CHAPTER XXIX

SURPRISE OF SATALIEH {298a}

WHILST I was remaining upon the coast of Syria I had the good fortune to become acquainted with the Russian Sataliefsky, {298b} a general officer, who in his youth had fought and bled at Borodino, but was now better known among diplomats by the important trust committed to him at a period highly critical for the affairs of Eastern Europe. I must not tell you his family name; my mention of his title can do him no harm, for it is I, and I only, who have conferred it, in consideration of the military and diplomatic services performed under my own eyes.

The General as well as I was bound for Smyrna, and we agreed to sail together in an Ionian brigantine. We did not charter the vessel, but we made our arrangement with the captain upon such terms that we could be put ashore upon any part of the coast that we might choose. We sailed, and day after day the vessel lay dawdling on the sea with calms and feeble breezes for her portion. I myself was well repaid for the painful restlessness which such weather occasions, because I gained from my companion a little of that vast fund of interesting knowledge with which he was stored, knowledge a thousand times the more highly to be prized since it was not of the sort that is to be gathered from books, but only from the lips of those who have acted a part in the world.

When after nine days of sailing, or trying to sail, we found ourselves still hanging by the mainland to the north of the isle of Cyprus, we determined to disembark at Satalieh, and to go on thence by land. A light breeze favoured our purpose, and it was with great delight that we neared the fragrant land, and saw our anchor go down in the bay of Satalieh, within two or three hundred yards of the shore.

The town of Satalieh {299} is the chief place of the Pashalic in which it is situate, and its citadel is the residence of the Pasha. We had scarcely dropped our anchor when a boat from the shore came alongside with officers on board, who announced that the strictest orders had been received for maintaining a quarantine of three weeks against all vessels coming from Syria, and directed accordingly that no one from the vessel should disembark. In reply we sent a message to the Pasha, setting forth the rank and titles of the General, and requiring permission to go ashore. After a while the boat came again alongside, and the officers declaring that the orders received from Constantinople were imperative and unexceptional, formally enjoined us in the name of the Pasha to abstain from any attempt to land.

I had been hitherto much less impatient of our slow voyage than my gallant friend, but this opposition made the smooth sea seem to me like a prison, from which I must and would break out. I had an unbounded faith in the feebleness of Asiatic potentates, and I proposed that we should set the Pasha at defiance. The General had been worked up to a state of a most painful agitation by the idea of being driven from the shore which smiled so pleasantly before his eyes, and he adopted my suggestion with rapture.

We determined to land.

To approach the sweet shore after a tedious voyage, and then to be suddenly and unexpectedly prohibited from landing—this is so maddening to the temper, that no one who had ever experienced the trial would say that even the most violent impatience of such restraint is wholly inexcusable. I am not going to pretend, however, that the course which we chose to adopt on the occasion can be perfectly justified. The impropriety of a traveller’s setting at naught the regulations of a foreign State is clear enough, and the bad taste of compassing such a purpose by mere gasconading is still more glaringly plain. I knew perfectly well that if the Pasha understood his duty, and had energy enough to perform it, he would order out a file of soldiers the moment we landed, and cause us both to be shot upon the beach, without allowing more contact than might be absolutely necessary for the purpose of making us stand fire; but I also firmly believed that the Pasha would not see the befitting line of conduct nearly so well as I did, and that even if he did know his duty, he would hardly succeed in finding resolution enough to perform it.

We ordered the boat to be got in readiness, and the officers on shore seeing these preparations, gathered together a number of guards, who assembled upon the sands. We saw that great excitement prevailed, and that messengers were continually going to and fro between the shore and the citadel. Our captain, out of compliment to his Excellency, had provided the vessel with a Russian war-flag, which he had hoisted alternately with the Union Jack, and we agreed that we would attempt our disembarkation under this, the Russian standard! I was glad when we came to that resolution, for I should have been sorry to engage the honoured flag of England in such an affair as that which we were undertaking. The Russian ensign was therefore committed to one of the sailors, who took his station at the stern of the boat. We gave particular instructions to the captain of the brigantine, and when all was ready, the General and I, with our respective servants, got into the boat, and were slowly rowed towards the shore. The guards gathered together at the point for which we were making, but when they saw that our boat went on without altering her course, _they ceased to stand very still_; none of them ran away, or even shrank back, but they looked as if _the pack were being shuffled_, every man seeming desirous to change places with his neighbour. They were still at their post, however, when our oars went in, and the bow of our boat ran up—well up upon the beach.

