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Cornell University Library 
 DA 536.S78C63 1914 
 
 Life and letters of Lady Hester Stanhope 
 
 3 1924 028 039 299 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028039299 
 
THE LIFE 
 
 AND LETTERS OF 
 
 LADY HESTER STANHOPE 
 
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THE LIFE 
 AND LETTERS OF 
 
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 LADY HESTER STANHOPE 
 
 BY HER NIECE 
 
 THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND 
 
 WITH A PREFATORY NOTE BY 
 THE EARL OF ROSEBERY, K.G., K.T. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 
 
 1914 
 
All Rights Reserved 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It would seem from the variety of publications con- 
 cerning her that there is still a flicker of public 
 interest with regard to Lady Hester Stanhope, and 
 so it has seemed well to members of her family 
 that the book written about her by my mother, 
 and privately circulated, should now be given to the 
 public as the authoritative biography of this strange 
 woman. 
 
 ROSEBERY. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Early Days — Chevening — Burton Pynsent — Bath — 
 
 D AWLisH — Tour Abroad — Turin — Naples — Ton- 
 
 NINGEN I 
 
 1776 — 1803 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Return Home — Walmer Castle — York Place — Sir 
 William Napier — Montagu Square — Builth — 
 Glen Irfon 47 
 
 1803 — i8io 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Departure from England — Malta — Athens — Ther- 
 APiA — Constantinople — Brusa — Shipwreck — 
 Rhodes — Alexandria — Cairo — Jerusalem — Dayr- 
 el-Kamar — Damascus . .... 93 
 
 1810 — 1812 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Damascus — Hamar — Palmyra — Latakia — Mar Elias — 
 
 Mishmushy — Baalbec — Acre — Jaffa . . .134 
 
 1812— 1816 
 
 Vll 
 
viu ^wiN iii.i\ i;^ 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Mar Elias — Mr. Silk Buckingham — Antioch — M. 
 DiDOT — DjouN — " The Babylonian Princess " — 
 MiSHMUSHY 182 
 
 1816— 1823 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Djoun — Captain Yorke, R.N. — Dr. Meryon . . 228 
 
 1823 — 1830 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Djoun — 'M. de Lamartine — Mr. Kinglake — Dr. 
 
 Meryon ......... 272 
 
 1830-1838 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Prince Puckler Muskau — Djoun 346 
 
 1838 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Djoun — Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria — Death and 
 
 Burial ..•♦...•. 392 
 
 1838— 1839 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 Conclusion 4^5 
 
 INDEX ,55 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 The Residence of Lady Hester Stanhope at Djoun Frontispiece 
 
 The Grave of Lady Hester Stanhope . . . Facing p. 428 
 
 \% 
 
THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF 
 LADY HESTER STANHOPE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Early Days—Chevening — Burton Pynsent — Bath — Daw- 
 LisH — Tour Abroad — Turin — Naples — Tonningen 
 
 I 776- I 803 
 
 Lady Hester Stanhope, the eldest of the three children 
 of my grandfather, Charles third Earl Stanhope's first 
 marriage, was born in 1776. Her mother, Lady 
 Hester Pitt, a daughter of the great Earl of Chatham, 
 who is said to have been Mr. Pitt's favourite sister, 
 died when she was only four years old, leaving behind 
 her the memory of a singularly beautiful and perfect 
 character. " She was," writes Lord Haddington (her 
 husband's cousin), " a woman rarely to be met with ; 
 wise, temperate, and prudent ; by nature cheerful, 
 without levity ; a warm friend, and free from all the 
 petty vices that attend little minds." Had she grown 
 up under the care and guidance of such a mother, 
 Lady Hester might have been a far different person, 
 and her great natural gifts been far otherwise em- 
 ployed. To her and her baby sisters the loss was 
 incalculable. 
 
 My grandfather is represented as plunged in the 
 wildest despair at his wife's death. Yet in little more 
 than six months he had married her cousin, Louisa 
 Grenville,^ and the new Lady Mahon did not commend 
 herself to her little step-daughters. She was a worthy 
 
 * The daughter of Lady Chatham's younger brother, the Hon. 
 Henry Grenville, Governor of Barbadoes and Ambassador to the 
 Porte, who was uncle to the first Marquis of Buckingham. 
 
2 "CITIZEN STANHOPE" [ch. i 
 
 and well-meaning woman; but, as I remember her, 
 stiff and frigid, with a chilling, conventional manner. 
 They never became fond of her, and she never seems 
 to have gained any influence over them — least of all 
 over Lady Hester. As for their father, he apparently 
 did not even attempt to do so ; he merely gave his 
 orders, and took care they were obeyed. They saw 
 very little of him, for he was the busiest of men — 
 always hard at work in his laboratory or study, 
 engrossed with politics, and taking an active part in 
 public life. All agree that he was a very fine speaker ; 
 but he was too loud and vehement in his delivery, and 
 indulged in the un-English habit of gesticulation.^ 
 We read of " Mahon out-roaring torrents in their 
 course " in the fervour and flow of his declamation, 
 and how 
 
 The Don Quixote of the nation 
 Beats his own windmill in gesticulation. 
 
 But I am quoting his detractors. To his admirers — 
 and they were numerous and enthusiastic — he was 
 another Ludlow or Algernon Sydney. Bred up in 
 Geneva as a Republican, he developed into a Jacobin 
 during the French Revolution, and stood in open 
 antagonism to all his brother Peers. This, however, 
 was very far from causing him concern. He was a 
 good fighter, and rather enjoyed it. On the first 
 question upon which he divided the House of Lords, 
 he did not find a single supporter; but he was so 
 proud of this "glorious minority of one" that he de- 
 lighted in repeating the experience. On one of these 
 occasions, a friend who stood by him was severely 
 taken to task. *'Why," he said, **you spoiled that 
 division ! " When first presented at Court, he had 
 electrified the polite world by appearing with his 
 black hair unpowdered ; and in 1792 he emulated his 
 French friends by discarding, with his title, every 
 emblem and attribute of rank. Even the coronets over 
 the iron gates at Chevening were taken down, and he 
 was styled Citizen Stanhope. Later in life, I believe, 
 his opinions were modified ; he dropped the citizen- 
 ship, and replaced the coronets. 
 
 ^ M. Van de Weyer, so long Belgian Minister in London, told me 
 that when endeavouring to assimilate himself to English ways, the 
 first thing he had to learn was to keep his hands quiet. *' I used to 
 put them under the table and say to them, ' You are to lie there ! ' " 
 
1776-1803] MECHANICAL SKILL 2 
 
 But it is not by his political vagaries that my grand- 
 father will be remembered; his fame rests on far 
 higher grounds. He was illustrious as a man of 
 science, and one of the greatest inventive geniuses of 
 his time. The first little craft ever propelled by steam 
 was, I beheve,^ built by him, and launched on the 
 piece of water in his grounds at Chevening. He 
 offered his invention to the Admiralty, and an ** anti- 
 navigator " ship on his plan was built and tried ; but 
 the Lords decided that these trials were conclusive 
 against steam navigation. He was nowise daunted. 
 '* Some of your Lordships now sitting here," he said 
 in the House of Lords, " will live to see steamships 
 crossing the Atlantic." He was received with con- 
 tempt and derision, and pronounced to be " a little 
 madder than usual." Yet he himself very nearly saw 
 the fulfilment of this visionary prophecy, for the first 
 steamer crossed the "great herring pond" in 18 18, 
 only two years after his death. The propeller he used 
 was the screw, which, though then discarded, has now 
 almost entirely superseded Fulton's paddle-boxes. 
 
 I cannot even attempt to enumerate all his other 
 inventions, for their name is legion. One is amazed 
 at the versatility of his genius. There was the cal- 
 culating machine which so long preceded Babbage's ; 
 the Stanhope printing press (from which all sub- 
 sequent presses have been more or less copied) ; the 
 Stanhope lens for testing the skins of fever patients ; 
 the plan for securing buildings from lightning by 
 means of " the returning stroke," contained in his 
 Treatise on Electricity ; a new method of tuning musical 
 instruments ; the reasoning machine for exposing the 
 sophistry of false logic, which occupied him even on 
 his death-bed, &c., &c.^ One very valuable discovery 
 was his system of rendering buildings fireproof, on 
 the well-known principle that combustion can never 
 take place where the air is excluded. To illustrate 
 this in practice he had a fire-proof wooden house 
 
 ^ I speak under correction, as I cannot give the exact date ; but it 
 was in 1793 that, his invention being perfected, he offered "the im- 
 portant plan, invented by myself, for navigating ships of the largest 
 size without any wind, and even against wind and waves," to the 
 Government. It had cost him no less than twenty years of labour, 
 and very considerable sums of money. 
 
 ' His *' Demonstrator, or Logical Machine," was described by the 
 Rev. R. Harley to the British Association in 1878. 
 
4 LADY HESTER^S CHILDHOOD [ch. i 
 
 built, surrounded it with a quantity of combustible 
 material, invited a party of friends to assemble on the 
 upper floor, and then set fire to the combustibles. 
 The flames rose around to the height of Z7 feet, yet 
 the friends imprisoned within this circle of fire (who 
 must have had their misgivings) did not suffer the 
 shghtest inconvemence.—Phtlosophtcal Transactions for 
 
 1778. 
 
 We, his descendants, are justly, and I may say 
 exceedingly, proud of his genius and achievements, 
 and yet humbly thankful that we were not called 
 upon to hve under his roof, for, ardently as he 
 advocated liberty and enfranchisement abroad, he was 
 the sternest of autocrats at home. His rule was 
 absolute, his word law — the law of the Medes and 
 Persians, from which there was no appeal — and he 
 enforced the most implicit and unquestioning obedi- 
 ence. Lady Hester, who did not know what fear 
 meant, was perhaps the only one of his children not 
 afraid of him, and by her own account, the one he 
 liked the best.^ The others all stood more or less in 
 awe and dread of him, and as they grew up, one and 
 all escaped from their unhappy home. In the end 
 even my much-enduring grandmother found her posi- 
 tion untenable. 
 
 It was in this ungenial atmosphere that Lady Hester 
 was brought up ; and, unhappily for her, brought up 
 without the judicious care and training of which she, 
 above all others, stood in need. She was, as I have 
 already said, highly gifted. She possessed an intellect 
 of rare scope and power, an almost intuitive quickness 
 of perception, a vivid and poetic imagination, in- 
 exhaustible energy, dauntless courage, a keen sense of 
 humour, and a brilliant and ready wit. Her tongue 
 was, in truth, a sharp-edged sword, and gained her 
 many enemies ; but she could be eloquent and per- 
 suasive as well as trenchant. With these she had 
 noble qualities, both of the head and heart. She was 
 honourable and loyal, despising and detesting all 
 meanness, littleness, and deceit ; generous to a fault, 
 divinely charitable, honest and high-minded, abhorring 
 baseness of every sort or kind, a staunch friend, and 
 
 ^ " I could always govern my father better than anybody, because 
 I could bear his oddities with more patience, and could Joke him into 
 things plain sense and argument would have failed in." 
 
1 7 76-1803] EARLY DAYS S 
 
 an enthusiastic champion. Above all, she had a kind 
 and tenderly compassionate heart, that warmed to 
 every tale of sorrow or distress. Like her eldest 
 brother — and this was one point of resemblance be- 
 tween them — she was full of pity and sympathy for 
 the ill-used or oppressed ; and whoever, in her opinion, 
 had suffered wrong or failed to obtain his rights, was 
 sure of finding an ardent advocate and protector in 
 her. If she loved power she used it mainly on behalf 
 of others. 
 
 But with all these great capabilities there were 
 formidable contending elements. She had much of 
 her father's imperious and impetuous temper, with his 
 indomitable and inflexible will. She was excessively 
 proud, not a little vain, and above all wilful and 
 domineering, and if a staunch friend, an unrelenting 
 foe. She had the most boundless self-confidence, and 
 honestly believed herself born to command. Even as 
 a little child she was always, as her cousin Binning 
 phrased it, '* playing the empress-queen," and fond as 
 she was of her sisters, yet delighted in exercising a 
 kind of supremacy over them. *' My sister Lucy was 
 prettier than I was, and Griselda more clever. . . . 
 Lucy's disposition was sweet, and her temper excel- 
 lent ; she was like a Madonna. Griselda was other- 
 wise, and always for making her authority felt. But 
 I, even when 1 was only a girl, obtained and exercised, 
 1 can't tell how, a sort of command over them. They 
 never 'came to me, when 1 was in my room, without 
 sending first to know whether I would see them." — 
 Memoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope^ as related by herself 
 in conversations with her Physician. London, 1845. 
 
 She must have been a terribly difficult pupil to deal 
 with, and the governesses, whose task it was to con- 
 trol and correct her, no doubt had many bitter experi- 
 ences. I always think of them with compassion, and 
 when, in the tone of an outraged princess, she speaks 
 of the " eternal warfare " she has vowed against all 
 Swiss and French governesses, I feel inclined to take 
 their side. At all events, they were failures. Although 
 hers was a character that more especially called for 
 discipline and direction, she was suffered to grow up 
 with very little of either, having acquired neither 
 reserve nor self-control. In fact, the teaching was all 
 the other way, for she early learned to despise and 
 
6 LADY HESTER^S MEMOIRS [ch. i 
 
 cast to the winds all the conventionalities of life. 
 ** Her early education," as Lord Stratford truly re- 
 marked, ^* had much to do with her eccentricities. Her 
 father, believing in manual labour, had set her regu- 
 larly to tend turkeys on a common." — Life of Stratford 
 Canning. London, 1888. 
 
 With the exception of this characteristic anecdote, 
 all we know of Lady Hester's childhood is from her 
 conversations with Dr. Meryon in Syria, many long 
 years afterwards. Unfortunately, her memory had 
 then become confused and wholly unreliable ; and my 
 father, in annotating the doctor's book, marked one of 
 the stories as incorrect, as well as the absurd account 
 of her grandmother's housekeeping at Chevening.^ 
 The discarded story was one that has been often 
 quoted; how, when ** Citizen Stanhope" thought it 
 consistent to put down his carriage and horses, she 
 got a pair of stilts, and paraded in the mud before 
 his windows, till she induced him to buy another 
 equipage. 
 
 I now proceed with the extracts from the Memoirs, 
 which I have endeavoured to arrange chronologically. 
 
 '^I was always, as I am now, full of activity, from 
 my infancy. At two years old, 1 made a little hat. 
 You know there was a kind of straw hat with the 
 crown taken out, and in its stead a piece of satin was 
 put in, all puffed out. Well, I made myself a hat hke 
 that, and it was thought such a thing for a child of 
 two years to do, that my grandpapa had a little paper 
 box made for it, and had it ticketed with the day of the 
 month and my age. 
 
 " Just before the French Revolution broke out, the 
 Ambassador from Paris to the English Court was 
 Count d'Adhemar. This nobleman had some influence 
 on my fate as far as regarded my wish to go abroad, 
 
 1 This was perhaps hardly worth contradicting. She tells of the 
 puddings that it required two men to carry ; barons of beef on the 
 same magnificent scale ; of the rigid etiquette observed by the house- 
 hold ; of the scissors that Lady Stanhope kept for cutting off the 
 prohibited curls of the housemaids ; the rod with which she chastised 
 them, &c. 
 
1776-1803] CHEVENING 7 
 
 which, however, I was not able to gratify until many 
 years afterwards. I was but seven or eight years old 
 when I saw him ;^ and when he came by invitation to 
 pay a visit to my papa at Chevening, there was such 
 a fuss with the fine footmen with feathers in their 
 hats, and the Count's bows and French manners, and 
 I know not what, that, a short time afterwards, when 
 I was sent to Hastings with the governess and my 
 sisters, nothing would satisfy me but I must go and 
 see what sort of a place France was. So I got into a 
 boat one day unobserved, that was floating close to 
 the beach, let loose the rope myself, and off I went. 
 Yes, Doctor, I literally pushed a boat off, and meant 
 to go, as I thought, to France. Did you ever hear of 
 such a mad scheme ? 
 
 *' But I was tired of all those around me, who, to all 
 my questions, invariably answered, * My dear, that is 
 not proper for you to know ' ; or, * You must not talk 
 about such things till you are older,' and the like. So 
 I held my tongue ; but I made up for it by treasuring 
 up everything I heard or saw. 
 
 ** How well I remember what I was made to suffer 
 when I was young! and that's the reason I have 
 sworn eternal warfare against Swiss and French 
 governesses. Nature forms us in a certain manner, 
 both inwardly and outwardly, and it is in vain to 
 attempt to alter it. One governess at Chevening had 
 our backs pinched in by boards that were drawn tight 
 with all the force the maid could use ; and as for me, 
 they would have squeezed me to the size of a puny 
 Miss — a thing impossible! My instep, by nature so 
 high that a little kitten could walk under the sole of 
 my foot, they used to bend down in order to flatten 
 
 ^ She was thirteen in 1789, and surely more than two years old 
 when she made her hat.y 
 
8 TRIAL OF WARREN HASTINGS [ch. i 
 
 it, although that is one of the things that shows my 
 high breeding. Nature, Doctor, makes us one way, 
 and man is always trying to fashion us in another. 
 
 " But nature was entirely out of the question with 
 us ; we were left to the governesses. Lady Stanhope 
 got up at 10 o'clock, went out, and then returned to be 
 dressed, if in London, by the' hairdresser ; and there 
 were only two in London, both of them Frenchmen, 
 who could dress her. Then she went out to dinner, 
 and from dinner to the Opera, and from the Opera to 
 parties, seldom returning until just before daylight. 
 Lord Stanhope was engaged in his philosophical pur- 
 suits ; and thus we children saw neither the one nor 
 the other. Lucy used to say that if she had met her 
 step-mother in the streets she should not have known 
 her. Why, my father once followed to our own door 
 in London a woman who happened to drop her glove, 
 which he picked up. It was our governess ; but, as 
 he had never seen her in the house, he did not know 
 her in the street. . . . 
 
 " I can recollect, when I was ten or twelve years 
 old, going to Hastings' trial. My garter somehow 
 came off, and was picked up by Lord Grey, then a 
 young man. At this hour, as if it were before me in 
 a picture, I can see before me his handsome, but very 
 pale face, his broad forehead ; his corbeau coat, with 
 cut-steel buttons; his white satin waistcoat and 
 breeches; and the buckles in his shoes. He saw 
 from whom the garter fell ; but, observing my con- 
 fusion, did not wish to increase it, and with infinite 
 delicacy gave the garter to the person who sat there 
 to serve tea and coffee. . . . 
 
 " Mr. Pitt never liked Griselda ; and she stood no 
 better in the opinion of my father, who bore with 
 Lucy— ah ! just in this way. He would say to her. 
 
1776-1803] CHEVENING 9 
 
 to get rid of her, ' Now, papa is going to study, so 
 you may go to your room ' ; then, when the door was 
 shut, he would turn to me, * Now, we must talk a Httle 
 philosophy,' and then, with his two legs stuck upon 
 the sides of the grate, he would begin. * Well, well,' 
 he would cry, after I had talked a little, ' that is not 
 bad reasoning, but the basis is bad.' 
 
 " My father always checked my propensity to finery 
 in dress. If any of us happened to look better than 
 usual in a particular hat or frock, he was sure to have 
 it put away the next day. and to have something 
 coarse substituted in its place." 
 
 The three girls were allowed to go out hunting, to 
 Lady Hester's keen delight and enjoyment. She was 
 never so happy as on horseback, and became a very 
 fine horsewoman, which, in after years, greatly con- 
 tributed to her popularity with the Arab tribes. 
 
 " I remember, when Colonel Shadwell commanded 
 the district, that one day in a pelting shower of rain 
 he was riding up Madamscourt Hill as I was crossing 
 at the bottom, going home towards Chevening. I 
 saw Colonel Shadwell's groom's horse about a couple 
 of hundred yards from me, and, struck with its beauty, 
 I turned up the hill, resolving to pass them and get a 
 good look at it. I accordingly quickened my pace, 
 and in going by gave a good look at the horse, then 
 at the groom, then at the master, who was on a sorry 
 nag. The Colonel eyed me as I passed, and I, taking 
 advantage of a low part in the hedge, put my horse to 
 it, leaped over, and disappeared in an instant. The 
 Colonel found out who I was, and afterwards made 
 such a fuss at the mess about my equestrian powers 
 that nothing could be like it. I was the toast there 
 every day. 
 
 '* Nobody ever saw much of me until Lord Romney's 
 
10 LORD ROMNEY'S REVIEW [ch. i 
 
 review. I was obliged to play a trick on my father to 
 get there. I pretended the day before that I wanted 
 to pay a visit to the Miss Crumps" (or some such 
 name), ** and then went from their house to Lord 
 Romney's. Though all the gentry of Kent were there, 
 my father never knew, or was supposed to have 
 known, that I had been there. The King took great 
 notice of me. I dined with him— that is, what was 
 called dining with him, but at an adjoining table. 
 Lord and Lady Romney served the King and Queen, 
 and gentlemen waited on us. Upton changed my 
 plate, and he did it very well. Doctor, dining with 
 royalty, as Lord Melbourne does now, was not 
 so common formerly. I never dined with the King 
 but twice— once at Lord Romney's at an adjoining 
 table, and once afterwards at his own table. Oh ! 
 what wry faces there were among the courtiers ! Mr. 
 Pitt was very much pleased at the reception I met 
 with. The King took great notice of me, and, I 
 believe, always liked me personally. Whenever I was 
 talking to the Dukes he was sure to come towards us. 
 * Where is she?' he would cry; ^ where is she? 1 
 hear them laugh, and where they are laughing I must 
 go too.' Then, as he came nearer, he would observe, 
 ' If you have anything to finish, I won't come yet — I'll 
 come in a quarter of an hour.' When he was going 
 away from Lord Romney's he wanted to put me bod- 
 kin between himself and the Queen; and when the 
 Queen had got into the carriage, he said to her, ' My 
 dear, Lady Hester is going to ride bodkin with us. I 
 am going to take her away from Democracy Hall.' 
 But the old Queen observed, in rather a prim manner, 
 that I 'had not got my maid with me, and that it 
 would be inconvenient to go at such a short notice.' 
 So I remained." 
 
1776-1803] CHEVENING--BURTON PYNSENT 11 
 
 She appears to have taken the offer quite seriously. 
 
 *' It was at that review that I was talking to some 
 officers, and something led to my saying, * I can't bear 
 men who are governed by their wives, as Sir A. H. is. 
 A woman of sense, even if she did govern her husband, 
 would not let it be seen ; it is odious, in my opinion.' 
 And I went on in this strain, whilst poor Sir A. him- 
 self, whom I did not know, but had only heard spoken 
 of, was standing by all the time. I saw a dreadful 
 consternation in the bystanders ; but I went on. At 
 last some one — taking commiseration on him, I sup- 
 pose — said, * Lady Hester, will you allow me to intro- 
 duce Sir A. H. to you, who is desirous of making 
 your acquaintance.' Sir A. very politely thanked me 
 for the advice I had given him, and I answered some- 
 thing about the regard my brother had for him ; and 
 there the matter ended." 
 
 I have not yet spoken of Lady Hester's brothers (or 
 rather half-brothers), my grandmother's three sons — 
 Philip Henry, my father, who succeeded as fourth 
 Earl, Charles, and James. They were never sent 
 either to school or to college, but brought up with 
 their sisters at home and taught by their father's 
 secretary. This was Mr. Joyce, the author of Scientific 
 Dialogues. But their studies were interrupted by his 
 trial for high treason, for which he was arrested in my 
 grandfather's house. Lady Hester was devoted to 
 these brothers, and rendered signal service to the 
 eldest by planning his escape from his painful position 
 at home. She and her sisters had first set the 
 example. 
 
 Of these the youngest and fairest. Lady Lucy, a 
 beautiful girl then barely sixteen, had been married 
 by her father in 1796 to a country surgeon practising 
 in the neighbourhood. Lady Griselda left home in 
 the same year, taking refuge in a cottage at Walmer, 
 lent to her by Mr. Pitt. Four years afterwards she 
 became the wife of John Tekell, an officer in the army. 
 Lady Hester remained at Chevening till 1800, when 
 
12 PHILIP LORD MAHON [ch. 
 
 she went to live with her grandmother, Lady Chatham, 
 at Burton Pynsent, in Somersetshire. 
 
 My grandfather offered no opposition to his 
 daughters' departures, though, when Lady Griselda 
 left, he was heard to compare himself to Lear, quoting 
 the line (certainly apphcable), '' I never gave thee 
 kingdoms." But he kept strict w^atch and ward over 
 his eldest son, all the stricter as he approached his 
 majority, when he would have power to cut off the 
 entail, and make fresh arrangements. He had, as I 
 have already said, never been sent either to school or 
 college, but kept immured at home, without a single 
 advantage, or chance of improving himself, '' in a 
 situation " (to quote his own words) " of all others the 
 most odious and oppressive." He bitterly deplored 
 the loss of the wasted years, passing away unheeded 
 over his head, that should have been employed in 
 fitting him to take his place in the world. At length, 
 in 1801, he determined to attempt to shake off the 
 yoke, having then just entered his twentieth year. He 
 asked to be sent to college, and made proposals 
 regarding the entail,^ but they were unacceptable, and 
 he found, to his dismay, that his father's object was to 
 obtain the power of disposing of the estate. This 
 would have meant his own ruin. In his distress, he 
 opened his heart to Lady Hester, who eagerly espoused 
 his cause, vowed she would extricate him from his 
 cruel position, and loyally kept her word. She alone 
 contrived and effected his escape from his father's 
 house, who, " now," as she writes in triumph, "may 
 make Chevening frightful by destroying the timber, 
 but, without Mahon's consent, cannot further injure 
 the estate." In a letter to Lord Glastonbury (to be 
 shown to all the other Grenville cousins), she describes 
 how she accomplished it. 
 
 *' Money, you know, was a very essential article; 
 that has been liberally supphed by Sir Francis Bur- 
 dett, though he chose to be ignorant of the plan it 
 was to be adopted for, and gave it into the hands of a 
 third person. Mr. Jackson (the diplomatic Jackson) 
 got Mahon's letters of credit made out and provided 
 
 ^ These proposals had been drawn out for him by Mr. Pitt. 
 
1776-1803] BURTON PYNSENT 13 
 
 him with a passport. He is gone abroad, in order 
 to be placed at a foreign university at Erlang, under 
 the care of Professor Breyer, a man of great ability, 
 and most extensive knov^ledge. Mr. J., who, from once 
 residing there, is perfectly acquainted with their 
 characters, has furnished him with letters of particular 
 recommendation not only to the Professor, but to the 
 first people of the place, and is on terms of great 
 friendship with the Margravine,^ who, I understand, is 
 the best sort of woman in the world, and keeps a 
 little court. Therefore, Mahon will not only have 
 information within his reach, but enjoy the best 
 society of that place. I must tell you Mahon has 
 taken a feigned name, which was judged more 
 prudent, for many reasons, than his bearing his own. 
 Nothing could be more handsome than the manner in 
 which Mr. Jackson has acted in this business, not 
 only in the friendship he has shown Mahon by the 
 great interest he has taken in his concerns, but by 
 the advice and assistance he has afforded him in the 
 most minute things, which was particularly fortunate^ 
 as Mahon was perfectly ignorant of the world, and 
 everything which relates to travelling ; but, however, 
 with Mr. J.'s directions, he has got on wonderfully 
 well. Mahon has a man with him, in capacity of a 
 servant, whose fidelity I can rely on ; this man, with 
 directions from me, accomplished Mahon's escape 
 from Chevening most astonishingly, for, though he 
 was pursued in a few hours, no tidings could be had, 
 and till this moment they have never been able to 
 trace him one step. Fearing what the possible effects 
 and mortification might have upon the female members 
 of the family he had deserted, as soon as I knew he 
 was safe out of the country, I wrote to my father's 
 
 ^ Of Brandenburg-Baireuth, who resided at Erlangen. 
 
14 LORD MAHON'S "ESCAPE" [ch, i 
 
 lawyer to desire he would inform them that Mahon 
 was gone abroad, that he was in good hands, and 
 nothing was to be apprehended for his personal 
 safety ; but to make it plain to them that no further 
 intelligence in future should ever be had of me con- 
 cerning him ; yet, should they be at a loss to send him 
 any letter, if they would forward it to me I would 
 take care it reached him safe. ... I have received the 
 most satisfactory accounts of my brother ; the last, 
 dated the 3rd of March, from Hamburgh ; the descrip- 
 tion he gives of his journey is admirable. His 
 astonishment, his happiness, and gratitude to his 
 friends, is expressed so naturally and with so much 
 feeling, it is quite delightful. Dear fellow ! if he had 
 been ten times my own brother I could not have been 
 more anxious, more interested about him. I wish 
 poor dear Mrs. Grenville^ was but alive, and read 
 those letters I have referred to. Charming, charming, 
 incomparable Mahon ! But I must not depart from 
 business. I am sure it will be unnecessary, my dear 
 Lord, for me to point out to you how essential it is 
 that the place of Mahon's abode, and the names of his 
 deliverers, should be kept a profound secret ; of course 
 I mean merely confided to his own family. On their 
 goodness of mind 1 rely in his meeting with indulgence, 
 and that they will be pleased at finding a young man, 
 brought up both with the worst public and private 
 principles, still adhering to those which have so much 
 distinguished various branches of the family he be- 
 longs to." 
 
 She further promised that Lord Chatham should 
 forward to him a letter from her brother, containing 
 " a formal statement of what passed between him 
 and his father before he left Chevening. I think it 
 
 * His grandmother. 
 
1776-1803] BURTON PYNSENT 15 
 
 will be unnecessary for me, either to enter upon a 
 justification of conduct which requires none, or to 
 anticipate your opinion upon the subject, particularly 
 when you have read the letter I allude to, which does 
 equal credit to heart and understanding." 
 
 A copy of this statement was sent to her relations 
 in Scotland,^ to whom she also wrote ; and Lord Had- 
 dington, in his reply, takes the opportunity of giving 
 her some excellent advice. 
 
 Lord Haddington to Lady Hester 
 
 " I am truly happy that your brother is in all proba- 
 bility comfortably and advantageously settled, and I 
 have no doubt he will prove everything his friends 
 can wish, both in public and private life. . . . Your 
 grandmother, Lady Stanhope, has not written to me 
 since your brother's departure, nor I to her. She 
 was in the habit of writing to me from time to time 
 kind letters of enquiry, but at no time confiden- 
 tially. . . . Your dear mother, of whom you can have 
 but a faint remembrance, if at all . . . was a woman 
 rarely to be met with, wise, temperate, and prudent, by 
 nature cheerful and without levity, a warm friend, and 
 free from all the petty vices that attend little minds. 
 I am sure if she could now communicate her ideas, her 
 advice to you would be to act steadily, without fear, 
 when you had well considered what was to be done ; 
 to do all the good within your reach in the present 
 circumstances of your family, and when it should seem 
 helpless and out of reach, to preserve as much as 
 possible a prudent silence to all but tried friends. . . ." 
 
 Lady Hester to Lord Haddington 
 
 " I think I am not like Grandmama Stanhope, as I 
 have troubled you sufficiently with my family affairs. 
 
 ^ Her grandfather, Philip, second Earl, had married Grizel Hamil- 
 ton, sister of Thomas, seventh Earl of Haddington, and a grand- 
 daughter of the famous Lady Grizel Baillie. 
 
i6 ^'THE LOGICIAN" [ch. i 
 
 Lady Chatham desires I will name her kindly to you. 
 She has taken away my letter, or rather expressed a 
 wish to keep it, from the character it contains of my 
 dear mother. You have no idea what a sweet, amiable 
 creature my cousin Harriet Eliot ^ is, and what friends 
 
 we are." 
 
 She was not so fond of receiving advice as of 
 giving it, but she appreciated Lord Haddington's. 
 '*I have lately," she tells Mr. Jackson, ''received the 
 prettiest and most sensible letter in the world from 
 Lord Haddington " ; then, after quoting it, she adds, 
 " Vastly good advice, I think ; and I am vastly glad 
 he takes things thus." 
 
 One of her principal objects had been to guard the 
 two younger brothers who remained in thraldom from 
 any suspicion of having abetted or known of my 
 father's escape. "For if some precautions are not 
 taken," she writes, "they will be flogged to death to 
 make them confess what they are really ignorant of." 
 Her father's outburst of fury at finding himself tricked, 
 proved, however, less formidable than she had anti- 
 cipated. "The 'Logician'" (her nickname for him) 
 "often has said that from the hour I was born I had 
 been a stranger to fear. I certainly felt no fear when 
 he held a knife to my throat — only pity for the arm 
 that held it ; but this was a sort of feeling I should 
 rather not again experience ; therefore the understand- 
 ing that he remains quiet, and employs others, is a 
 great satisfaction to me. Otherwise I should be in 
 some dread of seeing him here and going through 
 some of those scenes which I have unfortunately so 
 often before witnessed. But I would rather stand a 
 dozen of them than that his suspicions should fall 
 right." He expressed sorrow as well as anger, and 
 my poor grandmother was in deep affliction. 
 
 Lady Hester forwarded a copy of the statement she 
 had sent to Lord Glastonbury (see p. 12) to the family 
 lawyer, Mr. Murray, for his inspection, saying that 
 her brother had written it — 
 
 * The daughter of her mother's sister, Lady Harriet Pitt, the wife 
 of the Honourable Edward Ehot, eldest son of Lord Eliot of St. 
 Germans. She died in child-bed in 1786. 
 
1 7 76-1803] CHEVENING~.BURTON PYNSENT 17 
 
 " To show to those persons I may wish his conduct to 
 appear to in a proper light.^ . . . Now let me ask, 
 what could he have done, in this case, better than 
 what he has ? Reasoning was in vain ! Had he con- 
 tinued at Chevening, this was his prospect, to have 
 continued to live the unhappy and unprofitable life he 
 has borne for so many years ; when he came of age, to 
 be persecuted to cut off the entail, which, had he still 
 refused to comply with, his life would have been made 
 more wretched than ever ; at one-and-twenty to have 
 only begun to have thought of shifting for himself, and 
 applying to his friends. From want of instruction he 
 could not have been put forward in the world ; this 
 would have been a great disadvantage, which will not 
 now exist. As to having agreed to his father's pro- 
 posals respecting the entail, no person could dream of 
 his doing an act so replete with folly, indeed, I may 
 say madness, as to ruin himself by giving his father 
 unlimited power over his future property, which he 
 would most undoubtedly have disposed of in the most 
 absurd and unwarrantable manner; and certainly 
 have taken out of the country, as I have frequently 
 heard him declare he would do, if he could obtain the 
 power. ... How distressing it is for each branch of 
 his family in turn to take up arms against him in their 
 own defence! Bad as things have been, I have cer- 
 tainly no reason to complain ; on the contrary, to be 
 thankful that they have turned out as they have, all 
 things considered. Lucy provided for, Mr. Tekell's 
 situation so much improved by his late employment,^ 
 Mahon in the hands of friends, who must be powerful, 
 as you may suppose, to have taken upon their hands 
 a youth without a shiUing. Yet all this does not pre- 
 
 ^ I have found no copy of this statement. 
 
 2 In both cases through the kindness of Mr. Pitt, 
 
1 8 MR. T. J. JACKSON [ch. i 
 
 vent a wish existing that my father, for his own sake, 
 would think better of his conduct, because he does not 
 know in what manner it may be investigated when 
 Mahon comes of age. How much it will become the 
 topic of conversation in the world, and what disgrace 
 it will for ever reflect upon him! Besides, by his mode 
 of proceeding, he is entirely depriving himself of all 
 domestic comfort. . . . Lord Lansdowne, his great 
 friend, has taken decided part against him. He not 
 only made every offer of protection to my brother, 
 when I named to him at Bath his escape, but has since 
 written to me to desire I would assure Mahon of his 
 earnest good wishes, and to say that if his name could 
 be of any use to him (while abroad) it was at his com- 
 mand, as well as any other service he could possibly 
 render him at any time. Lord L., though he truly pities 
 my father, sees things in a right light, and knows that 
 opposing his conduct is the only likely way of inducing 
 him to change it, and make him see he is wrong." 
 
 Lady Hester was deeply grateful to Mr. Jackson for 
 all he had done to help her brother, who personally 
 was an entire stranger to him ; and she kept up a 
 close correspondence with this kind and valued friend 
 for the next eight years. He preserved her letters, 
 and in 1862 his widow handed them over to my 
 brother. I will give some extracts from them : 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, T. J. Jackson 
 
 "- Bennet Street, Bath, 
 
 ^^Ja7iuary^ 1 80 1 
 
 " The Duke of York, Colonels Fitzgerald and Taylor, 
 the Duchess, Lady Ann Smith, and my old friend and 
 great favourite CuUen (Charles), are arrived. I expect 
 the latter every moment. I wish you were here now. 
 Bath might, perhaps, turn out as pleasant as it did 
 five years ago. My present physician says he hopes 
 I shall be able to go back to Burton in a fortnight ; 
 
1776-1803] BATH— BURTON PYNSENT 19 
 
 that I must avoid being in town till late in the spring, 
 and till I am perfectly recovered. I have, therefore, 
 taken the determination to divert my thoughts by 
 travelling. I shall stay a short time at Burton, then 
 go into Northamptonshire, and then to Newmarket 
 for the Spring Meeting, which is the first week in 
 April. All this change of scene, and the weight {which 
 more than thanks to you) will be taken off my mind, 
 will, I trust, set me quite up again, if I am intended in 
 future to be good for anything." 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. T, /. Jackson 
 
 " Bath, 
 
 ** Febmary ind^ 1801. 
 
 " I have been out to-day with two delightful men. 
 One of them added his wife to the party, which was 
 an improvement, as she is a sweet creature. You can- 
 not wonder her husband is a favourite, when he sells 
 three-year-old colts for 300 guineas, and that he thinks 
 favourably of me ; for, poor creature as I am, I rode 
 a horse of his over a new-made hedge, a down leap 
 into the road, which quite won his heart. The other 
 is a clergyman, one of the first sportsmen in England, 
 and the dear friend of the chiefs of the Melton Hunt ; 
 and is so gentleman-like, so good-natured and agree- 
 able, that he is a prime favourite, and among the very 
 few men I have seen most likely to make a woman 
 happy. Yi\s future wife might be jealous if she heard 
 me say this ; if so, she is narrow-minded and unworthy 
 
 of him." 
 
 " Burton Pynsent, 
 
 ''March %th, 1801. 
 
 " 1 must thank you for your last long letter, and say 
 how much pleasure it gives me that you think thus 
 highly of Mahon. The praises of my horse I formerly 
 greatly preferred to my own; but now my whole 
 ambition is centred in my brother's turning out well. 
 
20 LADY HESTER'S "FIRST SORROW" [ch. i 
 
 *' There is one thing I must ask your opinion about 
 In a letter a few days ago from Lady Campbell, she 
 says : * Ramsay is at Vienna * ; and she hopes, as 
 Mahon is on the Continent, they will meet. Now do 
 you think Ramsay can be of any use or advantage to 
 Mahon ? Because I would write to him if you thought 
 so, for Ramsay is one of my oldest friends. Grand- 
 mama Stanhope brought up his sisters before I was 
 born ; and I believe when Ramsay was sent to school, 
 it was the first sorrow I ever felt, because he was my 
 playfellow, and, though so much older, condescended 
 to play with a little creature. He first went to school 
 at Sevenoaks, then at Westminster, and then to 
 college ; but during my grandfather's life Chevening 
 was always his home. When he went into the army he 
 ceased to want one, which, all things considered, was 
 rather lucky. For his poor horses, which still remained 
 there, occasionally at least, were not treated with the 
 same kindness everything which belonged to him once 
 experienced. . . . My sisters tell me that her Ladyship 
 has been writing lamentable accounts to her cousin, 
 Sir H. Hawley, and that he is rather of her side\ but 
 this I care nothing about. . . . Lady Stanhope has 
 also tried Sir J. Banks, but I was even with her, being 
 very much acquainted with a friend of his. Through 
 him Sir J. was set quite right on the subject, which he 
 is now greatly interested in. I never in the course of 
 my life was upon the look-out for money, but in this 
 one instance. Lady Stanhope, from Sir J. Banks having 
 no children, is his presumptive heir. But he may 
 leave his fortune to whom he pleases. My great wish 
 is that my darling Charles, his godson, should come 
 in for a share of his riches, and therefore it is important 
 he should know their situation. A second brother, 
 without a profession, Httle application, but the finest 
 
1776-1803] BURTON PYNSENT 21 
 
 mind, the most noble and generous spirit in the world, 
 money would be well bestowed upon. Charles is by 
 nature my favourite, though he has the least ability of 
 the three, but a degree of openness and good-nature 
 which wins every heart, and an air of nobility his 
 quizzical education cannot destroy ; for in the black- 
 smith's forge ^ he looks like a gentleman. He is 
 beyond everything popular in the county, and two 
 years ago, with a little of my assistance, the farmers 
 kept him a small pack of harriers, which the good 
 people knew nothing of. ... I feel tolerably well pro- 
 tected from the rioters, since a detachment of the isth 
 Light Dragoons are come to our assistance. Two or 
 three corps of Quizzes are going to be broke for their 
 gallant conduct of late. Expense to no purpose from 
 beginning to end, except to make people laugh, that is 
 all the use they have ever been of." 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. T. /. Jackson 
 
 "Burton Pynsent, 
 
 "•^ March lotk, 1801. 
 
 **I had much conversation with the Marquis" (of 
 Buckingham) ** at Bath, and when I pretended to be 
 ignorant of Mahon's fate, he told me that if I could 
 possibly discover him, he requested I would offer 
 Mahon his protection, and tell him that under his roof 
 he should ever find a home. He said he would not 
 offer to be a mediator, because he knew that reasoning 
 was in vain, but that he would take any step I might 
 point out to him as likely to be serviceable. I thanked 
 him, and said all I believed he could do would be, in 
 case Lord S. should make any complaints to him, to 
 ask him if he had not some reproaches to make him- 
 
 * My grandfather, in pursuance of his plan of education, had 
 apprenticed him to a blacksmith. James, I believe, was to have 
 been a shoemaker. 
 
2 2 SIR FRANCIS BURDETT [ch. i 
 
 self, respecting his conduct to his son, that the step 
 he had taken was the natural consequence of it, and 
 that he had only himself to blame. That in order to 
 secure the affections of his other sons, he should 
 recommend to him a change in his conduct towards 
 them, or they might also follow their brother's 
 example ; and a great deal more of this sort of thing, 
 he promised to say. ... I wish Dumont would tell 
 George, for want of further information, what high 
 favour I am in with his Lordship, and that he had 
 employed a young artist to take my picture, which I 
 should have been betrayed into,^ had it not been for 
 my maid, who discovered the commission, which he 
 was much too full of, as well as the old Marquis's 
 nonsense, to keep to himself. He chose a happy 
 moment to have the likeness of a dying saint or 
 sinner. ... I have torn off part of Charles Baillie's 
 letter (enclosed) which talks of his children, and so 
 on, because you would laugh, and have no idea that 
 so handsome a man can be so domestic a creature." 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, T. J. Jackson 
 
 " Burton Pynsent, 
 
 ^^ March lyth^ 1801. 
 
 " I am vastly sorry you have had so much trouble 
 about the money. As I have often said, I never could 
 discover but one fault in my friend's" (Sir Francis 
 Burdett) " character, compiled of a peculiar talent for 
 making jumbles, with a vast share of absence and 
 inattention. As for his brother" (William Jones Bur- 
 dett)** one had as well attempt to catch a bird upon 
 the wing; and as for writing to him, if a letter reaches 
 him in a week I think it a fortunate traveller, for it 
 will probably have been at fifty places, unless perad- 
 
 ^ She had a rooted objection to sitting for her picture. 
 
1776-1803] BURTON PYNSENT 23 
 
 venture it halted in the pocket of the elder, which 
 latterly has annoyed me so much that the last I wrote 
 to him was in form as large as a Secretary of State's 
 despatch, which I thought might prevent its being so 
 detained, as its companions would probably expel it 
 upon the system of equality. Now, what do you say 
 to my thus quizzing my best friends ? But after all 
 I have no doubt but that it was this talent which 
 originally made them such. Indeed, 1 am sure of it. 
 ... A Genevese watchmaker is sure that he met 
 Mahon a fortnight ago in St. James Street. It is all 
 so good, so vastly good ! " 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson 
 
 "Burton Pynsent, 
 
 ^^ March 19/-^, 1801. 
 
 " Mahon says he bought a travelling carriage at 
 Cuxhaven for ten guineas, which is very strong and 
 convenient — a pretty sort of quiz it must be. He does 
 not like going so slow, not much above two miles an 
 hour. . . . Grandmama is quite dehghted with the 
 account he gives of himself and of his happiness. 
 You have no idea of the terms of gratitude he ex- 
 presses towards his friends who have thus liberated 
 him. He is anxious to get to Erlang to pursue his 
 studies ; nothing, he adds, shall equal his application.'* 
 
 "Burton Pynsent, 
 
 ^^ March 20th, 1 801. 
 
 "The Scotch clan have been all kindness and 
 civility; but my Marquis as yet outdoes them all. I 
 had such a letter from him when he returned me the 
 Cuxhaven letter" (from her brother), '* first saying the 
 honour all this reflected upon Mahon, and contrived 
 to bring me in for a share of it, but how I cannot 
 exactly tell, for he does not know how I am concerned 
 in it ; but I suppose he has a shrewd guess, but that 
 
24 RIOTS IN THE COUNTRY [ch. i 
 
 is neither here nor there. . . . Lord Glastonbury is 
 trustee,^ vastly clever, and vastly good, but has 10,000 
 fiddle-faddles and quirks, and I daresay is in an agony 
 for fear he should get into some scrape ; and besides, 
 he is not well, and is vastly nervous at this moment, 
 so much so that I have had a fine prose from him 
 about my health, and desiring me not to ride, for he 
 will take it into his head that it has half killed me, 
 when I was never so well in my life as when I rode 
 for years at least twenty miles a day, and often forty. 
 
 "Thank you very much for enquiring after me. I 
 am tolerable, but as Mr. Elwes would say, * quite out 
 of condition ' ; and for me to attempt the dissipation 
 of London would be something like running a horse 
 that had not been in training, a vastly bad thing both 
 for the poor horse and the spectators. As for going 
 to balls to see my Lady Agnes,^ or to other charming 
 things, and not be the gayest of the gay, would be as 
 painful as impossible to me. It is not that I am either 
 vapourish or have a sulky fit upon me, but I wish to 
 see how things turn out before I think of amusement, 
 and upon their decision will greatly depend perhaps 
 how far I am capable of enjoying it.'* 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, T. J. Jackson 
 
 "Burton Pynsent, 
 
 ^' March 31^/, 1801. 
 
 " We have sad riotous doings here ; mobs every day 
 all round the country. The women are the worst; 
 they put a rope about a farmer's neck a few days ago, 
 and threatened to tighten it if he did not instantly sign 
 a paper to promise to sell his corn at los. a bushel, 
 which of course he did, and so have many others. 
 
 * Of my grandmother's marriage settlement. 
 
 ^ There are many allusions in the letters to this lady, with whom 
 Mr. Jackson was presumed to be in love. 
 
1 776-1803] BURTON PYNSENT 25 
 
 Certainly the farmers' conduct is shameful, and people 
 cannot starve ; but if the mob once begin to regulate 
 the price of provisions it will not stop there. 
 
 *^My military spirit always despised as well as 
 opposed the Volunteer Associations : first, because 
 they were quizzical; and secondly, because I was 
 sure they would be useless, if not mischievous. The 
 first, hereabouts they have completely proved. Some 
 refused to act at all ; others wished to go over to the 
 mob, but were prevented and their arms taken from 
 them ; this though was only a few individuals. But 
 the worst of all was a troop of Yeoman Cavalry, being 
 called out to quell a riot obeyed very readily ; but the 
 mob surrounded the Captain the moment they arrived 
 at the place of destination, and all the rest galloped 
 away ; and if it had not been for the regulars^ and his 
 signing the paper they wished, I do not know what 
 would have become of the poor gentleman. Now, what 
 do you say to this ; and am I not extremely civil when 
 I know I am not addressing one of the delightful 
 loth Light Dragoons, though a Light Horseman? . . . 
 
 ** Don't say bore another time, because what interests 
 you (though it might not please me) can never do that. 
 Nor can I see why public tranquillity should be so 
 nearly allied to private concerns, because the greater 
 row there is in the world the more people will be 
 wanted to set it all to rights again, and when it is not 
 play fools stand less chance of being employed. I 
 hope you admire this logical reasoning." 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. T. J, Jackson 
 
 *' Burton Pynsent, 
 
 ^^ April i^th^ 1 801. 
 
 "Mahon writes in high spirits. Says he is much 
 pleased with the Professor (who in fact is an excellent 
 
26 BATTLE OF THE BALTIC [ch. i 
 
 creature, and having travelled a good deal is more a 
 man of the world than the generality of Professors), 
 that he was entered at the University and was forth- 
 with to begin his studies. He had been introduced 
 to the Margravine, and had dined with her. . . . 
 
 '*The Margravine writes me a long letter, and 
 begins with her benediction for having saved a young 
 plant (as she calls Mahon) from the infernal principles 
 of Jacobinism. She expresses herself in the highest 
 terms of approbation of him, and her surprise (she is 
 an admirable judge on this point) at the ease and 
 manliness of his address and manners. This surprise 
 originates, of course, in what I had told her of his 
 style of life at home. He seems to be quite familiar 
 in French, and promises a rapid progress in German. 
 The old lady concludes, ' Enfin, je vous promets que 
 nous en ferons un sujet utile et honnete.' " 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, T, J. Jackson 
 
 " Burton Pynsent, 
 
 ''April i^th, 1801. 
 
 " What glorious news ! ^ I think croaking will 
 soon be at an end. Poor Riou, what fun I once had 
 aboard his ship! Peace to the souls of the heroes 
 who fell in battle. Drummond's trunks and boxes — 
 oh, excellent ! 1 hope Persia was of the party, detest- 
 able as they tell me. I hate him. He calls me ' Bac- 
 chante,' and is always quoting the Lord knows what. 
 
 ** Thanks for your news.^ I have been going to be 
 married fifty times in my life; said to have been 
 married half as often, and run away with once. But 
 
 ^ The Battle of the Baltic, fought on April 2nd, in which Lord 
 Nelson destroyed the Danish fleet. 
 
 * Mr. Jackson had written from London : " In point of chat, we 
 hear only of a few marriages about to be, . . . and the last, not the 
 least, Lady Hester Stanhope to Mr. Methuen, junior, of Corsham. 
 You shall have my congratulations, but, upon Lord Lyttelton's plan, 
 when they become due." 
 
1776-1803] BURTON PYNSENT— BROMLEY 27 
 
 provided I have my own way, the world may have 
 theirs and welcome. . ;. How violent the Baronet" 
 (Burdett) " has been in the house lately ! Oh, fie ! he 
 wants a lecture." 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, T. J, Jackson 
 
 '' April \^th, 1 801. 
 
 " Oh ! delightful, charming ! this evening's post has 
 not only brought me your letter, but a volume from Mr. 
 Pitt. I did not tell you, but I had written to him a few 
 days ago, being rather tired of suspense \ ^ and he says 
 he received my letter and Mahon's at the same time. 
 Mr. Pitt speaks in the highest terms of approbation 
 of all that has been done, which pleases me mightily, 
 and gives me every assurance that both now and 
 hereafter he will do everything in his power for dear 
 Mahon. I was all sure of that; but still it pleases 
 me vastly to hear it repeated, and to know that he 
 has seen you, because things will go on well now. He 
 likewise appears to be so happy and well ; for he says 
 that what with the luxury of living with his friends 
 and the improvement in public affairs, his only appre- 
 hension will be that of growing too fat for horseman's 
 weight, at least as a companion in my rides. I cer- 
 tainly shall do much wiser to keep to my intention of 
 seeing a good deal of him this summer, than allow 
 myself to be hitched into the dissipation of a camp, 
 instead of enjoying his society, from which I shall 
 derive much more rational pleasure and more profit. 
 How instinct taught me to love this * Great Man,' and 
 if I had not kept sight of him, at a distance^ what 
 would have become of us all ? He means to come 
 here in the summer. ... I shall burn the letters 
 Mahon told me he should enclose for his Scotch 
 
 * Regarding Mr. Pitt's opinion as to her brother's escape from 
 Chevening. 
 
28 LORD HADDINGTON [ch. i 
 
 relations, except the one for Binning. He is a charm- 
 ing young man,i though older than Mahon, a very 
 proper friend for him ; and I have very great regard 
 for his father and mother, the latter, sister to Lady 
 Jane Dundas. The two Baillies, not being of Mahon's 
 standing, though fine young men in themselves, will 
 never be companions for him, and I do not know it 
 would be altogether to his advantage, as they are — 
 at least George — dreadfully wild. Charles, since he 
 married, has thought better of it." 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. T. /. Jackson 
 
 "WiCKHAM, Bromley 
 
 (the house of her sister Lucy), 
 
 ^^ June 2nd ^ 1801. 
 
 " I hardly expected to see you here, because I took 
 it for granted you were much engaged at this moment ; 
 yet as Sunday is rather an idle day, and knowing you 
 would not particularly regret your ride in the park, 
 I thought, had the weather been fine, you might 
 possibly have taken a gallop this way. . . . Should 
 anything particular occur in conversation with the 
 * Great Man' on the morning. you receive this, which 
 at all presses you should be informed of, I will leave 
 a note for you as I go out of town. But I shall not 
 let you off without coming here before I depart for 
 the North (oh, charming, delightful scheme, better than 
 fifty balls), because you must see my beautiful sister. 
 
 "Sad weather for reviews. I wish the Prince would 
 wait till it was better. Suppose his horse should 
 slip up ! " 
 
 * Afterwards, as Earl of Haddington, First Lord of the Admiralty, 
 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, etc. I knew him in his old age, and I, 
 too, thought him charming. He confided to me that his first love 
 had been his cousin Lucy Stanhope ; and that he had intended to 
 propose to her as soon as she was out of the schoolroom. But she 
 was married before she left it. 
 
29 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. T, /. Jackson 
 
 " Dawlish, 
 
 '' October \Wi, 1801. 
 
 " I .shall not at this moment take a retrospective 
 view of Mahon's concerns, or of my own peregrina- 
 tions, but give you the piece of information I longed 
 to communicate, viz. : that I may perhaps see Mahon 
 before you. Mr. and Mrs. Egerton have only been 
 waiting till peace was made to go abroad, which they 
 now intend to do next May. They have "asked me 
 to accompany them, and also for Mahon to join us for 
 as long or short a time as he may like. They propose 
 going through Germany and Switzerland, and to 
 winter at either Naples or Florence, and to take Paris 
 on [their iway home. They have not yet formally 
 announced their intention to their friends — old aunts, 
 &c., I mean — so I do not of course generally speak of 
 it. I hasten to tell you for this reason, that I may 
 have your candid opinion upon the advantage it would 
 be to Mahon, were he to join our party in Italy. 
 Should you think him better elsewhere, I would 
 gladly give up (happy as his society would make 
 me) any claims upon him ; but it strikes me, recom- 
 mended as my party would be through me, it would 
 be very advantageous to Mahon, for the only difference 
 would be that the niece, instead of the nephew, would 
 be the bearer of the credentials * great men ' have to 
 bestow. Also, as Mr. and Mrs. E.'s plans depend 
 greatly upon me — I mean respecting the places they 
 visit — I shall form them a little according to yours, 
 for should you be appointed to reside in any place 
 we could possibly take in our tour, it would give me 
 peculiar satisfaction to visit your Court, and see you 
 in all your glory. . . . You will, perhaps, wonder at 
 my not having fixed upon more dashing persons for 
 
30 THE KING AT WEYMOUTH [ch. i 
 
 companions. In that case we must all have dashed 
 away together; in the present case I shall have perfect 
 liberty to act in all respects as is most pleasing to 
 myself, and in so doing be certain of pleasing them. 
 They want a companion, and I want a nominal 
 chaperone. Besides, they are excellent good people ; 
 she is very sensible, and he vastly good-natured, but 
 vastly shy, and not briUiant; but, as I do not shine 
 through the medium of another person's husband, 
 that is of no consequence to me. ... I must tell you 
 I have been to Weymouth. The King was so gracious, 
 and made me a million of fine speeches upon my 
 conduct, &c. The Queen so civil; she waived my 
 not having been to Court, and asked me to join one 
 of her parties. I have made quite a friendship with 
 the Princess Mary, who I think quite unlike the others. 
 '* I have not room to tell you of the military honours 
 1 received at camp, and what a great General they 
 think me. A whole regiment saluted me (illegible) 
 eyes right. Officers* swords dropped. Oh, charming ! " 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson 
 
 *' Dawlish, 
 
 ** October ^ist, 1 8oi . 
 
 "From my heart do I rejoice at your good fortune!^ 
 Great as it is, it hardly equals your deserts. Glory 
 be to thee, oh Minister! but witness it we shall not. 
 It is impossible for my friends to leave this country 
 before May ; and as everything will appear dull after 
 Paris, that we mean to take the last. ... I must not, 
 cannot, take up your time further than thanking you 
 cordially for sparing a moment to communicate the 
 welcome intelligence to me. To hear from you often 
 will be out of the question, but I trust I shall now 
 
 ^ His appointment as Minister at Berlin. 
 
3^ 
 
 and then; in which case you had better direct your 
 letters to me at Lord Chatham's, St. James's Square, 
 and they will be sent me, be I where I may, and do not 
 at least fail of sending me your proper direction, with 
 all your honours attached, for surely an * &c. &c.' can 
 never explain them all." 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, T, J. Jackson 
 
 " Seymour Street, 
 
 ^^ February y^d^ 1802. 
 
 "I feel shocked at my own ingratitude! Never 
 
 answered your last kind letter! I wrote to Mahon 
 
 in your strain, and enclosed a letter from higher 
 
 powers to the same effect. But since that time the 
 
 boys have talked of walking off to seek their fortunes 
 
 without a plan. Therefore, to prevent this, one has 
 
 been sent to sea, and the other has a commission, 
 
 which will be made public in a few days. He also 
 
 is going abroad. All has turned out wonderfully, but 
 
 I have been worried to death. The Duke " (of York) 
 
 "has behaved wonderfully. I will write you more 
 
 in full very shortly, when I feel I can breathe. I saw 
 
 them both^ and I thought they would have devoured 
 
 me. The little one never shed a tear, but was off to his 
 
 ship the same night. The Captain charmed with him." 
 
 " Seymour Street, 
 
 ^^ February I'^th, 1802. 
 
 "You will, I am sure, be happy to hear that all 
 goes on well. Charles has a commission in the 
 2Sth Foot, now at Gibraltar, and also he has a letter 
 from the Duke's Office to join immediately; yet he 
 has leave to accompany me to Burton, as his health 
 is much injured; but I hope he will soon recover. 
 I heard to-day from James's Captain (a great friend 
 of mine) ; he says he never had a boy before in his 
 ship he was so fond of. They have made a dreadful 
 fuss at Chevening; but fear has prevented their 
 
32 CHARLES STANHOPE [ch. i 
 
 stirring from that spot. Conceive my joy at having 
 Charles as my companion at Burton. Do write to 
 me, to v^ish me success in making him a good soldier. 
 Lord C." (Chatham) " says no general officer can do 
 it better than myself. This * My Lord ' has for a 
 wonder exerted himself, and since Charles has had 
 his commission, he has taken him into his own house. 
 He looks in future to an Honble. Aide-de-camp. Inde- 
 pendent Honourables do not like to belittle better than 
 valets. ... If I may ask a question of you, how is Lord 
 Camelford ? I like him better than people do in general, 
 and am anxious about him, after the strange reports I 
 have heard ; but do not answer if you do not like it." 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, T. /. Jackson 
 
 " Burton Pynsent, 
 
 '' April 2Wi, 1802. 
 
 " As I cannot, my dear friend, welcome your return 
 in person, I depute Charles to do it for me ; and at 
 the same time give him the opportunity of becoming 
 acquainted with one to whom his brother is indebted 
 for his present happiness ; which happiness being so 
 much connected with the general happiness of us all, 
 makes it really necessary that you should be bored 
 with our acknowledgments individually. I hope you 
 will allow Charles to see as much of you as he can 
 during his stay in town, I mean without interfering 
 with more important business. You will, I flatter 
 myself, not omit giving him your opinion and advice 
 on any subject on which it strikes vou he reauires 
 it. . . . You will not find him well informed^ like 
 Mahon; but he has the noblest mind in the world, 
 and what is seldom united, the highest spirit, with the 
 reflection of a man twice his age. 
 
 '' I shall be in town about the end of next month. 
 Remember, should you visit your mother at Bath, I 
 
33 
 shall take it quite ill if you do not come to see me 
 here, and visit the shades once frequented by my 
 illustrious Grandfather." 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, T, /. Jackson 
 
 "Burton Pynsent, 
 
 ^^May27ih^ 1802. 
 
 " I am anxious to talk to you of the dear boys, and 
 tell you of my growing passion for the Navy, and of 
 the happiness I have lately experienced in seeing the 
 little sailor. I am determined to think that this pro- 
 fession requires a man to be handsome, elegant, and 
 agreeable ; to have genius, as well as understanding. 
 Otherwise, I should regret that those qualities are 
 likely not to bear their true value, in that sort of life 
 this darling little fellow is about to lead. If I were 
 to be mast-headed this moment, I could not tell which 
 of the three I feel the most interest in ; but certainly 
 the future Admiral is the only one calculated to 
 interest a stranger. The attentions several Captains 
 have shown him, without knowing who he is, suffi- 
 ciently prove this. The first long voyage he takes, 
 he will bear his own name, which he has not hitherto 
 done, neither do any part of the family. . . . Charlie's 
 concerns I take for granted you are well acquainted 
 with from himself. I long to hear your opinion of 
 him ; I know it will be a candid one, therefore will 
 have the greater weight. He has really, I think, one 
 of the most honourable of characters, but not the 
 parts of either of his brothers. With his strong 
 affections, and determined spirit, brilliancy perhaps 
 (all things considered), he is as well without. The 
 very humble idea he has of himself, and the situation 
 of his family, so much affecting his mind, and indeed 
 often extremely oppressing his spirits, makes me 
 always anxious to a degree to encourage him, and 
 
 4 
 
34 PRINCE WILLIAM ' [ch. i 
 
 not suffer him either to feel his misfortunes, or the 
 contrast which might be drawn between him and his 
 younger brother. One thing about him disturbs me 
 a good deal, he could write hardly legibly when he 
 came from Chevening ; but now his hand is tolerable, 
 yet he cannot spell three words. I know a Member 
 of the House of Commons who has very fine abilities, 
 but whose education was much neglected early in life, 
 and who writes at this moment most abominably. A 
 friend of his has often told me that having tried in 
 vain to improve himself, he had now given up the 
 point, and seldom or ever wrote but to those whose 
 indulgence he could rely on. Now should this in 
 future be Charles's case, it would be a shocking thing, 
 and particularly as he will be, as early as possible, 
 made an Aide-de-camp. Do pray give him a little 
 advice on the subject; and put him in the best way 
 of improving himself; and persuade him that con- 
 fessing his ignorance at a time when it may be 
 accounted for, is better than hereafter remaining a 
 dunce. To be sure I need not talk in this way, 
 because three out of the six have the same fault, more 
 or less ; but still it does not prevent my seeing the con- 
 sequence it is to a man in particular to write well." ^ 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson 
 
 " Burton Pynsent, 
 
 ''''June I2,th (1802). 
 
 ** And pray who gave you leave to suppose Prince 
 WiUiam ^ was not admired by me ? Ask Ebrington 
 and Hamilton if your ideas are just? Let me then 
 inform you, I think your friend a very amiable young 
 man, remarkably well-intentioned, acting like a sen- 
 sible man, though in appearance not a brilliant one : 
 
 ' Charles certainly profited by these admonitions, for all the letters 
 of his that I have seen are well written, and perfectly well spelt. 
 » Afterwards William IV., "the Sailor King." 
 
35 
 and I do flatter myself, had your most excellent plan 
 been put in execution, he would have taken a little 
 care of the dear midshipman, not even so much on 
 your account, as for the sake of a cause v^hich he used 
 formerly to profess himself interested in. Now you 
 see I can be saucy when you displease me by forming 
 a premature judgment upon my opinions. However, 
 I ought to feel flattered with the knowledge of their 
 agreeing in one respect; your thinking Dalton a 
 proper man to take care of my little fellow, proves 
 you must think not ill of wild men, and that you 
 cannot be astonished at my thinking so well of Jack,^ 
 who, with Dalton, thinks it, I suppose, praiseworthy 
 to break all hearts which come in his way. Let me 
 think what I may of Dalton, it would even require 
 more courage than that which I am possessed of, to 
 dare to give my opinion were it an unfavourable one, 
 because it is high treason in Kent not to be actually 
 smitten with your friend. However, of treason I 
 may be acquitted, and only found guilty of sedition, 
 for venturing at one period of my life to like a then 
 constant companion of Dalton's better than himself; 
 but most probably his vanity never led him to make 
 this discovery, and therefore I shall be able to get 
 rid of any indictment upon this head, which it may 
 please my countrywomen to bring against me. Now 
 I have waged war a little against you, I must come to 
 something like business. ... I certainly (from my 
 friends being detained by their business in Cheshire) 
 shall not be able to reach town till the very end of 
 July. Should you be hurried away, if you do not 
 visit me here, I shall not see you at all^ and that 
 will be inexpressibly provoking ; in short, a thing that 
 must not be ; for I have a million of things to say about 
 
 1 Her cousin, Captain Murray, R.N. 
 
36 TOUR ON THE CONTINENT [ch. i 
 
 Mahon, because Mr. Pitt did hint at sending him to 
 whatever Court you went to, to finish his education ; 
 and I want to talk about all this, and many other things. 
 ** Lady Chatham desires me to say, that if you can 
 excuse indisposition preventing her receiving you her- 
 self, she shall be very happy to invite you to Burton if 
 you can come. . . . Dear Grandmama's health having 
 undergone so great a change since I arrived in the 
 winter, has been at times the source not only of un- 
 easiness, but of melancholy reflection, as when I once 
 part with her, I have little chance of ever seeing her 
 again. You will see her^ only I cannot promise you 
 much of her society. ... I have made a fine hurried 
 scribble of this, for when returning home from walk- 
 ing, I met with a protege of Grandmama's, who is just 
 made a Post Captain, and he kept me so long talking 
 about Pompey's Pillar (which he has brought me a 
 piece of), and his last voyage, and future plans, that I 
 have hardly any time before me to write. . . . Whatever 
 spell keeps you at Bath will, I trust, be broken by the 
 incantations of the little Witches which seal this letter." 
 
 In the following September Lady Hester left England 
 with Mr. and Mrs. Egerton. The parting from old 
 Lady Chatham must have been very trying. ** Grand- 
 mama will hardly let me out of her sight," she says 
 in one of her letters, ** now that she is to lose me so 
 soon " ; and both must have felt how uncertain it was 
 they should ever meet again. In those days, too, a 
 tour on the Continent was somewhat of a formidable, 
 if not a venturesome, undertaking, and the amount of 
 preparation it entailed would strike a modern traveller 
 dumb. Now, whatever quarter of the globe he may 
 wish to visit, he has only to ^*take his tickets," pack 
 up, and go. Then, home affairs had to be settled and 
 provided for during an absence of many months, " the 
 handsomest and most commodious travelling carriage 
 that Leader ever built" ordered, servants engaged, 
 advice taken as to the safest routes, and lamentable 
 
37 
 
 tales of robberies ("but for these," says Lady Hester, 
 " I care nothing ") listened to. Thus it was that eleven 
 months had elapsed before Mr. Egerton's project could 
 be carried into execution. 
 
 Before joining her travelling companions at Dover, 
 Lady Hester paid a visit to Mr. Pitt at Walmer Castle. 
 She found him seriously ill ^ : 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, T, J, Jackson 
 
 ^*^ September 2\st^ 1802, 
 
 "Even the illness of my dear uncle has not made 
 me quite forget the request you made me; but the 
 first thing I must say is that, thank God ! he is quite 
 recovered, and if he was to be ill, perhaps my having 
 the opportunity of showing him I have talents as a 
 nurse is better than his having had to nurse himself. 
 
 ** I am enchanted with everything here. I have 
 never seen the face of a woman till to-day. Charm- 
 ing! — nothing but pleasant men. But I leave them 
 all on Thursday. 
 
 **Now for the print. Edridge, who lives in some 
 street leading out of Cavendish Square, has just made 
 a new drawing of Mr. Pitt ; they say very like.^ My 
 favourite is from a picture by Gainsborough, and can 
 be had if you give the commission to somebody who 
 understands the thing. 
 
 " I am to meet Mahon in three weeks, and he is to 
 travel some time with me and return by sea." 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, T, J. Jackson 
 
 " Turin, 
 
 *' October 2^tk, 1802. 
 
 **As far as I can judge, Mahon appears to have 
 made great progress in every branch of learning, and 
 to be remarkably well versed in the politics of Europe. 
 
 ^ " The alarming symptoms, it is true, did not last very long," writes 
 his physician ; " but minutes in such a situation I found long hours. 
 The day is our own now and the last battle proves that the main- 
 springs are good." 
 
 ' My father always maintained it was the best likeness he had ever 
 seen. 
 
38 MEETS LORD MAHON [ch. i 
 
 He has the same good heart as ever, but, visibly, has 
 been flattered about his abilities, and converses not 
 pleasantly — too much like a Frenchman out of humour. 
 An immense quiz in his dress ; but that I have already 
 reformed in part. He speaks likewise in his usual 
 hurried manner, which he most positively must get 
 the better of; indeed, I have no doubt he will, if he 
 only takes pains, as he can speak extremely well 
 when he likes. This is one of the things 7nost likely 
 to annoy Mr. Pitt, and therefore you may imagine 
 how he is teazed about it. Here I am, therefore, in 
 quite a different character from that which I have 
 lately sported. I am for the present grown quite 
 steady again ; my head was turning very fast at 
 Walmer, but now I am tutor again, and, as I have not 
 much time to correct all the faults I wish done away 
 with ere my pupil returns to England, I must dedicate 
 myself completely to his service for some weeks to 
 come. . . . You, perhaps, are sufficiently acquainted 
 with my sentiments upon other subjects also to make 
 it unnecessary for me to communicate my ideas upon 
 what I have witnessed in my travels thus far. The 
 crossing Mont Cenis then is the only part I will touch 
 upon. I chose my own mule and muleteer, and left 
 the rest of the party to their frights and fears. The 
 day was divine, and I enjoyed it much ; a regiment of 
 horse crossed the mountain that day, which enlivened 
 the scene very considerably. I rode the whole way, 
 and my mule never made a false step. We arrived 
 here two days ago. The town I admire extremely, 
 but the inn is abominable, and so dark, that it is quite 
 like a prison. ... No English here but Lord Cowper, 
 who is going to Florence. . . . Mahon and his great 
 black poodle are making such a noise, it is in vain to 
 attempt to write commonsense.** 
 
39 
 
 Lady Hester to Lord Haddington 
 
 " Turin, 
 
 " October 2ythy 1802. 
 
 " You will not, I trust, take it ill that I left England 
 without congratulating you and dear Lady Hadding- 
 ton on your son's approaching marriage.^ Being at 
 Walmer during Mr. Pitt's illness so completely em- 
 ployed my thoughts, that I neglected writing many 
 letters I otherwise ought to have written. I have 
 remained in perfect ignorance of every transaction 
 both in public and in private life since I left England ; 
 therefore the marriage I here allude to may very 
 probably have taken place. If so, pray transfer to 
 the bridegroom Mahon's and my congratulations 
 and good wishes. This dear boy joined us at Lyons. 
 He has left Germany for good, and proceeds with me 
 to Italy, where he will embark for Gibraltar to see 
 dear Charles, and then return to England, to see what 
 he can make of his affairs. I suppose you know our 
 guardian angel has appointed him Lieut.-Governor of 
 Dover Castle, which is a very pleasant thing, consider- 
 ing who is his neighbour." 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, T, J. Jackson 
 
 " Naples, 
 
 ^''December i6tk^ 1802. 
 
 " I do not know if the hurried letter I wrote you 
 upon the road ever reached you. I sent it to Eng- 
 land, because I thought you great men are so fond of 
 delays, that in all probability it would find you there, 
 always going, and never gone. By this time you must 
 have entered on the duties of your station, and I trust 
 the ladies at Berlin have the same reason to praise you 
 as I have Drummond. 
 
 * To Lady Maria Parker, daughter of the Earl of Macclesfield* 
 
40 SOCIETY IN NAPLES [ch. i 
 
 "We are now the greatest friends in the world, 
 and a most agreeable man he is when one is once 
 thoroughly acquainted with him. I know how to 
 treat all this learning, which I take in turns to quiz 
 and admire. Some days I have no mercy upon him— 
 his books, his dress, his whims, &c.— at other times 
 I am all attention and unfeigned admiration of dif- 
 ferent works he has not published. The death of 
 Scipio, an unfinished tragedy, speaks the finest senti- 
 ments, and such as I wish all our rising young men 
 felt in their full force. ... I lament to a degree his 
 studying from morning till night, as he will kill him- 
 self, I fear. However, every moment not dedicated to 
 study, my company is hailed with apparent satisfac- 
 tion; he walks with me every day, takes me out in 
 his carriage, goes to the same parties in the evening ; 
 or if at home I go there, which I like of all things in 
 the world, for if Mrs. E. has a headache, it has often 
 happened for me to have found myself the only woman 
 of the party. Some play at cards, a serious sort of 
 whist; but out of the great number of Milords 
 Anglais, there are plenty of them to talk to ; but the 
 real fact is, that I find myself stand so well with D., 
 Mr. A'Court, and the amiable little secretary of the 
 former, that I rather prefer this party to any of the 
 other men. Lord Brooke is vastly handsome, and 
 vastly the man of fashion, to be sure. Lord Grantham 
 is, they say, very sensible, and is not unpleasing. Sir 
 Charles Douglas is very fond of fun, is good-natured 
 to a degree, but not so well in point of beauty as he 
 seems to think himself Lord Montague I cannot 
 abuse, even if I wished it ; he is so good a soul, and 
 so devoid of pretension. Here, then, are the most 
 distinguished of our beatix^ though Mr. Algernon 
 Percy would fain come forward at the head of the 
 
41 
 
 list ; but I shall put him in the background, as he is 
 no favourite of mine. Mr. Hope, Thomas Hope, I 
 think needs no description. Now for our gaieties: 
 Monday, Lady Neale gives a ball; Tuesday, our 
 Excellency, for the first time since he came here ; 
 Wednesday, a Russian countess ; Thursday, Mr. Hope, 
 another ball; and our young men, something either 
 Friday or Saturday. After what I have said of balls, 
 you must take it for granted that I am not unhappy 
 here ; but I believe you know me well enough to be 
 aware it requires a little more than unmeaning dis- 
 sipation to make a place pleasant to me. In this, then, 
 consists the merit of the place; there is dissipation 
 enough to please me (though they call it dull) ; there 
 are sensible men to converse with, and handsome 
 ones for an escort. I feel perfectly at home, and 
 satisfied I cannot do wrong, because Drummond is 
 too much interested in my welfare not to give me a 
 fine lecture if I did. So I go laughing and talking 
 on, and am very happy and very comfortable in every 
 respect, only dying to hear from England. It is now 
 seven weeks since any courier has arrived here ; but 
 Drummond expects one shortly, and then I hope to 
 get some letters, as they were all to come that way. 
 . . . Mahon left me at Florence on the i6th of Novem- 
 ber (I think it was) to embark at Leghorn in the 
 Greyhound, . . . Here the handsome Mylords inter- 
 rupted me on Sunday, and Drummond has since sent 
 me a letter, enclosed to him, from Mahon. The Grey- 
 hound cannot put to sea, the winds are so contrary ; 
 therefore, after having waited eleven days at Leghorn, 
 he determined to return home by land. His letter, 
 dated the 7th of December (his birthday, you know), 
 is a remarkably kind one, in which he begs me to give 
 him my opinion of his conduct without reserve, and 
 
42 RELATIONS WITH HER BROTHERS [ch. i 
 
 send him every instruction I may think necessary. I 
 am pleased with this, as it proves to me he is rather 
 changed since we parted, for he then thought no 
 person's judgment equal to his own ; in short, to say 
 the truth, his conduct disgusted me extremely, and I 
 am quite happy to discover that the society of a few 
 English at Leghorn has taught him he is not the 
 prodigy he thought he was. But all this, like every 
 other fault I may see either in his brothers or him- 
 self, I can but too easily pardon ; and if I am severe 
 towards them, it is only from a wish to see them all 
 perfection. . . . Mr. Egerton has been very unlucky 
 with his carriage, the cranes have broken twice ; but 
 such roads I think nobody yet travelled. ... 1 must 
 not finish after all without saying anything half so 
 delightful as the views, the country, and the climate, 
 no person who has always lived in England can have 
 an idea of." 
 
 From these letters it is clear that the once ** incom- 
 parable Mahon " was rapidly declining in her good 
 graces. Her love for her brothers was so essentially 
 maternal in its character, that it never struck her as 
 absurd for a young woman of twenty-six to act as 
 *' tutor " to a youth only a few years her junior. Hers 
 was the tyranny of affection, that admitted of no 
 independence of action or opinion, and tolerated no 
 judgment other than her own. She could not under- 
 stand that my father, who was then nearly of age, 
 and of whose '* shining abilities " she speaks in the 
 same letter, should claim a right to differ from her. 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. T, /. Jackson 
 
 " TONNINGEN, 
 
 ''''July ijth, 1803. 
 
 '* My packet from Venice (which I hope reached you 
 safe),^ spoke of my adventures in Italy, and we have 
 had nothing else since we left that place. Any reason- 
 
 * This letter is lost. 
 
f • 
 
 43 
 
 able set of beings who had determined to go home 
 through Germany would have chosen to take the 
 route through ,the places best worth seeing, more 
 especially Vienna and Berlin. Mr. and Mrs. Egerton's 
 object was Stuttgard, though neither of them were 
 personally recollected by the Electress. This silly 
 plan I did not, however, oppose, as I knew what 
 reception I was likely to meet with there. Nothing 
 could be more kind than the Electress was to me. 
 The terms in which she spoke of several branches 
 of my family could not fail of pleasing me, and I am 
 sure will flatter them much when repeated, particularly 
 dear Harriet" (Eliot), "whose mother was the 
 Electress' dearest friend, and with whom she used 
 to converse about me when I was quite a child, which 
 name I still keep with her, as she called me nothing 
 else but * my dear child.' . . . The Elector took himself 
 off from Louisburg on pretence of business ; but the 
 fact is he does not like the English. The civilities we 
 received from Count Jenesson, his first chamberlain, 
 were great. I like him extremely, and find it was his 
 sister who married William Spencer, whom I have 
 so often met at Dartford Lodge and Belvedere. The 
 Countess is also a sweet woman, and daughter to 
 Lady D. Beauclerk, whose son married my friend 
 Mimi Ogilvie. So I felt quite at home amongst them, 
 and was constantly at their house during the time we 
 remained at Stuttgard. I found it very pleasant, as all 
 the foreign Ministers came there without form every 
 evening, amongst which was the Russian Minister at 
 Erlang, who was all devotion to me — an immense 
 good sort of flustering quiz, for he was determined 
 if possible to make them go to Berlin, as he perceived 
 I wished it, though I did not choose to ask them, 
 for had they made out their route that way it would 
 
44 BARON DEDEM [ch. i 
 
 have been changed by next day. So I preferred 
 leaving it to chance. But I own I felt extremely out 
 of humour, when less than a hundred miles from a 
 place so famed for its gaiety as well as for its military^ 
 and to be so stupid as not to see it. You see I put jv^w 
 and a perfect poodle out of the question, which 1 have 
 been dying to get all through Germany, in order to 
 present to Mr. Pitt, and have never yet succeeded. . , . 
 After the poodle I must talk of that monkey the 
 Baron, the Citizen Dedem, Minister at Stuttgard from 
 the Batavian Republic. Such a conceited creature I 
 have seldom seen ; but he is clever and amusing to 
 a degree. He has been half over the world, and lived 
 many years in Turkey. His drawings of everything 
 interesting in Greece are quite charming, and his 
 knowledge for so young a man I should imagine 
 great. He was taken prisoner in Holland, travelled 
 in Egypt, and has lived a good deal in Italy. He had 
 offered Mr. Egerton to write for a passport for us 
 to go through Holland ; this he accepted, but I told 
 him (even after the letter was written and sent) I 
 would not rely upon any passport of the kind ; I knew 
 they would take us prisoners ; that poor Lord Elgin 
 and their fine promises were but too present to my 
 recollection; and through Holland I would not go. 
 He was very angry, and told me for my want of faith 
 he should take care I was taken prisoner somewhere 
 else. I told him I hoped I should see him prisoner 
 first, as he was just the sort of creature to attempt to 
 land in England, and I should see he did not escape 
 so easily as in Holland. . . . The Electress strongly 
 advised us to go to Berlin, to take your advice where 
 to embark, and not go too near the French. As 
 a punishment we had a fine fright at Lubeck. Some 
 French officers arrived, they had troops only fifteen 
 
45 
 
 miles off, and they were expected shortly to march 
 into that town ; so away we went, travelling all night, 
 to Entin, I the only one not alarmed. I amused 
 myself in the Duke's gardens, and Mrs. Egerton locked 
 herself up in her room. At last, here we are, at the 
 most abominable of places, starved and eaten up with 
 gnats ; these and some other beings of the same 
 description are the only ones that have ever filled 
 me with fear during my stay upon the Continent. 
 
 ** We have had two or three bad overturns ; one 
 of the servants who was upon the dicky is sadly hurt, 
 and a dog in the carriage killed. This, I think, is 
 enough to teach one how much we are under the care 
 of Providence, when we consider that we all escaped 
 unhurt, and ought to strike reproach to the heart 
 of those who spend their days in murmuring and in 
 useless lamentations about little inconveniences not 
 to be avoided. I always thought happiness chiefly 
 rested in the mind, and since I left England I am 
 more than ever convinced of this truth. I like travel- 
 Hng of all things ; it is a constant change of ideas. . . . 
 You would laugh at the collection of strange things 
 I have scraped together; and as luck would have it, 
 all those I got in Italy I sent home in a frigate, and 
 those I got in Germany, a very clever fellow (formerly 
 a mate) took safe off with the last mail, while the rest 
 of the party have large stomachs of Roman pearl, 
 trousers lined with amber, and heads twice as big as 
 their natural ones. 
 
 " We sail to-morrow with nearly thirty passengers, 
 amongst whom is Col. Bosville, Home Tooke's friend, 
 who is sufficiently disgusted with the consequences of 
 democracy. ... I know no news from England, but 
 report says here we are shortly to be driven from this 
 place by the Danes ; certain it is they have marched 
 
46 THE DANISH ARMY - [ch, i 
 
 in 400 men two days ago. Such a miserable set I 
 never beheld! They are building a wooden guard- 
 house with all possible expedition. . . . This is a 
 moment when I am sure talents are no less wanted 
 than energy, and we seem to be deficient in both ; 
 we talk a great deal and do nothing. Poor Hanover ! 
 had we parted with it for something it would have 
 been all very well. A great deal rests with you at 
 this moment, so we ought not to despair, as I do not 
 expect you will fall asleep, which must have been the 
 case with some people. At all events, I think few 
 instructions from England will reach you unless you 
 wait for their making the tour of Europe before they 
 arrive. You must then act completely for yourself, 
 which is perhaps a consolation to those at least who 
 respect your talents." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Return Home — Walmer Castle — York Place — Sir William 
 Napier — Montagu Square — Builth — Glen Irfon 
 
 1803— 1810 
 
 Lady Hester, on landing in England, found herself 
 without a home. Her kind grandmother had died in 
 April, and Burton Pynsent had passed to her elder 
 uncle, Lord Chatham, who had taken charge of his 
 other niece, the orphaned Harriet Eliot. All her 
 hope, therefore, was in Mr. Pitt. My father once told 
 me, that some time before, when talking of his sister 
 to Mr. Pitt, he had asked him, ** What is to become of 
 Hester when Lady Chatham dies?" and, after a pause, 
 Mr. Pitt replied, " Under no circumstances could I 
 offer her a home in my own house." The plan thus 
 suggested was distinctly distasteful to him. It implied 
 the breaking up of all his habits, and a total change 
 in his mode of life, with the disturbing presence of a 
 vivacious and impetuous niece, of whom till then he 
 had seen very little. Yet, when the emergency arose, 
 he never for a moment hesitated. She was his dead 
 sister's child — his favourite sister's child — and she 
 must want for nothing that it was in his power to 
 give. His door was at once opened to her, and " he 
 welcomed her to his house as her permanent abode. 
 Henceforth she sat at the head of his table, and 
 assisted him in doing the honours to his guests." It 
 was an act of pure kindness,^ and it met with its due 
 reward, for " he came to regard her with almost a 
 father's affection, and she, on her part, quickly formed 
 
 ^ " How amiable it is of Pitt to take compassion on poor Lady 
 Hester Stanhope, and that in a way which must break in on his 
 habits of Hfe. He is as good as he is gresLtJ'—Lord Mulgrave^s 
 Letters. 
 
 47 
 
48 LIFE WITH WILLIAM PITT [ch. ii 
 
 for him a strong and devoted attachment, which she 
 extended to his memory as long as her own life 
 endured. 
 
 " In her latter years Lady Hester Stanhope has 
 been frequently described. Travellers in Palestine 
 all sought to visit the recluse of Mount Lebanon. 
 Many failed in gaining access to the * castled crag * 
 where she dwelt alone, and have indulged their spleen 
 in bitter comments on one whom they never saw. 
 Others who succeeded have portrayed and perhaps, 
 as I may deem, exaggerated the violence of her temper 
 and the eccentricity of her opinions. But not such 
 was the Hester Stanhope who, at the age of twenty- 
 seven, became the inmate of her uncle's house. With 
 considerable personal attractions, the Lady Hester 
 of 1803 combined a lively flow of conversation, and 
 an inborn quickness of discernment. Her wit was 
 certainly even then far too satirical, and too little 
 under control. She made even then many enemies, 
 but she also made many friends. Mr. Pitt was on 
 some occasions much discomposed by her sprightly 
 sallies, which did not always spare his own Cabinet 
 colleagues. But on the whole her young presence 
 proved to be, as it were, a light in his dwelling. It 
 gave it that charm which only a female presence can 
 give. It tended, I believe, far more than his return 
 to power, to cheer and brighten his few — too few- 
 remaining years."— Z,//^ of Pitt, by Earl Stanhope. 
 
 These few last years were the happiest and brightest 
 of Lady Hester's life. To them she was ever after 
 recurring with fond and undying regret. Old, neg- 
 lected, and harassed with debts and difficulties, she 
 loved to live over again the time when she was 
 prosperous, courted, and honoured as the adopted 
 daughter of the Prime Minister, and the world went 
 
49 
 
 well with her. Above all, she clung to the remem- 
 brance of his kindness and affection with thepassionate 
 devotion with which she repaid them. *' Dear soul! 
 I know she loves me," he had said on his death-bed ; 
 and no truer words were ever spoken. She treasured 
 up every word and look that recalled those golden 
 days, to warm her heart in her loveless, solitary, 
 forsaken old age. His memory was sacred to her, 
 and her wrath at any real or fancied indignity blazed 
 up chiefly on account of the slight suffered by ** Pitt's 
 niece." It was her one title of honour. She re- 
 membered how actively she had played her part in 
 the political world ; how she had been sought and 
 consulted as the best means of gaining Mr. Pitt's 
 ear; how, to use Canning's words, she *' stood instead 
 of preface and apology" in confidential communica- 
 tions with him, and had been employed to break the 
 news of his junction with Addington to the colleague 
 who so bitterly resented it. She had enjoyed her full 
 share of homage and success, nor were they altogether 
 due to her position ; she ruled by the force of her will 
 no less than by her gaiety and wit — the flow of spirits 
 and brilliant sallies that brighten and charm society. 
 She made no secret of her likes and dislikes, and was 
 emphatic and impetuous in both ; indeed, she gloried 
 in her impetuosity, as a trait of resemblance between 
 her and the great Lord Chatham. 
 
 There are many descriptions of Lady Hester in 
 after life, when she was an old woman, but none — 
 that I know of— that gives an accurate idea of what 
 she appeared in these halcyon days. Strange to say, 
 the only writer who praises her beauty is Lord Hard- 
 wicke, who first saw her when she was fifty years of 
 age.^ No authentic portrait of her exists, for she 
 declared she never would consent to have one taken. 
 She herself tells us that she never was good-looking ; 
 the school-boy Thomas Price (see p. 85) says ** she 
 was neither beautiful nor handsome in any degree," 
 and Sir William Napier (see p. 61) agrees that '*she 
 was not certainly beautiful." But— and on this point 
 
 ^ I used to question Lord Hardwicke about this unknown aunt of 
 mine, in whom I was much interested ; and once, in my youthful 
 vanity, I asked, " Am I at all like Lady Hester ? " " You ? " he cried, 
 in great indignation. ** Why. you are not fit to hold a candle to her." 
 (The authoress was renowned for her beauty in her earlier years.) . 
 
 5 
 
so DESCRIPTION OF LADY HESTER [cH. n 
 
 there is but one opinion— she was eminently attractive. 
 She was 
 
 ** A daughter of the gods, divinely tall," 
 
 with a very fine figure, and the air and gait of a queen ; 
 she had a skin of dazzling fairness, bright eyes— blue 
 in reality, though often described as black, as they 
 darkened and flashed in the excitement of the moment 
 — and a wonderful play of expression. Her face, 
 brilliant with animation and intelligence, reflected 
 each varying mood as it came, lighting up at every 
 passing fancy, every sprightly sally, every indignant 
 outburst, every delightful joke. No one, I suppose, 
 more thoroughly enjoyed a joke. She had by nature 
 the highest possible spirits, a good gift that never 
 altogether deserted her to the very end ; an intense 
 love of fun and frolic ; and a mischievous delight in 
 mystifying and making sport of others, which, I think, 
 she also always retained. She is said to have been 
 an excellent mimic, an accomplishment that probably 
 cost her dear, but made her a most entertaining 
 companion. This gaiety and light-heartedness were 
 to stand her in good stead during the troubled years 
 to come. 
 
 But the sorrows of the future are, by the infinite 
 mercy of God, a sealed book to mortal eyes, and the 
 present was all happiness and prosperity. Lady 
 Hester, in her new position, felt herself the most 
 fortunate of women, and was all gratitude and delight. 
 She had attained the summit of her ambition, for she 
 was now where she had always wished and hardly 
 hoped to be. 
 
 Lady Hester to Lord Haddington 
 
 '^ Walmer Castle, 
 
 ''^November 15M, 1803. 
 
 " I will follow your example, and make no excuses 
 for not being a regular correspondent, but I cannot 
 omit saying how much pleasure your letter gave me, 
 and how happy I felt at being able to return your 
 congratulations upon my being here. To tell you 
 the kindness with which Mr. Pitt conducts himself 
 towards me would be a difficult task. . . . Mahon has 
 
SI 
 
 taken a house near Dover, and is to be married next 
 week, I like Catherine Smith ^ extremely. He could 
 not have made, I believe, a better choice. Lady 
 Carrington I admire particularly ; she is a sweet, 
 amiable, sensible, and domestic woman ; he an ex- 
 cellent, friendly man. Upon the whole, all things 
 considered, the connection is a desirable one. . . . 
 After the history of the family, I must tell you a little 
 news of the French. We took one of their gunboats 
 the other day, and as soon as she came in Mr. Pitt, 
 Charles, Lord Camden, and myself took a Deal boat 
 and rowed alongside of her. She had two large guns 
 on board, thirty soldiers, and four sailors. She is 
 about 30 feet long, and only draws about 4 feet of 
 water; an ill-contrived thing, and so little above the 
 water that, had she as many men on board as she 
 could really carry, a moderate storm would wash 
 them overboard. Having seen enough of their rascally 
 regiments, I certainly pronounce these picked men. 
 They were well clothed and provided with everything 
 — an immense cask of brandy, and a certain quantity 
 of provisions. They appeared neither low nor morti- 
 fied at being stared at or talked to, nor did they sham 
 spirits. They simply said they should soon be re- 
 taken, for it would all be over in less than two 
 months, and seemed perfectly at their ease; and. 
 Frenchman-like, some of them were dressing their 
 hair, and many attending in some way or other to 
 the decoration of their persons, by pulling up a pro- 
 digious black stock over their chin, or giving a 
 knowing air to a very large cocked hat, with a 
 horrible national cockade in it, which badge of 
 rascality constantly occasions a thousand reflections, 
 not of the most pleasant nature. Some people say 
 
 ^ Catherine Lucy, fourth daughter of Robert, first Lord Carrington. 
 
52 FEARS OF INVASION [ch. n 
 
 they will never attempt to come here. I differ from 
 them, be they who they may. I have seen the almost 
 impassable mountains they have marched their armies 
 over, which no person would have been rash enough 
 to have proposed, much less succeeded in. That they 
 will attempt anything, I believe ; and should only a 
 very few reach our coast, the mischief they may do 
 is not to be calculated, with such wavering fools to 
 dictate the conduct of those who are to repulse 
 them. . . . Mr. Pitt's ist battahon of his newly-raised 
 regiment was reviewed the other day by Gen. Dundas, 
 who expressed himself equally surprised and pleased 
 by the state of discipline he found them in. Lord and 
 Lady Chatham have been staying here lately. I have 
 been to all the reviews, &c., and certainly Lord C. 
 never looked so well in his life as at this moment, nor 
 did anybody ever contrive to appear as much of a 
 prince as he does — his led horses, his carriages, his 
 dress, his star and garter, all of which he shows off 
 in his quiet way with wonderful effect. I like all this 
 sort of thing ; and I admire my uncle most particularly 
 when surrounded with a tribe of military attendants. 
 But what is all this pageantry compared with the 
 unaffected simplicity of real greatness ! and how, 
 indeed, does the former shrink before the latter, even 
 in the estimation of its greatest admirers ! " 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. T. /. Jackson 
 
 " Walmer Castle, 
 
 ' ' November 1 9//^, 1 802 . 
 
 " To express the kindness with which Mr. Pitt 
 welcomed my return, and proposed my living with 
 him would be impossible, one would really suppose 
 that all obligation was on his side. Here, then, am 
 I, happy to a degree ; exactly in the sort of society I 
 
53 
 
 most like. There are generally three or four men 
 staying in the house, and we dine eight or ten almost 
 every other day. Military and naval characters are 
 constantly welcome here ; women are not, I suppose^ 
 because they do not form any part of our society. 
 You may guess, then, what a pretty fuss they make 
 with me. 
 
 "The whole of the Carrington family are still at 
 Deal Castle. Her Ladyship I like extremely ... a 
 pleasanter neighbour I should not wish for. The 
 girls are all vastly well in their way : Charlotte,^ the 
 3rd (your likeness), and Catherine, the 4th (Mahon's 
 love), are, I think, the best of them ; the former, 
 perhaps, altogether the most to be admired, though 
 I would not change her to be my sister, as the latter 
 is exactly made on purpose for Mahon. She knows 
 what is right, nor is she the least likely ever to 
 encourage what is otherwise; she is admirably well 
 disposed, lively to a degree, and a great deal of 
 temper. . . , They can make Lord Stanhope decide 
 upon nothing,^ so very shortly they are to be married 
 upon articles, as it would be a very awkward thing 
 for Mr. Pitt's regiment to be called out, Mahon 
 obliged to join, and still unmarried. He has taken 
 a pretty, small house near Dover, till the Castle is 
 put into proper repair, and no longer made a garrison 
 of. Lady Stanhope is allowed to see Mahon, and you 
 will be surprised " (! !) ** to hear has so completely got 
 hold of him, that I believe few persons have more 
 influence with him. ... I am far from satisfied *with 
 him in any one respect. . . . We will hope experience 
 will teach him how inconsistent, how reprehensible is 
 the misconduct he now pursues, that of setting him- 
 
 * The second wife of Alan, Lord Gardner. 
 ' His final decision was to give nothing at all. 
 
54 PITT AS A DRILL SERGEANT [ch. ii 
 
 self up as a prodigy, and despising everybody's 
 opinion but his own, and remaining indolent to a 
 degree at a moment when every free-born Englishman 
 should exert himself in the defence of his country. 
 Mr. Pitt absolutely goes through the fatigue of a 
 drill-sergeant. It is parade after parade, at fifteen or 
 twenty miles distant from each other. I often attend 
 him, and it is quite as much (I can assure you) as I 
 am equal to, although I am remarkably well just now. 
 The hard riding I do not mind, but to remain almost 
 still so many hours on horseback is an incomprehen- 
 sible bore, and requires more patience than you can 
 easily imagine. However, I suppose few regiments 
 for the time were ever so forward, therefore the 
 trouble is nothing. If Mr. Pitt does not overdo it 
 and injure his health every other consideration becomes 
 trifling. You know me too well not to be aware of 
 the anxiety I am under upon this account ; and the 
 extreme care I take, or rather endeavour to take, of 
 this blessing (so essential to him in pursuing his 
 active line of conduct, therefore invaluable to his 
 country), is rewarded by his minding me more than 
 any other person, and allowing me to speak to him 
 upon the subject of his health, which is always an 
 unpleasant one, and one he particularly dislikes. 
 There is no use in flattering a man who is not ill from 
 fancy and makes but too light of his complaints, 
 therefore I pursue quite a different plan ; and I am 
 happy to be able to tell you, sincerely, I see nothing 
 at all alarming about him. He had a cough when I 
 first came to England, but it has nearly or quite left 
 him. He is thin but certainly strong, and his spirits 
 are excellent. His kindness to Charles has been equal 
 to that he showed to Mahon. Ever since he returned 
 from Gibraltar he has had him here, doing everything 
 
55 
 
 most to his advantage, and treating him more like his 
 son than a distant relation. Charles is a great 
 favourite of his. His modesty in regard to his own 
 talents, and his earnest wish to do everything that 
 is right, endear him extremely to Mr. Pitt. He is 
 promoted in the S7th Regiment, now at Ashford, and 
 is likely to be among the first called into action 
 should the French land. Mr. Pitt is determined to 
 remain acting Colonel when his regiment is called 
 into the field. Some persons blame this determination, 
 but I do not. He has always hitherto acted up to his 
 character. Why should he then in this instance 
 prove deficient ? I should not be the least surprised 
 any night to hear of the French attempting to land. 
 Indeed, I expect it. But I feel equally certain that 
 those who do succeed will neither proceed nor re- 
 turn. . . . 
 
 " The Egertons are in Cheshire, expiring of the 
 approaching honour of Prince William's going there 
 for a few days. They have made acquaintance with 
 him at Liverpool, where they went on purpose to 
 accomplish this point. Dalton is at Shorncliffe Camp, 
 near Hythe. ... I wish much to see him to talk of 
 Berlin. I shall not leave posterity to quiz me upon 
 the subject of not seeing those places so much talked 
 of and worth observation, but cheat it by seeing them 
 all some day or other. My spirit could not dwell in 
 peace with such a reproach attached to my memory, 
 and still less when reflection taught it what were the 
 only obstacles to my curiosity being gratified — a fool 
 and a fidget. Well, but I am so happy now that I am 
 determined not to think of it. . . . 
 
 " 1 think I have a right to expect a long letter for 
 this volume. When the invasion takes place you 
 shall have another." 
 
56 MR. PITTS REGIMENT [ch. u 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson 
 
 " Walmer Castle, 
 
 ''^January \^th^ 1804. 
 
 **I lose no time in answering your letter, and 
 thanking you for believing your neglect in not an- 
 nouncing your marriage would make me angry. Had 
 I taken it in that light I own it would ; but I believed 
 you better employed. Let all those marry, my dear 
 friend, who believe it for their happiness, and I trust 
 you will find it to yours. As to your choice of a 
 wife, you have lived enough in the world, and with 
 all sorts of women, to know what is likely to suit 
 you best. It appears to me that a foreigner is much 
 better calculated for an Ambassador's wife than 
 English women are in general, as they but too often 
 suppose that when they leave their country, even 
 with a man they profess to love, that this sacrifice 
 alone is sufficient to make his happiness and neglect 
 other means of ensuring his comfort, or rendering 
 him as popular as he otherwise would have been, 
 without a wife. Foreign women likewise present 
 themselves so much better, and what etiquette requires 
 is often no trouble to them, when to an Englishwoman 
 it is quite a task. . . . 
 
 '* We are in almost daily expectation of the coming 
 of the French, and Mr. Pitt's regiment is now nearly 
 perfect enough to receive them. We have the famous 
 iSth Light Dragoons in our barracks; also the 
 Northampton and Berkshire Militia. The first and 
 last of these I command, and have an orderly dragoon 
 whenever I please from the former, and the band of 
 the latter. 
 
 " I never saw any Militia Regiment so well officered, 
 or composed of such pleasant men as the Berks. A 
 Northamptonshire sqtiire is not pleasant in his own 
 
57 
 
 country, and does not improve by transplanting ; but 
 the regiment is a fine body of men. I am at this 
 moment alone here with my little brother James, 
 who has left the Navy for the Army. He is too 
 clever for a sailor— too refined, I mean. I do not 
 regret the change, as higher powers approve it. He 
 is now in the Guards, and is to join, I believe, soon. 
 The time will be decided when Mr. Pitt returns ; I 
 expect him in a few days. He was perfectly well 
 when he left me. His most intimate friends say they 
 do not remember him so well since the year ninety- 
 seven. Nothing can please me better than the pleasant 
 footing I am upon with all those most attached to 
 him, and the satisfaction it appears to give him when 
 they show me civility. It is impossible to say how 
 amiably he always takes every attention shown to 
 my brothers, and how anxious he is for their advance- 
 ment in life. Nothing can succeed better than the 
 two youngest. Charles is a great favourite of General 
 Moore's, and indeed he deserves it, for he is a most 
 excellent fellow. . . . Mahon is very idle about his 
 duty as a soldier ; it vexes me extremely. James is 
 much more known at Dover Castle than he is, and 
 understands the works infinitely better, as he has 
 often the office of escorting officers from here. It is 
 most fortunate for Mahon the ist battalion is so well 
 officered, as it nearly puts him out of the question, 
 a circumstance so mortifying that I should shoot 
 myself were I in his situation ; but I trust experience 
 will improve him. Lady Mahon is a vastly kind good 
 little soul; the more I see of her, the more I like 
 her. ... Do not detain Lord Aberdeen too long, as 
 we want him here. Delightful Alex Hope has been 
 staying with us, and we talked often of Lord A. 
 Alex Hope is too perfect a creature, I cannot find one 
 
58 FRENCH GUNBOATS [ch. ii 
 
 fault in his character, but that of being too good. 
 Such perfection is awful \ 
 
 "Gordon in the isth and I are great friends. Old 
 Fergusson introduced and strongly recommended him 
 to me. I have seen a great deal of him, and think 
 him a very fine young man. I am engaged to dance 
 with him at a grand ball on the i8th, v^hen the officers 
 of his regiment and of about six others will all be at 
 my feet— very delightful ! . . . 
 
 ^' I do not know^ Lord G. Cavendish, but Lady G. 
 is cousin to dear Lady Katharine Forester (the only 
 woman I ever thought perfection). I write to her 
 often, and shall not fail to name your approbation of 
 her relation. . . . 
 
 " I cannot pretend to tell you what will become of 
 me this winter, as it will all depend upon Mr. Pitt's 
 plans, which you know circumstances must govern. 
 Should the idea of invasion become less probable, 
 and should the Dutch ports be frozen up, I am in 
 some hope I shall persuade him to go to Bath, not 
 because he is ill, but to prevent his being so ; it agreed 
 so wonderfully with him last year. . . . 
 
 *' Oh, such miserable things as the French gunboats ! 
 We took a vessel the other day loaded with gin, to 
 keep up their spirits, I suppose ; another with abomin- 
 able bread and a vast quantity of peas and beans, 
 which the soldiers eat. One of the boats had an 
 extremely large chest of medicine, probably for half 
 their flotilla. Their guns are ill mounted and cannot 
 be used with the same advantage as ours, but are 
 fine pieces of ordnance. Bonaparte was said to be at 
 Boulogne a few days ago; the officers patrolled all 
 night with the men, which was pleasant. I have my 
 orders how to act in case of real alarm in Mr. Pitt's 
 absence, and also a promise from him never to be 
 
59 
 
 further from the army than a two hours' ride. This 
 is all I wish. I should break my heart to be driven 
 up the country like a sheep when everything I most 
 love was in danger. In short, I would not^ and he 
 knows that ; but always preferring to act kindly, 
 instead of harshly, on all occasions, has never once yet 
 attempted to thwart my inclinations.'* 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. 7. /. Jackson 
 
 "York Place, 
 
 ''March %th, 1804. 
 
