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40 - -EOTHEN;- OR, TRACES. OF. TRAVEL BROUGHT HOME FROM THE EAST.
~ T descended, and went toward the west.
The group of cedars remaining on. this part
of the Lebanon is held sacred by the Greek
Church, on account of a prevailing notion that
the trees were standing at the time when the
Temple of Jerusalem was built. ‘They occupy
three or four acres on the mountain’s side, and
many of them are gnarled in a way that implies
great age; but except these signs, I saw nothing
in their appearance or conduct that tended to
prove them contemporaries of the cedars em-
ployed in Solomon’s Temple. . The final cause
to which these aged survivors owed their preser-
yation was explained to me in the evening by a
glorious old fellow (a Christian chief), who made
me welcome in the valley of Eden. In ancient
times the whole range of the Lebanon had been
covered with cedars, but as the fertile plains be-
neath became more and more infested with goy-
ernment officers and tyrants of high and low de-
gree, the people by degrees abandoned them, and
flocked to the rugged mountains, which were less
accessible to their insolent oppressors. » The ce-
dar forests gradually shrank under the axe of the
encroaching multitudes, and seemed at last to be
on the point of disappearing entirely, when an
aged chief who ruled in this district, and who
had witnessed the great change effected even in
his own lifetime, chose to say that some sign or
memorial should be left of the vast woods with
which the mountains had formerly been clad,
and commanded, accordingly, that this group of
trees (which was probably situate at the highest
point to which the forest had reached) should
remain untouched. The chief, it seems, was not
moved by the notion I have mentioned as pre-
yailing in the Greek Church, but rather by some
sentiment of veneration for a great natural feat-
ure—a sentiment akin, perhaps, to that old and
earth-born religion which made men bow down
to Creation before they had yet learned how to
know and worship the Creator.
The chief of the valley in which I-passed the
~ night was a man of large possessions, and he en-
tertained me very sumptuously ; he was highly
intelligent, and had had the sagacity to foresee
that Europe would intervene authoritatively in
the affairs of Syria. Bearing this idea in mind,
and with a view to give his son an advantageous
start in the ambitious career for which he was
destined, he had hired for him a teacher of the
Italian language, the only accessible European
tongue. ‘The tutor, however, who was a native
of Syria, either did not know, or did not choose
to teach, the European forms of address, but con-
tented himself with instructing his pupil in the
mere language of Italy, This circumstance gave
me an opportunity (the only one I ever had, or
was likely to have),* of hearing the phrases of
Oriental courtesy in a European tongue. The
boy was about twelve or thirteen years old, and
having the advantage of being able to speak to
me without the aid of an interpreter, he took a
very prominent part in doing the honors of his
father’s house. He went through his duties with
untiring assiduity, and with a kind of gracefulness
which can scarcely be conveyed by mere descrip-
tion to those who are unacquainted with the man-
ners of the Asiatics, The boy’s address resem-
bled a little that of a highly polished and insin-
uating Roman Catholic priest, but had more of
girlisn’ gentleness. It was strange to hear him
gravely and slowly enunciating the common and
extravagant compliments of the East in: good
Italian, and in soft, persuasive tones, I recol-
lect that I was particularly amused at the gra-
cious obstinacy with which he maintained that
the house in which I was so hospitably enter-
tained belonged, not to his father, but to me.
To say this once was only to use the common
form of speech, signifying no more than our sweet
‘word ‘* welcome ;”? but the amusing part of the
matter was that, whenever, in the course of con-
versation, I happened to speak of his father’s
house or the surrounding domain, the boy inva-
riably interfered to correct my pretended mis-
take, and to assure me once again, with a gentle
decisiveness of manner, that the whole property
* A dragoman never interprets in terms the courte-
ons language of the East, . . ~ a
was really and. exclusively mine, and that his fa-
ther had not the most distant pretensions to its
ownership.
I received from my host much. and (as I now
know) most true information respecting the peo-
ple of the mountains, and their power of resisting
Mehemet Ali.: The chief gave me very plainly
to understand that the mountaineers, being de-
pendent upon others for. bread and gunpowder
(the two great necessaries of martial life), could
not long hold out against a power which occu-
pied the plains and commanded the sea; but he
also assured me, and that very significantly, that
if this source of weakness were provided against,
the mountaineers were to be depended upon. He
told me that in ten or fifteen days the chiefs could
bring together some fifty thousand fighting-men.
CHAPTER XXIX.
SURPRISE OF SATALIEIIL,
: Wits I was remaining upon the coast of Syr-
ia, I had the good fortune to become acquainted
with the Russian Sataliefsky,* a general officer,
who in his youth had fought and bled at Borodi-
no, but was now better known among diplomats
by the important trust committed to him at a
period highly critical for the affairs of Eastern
Europe. I must not tell you his family name;
my mention of his title can do him no harm, for
it is I, and I only, who have conferred it in con-
sideration of the military and diplomatic services
performed under my own eyes.
The general, as well as I, was bound for Smyr-
na, and we agreed .to sail together in an Jonian
brigantine. We did not charter the vessel, but
we made our arrangement with the captain upon
such terms that we could be put ashore upon any
part of the coast which we might think proper.
We sailed, and day after day the vessel lay daw-
dling on the sea with calms and feeble breezes
for her portion. I myself was well repaid for
the painful restlessness which such weather oc-
casions, because I gained from my companion a
little of that vast. fund of interesting knowledge
with which he was stored—knowledge a thou-
sand times the more highly to be prized, since it
was not of the sort that is to be gathered from
books, but only from the lips of those who have
acted a part in the world. .
