Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/299

 for so she wished, that I might not be annoyed, she said, and have the rash driven in on my brain.

I experienced no ill effects from the nettlerash. Few persons, new to the climate of Syria, escape a rash of some description, sometimes pustular, sometimes miliary, but most frequently in the form called prickly heat, which generally attacks them in summer or autumn, and is truly distressing by the pricking sensation it produces on the skin, as if thousands of needle-points were penetrating the cuticle. Little is required in such cases but cool diet, fruit, and diluents. I performed my quarantine of four days, in compliance with Lady Hester's wishes, and then returned to my customary mode of life.

Saturday, February 24.—As I had anticipated, a report had become very general in Beyrout and in the Mountain that Lady Hester was dead, and I received a letter from M. Guys acquainting me with it. This report was confirmed by an English gentleman, who presented himself at my gate this day after breakfast. I was carpentering at the time, and went down the yard to him with my hatchet and chisel in my hand. He seemed not to know what to make of me, dressed as I was in Turkish clothes, with a beard, and with my sleeves turned up like a mechanic. He held out a letter to me, addressed in a fair hand to Lady Hester: I told him this was not her gate, and that a little