Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/265

 preserves, sugar, wine, lamps, &c. From another room, (the roof of which had fallen in at the time of the great earthquake,) had disappeared, according to Lady Hester's account, 3 cwt. of copper utensils, in cauldrons, boilers, saucepans, kettles, round platters, called sennéyah, and many other things. A leather portmanteau lay with the lock cut out; a trunk had its hinges wrenched off; and both were emptied of their contents. Everywhere proofs of pillage were manifest, and the village of Abra was notoriously thriving by it. For ten years this plundering system had been going on, and yet what still remained would have almost filled a house. Among other things were papers and boxes of seeds, roots, dried plants, and a variety of such matters, which Lady Hester had collected: "for," she would say, "the importance of people's pursuits is judged in a different way by different individuals. For example, Sir Joseph Bankes would think I had done wonders if I found a spider that had two more joints than another in his hind-leg; and Sir Abraham Hume would embrace me if I had got a coin not in his collection; but I have hoarded up something for everybody. And yet, whether I have done good for humanity or for science, those English give me credit for nothing, and never even once ask how I got into debt."

February 10.—I spent four hours with Lady Hester