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EOTHEN; OR, TRACES OF TRAVEL BROUGHT HOME: FROM, THE EAST.
Still, in order that any immediate result should
follow from all this unwonted readiness in the
_ Asiatic to succumb to the European, it was nec-
essary that some one should be at hand who
could see, and would push, the advantage. I my-
self had neither the inclination nor the power to
do so; but it happened that Dthemetri, who, as
my dragoman, represented me on all occasions,
-was the very person of all others best fitted to
avail himself with success of this yielding ten-
dency in the Oriental mind.. If the chance of
birth and fortune had made poor Dthemetri a
tailor’ during some part of his life, yet religion
and the literature of the Church which he served
had made him a man, and a brave man too.
“The lives of saints with which he was familiar
.were full of heroic actions, which invited imita-
tion; and since faith in a creed involves a faith in
‘its ultimate triumph, Dthemetri was bold from a
sense of true strength: his education, too, though
not very general in its character, had been carried
~ quite far enough to justify him in pluming him-
‘self upon a very decided advantage over the great
_ bulk of the Mohammedan population, including
(the men of authority, With all this consciousness
(of religious and intellectual superiority, Dtheme-
-tri had lived for the most part in countries lying
junder Mussulman governments, and had witness-
‘ed (perhaps, too, had suffered from) their revolt-
‘ing cruelties; the result was that he abhorred
‘and despised the Mohammedan faith, and all
who clung to it. And this hate was not of the
dry, dull, and inactive sort; Dthemetri was, in
his sphere, a true Crusader, and whenever there
appeared a fair opening in the defences of Islam,
che was ready and eager to make the assault.
These sentiments, backed by a consciousness of
understanding the people with whom he had to
do, made Dthemetri not only firm and resolute
in his constant interviews with men in authority,
but sometimes, also (as you may know already),
very violent, and even insulting. This tone,
which I always disliked, though I was fain to
profit by it, invariably succeeded: it swept away
all resistance ; there was nothing in the then de-
pressed and succumbing mind of the Mussulman
that could oppose a zeal so warm and fierce.
As for me, I of course stood aloof from Dthe-
metri’s crusades, and did not even render him any
active assistance when he was striving (as he al-
most always was, poor fellow!) on my behalf; I
was only the death’s-head and white sheet with
which he scared the enemy: I think, however,
that I played this spectral part exceedingly well,
for I seldom appeared at all in any discussion,
and whenever I did, I was sure to be pale and
calm.
The event which induced the Christians of
Nablous to seek for my assistance was this: A
beautiful young Christian, between fifteen and
sixteen years old, had lately been married to a
man of her own creed. About the same time
(probably on the occasion of her wedding) she
was accidentally seen by a Mussulman sheikh, of
great wealth and local influence, who instantly
became madly enamored of her, The strict mo-
rality which so generally prevails where the Mus-
sulmans have complete ascendency, prevented the
sheikh from entertaining any such sinful hopes as
a European might have ventured to cherish un-
der the like circumstances, and he saw no chance
of gratifying his love except by inducing the girl
to embrace his own creed : if he could induce her
to take this step, her marriage with the Christian
would be dissolved, and then there would be
nothing to prevent him from making her the
last and brightest of his wives. The sheikh was
a practical man, and quickly began his attack
upon the theological opinions of the bride; he
did not assail her with the eloquence of any
Imaums or Mussulman saints; he did not press
upon her the eternal truths of the ‘* Cow,”* or
the beautiful morality of the ‘Table ;”* he sent
her no tracts—not even a copy of the holy Koran.
An old woman acted as missionary, She brought
with her a whole basketful of arguments—jew-
els, and shawls, and scarfs, and all kinds of per-
suasive finery. Poor Mariam! she put on the
*These are the names given by the Prophet to cer-
tain chapters of the Koran.
jewels, and took a calm view of the Mohamme-
dan religion in a little hand-mirror ; she could not
be deaf to such eloquent ear-rings, and the great
truths of Islam came home to her young bosom
in the delicate folds of the cashmere: she was
ready to abandon her faith.
The sheikh knew yery well that his attempt to
convert an infidel was illegal, and that his pro-
ceedings would not bear investigation, so he took
care to pay a large sum to the Governor of Na-
blous in order to obtain his connivance.
At length Mariam quitted her home, and placed
herself under the protection of the Mohammedan
authorities, who, however, refrained from deliver-
ing her into the arms of her lover, and detained
her in a mosque until the fact of her real conver-
sion (which had been indignantly denied by her
relatives) should beestablished. For two or three
days the mother of the young convert was pre-
yented from communicating with her child by
yarious evasive contrivances, but not, it would
seem, by a flat refusal. At length it was an-
nounced that the young lady’s profession of faith
might be heard from her own lips... At an hour
appointed, the friends of the sheikh and the rela-
tives of the damsel met in the mosque. The
young convert addressed her mother in a loud
yoice, and said, ‘‘ God is God, and Mohammed is
the Prophet of God, and thou, oh! my mother,
art an infidel feminine dog!”
You would suppose that this declaration, so
clearly enounced, and that, too, in a place where
Mohammedanismis perhaps more supreme thanin
any other part of the empire, would have sufficed
to confirm the pretensions of the lover, This,
however, was not the case. The Greek priest
of the place was despatched on a mission to the
Governor of Jerusalem (Aboo Goosh) in order to
complain against the proceedings of the sheikh,
and obtain a restitution ofthe bride. Meanwhile
the Mohammedan authorities at Nablous were so
conscious of having acted unlawfully, in conspir-
ing to disturb the faith of the beautiful infidel,
that they hesitated to take any further step, and
the girl was still detained in the mosque.