When, after nine days of sailing, or trying to
sail, we found ourselves still hanging by the
main-land to the north of the Isle of Cyprus, we
determined to disembark at Satalich and to pro-
ceed from thence by land. A light breeze fa-
vored our purpose, and it was with great delight
that we neared the fragrant land, and saw our
anchor go down in the bay of Satalich, within
two or three hundred yards of the shore.
The town of Satalieht is the chief place of the
pashalik in which it is situate, and its citadel is
the residence of the pasha. We had scarcely
dropped our anchor when a boat from the shore
came alongside, with officers on board, who an-
nounced that the strictest orders had been re-
ceived for maintaining a quarantine of three
weeks against all vessels coming from Syria, and
directed accordingly that no one from the vessel
should disembark. In reply we sent a message
to the pasha, setting forth the rank and titles of
the general, and requiring permission to go ashore.
After awhile the boat came again alongside, and
the officers, declaring that the orders received
from Constantinople were imperative and unex-
ceptional, formally enjoined us in the name of
the pasha to abstain from any attempt to land.
I had been hitherto much less impatient of our
slow voyage than my gallant friend, but this op-
position made the smooth sea seem to me like a
prison from which I must and would break out.
I-had an unbounded faith in the feebleness of
Asiatic potentates, and I proposed that we should
set the pasha at defiance. The general had been
worked up to a state of the most painful agita-
tion by the idea of being driven from the shore
which smiled so pleasantly before his eyes, and he
adopted my suggestion with rapture,
* A title signifying Transcender or Conqueror of
Satalieh.
+ Spelled ‘‘Attalia,” and sometimes “ Adalia,” in
- English books and maps,
We determined to land.
To approach the sweet shore after a tedious
yoyage, and then to be suddenly and unexpect-
edly prohibited from landing—this is so madden-
ing to the temper that no one who had ever ex-
perienced the trial would say that even the most
violent impatience of such restraint is wholly in-
excusable. Iam not going to pretend, however,
that the course which we chose to adopt on this
occasion can be perfectly justified. _The impro-
priety of a traveller’s setting at naught the regu-
lations of a foreign state is clear enough, and the
bad taste of compassing such a purpose by mere
gasconading is still more glaringly plain. I knew
perfectly well that if the pasha understood his
duty, and had energy enough to perform it, he
would order out a file of soldiers the moment we
landed, and cause us both to be shot upon the
beach, without allowing more contact than might
be absolutely necessary for the purpose of making
us stand fire; but I also firmly believed that the
pasha would not see the line of conduct which he
ought to adopt nearly so well as I did, and that
even if he did know his duty, he would never be
able to find resolution enough to perform it.
We ordered the boat to be got in readiness,
and the officers on shore, seeing these prepara-
tions, gathered together a number of guards who
assembled upon the sands:. we saw that great
excitement prevailed, and that messengers were
continually going to and fro between the shore
and the citadel. Our captain, out of compliment
to his excellency, had provided the vessel with a
Russian war-flag, which he had hoisted alternate-
ly with the Union-jack, and we agreed that we
would attempt our disembarkation under this, the
Russian standard. I was glad when we came to
that resolution, for I should have been very sorry
to engage the honored flag of England in such an
affair as that which we were undertaking.’ The
Russian ensign was therefore committed: to one
of the sailors, who took his station at the stern
of the boat. We gave particular instructions to
the captain of the brigantine, and when all was
ready, the general and I, with our respective ser-
yants, got into the boat. and were slowly rowed
toward the shore. ‘The guards gathered together
at the point for which we were making, but when
they. saw that our boat went on without altering
her course, they ceased to stand very still ; none
of them ran away or even shrank back, but they
looked as if the pack were being shuffled—every
man seeming desirous to change places with his
neighbor. They were still at their post, however,
when our oars went in, and the bow of our boat
ran up—well up upon the beach.
The general was lame by an honorable wound
which he had gained at Borodino, and required
some assistance in getting out of the boat; I,
therefore, landed the first. My instructions to
the captain were attended to with the most per-
fect accuracy, for scarcely had my foot indented
the sand when the four six-pounders of the brig-
antine. sublimely rolled out their brute thunder.
Precisely as I had expected, the guards, and all
the people who had gathered about them, gave
way under the shock produced by the mere sound
of guns, and we were all allowed to disembark
without the least molestation.
We immediately formed a little column, or,
rather, as I should have called it, a procession,
for we had no fighting aptitude in us, and were
only trying, as it were, how far we could go in
frightening full-grown children. First marched
the sailor, with the Russian flag of war bravely
flying in the breeze; then came the general and
I; then our servants; and lastly, if I rightly rec-
ollect, two more of the brigantine’s crew. Our
flag-bearer entered into the spirit of the enter-
prise, and bore the standard aloft with so much
of pomp and dignity that I found it exceedingly
hard to keep a°grave countenance. We ad-
vanced toward the castle, but the people had now
had time to recover from the effect of the six-
pounders (which were only, of course, loaded
with powder), and they could not help seeing,
not only the weakness of our party, but the very
slight amount of pomp and power which it seem-
ed to imply.. They began to hang around us
more closely; and just as this reaction was be-
ginning, the general, who. was perfectly unac-
ep ge