The General was lame by an honourable wound received at Borodino, and could not without some assistance get out of the boat; I, therefore, landed the first. My instructions to the captain were attended to with the most perfect accuracy, for scarcely had my foot indented the sand when the four six-pounders of the brigantine quite gravely rolled out their brute thunder. Precisely as I had expected, the guards and all the people who had gathered about them gave way under the shock produced by the mere sound of guns, and we were all allowed to disembark with the least molestation.

We immediately formed a little column, or rather, as I should have called it, a procession, for we had no fighting aptitude in us, and were only trying, as it were, how far we could go in frightening full-grown children. First marched the sailor with the Russian flag of war bravely flying in the breeze, then came the General and I, then our servants, and lastly, if I rightly recollect, two more of the brigantine’s crew. Our flag-bearer so exulted in his honourable office, and bore the colours aloft with so much of pomp and dignity, that I found it exceedingly hard to keep a grave countenance. We advanced towards the castle, but the people had now had time to recover from the effect of the six-pounders (only of course loaded with powder), and they could not help seeing not only the numerical weakness of our party, but the very slight amount of wealth and resource which it seemed to imply. They began to hang round us more closely, and just as this reaction was beginning, the General, who was perfectly unacquainted with the Asiatic character, thoughtlessly turned round in order to speak to one of the servants. The effect of this slight move was magical. The people thought we were going to give way, and instantly closed round us. In two words, and with one touch, I showed my comrade the danger he was running, and in the next instant we were both advancing more pompously than ever. Some minutes afterwards there was a second appearance of reaction, followed again by wavering and indecision on the part of the Pasha’s people, but at length it seemed to be understood that we should go unmolested into the audience hall.

Constant communication had been going on between the receding crowd and the Pasha, and so when we reached the gates of the citadel we saw that preparations were made for giving us an awe-striking reception. Parting at once from the sailors and our servants, the General and I were conducted into the audience hall; and there at least I suppose the Pasha hoped that he would confound us by his greatness. The hall was nothing more than a large whitewashed room. Oriental potentates have a pride in that sort of simplicity, when they can contrast it with the exhibition of power, and this the Pasha was able to do, for the lower end of the hall was filled with his officers. These men, of whom I thought there were about fifty or sixty, were all handsomely, though plainly, dressed in the military frockcoats of Europe; they stood in mass, and so as to present a hollow semi-circular front towards the upper end of the hall at which the Pasha sat; they opened a narrow lane for us when we entered, and as soon as we had passed they again closed up their ranks. An attempt was made to induce us to remain at a respectful distance from his mightiness. To have yielded in this point would have been fatal to our success, perhaps to our lives; but the General and I had already determined upon the place which we should take, and we rudely pushed on towards the upper end of the hall.

Upon the divan, and close up against the right hand corner of the room, there sat the Pasha, his limbs gathered in, the whole creature coiled up like an adder. His cheeks were deadly pale, and his lips perhaps had turned white, for without moving a muscle the man impressed me with an immense idea of the wrath within him. He kept his eyes inexorably fixed as if upon vacancy, and with the look of a man accustomed to refuse the prayers of those who sue for life. We soon discomposed him, however, from this studied fixity of feature, for we marched straight up to the divan and sat down, the Russian close to the Pasha, and I by the side of the Russian. This act astonished the attendants, and plainly disconcerted the Pasha. He could no longer maintain the glassy stillness of the eyes which he had affected, and evidently became much agitated. At the feet of the satrap there stood a trembling Italian. This man was a sort of medico in the potentate’s service, and now in the absence of our attendants he was to act as interpreter. The Pasha caused him to tell us that we had openly defied his authority, and had forced our way on shore in the teeth of his own officers.

Up to this time I had been the planner of the enterprise, but now that the moment had come when all would depend upon able and earnest speechifying, I felt at once the immense superiority of my gallant friend, and gladly left to him the whole conduct of this discussion. Indeed he had vast advantages over me, not only by his superior command of language and his far more spirited style of address, but also in his consciousness of a good cause; for whilst I felt myself completely in the wrong, his Excellency had really worked himself up to believe that the Pasha’s refusal to permit our landing was a gross outrage and insult. Therefore, without deigning to defend our conduct, he at once commenced a spirited attack upon the Pasha. The poor Italian doctor translated one or two sentences to the Pasha, but he evidently mitigated their import. The Russian, growing warm, insisted upon his attack with redoubled energy and spirit; but the medico, instead of translating, began to shake violently with terror, and at last he came out with his _non ardisco_, and fairly confessed that he dared not interpret fierce words to his master.

Now then, at a time when everything seemed to depend upon the effect of speech, we were left without an interpreter.

