Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 434, December, 1851

This villain died tranquilly in his bed, having survived to the age of ninety. His spiritual and temporal power was continued with various vicissitudes through a long succession of impostors, the dagger still maintaining its mysterious and inevitable agency. The list of the best, and some of the most powerful, of Oriental potentates who perished by it, swells, as the history of the Order proceeds, to an incredible extent. During all this time the fundamental maxim of the creed, which separates the secret doctrines of the initiated from the public tenets of the people, was preserved. These last were (and now are, according to Mr Walpole) held to the strictest injunctions of Mahometanism. The East did not detect the motive power of the Assassins' chief: they only saw the poniard strike those who had offended the envoy of the invisible Imam, who was soon to arrive in power and glory, and to assert his dominion over earth. In the Crusades, the hand of the Assassins is traced in the fate of Raymond of Tripoli – perhaps in that of the Marquis of Montferrat – and in many meaner instances. At that period the numbers of people openly professing the creed is stated by William of Tyre at sixty thousand; and by James, Bishop of Alla, at forty thousand. At this day Mr Walpole estimates the number of the Ansayrii at forty thousand fighting men, including Ismaylis. These numbers are to be understood, however, in former times, as well as in the present, to comprise the whole sect, and not merely the executioners, who always formed a very small proportion, and are now probably extinct. The Old Man is no longer recognised, so far as can be ascertained, among the mountains, (where, as usual in other parts of Syria, the patriarchal form prevails;) and the strange creed that their ancestors held, together with a singular recklessness of life, alone remains to mark their descent. Concerning this creed we are referred by Mr Walpole to some discoveries which he intends to publish in a future volume. We must confess to considerable disappointment in the meagre information that is here afforded to us on the subject, especially after our expectations have been raised by such a preface as the following: —

"Alone, without means, without powers to buy or bribe, I have penetrated a secret, the enigma of ages – have dared alone to venture where none have been – where the government, with five hundred soldiers, could not follow; and, better than all, I have gained esteem among the race condemned as savages, and feared as robbers and ASSASSINS."

Nevertheless, our author has told us a good deal that is new and interesting about the Ansayrii, as will be seen from our extracts.

The Ismaylis, concerning whose woman-worship and peculiar habits such strange stories have been whispered, live among the southern mountains of the Ansayrii. They amount only to five thousand souls, and appear to be a different tribe, (probably Arab,) grafted upon them, and gradually, by superior vigour, possessing themselves of the strongest places in the mountains. These people hold a creed quite distinct from the Ansayrii, among whom they dwell; and the extraordinary prayer, or address used by them seems fully to bear out the long-questioned assertion of their aphrodisial worship.

Marco Polo18 was the first to furnish some curious accounts of the Ansayrii, and of the discipline and catechism of the Fedavie: we hope that Mr Walpole, in his promised volume, will add to the many vindications which that brave old traveller has received from time to time. But at the sack of AlamÅt, in 1257, all the Assassins' books (except the Koran) were burned as impious; and all that now remains of their doctrines must be traditional. We have dwelt thus long on the Ansayrii in order to display the interest that belongs to that secluded and mysterious people, and the importance of any novel intelligence respecting them. Before we proceed to illustrate their country from Mr Walpole's volumes, we must find space for some account of the manner in which the initiation of the Assassins is said to have been performed. The two great strongholds of the Order were the castle of AlamÅt in Irak, and that of Massiat near Latakia in the Lebanon. These fortresses, stern and impregnable in themselves, are said to have been surrounded with exquisite gardens, enclosed from all vulgar gaze by walls of immense height. These gardens were filled with the most delicate flowers and delicious fruits. Streams flowed, and fountains sparkled brightly, through the grateful gloom of luxuriant foliage. Bowers of roses, and porcelain-paved kiosks, and carpets from the richest looms of Persia, invited to repose the senses heavy with luxury. Circassian girls, bright as the houris of Paradise, served the happy guests with golden goblets of Schiraz wine, and glances yet more intoxicating. The music of harps, and women's sweetest voices, sent fascination through the ear as well as eyes. Everything breathed rapture and sensuality, intensified by seclusion and deep calm. The youth, where energy and courage seemed to qualify him for the office of fedavie, was invited to the table of the grand-master, (at Irak,) or the grand-prior, (at Massiat.) He was there intoxicated with the maddening, yet delightful hashishe. In his insensible state he was transported to the garden, which, he was told, was Paradise, and which he was too ready to take for the scene of eternal delight, as he revelled in all the pleasure that Eastern voluptuousness could devise. He was there lulled into sleep once more, and then transported back to the grand-master's side. As he awoke, numbers of uninitiated youths were admitted to hear his account of the Paradise which the power of the Old Man had permitted him to taste. And thus tools were found and formed for the execution of the wildest projects. That glimpse of Paradise for ever haunted the inflamed imagination of the novices, and any death appeared welcome that could restore them to such joys.

