As his air was bewildered, some of the shaykhs took him into a room, conversed with him, found out who he was, and sent to the cousin to know whether it was with his knowledge that Michael Ayda was about to take so important a step. The cousin hastened to the spot, and did all in his power to dissuade him, but in vain. The young man persisted in his purpose, submitted to the necessary but painful operation which his new faith required, and, at his own desire, was shipped for Syria in order to be out of the reach of his ideal enemies. He landed at Beyrout, and his story soon reached Dayr el Kamar, where his uncle, named Nicola Turk, resided. This gentleman employed two stout and trusty men, who intercepted the caravan, by which he was going from Beyrout to Damascus, at Hamel-merge, in the Bkâ, and, by persuasions and threats, induced the muleteers to whose care he was entrusted to give him up. They carried him to Dayr el Kamar. He was there made by his uncle to abjure the Mahometan religion before the patriarch, and was restored to the privileges of a Christian.
This last act rendered his life forfeit to the Turkish law, and he now dared not stir beyond the precincts of the emir’s district without running the hazard of being seized and impaled. His object, therefore, in throwing himself at Lady Hester’s feet was to solicit her protection, and to beseech her to afford him an opportunity of embarking for Europe: but Lady Hester held it as a rule of conduct never to interfere in the religion of other persons, and, although she was willing to assist him, it was not in abetting his double apostacy. She endeavoured to show the young man, however, that his real interests lay in adhering to the Turkish religion, if indeed he was desirous of prosecuting the business which had brought him from France. If he remained a Christian, he ran the risk of being impaled, and must abandon the hope of the recovery of any of his father’s property. Ayda was irresolute, half inclining to the faith of his family and relations, and yet desirous of avoiding the life of misery and apprehension to which he should be exposed. Lady Hester told him finally that she could receive him only as a Turk, and that, once a confirmed Mahometan, he could not return again to the church through the medium of a priest of this country. He became, for some time, a tenant of one of her cottages; but melancholy had taken such deep possession of him that he was totally unfitted for active life. Here he devoted himself to Arabic poetry, and, by the aid of some books which I lent him, he speedily acquired a knowledge of Italian and English: but he was grievously superstitious; much imbued with the prejudices of the Levantines, although he had as yet never lived among them; and a believer in magic, alchemy, and all mystic sciences.
On the 28th of October, M. Didot, son of the celebrated printer, Firmin Didot of Paris, being on his travels through Sayda, was invited to the convent. With him was M. Le Grange, who had been studying Arabic two or three years at Zúk, a large village in the Keserwàn, in order to qualify himself for the situation of interprète de la cour pour les langues Orientales.
It may be illustrative of the characters of the mountaineers on Lebanon to observe, that, about this time, the story of the Wapping baker, who appeared to a ship’s crew in the flames of Mount Ætna, as they were sailing past Sicily, and was afterwards found to have died on the day on which he had been seen, had got into circulation, and seemed to have made a deeper impression on the minds of all ranks of people than any piece of European news I ever heard discussed among them.
Lady Hester grew every year more fond of the hot bath. She would go into it two days following, staying in three or four hours at a time.
November the 15th, one of the little running footboys came panting up to me, crying, Ana abasherak, Ana abasherak—I bring you good tidings. This is a common way with persons of all ranks in the East, to endeavour to be first to tell good news; in which case a recompence is generally expected and given. The news was, that Giorgio Dalleggio, the Greek servant, sent to England, in June, 1815, was arrived in Sayda harbour, and that Mr. N., surgeon, who was come out as my successor, had arrived with him.
Giorgio had brought with him twenty-seven cases, which were all landed without examination by the custom-house officers of the place, a mark of civility invariably shown to Lady Hester during the whole of her residence in Syria; and which she returned twofold by an occasional present to the kumrukgy, or collector of the customs. Their voyage had been favourable, having left the River Thames on the 2nd of August. West of Malta they were fired into three times by the Tagus frigate, Captain Dundas, owing to some breach of the regulations existing between merchant vessels, when under convoy, and king’s ships: because masters of merchant vessels, for the sake of gaining a few leagues in a long voyage, will often expose their freight and passengers to the danger of capture.
When Giorgio Dalleggio gave the history of his reception in England, it appeared that he had been much caressed. This had caused him to forget the benefits he had received from his mistress and to despise her service. He said that his Royal Highness the Duke of York was his intimate friend, and that everything he saw in England was inferior to what he had seen in Constantinople. The Princess Charlotte of Wales, on his delivering a letter from Lady Hester, gave him a silver chain. He remarked, when speaking of it, that, if these were the presents English princesses made, what was he to think of such mean people: he accepted it, he declared, only not to give her pain by his refusal. And soon after, when setting out for Damascus, he asked Lady Hester whether he should take the chain with him or not, and then answered himself by saying, “Well, I shall take it, but I will not say it was from her, lest I should give the Turks a mean opinion of English royalty.” He asserted that the palaces in England were not so good as the prisons in Turkey.[102]
Two Bedouins arrived on the 17th, with a letter from the emir of the Anizys, Mahannah-el-Fadel, bringing with them a colt, as a present to Lady Hester. The object of their mission was of some importance. Shaykh Nasar, in some dissensions that had sprung up between Mahannah and the governor of Hamah, had plundered the granaries of the governor of that place, after a battle in which Farez (Mahannah’s son) was slain. The governor complained of the aggression to the pasha of Damascus; upon which the pasha vowed he would have Nasar’s life, if ever he should be caught. Nasar, therefore, supplicated Lady Hester to intercede with the pasha for him; and hinted that, in case of her succeeding, it would be well to demand some pledge of his good faith in the performance of his promises; adding that, although the pasha’s words were honeyed, there was always a sword under them. It was a fine sight to behold the Bedouins come and seek protection of a woman and a stranger.
This letter is not devoid of interest, as showing the style of Bedouin writing: for, although it is probable that some itinerant writer penned it, Mahannah dictated it.