"Like the great Pagans, the Hâjî holds that man was born good, while

the Christian, 'tormented by the things divine,' cleaves to the

comforting doctrine of innate sinfulness. Hence the universal tenet,

that man should do good in order to gain by it here or hereafter;

the 'enlightened selfishness,' that says, Act well and get compound

interest in a future state. The allusion to the 'Theist-word'

apparently means that the votaries of a personal Deity must believe

in the absolute foreknowledge of the Omniscient in particulars as in

generals. The Rule of Law emancipates man; and its exceptions are the

gaps left by his ignorance. The wail over the fallen flower, etc.,

reminds us of the Pulambal (Lamentations) of the Anti-Brahminical

writer, 'Pathira-Giriyâr.' The allusion to Mâyâ is from Dâs Kabîr--

'Mâyâ mare, na man mare, mar mar gayâ sarir.

Illusion dies, the mind dies not though dead and gone the flesh.'

Nirwânâ, I have said, is partial extinction by being merged in

the Supreme, not to be confounded with Pari-nirwânâ or absolute

annihilation. In the former also, dying gives birth to a new being, the

embodiment of _karma_ (deeds), good and evil, done in the countless

ages of transmigration.

"Here ends my share of the work. On the whole it has been considerable.

I have omitted, as has been seen, sundry stanzas, and I have changed

the order of others. The text has nowhere been translated verbatim;

in fact, a familiar European turn has been given to many sentiments

which were judged too Oriental. As the metre adopted by Hâjî Abdû was

the _Bahr Tawîl_ (long verse), I thought it advisable to preserve that

peculiarity, and to fringe it with the rough, unobtrusive rhyme of the

original.

"Vive, valeque!"

[1] "The Eternal Gardener: so the old inscription saying--

Homo {locatus est in }

{damnatus est in}

{humatus est in }

{renatus est in } horto."

APPENDIX C.

BHUJANG AND THE COCK-FIGHT.

_Specimen of his early writings in Scinde._

"Some years ago, when surveying the country about this Hoosree, I had

an opportunity of reading a lecture to a gentleman about your age,

Sir: hear how politely he received it, without ever using the word

'dogmatical,' or making the slightest allusion to 'forwardness.'

"I was superintending the shampooing[1] of a fighting cock--about as

dunghill and 'low-caste' a bird as ever used a spur, but a strong

spiteful thing, a sharp riser, and a clean hitter withal. Bhujang,[2]

the 'dragon,' had sent many a brother biped to the soup-pot. Ere the

operation of rubbing him down ended, in walked an old Moslem gentleman,

who had called in a friendly unceremonious way to look at and chat with

the stranger.

"Cocking, you must know, Mr. Bull, is not amongst these people the

'low' diversion your good lady has been pleased to make it. Here a man

may still fight his own bird and beat his own donkey _à discrétion_,

without incurring the persecutions of a Philo-beast Society.

"There was a humorous twinkle in the Senior's sly eye as it fell upon

the form of Bhujang, and the look gained intensity when, turning

towards me, the scrutinizer salaamed and politely ejaculated--

"'Máshálláh! that _is_ a bird!--the Hyderabad breed,[3] or the Afghan?'

"I shuffled off the necessity of romancing about my dunghill's origin,

and merely replied that, struck by his many beauties, I had bought him

of some unknown person--I did not add for eightpence.

"'What Allah pleases!--it is a miraculous animal! You must have paid

his weight in silver! Two hundred rupees, or three hundred?'[4]

"Many people are apt to show impatience or irritability when being

'made fools of'--whereby, methinks, they lose much fun and show more

folly than they imagine. My answer to the old gentleman's remark was

calculated to persuade that most impertinently polite personage that

the Frank, with all his Persian and Arabic, was a 'jolly green.'

"Thereupon, with the utmost suavity he proceeded to inform me that

he also was a fighter of cocks, and that he had some--of course

immeasurably inferior to the splendid animal being shampooed

there--which perhaps might satisfy even _my_ fastidious taste. He

concluded with offering to fight one under the certainty of losing

it,[5] but anything for a little sport; again gauged me with his

cunning glance, salaamed, and took his leave.

"In the evening, after prayers, appeared Mr. Ahmed Khan, slowly

sauntering in, accompanied by his friends and domestics; a privileged

servant carrying in his arms a magnificent bird, tall, thin, gaunt, and

active, with the fierce, full, clear eye, the Chashmi Murwarid,[6] as

the Persians call it; small, short, thin, taper head, long neck, stout

crooked back, round compact body, bony, strong, and well-hung wings,

stout thighs, shanks yellow as purest gold, and huge splay claws--in

fact, a love of a cock.

"I thought of Bhujang for a moment despairingly.