 *' I have been in town some weeks, and am as 
 comfortable as possible. I live with Mr. Pitt's friends 
 in the pleasantest way that can be. Lady Stafford, 
 I think, is my leading female acquaintance, and per- 
 haps the one I go out with most. It is uncertain 
 how long we remain in town, and it is really a matter 
 of indifference to me, as I cannot but be happy any- 
 where in Mr. Pitt's society. I was at Blackheath 
 last week; the Princess of Wales made a thousand 
 enquiries after you, and said she knew Mrs. Jackson 
 very well formerly. . . , Lord Camelford has been 
 shot in duel, and there is no chance of his recovering. 
 You know my opinion of him, I believe, therefore can 
 judge if I am not likely to lament his untimely end. 
 He had vices, but also great virtues, but they were 
 not known to the world at large. ... I have not time 
 to write a long letter, nor am I inclined as you did 
 not write to me; but I must just tell you Mr. Pitt is 
 well, and more popular than ever with all classes of 
 people. ... I made acquaintance with Mr. Charles 
 Ellis at Mr. Canning's, where I have lately been for 
 some days. We had a very pleasant party. Nothing 
 after all I like so much as a country house, with 
 pleasant people," 
 
6o SIR W. NAPIER'S MEMOIRS [ch. ii 
 
 Lady Hester was at the zenith of her glory when, 
 two months after this, Mr. Pitt again became Prime 
 Minister. No one surely could have more keenly 
 appreciated the power and position this gave her, and 
 she fully and freely enjoyed both. Nevertheless, it 
 is but fair to remember, that the advantages were not 
 altogether on one side. Mr. Pitt grew extremely fond 
 of her; she pleased and amused him, and her joyous 
 and brilliant presence enlivened and brightened his 
 home. Her high spirits were infectious. General 
 Sir William Napier, in his Life (vol. i. p. 28), gives 
 an account of a visit he paid Mr. Pitt at Putney, 
 which shows the happy terms on which they lived : 
 
 **In 1804, being then near nineteen, and having 
 been a brother officer of Charles Stanhope, Mr. Pitt's 
 nephew, I was through him invited to pass some 
 time at Putney, in Mr. Pitt's house. Arriving rather 
 late, the great man was at dinner when I entered the 
 room ; he immediately rose, and giving me both 
 hands, welcomed me with such a gentle good nature, 
 that Fjnstantly felt — not at ease, for I was not at that 
 time much troubled with what is called mauvaise honte^ 
 but — that I had a friend before me, with whom I 
 might instantly become famihar to any extent within 
 the bounds of good breeding. Lady Hester Stanhope 
 also treated me with the most winning kindness. All 
 this produced a strange sensation, for I came deter- 
 mined to hold fast by my patriotism though in 
 presence of a wicked Minister, however polite or 
 condescending he might be found. Brought up amidst 
 Whigs, and used to hear Mr. Pitt abused with all the 
 virulence of Whigs, I looked upon him as an enemy 
 of all good government ; and my father, though not 
 a Whig, had always condemned his war with France 
 as an iniquitous and pernicious measure. Thus primed 
 with fierce recollections and patriotic resolves, I 
 endeavoured to sustain my mind's hatred against the 
 
6i 
 
 Minister, but in vain ; all feeings sunk, except those 
 of surprise and gratification, at finding such a gentle, 
 good-natured, agreeable and entertaining companion. 
 I say companion deliberately, and with a right, as 
 will be seen from what follows. Lady Hester, more- 
 over, was very attractive ; so rapid and decided was 
 her conversation, so full of humour and keen observa- 
 tion, and withal so friendly and instructive, that it 
 was quite impossible not to fall at once into her 
 direction, and become her slave, whether for laughter 
 or seriousness. She was not certainly beautiful, but 
 her tall commanding figure, her large dark eyes, and 
 variety of expression, changing as rapidly as her 
 conversation, and equally vehement, kept the mind 
 in continual admiration. She had not much respect 
 for the political coadjutors of Mr. Pitt. Lord Castle- 
 reagh she always called ' His monotonous Lordship,' 
 and Lord Liverpool was a constant theme of ridicule. 
 Thus, speaking of a design at that time entertained 
 of conferring military decorations, she told me that 
 it had been agreed to by Mr. Pitt, but was stopped 
 by the meddling of Lord Liverpool, who insisted on 
 being a co-partner wath her in choosing the colour 
 and texture of the ribbons. That^ she said, she 
 thought, as a young woman, she might have been 
 allowed to settle ; but Lord Liverpool, being an old 
 woman, was jealous, and sent her four thousand 
 yards — she positively affirmed that — four thousand 
 yards of diff^erent ribbons at the expense of the public, 
 which he proposed to examine in conjunction with 
 her for the purpose of fixing on the most suitable. 
 She sent them back with her compliments, saying she 
 declined the concert, and could see no use whatever 
 for the ribbons, except to make braces for supporting 
 his Lordship's culottes, which she had observed were 
 
62 PITT'S HOME LIFE [ch. ii 
 
 always weighed down by the heavy official papers in 
 his pockets. This stopped all further progress in the 
 plan for military decorations. 
 
 *' Of Sir John Moore she always spoke with admira- 
 tion, and said Mr. Pitt had a like admiration for 
 him ; that he never received even a common note 
 from him at Deal without showing it to his company 
 and pointing out the grace and felicity of the 
 expressions. 
 
 "Mr. Pitt used to come home to dinner rather 
 exhausted, and seemed to require wine, port, of 
 which he generally drank a bottle, or nearly so, in 
 a rapid succession of glasses ; but when he recovered 
 his strength from this stimulant he ceased to drink. 
 His conversation with us was always gay, good- 
 natured, and humorous, telling all sorts of amusing 
 
 stories ; some of them about the colonel of the 
 
 Regiment, General , who was certainly a very 
 
 comical character, of which two of Mr. Pitt's stories 
 will give ample proof The first was that, in the 
 
 midst of the fears of a French invasion, General 
 
 sent an extraordinary express with a parcel supposed 
 to contain important news, but which turned out to 
 be the night-cap of a member of the Government, 
 who had left it behind when on a visit to the General. 
 The second was also an express story, being a despatch 
 
 from , when he commanded on the south coast, 
 
 telling Mr. Pitt that * two French ships were actually 
 then landing troops in three places' 
 
 *' Mr. Pitt liked practical fun, and used to riot in it 
 with Lady Hester, Charles and James Stanhope, and 
 myself ; and one instance is worth noticing. We 
 were resolved to blacken his face with burnt cork, 
 which he most strenuously resisted, but at the begin- 
 ning of the fray a servant announced that Lords 
 
63 
 
 Castlereagh and Liverpool desired to see him on 
 business. * Let them wait in the other room/ was 
 the answer; and the great Minister instantly turned 
 to the battle, catching up a cushion and belabouring 
 us with it in glorious fun. We were, however, too 
 many and strong for him, and, after at least ten 
 minutes' fight, got him down and were actually 
 daubing his face, when, with a look of pretended 
 confidence in his prowess, he said, ' Stop, this will 
 do; I could easily beat you all, but we must not 
 keep those grandees waiting any longer/ His defeat 
 was, however, palpable, and we were obliged to get 
 a towel and basin of water to wash him clean before 
 he could receive the grandees. Being thus put in 
 order, the basin was hid behind the sofa, and the 
 two lords were ushered in. Then a new ohase of 
 Mr. Pitt's manner appeared, to my great surprise and 
 admiration. Lord Liverpool's look and manner are 
 well known — melancholy, bending, nervous. Lord 
 Castlereagh I had known from my childhood, had 
 often been engaged with him in athletic sports, 
 pitching the stone or bar, and looked upon him as 
 what indeed he was, a model of quiet grace and 
 strength combined. What was my surprise to see 
 both him and Lord Liverpool bending like spaniels 
 on approaching the man we had just been maltreating 
 with such successful insolence of fun ! but instantly 
 Mr. Pitt's change of manner and look entirely fixed 
 my attention. His tall, ungainly, bony figure seemed 
 to grow to the ceiling, his head was thrown back, 
 his eyes fixed immovably in one position, as if reading 
 the heavens, and totally regardless of the bending 
 figures near him. For some time they spoke; he 
 made now and then some short observation, and 
 finally, with an abrupt stiff inclination of the body, 
 
64 LADY HESTER'S FREEDOM OF SPEECH [ch. h 
 
 but without casting his eyes down, dismissed them. 
 Then, turning to us with a laugh, caught up his 
 cushions and renewed our fight. 
 
 *' Another phase of his countenance I had yet to 
 learn, some time after my visit, which was twice 
 renewed at Putney. I was walking across the parade- 
 ground of the Horse Guards, where I saw Mr. Pitt 
 talking to several gentlemen, evidently upon business 
 which interested him. I caught his eye while some 
 forty yards from him. He gave a smile and nod of 
 recognition, and I was advancing to greet him ; 
 instantly his countenance changed with a commanding 
 fierceness of expression difficult to describe, but it 
 emphatically spoke, even at that distance : * Pass on, 
 this is no place for fooling,' was the meaning, and 
 not to be mistaken." 
 
 It is refreshing to see the stately and reserved 
 Minister ** unbend his brow of pride " to romp like 
 a schoolboy with Lady Hester and her brothers. 
 
 No doubt, in society she often startled and annoyed 
 him by her habit of saying pretty much everything 
 that came into her head ; and one can hear his warning 
 voice across the room: ^'Hester, Hester! what are 
 you saying ? " But he could not help being amused, 
 lor her wit was as spontaneous as her gaiety, and 
 had far more fun in it than malice. There are two 
 wa3''s of saying even unpleasant things, and she gave 
 less offence than might have been supposed. Years 
 afterwards, her cousin, Henry Wynn, writes to his 
 mother (see p. 113): "I must, however, say that at 
 the time when she is abusing everything which is 
 most dear to me, she does it in a manner that it is 
 impossible to be angry with her, and I believe that 
 it proceeds more from a love of ridiculing than from 
 the heart." 
 
 She made his house extremely pleasant to those 
 he liked, and considered it as her mission in life to 
 " please Mr. Pitt." She watched over his health with 
 the most anxious solicitude, and wrote long reports 
 
i8o3-i8io] WALMER CASTLE 65 
 
 of it to his physician, Sir W. Farguhar. She also 
 wrote occasionally to his private Secretary. Here 
 is one of her notes : 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. W, /?. Adams 
 
 "Walmer Castle, 
 
 ^^ Sunday ^ 1805. 
 
 "To have seen the Doctor^ in a passion must have 
 been charming ! So like a saline draught ! I suppose 
 it is over by this time, as I never observed a draught 
 hiss for more than a few minutes, I wish he may 
 think proper to attack me in person, and I will sting 
 him like a hornet. I will employ that delightful 
 weapon — irony, which Mark Antony used with so 
 much success against Brutus. The business, how- 
 ever, I think, had better rest until I come to town 
 and talk it over with Mr. Pitt ; indeed, after what 
 he said, it must be so. 
 
 "A thousand thanks for the mention of a beau nom 
 grave dans mon cceur^^ which I hope will succeed in 
 proportion to the unhappiness I have felt upon his 
 account. 
 
 "You see I refer to the last lines of your letter. 
 I was frightened to a degree when the messenger 
 arrived. I thought at first Mr. Pitt was ill, and when 
 I saw his handwriting, that he was out of office, but 
 was delighted to find it was only papers he wanted. 
 I hope he found what he wanted ; but they are in 
 great confusion. I wish you would ask him some 
 day ^if he would like me to bring any more to town 
 when I come, for at this moment perhaps it is difficult 
 to say what are there he may want." 
 
 There had been a long break in her correspondence 
 with Mr. Jackson. In her last letter she had com- 
 plained that she never heard from him now he was 
 
 * No doubt Lord Sidmouth. 
 
 ' An allusion to Lord Granville Leveson-Gower (see p. 68). 
 
66 DESPONDENCY [ch. ii 
 
 married ; and though on this occasion it was she who 
 was in fault, eleven months had elapsed before she 
 wrote again. This time her letter struck a discordant 
 note. In the midst of all her social successes had 
 come a sharp pang of disappointment, and she was 
 despondent and discouraged. 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. T, J. Jackson 
 
 "Walmer Castle, 
 
 ^^ February yd^ 1805. 
 
 " It is not my enviable situation (as the world calls 
 it) to which I owe my head being turned and my 
 neglecting my friends, but, alas! to one of your 
 fraternity. For many months after I received your 
 last kind letter I believe this was the case, and now 
 my heart (however devoted it will always be to those 
 who have served me) points, like the compass, to the 
 North, Now perhaps you understand^ and also under- 
 stand I am not happy; indeed, how can I be, when 
 I have shown my taste more than my prudence in 
 admiring an object which fills more hearts than one? 
 You know me too well, I believe, to accuse me of 
 being fond of idle confidences, and I esteem you too 
 much to give you any false reason for an apparent 
 neglect which even the cause will hardly justify to 
 myself. 
 
 " Last spring and part of this summer I bore in the 
 great world much more than my value, for talents, 
 looks, &c., everything was overrated, and although I 
 was perfectly aware of it at the time, then^ I own, 
 I enjoyed it; now, if I could command it, it would be 
 indifferent to me. But my looks are gone (as they 
 always do with the absence of health), and I have 
 been recommended to come into the country to regain 
 them ; and here I have been three weeks. To be near 
 my sister-in-law was a good excuse to leave town ; 
 they (Mahon and her) see I am not well or as gay as 
 
i8o3-i8io] WALMER CASTLE 67 
 
 usual, but do not understand why. As we have been 
 quite in different society, Mahon and her Ladyship 
 are as ignorant as you would have been had I not 
 written what I have. Indeed, il n^est pas permis to 
 write such stuff; but I have been too much in habits 
 of confidence with you to recede from them without a 
 cause. My sincerity will, I hope, procure me a pardon 
 for apparent ingratitude, and not draw upon me the 
 ridicule of a member of a corps 1 am now more 
 attached to than ever. I think there is a sort of 
 sympathy in my preference, as they all flock about me, 
 and seldom a day passes in town but one or two 
 constantly spend hours with me. ... I am, thank 
 God, most fortunate in still continuing to please 
 Mr. Pitt. I might (if it did not sound vain) say more 
 than ever, if I may judge by his kindness, which, if 
 possible, augments. In short, nothing can go on 
 better than we do — so considerate, so indulgent, is his 
 conduct towards me. Mahon lives en philosophe (near 
 here) with his wife ; he does well in his way, but will, 
 I plainly see, never do for public life. A little philoso- 
 pher^ arrived the other day. Charles turns out 
 admirably, and is still with General Moore. James 
 has had a commission in the Guards for more than 
 a year ; but the Duke of York has given him leave of 
 absence to study with a private tutor, a remarkably 
 clever man. ... I think I shall remain here six weeks 
 longer. I am not dull, or, rather, not idle, as I have 
 the charge of improvements here — plantations, farms, 
 buildings, &c. The grave and the gay Generals pay 
 me all due respect and attention, and so would all the 
 garrison if I would allow them ; but as I did not come 
 here to be gay, I dispense with their civility and 
 society. ... I shall be anxious to hear from you, as it 
 
 * My brother. 
 
68 LORD G. LEVESON-GOWER [ch. n 
 
 will be the means of proving to me that you have 
 not taken ill my long silence ^ v^hioh I think I have 
 explained rather at the expense of my discretion ; but 
 I will not say that either, for I do not think in my life I 
 ever did what I thought wrong at the time, and of this, 
 I dare say, I shall have in future no reason to repent. 
 
 " I often wish I was a bird — you might then see me 
 at Berlin ; but only in my flight there might be some 
 danger^ in this season, of my wings being frozen, but 
 the warmth of my heart would, I think, overcome 
 it. . . . When I left Mr. Pitt he was very well, and 
 bearing all the fatigue of business most astonishingly. 
 Poor dear Lord Harrowby's illness fell very heavily 
 upon him for a time." 
 
 Note by my brother^ $th Earl Stanhope. *' The * Diplo- 
 mate ' here referred to was Lord Granville Leveson- 
 Gower, who had gone as Ambassador to Petersburg. 
 At a later period he was created Earl Granville.^ 
 
 ** Lord G. Leveson-Gower married another lady 
 (a daughter of the Duke of Devonshire) on the 24th 
 of December, 1809, and we find that only a few weeks 
 afterwards, on the loth of February, 18 10, Lady Hester 
 Stanhope, embarking at Portsmouth, left England for 
 the remainder of her life." — S. 
 
 With this letter the correspondence appears to have 
 come to an end ; at all events, no more are preserved, 
 nor have I any others of this date— the momentous 
 date that was to close poor Lady Hester's brief career 
 of power and prosperity. The New Year came as the 
 herald of disaster and tribulation, for January, 1806, 
 found Mr. Pitt on his death-bed. He had come up 
 from Bath on the 9th to attend the meeting of Parlia- 
 
 ^ I have a faint recollection of him coming to call upon my mother. 
 He was then old, nearly stone deaf, and very silent ; but he had been 
 eminently good-looking, and considered very agreeable. He was the 
 second son of the Marchioness of Stafford, mentioned by Lady Hester 
 as her frequent chaperone (see p. 59). 
 
i8o3-i8io] DEATH OF PITT 69 
 
 ment, very ill and feeble ; but it was not till the 19th 
 that he was pronounced to be in danger. His exhaus- 
 tion was so extreme that hardly any one was admitted 
 to see him. Lady Hester herself was excluded, but 
 James Stanhope, keeping out of his sight, remained 
 in his room to the end, and has left a minute account 
 of his last moments. 
 
 *' On Wednesday, January 23rd, Doctors Baillie and 
 Reynolds arrived about three, and gave as their 
 opinion that Mr. Pitt could not live above twenty-four 
 hours. Our own feelings in losing our only protector, 
 who had reared us with more than parental care, I 
 need not attempt to describe. 
 
 "From Wednesday morning I did not leave his 
 room again, except for a few minutes, till the time of 
 his death, though I did not allow him to see me, as 
 I felt myself unequal to the dreadful scene of parting 
 with him, and feared (although he was given over) 
 that the exertion on his part might hasten the dreadful 
 event that now appeared inevitable. Hester applied 
 for leave to see him, but was refused. Taking, how- 
 ever, the opportunity of Sir Walter's being at dinner, 
 she went into Mr. Pitt's room. Though even then 
 wandering a little, he immediately recollected her, and 
 with his usual angelic mildness wished her future 
 happiness, and gave her a most solemn blessing and 
 affectionate farewell. On her leaving the room I 
 entered it ; and for some time afterwards Mr. Pitt 
 continued to speak of her, and several times repeated, 
 * Dear soul ! I know she loves me. Where is Hester ? 
 Is Hester gone ? * In the evening Sir Walter gave 
 him some champagne, in hopes of keeping up for a 
 time his wasting strength, and as Mr. Pitt seemed to 
 feel pain in swallowing it, owing to the thrush in his 
 throat, Sir Walter said, * I am sorry, sir, to give you 
 pain. Do not take it unkind.' Mr. Pitt replied, ' I 
 
70 DEATH OF PITT [ch. ii 
 
 never take anything unkind that is meant for my 
 good.' ... 1 remained the whole of Wednesday night 
 with him. His mind seemed fixed on the affairs of the 
 country, and he expressed his thoughts aloud, though 
 sometimes incoherently. He spoke a good deal con- 
 cerning a private letter from Lord Harrowby, and 
 frequently enquired the direction of the wind, then 
 said, answering himself, * East ; ah, that will do ; that 
 will bring him quick.' At other times he seemed to 
 be in conversation with a messenger, and sometimes 
 cried out, * Hear, hear ! ' as if in the House of 
 Commons. During the time he did not speak he 
 moaned considerably. ... At about half-past two he 
 ceased moaning, and did not speak or make the 
 slightest sound for some time. I feared he was dying ; 
 but shortly afterwards, in a much clearer voice than 
 he spoke in before, and in a tone I shall never forget, 
 he exclaimed, * Oh, my country ! how I leave my 
 country ! ' From that time he never spoke or moved, 
 and at half-past four expired without a groan or 
 struggle. His strength being quite exhausted, his life 
 departed like a candle burning out." 
 
 All England mourned him ; but of Lady Hester's 
 grief who may venture to speak ? What had she not 
 lost ? Her best friend ; her only protector; her more 
 than father ; the man whom, of all the world, she most 
 honoured and admired ; the home that was so dear to 
 her ; the position of which she had been so proud ; all 
 she most prized seemed to have passed out of her life 
 with him. He had been, as she said, a guardian angel 
 to her and hers ; she owed everything to him, and she 
 held him very dear. His care and affection had never 
 failed her, and she could recall no word, no look, no 
 tone of his that had not been kind. She had lived 
 under his roof, and been permitted to have a share in 
 his life, and she had glorified in the privilege, and 
 made all his interests, his ambitions, his hopes and 
 
i8o3-i8io] SOUTH HILL 71 
 
 his fears, her own. What was left to her now ? Her 
 occupation was gone, her prospects at an end The 
 present was a dreary blank, and there seemed to be 
 nothing in store for her in the future. Yet she bore 
 her burden, and faced the situation nobly and courage- 
 ously. The following letter, addressed to Mr. Adams, 
 is very striking in its uncomplaining submission and 
 unfaltering resolution. 
 
 *^ South Hill, 
 
 ^^ January zbth^ 1806. 
 
 '* Be my fate what it may, I am prepared to meet 
 the worst, conscious that I have already received from 
 Providence many blessings I do not deserve, therefore 
 I have no right to expect more. Yet my mind will 
 ever retain its independence. God always tempers the 
 blast to the shorn lamb, and He has blessed me with a 
 spirit equal to any misfortune (unconnected with 
 remorse) if I can support myself under the present 
 deepest of afflictions. You have no idea of the con- 
 solation it is to me that I received the last blessing of 
 that beloved angel ; and that, when forbid to see him 
 (because it was thought he would not know me), I 
 took my own way, and disobeyed unnatural commands. 
 My voice recalled his scattered senses, and he was 
 perfectly collected the whole time 1 was with him ; 
 and when I departed, and though his ideas again 
 became confused, he continued to name me with aflfec- 
 tion. This proud pre-eminence over the rest of the 
 world will compensate me for many future sorrows 
 which his loss must entail upon us." 
 
 Lady Hester, once again homeless and adrift, was 
 received in the house of her kinsman, Lord Harrington, 
 who showed her very great kindness. It was Mr. Pitt 
 — her benefactor even beyond the grave — who for the 
 second time came to her rescue. On that fatal 
 Wednesday, when his life was slowly ebbing away, 
 he had dictated his last wishes tQ the Bishop o( 
 
72 PENSION FROM THE NATION [ch. ii 
 
 Lincoln, and considered her future position. With a 
 most kindly thought for the situation of his three 
 nieces, deprived as they were of a father's care, he 
 expressed a wish that a pension of ;^i,ooo, or ;£'i,200, 
 a year, might be settled upon Hester, and a pension 
 also upon each of her two sisters. *' I am far from 
 saying," he added, ** that my public services have 
 earned it, but still I hope my wish may be complied 
 with." 
 
 Parliament accordingly granted a pension of ;^i,200 
 a year to Lady Hester, and ^600 a year each to Lady 
 Griselda and Lady Lucy. *'The warrants for this 
 purpose were carried to the King for signature by 
 Lord Hawkesbury before he retired from office." 
 
 Lady Hester took a house in Montagu Square, to 
 make a home for her two younger brothers, and after 
 a time resumed her London life. But London now 
 wore an unfamihar aspect. It did not seem to be the 
 same place, and she hardly recognised herself amid 
 such surroundings. She was, in truth, a dethroned 
 princess. Her subjects had fallen off from their allegi- 
 ance, and the world, that had been at her feet, knew 
 her no more. She had not, perhaps, till then, fully 
 realised the alteration in her position, nor anticipated 
 its inevitable result, and she was bitterly mortified and 
 disappointed. She had been accustomed to queen it 
 in society, to be courted, consulted, and applauded, 
 and she could not endure to find herself now of little 
 or no account. She felt this supposed neglect acutely, 
 and resented it as an unmerited humiliation. Her 
 pride rose up in arms ; she became irritable, suspicious 
 of slights, and ready both to give and take offence, 
 discarding some of her friends and alienating others 
 at the very time when she most needed and claimed 
 their support. With my father she had now definitely 
 quarrelled, on the ground of his ingratitude C' that 
 abominable vice," see p. 206) ; and she was on bad 
 terms with Lord Chatham, Lord Grenville, and several 
 other relatives. Though her letter to Mr. Adams was, 
 as we have seen, dated from South Hill, she had since 
 broken off all intercourse with Mr. Canning. 
 
 I have no letters of hers of this date, which is the 
 more unfortunate, as it must have been in these that 
 her engagement to Sir John Moore was first reported. 
 She bad already felt an enthusiastic admiration for 
 
i8o3-i8io] SIR JOHN MOORE 73 
 
 " Charles's General," who had been excessively kind to 
 her brother ; and that a strong attachment had sprung 
 up between them I do not for a moment doubt. But 
 I think it must have been more of an understanding 
 than an engagement. It is true she spoke of him as 
 the man she was to have married to M. Didot, ten 
 years afterwards, in Syria ; but there certainly never 
 was any open acknowledgment, far less announce- 
 ment, of their betrothal.^ It should be borne in mind 
 that there was every possible reason for delay. He 
 was a soldier on active service, heart and soul in his 
 profession ; there could be no thought or prospect of 
 marriage for him at that time, nor probably for a long 
 time to come. It must be a hope laid up for the 
 future, when, his campaigns being ended, he might 
 sheathe his sword and come home to claim his bride. 
 His last letter to her alludes to the chance of a joyful 
 reunion. But it was not to be. In 1808, on his return 
 from Sweden, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief 
 of the army sent to Portugal to assist the Spaniards 
 in resisting the French. Charles Stanhope went with 
 him as his Aide-de-camp, and James joined him soon 
 afterwards in a similar capacity. 
 
 Lady Hester, left alone, remained in a cruel state of 
 anxiety and suspense, as the letter here inserted 
 sufficiently shows. The direction is lost, and there 
 is no date. 
 
 " Monday Night. 
 
 "You are very good to forgive my not having 
 answered your kind letter, which I received in Wales ; 
 but the fact was I had nothing to say. I came to town 
 two months ago, much mended in health, but I have 
 been of late in so wretched a state of anxiety about the 
 army in Spain that I have fretted myself almost ill 
 again. Charles went with Moore; James has been sent 
 with despatches (the beginning of last month), and we 
 have never heard of his arrival at headquarters. Besides 
 all this, I am beyond measure angry with Canning, 
 
 ^ Lady Griselda, as she once told me, knew nothing of it, and 
 believed that Lord Granville was the only man her sister ever wished 
 to marry. 
 
74 *'A BUTTON-HOLE BORE" [ch. ii 
 
 who is certainly turned fool. Did one ever hear of 
 such appointments as those of a Volunteer Colonel 
 and Button-hole Bore ? I have not seen him once, 
 nor do I mean to. I cannot sanction public incapacity 
 and private ingratitude; for v^hat are the claims of 
 these people in comparison to many I could name ? . . . 
 '* I open this again to say that although I am not 
 a Peer, a Judge, or a Bishop, neither am I a Prince, 
 yet I have got the enclosed letter^ only sent, as a note 
 tells me, to those I have named above. Read it, but 
 don't lend it on any account, and return it me 
 to-morrow, if I do not see you Wednesday." (The 
 enclosure has disappeared.) 
 
 She kept up a close correspondence with the 
 General, and several of his letters to her have been 
 preserved. Here are a few extracts from them : 
 
 Sir John Moore to Lady Hester 
 
 " Lisbon, 
 
 ''October i6tk, 1808. 
 
 *' Charles's Regiment was in the number of those 
 named to remain in Portugal, under Sir Henry 
 Burrard ; this was breaking his heart, and so was 
 it mine — but I have, at last, contrived an arrange- 
 ment, in concert with Sir Henry, who is the most 
 liberal of men, to take the 50th with me, and now all is 
 well The regiments are already marching. His will 
 move in a few days, and as soon as I have seen every- 
 thing in train here, I shall push on, and get to their 
 head. Pray for good weather ; if it rains the torrents 
 will swell, and be impassable, and I shall be accounted 
 a bungler. ... 1 wish you were with us. The climate 
 now is charming ; we should give you riding enough, 
 and in your red habit, k rAmazone,you would animate 
 and do us all much good." 
 
i8o3-i8io] SIR JOHN MOORE'S AIDES-DE-CAMP 75 
 
 Sir John Moore to Lady Hester 
 
 " Salamanca, 
 
 *' November 2otk, 1808. 
 
 " I received some time ago your letter of the 24th 
 October. I shall be very glad to receive James if he 
 wishes to come to me as an extra aide-de-camp, 
 though I have already too many, and am, or shall be, 
 obliged to take a young FitzClarence. But I have a 
 sincere regard for James, and besides, can refuse you 
 nothing, but to follow your advice. He must get 
 the Commander-in-Chiefs leave to come to Spain. 
 He may then join me. He will, however, come too 
 late ; I shall already be beaten. I am within four 
 marches of the French, with only a third of my force, 
 and as the Spaniards have been dispersed in all 
 quarters, my junction with the other two-thirds is very 
 precarious, and when we do join we shall be very 
 inferior to the enemy." 
 
 " Salamanca, 
 
 ^^ November 2yd^ 1808. 
 
 ** Charles is not yet arrived. His was one of the last 
 regiments that left Lisbon, and was not intended to 
 join us, if I, in compassion to his melancholy counten- 
 ance, had not found a pretext. We are in a scrape, 
 but I hope we shall have spirit to get out of it ; you 
 must, however, be prepared to hear very bad news. 
 The troops are in as good spirits as if things were 
 better ; their appearance and good conduct surprises 
 the grave Spaniard, who had never before seen any 
 but their own or French soldiers. 
 
 " Farewell, my dear Lady Hester. If 1 extricate 
 myself and those with me from our present difficulties, 
 and if I can beat the French, I shall return to you 
 
76 DEATH OF SIR JOHN MOORE [ch. ii 
 
 with satisfaction ; but if not, it will be better I shall 
 never quit Spain. 
 
 ** I remain always very faithfully and sincerely yours, 
 
 *'JoHN Moore." 
 
 He only lived long enough to see his dearest wish 
 fulfilled. Less than two months after this was written, 
 he had saved his army, beaten the French, and was 
 lying buried, 
 
 **From the field of his fame fresh and gory," 
 
 on the glacis of the ramparts of Corunna.^ His last 
 thought was of Lady Hester — the last words that 
 passed his lips were for her. 
 
 Few death scenes could, I think, be more pathetic 
 than that recounted by the faithful friend and comrade 
 whose hand he held clasped in his to the end. They 
 had been companions in arms for twenty-one years. 
 ** Anderson, don't leave me," he had said, as he was 
 being carried oflF the field in the deepening twilight, 
 the soldiers shedding tears as they went. Captain 
 Hardinge wanted to unbuckle his sword, which was 
 on the wounded side, and pressed against his shattered 
 arm. *' It is as well as it is," he told him. ** I had 
 rather it should go out of the field with me." Two 
 surgeons, hastily despatched by Sir David Baird,came 
 hurrying to meet him, but he bade them go to the 
 soldiers. '*You can be of no service to me; to them 
 you may be useful." He had told Hardinge that he 
 knew there was no possible chance of life for him. As 
 he was borne slowly along, he often made the soldiers 
 turn him round towards the battlefield, and listened 
 to the firing, pleased to hear the sound growing fainter 
 and fainter. At length they reached his lodging at 
 Corunna ; and there, standing in the passage, speech- 
 
 ^ "He pushed forward from Salamanca on December I2th with 
 25,odomen to attack Soult, and had defeated the enemy's cavalry at 
 Sahagun, when he learnt that Madrid had fallen, and that Napoleon 
 was advancing against him with greatly superior forces, while Soult 
 menaced him from another point. Thereupon, across the snows of 
 a mountainous region, he made a masterly retreat of 700 miles to 
 Corunna, which he reached on January 13th. There he embarked 
 his sick and artillery, and without cannon defeated Soult's army, 
 January i6th.^ — Life of Sir fohn Moore. 
 
i8o3-i8io] DEATH OF SIR JOHN MOORE 77 
 
 less and stunned at the sad sight, he noticed his faithful 
 servant Francois. " My friend," he said, with a smile, 
 " this is nothing/' 
 
 He was laid on his bed, and his wound now 
 examined. " He spoke to the surgeons, but was in 
 such pain he could say little. 
 
 "Alter some time he seemed very anxious to speak 
 to me, and at intervals got out as follows : * Anderson, 
 you know I have always wished to die in this way.* 
 He then asked, *Are the French beaten?' which he 
 repeated to every one he knew as they came in. 
 
 * I hope the people of England will be satisfied. . . . 
 I hope my country will do me justice. . . . Anderson— 
 you will see my friends as soon as you can. Tell 
 them — everything. Say to my mother' — here his 
 voice quite failed and he was excessively agitated. 
 
 * Hope — Hope — I have much to say to him, but cannot 
 get it out. Are Colonel Graham — and all my aides- 
 de-camp well ? ' " Here Colonel Anderson made a 
 sign that he was not to be told of Captain Burrard's 
 wound. Poor Captain Burrard only survived his 
 chief two days. ** I have," he resumed, " remembered 
 my servants — Colborne has my will." Major Colborne 
 entered at that moment, and he spoke very kindly to 
 him, and told Anderson to report that his dying request 
 had been for a Lieutenant-Colonelcy for Colborne. 
 " He has been long with me, and I know him most 
 worthy of it." Then he asked again, ** Are the French 
 beaten ? " Colborne assured him they were, at every 
 
 Eoint. " It's a great satisfaction for me to know we 
 ave beaten the French. Is Paget in the room? 
 Remember me to him . . . He is a fine fellow ... I 
 feel myself so strong ... I fear I shall be long dying. 
 It is great pain . . . great uneasiness . . ." Two of 
 his aides-de-camp, Captain Perry and James Stanhope, 
 now came into the room. He spoke to Perry kindly, 
 and again asked after his staff. 
 
 Then, after a pause, followed the last words of 
 all, ''Stanhope, remember me to your sister!" and, 
 
 Eressing Colonel Anderson's hand close to his side, 
 e passed away without a struggle. 
 Which of us would not be found to say and feel— 
 
 *' O morts pour ma patrie ! 
 Je suis votre envieux." 
 
78 LADY HESTER'S GRIEF [ch, ii 
 
 Lady Hester mourned him with an overwhelming 
 sense of loss. What woman ever had more cause to 
 grieve? With him was buried every promise the 
 future had held out to her, the home she was to have 
 shared with him, the life spent together, the storm- 
 sheltered haven where she might end her days, the 
 priceless love and devotion that was to give her all. 
 How different— how widely different — her fate must 
 have been if he had lived ! 
 
 She never forgot him. Often and often, in the far-off 
 dismal years to come, buried in the solitude of the 
 Lebanon, she must have mused over all that might 
 have been, and was never to be, in the inexorable 
 Past. Almost the only trinkets she retained to the 
 end were some sleeve-links containing his hair; and 
 there is a tradition at Djoun of a blood-stained glove 
 that she kept carefully locked up, and would often 
 take out and look at. 
 
 It was characteristic that almost her first thought, 
 on receiving the fatal news, was anxiety that her 
 hero's memory should be duly honoured, and she at 
 once wrote to the Prime Minister (Lord Grenville) 
 on the subject. Although she signs herself " Your 
 affectionate Cousin," it will be observed that she 
 addresses him with the cold formality of a stranger, 
 and a decidedly aggressive stranger. 
 
 Lady Hester to Lord Grenville 
 
 " Montagu Square, 
 
 ''^Ja?iuary 25/^. 
 
 ** At a moment when I am quite broken-hearted at 
 the loss of our valuable friend, General Moore, and 
 in a state of cruel anxiety about my brothers, I am 
 little able to frame excuses for the liberty I take in 
 addressing you ; yet I think that my motives for 
 troubling your Lordship will be sufficiently evident 
 to make apology unnecessary. Fully aware that the 
 merits of the General, whose loss is but too severely 
 felt by his country, are acknowledged by your Lord- 
 ship, I have no doubt of your intention to grant him 
 every tribute of public respect due to his talents and 
 
1803-1810] MONTAGU SQUARE 79 
 
 virtues. Yet I feel it a duty incumbent upon me, as 
 the last proof I can give of that gratitude and affection 
 (upon which he had so many claims) to state to your 
 Lordship what I am persuaded will increase your 
 interest towards him, and have no small weight in 
 strengthening the high opinion you may have formed 
 of his merits. Circumstances, never sufficiently to 
 be lamented, have in all probability prevented your 
 Lordship from being aware of a fact which was men- 
 tioned to me in confidence by Mr. Pitt, and which I 
 have never before conversed upon with any one except 
 my brother Charles, to whom it was communicated 
 by Sir John Moore, as he was to have accompanied 
 him had the expedition taken place. Some intel- 
 ligence Mr. Pitt received on his return to office led 
 him to decide upon sending a large body of troops 
 to France, provided it was possible to make good 
 their landing. He promised General Moore the 
 command of 30,000 men ; indeed, of all the disposable 
 force of the country, if he thought such a force 
 necessary ; but, upon the General reconnoitring the 
 coast, he judged it most prudent to give up the plan. 
 Of course some of the present Ministers must have 
 been aware of what was in agitation at that period, 
 and of the unlimited confidence Mr. Pitt placed in 
 Sir John Moore's judgment and exertions, which 
 considerably adds to their guilt, for no man could 
 have been more ill-treated than the General has been 
 by them. I have great apprehensions that they will 
 even persecute him beyond the grave, by blackening 
 his memory and diminishing the honours he is so 
 well entitled to from his country. As I am aware how 
 much I have been abused, and that your Lordship 
 is said to have a strong prejudice against women 
 meddling in politics, I shall beg leave to remark that 
 
8o DEATH OF CHARLES STANHOPE [ch. ii 
 
 I neither wish to be put in possession of your senti- 
 ments respecting the subject which I have addressed 
 you upon, or expect to receive any answer to my 
 letter. But should any doubt exist in your Lordship's 
 mind of the accuracy of my statement, you can take 
 proper means to make enquiries of the Duke of York, 
 who cannot be ignorant of what I have asserted, and 
 who, I am sure, with his usual kindness and liberality, 
 will bear testimony to the high esteem in which 
 Mr. Pitt ever held General Moore's public and private 
 character, and no doubt add H.R.H.'s sentiments of 
 constant approbation of the conduct of this lamented 
 and distinguished officer." 
 
 When Lady Hester wrote this, she was yet ignorant 
 of her brother's fate. She had now to learn that poor 
 Charles had been shot through the heart while leading 
 on his men, almost at the same moment that the 
 General received his death wound. This second 
 crushing blow, following so closely on the first, 
 completely overpowered her. There is a touching 
 letter — unfortunately imperfect — that describes her 
 agony of grief, and was probably written to the 
 same friend whose name is lost. I have here repro- 
 duced it, without attempting to fill up the gaps left 
 by the fragments torn away. 
 
 "M. Square, 
 
 '^ Monday. 
 
 " You are very kind to me, my dear friend. I would 
 have written before, but really I have been unable to 
 do anything. To have lost by one fatal blow the best 
 and kindest of brothers, and the dearest of friends, 
 is a misfortune so cruel, that I am convinced I can 
 never recover it. I try to resign myself to the will 
 of God, and reap what consolation I can from the idea 
 that my beloved brother fell in the proud execution 
 of his duty, adored by all who accompanied him to 
 
i8o3-i8io] MONTAGU SQUARE 8i 
 
 the field. The last observation the dear and lamented 
 General in . . . was upon the furious . . . for had 
 they given way . . . must have been cut to pieces. 
 He rode up, on seeing their wonderful exertions, and 
 called out, *Well done, the soth, well done, my 
 Majors ! ' " (My brother and his friend Napier com- 
 manded the regiment, the Lieut.-Colonel being absent.) 
 " Moore received his death-blow shortly after, and my 
 poor brother fell nearly at the same time. Thank 
 Heaven, the latter did not suffer one instant, or had time 
 to reflect on the misery of those who remain to deplore 
 his loss. The gallant General lived three hours, but 
 the agony he was in never deranged his ideas; he 
 was perfectly collected ... of what he must have . . . 
 last words he was ... * remember me to your sister ' ; 
 he then smiled and went to Heaven without a groan. 
 You may wonder I can tell you all this ; but grief 
 has its peculiarities, and thinking of nothing else but 
 those I have lost, I like to talk of them, and the very 
 first person I saw, and, indeed, almost the only one 
 I have devoted my time to since, is Colonel Anderson, 
 an officer who has served fifteen years with the dear 
 General, and whom Charles loved and respected as 
 he deserves. Knowing the nature of my feelings, the 
 instant he arrived in town he came to me and told 
 me everything in detail. Moore called to him as he 
 was about to . . . and he remained with h . . . I was 
 half distracted till J . . . the poor little creature . . . 
 gone through; but Heaven be praised that he has 
 been spared me ! I often consider him with astonish- 
 ment, and wonder how it is possible that he is alive. 
 His cloak, buckled upon his horse, was shot through, 
 and the spent ball hit, but did not wound him. He 
 advanced one pace out of a line to see if he could 
 ca . . . one more look at his brother, and the four 
 
 7 
 
'^i DANGERS OF JAMES STANHOPE [ch. ii 
 
 men near him were all taken off by a cannon ball. 
 He says no one thing on the face of the earth could 
 have made up to him for not being there, as it afforded 
 him an opportunity of performing ... to the two 
 persons he most loved on . . . Beloved Charles was 
 so adored by the regiment, that, as soon as he fell, 
 they called out, * They shall pay for it!— we will be 
 revenged ! ' and they fought on as well without officers 
 as with. Officers and men have all put themselves into 
 mourning. A greater mark of respect was, I think, 
 never yet paid so young a man. All the Grenvilles 
 and all the people I care about have been most 
 extremely kind to me. Canning has attempted to 
 be so too, but I would have nothing to say to him. 
 I can at this moment less forgive his conduct to Moore 
 than I was ever before inclined to do. I think that 
 Government will hardly stand the Spanish question. 
 Our plans remain the s . . . Colonel Anderson accom- 
 pany . . . Bath in about three weeks. One of our 
 great comforts is to hear Anderson talk over and 
 praise those who are no more. He has been most 
 seriously wounded in former actions, is now in bad 
 health, and quite broken-hearted; therefore it will 
 be a consolation to us to be able to pay him every 
 possible kindness and attention. I have written you 
 a sad, confused letter, but I feel as if I had just waked 
 from a horrid dream, so you must forgive it. . . ." 
 
 Lady Hester's passionate grief was exasperated and 
 embittered b}'' a keen sense of wrong — the wrong done 
 to the memory of Moore. His conduct of the cam- 
 paign had been unfavourably commented upon in 
 rarliament, his plans sharply critised, and every word 
 of blame or cavil was a iresh wound that cut her to 
 the quick. She was chiefly indignant with Lord 
 Castlereagh ; but Canning came in for a full share of 
 her wrath. The letter of condolence he addressed to 
 
i8o3-i8io] MONTAGU SQUARE 83 
 
 his " dearest Lady Hester '* received the following 
 vehement reply : 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, Canning 
 
 " Saturday Night, 
 
 '* Three years ago, in Devonshire, I absolved you 
 from 2^ future kindness and attention to me ; but that 
 which you once bestowed on me I found too valuable 
 not to accompany my request with an entreaty that 
 you would grant it in reversion to my beloved 
 brothers. It is your neglect of them, and not of a 
 poor wretched being, that so much displeases me. As 
 for your attempting (when you had it in your power 
 for four months last year) to have mixed them up 
 with the rascally set you act with, I should have little 
 thanked you for, or permitted, could I have prevented 
 it. But never to have enquired after them, either 
 through me (or others that 1 could find) when exposed 
 to such dangers, is certainly what I never made up 
 my mind to think possible. Even people 1 hardly 
 knew, but who loved and admired their sisters, took 
 means not only of being informed about them, but ol 
 communicating to me all the intelligence they could 
 pick up. I repeat, I disapprove of your past conduct 
 to the dear General, and despise your present silence 
 respecting him. Were you gifted with eloquence, not 
 to do justice to his glorious death ? but if you feel 
 like that vile Castlereagh, perhaps you do well not to 
 tell the host of lies he did in the House, and hold a 
 different language out of it. I have a copy of a private 
 letter of his ; if he had come in my way when I read 
 it, it might have brought upon him the punishment he 
 deserved for his duplicity. ... I am also mortified 
 beyond description that you are not the public character 
 I expected, and I am sure this feeling is not softened 
 hy your private conduct to those, I love. After what I 
 
84 REV. T. PRICE [ch. ii 
 
 have said you cannot suppose it would be any con- 
 solation to me to see you." 
 
 She dismisses her uncle Chatham's expressions of 
 sympathy very curtly : 
 
 " I feel your kind attentions at this unhappy moment 
 as much as I felt your neglect of me under similar 
 affecting circumstances. I thank God James is spared 
 me, and try to console myself with the idea that if 
 beloved Charles could have chosen his death, it would 
 have been to have shared the glorious one of our dear 
 friend, the ever-lamented General." 
 
 Much of this excessive soreness and irritability may 
 perhaps have been attributable to illness, for her 
 health had completely broken down under the long 
 stress and strain of anxiety and suffering. London 
 had become hateful to her, and she was eager to escape 
 to some quiet place in the country, where she might 
 rest and recruit, and possibly regain her strength. 
 She bethought herself of a lonely farmhouse she had 
 seen the year before in Wales, and remembered that 
 she had taken a great liking to the place. 
 
 In the preceding summer (of 1808), being at Bath, 
 she had made an excursion into the Principality, and 
 taken up her abode in a little inn at Builth, on 
 the beautiful banks of the Wye. Here she made 
 acquaintance with the clergyman's son, then a mere 
 lad, afterwards the Rev. Thomas Price, who has left a 
 detailed account of her in his Literary Remains. He 
 and the landlady's little girl, Betsy Jones, to whom 
 she had taken a great fancy, accompanied her on a 
 long expedition she undertook to see the country, 
 going to Aberystwyth, Tregaron, and Llanwrtyd. 
 They travelled in her coach as long as the roads 
 admitted of it, and then on horseback, Lady 
 Hester leading the way on her ''spirited palfrey," 
 followed in single file by Elizabeth Williams/ her 
 
 ^ The daughter of a former dependant of the Chatham family. She 
 and her sisters owed their education to the hberaUty of Mr. Pitt. 
 Elizabeth Williams was a most faithful and attached servant. 
 
i8o3-i8io] EXCURSION IN WALES 85 
 
 maid, Betsy Jones, and young Mr. Price, while the 
 groom, leading a sumpter horse with panniers, brought 
 up the rear. Cheerful, aflFable, and indulgent, Lady 
 Hester rendered this excursion delightful to all her 
 companions. Mr. Thomas Price sometimes murmured 
 a little at the rearward place assigned to him in the 
 procession, having a particular aversion to the vicinity ol 
 the panniers, but upon sending forward a remonstrance 
 along the line, he seldom failed to gain permission 
 to ride where he liked, which, of course, was by Lady 
 Hester's side. Her liveliness, kindliness, and genial 
 humour, won confidence and affection wherever she 
 went. She liked to assemble smiling faces and gay 
 spirits around her, and rejoiced in opportunities of 
 communicating pleasure. Lord Kensington's family 
 happened that summer to be sojourning at another 
 inn of the same town, and Lady Hester kept up habits 
 of friendly intercourse with them, and with all other 
 persons of rank and station, or of education and 
 talents, who chanced to come in her way. The desire 
 of action was her strongest incentive, and prompted 
 her incessantly to direct and assist whatever works o{ 
 skill and industry were carrying on around her. 
 Medicine was her favourite study, and she took a 
 benevolent pleasure in practising the art. A child of 
 Lord Kensington's having, while at Builth, accidentally 
 swallowed an earring. Lady Hester instantly sent a 
 prescription for the case, with exact verbal directions 
 for the proper treatment of the patient. . . . 
 
 " Lady Hester sought in Wales to become the 
 acknowledged and admired queen of her company, and 
 she received their willing homage most graciously. 
 She was very compassionate and bountiful to the 
 poor; besides medicine and money, she gave away 
 among them great quantities of flannel, and of the 
 coarse grey cloth made by the neighbouring weavers. 
 Her address and manners were most attractive and 
 conciliating, but she was neither beautiful nor hand- 
 some in any degree. Her visage was long, very full 
 and flat about the lower part, and quite pale, bearing 
 
86 RESEMBLANCE TO PITT [ch. ii 
 
 altogether a strong resemblance to the portraits and 
 busts of Mr. Pitt." 
 
 This likeness my father always stoutly denied. 
 She had left Wales at the approach of winter, but 
 spoke of returning the next year ; not, however, to 
 Builth, but to a farmhouse in the neighbouring Glen 
 Irfon, which she had discovered in one of her rides. 
 
 How much was to happen in the interval ! The 
 tragedy of her life had filled it up. What days and 
 weeks and months of trial and tribulation she had 
 passed through since then ! What a changed woman 
 she felt herself to be, saddened, disillusioned, em- 
 bittered, sore at heart, and broken down in health and 
 spirits ! The holiday tour of the year before seemed 
 to have receded miles away into the far distance. Yet 
 now, in her great dejection, her thoughts travelled 
 back to Glen Irfon. She wanted quiet and solitude, 
 and she made up her mind that no place would suit 
 her as well. She accordingly wrote to ask the Rev. 
 Rice Price (the father of her young friend) to make 
 the necessary arrangements. 1 have given the letter 
 in full, to show how very few and simple were her 
 requirements. Would a lady of the present day have 
 been content with so little ? 
 
 Lady Hester to the Rev. Rice Price 
 
 " Montagu Square, 
 
 ^^ April 2^tk^ 1809. 
 
 ^* Dear Sir, — You cannot be ignorant of the severe 
 afflictions which it has pleased God to visit me with 
 since I left Builth. I have suffered, as you may 
 imagine, most severely, both in mind and body. Some 
 little time ago, I thought I had almost decided to visit 
 some of my relations in Scotland this summer, but 
 have been so unwell of late, that I find I am unequal 
 to the journey, and now propose again trying the 
 waters and air of Builth. May I trouble you to give 
 Mrs. Price, of Glen Irfon, ^ the enclosed paper, which 
 contains the conditions on which I shall become her 
 
 ' The wife of a farmer ; no rejation of the clergyman's, 
 
i8o3-i8io] LADY HESTER'S REQUIREMENTS 87 
 
 lodger, if she agrees to them ? You will read them 
 first, and I hope you will think them fair ones. I have 
 entered into minute details, as I was so tormented last 
 year ; not that I in the least suspect Mrs. Price to be 
 of the same imposing disposition as those I had to 
 deal with before, only I like great exactness in doing 
 business ; it has always been my practice, and if ever 
 I have deviated from it, I have had occasion to repent 
 it. If I get pretty well, I must go to Ireland to visit 
 the Duke and Duchess of Richmond, and may be 
 away six weeks or two months ; at all events I shall 
 not occupy my lodgings all the time I take them for, 
 but I like to ensure them." 
 
 Enclosed were her requirements — very far from 
 luxurious. 
 
 ** I want the parlour, the little room above it for my 
 bedroom, and the little room next for a dressing-room, 
 a door to be made near the window to communicate 
 with the bedroom. The room over the kitchen for my 
 maids, and a bed, in the loft or elsewhere, for a boy. The 
 parlour must have two rush chairs or wooden ones, 
 and be carpeted all over with green baize, or coarse 
 grey cloth, like soldiers' great-coats, a table to dine on, 
 a fly-table, and shelves for books. The bedroom must 
 have two chairs, a table — no bed, as I shall bring 
 down a camp bed and furniture complete. Bedside 
 carpets I shall expect to find, and a chest of drawers. 
 The dressing-room must have two chairs, and a table 
 with a looking-glass, two wash-hand basins, two 
 water jugs, one large stone pitcher for water, two 
 large tumbler glasses, and two large cups for soap, 
 a tin kettle for warm water, and a little strip of carpet 
 before the table. ... I shall want no attendance from 
 any part of the family. ... If Mrs. Price chooses to 
 
88 THE SIMPLE LIFE [ch. ii 
 
 put things in this order, I will give her £2^ for part of 
 the months of May, June, July, August, September, 
 and part of October — in short, the season. I certainly 
 shall not be there all the time." 
 
 Mrs. Price agreed, and Lady Hester arrived before 
 the house was quite ready for her. 
 
 ** Masons and other workmen were still busy at 
 Glen Irfon, and with the sanction of the landlord of 
 the premises, Lady Hester undertook to superintend, 
 direct, and expedite their tardy operations. 
 
 " The house of Glen Irfon has gables in front, and 
 is faced with dark slate-coloured tile-stones over- 
 lapping each other. The only parlour lies to the left 
 hand in entering, the best kitchen to the right, and a 
 narrow hall between them. The staircase is good, 
 broad, and easy of ascent, having the balustrades and 
 the steps of dark polished oak. Lady Hester's bedroom 
 is small, and the adjacent dressing-room still smaller. 
 
 " She brought with her into Wales a coach, which 
 she kept at the * Royal Oak' in readiness for particular 
 occasions, and had a lighter carriage — better adapted 
 for country roads — with her at Glen Irfon, where she 
 also kept two saddle-horses and a cow. The latter 
 was named Prettyface, and Lady Hester amused her- 
 self with managing this favourite's dairy produce. 
 She successfully skimmed the milk, churned the 
 cream, and washed the butter with her own hands, 
 but she never attempted to make cheese. She never 
 drank Chinese tea, but took in its stead, twice a day, 
 an infusion of fresh balm leaves." 
 
 « 
 
 One of the horses, at least, was not her own. 
 
 " I shall write to you again before I come down," 
 she tells Mrs. Price ; '' but should a groom and a 
 
i8o3-i8io] GLEN IRFON 89 
 
 stallion of my brother's come first, I shall trouble you 
 to find a place for the horse where he can be safe. . . . 
 This stallion I have a great respect for, as he carried 
 my brother about two thousand miles, and has been 
 in battle. It is the best-tempered, good little creature 
 that can be, and came from Poland. James gave fifty 
 guineas for him, and he is worth it, for he tired out all 
 the English horses, and went nine hundred miles with- 
 out resting one day, only a few hours at a time, and 
 never got a feed of corn the whole time, only peas. His 
 feet now are grown tender, and I want him to be 
 turned out soon in some safe, low land to cool them." 
 
 Lady Hester did not go to Ireland, but spent the 
 summer in her primitive lodgings at Glen Irfon, with 
 the tiny parlbur " not more than a dozen feet square." 
 She liked both the place and the people, and was 
 deservedly popular in the neighbourhood. Her chief 
 friends were the clergyman and his youngest son 
 Thomas, who attributed many of his youthful efforts 
 at self-improvement to her influence. Betsy Jones, 
 " the sprightly, good-tempered girl of thirteen," in 
 after life read Lady Hester's ^Memoirs' with great 
 indignation. " She could not believe that so free and 
 kind and jolly a lady could ever have become so 
 unamiably harsh and severe as she is there repre- 
 sented to have been, nor did she find it possible to 
 identify or recognise any likeness in a picture which 
 assigns to Xady Hester the strange attribute of 
 a pipe." 
 
 She had come into Wales " disappointed and 
 mortified, aggrieved and saddened . . . ostensibly in 
 search of health, but in reality of peace and consola- 
 tion." How far she succeeded in obtaining either it is 
 impossible to say. But she probably found solace in 
 the scenery, the fine mountain air, the free country 
 life, and her long rambles on horseback. 
 
 The following letter was to a friend who was 
 entirely in Mr. Pitt's confidence, and had formed part 
 of his first Administration : 
 
90 **A DAY OF JUDGMENT" [ch. ii 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. Rose 
 
 '* September 13M, 1809. 
 
 " Dear Mr. Rose, — Have not events proved how 
 just was the abuse 1 bestowed upon Lord Chatham 
 and upon Ministers, and what a day of judgment to 
 them will be the meeting of Parliament? I always 
 say to you, if I speak at all, just what I think, just 
 what I wish, and you never take anything ill ; there- 
 fore I shall tell you at once that, after deep considera- 
 tion, I cannot help feeling uneasy at the prospect of 
 your suffering in the eyes of the world for the faults 
 committed by your party. They must fall ere long, 
 branded with infamy, and I wish to God, as you have 
 no love for office, you would not disguise your dis- 
 approbation when a proper opportunity offers to 
 publicly demonstrate it. I can have no interest in 
 what I am advising but your welfare ; if I am wrong, 
 it is you who are to correct me, but not blame the 
 feeling which dictates these opinions. I must now 
 thank you for having relieved the mind of the poor 
 fidgety old man who was the subject of my last letter, 
 which you must have received some time after date, as 
 I find it missed one day's post, being too late, and in 
 the part of the world I was then in it only comes in 
 and goes out three times a week. Upon General 
 Clinton's mission being at an end, James came down 
 to me; he spent some time at Glen Irfon, and since 
 then we have been to Swansea. He has just left me 
 to relieve Lord A. Somerset, and I am again become 
 a wanderer. I am now writing from an inn a stage 
 from Margam, the most beautiful place I have ever 
 seen, though the house has been pulled down. If the 
 new one Mr. Talbot talks of building equals the 
 grounds in beauty and magnificence, Margam will 
 certainly be the most delightful residence in His 
 
1803-1810] MARGAM 91 
 
 Majesty^s dominions. As Mrs. and Miss Rose are so 
 fond of plants, it would be almost worth their while to 
 take a journey on purpose to look at these at Margam. 
 Some of the old orange-trees were wrecked upon the 
 coast in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and are now so 
 hardy they stand out from May till the end of October, 
 and one might almost fancy oneself in a grove in Italy, 
 for I think there are more than six hundred of them. 
 Tulip-trees as large as fine oaks, and all the other 
 flowering trees in proportion. I suppose Miss R. 
 would tell me that a bay-tree was a shrub^ but when 
 they grov^ fifty- six feet high, I think they are no longer 
 to be called so. I suppose you have read James 
 Moore's book ; ^ it is interesting, because authentic, 
 but most shockingly written, to be sure. Two things 
 he never should have done, published Napier's con- 
 versations with the French Generals, or left out one 
 word in his brother's letters, for all he said was just, 
 and events will (prove ?) it to have been so. We 
 already see that Sir A. Wellesley, so famous for 
 indulging his troops, speaks very harshly of the 
 conduct of several officers ; and we shall see, if we 
 have not already seen enough, how useless it is to 
 send more troops to Spain. Frere is certainly dis- 
 graced for ever ; his birth was always, in my opinion, 
 a sufficient reason against sending him Ambassador 
 to the proudest nation in the world. Nobody who 
 knows him can deny he has talents, but conceit and 
 indolence prevent their being turned to account ; and 
 since his conduct towards General Moore, I shall 
 never be able to endure the sight of him. But 
 Canning and he have both equally forgotten the 
 respect due to those Mr. Pitt thought highly of, for 
 had General Moore been General Don, they ought to 
 
 * His Life of Sir John Moore. 
 
92 LADY HESTER'S PLANS [ch. ii 
 
 have been the last persons in the world to have treated 
 him as they did during his hfe, and to have forgotten 
 the respect due to a soldier's memory, who lost his 
 valuable life in endeavouring to repair their most 
 
 INFAMOUS BLUNDERS. 
 
 ** When I began, I meant only to write a short 
 letter, but I have ceased to recollect I was writing, not 
 speaking." 
 
 On leaving Glen Irfon, " Lady Hester treated her 
 hostess with great liberality, and left many permanent 
 improvements, fixtures, and articles of furniture 
 behind her. The bath which she had fixed in her 
 dressing-room was long afterwards used as a corn- 
 bin." She also committed to Mrs. Price's care two 
 portraits, one of Mr. Pitt and one of the Duke of York, 
 enjoining her *' never to deliver them up to any 
 person without a written order from herself." But 
 they were never reclaimed. 
 
 Lady Hester had not only regained her health in 
 the Welsh mountains, but matured her plans for the 
 future. She had determined to give up her house in 
 Montagu Square and go abroad. London and the 
 London world disgusted her ; and she felt it impossible 
 to resume the life she had led hitherto. All the zest 
 and interest was gone out of it ; there seemed nothing 
 left for her to take up again. Many of her friends had 
 disappointed, and some had deserted her; with some 
 she was out of touch, and with others in open antagon- 
 ism. She had now neither power nor influence ; and 
 politics had become a hateful theme, for she found no 
 words strong enough to denounce the Ministers and 
 their conduct of affairs. Whatever they did, or left 
 undone, chafed, vexed, and displeased her. The 
 country had not paid her lost hero the honour that 
 was his due ; a new General had taken his place and 
 was gaining its applause ; it was fickle, unjust, and 
 ungrateful. Everything seemed to be amiss and out 
 of gear in this troublesome and perplexing world ; and 
 her words were unheeded, her advice ignored, she could 
 only look on and lament. James was soon to rejoin his 
 regiment in Spain ; why should she not go with him ? 
 The change would be very welcome, and do her good. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Departure from England — Malta — Athens — Therapia 
 — Constantinople — Brusa — Shipwreck — Rhodes — 
 Alexandria — Cairo — Jerusalem — Dayr-el-Kamar — 
 Damascus 
 
 i8ia-i8i2 
 
 I DO not for a moment believe that she contemplated 
 leaving England for good and all. Her plan was to 
 spend a year or two in Sicily, then under English 
 rule, and, as the Continent was closed to travellers, 
 one of the very few resorts then left to them. As her 
 health, never very strong, had been severely tried of 
 late, she judged it advisable to take with her a medical 
 man, and, on the recommendation of an eminent 
 surgeon, engaged a young physician of the name of 
 Meryon as her travelling companion. It was not a 
 happy choice. Eight-and-twenty years afterwards she 
 thus sums up her experience of him in a letter to Lord 
 Hardwicke. '* Should you see the Doctor in England 
 recollect that his only good quality in my sight is, 
 I believe, being very honest in money matters. No 
 other do I grant him ; without judgment, without 
 heart, he goes through the world, like many others, 
 blundering his way, and often, from his want of 
 accuracy, doing mischief every time he opens his 
 mouth." Were not these words prophetic? 
 
 With this doctor, her brother James and his friend 
 Mr. Nassau Sutton, her maid Elizabeth Williams, and 
 a man-servant, Lady Hester left England on February 
 loth, 1810, little dreaming that it was to be for ever. 
 What would she have felt if she had known where 
 she was going for the rest of her life? Would she 
 have imagined it possible that she was to end her 
 days as a hermit on a Syrian mountain-top ? No fairy 
 
 93 
 
94 DEPARTURE FROM ENGLAND [ch. hi 
 
 tale ever invented could have sounded more wildly 
 improbable. 
 
 The party embarked at Portsmouth in the Jason 
 frigate, commanded by Captain the Honourable James 
 King, who had under convoy a little fleet of transports 
 and merchantmen bound for Gibraltar. This rendered 
 the passage a very tedious one, for they were a whole 
 month at sea, and encountered heavy gales off the 
 Spanish coast, narrowly escaping shipwreck on the 
 shoals of Trafalgar. On their arrival at Gibraltar, Lady 
 Hester and her brother were received at the Convent 
 by the Governor, General Campbell, and met there 
 the Marquis of Sligo and Mr. Michael Bruce, who 
 were afterwards to become her travelling companions. 
 The Rock was then crowded with English visitors, 
 besides Spanish refugees with their families, and 
 entertainments and amusements were the order of 
 the day. Soon after, however, the party separated. 
 Captain Stanhope was summoned to join the Guards 
 at Cadiz, Mr. Sutton went on business to Minorca, 
 and Lady Hester, finding (according to the doctor) 
 her health unequal to the gaieties of a garrison town, 
 accepted the offer of a passage in the Cerberus frigate 
 to Malta. 
 
 Here she was expected, and received offers of 
 hospitality on every side, including a very cordial one 
 from the Governor, General (afterwards Sir Hilde- 
 brand) Oakes, who showed her every possible kind- 
 ness and attention. She elected to go and stay at the 
 former Auberge de France, with the Deputy Com- 
 missary-General, Mr. Fernandez, who had married the 
 sister of Elizabeth Williams,^ and was an old acquaint- 
 ance of hers. 
 
 Valetta, again, was full of English, who, shut out 
 from the Continent, resorted in crowds to the Medi- 
 terranean, and the hospitable Governor delighted in 
 entertaining them. The palace was always gay with 
 company, and the young doctor records in his journal, 
 with honest pride, that he once sat down to dinner 
 exactly opposite to the General, " with a string of 
 Lords and Ladies and Counts and Countesses on 
 either hand." Sheridan was there. Lady Hester's 
 cousin. Lord Ebrington, and Lord and Lady Bute, 
 
 * When Lady Hester left Malta, Elizabeth was left behind with her 
 sister, and Mrs. Anne Fry engaged to supply her place. 
 
9S 
 
 who occupied Sant' Antonio, one of the Governor's 
 country houses. When they left for England at the 
 end of May, he placed it at Lady Hester's disposal, 
 and she spent two months in this most delightful of 
 summer palaces, surrounded by beautiful gardens and 
 orange groves. But the great heat disagreed with 
 her, and she became anxious to move. She found 
 that she must give up all thoughts of Sicily, on 
 account of a threatened invasion by Murat, which was 
 then preparing in Calabria, and might take place at 
 any moment. She then turned her thoughts to the 
 East — the only choice that was in fact left to her. But 
 travelling in those countries was difficult and even 
 venturesome; she was advised that she must not 
 attempt to go without an escort, and her brother, 
 being on duty in Spain, was of course not available. 
 At this juncture Mr. Michael Bruce, whose acquaint- 
 ance she had made at Gibraltar, came forward to offer 
 his services, which she willingly accepted. He was 
 one of the three knights errant that effected Laval- 
 lette's escape from prison on the night before his 
 intended execution ; a clever, ambitious man, familiar 
 with every kind of travel and adventure, and both able 
 and willing (as the event proved) to be of the greatest 
 use to her. His friend Mr. Pearce, and Lord Sligo, 
 who was then yachting in the Mediterranean, were to 
 join them later on. 
 
 Lady Hester took leave of the Governor with 
 unfeigned regret. They had become fast friends ; he 
 had visited her every day at Sant' Antonio, and 
 rendered her every service in his power. At the eve 
 of her departure she sends him a box as a keepsake. 
 ^* If it occasionally puts you in mind of me I shall be 
 much flattered. Were I in France, where they work 
 so admirably, 1 might be able to offer you one more 
 worthy of your acceptance, for 1 should order that 
 a little bird should pop up with a spring and sing a 
 little hymn daily expressive of my gratitude for the 
 kindness you have shown me." They never met 
 again, but continued in close correspondence^ till he 
 returned to England in 1815. 
 
 She had again the good fortune to be conveyed in a 
 man-of-war, for she and her party left Malta on 
 
 * A collection of her letters to him (from which I have made many 
 extracts) appeared in Colburn!s New Monthly Magazine in 1843. 
 
96 LORD BYRON L^h. m 
 
 August 2nd in the Belle Poule frigate, at the invitation 
 of Captain Brisbane, and were landed on the 8th at 
 Zante. Here they remained a fortnight. Another 
 courteous General then forwarded them in a Govern- 
 ment transport to Patras, where Lord Sligo joined 
 them, and they all embarked together in a felucca for 
 Corinth. Proceeding thence, they crossed the Isthmus 
 in an imposing cavalcade — twenty-four riders in all ; 
 for the Marquis travelled with a retinue that would 
 make the impoverished Irish landlords of the present 
 day open their eyes. He had with him a Tartar, two 
 superbly arrayed Albanians, equipped with silver- 
 stocked pistols and silver-hilted yataghans, a drago- 
 man, an artist, to sketch views and costumes, a Turkish 
 cook, and three English servants, two of them in 
 livery ! I fear these footmen must have rather marred 
 the general effect. All, except Lady Hester and her 
 English maid, were armed to the teeth. 
 
 At the little harbour of Keukri they again embarked 
 for Athens, and as they entered the Piraeus, observed 
 some one springing from the mole into the sea. " That's 
 Lord Byron ! " cried Lord Sligo, and forthwith hailing 
 him, he bade him hurry on shore and dress to meet 
 them as they landed. They were old college friends, 
 and Lady Hester saw a good deal of the poet during 
 the weeks she spent at Athens. A private house had 
 been emptied of its tenants to be prepared for her, and 
 here her friends used to meet every evening, Lord 
 Byron being among them. But she was not charmed 
 either with him or his poetry. " He was a strange 
 character ; his generosity was for a motive, his avarice 
 for a motive. One time he was mopish, and no one 
 was to speak to him ; another, he was for being jocular 
 with everybody. At Athens I saw nothing in him but 
 a well-bred man, like many others ; for, as for his 
 poetry, it is easy enough to write verses, and as to 
 the thoughts, who knows where he got them ? Many 
 a one picks up some old book that nobody knows 
 anything about, and gets his ideas out of it.*' 
 
 They remained at Athens rather more than a month, 
 and left for Constantinople on October i6th, this time 
 not in a smart frigate, but in a filthy Greek polacca, 
 laden with wheat — part of the tribute paid to Kislar 
 Aga by his Athenian subjects. They encountered a 
 gale of wind in the Sea of Marmora ; and the Greek 
 
i8io-i8i2] CONSTANTINOPLE ^^ 97 
 
 sailors, leaving their vessel to its fate, at once set 
 about collecting money from the passengers, and tying 
 it up in a handkerchief, fastened it to the tiller, vowing 
 to offer it at St. George's shrine if they reached any 
 port in safety. They did, by the blessing of Provi- 
 dence, rea<:h Erakli, in the Gulf of Rodosto, where, 
 after this experience of Greek seamanship. Lady 
 Hester wisely disembarked, and proceeded to Con- 
 stantinople in a caique. She arrived at Tophane in 
 the middle of the night,v and was carried in a Sedan 
 chair preceded by a man with a huge lantern (for the 
 streets were then unlighted) up the steep hill of Pera 
 to the house that had been hurriedly prepared for her. 
 But she by no means approved of it, and soon after 
 removed to Therapia, on the Bosphorus, where she 
 established herself for the winter. From thence she 
 writes to General Oakes, on December 21st : 
 
 " Since the fire at Pera good houses are so scarce that 
 I have taken up my abode at this place, where I have 
 a fine view of the coast of Asia and the Black Sea. 
 Lord Sligo and Bruce are about to set out on a tour ; 
 the latter returns here in a few weeks, but my Lord, 
 out of respect to you, means to take his passage to 
 Malta by the first opportunity, and return to us in 
 the spring- . . . Canning has behaved to me in the 
 civilest, kindest manner possible, but has never once 
 mentioned his cousin's name." 
 
 This was the *' great Elchi " of the future, created in 
 1852 Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, who had just 
 succeeded Mr. Adair as Minister Plenipotentiary at 
 Constantinople. In the " Memoirs " quoted by his 
 biographer, Stanley Poole, he thus describes their 
 meeting : 
 
 " Lady Hester Stanhope brought with her all the 
 interest which attaches to a person of her sex remark- 
 able for talent, and nearly connected with a great 
 public character. Not only was she the niece of Mr. 
 8 
 
98 STRATFORD CANNING'S MEMOIRS [ch. hi 
 
 Pitt, but she had lived for a time under the same 
 roof with that unspotted Minister in the full intimacy 
 of close relationship and daily intercourse. She had 
 known many whose names were familiar to me, and 
 some with whom I was personally acquainted. She 
 had seen much of Mr. Canning. On these several 
 accounts her conversation had strong attractions for 
 me, notwithstanding its measureless exuberance and 
 the not unfrequent singularities it displayed. Her 
 travelling staff was composed of Michael Bruce, who 
 acquired no little celebrity by the generous part he 
 took in promoting the escape of M. Lavallette, of Mr. 
 Pearce, the reputed son of Fox's friend Hare, and her 
 physican Dr. Merriman (Meryon), who subsequently 
 published a sketch of her life. She hired a house at 
 Therapia and spent the winter there. 
 
 ^* She told me sundry curious anecdotes of her 
 uncle and others — too many, in fact, to be remembered 
 at this distance of time. Speaking of Mr. Pitt, she 
 said that during his retreat from office he showed no 
 signs of discontent or restlessness ; that although she 
 had slept under his bedroom at Walmer she never 
 heard the sound of his footfall after the hour — an early 
 one — at which he had retired. She told me that he 
 always expressed the highest admiration of his father, 
 taking for himself, comparatively, a more humble 
 position than she was inclined to admit. She spoke 
 of the carelessness with which he often left his papers, 
 either scattered about the room, or at best stowed 
 away under the cushions of his sofa. General Moore 
 appeared to be her idol, and she took an evident 
 pleasure in talking of him. In proof of his truthful- 
 ness and sagacity, she said that on taking leave of his 
 Minister (Lord Castlereagh), under whose instructions 
 he was to act in the command of our forces in Spain, 
 
i8io~i8i2] "PRIMOSITY" 99 
 
 he declared, with his hand upon the lock of the door, 
 that he had no faith in the expedition and apprehended 
 a failure. She added that General Phipps had made 
 a call one day, and the conversation turning on Sir 
 John Moore, that he had sought to disparage that 
 officer in Mr. Pitt's estimation, and that she, perceiving 
 his design, had said, * You imagine. General, that Mr. 
 Pitt does not greatly value Sir John's abilities, but 
 learn from me, you nasty kangaroo ' — alluding to 
 General Phipps's paralytic infirmity, and imitating 
 his manner of holding his hands — ' that there is no 
 one in the King's army v^hose services he appreciates 
 more highly.* * Lady Hester! Lady Hester! what 
 are you saying ? * exclaimed Mr. Pitt, with an ill- 
 suppressed smile which betrayed his secret enjoyment 
 of the scene." 
 
 I can never believe that he enjoyed hearing a poor 
 paralysed officer called *'a nasty kangaroo." 
 
 Many notes and letters preserved among Lord 
 Stratford's papers show the friendly terms they were 
 upon. Some things which she did he distinctly dis- 
 approved of, and frankly told her so. She, on her part, 
 freely joked him for what she called his primosity — 
 the grave formality of manner, certainly unusual in 
 so young a man. Here are some extracts from this 
 correspondence. Unfortunately, none of the letters are 
 dated : 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. S. Canning 
 
 " I have a thousand thanks to return to you for the 
 wine you were so good as to send. I feel this kind 
 attention like all those I have received at your hands 
 since my residence in this part of the world. We have 
 all been ill in the house, therefore I have postponed 
 saying I shall be happy to see you. If it is convenient 
 for you to ride down on Friday, I hope you will call 
 for an hour and settle some day to dine here next 
 
loo SPANISH POLITICS [ch. hi 
 
 week. I mention Friday, because Mr. Pisani threatens 
 a visit Saturday or Sunday." 
 
 " Should you receive any intelligence from Cadiz, 
 it would be very kind of you to give me a little in- 
 formation, for I am so anxious about my brother; in 
 his last letter he tells me there is a fever broke out, but 
 it had not then reached Isla. I trust you will not quite 
 crack your brain with politics, particularly Spanish 
 politics^ for you may depend upon it they are not worth 
 thinking about, any further than individuals are con- 
 cerned. If you had seen all those fools, called Generals, 
 I saw at Gibraltar you would think so likewise. 
 Miranda has been invited to head the revolutionists 
 in South America, and was to leave England the day 
 after he wrote to me. If that country emancipates 
 itself, what is to become of Spain ? and what are her 
 present resources, drained as she has been by con- 
 tending armies ? I like to take a grand view of things 
 and look a little into futurity, yet dispassionately 
 consider the present state of affairs. You may per- 
 haps think me very impertinent to give my opinion 
 thus uncalled for to an &c., &c., &c., but I always 
 speak and write just what I think, even to princes. 
 If my little notes from the banks of the Bosphorus 
 please you, some day you may perhaps receive some 
 from the banks of the Orinoco." 
 
 ^*Mr. Pisani and I got on very well, and he has 
 most politely sent me some fresh butter made in a 
 bottle ; how got out in the dignified state in which I 
 received it is about as great a wonder to me as that 
 such a creature as Mr. Perceval should get into office, 
 and become Prime Minister of England. I send you 
 the third volume of Lord Chatham's * Life ' ; how 
 wonderfully the military anecdotes contained in it cut 
 up the Generals of that day ! I wish I had the pen 
 
i8io-i8i2] CONSTANTINOPLE loi 
 
 of the writer, to lash those in the profession I most 
 dislike ; to name them you might think undutiful." 
 
 '* If you have any news from Spain or Portugal, in 
 charity send it me. I am so anxious for the arrival 
 of letters, and when they come shall dread to open 
 them. There is no saying what trials may still be in 
 reserve for me, and I have had enough. ... I am not 
 going to flatter you, but some of your opinions are so 
 like those of my great Oracle, that I send you his 
 letters to his nephew, just to compare them." 
 
 " I take the liberty of sending you Mr. Pitt's * Life,' 
 that you may refer to past times, as I fancy your 
 mind, like mine, dwells with anxiety upon the present 
 awkward situation of affairs at home. When you come 
 here, we must look into my grandfather s life, which 
 is my Bible. When so impatient with the gout that 
 he could not bear any one to approach him, he had 
 me, a little child in arms, laid upon his bed for hours 
 together, and when he sat up used to nurse me. I 
 suppose this inspired me with a true love for politics, 
 and a sovereign contempt for the world, which he 
 possessed in the highest degree. 
 
 " I have told the Doctor he might remain a few 
 days longer at Pera, if Lord Plymouth requires his 
 assistance. I never saw his Lordship, and I detest 
 his mother, and only act towards him as I should do 
 towards the most perfect stranger. Therefore pray 
 do not make any fine speeches, for I should very 
 much dislike to do anything which might in future 
 bring on an acquaintance. But any medicines he 
 cannot get here he is welcome to, and this you may 
 assure him of in a simple way, as the Doctor's 
 expressions are so very flowery when they do come 
 out (and it is a long time first), that I cannot very 
 well trust him with this commission." 
 
102 TURKISH GRAVITY [ch. hi 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, 5. Canning 
 " I am much obliged to you for the papers, which 
 I return ; nor am I angry at your scold. I only beg 
 leave to ask you one question. When did four Turks, 
 and one the brother of a Captain Pacha, visit and 
 dine with a Christian woman? I wore my sword 
 with such an air that it has made a conquest of them 
 all, and they begin to find their own women rather 
 stupid (at least they say so, but men fib sadly); 
 therefore I should recommend you to take advantage 
 of this new discovery, and pack up one to take to 
 England with you. For in good time I hope to de- 
 stroy the gravity of these men, and then it will be a 
 great satisfaction to the ladies who have been used to 
 this quality to find you possess it in so high a degree. 
 I am sorry to say, were I in my grave, it would be lost 
 upon me. Look sharp, or I shall intrude myself under 
 some strange form into the sanctuary you inhabit and 
 burn all the papers, and unprimefy Sir H. Jones, who, 
 if he was not a quiz before, must be turned into one 
 from having been kept under lock and key^ and bored to 
 death with business ever since his arrival. I am sure 
 I shall more than Hke Captain Barrie, if you will not 
 stamp him with mystery and solemnity before I have 
 made his acquaintance. The Doctor tells me that you 
 were so improved with the small portion of country 
 air you allowed yourself to breathe that I cannot but 
 wish you could make it convenient to try a little 
 more of it, and it would flatter me much if you put 
 it in my power to watch the progress of its effect." 
 
 '' I return you your papers and letter with many 
 thanks. The Cortes does not seem to be going on 
 very well; but 1 never believe any statement in the 
 Gibraltar Gazette, for I know for certain that articles 
 for that paper have been fabricated in the Foreign 
 
i8io-i8i2] CONSTANTINOPLE 103 
 
 Office and sent out there to be printed, and afterwards 
 recopied into English newspapers— * extracts of letters 
 from Gibraltar from the Gibraltar Gazette' — a pack of 
 stuff about Spanish affairs. Besides, Kali at Gibraltar 
 writes for these papers. I have often seen his pro- 
 ductions before they were printed, and they were his 
 from beginning to end. 
 
 "As you are fond of reports, I must tell you one 
 that is called a fact, and it comes from your enemies — 
 that the Austrians are displeased with the Emperor 
 for having promised to pay eighty millions of florins 
 with his daughter. Half he has paid, but when about 
 to levy the rest, there was so much discontent created 
 at Vienna, that he set off to Prague with four regiments 
 of cavalry. La Tour (the famous Hussars), Stepships, 
 Clino, and Wurtemberg — so sound the names, but I 
 cannot spell German. Should this be true, I suppose 
 it will please you ; but I should say the Emperor was 
 a great fool to leave the capital. I believe Prague 
 could at one time send 60,000 men into the field. 
 Now imagine the Emperor at the head of these troops, 
 so attached to the English and the great cause, grant 
 subsidies, when we have no money, and when five 
 shillings are sold for seven at Malta, create a revo- 
 lution in Germany to destroy the French interest, 
 and send a General from the Horse Guards to 
 organize an army, never considering he cannot get 
 there without wings (which, when General Clinton 
 was appointed, last summer twelvemonth, was totally 
 forgotten, and in which well-imagined appointment I 
 was not a little interested, as he chose my brother 
 out of the whole army as the young man of the 
 greatest resource he knew). Imagine all these things, 
 and then you will have a pleasant diplomatic dream, 
 and awake seeing everything en rose^ 
 
I04 AN ALBANIAN INCIDENT [ch. hi 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, S. Canning 
 *' Perhaps I have been guilty of a little imprudence 
 to-day, though I think I only acted justly. Complaints 
 were made me of Lord Sligo's Albanian, who is a very 
 reprobate fellow, and he thought proper last night to 
 fire off his pistols in the street, contrary to the rule 
 here. The guard threatened to put him into prison 
 if it ever happened again^ and I sent to say he was 
 very welcome, if he disobeyed his orders and mine. 
 The Doctor has since told me that you seemed to like 
 to take the law in your own hands, and therefore it has 
 just struck me that I may have done wrong, though 
 I do not exactly see what you have to do with 
 Albanians, for this fellow is not one of those given 
 to Lord Sligo by the Vali Pacha, but a groom hired 
 by the month. If I have erred, pray tell me so, and 
 be assured it is through ignorance^ and no disrespect 
 to your power, or disregard to your wishes ; and be 
 so good as to set the business right as soon as you 
 can. Only oblige me by being severe with the 
 Albanian, as it will save me much future trouble 
 with the others, who. Lord S. once told me, he should 
 leave under my care if he went to Persia alone." 
 
 " I wish you joy of a victory so brilliant and so 
 glorious to the British arms, but so useless as far 
 as what relates to the grand cause. The conduct of 
 the Spaniards has been quite as shameful as usual, 
 and just what I expected. As to Massena, wait a 
 little to see why he retreated before you are too 
 much elevated. I rejoice you are likely to be set 
 free, and I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing 
 you depart with a smiling face. I shall make war 
 against nasty Frere. Mr. Liston I am rather inclined 
 to think I shall like ; but it is little probable that he 
 will show me mpr^ kindness and attention than you 
 
i8io-i8i2] DELIBACHES 105 
 
 have done, which, though I do quiz you sometimes, 
 I am perfectly sensible of, and shall ever acknowledge 
 with gratitude. Quiz me in return, and take one good 
 lesson before you go. When you are no longer a 
 great man, I shall speak to you with more confidence ; 
 you may think me strange, but I hope always a very 
 honourable being. Now don't crack your brain; the 
 wise man speaketh in parables, so may therefore a 
 silly woman. Having had such good news of my 
 dearest brother puts me into spirits, and I could talk 
 nonsense for the hour. . . . You ought to see this 
 beautiful place" (Brusa) ; "but when no longer a 
 great man you might fall in love with some of these 
 very beautiful Turkish women, and that would be 
 a great sin. I am quite delighted with everything 
 here. Imagine ! I drank coffee the other day with 
 a tribe of Delibaches. I thought it would give me 
 an opportunity of examining these terrible people, and 
 if they overtook me in my ride they would not murder 
 me. 1 was quite right, for they all saluted me as an old 
 friend, and each of them mumbled a civil speech. . . . 
 There are great prospects of my dear Duke of York 
 coming in again. He is not only the best friend a soldier 
 ever had, but the best private friend in the world." 
 
 After more than ten months of *Wery pleasant 
 intercourse," Mr. Canning and Lady Hester had a 
 bitter quarrel. She, it seems, **was dying to see 
 Napoleon with her own eyes," and privately made 
 interest with the French charge d'affaires, M. de 
 Latour-Maubourg, to obtain a passport to France. 
 This plan was kept secret ; but one day, a spy 
 employed by the English Minister brought him word 
 that Lady Hester had been seen walking on the 
 shores of the Bosphorus with M. de Latour-Maubourg, 
 and he went straight to her house to demand an expla- 
 nation. She told him the truth, ''and explained the 
 secrecy of the interviews by her desire to keep the 
 
io6 PASSPORT TO FRANCE [ch. hi 
 
 English Minister out of the business, which she felt 
 might embarrass him ; but added that if Mr. Liston 
 or any ' old stager ' were at the Porte, she would have 
 no compunction in giving him trouble." This allu- 
 sion to his youth and inexperience — he was then but 
 twenty-four, ten years younger than Lady Hester — 
 very naturally nettled him, and he required her either 
 to ask the permission of His Majesty's Government, 
 or to await the arrival of the French Ambassador, 
 before seeing M. de Maubourg again. She declined 
 to do either; and he announced, in high dudgeon, 
 that neither he nor any member of the English Mission 
 would enter her house again. Lady Hester gave him 
 her hand at parting, and said it would make no 
 difference in her sentiments towards him. 
 
 But the following morning she sent him a copy 
 of the letter she had written to Lord Wellesley (in 
 anticipation of his taking a similar course), which 
 raised his exasperation to the highest pitch. It 
 was enclosed with the following note : ** That your 
 Excellency may be aware that deceit forms no part 
 of my character, I enclose a copy of a letter to Lord 
 Wellesley. I wish people in England neither to blame 
 nor pity the situation in which you have placed me, 
 and if 1 defend myself not exactly in the way most 
 pleasing to you, recollect it is your conduct which 
 has made it necessary." 
 
 She began her letter by saying that she wished 
 to go to France "for her health," and that M. de 
 Maubourg had written for passports for her journey. 
 Had Mr. Adair, or one of his character, been at the 
 Porte, she would have told him of her plan. 
 
 Lady Hester to Lord Wellesley 
 
 " But Mr. Canning is young and inexperienced, full 
 of zeal, but full of prejudice. I guessed, therefore, 
 what might be the line of conduct he would pursue 
 on such an occasion. Respecting, as I do, his many 
 virtues, I do not wish to quarrel with him, or appear 
 openly to disregard his authority, or publicly to 
 ridicule the very idea of any person presuming to 
 doubt my patriotism ; because I despise the idea of 
 
i8io-i8i2] QUARREL WITH S. CANNING 107 
 
 war with individuals, and also cannot but lament a 
 fault too common in most of our public men — that of 
 seeing things in the hght they wish them to be, not as 
 they are, and trying to impose this fallacy upon the 
 public mind, which, when discovered, must sooner or 
 later destroy the degree of confidence they ought to 
 possess. The above reason induced me to see M. de M. 
 privately, who is also very young for his situation, 
 but which his talents fully qualify him to fill. Nothing 
 can have been more candid, more honourable and 
 delicate, than his conduct upon this occasion. He 
 lost no time in writing to Paris for passports, and his 
 answer may be expected any day. 
 
 " Not long ago, Mr. Canning's spy, who I saw was 
 pursuing me for some time, communicated to his 
 employer that he had seen M. de M. and myself 
 walking together upon the coast of Asia. This led 
 Mr. Canning to enquire into the business, the whole 
 of which I communicated to him, and my reasons for 
 having kept it a secret. He has thought it his duty 
 to take leave of me, and also to forbid any of those 
 persons belonging to him to visit me, which, as far 
 as it affects my comfort, is of no consequence, as they 
 were all horribly dull (except M. Pisani, who is a man 
 of information and merit); and, as far as relates to 
 my politics, I flatter myself that it is not in the power 
 of Mr. Canning or any other person to cast any reflec- 
 tion upon them that would be credited in this or any 
 other country — much less in my own. 
 
 "Although it is evident that Mr. C. has not been 
 educated in your Lordship's school of gallantry, yet I 
 give him full credit for acting from the most upright 
 and conscientious principles; and if his zeal has 
 carried him a little too far, there is no one so willing 
 to forgive it as I am, or so little inclined to attempt 
 
io8 S. CANNING QUIZZED [ch. hi 
 
 to turn him from what he considers to be the execu- 
 tion of his duty. Affectation nor fear has in no degree 
 influenced my line of conduct towards him ; and if I 
 have acted with more moderation than is usual to me, 
 it proceeds from what may (though true) sound like 
 conceit to confess — the persuasion that Mr. Canning 
 and I do not stand upon equal grounds, and that he 
 is by no means a match for me, were I determined 
 to revenge what to others carries the appearance of 
 insult. But as he is both a religious and political 
 Methodist, after having appeared to doubt my love 
 for my country, he will next presume to teach me 
 my duty to my God ! 
 
 ^^ Before I conclude, I must request your Lordship 
 not to receive Mr. C. with dry bows and wry faces, 
 or allow the fine ladies to toss him in a blanket. The 
 best reward for his services would be to appoint him 
 Commander-in-Chief at home and Ambassador Extra- 
 ordinary abroad to the various societies for the 
 suppression of vice, and cultivation of patriotism. 
 The latter consists in putting one's self in greater 
 convulsions than the dervishes at the mention of 
 Buonaparte's name." 
 
 No man likes to be quizzed and called a prig, and 
 Stratford Canning was notoriously the least patient 
 of men ; but what most galled him in Lady Hester's 
 letter was its tone of kindly patronage. '* Nothing 
 more ingeniously malicious could have been devised," 
 says his biographer. ** A horrible vision of its going 
 the round of the Cabinet in a red despatch box rose 
 before his eyes, and he wrote to his cousin, who, 
 though out of office, was in close relations with Lord 
 Wellesley, and begged him, if Lady Hester carried 
 out her threat, to set him right with the Foreign 
 Secretary and any one else whose opinion was worth 
 considering. .• . . George Canning wrote that so far 
 as he knew, it had never reached the Foreign Office." 
 
i8io-i8i2] CONSTANTINOPLE 109 
 
 But I fully believe it was sent, and she mentions a 
 copy that went to General Oakes at Malta. 
 
 Even before the final breach, there had been a 
 certain amount of friction between the belligerents. 
 
 " I believe," she writes, " that C. is jealous. ... I 
 have made my own way with the Turks, and I have 
 contrived to get upon so intimate a footing, that the 
 Pacha's brother, brother-in-law, and Captain of the 
 Fleet, dined with us, accompanied by their confidential 
 physician. This may not sound like a compliment; 
 but see the Captain Pacha's brother, bending under 
 a tree in a public walk ! He neither notices Greek, 
 Armenian, or Frank women of any kind, but looks at 
 them all as if they were sheep in a field, and they dare 
 not come near him, as his attendants form a circle 
 which they never pass, but stand and look at him for 
 an hour together. I must likewise tell you that C. 
 has been much shocked at my having gone on board 
 the fleet in men's clothes : a pair of over-alls, a military 
 great coat, and cocked hat, is so much less decent a 
 dress than that of a real fine lady in her shift and 
 gown, and half-naked besides ! The Captain Pacha 
 said I was welcome to go, but I must change my 
 dress, and I certainly thought it worth while. I 
 closely examined everything; and as 1 understand a 
 little about a ship, it was not quite a useless visit. 
 , . . To give you an idea of the narrowness of this 
 man's" (Canning's) *' mind, when I praised M. de Mau- 
 bourg, and said even himself could not but confess the 
 French charge d'affaires had never done a dirty thing, 
 and was considered, even by his enemies, as dis- 
 interested and pure, he was obliged to agree; but 
 added, had he been a man of principle, he could never 
 live under the orders of a tyrant. I said, * What 
 was he or any other Frenchman to do?' He replied. 
 
no LORD SLIGO [ch. hi 
 
 * Leave France for England.' * And what to do there ? * 
 said I. 'Live upon bread and water!' he answered. 
 God knows we have too many Frenchmen in England 
 already to wish for more." 
 
 Let me hasten to add that the quarrel was soon 
 made up. Mr. Canning bore no malice ; and when, on 
 leaving Constantinople, she was shipwrecked on the 
 island of Rhodes, he assisted her by every means in 
 his power, and she wrote him a grateful letter of 
 acknowledgment, accompanied by a little peace-offer- 
 ing (see p. 132). 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. S. Canning 
 
 ^^ March <)th^ 181 1. 
 
 *' 1 have received a letter from my disagreeable 
 cousin Wynn ^ (at least, every person thinks him so ; 
 and it is so long since I have seen him, that I almost 
 forget what he is like — only remember he is ugly). 
 W. sends me, as I had reason to believe, a present 
 from the Duchess of Rutland; but, alas! the box was 
 empty. He says he shall be here next month, and 
 then I shall make him account for having lost my 
 trinket. Lord Sligo we expect every day from 
 Smyrna. I fear he has got into a sad scrape about 
 the deserters he took on board his brig; but, as he 
 has been involved by the lies of traders, and of 
 Mr. John or James the footman, I trust the naval men 
 will hear reason, as I am sure he intended no dis- 
 respect to the service, though he has been very, very 
 imprudent ; and it has been difficult to make him 
 attach sufficient importance, which he began by laugh- 
 ing at, and thinking fine fun. ... I find a great many 
 English are expected here in the spring. The weather 
 within these few days has been quite heavenly, and 
 I propose to myself great pleasure in riding a new 
 
 ^ Afterwards Sir Henry Wynn, and for many years our Minister at 
 Copenhagen. He married my mother's sister, Hester Smith, 
 
i8io-i8i2] BRUSA III 
 
 horse (now breaking for me) that Bruce brought 
 from Asia." 
 
 Early in May she went to Brusa and spent two 
 happy months in that terrestrial paradise. 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, S, Canning 
 
 ^^June 2nd, 1811. 
 
 ** How I wish you were here to enjoy this delicious 
 climate and the finest country I ever beheld. Italy is 
 nothing to it in point of magnificence. The town of 
 Brusa is situated at the foot of Mount Olympus; it 
 is one of the largest towns, and may be considered 
 the capital of Asia Minor. The houses are, like all 
 Turkish houses, bad in themselves, but so interspersed 
 with trees and mosques that the whole has a fine 
 effect. The view is quite delightful, over an immense 
 plain more rich and beautiful than anything I ever 
 saw, covered with trees, shrubs, and flowers of all 
 descriptions. The rides are charming, and the horses 
 better than any of those I have met out of England. 
 ... By this time Lord Sligo will have reached Malta. 
 I hope you admire his Albanians ; they are not all 
 such frights as those he has with him. Their dress 
 I think extraordinarily handsome. If you leave Malta, 
 you must not come here, for you would fall in love if 
 you did. How beautiful are these Asiatic women ! 
 They go to the bath from fifty to five hundred to- 
 gether; and when I was bathing the other day, the 
 wife of a deposed Pacha begged I would finish my 
 bathing at a bath half a mile off, that she might have 
 the pleasure of my society ; but this I decHned. They 
 bathe with all their ornaments on — trinkets, I mean — 
 and when finished, they bind up their hair with flowers 
 and eat and talk for hours, then fumble up their faces, 
 all but the eyes, and sit under the trees till the evening." 
 
112 THE PARTING OF THE WAYS [ch. hi 
 
 Mr. North (afterwards Lord Guilford) and his 
 nephew, Mr. Frederick Douglas, came to stay with 
 her at Brusa. In July she returned to Constanti- 
 nople, and on August 27th writes from Bebec, on the 
 Bosphorus, that she is '' happy and comfortable, and 
 quite another creature to what I was at Malta. A 
 very short time will now decide to what part of the 
 world we shall bend our steps." She had decided not 
 to spend another winter at Constantinople, and if she 
 had received her French passports (for I need hardly 
 say that M. de Maubourg's application was unsuc- 
 cessful), would certainly have gone to Italy, for she 
 speaks of her *' great hopes of getting to Rome — 
 perhaps even to France." How different the whole 
 course of her life might, indeed must, have been, had 
 she bent her steps Westwards ! '* The long-promised 
 bridle accompanies this letter. I fear you will not 
 like it much, but it is of the newest fashion. There 
 are two sorts of bridles here, such as I send, of various 
 descriptions and colours, and those made for very 
 great men, of solid silver, weighing, some of them, 
 twelve or fifteen pounds, which their own stallions 
 can just bear the weight of during some grand pro- 
 cession. In the hand these bridles are the most 
 magnificent thing you can imagine, but they are so 
 confused with chains and ornaments, that they bury 
 a horse's head, and have little effect. I have sent a 
 red one to my brother, but I thought that a dark one 
 would more become your white horse. All those 
 with tassels are made with a little silk mixed with 
 silver and gold twist ; it looks pretty for a day, but 
 the heat of the horse spoils it directly, and it cannot be 
 cleaned. This bridle must be cleaned with lemon-juice." 
 
 Towards the end of September, the expected cousin, 
 Mr. Williams Wynn, arrived at Constantinople, and 
 paid her a visit, of which he wrote the following 
 account to his mother (October 4th, 181 1): 
 
 Mr. Williams Wynn to his Mother 
 
 ''You will, of course, expect a description of our 
 dear cousin, who is living with Bruce and a Doctor 
 at a small village on the Bosphorus, about six English 
 miles from this place. From the present state of 
 
^i8io-i8i2] DESCRIPTION OF LADY HESTER 113 
 
 Europe, an Englishman cannot find any society what- 
 ever here; her conversation is therefore of value, 
 though I own I have been very much disappointed 
 in her cleverness, for I cannot give that denomination 
 to abuse of everything and everybody. The day I 
 first saw her, I had not been in the room ten minutes 
 before she opened her batteries, abusing or laughing 
 at every individual of the family, excepting Ebrington, 
 Watkin, and Cholmondeley. The first she praised up 
 to the skies, but the last two were only well enough 
 in their way. I gave her as good as she brought, 
 and we were therefore excellent friends. She even 
 does me the honour to say that my foreign education 
 has a little counteracted the Grenville blood. I must, 
 however, say that at the time when she is abusing 
 everything which is most dear to me, she does it in 
 a manner that it is impossible to be angry with her, 
 and I believe that it proceeds more from a love of 
 ridiculing than from the heart. Her great hero is the 
 Duke of York, who, I believe, according to her, is to 
 be the saviour of Europe; on the other hand, the 
 people she most abuses are Lord Chatham and Lord 
 Carrington. I am surprised at her being so inveterate 
 against the latter, as she says even the Grenvilles are 
 far preferable to that contemptible set who call them- 
 selves Mr. Pitt's friends. She is now on the point of 
 leaving this place for Athens, where she expects a 
 passport to go to Italy and France. If she does not get 
 it, which is most likely, she intends to go to Syria and 
 Egypt. I will now have done with my cousin, though 
 I could fill several sheets with her eccentricities." 
 
 The passport was, as I have already said, refused. 
 Italy being thus out of the question, she decided to 
 go to Egypt, and a Greek vessel was chartered to 
 take the party to Alexandria. She was duly cleansed, 
 
 9 
 
114 > -- 
 
 provisioned, and fitted with cabins for their reception, 
 and they sailed from Constantinople on October 23rd. 
 But the stormy petrel always seemed to attend poor 
 Lady Hester's voyages. They were wind-bound, first 
 at one island, and then at another, and on Novem- 
 ber 23rd, exactly a month after their departure, had 
 got no further than Rhodes. At last a favourable 
 wind sprung up, and they bowled merrily along for 
 two days ; but on the third they were met by a furious 
 southerly gale, and compelled to change their course ; 
 and on the fourth the ship sprung a leak, and there 
 came the ominous cry, " All hands to the pumps ! " 
 They were out of order and proved of little use ; the 
 water gained upon them in spite of their efforts; it 
 blew harder and harder, and all was confusion on 
 deck. Lady Hester, who was below, was aroused by 
 the noise, and surmising their danger, dressed herself, 
 bade her maid put together a few necessaries, and set 
 to work to cheer and encourage the crew. She re- 
 membered there was a cask of wine on board, went 
 down to draw some, and distributed it among them. 
 Three or four of the men refused to work any more, 
 and throwing themselves flat on their faces, wept and 
 wailed to the Virgin Mary, crying, " Panagia mon ! 
 Panagia mon ! " They were steering for Rhodes, and 
 a little comforted by coming in sight of the island; 
 but the ship had by this time heeled gunwale down, 
 and was so water-logged that she did not answer the 
 helm. It became evident that she was sinking, and 
 they took to the long boat, and made for a rock they 
 saw a little way ahead. It was a desperate venture 
 in such a sea; every moment the waves broke over 
 them and threatened to swamp the boat ; but at last, 
 drenched to the skin, they succeeded in reaching the 
 rock, and found a cave where Lady Hester and her 
 maid could be placed for shelter. It was the only 
 available refuge from the whirling showers of spray, 
 and having saved nothing, they had neither food nor 
 water ; but they were too much worn out to think of 
 anything but rest, and throwing themselves down on 
 the wet rock, slept soundly amid '* the visitation of the 
 winds" and the deafening roar of the sea. At mid- 
 night the weather moderated a little, and the captain 
 proposed to take the boat across to Rhodes and buy 
 provisions. The island was some miles off, and he 
 
i8io-i8i2] RHODES 115 
 
 would only consent to risk the attempt if the passen- 
 gers were left behind, as there could be no possible 
 chance for a heavily laden boat. They had no choice 
 but to agree, and he promised to light a fire on the 
 beach if he had the good fortune to get safe to land. 
 It may be imagined with what feelings they watched 
 for the signal, and welcomed it when it appeared. 
 But a long period of suspense was still before them. 
 For thirty weary hours of hunger and thirst they 
 awaited the captain's return, with an ever-increasing 
 doubt whether he would return at all. At last the 
 boat appeared with the provisions, but without the 
 captain, who had refused to come, and they were, 
 though with great difficulty, conveyed across to the 
 island. They did not land a moment too soon, for, 
 just as they reached the shore, a heavy sea struck the 
 boat, and she was presently swamped and staved. 
 The rain was falling in torrents, and Lady Hester and 
 her maid were put under cover in an old mill, but 
 poor Mrs. Fry soon came running out again and 
 declared she could not remain with her Ladyship 
 where there were so many rats. They found they 
 were still three days' journey — and that over the 
 roughest and wildest of paths — from the town of 
 Rhodes, and poor Lady Hester, having travelled 
 " over dreadful rocks and mountains, partly on foot 
 and partly on a mule, for eight hours," was laid up 
 by fever on the way. But her illness did not last 
 long, for she was able to write from Rhodes on 
 December 19th : " My health has suffered less than I 
 expected. ... I have crossed the island on an ass, 
 going for six hours a day, which proves I am pretty 
 well now, at least." 
 
 She wrote to report herself both to her brother and 
 her London bank, and the following account of her 
 shipwreck was received by her solicitor, Mr. Murray : 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, Murray 
 
 "The Island of Rhodes, 
 
 ^^ January 2nd, 181 2. 
 
 " Dear Sir, — Before this letter reaches you, you will 
 have heard, in all probability, an account of my ship- 
 wreck from Mr. Coutts. That I am here to relate it 
 
ii6 HARDSHIPS [ch. hi 
 
 is rather extraordinary, for I escaped not only a 
 sinking ship, but put to sea in a boat when one 
 could hardly have supposed it could have lived five 
 minutes — the storm was so great. Unable to make 
 the land, I got ashore, not on an island, but a bare 
 rock which stuck up in the sea, and remained thirty 
 hours without food or water. It becoming calmer the 
 second night, 1 once more put to sea, and fortunately 
 landed upon the island of Rhodes, but above three 
 days' journey from the town, travelling at the rate of 
 eight hours a day over mountains and dreadful rocks. 
 Could the fashionables I once associated with believe 
 that I could have sufficient composure of mind to 
 have given my orders as distinctly and as positively 
 as if I had been sitting in the midst of them, and that 
 I slept for many hours very sound on the bare rock, 
 covered with a pelisse, and was in a sweet sleep the 
 second night, when I was awoke by the men, who 
 seemed to dread that, as it was becoming calmer, and 
 the wind changing (which would bring the sea in 
 another direction), that we might be washed off the 
 rock before morning. So away I went, putting my 
 faith in that God who has never quite forsaken me in 
 all my various misfortunes. The next place I slept 
 in was a mill, upon sacks of corn; after that, in a 
 hut, where I turned out a poor ass to make more 
 room, and congratulated myself on having a bed of 
 straw. When I arrived (after a day of tremendous 
 fatigue) at a tolerable village, I found myself too ill 
 to proceed the next day, and was fortunate enough to 
 make the acquaintance of a kind-hearted, hospitable 
 Greek gentleman, whom misfortune had sent into 
 obscurity, and he insisted upon keeping me in his 
 house till I was recovered. At the end of a few days 
 I continued my journey, and arrived here, having 
 
i8io-i8i2] RHODES 117 
 
 suffered less than any other woman would have done 
 whose health was as precarious as mine has been for 
 so long a time. Everything I possessed I have lost ; 
 had I attempted to have saved anything, others would 
 have done the same, and the boat would have been sunk. 
 To collect clothes in this part of the world to dress as 
 an Englishwoman would be next to impossible ; at least, 
 it would cost me two years' income. To dress as a 
 Turkish woman would not do, because I must not be 
 seen to speak to a man ; therefore I have nothing left 
 for it but to dress as a Turk — not like the Turks you 
 are in the habit of seeing in England, but as an Asiatic 
 Turk in a travelling dress — just a sort of silk and 
 cotton shirt ; next a striped silk and cotton waistcoat ; 
 over that another with sleeves, and over that a cloth 
 short jacket without sleeves or half-sleeves, beauti- 
 fully worked in coloured twist, a large pair of 
 breeches, and Turkish boots, a sash into which goes 
 a brace of pistols, a knife, and a sort of short sword, 
 a belt for powder and shot made of variegated leather, 
 which goes over the shoulder, the pouches the same, 
 and a turban of several colours, put on in a particular 
 way with a large bunch of natural flowers on one 
 side. This is the dress of the common Asiatic; the 
 great men are covered with gold and embroidery, and 
 nothing can be more splendid and becoming than their 
 dress. At this moment I am a wretched figure— half 
 a Greek, half a Turk, but most of all like a blackguard 
 (Gallongi), a Turkish sailor. As there is nothing 
 interesting in the town of Rhodes, and the Bey being 
 the only disagreeable Turk I ever met with, once a 
 slave, and now a tyrant, but not of my sort — ignorant, 
 sordid, and vulgar — 1 have left him and his city for a 
 little habitation on the sea coast, about three miles 
 distant from the town. The situation of this summer 
 
ii8 A CONTENTED MIND! [ch. iii 
 
 residence is enchanting, even at this season of the 
 year. Let those who envied me in my greatness 
 ahke envy me in rags; let them envy that con- 
 tented and contemplative mind v^hich rises superior 
 to all worldly misfortunes which are independent of 
 the affections of the heart. Tell them I can feel 
 happier in wandering over wilds, observing and ad- 
 miring the beauties of Nature, than ever I did when 
 surrounded by pomp, flatterers, and fools. . . . All 
 my curiosities, all my discoveries, are gone to the 
 bottom, and many valuable ones I have made with 
 so much trouble. If I want a Turk, it is the Ramazan, 
 it is the feast of the Bairam ; he is either at prayers, 
 asleep, or in the bath. If I want a Greek, his shop is 
 shut — it is a saint's day. If I want an Armenian, it 
 is the same thing. The Jews are less provoking; but, 
 between them all and their different languages, it 
 requires not a little patience and exertion to get 
 through with anything out of the common way. I 
 have never yet received one letter from you. ... I 
 cannot hardly suppose that you have never written to 
 me, but I think you cannot have forwarded my letters 
 through the channel I have so repeatedly directed. 
 To be ignorant about poor dear Grandmama, and not 
 to know what is become of poor Nash,^ and if I have 
 the means to assist her, is really very painful to me. 
 William HilUer and Mr. Norman have alike disobeyed 
 my orders. I desired they would be sure to write to 
 me about Nash, and never have I had one line from 
 any one of them. This is gratitude; but such has 
 been my fate — to be forgotten the moment I am no 
 longer useful. I am never low, but when 1 think of 
 
 ' The old nurse at Chevenmg. My father always spoke of her 
 with much affection, and paid her pension till, as he computed, she 
 must have been more than loo years old. He then made enquiries, 
 and found she had been long dead and fraudulently represented. 
 
i8io-i8i2] SCIO 119 
 
 England and the monsters it contains — when I put 
 them out of my mind I am happy, for I have great 
 reason to be so ; but who do I owe my comforts to ? — 
 to strangers ! " 
 
 To Gen. Oakes she writes in a livelier strain : 
 
 ** Bruce, Mr. Pearce, and the Doctor are quite well. 
 They have saved nothing ; but do not think us dull, 
 for we (myself included) danced the Pyrrhic dance 
 with the peasants in the villages on our way here. 
 
