At two o'clock in the morning I
felt that I was going to drop out of my saddle, and cried for quarter.
The tents were hastily half pitched, and we lay down on the rugs till
daylight. By that time I had to repair to my litter again, but I felt
so happy at coming near home that I thought I was cured. As we neared
Bludan I was carried along in the litter, and I lay so still that
everybody thought that my corpse was coming home to be buried. The
news spread far and wide, so I had the pleasure of hearing my own
praises and the people's lamentations.
We had not long returned to Bludan before a great excitement arose.
When we had been home about a fortnight, on August 26, Richard received
at night by a mounted messenger two letters, one from Mr. Wright, chief
Protestant missionary at Damascus, and one from the chief dragoman at
the British Consulate, saying that the Christians at Damascus were in
great alarm; most of them had fled from the city, or were flying, and
everything pointed to a wholesale massacre. Only ten years before
(in 1860) there had been the most awful slaughter of Christians at
Damascus; and though it had been put down at last, the embers of hatred
were still smoldering, and might at any time burst into a flame. Now it
seemed there had been one of those eruptions of ill-feeling which were
periodical in Damascus, resulting from so many religions, tongues, and
races being mixed up together.
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