BOOKS.
EGYPTIAN SEPULCHRES AND SYRIAN SHRINES.* TRESE volumes consist, as their title sufficiently indicates, of a record of a journey through, and a somewhat protracted residence in, various parts of Egypt and Syria. Their author is by no means free from a serious doubt whether the country which she has traversed is not so well and generally known as to render the publication of her account of her travels, to say the least of it, a work of supererogation ; and she tells us that the only consideration which finally induced her to disregard this th scruple was that her prolonged stay in the Lebanon
i
and n Jerusalem had given her unusual opportunities for observation, the results of which, considering the interest which has been excited in England by the late Syrian war, she could not but wish to com- municate to the British public. 'Whether there are or are not adequate grounds for this doubt, is a question which we do not undertake to decide. Looking, however, at the matter from a general point of view, we can' only say that we can see no is priori reasons why- Miss Beaufort should not have something to tell us which may be very well worth hearing. She was no mere winter tourist hurrying from place to place in order to see as much as pos- sible in the limited, time which she had at her disposal. She ascended the Nile as far as the second cataract ; she spent a whole year in Syria, three months of which were passed in a mountain village of the Lebanon, and three more in Jerusalem ; and she performed her homeward journey in a very leisurely manner, making some stay both at Constantinople and Athens. Undoubtedly, therefore, she has, as she remarks, enjoyed opportunities for observation which do not fall to the lot of every traveller in those countries; and there is, so far, nothing whatever to justify her scruple as to the wisdom or necessity of making public the results of her experience. When, however, we approach the question with the additional knowledge of all the circumstances of the case which is furnished by the perusal of Miss Beaufort's work, we are constrained to confess that her doubts on this point are by no means so entirely without foundation as they appeared to be at first sight. Miss Beaufort must, we can- not but think, have been troubled by a secret consciousness of her own inability to take full advantage of the unusually favourable opportunities which she enjoyed. However this may be, there is, we are afraid, no doubt of the fact that the information which she does actually impart to us is not distinguished in any remarkable degree either by novelty or by intrinsic value. In the majority of cases— notably in those of the ruined cities and temples of the Nile—she is of opinion that the places which she visited are so well known as to justify her in passing them over without any detailed description whatever; and the greater part of her two rather bulky volumes is made up of vague and rapturous encomiums on the beauty of Syrian scenery, and of topographical disquisitions derived from no more recondite or inaccessible sources than Dr. Robinson's "Researches" and Professor Stanley's "Sinai and Palestine." Under these cir cumstances it is impossible to read her book without at least a certain feeling of disappointment, and a regret that its author should not have been more able to make an effective use of the opportunities which she enjoyed.
Miss Beaufort's volumes, however, although they are far from proving that she is capable of writing a good account of her travels, contain abundant evidence that she is peculiarly fitted to face and overcome the various difficulties with which the traveller has to con- tend in the imperfectly civilized countries in which she sojourned so long. She was accompanied only by her sister and by an English maid; and, so far from having any misgivings as-to the sufficiency of so small a party to grapple with the numerous vicissitudes of Eastern travel, she tells us that one of her principal objects in se- lecting the East as the scene of her operations was the hope that she should not there be troubled with much society. This hope was, however, but imperfectly realized, and, as it turned out, its disap- pointment was, a very fortunate occurrence. Their Nile journey was remarkably prosperous until they reached Edfou on the return voyage, at which place, while they were visiting the temple in com- pany with some fellow-travellers, their boat took fire, and was, with all its contents, completely destroyed. A more unpleasant and per- plexing situation could scarcely be conceived. " We stood," says Miss Beaufort, "upon that bank absolutely bereft of everything— without home, food, clothes, or money, among a strange and savage people, three thousand miles away from home, and at some five hundred miles from the nearest spot where any of our wants could be supplied, with no means of getting there, apparently without friends or help." Owing to the kindness of two English gentlemen, whose boat happened to be at Edfou at the time, and who gave up to the distressed ladies the whole of their inner- cabins, they were enabled to reach Cairo in safety, after a necessarily comfortless voyage of seven weeks. Even then, however, their troubles were' not at an end. On arriving at Cairo, they had, from motives of kind- ness, declined to adopt the course recommended by some friends, who advised them to institute proceedings against the owner of the boat for the recovery of their losses ; and, when they had been in the city about a fortnight, they