DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5504#0034
128 Travels in Greece, Turkey, and the Holy Land,
cases, which scarcely afford a passage to a single person : three
flights of wide corridors, opened in arcades, face the court, in
the centre of which is a fountain. There it was that I was
greeted by the hospitality of M. Pillavoine, the consul of France
in Syria: he found some difficulty in providing ine with a cor-
ner in which I could be lodged with any degree of comfort.
Eight or ten thousand Turks, Arabs, Jews, and Christians,
are to be seen parading the streets of Saint-Jean-d'Acre, and
the infected bazars, with an aspect at once savage and sombre.
The senses each in its turn, are disagreeably affected by the
most hideous deformities: beings, who seem to have risen
from their graves, crawl about half naked, wrapped up in
large blankets of a dirty white, striped with black, and the
head muffled in rags which serve as a turban. At each step,
at the side of the victims of opthalmia, are to be seen the
victims of Gezzar Pacha,* either blind, or wretches without a
nose, and without ears. This assemblage of men, sluggisb,
miserable, and disgusting, may be constantly seen lying in the
sun beneath the walls of the gardens of the seraglio. Soliman
Pacha, who inhabits this palace, seldom stirs abroad to show
himself to the public: this successor of Gezzar, deaf to the
cries of an unfortunate population, spends his life in myrtle
groves, beneath the shade of plaintains watered by deep and
limpid brooks.
The conduct of affairs is entirely abandoned by him to a Jew,
named Haim Farhi. This man, who was the intendant of
Gezzar Pacha, preserved the confidence of his master by sub-
mitting implicitly to his whimsical caprices. The tyrant dou-
bled his wages, and heaped benefits on him, on the very day
when he had his nose mutilated in so cruel a manner, that
this sarraf f has ever since been horribly disfigured. Haim,
who is supple and adroit, has hoarded together incalculable
treasures. The present pacha of Saint-Jean-d'Acre owes to
the intrigues of this Jew the advantage of having been chosen
the successor of Gezzar: when the latter was on his death
bed, this puppet was brought forward, and placed foremost in
the rank of those who paid to him their dissembled homages
and respects. Soliman and Haim Farhi are engaged in an ex-
clusive and despotic commerce: they are the sole proprietors
of the immense grounds which surround Saint-Jean-d'Acre
and Nazareth. The extortions, the oppressions, and the ty-
ranny of the details of this odious government, inspire the
most profound contempt for those who submit to it.
Haim Farhi is the chief of the Hebrews of Syria. He has
* El-Gezzar, the butcher.
t Confidential secretary
cases, which scarcely afford a passage to a single person : three
flights of wide corridors, opened in arcades, face the court, in
the centre of which is a fountain. There it was that I was
greeted by the hospitality of M. Pillavoine, the consul of France
in Syria: he found some difficulty in providing ine with a cor-
ner in which I could be lodged with any degree of comfort.
Eight or ten thousand Turks, Arabs, Jews, and Christians,
are to be seen parading the streets of Saint-Jean-d'Acre, and
the infected bazars, with an aspect at once savage and sombre.
The senses each in its turn, are disagreeably affected by the
most hideous deformities: beings, who seem to have risen
from their graves, crawl about half naked, wrapped up in
large blankets of a dirty white, striped with black, and the
head muffled in rags which serve as a turban. At each step,
at the side of the victims of opthalmia, are to be seen the
victims of Gezzar Pacha,* either blind, or wretches without a
nose, and without ears. This assemblage of men, sluggisb,
miserable, and disgusting, may be constantly seen lying in the
sun beneath the walls of the gardens of the seraglio. Soliman
Pacha, who inhabits this palace, seldom stirs abroad to show
himself to the public: this successor of Gezzar, deaf to the
cries of an unfortunate population, spends his life in myrtle
groves, beneath the shade of plaintains watered by deep and
limpid brooks.
The conduct of affairs is entirely abandoned by him to a Jew,
named Haim Farhi. This man, who was the intendant of
Gezzar Pacha, preserved the confidence of his master by sub-
mitting implicitly to his whimsical caprices. The tyrant dou-
bled his wages, and heaped benefits on him, on the very day
when he had his nose mutilated in so cruel a manner, that
this sarraf f has ever since been horribly disfigured. Haim,
who is supple and adroit, has hoarded together incalculable
treasures. The present pacha of Saint-Jean-d'Acre owes to
the intrigues of this Jew the advantage of having been chosen
the successor of Gezzar: when the latter was on his death
bed, this puppet was brought forward, and placed foremost in
the rank of those who paid to him their dissembled homages
and respects. Soliman and Haim Farhi are engaged in an ex-
clusive and despotic commerce: they are the sole proprietors
of the immense grounds which surround Saint-Jean-d'Acre
and Nazareth. The extortions, the oppressions, and the ty-
ranny of the details of this odious government, inspire the
most profound contempt for those who submit to it.
Haim Farhi is the chief of the Hebrews of Syria. He has
* El-Gezzar, the butcher.
t Confidential secretary