Eothen | Page 5

our virtues in the country--that we are a truth-
telling people, and, like the Osmanlees, are faithful in the performance
of our promises. Oh! and, by-the-bye, whilst you are about it, you may
as well just say at the end that the British yeoman is still, thank God!
the British yeoman.
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 over-acting of the
character. It is occasioned in part by dress and accoutrements. The
weighty bundle of weapons carried upon the chest throws back the
body so as to give it a wonderful portliness, and moreover, the
immense masses of clothes that swathe his limbs force the wearer in
walking to swing himself heavily round from left to right, and from
right to left. In truth, this great edifice of woollen, and cotton, and silk,
and silver, and brass, and steel is not at all fitted for moving on foot; it
cannot even walk without frightfully discomposing its fair proportions;
and as to running--our Tatar ran ONCE (it was in order to pick up a
partridge that Methley had winged with a pistol-shot), and really the
attempt was one of the funniest misdirections of human energy that
wondering man ever saw. But put him in his stirrups, and then is the
Tatar himself again: there he lives at his pleasure, reposing in the
tranquillity of that true home (the home of his ancestors) which the
saddle seems to afford him, and drawing from his pipe the calm
pleasures of his "own fireside," or else dashing sudden over the earth,
as though for a moment he felt the mouth of a Turcoman steed, and saw
his own Scythian plains lying boundless and open before him.
It was not till his subordinates had nearly completed their preparations
for their march that our Tatar, "commanding the forces," arrived; he
came sleek and fresh