 " We have lost a poor dog who was quite a treasure ; 
 it was so frightened and so sick, we could not get it 
 into the boat. I lament this every day, and little else, 
 except the most beautiful collection of conserves for 
 you and two other people — violets, roses, orange- 
 flowers, and every kind of fruit. 
 
 ** Wynn is here, and is very kind to me. . . . Tell 
 Mr. Taylor I make conquests of Turks everywhere. 
 Here they are ten times more strict than in Con- 
 stantinople ; yet a Turk has lent me a house and 
 a bath in the middle of an orange garden where 
 I go to-morrow. The houses on the outside of the 
 walls, where the Franks live, are only fit for poultry. 
 
 ** When I went on shore at Scio,^ I slept two nights 
 at a Turkish house, and they would not admit even 
 a dragoman ; but I contrived to make myself under- 
 stood, got an excellent breakfast, and set it all out 
 in my own way, which amused them of all things, 
 and one of their friends lent me a horse and a black 
 
 * " Lady Hester is now wind-bound at Scio on her way to Alex- 
 andria, from whence she is to go to Jerusalem to fulfill a prophecy 
 of Brothers', that she is to be the means of establishing God's elect 
 there. She says she will not go there till she knows I have left it, 
 for fear that any branch of the Grenvilles should come under that 
 denomination. I can assure you that she talks of her Jerusalem 
 Government half in joke and half in earnest. She is the oddest 
 mixture I ever saw of cleverness and folly." — Mr. Wynn to his 
 mother, November 14th, 181 1. 
 
I20 ORIENTAL DRESS [cH. iii 
 
 slave to attend me. I do not know how it is, but 
 I always feel at home with these people, and can 
 get out of them just what I like; but it is a very 
 different thing with the Greeks, who shuffle and 
 shuffle, and you never can depend upon them for one 
 moment/' 
 
 The Oriental dress that Lady Hester had now 
 adopted, and taken such pains to describe to her 
 lawyer, she never again discarded. ** I assure you,^* 
 she says in one of her letters, ''that if I ever looked 
 well in anything, it is in the Asiatic dress, quite 
 different from the European Turk's." To Western 
 eyes there was nothing peculiarly masculine about 
 it,^ for the long and voluminous trousers simulated 
 a petticoat about as well as ''the divided skirt" 
 advocated by our dress reformers. The wearing of 
 weapons was not a matter of choice ; it was im- 
 perative for all travellers in those countries, and I 
 can find no mention of her ever having used them. 
 
 Other requisites besides clothes, such as medicines, 
 camp-equipages, stores, &:c., which were not obtain- 
 able at Khodes, had still to be replaced, and the Doctor 
 was despatched to Smyrna to procure them. He was 
 several weeks awa)'', and on his return found Lady 
 Hester at the point of departure. Captain Henry 
 Hope, of the Salsette frigate, hearing of her ship- 
 wrecked condition, had come to offer to take her 
 and her party to Alexandria, and she welcomed him 
 as a deliverer. "Chivalry Hope he is to be called," 
 she declared, " for the old knights of Malta and 
 Rhodes could not have deserved more praise. . . . 
 What we should have done without him I know 
 not." They joyfully embarked in the Salsette; but, 
 with her usual ill-luck at sea, no sooner had she set 
 foot on board than a storm arose, which detained 
 them for some days at Marmora, and they did not 
 arrive at Alexandria till the first days of February. 
 
 Colonel Misset, the English resident, gave them a 
 
 * It is curious to find in the Doctor's journal, that when she was 
 seen riding in an English riding habit at Brusa, *' it was whispered 
 about that she was a boy," as her dress resembled that of the pages 
 of the Seragho. 
 
i8io-i8i2] CAIRO 121 
 
 hospitable welcome, and found a house in the Frank 
 quarter for Lady Hester. But her first impressions 
 of the country were far from encouraging. "This 
 place I think quite hideous," she tells General Oakes, 
 " and if all Egypt is like it, I shall wish to quit it as 
 soon as possible." They only remained long enough 
 to make some necessary purchases, and prepare 
 for the journey to Cairo. How times are changed ! 
 Now it is a few hours distant by rail; then, it was 
 a toilsome progress by land and water that might 
 have dated from the time of the Pharaohs. Captain 
 Hope accompanied them as far as Rosetta. They 
 travelled first on donkeys, then in flat-bottomed boats 
 across Lake Madiah, and by one of the Canopic 
 branches of the Nile to Aboukir Bay; thence, coasting 
 along for a mile or two, they reached the entrance of 
 Lake Edko, which they traversed, and finally landing 
 at the village of Edko, again mounted donkeys and 
 rode to Rosetta. Here they hired two dahabeahs, 
 with a couple of cabins eight feet square a-piece, 
 to take them up the Nile, one for Lady Hester and 
 the faithful Fry, the other for the three gentlemen, 
 and sailing night and day, reached Cairo on the 
 fifth night. 
 
 Lady Hester^s arrival caused a great sensation, for 
 the sight of an English lady of rank was then an 
 almost unprecedented event, and she was received 
 with much honour by the Pacha. Five of his finest 
 horses, splendidly caparisoned, were sent to convey 
 her and her party to the Ezbekieh Palace ; she was 
 preceded by a bevy of officials bearing silver sticks — 
 each additional silver stick marking a grade in the 
 social scale — and allowed to dismount at the inner 
 gate. She herself had prepared with due magnificence 
 for the occasion, and appeared in a Tunisian costume 
 of purple velvet embroidered with gold, wearing two 
 Kashmir shawls for which she had paid £i00y one 
 as a turban, the other as a girdle. The Pacha, who 
 had never seen an English lady before, received her 
 in a gaily decorated kiosk in the garden of his harem, 
 on a gorgeously embroidered divan of scarlet velvet, 
 and offered her, according to Oriental custom, sherbet, 
 coffee, and a narghileh. But the narghileh she refused, 
 not having yet learned to smoke. Unfortunately, none 
 of her letters from Cairo have been preserved, and no 
 
122 ANOTHER ESCAPE [ch. hi 
 
 record remains of their conversation. Before her de- 
 parture, the Pacha further honoured her by reviewing 
 his troops before her, and made her a present of a fine 
 Arab charger, which, with its superb caparisons, she 
 sent to the Duke of York. Another horse, given to 
 her by Abdul Bey, one of the courtiers, she forwarded 
 to Lord Ebrington by the same opportunity. 
 
 Mr. Henry Wynn,^ having crossed the desert from 
 Gaza, here rejoined the party, with his servant George, 
 whose presence of mind on one occasion saved Lady 
 Hester's Hfe. They were returning from an expedition 
 to the Pyramids — then a formidable and even hazard- 
 ous undertaking, requiring not only horses, camels, 
 tents, provisions, &c., but a guard of soldiers — and 
 Lady Hester had engaged the French Mamelukes, 
 with their captain, as her escort. As they were being 
 ferried across the Nile, a plank sprung in the bottom 
 of the boat in which she was sitting, and the water 
 rushed in. They were in the middle of the river, 
 where the current is strongest, and the boatman, in 
 his consternation, lost his head and dropped his 
 oars. George, quick as lightning, tore off his turban, 
 plugged the leak, and doubling his fist in the man's 
 face, threatened to kill him if he did not row them 
 ashore. He obeyed, and they landed in safety. 
 
 Early in May they left Cairo for Rosetta, where, 
 with some natural doubts and misgivings, they 
 selected a polacca to take them to Jaffa. On this 
 occasion, however, the voyage, unlike her former 
 experiences at sea, was prosperous as well as brief. 
 At Jaffa, Mr. Pearce left them to take another route, 
 and Lady Hester commenced her long travels on 
 horseback through Syria and the Holy Land. She 
 rode in true Oriental style, with two Saises walking 
 at her horse's head. Her saddle and bridle, both 
 Egyptian, were of crimson velvet embroidered in 
 gold, and her travelling costume, likewise brought 
 from Cairo, consisted of a satin vest with long 
 
 ^ He writes to his mother (April, 1812): "Notwithstanding I 
 partly agree with you in what you say of our cousin, I was very glad 
 to find her here ; I had constant society in her house, and to me 
 she made herself very agreeable. She has many faults, but has, I 
 believe, an excellent heart. . . . We went a very large party to the 
 Pyramids. . . . Lady Hester attempted to go in, but the undertaking 
 was too great even for her, who is superior in exertion to any woman 
 I ever saw," 
 
i8io-i8i2] ISHMAEL BEY 123 
 
 sleeves, open from the elbow, and a red cloth jacket 
 and trousers, both again heavy with gold embroidery ; 
 the latter full enough **to form, by their numerous 
 folds, a very beautiful drapery.'* Over this, when 
 riding, she wore a white abba, or burnous,^ and her 
 turban was a Kashmir shawl. 
 
 No letters of hers are forthcoming till the following 
 September ; but I found among her papers part of a 
 MS. journal kept by Mr. Bruce. It hardly ever 
 mentions her, and deals chiefly with historical, 
 geographical, and statistical details, describing what 
 is now the beaten track of tourists to Jerusalem, 
 Bethlehem, Mount Carmel, Haifa, and Acre. But 
 now and again, what my Scotch nurse used to call 
 **th' auld Adam," peeps out, as when he speaks of 
 '*the infamous conduct" of the Aga of Jaffa, *' whose 
 insolence is only to be equalled by his ignorance, and 
 his ignorance by his presumption." What he really 
 did we are not told ; but whatever it was it drew 
 down upon him the full measure of Lady Hester's 
 wrath, and they were not a little uneasy when, at 
 their next station, Ramleh, they found that he had 
 followed them there, and sent for the Aga of the 
 place, who had shown himself very friendly. Surely 
 he must have come to complain of them ? to exact 
 satisfaction for the ** indignation " so forcibly ex- 
 pressed ? But it turned out that he had come on 
 quite a different errand, and only intreated his colleague 
 at Ramleh " to use every means in his power to pacify 
 the English lady." 
 
 At Jerusalem they came across a man whose story 
 has of late years been discredited, and his very 
 existence questioned — the one Mameluke who escaped 
 from the massacre of his comrades at Cairo. His 
 name was Ishmael Bey, and he spoke a little English, 
 having spent two months in England with his brother 
 Elfi. He told Mr. Bruce that " his escape from Cairo 
 was quite miraculous. When the Mamelukes were 
 enclosed within the gates of the Citadel, and the 
 Albanians had begun to fire upon them, he leaped 
 over a very high wall and galloped to his house. He 
 then changed his clothes, provided himself with 
 money, hired some dromedaries, and went into the 
 
 ^ One of these, said to have been worn by her, is in my pos- 
 session. 
 
124 BURCKHARDT [ch. hi 
 
 desert. At night, when he was asleep, the perfidious 
 Arabs (who were his guides), taking advantage of his 
 defenceless situation, attacked him with sabres and 
 with bludgeons, wounded him in the head, the neck, 
 and the sides, and left him for dead. In this state he 
 was found by a humane Arab, who discovered in him 
 some signs of life. He took him to his house and 
 provided him with what his scanty store could furnish. 
 He remained with him near six weeks, until his 
 wounds were healed. In the interval (through the 
 means of the Arab) he contrived to have some com- 
 munication with Cairo. He procured some clothes 
 and a little money, and then went into Syria. He 
 there claimed the protection of Suleiman Pacha of 
 Acre, who has given him a place of refuge, and allows 
 him a miserable pittance. His situation is very 
 critical, as the Turks do not respect the laws of 
 hospitality. As long as Suleiman Pacha and 
 Mohammed Ali are enemies he is secure; but the 
 moment this enmity ceases he will be made the 
 sacrifice. He wished to go to London or Constanti- 
 nople, and place himself under British protection." 
 Lady Hester was warmly interested in him. She 
 assisted him with money, and corresponded with Mr. 
 Canning on his behalf^ 
 
 Again, at Nazareth, Mr. Bruce was thunderstruck 
 at hearing himself addressed, in good English, by a 
 bare-legged Syrian peasant with a long beard, who 
 proved to be the celebrated traveller Burckhardt. He 
 passed as Shaykh Ibrahim, and was dressed in the 
 coarse cotton shirt and woollen abba of the country ; 
 but he could not disguise '* his broad German face and 
 blue eyes." Lady Hester, to whom he was introduced, 
 did not like him. 
 
 She had an accident as she was leaving Nazareth. 
 Her horse slipped up and fell with her, injuring one 
 of her legs so severely that she had to be carried back 
 to her lodging at the Franciscan convent, and was 
 detained there a week. 
 
 From Acre she proceeded to Sayda ; and here, 
 immediately on her arrival, she received an invitation 
 from the Prince of the Mountain to visit him at 
 Dayr-el-Kamar, in the Lebanon. She accepted with 
 eagerness, for she had long wished and purposed to 
 
 ^ See page 132. 
 
i8io-i8i2] THE DRUSES 125 
 
 see something of the Druse country, and make the 
 acquaintance of its singular and mysterious people. 
 As soon as the Emir knew of her coming, he sent 
 down no less than twelve camels, twenty-five mules, 
 and four horses, for her use, wnth an armed escort for 
 her protection. Two days before she left Sayda, on 
 July 29th, she was delighted to see the Salsette frigate 
 enter the harbour. ** Captain Hope came to the coast 
 to look after me," she writes to the General, **and 
 gave me your kind message. He is a very worthy 
 young man, and has been more kind to me than I could 
 nave thought it possible for a man, who was a stranger 
 to me at Rhodes, could have been." 
 
 The ride to Dayr-el-Kamar was over rugged paths, 
 such as would, to English ideas, have made the Emir's 
 palace inaccessible on horseback. On their way they 
 passed Djoun, where — little as she then could have 
 imagined it possible — she was to pass the last twenty 
 years of her life. The Emir received her with great 
 distinction, and she remained with him a month, 
 visiting his palace at Btedyn, and that of the Shaykh 
 Beshyr at Makhtara, three or four hours distant from 
 Dayr-el-Kamar. These palaces were in no way 
 remarkable, but the latter was famous for its fountains, 
 and a stream of clear, cool water had been made to 
 flow through all its rooms. She was much pleased 
 with her stay. 
 
 " I must now," she says in one of her letters, 
 ** speak to you of the Druses, that extraordinary and 
 mysterious people that inhabit the Mount Lebanon. 
 I hope, if ever I see you again, to be able to reach 
 Mr. North" (Lord Guilford) ''in my account of 
 them. I will only now mention one fact, which I can 
 state as positive, having been an eye-witness to it, 
 it is that they eat raw meat. I purchased of a Druse 
 an immense sheep, the tail weighing eleven pounds, 
 and desired it to be taken to a village, where I ordered 
 the people to assemble and eat. When I arrived the 
 sheep was alive; the moment it was killed, it was 
 skinned and brought in raw upon a sort of dish made 
 
126 SAYD SULEIMAN [ch. hi 
 
 of matting, and in less than half an hour it was all 
 devoured. The women eat of it as well as the men. 
 The pieces of raw fat they swallowed were really 
 frightful. 
 
 ** I understand feeling my ground so well with 
 savage people, that I can ask questions no other 
 person dares to put to them ; but it would not be proper 
 to repeat here those I asked even the sageSy and still 
 less their answers. Any one who asks a religious 
 question may be murdered without either the Emir 
 Beshyr (the Prince of the Mountain) or the Shaykh 
 Beshyr (the Governor) being able to punish the 
 oflfender. 
 V vv " Nothing ever equalled the honours paid to me by 
 these men. The Prince is a mild, amiable man ; but 
 the Governor has proved a Lucifer, and I am the first 
 traveller he ever allowed to walk over his palace, 
 which has been the scene of several massacres. The 
 two days I spent with him I enjoyed very much, and 
 you will be surprised at it when I tell you that he 
 judged it necessary to make one of his chief officers 
 taste out of my cup before I drank, for fear of poison ; 
 but I am used to that ; yet this man upon his knees 
 before me looked more solemn than usual." 
 
 From Dayr-el-Kamar she had written to announce 
 her coming to the Pacha of Damascus, Sayd Suleiman, 
 who had been Sword-bearer to the Sultan Selim, and 
 he had sent one of his pages with a courteous invita- 
 tion in reply. She was, however, informed that she 
 must wear a veil, as Damascus was one of the most 
 fanatical towns in Turkey; the scandal of seeing a 
 woman in men's clothes, and unveiled, would be very 
 great, and she would certainly be insulted. But any 
 suggestion as to what she should, or should not, do, 
 invariably roused Lady Hester's opposition. She 
 declared she would enter Damascus in broad day- 
 light, dressed as she was, and unveiled— and she did. 
 
i8io-i8i2] DAMASCUS 127 
 
 " I must first mention," she writes to Lord Sligo, 
 ** my entry at Damascus, which was one of the most 
 singular and not one of my least exploits, as it was 
 reckoned so dangerous, from the fanaticism of the 
 Turks in that town. However, we made a triumphal 
 entry, and were lodged in what was reckoned a very 
 fine house of the Christian quarter, which I did not 
 at all approve of. I said to the Doctor, * I must take 
 the bull by the horns and stick myself under the 
 minaret of the Great Mosque.* This was accomplished, 
 and we found ourselves, for three months, in the most 
 distinguished part of the Turkish quarter. I went 
 out in a variety of dresses every day, to the great 
 astonishment of the Turks ; but no harm happened. 
 A visit to the Pacha on the night of the Ramazan was 
 magnificent indeed. Two thousand attendants and 
 guards lined the staircase, ante-chamber, &c. The 
 streets were all illuminated, and there were festivities 
 at all the coffee houses. The message of invitation 
 was accompanied by two fine Arab horses, one of 
 which I mounted ; but I am sorry to say they are both 
 dead of the glanders." 
 
 Again, in another letter : 
 
 * " All I can say about myself sounds like conceit, 
 but others could tell you I am the oracle of the place, 
 and the darling of all the troops, who seem to think 
 I am a deity because I can ride^ and because I wear 
 arms ; and the fanatics all bow before me, because the 
 Dervishes think me a wonder, and have given me a 
 piece of Mahomet's tomb ; and I have won the heart 
 of the Pacha by a letter I wrote him from Dayr-el- 
 Kamar. Hope will tell you how I got on upon the 
 coast, and if he could make anything of the Pacha of 
 
128 MELEKl (THE c^ueein; L^n. m 
 
 Acre, his Ministers, or the rest of them, who were all 
 at my feet. I was even admitted into the library of 
 the famous Mosque, and fumbled over the books at 
 pleasure, books that no Christian dare touch or even 
 cast their eyes upon." 
 
 Far from being attacked or insulted, she was treated 
 with extraordinary deference. Crowds waited at her 
 door to see her get upon her horse. Coffee was 
 poured out on the road before her as she passed. 
 She was saluted as Meleki (the Queen), and all rose 
 to their feet as she entered the bazar — an honour 
 generally accorded only to the Pacha or Mufti. Yet 
 at this very time, no native Christian could venture 
 to leave the quarter assigned to him on horseback, 
 or even show himself on foot in a conspicuous gar- 
 ment or turban, without running a good chance of 
 having his bones broken by some zealous fanatic or 
 other. 
 
 Lady Hester's next object was to see Palmyra. 
 She had set her heart upon this expedition, all the 
 more as it was generally pronounced to be impractic- 
 able. Three Englishmen only had ever been known 
 to reach the place, and of these one returned stripped 
 to his shirt, though they travelled in the humble guise 
 of pedlars. It was out of the jurisdiction of the Pacha, 
 in the hands of the plundering Bedouins, and twenty 
 leagues of waterless desert had to be crossed to get 
 there. 
 
 But difficulties and dangers were only incentives 
 to Lady Hester, and sounded in her ears as the 
 trumpet notes of a challenge. On September 30th 
 she writes to General Oakes that she is going : 
 
 " Mr. North offered money, and used all the interest 
 he had to accomplish getting there, but in vain ; but 
 / have succeeded. I cannot set off under a week; 
 but my camels from the desert have arrived, and I 
 hope all will do well. Everybody is surprised at my 
 courage, as above eighty thousand Arabs will be on 
 their march in a fortnight to winter quarters, and 1 
 
i8io-i8i2] DAMASCUS 129 
 
 have determined to go straight into one of the largest 
 Bedouin camps. . . . From Palmyra I go to Aleppo, 
 and from Aleppo to Antioch, where I pass the 
 winter." 
 
 But she reckoned without her host, for serious 
 disturbances broke out in the interval. 
 
 Lady Hester to General Oakes 
 
 ^^ October 12M, 18 12. 
 
 " I am here still, not liking to stir till I see a Httle 
 what turn things take. . . . Every day a battle is 
 expected. A report also has been in circulation that 
 fifty thousand Wahabees are within four days' journey 
 of this city ; but I do not believe it. It takes rise from 
 a letter from Mecca to the Pacha, saying several 
 thousand dromedaries mounted by Wahabees have 
 set off, they know not where, but not improbably for 
 this place, which they once before attempted to take, 
 but were driven back, after having burnt and ran- 
 sacked every village upon the road. Why this con- 
 cerns me is for this reason : the strongest tribe of 
 Bedouin Arabs — my friends — who do not like the 
 present Pacha, will probably join any party against 
 him, and there will be a fine confusion in the desert, 
 as well as here, and the roads in every direction will 
 be filled with Delebaches, &c. These men are more 
 dreaded in every part of Turkey than you can 
 imagine, as they stick at nothing. But, luckily for 
 me, I am well known to some thousands, who have 
 been in the habit of seeing me with their chief visiting 
 their horses ; he has visited me accompanied by some 
 of them, and they have everywhere treated me with 
 the greatest civility, even when their chief has not 
 been with them, so I have less to fear than any one 
 else. But yet, when such disturbances take place, 
 10 
 
I30 THE PRINCE OF THE MOUNTAIN [ch. hi 
 
 few are safe. But should the worst come to the 
 worst, I shall take fifty of them and set off to my 
 friend Emir Beshyr, the Prince of the Mountain, 
 where I shall be quite safe. He has one hundred 
 thousand troops at his disposal, which he can assemble 
 in three days, and nothing was ever so kind as he has 
 been to me ; therefore, hear what you may, believe me 
 to be better off than any one else. The Bey who 
 commands the Delebaches took a great fancy to me 
 when at Cairo, and everything he can command is at 
 my disposal, I know; he is a simple, honest soldier, 
 and has no intrigue about him at all, and is extremely 
 beloved by the troops. It is a good thing that old 
 North is safe off, for he would be in a sad fright. I 
 am not at all, knowing my own presence of mind 
 under all circumstances, and that I have excellent 
 friends in this country. Be perfectly easy about me ; 
 my good luck will not forsake me when any confusion 
 takes place." 
 
 She adds in a P.S. : 
 
 ** Pray do not put any women or fools into a fright 
 upon the state of things in this country ; besides, to 
 tell the truth is here often the greatest danger one 
 can run." 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. S. Canning 
 
 '' I heard from Captain Hope, whom I saw a few 
 months ago on the coast, that a letter which I had 
 sent him by a janissary from Damietta, he had never 
 received, and in this letter was enclosed one for you, 
 expressing my thanks for the kind attention you had 
 shown me after the shipwreck. You, I am afraid, 
 would be shocked were I to give you a description 
 of myself; but it is a happy thing for me that I can 
 
i8io-i8i2] DAMASCUS 131 
 
 make necessity a pleasure. In Egypt, the Pacha re- 
 viewed s,ooo cavalry expressly to please me, and his 
 women who saw me (through their little peep holes) 
 ride into the court of the harem upon one of the 
 Pacha^s scampering horses, were in ecstasy, and sent 
 down a tribe of black gentlemen to welcome, as they 
 thought, Toucane Pacha^ Mahomet All's son, who is, 
 in fact, at Mecca. I liked Egypt extremely, notwith- 
 standing the narrow streets, the stinks, and bad eyes ; 
 but had I been dressed as a woman I should not have 
 liked it at all, for I should not have seen anything. 
 In all Syria I have been received with great hospitality 
 by Turks, Jews, and Arabs. This place is beautiful, 
 but yet not to be compared with Brusa, and the people 
 by far the least well-looking of any I have seen in the 
 Sultan's dominions. In a few days I set off for 
 Palmyra, dressed as the son of an Arab chief, with 
 my abba, leather belt, and horse-hair cord round my 
 head, mounted on an Arab horse the Pacha has given 
 me. I refused his Delebaches, they might get me 
 into a scrape, as I am going to visit a tribe of about 
 40,000 Arabs, and to meet 100,000 upon their march 
 to winter quarters. With these people I am quite at 
 my ease ; I have some very good friends amongst 
 them, and I have no doubt I shall do very well. The 
 son of a chief offered me the other day his own fine 
 horse ; but how could I accept all that a man had of 
 valuable in the world ? I thanked him, and said I 
 would give his tent the preference to any other, as 
 I felt great confidence in him ; with this he seemed 
 much pleased, for they have been all disputing who 
 shall escort me, and since the great battle in which 
 100,000 horse took the field it is very dangerous to 
 make yourself over to either party, because you might 
 run the risk of being cut to pieces by the hostile 
 
132 ISHMAEL BEY [ch. hi 
 
 tribe ; but I go with a chief who plays into the hands 
 of both, and I shall be friends with all, till I see which 
 I like best, then I shall declare myself for that tribe. 
 I am quite delighted with these people, and I seem to 
 take their fancy. 
 
 " I remember you once told me that you never took 
 presents from ladies, but I am not a lady, but a poor 
 Bedouin, therefore you will not refuse this little tribute 
 of my respect which I offer you. My slight acquaint- 
 ance with Mr. Knight prevents my writing to him, 
 but from all you have told me of his generosity and 
 humanity, I think I may venture to request you will 
 give him this message, that I have discovered in 
 retirement the only poor Bey (the brother of Elfi 
 Bey) who escaped being massacred at Cairo by leaping 
 over the wall into the ditch of the Citadel. He has 
 not a sixpence nor a friend upon earth, and is in 
 hourly dread of losing his head, which Mahomet Ali 
 {missing it amongst those of the other Beys which 
 were brought to him) offered a great price for, and 
 no one has courage to protect this poor man. If 
 Mr. Knight would humanely collect a little money 
 for him he would be doing one of the kindest acts he 
 ever did in his life ; but it must be remitted to him 
 very secretly^ unless he could be ensured an asylum 
 and a subsistence in England, otherwise it might risk 
 his life. If a sum was sent to General Oakes at Malta, 
 and he would inform me of it, I would, according to 
 circumstances, recommend to him means of conveying 
 it safe. The minds of men are now become so 
 hardened, so interested, so cowardly, that, generally 
 speaking, it would be deemed right to leave this poor 
 wretch to his fate, for fear of displeasing the all- 
 powerful Mahomet Ali. Mahomet Ali was civiler to 
 me than he ever was to anybody in his life, he always 
 
i8io-i8i2] DAMASCUS 133 
 
 received me standing. I rode with him, paid him 
 visits when I chose, where I chose, and at my own 
 hour ; I talked to him for hours together, and every- 
 thing I asked was done. But did this make me mean ? 
 No ! I visited the widow of Mourad Bey ; I was on 
 terms of great intimacy with all the wives and widows 
 of the Mamelukes who were murdered or who fled ; 
 and I gave him myself an account of my visits. 
 Mourad Bey*s widow is the most charming woman 
 (though not young) I ever knew, the picture of a 
 captive queen, with extraordinary talents, the tenderest 
 heart, and the most affectionate manner, I should 
 like to return to Cairo, if it was only to see this 
 woman, for whom I have a real friendship and admira- 
 tion. I know you have much zeal in a bad cause, if 
 you have the same in a good one, the poor Mameluke 
 ought to pray for you and your friend. 
 
 "What did I tell you once, that we ruined every 
 country we interfered with. Look at Russia, what 
 have we not brought upon her! I have laughed at 
 you and scolded you, but I must ever wish you well, 
 because I believe you to be an honest man^ a rare thing 
 in these times. 
 
 ** Yours sincerely, 
 
 '* H. L. S. 
 
 '* I hoped I had forgotten your cousin, but my 
 blood boiled the other day when I read in an old 
 newspaper his friendship for Hawkesbury, a reptile 
 he used to despise. Believe me, I should be sorry 
 to hurt your feelings, but do not be led to ruin as 
 he (Mr. C.) has been." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Damascus — Hamar— Palmyra — Latakia— Mar Elias — 
 
 MiSHMUSHY— BaALBEC — ACRE— JaFFA 
 
 I8I2-I8I6 
 
 The threatened invasion Lady Hester had mentioned 
 to General Oakes proved to be a false alarm. 
 
 Lady Hester to General Oakes 
 
 '>■ " The Wahabees (which were the subject of 
 my last letter) have not been heard of near this 
 town ; it is said that a small number of them have 
 arrived at Palmyra, but that is of no consequence. 
 Whether it was the report of their being upon the 
 road to this place, or that the Pacha was unable to 
 settle the dispute with his troops, which induced him 
 to send a positive order to an old figure like Sir 
 David" (Dundas) " to come here directly (the head of 
 everything military in Syria), 1 know not; but this 
 sensible, popular, and active old fellow suddenly 
 appeared, and was shortly after commanded to take 
 a strong body of troops, and go over all the Pachalic 
 of Damascus instead of the Pacha. During the time 
 he was here, he expressed a great wish to make my 
 acquaintance, and that I should visit him. * For,* said 
 he, ' I shall be very jealous of my young chief if she 
 does not.' Knowing the state of things, the rebellious 
 spirit of the troops, their exultation at his arrival, &c., 
 I considered this visit an awful thing, yet I was 
 
 134 
 
i8i2-i8i6] DAMASCUS 135 
 
 determined to go, as everything military seemed to 
 have set their heart upon it. 
 
 " I first was obhged to ride through a yard full of 
 horses, then to walk through several hundred, perhaps 
 a thousand, Delebaches, and then to present myself 
 to no less than fifty officers and grandees, the old 
 chief in the corner, and my friend the young Bey 
 (Youseff Pacha's son) next to him, who rose to give 
 me his place. I remained there about an hour. The 
 old fellow was so delighted with me, that he gave me 
 his own house upon the borders of the desert for as 
 long a time as I choose to inhabit it ; he offered me 
 a hundred Delebaches to escort me all over Syria; 
 he sent off an express to put, as he said, his most 
 confidential officer under my command, that nothing 
 I asked for was to be refused. In short, nothing 
 could equal his civility; besides, it was accompanied 
 with a degree of heartiness^ which you seldom meet 
 with in a Turk. The next day he sent me a very fine 
 little two-year-old Arab to train up in my own way. 
 
 ** The chief of forty thousand Arabs, Mohanna El- 
 Fadel, arrived here about the same time, to get four 
 thousand camels and several thousand sheep released, 
 which the Pacha had seized. His sons have been 
 my friends ever since I came here ; but as the father 
 is reckoned as harsh as he is cunning, I little thought 
 to manage him as I have done. He and his eldest 
 son and about twenty-five Arabs dined with me, and 
 were all enchanted; and the Meleki, or Queen, is in 
 the mouth of every Arab, both in Damascus and the 
 desert. As to the Wahabees, Mohanna assures me 
 that, as one of his family^ he shall guarantee me with 
 his life, and whether I meet or do not meet with them 
 it is the same thing. To see this extraordinary people 
 is what I wish, but not in the town or environs of 
 
136 A lAIS.i AJS.AVAiN LCH. IV 
 
 Damascus, to be confounded with the crowd of those 
 they wish to injure. 
 
 '' Bruce and Mr. Barker " (the Consul-General) '' are 
 now upon their road from Aleppo, because they choose 
 to take it into their heads I must go with a caravan 
 to Palmyra. No caravan goes the road I intended to 
 go ; and if it had, as I told them, nothing should 
 persuade me to join one. This put them into a 
 fright, so they are coming with a wire thing, a 
 tartaravan, which Mr. Barker pronounces necessary, 
 but which all the Consuls in the universe shall never 
 persuade me to get into. What an absurd idea, in 
 case of danger to be stuck upon a machine, the 
 tartaravangers running away, and leaving you to the 
 mercy of two obstinate mules ! The swiftest horse 
 one can find is the best thing, and what the Arabs 
 often owe their lives to. My second messenger, saying 
 more positively than the first that, whether they come 
 or not, I would have nothing to do with a tartaravan 
 or caravan, had only left this place three days when 
 the caravan between Homs and Damascus, composed 
 of several hundred persons and fifty armed men, was 
 attacked by Arabs, and sixteen men killed. Who is 
 right, 1 or the Consul-General ? 
 
 ** The Pacha answers for my safety, so do the chiefs 
 of the Delebaches, and so do the Arabs ; but they do 
 not answer for rich, cowardly merchants, who are left 
 to take care of themselves. By this time Barker must 
 be half-way from Aleppo, therefore it is right I should 
 think about setting off to meet them at Homs. Four 
 armed men is all I shall take, just to keep a watch 
 about the tents at night, and to have an eye upon 
 the horses, that no stray robber may make off with 
 them. As to great tribes, &c., I am perfectly secure 
 with them, I know. 
 
i8i2-i8i6] DAMASCUS 137 
 
 " During my residence here, I have made a great 
 number of very pleasant acquaintances, and have seen 
 all the most famous harems. I believe I am the only 
 person who can give an account of the manner in 
 which a great Turk is received by his wives and 
 women. A particular friend of mine, who has four 
 wives and three mistresses, took me to see them 
 himself None of his wives sat down in his presence, 
 or even came up to the raised part of the room where 
 we sat, except to serve his pipe and give him coffee. 
 When he invited me to a dinner, apparently for fifteen 
 or twenty people, I of course thought the poor 
 women were to eat ; but not at all, they only presented 
 him with what he wanted from the hands of the slaves, 
 and never spoke but when he asked some question. 
 Yet this is one of the most pleasant and good-natured 
 men I know, and with me behaves just like anybody 
 else, and is full as civil and attentive as another man ; 
 but in this instance he does not consider his dignity 
 lowered. 
 
 " The other day I was paying a visit to the wife of 
 a very great Effendi (who, though not the most 
 agreeable, is perhaps the cleverest man I knew here), 
 not less than fifty women were assembled in the 
 harem to see me, when in came the lord and master — 
 all put on their veils except his wife and his own 
 women, and he made a sign, and all retired. He then 
 told me he had sent for my little dragoman, who 
 shortly appeared. We talked some time and then he 
 proposed dining. He had led me into a beautiful 
 court paved with coloured marbles, with fountains 
 playing among the orange-trees, and in a sort of alcove 
 we found dinner prepared, or rather supper, for it was 
 at sunset. Everything was served in high style by 
 black female slaves, and a black gentleman. Immense 
 
13^ TURKISH SPLENDOUR [ch. iv 
 
 gilt candlesticks, with candles nearly six feet high, 
 were set on the ground, and great illumination of 
 small elegant lamps suspended in clusters in different 
 parts of the court. The proud man talked a great 
 deal, and kept my little dragoman nearly four hours 
 on his knees, having fetched a great book to talk 
 astronomy, upon which he asked me ten thousand 
 questions. In short, he kept me there till nearly 
 ten o'clock, an hour past the time which, if any one 
 is found in the streets, they are to have their heads 
 cut off — such is the Pacha's new decree. All the gates 
 were shut, but all opened for me, and not a word said. 
 The Pacha cuts off a head or two nearly every day ; 
 but yet I do not think he has added much to his own 
 security, for he is by no means liked, nor does he 
 command half so much as my friend the old 
 Delebache. 
 
 ** What surprises me so much is the extreme civility of 
 the Turks to a Christian, which they detest much more 
 here than in any other part of the Sultan's dominions. 
 A woman in man's clothes, a woman on horseback — 
 everything directly in opposition to their strongest 
 prejudices, and yet never a smile of impertinence, let 
 me go where I will. If it was as it is in England, 
 it would be quite impossible to get through with it 
 all. Like Dr. Pangloss, I always try to think that 
 everything is for the best. If I had not been ship- 
 wrecked I should have seen nothing here. If 1 had 
 been born a man instead of a woman I could not have 
 entered all the harems as I have done, and got ac- 
 quainted with all the Turkish customs, and seen all 
 that is to be seen of most magnificent — for a Turk's 
 splendour is in his harem. The rooms, the dresses, 
 the whole air of luxury, is not to be described. 
 
 ^* Adieu! my dear General. I have written you a 
 
1 8i 2-1 8 1 6] DAMASCUS 139 
 
 long letter, because I thought my last might have put 
 you in a fright. Had the Wahabees come here it 
 would have been no joke, at least for the inhabitants 
 of this town, for they burn and destroy all before them. 
 " When you have read this, will you enclose it to 
 Lord Ebrington, who is so good as always to feel 
 anxious about me, and I have no time to write to him 
 
 now." 
 
 Lady Hester to General Oakes 
 
 " Damascus, 
 
 " Novefnber 1 2//z, 1 8 1 2. 
 
 " Bruce and Mr. Barker arrived here about the ist; 
 the latter has been laid up with a fever ever since, 
 and I have given up my journey to the desert for 
 the present, as the Pacha insists upon sending eight 
 hundred or one thousand men with me, and the 
 expense would be ruin ; but I am going off to Homs 
 to-morrow, and in the course of the winter shall 
 contrive to go in some way or other. 
 
 *' It seems very cross to be angry at people being 
 anxious about you, but had Bruce and Mr. Barker 
 made less fuss about my safety, and let me have 
 perfectly my own way, I should have been returned 
 by this time from Palmyra. But this, and the state 
 of the country, I do not wish to be the conver- 
 sation of Malta, for it might be scribbled back again 
 here by some of the merchants. Yet I cannot but 
 regret that (for I had leave to dig and do everything 
 I pleased at Palmyra) chance having put such extra- 
 ordinary power in my hands, it has been lost by 
 mismanagement. It is not here as in other parts of 
 the world ; if you only go a mile to the right instead 
 of to the left, which you have not previously bargained 
 to do, your camels leave you, your guards won't stir 
 out of their district, you must pay them four times 
 
I40 DAMASCUS [ch. iv 
 
 their price to induce them to go on. Therefore it was 
 very fine and very natural to write every three days 
 from Aleppo, we will meet here, then there, and to 
 make fifty changes, and to express fifty fears. For 
 people who did not know the country it might be ex- 
 pected, but those who did ought to have been aware it 
 would have been taken advantage of, which has been 
 
 the case. 
 
 ** We have no plague here at present, but I suppose 
 it will come when goods arrive from Constantinople ; it 
 is said it is already suspected in Egypt, and then 
 it generally comes here. But there will be no 
 possibility of leaving this country till the spring, as 
 no English ships come to the coast in the winter, and 
 we have had enough of Greek vessels. I, for one, 
 have little apprehension of the plague; all in this 
 world rests with Providence, and over-caution ever 
 exposes persons more to danger than remaining 
 quiet. 
 
 " I have sought in vain for some good thing to send 
 you from hence, but can find nothing; but I have 
 ordered some wild boar hams to be made, which you 
 will receive in the course of the winter. Bruce ordered 
 some of the famous Vino d'Oro of Mount Lebanon ; 
 when the casks are well seasoned, and an opportunity 
 offers, it shall be sent to Malta. He hates this place, 
 as I thought he would, but must remain here till 
 Mr. Barker is well enough to set off. Aleppo he 
 also thought abominable. I knew I should dislike 
 Aleppo if I went there, because it is full of vulgar 
 people ; but here there are chiefly great Turks, and, 
 as I get on very well with them, I rather like the 
 place than otherwise, but think it very unwholesome 
 from the quantity of water and trees in and about the 
 town, but very beautiful in its way, but it is not the 
 
i8i2-i8i6] HAMAR 141 
 
 way I like. Brusa and the banks of the Bosphorus 
 for me — enchanting scenes that I think upon with 
 delight." 
 
 On leaving Damascus, Lady Hester originally 
 intended to go to Aleppo, and Mr. Bruce had been 
 there as a pioneer to see whether the place was likely 
 to suit her, and what accommodation it afforded. Her 
 directions to him are characteristic : 
 
 ** Make Mr. Barker aware that I am an extra- 
 ordinary person, and like nothing other people like. 
 If I can only have a horse — a good one — a bath, and 
 some good bread, it is all I wish, provided the climate 
 is a good one, and that I am not teased, as I have 
 been finely here." 
 
 His report was unfavourable, and she next dates 
 her letters from " Hamar, on the Orontes, where," 
 writes Mr. Bruce, " we spent a most disagreeable 
 winter, the coldest that had been known in Syria for 
 thirty years." 
 
 Lady Hester to General Oakes 
 
 ^^ January i^th^ 1813. 
 
 " I have been obliged to give up my long intended 
 journey to Palmyra for the present, for it would not 
 have been prudent to undertake it from Damascus. I 
 now can understand why the Pacha's man, into whose 
 hands I was to be consigned, would take one thousand 
 men, because the Arab chief had threatened to cut 
 off his beard and strip all his people naked if he took 
 me at all. The honour, the Arab said, should be his, 
 as the desert was his. In the spring, however, we 
 mean to try it again, and hope to succeed. 
 
 " When Bruce was nursing Mr. Barker, I made an 
 experiment on the good faith of the Arabs. I went 
 with the great chief, Mohanna El-Fadel, into the 
 desert for a week, and marched three days with their 
 
14^ CAMP IN THE DESERT [ch. iv 
 
 encampment. I was treated with the greatest respect 
 and hospitaUty, and it was, perhaps, altogether the 
 most curious sight I ever saw — horses and mares fed 
 upon camel's milk, Arabs living upon little else, 
 except a little rice, and sometimes a sort of bread, 
 the space around me covered with living creatures, 
 twelve thousand camels coming to water from one 
 tribe only. The old poets from the banks of the 
 Euphrates, singing the praises and the feats of ancient 
 heroes ; children quite naked ; women with lips dyed 
 light blue and their nails red, and hands all over 
 flowers and designs of different kinds ; a chief who 
 is obeyed like a great king ; starvation and pride so 
 mixed, that I really could not have had an idea of it ; 
 even the cloths I presented to the sons of Mohanna 
 they could not carry, indeed hold, but called a black 
 slave to take them. However, I have every reason to 
 be perfectly contented with their conduct towards me, 
 and I am the Queen with them all. 
 
 ** We came to this place to be near the desert, and 
 to learn a little of what is going on there from good 
 authority — the Arabs being still at war, it is necessary 
 to be aware of their proceedings. Last month the 
 weather was delightful, but of late it has snowed, and 
 so much rain has fallen, that not a house in the place 
 is habitable; every room is a pond, and there is no 
 communication between one part of the town and the 
 other, from the Orontes having overflowed, firing very 
 scarce, and everybody very miserable. A village a 
 mile ofl* has been half-destroyed, and fifty persons 
 killed, either by the falling of the houses or drowned. 
 
 " Not long ago a body of Albanians, by the order of 
 the Pacha, entered this town, took the Governor out 
 of his bed, put him in chains, and carried him off and 
 seized all his property, and also every fine horse they 
 
i8i2-i8i6] HAMAR 143 
 
 could lay their hands upon. A very showy horse 
 Suleiman Pacha of Acre had given me I had given to 
 the Doctor, and it was waiting for him before the door 
 of a public bath ; the Albanians were marching off 
 with that also, although told that it belonged to a 
 Frank, and not a Turk. One, however, asked, * Is the 
 Frank one of the Queen's people?' Upon being 
 answered in the affirmative, he said, * Take the horse 
 to the stable, I shall not touch it ; but some of our 
 people may, not knowing to whom it belongs.' What 
 I have before told you about myself I know, my dear 
 General, looks like conceit^ but it is true, and it is 
 something to have one's people and things respected 
 at a moment when no legislative power exists in a 
 place, and every one is in fear and trembling. 
 
 ** As soon as the weather mends Mulla Ismael, the 
 powerful Delebache, will return from Damascus ; he is 
 a great friend of mine, and I shall go out to meet him 
 in the Turkish way — it will be a compliment to him, 
 and, besides, make me personally known to those of 
 his troops who have not seen me before. He is a very 
 jolly Turk, and has four wives here, and, I believe, 
 fifty women — so many, that I cannot count them ; they 
 are all very good to me, and less shut up than any 
 women I ever saw in this country. No Pacha has 
 ever yet succeeded in cutting off this man's head, 
 though many have tried ; but he is too powerful, and 
 the Arabs are too fond of him. He has taken refuge 
 among them twice, and he now feeds every Arab that 
 comes into Hamar as a mark of his gratitude. ... I 
 received above one hundred pages from dearest James 
 altogether; he last wrote when just embarking for 
 England with his General. I find Lord Wellington 
 intends hereafter (on his return to Spain) to place him 
 under my old friend Colonel Gordon, which I shall 
 
144 DIVERS COSTUMES [ch. iv 
 
 be very glad of if he is obliged to leave Sir T. 
 Graham." 
 
 The following letter was addressed to Elizabeth 
 Williams' married sister at Malta : 
 
 " Hamar (a very quizzical town upon the Orontes, 
 on the border of the desert). 
 
 ^"^ January i2nd^ 1813. 
 
 ** Dear Mrs. Fernandes, — Your kind and very 
 entertaining letter only reached me a month ago, at 
 this place, though it bears the date of the 6th of April 
 last. This, and all my other letters were detained at 
 Smyrna, as they did not like to send them during the 
 height of the plague. Upon my arrival at Constanti- 
 nople ages ago, I heard you were gone to England, 
 and thinking that a letter, like a leaf out of a volume 
 of travels, would not much interest Mr. Fernandes, 
 and that he would not have time to answer it without 
 inconveniencing himself by so doing, I did not write. 
 Last year I heard from Captain Beaufort of your 
 return to Malta, but in the miserable state I was in, 
 I had no inclination to write any letters but those 
 absolutely necessary. Since that time I have never 
 been quiet in any one place, and have had so much to 
 do, as you may imagine in a country where one must 
 have two interpreters, one to speak Turkish, another 
 for Arabic ; and even the latter language differs so 
 much in its pronunciation, that that spoken in Egypt is 
 hardly understood here. You have heard, I suppose, 
 that I am dressed as a man ; sometimes as Chief of 
 Albanians, sometimes as a Syrian soldier, sometimes 
 as a Bedouin Arab (the famous robbers in the desert), 
 and at other times like the son of a Pacha. The dress 
 of the great is like something in a play, and in fact 
 
i8i2-i8i6] BEDOUIN DRESS 145 
 
 much more decent than that of our fine ladies ; that of 
 the soldiers as much so, only they wear arms ; the 
 Bedouin's quite ridiculous. I will try and describe it, 
 and will begin by the head. A square handkerchief 
 made of coarse cotton and silk, folded from corner to 
 corner, this put over a red nightcap, or skull crown, 
 as if to protect it from a shower of rain, with one 
 corner behind, and one on each side, like an old- 
 fashioned wig; round the head, to bind it on, are 
 several rows of thick cord, as big as two fingers, made 
 of horse or cameFs hair, put round three or four times. 
 A shirt, a pair of large drawers, and a thing of the 
 coarsest materials, sometimes cotton (white), or some- 
 times silk (red), not unlike a bedgown^ fastened with 
 a leather belt, over that a pelisse of curly white sheep- 
 skin, the leather dressed white, or orange colour, or 
 copper colour, and over that a sort of immense 
 cloak with armholes (called abba)^ made of a sort 
 of carpeting, of two different sorts, one with 
 stripes of black and white, six inches wide, or 
 a white sort, with gold on the right shoulder, which 
 is the kind worn by the sons of great chiefs, 
 and that which I wear ; then a large pair of yellow 
 boots, and a lance twelve feet long decorated with 
 black feathers. This figure am I, now writing to 
 you. It is the only dress to wear travelling here in 
 winter^ when you live in tents, or houses, less weather- 
 proof than those are I have been obliged to inhabit 
 upon the borders of the desert. At Cairo and Damas- 
 cus I was very smart in the Turkish way. I have 
 seen at the latter place what no other traveller has 
 seen — the harems of the great men. The magnificence 
 of them is not to be described, nor the number and 
 size of the apartments; the court of one of them really, 
 I think, the size fully of Hanover Square, with fountains 
 II 
 
146 HORSEMANSHIP [ch. iv 
 
 playing in the middle, and all paved with coloured 
 marble, exquisitely beautiful. The Pacha of Egypt, 
 the Pachas of Acre and Damascus, have all treated me 
 as if I had been the Grand Vizier himself, which 
 makes all the common people imagine that I am a 
 queen. The Turks also estimate a person by their 
 riding well or ill ; and never having seen a woman 
 ride out of a foot's pace, or ride the scampering horse 
 of a great Pacha, they argue that I must be something 
 very extraordinary indeed. To confess the truth, I 
 like the Turks very much ; they are very polite and 
 well-mannered, and I have found them very hospitable. 
 So, indeed, have I even the Bedouin Arabs in the 
 desert. Most people are afraid of them, but I am not. 
 I have lived amongst them for a week together in the 
 desert, and was always treated with the greatest 
 respect and kindness. I have lodged fifteen of them in 
 my house at a time, and they have behaved quietly and 
 well, only eat most immensely to make up for eating 
 so little when at home. A little rice and camel's milk 
 is their chief food, and they have no water. I carried 
 what I wanted upon camels. I write and write to 
 WiUiams, but descriptions do not seem to amuse her, 
 and she never tells me any news, for she says she 
 knows none. What is she about ? I left her, hoping 
 she would marry well, like her sister, and do better 
 for herself than it would ever be in my power to do 
 for her. . . . All my English news is so old that I 
 shall not talk about it. People think of nothing here 
 but the French in Russia, and seem to expect they 
 will fly all over the world. Whenever you have time, 
 I shall be very happy to hear from you, and if any 
 friend of yours should happen to come into this 
 country, pray give me the opportunity of returning (by 
 my civility and attention to them) a little of that 
 
i8i2-i8i6] DR. MERYON 147 
 
 hospitality I received from Mr. Fernandes and your- 
 self when at Malta. I am a queer animal, it is true, 
 but very popular with the Turks at least. What I am 
 with the Christians is of little consequence to me 
 here, as they have no weight whatever in this country; 
 if ever so rich, must not even ride a horse, or wear a 
 shawl upon their head, or yellow slippers ; yet are not 
 allowed to wear the dress of their country, or rather 
 a Frank dress. . . . Oh, I forgot to tell you that the 
 gentlemen have all long beards. And the Doctor is 
 such a quiz you can have no idea of ; his head shaved, 
 and a pigtail coming out of the crown a yard long, a 
 copper-coloured sheepskin, and a pipe, six feet long, 
 never out of his mouth. He never stands two minutes, 
 and squats about all over the house, sometimes upon the 
 roof, sometimes upon the stairs, the court, and all the 
 house ; w^hen in the air, pulls a mat after him to sit 
 down upon ; washes his hands every five minutes, and 
 always eats with his fingers, without knife or fork, 
 like a Turk, As for our servants, you would die of 
 laughing to see them ! And they are so armed ; a 
 blunderbuss, a gun, a large knife, and a pair of pistols. 
 The cook cooks away with his pistols on. It is all 
 vastly amusing indeed. I shall hate to see quiet, 
 unarmed people for the rest of my life, I am sure. . . . 
 I like my wandering Arab life of all things, and, thank 
 God, my health is pretty good. I ride all my journeys, 
 and my horse is an everlasting one. He brought me 
 three days' journey out of the desert without drinking." 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, Henry Williams Wynn 
 
 '* Hamar, 
 
 ^^ January i^th, 18 13. 
 
 "I cannot now go back to describe the Pacha of 
 here and the dear Jew, or the honours they bestowed 
 
148 MOHANNA-EL-FADEL [ch. iv 
 
 upon me, or tell you how I was received by Monsieur 
 Taitbout, the French Consul at Sayde, the fetes which 
 were given me by the Emir and Sheick Beshyr, and of 
 my triumphal entry into Damascus, dressed as usual, 
 in spite of all the lectures I received from Mr. North 
 by letter, and the fright I put all the Christians into, 
 and most of all, my famous visit to the Pacha of 
 Damascus in the night during the Ramazan, midst 
 illuminations and thousands of people ; the conquests 
 I made of great Turks, Chiefs of Delebaches; and 
 lastly, that of the great Emir Mohanna-el-Fadel, Chief 
 of the Anazi Arabs, the tribes under his command 
 amount to forty thousand men, who are all ready to 
 draw their swords for me, and the Melliki is the 
 subject of conversation all over the desert. ... I have 
 orderly Arabs at my command, and receive despatches 
 every two or three days, giving me an account of what 
 is going forward in the desert, of what battles have 
 been fought, and with what tribes war has been 
 declared, &c., &c. . . . Twelve thousand troops having 
 marched out of Damascus in various directions, I began 
 to think it very dull, after all my most agreeable friends 
 had left it, and finding Mr. Barker a very troublesome 
 patient, with a fever that did not seem inclined to leave 
 him, or rather that he had fixed a certain term for its 
 duration, I took the determination to set off alone to 
 Homs or Hamar, and pay, at least, my promised 
 visit to Mohanna-el-Fadel, should he yet be near the 
 borders of the desert. I found he had waited for me 
 twenty-four days. I sent for him, and spent a week 
 with my people in their tents, and marched three days 
 with them. I had previously disarmed my servants, 
 saying, I put myself into the hands of God and the 
 great Emir, which succeeded admirably, for I did not 
 lose the value of a paray and was treated with the 
 
i8i2-i8i6] HAMAR 149 
 
 greatest kindness and respect. I was dressed as a 
 Bedouin, and eat with my hands (not fingers), drank 
 earners milk, and rode surrounded with one hundred 
 lances. What a sight it is at night to see horses, 
 men, and camels repair to the tents, no one can 
 have an idea of it but those who have seen it. One 
 morning twelve thousand camels belonging to one 
 tribe were carried to drink at once. 
 
 ** After this experiment I think I can rely on 
 Mohanna's word, which has once more determined 
 B. and myself to go to Palmyra under his pro- 
 tection. . . . The Feadan, the powerful enemies, are 
 now driven to the neighbourhood of Bagdad ; but 
 parties still come this way, at least, about Palmyra. 
 This is the danger of going with Mohanna, yet, please 
 God, I must go. I have nine horses given me, three 
 bad and six good ones, but I would not take any from 
 the Arabs, though Mohanna offered me his own mare. 
 
 " I respect poverty and independence. I am an ex- 
 ample, at least, that it tells in some parts of the world, 
 for if your very self-important Uncle was to come 
 here and snort to the right and to the left, he would 
 do nothing either with Turks or Arabs. 
 
 " To command is to be really great, to have talents 
 is to talk sense without a book in one's hand, and 
 to have manners is to be able to accommodate oneself 
 to the customs and tastes of others, and still to make 
 them either fear or love you. Old G. has done neither 
 at home ; a pretty business he has made of his politics, 
 and a pretty scrape he has got you all into ! . . . 
 
 ** I shall probably spend the summer at Antioch, 
 see the Kurds and Turkomans, and then I shall have 
 seen everything in Syria to perfection, and know 
 every leading character in it as well as I know the 
 present Prime Minister of England. 
 
I50 "FLUSTRATION OF MANNER" [ch. iv 
 
 ''There are some men of great talents in this 
 country, but, generally speaking, the greatest rascals 
 upon the face of the earth. But you know I like 
 rascals better than fools, the latter do about the 
 same portion of mischief in the world, and bore 
 one to death besides. 
 
 "I hope that the fog of London has not occasioned 
 your health to relapse, and that you will take care 
 of yourself in the spring, and not divide your time 
 between hot rooms and the House of Commons. 
 Remember to endeavour to break yourself of the 
 family gabble. I beheve I should have cured it, 
 together with the W. W. W. flustration of manner, 
 had I the pleasure of seeing more of you. The effect 
 it produced on Mahadini Effendi, who met you near 
 Bosrah, is astonishing! I gave E." (Ebrington?) "an 
 account of it from Damascus. Do tell me how you 
 find him, what is the matter with him, and why so 
 out of spirits ? Dear creature that he is, when every- 
 body loves him, how can he be unhappy? When you 
 write to me fill a whole page about him, for he writes 
 me little squeezy letters, and says very little always 
 about himself. ... I wish your uncle Tom, Lord G., 
 and the dear General, could breathe the air of the 
 desert, they would then have no pains in their 
 stomachs ; even the horses sniff as if taking snuff, 
 it is so pure they quite live upon it, for they have 
 little else to nourish them. 
 
 " What is Taylor doing ? If my red shaloan at 
 Constantinople amused him so, what would my 
 present dress do ? It is that of the son of a chief, 
 or young chief, a Bedouin handkerchief bound on 
 with a sort of rope made of camel's hair, a curly 
 sheepskin pelisse to reach to the knees, a white 
 abba with a little gold on the right shoulder, crimson 
 
i8i2-i8i6] HAMAR 151 
 
 loop and button, and two crimson strings or cords 
 to fasten it. This is the true things with a lance with 
 black feathers, mounted on a fine mare ; but I as yet 
 ride a horse. I ride now quite at my ease, and should 
 dislike a side saddle, I am sure. The Arabs are 
 enchanted with my horsemanship, which is lucky 
 for me ; they, as well as the Turks, think people 
 who cannot ride absolute fools. Nobody was ever so 
 popular with priests, Franks, Greeks, and Armenians 
 as old North ; but the Turks at Damascus considered 
 him quite contemptible because he could not ride at 
 all, and walked fast. . . . Adieu, dear Wynn, when- 
 ever you have time and inclination to write me a long 
 letter I shall be happy to receive it. Tell me how 
 dear old Sligo goes on. Where have I a relation who 
 has been as kind to me as he has been — the General 
 excepted? .... Sheick Ibrahim, the traveller, after 
 leaving me at Nazareth, went God knows where into 
 the desert, and has discovered a second Palmyra, 
 and at last arrived safe at Cairo, which he does not 
 like at all." 
 
 With the first breath of spring Lady Hester was 
 diligently at work negotiating and preparing for her 
 journey to Palmyra. 
 
 " We do not intend," writes Mr. Bruce, " as at first, 
 taking an escort to guard us against the Arabs, but 
 to put ourselves under their protection. . . . Lady 
 Hester has gained the friendship of Ishmael Aga, 
 a great Delebache chief, who has guaranteed our 
 safety. He is one of the most powerful men in Syria, 
 and the Arabs stand in great awe of him. I think, 
 therefore, that you need be under no apprehension 
 of our being detained prisoners in the desert. 
 Mohanna-el-Fadel, the chief of all the tribes known 
 
152 ANOi-HJiR ZENOBIA [ch. iv 
 
 by the name of Anizi, comes here to-morrow in order 
 to escort us. If Lady Hester succeeds in this under- 
 taking, she will at least have the merit of being the 
 first European female who has ever visited this once 
 celebrated city. Who knows but she may prove 
 another Zenobia, and be destined to restore it to its 
 ancient splendour? — perhaps she may form a matri- 
 monial alliance with Ebn Seaod, the great chief of the 
 Wahabees. He is not represented as a very lovable 
 object; but, making love subservient to ambition, 
 they may unite their arms together, bring about a 
 great revolution, both in religion and politics, and 
 shake the throne of the Sultan to its very centre. 
 I wish you would come and assist them with your 
 military counsel. How proud I should feel to learn 
 the art of war under so accomplished a General ! 
 I only hope that Lady Hester's health will be able 
 to resist the fatigue which she will unavoidably be 
 exposed to." 
 
 She herself writes full of joyous anticipation : 
 
 "I have great confidence in the Arab chief; the 
 Pacha sent an express for him almost at the same 
 moment as mine arrived, and his answer was, *The 
 Queen must be served first.* 
 
 ** Mohanna waits my orders just as Lord Paget with 
 his cavalry would do your's were you to command 
 a great army. Upon receiving them he was to dispose 
 of the different tribes under his command in the way 
 he thought most advantageous in case of an enemy — 
 that is to say, not to leave a space, in a straight line, 
 of more than a few hours, without tents. This settled, 
 he was to set off and repair here with my second 
 messenger. . . ." 
 
8i2-i8i6] DEPARTURE FOR PALMYRA 153 
 
 Lady Hester to General Oakes 
 
 ^^ March igtk, 
 
 " To-morrow, my dear General, I mount my horse 
 with seventy Arabs, and am off to Palmyra at last. 
 I am so hurried, I cannot write all I wish, but the 
 Sir David Dundas of Syria I have made a conquest 
 of, and he insisted upon speaking to the Arab chiefs, 
 and said he would cut off all their heads if they did not 
 bring me back safe. I owe much to the kindness of 
 this old fellow, who, since I have resided here, has 
 thought of nothing but how he could serve me. He 
 tells me every day I must not leave off my Turkish 
 clothes. 
 
 ** I have heard a few days ago from Captain Hope ; 
 he expects to come out again to the Mediterranean, 
 and wishes to fetch me away from Syria if he can." 
 
 She had deposited 3,000 piastres (about ;£"iSo) as 
 the price of her escort, one-third only to be paid 
 in advance, the rest on her safe return ; but there 
 was much fear that the Arabs might be tempted to 
 plunder and detain her. Unfortunately, the most 
 absurd reports of her wealth had been current at 
 Damascus. She was said to ride a horse worth forty 
 purses, with housings and stirrups of pure gold ; to 
 receive every morning one thousand sequins from the 
 English Sultan's treasurer ; to carry a book indicating 
 where hidden treasure was to be found (Wood and 
 Dawkin's views of Palmyra); and to possess a herb 
 that transmuted stones into gold. What might she 
 not be worth as a prisoner? What fabulous sum 
 might not be asked for her ransom ? "I cannot," 
 she writes to Lord Sligo, "enter into the detail of 
 the dreadful stories that were told us of the danger 
 we were running into, but all that did not deter me 
 from my purpose." 
 
 Her departure, on March 20th, excited universal 
 interest. For more than half a league out of the 
 town eager crowds lined the way, and janissaries 
 had to be employed to keep them off. All the party — 
 
154 PALMYRA AT LAST [ch. iv 
 
 even the much-tried Mrs. Fry— were dressed as 
 Bedouins. 
 
 *' We set off with the two sons of the King of the 
 Desert, forty camels loaded with provisions and water 
 and presents, twenty horsemen, the Doctor, Mr. Bruce, 
 myself, and an Arab dragoman, a second dragoman, 
 and a Mameluke, too cooks, a Caffagi, four Cairo 
 sayses, the Emir El-Akoar, a stud-groom, Mr. B.'s 
 valet, and Madame Fry, two sakas or water-carriers, 
 my slave, two ferrases or tent-pitchers, with an escort 
 of Arabs. On the second day we arrived at the tents 
 of the King of the Arabs, who had advanced to the 
 borders on purpose to meet us. We remained there 
 a day, and were very much entertained with Arab 
 stories and civility. I then requested the Emir to 
 move his camp to the northward. We proceeded, 
 and passed through some other tribes, and encamped 
 at night among the Beni Hez. The next day we 
 passed through the Beni Kaleds, and encamped in a 
 very desolate place, but sent for a guard from the 
 tribe of the Sebah, who were not very far off. 
 
 *' Having visited the tribes of the Melhem, the Beni 
 Hez, the Beni something else, and the Sebahs, we 
 arrived on the eighth day at Palmyra. We met two 
 thousand of the Sebahs upon their march, descending 
 into the plain where we were reposing, from the Belaz, 
 a mountain pass, with all their fine mares, little colts, 
 little camels, little children, and hideous women, with 
 the most extraordinary head-dresses and extraordinary 
 rings at their noses, and preposterously tatooed in 
 flowers and frightful figures. 
 
 " You must not understand Palmyra to be a desolate 
 place, but one in which there are fifteen hundred 
 inhabitants. The chief and about three hundred 
 
i8i2-i8i6] PALMYRA 155 
 
 people came out about two hours' distance to meet 
 us. He and a few of the grandees were upon Arab 
 mares, and dressed rather more to imitate Turks than 
 Arabs, with silk shawls and large silk turbans. The 
 men, at least many of them, had their whole bodies 
 naked, except a pestimal^ or petticoat, studded or 
 ornamented with leather, blackamoors' teeth, beads, 
 and strange sorts of things that you see on the stage. 
 They were armed with matchlocks and guns, all 
 surrounding me and firing in my face, with most 
 dreadful shouts and savage music and dancing. They 
 played all sorts of antics till we arrived at the 
 triumphal arch at Palmyra. The inhabitants were 
 arranged in the most picturesque manner on the 
 different columns leading to the Temple of the Sun. 
 The space before the arch was occupied with dancing 
 girls, most fancifully and elegantly dressed, and 
 beautiful children placed upon the projecting parts 
 of the pillars with garlands of flowers. One, sus- 
 pended over the arch, held a wreath over my head. 
 After having stopped a few minutes, the procession 
 continued. The dancing-girls immediately surrounded 
 me. The lancemen took the lead, followed by the poets 
 from the banks of the Euphrates, singing compli- 
 mentary odes and playing upon various Arabian 
 instruments. A tribe of hale Palmyrenes brought 
 up the rear, when we took up our habitation in the 
 Temple of the Sun, and remained there a week. 
 
 " I must tell you that the difficulty of this enterprise 
 was that the King of the Desert was at war with some 
 very powerful Arabs, and it was from them we were 
 in dread of being surprised, particularly as it was 
 known that they had said that they could sell me 
 for 25,000 piastres, or three hundred purses, and 
 which they certainly thought they could get for my 
 
156 RETURN TO HAMAR [ch. iv 
 
 ransom at home. This was the most alarming part 
 of the business. Our people, nevertheless, went out 
 robbing every day, and came home with a fine khanjdr, 
 and some visible spoil. We heard of nothing but the 
 advance of the enemy to the east of Palmyra, and we 
 believed it, as we had taken five of their scouts 
 prisoners, which we thought well secured at Palmyra ; 
 but unfortunately one night one got out, and fearing 
 that he would give the intelligence of what day we 
 were to begin our journey back again, we set off 
 before our intended time. We were, nevertheless, 
 pursued by three hundred horses a few hours off, 
 which fell upon the tribe of the Sebahs, and killed 
 a chief and took some tents ; and the Sebahs, on their 
 side, carried off twenty-two mares. We returned a 
 different way, having made acquaintance with the 
 tribe of the Amoors, the Hadideens, the Wahabees, 
 and another battalion of Sebahs, including Wahabees, 
 and a party of hunting Arabs that are dressed in the 
 skins of wild beasts. We arrived in safety at the 
 tents of the Grand Emir, Mohanna El~Fadel, who 
 gave us a fine Arab feast and killed a camel, of which 
 we partook. At two hours from Hamar, we were met 
 by a corps of Delebaches, who were sent as a com- 
 plimentary escort by Moli Ismail, a man of great note 
 in Syria, who conducted us to his house, where dinner 
 was prepared for three hundred people, and corn 
 provided for all the Arab mares. Within a mile of 
 Hamar, full ten thousand people were assembled out 
 of curiosity, half of which were women, and many 
 women of distinction, with Nasif Pacha's children, 
 carried by slaves. Mashallah echoed from every 
 mouth. Seldmety ya meleky ; seldmCy ya syt (welcome, 
 Queen; welcome. Madam). El hamd Sillah (thank 
 God). Allah kerym (the Lord is gracious). And this 
 
i8i^~i8i6] HAMAR 157 
 
 very interesting scene proved my Ladyship's popularity 
 in Hamar. 
 
 "Nothing in the world could have been so well 
 managed, which proves me an eleve of Colonel Gordon's, 
 for I was at once quartermaster, adjutant, and commis- 
 sary-general. We were as comfortable upon our road 
 as we were at home, and the Duke of Kent could not 
 have given out more minute orders, or have been more 
 particular in their being executed, which, in fact, is the 
 only way of performing a thing of that sort with any 
 degree of comfort. 
 
 ** We were excessively entertained with the different 
 conversations of these people, and the extravagant 
 though elegant compliments they paid me. They 
 have got it into their heads that the only power 
 which can affect them is Russia. They were always 
 thanking God I was not Empress of Russia, other- 
 wise their freedom would be lost. I am now getting 
 translated into Arabic all the real achievements of 
 the Emperor Alexander, on purpose to send to my 
 friends in the Desert. They are the most singular 
 and wonderfully clever people I ever saw, but require 
 a great deal of management, for they are more 
 desperate and more deep than you can possibly 
 have an idea of. It would have very much amused 
 you to see me riding like a Bedouin woman in a 
 bird's nest made of carpeting upon a camel, and upon 
 one of the fleet dromedaries like a Wahabee. I am 
 enrolled as an Anisy Arab in the tribe of the Melhem, 
 and have now the rights of the Desert, particularly 
 that of recommending my friends who may wish to 
 visit them. 
 
 " After my return to Hamar, the immense number 
 of Arabs that waited on me from all quarters was 
 quite surprising. You think we have wasted our 
 
158 SYRIAN CHARM L^h. iv 
 
 time in Syria, but certainly we have seen in great 
 perfection what nobody else has, not even your friend 
 Shaykh Ibrahim" (Burckhardt), ''who, going under 
 consular protection, was stripped stark naked in 
 coming from Palmyra, and after having marched 
 some days in this happy state, got a pair of shalwars 
 (trousers) at a village, and in this figure entered 
 Damascus. ... I only saw one mare, a Wahabee, 
 that I thought perfection. The owner said he would 
 not part with her for less than one hundred purses. 
 The generality of their horses and mares is by no 
 means so beautiful as you would imagine, but beyond 
 anything excellent for swiftness and fatigue. I could 
 write volumes upon different circumstances that took 
 place on this interesting journey, which I certainly 
 recommend to no traveller to undertake without being 
 well aware of the carte du pays^ and having consider- 
 able abilities to plan and great energy to go through 
 with it. When you are once in the scrape nobody 
 can get you out of it, for no Pacha has sufficient 
 authority over them to be the least depended upon. 
 They no sooner heard of our intention of going with 
 the Pacha's people than they said they should cut off all 
 their beards and send them naked about their business. 
 For my part I believe they would have been as good 
 as their word. The idea of telling them cock-and-bull 
 stories, and treating them like fools, is perfectly incor- 
 rect; they are much more difficult to manage than 
 any Europeans I have ever seen. . . . There was a 
 chief that Lord Petersham would die of envy before, 
 as he was as eveille as a Frenchman, and presented 
 himself with the air of Lord Rivers or the Duke of 
 Grafton. Respecting etiquette and politeness, these 
 people certainly far exceed even the Turks; but for 
 eloquence and beauty of ideas (though one can hardly 
 
i8i2-i8i6] QUEEN OF THE DESERT 159 
 
 be a judge of it) they undoubtedly are beyond any 
 other people in the world. 
 
 " To expect a frigate upon this coast till the plague 
 is quite gone is out of the question, and to pop into 
 a nasty infected ship would be folly." 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. H, W, Wynn 
 
 " Latakia, 
 
 ^^June 30M, 1813. 
 
 "Dear Wynn, — Without joking, I have been 
 crowned Queen of the Desert under the triumphal 
 arch at Palmyra ! Nothing ever succeeded better than 
 this journey, dangerous as it was, for upon our return 
 we were pursued by two hundred of the enemy's horse, 
 but escaped from them. They were determined to 
 have the head of the chief who accompanied us, yet 
 sent me an ambassador in secret to say that I need fear 
 nothing, that everything belonging to me should be 
 respected; such were the orders given out to this 
 powerful tribe by five of their chiefs assembled in the 
 neighbourhood of Bagdad. The Slepts (the Arabs 
 who live by hunting and are dressed in the skins of 
 beasts), the bands from the banks of the Euphrates, 
 story-tellers, and Wahabees, all paid me homage. If 
 I please I can now go to Mecca alone ; I have nothing 
 to fear. I shall soon have as many names as Apollo. 
 I am the sun, the star, the pearl, the lion, the light 
 from Heaven, and the Queen, which all sounds well 
 in its way ; for example, ' Salutation from the Warrior 
 Hedgerez, son of Shallun, to our great Mistress, 
 Pearl of Friends and Standard of High Honour.' 
 I have five hundred letters from these people, one 
 more amusing than the other. Old * G.' would be six 
 months squeezing out as many beautiful ideas as they 
 produce in ten minutes, both in conversation and 
 upon paper. I am quite wild about these people ; and 
 
 > > V 
 
 7 7 ~ 
 
i6o ARAB FRIENDSHIP IcH. iv 
 
 all Syria is in astonishment at my courage and my 
 success. To have spent a month with some thousand 
 of Bedouin Arabs is no common thing. For three 
 days they plagued me sadly, and all the party but B. 
 almost insisted on returning. The servants, frightened 
 out of their senses, always had their eyes fixed upon 
 their arms or upon me. The dragoman could not 
 speak, he had quite lost his head. All the people 
 about me were chosen rascals, and having primed a 
 fellow who was once with the French army in Egypt, 
 I rode dash into the middle of them and made my 
 speech ; that is to say, I acted and the men spoke. 
 It so surprised them and charmed them that they all 
 became as humble as possible ; and here ended any 
 unpleasant scenes with them. I really believe that 
 some of them now have a sincere affection for me, as 
 their conduct proved on several occasions. One in 
 particular: a chief not resenting, or allowing his people 
 to resent, a blow that had been given him by an Arab 
 of another tribe, an outrage to be punished with death. 
 He said : * Were we to fight, you might lose your life 
 in the confusion, and inevitably be robbed ; therefore 
 we shall put it off and have the man's blood another 
 time.* This was neither cowardice nor indolence, but 
 an act of real friendship, which any one who saw the 
 effect the blow had produced could not have doubted. 
 I had been riding upon a camel like a Bedouin woman 
 for my amusement, and was just going to mount a 
 dromedary to ride like a Wahabee, all those about me 
 ran away in an instant and left me with a troublesome 
 beast who would not keep on his knees long enough 
 for me to get up. Had you witnessed the fury of 
 these people when they saw their chief struck ! To 
 me it was quite delightful ; they were all ready to die 
 in a moment ; yet were quiet, however, as soon as the 
 
I8i2-i8i6] LATAKIA i6i 
 
 chief spoke. But revenge was painted in the counten- 
 ances of all his people. When the world becomes 
 still more corrupt, when people— civilized people — 
 become still more brutal and still more incisive, it is a 
 pleasure to reflect that there is a spot of earth inhabited 
 by what we call barbarians, who have at least some 
 sense of honour and feeling, and where one is sure 
 never to be bored with stupidity or gabble^ for they 
 are the most brilliant and eloquent people I ever 
 knew. Nobody must ever give an opinion about the 
 charms of the desert who has not seen above fifteen 
 hundred camels descend the Belap mountains into the 
 enchanting vale of Mangoura, and a tribe of Arabs 
 pitch their tents upon beds of flowers of ten thousand 
 hues, bringing with them hundreds of living creatures 
 only a few days old, children, lambs, kids, young 
 camels, or puppies. But it would be quite in vain for 
 me to attempt to give a G." (Grenville) ** an account of 
 my empire, they who can enjoy nothing but grand 
 walks and trim shrubs ; if I could inspire any one of 
 them with a different taste, I should be blamed, and 
 be unhappy when obliged to admire the dulness and 
 grandeur of S." (Stowe) ** and the confined missified 
 beauties of D.** (Dropmore) ; ** as for B." (Boconnoc), 
 ** it was made for its late owner, and for a great mind. 
 "I should think Lord G." (Grenville) **was not in 
 the best humour just now at C.'s" (Canning) "rising 
 popularity. I am indignant that a man who positively 
 refused a few years ago to follow Mr. P." (Pitt) 
 " should now, from interested motives only, stick him- 
 self up as the representative of his principles. ... If it 
 should plague Lord G., I must say he deserves it, for 
 his want of feeling and liberality. Had he, upon 
 Mr. P.'s death, sent for my brothers (whom he might 
 freely have considered as his children), offered them 
 
 12 
 
i62 THE PLAGUE [ch. iv 
 
 a seat in Parliament without any restrictions, and have 
 added he had done this out of respect to the memory 
 of his friend, as he knew it was his intention that one, 
 if not both, should be brought forward in public life, 
 Mr. P. might then have had a representative, and Lord 
 G. at least a generous political enemy, or had they 
 either then or hereafter attached themselves to his 
 party, he would have secured (for their age) the most 
 sincere and able friends he ever yet had. . . . What 
 apolitical pearl dear E." (Ebrington?) ** would have 
 been, so pure, so moderate, yet so firm, and you might 
 have been made to work and speak plain. 
 
 " Here I am in the midst of the plague ; it is all over 
 Syria, Aleppo only is free from it as yet. This is 
 a great bore, for, though we ride out every day, still 
 it would not be prudent to travel. . . . Above seven 
 thousand people (above half the population of Tripoli) 
 have died of the plague. Here it is only slight, but 
 the French Consul has left the place for a village, and 
 not a Frank hardly will put their head out of window. 
 We are very well off in a house, to make up for what 
 we suffered last winter. You will hardly believe me 
 when 1 tell you that the cold made me so ill that for 
 more than two months I never walked upstairs, and 
 I mounted my horse to go into the desert in this state. 
 I would go — I would keep my word with the Arabs. 
 I improved daily, and in a fortnight generally travelled 
 from seven, eight, nine or ten hours per day. I came 
 back vastly improved, both in health and spirits ; but 
 although 1 am not myself afraid of the plague, yet I think 
 it right to take proper precautions; and the servants are 
 such bores, frightened out of their senses, fancying if 
 they have got a little dust in their eyes, or have eaten 
 too much, it is the plague, and yet so careless, it is all 
 I can do to prevent them from buying things out of 
 
i8i2-i8i6] LATAKIA 163 
 
 Egyptian shops to get the plague and getting out 
 upon all occasions. You must not consider this scrawl 
 as the picture of my mind, which is tolerably com- 
 posed in all its troubles, and much more anxious 
 about others than myself, and not a little for 
 absent friends. . . . E." (Ebrington?) **came into my 
 head every quarter of an hour while passing through 
 some beautiful valleys inhabited by the Kurds, and 
 filled with myrtles fourteen or twenty feet high ; the 
 shepherds all play upon reeds, and vastly well too. 
 This place is very beautiful ; trees down to the edge 
 of the sea, olives covered with grape vines, fig-trees 
 of an immense size, and every other luxuriant plant 
 which the country abounds with. And I feel myself 
 in the dominions of Soliman Pacha, eyery thing bows 
 before me at his command and that of my dear friend 
 the Jew. There is talent ! He would turn old G. round 
 his finger. . . . The Captain Pacha it is said is coming 
 up this way, but I think he is in all probability only 
 gone to seize the treasure of a Pacha who died lately 
 in Caresmania. I have heard that the plague is at 
 Malta, and am in great tribulation about General 
 Oakes, Colonel Anderson, and poor Williams and her 
 sister. To be isolated in this manner is not pleasant ; 
 but, however, I ought to thank God the plague here is 
 slight. It is said here to have got to Russia, how 
 there I know not, but heaven avert its reaching 
 England, the fleet, and Spain. . . . Too much care 
 cannot be taken at the different ports." 
 
 In neither of these letters does Lady Hester make 
 any allusion to a very disagreeable incident in her 
 journey to Palmyra, of which Mr. Bruce gives the 
 following account. It was her habit every evening, 
 when the business of encamping was over, to go to the 
 tent where they assembled for meals, and summon the 
 Arab chiefs to come and talk with her. The Emir 
 
1 64 LADY HESTER'S NERVE [ch. iv 
 
 Nasar (Mohanna's son, and the leader of the expedi- 
 tion) had till then responded to her call with great 
 alacrity; but on the fifth day after their departure 
 from Hamar, he refused to come, sending back word 
 that " Lady Hester might be the daughter of a vizir, 
 but he, too, was the son of a prince, and was not 
 disposed at that moment to leave his tent. If she 
 wanted him, she, or her interpreter, might come to 
 him." It was whispered about that he was very 
 moody, and meant mischief, and there was much 
 perturbation and anxiety in the camp. Lady Hester 
 alone was perfectly unmoved and unconcerned. 
 
 The next evening brought graver cause for alarm. 
 After dinner, as they sat discussing what they should 
 do if Nasar proved treacherous, they heard a great 
 noise and confusion outside, and Lady Hester's 
 servant rushed in to tell them that some of the mares 
 were missing, a party of Faydan Arabs reported to 
 be prowling round the camp, and all the Bedouins 
 arming and mounting in pursuit. Nasar himself rode 
 away with the rest, and they suddenly found the 
 whole of their escort gone. They were left in the 
 heart of the desert, without guide or bearings, knowing 
 neither where they were, nor how to find the wells 
 on which their existence depended, encumbered with 
 a great pile of luggage, most tempting as booty, and 
 so few in number as to be at the mercy of any strong 
 band of marauders. The situation was extremely 
 critical; but Lady Hester, undismayed, appeared ** as 
 cool as if in a ball-room." She gave orders that every 
 man should take his gun and pistol, and stationed her 
 little garrison at different points round the camp. 
 After a time, however, Nasar and his Bedouins re- 
 appeared, and it was shrewdly suspected he had been 
 no farther off than some neighbouring sandhills, 
 behind which he had watched the effect of his pro- 
 ceedings. The whole scare was, in fact, a feint to 
 test Lady Hester's nerve, and see whether she could 
 not be frightened into paying a larger subsidy. 
 
 She refers to her desert experiences in a subsequent 
 letter. 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. H, W, Wynn 
 
 " Bruce ridiculed my mode of going to Palmyra ; 
 I had my object for what I did. I had first been 
 
i8i2-i8i6] LATAKIA 165 
 
 alone into the desert to try the good faith of these 
 people, and made myself a regular Bedaween, and 
 was admitted with the rights of one into the king's 
 tribe. I travelled with them for three days. When 
 I left them, I was attended by two of the Emir's sons, 
 my new brothers. Forty-thousand Arabs were then 
 at war (not half-a-dozen tents, as when Mr. B. was 
 there) ; we were waylaid by a party of the enemy ; 
 but, getting information of this, and taking another 
 direction, and having good horses, we escaped. I 
 was twelve hours on horseback, and when I got off, 
 I stretched myself out upon the ground as if I had 
 been dead, not from fright, but fatigue and want of 
 water, and when I drank, I was well and as cheerful 
 as ever in a quarter of an hour. But it was not quite 
 satisfactory. Had they robbed me, they would not 
 have got much, but the thing was to go in the 
 character of a person who had something to lose. 
 The next time I set off with forty camels and twenty 
 horses, eighteen of which had been given to Bruce 
 and me in this country. We remained thirty days 
 with these people, whose character I had an oppor- 
 tunity of investigating pretty thoroughly. His object 
 was to see Palmyra ; mine to see the Bedaweens to 
 perfection. I like the fine arts, yet, to say the truth, 
 I am much more interested in the works of God than 
 those of man. These savages, guided by their own 
 wonderful abilities, and who have reduced the wants 
 of human nature to a mere nothing, gave a most 
 wonderful example of mental and bodily strength. 
 Besides, the beauty of parts of the desert in early 
 spring are not to be described. Almost all the 
 bulbous plants we rear with so much care spring 
 up in a fortnight as if by magic, bloom amongst 
 innumerable, unknown, odoriferous herbs, and fade, 
 
1 66 RAVAGES OF THE PLAGUE [ch. iv 
 
 nearly as quickly, by the great heat and drying 
 winds." 
 
 Having accomplished Palmyra, Lady Hester next 
 turned her steps to Latakia, on the sea-coast, where 
 she took a house for the summer, while awaiting an 
 opportunity of leaving the country. The plague was 
 then depopulating Syria ; at Damascus alone it was 
 believed to have carried off 100,000 souls, and it is 
 clear that at that time she had fully made up her mind 
 
 to go. 
 
 Lady Hester to General Oakes 
 
 *' Latakia, 
 
 ''July 15, 1813. 
 
 **The plague is all over Syria (Aleppo excepted). 
 Here, thank God, it has been slight, and is upon the 
 wane, as is the case everywhere where it has been 
 for some time ; besides, they pretend the heat destroys 
 it, which I do not believe, for it raged with great 
 violence last year at Constantinople in very hot 
 weather. I only heard about a fortnight ago that it 
 had broken out at Malta ; what I have felt for your 
 health from that moment I cannot express, as I fear 
 it is not in a state to bear increased fatigue and mental 
 anxiety. 
 
 **You must have too much to think of just now, 
 for me to trouble you with an account of our journey 
 into the desert, which is considered as the most 
 extraordinary ever made in this country. All those 
 who know the Arabs only wonder we ever returned 
 alive. Bruce wrote you one line from Hamar, the 
 very day, I think, of our arrival there, for a report 
 had been spread at Aleppo and Damascus that we 
 had been cut to pieces. ... Any letters you may 
 receive from this time, send, if you please, to vSmyrna, 
 for we shall get away from here as soon as we can 
 get a good passage, either in a ship of war, or a ship 
 
i8i2-i8i6] LATAKIA 167 
 
 of this country, when no longer infected by the plague ; 
 but they are not safe just now ; nor is this good 
 weather up here, the heat is so great at sea, and there 
 are frequent calms. Hope suffered much last year at 
 this season. October is the best month to leave the 
 coast, after the equinoctial gales are over. ... As far 
 as country and a good house goes, we are very com- 
 fortable ; as well off as ill off last winter." 
 
 But when October came, her mood had changed, 
 and it was Mr. Bruce, not she, who left Syria. He 
 was summoned home by his father, who had no doubt 
 long been pressing him to return to England, and 
 the danger from the plague made it doubly desirable. 
 He himself had probably had enough of the East, and 
 felt he could not remain much longer away without 
 expatriating himself altogether. But he and Lady 
 Hester parted with mutual regret. She, too, dreaded 
 the plague, and had, as we have seen, made plans of 
 escape ; at one moment she announced that she was 
 going back to Europe ; then she thought of Russia, 
 and even of making her way to Bussora, and there 
 embarking for India. But to England she would not 
 go, it was the one impossible place ; and in the end 
 she decided to remain where she was. 
 
 She had been for some time enthusiastically em- 
 ployed in trying to help the escaped Mameluke she 
 had met at Jerus::ilem (see p. 123), and Mr. Canning, to 
 whom she applied, had endeavoured to interest his 
 friends in the cause. This is in answer to one of his 
 letters on the subject : 
 
 " Latakia, 
 
 *' October 22nd^ 1813. 
 
 " You must not be alarmed and think that I am 
 going to keep up a correspondence with you, but I 
 cannot avoid thanking you for your letter, and also 
 for the trouble you have taken about the poor victim. 
 AW you say is very just ; but to say the truth it does 
 not quite please me to hear rich men complain of 
 
i68 PRINCE OF THE DRUSES [ch. iv 
 
 poverty ; however, God will take care of His creatures 
 in this and every other country. The English world 
 are about as good-natured as I believed them to be. 
 To ridicule a person said to be starving in a burning 
 desert is very charitable ; but, poor souls ! their 
 imagination is as miserable as their humanity is 
 bounded, for it never, I suppose, entered their heads 
 that I carried everything before me, and was crowned 
 under the triumphal arch at Palmyra, pitched my tent 
 amidst thousands of Arabs, and spent a month with 
 these very interesting people. Let the great learn 
 from them hospitality and liberality. I have seen an 
 Arab strip himself to his shirt to give clothes to those 
 he thought needed them more than himself. I have 
 suffered great fatigue, it is very true, because all my 
 people were such cowards, and they gave me a great 
 deal of trouble; but yet I cannot regret past hard- 
 ships, as it has given me the opportunity of seeing 
 what is so curious and interesting, the manners and 
 customs of the most free and independent people in 
 the world. 
 
 ** In about a week I repair to a pretty convent at 
 the foot of Lebanon for the winter. The Pacha of 
 Acre is come into that neighbourhood to repair a 
 castle, and the Prince of the Druses hunts within an 
 hour of my habitation, so I shall often see him. We 
 are very good friends, he is a very agreeable man, 
 and very popular in the Mountain. I am quite at 
 home all over the country; the common people pay 
 me the same sort of respect as they do a great Turk, 
 and the great men treat me as if I was one of them. 
 In short, I am very happy in my own odd way ; part 
 of this country is divine, and I always find something 
 to amuse and occupy my mind. Now the good people 
 of England may imagine me forlorn and miserable, 
 
i8i2-i8i6] MAR ELIAS, LEBANON 169 
 
 they are very welcome. I would not change my 
 philosophical life for their empty follies. 
 
 ** Mohammed Ali admitted me to the Divan; and 
 when at Acre I rode Soliman Pacha's parade horse, 
 having the use of his own sword and khangar, all over 
 jewels. My visit to the Pacha of Damascus in the 
 night during the Ramadan was the finest thing 
 possible. I was mounted on an Arab horse he had 
 given me, my people on foot, and he surrounded with 
 two thousand servants and picked guards, Albanians, 
 Delibashis, and Mograbines. You see the Turks are 
 not quite such brutes as you once thought them, or 
 they could never have treated me with the degree of 
 friendship and hospitality they have done," 
 
 Mar Elias, the "pretty convent" here mentioned, 
 was the occasional residence of the Patriarch of the 
 Greek Catholics, who had civilly placed it at Lady 
 Hester's disposal, at a rent of £30 a year. She 
 had seen it during her rides in the Lebanon, and taken 
 a fancy to the place. But it by no means commended 
 itself to the doctor, when he was sent there to make 
 arrangements for her reception, as, at the sight of his 
 future residence, his " thoughts involuntarily turned 
 towards England." He found, about two miles from 
 Saida, a low square building, high up on the mountain- 
 side, in a barren and lonely, though picturesque 
 situation, commanding a wide view of the sea. There 
 was no garden, only a few flowers and two small 
 orange-trees in the square walled court. The roof of 
 the house leaked, and a discoloration of the wall of 
 the staircase was explained by the unpleasant fact that 
 only a week or two before, a former Patriarch had 
 been buried there, seated in his armchair. 
 
 It was not till the following year that poor Lady 
 Hester could take possession of her new home. On 
 November isth, when she was on the point of setting 
 out, she was seized with the plague ; and the doctor 
 took to his bed with low fever. For twelve days he 
 was unable to attend her, and she was left to the care 
 
I70 ATTACK OF PLAGUE L^h. iv 
 
 of a French doctor and an Italian surgeon. When, at 
 last, urged by Mr. Barker, he took his place by her 
 bedside, he found her so terribly ill that for twelve 
 hours he despaired of her life, and Mr. B. (I presume 
 in his official capacity) announced to her that she was 
 going to die. When this crisis was past, it was still 
 some time before she could be pronounced out of 
 danger ; and then poor Mrs. Fry, worn out with 
 nursing and anxiety, was laid up with a nervous fever. 
 Two native women who took her place proved, how- 
 ever, tolerably efficient, and Lady Hester was slowly 
 recovering when she was attacked with ague. The 
 winter rains had set in, and her sick-room was often 
 inundated, for the house that had been so pleasant in 
 summer time proved to be very far from weather- 
 proof, and a cope of felt had to be stretched over her 
 bed to keep ofi the water. No comforts of any kind 
 were procurable, nor, except on rare occasions, any 
 food but goat's flesh ; and her one anxiety was to get 
 away from the place. But it was only on January ist 
 that she was able to stand on her feet ; and on the 6th, 
 when, after a detention of forty-eight days, she was at 
 last allowed to leave the house, she at once rode down 
 to the shore and embarked. She was so weak that it 
 was with difficulty she was lifted upon her ass, and 
 supported in the saddle. The six days' voyage to 
 Saida was prosperous; but here she was detained 
 some weeks, while the necessary repairs were carried 
 out at Mar Elias, and had a return of her ague. At 
 last, in the middle of February, she was installed in 
 her new habitation, and the doctor in a cottage near at 
 hand. 
 
 Lady Hester rose from her sick-bed greatly sobered 
 and subdued ; even her wonderful nerve deserted her, 
 and many months were to elapse before her vigorous 
 constitution reasserted itself. For the time, she ap- 
 peared to be a changed woman. She shut herself up, 
 and lived in total seclusion, avoiding as far as possible 
 all contact with the outer world, for the plague had 
 reappeared with great virulence, both at Saida and in 
 the Lebanon. The only person she received was 
 Captain Forster, of H.M.'s sloop Ktte^ who had been 
 sent to Saida by Sir Robert Liston at her own request. 
 She had asked for the aid of a ship of war to examine 
 the ruins of Ascalon where she proposed, with the 
 
i8i2-i8i6] BAALBEC 171 
 
 authority of the Sultan, to search for hidden treasure. 
 Some time before, a MS. had been placed in her hands 
 that was said to have been surreptitiously copied by a 
 monk from the records of a Frank convent in Syria, 
 and found among his papers at his death. It was 
 written in Italian, and disclosed the repositories of 
 immense hoards of coin, buried in the cities of 
 Ascalon, Awgy, and Sidon, at certain spots therein 
 specified. Such modes of disposing of treasure were, 
 owing to the general insecurity of property, not un- 
 common in the East, where a man had to keep most of 
 his valuables in his own possession, and could hardly 
 carry them away with him in the event of a sudden 
 flight. Lady Hester's belief in the story was therefore 
 by no means so extravagant as it might have been 
 thought in England. But Captain Forster, on recon- 
 noitring the coast, found it impracticable to land at 
 Ascalon, and so the matter dropped — but only for a 
 time. 
 
 In July, Lady Hester was so prostrated with the 
 heat that the doctor removed her to Mishmushy, a 
 Druse village situated on a mountain top, where the 
 Emir Beshyr, though somewhat grudgingly, had given 
 her the use of a house. She remained for ten weeks 
 in this lofty eyry, declaring she had never been more 
 comfortable anywhere since she left Malta ; and on 
 October i8th, revived and restored to her old buoyant 
 self, she started on a long projected expedition to 
 Baalbec. She dispensed with an escort, taking with 
 her, besides the doctor, a dragoman and thirteen 
 servants, of whom five were women. They travelled 
 on asses, and reached Baalbec on the sixth day. Here 
 the doctor, carried away by his enthusiasm, launched 
 forth into poetry, and inscribed a Latin quatrain in 
 Lady Hester's honour on the walls of the Temple of 
 the Sun. But when it was translated to her, she 
 promptly ordered it to be effaced. '* While I was 
 living with my uncle," she declared, " I never allowed 
 any one either to sing my praises or paint my 
 portrait." They only remained a fortnight, being 
 advised that the passes of the Lebanon would shortly 
 be blocked with snow ; and even as it was, they had a 
 cold and stormy journey to Tripoli. At one of their 
 halting-places, the Maronite convent of Mar Antonius 
 (St. Anthony), the men only could be received, as the 
 
172 CONVENT OF ST. ANTHONY [ch. iv 
 
 Saint's wrath was believed to wreak terrible vengeance 
 on anything of the female sex bold enough to cross the 
 threshold. Even the villagers' hens were kept cooped 
 up lest they should stray into the sacred precincts. 
 Lady Hester and her women were therefore lodged in 
 a house hard by. No sooner had she arrived than she 
 sent word to the Superior that she was about to test the 
 Saint's gallantry, and proposed giving a dinner to him 
 and some Shaykhs that were escorting her in one of 
 the rooms of his monastery on the following day, 
 hinting at the same time that the Sultan's firman 
 empowered her to visit any place she chose, and that 
 opposition to her meant opposition to him. The 
 horror and indignation of the unhappy monks at such 
 sacrilegious impiety may be conceived ; but they did 
 not venture to offer open resistance, and when the 
 dinner hour arrived. Lady Hester, mounted on her ass 
 (a she-ass, be it observed), rode ostentatiously into 
 the very hall of the monastery, visited every hole and 
 corner of the building, sat down to dinner with the 
 trembling Superior, and remained four hours within 
 the jealously-guarded precincts. Many of the by- 
 standers every moment expected the earth to open 
 and swallow her up ; and the fame of her exploit was 
 bruited far and wide. When she arrived at Tripoli, 
 the whole population turned out in a pelting rain- 
 storm to see her; and there, as elsewhere, she 
 won the heart of the Pacha — by all accounts a grim 
 and formidable Pacha, who paid her every sort of 
 honour during her stay. 
 
 On January 28th, 1815, she returned to Mar Elias, 
 and found the neighbourhood in great trepidation at 
 the arrival of a Capugi Bashi, or Zaym, from Constan- 
 tinople, whose presence was invariably of ill-omen. 
 These emissaries of the Porte — always persons of the 
 highest rank — were employed on missions connected 
 with executions, confiscations, and imprisonment ; and 
 it had been reported from Beyrout that the Zaym was 
 instructed to carry Lady Hester to Constantinople as 
 his prisoner. When a messenger arrived requiring 
 her presence at the Governor's house at Saida, both 
 the doctor and the dragoman were aghast; they 
 already saw the bowstring dangling before their eyes, 
 and hid their pistols in their girdle. Lady Hester was 
 better informed, for she expected the Zaym, knowing 
 
i8i2-i8i6] MAR ELIAS 173 
 
 the cause of his coming, and her answer to his 
 peremptory message put matters on a very different 
 footing. No Zaym had ever yet condescended to visit 
 a Christian, yet the great man at once mounted his 
 horse and came to Mar EHas, where he took up his 
 abode as her guest. It seemed that, through Sir 
 Robert Liston, she had communicated with the Sultan 
 concerning the clue she possessed to hidden treasures 
 in the Levant, offering to make over the whole of them 
 to him, only reserving to herself the honour of the 
 discovery, ** since I never seek to appropriate the 
 property of others." This offer was very favourably 
 received, and the Zaym was entrusted with three 
 firmans, one to the Pacha of Acre, another to the 
 Pacha of Damascus, and another to all Governors of 
 Syria, which were to be delivered to Lady Hester, and 
 invest her with greater powers than perhaps any 
 Ambassador, but certainly no unofficial Christian, ever 
 before possessed. The redoubtable Zaym himself was 
 placed under her direction. 
 
 But how about the expenses, which must necessarily 
 be great ? Her income was barely sufficient for her 
 ordinary expenditure, and had been considerably 
 exceeded by her journey to Baalbec, even though, 
 from economy, it had been performed on asses instead 
 of horses. She made up her mind to send in the bill 
 to the English Government through Sir Robert Liston, 
 averring that its payment was no more than her due 
 for having gained such reputation for the English 
 name. " If they refuse to pay me I shall put it in the 
 newspapers, and expose them. And this I shall let 
 them know very plainly, as I consider it my right and 
 not a favour ; for, if Sir A. Paget put down the cost of 
 his servants' liveries after his Embassy to Vienna and 
 made Mr. Pitt pay him, I cannot see why I should not 
 do the same." She had unhesitatingly constituted 
 herself an Ambassadress, and desired the doctor to 
 keep a strict account of all her payments. 
 
 The excavations were to commence at Ascalon 
 without loss of time. She wished, however, for 
 another helper besides the Zaym, and sent off an 
 express to one Malem Musa, at Hamar, of whom she 
 had conceived a high opinion, desiring him to meet 
 her at Acre. *' You know," she writes, **thatlam a 
 straightforward person. An affair has happened that 
 
174 EXCAVATIONS AT ACRE [ch. iv 
 
 demands your presence at Acre. Be not alarmed, 
 there is nothing serious in it, but let nothing prevent 
 your coming, short of illness." 
 
 She left Mar Elias in the middle of February, and 
 was received at Acre v^ith the honours of a princess. 
 The tent afterwards used by the Princess of Wales, 
 splendidly lined with bands of coloured satins, was 
 assigned to her, with nineteen others in addition to the 
 six she had brought with her ; she travelled in a 
 gorgeous tartaravan (the despised palanquin of three 
 years before) borne by two mules, which were 
 changed every two hours, and her horse and favourite 
 ass were led in front of it in case she preferred to ride. 
 
 The work of exploration was begun with much 
 enthusiasm, for it was generally believed that Lady 
 Hester possessed a magic spell that revealed hidden 
 treasure, and had come to the East for no other 
 purpose than to use it. But it had to be abandoned as 
 hopeless in ten days. Here is the account sent by 
 Lady Hester to Lord Bathurst, then Secretary of 
 State : 
 
 " The mosque in which the treasure was said to be 
 hidden was no longer standing. One wall only re- 
 mained of a magnificent structure, which had been 
 mosque, temple, church at different periods. After 
 having traced out the S.W. and N. foundation walls, 
 and after digging for several days within them, 
 we came to the underground fabric we were 
 looking for, but, alas ! it had been rifled. It was, 
 as nearly as one could calculate, capable of containing 
 three million of pieces of gold — the sum mentioned in 
 the document. Whilst excavating this once mag- 
 nificent building — for such it must have been by the 
 number of fine columns and fine pavements we dis- 
 covered underground— we discovered a superb colossal, 
 statue without a head, which belonged to the heathens. 
 It was eighteen feet below the surface. Knowing how 
 much it would be prized by English travellers, I 
 ordered it to be broken into a thousand pieces, that 
 
i8 1 2-1 8 1 6] ACRE— JAFFA 175 
 
 malicious persons might not say I came to look for 
 statues for my countrymen, and not for treasures for 
 the Porte.'* 
 
 This was dealing hard measure with a vengeance- 
 
 all the harder because, as we have seen, she fully 
 intended her countrymen to pay the bill. But she felt 
 herself in a difficult position. She had failed in her 
 quest, ulterior motives might be laid to her charge, 
 and she knew that she was watched by jealous and 
 suspicious eyes. 
 
 On her way back she stopped for a time at Jaffa, for 
 near there, at Awgy, another site for discoveries had 
 been indicated, and she could still write in good faith, 
 ** The authenticity of the paper I do not doubt." But 
 it was found impossible to identify the place described, 
 and no exploration could be attempted. 
 
 There is a certain tone of discouragement in her 
 next letter. 
 
 Lady Hester to General Oakes 
 
 '* Jaffa, 
 
 '' April 2Sth,iZj^. 
 
 " You must not think that I am ungrateful, or that 
 the interest I felt in your concerns is in the least 
 diminished, although I am less anxious about you, 
 knowing you to be in the midst of friends who love 
 you. I received your kind letter, written at different 
 periods and partly upon your voyage to England last 
 October, just as I was about to leave Mount Lebanon 
 for Balbeck. I returned to my convent the end of 
 January, having made a long tour. Upon the very 
 night of my arrival there the great person (mentioned 
 in the enclosed paper) paid me a visit, indeed, took up 
 his abode in my comfortable mansion for some time. 
 Then I proceeded to Acre to pay my respects to the 
 Pacha, and my guest from the Porte accompanied me. 
 Therefore you see that from October I have never had 
 a quiet moment I could call my own, and besides, 
 occasions, either by sea or land, are scarce and unsafe 
 
176 MR. BRUCE [ch. iv 
 
 in the winter season, and intending to send a person 
 to England when all my business was over, I have 
 deferred answering most of my letters to send them 
 by this conveyance. 
 
 " I have at last decided upon sending for James to 
 take me away from this country, for I know so little of 
 the state of the Continent, and feel in my own mind so 
 doubtful of its remaining quiet, or, if it does, that I 
 shall like it as formerly, that before I break up a 
 comfortable establishment to form another at random, 
 I wish to have the opinion of one who knows my 
 tastes and whom I can depend upon. 
 
 **I fear Bruce will turn out idle, though it is his 
 ambition to be great, and I lament that his father 
 changes his plans about him every day, and wishing 
 him to be everything is the sure means of making him 
 turn out nothing at last. I mention this to you, my 
 dear General, that, should Bruce hereafter have the 
 happiness of living a good deal in your society, you 
 may recommend him a steady line of conduct, and not 
 to put himself too forward in the world before he is fit 
 for it. This was a maxim dear Mr. Pitt always 
 preached to me, and was one of the instructions he gave 
 me about my brothers, and which I have most strictly 
 adhered to. James has risen gradually, and by his 
 own merits, and is now, thank God ! in a situation 
 which it has been the ambition of us both for many 
 years that he should some day or other be thought 
 worthy to fill. 
 
 "James loves the Duke" (of York) "as I do, and 
 would be ever ready to serve him with his life. The 
 Duke is all kindness to him (as he is to every one 
 about him), and when I know James to be perfectly 
 happy, I am so very thankful to Heaven for having 
 heard my prayers about him that I hardly think of 
 
i8i2-i8i6] JAFFA 177 
 
 myself. What I have suffered is gone by, what I 
 still may have to suffer in this world God knows best ; 
 let it be what it will, may I only be resigned to my fate 
 and to His pleasure. The Turks give me every day 
 one proof of their superiority over Christians — their 
 submission to the will of Providence. 
 
