Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/257

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Lady Hester Stanhope.
243

Beck to the Dead Sea,[1] and had been sent to me from Beyrout by the innkeeper there: he was a knave, a drunkard, and a liar. Suspicion fell on him, and he, to throw it on others, first accused the milk-girl, and then the water-carrier.

Theft, in houses in Turkey, where many are suspected, generally leads to the punishing of them all; and Logmagi suggested that he should apply the korbàsh to all three, to elicit the truth. However, I thought it more just to resort to the European way, saying if the spoon were not found, the two servants must pay for it, not doubting the innocence of the

  1. I was once speaking of the great results which might be expected from Messrs. Beck and Moore's successful investigation of the natural phenomena of the Dead Sea: but Lady Hester damped my admiration of those gentlemen's hazardous undertaking, by exclaiming that all English travellers were a pack of fools, and that they entirely neglected the objects that ought to be inquired into. "There are none of them," said she, "that know half as much as I do. I'll venture to say they never heard of the forty doors, all opening by one key, in which are locked the forty wise men who expect the Murdah. Didn't I tell you the story the other day?" I answered, if she had, I must have forgotten it, which was fortunate, as I was always reluctant to show my dissent from her opinions; having, by experience, learned how necessary it was to proceed cautiously in doing so. "Yes, so it is," rejoined Lady Hester: "I talk for half a day to you, wasting my breath and lungs, and there you sit like a stock or a stone—no understanding, no conviction!"