But this very circumstance, which at first appeared so unfavourable, turned out to be advantageous. The General, finding that he could not have his words translated, ceased to speak in Italian, and recurred to his accustomed French; he became eloquent. No one present except myself understood one syllable of what he was saying, but he had drawn forth his passport, and the energy and violence with which, as he spoke, he pointed to the graven Eagle of all the Russias, began to make an impression. The Pasha saw at his side a man not only free from every the least pang of fear, but raging, as it seemed, with just indignation, and thenceforward he plainly began to think that, in some way or other (he could not tell how) he must certainly have been in the wrong. In a little time he was so much shaken that the Italian ventured to resume his interpretation, and my comrade had again the opportunity of pressing his attack upon the Pasha. His argument, if I rightly recollect its import, was to this effect: “If the vilest Jews were to come into the harbour, you would but forbid them to land, and force them to perform quarantine; yet this is the very course, O Pasha, which your rash officers dared to think of adopting with _us_!—those mad and reckless men would have actually dealt towards a Russian general officer and an English gentleman as if they had been wretched Israelites! Never—never will we submit to such an indignity. His Imperial Majesty knows how to protect his nobles from insult, and would never endure that a general of his army should be treated in matter of quarantine as though he were a mere Eastern Jew!” This argument told with great effect. The Pasha fairly admitted that he felt its weight, and he now only struggled to obtain such a compromise as might partly save his dignity. He wanted us to perform a quarantine of one day for form’s sake, and in order to show his people that he was not utterly defied; but finding that we were inexorable, he not only abandoned his attempt, but promised to supply us with horses.

When the discussion had arrived at this happy conclusion, _tchibouques_ and coffee were brought, and we passed, I think, nearly an hour in friendly conversation. The Pasha, it now appeared, had once been a prisoner of war in Russia, and a conviction of the Emperor’s vast power, necessarily acquired during this captivity, made him perhaps more alive than an untravelled Turk would have been to the force of my comrade’s eloquence.

The Pasha now gave us a generous feast. Our promised horses were brought without much delay. I gained my loved saddle once more, and when the moon got up and touched the heights of Taurus, we were joyfully winding our way through the first of his rugged defiles.

APPENDIX THE HOME OF LADY HESTER STANHOPE

IT was late when we came in sight of two high conical hills, on one of which stands the village of Djouni, on the other a circular wall, over which dark trees were waving; and this was the place in which Lady Hester Stanhope had finished her strange and eventful career. It had formerly been a convent, but the Pasha of Sidon had given it to the “prophet-lady,” who converted its naked walls into a palace, and its wilderness into gardens.

The sun was setting as we entered the enclosure, and we were soon scattered about the outer court, picketing our horses, rubbing down their foaming flanks, and washing out their wounds. The buildings that constituted the palace were of a very scattered and complicated description, covering a wide space but only one storey in height: courts and garden, stables and sleeping-rooms, halls of audience and ladies’ bowers, were strangely intermingled. Heavy weeds were growing everywhere among the open portals, and we forced our way with difficulty through a tangle of roses and jasmine to the inner court; here choice flowers once bloomed, and fountains played in marble basins, but now was presented a scene of the most melancholy desolation. As the watchfire blazed up, its gleam fell upon masses of honeysuckle and woodbine, on white, mouldering walls beneath, and dark, waving trees above; while the group of mountaineers who gathered round its light, with their long beards and vivid dresses, completed the strange picture.

The clang of sword and spear resounded through the long galleries; horses neighed among bowers and boudoirs; strange figures hurried to and fro among the colonnades, shouting in Arabic, English, and Italian; the fire crackled, the startled bats flapped their heavy wings, and the growl of distant thunder filled up the pauses in the rough symphony.

Our dinner was spread on the floor in Lady Hester’s favourite apartment; her deathbed was our sideboard, her furniture our fuel, her name our conversation. Almost before the meal was ended two of our party had dropped asleep over their trenchers from fatigue; the Druses had retired from the haunted precincts to their village; and W—, L—, and I went out into the garden to smoke our pipes by Lady Hester’s lonely tomb. About midnight we fell asleep upon the ground, wrapped in our capotes, and dreamed of ladies and tombs and prophets till the neighing of our horses announced the dawn.

After a hurried breakfast on fragments of the last night’s repast we strolled out over the extensive gardens. Here many a broken arbour and trellis, bending under masses of jasmine and honeysuckle, show the care and taste that were once lavished on this wild but beautiful hermitage; a garden-house, surrounded by an enclosure of roses run wild, lies in the midst of a grove of myrtle and bay trees. This was Lady Hester’s favourite resort during her lifetime; and now, within its silent enclosure,

“After life’s fitful fevers he sleeps well.”

