Punch: Punch (21.1851)

154 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

PUNCH'S ANNIVERSARIES—No. 7. SEDAN CHAIRS FIRST INTRODUCED INTO ENGLAND,

BY SIR SANDERS DTJNCOMB, SEPTEMBER 27th, 1634.

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE SYRIO-LEBANON

FAMILY.

We called at the Egyptian Hall about two o'clock, and found the
family at home. We sent up our card (which is our passport all over
the world), and were introduced to them at once.

We found them in a first-floor back. The room at times is very
dark, but, perhaps, the view from the window is all the more delightful
for that. From this window you enjoy the most charming Panorama
of the Holy Land. We must say the Syrio-Lebanon Family have been
most fortunate in their choice of a lodging. One would imagine it had
been purposely constructed for them. Let them look out of their large
green-baize window, at what hour they will—at twelve, or three, or
even eight o'clock in the evening—and there they will see the beauties
of'their lovely country unrolling themselves peacefully, like a picture
from a cylinder, before their enraptured eyes.

As we entered the room, a piano was playing. It was strange to
hear the sounds of civilisation carried so far as Syria. We little
expected to fall over a Cottage on the top of Mount Lebanon, or to be
followed by a Bioadwood through the gorgeous aisles of the Great
Mosque of Omar !

We were received most politely by the Syrio-Lebanon Family, They
are fourteen in family; and a very fine family, too, as far as we can
judge. Their dress is very much in the Bloomer style, with the
addition of the Turkish fez. The ladies wear Bloomer trousers, with
ankle-jacks, and look very comfortable in them.

To oblige us they got up a wedding. A Syrian wedding is gone
through with a great deal of noise, and a great deal of smoking, and a
great deal of drinking. The noise resembles in shrillness the sound
which we have heard little field-boys make to frighten away the crows.
The smoking is the finest Turkish tobacco; and the ladies smoke as
well as the gentlemen. Fancy marrying a young lady who has just
been smoking a long clay pipe, though the clay pipes which the Syrians
smoke are beautiful Narghiles; but, comparatively, it is all the same.
The drinking is coffee and arrack, and they drink so many cups that
we wonder the nappy couple are not sometimes carried to church on
stretchers.

Both the bride and bridegroom behaved remarkably well. The bride-
groom showed immense courage, which we could not help admiring,
and the bride did not cry, nor go into hysterics, nor faint, nor commit
any of the fashionable affectations peculiar only to English brides. We
thought this a great improvement on an English wedding, though the
wedding-breakfast was a sad falling-off. It consisted of more noise,
more pipes, and more coffee, without a single bottle of champagne; but
then, to make amends, there was no proposing of healths, and no
toasts, and no crying, when the bride was carried home. She left her
papa and mamma in the happiest manner, and did not seem in the least
miserable because her husband was going to take her away. English
brides might learn a great deal from a Syrian wedding.

The coolness of the bridegroom, we must say, vastly_ surprised us.
He did not look in the least sheepish, nor ashamed of himself. If he
had been going through the Insolvent Debtors' Court, he could not
have taken it more coolly. This courage was all_ the more surprising,
as a Syrian bridegroom is not allowed to see his wife's face till after
the ceremony is completed, when it is too late, of course, to change it.
Fancy marrying a young lady, whom, in your mind's eye, you have
actually imagined to be all perfection and finding, when the veil was
lifted, that she squinted ! What a dreadful blow to your mind's eye !
We are afraid that, if the Syrian ceremony was prevalent in England,
we never should get married at all The mystery would be so awful,
that we never should have the heart to face it. The ceremony is quite
terrible enough, as it is, without an additional terror being ihrown, in
the shape of a veil, over it. By-the-by, this custom says but little for
the beauty of the Syrian women. Are the young ladies that play at
bo-peep round the cedars of Lebanon, so very plain that it is thought
prudent not to let their husbands see their faces till after they are
married? It is very lucky the custom does not exist with English
ladies, for very few, we are sure, would give their pretty countenances
to it. The veil would be torn to pieces in less than a week, or would
be made so transparent that any one, " with half an eye,"—as the saying
is, though we never recollect meeting any one who only had "half
an eye "—would be able to see through it; and if any one did take the
veil, it would be because she could not get any one to marry her, or
because some designing Roman Catholic priest had persuaded her, poor
girl, for the sake of her fortune, to go into a convent. Thus do the