The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, vol 2

The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, vol 2

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II
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Title: The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II
Author: Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6387] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on December 5, 2002] [Date last updated: December 28, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ISABEL LADY BURTON V II ***

This etext was created by Douglas Levy, littera scripta manet

THE ROMANCE OF ISABEL LADY BURTON VOL. II.
The Story of Her Life
Told In Part by HERSELF and In Part by W. H. WILKINS

VOLUME TWO.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
BOOK II. (Continued).
CHAPTER.
XI. IN AND ABOUT DAMASCUS.
XII. EARLY DAYS AT DAMASCUS.
XIII. THROUGH THE DESERT TO PALMYRA.
XIV. BLUDAN IN THE ANTI-LEBANON.
XV. GATHERING CLOUDS.
XVI. JERUSALEM AND THE HOLY LAND.
XVII. THE RECALL.
XVIII. THE TRUE REASONS OF BURTON'S RECALL.
XIX. THE PASSING OF THE CLOUD.
XX. EARLY YEARS AT TRIESTE.
XXI. THE JOURNEY TO BOMBAY.
XXII. INDIA.
XXIII. TRIESTE AGAIN.
XXIV. THE SHADOWS LENGTHEN.
XXV. GORDON AND THE BURTONS.
XXVI. THE SWORD HANGS.
XXVII. THE SWORD FALLS.
BOOK III. WIDOWED.
CHAPTER.
I. THE TRUTH ABOUT "THE SCENTED GARDEN."
II. THE RETURN TO ENGLAND.
III. THE TINKLING OF THE CAMEL'S BELL.

BOOK II. WEDDED (Continued).
CHAPTER XI
. IN AND ABOUT DAMASCUS. (1870).
When I nighted and day'd in Damascus town, Time sware such another he ne'er should view; And careless we slept under wing of night, Till dappled morn 'gan her smiles renew, And dewdrops on branch in their beauty hung Like pearls to be dropt when the zephyr blew, And the lake was the page where birds read and wrote, And the clouds set points to what breezes roll.
Alf Laylah wa Laylah (Burton's"Arabian Nights").
During the first weeks at Damascus my only work was to find a suitable house and to settle down in it. Our predecessor in the Consulate had lived in a large house in the city itself, and as soon as he retired he let it to a wealthy Jew. In any case it would not have suited us, nor would any house within the city walls; for though some of them were quite beautiful--indeed, marble palaces gorgeously decorated and furnished after the manner of oriental houses--yet there is always a certain sense of imprisonment about Damascus, as the windows of the houses are all barred and latticed, and the gates of the city are shut at sunset. This would not have suited our wild-cat proclivities; we should have felt as though we were confined in a cage. So after a search of many days we took a house in the environs, about a quarter of an hour's ride from Damascus, high up the hill. Just beyond it was the desert sand, and in the background a saffron-hued mountain known as the Camomile Mountain; and camomile was the scent which pervaded our village and all Damascus. Our house was in the suburb of Salahiyyeh, and we had good air and light, beautiful views, fresh water, quiet, and above all liberty. In five minutes we could gallop out over the mountains, and there we pitched our tent.
I should like to describe our house at Salahiyyeh, once more, though I have described it before, and Frederick Leighton once drew a sketch of it, so that it is pretty well known. Our house faced the road and the opposite gardens, and it was flanked on one side by the Mosque and on the other by the Hammam (Turkish Bath), and there were gardens at the back. On the other side of the road were apricot trees, whose varying beauty of bud and leaf and flower and fruit can be better imagined than described. Among these apricot orchards I had a capital stable for twelve horses, and a good room attached to it for any number of _saises_, or grooms; and beyond that again was a little garden, through which the river wended its way. So much for the exterior. Now to