The hand of ruin has dealt very sparingly with all these interesting relics; the Pasha’s power by day, and the fear of spirits by night, keep off marauders; and though _we_ made free with broken benches and fallen doorposts for fuel, we reverently abstained from displacing anything in the establishment except a few roses, which there was no living thing but bees and nightingales to regret. It was one of the most striking and interesting spots I ever witnessed: its silence and beauty, its richness and desolation, lent to it a touching and mysterious character, that suited well the memory of that strange hermit-lady who has made it a place of pilgrimage, even in Palestine. {310}

The Pasha of Sidon presented Lady Hester with the deserted convent of Mar Elias on her arrival in his country, and this she soon converted into a fortress, garrisoned by a band of Albanians: her only attendants besides were her doctor, her secretary, and some female slaves. Public rumour soon busied itself with such a personage, and exaggerated her influence and power. It is even said that she was crowned Queen of the East at Palmyra by fifty thousand Arabs. She certainly exercised almost despotic power in her neighbourhood on the mountain; and what was perhaps the most remarkable proof of her talents, she prevailed on some Jews to advance large sums of money to her on her note of hand. She lived for many years, beset with difficulties and anxieties, but to the last she held on gallantly; even when confined to her bed and dying she sought for no companionship or comfort but such as she could find in her own powerful, though unmanageable, mind.

Mr. Moore, our consul at Beyrout, hearing she was ill, rode over the mountains to visit her, accompanied by Mr. Thomson, the American missionary. It was evening when they arrived, and a profound silence was over all the palace. No one met them; they lighted their own lamps in the outer court, and passed unquestioned through court and gallery until they came to where _she_ lay. A corpse was the only inhabitant of the palace, and the isolation from her kind which she had sought so long was indeed complete. That morning thirty-seven servants had watched every motion of her eye: its spell once darkened by death, every one fled with such plunder as they could secure. A little girl, adopted by her and maintained for years, took her watch and some papers on which she had set peculiar value. Neither the child nor the property were ever seen again. Not a single thing was left in the room where she lay dead, except the ornaments upon her person. No one had ventured to touch these; even in death she seemed able to protect herself. At midnight her countryman and the missionary carried her out by torchlight to a spot in the garden that had been formerly her favourite resort, and here they buried the self-exiled lady.—_From_ “THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS,” _by Eliot Warburton_.

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THE END

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On the opposite page is printed a first list of books, and many others are in preparation.

The First Volumes will be—

Vanity Fair. By W. M. THACKERAY. Edited by Stephen Gwynn. _Three Volumes_.

Pendennis. By W. M. THACKERAY. Edited by Stephen Gwynn. _Three Volumes_.

Pride and Prejudice. By JANE AUSTEN. Edited by E. V. Lucas. _Two Volumes_.

Cranford. By MRS GASKELL. Edited by V. Lucas.

John Halifax, Gentleman. By MRS CRAIK. Edited by Annie Matheson. _Two Volumes_.

Lavengro. By GEORGE BORROW. Edited by H. Groome. _Two Volumes_.

Eothen. By A. W. KINGLAKE. Edited by D.

A Little Book of English Lyrics.

A Little Book of Scottish Verse. Edited by T. F. Henderson.

The Inferno of Dante. Translated by H. F. CARY. With an Introduction and Notes by Paget Toynbee.

The Early Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Edited by J. Churton Collins, M.A.

The Princess, and other Poems. By ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON. Edited by Elizabeth Wordsworth.

Maud, and other Poems. By ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON. Edited by Elizabeth Wordsworth.

In Memoriam. By ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON. Edited by H. C. Beeching. {315}

NOTES.

{xiv} The title “Shadow of God,” or “Divine Shadow,” is really used comparatively rarely, and only in the Court language. Judged by a strict standard it is of doubtful orthodoxy.

{xvi} It is hardly correct to call them the _Unitarians_ of the Moslem world, as Kinglake does, for Unitarianism, that is Antitrinitarianism, is the essence of all Mohammedanism.

{xvii} Aden was occupied in 1839. _Eothen_ must have been written between the tour in 1834 and its publication in 1844, but there seems to be no evidence as to the date of composition, and perhaps it was not all written at once.

{xxxi} This is

“The moving row Of magic shadow shapes which come and go,”

mentioned in Fitzgerald’s version of _Omar Khayyam_.

{xxxv} [“Our Lady of Bitterness,” said to have been a nickname of Mrs. Barry Cornwall, noted for her sharp tongue.]

{xxxvii} “Eōthen” is, I hope, almost the only hard word to be found in the book; it is written in Greek _ἠωθεν_—(Atticè, with an aspirated _ε_ instead of the _ἠ_)—and signifies, “from the early dawn”—“from the East.”—_Donn. Lex_, 4th edition.

