THIRTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE EAST, 9 



and, in consequence of his sedentary life, was troubled 

 with hemorrhoids and obstructions. He consulted me, 

 and when I ordered him to apply a clyster, he measured 

 me wildly with his eyes, as if I had ordered him 

 some dangerous remedy ; I repented having done 

 so. I remembered afterwards, that the Arabian physici- 

 ans, although aware of the eflficacy of clysters, as they 

 are recommended in their medical books, seldom apply 

 them, and only in cases where all other remedies fail, 

 as they consider it as a last resource ; in a country 

 where pederasty is in vogue, it is disgraceful to acknow- 

 ledge that fact. At his request for a proper remedy to 

 be taken by the mouth, I prepared for him the well 

 known aloetic dinner-pills, mentioned in the second vol- 

 ume of this work, from which he found great benefit. 



Besides these pills, I ordered him to observe the fol- 

 lowing rules : Post coenam stabis, vel possus mille 

 meabis, or — 



" After dinner, sit a while ; 

 After supper, walk a mile." 



« 



For several years I spent the cold seasons In the 

 maritime towns on the Syrian coast, at Tripoli or Bey- 

 rout, where the winters are only rainy ; but I passed 

 the hot summer-months in the most agreeable regions 

 of Mount Lebanon. At Araba, not far from Seyda, I 

 made the acquaintance of that original person, Lady 

 Hester Stanhope, who called herself Queen of Palmyra. 

 I was told that she ordered a herd of goats to be 

 killed, and buried, and paid the people who did so, well, 

 only because a few of them were scabby, and she 

 thought by that expedient to prevent epidemical diseas- 

 es, which might occur by their eating the flesh, or 

 drinking the milk. Not far from Tripoli, there lay at 

 the foot of the Lebanon, in a very romantic valley, a 

 village called Mesrut-ul-Toofah (apple-district), where I was 

 requested to attend some fever patients. My friends advised 



