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,
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