gardens and orchards, by bubbling water, and under the shady fig and
vine, pomegranate and walnut. You emerged from these shady avenues on
to the soft yellow sand of the desert, where you could gallop as hard
as you pleased. There were no boundary-lines, no sign-posts, nothing
to check one's spirits or one's energy. The breath of the desert
is liberty.




CHAPTER XII. EARLY DAYS AT DAMASCUS. (1870).


Though old as history itself, thou art fresh as breath of spring,
blooming as thine own rosebud, as fragrant as thine own orange
flower, O Damascus, Pearl of the East!


As soon as we had settled in our house I had to accustom myself to the
honours of my position, which at first were rather irksome to me; but
as they were part of the business I had to put up with them. I found my
position as the wife of the British Consul in Damascus very different
from what it had been in Brazil. A consul in the East as _envoye_ of
a Great Power is a big man, and he ranks almost as high as a Minister
would in Europe. Nearer home a consul is often hardly considered to be
a gentleman, while in many countries he is not allowed to go to Court.
In the East, however, the Consular service was, at the time I write, an
honoured profession, and the _envoyes_ of the Great Powers were expected
to keep up a little state, especially the English and the French. They
had a certain number of Consular dragomans, or gentleman secretaries, in