Such is the theory of this singular people, as maintained by Von Hammer, which it remains for future discoveries – now that Mr Walpole has opened the way for them – to vindicate or refute. There are also some remnants of the Persian tribes of this people, an account of which, by Mr Badger, we are informed, is soon to appear: the Syrians scarcely know of their existence. The Syrian Ansayrii amount, as we have said, including Ismaylis, to about forty thousand souls: they have always preserved their seclusion inviolate; setting at nought the various tyrannies that have harassed the neighbouring states, denying the authority of the Sultan, and blaspheming the Prophet, while they outwardly conform to his rites. They occupy the northernmost range of the Lebanon, from Tortosa and Latakia, as far as Adana.

Notwithstanding Von Hammer's elaborate and ingenious theory, many (amongst whom is our author) have seemed disposed to treat the whole story of the Assassins, and the Old Man of the Mountain himself, as myths. It was, they say, the sort of romance that the Crusaders would have lent a ready ear to, and that their troubadours would have made the most of. They deny the existence of the powerful hill fortresses surrounded by the intoxicating gardens; they point to the renowned Syrian castle of El Massiat, whose ruins occupy a space of only one hundred yards square, and in whose vaulted stables there is an inscription purporting that the castle was "the work of Roostan the Mameluke."

Mr Walpole, however, does not enter into any controversy respecting this strange people. Of the little that he has confided in his present two volumes to the public, the following extracts must be taken as an instalment: —

"The Ansayrii nation – for such it is – being capable of mustering forty thousand warriors able to bear arms, is divided into two classes – sheiks and people; the sheiks again into two – Sheiks or Chiefs of Religion, Sheik el Maalem, and the temporal Sheiks, or Sheiks of Government; these being generally called Sheik el Zullom, or Sheiks of Oppression. These latter, though some of them are of good families, are not so generally: having gained favour with government, they have received the appointment. Others there are, however, whose families have held it for many generations – such as Shemseen Sultan, Sheik Succor, &c. The sheiks of religion are held as almost infallible, and the people pay them the greatest respect. With regard to the succession, there seems to be no fixed rule: the elder brother has, however, rule over the rest; but then I have seen the son the head of the family while the father was living.

"The sheik of religion enjoys great privileges: as a boy he is taught to read and write; he is marked from his fellows from very earliest childhood, by a white handkerchief round his head. Early as his sense will admit, he is initiated into the principles of his faith: in this he is schooled and perfected. Early he is taught that death, martyrdom, is a glorious reward; and that, sooner than divulge one word of his creed, he is to suffer the case in which his soul is enshrined to be mangled or tortured in any way. Frequent instances have been known where they have defied the Turks, who have threatened them with death if they would not divulge, saying, 'Try me; cut my heart out, and see if anything is within there.' During his manhood he is strictly to conform to his faith: this forbids him not only eating certain things at any time, but eating at all with any but chiefs of religion; or eating anything purchased with unclean money; – and the higher sheiks carry this to such an extent that they will only eat of the produce of their own grounds; they will not even touch water, except such as they deem pure and clean. Then the sheik must exercise the most unbounded hospitality; and, after death, the people will build him a tomb, (a square place, with a dome on the top,) and he will be revered as a saint.

"The lower classes are initiated into the principles of their religion, but not into its more mystical or higher parts: they are taught to obey their chiefs without question, without hesitation, and to give to them abundantly at feasts and religious ceremonies: above all, even the uninitiated is to die a thousand deaths sooner than betray his faith.

"In their houses, which, as I have before said, are poor, dirty, and wretched, they place two small windows over the door. This is in order that, if a birth and death occur at the same moment, the coming and the parting spirit may not meet. In rooms dedicated to hospitality several square holes are left, so that each spirit may come or depart without meeting another.

