No sooner, however, had the poor agent explained the state of affairs by means of the interpreter, than the guests, one and all, fell into a violent passion, and asked the consul how he had dared to insult them by asking them to dinner, when he was not in a position to treat them as became persons of their rank and distinction. Saying this, they swept from the room in a towering passion, leaving the poor agent lost in amazement how to account for such conduct from persons who styled themselves English gentlemen, and overcome with shame and vexation that his neighbours should have been witness to such an outrage.
This anecdote requires no comment. Happily such instances of gross misconduct are of rare occurrence, but it plainly exemplifies the absurd system followed by government in placing native agents all over Syria and Turkey, to whom they do not afford means of maintaining a position which ought to command respect.
The present system of native agencies is altogether a mistake; they should be entrusted only to those who have previously had a European education. Most of those now employed have been reared in dread of the very name of the _local powers_, and are inefficient in cases of controversy between subjects of two nations.
I may here be permitted to deviate a little from the subject of Lattakia and my travels, to make a few remarks on the uses and abuses of the protection-system, so largely practised all over Syria and Turkey.
The abuses of the system are very great; this is much to be regretted, because in the main the arrangements existing between the Ottoman government and European powers with regard to this particular subject, viz., that of the privileges enjoyed by Europeans to protect a limited number of persons actually in the service of consuls, merchants, and others, is a very great boon to Europeans. Were it not for this privilege, Europeans residing in Syria would find it a very difficult matter to procure good and efficient servants at moderate wages.
In some parts of Syria, where every creature-comfort or necessary is extremely cheap, the lower orders, who are generally of an indolent disposition, would much prefer remaining idle for one-half of the year to engaging in any occupation which might make it incumbent on them to go through a certain portion of daily labour; and this they can afford to do, as their habits are frugal, and the amount gained in one day by a labourer, will suffice to support himself and family for three days. This applies equally to the fellah or peasant employed in cultivation. His portion of the silk harvest is sufficient to maintain him till the wheat crop is gathered in, when he earns with his scythe a sufficiency to maintain him in idleness till the olive and grape harvests arrive, and then he is either paid in cash or allowed a certain quantity of wheat, oil, wine, aqua vitæ, _dibis_, { 92} raisins, etc., as recompense for his labour. Of this store he lays by a sufficiency for the winter; the silk and the surplus of the wheat, etc., he either sells or barters for other household requisites, such as clothing, butter and charcoal. He brings his own fuel from the mountains, and, if he be at all a careful manager, can keep an ass or a mule of his own to carry goods and passengers to and from the nearest towns and villages. Thus, with a very small amount of labour, the peasant of Syria can afford to have an idle time of it, were he not in terror of government taxes; for although the system of taxation is fairly and justly arranged, and in reality the sums levied are small in proportion to the income, still there are understrappers, besides their own Christian Nazir and Sheikhs, who peculate to a large extent under the plea of some false necessity. This induces the peasant gladly to embrace any opportunity that may offer of entering into the service of a Frank; for from the hour of his employment he is, to all intents and purposes, the subject of another power; he is exempt from taxation, and the officials durst not intrude themselves upon the privacy of his household, under penalty of being at loggerheads with the consuls and pashas, and possibly of being exposed to the ignominy of the bastinado.