Part 13 (2/2)

She was seventeen--”just the time of life when a girl requires careful guiding.” So Mrs. Burton, or ”Ya Sitti,” as Khamoor called her, promptly set about this careful guiding--that is to say she fussed and petted Khamoor till the girl lost all knowledge of her place and became an intolerable burden. Under Mrs. Burton's direction she learnt to wear stays [237] though this took a good deal of learning; and also to slap men's faces and scream when they tried to kiss her. By dint of practice she in time managed this also to perfection. Indeed, she gave up, one by one, all her heathenish ways, except swearing, and so became a well-conducted young lady, and almost English. Mrs. Burton was nothing if not a woman with a mission, and henceforward two cardinal ideas swayed her namely, first to inveigle the heathen into stays, and secondly, to induce them to turn Catholics. Her efforts at conversion were more or less successful, but the other propaganda had, to her real sorrow, only barren results.

In March 1871, Charles Tyrwhitt Drake, who had spent some months in England, arrived again in Damascus, and the Burtons begged him to be their permanent guest. Henceforth Mrs. Burton, Burton and Drake were inseparable companions, and they explored together ”almost every known part of Syria.” Mrs. Burton used to take charge of the camp ”and visited the harems to note things hidden from mankind,” Drake sketched and collected botanical and geological specimens, while Burton's studies were mainly anthropological and archaeological. They first proceeded to Jerusalem, where they spent Holy Week, and after visiting Hebron, the Dead Sea, and other historical spots, they returned by way of Nazareth.

But here they met with trouble. Early in his consulate, it seems, Burton had protested against some arbitrary proceedings on the part of the Greek Bishop of Nazareth, and thus made enemies among the Greeks.

Unhappily, when the travellers appeared this ill-feeling led a posse of Nazarenes to make an attack on Burton's servants; and Burton and Drake, who ran half dressed out of their tents to see what was the matter, were received with a shower of stones, and cries of ”Kill them!” Burton stood perfectly calm, though the stones. .h.i.t him right and left, and Drake also displayed cool bravery. Mrs. Burton then hastened up with ”two six shot revolvers,” but Burton, having waved her back--s.n.a.t.c.hed a pistol from the belt of one of his servants and fired it into the air, with the object of summoning his armed companions, whereupon the Greeks, though they numbered at least a hundred and fifty, promptly took to their heels. Out of this occurrence, which Burton would have pa.s.sed over, his enemies, as we shall see, subsequently made considerable capital. The party then proceeded to the Sea of Galilee, whence they galloped across ”their own desert” home. During these travels Burton and Drake made some valuable discoveries and saw many extraordinary peoples, though none more extraordinary than the lazy and filthy Troglodytes of the Hauran, [238] who shared the pre-historic caves with their cows and sheep, and fed on mallows just as their forefathers are represented as having done in the vivid thirtieth chapter of Job, [239] and in the pages of Agatharchides. [240]

62. The Shazlis.

Mrs. Burton now heard news that fired her with joy. A sect of the Mohammedans called Shazlis used to a.s.semble in the house of one of their number of Moslem prayer, reading and discussion. One day they became conscious of a mysterious presence among them. They heard and saw things incommunicably strange, and a sacred rapture diffused itself among them. Their religion had long ceased to give them satisfaction, and they looked anxiously round in search of a better. One night when they were overcome by sleep there appeared to each a venerable man with a long white beard, who said sweetly, ”Let those who want the truth follow me,”

and forthwith they resolved to search the earth until they found the original of the vision. But they had not to go far. One of them chancing to enter a monastery in Damascus noticed a Spanish priest named Fray Emanuel Forner. Hurrying back to his comrades he cried ”I have seen the oldster of the dreams.” On being earnestly requested to give direction, Forner became troubled, and with a view to obtaining advice, hurried to Burton. Both Burton and his wife listened to the tale with breathless interest. Mrs. Burton naturally wanted to sweep the whole sect straightway into the Roman Church, and it is said that she offered to be sponsor herself to 2,000 of them. In any circ.u.mstances, she distributed large numbers of crucifixes and rosaries. Burton, who regarded nine-tenths of the doctrines of her church as a tangle of error, was nevertheless much struck with the story. He had long been seeking for a perfect religion, and he wondered whether these people had not found it.

