I received from my host much, and (as I now know) most true, information respecting the people of the mountains, and their power of resisting Mehemet Ali.  The chief gave me very plainly to understand that the mountaineers, being dependent upon others for bread and gunpowder (the two great necessaries of martial life), could not long hold out against a power which occupied 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 SATALIEH

Whilst I was remaining upon the coast of Syria I had the good fortune to become acquainted with the Russian Sataliefsky, {47} a general officer, who in his youth had fought and bled at Borodino, 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 consideration of the military and diplomatic services performed under my own eyes.

The General as well as I was bound for Smyrna, and we agreed to sail together in an Ionian 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 that we might choose.  We sailed, and day after day the vessel lay dawdling on the sea with calms and feeble breezes for her portion.  I myself was well repaid for the painful restlessness which such weather occasions, because I gained from my companion a little of that vast fund of interesting knowledge with which he was stored, knowledge a thousand 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 mainland to the north of the isle of Cyprus, we determined to disembark at Satalieh, and to go on thence by land.  A light breeze favoured our purpose, and it was with great delight that we neared the fragrant land, and saw our anchor go down in the bay of Satalieh, within two or three hundred yards of the shore.

The town of Satalieh {48} is the chief place of the Pashalic 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 announced that the strictest orders had been received 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 a while the boat came again alongside, and the officers declaring that the orders received from Constantinople were imperative and unexceptional, formally enjoined us in the name of the Pasha to abstain from any attempt to land.