Pasha (after hearing the dragoman).—­It is true, it is true:  —­ through all Feringhistan the English are foremost and best; for the Russians are drilled swine, and the Germans are sleeping babes, and the Italians are the servants of songs, and the French are the sons of newspapers, and the Greeks they are weavers of lies, but the English and the Osmanlees are brothers together in righteousness; for the Osmanlees believe in one only God, and cleave to the Koran, and destroy idols, so do the English worship one God, and abominate graven images, and tell the truth, and believe in a book, and though they drink the juice of the grape, yet to say that they worship their prophet as God, or to say that they are eaters of pork, these are lies—­lies born of Greeks, and nursed by Jews!

Dragoman.—­The Pasha compliments the English.

Traveller (rising).—­Well, I’ve had enough of this.  Tell the Pasha I am greatly obliged to him for his hospitality, and still more for his kindness in furnishing me with horses, and say that now I must be off.

Pasha (after hearing the dragoman, and standing up on his divan). {3}—­Proud are the sires, and blessed are the dams of the horses that shall carry his Excellency to the end of his prosperous journey.  May the saddle beneath him glide down to the gates of the happy city, like a boat swimming on the third river of Paradise.  May he sleep the sleep of a child, when his friends are around him; and the while that his enemies are abroad, may his eyes flame red through the darkness—­more red than the eyes of ten tigers!  Farewell!

Dragoman.—­The Pasha wishes your Excellency a pleasant journey.

So ends the visit.

CHAPTER II—­TURKISH TRAVELLING

In two or three hours our party was ready; the servants, the Tatar, the mounted Suridgees, and the baggage-horses, altogether made up a strong cavalcade.  The accomplished Mysseri, of whom you have heard me speak so often, and who served me so faithfully throughout my Oriental journeys, acted as our interpreter, and was, in fact, the brain of our corps.  The Tatar, you know, is a government courier properly employed in carrying despatches, but also sent with travellers to speed them on their way, and answer with his head for their safety.  The man whose head was thus pledged for our precious lives was a glorious-looking fellow, with the regular and handsome cast of countenance which is now characteristic of the Ottoman race. {4} His features displayed a good deal of serene pride, self-respect, fortitude, a kind of ingenuous sensuality, and something of instinctive wisdom, without any sharpness of intellect.  He had been a Janissary (as I afterwards found), and kept up the odd strut of his old corps, which used to affright the Christians in former times—­that rolling gait so comically pompous, that a close imitation of it, even in the broadest farce, would be looked upon as a very rough