But this is exactly the man who does not suit the present Wali and his creatures, upon whose misrepresentations and falsehoods the Porte has demanded his recall; it is no secret, for all Syria is ringing with it, and the Wali has it proclaimed in the bazars. I may add that all Syria is looking on with anxiety and distress lest he should be removed. No other class of man could hold his own against the present local Turkish authorities, and they would treat him like a kind of upper servant. If the Porte knew its own interests, it would ask to keep Richard, and discharge its own faithless employé. That troubles will follow his removal, I may safely prophesy; and that his successor will be insulted in the streets, and compelled by terror and sickness to run away from his post, is very possible. That is what we may come to. Let the name of England nevermore be mentioned—let her sons be incorporated with the Turkish subjects, whilst Prussians and the French keep their proper position and their national dignity.
P. S.—A month later Mohammed Rashíd Pasha was recalled, and Richard was in England.
This, then, was the moment to press for the immediate return of the twelve unfortunates exiled to Murzuk, and to impress upon the Ottoman Authorities, who, since the death of Russia's friend, Aali Pasha, the Grand Vizier of pernicious fame, appear ready to reform a host of abuses, that the friendship of England can be secured only by scrupulous fidelity to treaties, especially to those which concern religious toleration.
An Account of Richard Burton by Salih (nom de plume of an English Missionary at Damascus).
Salih's Description of Richard.
"Burton was sound at heart. The more I saw him alone the better I liked him. At Damascus he was truly 'a brave, strong man in a blatant land.' When you got down through the crusts, you found a fearless and honest friend.
"But Burton was given to pantomime. He was always saying things to frighten old women of both sexes, and to make servant-maids stare. He took great delight in shocking goody people, and in effecting his purpose he gave free rein to his imagination. People who knew Burton partially, from meeting him at public dinners or in clubs, have generally a number of gruesome stories to retail about his cruelty and immorality. They often say truly that Burton told the horrible stories against himself. I have no doubt he did, just as he represented himself in the guise of a monster to my little boy. At the same time I am certain that Burton was incapable of either monstrous cruelty or gross immorality. I go farther, and I state it as my firm conviction that Burton was constitutionally and habitually both humane and moral. I knew Burton well, in sickness, in trouble, in disappointment, in his home, in the saddle, under fire, and in the presence of almost every condition of savage life, and I have noticed that acts of cruelty and immorality always drove him into a white heat of passion. A young English lady had been treated rudely at Damascus by a Persian, and when Burton failed in securing official redress, I was in dread for months that he would with his own hand kill the ruffian if he met him. The scoundrel, however, met his fate at other hands. Shielding the weak from cruelty and protecting the poor from oppression, constituted Captain Burton's chief work at Damascus.
"Noticing the difference between Burton's real character and that for which he got credit in many quarters, I often asked him how certain specific stories had originated. It was interesting to learn how the legends had grown. Some of them had been told of old Castilian Hidalgos and 'British sea-dogs' before Burton's grandfather was born. Others were founded on facts, but they had received so many artistic touches at camp-fires and in mess-rooms that incidents innocent in themselves had grown to monstrous dimensions. From observation and much inquiry I have long come to the conclusion that the wild stories in circulation about Burton were bogeys, partly borrowed and partly invented—mere adaptations and travellers' yarns to shock and stun and create a little boisterous fun.
"The impatience with which Burton treated my servant revealed a characteristic that had much to do with his career. 'Genius is patience,' said Sir Isaac Newton. If this definition be correct, Burton must have lacked genius. 'The Prime Minister's secret is patience,' said Pitt. If Pitt be right, Burton had no chance of ever finding his way to the Premiership, for he never learned the secret. I think Burton was not without genius. He was certainly a very clever man, but he could not put up with stupidity in others. I am afraid he sometimes delighted to stick pins in Government officials who mistook the region of the world in which he was located, or who failed to apprehend the facts communicated in his last despatch. I am afraid he never got sufficiently into diplomatic training as to overlook the weakness of his immediate superiors, and hence the higher rounds of the diplomatic ladder were not to be trodden by his feet. He was shuttle-cocked about from one pestiferous region to another till at last the Foreign Office, in a lucid moment, sent the Oriental enthusiast to Damascus.