 " Whenever Lord Sligo returns to England I hope 
 you will be kind to him. Poor man ! he only gets out 
 of one scrape to get into another. The longer I know 
 that man, the higher I think of the qualities of his 
 heart, and the more I regret that those of his head do 
 not equal that feeling which will be his ruin. Yet he 
 does not want sense in many things — far from it ; and 
 I still think if he marries some pleasing, sensible girl, 
 he may become a very respectable character. If not, 
 he will surely be duped by some designing woman or 
 other, and his character, as well as his fortune, will be 
 gone in a few years. 
 
 " If Lord Mulgrave ever mentions me, pray re- 
 member me kindly to him, for I really believe he had 
 a friendship for Mr. Pitt, though artful Canning used 
 formerly to take great pains to make me believe it was 
 all affected ; but since he has turned out himself a 
 perfect political chameleon, one may be permitted to 
 mistrust a few of his opinions. . . . Gen. Maitland is 
 very civil to me in his way, but his way is not yours. 
 I am not now all anxiety to see or hear what everybody 
 says who comes from Malta, though I understand you 
 are much regretted. I have not heard for some time 
 from Col. Misset, who really must have been, when in 
 good health, a very charming man, for he is vastly 
 interesting as he is, so upright, so like a gentleman in 
 thought, word, and deed. Of Anderson I know 
 nothing; for some months he has not written to me. 
 The Pacha of Acre and all the leading people in this 
 13 
 
178 SIR SIDNEY SMITH [ch. iv 
 
 country continue to be vastly kind to me, even more 
 so than before, if possible, and I am upon the whole as 
 comfortable as a hermit can be." 
 
 As the whole of Lady Hester's correspondence with 
 her brother has been destroyed, it is impossible to 
 determine how or why her intention of leaving Syria 
 fell through. She never alludes to it again. 
 
 It was during this journey that a messenger arrived 
 from Sir Sidney Smith, announcing that he *'had 
 come to take Lady Hester away." He brought several 
 letters, dated as far back as the preceding December. 
 The first began : 
 
 Sir Sidney Smith to Lady Hester 
 
 ** My Dear Cousin, — I received yours from Latakia. 
 On my way to England I spoke to Freemantle, whom 
 I saw at Gibraltar, to send you a frigate ; for I am at 
 present no longer in command. My nephew, Thurlow 
 Smith, has got the Undaunted (the ship which carried 
 Bonaparte to Elba), and he will contrive, if possible, 
 to come to you, as I say all I can of the necessity of 
 guarding our trade in that quarter. ... I shall leave 
 Vienna after the Congress for Florence and Leghorn, 
 when I hope to meet you in the month of April." 
 
 The second revealed his real object in writing. He 
 was planning an expedition against the Algerine 
 corsairs, which, though highly approved by four 
 crowned heads, hung fire for lack of funds. No one 
 would give him any money. Finding his debts pretty 
 large, he had given up his goods and chattels to his 
 creditors in England, and had brought his all to 
 Vienna on eight wheels. He was so far reduced as 
 to be obliged to beg a loan from his Syrian friends, 
 and he charged Lady Hester with the commission. 
 She was to deliver a grandiloquent letter he enclosed 
 to the Emir Beshyr, and prevail upon him to furnish 
 fifteen hundred men for the expedition. 
 
 Lady Hester absolutely refused. She pointed out 
 that to ask the Emir for troops, without the knowledge 
 
i8i2-i8i6] SAYDA 179 
 
 of the Sultan, would be to endanger the princess life ; 
 and she urged upon him the abandonment of his 
 undertaking. 
 
 " Not to admire your intention in the cause of 
 humanity, and the feelings which dictate your con- 
 duct, would be impossible ; but I could wish you to 
 reflect a little, and if the thing is to be undertaken, 
 to do it in the most open, fair, honourable way pos- 
 sible. I am much too proud to care for popularity — 
 you, much too vain not to like it. Therefore, take 
 care how you sink that which you have gained in the 
 country. There is one thing which you seem to have 
 forgotten, or to be ignorant of, that Turkey has been 
 almost as much exhausted by the plague as Europe 
 has been by war. Damascus only has buried above 
 one hundred thousand souls.'* 
 
 On her return to Sayda, the last search for hidden 
 treasure took place at the third site indicated ; this 
 time with little hope of success, and the same dismal 
 failure. Nothing was left but to dismiss the Zaym 
 with the present of a black slave and a cashmere 
 shawl, and to send in the bill to Constantinople. Of 
 course it was not paid ; and the whole expense neces- 
 sarily devolved upon her. She had to borrow the 
 money from Mr. Barker; and this, as the doctor 
 declares, was the first occasion on which she ever 
 found herself in debt. She now set about to econo- 
 mise ; dismissed all superfluous servants, and resumed 
 her secluded life in the Lebanon. 
 
 Lady Hester to General Oakes 
 
 "Convent of Mar Elias, 
 
 ^'June2^th, 181 5. 
 
 ** It gives me great pleasure to find that your health 
 has been able, at any rate, to withstand the great 
 fatigue and worry of those extravagant gaieties, of 
 
i8o AN HONEST GREEK [ch. iy 
 
 which we Turks have no idea. Finding yourself so 
 much better when travelling should induce you, I 
 think, to make a tour in the spring and summer, and 
 to get out of the way of great dinners. To live like 
 a Turk for the time, and to take plenty of exercise 
 without heating yourself, and to live a great deal in 
 the open air would, I think, do you more good than 
 medicine — at least, it would but be fair to give it a 
 trial. 
 
 " I send you by Giorgio, a Greek in my service, 
 some tigers' skins, for I think I recollect that you 
 liked them. Here the covering of a horse reaches 
 to his tail, and the tigers' skins look very well when 
 made up with crimson ; but silver and gold quite 
 spoils their effect, I think. Giorgio will explain 
 (should you like it) the fashion of Syria, for you to 
 improve upon it. You will find the boy not stupid, 
 but he is not all he ought to be, though honest in 
 money matters. Don't spoil him, pray, or take his 
 humble manner for humility, for he is at bottom 
 conceit itself) but he may amuse you, and I should 
 like to hear an account of your looks from some one 
 who has seen you lately. 
 
 " Your wine goes with him to Malta, from thence 
 it must be sent as it can. This is more Bruce's 
 present than mine, for he was so anxious to procure 
 you some, and did give a large order for wine, which 
 was put by, but sold because not transported directly, 
 which the plague would not allow of. My wine has, 
 alas ! been sold twice, though I paid half the value 
 before the grapes were ripe. You cannot, in any 
 possible way, procure any above a year old, for the 
 peasants want their jars, and still more the settling 
 of the wine, to make a sort of bad wine of, with 
 commoner grapes, which they quash up together, 
 
i8i2-i8i6] MAR ELIAS i8i 
 
 and sell to the mountaineers for their own use. I 
 send you also a box of soap like that used by the 
 Sultan's women. 
 
 ** If ever you see Sir David Dundas, pray remember 
 me kindly to him. Tell him I am the Sir Pivot of the 
 East. I never forget, however, that I owe not a little 
 of my military fame to having borne the name of 
 his aide-de-camp when he commanded in Kent. 
 Many people do not like him because he did not make 
 a good Commander-in-chief. I like him the better for 
 it. There is but one sun, one moon, and one Com- 
 mander-in-chief. We want no more ! " 
 
 Not many days after this letter was written, Giorgio 
 was on his way to England, charged with a multitude 
 of commissions, of which the most important was to 
 bring back another doctor. Dr. Meryon, who had 
 been for some time heartily weary of his position, 
 now finally announced that he would remain no 
 longer. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Mar Elias — Mr. Silk Buckingham — Antioch — M. Didot — 
 DjouN — **The Babylonian Princess" — Mishmushy 
 
 1816-1823 
 
 Shortly after her return to Mar Elias, Lady Hester 
 heard, with great concern, that Mr. Bruce had got 
 involved in serious trouble at Paris. He had, together 
 with Sir Robert Wilson and Captain Hutchinson, 
 contrived the escape of Count Lavallette, who, con- 
 demned to death for high treason, had been got out 
 of prison on the very eve of his execution, having 
 exchanged clothes with his wife during their parting 
 interview. They had procured for him the uniform 
 of an English general-officer, and in this disguise he 
 passed through the barriers with Sir Robert unrecog- 
 nised, and made his way out of the country. This 
 was on April 24th, 18 16, and Mr. Bruce was there- 
 upon thrown into prison. She sent him the kindest 
 of letters, oflfering to come herself if she could be of 
 use ; she had, indeed, at that time, some idea of going 
 to meet her brother in France. "James et mes ami(s) 
 ne cessent de me tourmenter pour les rejoindre, mais 
 la France n'est plus la France, pleine d'Anglais et de 
 Russes. Si notre affaire est heureusement terminee, 
 je n*y viendrai que pour embrasser mon frere cheri, 
 et pour m'enfoncer dans quelque vieux chateau, loin 
 de tous les intrigans, que je deteste." This was 
 written in French, as it was to be shown to the King, 
 to whom she also indited a letter, imploring his 
 clemency for ** ce jeune etourdi M. Bruce," " ce jeune 
 homme egare par la sensibilite de son caractere, qui 
 s'est entame dans une affaire aussi serieuse que 
 delicate." She ends by reminding H.M. ** que I'enfant 
 
1816-1823] MAR ELIAS 183 
 
 gate de Pitt joint a ses principes politiques le meme 
 attachement pour votre personne," &c., &c. 
 
 The only person to whom she sent a copy of this 
 epistle was her cousin, the Marquess (afterwards 
 Duke) of Buckingham, who appears to have been in 
 her good graces ; (" Le Marquis," she writes, "quoique 
 nous sommes toujours en dispute, est un homme 
 d'honneur "). 
 
 Lady Hester to the Marquess of Buckingham 
 
 " Here is a letter I have written to the King of 
 France ; you will tell me that some Jacobin assisted 
 me in writing it, but I can assure you I am alone in 
 my convent, and have only consulted the Spirit of my 
 Grandfather. ... I do nothing but weep over the 
 destruction of the finest country in the world, and 
 blush for my countrymen, who have been the cause of 
 its ruin. ... I have told you I never can, never will, 
 live in Europe, but that I shall come to see James and 
 take my final leave of you all, if you give me the 
 opportunity. . . . Scold me or not as you please, it 
 will be quite the same thing ; nothing can change 
 either my principles or my determinations. I have 
 too good an opinion of the King's heart to suppose he 
 can take ill what I have written ; if he does, I shall 
 only be sorry that I have been mistaken, not sorry for 
 what I have written. You are the only person I shall 
 send a copy of this letter to, because, as you are his 
 personal friend, he may mention it to you, and you 
 have only to tell him that I am what I am, and that 
 neither family nor friends can have the smallest influ- 
 ence over me when I take a thing in my head, nor do 
 I ever consult them upon any subject. James is a 
 soldier, and must attend to his duty, so I shall not 
 enter upon this subject with him in any way." 
 
 She had good reason to believe that her political 
 sentiments would be unpalatable to Louis XVIIL 
 
1 84 ''AN AGE OF TERROR" [ch. v 
 
 She was full of sympathy for Napoleon. At the time 
 when every English heart was still aglow with the 
 glories of Waterloo, all her letters (one in particular, 
 addressed to Mr. Coutts, " the only remaining friend of 
 my illustrious Grandfather") are full of invectives 
 against the Allies, " who have violated the laws of 
 nations to the utmost, by deluging France with foreign 
 troops, . . . and degrading and imprisoning a man 
 acknowledged King by every Power in Europe." 
 Here is her confession of faith in full : 
 
 Lady Hester to the Marquess of Buckingham 
 
 " Mount Lebanon, 
 
 '' April 22nd, 181 6. 
 
 " My Dear Cousin, — For years, in writing to you, I 
 have been silent on politics ; but as it is probable this 
 letter will reach you, I avail myself of this opportunity 
 to give you my real opinions. 
 
 *' You cannot doubt that a woman of my character, 
 and (I presume to say) of my understanding, must have 
 held in contempt and aversion all the statesmen of the 
 present day, whose unbounded ignorance and duplicity 
 have brought ruin on France, have spread their own 
 shame through all Europe, and have exposed them- 
 selves, not only to the ridicule, but to the curses of 
 present and future generations. One great mind, one 
 single enlightened statesman, whose virtues had 
 equalled his talents, was all that was wanting to effect, 
 at this unexampled period, the welfare of all Europe, 
 by taking advantage of events the most extraordinary 
 that have ever occurred in any era. That moment is 
 gone by ; an age of terror and perfidy has succeeded. 
 Horrible events will take place, and those who find 
 themselves farthest from the scenes which will be 
 acted may consider themselves the most fortunate. 
 
 *' Cease, therefore, to torment me ; I will not live in 
 Europe, even were I, in flying from it, compelled to 
 
1816-1823] MAR ELIAS 185 
 
 • 
 
 beg my bread. Once only will I go to France, to see 
 you and James, but only that once. I will not be a 
 martyr for nothing. The grand-daughter of Lord 
 Chatham, the niece of the illustrious Pitt, feels herself 
 blush, as she writes, that she was born in England — 
 that England who has made her accursed gold the 
 counterpoise to justice ; that England who puts weep- 
 ing humanity in irons, who has employed the valour of 
 her troops, destined for the defence of her national 
 honour, as the instrument to enslave a freeborn people ; 
 and who has exposed to ridicule and humiliation a 
 monarch who might have gained the goodwill of his 
 subjects, if those intriguing English had left him to 
 stand or fall upon his own merits. 
 
 *' What must be, if he reflects, the feelings of that 
 monarch's mind ? But it is possible that his soul is 
 too pure to enable him to dive into the views of others, 
 and to see that he has merely been their tool. May 
 Heaven inspire him with the sentiments of Henry IV. 
 (a name too often profaned), who would have trod the 
 crown under his feet rather than have received it upon 
 the conditions with which your friend has accepted it ! 
 
 " You will tell me that the French army — the bravest 
 troops in the world, they who have made more sacrifices 
 to their national honour than any others — would not 
 listen to the voice of reason ; and you think I shall 
 believe you. Never ! If an individual, poor and 
 humble like myself, knows how to make an impression 
 (as I have done) upon thousands of wild Arabs, without 
 even bearing the name of chieftain, by yielding some- 
 what to their prejudices, and by inspiring confidence 
 in my integrity and sincerity, could not a king — a 
 legitimate king — guide that army, to which he owed 
 the preservation of his power, to a just appreciation of 
 their duty ? Without doubt he could, and would have 
 
1 86 ENGLAND'S *' INTERFERENCE " [ch. v 
 
 done, too, if he had been left free to act. What was to 
 be expected from men, naturally incensed at the inter- 
 ference of those who, for twenty-five years, were held 
 up to their minds as their bitterest enemies, but that 
 which has happened ? In a word, never did tyrant, 
 ancient or modern, act so entirely against the interests 
 of humanity as those insensate dolts of our day, who 
 have violated the holy rights of peace, and have broken 
 the ties which, under any circumstances, should connect 
 man and man. 
 
 ** And pray consider all I say as the real expression 
 of my thoughts. Oh ! if I said all I feel, I could fill a 
 volume ! but just now I am not very well in health, 
 and to take a pen in hand confuses my head, as it has 
 done ever since my attack of plague at Latakia. I 
 have, therefore, begged the Doctor to write this for me. 
 
 *' You and James must let me know if you can come 
 and meet me in Provence, for to Paris I will not go. 
 The sight of those odious Ministers of ours, running 
 about to do mischief, would be too disgusting. You 
 may make faces or not — I care not a farthing ; for there 
 is no soul on earth who ever had, or ever will have, 
 any influence on my thoughts or my actions. 
 
 " Adieu, my dear cousin. Be as proud and as angry 
 
 as you please at my politics, but you will never change 
 
 them ; do not, however, on that account, cease to love 
 
 me, or forget 
 
 " Your ever affectionate 
 
 " H. L. S." 
 
 I will freely own that all this is incomprehensible to 
 me. I cannot understand how '' the niece of the 
 illustrious Pitt," who professed the same principles, 
 and had been with him during the anxious years that 
 witnessed the subjugation of Europe by Napoleon, and 
 the threatened invasion of our own shores, could ever 
 have dictated this singular rhapsody. According to 
 
1816-1823] MR. SILK BUCKINGHAM 187 
 
 her, the grand victory that heralded thirty blessed 
 years of peace only inaugurated " an age of terror and 
 perfidy," with '' horrible events " in prospect! 
 
 About this time two English guests arrived at Mar 
 Elias. One of them, Mr. William Bankes (afterwards 
 M.P. for Cambridge University), was a casual visitor, 
 then engaged on a tour in the Levant ; but the other, 
 Miss Williams, was an old friend, who came to stay. 
 She was the ladyVmaid who had come out from 
 England with Lady Hester in 18 10, and been left with 
 a married sister at Malta. She now wished to offer 
 her services to her former kind mistress, thinking she 
 might stand in need of them, and Lady Hester was 
 greatly touched and pleased by this proof of devotion. 
 Miss Williams never left her again. 
 
 Mr. Bankes was very anxious to go to Palmyra, and 
 Lady Hester gave him a letter of introduction to the 
 King of the Desert. To prevent strangers from making 
 use of her name, she had agreed with the Emir and his 
 son Nasar that no one should be received as her friend 
 who was not furnished with credentials. " If there 
 comes to me," she said, **a great man, on whom I can 
 rely, and whose word you can trust as my own, who 
 wants to live among you, to see your mock fights, or a 
 camel killed and eaten, to ride on a dromedary in his 
 housings, &c., I will send him with two seals ; but if it 
 be another sort of person, I will send him with one." 
 Unfortunately, she had told this to Mr. Bankes, who, 
 curious to see how many seals she had judged him 
 worthy of, took an opportunity of opening her letter 
 on the road. There was only one ! He threw it 
 indignantly away, and resolved to dispense with her 
 patronage altogether. But he little foresaw the difficul- 
 ties he was throwing in the way of his journey. Once 
 he was turned back, once imprisoned, and finally 
 mulcted of a very considerable sum of money. 
 
 Soon after his departure, there arrived at Mar Elias 
 a fellow-traveller of his, Mr. Silk Buckingham, who 
 published an account of his visit in 1825 {Travels ainong 
 the Arab Tribes inhabiting the countries East of Syria and 
 Palestine^. He speaks very gratefully of Lady Hester's 
 great kindness. ** I had the good fortune and happiness 
 to remain under the hospitable roof of this distinguished 
 lady for a period of nine days, during which I received 
 the greatest possible kindness from every one in her 
 
1 88 DESCRIPTION OF MAR ELI AS [ch. v 
 
 service, as well as from her Ladyship's own hands." 
 He arrived **in a state of extreme illness and exhaus- 
 tion," and was restored to '* freshness and vigour " by 
 his stay. He kept no notes, and describes Mar Elias 
 only from recollection. 
 
 " The convent stands on the brow of a hill, looking 
 towards the sea, the whole of the way from it to the 
 town of Seyda being on a descent for a distance of 
 about five or six miles. It consists of a number of 
 separate rooms in a quadrangular building that sur- 
 rounds an inner court, made into a flower garden, into 
 which the doors of all these rooms open. The rooms 
 are neither spacious nor elegant ; but, most of them 
 being furnished after the English manner, with carpets, 
 tables, chairs, &c., offered an agreeable contrast to the 
 rooms generally seen in the East, the whole furniture 
 of which consists of a low range of cushions and 
 pillows surrounding the skirting, and, as it were, 
 fringing the junction between the wall and the floor. 
 Nothing in the house appeared unnecessary or 
 expensive ; but all that could conduce to comfort, and 
 that was procurable in the country, was seen in clean 
 and unostentatious simplicity. The proper number 
 of out-offices, kitchen, stables, &c., were attached to 
 the edifice ; and there were spare rooms and beds 
 enough to accommodate any small party of travellers 
 that might have occasion to remain here for a short 
 period in the course of their journey. 
 
 ** The domestic establishment of her Ladyship con- 
 sisted, at this period, of an English physician, Dr. 
 Meryon, who lived in a separate house at a distance of 
 less than a mile ; an English attendant. Miss Williams, 
 and an English housekeeper, Mrs. Fry; a Levantine 
 secretary, of French descent, from Aleppo; and a 
 small number of male and female servants of the 
 
1816-1823] LADY HESTER^S MODE OF LIFE 189 
 
 country. The fondness for beautiful horses, which 
 this lady passionately entertained, was judiciously, 
 but not ostentatiously, enjoyed by the possession of a 
 small stud of Arabs. .... 
 
 " Lady Hester rose generally about eight ; walked 
 in the flower-garden, or read, till ten ; breakfasted on 
 tea and coffee in the English manner; so much so, 
 indeed, that there was no distinction between her 
 breakfast table and one in England, except that finer 
 and fresher fruit were often produced there than it is 
 usual to see in London. An extensive correspondence, 
 which her Ladyship appeared to maintain with persons 
 of distinction in all parts of Europe, and even in India, 
 generally occupied her pen, or that of her secretary, 
 who wrote from dictation for several hours in the middle 
 of the day. . . . But with all this, a want of leisure was 
 never pleaded in excuse for attending to any applica- 
 tions for relief that were perpetually made, from what- 
 ever quarter they might have come. A walk, or a 
 ride on horseback, was generally indulged in before 
 dinner, which was always served soon after sunset, 
 and was a happy medium between frugality and 
 abundance, such as a prince might partake, and yet 
 such as the most temperate could not complain of. 
 The evening was almost invariably passed in con- 
 versation, and so powerful is my recollection, even at 
 this distant period, of the pleasure this afforded me, 
 that I could use no terms which would be too extra- 
 vagant in its praise. The early association with men 
 eminent for their talents, as well as their power ; the 
 habit of intense observation on all passing events ; the 
 abundant opportunities, afforded by years of travel, 
 to apply these habits to the utmost advantage ; all 
 these, added to a remarkable union of frankness and 
 dignity, gave a peculiar charm to the conversations of 
 
I90 ADORATION OF LADY HESTER [ch. v 
 
 this highly accomplished and amiable woman. . . . 
 We seldom retired before midnight. . . . 
 
 ** In person, Lady Hester Stanhope is rather above 
 the usual height, with regular and delicately formed 
 features, a soft blue eye, fair and pale complexion, an 
 expression of habitual pensiveness and tranquil resig- 
 nation, which was rarely disturbed, except when her 
 countenance now and then lighted up with the indig- 
 nant feelings that always followed the recital of some 
 deed of cruelty and oppression. . . . 
 
 " If to be sincerely and generally beloved by those 
 among whom we reside, to possess power and influ- 
 ence with those who govern, and to have abundant 
 opportunities of exercising these for the weak and 
 helpless, be sources of delight, it may be safely con- 
 cluded that Lady Hester Stanhope is one of the 
 happiest of human beings. The veneration in which 
 she is held, the affectionate terms in which she is 
 continually spoken of by those who live near and sur- 
 round her habitation, surpasses anything I remember 
 to have met with in the course of a tolerably extensive 
 peregrination through various countries of the globe. 
 Coupled, indeed, with the humble gratitude, confined 
 information, and general enthusiasm of feeling, which 
 characterize the inhabitants of that country, it amounts 
 almost to adoration ; so that the real good which this 
 lady does, and the undoubted respect paid to her by 
 all classes, have been magnified by every successive 
 narrator through whom the recital has passed, till it 
 has at last assumed the shape of the miraculous, and 
 surpassed even the extravagance of the Arabian Tales. 
 I remember some few instances of this, which I heard 
 on my way from Damascus to Seyda. One Druse 
 woman in the Lebanon, who recounted the tale to my 
 muleteer as I lay ill on my carpet before the hearth, 
 
1816-1823] "THE KING'S DAUGHTER" 191 
 
 said that when the King's daughter (Bint-el-Melek, and 
 Bint-el-Sultan, the names by which Lady Hester 
 was known in Syria) entered Damascus, all voices 
 exclaimed, * The city of Damascus, the great gate of 
 pilgrimage, and the key to the tomb of the prophet, 
 is taken from us ; her glory is fallen, her might cast 
 down, and her people for ever subdued. An infidel 
 has entered on horseback, and rebellion is subdued by 
 her beauty.' When she visited the Pacha in his divan, 
 and was shown the seat of honour on his right hand, 
 every one except the Pacha stood up to receive her, and 
 there went before her a messenger bearing presents 
 of the most costly description, from all the distant 
 countries of the Ind and the Sind " (India within and 
 India beyond the Ganges), "with perfumes of the 
 most delightful odour. But when these had been laid 
 at the Pacha's feet, the fair infidel herself drew from 
 beneath her robes a massive goblet of pure gold, 
 sparkling with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, and 
 filled to overflowing with the richest pearls, which 
 were, however, rivalled in beauty by the snowy white- 
 ness of her hand. Then, again, an Arab shepherd 
 regretted his ill-fortune in not having accompanied 
 the princess to Palmyra, * as he understood that every 
 one who had gone with her, as indeed every one who 
 ever had anything to do with her, had been abund- 
 antly prosperous since.' As soon as it was known in 
 the desert that the princess intended to journey to 
 Tadmor, all the tribes were in motion, war was 
 changed to universal peace, and every sheick was 
 eager to have the honour of leading the escort. 
 Councils and assemblies were held at Homs and at 
 Hamar, at Sham" (Damascus) *'and at Hhaleb" 
 (Aleppo) ; *' messengers were sent in every direction, 
 and nothing was neglected that might serve to make 
 
192 A MIRACULOUS JOURNEY [ch. v 
 
 the way full of pleasure. When money was talked of, 
 every one rejected it with indignation, and exclaimed, 
 * Shall we not serve the princess for honour ? * Every- 
 thing being settled, the party set out, preceded by 
 horsemen in front, with hedjeen " (dromedaries) " of 
 observation on the right and left, and camels laden with 
 provisions in the rear. As they passed along, the 
 parched sands of the desert became verdant plains, 
 the burning rocks became crystal streams, rich carpets 
 of grass welcomed them at every place at which they 
 halted for repose, and the trees under which they 
 pitched their tents expanded twice their usual size 
 to cover them with shade. When they reached the 
 broken city, the princess was taken to the greatest of 
 the palaces " (the Temple of the Sun), ** and there gold 
 and jewels were bound round her temples, and all the 
 people did homage to her as Queen, by bowing their 
 heads to the dust. On that day Tadmor was richer 
 than Sham, and more peopled than Stamboul ; and if 
 the princess had only remained it would soon have 
 become the greatest of all the cities of the earth, for 
 men were pouring into it from all quarters, horsemen 
 and chiefs, merchants and munujemein " (astrologers), 
 *' the fame of her beauty and benevolence having 
 reached to Bagdad and Ispahann, to Bokhara and 
 Samarcand, and the greatest men of the East being 
 desirous of beholding it for themselves. 
 
 *' When the period approached for my quitting Mar 
 Elias, I felt extreme regret ; for I had scarcely ever 
 before concentrated so much of highly intellectual 
 pleasure in so short a space of time. . . . The stay had 
 been productive of the highest advantages to me in 
 every point of view. I had regained much of my former 
 health and strength in a surprising manner . . . and I 
 was now better prepared for my future journey than I 
 
1816-1823] RECKLESS GENEROSITY 193 
 
 had ever been before. I was comfortably furnished with 
 clothes, an excellent horse, a trusty servant from Lady 
 Hester's own suite, transferred to me by her request, 
 and charged by her with a thousand injunctions as to 
 care and attention to my wishes and safety on the 
 road. 1 was accommodated with sufficient means to 
 defray my expenses till I should reach Aleppo, and 
 drawing authorised supplies from the Consul, Mr. 
 Barker. ... I was entrusted with various presents 
 from her Ladyship to the various Pachas and Gover- 
 nors in my way, accompanied by letters of introduction 
 to them, that I might offer these gifts in her name, 
 and thus secure their protection and aid." 
 
 Mr. Buckingham's description of Lady Hester, with 
 her " soft blue eye " and pensive resignation, is very 
 unlike all the other accounts we have of her, and does 
 not seem to fit in with any preconceived ideas of her 
 appearance. But as regards her boundless benevol- 
 ence and reckless generosity, and the power and 
 influence she exercised in the Lebanon, which almost 
 amounted to sovereignty, it exactly tallies with all we 
 know of her. The splendid myth of her fabulous 
 wealth attracted applicants from far and near, and 
 seemed to be borne out by her munificence, for none 
 were ever sent empty away. She delighted in helping 
 and giving, and it may be safely said no hand was 
 ever stretched out to her in vain. Whoever was in 
 trouble or distress — be he whom he might — had a sure 
 claim on her sympathy and protection, and became 
 her charge, sometimes for the rest of his life. 
 
 Her power in the Mountain was already so fully 
 recognised, that even the redoubtable Prince of the 
 Desert, Mohanna-el-Fadel, sent to solicit her aid. 
 His son, the Emir Nasar, had embroiled himself with 
 the Pacha of Damascus, who vowed to have his life, 
 if ever he could be caught ; and he supplicated *' his 
 dear sister, the Syt Hester," to intercede on his behalf. 
 One of his chieftains, Abd-el-Rasak, presented himself 
 at Mar Elias, bringing, with his letter, a colt as an 
 oifering. " It was a fine sight," writes Dr. Meryon, 
 
 14 
 
194 PUNISHMENT OF THE ANSArY [ch. v 
 
 " to behold the Bedouins come and seek protection of 
 a woman and a stranger." 
 
 She had only recently made proof of the extent of 
 her authority. Some time before, a French Colonel 
 of Engineers, named Bontin, who had been sent by 
 the Emperor on a mission to Syria, was made away 
 with on the road between Hamar and Latakia. Lady 
 Hester had warned him of the danger of crossing the 
 Ansary Mountains, but he made light of her appre- 
 hensions, and set out on his journey with only two 
 Mahometan servants. The sale of his watch at 
 Damascus first excited suspicion as to his fate, and 
 Lady Hester forthwith despatched three emissaries on 
 the track he was believed to have followed, and 
 ascertained that he had, as she predicted, been robbed 
 and murdered. She at once urged the French Consuls 
 at the different towns along the coast to write to 
 Constantinople and obtain orders for tracing and 
 punishing the murderers without loss of time. Noth- 
 ing, however, was done. The Ansary were a powerful 
 and savage tribe, with whom no one cared to interfere. 
 She then wrote herself to several of the European 
 Ambassadors at the Porte, but still without effect, and 
 at last bravely determined to take the matter into her 
 own hands. She sent letters, both in Turkish and 
 Arabic, to the Pachas of Aleppo, Damascus, Tripoli 
 and Acre, asking each of them to contribute a certain 
 number of troops with which to range the mountains 
 of the Ansary, search for Colonel Boutin's remains, 
 discover and punish his murderers, and get back the 
 stolen property. ** Her appeals were successful, 
 and accomplished what all the influence of all the 
 Ambassadors could not have effected, what even the 
 commands of the Grand Seignor himself could not 
 have carried into execution — a union and co-operation 
 of elements the most discordant." Mustafa Aga 
 Berber, the Governor of the district, who was in 
 command of the expedition, sent her word that, as he 
 was marching " at the Syt's bidding to do the Syt's 
 business," and fight in her quarrel, it was only fitting 
 that she should arm her champion, and Lady Hester 
 accordingly presented him with a brace of pistols. 
 She, too, directed the movements of the troops, as, 
 from the knowledge of the locality she had gained 
 through her messengers, she alone could do, and 
 
1816-1823] FRANCE VOTES HER THANKS 195 
 
 Mustafa carried fire and sword into the Ansary fast- 
 nesses, burnt the villages of the murderers, sent their 
 heads as trophies to Damascus, and recovered the 
 whole of the stolen property. The fame of this 
 exploit spread far and wide throughout Syria, and 
 Lady Hester received the proud title of Protectress 
 of the Unfortunate. Nor were the French themselves 
 backward in acknowledging the debt they owed her 
 for avenging their countryman. *' Colonel Bontin 
 received a most honourable reception from Lady 
 Hester Stanhope" (I am quoting the Counter Fram^ais 
 of April 29th, 1830), "and, proud of her powerful pro- 
 tection, he was on the point of succeeding in his enter- 
 prise" (to explore Syria and penetrate into Arabia), 
 " when he was assassinated in the neighbourhood of 
 Damascus by the Arabs, who sought to rob him of a 
 bag of coins which he had in his possession. France 
 knows how the murder of this illustrious traveller was 
 avenged by her Ladyship, who caused his assassins 
 to be decapitated and obtained the restitution of his 
 baggage, which she eflFected purely by her personal 
 influence and efforts." She duly received a vote ot 
 thanks from the Chamber of Deputies, proposed, in an 
 eloquent speech, by Count Delaborde. 
 
 The chastised tribe, strange to say, bore no malice. 
 They were the same wild Ansary Arabs by whom, 
 several years before. Lady Hester had been adopted, 
 and that she was in the habit of speaking of as her 
 ''family." They might well have sought to revenge 
 the treatment they had received. Yet, in the autumn 
 of this very year, not long after Mustafa Aga Berber's 
 return, she went for two months to Antioch, where 
 she found herself in the midst of them, and though she 
 took up her abode in a secluded and unprotected 
 cottage outside the town, she was never molested in 
 the shghtest degree. She explained to them that 
 " she had indeed revenged the death of a Frenchman, 
 of a man who was her country's enemy, because she 
 knew that all just persons abhorred deeds committed 
 against the defenceless in the dark — deeds such as 
 must be disowned by the brave and good every- 
 where." 
 
 Her journey to Antioch was undertaken partly to 
 meet Mr. Barker and partly to get out of the way of 
 the Princess of Wales, who had recently landed at 
 
196 FINANCIAL WORRIES [ch. v 
 
 Acre, and might, she thought, be expected at Sayda. 
 She was particularly anxious not to come into contact 
 with her ; but she left the doctor and Miss Williams 
 at Mar Elias, with instructions to ofifer her due hos- 
 pitality and every attention in their power. The Prin- 
 cess, however, did not come. 
 
 She had appointed this meeting with the Consul- 
 General, in order to settle accounts with him. The 
 following letter (undated), addressed to General Ander- 
 son, evidently belongs to this period ; it is the first in 
 which she alludes to the money troubles that hence- 
 forward were to supersede politics in her correspond- 
 ence. It is melancholy to remember that for twenty- 
 three years — all the remaining years of her life — she 
 was never again free from this haunting incubus of 
 debt. She mentions that her brother, *' that dear, 
 generous creature," had lent her all his savings, 
 amounting to ;^Soo. 
 
 Lady Hester to General Anderson 
 
 . . . '*This soaring and active mind is no merit of 
 mine. I was endowed with it, I suppose, for some 
 purpose, and I should not, I imagine, be answering 
 that for which I was created, were I to become a grub 
 on the face of the earth, and make no exertion to be 
 useful to my country and my friends. . . . You will 
 be told that I have purchased the friendship of Turks 
 a poids d'or) but I can assure you that until now I 
 never made a present, excepting a gold snuff-box, that 
 Lord Sligo gave me, to the late Pacha of Damascus, 
 Seticlar or Sword-bearer to the Sultan, a man of the 
 first rank, who had given me two fine horses and 
 treated me with every sort of distinction ; and a pair 
 of fine pistols to the commander of the troops sent 
 against the Ansaries, to revenge the death of a 
 European assassinated by them (see p. 194). Respect- 
 ing presents, all I can say about them is, that it is a 
 toll every one must pay in the East. Strangers may 
 sometimes escape, as a man may by galloping through 
 
i8i6~i823] RESPECT DUE FROM PRESENTS 197 
 
 a turnpike gate, and get oflf by saying he was a 
 foreigner, and did not know the customs, and had no 
 money about him. But, resident in the country, these 
 shuffles will not do. About four years ago, Bruce 
 went to take leave of the Mohallim of a town where 
 he had spent some time. The Governor treated him 
 at first with great respect and politeness ; but, after 
 les ceremonies diisage were over, he waved his hand, 
 and his attendants disappeared. The Governor began 
 his conversation to this effect : * And so, young man, 
 you make me no present ? ' * No,' said Bruce, * I have 
 been shipwrecked, and I have nothing by me worth 
 your acceptance.' * Oh ! that is a fine excuse,' said the 
 Mohallim; *you have money, I suppose — why, then, 
 did you not send to Aleppo, and buy a few pieces of 
 Aleppo stuff to present to me? It is true 1 do not 
 care for the value of your stuffs, nor do I wish for 
 a present from interested motives. Had you given 
 me one, I should have given you a horse three times 
 its value, but I desire to be treated with respect, and 
 not lowered in the eyes of those who surround me.' 
 He then said that this conversation would serve as a 
 lesson to Bruce, and, softening his tone, said some 
 civil things, and there the visit ended ; but it required 
 a vast deal of negotiation to set the matter right. 
 I really believe that the general motive of almost all 
 Turks, in making presents, is the idea that they are 
 a mark of respect. ... To your son, in Eastern 
 fashion, I should say : May his name rise among 
 perfumes to Heaven, which may bless him." 
 
 After her return to Mar Elias in November, she 
 received a visit from M. Didot, a gentleman attached 
 to the French Embassy at Constantinople, who was 
 then travelling in Syria, and jpublished an account of 
 his interview in his Notes aun Voyage fait dans le 
 Levant en 1816 et 1817. 
 
198 M. DIDOT [CH. V 
 
 " I had previously presented to M. Baudin, a young 
 Frenchman, the dragoman of Miladi Stanhope, the 
 letter of introduction that Mr. Salt had been kind 
 enough to give me to the new Queen of Palmyra, who 
 invited me to dinner the day after my arrival, together 
 with M. Desgranges. She then inhabited a former 
 convent, which she has had repaired, about two 
 leagues from Sayda, near the little village of Abra, 
 lying at the foot of the first spurs of the Lebanon. 
 After passing through some rooms inhabited by her 
 suite and her servants, all of whom are Arabs, except 
 one lady's-maid, we were ushered into a vast apart- 
 ment, where we found two persons in Oriental dress 
 seated on the divan. We saluted them in Arabic, but 
 soon recognised Miladi Stanhope and our Consul at 
 Tripoli, M. Regnault ; the former by her smooth, 
 beardless face, the latter by the hump on his back, 
 ill-disguised by the long garments he occasionally 
 wears. Miladi received me with affability and dis- 
 coursed at great length on European politics, for that 
 is the subject of conversation she prefers, and seems 
 the best suited to the gravity of her disposition. She 
 said she first began to wear the Oriental costume 
 when, after a shipwreck at Rhodes in which she lost 
 all her possessions, she found herself obliged to buy 
 the dress of the country, and having learnt to appre- 
 ciate its comfort and utility, she had ever since retained 
 it, and would now feel very ill at ease in her European 
 women's clothes if she were obliged to resume them. 
 The death of her uncle Pitt deprived her of the 
 influence she had obtained in London; and her grief 
 at the loss of her brother and of General Moore, whom 
 she was to have married — both killed in the same 
 battle in Spain — had inspired her with that profound 
 disgust of the world which had so long retained her 
 
1816-1823] MOUNT LEBANON 199 
 
 in the solitude of Mount Lebanon. She spoke of 
 divers visits she had paid to Pachas, and showed me 
 the costumes she had worn on these occasions, all of 
 the richest possible description. She also explained 
 to me the different postures to be assumed in the 
 presence of great personages, which form part of the 
 etiquette all Turks must rigorously observe, as the 
 attitude, no less than the costume, betokens a man's 
 position in life. 
 
 " As soon as she arrived in Syria, Lady Stanhope 
 sent for a Capidji Bachi with firmans from Constanti- 
 nople, and proceeded, with a great train in attendance, 
 to the neighbourhood of Ascalon and Caesarea, to 
 search for treasure in a spot indicated by an old MS. 
 They excavated the ground for a long time, but no 
 treasure was discovered ; only two colossal statues, 
 one of which, representing Bacchus, was very fine. 
 She had them both broken up, in order, as she told 
 me, that the Turks might not take it into their heads 
 that she had induced the Porte to incur this expendi- 
 ture for her own personal advantage ; and as this 
 action was in conformity with their religious principles, 
 she hoped thus to acquire greater influence over them. 
 In fact, I afterwards heard from M. Bertrand, one of 
 her dragomans, that she had at one time intended to 
 found a new religion in these parts, by the union of 
 Christianity and Mahometanism ; and that she also 
 had some hopes of the Jews, because she thought the 
 name of Esther, which she bore, would impress them ; 
 but, having soon perceived the difficulties of such an 
 enterprise, she promptly gave it up. 
 
 " I asked her to give us an account of her journey to 
 Palmyra, which I had heard much spoken of in the 
 East; and she described, in great detail, and with a 
 certain satisfaction, how she had made her entry, lance 
 
200 THE PALMYRA JOURNEY [ch. v 
 
 in hand, in her Oriental dress, followed by thirty 
 camels, which had brought into the desert all that was 
 choicest of European luxuries. She enumerated the 
 many presents she had given to the sheicks, and told 
 how she had, during three nights, illuminated the ruins 
 of Palmyra, where she had herself crowned. I thought 
 at the time that some Oriental exaggeration must have 
 adorned this narrative, but I afterwards heard, from 
 several persons who had accompanied her, that it was, 
 in the main, perfectly correct ; and that, in this expedi- 
 tion, she and Mr. Bruce spent nearly 30,000 piastres. 
 Accordingly, she is called Queen of Palmyra, and the 
 credit she obtained, aided by her money, gained her 
 influence with the Pachas. It was, in a great measure, 
 owing to her that the Porte determined to avenge the 
 death of Colonel Bontin, with whom she was well 
 acquainted, and who was assassinated only a few days 
 after he left her house. By her urgent letters, and by 
 her presents, she induced the sheicks to march against 
 the rebellious tribes, and carried this war to a successful 
 issue, thereby inspiring fear and consideration for the 
 Franks, and giving them better security for travelling 
 in the East. 
 
 " Some heavy clouds, gathering on the Lebanon, 
 warned us that we might be overtaken by a storm, and 
 obliged us to leave Miladi sooner than we should have 
 wished. She made us carry away with us, as a 
 precaution, two abas^ large cloaks of a striped material 
 fabricated in the mountains, which we presently found 
 of the greatest use." 
 
 This was, as far as I can make out, the only visitor 
 to whom Lady Hester ever mentioned her engagement 
 to Sir John Moore. 
 
 ^ About this time, her emissary, Giorgio, arrived from 
 England, laden with commissions, and bringing with 
 
1816-1823] DEPARTURE OF DR. MERYON 201 
 
 him an English surgeon to replace Dr. Meryon, who 
 finally took his leave in January, 1817. Here, then, we 
 part company with the circumstantial journal of Lady 
 Hester*s sayings and doings that he kept during the 
 seven years he was in her service, and virtually lose 
 sight of her till 1830. Though she was a voluminous 
 letter writer, from this time forward but little of her 
 correspondence has been preserved. This is the last 
 letter 1 can find addressed to General Oakes : 
 
 Lady Hester to General Oakes 
 
 "Mount Lebanon, 
 
 ^^ Jan. ^th^ 18 17. 
 
 ** I was so happy at receiving your letter by Giorgio, 
 for it was so long since I had heard from you, and 
 never ceased to feel anxious about your health, as well 
 as about all that interests you. This letter will be 
 given to you by Dr. Meryon. He will have so much 
 to tell you about me, and his travels in these parts, 
 that I shall not allude to either one or the other subject. 
 
 ** As for that levity and inconsequence with which 
 you reproach some of our young men, it is much to be 
 lamented. Real wildness can scarcely be deemed a 
 fault in youth, and most particularly in those who 
 have no sort of restraint put upon their actions ; but 
 neglect, trifling conduct, saying more than a person 
 means, is quite another thing, and very contemptible 
 in my opinion, which may be a severe one ; but if all 
 these things are looked over and tolerated in young 
 men who ought to set an example to society, what will 
 the world come to at last? ... I am happy to hear 
 that my old friend Sir David is well; pray always 
 mention me to him when you have an opportunity, for 
 I have a great respect for him, and am convinced 
 that his unpopularity and singular conduct at one 
 moment was a finesse^ for which we ought all to thank 
 him." 
 
202 DUKE OF YORK [ch. v 
 
 Lady Hester to H.R.H, the Duke of York 
 
 " Mount Lebanon, 
 
 ^^ January \st^ 1817. 
 
 "Sir, — Y.R.H. put a dangerous instrument into my 
 hands when you were so kind as to give me the 
 beautiful inkstand. The first use I make of a pen so 
 valued by me must be to offer you my sincerest thanks 
 for this generous mark of your recollection. As you 
 mention, Sir, the perfumes being unknown in England, 
 perhaps you might like to know why aloe wood is 
 scarce. It comes from a mountain called Gebel El-Kaf, 
 fifteen days south of Mecca. This mountain is covered 
 with aloe trees, but it is so infested with the most 
 ferocious wild beasts that no one dare ascend it, 
 Therefore, the Arabs who live the nearest to it portion 
 out bits of land at the foot of the mountain, and make 
 dykes in it. When the tremendous storms take place, 
 which often tear up trees by the roots, and always 
 scatter their branches, the floods of rain bring down 
 pieces of the aloe wood into these dykes. When the 
 weather clears up, each Arab repairs to his spot of 
 ground, to pick up that which may have fallen to his 
 lot ; the wood is then buried for forty or fifty days, to 
 improve its smell, which gives it that black, rotten 
 appearance. The pilgrims bring it to Damascus, where 
 the harems of the great men are constantly full of a 
 cloud of its smoke. The very luxurious refresh the 
 air with fountains of rose-water, which play from five 
 to twenty-five feet high. 
 
 *' There are likewise other forests in the desert, 
 thirty-five days distant, west of Mecca, where a vast 
 quantity of gold dust is to be found ; but as there is no 
 water except at two places upon the road, out of forty 
 camels and forty men which set out every year from 
 Mecca to collect this dust, seldom ten of each return. 
 
1816-1823] THE KING OF BUGS 203 
 
 *'If I said half what I feel about Y.R.H/s goodness 
 to James, I fear I should bore you, but I cannot 
 altogether pass over the act of kindness you were 
 pleased to announce to me. I believe, Sir, it is only 
 in Arabic that one may say to a great man all one 
 wishes to say without being impertinent ; therefore, 
 as I cannot write in that language, I must reflect in 
 silent gratitude upon all we owe you. I am, Sir, 
 
 " Y.R.H.'s most attached and devoted servant, 
 
 ** Hester Lucy Stanhope." 
 
 Lady Hester to Sir Joseph Banks 
 
 " Mount Lebanon, 
 
 ^^ January yd^ 18 17. 
 
 ** Dear Sir, — I was really concerned to find by the 
 letter Giorgio brought me last November that you 
 were so much indisposed. I pray for your recovery 
 as for a universal blessing to the friends of humanity 
 and science. 
 
 ** I have written you many letters within these last 
 two years, and sent no less than three boxes of the 
 root you wished to have, of various ages and qualities, 
 together with all the information I could pick up 
 about it ; but I fear that some, if not a//, these boxes 
 have been lost, as well as the admirable honey of 
 Mount Lebanon, which I thought you might like. 
 The Turks eat a vast deal of honey, and consider it 
 very wholesome^ except in very hot weather, when 
 they find it heating. It is pressing honey in England 
 which makes it so bad, as the wax gets mixed with 
 it ; this was allowed to run off of itself, and was quite 
 pure in every respect. I must now give you an 
 account of the King of Bugs for your amusement, 
 which I got from the Abyssinians, who remain some 
 time with me. There is a little animal, not unlike a 
 
204 NATURAL HISTORY [ch. v 
 
 worm with wings, which sucks flowers like a bee ; it 
 lives underground, where it fabricates a sort of jar, 
 quite round, the inside of which is varnished in the 
 most beautiful manner; this jar communicates with 
 the surface of the earth by a tube about three or four 
 feet long, and serves as a passage for the httle animal 
 to go up and down. In its house is found a liquor 
 like green water, which is used by the Abyssinians 
 as a sovereign remedy in almost all stomach com- 
 plaints, and in other disorders. The entrance of the 
 tube is only to be discovered by watching the jackals, 
 which come at night and scratch up the ground, 
 which makes this medicine scarce. I hoped to have, 
 nevertheless, sent you a bottle, but the death of my 
 female Abyssinian friend, and no caravan having come 
 this year from that country, renders it uncertain 
 whether or not I shall ever receive what she wrote 
 for from her brother, who commands a province, and 
 who is mentioned by Lord Valentia in his book. 
 Enclosed is a paper which may be interesting to you ; 
 it strikes me that the cow must have eaten of the 
 leaves of the Harmodatele, which are excellent and 
 tempting in their appearance when fresh, and which 
 grow in small quantities in the neighbourhood of 
 Damascus, for the Priest was affected, as well as 
 Mon. FEveque, exactly in the same way as a person 
 who takes too large a quantity of the root, a violent 
 sickness and internal heat. 
 
 *' Dr. Meryon (my late Physician) is not the least 
 of a philosopher, so I have had no one to set me right, 
 or assist me in my pursuits of any kind. I believe the 
 Doctor can give you little more information about 
 the natural curiosities of this part of the world, than 
 if he never had visited it, except the cave near Palmyra, 
 into which he crept upon all fours, and I did not. I 
 
1816-1823] ABYSSINIA 205 
 
 am trying to raise you a tree from a sucker of what 
 I am told is the real mandrake spoken of in the 
 Scriptures, and for which there is no European name. 
 There is a tradition in Mount Lebanon of the women 
 being shut ttp during the time it was in flower ; it 
 produces no seed. I have a great deal more to say 
 about the natural productions of Abyssinia, but as 
 I have not yet quite given up the idea of receiving 
 some specimens of the furs of different animals, and 
 the seeds of several curious plants, I will put off for 
 the present saying anything about them. The greatest 
 fault I Ihave to find in the Abyssinians is, their love 
 for every sort of liquor which intoxicates, but they 
 are a clever, courageous people, rather inclined to 
 be idle, and very proud ; but with management might 
 be made something of. The stagnation of trade in 
 India, and in England, would render the civilization 
 of Abyssinia, and the encouragement of commerce 
 with that country, a very politic measure, for when 
 old resources fail, we ought to discover new ones. 
 
 ** I was vastly happy in receiving a letter from 
 General Grenville, in which he speaks favourably of 
 his health. As I think him about the best man in 
 the world, I was more than distressed when I im- 
 agined he was suffering from a serious illness. Dr. 
 Meryon has a few seeds of the Cimach^ or Kimach^ tree^ 
 which perhaps you may not have ,in your hot-house. 
 I got them from one of the Mamelukes of Djezza 
 Pacha, who was brought up with the late Ali Pacha, 
 who planted these trees at Acre. ... As for Sheick 
 Ibrahim" (Burckhardt) '* of whom I have spoken so 
 often, I think the same of his talents as a traveller ; 
 but the more I hear of him and know of him, the less 
 will I think of his heart, as he is full of envy and 
 malice, and very insincere. And as to your namesake 
 
2o6 DEATH OF '* CITIZEN STANHOPE" [ch. v 
 
 William Bankes,^ I cannot endure him, and I wish I 
 could pass a bill for him, to be obliged to change a 
 name which such a character can have no right to, if 
 you have one at least. He told Napoleon he was 
 your relation ; it is impossible.'' 
 
 In April of this year, Lady Hester received the 
 tidings of her father's death, and wrote to her brother, 
 on his accession to the title, what he truly describes 
 as *' a most cruel and insulting letter." I should be 
 sorry to reproduce it. I will only quote one passage, 
 as it furnishes the sole explanation I have ever met 
 with of their life-long breach. Her theme throughout 
 is ingratitude — '* the ingratitude which you have shown 
 to all your best friends. It was wishing to eradicate, 
 if possible, from your character the seeds of that 
 abominable vice (a vice unknown to wild beasts) that 
 occasioned the rupture between us. Far be it from 
 me ever to wish to be upon friendly terms with you, 
 should you still persist in the perverse opinions 
 which have lowered you in the eyes of those you most 
 courted, and deprived you of their real confidence." 
 This, and another allusion to *^ new-formed connec- 
 tions," points to political differences between them, 
 but the chief ground of offence was probably a more 
 personal one. She had, early in life, rendered him a 
 signal service by effecting his escape from Chevening, 
 for which he was abundantly thankful, and this sense 
 of obligation, as well as that of his utter inexperience, 
 led him gratefully to accept her guidance and dictation. 
 But this kind of tutelage could not possibly last. As 
 he took his place in the world, he naturally formed 
 his own opinions, and acted upon them, and she 
 probably often found her advice disregarded. She 
 would bitterly resent this neglect, for, of all things in 
 
 ^ May 28th, 1820. "Mr. Bankes had seen Lady Hester Stanhope 
 in Syria ; she was living in a small but comfortable house, at the foot 
 of Mount Lebanon, in full persuasion of her being one day called to 
 the assembling of God's chosen people, as Queen of Jerusalem. This 
 fancy, which has taken full possession of her mind, arose (as she 
 herself relates) from a prophecy which the famous Brothers made to 
 her many years ago, that she would pass some years in the East and 
 reign at Jerusalem. She has already exceeded the probationary 
 terms by two years." — Memoirs of Viscount Stratford de Redclijge, 
 
1816-1823] DJOUN, MOUNT LEBANON 207 
 
 the world, she most delighted in giving advice. Even 
 in this letter, after three angry pages of taunts and 
 reproaches, there follov^s a fourth full of good advice, 
 shov^ing how easily he may become *'a father to those 
 around him, and a pillar of the State." But the real 
 reason of her writing appears in the postscript : " I 
 shall not leave any part of the sum coming to me on 
 the estate ; when ready, you will please to place the 
 whole in Coutts' hands. Murray" (her lawyer) **and 
 James will inform you what is to be done with the 
 ;^io,ooo poor Charles left me."^ 
 
 These two sums ought surely to have cleared off 
 all Lady Hester's liabilities, and left her a free woman. 
 But it was not to be, for we presently find her 
 plunging into fresh expenditure. Either in this or 
 the following year, she removed from Mar Elias to 
 another deserted monastery higher up in the moun- 
 tains, near the village of Dar Joun, or Djoun. No 
 lovelier situation could have been selected for a 
 dwelling; but the building was disused and dilapidated, 
 requiring a new roof and very extensive repairs.- 
 She built many new additions, very considerably 
 enlarging it, and laid out, on what had been a bare 
 mountain top, terraced gardens and orchards, to 
 which water was conveyed by conduits from a dis- 
 tance. The whole was surrounded by a lofty wall, 
 giving it somewhat the appearance of a fortress, and 
 the principal entrance was through a strong and well- 
 guarded gate. Nor was it easy to go in and come 
 out unperceived, for the interior was a kind of 
 labyrinth composed of detached buildings, irregularly 
 grouped round little courts and gardens, and traversed 
 by trellised passages, which formed the only means 
 of communication. Dr. Meryon tells us that " owing 
 to the different enclosures, wherein servants with 
 
 ^ This letter remained, I believe, unanswered, and Lady Hester 
 never wrote again. 
 
 ^ " You may imagine," she writes to the doctor, *^ what my expenses 
 have been when I tell you that half of this house" (Djoun) "was 
 totally unroofed, like a ruin, when I took it ; the other half so 
 rotten that it rained in in every direction — not a room for dragomen, 
 for men servants, for provisions of any kind ; not an out-house ; 
 not a place walled in ; its only merit was having a little space, 
 which the other house" (Mar Elias) "had not ; the roof of which, 
 after the earthquake, became so unsafe that I was obH^ed to cover 
 it at a great expense." 
 
2o8 A HARBOUR OF REFUGE L^h. v 
 
 different occupations lived, a person attempting to 
 enter or to escape was certain of being seen, and 
 almost equally certain of being stopped." Lady- 
 Hester's own dwelling was on the S. W. side, where 
 the mountain falls away precipitously, and the distant 
 blue of the sea is seen through a gap in the hills. 
 Her rooms opened on the terraces of her private 
 garden, the beautiful garden with its arbours, marble 
 fountain, and thickets of roses, in which she took her 
 daily walk. She loved her flowers, and they were the 
 only luxury she permitted herself, for nothing could 
 be plainer and simpler than her manner of life. No 
 one entered here but by her special favour, and 
 everything pertaining to herself was kept rigidly 
 apart from the rest — her kitchen, even, was separate. 
 
 She intended this place to be, as it actually became, 
 a house of call for refugees, for any poor homeless 
 wanderer who, proscribed and pursued, might be 
 drifting helplessly about in the Lebanon. To them 
 she could offer an inviolable asylum, for whoever 
 crossed her threshold had set foot in sanctuary. Not 
 even the powerful Prince of the Mountain — not Ibra- 
 him Pacha himself — ever ventured — or rather, I should 
 say, succeeded — in meddling with any one under Lady 
 Hester's protection. For this purpose Mar Elias 
 would have been far too small, but at Djoun she was 
 able at one time (after the siege of Acre) to harbour 
 as many as two hundred refugees. Yet, for some 
 reason or other, her doctor was never lodged within 
 its precincts. 
 
 Once installed in her new dominion, Lady Hester 
 never left it again. She lived for more than twenty 
 years at Djoun, and during the latter part of the time 
 never went outside her garden wall. It is from this 
 period we may date her complete adoption of Eastern 
 customs and an Eastern mode of life. Though she 
 had assumed the dress of the country, and conformed 
 to many of its habits, she had still retained some of 
 her own ; but these she now gradually discarded, 
 and day by day became more of an Oriental. The 
 doctor brought out by Giorgio went home again in 
 a year or two, dishking the East and Eastern ways, 
 and Doctor Meryon was summoned back to resume 
 his former post. This time, however, his stay was 
 brief, and he did not journalize. " I found," he says. 
 
1816-1823J DJOUN 209 
 
 "that her Ladyship had in the meantime completely 
 familiarized herself with the usages of the East, con- 
 ducting her establishment entirely in the Turkish 
 manner, and adopting even much of their medical 
 empiricism. Under these circumstances, and at her 
 own suggestion, I again bade her adieu, as I then 
 believed, for the last time." ^ He was replaced by an 
 Italian. The English housekeeper, Mrs. Fry, also 
 went home, and Elizabeth Williams now remained 
 her sole English attendant. 
 
 For some time past, Lady Hester's mind had been 
 much occupied with the Oriental kingdom that had 
 been promised to her many years before in England, 
 When Brothers was, by Mr. ritt's orders, being taken 
 to prison as a fortune-teller, he begged hard to be 
 allowed to see Lady Hester, and told her that "she 
 would one day go to Jerusalem, and lead back the 
 chosen people ; that, on her arrival in the Holy Land, 
 mighty changes would take place in the world, and 
 that she would pass seven years in the desert." She 
 had always remembered this prediction, and often 
 spoke of it, though more often than not in jest, and 
 freely allowed her friends to make fun of it. While 
 she was living at Brusa, the party she was with, 
 comprising Lord Guilford, Mr. Fazakerley, and Mr. 
 Gaily Knight, used to amuse themselves by calling 
 her " Queen Hester ! Hester, Queen of the Jews ! " 
 But since her arrival in Syria the prophecy had as- 
 sumed graver proportions, for it had been twice re- 
 peated. She had met at Haifa a half-crazed Frenchman, 
 who called himself General Loustaneau, and professed 
 to have served in the native Indian armies. He lived 
 on the alms of the charitable, and passed himself 
 off as a prophet, always walking about with a Bible 
 under his arm. He was now ready to produce a 
 number of texts to prove that her coming had been 
 
 * He did, however, return twice ; once for a few months in 1830 
 and again in 1837, remaining till 1838. It was only on these last 
 two occasions, when she had attained a certain degree of celebrity, 
 that he adopted the practice — unprecedented, as I hope and believe, 
 in the case of a physician — of writing down all she said to him with 
 a view to publication. He spent in all sixteen months at Djoun, and 
 it was from the materials then collected that he compiled the three 
 volumes oi Memoirs that appeared in 1845. The Travels of Lady 
 Hester Stanhope^ also in three volumes, were published in the fol- 
 lowing year. 
 
 15 
 
^^o JtOrtUNE-TELLING tcH. V 
 
 annotinced in the Scriptures, and that she was ** the 
 only real Queen." Again, one of her servants, an old 
 man named Metta,^ who, like all Syrians, had a pro- 
 found belief in astrology, magic, and what is now 
 'called Spiritualism, told her of a prophetic book of 
 which he alone knew the secret, and could produce, 
 if she would lend him a horse. She did so, and be 
 went and fetched an Arabic MS. (a precious loan be 
 Was only to tetain for a few hours), from which 
 he translated the following passage for her benefit : 
 ** A European woman will come and live on Mount 
 Lebanon at a certain epoch. She will build a house 
 there, and obtain power and influence greater than 
 a Sultan's. A boy without a father will join her, 
 and his destiny will be fulfilled under her wing. The 
 coming of the Mahdi will follow, but be preceded by 
 war, pestilence, and other calamities. The Mahdi 
 will ride a horse born saddled ; and a woman will 
 come from a far country to partake in the mission." 
 
 It was curious that the words of an English fortune- 
 teller should be confirmed by two utter strangers in 
 another quarter of the globe ; and the coincidence 
 made a profound impression on Lady Hester. It 
 seemed to her to place the matter in a new light, and 
 hold out fascinating possibilities. She had become 
 an Oriental in more senses than one, and now began 
 seriously to ask herselt whether, after all, the pro- 
 phecy might not come true. Part of it, at least, had 
 been accomplished. She had come to her appointed 
 kingdom, had taken up her abode there, and obtained 
 a degree of power and influence so unprecedented 
 as to be little short of miraculous. Had she not been 
 crowned already as Queen of Palmyra ? Might she 
 not be called upon to play a great part in the 
 East? 
 
 * I should mention that Lady Hester provided for both these 
 prophets. Metta, on his death-bed, bequeathed to her his three 
 sons ; and she duly took charge of them. The General subsisted 
 on her bounty for the remainder of his life, which proved a very long 
 one. They never met, for they could never agree ; the prophet was 
 dogmatic and choleric, Lady Hester intolerant of contradiction ; so 
 she wisely judged it best they should remain apart. Yet not only 
 did she support him, but in her lavish generosity she even sent 
 money to his family in France ; and in 1825 one of his sons came to 
 Djoun, and there died of fever. She caused him to be buried in a 
 vault she had constructed in the garden for her own burial-place. 
 
i8i6-i823l A DREAMER OF DREAMS 211 
 
 The love of rule had come to her almost in her 
 cradle ; even in the nursery she had acted " the 
 Empress Queen " ; and now, grown and strengthened 
 with advancing years, it had become an absorbing 
 passion. She nad, as I have said, unbounded con- 
 fidence in her own powers ; and it must be owned 
 that she had displayed a rare aptitude for government 
 in her management of the half-civiHzed, credulous, 
 and emotional people with whom she had to deal. 
 Besides the splendid courage that won their respect 
 and admiration, and her father's iron will, she had 
 a great deal of tact and discernment, and knew, as 
 she said, how to *'feel her ground." She studied 
 their character, their prejudices, and their supersti- 
 tions, and soon discovered how wide-spread and deep- 
 rooted was the belief in supernatural agencies. She 
 was quick to perceive what a formidable weapon was 
 here ready made to her hand, and prompt in taking 
 advantage of it. 
 
 She had herself ceased to regard the supernatural 
 from a Western point of view. She was studying 
 astrology and the occult sciences ; seeking out der- 
 vishes, magicians, and "wise men" to be her teachers, 
 and diligently at work to take her degree among them. 
 She so far succeeded as to become an adept in readmg 
 the stars, a discerner of the thoughts and minds of 
 men, and a dreamer of dreams. 
 
 How far, in the first instance, she actually believed 
 in her mission as the inspired Queen of Jerusalem is, 
 1 think, doubtful. She was, for so clever a woman, 
 extraordinarily credulous, with a natural leaning to 
 the marvellous and mysterious, which had always 
 more or less attracted her. On the other hand, we 
 cannot ignore the keen delight she had formerly taken 
 in mystifying and humbugging others. Perhaps the 
 truth is midway, and that she only partly persuaded 
 herself to believe. Be this as it may, as time went on, 
 she was unmistakably and vehemently in earnest; 
 though, even then, doubts and misgivings seem to 
 have not unfrequently crossed her mmd. *' I fancied," 
 writes Kinglake, **that I could distinguish the brief 
 moments during which she contrived to believe in 
 herself, from those long and less happy intervals in 
 which her own reason was too strong for her." 
 
 It will be remembered that the Arabic MS. intro- 
 
212 LADY HESTER^S RELIGION [ch. v 
 
 duced a new factor in the prophecy, the Mahdi or 
 Messiah. It was now he, and not Lady Hester, who 
 was to lead the chosen people to Jerusalem ; but she 
 was to have the place of honour on his right hand 
 in the triumphal procession. As Queen of Jerusalem, 
 she was bound to believe that the Messiah was yet 
 to come ; and she got over this difficulty by wresting 
 the words of John the Baptist, ** There cometh One 
 after me," from their true meaning, and ignoring their 
 application to Our Lord. Yet she certainly told 
 Lamartine that she was a Christian. Here, however, 
 I am approaching ground on which I cannot venture 
 to tread, for the subject of her religious opinions is 
 one that is utterly and hopelessly out of my reach. 
 I often wonder whether she could have explained 
 them herself; at all events, she never succeeded in 
 making them clear to any of her visitors. Perhaps 
 M. de Lamartine's conclusion is the most probable, 
 that they were a combination of the Christian, Jewish, 
 and Mahometan creeds. She was, in truth, full of 
 contradictions. She was a fatalist of the true Eastern 
 type, yet full of Western zeal for setting matters right, 
 and ordering them anew ; as relentless in her enmities 
 as an Old Testament Jew, yet with all a Christian's 
 love and pity for the poor and unfortunate. What- 
 ever her religion may have been, she was its ap- 
 pointed High Priestess; as to that, at least, there 
 could be no misunderstanding ; and at the time ap- 
 pointed, her sovereignty would be proclaimed to the 
 world. She lived in constant expectation of the 
 ** pestilence, wars, and other calamities " that were 
 to herald its coming and pave the way to her kingdom. 
 The plague came — came actually to herself; war broke 
 out in the Lebanon, bringing with it a whole train 
 of calamities, and still she hoped and waited — waited 
 on patiently, year after year, in sickness and poverty, 
 for an ever-receding phantom — the day of glory and 
 triumph that was never to be hers. Her errors and 
 her presumption may have been great, but it cannot, 
 I think, be denied that the picture is a pitiable and 
 pathetic one. 
 
 I met with an account of her of about this date in 
 the Memoirs of a Babylonian Princess^ published in 
 1844. This so-called princess — a native of Bagdad — 
 was an inmate of the Emir Beshyr's harem, and went 
 
1816-1823] LADY HESTER AS ASTROLOGER 213 
 
 to visit a venerable Druse, whom she found enter- 
 taining another guest.^ 
 
 " Reclining by his side with crossed legs, a 
 tOrientaley smoking a narghileh, was a tall and 
 splendid figure, dressed in a long saffron coloured 
 robe with red stripes, with an embroidered sadrieh 
 fastened at the throat with a gold aigrette, whose 
 appearance, though somewhat wan, was dignified and 
 majestic. Although attired as a man, I at once dis- 
 covered that it belonged to the other sex. Her right 
 hand grasped her pipe, in the left she held a long 
 rosary of amber, the beads of which she let fall, one 
 by one, in slow succession. 
 
 ** On my entrance, the venerable Akal and the lady, 
 whom I now perceived to be of extraordinary stature, 
 rose to receive me, and after the usual compliments, 
 I was invited to seat myself by their side. I per- 
 ceived that the lady was scanning me from head to 
 foot with a look of intense scrutiny. She then ad- 
 dressed me, with great courtesy and benevolence of 
 manner, in Arabic, which she spoke with great fluency, 
 although I thought from her accent, as well as from 
 her features and complexion, that she was not a 
 native of the East. 'You,' said she, 'are from the 
 land of the wise. It was in Chaldaea that science 
 first dawned ; it was there that astronomy, astrology, 
 and magic attained their highest perfection.' She 
 then asked me if I was skilled in astrology. I replied 
 that my father, being no great believer in the science, 
 had discouraged my studying it. This appeared to 
 cause her disappointment. ' I have devoted,* said 
 she, * much time to the study of the stars, and, I trust, 
 not without profit. For instance, on looking atten- 
 
 ^ I have abbreviated her prolix narrative. 
 
214 FATALISM [cH. v 
 
 tively at your countenance, whilst you were engaged 
 in conversation with my venerable friend, I, without 
 difficulty, made out the star under which your birth 
 took place. It is sufficient for me to look attentively 
 at the eyes and forehead of any person to tell with 
 certainty the star of his nativity, and yours is the 
 NejmaUeUAtared' " (Mercury). '' ' That is quite true,' 
 said I. ' An astrologer in Chaldaea told me the same 
 thing, and also the great astrologer in Damascus, 
 called Suleiman the Hakim.' 
 
 *' * I know him well,' said she, her countenance 
 lighting up at finding her divination confirmed, * and 
 there lives not a man more deeply skilled in the 
 divine art. We are all born under some of the 
 celestial bodies, and our destiny is settled in this 
 world by the benignant or malignant character of 
 our star. This is our fate, and it is idle and useless 
 to struggle against its resistless power. Whence 
 comes it that man conceives a mortal antipathy to 
 his fellow-man at first sight ? Because they were 
 born under stars having opposing influences. The 
 man born under the influence of the lamb will feel 
 an insupportable repugnance and dread when brought 
 in contact with one born under the sign of the tiger, 
 and will seek to avoid him. This is the decree of 
 
 fate.' 
 
 ** After some further conversation on astrology, I 
 began to speak of my project of paying a visit to 
 Europe, and the delight I anticipated on there be- 
 holding the Christian virtues displayed in all their 
 purity and splendour. At this the lady laughed 
 outright, and clapping her hands after the Eastern 
 fashion, said, 'You have been greatly imposed upon 
 by some designing person. Europe, it is true, was 
 once the home of Christianity and the school of 
 
1816-1823] DEGENERATE EUROPE 215 
 
 Christian virtue, but that is now as a tale that is 
 told — a thing of the past. The sun of Europe is set, 
 and in the hearts of her degenerate sons there re- 
 mains not so much as a spark of the virtues of their 
 forefathers. Piety and learning have been replaced 
 by low cunning and intrigue, by self seeking and 
 hypocrisy. You will see nothing but degeneracy and 
 corruption. Stay where you are, and you will at 
 least see religion, untainted with schemes of self- 
 interest or aggrandizement. I was both born and 
 bred in Europe ; I have travelled much, and mixed 
 in the society of most of the European communities, 
 and I solemnly assure you, you will bitterly regret 
 the day you quitted these peaceful mountains for 
 the strife and turmoil of society in the West.' 
 
 " A Druse scheik formed one of our party, who 
 pretended he could divine the hiding-place of treasure 
 concealed in the earth, and said he knew, at that very 
 moment, of a hoard buried on the shore, near the 
 place where, according to tradition, Jonas was cast 
 ashore by the whale. I asked him how it came to 
 pass that he had not turned this knowledge to his 
 own advantage ? 
 
 " * The reason is plain,' said he, * for it is well 
 known that if the magician once turns his art to 
 further his own ends, and increase his wealth, his 
 power straightway leaves him, never to return.' 
 
 ''This, I thought, looked very like a poor subter- 
 fuge to avoid being put to the proof. But the lady, 
 who, I discovered, was also a firm believer in the 
 magic art, said that the scheik was right, and that 
 the magician was forbidden to use his arts for his 
 own benefit. 
 
 " Soon afterwards she rose, and bidding us farewell, 
 tool^ her departure, attended by a large retinue,. A 
 
2i6 LADY HESTER'S HORSEMANSHIP [ch. v 
 
 spirited charger stood at the gate, champing his bit 
 with impatience. She put her foot in the stirrup, 
 and vaulting nimbly in the saddle, which she, after 
 the Oriental fashion, bestrode like a man, started oflF 
 at a rapid pace, galloping over rock and mountain 
 in advance of her suite with a fearlessness and 
 address which would have done honour to a Mame- 
 luke. 
 
 " I was extremely curious to know the name of this 
 eccentric lady, and put the question to my host. 
 *That,* said he, *is Lady Hester Stanhope.'" 
 
 After this first introduction they met pretty often. 
 *'The Queen of Tadmor," as Lady Hester was com- 
 monly called by the Bedouin tribes, was on most 
 friendly terms with the Emir Beshyr, and a constant 
 visitor to his garden. In one part of this garden was 
 a paddock, in which were kept the kehaitaniy or horses 
 of noble blood, whose genealogies, preserved with 
 religious care, were said to extend in an unbroken 
 line to the parent stock in the stables of King 
 Solomon. 
 
 **Lady Hester, who was one of the boldest horse- 
 women I ever saw, so much so as to excite the highest 
 admiration of the Arabs, themselves the best horse- 
 men in the world — often riding fearlessly along ridges, 
 and the steep and rocky sides of mountains, where 
 every step seemed to threaten destruction— frequently 
 spent hours, smoking her n^rghileh, and admiring 
 these beautiful steeds, which, to the number of fifty 
 or more, stood, their forelegs chained to a spike 
 driven into the ground, grazing before her. 
 
 *' Among them was a bay mare of extraordinary 
 beauty, which the Emir Beshyr had purchased from 
 a sheick for a large sum — forty purses, as near as I 
 remember. Seeing that Lady Hester had taken a 
 
1816-1823] THE "HORSE BORN SADDLED" 217 
 
 particular fancy to this mare, the Emir made her a 
 present of her, sending at the same time the sanad^ 
 or certificate of her descent on both sides, from a 
 noble race, havirlg all the qualities of the mares 
 spoken of by the Prophet, whose * teats shall be 
 treasures, and their backs thrones of honour.' 
 
 "With her he sent a beautiful she ass'* (Lady 
 Hester sometimes drank ass's milk), " said to be a 
 lineal descendant of the ass on which our Saviour 
 rode on His entry to Jerusalem. (! !) 
 
 **Some months afterwards, Lady Hester sent a 
 messenger to inform us that the mare had given birth 
 to a foal of great beauty, having on its back a remark- 
 able excrescence, that formed a complete natural saddle 
 of the Turkish form. There is a tradition in the East 
 that at the Messiah's second coming He will come 
 riding on a horse having a natural saddle on his back." 
 
 Lady Hester announced this accordingly as a 
 miracle, and declared '*she would reserve the foal 
 for the use of the Regenerator, whose coming she 
 awaited, whereat the Emir, who by no means sym- 
 pathised with this delusion, laughed outright." ^ 
 
 The ** horse born saddled " had now come into the 
 world; but where was the "boy without a father"? 
 He failed to put in an appearance, though Lady 
 Hester expected him long and anxiously, and looked, 
 it is said, for the coming of the Duke of Reichstadt ! 
 The " woman from a far country " announced herself 
 in 1835. (See p. 314.) 
 
 Lady Hester had now broken off all intercourse 
 with her own country. One after the other, she 
 dropped her English correspondents, till at last she 
 had ceased to write even to her favourite brother. 
 The following letters are addressed to Viscount 
 Strangford, our Ambassador at Constantinople, who 
 was a stranger to her. She was then, for some 
 reason or other, at daggers drawn with the English 
 
 * No dates are given ; but from internal evidence this must have 
 been in 1820-22. 
 
2i8 A BLOOD-FEUD [ch. v 
 
 Consul at Beyrout ; and it is characteristic that she 
 points out to Lord Strangford a gentleman whom 
 she considers far better fitted for the post. I may 
 add that this hostility was, like a blood-feud, carried 
 on to his successor, and seemed, in fact, to cling to 
 every one who held the appointment. 
 
 Lady Hester to Lord Strangford 
 
 " Mount Lebanon, 
 
 '''March 12th, 1823. 
 
 " My Lord, — Your Lordship will undoubtedly hear 
 of the violent disputes which have taken place at 
 Beyrout between the Consuls. It is not my intention 
 to state facts which I have an imperfect knowledge 
 of, or to give my opinion upon them, but I beg your 
 Lordship*s permission to speak candidly upon the 
 character of the persons concerned. . . . Since my 
 residence in Syria I have ever avoided interfering 
 with the intrigues of Consuls of afiy nation^ and have 
 never employed any of them to transact business for 
 me further than, if by chance a box or letter has been 
 directed to their care, they have simply forwarded it 
 and received a receipt. I have avoided the society 
 of all the Consuls on the coast. ... It often happens 
 that those who pass their papers through Mr. Abbott's 
 office (because of the flag they bear) have orders to 
 consign their merchandise to Mr. Laurello. This has 
 created a most violent jealousy on the part of the other 
 Consuls and agents, and particularly in Mr. Abbott, 
 in whose character it would be difficult to find one 
 good point, except his attachment to Sir S. Smith. 
 I consider Mr. Abbott and Yakoub Aga, the new 
 Consul of Sayda (a disgraced Armenian Bishop), men 
 of such disgraceful characters, that I fairly state to 
 your Lordship that no situation, however disagreeable, 
 I might be placed in in this country by unforeseen 
 events, could oblige m^ to have any communicatioa 
 
1816-1823] JOHN BULL 219 
 
 with these sort of men. Mr. Aubin, who has been 
 turned out of the French Agency, not knowing how 
 to gain his bread or how to employ his time, dedicates 
 .it to intrigue ; and old Youssif Massad always takes 
 the side which he thinks most to his advantage at the 
 present moment. What I have said of these persons 
 to your Lordship I am perfectly ready to say to their 
 face, and a great deal more. My candour I hope will 
 not have displeased you, as it has ever been my 
 custom to use strong language, that I might not be 
 misunderstood, without meaning the least disrespect 
 towards the person addressed. Far be it from me to 
 dictate to your Lordship, but I think I may feel assured, 
 that were you fully aware of the state of the country 
 and of existing circumstances, you would deem it proper 
 to send a man like Mr. Hamilton, whose personal 
 merit, as well as being known to enjoy your Lordship's 
 confidence, would ensure him respect. . . . When I 
 abuse Consuls, I must not forget to make an exception 
 in favour of Mr. Barker, who is a very good sort of 
 John Bull ; it is well known, I believe, that I have no 
 particular admiration for those who bear that title, as 
 they in general partake of the heaviness of their 
 atmosphere. Mr. Barker possesses in a high degree 
 one of the necessary qualifications of a John Bull, 
 that is, considering the person of a king like that of 
 the Great Lama ; it is quite criminal to make any 
 distinction, or make any comparison between upstarts 
 and those who have reigned for centuries. Poor Mr. 
 Barker, however, has suffered very much from earth- 
 quakes, but has borne all his losses with cheerful 
 resignation, and has tried to persuade me by a letter 
 of eight pages that an earthquake is necessary to 
 human happiness, being ordained by Providence to 
 purify the air. I cannot agree with his philosophy 
 
220 "ODDS AND ENDS" [ch. v 
 
 more than with his politics. There is only one point 
 upon which we ever have agreed for these ten years 
 past, and that was not finally settled till he paid a 
 visit to England four years ago, that the scanty dishes 
 upon an English board do not give one a distinct 
 idea of Roast Beef hospitality, and must be particu- 
 larly striking to persons used to be served in dishes 
 which in other countries might be mistaken for 
 washing tubs." 
 
 This letter is endorsed "Odds and Ends" by the 
 Ambassador, and was probably left unanswered, for 
 on February 7th, 1824, she resumes the subject with 
 fresh vehemence. 
 
 " About twenty years ago I saw Mr. Abbott when 
 he landed in England from a French prison, and when 
 he came to this country I showed him that degree of 
 civility which I thought etiquette towards an English- 
 man established on the coast required. He was the 
 bearer of a letter from Sir S. Smith — a rhapsody of 
 nonsense, which I did not choose to answer. I told 
 Mr. Abbott, in my first interview with him, that I 
 desired he would not communicate any of his plans 
 to me (which he had expressed a wish to do), as I 
 would neither give him opinion or advice upon any 
 subject except that which concerned his household 
 affairs, and when established at Beyrout, there I left 
 him; but when he chose to give English protection 
 to Yakoub Aga, a murderer and a thief, and to set 
 him up Consul at Sayda, the most infamous woman 
 in the country married to him by one of Mr. Abbott's 
 clerks, his first wife still living, I acquainted Mr. 
 Abbott verbally, by Michel Tolungi, that I wished him 
 to abstain from any further intercourse with me, and 
 that if any letters or boxes by accident fell into his 
 
1816-1823] BASTINADO 221 
 
 hands, he would immediately deliver them over to 
 Mr. Laurello at Beyrout, who has been my agent at 
 that place for some years. Yakoub Aga expressed 
 an intention to pay me a visit, and his wife expressed 
 her intention to run away from her husband, to whom 
 she had been given by force by Mr. Abbott (with the 
 assistance of Turkish soldiers), and to seek protection 
 under my roof. These two proposals I peremptorily 
 refused, and declared I would not have the smallest 
 connection with them, and that if they troubled me with 
 any other messages I would bastinado the bearer^ which 
 I did. . , . Whatever Mr. Abbott's powers may be, I 
 shall resist them by force^ nor shall any human force 
 connect me with persons whose superiors in merit 
 are to be found in Newgate. I am a stranger to your 
 Lordship, but you may learn from those that know 
 me that no power on earth can make me change a 
 determination I have once made. When murder, 
 theft, and falsehood are no longer crimes in the eyes 
 of a Supreme Being, I may then, but not till then, 
 speak more mildly of those that are their protectors. 
 I never had any love for intrigue; intrigue is the 
 arms of the weak. I have no wish to meddle with 
 Mr. Abbott or any other Consul, but I shall ever 
 assert that they have no right to interfere with me, 
 without I call upon them so to do ; and I should be 
 obliged to your Lordship to convey to me the know- 
 ledge of what person or persons I am to address to, 
 to prevent Mr. Abbott and his colleagues interfering 
 with me or my laflFairs during my life or after my 
 demise. I am not a person hkely to leave any money 
 behind me, and whatever personal property I may 
 possess in this country I have already bequeathed to 
 Miss Williams ; and whatever provision my stores 
 may contain at the time of my death may serve to feed 
 
222 *' MISERABLE REPTILES" [en. v 
 
 the orphans in my house, and the blind and lame, 
 which I protect, as long as they will last. These 
 persons are subjects of the Sultan, and Mr. Abbott 
 has nothing to do with them. . . . You must not fancy 
 me, my Lord, in a fit of low spirits, on the contrary ; 
 but as my death has lately been forestalled, both at 
 Beyrout and at Sayda, in an indirect way, and the 
 vengeance that shall be hurled upon my servants, I 
 think it right to think of the poor creatures I may 
 leave behind me ; of this foresight your Lordship can 
 surely not disapprove, but as long as I have breath 
 they have nothing to fear. My Lord, I might bow 
 my head to an axe wielded by the hand of a manly 
 tyrant, whose great qualities, from excess, had in the 
 end become vices ; but as for a set of miserable 
 reptiles, I shall ever set them at defiance, whatever 
 risk I may run. ... If I have not the right to choose 
 my own religion, I have again sinned by not allowing 
 a set of missionaries to use my name in this country 
 in the promulgation of a sort of bastard religion, which 
 meets with the approbation of no religious sect what- 
 ever. The imputation of vanity can only be attached 
 to worldly concerns, therefore I trust your Lordship 
 will not accuse me of this foible if I simply repeat the 
 opinion given by the wisest men of the East, and some 
 of them the most profound metaphysicians I have ever 
 met with, 'that if I was capable of reading and calcu- 
 lating in Oriental languages, I should exceed any of 
 them in knowledge upon sublime subjects.' It is 
 quite ludicrous that a set of pettifogging missionaries 
 should come here to open the eyes of people whose 
 shoes they are not worthy to untie, and before whom 
 even one of the best French philosophers would 
 appear like a quack doctor ; but it is needless for me 
 to reason any more upon this subject, as the Pope 
 
ilSr6-iB23] MISHMOUSHY ^^1 
 
 has ordered all their Bibles to be burnt. God willing, 
 like Horace, I shall trim my vines, and contemplate 
 the beauties of Nature in this solitary spot, until the 
 veil of ignorance is withdrawn from the eyes of all 
 j-udgitig men ; but I will not allow anybody to inter- 
 fere with me, and I hope your Lordship will not 
 allow it either." 
 
 Enclosed is a very angry note from Mr. Abbott in 
 answer to a peremptory order she had sent him '* in 
 a sort of French," declaring that *' his public duties 
 are too well defined to need any comment " from her ; 
 that " he is not conscious of ever having entertained 
 a wish to meddle with her affairs," and that it would 
 be very desirable that she should be equally scrupulous 
 in regard to his. 
 
 Lady Hester to Lord Strangford 
 
 " MiSHMOUSHY 
 
 (a small hamlet on the top of Lebanon), 
 
 . " October ^th^ 1823. 
 
 ** That I should have received a letter from your 
 Lordship, full of every honourable and good feeling, 
 and not be able to answer it in my own handwriting, 
 is truly mortifying to me. My health has been very 
 indifferent for more than a year past, and 1 am now 
 confined by illness to my bed, at a small hamlet on 
 the top of Lebanon, which I fled to, to get rid of the 
 intense heat, which this year has been intolerable 
 towards the foot of the mountain. 
 
 ** Your Lordship will pardon me if I am rather 
 prolix in my account of the business in question. . . . 
 
 ** Immediately after the Pacha had received his 
 pardon,^ arrived a horseman with a letter for me, and, 
 although 1 cannot read Arabic, I instantly recognised 
 the Pacha's own handwriting, and, therefore, that it 
 
 ^ This was Abdalla, Pacha of Acre, whose head the Sultan had 
 twice demanded for treason and perfidy. He was pardoned through 
 the intercession of the Emir Beshyr, on paying a fine of 3,000 purses. 
 
224 THE PACHA OF ACRE [ch. v 
 
 must be something of particular consequence. I had 
 no person about me whom I could trust with the 
 reading of this letter. I sent for an Effendi, a par- 
 ticular friend of mine ; he is a man of integrity, and a 
 man of the world, for he served in his youth some 
 of the greatest Pachas in Syria. I gave him the letter. 
 I perceived he changed colour twenty times. He said, 
 * This is a beautifully-written letter, a statement of the 
 Pacha's sufferings, of the Sultan's mercy towards him, 
 and of his fervent wish to exactly fulfil all that had 
 been promised for him ; he therefore requests of your 
 friendship to send him a bill of exchange for one 
 hundred purses.' I answered, * I have not one 
 farthing at Constantinople. I have closed my account 
 with Mr. Sarell ; it is my future intention to draw 
 money by the way of Malta, and I have written to 
 England to that effect ; therefore, what can I do ? ' 
 The Effendi replied, ^ I do not wish to influence you, 
 but have I the permission to tell you the truth ? * I 
 said, * Certainly.' He said, * Whatever you may say, 
 1 know it will only be considered an excuse, and you 
 know best whether, under these extraordinary cir- 
 cumstances (as it is the price of his blood which he is 
 bound to pay), you like it to be considered that you 
 gave a positive refusal.' I reflected that this probably 
 came from his wife, the only surviving child of my 
 old friend Soliman Pacha. Could I appear unfeeling 
 to the darling of my dear old friend ? . . . I then 
 began to consider what was to be done. ... As the 
 Pacha promised in his letter to repay me in thirty-one 
 days, it was my intention to send oflf the money, and 
 trust to Mr. Sarell's liberality to make up the 
 difference of the exchange between here and Con- 
 stantinople, until I could repay him. Contented in 
 my own mind with this arrangement, and believing 
 
1816-1823] MISHMOUSHY 225 
 
 that I had done right in relieving the mind of that 
 poor woman (as far as my little exertions could avail), 
 who had gone through more unhappiness than it is 
 possible to express, I sent off the Effendi to Acre to 
 explain to the Pacha how I was situated, but having 
 a sincere wish to serve him, I sent him a bill of 
 exchange for sixty purses, more I could not send, 
 relying upon Mr. Sarell's liberality with your Lord- 
 ship's intercession." 
 
 It seems, however, that Mr. Sarell did not 
 
 " Behave like a gentleman. Now, my Lord," she 
 continues, " have I done right or wrong ? Which- 
 ever I may have done, I have acted from the impulse 
 of my nature, for the point of a sword resting on 
 my heart would chill it much less than a cold face 
 in misfortune. God knows I have seen too much of 
 apathy in my progress through life. Day after day 
 have I expected the Pacha to pay me the money, 
 which he has not done, owing to the bad state of his 
 finances, and hourly haye I expected the letter of 
 credit upon Malta ; but I have reason to believe that 
 my letter on this subject has been lost. . . . The only 
 concern I now feel in the business is the trouble I 
 have occasioned your Lordship ; but had I not caused 
 you this trouble, I should have been ignorant of the 
 extent of the liberality of your nature and the kindness 
 of your disposition, which have made a lasting im- 
 pression on my mind, . . . Should your Lordship 
 honour me with another letter, I hope you will have 
 the goodness to direct it to the care of the Chevalier 
 Laurello, Austrian Consul, who is my agent at 
 Beyrout, for I cannot have any communication with 
 Mr. Abbott, whom I consider as one of the most 
 impudent, bombast, lying, unclean-handed fellows 
 16 
 
226 DR. WOLFF [ch. v 
 
 that can be. It is a very good thing for him that I 
 am not the Ambassador, for I should flog him within 
 an inch of his life, if it should turn out that by his lies 
 he had drawn from me a letter which, under the 
 supposed circumstances, might be made use of to 
 my disadvantage. I know the Turks very well ; they 
 are very fins. The Government wish to see how 
 many more lies he will tell, and when the budget of 
 lies is finished, your Lordship will then hear the truth 
 from them. I never have made the smallest shuffle 
 with the Turks, either good or bad, and therefore 
 have never had any trouble with them. When the 
 country was all in confusion, I shared the fate of 
 everybody else in being very uncomfortable ; but it 
 arose more from general circumstances than from 
 any personal conduct. 
 
 ** Before I conclude, I must beg leave to renew my 
 thanks to your Lordship, and my excuses for the 
 trouble I have caused you." 
 
 One of the missionaries she attacks must have been 
 the converted Jew, Dr. Wolff, with whom she had a 
 fierce passage of arms. Here is his own account of it : 
 
 '* In the year 1823 I travelled with Captain the Hon. 
 John Caradoc, now Lord Howden, from Jerusalem to 
 Sayda, from which latter place, as being near to Lady 
 Hester's residence, I forwarded to Miss Williams a 
 letter from her sister, Mrs. David, which had been 
 entrusted to me by that lady, and to which 1 added a 
 note from myself, saying that I should be happy to 
 forward her answer to her sister at Malta. One hour 
 after, a letter arrived from Lady Hester herself, the 
 contents of which were as follows : 
 
 " * I am astonished that an apostate should dare to 
 thrust himself into notice in my family. Had you 
 
i8i6~i823] MISHMOUSHY 227 
 
 been a learned Jew, you never would have abandoned 
 a religion, rich in itself, although defective, to embrace 
 the shadow of one. Light travels faster than sound ; 
 therefore the Supreme Being could never have allowed 
 His creatures to be left in utter darkness, until paid 
 and speculating wanderers deem it proper to raise 
 their venal voice to enlighten them. 
 
 " * Hester Lucy Stanhope.' '* 
 
 Dr. Wolff to Lady Hester 
 
 " Saida, 
 
 **y^^ 1823. 
 ** Madam, — I have just received a letter which bears 
 your signature, but I doubt its being genuine, as I 
 never wrote to your Ladyship, nor did I mention your 
 name in my letter to Miss Williams. 
 
 *' With regard to my views and pursuits, they give 
 me perfect tranquillity and happiness, and they must 
 be quite immaterial to your Ladyship. 
 
 ** Your humble servant, 
 
 ** Joseph Wolff." 
 
 The messenger declared that ** the King of England's 
 daughter had ordered him to be bastinadoed and kicked 
 downstairs. There were no stairs at Djoun, but she 
 may have had the man chastised. She had, 1 fear, 
 adopted Eastern methods as well as Eastern habits. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 DjouN— Captain Yorke, R.N.— Dr. Meryon 
 
 1823— 1830 
 
 I HAVE given these letters consecutively, without a 
 strict attention to dates ; for, correctly speaking, the 
 following one to Dr. Meryon should have preceded the 
 three last. 
 
 It appears that, the year before, the doctor had 
 offered to come back and resume his attendance upon 
 her. He was now married, and had been endeavouring 
 to establish a practice in London, in which he had not 
 succeeded. It was urgent that he should obtain some 
 employment, and in his difficulty he turned his 
 thoughts to Djoun. Lady Hester, though she was, 
 as she writes, *' surprised at his offer, so often re- 
 peated," was glad to accept it. Unfortunately, 
 communication with Syria was a very slow process; 
 letters were months on the road ; and while he was 
 waiting to hear when she expected him, he received 
 an eligible offer from a gentleman in England, which 
 he unhesitatingly accepted. Consequently, when Lady 
 Hester's letter arrived, directing him when to start, he 
 was ** placed in the painful dilemma " (1 am quoting his 
 own words) " of being obliged to apologize to her for 
 not being able at that time to join her." She was 
 naturally indignant at this breach of faith. 
 
 Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon 
 
 ''July loth, 1823. 
 
 " I shall not either scold or reproach you ; I only 
 
 hope that the line you have taken will turn out in the 
 
 end to your advantage. I confess I am sorry and 
 
 mortified that, after having rendered me several 
 
 228 
 
1823-1830] DJOUN 229 
 
 services, you are still in a situation so little inde- 
 pendent. Were I inclined to be angry, it would be 
 with . . .,^ for, had he been like the chevaliers of {ormer 
 times, he would have said, * Doctor, however it may 
 be inconvenient for me to part with you at present, I 
 so much respect your motives, and so much admire 
 your fidelity, that so far from opposing, allow me to 
 promote your views ; and I beg you will accept of 
 this purse for your little wants. When you have 
 finished with it, I trust you will consider me as your 
 next friend ; and I flatter myself I may expect from 
 you the same proofs of attachment.' But the world 
 is spoilt ; no good feeling exists ; all is egotism. . . . 
 I have no right to demand permanent sacrifices of 
 you or others. The time will come when you will 
 see with deep regret whether or not I have taken 
 into consideration your interests, as well as my own 
 personal convenience. I was surprised at your offer, 
 so often repeated, and less surprised at your conduct, 
 as a doubt often had occurred to my own mind, if 
 temptations of any kind happened to be thrown in 
 your way, whether or not you would have strength 
 of mind to refuse present advantage and comfort. You 
 have acted as you judged best, and as you thought 
 circumstances authorized you to do ; but you never 
 can persuade me that General Grenville, the soul of 
 honour and feeling, could ever have recommended a 
 man to break his word. Had you simply asked him, 
 before you had made up your mind, * Shall I keep my 
 word and go, or accept of these offers ? Give me, I do 
 entreat, your candid opinion,' I know what it would 
 have beeil. But, having decided, what would you have 
 
 ^ The gentleman for whom he had thrown her over. The doctor, 
 *' in justice to this honourable individual," explains that he knew 
 nothing of the pre-engagement to Lady Hester. Had he done so, he 
 could scarcely have made his offer. 
 
230 "A HEAVEN-BORN SAGE" [ch. vi 
 
 him say? — that I should be angry ? No ; he knew me 
 too well not to be aware that no sacrifice, which I did 
 not believe to be a voluntary one, could have any 
 value in my estimation. 
 
 " I cannot explain my feelings without seeming to 
 praise myself. I make one rule for my own line of 
 conduct, and one for that of others, and have two 
 separate judgments ; I mean, one regulated by truth 
 and feeling, and one after the fashion of what is 
 thought right in the world. I never judge myself 
 and those I really love by the latter. I wish them 
 to be pure and high-minded, and to have confidence 
 in God's mercy, if they act from true principle. But 
 you worldly slaves of bon ton must not be tried by 
 such a test. Mr. Murray was right — * She will not be 
 angry,' — no, because she thinks you all children; I 
 mean, the gay world, of which you now make a part. 
 
 ** I need not have said all this, but it is a hint as to 
 the future, when the folly and uselessness of modern 
 ideas and calculations will be at an end. I have been 
 thought mad — ridiculed and abused ; but it is out of 
 the power of man to change my way of thinking upon 
 any subject. Without a true faith, there can be no 
 true system of action. All the learned of the East 
 pronounce me to be an Ulema min Allah'' (a heaven-born 
 sage), "as I can neither write nor read" (Arabic); 
 " but my reasoning is profound, according to the laws 
 of Nature. 
 
 '* I shall say nothing of this part of the world, where 
 I had lately announced your speedy arrival to my 
 particular friends and to my family.^ Your interest 
 about matters here must now be at an end, and it 
 fatigues me so to write, that, without it is a case of 
 absolute necessity, I must give it up* I have no 
 
 * The Arab tribe to which she was affiliated. • . 
 
1823-1830] DJOUN 231 
 
 assistance. My two dragomans are low-minded, 
 curious, vulgar men, in whom I can put no confidence. 
 In short, they can only be called very bad, idle 
 servants, having no one property of a gentleman 
 belonging to them. 
 
 *' James's loss ^— the General's death — all has afflicted 
 me beyond description. I heard of James's affliction 
 six months after. To write — not to write — no proper 
 conveyance — what to say — after a year, perhaps, to 
 open the wounds of his heart without being able to 
 pour in one drop of the balm of consolation ! What 1 
 say would be vain. He considers me as a sort of poor 
 mad woman, who has once loved him, therefore he is 
 kind to me ; but as to my opinion having weight — no ! 
 To be considered as a sort of object is not flattering ; 
 but so let it be. There is no remedy for it, or other 
 evils, except in the hand of God, which, if He will 
 stretch forward to save me, all may vanish ; if not, I 
 shall vanish, for I am quite worn out. . . . Remember, 
 I shall give no opinion about you to any one ; there- 
 fore, do not fancy, if you see a change in persons' 
 conduct, it comes from me. The world and fashionable 
 loungers take up new favourites every day, and discard 
 the old ones without reason. All are not General 
 Grenvilles. No one so likely to be mortified at this 
 as you. 
 
 ** Why do you not talk to me of James's poor little 
 children ? and why not have asked to see them ? 
 Have you forgotten how all about him interests me?" 
 
 The next year (1824) brought poor Lady Hester the 
 only remaining gleam of good fortune that was hence^ 
 forward to fall to her lot. She found a friend — her 
 
 * James Stanhope had married in 1820 Lady Frederica Murray, 
 daughter of the Earl of Mansfield, who died after the birth of hex 
 second child in 1823. 
 
232 CAPTAIN YORKE, R.N. [ch. vi 
 
 last friend, and one of the best and truest she ever 
 had. 
 
 In November, Captain Yorke (afterwards Earl of 
 Hardwicke), who was cruising in the Levant in the 
 Alacrity, cast anchor at Say da, and sent to know if he 
 could be of any service to her. She had now got out 
 of the habit of receiving visitors, and admitted very 
 few — Englishmen least of all, but she had known 
 some of the Yorkes in old times, and sent him the 
 following note : 
 
 ** If Captain Yorke can leave his ship for a day, 
 Lady Hester Stanhope will be happy to see him at her 
 house at Djoun, and has ordered her dragoman at 
 Seyd, Michael, to wait to accompany Captain Yorke. 
 As the roads in this part of the country are very bad, 
 Lady Hester has sent a mule down, which Captain 
 Yorke may perhaps prefer to a horse." 
 
 Captain Yorke accordingly came to Djoun, and 
 wrote to his father this account of his visit : 
 
 " Djoun, 
 
 ^'•Sunday Night, Novefnber 2%th, 
 
 ** After leaving Beyrout, we next let go the anchor 
 at Seida (Sidon), once so famed, and now a very 
 tolerable Turkish town. . . . Here my attention was 
 agreeably deviated from examining much of the town 
 and its contents by the circumstance of my despatch- 
 ing a civil line, with Captain Y.*s compliments, to 
 Lady Hester Stanhope, offering my services in any 
 way, to take letters, &c., to Malta, or elsewhere that 
 I might be going. Lady Hester for some years has 
 refused to see English people, therefore I had not a 
 hope that she would give me an interview, and in 
 my note I never hinted at it, but to my surprise, on 
 the evening of my anchoring, her Armenian inter- 
 preter came on board with a kind note, by which I 
 found that a borse and escort were at Seida, waiting 
 
1823-1830] LADY HESTER'S HOUSE 233 
 
 to conduct me, when I might please, to Djoun, her 
 residence in Libanus, about three hours from Seida. 
 Accordingly, on the following morning, with Luca, 
 my Armenian interpreter, in company, we started for 
 the residence of her Ladyship. The ride, uninterest- 
 ing from any circumstance but that of actually being 
 on Mount Lebanon, deserves no remark — sterile, and 
 but little cultivated in this part. Her residence is 
 on an eminence, about ten miles from the sea, which 
 it overlooks ; on the other side, it does not look into 
 the bosom of the valley of Bishra, yet it is high 
 enough to enjoy the beautiful verdure of the moun- 
 tains rising on the opposite side, whose tops are the 
 most lofty of Libanus. The air is pure, the scenery 
 bold. On a hill, about a mile to the southward of 
 her habitation, is a village which flourishes in the 
 sunshine of her favour and protection. Her house 
 is a neat building, a mixture of Oriental and English. 
 From the entrance-gate a passage (on either side of 
 which is a guard-room, and some apartments for 
 soldiers and servants) (leads ?) to a square yard, 
 halfway across which is a terrace with three steps, 
 round which terrace are the different apartments of 
 servants, interpreters, as also spare rooms for visitors; 
 on the left side of the terrace, under a lattice-work 
 of wood, woven with roses and jasmine, I was ushered, 
 and shown into a small apartment furnished in the 
 Eastern style. The Chibouque and coffee were in- 
 stantly brought by a French youth in the costume 
 of a Mameluke, with compliments from Milady, 
 begging I would refresh myself after my fatigue. 
 On my ablutions being finished, I was sent for. 
 Passing through several passages, I was shown into 
 a room, rather dark, with a curtain drawn across, 
 which 6n being a little withdrawn, I found myself in 
 
234 LADY HESTER AT DJOUN [ch. vi 
 
 the presence of a Bedouin Arab chief, who soon 
 turned out to be Lady Hester. She expressed great 
 joy at seeing the son of one of the most honest 
 families in England ; so she was pleased to express 
 herself. She received me as an English lady of fashion 
 would have done. I at once became delighted with 
 her wit, her knowledge, and, I must say, her beauty, 
 for she is still one of the finest specimens of a woman 
 I ever saw. She spoke much of Uncle Charles. Her 
 conversation animated beyond any person I ever met ; 
 she was in great spirits ; her dress, which well became 
 her gigantic person, very rich. I shall pass over our 
 conversation, which was full of histories of marvels 
 and wonders, manners and customs of the people, 
 plague, pestilence and famine, &c., &c. I went back 
 to the brig the following day, and returned in the 
 afternoon to Djoun, taking with me Mr. Forrester, my 
 surgeon, who she requested I would allow to arrange 
 her medicines, which were in confusion and disorder. 
 *' In the evening she sent for me ; she smoked the 
 Chibouque ; her mind was wrought to a high pitch of 
 enthusiasm ; she talked wildly, and was much dis- 
 tressed in mind ; in short, her intellects were much 
 disordered, and it was very distressing. However, 
 she arranged that I should next morning start for 
 Der-il-Kamman, the capital of the Druses, with a 
 letter to the Emir Beshir^ the prince of that nation. I 
 perceive that were I to begin a description, I should 
 waste much good paper without stating anything 
 that is new. The Druses are a most extraordinary 
 people; the palace of the Emir superb; the country 
 richly cultivated by the greatest labour, being all in 
 ridges on the sides of the mountains ; but I shall 
 refer you to Mr. Hope^s ' Anastasius ■ for a good 
 description, and for all that is supposed, for nothing 
 
1823-1830] CAPTAIN YORKE VISITS THE DRUSES 235 
 
 is known^ of their religion. The Emir treated us with 
 much kindness, and I stayed two days in his palace, 
 where we had apartments ; visited him in the fore- 
 noon, after which he did not interfere with our 
 pleasure ; excellent living, about forty dishes served 
 to about four people for dinner. On a visit to the 
 Emir was the son of the Pacha of Damascus, who 
 offered me to accompany him back to that city, 
 where he said I should reside in the palace of his 
 father, and see all that was to be seen. Such an 
 offer almost tempted me to cut the Alacrity. I sup- 
 pose a Christian hardly ever had such an opportunity, 
 which he was obliged to lose. Lady Hester said it 
 was my ' hijim,' or star, that got me into such favour. 
 On the third morning we breakfasted at Der-il- 
 Kamman, the town, about one mile distant from 
 Petedeen (the palace), and returned to Djoun, arriving 
 late that night. 
 
 " She made me several presents, the most valuable 
 of which I sent home to your charge by Euryalus. 
 She has written to me once since. 
 
 '^ I wrote a letter to Lord Chatham about her. As 
 I know her family knew httle or nothing about her, I 
 in a manner found myself called on. 
 
 *' Much more I could write, but really just now my 
 attention is so much called off by continual callings 
 from Captain Hamilton, who sends for me on every 
 occasion, that this despatch will be curtailed ; but I 
 trust that more particulars will come viva voce'' 
 
 Captain Yorke to Lord Chatham 
 
 *'HMS, Alacrity, 
 
 ■ ; '' February 2$^^, iSzS- 
 
 " My Lord,— I take the liberty of addressing you 
 on a subject of some interest to yourself; and I trust 
 
236 LADY HESTER'S PITIABLE STATE [CH. vi 
 
 in so doing I shall not be thought impertinent, as it 
 arises from the best intentions, and from a real feeling 
 of commiseration for her of whom I shall speak. 
 
