DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11448#0334
28
THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS. [chap, in
years old, reminded me of her relative, the great statesman, that
lay dying in the House of Lords, according to Copley's picture ;
her face was of the most astonishing whiteness ; she wore a very
large turban, which seemed to be of pale Cashmere shawls, so as
entirely to conceal the hair ; her dress, from the chin down to
the point at which it was concealed by the drapery which she
held over her lap, was a mass of white linen loosely folding—an
ecclesiastical sort of affair, more like a surplice than any of those
blessed creations which our souls love under the names of ' bod-
dice,' and ' collar,' and ' habit-shirt,' and sweet ' chemisette.'
Such was the outward seeming of the personage that sat before
me ; and indeed, she was almost bound, by the fame of her ac-
tual achievement, as well as by her sublime pretensions, to look a
little differently from the rest of womankind."*
All that I could gather from report I here subjoin in a letter,
which I wrote at the time to the author of " Eothen," and which
he has done me the honour to quote in his work:—
" Djouni, May, 1843.
" I reached this strange hermitage last night; and, though
Time, and some naval officers who accompanied me hither, are
pressing my departure, I am too glad to find myself in a place
which I am indebted to your description for having visited, to al-
low the opportunity of writing to you to pass by.
" How beautiful must have been this convent-palace when you
saw it—its strange mistress doing its hospitalities, and exercising
her self-won regal power ! She appears to have carried things
with a high hand in this curious country : a friend of mine has a
13tter from the Sultan to her beginning ' Cousin.' Mehemet Ali
could make nothing of her : she annihilated a village for disobe-
dience, and burned a mountain-chalet with all its inhabitants, on
account of the murder of two French travellers, who had been
under the protection of her Firman. To the last she held on gal-
lantly ; a^d, even when confined to her bed and dying, she sought
for no companionship or comfort but such as she could find in her
own powerful, though unmanageable mind.
* Eothen, p. 122.
THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS. [chap, in
years old, reminded me of her relative, the great statesman, that
lay dying in the House of Lords, according to Copley's picture ;
her face was of the most astonishing whiteness ; she wore a very
large turban, which seemed to be of pale Cashmere shawls, so as
entirely to conceal the hair ; her dress, from the chin down to
the point at which it was concealed by the drapery which she
held over her lap, was a mass of white linen loosely folding—an
ecclesiastical sort of affair, more like a surplice than any of those
blessed creations which our souls love under the names of ' bod-
dice,' and ' collar,' and ' habit-shirt,' and sweet ' chemisette.'
Such was the outward seeming of the personage that sat before
me ; and indeed, she was almost bound, by the fame of her ac-
tual achievement, as well as by her sublime pretensions, to look a
little differently from the rest of womankind."*
All that I could gather from report I here subjoin in a letter,
which I wrote at the time to the author of " Eothen," and which
he has done me the honour to quote in his work:—
" Djouni, May, 1843.
" I reached this strange hermitage last night; and, though
Time, and some naval officers who accompanied me hither, are
pressing my departure, I am too glad to find myself in a place
which I am indebted to your description for having visited, to al-
low the opportunity of writing to you to pass by.
" How beautiful must have been this convent-palace when you
saw it—its strange mistress doing its hospitalities, and exercising
her self-won regal power ! She appears to have carried things
with a high hand in this curious country : a friend of mine has a
13tter from the Sultan to her beginning ' Cousin.' Mehemet Ali
could make nothing of her : she annihilated a village for disobe-
dience, and burned a mountain-chalet with all its inhabitants, on
account of the murder of two French travellers, who had been
under the protection of her Firman. To the last she held on gal-
lantly ; a^d, even when confined to her bed and dying, she sought
for no companionship or comfort but such as she could find in her
own powerful, though unmanageable mind.
* Eothen, p. 122.