{1} [This is all changed now. There is constant communication beween the Servian and Hungarian banks, so much so that Belgrade presents few national characteristics, and looks quite as much a Hungarian as a Servian town.]

{2} A “compromised” person is one who has been in contact with people or things supposed to be capable of conveying infection. As a general rule the whole Ottoman Empire lies constantly under this terrible ban. The “yellow flag” is the ensign of the quarantine establishment.

{6} The narghile is a water-pipe upon the plan of the hookah, but more gracefully fashioned; the smoke is drawn by a very long flexible tube, that winds its snake-like way from the vase to the lips of the beatified smoker.

{7} [The wording “amber up to mine,” found in many editions, is evidently a misreading of Kinglake’s handwriting. He must have made his l’s rather small and not have dotted his i’s.]

{13} That is, if he stands up at all. Oriental etiquette would not warrant his rising, unless his visitor were supposed to be at least his equal in point of rank and station.

{14a} [A man in charge of post-horses. At the present day most business connected with horse-transport in European Turkey is managed by Vlachs, a people speaking a language closely akin to Roumanian, and scattered over Macedonia, particularly near the Thessalian frontier.]

{14b} [This accomplished gentleman subsequently became the proprietor of an hotel, which was long the principal hostelry of Constantinople. The name still exists, but the building has been burnt down.]

{14c} The continual marriages of these people with the chosen beauties of Georgia and Circassia have overpowered the original ugliness of their Tatar ancestors.

{23} [The remains of this pyramid, or rather the chapel which is erected over them, can be seen close to the railway immediately after leaving Nish for Pirot and the Bulgarian frontier. Only two or three skulls are now left embedded in masonry. According to the story now told in Servia, Singelich, a Servian leader during the Karageorge Insurrection, when hard pressed by the Turks, fired into his powder magazine, and blew up himself and his followers as well as numbers of his enemies. The Turks, in order to intimidate the other Serbs, collected the heads of the victims and built of them a tower or pyramid. In 1878, when Nish became part of the principality of Servia, most of the skulls were removed and buried, but two or three remain.]

{31} There is almost always a breeze either from the Marmora or from the Black Sea, that passes along the course of the Bosphorus.

{34} The yashmak, you know, is not a mere semi-transparent veil, but rather a good substantial petticoat applied to the face; it thoroughly conceals all the features, except the eyes; the way of withdrawing it is by pulling it down.

{35} The “pipe of tranquillity” is a _tchibouque_ too long to be conveniently carried on a journey; the possession of it therefore implies that its owner is stationary, or, at all events, that he is enjoying a long repose from travel.

{36} [The structure of Turkish can only be said to resemble Latin in the general sense that the verb comes at the end of the sentence, which can be swelled out to enormous, and indeed preposterous, dimensions. The Turk of the old school thinks that a letter or document, and even a single chapter of a book, ought to consist of one sentence; but in this respect there has been considerable improvement of late, and modern newspapers and light literature are written in phrases of relatively reasonable length,—not longer, say, than German,—and with a much smaller proportion of Arabic and Persian words. The Osmanli gets few opportunities for public speaking nowadays, but it is said that the short-lived Turkish Parliament in 1877 furnished a very creditable oratorical display.]

{41} [Since this chapter was written the labours of Schliemann and Dorpfeld have excavated Hissarlik, commonly considered to be the site of Troy, though some prefer to identify the city of the _Iliad_ with the ruins of Bunar Bashi, farther inland. Hissarlik is a huge mound, in a singularly desolate plain about an hour’s ride from Kum Kale, at the entrance of the Dardanelles, and is said to be composed of the ruins of no less than eight or nine cities placed one on the top of the other. Of the older layers the best preserved are the second and sixth cities. There are no statues, inscriptions, or other indications, so that the structure of this pile of dead towns is excessively difficult to understand, and only becomes intelligible when explained by someone thoroughly acquainted with the course of the excavations; for in order to reach the lower layers it has naturally been necessary to displace the upper ones. The general character of the scene is still excellently described by Byron’s lines in _Don Juan_, Cant. iv.:

“Here, on the green and village-cotted hill, is (Flanked by the Hellespont and by the sea) Entombed the bravest of the brave, Achilles; (They say so—Bryant says the contrary): And further downward, tall and towering still, is The tumulus—of whom? Heaven knows; ‘t may be Patroclus, Ajax, or Protesilaus; All heroes, who, if living still, would slay us. High barrows, without marble or a name, A vast, untilled, and mountain-skirted plain, And Ida, in the distance, still the same, And old Scamander (if ‘t be he), remain; The situation still seems formed for fame— A hundred thousand men might fight again, With ease; but where I looked for Ilion’s walls, The quiet sheep feeds, and the tortoise crawls. Troops of untended horses; here and there Some little hamlets, with new names uncouth; Some shepherds (not like Paris), led to stare A moment at the European youth, Whom to the spot his schoolboy feelings bear; A Turk, with beads in hand and pipe in mouth, Extremely taken with his own religion, Are what I found there—but the devil a Phrygian.”]

