Public Rumour Soon Busied Itself With Such A
Personage, And Exaggerated Her Influence And Power.
It is even
said that she was crowned Queen of the East at Palmyra by fifty
thousand Arabs.
She certainly exercised almost despotic power in
her neighbourhood on the mountain; and what was perhaps the most
remarkable proof of her talents, she prevailed on some Jews to
advance large sums of money to her on her note of hand. She lived
for many years, beset with difficulties and anxieties, but to the
last she held on gallantly: even when confined to her bed and
dying she sought for no companionship or comfort but such as she
could find in her own powerful, though unmanageable, mind.
Mr. Moore, our consul at Beyrout, hearing she was ill, rode over
the mountains to visit her, accompanied by Mr. Thomson, the
American missionary. It was evening when they arrived, and a
profound silence was over all the palace. No one met them; they
lighted their own lamps in the outer court, and passed unquestioned
through court and gallery until they came to where SHE lay. A
corpse was the only inhabitant of the palace, and the isolation
from her kind which she had sought so long was indeed complete.
That morning thirty-seven servants had watched every motion of her
eye: its spell once darkened by death, every one fled with such
plunder as they could secure. A little girl, adopted by her and
maintained for years, took her watch and some papers on which she
had set peculiar value.
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