Ibrahim Pacha was at this time making his conquests, and at his orders, the French travellers were everywhere received with courtesy and the most generous hospitality.
The heat was too great for setting out at once, so Lamartine addressed a letter to Lady Hester Stanhope, asking permission to visit her. This lady had been the confidential secretary of her uncle, William Pitt, the famous minister, and was supposed to be betrothed to Sir John Moore. After their deaths she left Europe and made her home in the East. She had gained a certain authority over many of the Arabian chiefs who venerated her as an inspired person. She received Lamartine cordially, saying that their stars were friendly and in concurrence. He declined her offer to cast his horoscope or to have any discussion on matters of religion. “God alone possesses the truth,” said he, “we have only faith.”
“Believe what you please,” said she. “You are one of those men nevertheless that I expected, whom Providence has sent to me, and who have a grand part to perform in the work which is preparing. You will shortly go back to Europe; Europe is finished. France alone has as yet a grand mission to fulfill, and you will participate in it, I know not how.”
She added that he had four or five stars, and explained further: “You ought to be a poet; that is legible in your eyes and the upper part of your countenance. Lower down you are under the influence of different stars that are almost in opposition; there is an influence of energy and activity.”
She asked his name; she had never heard it before. She predicted that he would soon return to Europe, but would come back to the East, insisting that it was his fatherland. He acknowledged that it was the fatherland of his imagination.
Lamartine and his friends were hospitably entertained but she would not regard his departure as being more than for a season.
Forming a caravan at Bayreuth he set out on the eighth of October. At Jaffa or “Yaffa,” the governor had received letters from Mehemet Ali and Ibrahim Pacha, then masters in the East, commanding all the officials to aid him in his journey, to furnish escorts, and to supply him with every convenience that he required. When the caravan reached the “village of Jeremiah” it was met by Abu Gosh, the brigand chief. He demanded of Lamartine whether he was the Frank Emir, whom his friend, Lady Stanhope, the Queen of Palmyra, had placed under his protection, and in whose name had sent him the magnificent garment of cloth of gold in which he was then arrayed. Lamartine knew nothing of the gift but assured the chief that he was the man.
Abu Gosh at that time had the whole region of Southern Palestine in subjection clear to Jericho. He now provided a strong guard for the caravan.
Lamartine found no difficulty in identifying the places around Jerusalem. “Almost never,” says he, “did I encounter a place or object the first sight of which was not to me as what I remembered. Have we lived twice or a thousand times? Is our memory simply an impression that has been obscured, which the breath of God brings out again vividly? Or have we a faculty in our imagination to anticipate and perceive in advance before we actually do behold?”
The monks of the Convent of St. John the Baptist, in the wilderness of that name, received the travellers with sincere cordiality. Lamartine left there a part of his caravan, going on only with the Arabian and Egyptian guard. They confined their movements to visiting places in the suburbs, made historic by traditions of the New Testament.