Thus matters stood when the Christians of the
place came and sought to obtain my assistance.
I felt, with regret, that I had no personal in-
terest in the matter, and I also thought that there
was no pretence for my interfering with the con-
flicting claims of the Christian husband and the
Mohammedan lover, and I therefore declined to
take any step.
My speaking of the husband, by-the-bye, re-
minds me that he was extremely backward about
the great work of recovering his youthful bride.
The relations of the girl, who felt themselves dis-
graced by her conduct, were vehement, and ex-
cited toa high pitch, but the Menelaus of Nablous
was exceedingly calm and composed.
The fact that it was not technically my duty to
interfere in a matter of this kind was a very suf-
ficient and yet a very unsatisfactory reason for
my refusal ofall assistance. Until you are placed
in situations of this kind, you can hardly tell how
painful it is to refrain from intermeddling in oth-
er people's affairs—to refrain from intermeddling
when you feel that you can do so with happy ef-
fect, and can remove a load of distress by the use
of a few small phrases. Upon this occasion,
however, an expression fell from one of the girl’s
kinsmen which not only determined me against
all interference, but made me hope that all at-
tempts to recover the proselyte would fail; this
person, speaking with the most savage bitterness,
and with the cordial approval of all the other rel-
atives, said that the girl ought to be beaten to
death. I could not fail to see that, if the poor
child were ever restored to her family, she would
be treated with the most frightful barbarity; I
heartily wished, therefore, that the Mussulmans
might be firm, and preserve their young prize
from any fate so dreadful as that of a return to
her own relations.
The next day the Greek priest returned from
his mission to Aboo Goosh, but the ‘‘ father of
lies,” it would scem, had been well plicd with the
gold of the enamored sheikh, and contrived to
put off the prayers of the Christian by cunning
feints. Now, therefore, a second .and more nu-
merous deputation than the first waited upon me,
37
and implored my intervention with the governor.
I informed the assembled Christians that since
their last application I had carefully considered
the matter. The religious question, I thought,
might be put aside at once, for the excessive lev-
ity which the girl had displayed proved clearly
that in adopting Mohammedanism she was not
quitting any other religion. Her mind must have
been thoroughly blank upon religious questions,
and she was not, therefore, to be treated as a
Christian that had strayed. from the flock, but
rather as a child without any religion at all, who
was willing to conform to the usages of those who
would deck her with jewels and clothe her. with
Cashmere shawls.
So much for the religious part of the question,
Well, then, in a merely temporal sense it ap-
peared to me that (looking merely to the inter-
ests of the damsel, for I rather unjustly put poor
Menelaus quite out of the question), the advan-
tages were all on the side of the Mohammedan
match. . The sheikh was in a much higher station
of life than the superseded husband, and had given
the best possible proof of his ardent affection, by
the sacrifices which he had made and the risks
which he had incurred for the sake of the beloved
object. I therefore stated fairly, to. the horror
and amazement of all my hearers, that the sheikh,
in my view, was likely to make a most capital
husband, and that I entirely ‘‘approved of the
match.” ‘
I left Nablous under the impression that Ma-
riam would soon be delivered to her Mussulman
lover; Lafterward found, however, that the result
was. very different. Dthemetri’s religious zeal
and hate had been so much excited by the ac-
count of these events, and by the grief and morti-
fication of his co-religionists, that when he found
me firmly determined to decline all interference
in the matter, he secretly appealed to the govern-
or in my name, and (using, 1 suppose, many violent
threats, and telling, no doubt, many lies about my
station and influence) extorted a promise that the
proselyte should be restored to her relatives. I
did not understand that the girl had been actually
given up while I remained at Nablous, but Dthe-
metri certainly did not desist from his instances
until he had satisfied himself by some means or
other (for mere words amounted to nothing) that
the promise would-be actually performed. It
was not till I had quitted Syria, and when Dthe-
metri was no longer in my service, that this vil-
lanous though well-motived trick of his came to
my knowledge. Mysseri, who informed me of
the step which had been taken, did not know it
himself until some time after we had quitted Na-
blous, when Dthemetri exultingly confessed his
successful enterprise. I know not whether the
engagement which my zealous dragoman extort-
ed from the governor was ever complied with.
I shudder to think of the fate which must have
befallen poor Mariam if she fell into the hands of
her husband.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE PROPHET DAMOOR.
For some hours I passed alorig the shores of
the fair Lake of Galilee, and then, turning a lit-
tle to the westward, I struck into a mountainous
country, the character of which became more bold
and beautiful as I advanced. At length I drew
near to Safet, which sits as proud as a fortress
upon the summit of a craggy height; and yet, be-
cause of its minarets and stately trees, the place
looks bright and beautiful. It is one of the holy
cities of the Talmud, and according to this au-
thority the Messiah will reign there forty years
before he takes possession of Zion. ‘The sanctity
thus attributed to the city renders it a favorite
place of retirement for Israclites, of whom it con-
tains four thousand, 2 number nearly balancing
that of the Mohammedan inhabitants. I knew
by my experience of Tabarieh that a ‘holy city”
was sure to have a population of yermin somewhat
proportionate to the number of its Israelites, and
[ therefore caused my tent to be pitched upon a
green spot of ground at a respectable distance
from the walls of the town.
When it had become quite dark (for there was
no moon that night) I was informed that several