were informed that the owner was about to sue them for 9004 damages, on the plea that the boat had been set on fire by their maid. Knowing that there was but little chance of obtaining justice in an Arab court, they at once, on receiving this intelligence, left Cairo for Alexandria, where they were met by an Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines; including some Stay in the Lebanon, St Palmyra, and in Western Turkey. By Emily A. Beaufort. Two volumes. London : Longman and Co. intimation from the Vice-Consul that an order had already arrived for their detention, and. that he hoped they. would be out of Egypt before he went to his office in the morning. So advised, they drove immediately down to the harbour, and,' finding an Austrian steamer on the point of departing for Smyrna, went on board of her, and succeeded in effecting their escape. From Smyrna they pro- ceeded to Beyrout, where they arrived at the commencement of the hot season, and took up their abode in the village of Beit Miry, situated in the mountains above the town. When they had been here for three months, the village became the scene of a conflict between the Druses and Maronites of the neighbourhood, and the state of the whole country became so disturbed that it was necessary to leave it without delay. This was the last time that the party were in any actual danger, although, on one subsequent occasion, Miss Beaufort—who not only carried a revolver, but knew how to use it— was compelled to check a threatening movement on the part of a few Bedoueens by firing three shots over their heads, a demonstra- tion which was, fortunately, attended with success. It is, as we have already intimated, on her sojourn at Beit Miry, as having afforded her peculiar facilities for observing the nature and habits of the Druses and Maronites respectively, that Miss Beaufort rests her pr.mcipal claim to public attention. We have read that portion of her work, which is devoted to the account of this period, with especial care ; hut we cannot say that we have derived from it any information which throws any new light upon the origin of the recent disturbances in Syria. Still Miss Beaufort's estimate of the respective characters of the two tribes is not without interest. Her sympathies were, on the whole, in favour of the Druses, "whose
bearing is," she tells us, "speaking generally, so much more akin to an English mind than that of the Christians, that one cannot well help such a feeling." The difference between them in this respect was specially notneable in the course of the conflict of which she was an eye-witness, when the "ingenious hiding and dodging of the Christian, and the daring boldness of the Druse, reminded her con- tinually of a battle between a cat and a bloodhound." The contrast between the characters of the two tribes is still further drawn out in the following passage :
"The Maronites are industrious and docile; they are intelligent and capable of immense improvement: they are brave, but they have not thep/uck and fortitude of the Druses, nor the support of an admirable organization, combination, and obedience which is the very backbone of the Druse people ; nor have they by any means the high sense of honour which the Druses undoubtedly possess, though of course there are honourable exceptions among them. The Maronite, when a little educated, prides himself on being a little ruse, but his ruse is a coarse affair in comparison to that of the Bedouin or the Druse; he is simply dis- honest, though he has just wit enough to try to persuade you that cheating is the only thing of which he is perfectly incapable: if he cannot succeed in this, he tries to prove to you that what he gains is in some manner only his real due, or he assures you tout bonnement, that he felt that to your excellent heart and charitable disposition, his profit would be equally a pleasure and a gratification."
With regard to the assumption by the French Emperor of the title and position of Protector of the Syrian Christians, Miss Beaufort ad- duces a piece of evidence bearing on the antiquity of this claim, which may, perhaps, be new to some of our readers. She tells us that there are still existing in Paris copies of a letter dated May 21, 1250, written by Louis XI. to the Emir and the Patriarch of the Lebanon, assuring the Maronites of the protection of France for ever. In 1520 Henry IV. was addressed by Sultan Suleyman II., by the title of "Protector of the Christians of Mount Lebanon ;" and the assurance given by Louis XI. was subsequently repeated both by Louis XIV. and Louis XV., in letters addressed by them to the Patriarch of the Maronites in the Convent of Khaanobin. The only other piece of information, possessing any general interest, which we have met with in Miss Beaufort's account of the mountaineers of the Leba- non, is contained in the following passage, which, as it is very short, we may venture to quote: "We learned on this day something of the division of property among the Lebanon mountaineers. On the death of a man all his possessions are divided among his children, with no distinction of the first-born, the sons each taking twice as much as the daughters, who are supposed to be provided for by their marriage. Should the land-property be too small for division, it is sold, and the proceeds divided in the same proportions • if there is any choice in the lots the youngest child chooses first, and so on, the eldest coming the last ; and if there are any young children, the largest portion is reserved for them."
