36

COURT OF JUSTICE.

me for contempt of court, was the first to catch the contagion of my mirth; his big sides shook again with laughter; my accusers, who preserved their gravity, so long as I did not stare them in the face, exclaimed to one another, "Wallah Magnoon!" By G he is mad!" and then they laughed even louder than the justice.

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At length, when the Sheik recovered his gravity, he again questioned the Reis about the lost sheep; but here I cut the matter short by pulling the Viceroy's firman out of my pocket, in which I was styled "the prince of hakkims, the most learned among the learned, and the friend and hakkim bashi of the English Consul; the friend of his Royal Highness."

The consternation of the Arabs was highly amusing; the Sheik el belled placed the firman on the crown of his head, kissed it, and made many excuses for having detained me a moment on such a foolish charge. I invited him aboard my kangea; he and my accusers followed me, and I regaled them all with pipes and coffee. There the fellows sat on my carpet, all courtesy and politeness, who, a few minutes before, were indicting me on a charge of felony. We parted the best friends in

the world, having thoroughly convinced them we had not stolen even a lamb.

At Manfalout, we found then residing the governor of the province, Abden Casheff, a Turk of high rank and excellent character. I had a letter of introduction to him, from Mr. Salt, with whom he was on terms of intimate friendship. He received me with great pomp, in his tent, surrounded by three or four hundred soldiers, principally blacks. He made me smoke out of his own splendid pipe, which is the highest honour a Turk can bestow, and asked me a thousand questions about the usages and manners of the Franks; he was the only Turk I ever met with who seemed totally devoid of fanaticism.

Before I left him, he presented me with a letter, which he begged me to translate for him, as it was in Frank writing: I was not a little astonished to find it was an epistle from Sir Hudson Lowe; the contents I do not deem it necessary to state, but it was a very long letter, diplomatically tedious. Abden Casheff spoke of Napoleon and Sir Hudson as if he had learned the characters of both from O'Meara's book; and was even acquainted with the attempt which the Frenchman

made on Sir Hudson's life in Smyrna. In Egypt, by the by, a similar attempt was meditated by a French officer, and was frustrated by the consul. Sir Hudson, however, went abroad in Cairo and Alexandria without any apprehensions: he was "so clear in his great office," that he feared not being "taken off:" the possession of a stomach pump, moreover, which never left his sight, made the assurance of his safety doubly sure.

On leaving this excellent Casheff, I found his servants already in our boat, having brought us four sheep, five and twenty fowls, two large jars of butter, a basket of rice, two baskets of bread, and a quantity of fruit. This very acceptable present was wholly unexpected, and what was most singular, we could not prevail on his servants to take a single paras. "No," they said, “our master would cut our heads off if we took money from travellers, who, when they go beyond his district, may want their money, for they can get no bread without it*." I hardly knew which to admire most, the generosity or the delicacy of this man.

* A few weeks after my interview with this excellent man, he was murdered by his own soldiers; they cut.the strings of

ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION.

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A couple of days after our departure from Manfalout, I had once more the pleasure of ascertaining what bad marksmen the Turks are; a soldier took deliberate aim at me, with his pistol, at a very fair distance, not exceeding twenty paces, and yet he missed me, the ball passed through the sail of our boat. The only reason for this shot, was my refusing to take the fellow aboard: I had just jumped up on the cabin to seize hold of the tiller (for our steersman was rather nervous when the pistol was levelled) when he fired at me. My servant had sense enough to bring me my fowling piece, which was then loaded with shot, without my bidding this I instantly presented at the scoundrel, who was reloading his pistol; the moment he saw the gun pointed he skulked away: all our Arabs were very anxious for me to fire at him; I did not want inclination, but I was aware that had I put a grain of shot into the person of a

his tent, and when he was buried beneath it, they hacked him with their swords, till he was literally cut to pieces. One of the Pacha's relatives was privy to the murder; he, of course, escaped, but the ruffians who acted under him were exiled to Syria. I saw three hundred of them going down the Nile to be embarked at Damietta.

40

INJUSTICE OF A CASHEFF.

Mussulman, and more especially of a Turkish soldier, I should have endangered my life and that of my companion. We stopped at the next village to complain to the Casheff, of this outrage. He seemed little disposed to give me any satisfaction; he pressed my firman to his lips and forehead; he said God was great "Allah Karim;" and when I demanded of him, if the soldier should be taken up? he said, if it pleased God "Insh Allah." Whenever I expressed my indignation at his evasive answer, and my determination to represent his conduct to the Pacha, he simply rung the changes on Allah Karim and Insh Allah; and when the Mogreb was announced, or the evening hour of prayer, he very unceremoniously knelt down with his face towards us, and commenced his nine prostrations. Every time I said any thing about writing to the Pacha, he exclaimed, Allah Wachbar, "There is only one God," as if he were wholly wrapped up in his devotions. I left him without getting any sort of satisfaction; he had the impudence to send down to the boat to beg I would give him a cure for bile, "Safra" (the universal complaint of the Arabs); I sent him back word there was only