 " It is a short time since I left the coast of Syria, 
 where I was most kindly invited to Djoun in Lebanon 
 by its possessor, Lady Hester Stanhope, your relation. 
 Particulars as to her mode of life you are well ac- 
 quainted with, no doubt ; so of that I shall not speak, 
 but of her distresses only, which, as far as I am 
 able to judge, are fast undermining her mind and 
 health. As she was open and frank to me, she made 
 me understand that absolute want of money was a 
 great source of uneasiness to her ; the house she now 
 lives in belonging to a Turk in Constantinople, who 
 threatens to turn her out when her lease was out, 
 which was three months when I saw her, if she does 
 not pay ;£"Soo for the entire purchase of the place. She 
 had not the money, she told me. Another source of 
 misery was the want of some good people about her, 
 a steady man-servant and a maid ; she begins much to 
 feel the want of these comforts, and I assure you they 
 are absolutely necessary for her. She is very forlorn, 
 and her mind has taken a very serious turn, much 
 impaired, and full of magic and divination. Nothing 
 will ever induce her to return to her native land ; in 
 fact, it is a dangerous experiment to try and persuade 
 her; but what would make her comfortable, and as 
 happy as she can be made in this world, would be to 
 purchase Djoun for her, and send such people as I 
 have described out to her. 
 
 '' She never will herself make known to her family 
 her distress ; her mind is too high, and knowing what 
 I do, I felt it rtiy duty to her, and to my fellow- 
 creature, to make it known to one of her family. You, 
 my Lord, I know, and you can make it known to her 
 
1823-1830] A REAL FRIEND 237 
 
 brother James,^ of whom she never ceases to talk, and 
 for whom she retains the warmest affection. One 
 thing must be taken care of, she must not know this is 
 done, or perhaps she would take some extraordinary 
 measure, such as flying away nobody knows where. 
 She threatens this continually if they try to get her to 
 England. 
 
 ** Her mind is so high, that, did she know I wrote 
 this, she would never bear to hear my name again. 
 
 ** I remain, my Lord, 
 
 " Your ever obliged servant, 
 
 **C. YORKE. 
 
 ** P.S. — I do sincerely hope some measures will be 
 taken to make her comfortable. She has not very long 
 to live, depend upon it. — C. Y." 
 
 Well might Lady Hester say of him (in writing to 
 Kinglake) : ** He is the kindest-hearted man existing 
 — a most manly, firm character. He comes from a 
 
 food breed — all the Yorkes excellent, with ancient 
 rench blood in their veins." He was a real and 
 constant friend. To the day of her death he never 
 failed her ; whenever she was in trouble or difficulty 
 (and when was she not ?) he was always at hand, 
 ready to help, comfort, and advise her — even though 
 his advice was never followed. The last letter she 
 probably ever wrote was addressed to him. 
 
 The first — that mentioned in his letter to his father — is 
 as follows : 
 
 Lady Hester to Captain Yorke 
 
 "Mount Lebanon, 
 
 ''Jan, Zth, 1825. 
 
 " Dear Captain Yorke, — The mountain which you 
 so much admired is shortly likely to be a scene of 
 bloodshed. All the Druse population has risen against 
 the Emir Beshyr in favour of the Sheick Beshyr, who, 
 
 ^ Considering the slow rate at which letters travelled in those days, 
 this appeal can never have reached her poor brother, who died only 
 a few weeks afterwards. 
 
238 " RASCALS OF CONSULS " [ch. vi 
 
 they say, is supported by the Pacha of Damascus 
 against the Pacha of Acre. The troops of the latter 
 are encamped from the bridge all along the river, and 
 he is expected to arrive to-morrow to head them. You 
 may guess what my situation is, but depend upon it 
 that I shall never want courage, or forget the duty 
 I owe to my fellow-creatures. Thank God, my cough 
 has left me nearly ; I was very, very ill indeed after 
 your departure for about a fortnight. Michael has 
 been recalled by his family ; his mother is ill. Yousef 
 is at Cyprus, and my other Yousef not yet returned 
 from Alexandria. When you see my good friend Mr. 
 Werry, who has always been so civil to me, tell him 
 that I am prepared to act as he has always done for 
 this thirty years past. Don't be uneasy about me ; 
 all is written above. I am never out of humour with 
 events, only with those cursed rascals of Consuls, 
 who deserve to be knocked into the kennel ; and 
 even if I was a man, I could not soil my sword with 
 anything so unclean. Remember me most kindly to 
 your uncle, and thank your doctor for the kind in- 
 terest he was so good as to take about my health. 
 A thousand thanks to yourself for the pearl barley. 
 As I am employed with fifty things at once, I have 
 dictated these few lines. It is said that another 
 revolution is expected in the Metouali country, which 
 is the range of mountains you saw above Sour, and 
 there is a road of communication between that moun- 
 tain and the mountains here, in the direction of that 
 high black mountain where I passed the summer. 
 This report is given credit to, as the Emir Beshyr 
 has ordered all the convents in that direction to 
 remove everything valuable ; it is supposed that these 
 people will join the mountaineers here. I have had 
 several civil messages from the camp from the Alba- 
 
^ 
 
 1823-1830] REVOLUTION 239 
 
 nians, Hawar^s, Sugmars, Del^tis, &c., but you know 
 that the officers cannot at times command troops, 
 great part of which are banditti, but all is written^ as I 
 said before. 
 
 " P.S. (in her own writing). — I am in better spirits 
 than when you saw me, for the sight of you brought 
 to my recollection old times^ and it was with difficulty 
 I could keep my ideas fixed upon what I was talking 
 about. I was oppressed in body and mind. Adieu. 
 
 '* Yours most sincerely, 
 
 " Hester Lucy Stanhope.'^ 
 
 This letter was sent through Dr. Meryon, probably 
 because Lady Hester was ignorant of Captain Yorke's 
 address in England; and with it came the following 
 enclosure : 
 
 Extract. 
 
 *' Mount Lebanon, 
 
 ^^ January %th^ 1825. 
 
 ** Although I have never interfered in any of the 
 political concerns of this country, and for many years 
 have avoided all social intercourse with great men, 
 the heads of parties, I could plainly see, by a sour 
 silent discontent, that the state of things was not much 
 to be rehed upon. 
 
 *' The revolution has now broken out, and the whole 
 mountain is in a flame. The Pacha's troops are en- 
 camped two hours from me, and he is expected to- 
 morrow. It is said he is in a violent passion. Whether 
 his intention of heading his own troops is only a threat 
 or his real intention I cannot pretend to say ; only 
 that preparations are made for his arrival. All the 
 villages about me are deserted except one, which 
 remains trembling between the troops on one side 
 and the mountaineers on the other; but they say 
 every place at Sayda is so full that they know not 
 
240 BARBAROUS REPRISALS [ch. vi 
 
 where to go to ; even the convents have been cleared of 
 everything valuable, and the priests are ready to fly. 
 My situation is not a very agreeable one — not that I 
 fear danger (for I do not know what fear means), but 
 from the great number of miserable people who have 
 announced their intention of taking refuge here if 
 they are driven from the asylum they have chosen, 
 presents me with the prospect of starvation if this 
 business last long, for these poor people are destitute 
 of everything. Here are two lines to Captain Yorke, 
 which you will be so good as to forward. Copy like- 
 wise what I say here. 
 
 ^' H. L. S." 
 
 This revolt, in which the Sheick Beshyr was joined 
 by a brother of the Emir Beshyr's and three of his 
 sons, might, according to Lamartine, have been 
 successful, but for the interposition of the Pacha of 
 Acre (the same Abdalla whose blood-fine Lady Hester 
 had helped to pay). He owed his life to the Prince of 
 the Mountain, and, mindful of his debt, now came to 
 help him to victory. The Sheick was utterly routed, 
 and took to flight, but was pursued and overtaken in 
 the plains of Damascus. He had an escort of two 
 hundred men, and might, it is said, easily have made 
 good his escape, had not a Turkish officer, who was 
 present, assured him that the Prince of the Mountain 
 had pardoned him. On the faith of this assurance, he 
 surrendered; but was instantly seized, carried off to 
 Damascus, stripped, bound, and thrown into prison. 
 There he remained for some months, till his death- 
 sentence had been pronounced by the Porte ; he was 
 then strangled, beheaded, and his body cut up into 
 bits and thrown to the dogs. The three young 
 princes were also captured, and the Emir wreaked a 
 terrible vengeance on his unfortunate nephews. He 
 burnt out their eyes, cut out their tongues, and sent 
 them out of the country. The Sheick's wife had fled 
 with her young son ; but he sent after her, had her 
 brought back, and demanded of her the little boy, saying, 
 ** Let me see him cut to pieces before my eyes." Yet 
 
1823-1830] DEATH OF COL. JAMES STANHOPE 241 
 
 this treacherous barbarian was the same Prince of the 
 Mountain who was Lady Hester's near neighbour, 
 and had been her friend, with whom she had spent a 
 month at her first coming to the country, and 
 described as a " mild, amiable man ! " (see p. 126). 
 She was now horror-struck at these atrocities (besides 
 others too shocking for me to repeat) and openly 
 denounced him, even to his own people, as " a dog 
 and a monster." He became her bitterest enemy, and 
 his close vicinity a perpetual menace and trouble to 
 the household at Djoun. 
 
 Lady Hester was now to experience the last and 
 crowning sorrow of her life. Two months after she 
 wrote to Captain Yorke, on March 25th, 1825, she lost 
 the brother she had so dearly loved. There is no one 
 to tell us when she received, nor how she bore the 
 news of this calamity ; no one was near to help and 
 care for her, but her faithful old servant Elizabeth. 
 Had it not been for her, she must have met and faced 
 her bereavement alone. We do not know whether 
 her courage failed, or her health broke down ; a pall 
 of silence, tragic and solemn, falls over the dark days 
 that followed. All we know is, that from this time 
 forth her whole mode of life was changed. She was 
 never seen outside her garden wall again. 
 
 One grieves most for those whose sorrow is 
 desolate ; whose cry of distress reaches no loving 
 ear ; whose hand is stretched out for a kindred hand 
 in vain. Lady Hester was truly forlorn in her 
 affliction, thousands of miles away from all that 
 belonged to her, in a strange and far-distant land. 
 Yet, even then, her heart did not turn homewards. 
 Even then, a word of sympathy that came from 
 England was not welcome. Her only surviving 
 sister. Lady Griselda, hoping that she might now, 
 perhaps, break the long silence that had grown up 
 between them, wrote to her several times after poor 
 James's death. " I thought it would be consolatory 
 to her to hear something of his child and the rest of 
 the family. My letters were written in a kind and 
 conciliatory spirit, and did not enter into any family 
 disagreements, but she took no notice whatever of 
 them." She mentions this as the only communication 
 that passed between them for thirty years. 
 
 Colonel Stanhope had, five years before his death, 
 
 17 
 
242 USURIOUS INTEREST [ch. vi 
 
 inherited from his kinsman, Sir Joseph Banks, 
 Revesby Abbey and an estate in Lincolnshire, subject 
 to the life interest of Lady Banks. As she survived 
 him by three years, he never came into possession of 
 the property, but by his will he charged it with an 
 annuity of ^1,500 a year to his sister Hester. This 
 more than doubled her income, but it was still far in 
 the future, to come to her only on Lady Banks' 
 death; and in the meantime her present need was 
 pressing. She was in constant and terrible straits 
 for money, hampered with debts, and with endless 
 demands upon her ; borrowing at usurious interest, 
 and losing heavily by the exchange. She gives a 
 deplorable account of her affairs to the doctor. 
 
 Lady Hester to Dr, Meryon 
 
 " As for my debts, it is not, as you think, 25 per cent, 
 yearly that I have to pay, but 50 and 95 ; and in one 
 instance I have suffered more loss still. Gold of 28J 
 piastres they counted to me here at 45, which I spent 
 at 28 J, and am to repay at Bey rout at the rate of 45— 
 calculate that ! " 
 
 The turbulent times increased her difficulties. 
 
 " I must keep a great number of animals, because 
 there are none to hire as formerly, and these people, 
 as you know, will not walk two hundred yards, and 
 now that there is hardly any Government in the 
 mountain, they are worse than ever. ... In point of 
 wardrobe, I have made myself nearly naked. The 
 distress of people has been so great that I have given 
 everything away, except a few things that are too fine 
 for me or others to wear under present circumstances. 
 ... I have no one person but Williams on whom I 
 can rely. At times I have twenty people, at other 
 times hardly any. They put their abba (cloak) upon 
 their shoulders, and set off in the middle of the night 
 for no reason whatever. Having got a little money 
 
1823-1830] DUPED 243 
 
 and clothes, they prefer selling brandy at the camp, 
 or taking advantage of the state of the country to do 
 worse. I have led the life of a post-horse for two 
 years past. Williams got a hurt on her side in 
 moving a box. I would not allow her to stir 
 her arm for nearly three weeks, and I worked 
 like a slave. You are aware what the women are 
 here — nobody can work but slaves, and Williams 
 has not spirit enough to manage them. If ill, there 
 is not one capable of getting her a glass of water 
 without doing it myself; when well, her time is taken 
 up with store-room affairs and other bothers, and I 
 am left in the hands of a stupid, sulky girl of twelve. 
 ... If I have any servants sent out I should wish them 
 to be chiefly Scotch — a steady Highlander with great 
 courage, a fine open-countenanced spirited little devil 
 of a Highland boy, and a sensible, middle-aged woman, 
 understanding nursing sick people, and making pre- 
 serves, &c. . . . What would become of poor Williams 
 if anything should happen to me ? What means will 
 she have of departing ? Whom can she confide in, poor 
 soul? This thought pains me'often— more than I can 
 express." 
 
 In 1826 she was duped by a wretched impostor, 
 who came to Djoun on a pretended mission from the 
 Duke of Sussex, the Duke of Bedford, and " a com- 
 mittee of influential Freemasons," to inquire into her 
 affairs, pay her debts, and provide her with a suitable 
 income. How she could have credited so improbable 
 a story is unaccountable ; but hers was a sanguine 
 disposition, and all people are prone to believe what 
 they wish to be true. The man told her he had 
 travelled with the Duke of Bedford's son, and had 
 been " like a child of the family," and showed her a 
 present he had received from His Royal Highness, 
 that, **in case of accidents, was to be a passport 
 partout^' with an official red box of papers as his 
 credentials from the " influential Committee." What 
 
244 LADY HESTER'S DEBTS [ch. vi 
 
 his object can have been it is impossible to say,^ as 
 there was clearly no money obtainable ; but it was 
 a very cruel trick to play upon her. Poor Lady 
 Hester actually made out a list of the servants she 
 was so sorely in need of. She writes to the doctor 
 (who was then again preparing to join her, his 
 engagement with the '* honourable individual " having 
 come to an end) : 
 
 Lady Hester to Dr, Meryon 
 
 " DjOUN, 
 
 ^^ Ja7itiary ^th^ 1827. 
 
 ** I will not afflict you by drawing a picture of my 
 situation, or of the wretched scare-crow grief and 
 sickness have reduced me to, but I must tell you 
 that I am nearly blind, and this is probably the last 
 letter I shall be able to write to you ; indeed, no other 
 will be necessary. . . . Now, here are my orders and 
 
 ultimatum. If X 's story is true, and my debts, 
 
 amounting to ;£"io,ooo, or nearly, are to be paid, then 
 I shall go on making sublime and philosophical dis- 
 coveries, and employing myself in deep, abstract 
 studies; although, as my strength is gone, I cannot 
 work day and night as I have done. In that case, 
 I shall want a mason, a carpenter, a ploughman, a 
 gardener, groom, doctor, &c., so that I must have 
 assistance. Income made out, ;^4,ooo a year, and 
 ;^i,ooo more for persons like you, that I should want ; 
 and ;^5,ooo ready money for provisions, buildings, 
 animals, money in hand, &c., that I may start clear. 
 
 " In the second case, in the event that all that has 
 been told me is a lie, then let me be disowned publicly, 
 now and hereafter, and left to my fate and faith alone ; 
 for if I have not a right to what I want, I will have 
 
 ^ The following extract from another letter may throw some light 
 
 on the subject. " Never did I tell X to ask for a place, or 
 
 recommend him, more than saying he had acted generously and 
 kindly by me, which I then believed." 
 
1 823-1 830] REFUSAL OF ASSISTANCE 245 
 
 nothing. Nothing else will I hear, and grief has 
 departed from my soul since I have taken the follow- 
 ing resolution. 
 
 " I shall give up everything for life that I may now, 
 or hereafter, possess in Europe, to my creditors, and 
 throw myself as a beggar upon Asiatic humanity, and 
 wander far about without one para in my pocket, 
 with the mare from the stable of Solomon in one 
 hand, and a sheaf of the corn of Ben Israel in the 
 other. I shall meet death, or that which I believe 
 to be written, which no mortal hand can efface. . . . 
 You meant to do well, so I will not scold. But 
 why apply without leave to the 'Fat,'"^ (Duke of 
 Buckingham) '*or the * Thin,' " (Earl Stanhope)? 
 " Or why talk to ... of my concerns ? What is , . . 
 to me? I know him well — a low-minded, chitter- 
 chattering fellow. But suppose him an angel, had 
 you my leave to consult or speak to him ? It is not 
 likely. But in the event of the * Fat ' or the * Thin's ' 
 having placed any money in the hands of my bankers, 
 let them take it back again. . . . You have no ex- 
 planations to make, only that I decline it. Under no 
 circumstances, I repeat, will I owe anything to the 
 * Fat,' to the ' Thin,' to Canning and his friends, or 
 have anything to do with * Sir Vanity * " (Sir Sidney 
 Smith). " I say this, because I have heard of new 
 plans of his. He may, perhaps, mean to come here — 
 if to-morrow, I shall shut the door in his face. If 
 any force, Consular force, is ever tried with me, I 
 shall use force in return, and appeal to the populace 
 to defend me. It is right this should be known. I 
 am no slave, and I disown all such authority. Never 
 will I be brought to England, except in chains, and 
 
 ^ For some reason or other, Lady Hester, in her letters, always 
 substituted initials or cypher for proper names. 
 
246 LADY HESTER ON PHYSIOGNOMY [ch vi. 
 
 never will I be made to act differently from that 
 which my will dictates, whilst there is breath in 
 my body; therefore, to attempt to oppose me is in 
 vain. . . .AH situations have their blessings, with 
 the grace of God. It is uncertainty which is torture ; 
 but now my mind is made up. ... I have been very 
 ill of a terrible fever, and strong convulsions. . . . My 
 eyes are quite dim, and drawn into my head with 
 contraction, which sometimes pulls my head back — 
 quite back. I can hardly crawl ; but yet, poor monster 
 as I am, I shall get on, for my spirit and heart are 
 unchanged. 
 ** Now for servants." 
 
 She required three men, *' a storekeeper" (most 
 needed of all), *' to lock up, weigh, measure, 
 and write down everything that comes in or goes 
 out " ; an old dragoon to look after the saises 
 (grooms), and a Scotch gardener ; a maid for herself, 
 *' not a fine lady, but one who has been a nursery or 
 housemaid," and a housekeeper. She especially 
 enjoined the doctor not to neglect ** the good and 
 bad marks" in their personal appearance, which, as 
 she firmly believed, indicated character and dis- 
 position. 
 
 " Wrinkles at the eyes are abominable, and about 
 the mouth. Eyebrows making one circle, if meeting,^ 
 or close and straight, are equally bad. Those are 
 good meeting the line of the nose, as if a double 
 bridge. Eyes long, and wide between the eyebrows, 
 and no wrinkles about the forehead when they laugh, 
 or about the mouth, are signs of bad luck and 
 duplicity. Eyes all zigzag are full of lies. A low, 
 flat forehead is bad ; so are uneven eyes, one larger 
 than the other, or in constant motion. I must have 
 
 ^ This is in accordance with the old saw : 
 
 Mistrust a man whose eye-brows meet, 
 For in his heart vnn'11 find decfiit, 
 
1823-1830] WRINKLES AND CHARACTER 247 
 
 a fine, open face, all nature, with little education, 
 in a fine, straight, strong, healthy person, with a 
 sweet temper. 
 
 " Did you ever see a picture or painting of the 
 Lady William Russell, the Duke's brother's wife? 
 That sort of face was perfect for a woman. If the 
 eyebrows of a man are straight, and come nearly 
 together, that is nothing; but, if they form an arch, 
 it is always a sign of natural hum (melancholy) in the 
 character. Never can such a one be contented or 
 happy. Look at little Adams and General Taylor — 
 how sincere are their black eyebrows ! 
 
 '* Don't make a mistake—wrinkles of age are not the 
 wrinkles of youth, of which I am speaking. One line 
 is not called a wrinkle. The wrinkles I speak of are 
 found in children of seven years old, when they laugh 
 or cry." 
 
 These instructions were, of course, useless ; no 
 servants could be hired, for no money was forth- 
 coming. 
 
 Meanwhile, the doctor was making a dilatory and, 
 as it proved, fruitless attempt to go to Djoun. On 
 January 23rd, he and his family crossed over to Calais, 
 where '* the severity of the weather and the sale of 
 some landed property in England" detained him for 
 nearly four months, thence, progressing more rapidly, 
 he reached Pisa on June 14th, proposing to embark 
 for the East at Leghorn, but delayed his departure 
 till September 7th, when he sailed in the Italian 
 merchant brig Fortuna. When off Crete, they were 
 boarded and plundered by a Greek privateer ; and 
 the captain, who had been roughly handled, refused 
 to proceed on his voyage, and took them back to 
 Leghorn. Here they were detained in quarantine till 
 November 17th, when Dr. Meryon gave up all further 
 attempts to reach Syria till the spring, and went for 
 the wmter to Rome. But when spring came, he once 
 more changed his mind, and finally returned to 
 England in June, 1828. 
 
248 TURK AND FRANK AS CREDITORS [ch. vi 
 
 All this time poor Lady Hester was expecting him, 
 and preparing for his arrival. 
 
 Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon 
 
 " I cannot read what I have written. I was two 
 days making out your last letter. I had prepared a 
 little court, with two rooms and an open divan, for 
 you; but with Mrs. Meryon and the children it will 
 not do. I shall love her and the dear children much, 
 and all might be comfortable. God grant it so! I 
 have a house in the village, which is good, and will 
 do very well — clean, with two rooms upstairs. . . . 
 Well, now I have said enough, and must make up my 
 mind to have, in a few days, an attack, from over- 
 straining my head and eyes ; but it is the last effort of 
 the nature I shall make. Adieu. 
 
 ** P.S. — A dun, who came here two months ago — a 
 Christian — took a Turk into his room, after I had seen 
 and spoken to him, and said : * I came to get my 
 money, but now I am ready to cry at her situation. It 
 is clear that these Franks are unprincipled and un- 
 feeling, that they have no religion, and know not God. 
 The proof is — and does there want a stronger ? — their 
 leaving such a wonderful person, as she really is, to 
 wither with sorrow.' Then he went out swearing, and 
 took his leave. These are the feelings now alive 
 among the Turkish population. As a contrast, mark 
 how Mr. ... an Englishman, acts. He told one of 
 my creditors to take my bond, put it in water, and, 
 when well sopped, to drink the mixture ; * for that is 
 all,* he said, 'you will ever get for it' Furious was 
 the creditor, and took himself off to a distance, but 
 will, in a few months, be back again to torment me." 
 
 The next letter is to Mr. John Webb, her banker at 
 Leghorn. 
 
1823-1830] AN EMIR'S BOYCOTT 249 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, John Webb 
 
 "DjouN, Mount Lebanon, 
 
 '^May zoth, 1827. 
 
 "A Firmanlee'' (outlaw), "having taken refuge in 
 the Mountain, under the protection of the Emir 
 Beshyr, contrived to pick a quarrel with my water- 
 carrier, who was quietly going about his business, and 
 having bribed some of the Emir*s Jack Ketches, they 
 beat him most unmercifully. The Emir Beshyr and 
 his chief people have likewise been bribed by this 
 man, who has plenty of money at his disposal. They 
 have all, therefore, taken the Firmanlee's part, and 
 acted in the most atrocious way towards me. A short 
 time since, the Emir thought proper to publish in the 
 villages that all my servants were instantly to return 
 to their homes, upon pain of losing their property 
 or lives. I gave them all theif option. Most of 
 them have remained firm, being aware that this order 
 is the most unjust, as well as the most ridiculous, that 
 ever was issued. Since that, he has threatened to 
 seize and murder them here, which he shall not do 
 without taking my life too. Besides this, he has given 
 orders in all the villages that men, women, and 
 children shall be cut in a thousand pieces who render 
 me the smallest service. My servants, of course, as 
 you must imagine, cannot go out, and the peasants of 
 the villages cannot approach the house. Therefore, I 
 am of no very pleasant situation, being deprived of the 
 necessary supplies in food, and, what is worse, of 
 water, for all the water here is brought upon mules' 
 backs up a great steep. 
 
 " I should not be a thoroughbred Pitt if fear were 
 known to me, or if I could bow to a monster who 
 could chain together the neck and feet of a venerable, 
 white-bearded, respectable man . . . and if a father 
 
2SO A PERFECT PREDESTINARIAN [ch. vi 
 
 had escaped from his clutches, has loaded his infant son 
 with his chains ! For the space of three years I have 
 refused to have the smallest communication with the 
 Emir. He sent me one of his grand envoys the other 
 day — one of those who were charged with the budget of 
 lies sent to Mehemet Ali. I refused to see him, or to 
 read the letter of which he was the bearer. 
 
 " My kind friend and former physician. Dr. Meryon, 
 has blasted his own prospects in life by giving up 
 everything in Europe to join me in this country, with- 
 out consulting any one. ... In case of his being at 
 Leghorn, you would confer a great obligation upon 
 me, if you would advance him ;£"ioo for his expenses, 
 and give him this letter. . . . 
 
 ^* Ten thousand thanks for your kind recipe for my 
 eyes. I have not had a moment's time to bestow a 
 thought upon myself since I received it. 
 
 " Dear Lord Frederick!" (Bentinck) *' what changes 
 have taken place in my situation since I saw him last! 
 But I am too much of a Turk to complain of the 
 decrees of Heaven. 
 
 ** I forgot to mention that there is a plague at Sayda. 
 Most of the people are shut up ; and, although I have 
 suffered cruelly from the malady formerly, I am in no 
 apprehension concerning it, as I am a perfect pre- 
 destinarian. Happy for me that I have inspired the 
 same feelings into all those who surround me. 
 
 " If it please God that I, like Joseph, should come 
 safe out of the well, I hope it will be needless to assure 
 you that, whatever part of your family might fall in 
 my way, my greatest pleasure would be to endeavour 
 to make them, by every service and attention, the 
 evidence of the respect and regard which I bear you." 
 
 Lady Hester spent the summer of 1827 in constant 
 fear of her life. The Emir's power was now firmly 
 
1823-1830] DJOUN 251 
 
 re-established in the Mountain, and he had set his 
 mind upon getting rid of her. She slept, as she told the 
 doctor, with a hhanjar (poniard) under her pillow, 
 ^* and slept as sound as a top. Poor Williams was 
 terrified out of her senses ; she used to get up in the 
 night and come to me. At that time there were five 
 hundred horsemen about in the neighbouring villages, 
 and they killed three men ; one between the house and 
 the village, one at the back of my premises, and one 
 other farther off, just to let me know what they could 
 do, thinking to terrify me ; but I showed them that I 
 was not to be frightened." On one occasion a messenger 
 sent by the Emir laid aside his sabre and pistols before 
 entering the room. Miss Williams whispered to her 
 what he had done, and she called to him to take up his 
 weapons again, and tell his master she did not care a 
 fig for him and his poisons. ** If he means to try his 
 strength with me, I am ready.'^ At last. Sir Stratford 
 Canning, our Ambassador at Constantinople, hearing 
 of her danger, sent over one of his staff to her assist- 
 ance, and set matters to rights. 
 
 Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon 
 
 " DjOUN, 
 
 " November 9M, 1827. 
 
 " I have been, during three months of this summer, 
 absolutely as if in prison. The representatives of the 
 John Bulls in this country having impressed the Emir 
 Beshyr with the assurance that I had not a friend in 
 the world, he proceeded upon unheard outrages 
 towards me, and, if he did not actually put my life in 
 danger, he had it publicly cried,^ that whoever served 
 me should be bastinadoed and amerced. 
 
 ''This unheard-of stretch of insolence was set to 
 rights by our old friend at Constantinople, who acted 
 very well towards me. The Emir Beshyr, with all the 
 art and meanness well known to him, has now become 
 abjectly humble. One of his people told me it was not 
 
 ' " The criers in villages on Mount Lebanon stand on the roofs of the 
 houses at sunset, and with a loud voice, give out the orders and pro- 
 clamations of their Sheicks and Emirs.'' 
 
252 LADY HESTER'S BLINDNESS [ch. vi 
 
 his doings, but the work of . . ., who had put it into his 
 head, and finding that he had made a false calculation, 
 and displeased great and small in the country by his 
 vile conduct, he is humble enough, and repents having 
 given me an opportunity of showing what I am. I 
 am thus become more popular than ever, having shown 
 an example of firmness and courage no one could 
 calculate upon — it was poor little David and the giant. 
 But the God who defended David defended me from 
 all the assassins by whom I was surrounded. Even 
 water from the spring the beast would not let me 
 have. The expense to get provisions brought in the 
 night by people was enormous. Some risked their 
 lives to serve me and bring me food. One person only 
 came openly, and that was a woman, saying she would 
 die sooner than obey such atrocious orders, and called 
 down curses on the Emir, the Consuls, and all of them. 
 This conduct was well worthy a follower of Ali. . . . 
 
 " A young seyd, a friend of mine, when riding one 
 day in a solitary part of the mountain, heard the echo 
 of a strange noise in the rocks. He listened, and 
 hearing it again, got off his horse to see what it was. 
 To his surprise, in the hollow of the rock he saw an 
 old eagle, quite blind and unfledged by age. Perched 
 by the eagle he saw a carrion crow feeding him. If 
 the Almighty thus provides for the blind eagle, he will 
 not forsake me, and the carrion crow may look down 
 with contempt on your countrymen. 
 
 " I say this because I have seen two doctors — they 
 were English — and they tell me that, though my eyes 
 are good, my nerves are destroyed, and that causes 
 my blindness. Writing these few lines will be some 
 days' illness to me ; but I make an effort, in order to 
 assure you of the grief I have felt at being, I fear, the 
 cause of your affairs being worse than if you had not 
 
1823-1830] CONSULS AGAIN! 253 
 
 known me. All I can say is, if God helps me, I 
 shall not forget you. You can do nothing for me now; 
 trust in God, and think of the eagle. Remember ! all is 
 written ; we can change nothing of our fate by 
 lamenting and grumbling. Therefore, it is better to 
 be Hke a true Turk, and do our duty to the last, and 
 then beg of the believers in one God a bit of daily 
 bread ; and if it come not, die of want, which perhaps 
 is as good a death as any other, and less painful. But 
 never act contrary to the dictates of conscience, of 
 honour, of nature, or of humanity." 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, John Webb 
 
 (Supposed date) *^ October^ 1827. 
 ** I thank you a thousand times, my dear sir, for the 
 anxiety you express on my account ; and, although 
 surrounded by a hundred difficulties, I am cheerful, 
 and the Turks behave very well to me. That old 
 monster, the Emir Beshyr, is pretty quiet at this 
 moment, at least as far as regards me ; but he is 
 reducing to beggary and to misery all who surround 
 him. A real Turk is a manly, though rather violent, 
 kind-hearted being, and if he has confidence in you, 
 very easy to deal with. I have often wondered at 
 their gentlemanlike patience with low, blustering, 
 vulgar men, who give themselves more airs than an 
 Ambassador, because chance has placed them as 
 Consul or agent in some dirty town not equal to a 
 village in France ; men who, in fact, in Europe, would 
 scarcely have their bow returned in the street by a 
 man of condition. It is the general conduct of these 
 sort of people that have given the Orientals such a 
 false idea of Europeans. The race of Christians here 
 is of the vilest people in the world; not all totally 
 without talent, but all without principle, or a single 
 
254 CHRISTIANS OF THE EAST [ch. vi 
 
 good quality. Out of the great number of children, 
 both boys and girls, which I have taken before they 
 have changed their teeth, not one has turned out pass- 
 able, and most of them have become vagabonds. If a 
 poor man falls ill, and gives his wife a little trouble to 
 wait upon him, she soon ends the business with a 
 little poison ; and if a woman marries again, the 
 husband casts off all her children by the former 
 marriage, and she, without remorse, leaves them to 
 die in a hovel, or abandons them under a tree to beg 
 for subsistence. It was only last night that one of 
 these wretched beings came to me, skin and bone, 
 having been thirty days ill of a fever. The very girls 
 I have brought up with the greatest care have, when 
 married, beaten their children of two years old so 
 violently as to stun them ; and one, from the blow she 
 gave her child upon the head, caused the bowels to 
 protrude more than a span. A man thinks nothing of 
 taking up a stone as large as his head, and throwing it at 
 his wife when she is with child. These are the beastly 
 people that create the compassion of Europeans — a 
 horrid race, that deserves to be exterminated from the 
 face of the earth. What a contrast between these 
 wretches and the wild Arabs, who will traverse 
 burning sands barefooted to receive the last breath of 
 some kind relation or friend, who teach their children 
 at the earliest period resignation and fortitude, and 
 who always keep alive a spirit of emulation amongst 
 them! They are the boldest people in the world, yet 
 are endued with a tenderness quite poetic, and their 
 kindness extends to all the brute creation by which 
 they are surrounded. For myself, I have the greatest 
 affection and confidence in these people ; besides, I 
 admire their diamond eyes, their fine teeth, and the 
 grace and agility (without capers) which is peculiar to 
 
1823-1830] BATTLE OF NAVARINO 255 
 
 them alone. When one sees these people, one's 
 thoughts naturally revert to the time of Abraham, 
 when man had not his head filled with all the false 
 systems of the present day. ... 
 
 ** 1 have heard that at Genoa there are very fine 
 flowers. If you would procure me a few seeds, I 
 should be very much obliged to you, as my stock of 
 flowers this year has become very low, owing to my 
 having had a very careless gardener, who neglected to 
 water the seeds, so that they never came up. My fine 
 steed is gone long ago, and my garden remains my 
 only amusement." 
 
 Shortly after this, the news of the battle of Navarino 
 spread consternation throughout Syria, and almost all 
 the Frank residents at Sayda hurried panic-struck to 
 take refuge at Djoun. Lady Hester boarded and 
 lodged them till they could return home in safety. 
 Yet she herself was so poverty-stricken that on one 
 occasion she was driven to sell, for their weight in 
 gold, forty guineas that she had saved from the ship- 
 wreck, and treasured up as her poor brother's parting 
 gift. The following year, however, the death of Lady 
 Banks put her in possession of her annuity of ;f 1,500. 
 
 She did not hear of the doctor's ill-fated voyage till 
 long afterwards. She then wrote to him at Pisa, where 
 she believed him to be, and the letter followed him to 
 
 England. 
 
 Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon 
 
 " DjOUN, 
 
 ''''March 23^^, 1828. 
 
 ** I have received the account of your disasters by 
 sea, and latterly the books you were so good as to 
 send me. The books I cannot read, and I have 
 nobody to read them for me; however, I thank you 
 for your kind attention. I am much afflicted at the 
 trouble and vexation you have had, and at the situation 
 in which you find yourself. I must say, it would be 
 very imprudent to bring women or children into this 
 
256 LADY HESTER'S PROTECTION [ch. vi 
 
 country at this moment, and a great source of fatigue 
 and anxiety to me, for they could not be comfortable 
 under the present circumstances of the time. What I 
 should propose is, that when you have settled your 
 business, you immediately set off alone with a Dutch 
 passport, in case things should turn out ill before you 
 arrive. Leave Mrs. Meryon at Pisa, where she could 
 remain very comfortably until you return. . . . 
 
 " The plague will be over before you get here. The 
 Turks behave extremely well towards me ; the 
 Christians and Franks as ill. I shall say nothing about 
 the state of my affairs (you may guess what it may be 
 in these times), nor the state of my health, without 
 a person of any kind to help me in anything. . . . 
 
 ** Salute Mrs. Meryon, and say I hope no childish 
 feeling will prevent her from allowing you to be absent 
 a little while. I feel for her — but I cannot write. She 
 may rely upon me ; only obey me strictly. Had you 
 done so before, things might have been otherwise for 
 all ; but simpletons will be wise men, and that is what 
 has turned the world upside down, as well as caused 
 much unhappiness to individuals. I promise to keep 
 you only a few months, but I want to see you," 
 
 Lady Hester to Dr, Meryon 
 
 " DJOUN, 
 
 ^' August 2^th, 1828. 
 
 ** I have heard from Mr. Webb's house that you are 
 gone to England. My heart misgives me. . . . Do 
 not let your head be crammed with ideas that you 
 cannot land ; for, notwithstanding the departure of 
 Consuls and Franks from this part of the world, I 
 firmly believe that any one coming to me, either in a 
 man-of-war or an open boat, his landing would not be 
 opposed, even if things were more decidedly bad than 
 they are. . . . Never write to me but through Mr. 
 
1823-1830] DJOUN 257 
 
 Webb's house, whether you come or do not come. I 
 want no reasons, and no long stories, . . . You must 
 not think of bringing any Frank servant with you. I 
 have a room ready for you, and I hope you will be 
 very comfortable. . . . 
 
 " P.S. — Ah ! why did you not come directly, and 
 bring Lucy? What a comfort to me!" 
 
 Neither of these letters was in Lady Hester's hand- 
 writing ; they were dictated to Miss Williams, who 
 often acted as her secretary. The next tells of the loss 
 of this faithful friend and companion — to her an utterly 
 irreparable one. 
 
 Elizabeth Williams had been with her very many 
 years, loyally following her fortunes in weal and woe, 
 health and sickness, privation and danger. She was 
 the only person about her on whom Lady Hester 
 could at all depend, and had given signal proof of her 
 attachment and devotion to her service. Lady Hester 
 was now entirely friendless and forsaken ; there was 
 no one left to help and stand by her; and she was 
 virtually at the merc}^ of a crew of villainous servants, 
 like those who (as it will be seen) had robbed and 
 deserted her on her sick bed. 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, John Webb 
 
 " DjOUN, 
 
 ^' October 2%th, 1828. 
 
 ** When I received your letter of July 17th, I was 
 very ill, confined to my room, and occasionally 
 delirious. Nevertheless, in a moment of reason, I 
 desired M. Gerardin to acquaint you with the great 
 loss I had sustained in the faithful Miss Williams. 
 
 *' After two years of plague, there broke out, over 
 almost all Mount Lebanon, a kind of fever, which I do 
 not know precisely how to name. Whether it was a 
 sort of yellow or malignant fever, poor Miss Williams 
 fell a victim to it, as well as a servant named Moosa, 
 the only one in whom I had any confidence ; and I but 
 just escaped death from it myself. I am, as it were, 
 18 
 
258 DEATH OF MISS WILLIAMS [ch. vi 
 
 come to life again by a miracle, owing to the attentions 
 of a rich peasant, who came from a considerable dis- 
 tance to assist me. He found me entirely abandoned, 
 delirious, and at the point of death ; and left in that 
 state by whom? — by wicked maids, who had cost Miss 
 Williams and me such pains in endeavouring to make 
 something of them. You may easily imagine that I 
 did not keep such ungrateful sluts an instant after I 
 came to myself Even in the weak state in which I 
 was, I felt in a rage at the deplorable accounts which 
 were given me of the detestable indifference they 
 showed when Miss Williams was dying, occupying 
 themselves in pilfering what they couldlay their hands 
 on. But I have already told you what the Christians 
 of this country are. At the present moment, I have 
 nobody to assist me but some old women of the 
 village, the most stupid and ignorant creatures in the 
 world. My greatest resource is a girl of eight years 
 old, whom I have brought up, who appears attached 
 to me,^ and who is less stupid than the others. How- 
 ever, one cannot get well very fast, attended by such 
 people, to whom it is impossible to trust a key. I am 
 moved from my bed to the sofa, and from the sofa to 
 the bed, and I am not yet able to walk without 
 support ; but, if I was better waited on, and had more 
 quiet, and proper things to eat, I know very well what 
 an eflfort my iron constitution would make, which has 
 brought me through this illness without doctor or 
 doctor's stuff. I have a good appetite ; but my weak- 
 ness of stomach does not enable me to digest the coarse 
 and badly cooked food which they give me to eat 
 seeing that my stomach has been very much dis- 
 ordered from want of nourishment during fifteen 
 
 * This was the girl Fatoom, who afterwards robbed her of money 
 and effects to a considerable amount. 
 
1823-1830] DJOUN 259 
 
 days, having subsisted all that time on barley water 
 and plain water. 
 
 " My ignorance of what passed around me was not, 
 properly speaking, the delirium of fever; it was a 
 stupor, caused by the neglect with which I was 
 treated. The peasant says that when he entered my 
 bedroom, he found me stiff and cold, in a state of one 
 dying of hunger. He gave me food immediately. 
 After some days I came to myself, and am now 
 gaining strength. But in the midst of all this, I am 
 not melancholy. What has happened, has happened, 
 and whatever is, is best. ... It seems to me that, 
 if Dr. Meryon had decided upon coming, he would 
 have been here before now. Well ! I have got over 
 this illness without his assistance, or that of any other 
 doctor, and one feels much more elevated when God 
 has been one's physician. It is the Supreme Being 
 alone who has saved me in all my difficulties, for 
 these last twenty years, and who has given me 
 strength to support what others would have sunk 
 under." 
 
 This letter was communicated by Mr. Webb to 
 Dr. Meryon, who had returned to risa in October, 
 and on hearing of Lady Hester's distressed situation, 
 was induced ** to set aside every other consideration, 
 and make the voyage to Syria without loss of time, 
 even in the depth of winter." But this intention only 
 proved another illustration of the old adage, '* More 
 haste, less speed " ; for exactly two years elapsed 
 before he carried it out, and hastened to her assistance. 
 It was in December, 1828, that he proposed to go to 
 Djoun, and it was in December, 1830, that he arrived. 
 
 No letters of hers are forthcoming during these 
 two years ; but the following account of her, given by 
 a Mr. Davidson, must refer to the first of them. 
 
 ** How I wish," writes Miss Wynn, in July, 1835, 
 " I could fix here one quarter of the amusement and 
 
26o MR. DAVIDSON [ch. vi 
 
 information which I have derived from the conversa- 
 tion of Mr. Davidson, the Eastern traveller ; he seems 
 to me like a man walked out of the 'Arabian Nights ' 
 bodily. ... I was asking one day about Lady Hester 
 Stanhope. He did not see her, having arrived just 
 after the death of her only English companion, who, 
 having begun as maid, ended as secretary, friend, 
 &c., &c. He describes her, as others have done, 
 turning night into day, and sleeping through the 
 daylight, with very weak eyes, and without any 
 pursuit but astrology. He says she has lost much 
 of her power, or, rather, of her widely extended 
 influence, still possessing the most arbitrary authority 
 over her own small district. This diminution of 
 power may be ascribed partly to her increase of years, 
 which prevents her from riding and showing herself 
 among them, partly to the want of that novelty which 
 dazzles, but chiefly from the want of money, from the 
 weight of debt, which prevents her from spending 
 among them the annual income which she derives 
 from England. Upon this subject he gave us a story 
 curiously illustrative of Oriental character. 
 
 "About two years ago. Lady Hester went into 
 Persia, with a view of obtaining assistance and pro- 
 tection from the Shah. She provided a present of 
 English goods, which was really very handsome. 
 This was (according to etiquette) offered to the Shah 
 by means of the interpreter, through whom were also 
 sent the thanks, with all the grandiloquence of the 
 East, his sense of the magnificence of the present ; 
 sun, moon, and stars were also eclipsed ; gratitude 
 was described in the same terms, their admiration for 
 the spirit, liberality, greatness of mind, of the English 
 aristocracy, of which he felt the influence so strongly, 
 as to be aware that to the English the true way of 
 
1823-1830] DJOUN 261 
 
 showing the sense of favours received v^as to gratify 
 their noble nature by asking more. Av^are not only 
 of this, but that his poor empire did not contain 
 anything worthy of being offered to the great lady, 
 he would ask of her the favour of a loan. Her project 
 (which the Shah had discovered) was to borrow 
 money of him which she never could repay." — Diaries 
 of a Lady of Quality. 
 
 This is but one instance of the ridiculous stories 
 told of Lady Hester. Her journey to Persia is entirely 
 imaginary. 
 
 But to return to the doctor and his peregrinations. 
 When, in the winter of 1828, he decided to go to Lady 
 Hester, ** although the navigation of the Mediterranean 
 is very boisterous " at that season, he found a 
 merchantman at Leghorn about to sail for Beyrout, 
 and made his agreement with the captain. Nothing 
 remained but to sign it, and here Mrs. Meryon 
 intervened. She absolutely refused to be left behind, 
 and, mindful of sea-sickness and pirates, as abso- 
 lutely refused to go with him. The merchantman 
 sailed without him, the winter passed, spring came, 
 then summer, and still Mrs. Meryon " hesitated and 
 wavered," and her husband vainly awaited her 
 decision. At last she agreed that he should take 
 her back to England, and return to embark alone. 
 In August, 1829, they accordingly started homewards, 
 via Marseilles, and got as far as Paris. Here she 
 changed her mind, and declared she would go with 
 him, and they went back to Marseilles; but " it was 
 not till November, 1830, that she could be prevailed 
 upon to set her foot in a vessel." The doctor's 
 patience and devotion are quite admirable. A whole 
 twelvemonth of persuasion would have tried the 
 temper of most men. 
 
 They embarked in a small French brig, and, after a 
 prosperous voyage, reached Beyrout on December 8th. 
 Lady Hester had got ready for them a comfortable 
 and convenient cottage in the village of Djoun, and 
 sent servants and donkeys to meet them, with a letter 
 of welcome for the doctor. She expressed her pleasure 
 at his coming, but reminded him that she had warned 
 
262 ARRIVAL OF DR. MERYON [ch. vi 
 
 him not to bring his wife with him, for Enghsh ladies, 
 she thought, could never make themselves happy in 
 Syria. As he had, however, chosen to do so, Mrs. 
 Meryon must not expect any special attention from 
 her, beyond that of making her as comfortable as 
 might be in her new home. The doctor scented 
 trouble in the air. 
 
 He found Lady Hester little changed, very gracious, 
 and glad to see him. To his great surprise she, 
 who hitherto had hardly even condescended to take 
 his arm, now gave him the Oriental kiss of peace on 
 both cheeks, and they sat down to dinner together. 
 He was shocked to find how poor she had become ; 
 to note the rush-bottomed chairs, the small unpainted 
 deal table, with its scanty table-cover, the plates of 
 coarse yellow earthenware, and the two silver spoons, 
 which, she told him, were all she had. She said she 
 had entertained the young Due de Richelieu in a 
 similar style, but had been far better provided before 
 her severe illness two years ago, when her servants 
 plundered her of everything they could lay hands on, 
 taking even the cushions and covers of her sofa. She 
 detained him — much against his will — till past mid- 
 night ; and when, at last released, he hurried back 
 to. Mrs, Meryon, he found her in poignant distress, 
 persuaded that he had been devoured by wolves or 
 hyaenas. 
 
 Lady Hester's mode of life at this period is minutely 
 described by the doctor. She had, for some years 
 past, got into the habit of sitting up the greater part 
 of the night, and always went to bed unwillingly, as 
 she was a bad sleeper. Yet, when once laid down, she 
 seldom rose till late in the afternoon, transacting all 
 her business, giving her orders, and writing her letters 
 in bed. Much, if not most, of her time was thus spent 
 in her bedroom, of which the doctor gives a deplorable 
 picture. 
 
 *' This room bore no resemblance to an English 
 or French chamber, and, independent of its rude 
 furniture, was hardly better than a common peasant's. 
 Its appearance, when illness confined its occupant to 
 her bed, was something of this sort ; for I often 
 
1823-1830] LADY HESTER^S APARTMENT 263 
 
 entered it, early in the morning, before breakfast. 
 On the floor, which was of cement, lay, upon an 
 Egyptian mat, a large bit of drab felt, of the size of 
 a bed-side carpet, and a coarse chintz cushion, from 
 which her black slave, Zezef6on, had just risen, and 
 where she had slept by her mistress' side ; the slave 
 having this privilege over the maid, who always slept 
 behind a curtain. This dirty, red cotton curtain was 
 suspended by a cord across the room, to keep off the 
 wind when the door opened, most of the curtain rings 
 being torn off, so that the curtain hung, alternately, 
 suspended here, and dangling there, a testimony of 
 the little time the maids found for mending. There 
 were three windows to the room, all uncurtained ; one 
 was nailed up by its shutter on the outside, and one 
 closed by a bit of felt on the inside ; the third only 
 was reserved for the admission of light and air, 
 looking on the garden. In two deep niches of the 
 wall were heaped on a shelf a few books, some bundles 
 tied up in handkerchiefs, writing paper, &c., all in 
 confusion, with sundry other things for daily use ; 
 such as white plate, with several pairs of scissors, 
 two or three pairs of spectacles, &c,, and another with 
 pins, sealing wax, wafers, &c., with a common white 
 inkstand, and the old parchment cover of a merchant's 
 day-book, with blotting paper inside, by way of a 
 blotting book, in which, spread on her lap as she sat 
 up in bed, she generally wrote her letters. These 
 places were seldom swept out, and dust and cobwebs 
 covered the books, of which, I believe, she never 
 looked into any, except Tissot's Avis au Peuple^ 
 another medical book, of which I have forgotten the 
 title, the Court Calendar, a Bible, and Domestic 
 Cookery. An earthenware ybrick^ or jug with a 
 spout, stood in one of the windows, with a small 
 
264 LADY HESTER'S BED [ch. vi 
 
 copper basin, and this was her washing apparatus. 
 Near the foot of the bed stood an upright, ill-made, 
 walnut-wood box, with a piece of green calico hanging 
 before it. The ground was strewn with small bundles, 
 gown-pieces of silk or coloured cotton, which she 
 destined as presents, bits of twine and brown paper, 
 left from day to day, of packages which had been 
 undone, &c." 
 
 Her bed had neither curtains nor mosquito net, and 
 consisted only of planks nailed on trestles at a slight 
 incline; over this was laid a mattress with Barbary 
 blankets instead of sheets, and pillows covered with 
 soft Turkish silk. There was no counterpane, but 
 a woollen abbuy or fur pelisse, was thrown over it, 
 as occasion required. Close at hand hung the bell- 
 rope, a stout cord, knotted at the end, and reeved 
 through a pulley screwed into the ceiling, communi- 
 cating with a powerful bell, that was the terror of the 
 household. On a low stool by the bedside, which 
 served as a table, were placed a variety of things she 
 might want or fancy, such as strawberry preserve, 
 lemonade, chamomile tea, ipecacuanha lozenges, a 
 bottle of cold water, &c., or else violet syrup, wine, 
 aniseeds, or cloves, quince preserve, orgeat, a cup 
 of cold tea, covered with its saucer, a pill box, &c. 
 
 **So thickly was the wooden stool covered, that it 
 required the greatest dexterity to take up one thing 
 without knocking down half-a-dozen more. And, in 
 this respect, the noiseless movements and dexterity 
 of the Syrian and black women pass all imagination. 
 For months together nothing of this assemblage would 
 be upset or broken. 
 
 "Lady Hester had no watch, clock, or timepiece, 
 and generally the last words, when I left her in the 
 evening, were, * Doctor, tell me what o'clock it is 
 before you go.' I took the liberty of asking her 
 why she had never sent for a watch or timepiece 
 
1823-1830] LADY HESTER'S RESTLESSNESS 265 
 
 during all the years she had remained on Mount 
 Lebanon. * Because I cannot bear anything that is 
 unnatural,' was her answer : ' the sun is for the day, 
 and the moon and stars for the night, and by them 
 I like to measure time.' " 
 
 Next to her bedroom was her Turkish bath, of 
 which she was extremely fond, and used, in the 
 doctor's opinion, oftener than was good for her 
 health. 
 
 She slept, according to Oriental custom, more than 
 half dressed. Her night shirt was of silk and cotton, 
 over which she wore a white quilted jacket and a 
 short pelisse. She retained her turban, with the 
 keffeyah (a striped handkerchief worn by the Bedouins) 
 tied under her chin, and wrapped a shawl round her 
 head and shoulders. 
 
 When she had at last made up her mind to retire 
 to rest, and dismissed the wearied doctor, her maids 
 gave him a lamentable account of what they had to 
 undergo. Let us hope they a little exaggerated their 
 sufferings. Very often she found fault with her bed, 
 and had it made over again in her presence; while 
 this was doing, she would smoke her pipe, call for the 
 sugar basin to eat two or three lumps of sugar, and 
 for a clove to take away the taste of the sugar. The 
 night lamp was next lighted, and two wax-lights 
 placed ready for use in the window; she then got 
 into bed, and the maid who was to sleep in the room 
 lay down on her mattress. The other girl was sent 
 away, but had hardly reached her room when the 
 bell rang violently; Lady Hester wanted broth, or 
 lemonade, or orgeat. This was brought on a tray, 
 one of the maids holding a candle, shaded by her 
 hand, while her mistress sat up in bed and sipped it. 
 Sometimes she ate a bit of dry toast, pronounced 
 it ill-made and sent for another piece, perhaps to be 
 left untouched. Then she again composed herself to 
 sleep, but not for long; she felt a pain somewhere 
 or other, and rang for a fomentation of chamomile, 
 elder flower, or mallow. The gardener had now to 
 be sent for, water boiled, &c., then she remembered 
 some order she had forgotten to give during the day, 
 and the servant in question was at once summoned 
 
266 LADY HESTER'S BELL [ch. vi 
 
 to receive it. The bell, they declared, was always 
 going; and the simple solution of the difficulty that 
 commended itself to them — never answering it — was 
 warily guarded against by Lady Hester, who em- 
 ployed two stout watchmen to rouse and produce the 
 delinquents. Why she should have required to ring 
 her bell at all, with one maid always sleeping in her 
 room (elsewhere the doctor says there were two, see 
 p. 263) is not so easy to explain. 
 
 At last Lady Hester slept, and for three, four, or 
 five hours they were left in peace. But no sooner 
 was she awake than the dreaded sound was again 
 heard, and the business of the day commenced in 
 grim earnest. She received, one after the other, her 
 steward (Paolo Perini, a Roman), her secretary (a 
 Frenchman named Chasseaud), the doctor, the groom, 
 the gardener, and sometimes the whole of her house- 
 hold. It was numerous ; for, besides those already 
 named and the two girls, Fatoom and Zezefoon, who 
 principally waited upon her, there was a dragoman, 
 two stablemen, a cook, a scullion, three or four men 
 as muleteers and water-carriers, two others, employed 
 as messengers, to carry letters, &c., who had been in 
 her service from ten to fifteen years, and half-a-dozen 
 black slaves. Nobody — not even the doctor — was 
 allowed to enter except at her summons. 
 
 Every morning the secretary brought her a list of 
 comers and goers, and an exact account of what had 
 been done by each servant during the preceding day. 
 Few, indeed, escaped a scolding when thus brought 
 to book ; for the violence and irritability of her temper 
 had greatly increased, and the household over which 
 she ruled was — to put it mildly — an exasperating one. 
 It was very badly managed, and composed of idle, 
 lying, pilfering, rascally servants,^ of whom she used 
 to say, '^ I could hang half-a-dozen of them, if I chose." 
 She was a severe task-mistress, and by no means 
 
 ^ This is how the doctor describes them. *' A Turk for work is little 
 better than a brute animal ; he moves about nimbly, when roused by 
 vociferation and threats, and squats down like a dog when his work 
 is done. England produces no type of the Syrian serving-man. He 
 sets about his work as a task that is given to him, and when it is over, 
 sits down immediately to smoke his pipe and to gossip, or seeks a 
 snug place near at hand, and goes to sleep. You call him, and set 
 him to do something else, and the same practice follows. The next 
 day you expect he will, of his own accord, recommence what was 
 
1823-1830] DJOUN 267 
 
 sparing in her punishments, often boxing the ears 
 of the culprits with her own hand ; but she exercised 
 no sort of supervision. She told the doctor that, for 
 four years past, she had never put her head outside 
 her own court ; " for if I did, I should certainly fall 
 into such a passion with some of the people, that it 
 would make me ill." She was peremptory and im- 
 perious, and, like her father, exacted blind and 
 unquestioning obedience; her servants were to have 
 neither will nor opinion of their own, and she tolerated 
 no suggestions. The gardener might send to say that 
 he had dug up a piece of ground, and found it suited 
 for such and such vegetables. "Tell him," she would 
 reply, *'that, when I order him to dig, he is to dig, 
 and not to give his opinion as to what the ground 
 is fit for. It may be for his grave that he digs, it 
 may be for mine. He must know nothing until I 
 send my orders, and so bid him go about his busi- 
 ness." Again, a girl had presumed to alter a message 
 given to her about some mats, and Lady Hester had 
 her nose rubbed against the mats to punish her. Yet, 
 with all this sharp discipline, she struggled vainly to 
 break her maids of their disgusting habits. *' Doctor," 
 she would cry in despair, **they wipe their noses and 
 then the drinking glasses with the same towel ; and 
 lie, and lie, with an assurance that sets detection at 
 defiance." She strove, too, diligently and vehemently, 
 to enforce morality in her household, but with no 
 better success. As long as Miss Williams lived, a 
 semblance of propriety was observed ; but, when she 
 was gone, this, too, disappeared, and Lady Hester 
 stormed and chastised in vain.^ 
 
 Though thus violent and tyrannical, she was, at the 
 same time, extremely liberal and generous as regards 
 
 shown him on the preceding day ; but no such thing ; you have to 
 tell him over again, and so every day. He is a thief from habit, and 
 a liar of the most brazen stamp, as no shame is ever attached to 
 detection. In plausible language, protestations of honour and fidelity, 
 he has no superior ; and, if beaten and reviled, he will smolher 
 his choler, nay, kiss the hand that has chastised him, but waits 
 a fit opportunity for vengeance, and carefully weighs kicks against 
 coppers." 
 
 ^ Occasionally, however, she showed herself lenient. Once, when 
 two black slaves had misbehaved, " with the sad results of such 
 conduct " (in the doctor's phraseology this means a baby), she 
 sent for the offenders, insisted on their instant marriage, and set 
 them free. 
 
268 LADY HESTER'S DRESS [ch. vi 
 
 clothes, New Year's gifts, &c. ; and the doctor declares 
 that he never knew a servant who did not wish to 
 leave her, nor one who did not wish to come back, 
 when he had. Not only the presents, but the dis- 
 honest gains to be obtained in her service, rendered 
 it popular, **to place nothing to the account of that 
 spell which she infallibly cast over everybody who 
 came within the sphere of her attraction." 
 
 Having given her orders for the day, Lady Hester 
 at last rose, and dressed. Her costume, he assures 
 us, was very becoming, and concealed the emacia- 
 tion, through ill-health and advancing years, of her 
 once fine figure. She wore a very ample white 
 merino abba^ looped across the chest, and falling in 
 graceful folds to her ankles, over a crimson robe 
 (Joobey) of the same length ; and to this, in winter, 
 she added a warm pelisse. Underneath was a cream- 
 coloured or flowered gown {hombaz) and wide scarlet 
 cloth trousers ; on her feet, loose Turkish yellow 
 morocco boots. Her turban was a coarse, woollen 
 cream-coloured Barbary shawl, wound round the red 
 fez that covered her shaven head, and over this was 
 thrown the red and yellow striped keffeyahy the ends 
 either tied under her chin, or hanging down on each 
 side of her face. 
 
 *' She never wore pearls, precious stones, or 
 ornaments of any kind, as some travellers have 
 asserted ; indeed, she had none in her possession, and 
 never had had any from the time of her shipwreck. 
 Speaking of her own dress, she would say, ' I think 
 I look something like those sketches of Guercino's, 
 where you see scratches and touches of the pen round 
 the heads and persons of his figures, so that you don't 
 know whether it is hair or a turban, a sleeve or an 
 arm, a mantle or a veil, which he has given them . 
 And when she was seated on the sofa, in a dim corner 
 of the room, the similitude was very just." 
 
 During the day, she walked in her garden, now her 
 chief pleasure, received reports from some of the 
 
 ^ One of these is now in my possession. 
 
1823-1830] PACHA OF ACRE 269 
 
 numerous emissaries and spies she employed, who 
 kept her well informed of all that went on in the 
 country, and attended to her correspondence. This 
 took up a great deal of time. Her letters were volu- 
 minous, but chiefly dictated to her secretary ; whatever 
 she herself wrote was written, as we have seen, in bed. 
 She corresponded on every subject under the sun. 
 
 ** In the same day, I have frequently known her to 
 dictate, with the most enlarged political views, papers 
 that concerned the welfare of a pashalik, and the next 
 moment she would descend, with wondrous facility, to 
 some trivial details about the composition of a house- 
 paint, the making of butter, the drenching of a sick 
 horse, the choosing lambs, or the cutting out of a 
 maid^s apron. She had a finger in everything, and in 
 everything was an adept." 
 
 One of her constant correspondents was the Pacha 
 of Acre, the same Abdalla whose blood-fine she had 
 helped to pay (see p. 224). He had remained her fast 
 friend, even though she sometimes told him home 
 truths. 
 
 " How odious has Abdalla Pacha rendered himself 
 by his confiscations and extortions," she said to the 
 doctor, " because none of his people will speak the 
 truth to him ! When he wants money, his secretaries 
 tell him he has only to sign an order for it, and then, 
 perhaps, half-a-dozen families are driven into exile, or 
 half ruined. But I speak plainly to him ; and once, 
 when I wrote to him how he was making himself hated 
 by a particular act of oppression about money, he tore 
 the buyurdee'^ (edict) **in pieces, which gave force to 
 that act, and drove his secretaries from his presence 
 for having flattered and deceived him. Why, Doctor, 
 when he receives a letter from me, if there are half-a- 
 dozen others at the same time, he will let them lie on 
 
2 70 LADY HESTER'S CONVERSATION [ch. vi 
 
 his sofa whilst he reads mine, and then will put that 
 alone in his pocket, and take it into his harj^m to read 
 it over again." 
 
 Lady Hester's happiest time was, perhaps, that spent 
 in smoking and talking, as she sat on her sofa in her 
 parlour, as the doctor calls it. This, another bare, 
 scarcely furnished apartment, also looking into the 
 garden, and divided from her bedroom by an open 
 divan, was her reception room for visitors. Here they 
 perforce remained, hour after hour, listening to a 
 conversation which it seemed impossible should ever 
 come to an end. She herself was never tired, and 
 never thought it possible they could have heard enough. 
 Mr. Way, the missionary, was with her from three 
 o'clock in the afternoon till daybreak the next morning ; 
 and one unfortunate gentleman, whose name is not 
 given, actually fainted away ** from fatigue and con- 
 straint." The doctor himself declares he has sat with 
 her for eight, nine, ten, and even as much as twelve or 
 thirteen hours at a stretch. " It may be alleged that 
 nothing was more easy than to find excuses for break- 
 ing up a conversation ; but it was not so— for her 
 words ran on in such an uninterrupted stream that one 
 never could seize a moment to make a pause." He 
 may well speak of her ** unexampled colloquial powers," 
 for it seemed to be not only a delight, but a positive 
 necessity for her to talk. Her language, he tells us, 
 was *' lofty and sublime," or '^ full of pathos and feeling," 
 according to the emotions she wished to excite ; and 
 she had an alarming facility for discerning the character 
 of her listeners. 
 
 " There was no secret of the human heart, however 
 carefully concealed, that she could not discover ; no 
 workings in the listener's mind that she could not 
 penetrate ; no intrigue, from the low cunning of vulgar 
 intrigue to the vast combinations of politics, that she 
 could not unravel ; no labyrinth, however tortuous, 
 that she would not thread. 
 
 *' It was this comprehensiveness and searching 
 faculty, this intuitive penetration, which made her so 
 
1823-1830] DJOUN 271 
 
 formidable; for, under imaginary names, when she 
 wished to show a person that his character and course 
 of life were unmasked to her view, she would, in his 
 very presence, paint him such a picture of himself, in 
 drawing the portrait of another, that you might see 
 the individual writhing on his chair, unable to conceal 
 the effect her words had on his conscience. . . . She 
 once told me a pathetic history of a faithful servant, 
 who, in the pecuniary distresses of his master, served 
 him for several years with the purest disinterestedness. 
 I was so touched by her eloquent and forcible manner 
 of recounting the story, and with the self-application 
 that I made of it to my own tardiness in going to her 
 in her distress, together with my intention of leaving 
 her owing to our recent differences, that I burst into 
 tears and wept, as the expression is, bitterly." 
 
 No wonder the doctor felt that to spend a couple 
 of hours with her was to go to school, even while 
 mentally appraising the market value of what he had 
 heard. It was chiefly during his last and longest 
 visit that he got together a store of anecdotes for his 
 three volumes of " Memoirs." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 DjouN — M. DE Lamartine — Mr. Kinglake — Dr. Meryon 
 
 1830— 1838 
 
 As soon as the doctor's family were comfortably settled 
 in their cottage, Mrs. Meryon came, by appointment, to 
 pay her first visit to Lady Hester. She was received 
 with the greatest possible kindness, remained for three 
 hours, and, as she was going away, Lady Hester sent 
 for a handsome Turkish jacket of gold brocade, put it 
 on her with her own hands, and wound round her 
 head a beautifully embroidered muslin turban. This 
 was the Eastern method of doing honour to departing 
 guests, by robing them when they took their leave. 
 Mrs. Meryon, who knew nothing of the custom, took 
 off the jacket and turban, and laid them down on the 
 table without a word. The doctor, having lived so 
 long in the country, might, one would think, have 
 warned her that this would infallibly be considered a 
 grievous insult and offence ; and even in the West, 
 such a way of refusing a present might scarcely be 
 considered gracious. However, the things were sent 
 to her next day ; Lady Hester took no notice, and all 
 went well for about a month. 
 
 A serious cause of quarrel then arose. The Pacha 
 of Damascus, hearing of her physician's return, desired 
 Ahmed Bey to write and ask Lady Hester to send him 
 to see a friend of his, one Hassan Effendi, who was 
 painfully afflicted in his mouth, which was ** a source of 
 deep regret to the faithful, as he was one of the most 
 distinguished chanters of the Koran." Ahmed Bey 
 was a very old friend of Lady Hester's, and an impor- 
 tant personage, who had " taken particular notice " of 
 the doctor several years before. Lady Hester was 
 keen that he should at once start for Damascus ; but 
 
1830-1838] QUARREL WITH DR. MERYON 273 
 
 he himself was far from anxious to cross the Lebanon, 
 then deep in snow, at such a season ; and Mrs. Meryon 
 strongly objected to being left alone, as she was 
 ** totally new to the country, and had not a soul to talk 
 to." True, M. Chasseaud and his wife were living 
 close by ; but still, an utter stranger, and unacquainted 
 with the language, as she was, it is not surprismg that 
 she should have been reluctant to part with her husband, 
 even for a week or two. Lady Hester, however, confi- 
 dently undertook to convince her that she ought to let 
 him go. She sent for her, and exerted all her powers 
 of eloquence in urging every argument she could think 
 of, to win her consent. But she had met her match. 
 Mrs. Meryon " lent a civil but incredulous ear " to all 
 she had to say — we may be sure it was a good deal — 
 and remained inflexible, ending, as she had begun, ** If 
 my husband goes, it will make me miserable." 
 
 Lady Hester, unaccustomed to be thwarted, was 
 exceedingly angry and annoyed, but did not yet 
 consider herself beaten. She allowed a few days to 
 elapse, and then sent a message to the doctor, desiring 
 him to write her word whether he had overcome Mrs. 
 Meryon's scruples. He sent a letter of excuse, declin- 
 ing to go, and the next morning, as he and his wife 
 were at breakfast, the girl Fatoom rushed in, and began 
 abusing them both for having been insolent to her 
 Lady, and caused her to fall ill. Mrs. Meryon, though 
 she did not understand a word the girl said, was quite 
 equal to the occasion ; she took Fatoom by the shoulders 
 and turned her out of the room. Nearly a week now 
 passed without further tidings from Djoun ; then Lady 
 Hester again sent for the doctor, and had a stormy 
 interview with him in the presence of M. Chasseaud, 
 which ended in his declaring he would take his family 
 back to Europe, and only regretted he had come so far 
 to so little purpose. Lady Hester raised no objection. 
 " I have given," she said, " a good deal of advice to 
 many persons in whom I have taken an interest, and 
 you are the last of my disciples whom I thought I 
 could make something of But it is like cutting the 
 hair off the legs of half-bred horses ; it grows again, 
 and you may often get a kick in the face for your pains. 
 You know what a good opinion they had of you in this 
 country, which I kept up ; but your conduct now has 
 spoiled all; for when a man gives his beard to a 
 
 19 
 
274 DEPARTURE OF DR. MERYON [ch. vii 
 
 woman, it is all over with him. Remember my words, 
 and write them down." She made, however, one last 
 attempt to induce him to change his mind. She pointed 
 out to him the description Ahmed Bey gave of Hassan 
 Effendi's malady, '' His chest is without pain, and so is 
 his throat, and the complaint seems to be in his mouth," 
 which she interpreted to mean that the great man had 
 some communication to make to her, too important to 
 be trusted to a letter. But it was all in vain. The 
 doctor stood firm to his guns ; to Damascus he would 
 not go. 
 
 He had definitely resolved to return to Europe, but 
 was obliged to await a remittance from home before he 
 could do so, and as this did not arrive till the end of 
 March, it was only on April 7th, 1831, that he left 
 Djoun. Meanwhile, he and his wife found it no light 
 matter to have fallen under the displeasure of the liege 
 lady of Djoun ; for they were in a great measure 
 boycotted, not only by their neighbours in the village, 
 but by their friends at Sayda. Lady Hester herself 
 continued to receive the doctor on perfectly friendly 
 terms, and provisioned for him the little vessel in which 
 he embarked. She further sent him, as a parting gift, 
 a chest of almond cake, and another of baklaawy, ** of 
 all pastry in the world the most delicious," of both of 
 which she knew he was particularly fond, together 
 with a very fine amber-headed pipe, and a large supply 
 of the best Gebely tobacco, from her own private store. 
 
 Before leaving, he had recommended to her as a 
 servant a young Italian, named Lunardi, ** a very 
 excellent young man," who had lived with Mr. Webb 
 at Leghorn. Lunardi was accordingly sent for, came 
 to Djoun, and remained for a long time in her service. 
 He dubbed himself a doctor, though he knew nothing 
 of medicine ; a practice, Dr. Meryon plaintively adds, 
 not unfrequent in the Levant. 
 
 The next mention of Lady Hester occurs in the 
 following year — a year memorable in Syrian annals, 
 for it witnessed the invasion of an Egyptian army 
 under Ibrahim Pacha, and the siege and capture of 
 Acre. On this occasion (in September, 1832) a poet 
 appears on the scene. M. de Lamartine, with his 
 family and some friends, had estabhshed himself at 
 Beyrout, and the news of his arrival was, as he assures 
 us, already spread abroad all over the countrv. He 
 
1830-1 838J DJOUN 275 
 
 heard a great deal about Lady Hester ; how she had 
 been wrecked on the coast of Caramania, and lost an 
 immense treasure in gold and jewels; how she had 
 then returned to England, sold all her domains, 
 chartered another vessel with what remained of her 
 fortune, settled in Syria, and become a great power in 
 the Lebanon. She was now impoverished, and her 
 authority on the wane ; but still he felt that a recom- 
 mendation from her would be of great service to him 
 among the Arab tribes he was about to visit. He 
 accordingly proposed to go and see her, though warned 
 she was not fond of European visitors, and wrote as 
 follows : 
 
 *' Milady, — Voyageur comme vous, etranger comme 
 vous dans TOrient ; ^ n'y venant chercher comme vous 
 que le spectacle de sa nature, de ses ruines et des 
 ceuvres de Dieu, je viens d'arriver en Syrie avec ma 
 famille. Je compterais au nombre des jours les plus 
 interessants de mon voyage celui ou j'aurais connu une 
 femme qui est elle-meme une des merveilles de cet 
 Orient que je viens visiter. 
 
 **Si vous voulez bien me recevoir, faites-moi dire le 
 jour qui vous conviendra, et faites-moi savoir si je dois 
 aller seul, ou si je puis vous mener quelques-uns de 
 mes amis qui m'accompagnent et qui n'attacheraient 
 pas moins de prix que moimeme a I'honneur de vous 
 etre presentes. 
 
 ** Que cette demande, milady, ne contraigne en rien 
 votre politesse a m'accorder ce qui repugnerait a vos 
 habitudes de retraite absolue. Je comprends trop bien 
 moi-meme le prix de la liberte et le charme de la 
 solitude pour ne pas comprendre votre refus et le 
 respecter." 
 
 The answer came promptly. On September 30th, 
 Lady Hester's " equerry and physician, Dr. Leonardi " 
 
 * Note that she had then been living in the East for more than 
 twenty years. 
 
276 M. DE LAMARTINE [ch. vii 
 
 (Lunardi, promoted by brevet rank), arrived to conduct 
 him to her presence, and the same afternoon he and 
 his friend Amedee de Parseval, started on their journey 
 to Djoun. 
 
 ** At seven in the morning, under an already devour- 
 ing sun, we left Sayda, the ancient Sidon, that projects 
 into the waves like a glorious memory of past dominion, 
 and began to climb rugged, bare, calcined heights, 
 which, rising tier above tier, led to the solitude our 
 eyes sought for in vain. Each ascent brought another 
 and higher one to be accomplished ; mountain was 
 locked to mountain like the serried links of a chain, 
 divided by deep waterless ravines, sun-bleached, and 
 strewn with granite boulders. These mountains are 
 absolutely stripped of soil and vegetation. They are 
 skeletons that wind and water together have ravaged 
 for hundreds of years. At last, from one of these 
 rocks, I looked down upon a wider and deeper valley, 
 enclosed on all sides by mountains equally majestic 
 and less sterile. In the midst of this valley, like a vast 
 tower, rose the mountain of Djoun, encircled by rock- 
 battlements, which, diminishing towards its summit, 
 formed an esplanade some hundreds of roods in breadth, 
 bearing a beautiful and graceful crown of verdure. A 
 white wall, with a kiosk in one angle, enclosed this 
 mass of greenery. Here was Lady Hester's abode. 
 The house is not what would be so called in Europe ; 
 it is not even a house in the Oriental sense of the 
 word, but a quaint, confused assemblage of ten or 
 twelve little buildings, each containing one or two 
 rooms on the ground-floor, without windows, and 
 divided one from the other by small courts and gardens ; 
 exactly similar in aspect to some of the poorer convents 
 one meets with in the mountains of Spain and Italy, 
 belonging to the Mendicant Orders. We were each 
 
1830-1838] DJOUN 277 
 
 conducted into a kind of narrow cell, without light, and 
 without furniture. According to her usual habits, 
 Lady Hester was not visible till three or four o^clock 
 in the afternoon. Breakfast was served, and we then 
 threw ourselves down on the divan to await the 
 summons of the invisible mistress of this romantic 
 abode. I was asleep, when, at three o^clock, some one 
 knocked at my door to announce that she expected 
 me ; I passed through a court, a garden, an open kiosk 
 trellised with jasmine, then two or three dark corridors, 
 and was introduced by a little negro boy, six or eight 
 years old, into Lady Hester's room. So profound was 
 the darkness that pervaded it, I had some difficulty in 
 discerning the noble, grave, gentle, majestic features 
 of the white-robed figure in Oriental dress which rose 
 from the divan, and advanced with outstretched hand. 
 Lady Hester appears to be fifty ; she has features that 
 years cannot alter. Freshness, colour, and grace depart 
 with our youth ; but when the beauty is in the form, 
 the purity of outline, the dignity, the majesty, and the 
 thought expressed in the face of a man or of a woman, 
 it may change with the different periods of life, but is 
 never lost. Such is Lady Stanhope's. She wore a 
 white turban, with a narrow band of purple woollen 
 wound round the front, the ends falling on either side 
 down to her shoulders. A long yellow Cashmere 
 shawl, and a voluminous Turkish robe of white silk 
 with flowing sleeves, draped her figure in simple and 
 majestic folds ; and it was only through an opening 
 this first tunic left at the chest that one perceived an 
 under-garment of flowered Persian silk reaching to the 
 throat, and there fastened by a pearl brooch. Turkish 
 boots of yellow morocco embroidered in silk completed 
 this beautiful Oriental costume, which she wore with 
 the grace and freedom of a person who had worn 
 
278 LAMARTINE'S INTERVIEW [ch. vii 
 
 nothing else from her earliest years." — Voyage en 
 Orient^ vol. i. 
 
 His account of the interviews that followed fills 
 eighteen pages of very small print, and was sub- 
 sequently described by Lady Hester as ^*half of it 
 invention, and the other half incorrect" (see p. 381). 
 One error at least is self-evident. She who liked 
 holding forth alone, would never have suffered him 
 to indulge in the lengthy tirades and disquisitions of 
 which he gives so eloquent a report. They would 
 have been very summarily cut short. I must perforce 
 do the same, as I have no room for them, and can 
 only furnish extracts of this interminable dialogue. 
 
 ** * You have come a long way to visit a hermit,' 
 she began ; * be welcome. I see very few strangers — 
 one or two, perhaps, in the course of the year ; but 
 your letter pleased me, and I wished to make 
 acquaintance with a person who, like myself, loves 
 God, Nature, and solitude. Something, besides, told 
 me that our stars were friendly, and that we should 
 agree. I am glad to find that my presentiment has 
 not deceived me. Your features, which I now see, 
 the very sound of your footsteps as you came along 
 the corridor, have told me I shall not repent of having 
 wished to see you. Sit down, and let us talk. We 
 are already friends.' ' How, Milady, can you so 
 quickly honour with the name of friend a man whose 
 name and life are entirely unknown to you? You 
 can have no idea who 1 am.' " 
 
 This was tentative on the part of the poet, but the 
 answer came with blunt frankness : 
 
 " * That's very true. I know nothing of what you 
 are, according to the world, nor what you have done 
 since you lived among your fellow-men, but I know 
 what you are in the sight of God. Don't think me 
 
1830-1838] DJOUN 279 
 
 mad, as the world often calls me ; but I can't resist 
 the need I feel of opening my heart to you. There 
 is a science, lost in your Europe, a science born in 
 the East, where it has never perished, and still lives. 
 I possess it. I can read the stars. We are all of us 
 children of some one of these celestial bodies, that 
 presided at our birth, and whose influence, malign or 
 otherwise, is imprinted in our eyes, our foreheads, our 
 features, the lines of our hands, the shape of our feet, 
 in our gestures and in our gait. I have been with you 
 but a few minutes, yet I know you as well as if I had 
 lived a hundred years in your company. Shall I 
 reveal you to yourself? Shall I predict your destiny ? ' 
 * On no account, Milady,' I replied, with a smile, * I 
 don't deny what I don't understand ; it is quite con- 
 ceivable that man may be under the influence of 
 planets or angels, but I need no revelation to know 
 what I am — corruption, infirmity, and misery! As 
 to my destiny, I should consider it a profanation of 
 the Divinity that conceals it, if I enquired into it 
 of one of His creatures. As regards the future, I 
 believe only in God, liberty, and virtue.' * Never 
 mind,' she said, * believe what you please ; you are 
 evidently born under three happy, powerful, and 
 benign stars, which have endowed you with ana- 
 logous qualities, and will lead you on to an end, 
 that I might, if you chose, indicate to you to-day. 
 God has sent you here to enlighten your soul. You 
 are one of the men with aspirations and good will 
 that He requires as His instruments in the miraculous 
 works He is about to accomplish in this world. Do 
 you believe that the reign of the Messiah has come?' 
 ^ I was born a Christian,' I said ; * that is my answer.' 
 ' A Christian ? so am I ! ' she replied, rather peevishly ; 
 ^ but has not He, whom you call Christ, said — I speak 
 
28o ASTERiAi. liNt^JLUH^JNUES [en. vii 
 
 to you in parables, but one who cometh after Me will 
 speak to you in spirit and in truth. That is the 
 Messiah who is yet to come, the Messiah whom we 
 expect, whom we shall see with our own eyes, and 
 for whose advent everything in this world is making 
 ready. What will you answer? How will you ex- 
 plain or distort the words I have quoted from your 
 Gospel? What are your motives for believing in 
 Christ ?' * Permit me, Milady,' I replied, * not to enter 
 into a discussion of this kind.' " 
 
 Nevertheless, he does enter upon it at considerable 
 length, giving his reasons for professing the Christian 
 faith, during which Lady Hester's " eyes were veiled 
 with a little displeasure." But when he cordially 
 agreed with her as to the moral depravity of the 
 social world, and its urgent need of regeneration, 
 they were — 
 
 *' Alight with tenderness, and an almost supernatural 
 lustre. ' Believe what you like,' she repeated, * you 
 are none the less one of the men I have been expect- 
 ing, sent to me by Providence, who have a great part 
 to play in the work that is in preparation. . . . One 
 of your stars is certainly Mercury, who gives clearness 
 and colour to intelHgence and to speech. You must 
 be a poet; I see it in your eyes and the upper part 
 of your face. There is sunhght, too,' she added, *in 
 the poise of your head, and the way that you throw it 
 back over your left shoulder. You should thank God. 
 There are few men born under more than one star; 
 few under a fortunate one; fewer still whose star, 
 even if favourable, is not counterbalanced by the 
 opposing influence of a hostile star. You, on the 
 contrary, have several, all working together in har- 
 mony to serve you, and aiding one another on your 
 behalf. What is your name ? ' I told her. ' 1 have 
 
1830-1838] DJOUN 281 
 
 never heard it!' she replied, in the very accents of 
 truth." 
 
 Here the outraged poet at last spoke out. 
 
 *' * Now you see, Milady, what a poor thing is fame ! 
 I have written some verses in my life, that have caused 
 my name to be repeated a million times in all the 
 literary echoes of Europe, yet that echo is too feeble 
 to cross your sea and your mountains, and here I am 
 a new man, a man completely unknown, whose name 
 has never been heard ! ' ' Poet or no poet,' she cried, 
 
 * I like you, and I hope in you ; we shall meet again, 
 be sure of that. You will return to the West, but 
 will soon come back to the East; it is your home.' 
 
 * At least the home of my imagination,' I replied. ^ Do 
 not laugh ; I repeat it — your true home — the home 
 of your forefathers. Now I am sure of it. Look at 
 your foot!' *I see on it only,' I replied, 'the dust 
 of your mountain paths, for which I should have to 
 blush in a European reception-room.' * No ! Nothing 
 of the kind ! It is not that ! Look at your foot ! ' 
 (I had never noticed it myself). * The instep is very 
 high ; and when your foot rests on the ground, there 
 is sufficient space between the heel and the toes for 
 water to flow through without wetting it. That is 
 the foot of the Arab ; the foot of the East. You are 
 a son of these climes, and the time is fast drawing 
 near when every one will return to the home of his 
 ancestors. We shall meet again.' Here a black slave 
 appeared, and touching the ground with his forehead, 
 while holding his hands over his head, said a few 
 words in Arabic. 'Go,' she said, 'your dinner is 
 ready; but come back to me soon. I will occupy 
 myself with your horoscope meanwhile — I myself eat 
 with no one. I live too frugally, a little bread and 
 
282 "CIRCE OF THE DESERTS" [ch. vii 
 
 fruit, whenever I feel the need of food, is sufficient 
 for me; I must not bind a guest to my own regime.' 
 
 ) V 
 
 She hardly, however, gave him and his friend time 
 to eat before she sent for him again. He found her 
 smoking a narghileh ; she offered him another ; and 
 they sat and talked a long time — 
 
 " Always on the favourite subject— the one mysterious 
 theme of this extraordinary woman, this modern 
 magician, so exactly recalling the magicians of an- 
 tiquity — Circe of the deserts ! It appeared to me that 
 the religious opinions of Lady Hester were a clever 
 but confused blending of the different religions in 
 whose midst she had condemned herself to live; 
 mysterious, like the Druses, of whose mystic secret 
 she, perhaps alone in this world, holds the key; 
 resigned, like the Mussulman; a fatalist, like him; 
 expecting the Messiah, like the Jew ; worshipping 
 Christ, like the Christian, and practising His rule 
 of charity and morality. Add to this the fantastic 
 colouring and supernatural dreams of an imagination 
 imbued with the East, and heated by solitude and 
 meditation ; a few revelations, perhaps, made by Arab 
 astrologers, and you will have gained some idea of 
 the mixture of sublimity and oddity which it is more 
 easy to call madness than to attempt to analyse and 
 comprehend. No ! this woman is not mad. Madness, 
 always too evidently manifest in the eyes, is not 
 visible in hers ; their expression is clear and noble ; 
 madness, betrayed in conversation by the sudden, 
 disjointed, eccentric breaks that interrupt it, is never 
 perceptible in Lady Hester's discourse ; it is lofty, 
 mystic, and nebulous, but well sustained, connected, 
 and forcible. If I had to pronounce an opinion, I 
 should say it was a voluntary and simulated madness, 
 
1 830-1838] DJOUN 283 
 
 that was perfectly self-conscious, and assumed for 
 reasons of its own. The power for admiration which 
 her genius has exercised, and still exercises, over the 
 Arab population of these mountains, sufficiently proves 
 that this pretended insanity is only the means to an 
 end. The men of this land of miracles, these sons 
 of the rocks and deserts, whose imagination is more 
 vivid and fertile than their horizons of sand and sea, 
 require the words of Mahomet or of Lady Stanhope ! 
 they require the language of the stars, the pro- 
 phecies, the miracles, the second sight of genius! 
 Lady Stanhope understood this ; first by the far- 
 reaching scope of her really superior intellect; and 
 then, perhaps, like all those endowed with great 
 mental powers, she has ended by seducing herself, 
 and become the first neophyte of the symbol she 
 created for others. This is the impression she made 
 upon me." 
 
 He adds that he would not be surprised to see part 
 of the destiny she foretold for herself accomplished — 
 " an empire in Arabia, a throne in Jerusalem." Lady 
 Hester again repeated that Destiny was irresistible. 
 
 '** My strength is in that. I await it; I do not call 
 for it. I am growing old; I have diminished my 
 fortune. I am left alone, abandoned on this desert 
 rock, a prey to the first audacious vagabond that 
 may break open my gates; surrounded by a troop 
 of faithless servants and ungrateful slaves, who daily 
 plunder me, and sometimes threaten my life. Only 
 the other day I owed my safety to the dagger I used 
 to defend my breast against a black slave I had brought 
 up. Well ! in the midst of all these tribulations I am 
 happy ; I answer everything with the sacred words 
 of the Mussulman, Allah Kerim! God's will! and I 
 
284 LADY HESTER'S GARDEN [ch. vii 
 
 await with confidence the future that I have announced 
 to youJ 
 
 ) >f 
 
 Coffee was brought in by a black slave every 
 quarter of an hour. After they had smoked several 
 pipes, Lady Hester rose. 
 
 '' * Come,' she said, * I will show you a sanctuary 
 which I allow no profane person to enter — my 
 garden ! ' We descended into it by a flight of steps ; 
 and I followed her, in a perfect state of enchantment, 
 through one of the most beautiful Turkish gardens I 
 had yet seen in the East. Trellises, from whose green 
 vaults, like millions of fairy lamps, hung clusters of 
 the sparkling grapes of the Promised Land ; kiosks 
 and sculptured arabesques, interlaced with jasmine 
 and other climbing plants, natives of Asia ; marble 
 basins, where the water (artificially conveyed, it is 
 true) comes from the distance of a league to murmur 
 and play in fountains; alleys planted with all the 
 fruit trees of England, of Europe, and of these 
 beauteous climes; green lawns studded with 
 flowering shrubs ; marble borders enclosing masses 
 of flowers, which I never saw before — such is this 
 garden ! We rested alternately in some of the kiosks 
 that adorned it, and never once did Lady Hester's 
 never-failing flow of conversation lose its lofty and 
 mystic tone. ... * Now,' she said at last, ' I will show 
 you a prodigy of Nature, of which the destination is 
 known only to me and my adepts. Eastern prophecies 
 have announced it for many centuries, and now you 
 shall judge for yourself whether these prophecies are 
 accomplished.' She opened a door, and we entered a 
 small court, in which I perceived two Arab mares of 
 the purest breed, and greatest perfection of form. 
 * Look,' she continued, ' at this bay mare. See if 
 
1830-1838] DJOUN 285 
 
 Nature has not fulfilled in her all that is written of 
 the mare that is to carry the Messiah : She will be born 
 saddled! I saw, as she said, in this fine animal a 
 freak of Nature sufficiently uncommon to excite the 
 credulity of a semi-barbarous people. She had a 
 broad deep cavity behind her shoulders, so exactly in 
 the form of a Turkish saddle, that she might in truth 
 be said to be born saddled, and that, but for the want 
 of stirrups, she might easily have been ridden without 
 one. This magnificent mare seemed accustomed to 
 the admiration and respect with which Lady Stanhope 
 and her slaves treated her, and to have a foreboding 
 of the dignity of her mission ; no one has ever ridden 
 her, and two black Arab grooms are in constant 
 attendance, never losing sight of her for a single 
 moment. Another mare — snow-white, and in my 
 opinion far handsomer — shares with the mare of the 
 Messiah the respect and care of Lady Stanhope. She, 
 too, has never been ridden. Lady Stanhope did not 
 tell me, but gave me to understand that this mare, 
 though less sacred, had still a mysterious and im- 
 portant mission to fulfil, and I thought I perceived 
 that Lady Hester reserved her for her own use on the 
 day she made her entry, by the Messiah's side, into 
 re-conquered Jerusalem." 
 
 Lady Hester was now, after much persuasion, 
 induced to receive M. de Parseval, who had been 
 waiting for admission since the morning ; and they all 
 three returned to the same room, and smoked and 
 talked the greater part of the night. So dense 
 became the clouds of smoke that Lady Hester 
 appeared " seen through an atmosphere similar to the 
 atmosphere of invocations." On this occasion he 
 recounts chiefly his own share in the conversation — 
 far greater than I should imagine she would have 
 permitted him to engross ; among other things ex- 
 plaining, at some length, why he was neither an 
 
286 CHARACTER READING [ch. vii 
 
 aristocrat nor a democrat. ** Well, well! let it be!" 
 cried Lady Hester, when he had done ; ^* let me believe 
 you are an aristocrat, like myself; not one of those 
 young Frenchmen who raise the froth of popular 
 excitement against every institution ordained by God, 
 Nature, or society, and throw down the edifice, that 
 they may erect from its ruins a pedestal for their own 
 envious baseness." Then they talked politics. 
 
 " * I have done with politics,' she declared ; * I saw 
 enough of them during the ten (!) years I spent with 
 my uncle, Mr. Pitt, when all the intrigues of Europe 
 were at work around me. I despised humanity when 
 I was young ; I won't hear it spoken of now. All that 
 men do for other men is fruitless ; forms and methods 
 are indifferent to me. God and virtue are the 
 foundation of all' . . . ** Turning to lighter subjects, 
 and jesting on the kind of divination which enabled 
 her to discern men's characters at first sight by means 
 of their star, I put this power to the test, and 
 questioned her as to two or three travellers of my 
 acquaintance that had passed under her notice during 
 the last fifteen years. I was struck by the extreme 
 correctness of her impressions in the case of two of 
 these men. She analysed, with wonderful perspicacity 
 and intelligence, the character of one of them ; a 
 character difficult to understand at first sight ; of great 
 strength, veiled by an appearance of the simplest and 
 most engaging geniality ; and what put the climax to 
 my astonishment and most impressed me with ad- 
 miration of this woman's inflexible memory, was that 
 this traveller had only been with her for two hours, 
 and that sixteen years had elapsed from the time of 
 his visit when I enquired of her about him. Silence 
 concentrates and strengthens all the faculties of the 
 soul. Prophets, saints, great men, and poets, have all 
 marvellously apprehended this, and their instinct has 
 
i63o-i»3»J DJOUN 287 
 
 led them to seek the desert, or isolation from their 
 fellow-men. 
 
 *'The name of Bonaparte occurred, as it usually 
 does, in conversation. * I thought,' I said, ' that your 
 fanaticism for that man would be a barrier between 
 us.' * I was only a fanatic,' she replied, ' in regard to 
 his misfortunes, and my pity for him.' . . . Thus the 
 night wore away in free discussion, without the least 
 affectation on Lady Hester's part, of any subjects that 
 suggested themselves in a desultory conversation. 
 I felt that no chord was wanting in that powerful and 
 lofty intellect, and that every note of the instrument 
 sounded true, full, and clear — except, perhaps, the 
 chord of metaphysics, which solitude and too high a 
 tension had falsified or raised to a pitch beyond the 
 sphere of human intelligence. We separated with 
 regrets, very sincere on my part, and obligingly 
 expressed on hers. * No farewell,' she said; *we 
 shall often meet again in your travels, and other 
 travels that you do not yet even contemplate. Go 
 and rest, and remember that you have a friend in the 
 solitudes of the Lebanon.' She gave me her hand ; I 
 pressed mine to my heart, in Arab fashion, and we 
 parted." 
 
 Lady Hester appears to have been greatly amused 
 by Lamartine's little affectations and peculiarities, for 
 she often recurred to them, especially to his way of 
 calling her attention to his foot. *' He pointed his 
 toes in my face," she declared, ** and then turned to 
 his dog and kissed him, and held long conversations 
 with him. He thought to make a great effect when he 
 was here, but he was grievously mistaken. I gave him 
 a letter to Abu Ghosh, who received him very well ; 
 but when he talked about himself, and made out that 
 he was a great man, Abu Ghosh said it was for my 
 sake, and not for his own, that he showed him as 
 much honour as he could. . . . Think of him, getting 
 
288 TOWER OF BABEL [ch. vii 
 
 off his horse half-a-dozen times to kiss his dog, and 
 take him out of his bandbox to feed him, on the road 
 from Beyrout here ; the very muleteers and servants 
 thought him a fool." She had, as will presently 
 appear (see p. 383), indulged herself by making a little 
 fun of him. 
 
 Djoun was at this time crowded with fugitives from 
 Acre. Lady Hester's hospitable gates were thrown 
 open to all, and within them alone security was to be 
 found; for the whole country was terrorised by 
 Ibrahim Pacha. Among those she harboured were 
 some whose lives were forfeit, and he peremptorily 
 demanded their surrender. But he blustered and 
 threatened in vain. She sent him word that he must 
 take her own life first, for as long as the breath was 
 in her body the poor people that had sought her 
 protection should remain unmolested under her 
 roof. 
 
 '* After the siege of Acre," she writes (the letter is 
 undated and without address, but must, I think, have 
 been to Lord Hardwicke), *' which lasted seven 
 months (with an unremitted fire, even during the 
 nights), what remained of the wretched population 
 fled here. I alone dared to acknowledge them ; even 
 the prisoners of the Sultan's army (taken in the 
 neighbourhood of Hems and Hamar), when marched 
 by Sayda, were dying of thirst— neither Turk, 
 Christian, nor Frank would give them a glass of 
 water, all trembling before Ibrahim Pacha. These 
 unhappy people did not come to me, but I sent to 
 them. 
 
 " In three years my house was like the Tower of 
 Babel, filled as well as the village, with unhappy 
 people from Acre of all nations ; but, with the blessing 
 of God, I got through with it all, and was likewise 
 enabled to stand up alone before the attacks of all these 
 Pachas and rascally Consuls. By the determination 
 and presence of mind which I inherit, I have saved 
 
1830-1838] DJOUN 289 
 
 many doomed to have their heads cut oflF; but, in 
 order not to commit the English name^ I always said, 
 * What I do, I do in my own name.' ... I have 
 deprived myself not only of the comforts, but of the 
 necessaries of life to relieve these people. I am sure that 
 you and Lady H. (granting her her mother's feelings) 
 will approve of what I have done. You may recollect 
 I told you old Suleiman Pacha treated me as his child. 
 Could I then see one of his wives — re-married to his 
 treasurer— come out here literally stripped to her 
 shift, and her husband's thighs and legs without skin 
 (they had been blown up with gunpowder), her poor 
 little naked child, her wretched attendants, her hus- 
 band's confidential servant, with both his eyes and 
 nose carried off by a ball — wandering about among 
 persons who were afraid to acknowledge them and 
 turned their backs upon them ? One of the Sultanas 
 has handsomely provided for this woman and her 
 children (for she increased her family while here) at 
 Constantinople. Another, one of the most respectable 
 families of Acre, composed of eighteen persons, being 
 all orphans and widows, without anybody to help 
 them except one poor boy of about fifteen, who had 
 nearly become idiotic from fright ; wounded Mame- 
 lukes and their families ; orphans and widows without 
 any resource whatever; soldiers of all nations, some 
 wounded and some half naked. Look at the accuracy 
 of M. Lamartine ! I had seventy-five of them here at 
 the time that he paid me a visit, but I kept them out of 
 his sight (for his sentiment is all in his pen and not in 
 his heart). . . . Many of these people I have sent to 
 their country, others have been employed, and others 
 are all less or well provided for at this moment, thank 
 God ! I went through fatigue enough to kill a boats- 
 wain ; but whatever sacrifices I may have made of 
 20 
 
290 THE REFORM BILL [ch. vii 
 
 money or health, I do not regret it. I should do the 
 same thing to-morrow, if circumstances called for 
 these exertions, in opposition to every one, and 
 certainly the broad-bottomed family " (Grenvilles) 
 " can have no right to blame me. What they did for 
 the King of France,^ and those that surrounded him, I 
 have done in my humble way, not for Abdalla Pacha 
 alone, as the world believes, but for humanity. 
 Ibrahim Pacha I admire infinitely more, being a 
 hero, and having several distinguished qualities ; but 
 as the war-agent of a tyrant who has presumed to 
 raise his arm against his master, I must be the enemy 
 of both^ notwithstanding the kindness with which 
 Mehemet Ali formerly treated me, and the patience 
 Ibrahim Pacha has had with the violence I have often 
 demonstrated to his envoys, who never venture a 
 second time, for they always send a fresh one." 
 
 Though Lady Hester never read a newspaper, some 
 echoes of the Reform Bill agitation in England had 
 reached Syria. 
 
 *^ Had I been in England, and a man, I should have 
 fought more duels with Radicals than my cousin, 
 Lord Camelford. Every flower that grows upon his 
 tomb is a greater hero than they are — for the chief 
 cause of all their masquerading is fear — a fear of the 
 future ; but it will all be of none avail. There are 
 few men more proud of their situations than many of 
 them are, or less willing to give up the advantages 
 arising from them. Were they raised to their situa- 
 tions by their own distinguished merits, or by the 
 favour of those whom they affect to despise, or, at 
 
 1 (< 
 
 The father of this Duke of Buckingham," she says in another 
 letter, '' spent for the Bourbons, all the time they were in England, 
 ^25,000 a year.'' 
 
i830-i»38J DJOUN 291 
 
 least, treat without respect? Enfin^ I shall shortly 
 expect to hear that some boatswain has given his 
 Captain a box on the ear, and that thanks have been 
 voted to him by the House of Commons." 
 
 We now come to the fascinating chapter in '* Eothen *' 
 that describes Mr. Kinglake's visit to Djoun. His 
 mother had known Lady Hester, in her old Somerset- 
 shire days, as ** the intrepid girl that had been used 
 to break in her friends' vicious horses for them," now, 
 by a strange revulsion of fortune, ** reigning in sove- 
 reignty over the wandering tribes of Western Asia! 
 ... I never," he says, **had heard, nor indeed, I 
 believe, had the rest of the world ever heard, anything 
 like a certain account of the heroine's adventures, all 
 I knew was, that in one of the drawers, the delight 
 of my childhood, there were letters carefully treasured, 
 and trifling presents, which I was taught to think 
 valuable because they came from the Queen of the 
 Desert — a Queen who dwelt in tents and reigned over 
 wandering Arabs." 
 
 When he arrived at Beyrout he **felt at once that 
 my mother would be sorry to hear that I had been 
 within a day's ride of her old friend without offering 
 to see her, and I therefore despatched a letter to the 
 recluse, mentioning the maiden name of my mother 
 (whose marriage was subsequent to Lady Hester's 
 departure), and saying that if there existed on the part 
 of her Ladyship any wish to hear of her old Somerset- 
 shire acquaintance, I should make a point of calling 
 upon her." 
 
 The answer was a very kind invitation, brought by 
 Lunardi, who, with another man on horseback, both 
 of them covered with mud, ^'suddenly dashed into the 
 court of the little locanda where I was staying, bearing 
 themselves as ostentatiously as though they were 
 carrying a cartel from the devil to the angel Michael." 
 He named a day for his visit, but after all, " did not 
 start at the time fixed. Whilst still remaining at 
 Beyrout, I received another letter from Lady Hester ; 
 this I will give you, for it shows that whatever the 
 eccentricities of the writer may have been, she could 
 at least be thoughtful and courteous : 
 
292 MR. KINGLAKE [ch. vii 
 
 " ^ Sir, — I hope I shall be disappointed in seeing 
 you on Wednesday, for the late rains have rendered 
 the river Damoor, if not dangerous, at least very un- 
 pleasant to pass for a person who has been lately 
 indisposed, for, if the animal swims, you would be 
 immerged in the waters. The weather will probably 
 change after the 21st of the moon, and after a couple 
 of days the roads and the river will be passable ; there- 
 fore, I shall expect you either Saturday or Monday. 
 
 ** * It will be a great satisfaction to me to have an 
 opportunity of inquiring after your mother, who was 
 a sweet, lovely girl when I knew her. 
 ** ^ Believe me, Sir, 
 
 ** * Yours sincerely, 
 
 *' * Hester Lucy Stanhope.' 
 
 ** Early one morning I started from Beyrout. ... I 
 left Saide (the Sidon of ancient times) on my right, 
 and about an hour, I think, before sunset, began to 
 ascend one of the many low hills of Lebanon. On 
 the summit before me 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, hke 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 was the dwelling-place 
 of Chatham's fiery grand-daughter. 
 
 " The aspect of the first court I entered was such as 
 to keep one in the idea of having to do with a for- 
 tress, rather than a mere peaceable dwelling-place. A 
 number of fierce-looking and ill-clad Albanian soldiers 
 were hanging about the place inert, and striving, as 
 
293 
 
 well as they could, to bear the curse of tranquillity; 
 two or three of them were smoking their tchibouques^ 
 but the rest were lying torpidly upon the flat stones, 
 like the bodies of departed brigands. I rode on to an 
 inner part of the building, and at last, quitting my 
 horse, was conducted through a doorway that led me 
 at once from an open court into an apaftment on the 
 ground-floor. As I entered, an Oriental figure in male 
 costume approached me from the further end of the 
 room, with many and profound bows ; but the growing 
 shades of evening prevented me from distinguishing 
 the features of the personage who was receiving me 
 with this solemn welcome. I had always, however, 
 understood that Lady Hester Stanhope wore the male 
 attire, and began to utter in English the common 
 civilities that seemed to be proper on the commence- 
 ment of a visit by an uninspired mortal to a renowned 
 prophetess ; but the figure which I addressed only 
 bowed so much the more, prostrating itself almost to 
 the ground, but speaking to me never a word. I 
 feebly strived not to be outdone in gestures of respect ; 
 but presently my bowing opponent saw the error 
 under which I was acting, and suddenly convinced me 
 that at all events I was not yet in the presence of a 
 superhuman being, by declaring that he was far from 
 being ' Miladi,' and was, in fact, nothing more or less 
 godlike than the poor doctor who had brought his 
 mistress's letter to Beyrout. 
 
 ^' Lady Hester, in the right spirit of hospitality, now 
 sent and commanded me to repose for a while after 
 the fatigues of my journey, and to dine. 
 
 '' The cuisine was of the Oriental kind— highly arti- 
 ficial, and, as I thought, very good. I rejoiced, too, in 
 the wine of the Lebanon. 
 
 "After dinner the doctor arrived with Miladi*s 
 
294 RESEMBLANCE TO CHATHAM [ch. vii 
 
 compliments, and an intimation that she would be 
 happy to receive me if I were so disposed. It had 
 now grown dark, and the rain was falling heavily, so 
 that I got rather wet in following my guide through 
 the open courts that I had to pass in order to reach 
 the presence-chamber. At last I was ushered into a 
 small chamber, protected from the draughts of air 
 passing through the doorway by a folding screen; 
 passing this, I came alongside of a common European 
 sofa. There sat the Lady Prophetess. She rose from 
 her seat very formally— spoke to me a few words of 
 welcome, pointed to a chair— one already placed 
 exactly opposite to her sofa at a couple of yards' 
 distance — and remained standing up to the full of her 
 majestic height, perfectly still and motionless, until I 
 had taken my appointed place. She then resumed 
 her seat — not packing herself up according to the 
 mode of the Orientals, but allowing her feet to rest 
 on the floor or the footstool ; at the moment of seating 
 herself she covered her lap with a mass of loose, white 
 drapery. It occurred to me at the time that she did 
 this in order to avoid the awkwardness of sitting in 
 manifest trousers under the eye of a European ; but I 
 can hardly fancy now that, with her wilful nature, she 
 would have brooked such a compromise as this. 
 
 " The woman before me had exactly the person of 
 a prophetess — not, indeed, of the divine sibyl imagined 
 by Domenichino, so sweetly distracted betwixt love 
 and mystery, but of a good, business-like, practical 
 prophetess, long used to the exercise of her sacred 
 calling. I have been told by those who knew Lady 
 Hester Stanhope in her youth, that any notion of a 
 resemblance betwixt her and the great Chatham must 
 have been fanciful ; but at the time of my seeing her, 
 the large commanding features of the gaunt woman, 
 
1830-1838] DJOUN 295 
 
 then sixty years old or more, certainly reminded me 
 of the statesman that lay dying in the House of Lords, 
 according to Copley's picture. Her face was of the 
 most astonishing whiteness; she wore a very large 
 turban, made seemingly of pale cashmere shawls, and 
 so disposed as to conceal the hair ; her dress, from the 
 chin down to the point at which it was concealed by 
 the drapery on her lap, was a mass of white linen 
 loosely folding — an ecclesiastical sort of affair — more 
 like a surplice than any of those blessed creations 
 which our souls love under the names of dress, and 
 * frock,* and * bodice,' and * collar,' and ' habit-shirt,' and 
 sweet * chemisette.' 
 