"Like the Mahometans, they practise the rite of circumcision, performing it at various ages, according to the precocity of the child. The ceremony is celebrated, as among the Turks, with feasting and music. This, they say, is not a necessary rite, but a custom derived from ancient times, and they should be Christians if they did not do it. This is the same among the Mahometans, who are not enjoined by their prophet to do so, but received the rite from of old.19

"When a candidate is pronounced ready for initiation, his tarboosh is removed, and a white cloth wrapped round his head. He is then conducted into the presence of the sheiks of religion. The chief proceeds to deliver a lecture, cautioning him against ever divulging their great and solemn secret. 'If you are under the sword, the rope, or the torture, die, and smile – you are blessed.' He then kisses the earth three times before the chief, who continues telling him the articles of their faith. On rising, he teaches him a sign, and delivers three words to him. This completes the first lesson.

"At death, the body is washed with warm soap and water, wrapped in white cloths, and laid in the tomb. Each person takes a handful of earth, which is placed on the body; then upright stones, one at the feet, one at the head, one in the middle, are placed. The one in the middle is necessary. They have the blood-feud – the Huck el Dum. In war, blood is not reckoned; but if one man kills another of a different tribe, all the tribe of the slayer pay an equal sum to the tribe of the slain – generally one thousand six hundred piastres, (L.15.)

"In marriage, a certain price is agreed on. One portion goes to the father, another to supply dress and things necessary for the maiden. This will vary much, according to the wealth of the bridegroom and the beauty or rank of the bride. It is generally from two hundred to seven hundred or a thousand piastres (L.1, 15s. 6d. to L.9, 10s.) Sometimes a mare, a cow, or a donkey, merely, is given for her. The bridegroom has then to solicit the consent of the hirce, or owner of the bride's village, who will generally extort five hundred piastres, or more, before he will give a permission of marriage.

"The price being settled, and security given for its payment, the friends of the bridegroom mount on the top of the house armed with sticks. The girl's friends pass her in hastily to avoid their blows. The bridegroom enters, and beats her with a stick or back of a sword, so that she cries: these cries must be heard without. All then retire, and the marriage is concluded.

"They are allowed four wives. The marriage ceremony is simple, and divorce not permitted. If one of these four wives die, they are permitted to take another. Generally, they have little affection for their wives – treating them rather as useful cattle than as rational creatures. They never teach women the smallest portion of their faith. They are jealously excluded from all religious ceremonies; and, in fact, are utterly denied creed, prayers, or soul. Many here have told me that the women themselves believe in this; and do not, as one would fancy, murmur at such an exclusive belief.

"The Ansayrii are honest in their dealings, and none can accuse them of repudiation or denying a sum they owe… They regard Mahomet el Hamyd as the prophet of God, and thus use the Mussulman confession – 'La illa ill Allah, Mahomet el Hamyd, Resoul e nebbi Allah;' but they omit all this when before Mahometans, saying merely, 'There is no God but God, and Mahomet is the prophet of God.' Otherwise, they say, 'There is no God but Ali, and Mahomet el Hamyd, the Beloved, is the prophet of God.'

"I do not intend here to enter into their belief more fully; but it is a most confused medley – a unity, a trinity, a deity. 'These are five; these five are three; these three are two; these two, these three, these five – one.'

"They believe in the transmigration of souls. Those who in this life do well, are hospitable, and follow their faith, become stars; the souls of others return to the earth, and become Ansayrii again, until, purified, they fly to rest. The souls of bad men become Jews, Christians, and Turks; while the souls of those who believe not, become pigs and other beasts. One eve, sitting with a dear old man, a high sheik – his boys were round him – I said, 'Speak: where are the sons of your youth? these are the children of your old age.' – 'My son,' he said, looking up, 'is there: nightly he smiles on me, and invites me to come.'

"They pray five times a day, saying several prayers each time, turning this way or that, having no keblah. If a Christian or Turk sees them at their devotions, the prayers are of no avail. At their feasts, they pray in a room closed and guarded from the sight or ingress of the uninitiated.

"This will give a general outline of the faith and customs of the Ansayrii. My intercourse with them was on the most friendly footing, and daily a little was added to my stock of information. Let me, however, warn the traveller against entering into argument with them, or avowing, through the dragoman, any knowledge of their creed. They are as ready and prompt to avenge as they are generous and hospitable to protect. To destroy one who deceives them on this point is an imperative duty; and I firmly believe they would do it though you took shelter on the divan of the Sultan. For myself, the risk is passed: I have gone through the ordeal, and owe my life several times to perfect accident."

To this long extract we shall only add, that a good deal of additional light is indirectly thrown upon this singular people throughout the whole of the third volume of Mr Walpole's work. It is the best written, as well as the most important, of the series; it abounds in humour, anecdote, originality, and in no small degree of curious research.