"Burton's quarrel with missionaries was also an open sore. I do not know the full merits of the original strife, but I believe it was a somewhat mixed affair. Certain benevolent gentlemen have always had a tendency to do proxy beneficence as cheaply as possible. In picking up missionaries they have sometimes been guided more by the price than the quality. Burton, it seems, came upon some of these job-lots, and found them jobbing, as was to be expected, and, with his usual impatience, 'went for them.' Then a great uproar ensued, in which the original cause was lost sight of, and Burton received the stamp of an anti-missionary Consul. The Consular dog had got a bad name, and that was enough for some.
"When it became known that Burton was destined for Damascus, there was a kind of panic among the missionaries of Syria, and active steps were taken to prevent the appointment being carried out. The Damascus missionaries held aloof from the organized opposition. The moral character of some of Burton's immediate Christian predecessors had not been of a sort to reflect much credit on Christian missionaries, or even on British subjects; and from the missionary point of view it seemed that a moral Consul who made no religious professions might, on the whole, prove as satisfactory as an immoral one who read the service to English travellers on Sundays. Besides, it was known to be the constant aim of the Damascus missionaries to steer clear of all diplomatic interference, and to keep the Consular finger out of their pie. They gave Burton a cordial welcome as their Consul, but they also gave him clearly to understand that any action of his, friendly or unfriendly, bearing on their work, would be regarded by them as an impertinent and unfriendly act.
"Burton appreciated their kindness, and frankly accepted their conditions, and missionaries and Consul maintained the most cordial relations, and it was understood that the whole missionary body at Damascus deeply regretted Burton's recall. One fact regarding this agreement may be noticed. The restless and energetic Burton maintained the compact in the spirit, but broke it in the letter. He visited all the mission schools in the most gracious manner, examined the children thoroughly, and afterwards made some valuable suggestions to the missionaries as to the perfecting of their educational organizations. He ever after spoke of the teachers and the schools with great cordiality and unstinted praise.
"The other missionaries of Syria, with solitary exceptions, maintained their attitude of hostility to Burton, and never lost an opportunity of speaking against him, and some of them not only embellished old stories to his discredit, but invented new ones, furor ministrat arma, to prove his deep-seated hostility to the missionary cause. Many influential travellers pass yearly through Syria, deeply interested in the splendid educational and religious efforts that are being made to elevate that land. Everywhere they heard of the anti-Christian Consul, and the constant drip made a deep impression. Almost the only honest and praiseworthy efforts being made to lift the Holy Land out of the slough of Oriental degradation stood to the credit of the missionaries, and it was intolerable that their efforts should be thwarted by a British Consul.
"Burton might, by patience and well-doing, have worn down and outlived the hostility of these missionaries, but he had the misfortune to come into sharp conflict with the Jews, and he had thus on his flank an active, persistent, and powerful enemy.
"It would be interesting to narrate how a number of Russian and other Jews at Damascus became British subjects, but the by-paths and crooked ways would be too long and intricate for our space. Burton found himself the official head and protector of a colony of British Jews. Some of these were men of great wealth and affluence, and it was well known that the official virtue of helping them was seldom left to be its own reward.
"Burton, though always posing as an Oriental, thought fit to hew Oriental prejudice against the grain. He might have seen his beautiful wife flashing in brilliants, roped in pearls, and riding the best blood Arab of the desert; but he threw away all these tokens of appreciation in obedience to an occidental prepossession in favour of common honesty.
"Burton found that his Jews were living by usury. Some of them were known to charge as little as thirty per cent., but rates ran up to sixty, or more. 'His mouth is full of water[6] and he cannot bark' is a common Arab proverb, but Burton had nothing in his mouth, and he barked ferociously. His official duty was to urge the recognition of British claims, and insist on their being paid. That was the form that 'law and order' took at Damascus. What did it matter if the people were starving! At the word of the Consul a band of Bashi-Bazouks would swoop down on the defaulting villagers, eat their food, lie in their beds, insult their wives and daughters, until the usurer was satisfied. Should the villagers be unable to pay, they were not only evicted, but driven like cattle to prison, there to rot till they had paid the uttermost farthing. Burton did not like the business. He grew fierce, declared in the strongest language at his command that he would not be 'Bumbailiff' in such transactions. I am inclined to think that in this case, as in most others, Burton's impatience led him into doing the right thing in the wrong way. He was indignant, his blood was up, and on being asked gently what was the use of a Consul at Damascus if he did not enforce British claims, he lost the composure befitting the diplomatic service.
