But this very circumstance, which at first appeared so unfavourable, turned out to be advantageous.  The General, finding that he could not have his words translated, ceased to speak in Italian, and recurred to his accustomed French; he became eloquent.  No one present except myself understood one syllable of what he was saying, but he had drawn forth his passport, and the energy and violence with which, as he spoke, he pointed to the graven Eagle of all the Russias, began to make an impression.  The Pasha saw at his side a man not only free from every the least pang of fear, but raging, as it seemed, with just indignation, and thenceforward he plainly began to think that, in some way or other (he could not tell how) he must certainly have been in the wrong.  In a little time he was so much shaken that the Italian ventured to resume his interpretation, and my comrade had again the opportunity of pressing his attack upon the Pasha.  His argument, if I rightly recollect its import, was to this effect:  “If the vilest Jews were to come into the harbour, you would but forbid them to land, and force them to perform quarantine; yet this is the very course, O Pasha, which your rash officers dared to think of adopting with us!—­those mad and reckless men would have actually dealt towards a Russian general officer and an English gentleman as if they had been wretched Israelites!  Never—­never will we submit to such an indignity.  His Imperial Majesty knows how to protect his nobles from insult, and would never endure that a General of his army should be treated in matter of quarantine as though he were a mere Eastern Jew!” This argument told with great effect.  The Pasha fairly admitted that he felt its weight, and he now only struggled to obtain such a compromise as might partly save his dignity.  He wanted us to perform a quarantine of one day for form’s sake, and in order to show his people that he was not utterly defied; but finding that we were inexorable, he not only abandoned his attempt, but promised to supply us with horses.

When the discussion had arrived at this happy conclusion tchibouques and coffee were brought, and we passed, I think, nearly an hour in friendly conversation.  The Pasha, it now appeared, had once been a prisoner of war in Russia, and a conviction of the Emperor’s vast power, necessarily acquired during this captivity, made him perhaps more alive than an untravelled Turk would have been to the force of my comrade’s eloquence.

The Pasha now gave us a generous feast.  Our promised horses were brought without much delay.  I gained my loved saddle once more, and when the moon got up and touched the heights of Taurus, we were joyfully winding our way through the first of his rugged defiles.

APPENDIX—­THE HOME OF LADY HESTER STANHOPE

It was late when we came in sight of two high conical hills, on one of which stands the village of Djouni, on the other a circular wall, over which dark trees were waving; and this was the place in which Lady Hester Stanhope had finished her strange and eventful career.  It had formerly been a convent, but the Pasha of Sidon had given it to the “prophet-lady,” who converted its naked walls into a palace, and its wilderness into gardens.