A Legend from the West

We were casting our gaze toward the west, having climbed a knoll on which stands "Deir al-Mukhalles," and it falls upon a view that a person sees only in Lebanon or in color films.

And the young monk, who had begun pointing with his finger to a certain knoll over there, said: on "Dahr al-Sitt" you will find her grave.. and in this grave the legend lies at rest.

And we looked out, feasting our eyes on the sight of the hills, each one climbing into the lap of another, all of them wrapped in a green spread down to the edge of the blue sea that fills their air with whisperings.

What manner of poetess was this, who chose to die in a place like this??

The monk-father let his gaze wander a little, then said: "I do not know much about her — neither I nor the other young fathers. You may ask the elderly among us; as for me, I have known her only through some of the books that treat of the modern history of Syria."

We were carrying one of these books, and we turned back to it whenever we wished to ponder some side of this woman's life.

Did I tell you that she was a woman??

Yes — an Englishwoman, whose infatuation with the East drove her to live in it and to die a legend that the villagers speak of in the tales they tell their children, and to which the books point as one of the few adventuresses the eighteenth century knew.

We left the hospitable monastery and drove down a little in the car; then we stopped at a certain point and left the car behind.

And on an unpaved side road, along whose two sides bramble and za'tar and wild flowers tangle, we set about climbing the hill the villagers call "Dahr al-Sitt."

And "the Sitt" was none other than this Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope, about whom we had come to gather up the tales.

Our companion the monk said:
She was not one of those women who love life soft and easy; she built her house at the very top of this hill, and she used to ride a horse going up and coming down.

We said nothing as we stood to gather our breath, and we arrived after half an hour, having met on our way only a little shepherd girl, who came forward to kiss the young monk's hand; he smiled at her and gave her a small icon of the Virgin, which she pressed to her breast with thanks.

And we stood before the remains of a palace, surrounded by a large abandoned garden.

The monk said: here is her house.

And we began to look about us, trying to find something that spoke with the air of the legend — but our expectation was disappointed by the lowing of a cow tied to the wall, faced at the other wall by an ancient donkey.

We called out, in case someone should come out to us, for we had been told that a farming family lived in the place.

An old woman came out to us, her face furrowed like freshly plowed earth; she came toward us, taken aback by all these people descending upon her without warning.

She said, after mumbling phrases of welcome.. whom do you want, my children?

The Father replied: they are asking whether you know any stories about "the Sitt."

She said: "We are strangers here; we know nothing. It is said that a foreign woman lived in the place, strange in her ways.. abundant in money, who fed her dogs the produce of the vineyards... And that was long ago, before I was born, or my mother either. We know no more than this. We are poor folk; nothing in the world concerns us but this crop of ours. There is her grave, if you wish to see it."

And she pointed to a neighboring field, half hedged in with olive trees, in whose middle was a modest grave; we walked toward it, pursued by the clucking of the hens — the old woman's hens.

A marble tomb, on whose sides mosses had sprouted, topped by a marble slab on which were carved her name and the dates of her birth and her death.

And on the grave there was no cross!!

We stood a contemplative moment: in this small grave rest the remains of a woman great in her ambitions.

And we began to move our gaze from the grave to the remains of the palace and back again, trying to form for ourselves a picture of this strong woman.

And the lowing of the cow, the braying of the donkey, and the clucking of the hens in the nearby field kept eating away at the romanticism of the scene.

The book that tells of the Lady was in my hand; the old woman was still insisting that they were poor peasants who had nothing to do with this strange Sitt; and a villager who had volunteered his mistaken information was saying: she was a sorceress with many arts of sorcery.

All of this only sharpened my curiosity; but I despaired of any likelihood of hearing something of value from these people, who had torn the magic of the legend to pieces. Lady Hester was the granddaughter of one of England's prime ministers, Chatham, whose history there is no room for here. In explanation of the reasons for her coming, it is said that she was struck by the sad end of a love she bore for Sir John Moore, so she folded her wings and came to bury her sorrows in this East.

And it was said that she was an adventuress, endowed with a rare strength and with an eccentricity of temperament that made of her a woman strange in her ways.