And now, it only remains for us to bid our entertaining fellow-traveller heartily farewell. Although, especially in the first volume, we have felt disposed to quarrel with his style occasionally, we have found his good-humour, his thoughtful sentiment, and his reckless wit, at last irresistible. His very imperfections often prove his fidelity, and his apparent contradictions his innate truthfulness. We commend to him a little more study of the art of composition, and a good deal more care; but we shall consider ourselves fortunate when we meet with another author of as many faults, if they are atoned for by as many merits.

THE CHAMPIONS OF THE RAIL

A History of the English Railway: its Social Relations and Revelations. By John Francis. 2 vols. London.

A good many years ago, a late correspondent and writer in this Magazine, Dr M'Nish of Glasgow, published a work entitled The Anatomy of Drunkenness. The book was an excellent one: most perfect in its portraiture of the different phenomena which accompany and succeed a debauch; and in the hands of a regular tee-totaller, it was undeniably worth some reams of vapid sermons. The preacher, who never, we are bound to believe, had experienced the vinous or spirituous excitement in his own person, was enabled from it to hold forth, with all the unction of reality, to his terrified audience, upon the awful effects of intemperance. Old ladies, who rarely in their lives had transgressed beyond a second glass of weak negus at some belated party, when whist or commerce had been suggested to while away the weary hours, listened to the warnings of the gifted apostle of temperance, and hied them home in the tremendous conviction that they had only escaped, by the merest miracle, the horrors of delirium tremens. Dyspeptic gentlemen were rendered wretched, as they reflected that, for years past, they had been accustomed to wash down their evening Finnan haddock, or moderate board of oysters, with a pint of Younger's prime ale, or, mayhap, a screeching tumbler. The enormity of their offence became visible to their eyes, and they incontinently conceived amendment.

But we doubt very much whether the Anatomy would have been pleasant reading to a gentleman who overnight had imbibed "not wisely but too well." How could he bear to be told, not only of the sensations of the previous evening, minutely traced through the gradations of each consecutive decanter, but of the state of thirst and unnatural discomfort to which he was presently a victim? Would it relieve his headach to assure him that, after swallowing three bottles of claret, most men are apt to be out of sorts? Could he, the sufferer, derive any assuagement of his pains by knowing – if he did not know it already – that unlimited brandy and water, however agreeable during consumption, was clearly prejudicial to the nerves? Sermons may come too soon. The sufferer ought to be allowed at least a day or two to recover, before his offence is laid before him in all its huge deformity. Give him time to be ashamed of himself. A man's own conscience is his best accuser; and, unless the vice be absolutely inherent, or totally beyond the hope of remedy, his own misery will be more likely to effect a cure than any amount of philosophical dissertations upon its nature.

These thoughts have been irresistibly suggested to us by a perusal of the two ponderous tomes of Mr Francis, entitled, A History of the English Railway: its Social Relations and Revelations. A more unfortunate kind of apocalypse could hardly have been hazarded at the present time. Most people are tolerably well aware, without the aid of Mr Francis, of the changes in social relations which have been worked by the British railway; and as for revelations, a good many would give a trifle to have these entirely suppressed. We have not yet arrived at the time when the history of the "'45" of this century can be calmly or dispassionately written. Too many of us, still remanent here, have burned our fingers, and too many of our kith and kin have been sent to exile, in consequence of that notable enterprise. Since the standard was last unfurled in the vale of Glenmutchkin, a considerable number of the population have been bitten by the sod, if they did not literally bite it. That system of turning over turfs, by the aid of silver spades and mahogany wheelbarrows, was more fatal to the peace of families than the accumulation of any number of Celtic bagpipers whatever. It was a grand interment of capital. Who has forgotten the misery of those times, when letters of railway calls arrived punctually once a quarter? Two pound ten per share might be a moderate instalment; but if you were the unfortunate holder of a hundred shares, you had better have been boarded with a vampire. Repudiation, though a clear Christian duty to yourself and your family, was utterly impossible. It mattered not that the majority of the original committeemen and directors had bolted; you, the subscriber, were tied to the stake. The work was begun, the contracts opened, and money must be had at all hazards and sacrifices. You found yourself in the pitiable situation of an involuntary philanthropist. Threescore hulking Irish navvies were daily fed, liquored, and lodged at your expense. Your dwindling resources were torn from you, to make the fortunes of engineers and contractors. So long as you had a penny, or a convertible equivalent, you were forced to surrender it. Your case was precisely similar to that of the Jew incarcerated in the vaults beneath the royal treasury of King John. One by one all your teeth were drawn. If you managed to survive the extraction of the last grinder, and to behold the opening of the line, your position was not one whit improved. Dividend of course there was none. That awful and mysterious item of charge, "working expenses," engulfed nearly the whole revenue. What was over went to pay interest on preference debentures. That gallant body of men, the directors, laid before you, with the utmost candour, a state of the affairs of the company; from which it appeared that they had exceeded their borrowing powers by perhaps a brace of millions, and had raised the money by interposing their own individual security. These obligations you were, of course, expected to redeem; and an appeal was made to your finer feelings, urging you to consent to a further issue of stock!

