A TRYING ECCENTRIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 22, 26 January 1935, Page 8 (Supplement)

A TRYING ECCENTRIC.

Favourite niece and housekeeper of the great Prime Minister Pitt, Lady Hester Stanhope, who died in 1839, startled England soon after the death of lier lover, Sir John Moore, hero of Corunna, by retiring to a® chieftainess' life in a fortress on Mount Lebanon, near Damascus.

She lived with 35 native servants behind her ten-foot walls, wore a turban on lier shaven head, long scarlet pantaloons, a white cloak, and yellow boots, sometimes prided herself on going about in rags, would have no clocks (she considered them unnatural), and smoked a hookah. All the sheike were afraid of her, and would obey her orders, but she hated the local British Consul. She jangled her bell for trifles all through the .night, and had in the y-jird two men who rudely awakened her servants if they pretended not to hear. A mulo she had was allowed to work only when its stars were favourable. Her retainers were not allowed to "emile or scratch themselves," were chastised with a mace, or by having their noses rubbed in a doormat, and they had to kneel in her presence when travellers arrived. She was six feet tall, and her blows were to be feared. What astounded visitors (says Mr. C. A. Lyon) was her talking capacity. She once talked to her doctor for thirteen hours at a etretch. One listener fainted with fatigue. Lady Hester's last days at Lebanon were wretched. Despite energetic protests, Palmerston* stopped part of her allowance to pay her debts, and she said that her rank would not allow her to reduce her strange household. As soon as she died the natives stripped the room of everything and hastened from the! place. I