The Consequence Of All This Was,
That The People Of Syria Looked Vaguely, But Confidently, To Europe
For Fresh Changes.
Many would fix upon some nation, France or
England, and steadfastly regard it as the arriving sovereign of
Syria.
Those whose minds remained in doubt equally contributed to
this new state of public opinion, which no longer depended upon
religion and ancient habits, but upon bare hopes and fears. Every
man wanted to know, not who was his neighbour, but who was to be
his ruler; whose feet he was to kiss, and by whom HIS feet were to
be ultimately beaten. Treat your friend, says the proverb, as
though he were one day to become your enemy, and your enemy as
though he were one day to become your friend. The Syrians went
further, and seemed inclined to treat every stranger as though he
might one day become their Pasha. Such was the state of
circumstances and of feeling which now for the first time had
thoroughly opened the mind of Western Asia for the reception of
Europeans and European ideas. The credit of the English especially
was so great, that a good Mussulman flying from the conscription,
or any other persecution, would come to seek from the formerly
despised hat that protection which the turban could no longer
afford; and a man high in authority (as, for instance, the Governor
in command of Gaza) would think that he had won a prize, or at all
events, a valuable lottery ticket, if he obtained a written
approval of his conduct from a simple traveller.
Still, in order that any immediate result should follow from all
this unwonted readiness in the Asiatic to succumb to the European,
it was necessary that some one should be at hand who could see and
would push the advantage. I myself had neither the inclination nor
the power to do so, but it happened that Dthemetri, who as my
dragoman represented me on all occasions, was the very person of
all others best fitted to avail himself with success of this
yielding tendency in the Oriental mind. If the chance of birth and
fortune had made poor Dthemetri a tailor during some part of his
life, yet religion and the literature of the Church which he served
had made him a man, and a brave man too. The lives of saints with
which he was familiar were full of heroic actions provoking
imitation, and since faith in a creed involves a faith in its
ultimate triumph, Dthemetri was bold from a sense of true strength.
His education too, though not very general in its character, had
been carried quite far enough to justify him in pluming himself
upon a very decided advantage over the great bulk of the Mahometan
population, including the men in authority. With all this
consciousness of religious and intellectual superiority Dthemetri
had lived for the most part in countries lying under Mussulman
governments, and had witnessed (perhaps too had suffered from)
their revolting cruelties:
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