On the 28th of July Miss Williams fell ill, as it seemed, from excessive heat. The customary heat of the climate had received an adventitious augmentation from the great drought which had parched up the soil. The spring, which usually supplied the convent with water, was dried up. Peasants were seen transporting their sacks of corn from places ten or twenty miles distant, to be ground at the water-mills on the river Ewely, where the stream had yet power to turn the wheels: for, in most places, even the rivers had ceased to flow. Wheat had become exceedingly dear; and in Abra the peasants ate barley bread.
It had been an annual custom, with the bishops and patriarchs who had made Mar Elias their residence, to celebrate the festival of that saint by a solemn mass at the chapel of the convent. Lady Hester had found that she could not dispense with this practice; and, accordingly, on the 2nd of August, the peasantry of the neighbouring villages and many persons from Sayda were seen flocking into Abra and spreading their carpets on the village green, for bivouacking preparatory to the morrow. In the morning, mass was said; upon which occasion the priest collected from a farthing to twopence or threepence from each individual; and if he made ten piasters by the festival he considered himself well paid.
These festivals, as I have said before, are looked upon by the village girls and young men as fairs are in England, and are attended often with consequences as pernicious to their morals.
On the 1st of August it was reported that some Nablûsians (Samaritans), compelled by the dearth which prevailed throughout the southern district, had resorted to robbery and plunder for subsistence, and were then marauding in Ahlým-el-Kharûb, within a few leagues of us. Upon more strict inquiry, I found, however, that they were rather to be denominated a gang of horse and ass stealers, as they hitherto had confined their depredations to the brute species. I, nevertheless, thought it necessary to use more than common vigilance, knowing that Lady Hester’s bountiful conduct on several occasions had caused her to pass for a person extremely rich. And as the common people of the country conceived all riches to be either such as are in possessions or in solid cash, they concluded that chests of gold were locked up in the convent.
I, therefore, resolved to transfer my bed to the convent; and I appointed one of the servants to watch on the roof of the chapel, where he could, in the stillness of the night, hear the footsteps or voices of persons prowling about.
PALACE OF THE SHAYKH BESHYR.
On the 4th of August, I rode over to Muktárah, the palace of the Shaykh Beshýr, to see his wife, who was ill. I arrived early in the afternoon; but, as it was now Ramazán, and the shaykh, although a Drûze, chose to keep that fast, he was still in bed. Before sunset he quitted his room, and at sunset I dined with him. As his manner of living accords more with the primeval simplicity of the Arabians than what is practised in towns, it will not be amiss to describe the meal.
About four o’clock, it being now the hottest part of the year, the servants began to throw pails of water over the paved court, which occupied the centre of the lower rooms of the palace, and from which there was, on one side, which was open, a beautiful and extensive view of the adjoining mountains. In the midst of this watering the shaykh appeared, dressed in a silk kombáz, or tunic, and a lemon-coloured jubey, or cloth mantle: for he loved finery and bright colours, which, it appeared to me, these mountaineers generally do. Whilst the watering was going on, he walked about in the wet, barefoot, to enjoy the cooling and refreshing sensation. Persons who had business, suitors, complainants, &c., formed a large ring round him. Calling these to him, one by one, he discussed and despatched their affairs whilst walking. I stood by, as a looker-on.
This scene continued until sunset. He then washed his feet and hands, and we sat down to dinner. I was on the shaykh’s left hand. The dinner was very plentiful, the dishes of excellent flavour; and unlike the manner of the Turks, they were all put on at once. The shaykh selected a few good morsels with his fingers, and placed them on my plate. We ate with our fingers, or with box-wood spoons, the handles tipped with coral. We were six in party, and each, when he had done, rose, and removed to the carpet spread out for sitting, where a servant brought him water and a basin, and he washed his mouth and hands, with much soaping of the beard, gargling of the throat, and rinsing of the mouth; all which are received usages. The shaykh, in the mean time, kept his seat; and, as one guest moved off, desired another to take his place. These consisted of his secretaries: but, when they had done, the very servants, who had waited on us, were told by the shaykh to sit down, and they too dined—Giovanni, my servant, among the rest. All this was done with much decorum, and little or nothing was said during eating. When every one had finished, the tinned copper tray was lifted off; the heptangular stool, or low table, on which it had stood, was carried away; the spot was swept, and in a few minutes there were no traces of dinner to be discovered, excepting in the occasional eructations of the shaykh and of some others, who made no scruple of giving a free escape to the gas bubbles from their overcharged stomachs. We then smoked our pipes, that of the shaykh being of jessamine wood, and about ten feet long. The shaykh then resumed the transaction of business, which, during Ramazán, is chiefly done in the first part of the night. An hour before sunrise another meal is served up, and rest is taken in the day-time to relieve the ennui of fasting.