Of All Other Women
With Grecian Blood In Their Veins The Costume Is Graciously
Beautiful, But These, The Maidens Of Limasol - Their Robes Are More
Gently, More Sweetly Imagined, And Fall Like Julia's Cashmere In
Soft, Luxurious Folds.
The common voice of the Levant allows that
in face the women of Cyprus are less beautiful than their
Brilliant
sisters of Smyrna; and yet, says the Greek, he may trust himself to
one and all the bright cities of the Aegean, and may yet weigh
anchor with a heart entire, but that so surely as he ventures upon
the enchanted isle of Cyprus, so surely will he know the rapture or
the bitterness of love. The charm, they say, owes its power to
that which the people call the astonishing "politics" (p???t???) of
the women, meaning, I fancy, their tact and their witching ways:
the word, however, plainly fails to express one-half of that which
the speakers would say. I have smiled to hear the Greek, with all
his plenteousness of fancy, and all the wealth of his generous
language, yet vainly struggling to describe the ineffable spell
which the Parisians dispose of in their own smart way by a summary
"Je ne scai quoi."
I went to Larnaca, the chief city of the isle, and over the water
at last to Beyrout.
CHAPTER VIII - LADY HESTER STANHOPE {14}
Beyrout on its land side is hemmed in by the Druses, who occupy all
the neighbouring highlands.
Often enough I saw the ghostly images of the women with their
exalted horns stalking through the streets, and I saw too in
travelling the affrighted groups of the mountaineers as they fled
before me, under the fear that my party might be a company of
income-tax commissioners, or a pressgang enforcing the conscription
for Mehemet Ali; but nearly all my knowledge of the people, except
in regard of their mere costume and outward appearance, is drawn
from books and despatches, to which I have the honour to refer you.
I received hospitable welcome at Beyrout from the Europeans as well
as from the Syrian Christians, and I soon discovered that their
standing topic of interest was the Lady Hester Stanhope, who lived
in an old convent on the Lebanon range, at the distance of about a
day's journey from the town. The lady's habit of refusing to see
Europeans added the charm of mystery to a character which, even
without that aid, was sufficiently distinguished to command
attention.
Many years of Lady Hester's early womanhood had been passed with
Lady Chatham at Burton Pynsent, and during that inglorious period
of the heroine's life her commanding character, and (as they would
have called it in the language of those days) her "condescending
kindness" towards my mother's family, had increased in them those
strong feelings of respect and attachment, which her rank and
station alone would have easily won from people of the middle
class. You may suppose how deeply the quiet women in Somersetshire
must have been interested, when they slowly learned by vague and
uncertain tidings that the intrepid girl who had been used to break
their vicious horses for them was reigning in sovereignty over the
wandering tribes of Western Asia! I know that her name was made
almost as familiar to me in my childhood as the name of Robinson
Crusoe - both were associated with the spirit of adventure; but
whilst the imagined life of the cast-away mariner never failed to
seem glaringly real, the true story of the Englishwoman ruling over
Arabs always sounded to me like fable. I never 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 which were the delight of my childhood,
along with attar of roses and fragrant wonders from Hindustan,
there were letters carefully treasured, and trifling presents which
I was taught to think valuable because they had come from the queen
of the desert, who dwelt in tents, and reigned over wandering
Arabs.
This subject, however, died away, and from the ending of my
childhood up to the period of my arrival in the Levant, I had
seldom even heard a mentioning of the Lady Hester Stanhope, but
now, wherever I went, I was met by the name so familiar in sound,
and yet so full of mystery from the vague, fairy-tale sort of idea
which it brought to my mind; I heard it, too, connected with fresh
wonders, for it was said that the woman was now acknowledged as an
inspired being by the people of the mountains, and it was even
hinted with horror that she claimed to be MORE THAN A PROPHET.
I felt at once that my mother would be sadly sorry to hear that I
had been within a day's ride of her early 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
Somersetshire acquaintance, I should make a point of visiting her.
My letter was sent by a foot-messenger, who was to take an
unlimited time for his journey, so that it was not, I think, until
either the third or the fourth day that the answer arrived. A
couple of horsemen covered with mud suddenly dashed into the little
court of the "locanda" in which I was staying, bearing themselves
as ostentatiously as though they were carrying a cartel from the
Devil to the Angel Michael: one of these (the other being his
attendant) was an Italian by birth (though now completely
orientalised), who lived in my lady's establishment as doctor
nominally, but practically as an upper servant; he presented me a
very kind and appropriate letter of invitation.
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