Quite the most interesting part of Miss Beaufort's volumes is that In which she narrates her expedition from Damascus to Palmyra. The superior attractions of this expedition are of twofold origin, de- pending partly upon the interest attaching to the place visited, and partly upon the difficulties which are inseparable from the journey itself. That these difficulties are of no common order, a very brief statement of the facts of the case will be sufficient to show. All the arrangements necessary for a journey to Palmyra are in the hands of the Sheikh of the Anazeh, an Arab tribe which appears to claim a sort of proprietorship in the ruins; and the usual fee which he exacts from travellers for permitting them to go there and guaranteeing their safety during the expedition, amounts to 30/. a head. Owing to the probability of an attack from other tribes, it has been for some years the invariable custom to limit the traveller's stay at Palmyra to twenty, or, at most, twenty-four hours ; and, as Miss Beaufort ob- serves, "you must be almost inhumanly strong if you can make the long journey there and back, fifty hours of camel-riding, and not Spend these twenty hours in sleep or rest, while, as the ruins are three miles in extent, no one could take more than a glance at the Principal objects, even if ten hours were spent in traversing them." Add to this, that the fear of robbers and the want of water make it necessary to ride that part of the journey nearest to Palmyra at a stretch of twenty-four hours, without stop or stay, both gomg and returning; and it will readily be conceived that the expedition is one
which but few ladies would be able or willing to undertake. Miss Beaufort, however, made the journey under peculiarly favourable circumstances. It chanced that, at that time, the tribe of the Anazeh were encamped in the immediate neighbourhood of Palmyra, and the Sheikh, the danger of a hostile attack being thus obviated, agreed to allow the travellers to remain at the ruins five whole days; and further, moved by the enthusiasm of Mr. Carl Haat:r„ the artist, who was one of the party, he consented to reduce the charge for safe con- duct to one half the usual amount. Although, on arriving at the journey's end, it was found that the Anazeh encampment was, owing to want of water, already broken up, the stay of the party was pro- longed for some days beyqnd the allotted time ; so that Miss Beau- fort had an unusually favourable opportunity of examining the ruins. As Palmyra is comparatively little known to English travellers, Miss Beaufort does not, in this instance, hold herself dispensed front the duty of describing it in some detail; and this description, together with her account of the journey, and of the insight which it enabled her to obtain into the manners and customs of an Arab tribe, con- stitute, as we have already said, quite the most interesting portion of her book.
Looking at Miss Beaufort's work from a purely literary point of view, there are one or two peculiarities in its style of composition which can scarcely fail to attract the notice even of the least atten- tive reader. The most striking of these is the recurrence in almost every page of sentences whose cumbrous length would do no discredit even to a German philosophical writer. Miss Beaufort has, in fact, contracted a habit, for which we can suggest no other origin than an unaccountable distaste for the use of full stops and capital letters, of gathering together into a single sentence a number of miscellane- ous and unconnected statements, each of which would gain consider- ably in effect if it were endowed with an independent existence of its own. The most. remarkable examples of the results of this habit are, as might be expected, too long for quotation ; but the following passage will serve to exhibit, within a moderate compass, the characteristic to which we allude : "At the bottom of the valley is the Pool of David, not hollowed in the rock, but built round with stones of the ancient Jewish bevel (since plastered over by the Arabs) with two staircases down to the water, it is one hundred and thirty feet square; it contains only rain-water, and is very dirty ; there is another smaller tank some way further, built in the like manner, and, doubtless, it was over one of these that David caused the murderers. of Ishbosheth to be hanged." Another far from commendable prac- tice, in which Miss Beaufort frequently indulges, is that of employing French words and phrases to express ideas for which there is no sort of difficulty in finding a perfect equivalent in the English language. There is but little excuse, for instance, for speaking of enact of public worship as "chaleureuse," or for describing a convent as "se cram- pennant against the rock ;" but there is still less for the statement that "there is no place in the world where the interest and. memorials of religion and of history an re'unissent to such an extent as in Jeru- salem."
Miss Beaufort's volumes are illustrated by a few chromo-litho- graphs, from her own sketches, which are very pretty and effective. We have, indeed, some right to expect skill in drawing from a lady whose faculty of artistic perception is so acute as to enable her, when examining the gigantic statues of Ahou Simbil, to detect not only "a majestic sweetness in the mouth," but also "an expression of triumph in the nose."
Previous page