 " Such was the outward seeming of the personage 
 that sat before me ; and, indeed, she was almost bound, 
 by the fame of her actual achievements, as well as by 
 her sublime pretensions, to look a little differently 
 from the rest of womankind. There had been some- 
 thing of grandeur in her career. After the death of 
 Lady Chatham, which happened in 1803, she lived 
 under the roof of her uncle, the second Pitt, and when 
 he resumed the Government in 1804, she became the 
 dispenser of much patronage, and sole Secretary of 
 State for the department of Treasury banquets. Not 
 having seen the lady until late in her life, when she 
 was fired with spiritual ambition, I can hardly fancy 
 that she could have performed her political duties in 
 the saloons of the Minister with much of feminine 
 sweetness and patience. I am told, however, that she 
 managed matters very well indeed. Perhaps it was 
 better for the lofty-minded Leader of the House to 
 have his reception-rooms guarded by this stately 
 creature than by a merely clever and managing 
 woman; it was fitting that the wholesome awe with 
 which he filled the minds of the country gentlemen 
 
296 KINGLAKE^S '' EOTHEN " [ch. vii 
 
 should be aggravated by the presence of his majestic 
 niece. But the end was approaching. The sun of 
 Austerlitz showed the Czar madly sliding his splendid 
 army, like a weaver's shuttle, from his right hand to 
 his left, under the very eyes — the deep, grey, watchful 
 eyes of Napoleon. Before night came the coalition 
 was a vain thing — meet for history ; and the heart of 
 its great author, when the terrible tidings came to 
 his ears, was wrung with grief — fatal grief. In the 
 bitterness of his despair, he cried out to his niece, and 
 bid her * Roll up the map of Europe.' There was a 
 little more of suffering, and at last, with his swollen 
 tongue (so they say) still muttering something for 
 England, he died by the noblest of all sorrows. 
 
 *^ Lady Hester, meeting the calamity in her own 
 fierce way, seems to have scorned the poor island that 
 had not enough of God's grace to keep the * heaven- 
 sent ' Minister alive. I can hardly tell why it should 
 be, but there is a longing for the East, very commonly 
 felt by proud people when goaded by sorrow. Lady 
 Hester Stanhope obeyed this impulse; for some time, 
 I believe, she was at Constantinople, and there her 
 magnificence, as well as her near alliance to the late 
 Minister, gained her great influence. Afterwards she 
 passed into Syria. The people of that country, excited 
 by the achievements of Sir Sidney Smith, had begun 
 to imagine the possibility of their land being occupied 
 by the English ; and many of them looked upon Lady 
 Hester as a princess who came to prepare the way 
 for the expected conquest. I don't know it from her 
 own lips, or, indeed, from any certain authority, but 
 I have been told that she began her connection with 
 the Bedouins by making a large present of money 
 (£S^o — immense in piastres) to the sheik whose 
 authority was recognised in the desert, between 
 
1830-1838] DJOUN 297 
 
 Damascus and Palmyra. The prestige 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 her dauntless 
 bravery. Her influence increased. I never heard 
 anything satisfactory as to the real extent or duration 
 of her sway, but I understood that, for a time at least, 
 she certainly exercised something like sovereignty 
 amongst the wandering tribes. And now that her 
 earthly kingdom had passed away, she strove for 
 spiritual power, and impiously dared, as it was said, 
 to boast some mystic union with the very God of 
 very God ! ^ 
 
 ^* A couple of black slave-girls came at a signal and 
 supplied their mistress, as well as myself, with lighted 
 tchibouques and coffee. 
 
 **The custom of the East sanctions, and almost 
 commands, some moments of silence whilst you are 
 inhaling the first few breaths of the fragrant pipe; 
 the pause was broken, I think, by my lady, who 
 addressed to me some enquiries respecting my mother, 
 and particularly as to her marriage ; but before I had 
 communicated any great amount of family facts, the 
 spirit of the prophetess kindled within her, and 
 presently (though with all the skill of a woman of 
 the world) she shuffled away the subject of poor, 
 dear Somersetshire, and bounded onward into loftier 
 spheres of thought. 
 
 *' My old acquaintance with some of * the twelve * 
 enabled me to bear my part (of course a very humble 
 one) in a conversation relative to occult science. 
 Milnes once spread a report that every gang of gipsies 
 was found, upon inquiry, to have come last from a 
 
 * This report was a gross calumny. There is no recorded word of 
 Lady Hester^s that even hints at so monstrous a suggestion. 
 
298 CLEARNESS OF VISION [ch, vii 
 
 place to the westward, and to be about to make the 
 next move in an eastern direction ; either, therefore, 
 they were to be all gathered together towards the 
 rising of the sun by the mysterious finger of Provi- 
 dence, or else they were to revolve round the globe 
 for ever and ever. Both of these suppositions were 
 highly gratifying, because they were both marvellous ; 
 and though the story on which they were founded 
 plainly sprang from the inventive brain of a poet, no 
 one had ever been so odiously statistical as to attempt 
 a contradiction of it. I now mentioned the story as 
 a report to Lady Hester Stanhope, and asked her it 
 it were true. I could not have touched upon any 
 imaginable subject more deeply interesting to my 
 hearer, more closely akin to her habitual train of 
 thinking ; she immediately threw off all the restraint 
 belonging to an interview with a stranger ; and when 
 she had received a few more similar proofs of my 
 aptness for the marvellous, she went so far as to say 
 that she would adopt me as her eleve in occult science. 
 
 ** For hours and hours this wondrous white woman 
 poured forth her speech, for the most part concerning 
 sacred and profane mysteries ; but every now and 
 then she would stay her lofty flight and swoop down 
 upon the world again ; whenever this happened, I was 
 interested in her conversation. 
 
 " She adverted more than once to the period of her 
 lost sway amongst the Arabs, and mentioned some of 
 the circumstances that aided her in obtaining influence 
 with the wandering tribes. The Bedouin, 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. 
 
1830-1838] DJOUN 299 
 
 She told me that, on one occasion, when there was 
 good reason to expect hostiUties, 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 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. 
 
 *^ Lady Hester related to me this other anecdote of 
 her Arab life. It was when the heroic qualities of the 
 Englishwoman were just beginning to be felt amongst 
 the people of the desert, that she was marching one 
 day along with the forces of the tribe to which she 
 had allied herself. She perceived that preparations 
 for an engagement were going on; and upon her 
 making inquiry as to the cause, the sheik at first 
 affected mystery and concealment, but at last con- 
 fessed that war had been declared against his tribe on 
 account of his alliance with the English princess, and 
 that they were now unfortunately about to be attacked 
 by a very superior force. He made it appear that 
 Lady Hester was the sole cause of hostility be- 
 twixt his tribe and the impending enemy, and that 
 his sacred duty of protecting the Englishwoman whom 
 he had admitted as guest, was the only obstacle which 
 prevented an amicable settlement of the dispute. The 
 sheik hinted that his tribe was likely to sustain an 
 almost overwhelming blow, but at the same time 
 declared that no fear of the consequences, however 
 terrible to him and his whole people, should induce 
 him to dream of abandoning his illustrious guest. 
 The heroine instantly took her part; it was not for 
 
300 LADY HESTER'S COURAGE [ch. vii 
 
 her to be a source of danger to her friends, but rather 
 to her enemies; so she resolved to turn away from 
 the people, and trust for help to none save only her 
 haughty self. The sheiks affected to dissuade her 
 from so rash a course, and fairly told her that although 
 they (having been freed from her presence) v^ould be 
 able to make good terms for themselves, yet that there 
 were no means of allaying the hostility felt towards 
 her, and that the whole face of the desert would be 
 swept by the horsemen of her enemies so carefully, 
 as to make her escape into other districts almost im- 
 possible. The brave woman was not to be moved by 
 terrors of this kind, and bidding farewell to the tribe 
 which had honoured and protected her, she turned 
 her horse*s head and rode straight away, without 
 friend or follower. Hours had elapsed, and for some 
 time she had been alone in the centre of the round 
 horizon, when her quick eye perceived some horsemen 
 in the distance. The party came nearer and nearer ; 
 soon it was plain that they were making towards 
 her, and presently some hundreds of Bedouins, fully 
 armed, galloped up to her, ferociously shouting, and 
 apparently intending to take her life at the instant 
 with their pointed spears. Her face at the time was 
 covered with the yashmak^ according to Eastern 
 usage; but at the moment when the foremost of the 
 horsemen had all but reached her with their spears, 
 she stood up in her stirrups, withdrew the yashmak 
 that veiled the terrors of her countenance, waved her 
 arm slowly and disdainfully, and cried out with a loud 
 voice, * Avaunt ! ' The horsemen 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 gun-shots were fired on all 
 
i53o-i»3»J DJOUN 301 
 
 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. 
 Lady Hester related this story with great spirit, and 
 I recollect that she put up her yashmak for a moment, 
 in order to give me a better idea of the effect which 
 she produced by suddenly revealing the awfulness of 
 her countenance. 
 
 " With respect to her then present mode of life. 
 Lady Hester informed me that for her sin she had 
 subjected herself during many years to severe 
 penance, and that her self-denial had not been 
 without its reward. * Vain and false,' said she, * is all 
 the pretended knowledge of the Europeans ; their 
 doctors will tell you that the drinking of milk gives 
 yellowness to the complexion. Milk is my only food, 
 and you see if my face be not white.' Her abstinence 
 from food intellectual was carried as far as her 
 physical fasting ; she never, she said, looked upon a 
 book nor a newspaper, but trusted alone to the stars 
 for her sublime knowledge. She usually passed the 
 nights in communing with these heavenly teachers, 
 and lay at rest during the daytime. She spoke with 
 great contempt of the frivolity and benighted ignor- 
 ance of the modern Europeans, and mentioned, in 
 proof of this, that they were not only untaught in 
 astrology, but were unacquainted with the common 
 and everyday phenomena produced by magic art. 
 She spoke as if she would make me understand that 
 all sorcerous spells were completely at her command, 
 
ioi HIDDEN TREASURE ! [ch. vii 
 
 but that the exercise of such powers would be 
 derogatory to her high rank in the heavenly king- 
 dom. She said that the spell by which the face of 
 an absent person is thrown upon a mirror was within 
 the reach of the humblest and most contemptible 
 magicians, but that the practice of suchlike arts was 
 unholy as well as vulgar. 
 
 " We spoke of the bending twig by which, it is said, 
 precious metals may be discovered. In relation to 
 this, the prophetess told me a story rather against 
 herself, and inconsistent with the notion of her being 
 perfect in her science ; but I think that she mentioned 
 the facts as having happened before she attained to 
 the great spiritual authority which she now arro- 
 gated. She told me that vast treasures were known 
 to exist in a situation which she mentioned, if I rightly 
 remember, as being near Suez ; that Napoleon, pro- 
 fanely brave, thrust his arm into the cave containing 
 the coveted gold, and that instantly his flesh became 
 palsied. But the youthful hero (for she said he was 
 great in his generation) was not to be thus daunted ; 
 he fell back characteristically upon his brazen 
 resources, and ordered up his artillery. Yet man 
 could not strive with demons, and Napoleon was 
 foiled. In later years came Ibrahim Pacha, with 
 heavy guns, and wicked spells to boot ; but the 
 infernal guardians of the treasure were too strong 
 for him. It was after this that Lady Hester passed 
 by the spot, and she described with animated gesture 
 the force and energy with which the divining-twig 
 had suddenly leaped in her hands. She ordered 
 excavations, and no demons opposed her enterprise. 
 The vast chest in which the treasure had been 
 deposited was at length discovered, but lo, and 
 behold, it was full of pebbles ! She said, however, 
 
io3o-i»3»J DJOUN 303 
 
 that the times were approaching in which the hidden 
 treasures of the earth would become available to those 
 who had * true knowledge/ 
 
 " Speaking of Ibrahim Pacha, Lady Hester said that 
 he was a bold, bad man, and was possessed of some of 
 those common and wicked magical arts, upon which 
 she looked down with so much contempt. She said, 
 for instance, that Ibrahim's life was charmed against 
 balls and steel, and that after a battle he loosened the 
 folds of his shawl, and shook out the bullets like 
 dust. 
 
 " It seems that the St. Simonians once made over- 
 tures to Lady Hester. She told me that the P^re 
 Enfantin (the chief of the sect) had sent her a service 
 of plate, but that she had declined to receive it. She 
 delivered a prediction as to the probability of the 
 St. Simonians finding the * mystic mother,' and this 
 she did in a way which would amuse you. Unfortu- 
 nately, I am not at liberty to mention this part of the 
 woman's prophecies ; why, I cannot tell, but so it is, 
 that she bound me to eternal secrecy. 
 
 *' Lady Hester told me that since her residence at 
 Djoun she had been attacked by an illness so severe 
 as to render her for a long time perfectly helpless. 
 All her attendants fled, and left her to perish. Whilst 
 she lay thus alone, and quite unable to rise, robbers 
 came and carried away her property. She told me 
 that they actually unroofed a great part of the 
 building, and employed engines with pulleys for the 
 purpose of hoisting out such of her valuables as were 
 too bulky to pass through doors. It would seem that 
 before this catastrophe Lady Hester had been rich in 
 the possession of Eastern luxuries ; for she told me 
 that, when the chiefs of the Ottoman force took refuge 
 with her after the fall of Acre, they brought their 
 
304 AN OASIS [ch. vii 
 
 wives also in great numbers. To all of these Lady 
 Hester, as she said, presented magnificent dresses, 
 but her generosity occasioned strife only instead of 
 gratitude, for every woman who fancied her present 
 less splendid than that of another, with equal or less 
 pretension, became absolutely furious. All these 
 audacious guests had now been got rid of; but the 
 Albanian soldiers, who had taken refuge with Lady 
 Hester at the same time, still remained under her 
 protection. 
 
 ** In truth, this half-ruined convent, guarded by the 
 proud heart of an English gentlewoman, was the only 
 spot throughout all Syria and Palestine in which the 
 will of Mehemet AH and his fierce lieutenant was not 
 the law. More than once had the Pacha of Egypt 
 commanded that Ibrahim should have the Albanians 
 delivered up to him ; but this white woman of the 
 mountain (grown classical, not by books, but by very 
 pride) answered only with a disdainful invitation to 
 'come and take them.' Whether it was that Ibrahim 
 was acted upon by any superstitious dread of inter- 
 fering with the prophetess (a notion not at all incom- 
 patible with his character as an able Oriental 
 commander), or that he feared the ridicule of putting 
 himself in collision with a gentlewoman, he certainly 
 never ventured to attack the sanctuary ; and so long 
 as Chatham's grand-daughter breathed a breath of life, 
 there was always this one hillock, and that, too, in 
 the midst of a most populous district, which stood 
 out, and kept its freedom. Mehemet Ali used to say, 
 I am told, that the Englishwoman had given him 
 more trouble than all the insurgent people of Syria 
 and Palestine. 
 
 *'The prophetess announced to me that we were 
 upon the eve of a stupendous convulsion which would 
 
1830-1838] A PROPHECY FULFILLED 305 
 
 destroy the then recognised value of all property upon 
 earth ; and, declaring that those only who should be 
 in the East at the time of the great change could hope 
 for greatness in the new life that was then close at 
 hand, she advised me, whilst there was yet time, to 
 dispose of my property in poor, frail England, and 
 gain a station in Asia. She told me that, after leaving 
 her, I should go into Egypt, but that in a little while 
 I should return into Syria. I secretly smiled at this 
 last prophecy as a ' bad shot,' because I had fully 
 determined, after visiting the Pyramids, to take ship 
 from Alexandria for Greece. But men struggle 
 vainly in the meshes of their destiny ! The unbelieved 
 Cassandra was right, after all. The plague came, and 
 the necessity of avoiding the quarantine detention, to 
 which I should have been subjected if I had sailed 
 from Alexandria, forced me to alter my route. I went 
 down into Egypt, and stayed there for a time, and 
 then crossed the desert once more, and came back to the 
 mountains of the Lebanon, exactly as the prophetess 
 had foretold. 
 
 *' Lady Hester talked to me long and earnestly on 
 the subject of religion, announcing that the Messiah 
 was yet to come. She strived to impress me w^th the 
 vanity and falseness of all European creeds, as well as 
 with a sense of her own spiritual greatness. Through- 
 out her conversation upon these high topics, she 
 carefully insinuated, without actually asserting, her 
 heavenly rank. 
 
 " Amongst other much more marvellous powers, the 
 lady claimed one which most women have more or 
 less — namely, that of reading men's characters in their 
 faces. She examined the line of my features very 
 attentively, and told me the result : this, however, I 
 mean to keep hidden. 
 21 
 
3o6 LADY HESTER AS MiMiC Ich. vis 
 
 " One favoured subject of discourse was that of 
 ' race * ; upon this she was very diffuse, and yet 
 rather mysterious. She set great value upon the 
 ancient French, not Norman blood (for that she vilified), 
 but professed to despise our English notion of * an old 
 family,' She had a vast idea of the Cornish miners, on 
 account of their race, and said, if she chose, she could 
 give me the means of rousing them to the most 
 tremendous enthusiasm. 
 
 " Such are the topics on which the lady mainly 
 conversed ; but very often she would descend to more 
 worldly chat, and then she was no longer the pro- 
 phetess, but the sort of woman that you sometimes see, 
 I am told, in London drawing-rooms— cool, decisive 
 in manner, unsparing of enemies, full of audacious fun, 
 and saying the downright things that the sheepish 
 society around her is afraid to utter. 1 am told that 
 Lady Hester was, in her youth, a capital mimic, and 
 she showed me that not all the queenly dulness to 
 which she had condemned herself — not all her fasting 
 and solitude — had destroyed this terrible power. The 
 first whom she crucified in my presence was poor 
 Lord Byron. She had seen him, it appeared, 1 know 
 not where, soon after his arrival in the East, and was 
 vastly amused at his little affectations. He had picked 
 up a few sentences of the Romaic, and with these he 
 affected to give orders to his Greek servant in a ton 
 d apameibomenos style. I can't tell you whether Lady 
 Hester's mimicry of the bard was at all close, but it 
 was amusing ; she attributed to him a curiously cox- 
 comical lisp. 
 
 "Another person, whose style of speaking the lady 
 took off very amusingly, was one who would scarcely 
 object to suffer by the side of Lord Byron — 1 mean 
 Lamartine. The peculiarity which attracted her ridi- 
 
1830-1838] VITUPERATION AS A FINE ART 307 
 
 cule was an over-refinement of manner. According 
 to my lady's imitation of Lamartine (I have never 
 seen him myselQi he had none of the violent grimace 
 of his countrymen, and not even their usual way of 
 talking, but rather bore himself mincingly, like the 
 humbler sort of English dandy. 
 
 *' Lady Hester seems to have heartily despised 
 everything approaching to exquisiteness. She told me, 
 by-the-bye (and her opinion upon that subject is worth 
 having), that a downright manner, amounting even to 
 brusqueness, is more effective than any other with 
 the Oriental; and that amongst the English, of all 
 ranks and all classes, there is no man so attractive 
 to the Orientals — no man who can negotiate with 
 them half so effectively — as a good, honest, open- 
 hearted, and positive naval officer of the old school. 
 
 " 1 have told you, I think, that Lady Hester could 
 deal fiercely with those she hated. One man above all 
 others (he is now uprooted from society) she blasted 
 with her wrath ; you would have thought that in the 
 scornfulness of her nature she must have sprung upon 
 her foe with more of fierceness than of skill. But this 
 was not so, for with all the force and vehemence of 
 her invective, she displayed a sober, patient, and 
 minute attention to the details of vituperation, which 
 contributed to its success a thousand times more than 
 mere violence. 
 
 ** During the hours that this sort of conversation, or 
 rather discourse, was going on, our tchibouques were 
 from time to time replenished, and the lady, as well as 
 I, continued to smoke with little or no intermission 
 till the interview ended. I think that the fragrant 
 fumes of the Latakiah must have helped to keep me 
 on ray good behaviour as a patient disciple of the 
 prophetess. 
 
3o8 LADY HESTER'S SECRETARY [cH. vii 
 
 ^* It was not till after midnight that my visit for the 
 evening came to an end. When I quitted my seat the 
 lady rose, and stood up in the same formal attitude 
 (almost that of a soldier in a state of attention) which 
 she had assumed on my entrance; at the same time 
 she pushed the loose drapery from her lap, and let it 
 fall down upon the floor. 
 
 " The next morning after breakfast I was visited by 
 my lady's secretary — the only European, except the 
 doctor, whom she retained in her household. This 
 secretary, like the doctor, was Italian, but he preserved 
 more signs of European dress and European preten- 
 sions than his medical fellow-slave. He spoke little or 
 no English, though he wrote it pretty well, having been 
 formerly employed in a mercantile house connected 
 with England. The poor fellow was in an unhappy 
 state of mind. In order to make you understand the 
 extent of his spiritual anxieties, I ought to have told 
 you that the doctor (who had sunk into the complete 
 Asiatic, and had condescended accordingly to the 
 performance of even menial services) had adopted the 
 common faith of all the neighbouring people, and had 
 become a firm and happy believer in the divine power 
 of his mistress. Not so the secretary. When I had 
 strolled with him to such a distance from the building 
 as rendered him safe from being overheard by human 
 ears, he told me in a hollow voice, trembling with 
 emotion, that there were times at which he doubted 
 the divinity of Miladi. I said nothing to encourage 
 the poor fellow in his frightful state of scepticism, for 
 I saw that, if indulged, it might end in positive in- 
 fidelity. Lady Hester, it seemed, had rather arbitrarily 
 abridged the amusements of her secretary ; and especi- 
 ally she had forbidden him from shooting small birds 
 on the mountain-side. This oppression had aroused 
 
1830-1838] DJOUN 309 
 
 in him a spirit of inquiry that might end fatally— per- 
 haps for himself— perhaps for the * religion of the 
 place.* 
 
 **The secretary told me that his mistress was 
 strongly disliked by the surrounding people, and that 
 she oppressed them a good deal by her exactions. 
 I know not whether this statement had any truth in 
 it ; but whether it was or was not well founded, it is 
 certain that in Eastern countries hate and veneration 
 are very commonly felt for the same object, and the 
 general belief in the superhuman power of this 
 wonderful white lady-— her resolute and imperious 
 character, and above all, perhaps, her fierce Albanians 
 (not backward to obey an order for the sacking of a 
 village)-'inspired sincere respect amongst the sur- 
 rounding inhabitants. Now the being 'respected* 
 amongst Orientals is not an empty or merely honorary 
 distinction, but carries with it a clear right to take 
 your neighbour's corn, his cattle, his eggs, and his 
 honey, and almost anything that is his, except his wives. 
 This law was acted upon by the Princess of Djoun, 
 and her establishment was supplied by contributions 
 apportioned amongst the nearest of the villages. 
 
 " I understood that the Albanians (restrained, I 
 suppose, by the dread of being delivered up to 
 Ibrahim) had not given any very troublesome proofs 
 of their unruly natures. The secretary told me that 
 their rations, including a small allowance of coffee 
 and tobacco, were served out to them with tolerable 
 regularity. 
 
 ** I asked the secretary how Lady Hester was off for 
 horses, and said that I would take a look at the stables. 
 The man did not raise any opposition to my proposal, 
 and affected no mystery about the matter, but said 
 that the only two steeds which then belonged to 
 
3IO VARIED DISCOURSE [ch. vii 
 
 Miladi were of a very humble sort. This answer, and 
 a storm of rain then beginning to descend, prevented 
 me at the time from undertaking my journey to the 
 stables, and I don't know that I ever thought of the 
 matter afterwards, until my return to England, when 
 I saw Lamartine's eye-witnessing account of the 
 strange horse saddled, as he pretends, by the hands of 
 his Maker! 
 
 ** When I returned to my room (this, as my hostess 
 told me, was the only one in the whole building that 
 kept out the rain), Lady Hester sent to say she would 
 be glad to receive me again. I was rather surprised at 
 this, for I had understood that she reposed during the 
 day, and it was now little later than noon. * Really,' 
 said she, when I had taken my seat and my pipe, * we 
 were together for hours last night, and still I have 
 heard nothing at all of my old friends ; now, do tell 
 me something of your dear mother, and her sister ; 
 I never knew your father — it was after I left Burton 
 Pynsent that your mother married.' I began to make 
 slow answer ; but my questioner soon went off again 
 to topics more sublime ; so that this second interview, 
 though it lasted two or three hours, was all occupied 
 by the same sort of varied discourse as that which 
 I have been describing. 
 
 ** In the course of the afternoon the captain of an 
 English man-of-war arrived at Djoun, and Lady Hester 
 determined to receive him for the same reason as that 
 which had induced her to allow my visit — namely, an 
 early intimacy with his family. I and the new visitor 
 —he was a pleasant, amusing man—dined together, 
 and we were afterwards invited to the presence of my 
 Lady, and with her we sat smoking till midnight. The 
 conversation turned chiefly, I think, upon magical 
 science. I had determined to be off at any early hour 
 
1 830-1838] DJOUN 3H 
 
 the next morning, and so at the end of this interview 
 I bade my Lady farewell. With her parting words 
 she once more advised me to abandon Europe, and 
 seek my reward in the East ; and she urged me too to 
 give the like counsels to my father, and tell him that 
 * she had said it' 
 
 " Lady Hester's unholy claim to supremacy in the 
 spiritual kingdom was, no doubt, the suggestion of 
 fierce and inordinate pride most perilously akin to 
 madness ; but I am quite sure that the mind of the 
 woman was too strong to be thoroughly overcome by 
 even this potent feeling. I plainly saw that she was 
 not an unhesitating follower of her own system ; 
 and I even fancied that I could distinguish the brief 
 moments during which she contrived to believe in 
 herself, from those long and less happy intervals in 
 which her own reason was too strong for her. 
 
 *' As for the lady's faith in astrology and magic 
 science, you are not for a moment to suppose that 
 this implied any aberration of intellect. She believed 
 these things in common with those around her; and 
 it could scarcely be otherwise, for she seldom spoke 
 to anybody except crazy old dervishes who at once 
 received her alms and fostered her extravagances ; 
 and even when (as on the occasion of my visit) she 
 was brought into contact with a person entertaining 
 different notions, she still remained uncontradicted. 
 This entourage, and the habit of fasting from books and 
 newspapers, were quite enough to make her a facile 
 recipient of any marvellous story." 
 
 For some reason or other, Mr. Kinglake was not 
 allowed to see either her garden or her famous 
 mares. 
 
 In the summer of 1836 we find poor Lady Hester 
 gnce more the victim of a hoax. Thiis tin;ie she had 
 
312 ANOTHER HOAX [ch. vii 
 
 inherited an estate in Ireland, the knowledge of 
 which was kept from her by interested persons. It 
 was quite true that a Colonel Needham had be- 
 queathed his estate to Mr. Pitt, who died before hirn, 
 and that it then devolved on Lord Kilmorey, as his 
 heir-at-law. She was now assured that Lord Kil- 
 morey, dying childless, had felt bound to carry out 
 the Colonel's wishes regarding this estate, and had 
 therefore bequeathed it to her as Mr. Pitt's heir. Who 
 but Lady Hester would have been imposed upon by 
 such a tale ? yet she believed it implicitly, and believed 
 it to her dying day. She wrote at once to ask her 
 friend M. Guys to come to her. 
 
 ** Very extraordinary circumstances have come to 
 my knowledge which I cannot communicate to you by 
 letter. ... I should like to have an opportunity of 
 profiting by your counsel touching certain things 
 somewhat incredible, which have been twice repeated 
 to me by persons much attached to me, but who are 
 not desirous of being known." 
 
 This friend was the French Consul at Beyrout, who 
 appears to have been of the greatest service to her, 
 taking the place of his English colleague, with whom 
 she would have nothing to do. Several of her letters 
 to him are given in the ** Memoirs," but they are chiefly 
 on business. In one she says : 
 
 **God grant that the time may come when I shall 
 have it in my power to return you, in some shape, a 
 small measure only of the politeness and attention I 
 have received from you. ... I will send you back the 
 book (* Voyage en Orient ').... Half of what the 
 writer says is false. Before I went to Palmyra I made 
 an excursion into the desert with Lascaris alone, 
 keeping the doctor and the married servants, under 
 one pretext or another, from accompanying me. 
 Lascaris and I were pursued by the Fed^an Bedouins, 
 who were hostile to Mohammed el Fadl, and although 
 
1830-1838] DJOUN 313 
 
 our horses never drank for two days, we rode from ten 
 in the morning until after midnight without eating or 
 drinking to get out of their district. Then, again, the 
 dispute between Lascaris and me was about a groom, 
 who, not knowing who he was, would not let him 
 enter my stables at Hamah. His pride would not 
 stop to listen to reason, and he ran away. I met him 
 several years after at Tripoli, and he made me cry for 
 an hour by the excess of his grief and the excuses 
 which he made me — so much so that I, who hardly 
 ever shed tears, was astonished at myself. Poor man ! 
 There indeed was a true courtier, with the most 
 elegant manners and an inconceivable fund of know- 
 ledge, without pedantry. It was not Napoleon that 
 he was so much attached to, it was to him who had 
 the portefeuille. You know very well what he did for 
 him." 1 
 
 She also wrote to Lord Hardwicke, ** a man who 
 has rendered me one thousand services without ever 
 having made them known to me, but chance has 
 brought them to my knowledge," asking him to 
 enquire about her Irish estate. A vain quest indeed ! 
 Then she summons back the doctor. 
 
 Lady Hester to Dr, Meryon 
 
 ""^ August 2\stj 1836. 
 
 " I hope I shall not claim in vain the assistance of 
 an old friend, at the moment I most require one I can 
 depend upon, to settle the business of my debts, &c., 
 now made public. Money has been left to me which 
 
 * This Lascaris, a Piedmontese by birth, was a former Knight of 
 Malta, who had followed Napoleon to Egypt, and been sent by him to 
 explore the route to India, where he then thought of going. Lascaris 
 spent seven years in wandering, under various disguises, among the 
 wild tribes of Mesopotamia and the banks of the Euphrates, feigning 
 a sort of monomania to account for his movements. But when he 
 brought back the result of his researches, he found his labour had 
 been in vain, for the Emperor was no longer on the throne, and re- 
 turning discouraged to the East, died at Cairo, poor, neglected, and 
 unknown. 
 
314 EFFECT OF LAMARTINFS BOOK [ch. vu 
 
 has been concealed from me. I could hardly at first 
 believe it until I was assured of it by a young lawyer 
 who had the fact from one of my Irish relations. I 
 should wish you to come as soon as you can possibly 
 make it convenient to yourself, and return when the 
 business is over. . . . An English traveller, who has 
 written, as I am informed, a very learned work, told a 
 person that when M. Lamartine's book first came out in 
 England the impression was so strong, that many 
 people who did not personally know me talked of 
 coming here to investigate my affairs and to offer their 
 services, but that they were prevented. A woman 
 of high rank and good fortune" (Baroness de Feriat) 
 "who has built herself a palais in a remote part of 
 America, has announced her intention of passing the 
 rest of her life with me, so much has she been struck 
 with my situation and conduct. She is nearly of my 
 age ; and thirty-seven or thirty-eight years ago — I 
 being personally unknown to her — was so taken with 
 my general appearance, that she never could divest 
 herself of the thoughts of me, which have ever since 
 pursued her. At last, informed by M. Lamartine's 
 book where I was to be found, she took this extra- 
 ordinary determination, and in the spring I expect her. 
 She is now selling her large landed estate, preparatory 
 to her coming. She, as well as Leila, the mare, is in 
 the prophecy " (see p. 210). "The beautiful boy has 
 also written, and is wandering over the face of the 
 globe, till destiny marks the period of our meeting. 
 
 " I have heard of your situation, and it pains me 
 beyond expression.^ Here you might, I believe, have 
 been happy, and I also comfortable, as I have confi- 
 
 * '' I understand," she writes to M. Guys, " that the doctor's cir- 
 cumstances are not very flourishing. Poor man ! let him take courage ; 
 he shall be better— ay, shall be well off, when I b.9,ve just put dowr\ 
 ^hose , . ,'' 
 
1830-1838] LUNARDI 315 
 
 dence in your integrity ; and, whilst you were regu- 
 lating all as I should have wished, you would have 
 pursued those avocations most pleasing to your taste. 
 What advice can I give you that I have not already 
 given fifty times ? 
 
 ** Of myself, I can say but little that is amusing ; 
 for, from the time the Egyptian troops entered this 
 country till now, I have been in hot water. After the 
 siege, all that remained of the wretched population 
 fled here. ... It was only at the beginning of this 
 year that I got rid of a family of eighteen persons, all 
 orphans and widows. ... I had, at one time, seventy- 
 five coverlets out for strangers — chiefly soldiers — the 
 village full of families, and those at Sayda and other 
 places coming and going for a little money to buy their 
 daily bread. 
 
 '* I have saved many lives by my energy and 
 determination, and have stood alone in such a storm! 
 All trembled, Franks as much as the rest ; and if they 
 pretended to act with a little spirit, they were sure to 
 have folly and not justice on their side, and to be at 
 last forced to give in. But the most of them joined, 
 heart and hand, with the usurpers, whom I have 
 treated without mercy, and in the end carried all 
 before me. God helped me in all ; for, otherwise, I 
 never could have got through with it, having no one 
 of any sort of use to me. 
 
 " Lunardi, Mr. Webb's man, whom you so strongly 
 recommended to me, turned himself into a doctor, and 
 was too much taken up with his new title to be of 
 any use to me; yet, this useless Lunardi is a good- 
 hearted fellow. Were you to see him now, however, 
 you would hardly know him, his manners are so 
 improved, as well as his understanding. I believe, 
 also, that he is attached to me. 
 
3i6 LADY HESTER'S HEALTH [cH. vii 
 
 ** Anxiety, agitation, and fatigue, together with the 
 violent passions I sometimes put myself in, caused me, 
 only a year ago, to vomit blood enough several times 
 to kill a horse. In seven days it stopped, but yet I 
 was obliged to be bled eleven times in four months 
 and a half, fearing a return. Yesterday I was 
 working like a fellah " (labourer) '* in my garden. 
 I am very thin, but contented about my health, 
 as this gives proof of my natural strength. With 
 the blood running out of my mouth, I was col- 
 lected enough to give orders respecting a man who, 
 if he had been caught, would have lost his head; 
 and no soul in the family knew of this but one, 
 who insisted on seeing me in the state I was in ; and 
 although I could hardly speak, I reflected much, and — 
 thank God ! — settled all to my satisfaction. . . . Do 
 not be uneasy about my health, for an English medical 
 man, who came here after my illness, said he never 
 saw such a constitution in his life, and that my pulse 
 then was a better pulse than his. 
 
 ^* I am reckoned here the first politician in the world, 
 and by some a sort of prophet. Even the Emir 
 (Beshyr) wonders, and is astonished ; for he was not 
 aware of this extraordinary gift formerly ; but yet all 
 say — I mean enemies — that I am worse than a lion 
 when in a passion, and that they cannot deny I have 
 justice on my side. . . . 
 
 ** P." (an Italian) '' has gambled away nearly five 
 hundred dollars I gave him about four years ago 
 for things that I wanted, and never sent me any- 
 thing." . . . 
 
 She gives him a list of commissions — such a pitiful 
 list ! — showing her need of the commonest necessaries. 
 
 ^^ I want for myself six cups and saucers ; the 
 
1830-1838] LADY HESTER'S REQUIREMENTS 317 
 
 top, I think, four inches in diameter, height, two 
 inches. I had a cup I was so fond of, for tea and 
 coffee tasted so good out of it ! It was strong and 
 good china, but it is gone, and one cup held enough 
 for my breakfast — a moderate cup and a half. I 
 want also a teapot, black or red, which you like ; two 
 cream jugs, four milk jugs, in case two are broken 
 (being always in use) ; six plates, four glass things, 
 for butter and honey; a toast rack — not plated, a 
 plated one for strangers ; a dozen basins, some little 
 phials and corks, a few common candlesticks (brass or 
 something strong), a few common entangling combs, 
 a few scrubbing brushes for the kitchen — that is all. 
 
 " The little black is not twelve years old, yet she 
 does my bedroom, and answers the bell ; she is the 
 only good-tempered black I have seen, so I try to 
 please her, poor thing ! If you come, I should there- 
 fore wish (if not too expensive) that you should bring, 
 as an encouragement, a pair of earrings, a string of 
 beads, a pair of bracelets, and a thimble. 
 
 ** I do not want any books, having no one to read to 
 me ; it even puts my eyes out to write this." 
 
 The Baroness de Feriat, whom Lady Hester ex- 
 pected in the spring, represented in her eyes " the 
 woman from a far country " of the prophecy, who 
 was to come and *' partake of the mission." She 
 never came, and I fear she too was a fraud. But 
 why did she announce herself ? What possible motive 
 could she have had in making so extraordinary a pro- 
 posal? There was nothing whatever to be gained 
 by it, except, perhaps, notoriety, and the love of 
 notoriety leads people to do strange things. On the 
 other hand, how could Lady Hester welcome such a 
 prospect? The coming of an unknown woman to 
 remain with us for the rest of her life, would fill 
 most of us with dismay. To her it was but the ful- 
 filment of prophecy, a part of her appointed destiny, 
 and she was pleased and interested. *' I fancy," she 
 
3i8 DR. MERYON RETURNS [ch. vii 
 
 writes, '* Madame de Feriat must be a woman quite 
 unique!' She was, as usual, persuaded that it was 
 all true, and that the rich lady from a remote part 
 of America was really coming ; and, in perfectly good 
 faith, set about looking for a house for her, and 
 preparing and decorating it. " For the divan-room I 
 should like ornaments of a musical character, for she 
 seems to be very fond of music and of the fine arts." 
 
 The " beautiful boy " without a father, I am sorry to 
 say, is never mentioned again. 
 
 Dr. Meryon responded to her summons in the 
 following year, and duly arrived at Beyrout on July 
 ist, 1837, bringing with him — much against Lady 
 Hester's wishes— his wife, his daughter Eugenia, and 
 Eugenia's governess. Their coming was singularly 
 unwelcome to her, and she did not scruple to tell 
 him so. 
 
 " I could wish you," she writes, " first of all, to come 
 here alone, to see a house at Sayda for your family, 
 and for us to well understand one another before 
 you bring them here. For your sake, I should 
 always wish to show civility to all who belong to 
 you ; but caprice I will never interfere with, for, from 
 my early youth, I have been taught to despise it. . . . 
 I hope your health is quite recovered, and, in the end, 
 that you will have no reason to regret your voyage." 
 
 This time, then, there was to be no friendly recep- 
 tion, no robing of the honoured guest ; Mrs. Meryon 
 was to be kept at arm's length ; and, ungracious and 
 unkind as Lady Hester's decision appears, there is 
 something to be said in favour of its wisdom. She 
 wished, if possible, to avoid all friction — at any rate, 
 all discussion ; and to guard herself against a recur- 
 rence of the state of things that had existed six years 
 before. And in this she was to a great extent 
 successful. She was not, however, unmindful of Mrs. 
 Meryon's comfort, for she sent one of her servants to 
 attend upon her, as well as mules for the whole party 
 and their luggage. The doctor, disregarding her 
 request, brought them on at once to Sayda, where he 
 
1830-1838] GENERAL LOUSTANEAU 319 
 
 found that an earthquake, six months before, had 
 cracked or thrown down more than half the houses, 
 and the French Consul could only offer them his 
 garden, in which to pitch their tent. Dr. Meryon 
 himself went on to Djoun, and returning the next day, 
 found his family bathed in tears. The night before, a 
 deserter, trying to hide himself in the Consular garden, 
 had appeared at the tent door. Mrs. Meryon's shrieks 
 roused the whole household, and the French ladies 
 had vainly endeavoured to convince her there was no 
 danger ; she insisted on being taken away at once. 
 The doctor, at his wits' end, bethought himself of Mar 
 Elias, Lady Hester's former home, which she still 
 retained, and where, though this building, too, had 
 suffered greatly in the earthquake, they found ample 
 accommodation. One of the rooms was occupied by 
 the crazy French prophet, General Loustaneau, now 
 nearly eighty-two, and living, as he had done for 
 twenty years past, on Lady Hester's bounty. 
 
 ** He had a maid-servant to take care of him; a 
 barber, on fixed days, to shave him. Lamb, mutton, 
 or beef, flour for his bread, and wine, were sent as his 
 consumption required, money being liberally furnished 
 him for purchasing everything else from Sayda." 
 
 The doctor found that the woman in charge 
 neglected the poor old man, and told Lady Hester so. 
 The next morning he found — 
 
 *'An extraordinary display on the floor of her bed- 
 room. * See,' she said, * what I am reduced to ! 
 Ever since daylight this morning ' (it was then 
 noon) ' have I been handling pots and pans to make 
 the Prophet comfortable. For on whom can I de- 
 pend ?— on these cold people ? A pack of stocks and 
 btones, who rest immovable amidst their fellow- 
 creature's sufferings! Why did you not give that 
 woman a dressing? I'll have her turned out of the 
 village — an impudent hussy ! ' 
 
320 '^ UNMANAGEABLE— TH ATS ME!" [ch. vii 
 
 " Here, from having raised her voice, she was seized 
 with a spasm in the throat and chest, and, with a 
 sudden start, * Some water, some water ! make haste ! ' 
 she cried, and gasped for breath as if almost suffo- 
 cated. I handed her some immediately, which she 
 greedily drank. I then threw the window open, and 
 she became better. * Don't leave me, doctor, ring the 
 bell : I can't bear to be left alone a moment, for if one 
 of these attacks were to come on, and I could not ring 
 the bell, what could I do ? You must forgive me if I 
 fall into these violent passions, but such is my nature, 
 I can't help it. I am like the horse Mr. Pitt had. Mr. 
 Pitt used to say, ** You can guide him with a hair ; if 
 I only move my leg he moves on, and his pace is so 
 easy, it's quite charming ; but if you thwack him or 
 contradict him, he is unmanageable " — that's me ! 
 
 } }} 
 
 These sudden attacks, with a throttling sense of 
 suffocation, which, as she described it, was like the 
 gripe of a hand upon her throat, seemed to the doctor 
 symptoms of water in the chest, and made him very 
 uneasy. She had long suffered from a chronic cough, 
 that subsided during the summer months, returning 
 with increased violence every winter; and she was 
 in a state of complete emaciation, having been, for 
 the last twenty years, regularly bled four or five 
 times a year. She would seldom or never take his 
 advice, for she prescribed almost entirely for herself, 
 and — 
 
 *' Had peculiar systems, drawn from the doctrine of 
 other people's star. Such is the state of the balmy 
 air in Syria, that, had she trusted to its efficacy alone, 
 and lived with habits of life like other people, nothing 
 serious was to be dreaded from her illness. But she 
 never breathed the external air, except what she got 
 by opening the windows, and took no exercise, but 
 for about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour daily, 
 
1830-1838] DJOUN 321 
 
 when, on quitting her bedroom to go to the saloon, 
 she took two or three turns in her garden to see her 
 flowers and shrubs, which seemed to be the greatest 
 amusement she had." 
 
 On October 2Sth of this year, she had to take to her 
 bed, and did not leave it again till the following 
 March. 
 
 It was more owing to the state of her health than 
 from any disinclination to receive visitors, that, in the 
 latter years of her life, she habitually closed her doors 
 against them. She often bitterly regretted that she 
 was unable to see them, as nothing pleased her better 
 than to hold forth on *' sublime subjects," to which — 
 fortunately for himself — she considered the doctor 
 unsuited. Sometimes, too, it was from actual want of 
 funds. 
 
 " How many times," she said, " have I been abused 
 by the English when I did not deserve it, and for 
 nothing so much as for not seeing people, when 
 perhaps it was quite out of my power ! There was 
 Mr. Anson, and Mr. Strangways, who, because I 
 refused to see them, sat down und^r a tree, and wrote 
 me such a letter ! Little did they know that I had not 
 a bit of barley in the house for their horses, and 
 nothing for their dinner. I could not tell them so ; but 
 they might have had feeling enough to suppose it was 
 not without some good reason that I declined their 
 visit. Many a pang has their ill-nature given me, as 
 well as that of others. I have the note still some- 
 where." 
 
 On more than one occasion she entertained guests 
 whom she was unable to see, as in the case of Mr. 
 Foster and Mr. Knox. She found that the former was 
 the relation of Sir Augustus, our minister at Turin, 
 and bade the doctor — 
 
 *^ Go instantly to him, for Sir Augustus is an old 
 22 
 
:^22 liOSPlTALlTV MADE DIFFICULT [ch. vn 
 
 friend of mine. Be particularly attentive to Mr. Foster 
 — indeed, to both of them. Tell them I am very sorry 
 I can't see them ; for when I get into conversation I 
 become animated, and then I feel the effects of it 
 afterwards ; but assure them they are welcome to 
 make their home of their present lodging for a couple 
 of days or a couple of hours — as long as they 
 like. . . . Go, go ! and make them as comfortable as 
 you can." 
 
 It is easy enough to entertain guests when all that 
 is required is to give the necessary orders ; poor Lady 
 Hester had to practise hospitality under far different 
 conditions. For her it entailed endless worry and 
 trouble. She had to contrive and consider how it was 
 possible to furnish them with a decent dinner. The 
 doctor told her he had seen the cook, and made out 
 the best bill of fare he could. '* But now," she said, 
 **what can be got for their dejeuner a la fourchette'i 
 — for there is nothing in the house. Ah, yes! let me 
 see— there is a stew of yesterday's that I did not 
 touch ; that may be warmed up again, and some 
 potatoes added ; and then you must taste that wine 
 that came yesterday from Garyfy, to see if you think 
 they will like it. The spinach my maid must do — I 
 have taught ZezefOon to do it very well." Here she 
 rang for Zezefoon, and gave directions for the 
 spinach, adding : ''The strangers must have some of 
 my butter and some of my bread. Likewise give out 
 the silver spoons, and knives and forks ; they are 
 under that cushion on the ottoman there ; and mind 
 you count them when you give them to Mohammed, 
 or they will steal one, and dispute with you afterwards 
 about their number — a pack of thieves ! " Mr. Foster 
 asked for a glass of lemonade. Little could he have 
 imagined the commotion caused by this modest request. 
 "Lemonade!" cried Lady Hester; "why, the maid 
 said the secretary had been to ask for some violet 
 syrup for them; now, which is it they want? And 
 then, who is there can make lemonade? — not a soul 
 but myself in the whole house ; and poor I am obliged 
 to wear out my little strength in doing the most trivial 
 
1830-1838] LADY HESTER'S VISITORS s^s 
 
 offices. Here I am— I wanted to write another letter 
 to go by the steamboat, and now all my thoughts are 
 driven out of my head. Zezefoon ! order the gardener 
 to bring me four or five of the finest lemons on the 
 tree near the alley of roses— you know where I mean 
 — and prepare a tray with glasses." And Lady Hester 
 was presently sitting up in bed to squeeze lemons 
 for the lemonade. She, who maintained so many 
 pensioners and retainers, apparently made but scant 
 provision for herself. 
 
 She named to the doctor some of the visitors she 
 had received during the past years ; apparently there 
 were but few ; and in most cases he gives only their 
 initials. Besides Captain Pechell and Captain Yorke, 
 both of whom '* she liked and thought clever men," 
 there were the Due de Richelieu, '' more like a militia 
 officer than a French duke," a *' sensible Scotchman,'' 
 Mr. Dundas (during whose visit the girl Fatoom picked 
 her pocket of her keys, ransacked her cupboards, and 
 carried off all that was worth having), Count Delaborde, 
 Dr. Mills, Count de la Porte, Lord St. Asaph (afterwards 
 Earl of Ashburnham), &c., &c. '' Did Lord St. Asaph 
 publish anything?" she once asked. ** He was very 
 active, and went about seeking for antiquities every- 
 where ; whenever he heard of anything, off he set, and 
 visited it. When he saw my garden he expressed 
 great admiration of it, and assured me that it was not 
 only well kept for this country, but better kept than 
 many a gentleman's grounds in England." 
 
 About two months after his arrival, clouds began to 
 appear on the doctor's domestic horizon. Mrs. Meryon 
 took a dislike to Mar Elias, refused to remain there, 
 and wished Lady Hester to provide them with a house 
 at Dar Joon, nearer at hand, where her husband might 
 spend his evenings with her. This Lady Hester 
 declined to do ; she said a house must be sought for 
 elsewhere, and ignored her claims to her husband's 
 society. She was not, as we have seen, partial to her 
 own sex ; there were very few women she really liked, 
 and Mrs. Meryon certainly was not one of them. 
 
 ** Women," she would say, *^ must be one of three 
 things. Either they are politicians and literary char- 
 acters; or they must devote their time to dress, 
 
324 LADY HESTER ON HUSBANDS [ch. vii 
 
 pleasure, and love; or, lastly, they must be fond of 
 domestic affairs. I do not mean by * domestic affairs ' 
 a woman who sits working at her needle, scolding 
 a couple of children, and sending her maid next door to 
 the shop for all she wants ; there is no trouble in that. 
 What I mean is a yeoman's wife, who takes care of 
 the butter and cheese, sees the poultry yard attended 
 to, and looks to her husband's comfort and interest. 
 As for the advantage of passing your evenings with 
 your family, which you urge as a reason for having 
 them near you, all sensible men that I have ever heard 
 of take their meals with their wives, and then retire to 
 their own room, to read, write, or do what they have 
 to do, or what best pleases them. If a man is a fox- 
 hunter, he goes and talks with his huntsman or the 
 grooms, and very good company they are ; if he is a 
 tradesman, he goes into his shop ; if a doctor, to his 
 patients ; but nobody is such a fool as to moider away 
 his time in the slip-slop conversation of a pack of 
 women." 
 
 On further reflection, however, she felt that she had 
 no right, for the sake of her own affairs and her 
 personal convenience, to retain the doctor in a position 
 of constraint and discomfort. She wrote to him (he 
 was then laid up with a bad leg) as follows : 
 
 Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon 
 
 " DjOUN, 
 " September 22,rd^ 1837. 
 
 *' Whilst waiting for M. Guys' answer, I have some 
 remarks to make, worthy of your attention. I do not 
 speak in wrath, my dear doctor, but I do not see how, 
 at this period, you are to help yourself; and it is plain 
 to perceive that you will not be able in any way to 
 accomplish the objects you came for. Therefore, 1 
 should deem it an act of folly to stick you up as 
 
1830-1838] DJOUN 325 
 
 a sort of Maskera " (show) " in the public eye at 
 Beyrout, merely to write a few letters. The whole 
 of my business M. Guys offered to undertake before 
 I sent for you, and to come here and write for me ; 
 but I had reasons for wishing you to come, which no 
 longer exist ; for under no circumstances do I see that 
 you would be comfortable near me, nor should I wish 
 it, either at present or in future. Therefore, if you 
 like to pass the winter at Cyprus, where, perhaps, 
 you would be more comfortable than at Beyrout, you 
 are at full liberty to do so. When my affairs are 
 settled, you might then, if Cyprus pleases you, pur- 
 chase a little terro there, or return to Europe, as you 
 like best. 
 
 " I am very glad that you wrote to M. Guys 
 yourself; for I had described a country house near 
 some village, and you have described a sort of coffee- 
 house near the gate of the town. You talked to me of 
 Mrs. M.'s great love of retirement (which I laughed 
 at, at the time), and therefore she chooses a house on 
 the high road. But leave all that childish, vulgar stuff. 
 I do not wish for a hasty answer, as this subject 
 requires reflection. Try and make yourself comfort- 
 able, and I shall find means of settling my business to 
 my satisfaction ; only I must have a clear and distinct 
 answer, that I may make arrangements accordingly. 
 ... Do not fidget yourself about me. I have made 
 many awful sacrifices in my life, surely I can make a 
 small one, when I know what it is." 
 
 The doctor, however, would not accept his dismissal, 
 for he did not wish to go. He was busily employed, 
 little as she suspected it, in collecting materials for the 
 ** Memoirs." Matters were arranged, a house was 
 found that satisfied Mrs. Meryon, and all went on 
 as before. 
 
326 DR. MERYON^S INACCURACIES [ch. vii 
 
 In offering to part with the doctor, Lady Hester was 
 really making a sacrifice, and in more respects than 
 one, her greatest pleasure was to hear him read aloud 
 the books she was debarred from reading herself. 
 They were generally Memoirs (Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, 
 Lady Charlotte Bury, etc.), recalling old scenes and 
 former friends and acquaintances, and whenever a 
 familiar name occurred, she launched forth into reminis- 
 cences and anecdotes. These the doctor collected 
 for his book, furnishing us with a vast amount of 
 gossip, besides a great deal of rambling and random 
 talk on every subject under the sun. Nor does he 
 omit the various scoldings, lectures, and snubbings of 
 which he was the recipient, and they were many and 
 grievous. Of the anecdotes, I have only given two or 
 three she tells of herself in early days, and even these 
 with doubt and misgivings, for such of these stories 
 as I have been able to test I have invariably found in- 
 correct. Her memory had become more and more 
 treacherous and confused, and was quite unreliable; 
 she evidently often gave the wrong names, jumbled 
 together different events, distorted and exaggerated 
 others, and was altogether oblivious of dates. The 
 two years she had spent with Mr. Pitt became ten. 
 The doctor, too, though he tells us he often wrote 
 down what he had heard as soon as he got home, 
 probably made a great many mistakes. She says in 
 one of her letters (see p. 414) that he constantly made 
 mischief by his want of accuracy, and even a scrupu- 
 lously exact man would have found it difficult, not to say 
 impossible, to retail without error a conversation that 
 had lasted for several hours together. I rather agree, 
 too, with M. Charles {Revue des deux Mondes, 1845) in 
 thinking that his own mind became confused and 
 perplexed. 
 
 ** Elle lui avait parle d'astrologie, de chiromancie, de 
 jumens sacrees, de Pitt, de Chatham, des etoiles, de 
 serpens a tete humaine et de la pierre philosophale; 
 elle Tavait appelle idiot, bonhomme, tete de bois, 
 et buche, Elle Tavait caresse, flatte, mystifie, insults, 
 pr^ch^, console, confess^, compliments, et r^gal^, si 
 bien qu'il ne savait plus du tout ou il en ^tait." 
 
1830-1838] LADY HESTER^S INACCURACIES 327 
 
 I will now give one or two instances of the untrust- 
 worthiness of Lady Hester's memory. ** James might 
 think/' she says (Vol. II., p. 38), **he did a great deal 
 for me, but, let me ask you, did I not make a pretty 
 great sacrifice for Lord Mahon and for him ? 1 sold 
 a pretty round sum out of the American funds, and 
 James took possession of about ;^5oo worth of plate 
 of mine, and of my jewels, and of Tippoo Saib's gold 
 powder flask, worth ;£'200." My father never received 
 any money from her, and his brothers had (as appears 
 from their letters) whatever they required from him. 
 Jewels Lady Hester certainly never possessed, and I 
 cannot understand how she acquired ^500 worth of 
 plate or any money in the South American funds. 
 Tippoo Saib's powder flask remained in her pos- 
 session, and was left in Messrs. Coutts' care when 
 she left England. It was officially valued at ;^2i 155. 
 Then she speaks (Vol. II., p. 54) of a former mattre 
 d hotel of Mr. Pitt named Rice, who was a protege o{ 
 hers, and — 
 
 " Not like you, doctor, for he listened to my 
 advice. The very first thing Mr. Pitt did, after coming 
 into office the second time, was to provide for Mr. 
 Rice. We had just got to Downing Street, and every- 
 thing was in disorder. I was in the drawing-room ; 
 Mr. Pitt, I believe, had dined out. When he came 
 home, * Hester,' said he, * we must think of our dear, 
 good friend Rice. I have desired the list to be 
 brought to me to-morrow morning, and we will see 
 what suits him.' * I think we had better see now,' I 
 replied. *Oh, no, it is too late, now.' *Not at all,' 
 I rejoined, and I rang the bell and desired the 
 servant to go to the Treasury and bring me the list. 
 
 'VOn examining it, I found three places for which 
 he was eligible. * Rice,' said I,, 'here are three 
 places to be filled up. One is a place in the Treasury, 
 where you may fag on and, by the time you are 
 forty-five or fifty, you may be master of twenty or 
 
328 A WELCOME PRESENT [ch. vii 
 
 five and twenty thousand pounds. There is another 
 will bring you into contact with poor younger sons 
 of the nobility, you will be invited out, get tickets 
 for the opera, and may make yourself a fine gentle- 
 man. The third is in the Customs ; there you must 
 fag a great deal, but you will make a great deal of 
 money. It is a searcher's place.* " 
 
 My father remembered this Mr. Rice perfectly. He 
 was never in Mr. Pitt's household, and received his 
 office from Mr. Addington. She was evidently think- 
 ing of some one else. 
 
 Again (Vol. 11. , p. 31), "I was not insensible to 
 praise from such a man " (Mr. Pitt), ** and when, 
 before Home Tooke and other clever men, he told 
 me I was fit to sit between Augustus and Maecenas, 
 I suppose I must believe it." My father adds this 
 marginal note, " Home Tooke did not dine in company 
 with Mr. Pitt, but was, during his administration, sent 
 to the Tower on a charge of high treason." May I 
 confess that I am also a little sceptical as to his placing 
 her between Augustus and Maecenas ? and that I 
 am inclined to think he spoke in jest when he 
 said to her (Vol. II., p. 32), ^* If you were a man, 
 Hester, I would send you on the Continent with sixty 
 thousand men and give you carte blanche ; and I am 
 sure that not one of my plans would fail, and not one 
 soldier would go with his shoes unblacked." 
 
 It would be very unfair to judge Lady Hester by 
 her conversation at this period of her life, but, accord- 
 ing to her sister, it did not do her justice even in her 
 best days. ''I do not know," writes Lady Griselda 
 to my father, full of dismay and indignation at the 
 announcement of the doctor's book, '* whether I 
 underrated her, but I believe her reputation for 
 talent of a superior kind would, like Buonaparte's, 
 be diminished by detaihng her conver.sations, which, 
 though amusing, no sensible person could listen to 
 without feeling their great emptiness." 
 
 In September of this year Lady Hester received a 
 present that pleased her very much, even though it 
 came from England. It was a splendidly bound 
 copy of '*The History of the Temple of Jerusalem, 
 
1830-1838] "FORGOTTEN BY THE WORLD" 329 
 
 translated by the Rev. J. Reynolds/' forwarded by 
 the Oriental Translation Fund Society, with a com- 
 plimentary letter from the president, Sir Gore Ouseley. 
 Her letter of thanks contains, as wnll be seen, a dis- 
 sertation on one of her favourite topics — the Arabic 
 origin of European families. Her method of proof is 
 very simple. With a fine disdain of etymology, she 
 takes her stand upon a similarity of sounds in the 
 pronunciation of names and words, and at once 
 assumes their connection. She even found an Arabic 
 origin for her grandfather's title of Chatham, but, 
 by a cruel omission, neglected to affiliate our own 
 family. 
 
 Lady Hester to Rt. Hon. Sir Gore Ouseley 
 
 "DjouNi ON Mount Lebanon, 
 
 " September 2oih, 1837. 
 
 " Forgotten by the world, I cannot feel otherwise 
 than much flattered by the mark of attention which it 
 has pleased the society of learned men to honour me 
 with. I must therefore beg leave, in expressing my 
 gratitude, to return my sincere thanks. You must 
 not suppose that I am the least of an Arabic scholar, 
 for I cannot neither read nor write one word of that 
 language, and am (without affectation), a great dunce 
 upon some subjects. Having lived part of my life 
 with the greatest philosophers and politicians of the 
 age, I have been able to make this observation^ that 
 all of them, however they may dispute and ingeniously 
 reason upon abstruse subjects, have, in moments of 
 confidence, candidly declared that we can go no 
 farther. Here we must stop— all is problematical; 
 therefore I have wished, however it may appear 
 presumptuous, to go farthir and remove some of these 
 stumbling-blocks, not by erudition, but by trusting to 
 some happy accident. 
 
 " It is extraordinary that many of this nature have 
 occurred to me during my residence in the East. 
 
330 O'BRIEN OR OBEYAN [ch. vii 
 
 First, many proofs of the fallacy of history; next, 
 being denied, and even scouted as gross superstition, 
 many curious facts, which are pretended to be doubted, 
 because no one knows how to account for them, 
 but which real knowledge can clearly substantiate. 
 There is a work in which Alexander the Great is 
 clearly proved the son of the High Priest of Jupiter 
 Ammon, and it was by his father's instructions that 
 he succeeded in confining Gog and Magog, of which 
 the name of the Cid Skander is the corroborative 
 evidence. Then the gap in history which ought to 
 be filled up with the reign of Malek Sayf (a second 
 King Solomon) and his family, and after him Hamzy, 
 the sort of Messiah of the Druses, who is expected to 
 return in another form. I once saw a work which 
 clearly proved the Pyramids to be antediluvian, and 
 that Japhet was aware that the deluge was to be 
 partial, as he placed that which was most valuable to 
 him in another part of the world. 
 
 " But what I have taken the most pleasure in, is 
 the different races of men — more important, it must 
 be granted, than even those of horses, whose history 
 in former times was intimately connected with that 
 of their masters. I should be rather led to suppose 
 that the name of O'Brien was Obeyan or Abeyan, 
 which famous race may perhaps take its name from 
 its master. One of my mares is of this race, not the 
 one with the two backbones, which is mentioned by 
 an ancient prophecy. 
 
 *' The Bedoween Arabs may be divided into two 
 distinct' classes, original Arabs and the descendants 
 of Ismael, whose daughter married the ninth descend- 
 ant of the great Katan, out of which germ sprang 
 the famous tribe of Koreish, subdivided into many 
 tribes, and which are a mixture of Hebrew blood.. 
 
1830-1838] SCOTTISH ANTECEDENTS 331 
 
 One of the most famous tribes was that of the Beni 
 Hasheniz, from which spring the Boshn^k and the 
 Beni Omeyu, the Irish, always famous for the beauty 
 of their women. The Scotch are hkewise Koreish — 
 the nobihty descending from the King Al Yem (and 
 his court), father of Gebailuata, who headed the 
 fifty thousand horse, when they took their flight from 
 the Hedjaz, after a quarrel with the Caliph Omar. 
 They resided some time in Syria, but when the town 
 of Gebeili became inadequate to contain their numbers, 
 many took themselves oflf to the Emperor Herculius, 
 towards Antioch and Tarsus. 
 
 '*They afterwards left this country in four different 
 divisions, the Scotch, the Irish, the Bosn^ks, and the 
 Albanians ; the Albanians being joined by the dis- 
 banded soldiers of Tamerlane, called Shams, who 
 adopted their dress and manners, and passed for 
 Albanians, but are rather despised to this day by the 
 thoroughbred Albanians, of which I consider the 
 Josca to be the true breed, of whom the great, to 
 this period, marry only among themselves ; still pre- 
 serving in their persons that lightness which the 
 Ghigars have not, whose race is rather mon- 
 grelized — although perhaps finer men upon the whole 
 — identified more by their courage and activity than 
 by their persons with the native Arabs. It is said 
 that one tribe went to India, but I doubt this 
 authority, and think that perhaps they took the road 
 to India, but did not arrive there; for the tribe of 
 Malek is now to be found visiting at times the blacks 
 in Africa, who are equally astonished by their beauty 
 as well as by the positive interdiction of lying among 
 them. They call themselves Koreish, but they are in 
 fact a generation before the Koreish, the first of whom 
 was>Ferk, or Fish, or Fyr. - In case of the tribe of 
 
332 SCOTTISH ANTECEDENTS [ch. vii 
 
 Malek counting for one, the Scotch and Irish must 
 have gone together. 
 
 *' The names of Minorca and Majorca have likewise 
 references, which are too long to enter upon. 
 
 '* Gibraltar probably took its name from the great 
 chief Gebailu Alta, and the monkeys remaining on the 
 mountain without doing any harm or infesting the 
 town seem to indicate that they are confined to certain 
 localities by talismanic art, well known among the 
 Koreish, but ill-understood in these days. 
 
 " If you had not an Arab sign about you, which I 
 observed when you first made your diplomatic bow, 
 I should hardly venture to express this supposition, 
 as it would place me still higher in the list of mad- 
 women, in which I now stand before the eyes of the 
 world. Notwithstanding, I can bring facts incontro- 
 vertible or corroborative to prove a// that I assert, and 
 my suppositions, therefore, are only founded upon 
 facts of the same nature. 
 
 " But first, respecting the South, I should like to 
 know how the name of one of the most famous and 
 greatest idols of the East, Lochaber, was transported 
 into Scotland — from whence, and by whom ? and 
 Malcolm (Ma-el-com) — I will leave you learned to 
 guess the import ; Ameltoo (I have done it), Hamilton ; 
 Addeitoo (I have numbered them) answers to Omar ; 
 Macduff, with the tambourine, that is, with the band 
 of music ; Mackenzie (maalkenz), with the treasure, 
 probably the Khasmadar\ Elphinstone (the pistachio 
 nut) ; Gordon (gurdan), a jewel worn by women round 
 the neck. The tribe of Gordon is now in the Neaja 
 country, about thirty-six days from Bussora; the. 
 tribe of Argyle has at times sojourned on the borders 
 of Syria. 
 
 *'I need not go any farther; you must look bver 
 
1830-X838] PHILOSOPHER OF CHANCE 333 
 
 the Scotch titles and names 'of persons and places, 
 and you will see how many there are who, it is plain 
 to perceive, are of Arabic origin, and you will soon 
 observe the relation they bear either to circumstances, 
 former employments, propensities, or tastes. 
 
 '* You cannot expect, when a Frenchman remains 
 forty years in England, and can neither pronounce or 
 spell a name, that during such a lapse of time many 
 of these names should not have undergone changes, 
 but their origin is yet evident. 
 
 '*The Duke of Leinster's motto {Crom Aboo, his 
 father's vineyards) has a grand signification, alluding 
 to the most learned of works, of which only two 
 copies exist, and which was not well understood even 
 by the great Ulemas until about five hundred years 
 afterwards, when Shaikh Mohadeen of the Beni Taya 
 found out the key. 
 
 " If I have intruded too long on your valuable time, 
 and that the philosopher of chance should have pre- 
 sumed to have offered a little heterogeneous informa- 
 tion to the learned, you. Sir, must the more willingly 
 forgive me, as your name holds such intrusion in 
 command — * I want you ' (Ouseley). Your star denotes 
 you to be of admirable good taste and great perspicuity, 
 and the sign I have mentioned that you are of ancient 
 origin, therefore well calculated to investigate the 
 subjects I have had the honour to lay before you. 
 
 ** You will forgive me for having used the pen of 
 another, but my sight and state of health will not at 
 all times allow of my writing a long letter. 
 
 " I salute all the philosophers with respect. 
 
 ** Hester Lucy Stanhope." 
 
 How astounded the old Celts would have been to 
 hear that their rousing war cry, Crom-a-boo^ was an 
 allusion to the most learned of Eastern works ! 
 
334 PRESS GANGS [ch. Vii 
 
 During this autumn, a forced levy for Ibrahim 
 Pacha's army was carried on with merciless severity 
 in Syria. Till the Egyptian conquest conscription 
 had been unknown, for the Pacha's troops were always 
 mercenaries ; but now, without a note of warning, the 
 scourge descended upon the land. One evening, as 
 the people of Sayda were coming out of the mosques 
 and coffee-houses, they were waylaid by gangs of 
 soldiers, who seized upon all the young men. The 
 gates of the town had been previously closed, but 
 some got away to the houses on the town walls, from 
 whence they were let down by baskets into the open 
 country. Here they were comparatively safe, for 
 there were plenty of hiding-places, such as caves, 
 ancient sepulchres, &c., that were known only to the 
 peasants and shepherds, who faithfully guarded them. 
 Others found a refuge in the Consulates, where no 
 one could venture to molest them. But when this 
 became known, the poor old fathers were dragged 
 out in front of these houses, and flogged nearly to 
 death under their sons' eyes, till, in their torture, they 
 called upon them to give themselves up — ** Come out ! 
 come out, and save our lives!" Women were hung 
 up by the hair of their head and whipped till they 
 disclosed their sons' hiding-places. Those that were 
 taken were never seen again. Once a soldier, always 
 a soldier, in Ibrahim Pacha's army; death or desertion 
 alone released them from service, and they were 
 promptly drafted off to Egypt, while the Egyptian 
 conscripts were brought to Syria. 
 
 During this time of panic and distress, many 
 entreaties for protection were addressed to Lady 
 Hester. The old barber surgeon of Sayda, Mustafa, 
 came to implore her to take two of his sons into her 
 service: "a letter from the Syt to the commandant 
 would save them." She was ill, and could not see 
 him, but the doctor brought her his petition. 
 
 ** She considered the matter over, and as Mustafa 
 was rather a favourite, she said at first, * 1 think I will 
 write to the commandant, for poor Mustafa will go 
 crazy if his children are taken away from him. I 
 have only to say that I wish the commandant to 
 
1830-1838] LADY HESTER'S DREAM 33S 
 
 baksheesh ' (make a present of) * these boys to me, and 
 I know he will do it.' Then, reflecting a little while, 
 she altered her mind. * No, doctor,' says she, * it will 
 not do > I must not do anything in the face of the 
 laws of the country ; and besides^ I shall have all 
 the fathers and mothers iil Sayda up here. Go, tell 
 him so.' I did, and Mustafa returned very much 
 dispirited to Sayda." 
 
 Then two of her Unaids, Fatoom and Saada, came 
 and fell down before her, kissed her feet and the hem 
 of her garment, and begged her for the love of God 
 to save their brothers, who had been put down on 
 the fatal roll. She dismissed them with the same 
 answer she had given to Mustafa and all the other 
 suppliants. She could do nothing contrary to the 
 law of the land, and their brothers must take their 
 chance with the rest. But she had a plan of her own. 
 
 " Three or four days had elapsed, when, quitting my 
 house in the morning to go to Lady Hester's," writes 
 the doctor, ** I found that all her people were full of 
 an extraordinary dream she had had. She had seen 
 in her vision a man with a white beard, who had 
 conducted her among the ravines of Mount Lebanon 
 to a place where, in a cavern, lay two youths apparently 
 in a trance, and had told her to lead them away to 
 her residence. She attempted to raise them, and at 
 the same moment the earth opened and she awoke. 
 As soon as I saw Lady Hester, she recounted to me 
 her dream to the same effect, but with many more 
 particulars. Being in the habit of hearing strange 
 things of this kind from her, I thought nothing of it, 
 although 1 well knew there was something intended 
 by it, as she never spoke without a motive. 
 
 "Next morning I saw, as I passed the porter's lodge, 
 two peasant lads sitting in it ; and as soon as I got to 
 
336 LADY HESTER'S STRATEGY [ch. vii 
 
 Lady Hester's room, she asked me if I had observed 
 them. * Isn't it wonderful, doctor,' said she, *that I 
 should have had exactly the same dream two nights 
 following? and the second time so strongly impressed 
 on my mind, that I was sure some of it would turn 
 out true, and so it has. For this very morning, long 
 before daylight, I had Logmagi called, and describing 
 to him the way he was to go in the mountain until he 
 should come to a wild spot I pointed to him, I sent 
 him off; and sure enough, he found these two lads 
 you saw, concealed, not in a cave, but in a tree, just 
 where I had directed him to go. 
 
 **^They are two runaway conscripts, and although 
 I know nothing of them, yet I seem to feel that God 
 directed me to bring them here. Poor lads ! did you 
 observe whether they looked pale ? They must be in 
 want of nourishment ; for the search that is going on 
 everywhere after deserters is very hot. Logmagi 
 himself had no very pleasant task to perform ; for, if 
 they had mistaken him for a man in search of them, 
 one against two in the heart of the mountain ran some 
 risk for his life. You know, one deserter the other 
 day wounded three soldiers who attempted to take 
 him, and another killed two out of five, and although 
 taken, was not punished by the Pacha, who exchanged 
 willingly an athletic gladiator, who had proved his 
 fighting propensities, for two cowards.' 
 
 '* These two lads, whom Lady Hester pretended not 
 to know, were the brothers of Fatoom and Saada.^ 
 They were put into a room in an inner enclosure, 
 where they had comfortable quarters assigned them, 
 and were kept for two months hid from observation, 
 
 ^ I well remember how Sir Frederic Lamb (the diplomatist, after- 
 wards third and last Viscount Melbourne) praised the great cleverness 
 of her method of managing this affair, and the knowledge it displayed 
 of the Oriental character. 
 
1830-1838] LOGMAGI 337 
 
 by which means they escaped the conscription for that 
 year. At the end of their term, they were one day 
 turned out, told they might go home in safety, and 
 warned that, if ever they made their appearance near 
 the house, they would be flogged. Such were Lady 
 Hester's eccentric ways! and just as they were wasting 
 their breath in protestations of gratitude they were 
 frightened out of their senses. No doubt the reason 
 was that, as, from their long stay in the premises 
 they were more or less acquainted with every locality, 
 it might be that they had formed a plan to carry off 
 stolen goods, which Lady Hester had thus the fore- 
 sight to frustrate." 
 
 Logmagi, or, more properly, Hassan-el-Logmagi, 
 here first mentioned, had been for some years installed 
 as Lady Hester's steward, purveyor, emissary, and 
 factotum at Sayda. All her transactions with the 
 people of the country passed through his hands : he 
 distributed many of her charities, and had travelled 
 on her behalf to Constantinople and Marseilles. He 
 was " a good-looking, cheerful fellow," who had begun 
 life as a sponge-diver (hence his appellation), then 
 traded along the coast in a small craft of his own, and 
 latterly received from Abdalla Pacha the command of 
 one of his armed cruisers. His little schapka had been 
 chartered to convey the doctor and his family to 
 Cyprus six years before; he thus became known to 
 Lady Hester, who took a fancy to him, and when, 
 after the fall of Acre, Abdalla Pacha had been sent in 
 chains to Egypt, engaged him for her own special 
 service. He was quite uneducated, and could neither 
 read nor write, but had a good deal of native shrewd- 
 ness and mother-wit, and was a great newsmonger, 
 keeping Lady Hester well informed of all that went 
 on in the country.^ She had, besides, several other 
 spies and secret emissaries, and was always perfectly 
 well acquainted with the course of affairs at Damascus, 
 Acre, Aleppo, &c. 
 
 ^ I afterwards heard at Sayda that Logmagi amassed a large 
 fortune, which was dissipated by his spendthrift sons. 
 
 23 
 
338 A LONGED-FOR LETTER [ch. vii 
 
 For some months past she had been anxiously 
 expecting a letter from Sir Francis Burdett. Lord 
 Hardwicke had apparently regarded her Irish estate 
 as a mere hallucination, and she had turned for 
 assistance and information to the friend of her youth, 
 whom she always remembered with the greatest 
 regard. She had perfect confidence in his truth and 
 loyalty, and was persuaded that he would see her 
 righted. On his answer everything now depended ; 
 it was her last chance. She had announced that she 
 would soon be able to pay her creditors ; they were 
 clamouring for the expected money, and she was 
 forced to stave off, as best she might, their growing 
 importunity. Each time a mail steamer arrived on 
 the coast she was in a fever of expectation and 
 impatience, and could not rest till she knew what it 
 had brought her. Messenger after messenger was 
 despatched in breathless haste to fetch the expected 
 letter, but they always returned empty-handed ; no 
 letter had come. The suspense and anxiety told 
 terribly upon her in her enfeebled state. She was, 
 in truth, very ill: so thin that her bones almost pro- 
 truded through her skin, and she could find no 
 position of ease in which to lie down. Her cough 
 was so violent and incessant that she could scarcely 
 either speak, or listen to the doctor's reading ; and 
 during this miserable winter her indomitable spirit 
 for the first time gave way. One day the doctor 
 found her in tears. " Doctor," she gasped out, '' I am 
 very poorly to-day, and I was still worse in the night. 
 I was within that " (holding up her finger) '* of death's 
 door, and I find nothing now will relieve me. A little 
 while ago I could depend on something or other, 
 when seized with these spasmodic attacks, but now 
 everything fails ! How can I get better, when I can't 
 have a moment's repose from morning till night ? 
 When I was ill on former occasions, 1 could amuse 
 myself with my thoughts, with cutting out in paper — 
 why, I have a closet full of models, in paper, of rooms, 
 and arches, and vaults, and pavilions, and buildings, 
 with so many plans of alterations, you can't think. 
 But now, if I want a pair of scissors, they can't be 
 found ; if I want a needle and thread, there is none 
 forthcoming ; and I am wearied to death about the 
 smallest trifles." She paused, and then resumed : '' I 
 
1830-1838] "AN HUMBLE INSTRUMENT" 339 
 
 have been under the saw" (drawing the little finger 
 of her right hand backward and forward across the 
 forefinger of her left) *'for many years, and not a 
 tooth but what has told; but it is God's will, and I 
 do not repine ; it is man's ingratitude that wounds 
 me most. How many harsh answers have even you 
 given me, when 1 have been telling you things for 
 your good : it is that which hurts me. When I see 
 people of understanding moidering away their time, 
 losing their memory, and doing nothing that is useful 
 to mankind, I must be frank, and tell them of it. 
 You are in darkness, and I have done my best to 
 enlighten you ; if I have not succeeded, it is not my 
 fault. As for pleasing or displeasing me, put that 
 out of your head; there is no more in that than in 
 pleasing or displeasing that door. I am but a worm — 
 a poor, miserable being — an humble instrument in the 
 hand of God." The doctor was so affected that he, 
 too, burst into tears, and Lady Hester at once set 
 about to comfort him, and restore him with coffee and 
 orange-flower water. Another time he found, to his 
 surprise, that she had risen from her sick bed, and 
 gone into the garden, in order that her room might 
 be put to rights. In consequence of her long con- 
 finement, this had become urgently necessary, and 
 she asked the doctor to superintend the cleaning, lest 
 her thieving maids should rob her of the few things 
 she still retained. He was shocked at the state m 
 which he found her sick-room. *' But, oh ! what a 
 sight! — such dust, such confusion, such cobwebs! 
 Never was a lady's room seen before in such a 
 condition : bundles, phials, linen, calico, silk, gallipots, 
 clothes, etuiSy papers, were all lying about on the 
 floor, and in the corners, and behind and under the 
 scanty furniture ; for all this while she had been 
 afraid to get the chamber put in order, lest her 
 servants should take advantage of the opportunity 
 to plunder her." Her silver spoons she was obliged 
 (as we have seen) to keep under a cushion on her 
 divan. Well might she cry, " Who is to take care of 
 me, surrounded as I am with those horrible servants?" 
 On New Year's Eve, again, she cried long and bitterly, 
 and, calling to Zezefoon to dress her, rushed out of 
 her bedroom and into the saloon; but here, during 
 her illness, the sofa cushions had been piled up and 
 
340 AN UNREPENTANT PRODIGAL [ch. vii 
 
 the sofa mattresses removed, and she found no place 
 where she could sit down. She had perforce to 
 return to the sick-room where she had spent so many 
 weary weeks. When the doctor came to her in the 
 evening she told him of her distress. " Doctor," she 
 said, " to-night in my father's house there used to be 
 a hundred tenants and servants sitting down to a 
 good dinner, and dancing and making merry. I see 
 their happy faces now before my eyes : and when I 
 think of that, and how I am surrounded here, it is 
 too much for me. When you left me this morning, 
 things of former times came over my mind, and I 
 could not bear to sit here, so I went out to break the 
 chain of my thoughts. I would have gone into the 
 garden, but it rained." 
 
 She was fond of declaring that she would never 
 return to England except in chains ; but now, in her 
 extremity, her thoughts reverted to her lost English 
 home, and the old familiar faces she was to see no 
 more. She bitterly complained of the way she had 
 been treated, of the cruel neglect and persistent ill- 
 usage of her family — the family she had scouted, 
 disowned, and defied ! " Here I am," she would cry, 
 "abandoned and forgotten, and left to die, without 
 one relation near me ! " She forgot, in her indigna- 
 tion, that they could in reality know nothing of her 
 sad state : she had refused to answer her sister's 
 letters, and herself cut off all means of communication. 
 Her illness, too, was kept secret ; even Mrs. Meryon 
 had not been told of it ; for ** to say I am ill," she 
 declared, ** would be bringing a host of creditors upon 
 me, and I should not be able to get bread to eat." 
 
 At length, on January 27th, 1838 — a memorable date 
 for her — Mr. Abela, the Consular Agent at Sayda, 
 arrived with a letter that Mr. Moore, the Consul at 
 Beyrout, had desired him to give into her own hands. 
 Lady Hester, who was at daggers drawn with all the 
 Consular authorities, positively refused to receive him. 
 Mr. Abela insisted ; she flew into a violent passion, 
 and, after a long altercation, he was forced to submit, 
 and allow the letter to be given to her by the doctor. 
 Now that, at last, she held it in her hand. Lady Hester 
 believed all her troubles had come to an end. She 
 never for a moment doubted what the answer would 
 be. No more waiting and watching ; no more of the 
 
1830-1838] A DEATH-BLOW 341 
 
 slow agony of hope deferred; no more debts and 
 duns ; the hour of her triumph and deliverance had 
 struck, and she had come into her inheritance. She 
 had worked herself up to such a pitch of excitement 
 that the doctor actually feared she might break a 
 blood-vessel. Alas ! when she opened her letter, she 
 found it was not the expected reply from Sir Francis, 
 but a very different missive. It was her death-blow 
 that she had unconsciously received. 
 
 Several years before, a money-lender, of the name 
 of Homsy, to whom Lady Hester owed 5,250 dollars, 
 petitioned the Viceroy of Egypt to interfere in his 
 behalf He declared that his whole future existence 
 depended upon this sum (between ;^i,ooo and ;^i,ioo 
 in English money),^ and that its loss reduced him to 
 abject misery. Mehemet Ali, who was no friend to 
 Lady Hester, the declared antagonist of his tool and 
 ally, the Emir Besh^r, took up the case, and applied 
 to Colonel Campbell, Consul-General in Syria, to 
 obtain payment of this debt. 
 
 All English subjects resident in Turkey are, by the 
 capitulations, under the sole jurisdiction of their own 
 Government, and all suits are carried before the 
 tribunal of their Consul, and decided by him. Strictly 
 speaking, he has no more right, under the law of 
 England, to adjudicate in such matters, than to compel 
 Turkish subjects to appear before him; **yet the 
 advantages of encouraging the practice are so obvious, 
 that the British Consuls, very properly, have never 
 hesitated to go beyond the strict letter of the law, 
 trusting to the good sense of British subjects." But, 
 should they refuse to accept his decision, the Consul 
 has no power to enforce it, and the case must go 
 before the native tribunals. 
 
 On October 22nd, 1834, Colonel Campbell applied 
 to the Home Government on Homsy^s behalf, and the 
 Duke of Wellington, then at the Foreign Office, very 
 sensibly refused to allow him to interfere in the 
 matter. " Her Majesty's Government have no con- 
 
 ^ It is, I am told, impossible to ascertain the exact value of the old 
 Egyptian silver dollar previous to the monetary reform carried out 
 by Mehemet Ali in 1834. According to the value then assigned 
 to it, 4s, ij^., the exact sum due to M. Homsy would be 
 £ip77 Ss. ii^d. There were, however, other kinds of dollars then 
 in circulation. 
 
342 ^^A DIRTY FELLOW" [ch. vii 
 
 trol over Lady Hester Stanhope which could be 
 exercised in favour of her creditors, and as the 
 pecuniary transactions referred to appear to be 
 entirely of a private nature, his Grace does not con- 
 ceive that you can interfere in any official or authori- 
 tative manner with respect to them." 
 
 This settled the question, but only for a time. The 
 next year found the '* official tormentors" again at 
 work on Colonel Campbell, and on December 19th, 
 1835, he made a second application to the Foreign 
 Office, pointing out ''the great inconvenience which 
 cannot fail, in any case, to accrue in conforming to 
 the Duke's instructions." He was keen to interfere, 
 but the Attorney-General, when consulted, entirely 
 confirmed the Duke's decision. He reported that 
 British consuls had no right to adjudicate between 
 Turkish and British subjects; *'it must be done by 
 consent of the parties, and Lady Hester must be asked 
 to submit to his jurisdiction." 
 
 Here Colonel Campbell found himself in a fix; for 
 he well knew what the answer to such a request would 
 be. Lady Hester and he were on the worst possible 
 terms. She speaks of him in one of her letters as 
 *' a dirty fellow " ; they had had no communication for 
 years, and he might as well have asked the sun and 
 the stars to submit to his jurisdiction. He felt himself 
 powerless, and explained the difficulty and delicacy 
 there was in " dealing with her ladyship, a solitary 
 female of no inconsiderable rank, in a foreign country, 
 distant from her relations and connexions," and sug- 
 gested that it would be best for them to pay Mr. 
 Homsy. It never seems to have occurred to him to 
 take the trouble of investigating either the nature of 
 the debt or the character of the creditor. 
 
 After this the matter was allowed to rest for nearly 
 two years. Then, in September, 1837, Colonel 
 Campbell received another urgent official letter re- 
 specting the claim of the indefatigable Homsy. He 
 was reminded that '* whenever claims were brought 
 forward by British merchants against Turks, the 
 most ready attention was paid to them, and therefore 
 British subjects should be equally obliged to pay their 
 just debts to the natives of the country." 
 
 Hereupon he wrote a vigorous letter home, this 
 time addressed to Lord Palmerston, who had now 
 
1830-1838J CONFISCATION OF PENSION 343 
 
 replaced the Duke of Wellington at the Foreign Office. 
 ** Your Lordship will, I am sure, perceive the extreme 
 embarrassment in which I am placed by the un- 
 fortunate conduct of Lady Hester Stanhope, and the 
 prejudice which might arise in consequence of it to 
 the interests of Her Majesty's subjects." 
 
 Lord Palmerston was full of sympathy, and ready 
 and willing to help him, but how to do it was the 
 difficulty. Legal action had been pronounced im- 
 practicable without Lady Hester's assent, and she 
 had repeatedly declared that she no longer con- 
 sidered herself an English subject. How, then, was 
 she to be coerced? It was decided that only by 
 means of her pension could this be done — her pension 
 must be stopped for payment of the debt. The 
 Attorney-General was this time, it seems, left out of 
 the question ; had he been consulted on this high- 
 handed and drastic measure, there is little doubt that 
 it would never have been adopted. 
 
 Colonel Campbell was instructed to inform Lady 
 Hester *' confidentially " of the confiscation of her 
 pension. Now, however, that he had secured his 
 weapon, he was for some time rather perplexed how 
 to use it. He found that he had no hold of any kind 
 on Lady Hester, as the certificates for her pension 
 were always signed by the French Consul, M. Guys, 
 and not by Mr. Moore. After some hesitation, he 
 made up his mind to write, and proposed to do so 
 with every possible regard to her feelings. " At all 
 events," he told Lord Palmerston, ** you may be sure 
 that I shall not for a moment forget Lady Hester's 
 rank and sex, and that she is the niece of Pitt." 
 
 His letter shows what his idea of proper con- 
 sideration must have been. But it is only fair to 
 remember that the one here given was the second that 
 he had written to her ; the first, by some accident or 
 other, was never delivered, and consequently never 
 acknowledged. 
 
 Colonel Campbell to Lady Hester 
 
 " Cairo, 
 
 ^''January lotk^ 1838. 
 
 ^* Madam, — I trust that your Ladyship will believe 
 my sincerity, when I assure you with how much 
 
344 A CRUEL LETTER [ch. vii 
 
 reluctance and pain it is that I feel myself again ^ 
 imperatively called upon to address you upon the 
 subject of the debt so long due by you to Mr. 
 Homsy. 
 
 " The government of the Viceroy has addressed that 
 of Her Majesty on the subject; and by a despatch 
 which I have received from Her Majesty's principal 
 Secretary jof State for Foreign Affairs, I am led to 
 believe that a confidential friend of your Ladyship 
 will have already written to you to entreat you to 
 settle this affair.^ 
 
 "Your Ladyship must be aware that in order to 
 procure your pension from Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment, it is necessary to sign a declaration, and to 
 have the consular certificate, at the expiration of each 
 quarter. 
 
 '*I know that this certificate has hitherto been 
 signed by M. Guys, the Consul of France at Beyrout; 
 but in strict legality, it ought to be certified by the 
 British, and not by any foreign consul; and should your 
 Ladyship absolutely refuse the payment of this just 
 claim, I shall feel myself, however deeply I may regret 
 it, forced to take measures to prevent the signature 
 of the French, or any other consul but the British, 
 being considered as valid, and consequently your 
 
 ^ This communication Lady Hester never received. " He never 
 addressed me on the subject, neither has anyone else. Nearly two 
 years ago there was a report in the Bazaar that my debts had been 
 spoken of to the King ; that my pension was to be seized ; that I was 
 to be put under consular jurisdiction ; and a set of extravagant things 
 that nobody ever heard the like. And certainly those who had 
 ventured to charge themselves with such a message would have found 
 that I was a cousin of Lord Camelford's." 
 
 ^ In the previous month of November, my father told Mr 
 Backhouse, of the Foreign Office, " that a confidential friend of the 
 family, who was supposed to have some influence over Lady Hester 
 Stanhope, would write to her by that month's packet." This letter, 
 probably from Lord Hardwicke, is not forthcoming, but is probably 
 the one she alludes to in writing to him on October 21, 1838 
 (see p. 412). 
 
1830-1838] OFFICIAL VINDICTIVENESS 345 
 
 bill for your pension will not be paid at home. I 
 shall communicate this, if your Ladyship's conduct 
 should oblige me so to do, to M. Guys and the 
 other foreign consuls at Beyrout, in order that your 
 certificate may not be signed, and also send this 
 under flying seal to Mr. Moore, Her Majesty's Consul 
 at Beyrout, in order that he may take the necessary 
 steps to make this known to those consuls, if your 
 Ladyship should call on them to sign the quarterly 
 certificate for your pension. 
 
 " I trust that your Ladyship will be pleased to 
 favour me with a reply, informing me of your 
 intentions, which reply will be forwarded to me by 
 Mr. Moore. 
 
 " I beg your Ladyship will be assured of the pain 
 which I experience in being obliged to discharge this 
 truly unpleasant duty, as well as the respect with 
 which I have the honour to remain, 
 
 ** Your Ladyship's most obedient, humble servant, 
 
 ** Patrick Campbell, 
 '' H.M/s Agent for Egypt and Syria." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Prince Puckler Muskau — Djoun 
 
 1838 
 
 When this cruel letter was first placed in her hands, 
 Lady Hester had been violently excited ; but, as she 
 read it, her emotion subsided, and she became quite 
 calm and composed. Her pride was up in arms. Was 
 it possible that she, Pitt's niece, had lived to be treated 
 as a defaulting debtor? Was it credible that the Queen 
 and her ministers should have been guilty of so 
 unheard-of an outrage ? Had they altogether for- 
 gotten who she was, and whence she sprang ? 
 
 *<My grandfather and Mr. Pitt did something, I 
 think, to keep the Brunswick family on the throne ; 
 and yet the granddaughter of the old King, without 
 hearing the circumstances of my getting into debt, or 
 whether the story is true (for it might be false), sends 
 to deprive me of my pension in a foreign country, 
 where I may remain and starve. If it had not been 
 for my brother Charles, and General Barnard, the only 
 two who knew what they were about, when the 
 mutiny took place against the Duke of Kent at Gib- 
 raltar, she would not be where she is now, for her 
 father would have been killed to a certainty." 
 
 *^ She mused for some time, and then went on : 
 * Perhaps it is better for me that this should have 
 happened ; it brings me at once before the world, and 
 let it judge the matter. It would have looked too much 
 
1838] UNRUFFLED COMPOSURE 347 
 
 like shucklaban ' (the Arabic for charlatanism) * if I 
 had to go and tell every one my own story, without 
 a reason for it. But now, since they have chosen to 
 make a bankrupt of me, I shall come out with a few 
 things that will make them ashamed. The old King 
 wrote down on the paper : * Let her have the greatest 
 pension that can be granted to a woman.' — If he were 
 to rise up and see me now ! ' " 
 
 She spoke then, and ever after, with unruffled 
 composure of the insult she had received ; but it 
 rankled all the more bitterly and persistently. 
 *' Colonel Campbell's letter," says the doctor, " had 
 given a stab to her heart, from which she never 
 recovered. In proportion to the apparent calm that 
 she endeavoured to assume, did the feeling of the 
 supposed indignity which she had received prey 
 upon her spirits." It was seldom absent from her 
 thoughts ; she was constantly reverting to it, and 
 considering what she should do, and to whom 
 she should appeal. " I think," she said, " I will take 
 the bull by the horns, and write to the Queen." But, 
 first of all, she had to answer Colonel Campbell. Here 
 is her letter, with the enclosure. 
 
 Lady Hester to Colonel Campbell 
 
 " DjOUN, 
 
 ^^ February ^ih^ 1838. 
 
 **SiR, — I shall give no sort of answer to your letter 
 of the loth of January (received the 27th) until I have 
 seen a copy of H.M.'s commands respecting my debt 
 to Mr. Homsy, or of the official order from the 
 Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, as well as the 
 statement of Mr. Homsy's claim sent to England, to 
 whom, and through whom, in order that I may know 
 whom I have to deal with, as well as be able to judge 
 of the accuracy of the documents. 
 
 '' I hope in future that you will not think it necessary 
 to make me any excuses for the execution of your 
 
348 FALSE COMPLIMENTS [ch. viii 
 
 duty ; on the contrary, I should wish to recommend 
 you all to put on large Brutus wigs when you sit on 
 the woolsack at Alexandria or at Beyrout. 
 
 ** Hester Lucy Stanhope." 
 
 The doctor asked ** what he should put at the close, 
 and how she chose to subscribe herself? *Say 
 nothing,' replied she. * How many times I have said 
 I could never call myself the humble servant of 
 anybody. I hate and detest all these compliments, so 
 unmeaning and false ; but to Mr. Moore you may 
 express my esteem and regard.^ " 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr, Moore ^ H.M.'s Consul at Bey rout 
 
 ** Sir, — The sacrifice which I have made of your 
 acquaintance and your society, that you might stand 
 quite clear of everything that affects me, appears to 
 be of little purpose. You will have some very dis- 
 agreeable business to go through probably, as you 
 will be made Col. CampbelFs honourable agent, and 
 he the agent of the wise Lord Palmerston, and he the 
 agent of your magnificent Queen. There is Col. 
 Campbell's answer, which I have left open for your 
 perusal, as he did his. 
 
 " If, in the end, I find that you deserve the name of 
 a true Scotchman, I shall never take ill the part that 
 you may have taken against me, as it appears to be 
 consistent with your duty in these dirty times. 
 " I remain, with truth and regard, yours, 
 
 " Hester Lucy Stanhope.*' 
 
 " Now," she said, " the thing to be considered is 
 
 . whether I shall write a letter to the Queen, and ask 
 
 the Duke of Wellington to give it to her, or whether I 
 
 shall put it in the newspapers ; for I am afraid, if I 
 
 send it to him, he will not give it to her, or, if he does, 
 
1838] LETTER TO QUEEN VICTORIA 349 
 
 they will say nothing about it. I should like to ask 
 for a public inquiry into my debts and for what I have 
 contracted them. Let them compare the good I have 
 done in the cause of humanity and science with the 
 Duchess of Kent's debts." 
 
 She was not long in making up her mind, and, ill 
 and suffenng as she was,^ all the following letters were 
 dictated on the same day. 
 
 Lady Hester to Queen Victoria 
 
 *' DjouN, Mount Lebanon, 
 
 ^^ February 12//:, 1838. 
 
 *' Madam,— Your Majesty must allow me to say, that 
 few things are more disgraceful and inimical to 
 Royalty than giving commands without examining all 
 their different bearings, and to cast without reason an 
 aspersion upon the integrity of any branch of a family, 
 who has faithfully served their country and the House 
 of Hanover. 
 
 "As no inquiries have been made of me what 
 circumstances induced me to incur the debts alluded 
 to by Y.M.'s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, I 
 deem it unnecessary to enter into any details or 
 explanations upon the subject. But I shall not allow 
 the pension given by your Royal grandfather to be 
 stopped by force. I shall resign it for the payment of 
 my debts, and with it the name of an English subject 
 and the slavery at present annexed to it. And, as 
 Y.M. has given publicity to this business, by Y.M.'s 
 orders to consular agents, I surely cannot be blamed 
 for following your Royal example. 
 
 " Hester Lucy Stanhope." 
 
 * The doctor gives a sad account of her in his diary. Her back 
 was bent as she sat up in bed ; her fingers were cold ; and she could 
 only sleep in one particular position. She used to compare herself to 
 little toy tumblers ; place her as you would she rolled over to the left 
 side, as if there were a freight of lead there. 
 
350 EFFECTS OF THE SIEGE OF ACRE [ch. viii 
 
 This was, as some one observed, **the letter to a 
 Queen from a Queen." It was enclosed to Lord 
 Palmerston,^ but, as a further precaution, she sent a 
 copy to the Duke of Wellington, with the following 
 letter : 
 
 "DjouN, Mount Lebanon, 
 
 " February i2tk^ 1838. 
 
 "My Dear Duke,— If you merit but half the feeling 
 and eloquent praise I heard bestowed upon you 
 shortly before I saw you, you are the last man in the 
 world either to be offended or misconstrue my motives 
 in writing to you upon the subject in question, or not 
 to know how to account for the warmth of the expres- 
 sions I may make use of, which are only characteristic 
 of my disposition. 
 
 " Your Grace's long residence in the East will have 
 taught you that there is no common-rate character in 
 England an adequate judge what manner of living best 
 answers among a semi-barbarous people, and how 
 little possible it is to measure one's expenses where 
 frequent revolutions and petty wars are carried on 
 without any provision for the sufferers, from its being 
 considered the duty of every one to assist them, as 
 their humanity may dictate or as their circumstances 
 may afford. Acre besieged for seven months — some 
 days seventy-two thousand balls thrown in in the 
 twenty-four hours — at last talcen by storm, and little 
 more than two hundred of the garrison remaining, and 
 the wretched inhabitants, who expected to find succour 
 from their old friends, found their backs turned upon 
 them, in the dread and awe they stood in of Ibrahim 
 Pasha. And it is very strange to say that the Franks 
 likewise held back in a most extraordinary manner. 
 Therefore these unhappy people had no resource but 
 
 ^ I have no copy of her letter to Lord Palmerston ; only his reply 
 (see p. 399). 
 
1838] DJOUN 351 
 
 in me, and I did the best I could for them all. 
 Mahomet Ali, Ibrahim Pasha, Sheriff Pasha, all set at 
 me at once, in order to make me give up certain 
 persons, who immediately would have lost their heads 
 for having fought well in the cause in which they 
 were engaged. I fought them all round, single-handed, 
 and said that I neither protected these persons in the 
 English or the French name, but in my own, as a poor 
 Arab, who would not give up an unhappy being but 
 with their own life ; that there was no other chance of 
 making me bend by any other means than by attempt- 
 ing mine. 
 
 ** By these means I saved some unfortunate beings, 
 whom I got rid of by degrees, by sending them back 
 to their own country, or providing for them at a 
 distance in some way or other. Can you, as a soldier, 
 blame me for what I have done ? I should have 
 acted in the same way, before your eyes, to the victims 
 of your own sword. Then the host of orphans, and 
 widows, and little children, w^hom to feed and clothe 
 for nearly two years took away all the ready money 
 with which I ought in part to have paid my debts, 
 and caused new ones. Yet I am no swindler, and 
 will not appear like one. Your Queen had no busi- 
 ness to meddle with my affairs. In due time, please 
 God, I should have known how to arrange to satisfy 
 everybody, even if I left myself a beggar. If she 
 pretended to have a right to stop my pension, I resign 
 it altogether, as well as the name of an English 
 subject, for there is no family has served their country 
 and the Crown more faithfully than mine has done ; 
 and I am not inclined to be treated with moms degards 
 than was formerly shown to a gentlemanlike high- 
 wayman. 
 
 *^ I have been, every day, in expectation of a reply 
 
352 UNFOUNDED QUARRELS [ch. viii 
 
 from Sir Francis Burdett, respecting a large property 
 which is said to have been left me in Ireland, and 
 which has been concealed from me for many years. 
 In case of its coming into my hands, I shall still not 
 keep my pension, in order to cut off any communi- 
 cation with the English Government, from whom only 
 proceed acts of folly, which, any moment, may re- 
 bound upon an individual. I chose Sir Francis 
 Burdett to look into my affairs because I believe him 
 to be a truly conscientious, honest man. Although 
 we always disagreed upon politics, we were always 
 the best friends. It appears to me that he is now 
 beginning to see things in their proper light. 
 
 " You may say that it is strange that I apply to 
 a person out of my own family. My brother, Lord 
 S., having dined with Lord Holland to meet Mr. 
 Fox, when Mr. Pitt was on his deathbed, when I 
 regretted this unhappy inadvertency (which I be- 
 lieved it to be), I was so shocked with the cold- 
 blooded answer he gave me that, in the agitation of 
 my feelings, I made a vow never to see him again. 
 This I have kept, and have had no conversation or 
 communication with him since the period of Mr. Pitt's 
 death. 
 
 " Therefore, all that I have to entreat of your Grace 
 is to allow me to appear in the light in which I really 
 stand — attached to humanity, and attached to royalty, 
 and attached to the claims that one human being 
 has upon another. Nor can I allow myself to be 
 deemed an intriguer, because I have said here in all 
 societies, that persons who abet those who attempt 
 to shake the throne of Sultan Mahmoud, shake the 
 throne of their own sovereign, and therefore commit 
 high treason, and among that class of persons I do 
 not choose to rank myself. Nor am I to be reckoned 
 
1838] DJOUN 353 
 
 an incendiary, because I seek to vindicate my own 
 character, that never was marked with either base- 
 ness or folly — it may have been, perhaps, with too 
 little consideration for what are called in the world 
 my own interests, which 1, in fact, despise, or at least 
 only consider in a secondary point of view. 
 
 " There is no one more capable of making the 
 Queen understand that a Pitt is a unique race than 
 your Grace. There is no trifling with them. 
 
 " I have sent a duplicate of the enclosed letter to 
 the Queen to my Lord Palmerston, through the hands 
 of Mr. Moore, the English Consul. If it has not 
 reached her safe, I hope you will see that this one 
 does, or otherwise I shall put it in the Augsburgh 
 Gazette^ or in some American newspaper. 
 
 ** If Lord Wellesley has not forgot that I always 
 was and shall be among his great admirers, say what- 
 ever you may think most pleasing to him from me. 
 It is a homage to his merit, and to the friendship 
 Mr. Pitt bore him. 
 
 ** I have the honour to remain, 
 " My dear Duke, 
 
 " with great truth and regard, 
 
 **the attached friend of your family, 
 " Hester Lucy Stanhope." 
 
 The Duke at once communicated this letter to my 
 brother, who, at his request, drew up the Memor- 
 andum here given. 
 
 '^ May 2isf, 1838. 
 
 " It appears on enquiry that the letter which Lady 
 H. Stanhope has addressed to the Q. has already been 
 laid before H.M. by Lord Palmerston, and it is there- 
 fore unnecessary that the D, of W. should forward 
 the copy which Lady H. has transmitted to him. 
 24 
 
354 LORD STANHOPE^S MEMORANDUM [ch. viii 
 
 *' It is much lamented that Lady H. Stanhope's 
 feelings should be wounded by what has passed ; but 
 she may be assured that there was not the slightest 
 intention to show her Ladyship anything approaching 
 to slight or discourtesy. On the contrary, it is be- 
 lieved that the course taken was entirely consistent 
 with, nay even prompted by, the high respect due to 
 Lady Hester's rank and sex, and to the niece of Pitt ; 
 and it is earnestly hoped that she herself, on recon- 
 sideration of the subject, may incline to a more 
 favourable view than she has hitherto adopted. 
 
 *^ The claims upon her Ladyship were so repeatedly 
 urged upon Colonel Campbell at Alexandria, and 
 pleaded in bar of other claims by British upon 
 Egyptian subjects, that it became the duty of Col. 
 Campbell to make representations to Lord Palmer- 
 ston ; and when the subject came to be considered 
 at home, it was borne in mind that, admitting Lady 
 Hester's debts to have been incurred in the cause 
 of humanity and science — admitting that the delay 
 in paying them had arisen from accidental and chari- 
 table causes— yet, that these motives would not be 
 appreciated by the creditors themselves, and that 
 further delay would expose her Ladyship to having 
 the affair taken up, in a violent and vindictive manner, 
 by the native tribunals. 
 
 **Her Ladyship is entreated to reflect how unde- 
 sirable it would be that these tribunals should be 
 allowed to claim or exercise jurisdiction over her; 
 yet how could it be effectually prevented unless some 
 steps were taken for the adjustment of the matter 
 at issue ? 
 
 " It is also respectfully submitted to Lady Hester 
 that her recollection is not accurate in the mention 
 which she makes of Lord Stanhope, in her letter to 
 
1838] A DIFFERENT VERSION 355 
 
 the Duke of Wellington, as having dined with Lord 
 Holland while Mr. Pitt was on his deathbed. It is 
 positively affirmed by Lord Stanhope that, so far 
 from this being the fact, he was not even acquainted 
 with Lord Holland until some time after Mr. Pitt's 
 decease." 
 
 I may here mention, that when this absurd story 
 afterwards appeared in print, my father felt himself 
 obliged to write the following letter to the Times : 
 
 " Sir, — I regret that it should be necessary for me, 
 in justification of my own character, to notice an 
 assertion made in * The Memoirs of Lady Hester 
 Stanhope, as related by herself in conversations with 
 her Physician' (Vol. IL, p. 296), that I went to dine 
 in company with Mr. Fox, when Mr. Pitt was on his 
 deathbed. This is utterly unfounded, for I never 
 dined in company with Mr. Fox, and never had any 
 personal acquaintance with him ; and at the period 
 referred to I dined at Mr. Pitt's house in Downing 
 Street with a large party, assembled as usual before 
 the meeting of Parliament. There are in those 
 Memoirs several other misrepresentations and mis- 
 statements concerning myself, which I forbear to 
 mention, as they relate to private and family affairs. 
 
 " I may also express my concern that any physician 
 should have considered it as consistent with his sense 
 of propriety to publish the report of conversations 
 between himself and one of his patients. 
 
 '* I am, Sir, your faithful humble servant, 
 
 *' Stanhope." 
 
