Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
became my mission to find the location, as I had read the topic and could not accept defeat,
when we were so close to our goal. Then, finally, through intuition, I asked at the Armenian
cemetery and we were led to the English Protestant graveyard, which was nearby. It was
mid-morning and the sun cast dark shadows over the gravestone, but it was a satisfying mo-
ment for both of us to have found it. Jane Digby had been known as Jane Digby El Mezrab
in Syria and a film about her romance with the Bedouin Shaikh had been made. I believe
that the earlier lords and Princes and Kings of Europe, with whom she had been very on
very friendly terms, had been omitted from the sanitized family version of the film. She had
been a Lady, a Baroness and a Countess in previous European marriages and had been the
lover of the King of Bavaria and also of his son, the King of Greece. Lesley Blanch, who
wrote about her in the topic, “The Wilder Shores of Love” has this amazing scene at the
Christian cemetery, (imagined or otherwise, but who cares), where her bereaved husband,
who had been absent from the Christian funeral, suddenly and dramatically appeared on
her favourite black mare to bid her the most romantic, dignified and emotional of farewells.
At that point in the topic, I had tears in my eyes.
Try as I could, it was almost impossible to get a decent photo (and I was using film at the
time with my Nikon SLR camera), but we had worked so hard to find the final resting place
of Jane Digby, that I include the hard earned evidence, in full awareness of its inferior qual-
ity.
We next headed for the centre of Damascus to the Umayyad Mosque and Saladin's statue
and tombs.