{50} The Jews of Smyrna are poor, and having little merchandise of their own to dispose of, they are sadly importunate in offering their services as intermediaries: their troublesome conduct has led to the custom of beating them in the open streets. It is usual for Europeans to carry long sticks with them, for the express purpose of keeping off the chosen people. I always felt ashamed to strike the poor fellows myself, but I confess to the amusement with which I witnessed the observance of this custom by other people. The Jew seldom got hurt much, for he was always expecting the blow, and was ready to recede from it the moment it came: one could not help being rather gratified at seeing him bound away so nimbly, with his long robes floating out in the air, and then again wheel round, and return with fresh importunities.

{51} [Carrigaholt is said to have been Henry Stuart Burton, of Carrigaholt, County Clare.]

{54} Marriages in the East are arranged by professed matchmakers; many of these, I believe, are Jewesses.

{61} A Greek woman wears her whole fortune upon her person in the shape of jewels or gold coins; I believe that this mode of investment is adopted in great measure for safety’s sake. It has the advantage of enabling a suitor to _reckon_ as well as to admire the objects of his affection.

{66} St. Nicholas is the great patron of Greek sailors. A small picture of him enclosed in a glass case is hung up like a barometer at one end of the cabin.

{67} Hanmer.

{77}

“. . . ubi templum illi, centumque Sabæo Thure calent aræ, sertisque recentibus halant.”

—_Æneid_, i. 415.

{82} The writer advises that none should attempt to read the following account of the late Lady Hester Stanhope except those who may already chance to feel an interest in the personage to whom it relates. The chapter (which has been written and printed for the reasons mentioned in the preface) is chiefly filled with the detailed conversation, or rather discourse, of a highly eccentric gentlewoman.

{90a} Historically “_fainting_”; the death did not occur until long afterwards.

{90b} I am told that in youth she was exceedingly sallow.

{92} This was my impression at the time of writing the above passage, an impression created by the popular and uncontradicted accounts of the matter, as well as by the tenor of Lady Hester’s conversation. I have now some reason to think that I was deceived, and that her sway in the desert was much more limited than I had supposed. She seems to have had from the Bedouins a fair five hundred pounds’ worth of respect, and not much more.

{96} She spoke it, I daresay, in English; the words would not be the less effective for being spoken in an unknown tongue. Lady Hester, I believe, never learnt to speak the Arabic with a perfect accent.

{99} The proceedings thus described to me by Lady Hester as having taken place during her illness, were afterwards re-enacted at the time of her death. Since I wrote the words to which this note is appended, I received from Warburton an interesting account of the heroine’s death, or rather the circumstances attending the discovery of the event; and I caused it to be printed in the former editions of this work. I must now give up the borrowed ornament, and omit my extract from my friend’s letter, for the rightful owner has reprinted it in _The Crescent and the Cross_. I know what a sacrifice I am making, for in noticing the first edition of this book reviewers turned aside from the text to the note, and remarked upon the interesting information which Warburton’s letter contained. (This narrative is reproduced in an Appendix to the present edition.)

{102} In a letter which I afterwards received from Lady Hester, she mentioned incidentally Lord Hardwicke, and said that he was “the kindest-hearted man existing—a most manly, firm character. He comes from a good breed—all the Yorkes excellent, with _ancient_ French blood in their veins.” The underscoring of the word “ancient” is by the writer of the letter, who had certainly no great love or veneration for the French of the present day: she did not consider them as descended from her favourite stock.

{103} It is said that deaf people can hear what is said concerning themselves, and it would seem that those who live without books or newspapers know all that is written about them. Lady Hester Stanhope, though not admitting a book or newspaper into her fortress, seems to have known the way in which M. Lamartine mentioned her in his book, for in a letter which she wrote to me after my return to England she says, “Although neglected, as Monsieur le M.” (referring, as I believe, to M. Lamartine) “describes, and without books, yet my head is organised to supply the want of them as well as acquired knowledge.”

{105} I have been recently told that this Italian’s pretensions to the healing art were thoroughly unfounded. My informant is a gentleman who enjoyed during many years the esteem and confidence of Lady Hester Stanhope; his adventures in the Levant were most curious and interesting.