 I think this affords a curious instance of the growth 
 of an hallucination in Lady Hester's mind, owing to 
 the tricks her treacherous memory played her. She 
 had a recollection that my father had dined out during 
 
3S6 THE WHEEL HORSE [ch. viii 
 
 Mr. Pitt's illness — could it have been with Lord 
 Holland? it surely was ; no doubt to meet Mr. Fox! 
 it would have been like him to go there, ungrateful 
 as he was to all who had ever befriended him. Yes, 
 yes! now she remembered — now it was all clear! He 
 had gone to meet Mr. Fox, and that was why she had 
 quarrelled with him ! 
 
 Two other letters of Lady Hester's are of the same 
 date. 
 
 Lady Hester to Mr. Speaker Abercromby 
 
 " DjOUN, 
 
 ^''February iith^ 1838. 
 
 " My dear Sir, — Probably the wheel horse has 
 forgotten his driver, but the latter has not forgotten 
 him.^ I am told that the chief weight of the carriage 
 of state bears upon you ; if so, it must be a ponderous 
 one indeed, if I can judge by a specimen of the talent 
 of those who guide it. 
 
 "You, who have read and thought a great deal 
 upon men and manners, must be aware that there 
 are situations, almost unknown in Europe, in which 
 persons in what is called a semi-barbarous country 
 cannot extricate themselves with honour without 
 either taking a part for or against humanity ; besides, 
 there are gusts of information which, if you do not 
 take advantage of at the moment, are lost to you for 
 ever. I have, therefore, exceeded my pecuniary 
 means, but not without the hope of extricating myself 
 without the assistance of any one, or, at least (and 
 ever before my eyes, should the worst come to the 
 worst), that of selling the reversion of what I possess. 
 Your magnificent Queen has made me appear like a 
 bankrupt in the world, and partly like a swindler, 
 having given strict orders that one usurer's account 
 
 * This alludes to her childhood, when she played at horses with 
 Mr. Abercromby. 
 
i838] DJOUN * 357 
 
 must be paid immediately or my pension stopped, 
 without taking into consideration others who have 
 equal claims upon me. Her Majesty has not thrown 
 the gauntlet before a driveller or a coward. Those 
 who are advisers of these steps cannot be wise 
 men. . . . 
 
 " Whatever men's political opinions may be, if they 
 act from conscientious motives, I have always re- 
 spected them, and you know that I have always had 
 friends in all parties. Therefore, without any refer- 
 ence to the present or past political career of ministers, 
 or H.M.'s advisers, their conduct would appear to 
 me, respecting myself, identically as it was — gentle- 
 manlike or blackguard. But having had but too 
 strong a specimen of the latter, by their attempting 
 to bully a Pitt and to place me under consular control, 
 it is sufficient for me to resign the name of an EngHsh 
 subject, for the justice granted to the slave of des- 
 potism far exceeds that which has been shown to me. 
 
 ** Believe me, with esteem and regard, 
 
 *' Yours, 
 ** Hester Lucy Stanhope." 
 
 Lady Hester to Sir Edward Sugden 
 
 " DjOUN, 
 
 ^^ February i2tky 1838. 
 
 " Sir,— Born an aristocrat (for this assurance I re- 
 ceived from your father, whom it appeared to annoy 
 as much as it delighted me), with these genuine 
 feelings it will not be necessary for me to make 
 many excuses for bringing so abruptly before you a 
 subject which relates to this cause as well as that of 
 
 justice. 
 
 " I will not bore you with long details, for it will 
 be sufficient for you to know that after my arrival 
 
358 LADY HESTER'S EXPLANATIONS [ch. viii 
 
 in the East I was not regarded by any class of persons 
 with the same eye of suspicion as strangers generally 
 are. I have had it in my power, without making use 
 of intrigue or subterfuge on my part, or hurting the 
 religious or political feelings of others in any way, 
 to hear and investigate things which had never yet 
 been investigated. This fortunate circumstance does 
 not relate to those who profess Islamism alone, but 
 to all the curious religions (not sects) which are to 
 be found in different parts of the East. Not that I 
 have learned the secrets of one religion to betray them 
 to another : on the contrary, I have observed an in- 
 violable silence with all; but it has served to en- 
 lighten, as well as consolidate, my own ideas, and 
 given me an opportunity of seeking corroboratory 
 evidence of many wonderfully important and abstract 
 things, which has hitherto been very satisfactory. 
 
 " The revolutions and public calamities, which often 
 take place in what is called a semi-barbarous country, 
 call for great presence of mind and energy, and a 
 degree of humanity and liberality unknown in Europe. 
 To leave unfortunate sufferers starving at your gate 
 until you have had an opportunity of inquiring into 
 their private character, and investigating how far it 
 is likely to endanger your own life or risk your pro- 
 perty in receiving them — these reflections are not 
 made in the East. One takes one's chance, and if one 
 wishes to keep up one's character of either an Eastern 
 monarch or an Eastern peasant, you must treat even 
 an enemy in misfortune avec les mimes egards that 
 you would a friend. Starting upon this principle 
 (which is, indeed, a natural one, and was always 
 mine), there were times in which I have been obliged 
 to spend more money than I could well afford, and 
 this has been the cause of my incurring debt ; not 
 
1838] THE DUTIES OF A PEER 359 
 
 that I owe a farthing to a poor peasant or a trades- 
 man, but all to usurers and rascals that have lent 
 their money out at an exorbitant interest. You may 
 judge of their conscience : in their last levy of troops, 
 made about two months ago by Ibrahim Pasha, some 
 rich peasants gave one hundred per cent, for six 
 months for money to buy off their sons who were 
 conscripts. 
 
 ** I often abuse the English ; and for why ? Because 
 they have nearly lost their national character. The 
 aristocracy is a proud, morose, inactive class of men, 
 having no great fundamental principles to guide them, 
 and not half the power that they give to themselves — 
 very little more worthy of being trusted by their 
 Sovereign than by the people — full of ideas, all 
 egotistical, and full of their own importance and 
 weight, in a country which may differ from an ounce 
 to a pound in twenty-four hours by the wavering 
 political line of conduct which they may observe 
 during that time, and which neither secures the con- 
 fidence of the people nor the friendship of their 
 Sovereign. And these columns of state may be 
 reckoned a sort of ministers without responsibility, 
 but who ought to be willing at all times to make 
 every possible sacrifice for the honour of the Crown, 
 and for the good of the people in cases of emergency 
 and misfortune. 
 
 **Had I been an English peer, do you suppose I 
 would have allowed the Duke of York^s debts to 
 remain unpaid? I should have laid down a large 
 sum, and engaged my brethren to have done the 
 same. If I had not succeeded, I should have broken 
 my coronet, and have considered myself of neither 
 greater nor smaller importance than the sign of a 
 duke's head in front of a public-house. But, ever 
 
36o AN ATTACK ON THE QUEEN [ch. viii 
 
 willing to come forward with my life and property, 
 I should expect that the Sovereign should treat me 
 with respect, and not act with the egregious folly 
 and want of feeling and etiquette which has distin- 
 guished the enlightened Queen Victoria in her pro- 
 ceedings towards me. 
 
 **I have been written to by the Consul-Gen eral for 
 Egypt and Syria, Colonel Campbell, that if I do not 
 pay one of my numerous creditors I shall be deprived 
 of my pension. I should like to see that person 
 come forward who dares to threaten a Pitt. Having 
 given themselves a supposed right over the pension 
 they may take it all. In the early part of my life 
 there was nothing I feared so much as plague, ship- 
 wreck, and debts ; it has been my fate to suffer from 
 them all. Respecting my debts, of course I had ex- 
 pectations of their being settled; but if I was de- 
 ceived in those expectations I kept in view the sale 
 of my pension, as well as of an annuity of ;^i,soo a 
 year, left me by my brother, if the worst came to the 
 worst. The importance of the plan I was pursuing 
 must, as you can easily imagine, have appeared most 
 arbitrary, from my coolly deliberating that the moment 
 might arrive when I should make myself a beggar. 
 But I should have done my duty. What sort of right, 
 then, had the Queen to meddle in my affairs, and to 
 give orders, in total ignorance of the subject, upon 
 the strength of an appeal from a man whose claims 
 might be half fabulous, and to offer me the indignity 
 of forbidding a foreign consul to sign the certificate 
 that I was among the number of the living in order 
 to get my pension into her hands ? I shall never 
 forgive this gross act of illegality, nor the vulgarity 
 with which it was executed. I have written a few 
 lines on the subject, and there is my final determina- 
 
1838] DJOUN 361 
 
 tion : * I shall give up my pension, and with it the 
 name of an English subject and the slavery that is 
 entailed upon it/ I have too much confidence in the 
 great Disposer of all things, and in the magnificent 
 star that has hitherto borne me above the heads of 
 my enemies, to feel that I have done a rash act. I 
 can be anything but ignoble, or belie the origin from 
 which I sprung. 
 
 ** I have been assured by those not likely to deceive 
 me that a large property has been left me in Ireland, 
 which has been concealed from me by my relations. 
 I have put this business into the hands of Sir Francis 
 Burdett ; but should I in future require a law opinion 
 upon the subject, you will not, I hope, take it ill that 
 I should apply to your superior talents for advice. 
 
 ** There is a horrible jealousy existing respecting 
 the friendship between me and M. H. Guys, the 
 French Consul at Beyrout. His grandfather, a learned 
 old philosopher, was in constant correspondence with 
 the great Lord Chesterfield. It was natural, there- 
 fore, that his son, the present M. Guys* father, should 
 feel interested about me when I first came into the 
 country, and M. Henry Guys has always put into 
 execution his father's friendly intentions towards me. 
 He is a very respectable man, and stands very high 
 in the estimation of all classes of persons ; and as at 
 one time there was no English consul or agent at 
 Say da, the French agent sent a certificate of my life 
 four times a year to England. At the death of this 
 man M. Guys sent it himself. If you honour me 
 with a reply, I request you to address your letter to 
 him (aux soins de M. le Chevalier H. Guys, Consul 
 de France k Beyrout), notwithstanding he has been 
 named for Aleppo, as it is the only way I am likely 
 to receive my letters unopened, or perhaps at all." 
 
362 PRINCE PUCKLER MUSKAU [ch. viii 
 
 As spring approached, Lady Hester's health rapidly 
 improved ; her cough abated, her spirits revived, and 
 she was at length released from her long and dreary 
 confinement. In March she was sitting in her 
 favourite alcove in the garden, then full of nightingales 
 and spring flowers, blossoming in all the lavish 
 luxuriance of the East. *' A sofa covered with maroon- 
 coloured cloth, and flowered chintz cushions, ran 
 across the back of the alcove. On this she was 
 leaning, and, dressed in her white abba^ with its large 
 folds, she looked exactly like the statue of an antique 
 Roman matron. Halfway up the avenue stood an 
 attendant in a handsome white Nizam dress, which is 
 exceedingly becoming to youth, waiting her call. As 
 I advanced towards her, between two hedges, the 
 one of double jessamine in full bud, and the other 
 of bright green periwinkle, with its blue flowers, 
 forming an azure band from one end to the other, I 
 was struck with the magical illusion which she ever 
 contrived to throw around herself in the commonest 
 circumstances of life." 
 
 She held in her hand a letter she had that morning 
 received. ^* Do you know, doctor," she said, '* that 
 Prince Piickler Muskau has just arrived at Sayda, and 
 has written me a very agreeable, and I think a very 
 sincere letter ? Read it, and say what you think of it." 
 When he had done so, she resumed : " Now, doctor, 
 you must go and see the Prince at Sayda, for I can't 
 see him myself. The fatigue is too great for the 
 present ; but I will engage him to return again when I 
 am better." He was one of the last visitors that came 
 to Djoun. 
 
 Another letter from England had likewise arrived — 
 again not from Sir Francis ; but this time a kind and 
 friendly letter, written by her cousin, Lord Ebrington, 
 to which she sent the following reply : 
 
 Lady Hester to Lord Ebrington 
 
 '^ March 2()ih, 1838. 
 
 *' My dear Lord Ebrington, — Your letter of the 26th 
 of December reached me on the 22nd of March, a few 
 days ago. It gave me great satisfaction to find you 
 had not altogether forgotten me or my interests. I 
 
1838] LADY HESTER'S ULTIMATUM 363 
 
 am so ignorant of what passes in England, generally 
 speaking, that I was not aware that pensions were to 
 be revised. The first I heard of it was a traveller 
 having mentioned, about a fortnight ago, that such 
 was the intention of Government. But as I did not see 
 him, I had no opportunity of enquiring into par- 
 ticulars. You tell me that you are upon the committee, 
 and that whatever I have to say respecting my 
 pension, I had better write it to you. I have nothing 
 to say. You can hardly suppose that I would owe a 
 pension to the commiseration of a pettifogging com- 
 mittee when I refused Mr. Fox's liberal proposition of 
 securing me a handsome income by a grant of Parlia- 
 ment. Neither should I, under any circumstances, 
 lower the name of my dear old King or my own by 
 giving any explanation. It was H.M.'s pleasure to 
 give me a pension — that is sufficient, or ought to be 
 sufficient. New-coined Royalties I do not understand, 
 nor do I wish to understand them, nor any of their 
 proceedings. My ultimatum respecting my pension I 
 have given to the Duke of Wellington, founded upon 
 the impudent letter of Colonel Campbell, a copy of 
 which I enclose. 
 
 " Believe me, my dear Lord, 
 ** Sincerely yours, 
 
 ** Hester Lucy Stanhope." 
 
 In the following month the German Prince arrived, 
 and spent a whole week at Djoun. He has left a 
 detailed account of his visit, which was published in 
 Brief e eines Verstorbenen (Berlin, 1846). 
 
 **Even before I found myself within a few hours' 
 ride of Lady Hester Stanhope's mountain home, I had 
 made up my mind not to leave Syria before I had seen 
 
364 PRINCE PUCKLER MUSKAU [ch. viii 
 
 and spoken with this remarkable woman ; though 
 during these latter years, especially since the visit of M. 
 Lamartine (the published account of which she highly 
 resented), she had absolutely refused to receive 
 strangers. Only quite recently two celebrated men, 
 Clot Bey and Dr. Bowring, had, in spite of all imagin- 
 able efforts on their part, fared no better than the 
 rest. I began by writing a rather singular, half 
 emotional, half deferential letter to this lady, described 
 as tres exalteey 
 
 Prince Puckler Muskau to Lady Hester 
 
 ^^ March 20th^ 1838. 
 
 " My Lady, — Sachant que vous n'aimez gueres les 
 visites des etrangers, n'y ayant souvent rencontre 
 qu'une vaine curiosite et quelquefois meme de I'indis- 
 cr6tion, je vous avoue franchement, Madame, que ce 
 n'est qu^en tremblant que je vous demande a mon 
 tour la permission de vous rendre mes devoirs. 
 Cependant permettez-moi de vous dire que depuis de 
 longues annees mon imagination a anticipe le plaisir 
 de vous connaitre, et que ce serait un vrai acte de 
 cruaute de votre part, si vous pouviez a present, ou ce 
 moment tant desire est enfin arrive, me refuser le bon- 
 heur de presenter mes respects a la Reine de Palmyre, 
 et a la niece du grand Pitt. 
 
 ** Au reste, j'ose encore ajouter que d'apres ce que 
 j'ai entendu dire de vous, Madame, il doit regner 
 quelque affinite entre nos caracteres : car, comme vous, 
 my Lady, je ne cherche notre salut futur que dans 
 rOrient, dont les populations, encore plus pres de 
 Dieu et de la nature, peuvent seules raffraichir un jour 
 cette civilisation pourrie de la vieille Europe ou tout 
 est factice, et qui nous menace sous peu d*un nouveau 
 genre de barbarie, non pas celle du commencement 
 
1838] DJOUN 365 
 
 mais celle de la fin : comme vous, Madame, je crois 
 que I'astrologie n*est pas une vaine science, mais une 
 science perdue : comme vous, my Lady, je suis 
 aristocrate de naissance et par principe, parceque je 
 trouve partout dans la nature I'aristocratie la plus 
 prononcee : comme vous enfin, Madame, j'aime a 
 veiller la nuit et dormir le jour. La je m^arrete : car, 
 pour le genie, la force de caractere, la vie grande et 
 singuliere que vous avez menee, ne resemble pas a 
 Lady Stanhope qui veut. 
 
 ** Je finis cette lettre, qui doit vous paraitre deja trop 
 longue, en vous priant instamment, de ne pas prendre 
 pour des phrases ce que m'a dicte un coeur encore naif 
 et ingenu, quoique vieux. Je ne suis ni Frangais ni 
 Anglais ; je ne suis quW bon et simple AUemand, 
 qu'on peut peut-etre taxer de trop d'enthousiasme, 
 mais jamais ni de flatterie ni de mauvaise foi. 
 
 ** Le Prince de Puckler Muskau. 
 
 *' P.S. — Dans le cas que vous consentiez a me 
 recevoir, oserais-je vous prier encore de me faire 
 accompagner par le Comte de Tattenbach, jeune 
 homme a mon service, qui me verroit partir seul avec 
 trop de regrets pour ne pas risquer encore cette 
 demande? Quoique blesse assez severement d'un 
 coup de pistolet, il n*a pu etre retenu a Acre, pour ne 
 pas manquer Toccasion de vous presenter ses hom- 
 mages. Cependant, que votre volonte, my Lady, soit 
 faite en tout, et non pas la mienne." 
 
 " This letter remained for eight days unanswered. 
 During this interval I kept quite silent. Then ap- 
 peared an apparently thoroughly Orientalized, richly- 
 dressed English doctor, who announced himself as 
 Lady Hester's physician, and came to tell me she was 
 too ill to receive visitors. This doctor, in spite of his 
 
366 PRINCE PUCKLER MUSKAU [ch. viii 
 
 conspicuous costume,^ proved a simple, amiable, well- 
 bred man ; and I told him how much I regretted Lady- 
 Hester's illness, but should await her recovery, even 
 if I had to wait for years. Then we talked of other 
 things, and I presented to him two pretty Abyssinian 
 slave-girls, of whom he had already heard, and whose 
 chatter in Arabic seemed to please him so much that I 
 felt sure he would comply with my parting request, to 
 come again often. This he did ; and during the few 
 weeks that he visited me, either at Beyrout or Sayda, 
 we became such fast friends that he exchanged the part 
 of a diplomatic agent for that of a staunch ally. I 
 therefore entrusted him with a second billet, doux to the 
 invisible Lady, making it as original as I possibly 
 could ; and this time, to my great joy, I received a 
 charming answer, full of humour and wit, but still 
 declining to see me, on the ground of health. Thence- 
 forward, with studied importunity, I wrote daily to 
 Lady Hester, occasionally saying all manner of extra- 
 vagant things, till at last she gave in, declaring, half in 
 anger and half in jest, that I must be * quite foolish ' to 
 pursue an old woman like her with such incredible 
 pertinacity, and that, only to be rid of me^ she would 
 receive me at Dar Joon on the following Sunday. 
 
 " This did not wholly satisfy me ; for my object was, 
 if possible, not only to be endured but wished for by 
 this eccentric lady. So I ventured to send a very cool 
 response, regretting that I had already fixed that day 
 
 ^ If the Prince found fault with the doctor's appearance, he was in 
 his turn freely critized by the latter. " The Prince is a tall man, about 
 fifty years of age. I found him dressed in a loose morning gown, 
 with white trousers, and a yellow scarf thrown over his shoulders 
 somewhat for effect, with a casqiiette on, and having the air and 
 demeanour of what he was — a man of the world and of high rank. He 
 had a chameleon crawling about on the tube of his pipe and on his 
 chair ; and every now and then his exclamation of On done est le 
 cameldon ? ou est mon petit bijou ? made me fear at first we were going 
 to have a second edition of M. Lamartine and his lapdog." 
 
1838] DJOUN 367 
 
 for an excursion into the country, and begging her to 
 appoint another ; requesting, at the same time, per- 
 mission to spend not only one day, but several days 
 with her. I wished this all the more, I added, because 
 I had more important communications to make than she 
 was aware of. It was rather comical to carry out 
 Goethe's axiom, * Provoke and beguile,' so successfully 
 with a sexagenarian dame." 
 
 None of this coquetry of correspondence appears in 
 the doctor's matter-of-fact narrative. Lady Hester, it 
 seems, was very willing to receive the Prince had she 
 been well enough. She had heard of him as a literary 
 man, engaged on writing his travels, and she hoped he 
 might help her in laying her case before the world. 
 She was pleased with his letter. ** I can see," she said, 
 " that he and I shall do very well together ; besides, I 
 must be very civil to him, for he has got such a tongue 
 and such a pen ! I think I shall invite him to come 
 and see the garden and the horses ; but you must tell 
 him the mare's back is not only like a natural saddle, 
 but that there are two backbones for a spine ; that is 
 the most curious part. But no ! if he comes he will 
 fill my house with people, and I shall be worried to 
 death ; it will only make me ill ; so I will write to him 
 after dinner." 
 
 Lady Hester to Prince Puckler Muskau 
 
 ^^Joon, March 21, 1838. 
 
 '* I trust. Prince," she ^yrote, *' you will believe me 
 when I say I am overwhelmed with regret that my 
 health will not permit of my having, at this moment, 
 the honour of making the acquaintance of a philosopher 
 and a philanthropist such as you are. You may ask 
 everybody whether for these last five months I have 
 seen a single soul, except M. Guys once ; and although 
 in that once I every now and then retired for a few 
 moments to my room to recover myself, and then 
 returned to him again, yet after he was gone I had a 
 relapse of some days. I would willingly purchase at 
 
368 FATIGUES OF HOSPITALITY [ch. viii 
 
 the same price the pleasure of seeing you ; but, in 
 doing so, it might incapacitate me for some months 
 longer from managing a very disagreeable business 
 that has sprung up between the Queen, the English 
 Government, and myself; they pretending to meddle 
 with my affairs, which, be assured, is what I will not 
 allow. 
 
 " As my natural energy would not suffer me to 
 converse tranquilly when things sublime and of the 
 highest importance would be our subjects, we must 
 give up meeting for the present ; but I console myself 
 with the hope that your Highness will not leave Syria 
 until I have had an opportunity of appreciating a man 
 different, they say, from other men, and of making the 
 acquaintance of your young Count, who, in devoting 
 himself to your principles, necessarily secures one's 
 admiration of his character. 
 
 ** Hester Lucy Stanhope." 
 
 She found, however, that the Prince was " not to be 
 put off." He persevered, and she finally agreed to 
 receive him on his return from an expedition into the 
 interior ; but it was after much hesitation. There was 
 not only the dread of fatigue but the question of 
 expense. She had no money in the house ; she owed 
 her servants several months* wages, and on the news 
 that her pension was stopped, every petty trader in 
 the bazaars was putting forward his claim. How was 
 she to receive her guests ? " How am I to lodge the 
 Prince and accommodate his people ? And his dinners, 
 with a wretched cook, and nothing of any sort fit for a 
 man of rank ! No, doctor, it will not do ! " The doctor 
 suggested she might put off the visit. "Oh, but, 
 doctor ! " she answered, " his book, his book ! I must 
 see him, if it is only to have some things written down. 
 Is it not cruel to be left here as I am, without one 
 relation ever coming to see me ? To think of the time 
 when the Duke of Buckingham would not even let a 
 servant go to order an ice for me, but must go himself 
 and see it brought — and noiv ! " 
 
1838] DJOUN 369 
 
 Lady Hester to Prince Puckler Muskau 
 
 ** I find your Highness to be a great philosopher, but 
 nevertheless a very unreasonable man. Is your object 
 in coming here to laugh at a poor creature reduced by 
 sickness to skin and bone, who has lost half her sight 
 and all her teeth ? or is it to hear true philosophy ? 
 Alas ! at this moment a terrible cough puts it out of 
 my power even to speak during the greater part of the 
 twenty-four hours. But I will not be stubborn, and if 
 you will consent to put off your visit for eight or ten 
 days I will receive you then, even if my health should 
 be no better, that you may fulfil the object of your 
 visit. However, I hope, as the fine weather is at hand, 
 and as I now begin to get a little sleep, which I have 
 not done for many months past, that I shall be able to 
 converse with you for some hours at a time. . . . 
 
 " Sunday, Monday, Thursday, and Friday, will be 
 the days most propitious for our first meeting. I 
 should prefer Monday or Thursday, according to the 
 calculation I have made of your star and your character. 
 So, Prince, depart in peace ; only, when you return, 
 write a little before to apprize me of it. 
 
 ** Hester Lucy Stanhope." 
 
 The Prince accordingly announced his arrival for 
 Easter Sunday, April 15. He was preceded by *' two 
 European servants, followed by three or four mule- 
 loads of baggage." Close upon these arrived seven or 
 eight more mules with his Tartar, the Count's servant, 
 and the drivers : ** in all," groans the poor doctor, 
 " thirteen animals to keep ! " Then appeared the 
 Prince and his suite. 
 
 " It was a beautiful day," he writes, " such as is only 
 known in the favoured South, the air so * silver-clear * 
 (as Lamartine, with too great licentia poetica^ expresses 
 
 25 
 
370 PRINCE PUCKLER MUSKAU [ch. viii 
 
 it), that one fancied one could see through the moun- 
 tains, when I, attended (by Lady Hester's express 
 desire) by my whole train of slaves and servants, 
 mounted the winding road that led to the little fortress 
 of Dar Joon. We had hitherto been crossing barren 
 and stony mountains, with here and there a few trees 
 and brushwood. Here, in the valley, there was more 
 cultivation, partly on laboriously-raised terraces, and 
 in the midst, surrounded by the dusty bed of a dried-up 
 mountain torrent, rose a steep cone, on whose summit, 
 within an encircling wall, appeared the roofs of several 
 detached buildings. Here it was the Lady dwelt. 
 
 *' As the gates opened, I was received by my friend 
 the doctor, and installed in a little pavilion, surrounded 
 by gardens, and entered by a green verandah covered 
 with climbing roses — as comfortable as it was rural. 
 
 " During a rapidly-served meal Dr. Meryon told me 
 that Lady Hester hoped I would stay eight days with 
 her. She was, however, seldom visible before midnight, 
 consequently, he added, smiling, * your visit will be 
 eight nights rather than eight days.' * Capital ! ' I 
 cried ; * this not only suits the land of The Thousand 
 and One Nights, but my own habits, for I enact the 
 night watchman wherever I go, and I assure you I 
 shall look forward with real impatience to my midnight 
 rendezvous.^ 
 
 " The usual siesta^ more refreshing than a night's 
 rest in this climate, filled up the interval, and at the 
 appointed hour my Turco-English guide appeared to 
 conduct me to his mistress. A black slave-girl lighted 
 us through several passages and courts — for Dar Joon 
 consists of a number of small isolated dwellings, 
 connected by verandahs — till we reached the largest 
 of all, inhabited by Lady Hester alone, and never 
 entered without her express permission, a police 
 
1838] DJOUN 371 
 
 regulation so rigidly enforced that even the Doctor 
 hastily left me at the door. Here an old negress took 
 charge of me, and led me along a nearly pitch-dark 
 corridor to a thick red portiere^ behind which shone a 
 light that proved I was at last on the threshold of the 
 long-sought sanctuary. My heart beat high with 
 excitement, for, after all the romantic reports that I 
 had heard, I imagined I was to see something fantastic 
 and extraordinary. It was quite the reverse. In a 
 small room, as simply furnished as the one assigned 
 to me, on a very poor divan, sat the Lady of Dar Joon, 
 evidently still suffering from the effects of a severe 
 illness. She signed to me, very graciously, to take an 
 English arm-chair opposite to her. 
 
 ** Our long correspondence had so far brought us 
 together that we presently talked like old acquaintances, 
 while I did not neglect to observe her very closely. 
 
 " In spite of her evident weakness, she received me 
 with great liveliness, and her whole demeanour was 
 that of a woman of the world, in the European sense, 
 with an elegance and grace of manner not of everyday 
 occurrence among Englishwomen, which, combined 
 with the Oriental dignity and repose of her bearing, 
 gave her a peculiar charm. Instead of the splendidly- 
 equipped retainers, prostrating themselves on the 
 ground before their stern mistress, the one slave-girl 
 who brought us pipes and coffee behaved as she would 
 have done in any other well-ordered household, and 
 there was no attempt at display. Lady Hester's own 
 dress was simplicity itself. A red turban, a white 
 burnous reaching to her feet, red silk Turkish trousers 
 and stockings (for on these thick carpets slippers are 
 not required), showed that she had long since discarded 
 the tasteless Frank dress for the comfortable garb of 
 the East. When she soon after rose, and, leaning on 
 
372 LADY HESTER'S APPEARANCE [ch. viii 
 
 a long wand, crossed the room to show me something 
 of which she had spoken, she looked to me like a Sibyl 
 of old. The pale, regular features, the dark, flashing 
 eyes, the tall, white-robed figure, with its head-gear of 
 flaming red, the severe and stately mien, the sonorous 
 and rather deep-toned voice, together produced a 
 striking and really imposing effect, without the slightest 
 shade of affectation. On the contrary, no one could 
 be more natural or more real than I found Lady Hester 
 from first to last. Hers was a strong, almost too 
 masculine character, that despised every kind of 
 pretence. 
 
 " * Since my fortune melted away,' she began, * I live 
 here like a dervish, and require no luxuries. The 
 older I grow, the less, thank God ! I need, and the 
 more eagerly I seek to draw nearer to nature, from 
 which civilization too much estranges us. My roses ' 
 (nowhere else have I seen such masses of roses as 
 in the gardens of Dar Joon) * are my jewels ; the sun, 
 moon, and stars my clocks ; fruit and water my fare. 
 Now, I read in your physiognomy,' she added, archly, 
 * for I know how to interpret the stars, the plants, 
 and the faces of men, that you are an epicure. How 
 will you ever stand this life for eight whole days ? ' 
 
 ** I could answer this the more becomingly, as I had 
 already found that her guests were not condemned 
 to a dish of fruit and water ; and I knew, too, that her 
 poverty was at all events English poverty, pretty 
 nearly equivalent to German wealth. Yet she was 
 relatively poor, and latterly reduced to a sixth part 
 of her former income. She afterwards gave me some 
 details as to her affairs, and spoke with some bitterness 
 of the harshness and ingratitude of her family. 
 
 ** But now my one wish was to lead her back to the 
 stars, and in this I found no difficulty, for her belief 
 
1838] ASTROLOGY IN ART 373 
 
 in astrology was absolute. 1, for my own part, respect 
 all convictions, and though unable to follow Lady 
 Hester in all her flights, I must confess that, when 
 one has seen for one's self the inexplicable influence 
 the moon exercises over certain individuals, there 
 seems to be nothing unreasonable in attributing to 
 the stars in general, and more especially to the planets 
 of our solar system, some similar power over the 
 natures, and consequently the destinies, of men. Nor 
 will I summarily condemn as absurd Lady Hester's 
 belief in a chain of invisible superior beings, whom 
 we can as little understand as we do the inferior 
 beings around us, yet with whom we may occasionally 
 communicate. It is, I think, much more absurd to 
 deny such things positively, and argues a degree of 
 presumption of which I for one will not be guilty. 
 
 << < Were we better versed in astrology,' said Lady 
 Hester, * and more familiar with the needs and qualities 
 prefigured by such and such a constellation to man at 
 his birth, how greatly it would benefit life, art, and 
 science ! The ancients, though but few of them 
 attained a deeper insight, had an instinctive per- 
 ception of this. That is why they excelled in art. I 
 recognise in their works the harmonious law of the 
 stars. The godlike forms they portrayed are free 
 from all incongruities and anomalies, whereas a 
 modern artist will constantly plant either an eye, 
 a nose, or a mouth in a face where, according to the 
 ruling of the constellations, they could never exist, 
 or a head on limbs that form an equally impossible 
 combination. But then, how much more important is 
 this knowledge in life ! We should not see half as 
 many failures of vocation, of misapplied or wasted 
 talent, if we better understood what our star ordains 
 and fits us to be. You may believe my long experi- 
 
374 TERRESTRIAL INFLUENCES [ch. viii 
 
 ence. Many a medicine that cures one man will, 
 under apparently exactly similar circumstances, kill 
 another. For instance, what is good for the Children 
 of the Sun is highly dangerous to the Children of 
 the Moon; and there are numberless gradations and 
 distinctions that astrology alone can help us to dis- 
 tinguish. I will go so far as to affirm that even a 
 verbal communication may enlighten one man and 
 ruin another. In this consists the magic power of 
 wordsj believed in throughout the East. Therefore, 
 in our present state of ignorance, education becomes 
 blind guesswork, and we fall back, in spite of all, to 
 be what the stars decided we should be at our birth. 
 
 " * Everyone is born under the influence of one or 
 more stars, on whose position in the heavens in con- 
 junction with the earth at the hour of their nativity 
 much will depend, as well as on the vicinity of other 
 stars, either beneficent or malevolent in character. 
 The Angel or Spirit of the Star acts upon all who 
 belong to it. Besides this, everyone is nearly con- 
 nected with an aUied Spirit of the Air, an animal 
 also allied to him, a precious stone, metal, tree, fruit, 
 flower, medicinal herb, etc. — sometimes, indeed, to 
 several ; and to a devil. Don't be shocked,' con- 
 tinued the Pythoness, laughing ; * it is sometimes very 
 good and very useful to have an efficient devil at one's 
 beck and call. All at the appointed time. 
 
 *** Those born under the influence of the stars may 
 be of four separate categories, and many different 
 natures, sometimes very unlike each other; and in 
 trifles these differences may, like everything else in 
 Nature, be multiplied a millionfold, yet in essentials 
 each individual will remain unchangeable, governed 
 by the constellation that ruled at his birth ; as, for 
 instance, a ship, driven by the winds to every quarter 
 
1838] PRINCE PUCKLER'S HOROSCOPE 375 
 
 of the heavens, is still guided by the helmsman on 
 its prescribed course. It is from the action of the 
 stars that man receives not only his direction in life, 
 but his nature and constitution, his qualities and 
 talents, his tendency to certain vices and virtues, 
 and his sicknesses either of body or soul, though 
 these may be modified by the other beings and ob- 
 jects related to him. Whatever changes are brought 
 about in the course of years in reality are but apparent, 
 or the result of compulsion, which is no sooner 
 withdrawn than the original bent reasserts itself. 
 
 " * I have learnt by long practice and experience to 
 recognise, with tolerable certainty, everyone's guiding 
 star from their personal appearance ; but the deeper 
 calculations, which require greater knowledge and 
 higher qualities than have fallen to my lot, remain 
 unattainable to me. Though I discern many hidden 
 things, I cannot foretell with certainty either coming 
 events or the time when they will take place, which 
 to an adept is easy. There are some favoured men 
 on whom their star works so powerfully, that we who 
 are initiated can see it impressed on their foreheads ; 
 though I myself, in my long life, have only met with 
 one case of this kind. It is the nimbus or glory that 
 has always surrounded the heads of great prophets 
 and holy men, and its recognition rests on a fore- 
 shadowing or foreboding, however incomplete, of this 
 grand secret.' " 
 
 On this subject,^ as on many others. Lady 
 
 ^ She cast the Prince's horoscope, and gave him, much to his 
 satisfaction, the dog and the horse as his animals, the rose and 
 carnation as his flowers, the ruby and sapphire as his precious stones, 
 and gold and iron as his metals. "All this was perfectly correct. 
 The medicines did not suit me as well. As regards the stars, 
 modesty forbids me to mention them. I will only say that they 
 corresponded with my family motto, amor et virtus,^^ 
 
376 LADY HESTER'S MEMORY [ch. viii 
 
 Hester proved inexhaustible ; yet the Prince declares 
 that— 
 
 " During the eight days I was at Dar Joon, spending 
 every night six or eight hours with Lady Hester, I 
 may truly say I never felt a moment's fatigue or 
 ennui. I might fill whole volumes with accounts of 
 these conversations, and after each of them I felt 
 more and more attracted to this most remarkable 
 woman, who combined with an iron character such 
 childlike belief in the marvellous; and with a pro- 
 found knowledge of men and of the world, such 
 touching traits of naivete as are generally met with 
 only in a young girl. Her memory, reaching 
 back unimpaired to her earliest years, is perfectly 
 wonderful." 
 
 She recounted to him all her travels and adventures, 
 but he gives only the following anecdote in detail. 
 I must premise that this and the very similar story 
 she told Mr. Kinglake are evidently founded on the 
 adventure described by Mr. Bruce, who was present 
 (see p. 163), and show b}^ their inaccuracy the extreme 
 haziness of her recollections. Even the name of the 
 Bedouin Sheick who escorted her is wrongly given. 
 It was Mohanna el iFadel's son Nasar, and not his 
 son-in-law Dayr. 
 
 *' Once, during the war between Dayr and his future 
 father-in-law, she travelled to Palmyra, accompanied 
 by Dayr himself, with an escort of three hundred men. 
 Dayr seemed very anxious; and at one particular 
 spot, where he thought he discerned indications of 
 an enemy near at hand, he begged Lady Hester to 
 halt. She would be safe there for the time, and 
 must wait while he and his followers proceeded to 
 reconnoitre. She accordingly remained behind with 
 her own attendants, but refused to get off her horse. 
 
1838] LADY HESTER'S POWER 377 
 
 Both she and they were armed to the teeth. After 
 an hour's delay, which appeared interminable, they 
 suddenly heard the frightful war-whoop of the 
 Bedouins, and saw a large body of horsemen bearing 
 down upon them at full speed, their long lances all 
 couched in battle array. Her attendants fled, panic- 
 struck ; and she, left alone, in passionate indignation 
 plucked her pistols from her girdle, and, holding them 
 both at full cock, galloped with a loose rein to meet 
 the Bedouins. But, just as she was about to fire, she 
 recognized Dayr, who threw himself from his horse 
 to kiss her hand ; and while his men formed a circle 
 around them, proclaimed her, amid their deafening 
 acclamations. Queen of Palmyra. The poor doctor 
 was among the fugitives, and often, in consequence, 
 exposed to her bitter sarcasms. 
 
 ** Her power became so great that it caused some 
 uneasiness even at Constantinople ; and the great 
 Emir Beshyr, then all-powerful in Syria, had to bow 
 before her. ' I should have led eighty thousand Arabs 
 against him,' she exclaimed, in evident pride. Then 
 she showed me the celebrated Dayr*s answer to her 
 appeal to him as her ally ; at that time half the desert 
 tribes owed allegiance to him, and he had just defeated 
 the Wahabees in two great battles. He is the same 
 prince so often mentioned in reference to M. de 
 Lamartine's journey. The writing, enclosed in a 
 gold-embroidered cover, was as follows : 
 
 " ' Dayr, the Lion of the Desert, to Hester, the Star 
 of the Morning, sends greeting, with love and service. 
 Those who own the friendship of Mohanna-el-Fadel ' 
 (another great chief, who, being conquered, became 
 his ally and gave him his daughter in marriage), * and 
 obey the sabre of Dayr, hold the whole Great Desert 
 in the hollow of their hand, even as the ring encircles 
 
378 ARAB VIEW OF LADY HESTER [ch. viii 
 
 the finger. Warriors without number, horses, camels, 
 powder and shot, what is required for food, all is 
 ready. Thou hast only to send thy orders. 
 
 * Thy true friend, 
 
 ' Dayr.' 
 
 " * Was he your lover ? ' I asked rather heedlessly, 
 but she answered without embarrassment, * It has 
 often been said of me, but it is not true. The Arabs 
 have never looked upon me in the light either of a man 
 or of a woman, but as tin etre a part, . . / 
 
 "She had the courage to refuse Ibrahim Pacha's 
 proffered visit; and when he attempted to force her 
 to receive him, she sent him word that she would 
 defend her house, and that he should only cross its 
 threshold over her dead body. Ibrahim yielded ; and 
 * since then,' she added ironically, * he has troubled me 
 far less than the English Consul has done.' She is 
 often unjust to the English, and it is no exaggeration 
 to say that she has a real antipathy to her countrymen. 
 She treats the doctor, devoted and necessary to her 
 as he is, with icy coldness ; and his wife, who has 
 been living for years at Dar Joon, has never yet been 
 admitted to her presence. 
 
 " * Ah ! once upon a time,' she said to me one day, 
 'once upon a time I was full of ambitions and grand 
 projects, but since the Egyptian intruders have come 
 down upon us like a plague of locusts, it has pleased 
 God to visit me, in my old age and sickness, with 
 much affliction and heavy trials. My mission is not 
 now to strive, but to await with resignation the 
 coming of the Messiah, to which I have been long 
 since summoned, as well as all they,' she added 
 significantly, * who believe in Him.' 
 
 ** This brings me to the good Lady's idee fixe^ an 
 
1838] LADY HESTER'S STABLES 379 
 
 undoubted and indisputable fact, but of which I take 
 a different view from most other men. Good Lord ! 
 in matters of faith those who differ should be scrupu- 
 lously careful how they condemn others, lest the same 
 measure should be meted out to them. Lady Hester 
 believes, in common not only with the Jews, but the 
 whole of the East, that the Messiah is still to come. 
 We believe that He has already come. Lady Hester 
 believes that, when He comes, He will work many 
 miracles. We believe that these miracles have already 
 been accomplished. Unquestionably we are right, and 
 Lady Hester is wrong; but in principle we believe 
 the same, only Lady Hester in futuro and we in 
 proeterito. One might even, at a venture, attempt to 
 reconcile these two different kinds of faith, by 
 adopting the doctrine of the repeated return of 
 the Messiah, which the Jewish-Catholic-Evangelical- 
 Episcopal-Anglican missionary Wolff, for one, firmly 
 believed ; and as he had passed through every form 
 of Christianity gradatim^ he must surely be accepted 
 as an authority. . . . 
 
 " Of course Lady Hester also showed me her two 
 famous Messiah-mares, of whom one has a growth 
 on the back very like a Turkish saddle. They are 
 kept quite apart, in a separate and rather ornate 
 building, with a summer stable, a winter stable, a 
 court, and a garden. This is kept carefully locked 
 and guarded by two black slaves. Twice a day the 
 mares are led out for exercise in a larger grass plot, 
 enclosed in a wall. The first time Count Tattenbach 
 and I went to see them, they were standing loose in 
 their garden, under an embroidered tent cover. Long 
 accustomed to the homage of privileged visitors, they 
 behaved just like two old princesses, obliged to grant 
 an audience that bored them to death. Very slowly 
 
38o THE MAGIC HORSES [ch. viii 
 
 and indifferently they turned their heads and looked 
 at us with an air of haughty repose. They were both 
 finely formed and very good-looking animals, but had 
 long since grown too fat. The more sacred of the two, 
 that has the mystic saddle, is a dark chestnut, of which 
 Lady Hester relates the most wonderful things, and 
 has been well-nigh worshipped by many dervishes, 
 as she is to carry the Messiah Himself on His entry 
 into Jerusalem. The other, intended for Lady Hester 
 on that great day, is a silver grey, with the head and 
 eyes of a gazelle ; and I must say that, as an animal, 
 I liked her points the best ; of her spiritual qualifica- 
 tions I can offer no opinion. One day Lady Hester 
 herself took me to see them ; and it chanced that the 
 Messiah-mare, whom I was patting, licked my hand. 
 From this moment she looked upon me as one of 
 the elect, and laboured to convert me to her views; 
 for proselytism seems to be inherent in the human 
 race, ... 
 
 ^* Although, for many years past. Lady Hester has, 
 except on urgent business, written very little, and 
 read still less, yet the stirring and active life she 
 has led, and her acquaintance with most of the leading 
 men of the East, have enabled her to collect a vast 
 store of curious information, of which her wonderful 
 memory retains even the minutest details. No one 
 would be better able to discourse on the opinions 
 and customs of the Arabs, the different religious 
 sects of the Levant, the mysterious creed of the 
 Druses, the folk-lore, mythology, and even the history 
 of these various races, and throw a fresh light on all 
 these subjects. But she would only touch upon them 
 lightly, as if resolved not to discuss them, and in- 
 variably turned the conversation. If I attempted to 
 press her further she put off the discussion to another 
 
1838] LADY HESTER ON LAMARTINE 381 
 
 day, sometimes rather irritably, peevishly declaring 
 that things which it had cost her years to investigate 
 could not be re-told in a couple of hours, and that 
 there were already too many false and superficial 
 accounts of the East, for her to wish to add to their 
 number by any half-comprehended utterances of her 
 own. * You might, after all,* she concluded, holding 
 up her finger at me, *do no better for me than M. 
 de Lamartine. Have you read his Voyage en Orient! 
 What do you think of it ? ' 
 
 " * I do not like to take upon myself to criticize so 
 celebrated an author,' I replied ; * but I think that 
 to appreciate the descriptions of his travels one must 
 one's self have been in the East.' 
 
 ** * You may be quite right, but I can only judge of 
 the article on myself, which Dr. Meryon read to me. 
 Of this I can assure you, that one half is invented, 
 and the other half incorrect. Some of it made me 
 angry, and some of it made me laugh very heartily, 
 for it showed how comically travellers interpret to 
 their advantage speeches very differently intended. 
 He says I was struck with the beauty of his feet,^ 
 and by this, as well as from his habit of holding his 
 head on one side, concluded that he was of the purest 
 Arab blood, which, as he declared, a family tradition 
 curiously corroborated. Now let me tell you the real 
 facts of the case. Almost as soon as he came in, 
 M. de Lamartine said he flattered himself that I did 
 not hear his name for the first time, and asked if 
 I had read his works. Truth unfortunately com- 
 pelled me to say, "No, I had not"; adding, **as I took 
 
 * The doctor declares that, in emulation of M. de Lamartine, all 
 Lady Hester's subsequent visitors tried to attract her attention to 
 their feet. "The Prince's boots were Parisian in their cut, and it 
 was clear, from their excellent fit, that he felt his pretensions to a 
 thoroughbred foot were now to be decided magisterially." 
 
382 LAMARTINE'S VANITY [ch. viii 
 
 little interest in European literature." He was exces- 
 sively surprised; and then informed me he was a 
 poet of considerable celebrity in the world. " Well," 
 said I, ** I should have guessed as much at first sight, 
 for I perceive in you some of the characteristics of 
 poetic genius. I think you have Arab blood in your 
 veins, and all Arabs are born poets." " How do you 
 know that?" he asked hastily. *' By your general 
 appearance, and especially," I added with a smile, " by 
 your finely formed foot and arched instep." I said 
 this because I had observed, while he sat opposite 
 to me, that he stretched out one of his feet, and 
 regarded it with much complacency. *' Likewise," I 
 continued, " from the lustre of your eyes, and the 
 shape of your eyelids, which must enable you, as 
 it does many Arab tribes, to see as well with half- 
 closed eyes as other people do with open ones." 
 "How singular!" he cried; "how very singular all 
 you tell me is, Madam ! You must know that, during 
 the Crusades, one hundred and fifty Arab prisoners 
 from Gaza were brought to France by their French 
 captors. These settled in my native province and 
 built two villages, with the castle I now inhabit. 
 They still preserve a peculiar jargon, intelligible only 
 to themselves, and probably a corruption of Arabic. 
 Among them were several men of rank, and I have 
 always understood that some of their blood was 
 mingled with mine. Have you also observed that 
 (as is told of Alexander) I have the natural habit 
 of inclining my head towards one shoulder? Has 
 this, also, an Eastern significance?" "Oh," said I, 
 **now the whole matter is clear to me. As the 
 prisoners came from near Gaza I could tell you 
 exactly the tribe to which they belonged, and which 
 has all the characteristics you mention, especially the 
 
1838] LADY HESTER'S JOKE 383 
 
 inclined neck." He seemed very much pleased, said 
 he was proud to descend from such renowned war- 
 riors, and begged for further particulars. These I 
 took good care not to give him, for they would have 
 been but little flattering to the exuberant vanity which 
 was (and from his constellation unavoidably) the 
 predominant feature of his character. My account 
 (which was strictly accurate) related not to renowned 
 warriors, but to a tribe of camel-drivers, who for 
 centuries have inhabited the country round Gaza and 
 Misarib, always following the same calling. From 
 them M. de Lamartine may well have derived his 
 peculiarities, for they have generally very good feet 
 and high insteps, are greatly esteemed as minstrels 
 and story-tellers, and always hold their heads on 
 one side, with half-closed eyes ; a habit acquired from 
 watching the heads of their camels, and which has 
 now become a second nature.*" 
 
 One can imagine Lady Hester's enjoyment of this 
 story. 
 
 " In fact, it seems to be Lady Hester's favourite idea," 
 continues the Prince, " to trace back all the nations of 
 Europe to an Eastern origin, which is to be recognized 
 by certain signs. She is persuaded that the Scotch are 
 of the tribe of Beni Karasch, whose dialect affords the 
 solution of the puzzle regarding the Duke of Leinster's 
 motto ^ (never understood till now), and gives its name 
 to Lochaber. The Irish, she believes, are of Phoenician 
 or Carthaginian origin. This corresponds with the 
 discovery recently made by an Irishman, who thinks 
 he has proved that the dialect spoken by the Cartha- 
 ginian slave, Poenulus (in one of Plautus' comedies), 
 
 ^ I have always heard that Crom a boo is an old Irish war-cry. 
 Why should the Geraldines be converted into Scotchmen ? 
 
384 LADY HESTER'S GARDEN [ch. viii 
 
 is, in reality, the Roman pronunciation being taken 
 into consideration, the old Irish tongue. 
 
 " On a night when the moon shone nearly as brightly 
 as the sun does with us. Lady Hester conducted me 
 into the sanctuary, unprofaned by vulgar eyes, of her 
 private garden, the most enchanting and the most 
 luxuriant, in all the lavish profusion of the South, that 
 it is possible to conceive. A whole world of roses, of 
 all sizes and colours and all in full bloom, shone 
 resplendent in the magic illumination of the full moon ; 
 and so freighted the air with their perfume, that one 
 might have sunk down into the most voluptuous 
 magnetic slumber. More than once, in my delight, I 
 buried my face, as in a purple cushion, in these delicious 
 masses of roses. Then we came to a lofty terrace set 
 with flower vases, laid out along the verge of the 
 rocky precipice, from whence, one's self unseen, one 
 may enjoy the most beautiful view over the billowy 
 mountains and wide stretch of sea beyond. The trees 
 and shrubs are disposed with the true comprehension 
 of pictorial effect belonging to most educated English- 
 women, showing just enough, and hiding just enough 
 of the view to satisfy the eye, and yet leave a wish 
 for more — the whole art of landscape gardening, 
 as well as of coquetry. The flower vases were made 
 of some excellent clay found near here, and are 
 very ornamental, each on a diff'erent model, and each 
 from her own design, showing considerable artistic 
 talent. 
 
 " She told me on this occasion that once, when by 
 the Sultan's desire she was excavating for treasure at 
 Jerusalem, near Solomon's Temple, she discovered a 
 very fine antique statue, in perfect preservation, which 
 the Turks who were present smashed into a thousand 
 pieces, in the firm belief that the gold they sought was 
 
1838] LADY HESTER AS PHYSICIAN 385 
 
 concealed in this doll. What treasures may not have 
 been lost in this way ! " 
 
 This, again, is entirely incorrect. She herself ordered 
 the statue to be destroyed (see p. 174). 
 
 " She next spoke of the characteristic distinctions 
 between Eastern and Western civilization : of the 
 Moors in Spain ; observing, that but for Charles 
 Martel, we should all now have been Mahometans (to 
 which she, for one, would not object); then of the 
 Caliphs of Bagdad, and the native story-tellers. 
 * Come now,' she cried, inspired by the fairy-like scene 
 around, * for this once I will be your story-teller.' " 
 
 And she launched forth at once into a very long story 
 — too long to quote — in the style of the Arabian Nights. 
 It would, however, seem that she herself became 
 exhausted with these interminable vigils, during which 
 the poor Prince wrote for hours to her dictation. " He 
 must go to-morrow," she would say to the doctor ; " he 
 kills me by these long conversations, and he is so 
 tiresome, asking for this explanation and that explana- 
 tion. I said to him last night, when he could not 
 comprehend something, Est-ce que voire esprit est dans 
 les tenebres?^' Yet he delayed his departure, putting 
 off his intended visit to the Emir Beshyr three several 
 times. Once, and once only, it was on the ground of 
 indisposition, *' little knowing," says the doctor, " the 
 consequences of feeling unwell in her Ladyship's 
 house." She had all her life delighted in dabbling in 
 medicine, and playing the doctor. Mr. Price recounts 
 how, when one of Lord Kensington's children, whom 
 she met during her tour in Wales, inadvertently 
 swallowed an earring, she was at once ready with " a 
 prescription for the case, and exact verbal directions 
 for the proper treatment of the patient." Now, in the 
 Lebanon, she dispensed black doses with a lavish 
 hand. She kept by her a whole barrel of Epsom salts, 
 and woe betide any visitor who was ailing ! A black 
 dose was at once administered. The Prince swallowed 
 his at her bidding, though somewhat ungraciously ; 
 
 26 
 
386 PRINCE PUCKLER DEPARTS [ch. viii 
 
 and it is recorded to the credit of Count Tattenheim's 
 great good breeding, that "he poHtely consented to 
 take another black dose." Surely a striking proof of 
 her power of will. I have often wondered whether the 
 doctor himself was subjected to this merciless discipline. 
 The grim irony of physicking him would have been 
 very much in her line. 
 
 At length came the hour of the Prince's departure, 
 and with it a parting gift. " Dearest Lady Hester," he 
 said, " Eastern custom permits the hearer to make a 
 present to the story-teller, in token of his satisfaction. 
 I have heard that you are in search of a young slave 
 girl, and as I know my Ayesha pleases you, will you 
 allow me to imitate the Persian rrince in your story, 
 by offering you a black slave, whose good qualities 
 render her worthy of your acceptance ? If so, I shall 
 expect you to send for her to-morrow morning ; but 
 take care of the doctor, in whose good graces she 
 already stands very high." 
 
 *'He will only see her," rejoined Lady Hester, 
 " whenever she needs his professional care. I accept 
 your gift with thanks, for I confess I have liked the 
 girl from the moment I saw her." 
 
 *' I, for my part, was glad to be able to leave a good 
 and gentle child in the care of the Hermit-Lady of Dar 
 Joon ; but when I afterwards heard of her sudden 
 death, and that all she left behind was either taken 
 possession of by the Consular authorities or sold by 
 public auction, I often speculated, with some self- 
 reproach, on the uncertain fate of poor Ayesha.^ 
 
 '' My hand was already on the door handle, when 
 the Lady called after me, 'Don't forget the forty 
 sleepers at Damascus, the tomb of Sheick Maheddin, 
 and the grotto of Missisis, near Tarsus ! ' I promised, 
 and with much emotion, kissed for the last time her 
 withered, but still beautifully formed and aristocratic 
 hand." 
 
 / She was sent to Logmagi's house at Sayda, to be trained by his 
 wives for Lady Hester's service, ^ 
 
1838] LADY HESTER'S STRATEGY 387 
 
 Of these three myths, one, at least, was told with a 
 distinct purpose, and is quoted by the doctor in illus- 
 tration of her diplomatic methods. The first time she 
 sent him to the Prince it was with the following 
 message : 
 
 " * What I would wish you to talk to him about is 
 principally the serpent's cave. You must tell him that 
 at ten or twelve hours' distance from Tarsus there is a 
 grotto, where once lived an enormous serpent with a 
 human head, such as he may have seen in paintings, 
 representing the temptation of Eve. This serpent was 
 possessed of all the skill in demonology and magic 
 known on earth. There was an ancient sage, who 
 was desirous of acquiring this serpent's wisdom, which 
 he knew could be come at by destroying the serpent : 
 he therefore induced the king of the country to enter 
 into his views, and, by the king's orders, the neigh- 
 bouring peasantry assembled for that purpose. The 
 sage, who had given instructions that, in killing the 
 serpent, they were to proceed in a particular manner, 
 and that the head was to be reserved for him, stationed 
 himself not far off; and when the peasants went as 
 asual to carry his food, intending to seize a proper 
 moment for effecting his destruction, the serpent, being 
 gifted with the power of speech, said, '^ 1 know what 
 you are come for, you are come to take my life. I am 
 aware that I am fated to die now, and shall not oppose 
 it, but in killing me beware how you follow the instruc- 
 tions which the wicked man who sent you gave — do 
 exactly the reverse." The peasants obeyed the serpent, 
 and doing precisely the reverse of what the sage had 
 enjoined them to do, the king too died. Since then no 
 other serpent has appeared with a human head, but 
 several are living in the same grotto, and they still are 
 fed by the neighbouring villages, which send the food 
 
388 THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA [ch. viii 
 
 at stated times, and the people have opportunities of 
 seeing them with their own eyes. 
 
 ^**You must tell the Prince that this story is 
 perfectly authentic, and that from the time of Sultan 
 Moorad down to the present day, certain villages are 
 exempted from taxes in consideration of providing 
 sustenance for the serpents. As he naturally must 
 wish to enquire into and see so remarkable a pheno- 
 menon, you may tell him that, if he puts himself into 
 a boat, he can land at Tarsus or Swadeja, and thence 
 find his way a few hours' distance further, where the 
 grotto is situate.' 
 
 } » 
 
 The poor doctor hung his head, and demurred at 
 being sent on such an errand. But she would not be 
 gainsaid, and insisted. 
 
 *' ' Look here — you will talk a great deal about the 
 serpents, and when you can see a proper opportunity, 
 and that nobody is likely to hear you, you will say to 
 the Prince in a low voice, ** Lady Hester recommends 
 you to make some enquiries about the serpents' cave 
 when you are at Beyrout ; for near to Tarsus is 
 Kolook Bogaz, where Ibrahim Pacha's army is en- 
 camped ; you will probably like to see it, and this 
 will be a good excuse, as everybody then will fancy 
 you had no political motive in going there." ' 
 
 " The mystery was out ! For two or three months. 
 Lady Hester had been introducing the story of the 
 human-headed serpent into her conversations : for 
 two or three months, she had known of Prince 
 Puckler Muskau's coming ; for the same period I had 
 entertained apprehensions that her reason was im- 
 paired. M. Guys had been primed in the same way, 
 and formed the same reflections, and all turned out 
 to be one of those long-laid plots, for which she was 
 
1838] LADY HESTER ON EDUCATION 389 
 
 so famous, to save the Prince from being considered 
 a spy in the dangerous neighbourhood of two hostile 
 
 armies." 
 
 The Prince had enquired of the doctor how long he 
 had been resident in oyria, and how long he intended 
 to remain. He replied that he hoped to go home 
 that summer, as he was fairly worn out with fatigue 
 and worry. '* But you will not surely leave my Lady 
 while she is so ill?" said the Prince. This question 
 made him feel a little ashamed of himself. He saw 
 what would be thought of his desertion of a sick 
 woman, especially at the moment when she was 
 deprived of her pension, beset with creditors, and 
 that, for the first time, ** his stay with her could be 
 considered disinterested." He therefore put off his 
 departure till she was better, and continued reading 
 to her Lady Charlotte Bury's ** Memoirs of a Peeress," 
 and writing down her comments. She recognised all 
 the characters, and had plenty of anecdotes to tell of 
 them. Nothing pleased and interested her more than 
 having books read out to her; and yet one day she 
 declared to him : 
 
 " * As for me, I would destroy all books in a lump. 
 It was a lucky thing for mankind that the Alexan- 
 drian library was destroyed ; there was good reason 
 for what the Caliph did. . . . People read out of one 
 book, and then out of another, thinking one day 
 according to one author, and the next day quite the 
 contrary; just like teapots, drizzling out of the .spout 
 what was poured in under the lid.' She told me she 
 had almost quarrelled with the Prince on the subject 
 of education. * Education is all paint — it does not 
 alter the nature of the wood that lies under it, it only 
 improves its appearance a little. Why I dislike edu- 
 cation so much is, that it makes all people alike, until 
 you have examined into them ; and it sometimes is so 
 long before you get to see under the varnish ! ' " 
 
390 LADY HESTER ON DOCTORS [ch. viii 
 
 The doctor had been sent for in hot haste to the 
 wife of an English merchant at Beyrout, but she had 
 died before he could get there, and her husband 
 now proposed to put the French doctor who had 
 attended her on his trial, for unprofessional treatment, 
 which he styled "assassination." Lady Hester, though 
 she had never seen him, had sent him a kind letter of 
 condolence on his loss, and when she heard of the 
 intended prosecution she wrote again. 
 
 " Sir, — If the interest I feel in your unhappiness 
 gives me any claims on your attention, you must 
 allow me to make a few remarks on what I am sorry 
 to hear is about to take place — the bringing Monsieur 
 G. to a sort of trial, respecting his unsuccessful treat- 
 ment of your poor wife. I shall speak of it under two 
 heads : first, that of your being wanting in humanity 
 and generosity towards a young man coming into the 
 world, and secondly, that of the great probability of 
 your being non-suited, which will make you appear 
 very ridiculous, as well as be the means of bringing 
 forward many unpleasant and unusual circumstances, 
 which would excessively shock the delicacy of the 
 English. 
 
 *' I. In Mr. Pitfs last illness I expressed as my 
 opinion, that Sir Walter Farquhar did not understand 
 the nature of his complaint, and begged him to call in 
 other physicians. He replied, * Perhaps you are right, 
 and such may also be my own opinion ; but if it is the 
 will of God, I shall remain ; if not, I shall be sorry 
 that one of the last actions of my life should be that 
 of injuring the character of a man who has acted to 
 the best of his knowledge, and hitherto manifested the 
 greatest interest about my health on all occasions.' 
 Therefore nothing could be done with him ; but 
 Farquhar was himself persuaded to call in Dr. Bailey. 
 Would not it be better to follow the example of that 
 
1838] DJOUN 391 
 
 noble-minded man, than cast a slur upon the charac- 
 ter of one who, unprepared for so difficult an 
 accouchement^ had neither sufficient self-confidence nor 
 judgment to extricate himself in such a predicament ? 
 And all this will not recall Mrs. K. again to the world. 
 
 " 2. I enclose a paragraph from the papers last come 
 to hand,^ which, in addition to my knowledge of law, 
 strengthens my opinion that you may very likely 
 prove unsuccessful. You will then have to reproach 
 yourself for not having acted — I will not say, with 
 the missionaries, with Christian charity, but with that 
 feeling which ought to belong, and does belong, to 
 many individuals, whatever religion they may profess. 
 
 ** Do not understand by this that I am making you 
 my reproaches, for the state of irritation you are in 
 proceeds from the frame of mind which this unfor- 
 tunate circumstance has caused, and which it is the 
 duty of all those who call themselves your friends and 
 well-wishers to point out to you, that you may avoid 
 future remorse when you see things more calmly." 
 
 ^ The report of a suit in one of the County Courts, in which, under 
 similar circumstances, the surgeon was acquitted. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 DjouN — Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria — Death and 
 
 Burial 
 
 1838— 1839 
 
 Towards the end of May, word was brought to Lady 
 Hester that a party of pilgrims, who had lost two of 
 their number from the plague, had been placed in 
 quarantine outside the town of Sayda. They had 
 asked to be taken in at the monastery of Dayr 
 Mkhalla, near Djoun ; but though the monks were 
 willing to receive them, the health officer refused his 
 permission, and they remained in tents on the sea- 
 shore, guarded by a cordon of soldiers. They were 
 said to be poor Germans ; and Lady Hester, thinking 
 they might be in want of comforts, packed a couple of 
 baskets with a supply of rose and violet syrup, 
 capillaire, lemons, &c., and sent them as *' The humble 
 offering of Lady Hester Stanhope to the sick Germans, 
 with her request that they will make known their 
 wants to her, whether for medicines or for whatever 
 they may need." 
 
 But her messenger had scarcely left the house when 
 a letter arrived from one of the strangers, signed Baron 
 de Buseck, requesting her to be kind enough to send 
 her doctor, as a member of the party was ill. Lady 
 Hester was eager to comply, but the doctor refused 
 to go. He said he was afraid of the plague, and 
 thought, as the Germans appeared to be men of rank, 
 they could easily procure medical attendance from 
 Sayda. Nothing she could urge was of any avail, and 
 she had to write a refusal. 
 
 *' Although I myself have no fear of the plague, or 
 of persons infected with it, almost all the Franks have. 
 
1838-1839] DJOUN 393 
 
 The physician who is with me happens to be one of 
 the number, therefore it does not depend on me to 
 cure people of what I consider prejudices. Our days 
 are numbered, and everything is in the hands of God. 
 
 "Your letter is without a date, and comes from I 
 know not where. At the moment that I received it, I 
 had sent a servant with a few cooling syrups to some 
 sick Germans, guarded by a ring of soldiers outside 
 the town — of whose, name and class of life I am 
 ignorant, although the peasants give out that there are 
 some of very high quality among them — for I feared 
 that, in a strange country, and thus surrounded by 
 fever, and perhaps plague, they would not be able to 
 procure the drinks necessary in such maladies. I hope 
 not to have offended anyone, although I have made a 
 blundering business, not knowing who I addressed 
 myself to. But having understood that they had 
 yesterday demanded an asylum in Dayr Mkhalla, which 
 had been refused them, I was uneasy on their account. 
 
 ** I have ordered my purveyor at Sayda, Captain 
 Hassan Logmagi, to come up to-morrow, that I may 
 get a right understanding of this confused affair, and 
 may see if it is in my power, by any trifling service, to 
 be of use to them. Allow me to remark, that if in any 
 case symptoms of plague, or even of the ardent fevers 
 of the country, manifest themselves, the Frank doctors 
 understand but little about it. The barbers of the 
 country are those who have the most knowledge on 
 the subject. 
 
 " This letter goes by the servant who has in charge 
 the basket of syrups, and whom I had called back 
 when about ten minutes on his road." 
 
 Lady Hester lectured the doctor very severely on 
 his refusal to attend the poor Baron. But he, well 
 inured to scoldings, remained unmoved, till a second 
 
394 MAXIMILIAN, DUKE OF BAVARIA [ch. ix 
 
 letter, in another hand, arrived from the German camp. 
 It was very courteous, thanked Lady Hester for her kind 
 attention, repeated the request that the doctor might 
 be sent, and was signed Maximihan, Duke of Bavaria. 
 This name acted Uke a charm, dispelling all the 
 doctor's fear of the plague ; he was now ready and 
 anxious to obey the summons, and pay his respects to 
 **a prince of the blood-royal, the brother-in-law of the 
 King of Bavaria." Lady Hester's first care was to 
 have some loaves baked for the Duke, as the bread 
 made at Sayda was not good. She also sent tea, a 
 teapot, rum, brandy, and some other things that could 
 not be got in the town, with this letter : 
 
 Lady Hester to Maximilian^ Duke of Bavaria 
 
 *' DjOUN, 
 
 ''May^-jth^ 1838. 
 
 *' I have been but too much flattered by the good- 
 ness with which your Royal Highness was pleased to 
 look on the liberty I have already taken ; it is a proof 
 of your greatness as well as of your condescension. 
 Dr. Meryon has made up his mind to present himself 
 to your Royal Highness, but perhaps on a first visit 
 he will not say what I presume to do. 
 
 ** In the first place, the air of the spot where chance 
 has put you is bad. There is danger of getting a 
 fever, unless you wrap yourself up well as the evening 
 closes in, and take, in going to bed, a little brandy and 
 water, with sugar in it, instead of cooling things : but 
 what is best of all is a little rum, to prevent the 
 circulation from becoming languid with the damp, and 
 to keep up perspiration. Medical books say nothing 
 of this, nor, generally speaking, have doctors much 
 knowledge of it : but I have acquired my information 
 from people who have never been attacked by fever, 
 although often exposed, from their occupations, to sun 
 and fatigue. The Germans (who, according to the 
 traditions of the ancient Arabians, are of exceeding 
 
1838-1839] DJOUN 395 
 
 high race) Hke the kings, their ancestors, are not 
 brought up idlers : therefore, it seems much more 
 reasonable to infer that, if they follow the practice of 
 the laborious, it will suit them better than the system 
 pursued by indolent beings, who lead a kind of false 
 existence, and whose complaints are often imaginary, 
 or the consequences of their own prejudices. In 
 fevers of the country one cannot drink too much of 
 cooling things, or of cold water, for if, during one or 
 two days previous to trying any remedies intended to 
 excite the circulation, refreshing beverages are not 
 taken, internal inflammation comes on, which carries 
 off a man in a few hours. Bleeding is almost never to 
 be feared in this country. 
 
 *' Pardon me for thus having made myself a doctor : 
 but it is necessary that your Royal Highness should 
 have some insight into what is most necessary to 
 observe in a climate which is a very wholesome one, if 
 a person knows how to accustom himself to it." 
 
 The doctor paid his professional visit to the Baron, 
 and had an interview with Duke Maximilian, who was 
 ** most condescending," and asked him to examine his 
 black Mameluke, then desperately ill. His own 
 physician had died of the plague at Nazareth, and it 
 was feared this poor negro had caught the infection. 
 The doctor examined him at a safe distance (he went 
 no nearer than 5 ft.), but could not decide whether the 
 case was plague or typhus. Subsequently, however, 
 another doctor who was called in pronounced it to be 
 typhus, and thus freed the party from quarantine. On 
 June 7th, when Dr. Meryon, by Lady Hester's desire, 
 * came to watch the effects of seventeen black doses that 
 she had forwarded to them the night before, he found 
 the camp broken up, and the released prisoners 
 jubilant. (Had they profited by her liberality as 
 regarded the seventeen black doses? I hope and 
 believe they had not.) The Duke announced that " his 
 first duty was to wait upon Lady Hester, and to thank 
 her, and desired the doctor to let him know when she 
 
396 A MODERN DIOGENES [ch. ix 
 
 would permit him to pay his respects." Lady Hester 
 wrote accordingly : 
 
 Lady Hester to Maximilian^ Duke of Bavaria 
 
 ** I cannot sufficiently appreciate the honour you 
 intend me in wishing to visit my hermitage : but 
 permit me to impose these conditions upon you — that 
 you say not a word more, neither you nor the noble- 
 men in your suite, of those trifling services which you 
 have so graciously and benevolently accepted. Allow 
 me also to acquaint your Royal Highness, that, 
 although I was in my time a woman of the world, for 
 these last twenty years I have been nothing but a 
 philosopher, who turns out of her road for nobody. 
 When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes, he 
 neither changed his dress nor moved his tub for him : 
 pardon me, Prince, if I imitate his example. 
 
 *^ There was a time when my house was passable : 
 but now there are many rooms in ruins for want of 
 repairs, especially a large pavilion in the garden, 
 tumbling down from an earthquake : so that I could 
 not lodge more than three or four persons at a time. 
 What lodging I have for you is, first of all, a little 
 garden on the east side of my residence, with a small 
 saloon, and outside of the door two mustabys " (raised 
 stone benches) ** where two persons might sleep. 
 Adjoining the saloon is a bedroom ; and at the back of 
 it a sleeping room for two valets, with mattresses on 
 the floor, according to the custom of the country. The 
 saloon has a trellis in front. Just out of the garden 
 gate is a little place to make coffee, or boil water for 
 shaving ; and opposite to it is another room for 
 ordinary strangers, where two persons can sleep, and 
 where Count Tattenbach was lodged. For the other 
 servants there is room in one of the courtyards. As 
 
1838-1839] DJOUN 397 
 
 for my own divan, it has been in a ruinous state for 
 some years, and 1 inhabit at present a badly furnished 
 little room. 
 
 " I beg your Royal Highness will consider the little 
 garden, and the pavilion in it, which I have just men- 
 tioned, as your own, until the ship which you expect 
 arrives. You can make your excursions in the Moun- 
 tain when you like. With you, you can bring two or 
 three of the gentlemen of your suite, and these can 
 make room for others in their turn. Only, I hope that 
 the Baron and Count Gaiety, as I call him (for, 
 according to what the doctor tells me, during all your 
 misfortunes he has always preserved his cheerfulness), 
 will not come both together, because I have got a 
 great deal to say to each. Thus, then, I shall expect 
 your Royal Highness on Saturday evening." 
 
 Everything that it was possible to do was done to 
 prepare for the Duke's reception : and on the Saturday 
 morning all was ready, and the servants, dressed in 
 their best clothes, awaited his coming. But it found 
 poor Lady Hester in a high fever, with a torturing 
 pain in her side : she told the doctor she had passed a 
 sleepless night, and that he must go and inform the 
 Duke how ill she was, and that it was quite impossible 
 for her to receive him. The Duke had already 
 reached the monastery at Djoun when the doctor met 
 him. He expressed the greatest concern at hearing of 
 Lady Hester's illness, and at once turned back to 
 Sayda, where, by good fortune, he found the steamer 
 he expected just arrived, and embarked for Europe. 
 Before he left, he asked the doctor whether Lady 
 Hester would be displeased if he sent her his portrait. 
 " She could not but be pleased," the doctor opined. 
 But he was quite wrong. When he told her of it, she 
 said : *' No ; I must write to him and prevent his 
 sending it " ; and she did. 
 
 Her fever abated after she had been bled, and during 
 the next few weeks she was able to receive three 
 visitors, none of whom were introduced to the doctor. 
 
398 THREE VISITORS [ch. ix 
 
 The first was the great Oriental scholar, Dr. Laove ; 
 the second she discovered to be a Russian spy, from 
 the Embassy at Constantinople : ** and the Russians 
 employ such clever men, doctor, that I thought it best 
 you should not see him ; for he would have pumped 
 you without your suspecting his design " ; and the 
 third was an English country squire, of whom she 
 gave a comical account : 
 
 " He asked me if I knew the Emir Beshyr, and when 
 I was giving him some information about him, all of a 
 sudden he asked me if I liked dancing when I lived in 
 England. He goes from one thing to another, like a 
 dog in a fair, just like a dog that goes from one booth 
 to another, sniffing here and there, and stealing ginger- 
 bread nuts. When he sat with me in the evening, he 
 was constantly turning his head to the window, which 
 was open, as if he thought somebody was coming in 
 that way." 
 
 Travelling was rapidly becoming dangerous, if not 
 impracticable ; for a formidable Druse insurrection 
 had broken out in the Lebanon, and the country 
 swarmed with marauders and deserters. The in- 
 surgents were now within a day's march of Djoun ; 
 cattle had been carried off in the neighbourhood ; the 
 monks had packed up their valuables, and sent them 
 down to Sayda; and the terrified villagers were pre- 
 paring to desert their homesteads. Lady Hester sent 
 them word they were to remain where they were, and 
 nothing should happen to them. " I foretold all this," 
 she said to the doctor, " in a short time you will not be 
 able to ride from here to Sayda : the country will be 
 over-run with armed men, but I shall be as cool, from 
 first to last, as at a fete. All the cowards may go : I 
 want those who can send a ball where I direct them. 
 Why do I keep such men as Seyd Ahmed and some 
 others? You wanted me to get rid of them, and 
 blamed me because I kept such fellows about me. I 
 knew the time would come when they would be 
 useful, as you will see." He spoke of precautions that 
 ought to be taken. '' Oh ! " she said, '' I don't fear ; I 
 
1838-1839] AN OFFICIAL DESPATCH 399 
 
 would throw all my doors open, if the Druses were on 
 the outside, and should not be afraid that any one 
 would touch me." The old defiant spirit had not died 
 out in her. She was as ready as ever for the fray : as 
 prompt to act, as daring and resolute, as she had 
 always been. Changed in all else, she was unchanged 
 in this ; broken down in health and fortune, she was 
 still the same dauntless woman who had challenged 
 her enemies to do their worst, with the threatening 
 message : " If they want a devil, let them try me ! " 
 
 But, courageous as she was, her home troubles and 
 anxieties told grievously upon her, for the wound 
 inflicted by Col. Campbell's letter had struck very 
 deep. She was excessively anxious .that her corre- 
 spondence on the subject should be published, and 
 worried by its non-appearance in the papers. " Who 
 knows?" she cried. " rerhaps Prince Ptickler Muskau, 
 after all his pretended interest in my affairs, has never 
 sent the correspondence to Europe ^ : he told you in 
 three months we should see the letters in the papers, 
 and yet the papers neither come, nor do we hear from 
 him. Do you think, after this, one can have any 
 confidence in anybody?" Meanwhile, Lord Palmer- 
 ston's answer to her letter had come, and is here given, 
 with her rejoinder. 
 
 Lord Palmerston to Lady Hester 
 
 ** Foreign Office, 
 
 '' April i^th, 1838. 
 
 " Madam, — I am commanded by the Queen to ac- 
 quaint you that I have laid before Her Majesty your 
 letter of the 12th February of this year. 
 
 ** It has been my duty to explain to Her Majesty the 
 circumstances which may be supposed to have led to 
 your writing that letter, and I have now to state to 
 your Ladyship that any communications which have 
 been made to you on the matters to which your letter 
 refers, either through the friends of your family or 
 through Her Majesty's Agent and Consul-General at 
 
 1 He tells us in his diary that he considered the letters too dis- 
 respectful in their tone for publication. 
 
400 A SPIRITED REJOINDER [ch. ix 
 
 Alexandria, have been suggested by nothing but a 
 desire to save your Ladyship from the embarrassments 
 which might arise, if the parties who have claims 
 upon you were to call upon the Consul-General to act 
 according to the strict line of his duty, under the 
 capitulations between Great Britain and the Porte. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, Madam, 
 
 " Your Ladyship's most obedient, 
 ** Humble Servant, 
 
 *' Palmerston." 
 
 Lady Hester to Lord Palmerston 
 
 "DjouN, Mount Lebanon, 
 
 ''July 1st, 1838. 
 
 '*My Lord, — If your diplomatic despatches are as 
 obscure as the one which now lies before me, it is no 
 wonder that England should cease to have that proud 
 preponderance in her foreign relations, which she once 
 could boast of. 
 
 " Your Lordship tells me that you have thought it 
 your duty to explain to the Queen the subject which 
 caused me to address Her Majesty. I should have 
 thought, my Lord, that it would have been your duty 
 to have made those explanations prior to having taken 
 the liberty of using Her Majesty's name, and alienating 
 from her and her country a subject who, the great and 
 small must acknowledge (however painful it may be to 
 some), has raised the English name in the East higher 
 than anyone has yet done, and this without having 
 spent one farthing of public money. Whatever may 
 be the surprise created in the minds of statesmen of 
 the old school respecting the conduct of Government 
 towards me, I am not myself the least astonished, for 
 when the son of a king, with a view of enlightening 
 his own mind and that of the world in general, had 
 
1838-1839] A SPIRITED REJOINDER 401 
 
 devoted part of his private fortune to the purchase of 
 a most invaluable library at Hamburg, he was flatly 
 refused an exemption from the Custom-house duties ; 
 but (if report speaks true), had an application been 
 made to pass band-boxes, millinery, inimitable wigs, 
 and invaluable rouge, it would have been instantly 
 granted by Her Majesty's Ministers, if we may judge 
 by precedents. Therefore, my Lord, I have nothing 
 to complain of. Yet I shall go on fighting my battles, 
 campaign after campaign. 
 
 ** Your Lordship gives me to understand that the 
 insult which I have received was considerately 
 bestowed upon me, to avoid some dreadful unname- 
 able misfortune which was pending over my head. I 
 am ready to meet with courage and resignation every 
 misfortune it may please God to visit me with, but 
 certainly not insult from man. If I can be accused of 
 high crimes and misdemeanours, and that I am to stand 
 in dread of the punishment thereof, let me be tried, as 
 I believe I have a right to be, by my peers ; if not, then 
 by the voice of the people. Disliking the English 
 because they are no longer English — no longer that 
 hardy, honest, bold people that they were in former 
 times — yet, as some few of this race must remain, I 
 should rely with confidence on their integrity and 
 justice, when my case had been fully examined. 
 
 '* It is but fair to make your Lordship aware that, if 
 by the next packet there is nothing definitely settled 
 respecting my affairs, and that I am not cleared in the 
 eyes of the world of aspersions, intentionally or 
 unintentionally cast upon me, I shall break up my 
 household, and build up the entrance gate to my 
 premises, there remaining, as if I were in a tomb, till 
 my character has been done justice to, and a public 
 acknowledgment put in the papers, signed and sealed 
 27 
 
4^^ ?ITT BLOOD [cH. ix 
 
 by those who have aspersed me. There is no trifling 
 with those who have Pitt blood in their veins upon the 
 subject of integrity, nor expecting that their spirit 
 would ever yield to the impertinent interference of 
 Consular authority. 
 
 ** Meanly endeavouring (as Colonel Campbell has 
 attempted to do) to make the origin of this business 
 an application of the Viceroy of Egypt to the English 
 Government, I must, without having made any 
 enquiries upon this subject, exculpate his Highness 
 from so low a proceeding. His known liberality in all 
 such cases, from the highest to the lowest class of 
 persons, is such as to make one the more regret his 
 extraordinary and reprehensible conduct towards his 
 great Master, and that such a man should become 
 totally blinded by vanity and ambition, which must in 
 the end prove his own perdition, an opinion I have 
 loudly given from the beginning. 
 
 *' Your Lordship talks to me of the capitulations 
 with the Sublime Porte. What has that to do with a 
 private individual having exceeded his finances, in 
 trying to do good? If there is any punishment for 
 that, you had better begin with your ambassadors, 
 who have often indebted themselves at the different 
 Courts of Europe, as well as at Constantinople. I 
 myself am so attached to the Sultan that, were the 
 reward of such conduct that of losing my head, I 
 should kiss the sabre wielded by so mighty a hand, 
 yet, at the same time, treat with the most ineffable 
 contempt your trumpery agents, as I should never 
 admit of their having the smallest power over me; if I 
 did, I should belie my origin. 
 
 '* Hester Lucy Stanhope." 
 
 The servant who carried this letter to Sayda was 
 instructed to wait till the English steamer came in, in 
 
1838-1839] DJOUN 403 
 
 case it should bring something for Lady Hester. It 
 brought Sir Francis Burdett's long-hoped-for answer. 
 But she no longer looked forward to it as she once 
 had done. She had waited for it so long and so vainly, 
 that her persistent hopefulness as to its contents had 
 given way. Good news should surely not have been 
 so long on the road. She had expected it when she 
 was lying ill of her fever in June ; then, as usual, she 
 had been disappointed, and, weak and prostrate as she 
 then was, the disappointment seemed worse to bear 
 than it had ever been. She turned impatiently in her 
 bed, crying, *' Oh, Lord ! the die is cast. Doctor, the 
 sooner you take yourself off the better. I have no 
 money. You can be of no use to me. I shall write no 
 more letters — shall break up my establishment, wall 
 up my gate, and, with a girl and boy to wait upon me, 
 resign myself to my fate." Her fits of despondency, 
 however, never lasted long ; a reaction generally set 
 in on the following day, and the doctor always thought 
 it best to leave her to herself. He could neither cheer 
 nor comfort her; it was her own sanguine tempera- 
 ment, her own buoyant spirits, that came to the 
 rescue, and coloured and brightened the gloomiest of 
 
 Erospects. She had full faith in the star that guided 
 er destiny, and was to lead her, through many 
 vicissitudes, to the triumph and success that had been 
 so long foretold. 
 
 ** I am," she said, ** like the man in the Eastern 
 story, who, imprisoned in a dungeon, and nearly 
 starved to death, found in a poor sailor an old 
 acquaintance, who conveyed to him secretly a basin of 
 warm soup, but just as he was putting it to his mouth, 
 a rat fell from the ceiling, and knocked it out of his 
 hand. Reduced thus to the lowest pitch of wretched- 
 ness, and seeing nothing left for him but to die, at the 
 critical moment came a firman from Constantinople to 
 cut off the head of the pasha who had thrown him into 
 prison, and he was saved. So it is with me. I cannot 
 be worse off than I am ; I shall, therefore, when the 
 next steamboat comes, see what it brings, and, if I hear 
 
404 BAD NEWS [cH. ix 
 
 no news about the property that was left me, I shall 
 get rid of you and everybody, and of all the women, 
 and, with one black slave and Logmagi, I shall order 
 the gateway to be walled up, leaving only room 
 enough for my cows to go in and out to pasture, and I 
 shall have no communication with any human being. 
 I shall write to Lord Palmerston before 3^ou go, and tell 
 him that, as he has thrown an aspersion on my name, I 
 shall remain walled in until he publicly removes it. 
 And if he, or anybody, writes to me, there will be no 
 answer, for when you are gone, I shall have nobody to 
 write for me. This sort of life, perhaps, will suit me 
 best, after all. I have often wished that 1 could have 
 a room in my garden, and, lying there with only some 
 necessary covering, slip from my bed as I was into the 
 garden, and after a turn or two, slip back again. 1 do 
 assure you 1 should be neither low-spirited nor dull." 
 
 When Sir Francis Burdett's long-delayed answer at 
 last came, it found her, in a great measure, prepared 
 for bad news, and it brought her the very worst. All 
 her hopes of the Irish estate, on which she had 
 founded so many projects and expectations, were 
 relentlessly dashed to the ground. Yet the doctor 
 found her calm and composed, unshaken in her belief 
 regarding her inheritance, and only occupied in 
 finding excuses for her old friend. ** It is evident, 
 doctor," said she, " that he could not write what he 
 wanted to write. He wishes me all the happiness 
 that a mortal can share, but says not a word that I did 
 not know before." Here is her reply : 
 
 Lady Hester to Sir Francis Burdett 
 
 " DjOUN, 
 
 ''July7.oth, 1838. 
 
 ** My Dear Burdett, — I am no fool, neither are you, 
 but you might pass for one, if in good earnest you did 
 not understand my letter. You tell me what is self- 
 evident — that I have no right to inherit Colonel 
 
1838-1839] LADY HESTER^S RESOLVE 405 
 
 Needham's property, etc. ; neither has your daughter any 
 right to inherit Mr. Coutts' property ; but, in all proba- 
 bility, his wife, being aware that you and your family 
 stood high in his estimation, paid that compliment to his 
 memory. Lord Kilmorey, who had no children, being 
 aware of Colonel Needham's partiality towards Mr. 
 Pitt, might, by his will, have allowed the property to 
 return to the remaining branch of the Pitt family. Do 
 not be afraid that I am going to give you any fresh 
 trouble about this affair, notwithstanding I believe 
 you were some time hatching this stupid answer, but 
 I do not owe you any grudge, as I know it does not 
 come from you ; I know where it comes from. 
 
 '^ A lion of the desert, being caught in the hunts- 
 man's net, called in vain to the beasts in the field to 
 assist him, and received from them about as shufHing 
 an answer as 1 have received from you, and previously 
 from Lord Hardwicke. A little field-mouse gnawed 
 the master-knot, and called to the lion to make a great 
 effort, which burst the noose, and out came the lion 
 stronger than ever. 
 
 " I am now about building up every avenue to my 
 premises, and there shall wait with patience, immured 
 within the walls, till it please God to send me a little 
 mouse, and whoever presumes to force my retirement, 
 by scaling my walls or anything of the like, will be 
 received by me as Lord Camelford would have 
 received them." 
 
 She had quite determined to part with the doctor, 
 and most, if not all, of her servants, now that the 
 funds to maintain her establishment were no longer 
 forthcoming. The doctor had already made up his 
 mind to go as soon as she was a little better, but yet 
 he admits that he felt great reluctance in leaving her 
 "without a single European near her, or a single 
 servant on whom she could depend," and he must 
 
4o6 THE DOCTOR'S DESERTION [ch. ix 
 
 have known how severely his conduct would be 
 judged. She herself was generously anxious to 
 screen him from blame, and told him he had better 
 write to Baron de Buseck or Count Wilsenheim, 
 " that they may not think you left me unprotected, 
 for you know how apt people are to put a bad con- 
 struction on everything." It is certain that she 
 insisted on his departure, and that it was hard to 
 oppose her will, but how he could find it in his heart 
 to go, and leave her in such an evil plight, is more 
 than I can understand. She had now to face the 
 world alone, and without a single friend. She had no 
 money. The war between the Druses and the Pasha 
 was raging more fiercely than ever ; all the country 
 round was in a disturbed and dangerous state, and 
 there was no one to stand by her — no human being 
 for her to depend upon except herself. Her health 
 had, indeed, improved ; the fever had left her, and her 
 cough was easier, as it always was during the summer 
 months, but the doctor knew well enough what lay 
 before her in the coming winter. He had written 
 only a month or two before, ** She is saved for this 
 year; what another might do is in the hands of God." 
 The last winter had been terrible, and this one was to 
 find her without medical attendance or comforts, with 
 no one to nurse and wait upon her but idle and unwill- 
 ing slave girls, who fled from the sound of her bell. 
 Unable to use her own weak eyes without great 
 suffering, she was to be left with no one to read to her 
 or write for her ; no one to save her trouble, or help 
 her in difficulty ; no one to come and sit with her 
 during her long nightly vigils ; no one to whom she 
 could speak in her mother tongue. She was to be 
 virtually a prisoner — shut out from all communication 
 with the outer world. What worse fate could her 
 bitterest enemy have imagined for her ? Yet the man 
 who doomed her to it was a friend of twenty-eight 
 years' standing, who invariably professed the greatest 
 possible gratitude and devotion. Here are some of the 
 effusions he sent her after his departure : 
 
 Dr. Meryon to Lady Hester 
 
 ** I am grown old. I never had but one kind and 
 sure friend in the world, and were one of your cats 
 
1838-1839] LUCUBRATIONS 407 
 
 (much as I hate cats) to fall into my hands, and 
 wanted a house over its head, I would fold it to my 
 bosom because it had been yours. Tis at a distance, 
 when all the scoldings are forgotten, or only 
 recollected to feel how just they were, that I think 
 of your noble mind, your disinterested integrity, your 
 undaunted spirit, and your pious resignation to the 
 will of God — and then I sink into my own nothing- 
 ness. My heart is full of your Ladyship's goodness, and 
 I still hope I am worthy to be your devoted servant. 
 . . . Do not imagine for a moment that I ever expected 
 any civil remarks in return for what I say. I am like 
 a poor man who, when burthened with a heavy load, 
 feels happy to relieve himself of the weight of it by 
 unloading it at its destination, but, in so doing, he 
 merits no thanks— he has only done his duty. Any 
 attempt of mine to make fine speeches to a refined 
 understanding like yours would be like a street 
 fiddler's trying to amuse Mozart. I am all humility 
 now, and feel myself almost unworthy to pray for so 
 exalted a being as yourself, much more to identify 
 myself with your sufferings in health, by any sorrow 
 I can feel. My regrets deserve no acknowledgment 
 — only let me now and then pour them out upon 
 paper." 
 
 These lucubrations, as a context to his conduct, must 
 have considerably amused **the exalted being" to whom 
 they were addressed. 
 
 No time was lost in preparing for the doctor's 
 departure ; yet a month elapsed before he was ready 
 to go. Lady Hester utilized the interval for her 
 correspondence, as it was the last opportunity she 
 would ever have of dictating letters, and it was both 
 painful and difficult for her to write herself. She had 
 recently received, after the lapse of many years, a com- 
 munication from one of her family. Colonel Hazeta, 
 returning home on leave, had brought her a letter frorn^ 
 
4o8 THE DRUSE INSURRECTION [ch. ix 
 
 a son of Lady Lucy's,^ then serving in India ; but 
 I fear she left it unnoticed. The following descriptions 
 of the Druse insurrection were addressed to " Count 
 Gaiety " (as she called him) and Baron de Buseck. 
 
 Lady Hester to Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria 
 '' I am happy that H.R.H. quitted this country when 
 he did, not because of the plague— the season was 
 gone by this year for that— but because of the aspect 
 of affairs, and of the Druse insurrection, which has 
 grown considerably hotter, and which would have 
 made it impossible to travel with any comfort. 
 
 ** Ibrahim Pacha began the war in the Horan with 
 forty-five thousand men ; the Druses had but seven 
 thousand, assisted by some tribes of the Arabs of the 
 desert. Ibrahim Pacha has lost thirty thousand, be- 
 tween Nizam troops (as they are called), Sugmans. 
 and Albanians, without reckoning the wounded. The 
 Druses' army, I believe, does not at present exceed 
 two thousand five hundred men ; but each man of that 
 two thousand five hundred is singly worth twenty. 
 The last seat of the war was about fourteen leagues 
 distant in a straight line from my residence. The 
 Druses, after having well beaten Ibrahim Pacha, and 
 killed some of his officers, retreated to the Horan, 
 pursued by the Pacha. 
 
 ^' You no doubt are aware that H.H. the Pacha, in 
 concert with the Emir Beshyr, disarmed the Druses 
 some time ago by a stratagem, which gave the 
 Government means to take their sons for conscripts for 
 the Nizam. After that, they in like manner disarmed 
 
 ' There is a story told of the eldest of these nephews, which is 
 curiously characteristic of Lady Hester's methods. As a little child 
 he was fractious and troublesome : but invariably on his best behaviour 
 when she was in the room. Someone noticed this, and asked her to 
 explain it. '* Oh ! " she cried, " that is very simple. One day that he 
 misbehaved himself with me, I opened the window, lifted him up, and 
 held him out at arm's length, saying, ' Now, remember, if ever you do 
 that again, next time I shall let you drop.'" 
 
1838-1839] M. GUYS 409 
 
 the Christians ; but necessity has compelled the Pacha 
 lately to give them their arms again, in order to enable 
 the son of the Emir Beshyr to join the Pacha's forces 
 with a reinforcement of Christians, which he stood in 
 need of, to garrison the skirts of the mountain on the 
 side of the Bkaa. The Druses killed a great many of 
 these Christians, and they could have annihilated 
 them, but they said to them : * You are not to blame ; 
 it goes against us to exterminate you, for we have 
 always lived with you on friendly terms, but we will 
 slay without pity every Christian we find in arms, 
 excepting those of the Mountain.' 
 
 *' The French Government has done an imprudent 
 thing in removing Mr. Consul Guys from his post at 
 Beyrout, because that gentleman had very extensive 
 connections among the bishops and priests, and all 
 the numerous sects of Christians found on Mount 
 Lebanon, and by his information and experience, had 
 means of giving them good advice. For if, by chance, 
 those Christians gave heed to bad counsel, it might 
 not be impossible that half the Franks who inhabit 
 this country would be massacred. ... I have a great 
 esteem for M. Guys, but I see him so seldom, that 
 whether he is far or near, it is pretty much the same 
 to me. As for the Christians here, I do not interest 
 myself more about them than about other men— per- 
 haps less, not on account of their religion, but of their 
 qualities, of which egotism and perfidy are marked 
 characteristics in most of them. As a religion is with 
 me neither more nor less than a costume of adoration, 
 it is all one whether it is green, white, blue, or black. 
 To me, it is all the same whether a man prostrates 
 himself before a piece of wood, or a cockle-shell, as 
 the Metonalis do, provided his heart addresses itself 
 to the Almighty. 
 
4IO CIVIL WAR [CH. IX 
 
 ** Perhaps for saying this, you will have me crucified 
 by the Pope. Never mind, if it is my lot I shall not 
 repine, since whatever is decreed must necessarily 
 happen ; but it is not necessary, for all that, by a want 
 of policy, to make civil wars break out, which would 
 do no good to anybody, and which would not turn to 
 any account even for those who stirred them up. . . . 
 
 " When the Druses found out that the Pacha's 
 artillery in the valleys cut them up dreadfully, and that 
 personal courage was of no value, they retreated to the 
 Horan, where the inequality of the ground was more 
 favourable to them. At this moment, Ibrahim Pacha 
 is in pursuit of them, and has given orders to his 
 Bedouin robbers, whom he brought from Egypt (a 
 tribe that is called the Hanaady), to run down the 
 greatest hero the Druses have got, and to bring him 
 alive ; being so struck with the courage of the man, 
 that he would willingly employ him in his own service. 
 Poor Pacha ! I fancy he has made a bad calculation 
 in thinking that one of the family of Arrikn, men 
 accustomed, like their ancestors, to rule with sovereign 
 authority in their castle at Gendal, would ever become 
 a vile slave to save his life. Shibly el Arrian is not 
 only a hero in battle, but a Demosthenes in council ; 
 he makes even the great tremble by the language he 
 holds. 
 
 '* An order has just been issued by the Emir Beshyr, 
 to search the dwellings of the Druses for concealed 
 arms, and to take from them their horses ; this is, at 
 best, a great piece of imprudence, because, seeing that 
 many of the cavaliers would sooner fly than give up 
 their horses, he will thus increase the number of 
 insurgents in the Horkn. Ibrahim Pacha, with the 
 wreck of his army, of which he has lost full 30,000, 
 without counting the wouaded, cannot, if he does not 
 
1838-1839] DR. MERYON^S LEAVE-TAKING 411 
 
 soon make peace and come to some composition, do 
 much more with the Druses. 
 
 " This is the state of affairs at the present moment ; 
 but it is difficult to get at the truth. Even your friend 
 L., if he knows anything, dares not avow it ; but what 
 such sort of people know is so little — their information 
 is so confined, they are all so ignorant of the true 
 character, the projects, and of the resources of the 
 different races that inhabit Syria — that the reasonings 
 they make are about as false as a fairy-tale." 
 
 This was the last letter the doctor ever wrote for 
 her. As the day of his departure drew nearer, poor 
 Lady Hester's heart misgave her, and she was very 
 loth to let him go. The appalling solitude that awaited 
 her rose up like a spectre before her, and she could 
 not forbear to wish it delayed. She often spoke of 
 her approaching end. " I shall not die in my bed," 
 she would say, " and I had rather not ; my brothers 
 did not, and I have always had a feeling that my end 
 would be in blood — that does not frighten me in the 
 least." The prospect she quailed from was the life 
 that lay before her. 
 
 The doctor put off going for three days longer ; then, 
 on August 6th, he ** took an affectionate leave of her, 
 and never saw her more." The two "Eugenias, mother 
 and daughter, who had never once seen her during 
 their fifteen months' stay, were dissolved in tears on 
 leaving, as they had been on arriving. Half way to 
 Sayda they were overtaken by a messenger bringing 
 a small Turkey carpet that Lady Hester, ever mindful 
 of their comfort, had sent for them to spread on the 
 floor of their cabin. 
 
 Before they left, she had carried out her intention 
 of walling up her gate, leaving only an opening large 
 enough to admit a cow or a beast of burden, as her 
 water supply had to be brought in from without. 
 Here she remained immured till her death, a self- 
 constituted prisoner. 
 
 Henceforward all we know of her dreary hermit-life 
 is through her letters, and she wrote very few. Once 
 ^ month, she generally sent one to the doctor, giving 
 
412 A SICK HOUSEHOLD [ch. ix 
 
 him commissions and instructions, but not telling him 
 much about herself. She writes in October : 
 
 Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon 
 
 *' Everybody is laid up here ; Logmagi with a bad 
 fever, as also Mustafa and the cow-boy; Mohammed 
 with a fit of the gout, unable to walk or stir ; Fatoom, 
 half with whims, always under the coverlet ; Zezef6on 
 ill, but keeping to her work. The early rain has 
 caused illness everywhere. . . . The Mountain is in a 
 very disturbed'state ; but my habitation is well walled 
 in, and the weight of all on poor me, as Logmagi is 
 at Sayda. 
 
 ** So far till to-day ; afterwards I shall not be able to 
 give you any account of myself, as I suffer so by 
 writing. The spectacles always cause me such vast 
 pain, that I cannot stand it ; and besides, it lasts all 
 day, or next da}^ . . . Mr. M., whom you did not see 
 at Cyprus, has offered to serve me as secretary, and to 
 arrange my servants, he living at his own expense at 
 Djoun, or some other village ; but, as he refused all 
 salary, I could not do otherwise than refuse his offer." 
 
 Lady Hester to Lord Hardwicke 
 
 " Djoun, 
 
 " October 21st, 1838. 
 
 '' Dear Lord Hardwicke,— The most infernal cold- 
 hearted quiz might have written your first letter; 
 a Yorke only the last. If you wish to serve me (which 
 I believe you do), sell my pension to Government, 
 to an individual, or by auction ; also the annuity my 
 brother left me, for the interest has brought up my 
 debts to a very large sum. You will say — What are 
 you to do ? Never enquire that ; the Divine Being 
 who inspired me to act as I have done, who has 
 supported me through all my dreadful trials, will not 
 
1838-1839] DJOUN 413 
 
 forsake me. Let me hear by the return of the vapour 
 if you will kindly undertake this business, or not If 
 not, I have this resource, which I shall make use of 
 most speedily— to put all my affairs into the hands 
 of a stranger, and let him do his best ; if he only sells 
 for half its value, it is all, and the creditors must take 
 so much in the pound. You will say, vast expense ; 
 recollect that millions have gone for the same purpose, 
 but to no avail. You may treat me as an imposture ; 
 think and say as you like of me, but guide me none 
 shall, therefore all reasoning is in vain when I have 
 made up my mind. I know I have property in Ire- 
 land, with all the stupid shuffles made about it, and 
 on that subject I shall say no more. As to the 
 Government, Lord P. has acted like a blackguard to 
 allow of a dirty agent to threaten me ; but I have not 
 done with him, and he will hereafter see, those who 
 have Pitt blood in their veins are no swindlers^ nor 
 are they cowards, or will they bear a threat even 
 from a crowned head. You know I am no longer an 
 English subject ; I would rather live under a Hottentot 
 king, than be subjected to the caprice of a childish queen, 
 governed by such ministers. They may some day 
 expect Fox's ghost to give them a good box in the 
 ear, for it is certain he would be quite shocked and 
 ashamed at any of his party having acted as they 
 have done. I have no fear of all those horrors which 
 you have painted in such gloomy colours ; I have seen 
 worse than all that. I have requested a medical man, 
 Dr. Meryon, to send you a sort of certificate about 
 my health ; all nonsense, for no one understands my 
 health more than they do my character; but as a 
 form the paper may be useful. Should you see the 
 Doctor in England, recollect that his only good quality 
 in my sight is, I believe, being very honest in money 
 
414 LADY HESTER ON DR. MERYON [ch. ix 
 
 matters ; no other do I grant him ; without judgment, 
 without heart, he goes through the world, like many 
 others, blundering his way; and often, from his want 
 of accuracy, doing mischief every time he opens his 
 mouth. I must now tell you, that a Turk who held 
 a bond of mine, expressed among his friends some 
 fears about the payment, when he heard my pension 
 was to be stopped, etc., etc. One of the party flew 
 into a passion, and said, * If you fear, take the money 
 from me.' He said, ' Very well.' It was fetched im- 
 mediately, and the bond sent to me. This sum was 
 all the ready money the man could command, but he 
 offered instantly to sell land worth about £1000^ if 
 I was short of money, adding, * I am only doing my 
 duty ; she has ever served us when in distress ; she 
 is a universal blessing, which we must preserve for 
 our own sakes.' If I do not repay this man the 
 beginning of February, I shall ruin his affairs greatly. 
 There is likewise another I must pay at that time ; 
 as for the old standing usurers, let them wait. I 
 must have credit for ;^3000 in February. There is 
 ;£'900 of my (pension) I have given as yet no certifi- 
 cate for, and is undrawn ; that, insure my life with 
 for ten years, and quickly sell the pension. I suffer 
 greatly when I write, therefore do not expect re- 
 peated letters, for I cannot stand it ; only do not fail 
 to let me know my fate ; to sell one farthing, or pay 
 one penny in any other way but the one I have here 
 named I will not put my hand to. All reasoning, 
 etc., will be in vain ; and I should wish to know by 
 what law I am to be proved not at liberty to do with 
 that which belongs to me as I think proper — because^ 
 perhaps^ Mr. Pitt thought me a fool^ and unable either 
 to judge or to act for myself. Shame upon you all! 
 had you been gentlemen, you would have sent me a 
 
1838-1839] ^'*MEN ARE BEASTS'' 4'$ 
 
 man like Mr. Dundas, the judge in India; Capt 
 Swinburne, formerly of the Rapid] or Capt. Brown^ 
 aide-de-camp to Lord Nugent — all admirable men. 
 Had you put a dozen padlocks on their tongues, it 
 was all one to me ; I wanted their ears only. Will 
 you tell the Duke of Sussex that I strongly recommend 
 to him Dr. Mills, lately come from India, as one of the 
 most sound-headed, learned men I have met with. 
 I wished to have much conversation with him, but 
 there was no time ; yet I saw enough to judge of what 
 he knew, if brought out. As to the Duke's little Jew, 
 he has much merit as an active, enterprising man, but 
 little judgment. I doubt if he does not often deceive 
 himself. You may perhaps have also heard, that I 
 have built up the entrance to my habitation, that I 
 may see no one, and until Lord P. and his squad may 
 think it proper to make me a public apology for having 
 thus cast an odium upon my character, and having 
 dared to order or to connive at a threat being used 
 towards me : and by whom ? — a dirty, venal agent of 
 theirs. I have written these two lines to Coutts' 
 house ; like other people, they treat me in a strange 
 way ; but it is all one in the end. 
 
 "Adieu, my dear Lord Hardwicke, the time will 
 come when the world will produce rivals in sensibility ; 
 at present men are beasts, worse than beasts. I should 
 have been miserable to have been obliged to rank you 
 with many others. God bless you, and reward you 
 for the many kind actions you have done, and believe 
 no one more sensible of your conduct than — 
 
 '* Your affectionate, 
 
 " H. L. S." 
 
 Lord Hardwicke communicated this letter to my 
 father, who replied as follows : 
 
4i6 LADY HESTER'S SOLE CHAMPION [ch. ix 
 
 Lord Stanhope to Lord Hardwicke 
 
 ** All that I could do in this business is to write to 
 Lord Palmerston, when I could either mention or 
 suppress your name, as you might prefer, to state that 
 I have seen a letter from Hester, requesting that 
 money might be raised upon her pension for the 
 payment of her debts, and to express mj^ hope, that 
 under these circumstances he will authorize the 
 Consul to sign, as heretofore, the usual certificates, 
 and to inform the Egyptian authorities that she is 
 taking measures to satisfy her creditors. Pray let 
 me know what you think of this proposal, and whether 
 you would permit me to mention your name." 
 
