ing protection to Turkish deserters, contrary to the edicts of a sovereign prince, and then set up, as an excuse, the want of civilization in Mahometan countries.
A woman, the widow of Shaykh Omar ed dyn, came also on a donkey to beg Lady Hester’s intercession with the commandant for one of her sons, a lad, who had been pressed in the streets. Lady Hester sent out word to her that she could not mix herself up in the business, and desired me to give her 500 piasters—I suppose to help her to buy him off. This son, Lady Hester told me, was a beautiful boy, and that she once had him in her house, but could not keep him—he was too handsome! *** A sad picture this of the morals of the Syrian Turks, and yet a true one!
November 20.—After a succession of sunny days, finer and warmer than an English summer, the wind got up at the change of the moon, and it blew a gale. The effect of gloomy weather in climates naturally so genial as that of Syria is perhaps more impressive than in one like that of England, where clouds and fogs are so common. I was therefore in a fit humour to listen to the melancholy stories of her ladyship’s secretary, Mr. Micha el Abella, who had been absent a day or two to see his father and mother at Sayda. He told me that the press for recruits continued with unabated severity, and that the .military commandant
