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, Therefore 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. There are no regularly
established relays of horses in Syria, at least not in the line
which I took, and you therefore hire your cattle for the whole
journey, or at all events, for your journey to some large town.
Under these circumstances you have no occasion for a Tatar (whose
principal utility consists in his power to compel the supply of
horses). In other respects, the mode of travelling through Syria
differs very little from that which I have described as prevailing
in Turkey. I hired my horses and mules (for I had some of both)
for the whole of the journey from Beyrout to Jerusalem. The owner
of the beasts (who had a couple of fellows under him) was the most
dignified member of my party; he was, indeed, a magnificent old
man, and was called Shereef, or "holy" - a title of honour which,
with the privilege of wearing the green turban, he well deserved,
not only from the blood of the Prophet that flowed in his veins,
but from the well-known sanctity of his life and the length of his
blessed beard.
Mysseri, of course, still travelled with me, but the Arabic was not
one of the seven languages which he spoke so perfectly, and I was
therefore obliged to hire another interpreter. I had no difficulty
in finding a proper man for the purpose - one Demetrius, or, as he
was always called, Dthemetri, a native of Zante, who had been
tossed about by fortune in all directions. He spoke the Arabic
very well, and communicated with me in Italian. The man was a very
zealous member of the Greek Church. He had been a tailor. He was
as ugly as the devil, having a thoroughly Tatar countenance, which
expressed the agony of his body or mind, as the case might be, in
the most ludicrous manner imaginable. He embellished the natural
caricature of his person by suspending about his neck and shoulders
and waist quantities of little bundles and parcels, which he
thought too valuable to be entrusted to the jerking of pack-
saddles. The mule that fell to his lot on this journey every now
and then, forgetting that his rider was a saint, and remembering
that he was a tailor, took a quiet roll upon the ground, and
stretched his limbs calmly and lazily, like a good man awaiting a
sermon. Dthemetri never got seriously hurt, but the subversion and
dislocation of his bundles made him for the moment a sad spectacle
of ruin, and when he regained his legs, his wrath with the mule
became very amusing.
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