 I fear this application was without result. The 
 pubhcation of her correspondence, which Lady 
 Hester had so greatly at heart, was carried out, ac- 
 cording to her directions, by the doctor. She had 
 persuaded herself that her cause had only to become 
 known to excite the warmest sympathy, and enlist 
 public opinion on her side. She dreamed of unknown 
 champions, starting up to assert her rights, and 
 redress her wrongs ; of her enemies put to shame, 
 and a triumphant vindication of her character. But 
 in this, as in all else, she was doomed to deception 
 and disappointment, for what happened was exactly 
 the reverse. The press proved bitterly hostile. So 
 far from espousing her cause, the papers had nothing 
 but ridicule and abuse for her. One champion alone 
 she found in Sir William Napier, who, roused to great 
 indignation by the insults heaped on his old friend, 
 chivalrously came forward, and took up the cudgels in 
 her defence. 
 
 ** To the Editor of The Times. 
 
 ** Sir, — The correspondence of Lady Hester 
 Stanhope, recently published in The Times, has given 
 occasion for mirth with some unthinking people. It 
 may in the end be found a serious matter. 
 
11838-1839] LADY HESTER'S SOLE CHAMPION 417 
 
 ** This * crack-brained lady/ as some of your con- 
 temporaries — falling, with the true instinct of 
 baseness, upon what appeared to them a helpless 
 and afflicted woman — have called her, may appear, 
 judged by English customs, somewhat wild in her 
 views and expressions ; but in the East she is, as she 
 well deserves to be, for her nobleness and virtues 
 revered. Her influence is vast with the Arab tribes, 
 and with all those who have suffered from Ibrahim's 
 army, or who sigh over the tottering condition of the 
 Turkish empire. She, more than any person, can 
 secure to England the friendship of nations whose 
 goodwill must be vitally essential to our interests, 
 when — and the time must soon come — we have to 
 contend with Russia for the independence of the 
 Porte. And if her disposition was not too noble, 
 too magnanimous, to seek such revenge, English 
 travellers in the East might bitterly rue the insults 
 offered to Lady Hester Stanhope. 
 
 " It is no idle vaunt, no * cracked-brained ' threat, 
 for her to say * the gauntlet has been thrown down 
 before no driveller or coward.' To more than woman's 
 quickness of perception, intuitive judgment and forti- 
 tude, she adds more than man's sagacity, intrepidity, 
 and daring. The extent of her power and resolution 
 may be understood too late. If driven, by insult, to 
 active enmity, she can, and will, do more of hurt to the 
 interests of England in the East— ay, more of hurt than 
 the pitiful policy of Lord Palmerston has already done 
 in that quarter. Her policy will stir men's feelings. 
 It will bear no resemblance to that which has sent the 
 British fleet to Malta when it should have been in the 
 Dardanelles, to support the Sultan's treaty of com- 
 merce, and in compensation rigorously maintain the 
 Sultan's capitulations of commerce, by directing the 
 28 
 
41 8 GOOD ADVICE [CH. ix 
 
 British Consuls to persecute and insult an isolated, 
 and, as it is erroneously supposed, a helpless woman. 
 " It may be asked, what have I to do with the 
 matter ? In early life I was an inmate of Mr. Pitt's 
 house, when Lady Hester Stanhope was the mistress 
 of it, and when those, who now insult her, would have 
 been too happy to lick the dust from her shoes. The 
 hospitality, the kindness, the friendship I then experi- 
 enced from Lady Hester did not cease with Mr. Pitt's 
 death, nor by me are they forgotten ; nor is the 
 friendship which subsisted between my family and 
 her gallant brothers, Charles and James Stanhope, 
 while they lived. 
 
 ** I remain, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 ** W. F. P. Napier, Colonel. 
 
 " Freshfield, near Bath, December d^th^ 1838." 
 
 Her cough had, as usual, returned in full force in 
 the winter, and she was— again as usual — beset with 
 domestic worries. Unfortunately she had not carried 
 out her intention of parting with most of her servants, 
 and she was still surrounded by the same worthless 
 and tormenting crew. 
 
 M, Guys to Lady Hester 
 
 ** Aleppo, 
 ^^ January \oth^ 1839. 
 
 ** Je vois avec peine que votre toux est revenue, et 
 qu'elle vous fatigue beaucoup ; cependant il depend 
 de vous de la calmer. Puisqu'elle est due ^ I'irritation 
 que vous causent vos gens, il n'est pas un seul remade 
 ^ la chose, j'en vois deux : renvoyez ceux qui vous 
 inqui^tent, ou bien faites les diriger par d'autres. 
 Vous pourriez. Milady, vous reduire ^ moins de la 
 moiti6 du monde que vous avez, et vous vous en 
 trouveriez mieux sous tous les rapports. Je ne saurai 
 trop vous prier de soigner votre sant6, puisqu'elle doit 
 faire ^ peu pr^s toute votre consolation." 
 
1838-1839] DJOUN 419 
 
 Why would she not profit by this excellent advice ? 
 All she did was to recall Lunardi from Leghorn, 
 sending him, through M. Guys, 1200 francs for various 
 commissions he was to execute for her. 
 
 Lady Hester to Dr, Meryon 
 
 '^February gik, 1839. 
 
 ** I have to thank you tor a vast amount of trouble 
 you have given yourself; all in the end will turn out 
 well, I hope. I have written a few lines in answer 
 to the Morning Chronicle^ which you will afterwards 
 see in * Galignani,' without doubt. . . . What a simple- 
 ton you are sometimes ! Leave my systems to me, 
 and adopt those of your own ; but don't blame mine, 
 as you have done, without knowing the reason of them. 
 
 *' Miss Pardoe's book I have not yet looked into. 
 The one you sent me" {Diary of the Times of 
 George IV,) *' is interesting only to those who were 
 acquainted with the persons named — all mock taste, 
 mock feeling, etc. ; but that is the fashion. * I am this 
 — I am that,' who ever talked such empty stuff for- 
 merly ? / was never named by a well-bred person. 
 
 ** There has been a vast deal of rain this year ; but 
 not very cold — the house nearly as usual. My cough 
 continues — my spirits the same. 
 
 ** A hyena came into the garden the other day, and 
 Ibrahim Beytar killed it with only a bludgeon, and 
 brought me the skin ; it is the first wild beast of the 
 kind that has been so daring this winter. The dogs 
 frightened the animal so much on the outside that it 
 scaled the wall. . . . 
 
 **Shut up as I am, I can have no news; advice you 
 take ill, and call it scolding. . . . You must promise to 
 state to me fairly the impression my affairs make on 
 the English " (the doctor was then at Nice), ** and what 
 sort and what class of English." 
 
420 LADY HJibi\KK'b KEFKUAUHES [CH. IX 
 
 Lady Hester to Lord Hardwicke 
 
 ** DJOUN, 
 ^^ I /^tk February, 1839. 
 
 '' Dear Lord Hardwicke, — I requested you in my 
 last letter to immediately sell my annuity and pension ; 
 had you reasons for wishing to decline I should 
 have respected them, but why not tell me so ? 
 Perhaps again * branches of my family' have inter- 
 fered. If so, the law shall teach them their rights and 
 mine. ^Give unto Csesar the things which are 
 Caesar's,' and leave the unpledged Hester to herself. 
 This is all I want or require. Do not accuse me 
 hereafter of deceit, because I am silent. Had I been 
 treated as I ought to have been, I have much to say. 
 
 ** Adieu, my dear Lord H. If you have acted not 
 most kindly by me, it is the first time in your life (I 
 should believe) that any one could reproach you with 
 want of feeling. Therefore it is to be forgiven for 
 once, and it would be my fault were I to make an 
 experiment a second time, or accept of offers of service, 
 under, perhaps, the control of third persons who are 
 ashamed to come forward, and being aware that if 
 they did, they would receive no answer to any proposal 
 they might make. 
 
 ** Believe me, 
 
 ^' Most sincerely yours, 
 
 '' H. L. S." 
 Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon 
 
 '' DjOUN, 
 ^^ March nth, 1839. 
 
 ** I believe your eyes and ears will be opened too 
 late. You will then see, to your cost, that admonitions 
 (called scoldings) were the highest compliment I could 
 pay a man in your situation, by endeavouring to raise 
 his mind to the altitude necessary to exist (one may 
 
1838-1839] DJOUN 421 
 
 say) in a wreck of worlds. If you were so uneasy at 
 Djoun, how will your nerves bear what you will be 
 doomed to see ? But, when this time comes, no more 
 advice from me to you or any one ; let all pick their 
 way, and abide by the consequences. Words are 
 nothing ; the hearts of men must be cleansed from all 
 the vain, idle stuff they now cherish as a sort of safe- 
 guard or escape-boat to evils of all kinds. If the 
 naked savage, who has the feelings of a man, is not 
 in high favour with the Almighty, and placed in a 
 higher situation (if he continues to do his duty) than 
 the educated my lord, the pedant, the gentleman, as 
 it is called, without either conscience, talent, or money, 
 I know nothing, and you may reproach me hereafter 
 in the harshest possible terms. 
 
 " It is a very mean spirit which fears obligation ; we 
 are under obligations of the most serious nature every 
 day to the horse, the ass, the cow, etc. All the stuff 
 persons now call spirit, are the vulgar ideas of the 
 lowest and least philosophical of human beings. 
 What should I think of my deserted self, were I to 
 constantly talk to Logmagi of obligation ? I am proud 
 to acknowledge all I owe to his zeal and obedience. . . . 
 There is at present a great kirkuby (uproar), seizing 
 recruits for the Nizam, and entering by force into all 
 sorts of houses, to seek for arms. . . . The Prophet is 
 most comfortable in his new habitation; I have 
 planted shrubs for him round the windows, divided 
 the room in two, and made all new, with an excellent 
 sofa. ..." 
 
 The next letter, dated May 6th, gives an account 
 (omitted by the doctor) of a furious quarrel between 
 Logmagi and her maid Zezef6on, in which the latter 
 used her teeth as well as her tongue, and poor Logmagi 
 got badly bitten. 
 
422 A QUARRELSOME HOUSEHOLD [ch. ix 
 
 Lady Hester to Dr, Meryon 
 
 " Thank God for my nerves ! Would you sleep 
 alone in a room with this girl ? And, besides, she told 
 me, the other day, that she had only teeth for those 
 who displeased her, and, therefore, you see she is not 
 ashamed of herself; but I think no more of her than 
 of a little babe, and sleep on quietly. All in the house 
 have made wry faces after this affair — even Logmagi, 
 who would not like to be bitten a second time. . . . 
 
 ** Some one — I suppose you — sent me the Life of 
 Lord Edward Fitzgerald, It is / who could give a 
 true and most extraordinary account of all those 
 transactions. The Duchess (Lord Edward's mother) 
 was my particular friend, as was also his aunt. I 
 was intimate wuth all the family, and knew that noted 
 Pamela. All the books I see make me sick — only 
 catchpenny nonsense. 
 
 " A thousand thanks for the promise of my grand- 
 father's letters, but the book will be all spoilt, by being 
 edited by young men. First, they are totally ignorant 
 of the politics of my grandfather's age ; secondly, of 
 the style of langua e used at that period ; and abso- 
 lutely ignorant of his secret reasons and intentions 
 and the real or apparent footing he was upon with 
 many people, friends and foes. I know all that from 
 my grandmother, who was his secretary, and, Coutts 
 used to say, the cleverest man of her times in politics, 
 business, etc. Even the late Lord Chatham, his son, 
 had but an imperfect idea of all that took place. 
 Do not keep reproaching yourself about leaving me ; 
 it did not depend on you to stay." . . . 
 
 The next— probably the last letter Lady Hester 
 ever wrote — was in answer to one (here given) from 
 Lord Hardwicke. She had reproached him with 
 
1838-1839] FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES 423 
 
 neglecting her affairs and ignoring her wishes, while 
 he had, in fact, been hard at work to do the best he 
 could for her in a most difficult business. 
 
 Lord Hardwicke to Lady Hester 
 
 " WiMPOLE, 
 
 ''March iZtk, 1839. 
 
 " My Dear Lady Hester,— I have endeavoured to 
 put your affairs, or rather to give you the means of 
 putting your affairs, in a state that may save you from 
 the pain and persecution to which I with pain believe 
 you have been subject; but, after consulting with 
 Coutts, and reflecting on the peculiarity of your 
 situation, separated as you are from friends and 
 country, without having any one on whom you could 
 rely to arrange a transaction like this one now the 
 subject of this letter, I do not see my way towards 
 extricating you from your present difficulties. Were 
 you in England, you could then manage to make terms 
 with the creditors, so as to make you comfortable for 
 life ; and knowing, as I well do, that these debts were 
 contracted chiefly to assist others, your conscience 
 need not, I think, feel too acutely if, after your best 
 exertions, and your surrender of nearly all you have, 
 your property will not cover the whole of your debts. 
 
 " Now, while writing, I am ignorant of the amount 
 of your debts, but conceive them to amount to ;f 8,000 
 or ;^ 1 0,000. Were you in England this might be paid, 
 as the value of your property, (taking your life as aged 
 63 years, your income of ;^i,5oo per annum would sell 
 for ;£■! 1,000, and your pension of ;£"i,200 per annum 
 would fetch ;^9,ooo) together ;^20,ooo. But then you 
 must be seen and known, and in England, to produce 
 this sum from your income. In the present state of 
 affairs, yourself in iSyria, it will fetch nothing ; they 
 
424 FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES [ch. ix 
 
 will not buy it. So here your good intention is stopped 
 at once. 
 
 " While writing this, I received your letter of the 
 14th of February, in which you seem to think I had 
 been neglectful of your interests, but I have done all 
 I can, and 1 do not see the way out of the difficulty. 
 It is my opinion that nothing can be done unless you 
 come home. Your pension will, I understand, be paid 
 up. You must also remember that, it I had the 
 power to sell your pension and annuity, I could 
 not commence the liquidation of the debts, for I do 
 not know either the amount or the names of your 
 creditors. 
 
 " I assure you I am most anxious to be of service to 
 you, but being without any means whatever, I fear 
 you may still think me neglectful, as no progress can 
 be made in this country. 
 
 ** It would be folly to sell your annuity and pension 
 for less than it is worth, and, indeed, as I have before 
 stated, without seeing you no one will give a year's 
 purchase for either. 
 
 ** 1 am very glad to see by your letter that you are 
 in good health. I hope you will not think I am 
 deficient in feeling towards you, or that I am wanting 
 in desire to serve you, because the results of my 
 attempts have failed — failed owing to circumstances 
 over which I have no control, viz., your absence from 
 England in a country so little known to the money- 
 dealing men of this country. 
 
 '* This is quite a business letter, and as it is so, I 
 will not introduce any other matter into it, but con- 
 clude by expressing to you how ready I am to be of 
 service to you, if you will point but the way, and 
 assure you that I see no way out of your difficulties^ 
 unless you can raise money on your annuity and 
 
1838-1839] LADY HESTER^S LAST LETTER 425 
 
 pension, and that cannot be done to any amount, with- 
 out your presence in England. 
 *' Believe me always, 
 
 " Yours most truly and affectionately, 
 
 ** Hardwicke." 
 
 Lady Hester to Lord Hardwicke 
 
 " DjOUN, 
 
 " 6th of June ^ 1839. 
 
 ^* My dear Lord Hardwicke, — May it please the all- 
 powerful Commander of events to give me a fair hour 
 in which I may be able to give evidence to the world 
 of my gratitude for your (having?) thus kindly in- 
 terested yourself (in ?) my affairs, where others have 
 forsaken (me ?). What you say about my coming to 
 England I understand, and appears very reasonable, 
 but I cannot, will never, go there but in chains^ there- 
 fore that subject must never more be mentioned. 
 I have reflected, and feel that God will not forsake 
 (me), and if no one will buy my pension, &c., I must 
 advertize for a Cumberlands Jew to assist me. Young 
 dancing Hamersley formerly was very generous in 
 his transactions, but all men have become beasts — vile, 
 unfeeling, uninteresting beasts. After the 5th of July, 
 I shall draw for the arrears of my pension, because 
 I heard of it by other means than those only of 
 Colonel Campbell, with whom I never will have any 
 communication, a blackguard toady. The first debt 
 I shall pay is a Turk, who, hearing some unpleasant 
 conversation respecting one of my bills (or bonds)^ 
 paid it directly. This I did not know for a month 
 after. The man is not rich, but felt for me, and, like 
 you, kind-hearted to all. For God*s sake, do not let 
 my impudent relations interfere in my concerns, or 
 look over my accounts at Coutts'. Did ever anyone 
 hear of conduct like what theirs has been ? Do not 
 
426 DEATH [cH. ix 
 
 be unhappy about my future fate. 1 have done what 
 I believe my duty, the duty of every one of every 
 religion ; I have no reproaches to make myself, but 
 that I went rather too far ; but such is my nature, and 
 a happy nature too, who can make up its mind to 
 everything but insult I have been treated like a vile 
 criminal, but God is great ! ! ! When I have quite 
 made up my mind about what I shall do, I shall let 
 you know, but avoid bothering you and boring you. 
 My annuity will not do without the pension, and per- 
 haps the two even not enough ; but that is no one's 
 business but mine. 
 
 '' Dear Lord H., 
 
 " Yours ever sincerely and affectionately, 
 
 ** H. L. S." 
 
 She died just a fortnight after this was written. 
 She had been ill for months, but became suddenly 
 worse three days before the end. From first to last 
 she was without medical attendance. How was she 
 cared for? Who nursed her? Was it the savage 
 girl who *' had teeth for those who displeased her," 
 or the thief Fatoom ? There was no one left to look 
 after her ; Lunardi arrived only a few days after her 
 death. One's heart aches to think of her on her death- 
 bed, lying helpless and powerless, at the mercy of 
 her servants, with no kindred hand to clasp in hers, 
 no familiar sound of an English voice in her ear. She 
 died as she had lived — alone. 
 
 The dragoman of the Austrian Consul-General com- 
 municated the news to Colonel Campbell : 
 
 " Aujourd'hui, 23 Juin, a 2 heures aprfes midi, Lady 
 Hester Stanhope, miladi, a expire apres une longue 
 maladie, qui ne s'6tait agrav^e que depuis peu de 
 jours." 
 
 Mr. Moore, our Consul at Beyrout, at once started 
 for Djoun to make the necessary arrangements for her 
 funeral, and writes to my father : 
 
1838-1839] LADY HESTER'S FUNERAL 427 
 
 Mr, Moore to Lord Stanhope 
 
 " Beyrout, 
 
 ^^ June 26thy 1839. 
 
 '* No European medical attendant was present at the 
 period of Lady Hester's decease, nor had one, I under- 
 stand, for some time previous been called in. An 
 express on the part of her Ladyship was despatched 
 to her agent at Beyrout on Friday, the 21st, requiring 
 medical aid, but she had expired before the arrival of 
 the messenger in town. 
 
 ** Desirous of obtaining a statement as to the cause 
 of Lady Hester's death, I applied for that purpose to 
 the ablest medical practitioner in this neighbourhood, 
 Dr. d'Erode, with a request to accompany me to 
 Djoun, but he was unable to comply therewith on 
 account of the number of patients under his charge. 
 Another medical man was also applied to for the same 
 object, but was unfortunately absent. 
 
 " The rapidity with which decomposition advances 
 in this climate admitted of no delay in the arrange- 
 ments for interment, and a few hours after I had been 
 apprised of Lady Hester's decease, I left this place for 
 Djoun, accompanied by the Rev. Mr. Thomson, an 
 American missionary, who, at my request, kindly 
 consented to perform the funeral service on this 
 occasion, 
 
 *' We arrived at Djoun about ten o'clock the same 
 evening, and after identifying the body, and seeing it 
 placed in a coffin, I decided on the interment taking 
 place without delay. 
 
 " Her Ladyship having left verbal directions as to 
 the disposal of her body, viz. : that it should be 
 deposited in a vault constructed in her own garden, 
 the necessary arrangements being completed, and the 
 funeral service of the Church of England performed 
 
428 LADY HESTER'S FUNERAL [gh. ix 
 
 by Mr. Thomson, the corpse was borne and followed 
 to the tomb by her Ladyship's own domestics, accom- 
 panied by Mr. Thomson and myself. 
 
 " The next morning I directed a diligent search for 
 a will, but without success. I then caused all Lady 
 Hester's letters and papers to be placed in boxes, 
 which were officially sealed. 
 
 " I further left Signor Abella, the British consular 
 agent at Sidon, in charge of the house and effects, 
 with instructions to take exact inventories of all the 
 household effects, wearing apparel, &c., the whole of 
 which will remain under seal, until your Lordship 
 may be pleased to give instructions relative to their 
 disposal. 
 
 " The servants, male and female, in Lady Hester's 
 service were twenty-eight in number, and all 
 Mahometans. According to information obtained 
 from them, her Ladyship had been in an infirm state 
 of health for the last three months, during which time 
 she had not left the house to take her customary 
 exercise in the garden. The day before her decease, 
 she foresaw the approach of death, and said she should 
 not outlive the next day. The impression was too 
 well founded, as, about four o'clock of the day pre- 
 dicted, she breathed her last, preserving, till within 
 a few minutes of her decease, all her faculties. 
 
 " In the absence of a European medical practitioner, 
 I required the opinion of a native doctor as to the 
 immediate cause of death. He attributed it to natural 
 and general decay — a conclusion there can be no 
 difficulty in adopting, considering the advanced age 
 of the deceased, and the attenuated appearance of the 
 corpse. The features showed no indications of acute 
 suffering, and were composed and placid. 
 
 " The debts of Lady Hester amount, I understand, 
 
1838-1839] LADY HESTER'S EFFECTS 429 
 
 to about ;^7,ooo, as far as my present information 
 extends, consisting chiefly of promissory notes for 
 money borrowed. The assets, consisting principally 
 of household furniture (judging on a cursory estimate 
 of their apparent value), may amount to ;£'400 ; this 
 valuation may, however, be erroneous, either way, 
 as it is based on a hasty examination. Jewels I under- 
 stand her Ladyship did not possess, nor any plate 
 beyond some trifling articles, spoons and forks, which 
 will find their place in the general inventory. . . . The 
 house inhabited by Lady Hester was not her own. 
 There are horses, as well as other domestic animals, 
 all of which will be specified in the inventories. I 
 have directed the female servants to be discharged, and 
 such male servants to be retained as may be necessary 
 for the preservation of the effects, and to protect an 
 isolated house from marauders. 
 
 *^ Early instructions in regard to the horses and the 
 disposal of the household effects are desirable, as 
 expenses are necessarily incurred for servants' wages 
 who are left in charge, and for the maintenance of the 
 horses, and it does not appear that any funds exist to 
 meet these expenses." 
 
 Here is the account given by the American mis- 
 sionary : 
 
 " The English Consul at Beyrout requested me to 
 perform the religious services at the funeral of Lady 
 Hester. It was an intensely hot Sabbath, in June, 
 1839. We started on our melancholy errand at one 
 o'clock, and reached this place about midnight. After 
 a brief examination, the Consul decided that the 
 funeral must take place immediately. The vault in 
 the garden was hastily opened, and the bones of 
 General Loustaneau or his son, I forget which— a 
 
430 A CURIOUS COINCIDENCE [ch. ix 
 
 Frenchman who died here, and was buried in this 
 vault by her Ladyship — were taken out, and placed at 
 the head. 
 
 " The body, in a plain deal box, was carried by her 
 servants to the grave, followed by a mixed company, 
 with torches and lanterns, to enable them to thread 
 their way through the winding alleys of the garden. I 
 took a wrong path, and wandered for some time in the 
 mazes of these labyrinths. When, at length, I entered 
 the arbour, the first thing I saw were the bones of the 
 General, in a ghastly heap, with the head on top, 
 having a lighted taper stuck in either eye-socket — a 
 hideous, grinning spectacle. It was difficult to 
 proceed with the service, under circumstances so 
 novel and bewildering. The Consul subsequently 
 remarked that there were some curious coincidences 
 between this and the burial of Sir John Moore, her 
 Ladyship's early love. In silence, on the lone moun- 
 tain, at midnight, * our lanterns dimly burning,' with 
 the flag of her country over her, she * lay like a 
 warrior taking his rest,' and we * left her alone in her 
 glory.' There was but one of her own nation present, 
 and his name was Moore. 
 
 " The people of Djoun, that village across the wady, 
 made large profits from the liberality and extrava- 
 gances of Lady Hester, and they are full of wonderful 
 stories about her. Several of our friends at Sidon 
 were in her service for years, and from them, and 
 from others still more closely connected, I have had 
 abundant opportunity to learn the character of this 
 strange being. On most subjects she was not merely 
 sane, but sensible, well-informed, and extremely 
 shrewd. She possessed extraordinary powers of con- 
 versation, and was perfectly fascinating to all with 
 whom she chose to make herself agreeable. She was, 
 
1838-1839] GREEDY RETAINERS 431 
 
 however, whimsical, imperious, tyrannical, and at 
 times revengeful to a high degree. Bold as a lion, she 
 wore the dress of an Emir, weapons, pipe, and all ; nor 
 did she fail to rule her Albanian guards and her servants 
 with absolute authority. She kept spies in the prin- 
 cipal cities, and at the residences of Pashas and Emirs, 
 and knew everything that was going on in the country. 
 Her garden, of several acres, was walled round like a 
 fort, and crowning the top of this conical hill, with 
 deep wadys on all sides, the appearance from a distance 
 was quite imposing. But the site was badly chosen. 
 The hill has no relative elevation above others ; the 
 prospect is not inviting, the water is distant, far below, 
 and had to be carried up on mules. She, however, 
 had the English taste for beautiful grounds, and 
 spared neither time, labour, nor expense to convert 
 this barren hill into a wilderness of shady avenues, and 
 a paradise of sweet flowers, and she succeeded. I have 
 rarely seen a more beautiful place. 
 
 •* The morning after the funeral, the Consul and I 
 went round the premises, and examined thirty-Jive 
 rooms, which had been sealed up by the Vice-Consul 
 of Sidon, to prevent robbery. They were full of trash. 
 One had forty or fifty oil jars of French manufacture — 
 old, empty, and dusty. Another was crammed with 
 Arab saddles, moth-eaten, tattered and torn. They 
 had belonged to her mounted guard. Superannuated 
 pipe-stems, without bowls, filled one room. Two more 
 were devoted to medicines, and another to books and 
 papers, mostly in boxes and ancient chests. Nothing 
 of much value was found anywhere, and the seals were 
 replaced, to await legal action. The crowd of servants 
 and greedy retainers had appropriated to themselves 
 her most valuable effects. One of the wealthy citizens 
 of Sidon is said to have obtained his money in that 
 
432 REV. DR. THOMSON [ch. ix 
 
 way. She told Mrs. Thomson that once, when she 
 was supposed to be dying of plague, she could hear 
 her servants breaking open her chests, and ripping off 
 the embossed covers of her cushions. **Oh! didn't I 
 vow," said she, ** that if I recovered, I would make a 
 scattering of them ! " and she performed her vow to 
 the letter. But each succeeding set, like the flies in 
 the fable of the fox, were as greedy as their pre- 
 decessors ; and, as she finally died of a lingering 
 disease, they had time enough to work their will, and 
 nothing valuable escaped their rapacity. What a 
 death ! Without a European attendant — without a 
 friend, male or female — alone, on the top of this bleak 
 mountain, her lamp of life grew dimmer and more dim, 
 until it went quite out in hopeless, rayless night. Such 
 was the end of the once gay and brilliant niece of Pitt, 
 presiding in the saloons of the master spirit of Europe, 
 and familiar with the intrigues of kings and cabinets. 
 With Mr. Abbott and his lady, she would sit out the 
 longest night, talking over those stirring times of the 
 last century, and the beginning of the present, with 
 exhaustless spirit and keen delight. But nothing could 
 tempt her back to England. At length her income 
 was greatly curtailed to pay her numerous debts. She 
 was furious, but unsubdued. In her mountain nest, 
 and all alone, she dragged out the remnant of her 
 days in haughty pride and stubborn independence. 
 
 ** She could be extremely sarcastic, and her satire 
 was often terrible. Many of her letters, and the 
 margin of books which I purchased at the auction, are 
 * illuminated ' with her caustic criticisms. There was 
 no end to her eccentricities. In some things she was 
 a devout believer — an unbeliever in many. She read 
 the stars, and dealt in nativities, and a sort of second 
 sight, by which she pretended to foretell coming 
 
183S-1839] SALE OF LADY HESTER^S EFFECTS 433 
 
 events. She practised alchemy, and, in pursuit of this 
 vain science, was often closeted with strange com- 
 panions. She had a mare, whose backbone sank 
 suddenly down at the shoulders, and rose abruptly 
 near the hips. This deformity her vivid imagination 
 converted into a miraculous saddle, on which she was 
 to ride into Jerusalem as queen, by the side of some 
 sort of Messiah, who was to introduce a fancied 
 millennium. Another mare had a part to play in this 
 august pageant, and both were tended with extra- 
 ordinary care. A lamp was kept burning in their 
 very comfortable apartments, and they were served 
 with sherbet and other luxuries. Nothing about the 
 premises so excited my compassion as these poor pam- 
 pered brutes, upon which Lady Hester had lavished 
 her choicest affections for the last fourteen years. 
 They were soon after sold at auction, when hard work 
 and low living quickly terminated their miserable 
 existence. Lady Hester was a doctor, and most 
 positive in her prescriptions to herself, her servants, 
 her horses, and even to her chickens, and often did 
 serious mischief to all her patients. She had many 
 whimsical tests of character both for man and beast, 
 and, of course, was often deceived by both, to her cost. 
 But we must end these random sketches. To draw a 
 full-length portrait is aside from our purpose and 
 beyond our power. She was wholly and magnificently 
 unique:'— The Land and the Book, by W. M. Thomson, 
 D.D. 
 
 The household effects at Djoun were sold to pay the 
 servants' wages, &c. Lady Hester's will, a very old 
 one, made in September, 1807, was found deposited 
 with Messrs. Coutts, together with three boxes con- 
 taining letters and papers, a silver-gilt coffee-pot and 
 stand, a gold powder horn, and some trinkets of 
 trifling value. She bequeathed all her maternal 
 
 29 
 
434 LADY HESTER'S WILL [ch. ix 
 
 fortune (long since spent) to her brothers Charles 
 and James, and then to General Anderson. There 
 was a codicil, added just before she left England, as 
 follows : 
 
 " I leave the sum of ;^Soo to my maid, Elizabeth 
 Williams, and also my trinkets, with these excep- 
 tions : 
 
 '' Pearl locket, with Mr. Pitt's hair, to the Duchess 
 of Richmond. 
 
 ** Present of the Cardinal Duke of York, to the Duke 
 of Richmond. 
 
 " Tippoo Saib's powder horn to Lord Temple ; it 
 was given to me by Mr. Pitt. 
 
 " The late Lord Chatham's seal to General Miranda. 
 
 " My watch to Mr. Howard ; and fifty guineas, for a 
 gold snuff-box, to Mr. Murray." 
 
 " January ist, 1810; very unwell ; in bed all day." 
 
 The balance due to her on Messrs. Coutts' account 
 was nearly ;^2,ooo (;^i,946 55. ^d.). 
 
 All the persons mentioned in the will were dead, 
 with the sole exception of General Anderson, who, 
 with Mr. Murray, was named as executor, and the 
 fortune bequeathed to him had been spent. The 
 watch mentioned had probably been lost in the ship- 
 wreck, as she had none in her possession at Djoun. 
 None of its provisions could in consequence be carried 
 out, and it was administered by the creditors. But 
 they could not be brought to agree among themselves; 
 they wrangled, and squabbled, and delayed ; thus the 
 settlement of Lady Hester's affairs proved a very 
 lengthy and tedious business. Some of the creditors 
 were killed in the Druse insurrection of 1841 before it 
 was completed ; but in the end I believe all the bond 
 fide debts were paid. My father bought the papers, 
 powder horn, trinkets, &c. The silver-gilt inkstand 
 went to the only surviving legatee. General Anderson, 
 once one of her best and dearest friends, but whom 
 she had, long ago, discarded with the rest of her 
 English correspondents. " For many years," he says 
 
1838-1839] VALE 435 
 
 in a letter to my father, ** all correspondence between 
 me and Lady Hester had ceased." 
 Another old friend writes to my father : 
 
 Sir F, Burdeit to Lord Stanhope 
 
 ''July loth, 1839. 
 
 " My dear Lord Stanhope, — Your letter yesterday 
 gave me most unfeigned sorrow, acquainting me with 
 the death of Lady Hester. 
 
 "Although nothing could be more apparently im- 
 possible than that I should have ever again seen her, 
 still there is a natural and strange feeling about the 
 loss, for so it is, of one to whom you have been long 
 and greatly attached. Some of my earliest, and most 
 agreeable recollections of days past at Chevening, 
 have a melancholy shadow cast behind upon them 
 by the death of so highly gifted, and honourable 
 minded, and extraordinary a person as was Lady 
 Hester Stanhope. 
 
 "It fills my heart with a sadness I could not have 
 anticipated, and can scarcely account for — I mean 
 reasonably — so, however, it is, and so I remain, 
 " Believe me, my dear Lord Stanhope, 
 
 "Yours very sincerely, 
 
 " F. BURDETT.'' 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 The doctor meanwhile was busied with his book, 
 and in December my father was greatly disturbed 
 on being apprised of this intended publication. He 
 wrote to beg Dr. Meryon to reconsider his decision. 
 
 Lord Stanhope to Dr. Meryon 
 
 " I am convinced, from all I know of your character, 
 that you would deeply regret if you were to be the 
 instrument of wounding the feelings of Lady Hester's 
 relations and friends by a disclosure of family anec- 
 dotes and domestic dissensions which ought to remain 
 unknown to the world ; and I beg you to reflect 
 whether it would be worthy of your professional 
 eminence and reputation to communicate publicly 
 what was learned only in the confidential intercourse 
 of private life." 
 
 The doctor's reply was m forma pauperis. He stated 
 that he was in his fifty-sixth year, with a wife and 
 family whom he was unable to support as his position 
 in life required. The salary given him by Lady Hester 
 was so small that he had never been able to put by 
 a single farthing, and he had always been given to 
 understand that he should be provided for, as she 
 often expressed a wish to '' make the decline of his 
 life easy." He had spent the best years of his life 
 in her service ; he had crossed the Mediterranean four 
 times on her account, *' guided by his sense of devotion 
 and attachment to her"; he had sacrificed all personal 
 considerations when she was in question. She had 
 
 436 
 
1839] i^R- MERYON AS BIOGRAPHER 437 
 
 herself acknowledged her obligations to him in the 
 warmest possible manner in writing to Mr. Webb 
 (see p. 250). As regarded the impropriety of pub- 
 lishing private conversations, he had no intention ot 
 being guilty of such a dereliction of his professional 
 duties. It was rather to comply with Lady Hester's 
 wishes that he had written his book. 
 
 Dr. Meryon to Lord Stanhope 
 
 *' It was her legacy to me, for she had nothing else 
 to leave me, and I confess I have indulged the hope 
 that the profits will, in a pecuniary sense, in part 
 realize her good intentions towards me. . . . Having 
 on one occasion said that, had she chosen to write 
 her own life, she might have paid her debts by it, 
 she laughingly observed, that she could never have 
 patience to write a book, nor even to dictate one, 
 but could tell me a few stories now and then to 
 help me to write one with." ^ 
 
 He had, he thought, brought together much that 
 " would do honour to her name, and furnish materials 
 for reflection to the philosopher and moralist." 
 
 But, as he had no wish to give pain to her family, 
 he had ordered the publication to be suspended. 
 
 My father's answer was not, I fear, what he expected. 
 
 Lord Stanhope to Dr. Meryon 
 *' Though I see no reason to doubt that my sister 
 Hester was sincerely desirous of befriending any 
 person to whom she owed obligations, she had no 
 
 ^ Here I must be permitted to join issue with him. Lady Hester 
 may not have objected to his writing down any anecdotes she chose 
 to tell him, but he was one of the last persons she would have selected 
 as her biographer. He himself tells us that once, when giving him 
 some messages for Messrs. Knox & Forster, she said to him : *' You 
 may talk to them a little about stars, but I daresay you will commit 
 some horrible blunder, as you always do : and that is what makes 
 me so afraid of your having to say anything concerning me." Little 
 indeed did she imagine how he was then employed ! It is evident 
 she did not think very highly of his understanding, and she declared 
 that, owing to his inaccuracy, he made mischief every time he opened 
 bis mouth, 
 
43^ DR. MERYON'S BOOK [ch. x 
 
 means of doing so, as must have been obvious to 
 those who were in any degree acquainted with her 
 situation. . . . With respect to your work, I thought 
 it my duty to protest against its publication, and 
 still continue to do so, and I am informed that some 
 persons to whom it has been communicated con- 
 sidered it objectionable in several respects. You will 
 judge what is due to your own reputation, and to 
 that of my sister, and without interfering on my side 
 in what you may suppose to be a profitable under- 
 taking, I reserve to myself the right, if the character 
 and conduct of any person should be assailed in this 
 work, of taking such measures as may appear to me 
 necessary for their vindication." 
 
 This correspondence had the good effect of delaying 
 the publication of the Memoirs for some time; and it 
 was Lady Hester's correspondence with General Oakes 
 that first saw the light.^ It was commenced in the 
 January number of the New Monthly Magazine of 
 1843; and on March 3rd Dr. Meryon writes that **he 
 takes the liberty of mentioning that he has nothing 
 whatever to do with it." He was then applying for 
 the Consulship at Cyprus, and begged my father to 
 ask my brother (who was at that time at the Foreign 
 Office) to speak in his favour. This appointment he 
 did not, however, succeed in obtaining; and in 1845 
 he at last made up his mind to bring out his book, 
 carefully substituting initials for almost all the names 
 mentioned in it. He says in his preface : 
 
 *' I beg leave, in the most explicit terms, to apprize 
 the reader that I have published nothing that Lady 
 Hester would not have desired to be now made 
 known. . . . My object being to portray a character 
 which is not duly appreciated by people in general, 
 I could devise no better means than that of giving 
 
 * These letters — twenty-five in number — are now in the Forster 
 Bequest to the South Kensington Museum. 
 
i84S] DR. MERYON'S EXCULPATION 439 
 
 a diary of her conversations, wherein her obser- 
 vations of men and things fall naturally from her 
 own mouth/' 
 
 He gives a pitiable account of the state in which 
 he left her. 
 
 **Will it be believed that, when in August 1838, 
 I took leave of her, the beam of the ceiling of the 
 saloon in which she ordinarily sat was propped up 
 by two unsightly spars of wood, for fear the ceiling 
 should fall on her head; and that these deal pillars, 
 very nearly in the rough state in which they had 
 been brought from the North in some Swedish vessel, 
 stood in the centre of the room ? Her bedroom was 
 still worse ; for there the prop was a rough unplaned 
 trunk of a poplar-tree, cut at the foot of the hill on 
 which her own house stood. . . ." 
 
 He was under no illusion— how, indeed, is it pos- 
 sible he should have been? — as to the position she 
 would have to face when he went away. 
 
 ** There is no doubt that, by prolonging my stay on 
 Mount Lebanon, I might have been of considerable 
 service to her Ladyship. She was about to shut 
 herself up alone, without money, without books, 
 without a soul she could confide in ; without a single 
 European, male or female, about her; with winter 
 coming on, beneath roofs certainly no longer water- 
 proof, and that might fall in ; with war at her doors, 
 and without any means of defence except in her own 
 undaunted courage ; with no one but herself to carry 
 on her correspondence ; so that everything conspired 
 to make it an imperative duty to remain with her, 
 yet she would not allow me to do so, and insisted 
 on my departure on an appointed day, declaring it 
 
440 CRITICISM OF DR. MERYON [ch. x 
 
 to be her fixed intention to remain immured, as in 
 a tomb, until reparation had been made her for the 
 supposed insult she had received from the British 
 Government." 
 
 Sad as is this catalogue of poor Lady Hester's 
 miseries and trials, Dr. Meryon yet omits the greatest 
 of them all — the broken health that doubled the weight 
 of every burden she had to bear. She was so ill that 
 he thought it very doubtful (see p. 406) whether she 
 would live through the winter; and after his departure 
 the barber at Sayda would be the only doctor at hand. 
 When he left Djoun, he went no further than Cyprus, 
 where he spent some little time, and he might surely 
 have remained within reach at Beyrout. 
 
 His book was reviewed in the Quarterly of September, 
 1845, and I have here given some extracts from the 
 article, as I think it contains a very just estimate of 
 Lady Hester's character : 
 
 " The publication of private correspondence, and of 
 other matters of a private nature touching individuals 
 deceased, has more than once drawn from us remarks, 
 which we deemed it the bounden duty of those who 
 exercise the functions of literary police to make. . . . 
 We are once more brought to dwell on this subject 
 by the appearance of a new feature which it presents, 
 in the disclosure, for the first time, by a medical 
 gentleman, of the matters communicated to him during 
 his professional attendance — his attendance, too, upon 
 a lady — a lady of high rank, and with many high 
 qualities, but unhappy, solitary, ill at ease in body 
 and in mind, an exile among the wilds of Lebanon, 
 having no one near her to whom she could speak of 
 bygone days and buried friends or foes, nobody but 
 this physician. ... It is one of the many reasons 
 against publishing such journals that great errors 
 can hardly be avoided even by all the care which 
 may be used to insure correctness. . , . The warning 
 
1845] CRITICISM OF DR. MERYON 441 
 
 thence arising to the reader that he should be on his 
 guard is the more necessary for the sake of common 
 charity, and indeed common justice, because the 
 nature of such a book unavoidably is such as to 
 give it extraordinary attractions. These volumes 
 are such as no one who takes them up can easily 
 lay down. The character of the principal personage 
 is one of no ordinary interest. 
 
 " The grand-daughter of Lord Chatham, Lady Hester 
 had all his spirit and his fire, much of his penetrating 
 quickness, some of his fancy, not a few of his eccen- 
 tricities. She was not well informed ; for though she 
 had read a good deal, her reading had been very 
 desultory, and though she had lived with some of 
 the ablest men of her day, she had mingled in their 
 conversation with an overweening confidence in her 
 own powers, little li.:ely to make her a docile auditor, 
 or a careful storer-up of what she might hear. For 
 many of the latter years of her singular life, she neither 
 read nor conversed with those who had ; her inter- 
 course being only with her servants, a few of the 
 natives, some occasional visitors, for a few excited 
 moments each, and this journalising doctor, whose 
 share in the performance indicates very scanty litera- 
 ture, or information of any kind. But in the great 
 faculty of seeing clearly into character, she excelled 
 to the last, and was seldom mistaken, unless when 
 her temper or her prejudice dug pitfalls for her 
 judgment. Her courage was undaunted at all times, 
 her patience and fortitude far greater than such a 
 temperament cojld have easily made credible ; her 
 pride towering, like that of all her house; her honour, 
 like theirs, pure irom every stain ; her generosity so 
 boundless as to spurn all the limits which her means 
 prescribed. In her ideas, and so in her projects, there 
 
442 "THE QUARTERLY REVIEW" [ch. x 
 
 was ever somewhat of the romantic — much of fancy, 
 little of reason and reflection ; yet with all this which 
 points to the ideal and impracticable, she acquired an 
 influence, an ascendancy over those with whom she 
 came in contact, whether public or private parties, 
 which seems all but fabulous, and she was truly for 
 some years regarded as a kind of power in the Levant, 
 though living with a small retinue, in a lone house, 
 on a moderate income. This she owed to her firm 
 and commanding will. Difficulties she contemned, 
 and impossibility was not a word of her vocabulary, 
 any more than of her grandfather's. That her 
 illustrious uncle derived his cool and practical judg- 
 ment from the cross of the Grenville blood can well 
 be conceived, but then we must, in contemplating the 
 niece, have recourse to the supposition either that 
 Chatham's fervent heat had, with his gout, passed 
 over one generation, or that the Stanhope admixture 
 had neutralized the Grenville influence, for assuredly 
 no two characters ever resembled each other less, in 
 all but generous neglect of self, and high principles 
 of honour, than did those of Mr. Pitt and Lady Hester. 
 Nor was there less of likeness in the outward form 
 than in the interior of these remarkable relatives. 
 Lady Hester was, though tall, of a fine and feminine 
 form; and as her figure was graceful, her features 
 were both beautiful and expressive. She might well, 
 in her early days, fix the deepest affections of as 
 noble-hearted a soldier as ever died on the bed of 
 honour. She might well, ere that cruel termination 
 of her hopes gave the ultimate dark shade to her 
 temperament, have been the chosen solace of the 
 private hours of Mr. Pitt. 
 
 " She was the daughter of his favourite sister, and 
 lived with him for the last years of his eventful life, 
 
1845] ''THE QUARTERLY REVIEW" 443 
 
 With her great talents, her lively and various con- 
 versation, her admirable manners, her frankness— so 
 likely to relieve one whose shyness was habitual and 
 painful — she became the favourite associate of his 
 leisure, and before her he freely unbent himself. 
 
 • • . . 
 
 *' Her imagination so mastered her reason that, 
 notwithstanding her knowledge of mankind, her emi- 
 nently suspicious nature, and her boasted knowledge 
 of seeing through characters, she was the easy dupe 
 of impostors. Thus projectors were ever obtaining 
 money from her. Some man, designated as X. in 
 these volumes, but whose real name should be made 
 known, pretended to bear a message from the Dukes 
 of Sussex and Bedford to her, with offers of pecuniary 
 assistance to liquidate her debts, and obtained entire 
 possession of her confidence, which, of course, he 
 must have turned to his profit, and her loss. The 
 rumour of a Colonel Needham having left his pro- 
 perty in Ireland to Mr. Pitt, who pre-deceased him 
 by a few days, made her never doubt that his 
 heir-at-law, Lord Kilmorey, must make over his 
 estates to her, at least after his own decease, and 
 she was, for years, in expectation of a favourable 
 answer on this head from Sir Francis Burdett, to 
 whom she had written as her negotiator, but who, 
 no doubt, considered the whole affair as some Irish 
 joke, or Syrian dream. 
 
 "After all, however, her embarrassments appear 
 clearly to have resulted from her boundless charities, 
 and her noble munificence to those she protected. 
 Her country and her countrymen reaped largely the 
 benefits of all her expenditure, into which nothing 
 mean, or paltry, or selfish, or calculating, entered; 
 and we must say that we feel truly disgusted at the 
 
444 MR. ELIOT WARBURTON [ch. x 
 
 return she received from the British Ministry for all 
 her generosity— a return which appears, if not illegal, 
 yet to approach the very limits of the law. Some 
 moneylender complained that she was in debt to him, 
 wherupon Lord Palmerston thought proper to issue 
 his orders to the consuls in the Levant, that they 
 should refuse any certificate of her being alive, which 
 ceremony was necessary in order to give her the 
 right to draw her pension quarterly ! . . . We verily 
 believe this instance of official oppression is without 
 an example, and we are curious to hear by what law 
 it was justified." 
 
 Ten years after her death. Lady Hester's deserted 
 house at Djoun was visited and described by Eliot 
 Warburton : 
 
 " It was late when we came in sight of two 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 Pacha 
 of Sidon had given it to the * prophet-lady,' who con- 
 verted 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 story in height; courts and gardens, 
 stables and sleeping-rooms, halls of audience and 
 ladies' bowers, were strangely intermingled. Heavy 
 weeds were growing everywhere among the open 
 
1849] DJOUN IN 1849 445 
 
 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, com- 
 pleted 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 con- 
 versation. 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, knd 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 over the extensive grounds. 
 Here many a broken arbour or trellis, bending under 
 masses of jasmine and honeysuckle, show the care 
 and taste that were once lavished on this wild but 
 
446 DJOUN IN 1849 [ch. x 
 
 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 fever, she sleeps well.' 
 
 ** The hand of ruin has dealt very sparingly with all 
 these interesting relics ; the Pacha'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. 
 
 " The Pacha 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 50,000 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 
 
1849] MR. ELIOT WARBURTON 447 
 
 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, accom- 
 panied by Mr. Thomson, the American missionary. 
 It was evening when they arrived, and a pro- 
 found 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." — 
 The Crescent and the Cross, 
 
 This account of Lady Hester's death-bed is, as we 
 have seen, purely imaginary, for the Consul found all 
 the thirty-four servants in the house when he arrived. 
 True, they had plundered her ; the store-rooms were 
 empty, and except the forks and spoons, all they could 
 lay hands on was gone ; but she possessed no watch 
 
448 DJOUN IN 1857 [ch. X 
 
 for them to take. The description would, however, 
 exactly apply to her severe illness in 1828, when a 
 compassionate peasant, coming in to look after her, 
 found her utterly deserted, lying starving, and almost 
 inanimate, in her bed (see p. 258). 
 
 The next recorded visitor to Djoun was Mr. Thom- 
 son, the American missionary, who, returning there in 
 1857, after eighteen years' absence, found the place had 
 been completely and purposely destroyed. 
 
 *' A melancholy change has indeed come over the 
 scene since first I visited it. The garden, with its 
 trellised arbours, and shaded alleys, and countless 
 flowers, is utterly destroyed ; and not one room of all 
 her large establishment remains entire. This, on the 
 south-west corner, was the apartment in which Lady 
 Hester wore out the three last dreary months of life ; 
 and this, on the east of it, was the open lewan, where 
 we found the body, wrapped in waxed cloths dipped 
 in turpentine and spirits. The whole of these premises 
 were alive with her servants, and others assembled on 
 this mournful occasion. Now, not a dog, cat, or even 
 lizard appears to relieve the utter solitude. The 
 tomb, also, is sadly changed. It was then embowered 
 in dense shrubbery, and covered with an arbour of 
 running roses, not a vestige of which now remains, 
 and the stones of the vault itself are broken and dis- 
 placed. There is no inscription — not a word in any 
 language, and unless more carefully protected than 
 hitherto, the last resting-place of her Ladyship will 
 soon be entirely lost. The history of this place is 
 peculiar. It belonged to a wealthy Christian of 
 Damascus, who built the original house, to which 
 Lady Hester added some twenty-five or thirty rooms. 
 At his death, soon after hers, the property was left to 
 an only son, who quickly spent it all by his extra- 
 vagance. He then turned Moslem and not long ago 
 
i88i] DJOUN IN 1881 449 
 
 hung himself in a neighbouring house. His Moslem 
 wife — a low, vulgar creature — fearing that the 
 Christians would one day deprive her of the place, 
 tore down the buildings, and sold the materials to the 
 people of Djoun. Thus the destruction has been 
 intentional, rapid, and complete." — The Land and the 
 Book, by W. M. Thomson, D.D. 
 
 At last — but not till forty-two years after Lady 
 Hester's death — one of her own kith and kin, her great- 
 nephew, Philip Stanhope,^ came to see the place where 
 she had lived and died, and found a grave. He was 
 accompanied by his wife, and in 1895 they both 
 returned again with me. He kept no journal at the 
 time, and the following account of his visit was 
 written at my request, sixteen years after it had taken 
 place. 
 
 ** Our first visit to Djoun was made in March, 1881. 
 Starting from Beyrout on horseback, and with tents, 
 we took the road along the sea-shore to Saida, where 
 we camped for the night. There is, I believe, another 
 and a shorter road from Beyrout to Saida across the 
 mountains, but you, who know how rough and 
 difficult are the mountain paths in the Lebanon, will 
 understand that the shore route was the preferable 
 one. At Saida we were assisted by the advice of the 
 Consul, then, as now, if I remember right, a member of 
 the Abela family, who date back, I think, to Lady 
 Hester's time. 
 
 "The road to Djoun was much worse in 1881 than 
 when we visited it together, and the village, in which 
 one now sees many new houses, was in a dilapidated 
 and forlorn condition. We were shown several 
 articles of furniture which were said to have belonged 
 to Lady Hester, but with the exception of a silver tea 
 service, with her initials, which we purchased, there 
 
 * Now Lord Weardale. 
 30 
 
450 DJOUN IN 1881 [ch. x 
 
 was really nothing of interest to be found. There 
 were also old people who remembered her, but I do 
 not think we saw the servant whom we met on the 
 occasion of our later visit 
 
 '* The house was entirely unoccupied, but the 
 building was, with the exception of the roof, intact, 
 and it was possible to trace the disposition of the 
 rooms and the peculiar arrangement of ante-chambers 
 for servants, dependants, &c., common to Oriental 
 houses, which separated Lady Hester's private apart- 
 ments from the remainder of the building. 
 
 '* In the garden was Lady Hester's tomb, in a rather 
 ruinous condition, but with no inscription whatever 
 upon it. We had thought of having some inscription 
 placed thereon, but with no means of preserving it, 
 and the recollection that Lady Hester herself had, I 
 believe, particularly desired that no permanent 
 memorial should be erected, we abandoned the idea. 
 Mr. Moore, the Consul who buried her, was then still 
 alive — a very old man — in London ; but he was unable 
 to give any further particulars beyond those contained 
 in the letter to my grandfather, which you possess. 
 The disposition of gardens and terraces was more 
 easily distinguishable than now, when the plough has 
 been at work among them. We understand that the 
 monastery to which the house and property belonged 
 were anxious to sell them, and, indeed, overtures were 
 made to us to buy them. No more beautiful position 
 for a winter resort could be well imagined, but the 
 inaccessible position and the great distance from 
 England rendered such a proposal impossible to be 
 entertained." 
 
 I am the only other member of the family who has 
 made the pilgrimage to Djoun ; it was in the winter of 
 1895. I had been cruising in the Levant in a small 
 
1895] MY PILGRIMAGE TO DJOUN 451 
 
 steam yacht, with my nephew and niece and Mr. 
 George Leveson-Gower for shipmates, and before 
 leaving Beyrout for Cyprus we settled to spend a day 
 at Sidon, and see Lady Hester's house. I will here 
 transcribe a few pages of my journal, giving an account 
 of our visit : 
 
 Wednesday, December 4.— To-day has been per- 
 fectly delightful. I am beginning to feel a little 
 conceited about our persistent luck in fine weather, 
 and to believe that in this respect, if in no other, I 
 resemble the Queen. After yesterday's rain and wind, 
 we had a hot, cloudless summer's day, and a smooth 
 sea, though there was the inevitable ground swell, 
 which, Ina complains, is spoken of as * only a ground 
 swell,' and yet makes us roll so merrily. We left 
 Beyrout in such good time that we accomplished our 
 voyage of three hours to Saida before breakfast time, 
 and were immediately boarded by the Consul, Dr. 
 Abela, bringing me an enormous bouquet of roses, 
 chrysanthemums, and jonquils from his garden ; the 
 season for jonquils, he said, was just beginning. The 
 Consul-General at Beyrout had apprised him of our 
 coming, and he had horses ready for Philip, Ina, and 
 George, and a litter for me^ — a most comfortable con- 
 trivance. It was a chair mounted on poles, sheltered 
 with curtains and an awning, and provided with 
 cushions and a footboard. The whole population of 
 Saida turned out to see us land, as European visitors 
 are few and far between ; and while the others were 
 having their English saddles put on their horses, and 
 mounting, I sat in my chair, surrounded by a gaping 
 crowd; like a wild beast in its cage. I flatter myself 
 no wild beast could have excited greater interest, or 
 given more general satisfaction. At length, four 
 stalwart porters lifted the poles, and we were off. 
 
 * The Duchess was then 76. 
 
452 MY PILGRIMAGE TO DJOUN [ch. x 
 
 We entered the little town through a gate built by the 
 Crusaders — a long vaulted passage — and, passing the 
 ruins of a mediaeval castle, found ourselves in a quaint, 
 picturesque street, full of fruit-sellers. Remembering 
 how sea-sick the poor Pope used to look in his chair 
 of state at St. Peter^s, I had not expected to like my 
 litter, but I thought the slow swing of the motion 
 very enjoyable, and at once felt a strong wish to be 
 carried, in the same way, all over the country, with 
 a tent to receive me every night. 
 
 *' The first part of our way lay along the sands of 
 the sea-shore, which the road to Beyrout follows for 
 the whole distance ; then we turned inland, among the 
 gardens and orchards of * flowery Sidon,* which pro- 
 duce some of the finest fruit in the world : the 
 oranges, I am told, are celebrated. Every now and 
 then came a whiff of scent from a cassia tree. The 
 track was of rolling stones, like a rough water-course. 
 We followed the course of the river Anwali, which 
 irrigates all this little plain, crossed it on a bridge said 
 to date from the Roman times, and at once began the 
 ascent of the mountains. They are all rocks and 
 brushwood, at this season quite brown, though the 
 last rains have brought out patches of bright green, 
 and in another fortnight there will be verdure every- 
 where. But they are beautiful even now, rising tier 
 above tier in endless variety, grouping themselves 
 anew at each turn of the road, and clear cut against 
 the blue sky. The sun was very hot, and the * road ' 
 ill-deserved the name : it more resembled a wild goat's 
 path, clambering over great boulders of rock; but the 
 horses climbed like cats. Our cavalcade consisted, 
 besides ourselves, of the Consul, the Consul's son, 
 who had kindly offered to photograph us at Djoun, 
 his kawass, a guide carrying our luncheon, and two 
 
^^95] DJOUN IN 1895 453 
 
 men with guns, whom I believed to be our escort, till 
 I was told they were villagers returning home. The 
 country seemed very lonely : we met only an occasional 
 shepherd or goat herd. 
 
 " At last, turning a shoulder of the mountain, we 
 came in sight of Djoun (now spelt *Jun'), built on 
 a steep slope, overlooking a beautiful little valley 
 watered by the Anwali, full of gardens and olive 
 groves, some of them containing very fine trees. 
 The houses are well built, of white stone, and it is, 
 the Consul says, a thriving place, that has doubled its 
 population since Lady Hester's time. Thence a wild 
 clamber, over very rough ground, led us up the 
 mountain on which stood her house. When Philip 
 was here, fifteen years ago, it was already a complete 
 ruin, but the garden remained, allowed to run wild, 
 with some flowers still lingering on the terraces. 
 Now, alas ! garden and terraces alike have disappeared ; 
 the ground has been let to a farmer, ploughed up, and 
 planted with mulberries. Only some of the olives and 
 orange trees that she planted are left, and the exact 
 place of her burial cannot be determined, as nothing 
 remains of the vault.^ Dr. Abela brought us an old man 
 who had been in her service as a boy, and was four- 
 teen at the time of her death, who pointed out where 
 he thought her grave had been, and showed us the 
 point on (what had been) the upper terrace, where she 
 used to stand and watch through her field-glass the 
 ships passing on the distant sea — with what feeling, 
 who can say? Did she never wish herself on board, 
 
 * In the course of excavations undertaken in 191 2 by the Superior- 
 General of the Greek Catholic Convent of " St. Sauveur " at Djoun 
 the skeleton of Lady Hester was discovered, enclosed in a coffin of 
 hard thick wood still in a fair state of preservation. The Superior- 
 General has caused a tombstone to be placed over the carefully built 
 in-grave in which Lady Hester, according to her instructions, had 
 been buried. 
 
454 DJOUN IN 1895 [cH. x 
 
 with all sails set, spreading her wings for flight ? We 
 cannot tell ; we can scarcely even picture her to our 
 selves in such changed surroundings, for everything- 
 that was here in her time is gone. Her arbours and 
 trellises, her alleys and fountains, her alcoves and 
 terraces, have all disappeared ; her groves of myrtles 
 and bay trees are cut down, and every flower she 
 planted rooted up. Yet we can at least stand in the 
 same place where she stood, and look out on the same 
 view — and what a view it is ! The situation of Djoun 
 is simply magnificent, overlooking, from its isolated 
 mountain top, the whole country round, far and near, 
 with the luxuriant valley traversed by the Anwali, 
 and all its groves and gardens, nestling at its foot. 
 On every side except one it is surrounded by the 
 towering crests of the Lebanon ; but to the west a 
 wide opening, like a great portal, discloses the 
 glorious expanse of the Mediterranean, and frames in 
 its broad mirror of dazzling blue. The village we 
 passed through lies on the left below; and on the 
 right another smaller hamlet, Mejduleneh, is perched 
 high up on the mountain-side. Lady Hester's private 
 garden fronted this wonderful view, and almost the 
 only corner of the building left standing, the south- 
 west angle, which contained her own rooms, looks out 
 upon it. From them a door opened through which, 
 at any moment, she could wander out among the 
 flowers she loved so well. Close by, in the garden 
 wall, we were shown another private door, similar 
 to those used in harems, which enabled her to 
 communicate secretly with the outer world. At a 
 given signal the messenger she expected could be 
 admitted, and dismissed again without any of the 
 household being the wiser. Even the doctor seems 
 to have known nothing of this mysterious door, 
 
i89S] DJOUN IN 1895 455 
 
 as he never mentions it in his description of 
 the building. 
 
 ** Djoun must have been a large place, for the garden 
 wall, still existing, encloses a considerable extent of 
 ground. It v^as all built of the white stone of 
 the country, which remains as fresh and clean as when 
 it left the quarry. There is now no possibility of 
 tracing the disposition of the rooms, and the farmer 
 has added a building to lodge himself and his family. 
 A mat was spread on the ground for us, under one of 
 Lady Hester's great orange trees, now loaded with 
 fruit, and there we ate our luncheon ^ and were photo- 
 graphed by the Consul's son. * How wonderful,' I 
 said to him, ' it is to us to be sitting here, in the warm 
 shade, resting from the heat, in December ! ' * This is 
 the weather we generally have in December,' he 
 replied ; * only in January it begins to be a little cold, 
 and even then the glass never falls below forty.' I 
 was particularly struck with the mountain air ; it was 
 delicious to breathe, bright and inspiring, and yet soft 
 and caressing as ' the south wind that woos,' and I 
 recalled the doctor's dtclum, that if Lady Hester 
 latterly had lived more out of doors, the balmy air of 
 Syria would have kept her in good health. We had 
 to hurry away, for we had been three hours in coming, 
 and should be nearly as long in returning, so it was 
 important not to be on the mountains after dark, 
 lest the men should lose their way. I walked down, 
 by a path now impassable for my litter, but which, in 
 Lady Hester's time, had been a well-kept road. On 
 the mountain-side is a spring of excellent water, that 
 supplied her house, and a growth of thyme and other 
 
 ^ Five knives and four forks disappeared from our luncheon basket 
 during this picnic. The predatory instinct has not died out in 
 Syria. 
 
456 CONCLUSION [ch. x 
 
 strongly aromatic herbs, whose names I do not know. 
 The journey back showed the mountains to even 
 greater advantage, for the westering sun threw long 
 shadows, bringing out every fold and detail in their 
 structure, and purpling them with the glorious 
 evening colouring of the East. When we reached the 
 sea-shore, it had set in a flood of crimson light, and 
 we journeyed on in the warm twilight, the stars coming 
 out one by one, so close to the rippling waves, that 
 my bearer's feet were washed by the surf. I have 
 never enjoyed anything more than this day's expedi- 
 tion. I have always wished to see Djoun, and I think 
 it has even surpassed my expectations. No doubt it 
 is a most beautiful, in some respects a unique place, 
 but still I could not have lived there, remote from the 
 civilised world. 
 
 <*We got back on board by six o'clock and sailed 
 immediately, the Consul presenting us with a most mag- 
 nificent bunch of bananas from his garden as a parting 
 gift. He is of Maltese extraction (descended, if you 
 please, * as his name imports, from Abel the son of 
 Adam '), but his family has been long settled in Syria, 
 and his father was Consul here before him, and 
 remembered Lady Hester well. The wonderful 
 Greek sarcophagi now at Constantinople were dis- 
 covered within a few yards of his own garden, quite 
 by accident. But what was the use of digging ? The 
 Government appropriated whatever was found. He 
 told us that at the cost of not more that ;£'30,ooo, 
 Saida might obtain a very good harbour ; at present 
 there is none, ships lie under the lee of an island, 
 which, in old times, was connected with the shore 
 by a breakwater." 
 
 Here end my experiences of Djoun, and here, too, 
 
1897] CONCLUSION 457 
 
 ends all I have to tell of my poor aunt Hester. I 
 never saw her ; she left England nine years before 
 1 was born, and our homes were three thousand miles 
 asunder. Even had the opportunity offered, 1 greatly 
 fear she might not have consented to receive me. 
 But I have always felt a strong interest in her striking 
 and original character, warm sympathy in her mis- 
 fortunes, and deep compassion for her sad fate. She 
 who had helped and befriended so many, found no 
 one to stand by her in her sorest need, and died bereft 
 of all human aid and consolation. Yet who can say 
 she was deserted and forgotten ? There is one Com- 
 forter who never fails the afflicted who call upon 
 Him ; and I may venture to conclude with Manzoni's 
 beautiful lines on another forlorn death-bed : 
 
 I* 
 
 n Dio che atterra e suscita, 
 Che affanna e che consola, 
 Sulla deserta coltrice 
 Accanto a lei pos6. 
 
 31 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbott, Mr., Consul at Beyrout, 
 
 218, 220-223, 225, 432 
 Abdalla, Pacha of Acre, 146, 173, 
 
 194, 223. 224, 238, 240, 269, 
 
 290, 337 
 Abd-el-Ras4k, 193 
 
 Abela, Mr., Consul, 340, 428 
 
 Abercromby, Mr., Speaker of the 
 
 House of Commons, 356 
 
 Aberdeen, George, third Earl of, 
 
 57 
 Abu Ghosh, 287 
 
 A'Court, Mr., 40 
 
 Acre. 123, 124, 146, 173, 174, 175, 
 
 194, 195. 274, 288, 289, 303. 337 
 — Pacha of. See Abdalla 
 Addington, Henry. See Sidmouth, 
 
 first Viscount 
 Adh6mar, Count d', 6 
 Ahmed Bey, 272, 274 
 Aleppo, 129, 140, 141, 166, 191, 
 
 194. 337, 361, 418 
 Alexandria, 113, 120, 238, 305 
 Anderson, General, j6, 77 » 81, 
 
 163. 177, 196,434 
 Anson, Mr., 321 
 Antioch, 129, 149, 195 
 Athens, 96, 113 
 Aubin, Mr., Consul, 219 
 Awgy, 171, 174, 175 
 Ayesha, 386 
 
 Baalbec, 171, 175 
 Bagdad, 149, 159 
 Baillie, Charles, 22, 28 
 Bailhe, Dr., 69 
 Baillie, George, 28 
 Bankes, WilUam, 187, 206 
 Banks, Lady, 242, 255 
 Banks, Sir J., 20, 242 
 Barker, Mr., Consul-General, 136, 
 139-141, 148, 170, 179, I95» 219 
 Barnard, General, 346 
 Barrie, Captain, 102 
 
 Bath, 18, 19, 32, 36, 58, 69, 84 
 
 Bathurst, Henry, third Earl, 174 
 
 Beauclerk, Lady D., 43 
 
 Beaufort, Captain, 144 
 
 Bedford, Duke of, 243, 443 
 
 Belvedere, 43 
 
 Bentinck, Lord Frederick, 250 
 
 Berhn, 30, 39. 43, 44, 68 
 
 Besh^r, Emir, 171, 178, 212, 216, 
 223, 234, 237, 238, 240, 249-253, 
 316,341, 377, 385, 398,408,409 
 
 Beshyr, Sheick, 148, 237, 240 
 
 Bethlehem, 123 
 
 Beyrout, 218, 222, 225, 232, 261, 
 288, 291-293, 318, 325, 340. 
 344. 345» 361, 366, 390, 427, 
 440.449,451 
 
 Binning, Thomas, afterwards 
 ninth Earl of Haddington, 5, 28 
 
 Boconnoc, 161 
 
 Bonaparte, General, 58, 105, 184, 
 287, 296. 302, 313 
 
 Bontin. Colonel. 194, 195, 200 
 
 Bosrah, 150 
 
 Bosville. Colonel, 45 
 
 Brandenburg-Baireuth, Margra- 
 vine of, 13, 26 
 
 Breyer, Professor, 13, 25 
 
 Brisbane, Captain, 96 
 
 Brooke, Henry Richard Greville, 
 Lord, afterwards third Earl of 
 Warwick, 40 
 
 Brothers, Richard, 206, 209 
 
 Brown, Captain, 415 
 
 Bruce, Michael, 94, 95 1 97. 9^, 
 III, 112, 119, 123, 124, 136, 
 139-141, 151. 154, 163-167, 176, 
 180, 182, 197, 200, 376 
 
 Brusa, 105, 11 1, 112, 120, 209 
 
 Buckingham, George, first Mar- 
 quis, afterwards Duke of, 21, 
 183, 245, 290, 368 
 
 Buckingham, J. Silk, 187 
 
 Travels among the Arab 
 
 Tribes, 187-193 
 
 459 
 
460 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Builth, 84, 85 
 
 Burckhardt, John L., 124, 151, 
 
 158. 205 
 Burdett, Sir Francis, 12, 22, 27, 
 
 338. 352, 361, 362, 403. 443 
 his letter to Lord Stanhope, 
 
 435 
 Burdett, Wilham J., 22 
 
 Burrard, Sir Henry, 74, 'jj 
 
 Burton Pynsent, 12, 18, 19, 21- 
 
 26, 31, 32,47, 310 
 Buseck, Baron de, 292, 393, 397, 
 
 406, 408 
 Bute, John, second Marquis of, 94 
 Bute, Marchioness of, 94 
 Byron, Lord, 96, 305 
 
 Cairo, 121-124, 145, 151 
 
 Calais, 247 
 
 Camden, John Jeffreys, second 
 
 Earl, 51 
 Camelford, Lord, 32, 59, 290, 344, 
 
 405 
 Campbell, Colonel, Consul-General 
 
 for Syria, 341-345, 347, 354, 
 
 360. 363, 399, 400, 402 
 
 his letter to Lady Hester, 
 
 343-345 
 Campbell, General, 94 
 
 Campbell, Lady, 20 
 
 Canning, George, 49, 59, 72, 82, 
 
 83> 108, 133. 161, 177, 245 
 Canning, Stratford, afterwards 
 
 Viscount Stratford de Red- 
 
 cUffe, 97, 98, 105-110, 251 
 Canning, Stratford, Life of, 6, 97- 
 
 99, 108 
 Caramania, 163, 275 
 Carmel, Mount, 123 
 Carrington, Lady, 51, 53 
 Carrington, Robert, first Lord, 5 1 , 
 
 53. 113 
 Castlereagh, Robert, Viscount, 
 
 afterwards second Marquis of 
 Londonderry, 61, 63, 82, 83, 98 
 Cavendish, Lady George, 58 
 Cavendish, Lord George, 58 
 Charlotte, Queen, 10, 30 
 Chasseaud, M., 266, 273, 308-310 
 Chatham, Countess of, grand- 
 mother of Lady Hester Stan- 
 hope, 12, 16, 23, 36, 47, 295 
 Chatham, Countess of, aunt to 
 
 Lady Hester Stanhope, 52 
 Chatham, first Earl of, grand- 
 father of Lady Hester Stanhope, 
 I, 294, 346, 441. 442 
 
 Chatham, second Earl of, uncle 
 to Lady Hester Stanhope, 14, 
 32, 47, 52, 72, 113, 235-237 
 
 Chesterfield, Lord, 361 
 
 Chevening, 2, 3, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14. 
 17, 20, 31, 34, 118, 206, 435 
 
 Cholmondeley, 113 
 
 Cleveland, Duchess of, 451 
 
 CUnton, General, 90, 103 
 
 Colborne, Major, yy 
 
 Colburn's New Monthly Magazine, 
 
 95. 438 
 Constantinople, 96-103, no, 112, 
 114, 140, 144, 150, 194, 289, 
 
 296, 337, 377 
 Corinth, 96 
 
 Coutts, Thomas, 115, 184, 207 
 Cowper, Peter L. L. F. N., fifth 
 
 Earl, 38 
 Crescent and the Cross, The, 447 
 Crete, 247 
 CuUen, Charles, 18 
 Cyprus, 238, 325, 412, 440 
 
 Dalton, Mr., 35, 55 
 
 Damascus, 126, 127, 141, 145, 146, 
 
 148, 150, 151, 166, 179, 190- 
 
 196, 240, 274, 297, 337 
 
 — Pacha of, 146, 173, 193, 194, 
 196, 238, 239, 272 
 
 Dartford Lodge, 43 
 David, Mrs., 226 
 Davidson, Mr., 259, 260 
 Dayr, son-in-law of Mohanna-el- 
 Fadel, 376-378 
 
 — his letter to Lady Hester, 377- 
 
 378 
 
 Dayr-el-Kamar, 124, 125, 126 
 
 Dayr Mkhalla, 392, 393 
 
 Dedem, Baron, Batavian Minister 
 at Stuttgard, 44 
 
 Delaborde, Count, 323 
 
 Diary of a Lady of Quality, 261 
 
 Didot, M., 73, 197 
 
 Notes d'un Voyage fait dans le 
 
 Levant, 197 
 
 Djoun, 125, 207, 208, 227, 228, 
 232-236, 241, 243, 247, 249, 
 255, 259, 274, 275, 276, 288, 
 291, 310. 319, 323, 346-361, 
 366, 370, 376, 384, 397, 412, 427, 
 430, 434, 440, 444, 448, 449 
 
 Douglas, Sir Charles, 40 
 
 Douglas, Frederick, 112 
 
 Dover Castle, 39, 57 
 
 Dropmore, 161 
 
 Drummond, Mr., 39, 40, 41 
 
INDEX 
 
 461 
 
 Dundas, General Sir David, 52, 
 
 134, 153, 181, 201 
 Dundas, Lady Jane, 28 
 Dundas, Mr., 323, 415 
 
 Ebrington, Hugh, Viscount, after- 
 wards second Earl Fortescue, 
 94, 113, 122, 139, 150, 162 
 
 Egerton, Mr. and. Mrs., 29, 36, 37, 
 40,42,43,44,45, 55 
 
 Eliot, Harriet, 16, 43, 47 
 
 Ellis, Charles, 59 
 
 Elwes, Mr., 24 
 
 Entin, 45 
 
 Erlang. 13, 23, 43 
 
 Erode, Dr. d', 427 
 
 Farquhar, Sir W., 65, 390 
 Fatoom, 258, 266, 273. 323, 335- 
 
 337, 412, 426 
 Fazakerley, Mr., 209 
 Fergusson, Mr., 58 
 Feriat, Baroness de, 314, 317, 318 
 Fernandez, Mr., 94, 144. 147 
 Fernandez, Mrs., 94, 144-147, 
 
 163. 187 
 Fitzgerald, Colonel, 18 
 Florence, 41, 178 
 Forester, Lady Katherine, 58 
 Forster, Captain, 170, 171 
 Foster, Mr., 321, 322, 437 
 Fox, Charles James, 352. 355. 356, 
 
 363. 413 
 Fry, Anne, 94, 115. 121, iS4» 170. 
 209 
 
 " Gaiety, Count," 397. 408 
 
 Gaza, 122 
 
 Genoa, 255 
 
 George III., 10, 30 
 
 George, Prince of Wales, after- 
 wards George IV., 28 
 
 Gerardin, M., 257 
 
 Gibraltar, 94, 178 
 
 Glastonbury, Lord, 12, 16, 24 
 
 Glen Irfon, 86-89, 92 
 
 Gordon, Colonel, 58, 143. ^57 
 
 Graham. Colonel, 76 
 
 Grantham, Lord, 40 
 
 Granville, Granville Leveson- 
 Gower, first Earl, 65, 68, 72, 73, 
 78, 82, 161, 162 
 
 Granville, Mrs., 14 
 
 Grenville, General, 205, 229, 231 
 
 Grey, Lord, 8 
 
 Guys, M., French Consul at Bey-^ 
 rout, 312, 324-325, 343-345. 
 361, 367, 409, 418, 419 
 
 his letter to Lady Hester, 
 
 418 
 
 Haddington, Charles, eighth Earl 
 
 of, I, IS, 16 
 
 his letter to Lady Hester, 1 5 
 
 Haddington, Countess of, 39 
 Haddington, Thomas, seventh 
 
 Earl of, 15 
 Haifa, 123, 209 
 Hamar, 141, 143, 144, 147. 148, 
 
 156, 157, 164, 173, 191, 194, 
 
 288, 313 
 Hamilton, Mr., 219 
 Hardinge, Captain, 76 
 Hardwicke, Charles Philip, fourth 
 
 Earl of, 288, 313. 338, 344. 405. 
 
 423-425. See also Yorke, Cap- 
 tain 
 Harrowby, Nathaniel, second 
 
 Baron, afterwards first Earl, 68, 
 
 70 
 Hassan Effendi, 272, 274 
 Hastings, 7 
 
 Hawkesbury, Lord, 72, 133 
 Hawley, Sir H., 20 
 Hazetta, Colonel, 407 
 Hillier, William. 118 
 Holland, Lord, 352, 355, 356 
 Homs, 148, 191, 288 
 Homsy, M., money-lender. 341 
 Hope, Alex, 57. 77 
 Hope, Captain Henry, 120, 125, 
 
 130,153 
 Hope, Thomas, 41 ... 
 
 Howden, Lord, 226 ' ' 
 
 Hutchinson, Captain, 182 
 
 Ibrahim Pacha, 274, 288, 290, 
 302, 303. 334. 351. 378, 408- 
 410 
 
 IshmaelBey. 123, 132, 151, 167 
 
 Ismael, Mulla, 143 
 
 Jackson, T. J., 12, 13, 16. 30 
 
 Jackson, Mrs. T. J., 59 
 
 Jaffa, 122, 175 
 
 Jenesson, Count, 43 
 
 Jerusalem. 123 
 
 Jones, Betsy, 84, 85, 89 
 
 Jones, Sir H., 102 
 
 Joyce, Rev. J., tutor to Lady 
 
 ~ Hester's brothers, 11 
 
462 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Kensington (William Edwardes), 
 
 second Baron, 85, 385 
 Kent, Duchess of, 349 
 Kent, Duke of, 346 
 Kilmorey, Francis J., second 
 
 Earl of, 312, 405, 443 
 King, Captain Hon. John, 94 
 Kinglake, A. W., 291-31 1, 376 
 
 Eothen, 291-31 1 
 
 Knight, Mr., 132, 209 
 Knox, Mr. 321, 437 
 
 Lamartine, Alphonse de, 240, 
 
 274-289, 306, 307, 310, 312, 
 
 314, 364, 369, 381-383 
 his letter to Lady Hester, 
 
 275 
 
 Voyage en Orient, 278, 381 
 
 Lamb, Sir Frederic, afterwards 
 
 third Viscount Melbourne, 336 
 Land and the Book, The, 433, 449 
 Lansdowne, Francis Thomas, 
 
 third Earl of, 18 
 Laove, Dr., 398 
 Lascaris, M., 312 
 Latakia, 159, 166, 167, 194 
 Latour-Maubourg, M., 105, 106, 
 
 107, 109, 112 
 Laurello, Mr., Austrian Consul at 
 
 Beyrout, 218, 221, 225 
 Lavallette, M., 95, 98, 182 
 Leghorn, 41, 178, 247. 250, 274 
 Leveson-Gower, George, 451 
 Leveson-Gower, Lord Granville. 
 
 See Granville, first Earl 
 Lincoln, Bishop of, 72 
 Liston, Sir Robert, 170, 173 
 Liverpool, Robert Bankes, second 
 
 Earl of, 61, 62, 
 Logmagi, Hassan, Lady Hester's 
 
 steward, 336, 337, 393, 412, 421 
 Louis XVIII., 182, 183 
 Loustaneau, " General," 209, 319, 
 
 429 
 Liibeck, 44 
 Lunardi, Dr., 274, 275, 291, 293, 
 
 308, 315, 426 
 Lyons, 39 
 Lyttelton, Lord, 26 
 
 Mahadini Effendi, 150 
 
 Mahon, Charles, Viscount. See 
 Stanhope, third Earl 
 
 Mahon, Philip Henry, Viscount, 
 half-brother of Lady Hester and 
 afterwards fourth Earl Stan- 
 
 hope, 11-21, 23, 25-29, 31, 32, 
 36-39,41,42,50, 53, 54, 57.66, 
 67,72,118,161. 5eeStanhope, 
 Philip Henry, fourth Earl 
 
 Mahon, Viscountess (Catherine 
 Smith), sister-in-law to Lady 
 Hester Stanhope, 57, 66, 67 
 
 Mahon, Viscountess (Hester Pitt), 
 mother of Lady Hester Stan- 
 hope, I, 15 
 
 Mahon, Viscountess (Louisa Gren- 
 ville), step-mother to Lady 
 Hester Stanhope, 1,2. See also 
 Stanhope, Countess 
 
 Maitland, General, 177 
 
 Malta, 94, 95, 139, 144, 147, 163, 
 180, 187, 225 
 
 Mar Antonius, 171, 172 
 
 Mar Elias, 169, 170, 172-174, 179, 
 182, 187, 193, 196, 197, 207, 
 319, 323, 446 
 
 Margam, 90, 91 
 
 Marmora, 120 
 
 Marseilles, 261, ^2>7 
 
 Mary, Princess, 30 
 
 Maubourg, M. See Latour-Mau- 
 bourg 
 
 Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, 
 
 394-397 
 Mecca, 159, 202 
 
 Meryon, Dr., 6, 93, 94, 98, loi, 
 
 102, 112, 119, 120, 143, 147, 
 
 154, 169. 171, 172, 181, 188, 
 
 193, 196, 201, 204, 205, 207- 
 
 209, 228-231, 239, 247, 250, 
 
 259, 261, 262, 272, 273, 274, 
 
 313. 318, 337-340. 347, 349, 
 
 355. 362, 365, 368, 370, 371, 
 
 377. 381. 385. 387-390. 392- 
 
 395, 403, 405, 406, 411, 413, 
 
 436-440 
 his letter to Lady Hester, 
 
 406-407 
 
 to Lord Stanhope, 437 
 
 Meryon, Mrs., 228, 248, 256, 261, 
 
 262, 272, 273, 318, 319. 323, 
 
 325, 340, 411 
 Methuen, Mr,, 26 
 Metta, 210 
 Mills, Dr., 323.415 
 Miranda, General, 434 
 Mishmushy, 171, 223 
 Misset, Colonel, 120, 177 
 Mohammed AU, 169, 250, 290, 
 
 304, 341, 351 
 Mohanna-el-Fadel, 135, 141, 148, 
 
 149, 151, 152, 156, 187, 193. 
 
 312, 376, 377 
 
INDEX 
 
 463 
 
 Montague, Lord, 40 
 Mont Cenis, 38 
 
 Moore, General Sir John, 57, 62,67, 
 
 72-84, 91, 98, 99, 198, 200, 430 
 
 his letters to Lady Hester, 
 
 74. 7^ 
 Moore, Sir John, Life of, y6, 91 
 
 Moore, Mr., Consul at Beyrout, 
 
 340. 343. 345. 353. 426, 447. 450 
 his letter to Lord Stanhope, 
 
 recounting the circumstances 
 
 of Lady Hester's death, 427- 
 
 429 
 Moosa, 257 
 
 Mulgrave, Henry, third Baron, 177 
 Mulgrave, Lord, Letters, 46 
 Murray, J., Captain R.N., 35 
 Murray, Mr., Lady Hester's 
 
 lawyer, 230, 434 
 Mustafa, an old barber, 334, 335, 
 
 412 
 Mustafa Aga Berber, 194, 195 
 
 Napier, Sir William, 49, 81, 416 
 
 his Life, quoted, 60-64 
 
 his letter to The Times, 416- 
 
 418 
 Naples, 39 
 Nasar, son of Mohanna-el-Fadel, 
 
 164, 187. 193, 376 
 Nash, nurse at Chevening, 118 
 Nazareth, 124, 151 
 Neale, Lady, 41 
 
 Needham, Colonel, 312, 405, 443 
 Nelson, Horatio, Viscount, 26 
 Norman, Mr., 118 
 North, Francis, afterwards fourth 
 
 Earl of Guilford, 112, 125, 129 
 Nugent, Lord, 415 
 
 Oakes, General Sir Hildebrand, 
 94. 95. 109. 119. 121, 125, 132, 
 163, 438 
 
 Ouseley, Sir Gore, 329 
 
 Paget, Lord, 77, 152 
 Palmerston, Lord, 342, 348, 350, 
 353. 354. 399> 4^3. 4i5. 4i6, 
 
 417. 444 
 his letter to Lady Hester, 
 
 399 
 
 Palmyra, 128, 134, 136, 139, 149, 
 151, 153-161, 163-166, 168, 
 187, 199, 200, 297, 312, 376, 377 
 
 Paris, 261 
 
 Parseval, Am6d6e de, 276, 285 
 
 Patras, 96 
 
 Pearce, Mr., 95, 98, 119, 122 
 
 Pechell, Captain, 323 
 
 Perceval, Spencer, 100 
 
 Percy, Algernon, 40 
 
 Perini, Paolo, 266 
 
 Perry, Captain, 77 
 
 Phipps, General, 99 
 
 Pisa, 247, 256, 259 
 
 Pisani, Mr., 100, 107 
 
 Pitt, Lady Harriet, aunt of Lady 
 
 Hester, 16 
 Pitt, William, uncle to Lady 
 
 Hester Stanhope, 1, 8, 10, 11, 
 
 17, 27. 28, 36-39. 47-51. 53-7i» 
 79. 80, 86, 91, 98, 99, 161, 162, 
 176, 177, 198, 249, 286, 295, 
 312, 326-328, 346, 352, 353, 
 
 355. 356. 364. 390. 418. 442. 443 
 Pitt, William, Life of, by Earl 
 
 Stanhope, 48 
 Plymouth, Lord, 10 1 
 Porte, Count de la, 323 
 Portsmouth, 94 
 Price, Mrs., of Glen Irfon, 86-88, 
 
 92 
 Price, Rev. Rice, 86 
 Price, Rev. Thomas, 49, 84, 85, 
 
 385 
 Prince of the Mountain, the, 124, 
 
 130, 208, 240, 241 
 
 Piickler Muskau, Prince, 362-389, 
 
 399 
 his letter to Lady Hester, 
 
 364-365 
 Brief e eines Verstorbenen , 
 
 363 
 Putney, 60-64 
 
 Ramleh, 123 
 Reichstadt, Duke of, 217 
 Reynolds, Dr., 69 
 Rhodes, no, 114-117, 198 
 Rice, Mr., 327, 328 
 Richelieu, Due de, 323 
 Richmond, Charles, fourth Duke 
 
 of, 87, 434 
 Richmond, Duchess of, 434 
 Rome, 247 
 Romney, Lord, 9, 10 
 Rosetta. 121, 122 
 Rutland, Duchess of, no 
 
 Sdada, 335-337 
 
 St. Asaph, Lord, 323 
 
 Sarell, Mr., 224, 225 
 
464 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Sayda, 148, 170-172, 179, 188, 
 196, 198, 218, 220, 222, 226, 
 227, 232, 233, 239, 250, 255, 274, 
 288, 292, 315, 318, 319, 334, 335, 
 340, 362, 366, 392-394, 398, 
 402, 412, 431, 440, 444. 449, 451 
 
 Scio, 119 
 
 Shadwell, Colonel, 9 
 
 Sheridan, R. B., 94 
 
 Sheriff Pacha, 351 
 
 Shibly-el-Arrian, 410 
 
 Sicily, 93 
 
 Sidmouth, Henry Addington, first 
 Viscount, 49, 65, 328 
 
 Sidon, See Sayda 
 
 Sligo, Howe Peter, second 
 Marquis of, 94-97, 104, no, in, 
 151, 177, 196 
 
 Smith, Catherine, daughter of 
 first Lord Carrington, after- 
 wards Viscountess Mahon, 51, 
 53. See Viscountess Mahon 
 
 Smith, Charlotte, daughter of 
 first Lord Carrington, after- 
 wards wife of Alan, Lord 
 Gardner, 53 
 
 Smith, Lady Ann, 18 
 
 Smith, Sir Sidney, 178, 218, 
 220, 245, 296 
 
 his letter to Lady Hester, 
 
 178 
 
 Smith, Thurlow, 178 
 
 Smyrna, 120, 144, 166 
 
 Somerset, Lord A., 90 
 
 Spencer, William, 43 
 
 Stafford, Lady, 59, 68 
 
 Stanhope, Charles, third Earl, 
 father of Lady Hester, 1-4, 8, 
 9, 12, 16, 17, 18, 21, 53, 206, 328 
 
 Stanhope, Charles, half-brother of 
 Lady Hester, 11, 20, 21, 31-34, 
 
 5i» 54. 55. 60. 62, 67, 72-75. 79- 
 82, 84, 161, 207, 346, 418, 434 
 Stanhope, Dowager Viscountess, 
 grandmother of Lady Hester, 
 
 15. 20 
 
 Stanhope, James, half-brother of 
 Lady Hester, n, 21, 31, 33, 57, 
 62, 67, 69, 72. 7s. 77, 84, 89. 90, 
 91, 92, 94, 100, 143, 161. 176, 
 182. 185, 186,203,207,231,237, 
 241, 242, 418, 434 
 
 Stanhope, Lady Griselda, after- 
 wards Mrs. Tekell, sister to 
 Lady Hester, 5, 8, 11, 12, 72, 72, 
 241, 328 
 
 Stanhope, Lady Hester, her 
 parentage, i ; her character, 4, 
 
 5 ; her early life and gover-. 
 nesses, 5-9 ; at trial of Warren 
 Hastings, 8 ; talks philosophy 
 with her father, a fine horse- 
 woman, 9 ; dines with the King 
 at Lord Romney's, 10 ; goes to 
 live with Lady Chatham at 
 Burton Pynsent, plans her 
 eldest brother's escape from 
 Chevening, 12-14 ', lier care for 
 her younger brothers, 16 ; at 
 Bath, 18, 19; rumours of her 
 engagements, marriages, and 
 elopement, 26 ; a visit to the 
 Continent proposed, 29 ; a 
 visit to Weymouth, 30 ; visits 
 the Continent with Mr. and 
 Mrs. Egerton, 36-46 ; on her 
 way visits Mr. Pitt at Walmer 
 Castle, writes from Turin, 37 ; 
 Naples, 39 ; Tonningen, 42 ; 
 Florence, 41 ; Stuttgard, Lii- 
 beck, 44 ; Entin, 45 ; return 
 to England, Lady Chatham 
 having died she makes her home 
 with Mr. Pitt, 47 ; Earl Stan- 
 hope's description of her in The 
 Life of Pitt, 48 ; her recollec- 
 tions in later years of these 
 days, 48, 49 ; opinions of her 
 beauty, 49 ; her personal ap- 
 pearance, 50 ; her expectation 
 of a French invasion, 52, 55, 56 ; 
 Sir W. Napier's account of her 
 life with Pitt at Putney, 60-64 ; 
 at Pitt's death goes to Lord 
 Harrington's, 71 ; at Pitt's 
 dying request is granted by 
 Parliament a pension of ;^ 1,200, 
 removes to a house in Montagu 
 Square, unfriendly with most 
 of her relatives, her engage- 
 ment to Sir John Moore re- 
 ported, 72 ; at Builth, 84 ; her 
 fancied likeness to William Pitt, 
 86 ; arranges to take rooms at 
 Glen Irfon, 86-89 \ decides to 
 give up her house in London 
 and go abroad, 92 ; leaves 
 England, contemplating a re- 
 turn, 93 ; embarks at Ports- 
 mouth for Gibraltar and thence 
 to Malta, 94 ; leaves Malta, 95, 
 for Zante, Patras, Corinth, and 
 Athens, 96 ; Constantinople,. 
 97 ; Therapia, 97, 98 ; quarrels 
 with S. Canning, 105, 106; the 
 quarrel made up, no ; dis« 
 
INDEX 
 
 465 
 
 appointed in her hopes of going 
 to France and Italy, 112; de- 
 cides to go to Egypt, 113 ; on 
 the voyage to Alexandria is 
 shipwrecked at Rhodes, 114; 
 her description of the ship- 
 wreck, 115, 116, and of her 
 costume, 117; inquiries about 
 her old nurse, 118 ; conveyed 
 by the Salsette frigate from 
 Rhodes to Alexandria, 120 ; the 
 journey to Cairo and hospitality 
 of the Pacha, 121 ; sends 
 Arab chargers to Duke of York 
 and Lord Ebrington, she is in 
 danger of drowning in a leaking 
 boat, at Jaffa commences her 
 travels through Syria and the 
 Holy Land on horseback, 122 ; 
 at Jerusalem, 123 ; at Dayr-el- 
 Kamar, 125, i26,andDamascus, 
 127; Palmyra, 1 28-141 ; Aleppo, 
 Antioch, 129 ; her visit to 
 General Dundas, 135 ; the visit 
 to Palmjrra postponed, 136, 
 139 ; removes to Hamar, 141 ; 
 spends a week in the desert in 
 the Arabs' encampment, 141- 
 142 ; describes her costume, 
 144-145 ; her departure for 
 Palmyra, 153 ; her accounts of 
 the expedition, 154-161; Mr. 
 Bruce' s account of a disagree- 
 able incident on the journey, 
 163-164; takes a house at 
 Latakia for the summer, 166 ; 
 rents the convent Mar EUas, 
 seized with the plague, 169 ; 
 authorised by the Sultan to 
 search for treasure at Ascalon, 
 Awgy, and Sidon, 170, 171 ; 
 visits Baalbec, 171 ; a dinner at 
 Mar Antonius, 171, 172 ; search 
 for treasure, at Ascalon, 173, 
 1 74 ; at Awgy, 1 74 ; her poU- 
 tical opinions, 184-186; Silk 
 Buckingham's description of her 
 and her life at Mar Elias, 188- 
 190 ; a Druse woman's account 
 of her, 190-192; her benevolence 
 and influence, 193 ; she pro- 
 cures the punishment of the 
 murderers of the French Colonel 
 Bontin, 194, and is thanked 
 by the Chamber of Deputies, 
 195 ; never free from debt for 
 the last twenty-three years of 
 her life, 196 ; M. Didot's ac- 
 
 count of an interview with her, 
 198-200 ; loses her father, 206; 
 removes from Mar Elias to 
 Djoun, 207, and remains 
 there for the rest of her life, 
 208 ; her beUef in Brothers' 
 prophecy of her Oriental king- 
 dom, 209-21 1 ; other prophecies 
 to the same effect, 209, 210 ; 
 her rehgious beliefs, 212 ; the 
 account of her in Memoirs of a 
 Babylonian Princess, 213—217; 
 she drops all her English corre- 
 spondents, 217 ; her opinion of 
 the local consuls, 218-222, and 
 of missionaries, 222, 223 ; her 
 loan to Abdalla Pacha, 223- 
 225 ; chastises Dr. Wolff's mes- 
 senger, 227 ; Captain Yorke's 
 account of a visit to her, 232- 
 237 ; her account of the revolu- 
 tion on the Lebanon, 237-240 ; 
 loss of her brother James, 241 ; 
 her monetary troubles, 242 ; 
 she wants Scotch servants sent 
 out to her, she is duped by an 
 impostor, 243, 244 ; she refuses 
 assistance from friends in Eng- 
 land, 245 ; her failing sight, 
 246, 252; instructions how to 
 select servants for her, 246-247 ; 
 her servants threatened, 249 ; 
 she is in fear of her life, 250, 
 251 ; supports refugees at 
 Djoun at the time of the battle 
 of Navarino, at the death of 
 Lady Banks comes into pos- 
 session of an annuity left by her 
 brother James, 255 ; her loss in 
 the death of Miss WilUams, 257- 
 259 ; her servants' neglect of her 
 during Miss WilHams' illness, 
 258, 259; Mr. Davidson's ac- 
 count of her and an imaginary 
 visit to Persia, 260, 261 ; Dr. 
 Meryon's description of her 
 home and life on his return, 
 262-271; she quarrels with Dr. 
 Meryon, 272, 273 ; a letter from 
 Lamartine to her, 275 ; his ac- 
 count of a visit to her, 276-287 ; 
 Kinglake's account of a visit to 
 her, 291-31 1 ; she is falsely in- 
 formed she has inherited an 
 estate in Ireland, 311, 312 ; she 
 denies the truth of much that 
 Lamartine had written about 
 her, 312, 313 ; Dr. Meryon's 
 
466 
 
 INDEX 
 
 account of her health, 320 ; 
 often did not see visitors on 
 account of her health, 3 21, and 
 lack of means, 322 ; some of the 
 visitors whom she received, 
 
 323 ; her ideas of a domestic life, 
 
 324 ; her pleasure in hearing 
 Dr. Meryon read, 326 ; in- 
 stances of her untrustworthy 
 memory, 327, 328 ; is presented 
 with History of the Temple at 
 Jerusalemhythe Oriental Trans- 
 lation Fund Society, 328-329 ; 
 her false etymologies, 329-333 ; 
 she shelters the brothers of two 
 of her maids from the conscrip- 
 tion, 334-337 ; her anxiety to 
 hear more of the promised Irish 
 estate, 338 ; her enfeebled state, 
 338 ; the disorder of her bed- 
 room through her long confine- 
 ment to it, 339 ; she is pressed 
 by a money-lender for pay- 
 ment of a loan, 340-345 ; her 
 pension confiscated, 343 ; her 
 feelings outraged by this action, 
 346, 347 ; her letters on the 
 subject, 347-361 ; improve- 
 ment in her health and a visit 
 from Prince Piickler Muskau, 
 364-389 ; his description of her 
 appearance and dress, 371, 372 ; 
 her conversation on astrology, 
 373-375 ; another account of 
 her adventures in the desert, 
 376-378 ; her mares, 379, 380 ; 
 her idea of the Eastern origins 
 of European nations, 383 ; her 
 garden by moonlight, 384 ; her 
 tale of the serpent's cave, 387, 
 388; she sends supplies to some 
 Germans in quarantine, who 
 turn out to be a royal duke 
 and his suite, 392 ; she invites 
 the Duke of Bavaria to stay 
 with her, 396 ; but is taken ill 
 and is unable to receive him, 
 397; her anxiety that her corre- 
 spondence about her pension 
 should be published, 399 ; she 
 receives Sir F. Burdett's answer 
 to her letter about the Irish 
 estate, she dismisses Dr. Mer- 
 yon, 403 ; the Irish bequest a 
 hoax, 404 ; now Dr. Meryon 
 has left she has no one speaking 
 English, 411 ; asks Lord Hard- 
 wicke to sell her pension, 414; the 
 
 publication of her correspond- 
 ence did not help her, 416 ; Lord 
 Hardwicke tells her it is im- 
 possible to sell her pension 
 whilst she is out of England, 
 but she will not return, 42 5 ; her 
 lonely death, 426 ; Mr. Moore's 
 letter to Lord Stanhope re- 
 lating the circumstances of her 
 death, 427-429 ; the account of 
 the funeral and of what he had 
 learnt of her by Rev. W. M. 
 Thomson, 429-433 ; her will, 
 43 3 » 434 I ^^^ Quarterly Review 
 notice of Dr. Meryon' s Memoirs 
 of Lady Hester, 440-444 ; War- 
 burton's account of a visit to 
 Djoun, 444-447 ; Lord Wear- 
 dale's account of a pilgrimage 
 to his great aunt's grave, 449- 
 450 ; the Duchess of Cleveland's 
 account of her later visit, 451- 
 
 456 
 Stanhope, Lady Hester : 
 — Her Letters — 
 to Mr. Abercromby, 356- 
 
 357 
 to W. D. Adams, 65, 71 
 
 to General Anderson, 196- 
 
 197 
 
 to Sir Joseph Banks, 203 
 
 to Lord Bathurst, 1 74 
 
 to the Marquis of Bucking- 
 ham, 183-186 
 to Sir Francis Burdett, 404- 
 
 405 
 to Colonel Campbell, 347, 
 
 348 
 to George Canning, 83, 167- 
 
 169 
 to Stratford Canning, 99- 
 
 105, no. III, 130-133 
 to the second Earl of Chat- 
 ham, 84 
 
 to Lord Ebrington, 362, 363 
 
 to Mrs. Fernandez, 144-147 
 
 ' to " Count Gaiety," 408-41 1 
 
 to Lord Glastonbury, 12-14 
 
 to Lord Granville, 78-80 
 
 to Mr. Guys, 3 1 2-3 1 3 
 
 to Lord Haddington, 1 5» 39, 
 
 50-52 
 to Lord Hardwicke, 288- 
 
 291, 412-415, 420, 426, 427. 
 
 See also those to Captain Yorke 
 to T. J. Jackson, 18-46, 52- 
 
 59, 66-68 
 to A, W. Kinglake, 292 
 
INDEX 
 
 467 
 
 Stanhope, Lady Hester : 
 — Her Letters — 
 
 to Louis XVIII.. 182 
 
 to Maximilian, Duke of 
 
 Bavaria, 392-397 
 to Dr. Meryon, 228-231, 
 
 239-240, 242-248, 251-253. 
 
 255-257. 313-318. 324. 325, 
 
 412, 418, 420-422 
 
 to Mr. Moore, 348 
 
 to Mr. Murray, the family 
 
 lawyer, 17-18, 11 5-1 19 
 to General Oakes, 119, 121, 
 
 128-130, 134-144, 153. 166, 
 
 167, 175, 181, 201 
 
 to Sir Gore Ouseley, 329-333 
 
 to Lord Palmerston, 400- 
 
 402 
 to Prince Piickler Muskau, 
 
 367. 369 
 ' to Mr. Rose. 90-92 
 
 • to Lord Sligo, 127 
 
 to Lord Strangford. 2 1 8-226 
 
 to Sir Edward Sugden, 357- 
 
 361 
 
 to Queen Victoria, 349 
 
 to Mr. Webb, 249-250, 253- 
 
 255. 257-259 
 to the Marquis Wellesley, 
 
 106 
 to the Duke of WelUngton, 
 
 350-353 
 to Henry WilUams Wynne, 
 
 147-151, 159-166 
 
 to Dr. J. Wolfi. 226 
 
 to the Duke of York, 202 
 
 to Captain Yorke, 237-239. 
 
 288-291. See also those to 
 
 Lord Hardwicke 
 to unnamed correspondents, 
 
 j2, 80-82, 125, 127, 152, 154- 
 
 159. 390. 391 ^, 
 Stanhope, Lady Hester, Memoirs 
 
 of, as related by herself to her 
 
 Physician, 5, 271, 436-440 
 Stanhope, Lady Lucy, sister to 
 
 Lady Hester, 5, 8, 11, 17. 28, 
 
 72, 408 
 Stanhope, Philip, second Earl, 
 grandfather of Lady Hester, 15. 
 
 33 
 Stanhope, Philip Henry, fourth 
 Earl, brother of Lady Hester, 
 206, 245. 328. 352, 353, 434. 436, 
 
 437 ^ ^ , 
 memorandum drawn up by 
 
 him concerning Lady Hester's 
 pension. 353-3SS 
 
 Stanhope, Philip Henry : 
 
 his letter to The Times on 
 
 misrepresentations regarding 
 himself in Dr.Meryon's book, 
 
 355 
 his letter to Lord Hard- 
 wicke, 416 
 his letter to Dr. Meryon, 
 
 436-438 
 Stanhope, Philip Henry, after- 
 wards fifth Earl, nephew to 
 
 Lady Hester, 67, 68 
 Stanhope, Countess (Louisa 
 
 Grenville), stepmother of Lady 
 
 Hester, 8, 20, 53 
 Stowe, 161 
 
 Strangways, Mr., 321 
 Stratford de RedclifiEe, Viscount. 
 
 See Canning, Stratford 
 Stuttgard, 43, 44 
 — Electress of, 43, 44 
 Sugden, Sir Edward, 357-361 
 Suleiman Pacha, 126, 143, 146, 169, 
 
 224, 289 
 Sussex. Duke of, 243, 415, 443 
 Sutton, Nassau. 93. 94 
 Swinburne, Captain, 415 
 
 Taitbout, M., 148 
 
 Talbot, Mr., 91 
 
 Tattenbach, Comte de, 365, 379, 
 
 386. 396 
 Taylor. Colonel, 18 
 Taylor, Mr., 119 
 Temple, Lord, 434 
 Thomson, Rev. W. M., 427, 429- 
 
 433,447-449 
 Tonningen, 42 
 Tooke, Home, 328 
 Tripoh, 172, 194, 313 
 Turin, 37, 39 
 
 Van de Weyer, M., 2 
 
 Venice, 42 
 
 Victoria, Queen. 346-353. 35^, 
 
 357. 360, 368. 399.451 
 Vienna, 43, 178 
 
 Wales, Princess of, 59, 195 
 Walmer Castle, 37, 38, 39, 50-58, 
 
 65. 67, 98 
 Warburton, Eliot, 444 
 Way, Mr., missionary, 270 
 
468 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Wear dale, Lord, 449 
 
 Webb, John, Lady Hester's 
 
 banker at Leghorn, 248, 256, 
 
 257, 259, 274, 437 
 Wellesley, Richard, first Marquis, 
 
 106 
 Wellington, Arthur, first Duke of, 
 
 91, 143, 34i-343» 353, 355» 3^3 
 
 Werry, Mr. 238 
 
 Weymouth, 30 
 
 William, Prince (afterwards 
 William IV.). 34, 55 
 
 Williams, Elizabeth, 84, 93, 94, 
 163, 187, 196, 209, 221, 226, 227, 
 241-243, 251, 257, 258,434 
 
 Wilsenheim, Count, 406 
 
 Wilson, Sir Robert, 182 
 
 Wolff, Dr. Joseph, 226, 227, 379 
 
 his letter to Lady Hester, 227 
 
 Wynn, Henry Williams, after- 
 wards Sir Henry, 64, no, 112, 
 119, 122 
 
 his letters to his mother, 
 
 112, 119, 122 
 
 Wynn, Lady (Hester Smith), aunt 
 
 to Lady Hester, 1 10 
 Wynn, Miss, 259 
 Wynn, Watkin Williams, 113, 150 
 
 Yakoub Aga, Consul at Say da, 
 218, 220, 221 
 
 York, Duchess of, 18 
 
 York, Frederick Augustus, Duke 
 of, 18, 31, 67, 80, 113, 122, 176, 
 202. 359 
 
 Yorke, Captain Charles Philip, 
 afterwards fourth Earl of Hard- 
 wicke, 49, 93, 232, 239, 240, 323 
 
 his letter to his father. Ad- 
 miral Yorke, 232-235 
 
 his letter to Lord Chatham, 
 
 235-237. See also Hardwicke, 
 fourth Earl of 
 
 Zante, 96 
 
 Zezefoon, 263, 266, 323, 339, 412, 
 421 
 
 Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury, 
 
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