"The storm broke. The Alliance Israelite took up the case of 'poor Israel.' Noble, and humane, and generous Jews in England ranged themselves on the side of 'their persecuted brethren.' Some of them would have been more fierce than Burton had they known the truth. Correspondence followed, and the archives of the Foreign Office now contain Burton's splendid vindications, which may some day see the light."
"The Recall of Captain Burton.
Letters showing the State of Syria after his Recall.
"To the Editor of the Civil Service Gazette.
"Sir,—I have just seen some letters from Damascus, from which I learnt a few facts that may interest you with reference to the recall of Captain Burton.
"The Consulate was left in charge of Mr. Jago, who, however, was so alarmed at certain demonstrations of dissatisfaction on the part of the natives that he prudently took advantage of an opportune fever, and left the town and the Consulate to take care of itself. The English Government is, therefore, entirely unrepresented in Damascus.
"The Kurds who inhabit the suburb of Damascus, called the Salahíyyeh, say that now Captain Burton has gone, there is no one who can protect them from the extortions of the Governor-General, and have notified their intention of leaving en masse. As they are about ten thousand fighting men, they will not improve the pacific aspect of the country when they are let loose over it, feeling that they have no protector but their sword.
"The Mohammedans, whose 'fanatical aversion to Captain Burton' is the ostensible pretext for his recall, have been holding mass meetings, and even praying publicly in the mosques that God will send him back to them. Letters are flowing in every day from village sheikhs and Bedawin chiefs, asking that he may return to Damascus, as there is no one else to whom they can appeal for help or succour.
"So strong is the feeling, that Mrs. Burton was obliged to slip away secretly, as the people wished to retain her as a hostage in order to make sure that Captain Burton would go back to them.
"In addition to these facts, which I can vouch for, I can tell you that, from my own experience of the country, I feel sure that Captain Burton's absence will be a source of great inconvenience (to put it mildly) to intending travellers this next winter. If you have any friends who propose visiting Syria, you cannot do better than advise them not to do so, as there will assuredly be troubles before long.
"I cannot pretend to enter into the real reasons for this blunder on the part of the Foreign Office (though they are not hard to guess), but of one thing I feel assured, and that is that the mistake would never have been made had Lord Stratford de Redcliffe been still at Constantinople.
"I am, Sir, yours truly,
"E. H. Palmer.
"St. John's College, Cambridge."
"Threatened Troubles in Syria.
"To the Editor of the Standard.
"Sir,—Forewarned will not be forearmed in this case, for the mischief is half done already by the actions of her Majesty's Government.
"I came to Syria in February last with a special mission from the Palestine Exploration Fund. I have since been travelling over the length and breadth of the land, and this, with several years' previous acquaintance with the East, enables me to see more of the real state of the country than falls to the lot of the ordinary tourist.
"In the early spring I found Syria in an abnormal state of excitement, arising from many causes. That excitement has gone on increasing, chiefly for five reasons: 1. The injustice and rapacity of the Governor-General (Wali), Mohammed Rashíd Pasha, who now misgoverns Syria. 2. The agitation kept up by Egypt, with whom Syria and its Governor sympathize only too strongly, and with whom they will act the moment opportunity offers. 3. The ruin of the peasantry, crushed by exorbitant taxes, starved by a bad season, and devoured by Jewish money-lenders. 4. The way in which the Wali pits sect against sect for his own political ends; and in this land, where party feeling runs so high, nothing is easier. And, 5. The strong Christian movement, none the less strong for being under the surface—this has already been noticed in some English papers.
