Returning to England, she hastened to collect the remains of her scattered fortune, sold a portion of her estates, chartered another vessel, and a second time sailed for the East. The voyage was not marked by any contrary incident, and Lady Hester safely disembarked at Latakia, a small port of Syria, between Tripoli and Alexandretta. In the neighbourhood she hired a house, and began the study of Arabic, while busily preparing for her Syrian travels.
Having acquired a tolerable knowledge of the language, customs, and manners of the people, Lady Hester organized a numerous caravan, and proceeded to visit every part of Syria. She halted in succession at Jerusalem, Damascus, Aleppo, Baulbek, and Palmyra—everywhere maintaining an almost regal state—and by the stateliness of her demeanour and the splendour of her pretensions producing a powerful impression on the wandering Arab tribes, who proclaimed her Queen of Palmyra and paid her an enthusiastic homage.
After several years of migratory enterprise, during which her pretensions gradually grew bolder and stronger as her own faith in them increased, she at length fixed her abode in an almost inaccessible solitude of the wild Lebanon, near Saïd—the ancient Sidon—a concession of the ruined convent and village of Djoun, a settlement of the Druses, having been granted by the Pastor of St. Jean d'Acre. There she erected her tent. The convent was a broad, grey mass of irregular building, which, from its position, as well as from the gloomy blankness of its walls, gave the idea of a neglected fortress; it had, in fact, been a convent of great size, and like most of the religious houses in this part of the world, had been made strong enough for opposing an inert resistance to any mere casual band of assailants who might be unprovided with regular means of attack. This she filled with a large retinue of dragomen, women, slaves, and Albanian guards. She lived like an independent princess, with a court of her own, a territory of her own, and it must be added, laws of her own; carrying on political relations with the Porte, with Beschir the celebrated Emir of the Lebanon, and the numerous sheikhs of the Syrian deserts. Over these sheikhs and these tribes she exercised at one time a singular influence. Mr. Kinglake reports that her connection with the Bedawun began by her making a large present of money (£500, an immense sum in piastres) to the chief whose authority was recognized between Damascus and Palmyra. "The prestige," he says, "created by the rumours of her high and undefined rank, as well as of her wealth and corresponding magnificence, was well sustained by her imperious character and dauntless bravery."
Lady Hester, in conversation with the European visitors, would occasionally mention some of the circumstances that assisted her to secure an influence amounting almost to sovereignty.
"The Bedawun, so often engaged in irregular warfare, strains his eyes to the horizon in search of a coming enemy just as habitually as the sailor keeps his 'bright look out' for a strange sail. In the absence of telescopes a far-reaching sight is highly valued; and Lady Hester had this power. She told me that on one occasion, when there was good reason to expect hostilities, a far-seeing Arab created great excitement in the camp by declaring that he could distinguish some moving objects upon the very farthest point within the reach of his eyes. Lady Hester was consulted, and she instantly assured her comrades in arms that there were indeed a number of horses within sight, but that they were without riders: the assertion proved to be correct, and from that time forth her superiority over all others in respect of far sight remained undisputed."
We may quote another anecdote, because it has a double significance, illustrating not only the character of Lady Hester, but the temperament of the wandering race over whom she sought to rule.
She was marching one day along with the military array of the tribe. Observing that they were making preparations for an engagement, she inquired the reason, and, after some attempt at mystification on the part of the sheikh, was informed that war had been declared against the tribe on account of its alliance with the English princess, and they were consequently exposed to attack by a highly superior force. The sheikh contrived to let Lady Hester see that she was the teterrima causa belli, and that the contention would readily be appeased but for his recognition of the sacredness of the duty of protecting the Englishwoman whom he had received as his guest; at the same time his tribe would probably experience a crushing disaster. Lady Hester's resolution was immediately taken: she would not for one moment suffer a calamity to fall upon her friends which it was in her power to avert. She could go forth alone, trusting in herself and her ability to encounter and overcome danger. Of course the sheikh professed his objection to her determination, and candidly told her that though, if she left them, they would be instantly able to negotiate the conditions of an arrangement, yet they could do nothing for her, and that the enemy's horsemen would sweep the desert so closely as to render impossible her escape into any other district.
No fear of danger, however, could move the calm, courageous soul of Lady Hester. She bade farewell to the tribe, turned her horse's head, and rode away into the wilderness alone. Hour after hour passed away, and still, with the hot sun overhead, and round her the solitude of the desert, she rode onward. Suddenly her keen eye sighted some horsemen in the distance. They drew nearer and nearer; evidently they were making direct towards her; and eventually some hundreds of fully-armed Bedawun galloped up to her, with fierce, hoarse shouts, brandishing their spears as if they thirsted for her blood. Her face, at the time, was covered, as is the Eastern custom, with her yashmak; but just as the spears of the foremost horsemen glittered close to her horse's head, she raised her stately figure in her stirrups, drew aside the yashmak that veiled her majestic countenance, waved her arm slowly and disdainfully, and with a loud voice cried, "Avaunt!"
The horsemen, we are told,[20] recoiled from her glance, but not in terror. "The threatening yells of the assailants were suddenly changed for loud shouts of joy and admiration at the bravery of the stately Englishwoman, and festive gunshots were fired on all sides around her honoured head. The truth was that the party belonged to the tribe with which she had allied herself, and that the threatened attack, as well as the pretended apprehension of an engagement, had been contrived for the mere purpose of testing her courage. The day ended in a great feast, prepared to do honour to the heroine, and from that time her power over the minds of the people grew rapidly."