Volume 2

Travels of Lady Hester Stanhope, forming the completion of her memoirs, narrated by her physician.

  • Meryon, Charles Lewis, 1783-1877.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Travels of Lady Hester Stanhope, forming the completion of her memoirs, narrated by her physician. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    34/424 (page 16)
    The dress of the Damascus women, when out of doors, consists of a long white sheet, and over the face a muslin handkerchief, through which they can see very well without a possibility of having their features distinguished by others. If men are not present, this handkerchief is often thrown up over the top of the head; and some, fairer than others, if desirous of practising a little coquetry, and of letting their features be seen, will suffer the gentlemen to come upon them as if un- awares, and then in haste throw down the handkerchief. When I became better acquainted with the language and usages of the country, I was surprised to see how ineffectual all the devices of veils, cloaks, separate apartments, keepers, duennas, &c., are for guarding those who are resolved to be under no restraint: and a gentleman of the country assured me that there were few women who had not their gallants. I half believed him ; for his own gallantries were notorious, and some circumstances that had happened to myself since our arrival at Damascus had given me a partial insight into the subject. When it is considered how very fanatic the inhabi- tants of Damascus were,1 and in what great abhorrence 1 The fanaticism of the people of Damascus surpasses that of the inhabitants of Egypt, since a European cannot, without danger, show himself in the streets in the dress of his country, hut is obliged to assume the costume of the East. A Christian or Jew cannot ride on horseback in the town: they are not permitted even to have an ass to ride upon.—Ali Beys Tra- vels > vol. ii., p. 273.