Here in this city of Damascus, where Our Lord had appeared to St. Paul, a similar apparition had again been seen--this time by a company of earnest seekers after truth. He determined to investigate. So disguised as a Shazli, he attended their meetings and listened while Forner imparted the princ.i.p.al dogmas of the Catholic faith. His common sense soon told him that the so-called miraculous sights were merely hallucinations, the outcome of heated and hysterical imagination. He sympathised with the Shazlis in that like himself they were seekers after truth, and there, as far as he was concerned, the matter would have ended had the scenes been in any other country. But in Syria religious freedom was unknown, and the cruel Wali Ras.h.i.+d Pasha was only too delighted to have an opportunity to use his power. He crushed where he could not controvert. Twelve of the leading Shazlis--the martyrs, as they were called--were seized and imprisoned. Forner died suddenly; as some think, by poison. This threw Burton, who hated oppression in all its forms, into a towering rage, and he straightway flung the whole of his weight into the cause of the Shazlis. Persecution gave them holiness. He wrote to Lord Granville that there were at least twenty-five thousand Christians longing secretly for baptism, and he suggested methods by which they might be protected. He also recommended the Government to press upon the Porte many other reforms. Both Burton and his wife henceforward openly protected the Shazlis, and in fact made themselves, to use the words of a member of the English Government, ”Emperor and Empress of Damascus.”

That Ras.h.i.+d Pasha and his crawling myrmidons were rascals of the first water and that the Shazlis were infamously treated is very evident.

It is also clear that Burton was more just than diplomatic. We cannot, however, agree with those who lay all the blame on Mrs. Burton. We may not sympathise with her religious views, but, of course, she had the same right to endeavour to extend her own church as the Protestants at Beyrout, who periodically sent enthusiastic agents to Damascus, had to extend theirs.

The Shazli trouble alone, however, would not have shaken seriously Burton's position; and whatever others may have thought, it is certain Burton himself never at any time in his life considered that in this matter any particular blame attached to his wife. But unfortunately the Shazli trouble was only one of a series. Besides embroiling himself with the truculent Ras.h.i.+d Pasha and his underlings, Burton contrived to give offence to four other bodies of men. In June, 1870, Mr. Mentor Mott, the kind and charitable [241] superintendent of the British Syrian School at Beyrout, went to Damascus to proselytize, and acted, in Burton's opinion, with some indiscretion. Deeming Damascus just then to be not in a temper for proselytising, Burton reprimanded him, and thus offended the Protestant missionaries and Mr. Jackson Eldridge, the Consul-General at Beyrout. In Burton's opinion, but for Mrs. Mott the storm would have gradually subsided. That lady, however, took the matter more to heart than her husband, and was henceforth Burton's implacable enemy. Then arose a difficulty with the Druzes, who had ill-treated some English missionaries. As they were Turkish subjects the person to act was Ras.h.i.+d Pasha, but Burton and he being at daggers drawn, Burton attempted to fine the Druzes himself. He was reminded, however, that his power was limitary, and that he would not be allowed to exceed it. To the trouble with the Greeks we have already referred. But his chief enemies were the Jews, or rather the Jewish money-lenders, who used to go to the distressed villages, offer money, keep all the papers, and allow their victims nothing to show. Interest had to be paid over and over again.

Compound interest was added, and when payment was impossible the defaulters were cast into prison. Burton's predecessor had been content to let matters alone, but Burton's blood boiled when he thought of these enormities. Still, when the money-lenders came to him and stated their case, he made for a time an honest attempt to double; but ultimately his indignation got the better of his diplomacy, and with an oath that made the windows rattle, he roared, ”Do you think I am going to be b.u.m-bailiff to a parcel of blood-suckers!” And yet these gentlemen had sometimes, in their moderation, charged as little as sixty per cent.