It is no great consolation to the men who have suffered more woes from the railways, than fell to the lot of the much-enduring Ulysses from the relentless anger of the deities, to know that they have rendered perfect a vast chain of internal communication throughout the country. We doubt whether the Israelites, who built them, took any especial pride in surveying the pile of the pyramids. The gentleman in embarrassed circumstances, who is pondering over the memory of his perished capital, is not likely to feel his heart expand with enthusiasm at the thought that through his agency, and that of his fellows, thousands of bagmen are daily being whirled along the rails with the velocity of lightning. He may even be pardoned if, in the sadness and despondency of his soul, he should seriously ask himself what, after all, is the use of this confounded hurry? Is a man's life prolonged because he can get along at the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour? Is existence to be measured by locomotion? In that case Chifney, who passed the best part of his life in the saddle, ought to have been considered as a rival to Methuselah, and a stoker on the Great Western lives in one week far longer than the venerable Parr! Is enjoyment multiplied? That, too, will admit of a serious doubt. In a railway carriage you have no fair view of the fresh aspect of nature: you dash through the landscape – supposing that there is one – before its leading features are impressed upon your mind. There is no time for details, or even for reflection. You must accommodate your thought to your pace, otherwise you are left behind, and see nothing whatever for at least a couple of stations. But for the most part your way lies between embankments and cuttings, representing either sections of whinstone, or bare banks of turf, dotted over with brown patches, where the engine has effected arson. Even furze will not willingly flourish in such an uncomfortable locality. Then you roar through tunnels, the passage of which makes your flesh creep – for you cannot divest yourself of a horrid idea that you may possibly be encountered in the centre of the darkness by an opposing engine, and be pounded into paste by the shock of that terrific tilt; or that a keystone of the arch may give way, and the whole train be buried in the centre of the excavated mountain. Sensual gratification there is none. If you do not condescend to the iniquity of carrying sandwiches along with you – in which case your habiliments are certain to be grievously defiled with buttered crumbs – you are driven by the pangs of sheer hunger into the refreshment-room at some station, and find yourself at the bar of an inferior gin-palace. Very bad is the pork-pie, for which you are charged an exorbitant ransom. Call ye this sherry, my masters? If it be so, commend us for the future to Bucellas. The oranges look well outside, but the moment you have penetrated the rind, you find that they have been boiled and are fozy. Do not indulge in the vain hope that you may venture on a glass of anything hot. Hot enough you will find it with a vengeance; for, the instant that you receive the rummer, the bell is sure to ring, and you must either scald your throat by gulping down two mouthfuls of mahogany-water raised to a temperature which would melt solder, or consign the prepaid potion to the leisure of the attendant Hebe. Smoking is strictly prohibited. Even if you are alone in a carriage, you cannot indulge in that luxury without rendering yourself liable to a fine; and, if your appetite should overcome your prudence, and you should venture to set the law at defiance, before you have inhaled two whiffs, a railway guard appears as if by magic at the window – for those fellows have the scent of the vulture, and can race along the foot-boards as nimbly as a cat along a gutter – and you are ordered to abandon your Havanna. Under such circumstances, literature is a poor resource. You read the Times twice over, advertisements and all, and then sink into a feverish slumber, from which you are awakened by a demand from a ruffian in blue livery, with a glazed leather belt across his shoulder, for the exhibition of your ticket. Talk of the inconvenience of passports abroad! The Continental system is paradisaical compared with ours. At length, after fingering your watch with an insane desire to accelerate its movement, you run into the ribs of something, which resembles the skeleton of a whale – the train stops – and you know that your journey is at an end. You select your luggage, after having undergone the scrutiny of a member of the police force, who evidently thinks that he has seen you before under circumstances of considerable peculiarity, ensconce yourself in a cab, and drive off, being favoured at the gate of the station by a shower of diminutive pamphlets, purporting to be poetical tributes to the merits of Messrs Moses and Hyams. You have done the distance in twelve hours, but pleasure you have had none.