"There was but one man in Syria who both saw and protested against the many and glaring acts of injustice done by the Wali, and this was her Britannic Majesty's Consul at Damascus, Captain R. F. Burton, whom her Majesty's Foreign Office have thought fit to remove, giving ear to the tale raised two years ago, by certain missionaries and others, that Moslem fanaticism was working against him. Knowing the people and the country as well as I do, I hesitate not one moment to say that this is a deliberate lie (and I am ready to prove it such) invented by Captain Burton's enemies. Few men, if any, would have got on as well as he has with all classes here, Mohammedans and Metaweli, Greek Catholics and Syrians, Protestants and Latins. He visited and was visited by the religious sheikhs, and especially by the Emir Abd el Kadir of Algerian fame. This prince is looked upon as the leader of Mohammedan religion here. These facts are sufficient to show how false is the plea of Captain Burton's not being able to deal with Mohammedans on account of their fanaticism. Only to-day I have heard numbers of Moslems deplore his removal, which pleased only the Wali and his creatures, and a few Jews engaged in nefarious usury. I dwell upon these points, as I feel convinced that unless his successor be a man of his stamp—which will be hard to find—he will sink to that state of subserviency to the Wali to which the Consuls of other nations at Damascus have sunk. They are weak and timid, and completely under the Wali. The English Consul was the only man of independence, but now that Syria is becoming of vital importance to us on account of the Euphrates Valley Railroad, our name and prestige must go, through her Majesty's Government recalling, at the instigation of a Turkish Pasha, the only man fit to represent Great Britain in Syria. The Wali, having succeeded by his vile intrigues in displacing one of the most efficient of her Majesty's Consular officers, will feel that there is no one to check his malpractices; the peasantry, sooner or later, must rise; the great Christian movement will be crushed, not without bloodshed, for the converts now number many thousands of resolute men of all classes, and we must be prepared for the worst. I venture to predict that before many months have passed, the troubles of Syria will have drawn upon her the eyes of Europe, and when blood has been shed England will see the error she has committed in throwing her influence here to the dogs, and obeying the wishes of Rashíd Pasha,
"I am, Sir, etc.,
"Chas. F. Tyrwhitt-Drake.
"Damascus."
"The Damascus Consulate.
"The following letter, to which we have alluded in a leading article, on the subject of Captain Burton's recall, has been addressed to the Editor of the Times, by a well-known Syrian traveller:—
"Sir,—In a letter I addressed to you, dated August 17th, on the state that Syria, especially in the Damascus district, was likely to fall into in consequence of the recall, from his post as Consul at Damascus, of the only man who had the courage to resist and check the malpractices of the notoriously corrupt and cruel Governor-General Mohammed Rashíd Pasha, I predicted that troubles would quickly ensue. On the 18th of August—the day that Captain Burton left Damascus—a raid was made into the Christian quarter by Mustafa Bey, Mir Alai of Zabtiyeh (Chief of Police), a most fanatical Mahomedan, with two hundred men, for the purpose of arresting certain Moslems suspected of a leaning to Christianity, and who had been decoyed from their own quarter by a police spy, Mahmud Bey Adham, a man who had by some means become possessed of their secret. Happily, these suspects were able to take refuge in the house of an English consular dragoman just as they were being arrested, and though the gérant of her Majesty's Consulate ordered them to be given up, yet the matter became so public that the Wali feared to proceed to extreme measures, and released them after a day's imprisonment. The affair, however, will not stop here, though it may lie dormant awhile.
"On August 23, three days after Captain Burton's leaving Beyrout, the Protestant missionaries were prevented by the Kaimakam (Governor) from making some small additions to their school at Rasheyya. The Rev. Messrs. Wright and Scott requested the gérant of her Majesty's Consulate to procure them an order from the Government to enable them to go on. A so-called order was immediately procured, but, of course, it was utterly useless; a second produced no better effect.
"This is but the commencement, yet it serves to show the way in which English missionaries will be hindered, and how English influence is to be crushed. It would be, to any one unacquainted with Syria, an incredible matter if I were to say how our national prestige has fallen since the last ten days. I have some twenty letters from Moslem sheikhs of towns and villages, religious sheikhs and men of influence, as well as from Druzes and Christians, which I have been asked to forward to Captain Burton, as the writers think that their urgent entreaties may favour his return.