{111} The Greek Church does not recognise this as the true sanctuary, and many Protestants look upon all the traditions by which it is attempted to ascertain the holy places of Palestine as utterly fabulous. For myself, I do not mean either to affirm or deny the correctness of the opinion which has fixed upon this as the true site, but merely to mention it as a belief entertained without question by my brethren of the Latin Church, whose guest I was at the time. It would be a great aggravation of the trouble of writing about these matters if I were to stop in the midst of every sentence for the purpose of saying “so called” or “so it is said,” and would besides sound very ungraciously: yet I am anxious to be literally true in all I write. Now, thus it is that I mean to get over my difficulty. Whenever in this great bundle of papers or book (if book it is to be) you see any words about matters of religion which would seem to involve the assertion of my own opinion, you are to understand me just as if one or other of the qualifying phrases above mentioned had been actually inserted in every sentence. My general direction for you to construe me thus will render all that I write as strictly and actually true as if I had every time lugged in a formal declaration of the fact that I was merely expressing the notions of other people.

{115} “Vino d’oro.”

{123} Shereef.

{124} Tennyson.

{126} The other three cities held holy by Jews are Jerusalem, Hebron, and Safet.

{149} (The tented Arabs are no doubt very bad Mohammedans, but the assumption which Kinglake seems to make that prostrations are essential to a Moslem religious ceremony is not correct. The form of prayer called in Turkey Namaz, which ought to be performed by every devout Moslem five times a day, does necessarily involve prostrations in which the forehead touches the ground, but it is by no means the only, though doubtless the most important, act of worship mentioned by Islam. In the present case the ceremony was probably a blessing, which is generally given by closing the eyes and uplifting the arms with the hands bent back and the palms open. I have often seen such benedictions given when a party sets out for a pilgrimage or any other purpose.)

{166} Hadji, a pilgrim.

{169} [Kinglake might have added that Mohammedans admit that Christ worked miracles and was miraculously born of a virgin. They do not however believe that He was crucified.]

{181} Milnes cleverly goes to the French for the exact word which conveys the impression produced by the voice of the Arabs, and calls them “un peuple _criard_.”

{202} There is some semblance of bravado in my manner of talking about the plague. I have been more careful to describe the terrors of other people than my own. The truth is, that during the whole period of my stay at Cairo I remained thoroughly impressed with a sense of my danger. I may almost say, that I lived in perpetual apprehension, for even in sleep, as I fancy, there remained with me some faint notion of the peril with which I was encompassed. But fear does not necessarily damp the spirits; on the contrary, it will often operate as an excitement, giving rise to unusual animation, and thus it affected me. If I had not been surrounded at this time by new faces, new scenes, and new sounds, the effect produced upon my mind by one unceasing cause of alarm might have been very different. As it was, the eagerness with which I pursued my rambles among the wonders of Egypt was sharpened and increased by the sting of the fear of death. Thus my account of the matter plainly conveys an impression that I remained at Cairo without losing my cheerfulness and buoyancy of spirits. And this is the truth, but it is also true, as I have freely confessed, that my sense of danger during the whole period was lively and continuous.

{203a} Anglicé for “je le sais.” These answers of mine, as given above, are not meant as specimens of mere French, but of that fine, terse, nervous, Continental English with which I and my compatriots make our way through Europe. This language, by the by, is one possessing great force and energy, and is not without its literature, a literature of the very highest order. Where will you find more sturdy specimens of downright, honest, and noble English than in the Duke of Wellington’s “French” despatches?

{203b} The import of the word “compromised,” when used in reference to contagion, is explained on page 18.

{204} It is said, that when a Mussulman finds himself attacked by the plague he goes and takes a bath. The couches on which the bathers recline would carry infection, according to the notions of the Europeans. Whenever, therefore, I took the bath at Cairo (except the first time of my doing so) I avoided that part of the luxury which consists in being “put up to dry” upon a kind of bed.

{205} [See footnote, Introduction, p. xxi.]

{207} [Mohammedans commonly believe that the souls of the dead do not rest in peace till their bodies are laid in the tomb. Hence they bury the corpse as quickly as possible, and run to the cemetery in order to shorten the interval during which the departed spirit is kept waiting. After a few brief prayers at the graveside, the mourners retire forty paces, halt, and pray again. It is believed that at this moment two angels visit the deceased, inquire of his religious belief, and, if he replies in the words of the formula, that there is “no God but God, and Mohammed is the Prophet of God,” admit him, not exactly to Paradise, but to a very tolerable section of Purgatory.]

{217} Mehemet Ali invited the Mamelukes to a feast, and murdered them whilst preparing to enter the banquet hall.

{218} It is not strictly lawful to sell white slaves to a Christian.