And that she was bewitching of personality, strong in argument, reaching what she wanted without great trouble.

She landed at Sidon in 1812 to write a stirring page of her life; and it was said, too, that her coming was for political reasons, and that she enjoyed influence with the authorities.

Her first triumph was to head an expedition that went searching for the remains of the city of Palmyra (Tadmor) among the sands of the Syrian desert. Many tried to turn her from her resolve — the adventure was no easy one, and the Bedouin were too violent to respect a woman .. a white woman ..!!

So she was told .. but she insisted, and she achieved her triumph when she reached, with the expedition, the capital of Zenobia.

Perhaps her horsemanship charmed the brave Bedouin, for they proved to her that they were the exact opposite of what had been said of them: they received her with a delightful welcome, with their dances and their drums, and they went further still, standing her among the columns of an ancient palace and crowning her "Queen of the East." This romanticism charmed her, and she lived with the feeling of being queen of the East to the last moment of her life.

She no longer wished to return to Europe. So she went and bought lands at Joun near Sidon and built herself a palace there. And it is said that the Lady's secret agents used to receive their orders from there ..

What activity did this woman carry on? No one knows. It is said she was generous, of such gallantry that no one ever sought her out and turned back disappointed; and that in times of political crisis her residence was a refuge for throngs of seekers — so much so that the Grand Vizier respected this refuge, though he knew well her many stands by which she defied Emir Bashir and Muhammad Ali Pasha, then the Vali of Egypt; indeed the latter (that is, Muhammad Ali) said that the Lady caused him as much trouble as all the rebels put together.

Visitors from everywhere frequented her palace (among them France's poet Lamartine), and so she remained until a day came when, for reasons unknown, she closed her doors to Europeans; whereupon these took to inventing tales about her which the Arabs, who saw in her a saint, would never grant them ..

But she was strange in her ways, without a doubt, and the older she grew, the more the tales about her multiplied.

They told that a soothsayer, formerly a general in Napoleon's army, was her constant guest .. and that she hated nothing so much as she hated the women of the missionary societies ...

And when age advanced upon her, she would sleep the whole day through and give her nights to her guests .. receiving them beneath the light of the stars .. for she did not want them to see the lines of old age invading her face.

A European who had met her in the house of one of the Druze sheikhs once described her: "She is tall, of graceful figure, wearing a saffron-colored robe with red stripes, with an embroidered vest fastened at the neck by a gold pin. She is exceedingly majestic, holding the mouthpiece of the narghile in her right hand and toying with her left hand with the beads of an amber rosary. Her appearance calls forth awe and obedience more than affection."

Despite her great influence and her many acquaintances, she had no friends .. There is one account which says she had a love affair with a young man who was beneath her in strength of personality .. but it is established that she lived alone for a great part of her life, and that in her last years she suffered from financial troubles, for the legendary appearance cost her a great deal.

And she died, and all her fortune was this modest grave in which her remains found rest.

She died, and her stories remained the talk of the evening gatherings the villagers hold around their hearth fires.

And the legend went on charming the visitors who come from afar, searching for legends in our land ..

And the palace went on telling of her glory, until time grew old and the faces changed, and it became a shelter for peasants, and pens for cattle and sheep.

And the grave remained dignified; before it a person cannot but feel a hush of reverence.

★

And I folded my book and rose from the great stone on which I had been sitting. The sunlight was drawing back from the grave, slipping away between the olive branches.

I turned, and found neither the peasant woman nor the villager nor the cow nor the donkey .. I found my companions: one taking a photograph of the grave, and one drinking in the view so as to describe the place well in his radio program.

And the bell of Deir al-Mukhalles could be heard from afar, ringing for evening .. I cast one more look at the grave, and I fancied it was begging us to leave it to its stillness.

And our procession went back down the hill to take a car that would carry it to the coast, drawn along on an evening journey whose phantoms were the orange and banana and loquat trees .. And not one of us uttered a word — perhaps all of us were picturing chapters from the life of this adventuress whom the Bedouin, with great generosity, crowned queen over our East!!