"The Government organ, El Hadikat el Akhbar, has written a most shameful article on Captain Burton's recall, stating that he was not only on bad terms with the authorities, but also with his colleagues and all British-protected Jews, and other lies equally base. A few Jews, whom he refused to help in scandalous and illegal transactions, of course detest him, and have been secretly aiding the Wali against him. A most fulsome article, too, appeared in another paper, El Suriva (The Syria), from the pen of the Wali himself in praise of the gentleman now in charge of her Majesty's Consulate here.
"I fear to take up too much of your valuable space by dilating on the subject, but I am every day more convinced that there will be great trouble in this unhappy land of misrule.
"I am, Sir, etc.,
"Chas. F. Tyrwhitt-Drake.
"Damascus, September."
"Revival of Christianity in Syria.
"To the Editor of the Tablet.
"Sir,—I have just seen the account published in the Tablet of the 16th and 23rd of September, of the revival of Christianity in Syria. I can only say that you have an exceedingly well-informed correspondent, but one who seems hardly aware what enormous proportions this movement is assuming in the districts of Hums, Hamáh, and even Aleppo. The number of these diverts from Islam is almost impossible to calculate, but I believe that in the whole, of Syria twenty to twenty-five thousand is a moderate computation.
"Now that Rashíd Pasha, of infamous memory, is removed from Syria, can nothing be done to bring back the twelve Sházlis banished to Africa? Will neither England nor any other Christian Power say one word in their favour? Is the policy of maintaining the unity of Turkey to be so strictly adhered to, that not even a harsh word is to be said to her though she deliberately breaks her treaties and solemn obligations: when, after promising religious freedom to all her subjects, she invariably persecutes those who dare to leave the religion of Mohammed, not perhaps directly, but by some subterfuge, as bringing against the so-called 'renegades' a charge of evasion from conscription, or desertion from the army.
"Hoping that your advocacy may do something to bring about the return of these twelve martyrs, whose wives and families would have been starved here long ago had it not been for the liberality of their co-sectarians,
"I remain, Sir, etc.,
"Chas. F. Tyrwhitt-Drake.
"Damascus, November 13."
Richard wrote at the end of his time in Syria, just before his recall—
"My time here is marked and rendered bitter by contact with tyranny and an oppression which even this land of doleful antecedents cannot remember. The politics of the unworthy Wali, Rashíd Pasha, are alternately French and Russian, and, like all Orientals educated in Europe, he hates Europeans. I have been brought into collision with him, by his utterly ignoring the just claims and rights of British subjects and protégés, and he was supported by those whose duty it was to oppose him, so I had to battle alone with hands bound."
Later on, after his recall, he writes—
"But they, his powerful protectors, failed, and truth from my poor pen and tongue prevailed, and Rashíd was recalled in disgrace and degradation, and threatened with irons and fetters. Every measure which I had ventured to recommend during my time was ordered to be carried out. The reform was so thorough and complete that her Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople was directed officially to compliment the Porte upon its newly initiated line of progress. But Pashas soon fall into bad ways, and it is always the case of 'new broom.' The irony of events is extraordinary. Damascus is the civil, military, and ecclesiastical Capital of the country, the head-quarters of the Government and the High Courts of Appeal, the residence of the chief dignitaries, where the Consul-General ought to live, and the Vice-Consul for the shipping duties at Beyrout. But Beyrout is safe; Damascus is not always so. Persia has observed this long ago, and have a Consul-General. Russia, Prussia, France, and Italy do not speak to the Capital through Vice-Consuls, but Consuls; yet, to gratify the F.O.'s most undistinguished servant Mr. Eldridge, as soon as I was gone, a Vice-Consul was appointed for the Capital—a creature of his own. Therefore, to the detriment of British interest, to the injury of English residents, missionaries, and school-teachers, we took rank after Spain, Portugal, and Greece, because their representatives are often rayyàhs, or subjects of the Porte, and take precedence of the British Vice-Consul. Yet the English public is now surprised to hear from my successor that English travellers have been made prisoners at Kerak."