The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, vol 2 | Page 8

Prince Schwartzenburg for some years,
and had two or three children by him, and then he basely deserted her. I
am afraid after that she led a life for a year or two over which it is
kinder to draw a veil. She then tired of Europe, and conceived the idea
of visiting the East, and of imitating Lady Hester Stanhope and other
European ladies, who became more Eastern than the Easterns. She
arrived at Beyrout, and went to Damascus, where she arranged to go to
Baghdad, across the desert. For this journey a Bedawin escort was
necessary; and as the Mezrab tribe occupied the ground, the duty of
commanding the escort devolved upon Shaykh Mijwal, a younger
brother of the chief of this tribe. On the journey the young Shaykh fell
in love with this beautiful woman, and she fell in love with him. The
romantic picture of becoming a queen of the desert suited her wild and
roving fancy. She married him, in spite of all opposition, according to
the Mohammedan law. At the time I came to Damascus she was living
half the year in a house just within the city gates; the other half of the
year she passed in the desert in the tents of the Bedawin tribe, living
absolutely as a Bedawin woman. When I first saw her she was a most
beautiful woman, though sixty-one years of age. She wore one blue
garment, and her beautiful hair was in two long plaits down to the
ground. When she was in the desert, she used to milk the camels, serve
her husband, prepare his food, wash his hands, face, and feet, and stood
and waited on him while he ate, like any Arab woman, and gloried in
so doing. But at Damascus she led a semi-European life. She blackened
her eyes with kohl, and lived in a curiously untidy manner. But
otherwise she was not in the least extraordinary at Damascus. But what
was incomprehensible to me was how she could have given up all she
had in England to live with that dirty little black--or nearly so--husband.

I could understand her leaving a coarse, cruel husband, much older than
herself, whom she never loved (every woman has not the strength of
mind and the pride to stand by what she has done); I could understand
her running away with Schwartzenburg; but the contact with that black
skin I could not understand. Her Shaykh was very dark--darker than a
Persian, and much darker than an Arab generally is. All the same, he
was a very intelligent and charming man in any light but as a husband.
That made me shudder. It was curious how she had retained the
charming manner, the soft voice, and all the graces of her youth. You
would have known her at once to be an English lady, well born and
bred, and she was delighted to greet in me one of her own order. We
became great friends, and she dictated to me the whole of her
biography, and most romantic and interesting it is. I took a great
interest in the poor thing. She was devoted to her Shaykh, whereat I
marvelled greatly. Gossip said that he had other wives, but she assured
me that he had not, and that both her brother Lord Digby and the
British Consul required a legal and official statement to that effect
before they were married. She appeared to be quite foolishly in love
with him (and I fully comprehend any amount of sacrifice for the man
one loves--the greater the better), though the object of her devotion
astonished me. Her eyes often used to fill with tears when talking of
England, her people, and old times; and when we became more
intimate, she spoke to me of every detail of her erring but romantic
career. It was easy to see that Schwartzenburg had been the love of her
life, for her eyes would light up with a glory when she mentioned him,
and she whispered his name with bated breath. It was his desertion
which wrecked her life. Poor thing! she was far more sinned against
than sinning.
Our other friend at Damascus was the famous Abd el Kadir. Every one
knows his history: every one has heard of his hopeless struggles for the
independence of Algeria; his capture and imprisonment in France from
1847 to 1852, when he was set free by Louis Napoleon on the
intercession of Lord Londonderry. More than that Louis Napoleon was
magnanimous enough to pension him, and sent him to Damascus,
where he was living when we came, surrounded by five hundred
faithful Algerians. He loved the English, but was very loyal to Louis
Napoleon. He was dark, and a splendid-looking man with a stately

bearing, and