Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/353

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Lady Hester Stanhope.
339

got over, the pasha, after some questions about Lord B.'s health, asked him what brought him to Tiberias, a part of his province the least beautiful and most barren. The question would have led most persons to say that, knowing the pasha was there, he seized the opportunity of paying his respects to him, or some such complimentary speech. But Lord B., with a naïveté somewhat plebeian, replied, that he came to see the baths. The pasha coldly desired that proper persons should show them to him, and soon after broke up the interview. The very attendants of his Highness were struck with the incivility and want of tact which Lord B. showed, and it was one of them who told me the story. But this was not all: the pasha, who is fond of consulting European doctors, requested Lord B., who was to depart next day, to leave his doctor behind for twenty-four hours; which request Lord B. refused. After he was gone, the pasha sent me a pelisse of considerable value, with a request that I should present it in his name to Lord B., but I returned it, saying Lord B. was gone; for I did not think his incivility deserved it. So much for English breeding! and then let them go and call the Turks barbarians.

"Mr. Elliot came to see me from Constantinople, in order "to make the pashas and governors of the neighbouring provinces treat me well. He fell ill, and I