, a West wind, the prevailing one of the season, sprung up, and obliged us to alter our course to North and by West, upon which rhumb we kept the whole of the day and the following night. The wind freshened considerably, and we furled our mizen. Giovanni was very ill, and incapable of doing anything for me; and, in the usual strain of the sea-sick, recommended himself to the Virgin, and considered his case as desperate.