Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/117

 Egyptian conscripts were sent into Syria: so that no sympathy, in either case, existed between the troops and the people amongst whom they were quartered, which acted as a direct check upon the spirit of insurrection.

So far, everything had gone on peaceably, and the quiet portion of the inhabitants rejoiced in seeing their neighbourhood cleared of such troublesome rabble. But latterly the conscription had begun to fall on the families of shopkeepers, tradesmen, small farmers, and the like: and it will be seen that, of all the changes introduced by Ibrahim Pasha into the government of the country, the conscription became the most odious.

The first intimation people had of the levies this year was one evening, when, as the inhabitants of Sayda were coming out of their mosques, gangs of soldiers suddenly appeared at the doors, and laid hands on all the young men. At the same moment, similar measures had been taken at the coffee-houses, and nothing was to be seen but young fellows dragged through the streets, or running off in all directions to, secrete themselves in some friend’s house, stable, vault, or the like. The city gates were closed, and there was no outlet for the fugitives: but Sayda, although walled in, has many houses with windows looking on the fields; and from these, during the night, some let themselves down and escaped to the gardens, or vil-