{230} The difficulty was occasioned by the immense exertions which the Pasha was making to collect camels for military purposes.

{233} Herodotus, in an after age, stood by with his notebook, and got, as he thought, the exact returns of all the rations served out.

{236} [The author of the _Crescent and the Cross_, which appeared the same year as _Eothen_.]

{246} See Milman’s _History of the Jews_, first edition.

{263} [Nablus still maintains its reputation for bigotry.]

{264} This is an appellation not implying blame, but merit; the “lies” which it purports to affiliate are feints and cunning stratagems, rather than the baser kind of falsehoods. The expression, in short, has nearly the same meaning as the English word “Yorkshireman.”

{265a} The 29th of April.

{265b} [This was no doubt the case in this particular, but it must not be supposed that April 29 is the Mohammedan New Year’s Day. The Moslem religious year consists of twelve lunar months, and is eleven days shorter than the Christian year. Hence, if in one year Muharrem (the first month) falls on April 29, it would fall on April 18 the next. In consequence of the great inconveniences of this mode of reckoning, Turks adopt for secular matters another era called the Financial year, which starts from the Hijra, but has solar months. But feasts and fasts are fixed by the lunar year, so that the month of Ramazan rotates through all the seasons.]

{267} [The statements at the beginning of this chapter are altogether inaccurate. From the religious point of view a good Mohammedan is as much, and more, bound than a Christian to encourage any form of missionary enterprise, seeing that all non-Moslems are destined to inevitable damnation. From the legal and practical point of view, the exercise of all religions is nominally free in Turkey and it is therefore illegal to convert a Christian at the point of the sword, but it will be sufficient to remind the reader that during the massacres of 1895–96 many thousands of Armenians turned Mohammedans, and that those who wished to subsequently return to their old religion found great difficulty in doing so.

As a rule Turks despise the Christian races too much to take any trouble about converting them, but it is absurd to say that conversions are illegal. On the contrary, they are fairly frequent, and it is only necessary that the person converted should state publicly that his change of religion is due to his own free will. Cases of young girls embracing Islam are not rare. According to the law, minors wishing to become Moslems must be taken to the house of a respectable person, where a priest of their own religion can have access to them, and their change of faith is not legal until they are of age (which means in the case of a girl twelve or thirteen), but in practice every effort is made to isolate them in such cases from their friends and surround them with Mohammedans.]

{272} These are the names given by the Prophet to certain chapters of the Koran.

{280} It was after the interview which I am talking of, and not from the Jews themselves, that I learnt this fact.

{283} An enterprising American traveller, Mr. Everett, lately conceived the bold project of penetrating to the University of Oxford, and this notwithstanding that he had been in his infancy (they begin very young those Americans) a Unitarian preacher. Having a notion, it seems, that the ambassadorial character would protect him from insult, he adopted the stratagem of procuring credentials from his Government as Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of her Britannic Majesty; he also wore the exact costume of a Trinitarian. But all his contrivances were vain; Oxford disdained, and rejected, and insulted him (not because he represented a swindling community, but) because that his infantine sermons were strictly remembered against him; the enterprise failed.

{292} The rose-trees which I saw were all of the kind we call “damask”; they grow to an immense height and size.

{296} A dragoman never interprets in terms the courteous language of the East.

{298a} [This place, which is commonly called Adalia (Antalia in Turkish), is now a port in the province of Konia.

In the time of the Crusades the name varied between Attalie (or Attalia) and Sattalie (Sattalia). As it seems clear that it is derived from the founder, King Attalus, the S must be a later addition, and is perhaps to be identified with the Greek preposition _els_, which is responsible for such forms as Istambol (_είς την πόλιν_).]

{298b} A title signifying transcender or conqueror of Satalieh. {298c}

{298c} [Sataliefsky is merely an adjective derived from Satalieh, and means “the Satalian,” just as Zabalkansky (p. 24) means “the Trans-Balkanic one.” I mention this because in both cases Kinglake gives the translation “Transcender” of the Balkans or Satalieh.]

{299} Spelt “Attalia” and sometimes “Adalia” in English books and maps.

{310} While Lady Hester Stanhope lived, although numbers visited the convent, she almost invariably refused admittance to strangers. She assigned as a reason the use which M. de Lamartine had made of his interview. Mrs. T., who passed some weeks at Djouni, told me, that when Lady Hester read his account of this interview, she exclaimed, “It is all false; we did not converse together for more than five minutes; but no matter, no traveller hereafter shall betray or forge my conversation.” The author of _Eothen_, however, was her guest, and has given us an interesting account of his visit in his brilliant volume.

{315} In the printed book the last page is a specimen page (34) of Vanity Fair. It’s been omitted in this transcription on release.—DP.