Henceforward Burton looked evil upon the whole Jewish race, and resolved to write a book embodying his researches respecting them and his Anti-Semite opinions. For the purpose of it he made minute enquiries concerning the death of one Padre Tommaso, whom the Jews were suspected of having murdered in 1840. These enquiries naturally have his foes further umbrage, and they in return angrily discharge their venom at him. In his book The Jew, published after his death, [242] he lashes the whole people. He seems in its pages to be constantly running up and down with a whip and saying: ”I'll teach you to be 'an Ebrew Jew,' I will.” His credulity and prejudice are beyond belief. He accepts every malicious and rancorous tale told against the Jews, and records as historical facts even such problematical stories as the murder of Hugh of Lincoln. Thus he managed to exasperate representatives of almost every cla.s.s. But perhaps it was his champions.h.i.+p of the Shazlis that made the most mischief. Says Lady Burton, ”It broke his career, it shattered his life, it embittered him towards religion.”

Complaints and garbled stories reached London from all sides, and Burton was communicated with. He defended himself manfully, and showed that in every question he had been on the side of righteousness and equity, that he had simply fought systematically against cruelty, oppression and nefariousness. He could not and would not temporize. An idea of the corruption prevalent at Damascus may be fathered from the fact that on one occasion 10,000 was promised him if he would ”give an opinion which would have swayed a public transaction.” Says Lady Burton, ”My husband let the man finish, and then he said, 'If you were a gentleman of my own standing, and an Englishman, I would just pitch you out of the window; but as you are not, you may pick up your 10,000 and walk down the stairs.'” [243]

63. The Recall. 16th August 1871.

Accusations, many of them composed of the bluest gall; and manly letters of defence from Burton now flew almost daily from Damascus to England.

The Wali, the Jews and others all had their various grievances. As it happened, the British Government wanted, just then, above all things, peace and quiet. If Burton could have managed to jog along in almost any way with the Wali, the Druzes, the Greeks, the Jews and the other factors in Syria, there would have been no trouble. As to whether Burton was right or wrong in these disputes, the Government seems not to have cared a straw or to have given a moment's thought. Here, they said, is a man who somehow has managed to stir up a wasp's nest, and who may embroil us with Turkey. This condition of affairs must cease. Presently came the crash. On August 16th just as Burton and Tyrwhitt Drake were setting out for a ride at B'ludan, a messenger appeared and handed Burton a note. He was superseded. The blow was a terrible one, and for a moment he was completely unmanned. He hastened to Damascus in the forlorn hope that there was a mistake. But it was quite true, the consuls.h.i.+p had been given to another.

To his wife he sent the message, ”I am superseded. Pay, pack, and follow at convenience.” Then he started for Beirut, where she joined him.

”After all my service,” wrote Burton in his journal, ”ignominiously dismissed at fifty years of age.” One cry only kept springing from Mrs.

Burton's lips, ”Oh, Ras.h.i.+d Pasha! Oh, Ras.h.i.+d Pasha!”

At Damascus Burton had certainly proved himself a man of incorruptible integrity. Even his enemies acknowledged his probity. But this availed nothing. Only two years had elapsed since he had landed in Syria, flushed with high premonitions; now he retired a broken man, s.h.i.+pwrecked in hope and fortune. When he looked back on his beloved Damascus--”O, Damascus, pearl of the East”--it was with the emotion evinced by the last of the Moors bidding adieu to Granada, and it only added to his exasperation when he imagined the exultation of the hated Jews, and the sardonic grin on the sly, puffy, sleek face of Ras.h.i.+d Pasha.

Just before Mrs. Burton left B'ludan an incident occurred which brings her character into high relief. A dying Arab boy was brought to her to be treated for rheumatic fever. She says, ”I saw that death was near....

'Would you like to see Allah?' I said, taking hold of his cold hand....

I parted his thick, matted hair, and kneeling, I baptised him from the flask of water I always carried at my side. 'What is that?' asked his grandmother after a minute's silence. 'It is a blessing,' I answered, 'and may do him good!'” [244] The scene has certain points in common with that enacted many years after in Burton's death chamber. Having finished all her ”sad preparations at B'ludan,” Mrs. Burton ”bade adieu to the Anti-Lebanon with a heavy heart, and for the last time, choking with emotion, rode down the mountain and through the Plain of Zebedani, with a very large train of followers.”--”I had a sorrowful ride,” says she, ”into Damascus. Just outside the city gates I met the Wali, driving in state, with all his suite. He looked radiant, and saluted me with much empress.e.m.e.nt. I did not return his salute.” [245]

It is satisfactory to know that Ras.h.i.+d Pasha's triumph was short-lived.

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