At the time that this was written, the imports most saleable were said to be hardwares, American coffee (which the natives mixed with Mocha coffee in adulteration, or sold separately as a cheap article), sugar, cloth, English printed cottons, muslins, fire-arms, watches, Geneva jewelry, peppers, cochineal, indigo, lead, iron, tin, French earthenware, German glass, &c.
It is to be observed that, so totally does the sale depend, especially in articles of jewelry, fire-arms, and Manchester goods, on an adaptation to the taste and usages of the people, that no person who has not resided among them can judge what is saleable merchandize; for example, the best duelling pistols, brown barrelled, and unornamented, without knobs at the ends of the stocks, would not fetch five pounds; whilst a brace of trumpery pistols, made by the direction of a person who knew what the Turks fancied would sell for treble that sum: yet, with this exception, one general rule with them is to prefer solid to fancy goods.
I did not hesitate to ask shaykh Shems many questions respecting his religion. From him I was confirmed in the received opinion that Hakem by Omrhu was the founder of their sect, and beyond this I could get no new light. But it was evident that he had read with attention the Bible and New Testament, and was as well versed in the Koran as the Mahometans themselves.
My neighbour, Mâlem Dubány, had two daughters, Tuckly and Haneh; the eldest, Tuckly, was about seventeen years old. As I was a doctor, and an old friend, I was admitted into the family upon all occasions, and the young ladies were suffered by their mamma to remain when I entered the room, and would sit down by me unveiled. Tuckly was grave and majestic, and of dazzling beauty, her skin being of a higher polish than I had ever seen: Haneh, on the contrary, was a laughing girl, with large black eyes, lips somewhat thick, but as red as coral: and all the decorum which custom required of females before men could scarcely keep down her natural vivacity.
I had at this time a patient from Aleppo, named Gibrael el Anhury, a merchant, who had brought a letter of introduction to me from Mr. Barker, our Consul at that place. With him came his nephew, a young man about twenty-three or twenty-four years of age, who had resolved on demanding one of Mâlem Dubány’s daughters in marriage. As he never was permitted to see either, of course he could only judge by report as to the respective merits of the two. His go-betweens were a female cousin, who lived at Sayda, and his uncle, a respectable priest, living at Sayda also, both of whom (for priests have the privilege of entering the harýms) were in habits of intimacy with Dubány’s family. They united in extolling Haneh, the youngest, and Haneh was finally demanded in marriage.
But there is a custom among the Levantines of never allowing a younger sister to marry before an elder.[94] In the marriage of Mâlem Surûr, the British consul at Damietta, to the second daughter of Batrus Anhûry of Mount Lebanon, this custom was violated, it is true, inasmuch as he took the younger, the elder being yet unmarried. But this was considered as conduct worthy of blame in the father, and he was said to have been induced to do so from the fear of losing so good a match in his family. Mâlem Dubány, therefore, refused his consent. It must be observed that the Benat Dubány (or the Misses Dubány) were never consulted; and the father, whilst relating to me the negociations which had taken place, suffered his daughters to listen to the conversation, without imagining for a moment that his omnipotent decrees could ever excite a murmur in their bosoms.
Young Anhûry was, therefore, driven to take Tuckly or neither. But it had been whispered to him by his matronly cousin, that she suspected Tuckly was of a complexion too much like alabaster to be in sound health, and that she was well assured that something was wrong in her constitution, as my lady’s doctor had been prescribing for her. This was true; although the cousin’s alarm was groundless as to anything seriously faulty in the state of her health, for she was possessed of an excellent frame of body. One day, therefore, Anhûry, the nephew, called on me, and, after many roundabout questions, asked me what I thought of Miss Tuckly, and I, as in truth I might, eulogized her in the discreetest manner I could.
The following day, when visiting Mâlem Dubány, he, in his turn, interrogated me whether I was not of opinion that bad eyes argued bad humours in the constitution, and whether Mr. Anhûry did not seem to me to have bad eyes. Here, too, I endeavoured to say nothing that might hurt the young man’s suit; but Mâlem Dubány was so often recurring to the sore eyes of Anhûry, that he persuaded himself a person so afflicted could not have healthy children; and the suitor was finally dismissed.
Will it, after this, be thought wonderful that there should be a purity of blood in the different races of people in Syria and other parts of the East, unknown to Northern climates, when so slight a motive as this could cause a young man, respectable, rich, and comely, to be rejected?
I cannot dismiss the subject of Dubány and his family without saying a few words on an incident in his life, which explains the meaning of the term avany, a word that has been adopted into the English and French languages, by travellers in the Levant, to express the extortion of money on frivolous pretexts. Mâlem Dubány acquired his little fortune in Egypt, and, whilst a resident merchant there, was, with eight others, made the subject of an avany, under the following circumstances, during the reign of Mûrad Bey. He was reputed rich; and the bey, desirous of appropriating a portion of his wealth to himself, was not long in inventing a crime whereof to accuse him.