"After a short and ceremonious dialogue, in which the old gentleman

'trotted' me out very much to his own satisfaction and the amusement of

his companions, the terms of the wager were settled, and Bhujang was

brought in, struggling upon his bearer's bosom, kicking his stomach,

stretching his neck, and crowing with an air, as if he were the

_Sans-peur_ of all the cocks. 'There's an animal for you!' I exclaimed,

as he entered. It was a rich treat to see the _goguenard_ looks of my

native friends.

"Countenances, however, presently changed, when sending for a few

dozen Indian cock-spurs,[7] like little sabres, I lashed a pair to my

bird's toes, and then politely proceeded to perform the same operation

to my friend's. Ahmed Khan looked on curiously. He was too much of

a sportsman, that is to say, a gentleman, to hang back, although he

began to suspect that all was not right as he could have wished it to

be. His bird's natural weapon was sound, thin, and sharp as a needle,

low down upon the shank, at least an inch and a quarter long, and bent

at the correctest angle; mine had short, ragged, and blunt bits of

horn--the most inoffensive weapons imaginable. But the steel levelled

all distinctions.

"We took up the champions, stood a few yards apart--the usual

distance--placed them on the ground, and when the '_laissez aller_' was

given, let go.

"For some reason, by me unexplainable, the game-cock, especially in

this country, when fighting with a dunghill, seldom begins the battle

with the spirit and activity of his plebeian antagonist. Possibly the

noble animal's blood boiling in his veins at the degrading necessity

of entering the lists against an unworthy adversary confuses him for

a moment. However that may be, one thing is palpable, namely, that he

generally receives the first blows.

"On this occasion the vulgarian Bhujang, who appeared to be utterly

destitute of respect for lineage and gentle blood--nay, more like an

English snob, ineffably delighted at the prospect of 'thrashing' a

gentleman--began to dance, spring, and kick with such happy violence

and aplomb, that before the minute elapsed one of his long steels was

dyed with the heart's blood of his enemy.

"Politeness forbad, otherwise I could have laughed aloud at the

expression assumed by the faces present as they witnessed this especial

'do.' Ahmed Khan, at the imminent peril of a wound from the triumphant

dunghill, whom excited cowardice now made vicious as a fiend, raised

his cock from the ground, looked piteously for an instant at his

glazing eye and drooping head, bowed, and handed it over to me with a

sigh.

"Then like the parasite of Penaflor after dinner, I thus addressed him--

"'Ahmed Khan, great is the power of Allah! Did not a gnat annihilate

Namrud,[8] the giant king? Could Rustam, the son of Zal, stand against

a pistol-bullet? or Antar against an ounce of aquafortis? Have you not

heard of the _hikmat_[9] of the Frank, that he is a perfect Plato in

wisdom and contrivance? Another time, old gentleman, do not conclude

that because our chins are smooth, we are children of asses: and if you

will take my advice, abstain from pitting valuable cocks against the

obscure produce of a peasant's poultry-yard.'

"'Wallah!' replied my visitor, all the cunning twinkle out of his eye,

'I will take your advice! Your words are sharp: but they are the words

of wisdom. But'--here obstinacy and conventionalism obscured Ahmed

Khan's brighter qualities--'your bird is a wonderful bird. Máshálláh!

may he win many a fight, even as he has done this one!'"

[1] "As Orientals generally fight their birds without spurs they pay

extraordinary attention to feeding, training, and exercising them. They

are sweated and scoured with anxious care, dosed (in my poor opinion a

great deal too much) with spices and drugs most precisely, and made to

pass hours in running, flying, and leaping. The shampooing is intended

to harden their frames; it is done regularly every day, morning and

evening. A fair course of training lasts from three weeks to a month,

and the birds are generally brought out in excellent condition."

[2] "Game-cocks, like chargers, are always called by some big and

terrible name."

[3] "The game-cocks of Hyderabad, in the Deccan, are celebrated

throughout India, for their excellence and rarity. So difficult is it

to purchase birds of purest blood, that I have heard of a rich Moslem

visiting the Nizam's capital for the purpose of buying eggs."

[4] "The usual price of a first-rate cock is £3 or £4. My friend was

indulging his facetiousness when he named £20 or £30."

[5] "The usual wager is the body of the bird killed or wounded."

[6] "The 'pearl eye.'"

[7] "The Indian cock-spur differs essentially from ours. It is a

straight bit of steel varying from two to three and a half inches in

length, with a blunt flat shaft, ending in a sharp sword-like blade,

the handle as it were of which is bound to the bird's fore toe, shank,

and hind toe. Every cock-fighter has dozens of these tools, made in

every possible variety of size and angle to suit the cocks."

[8] "Nimrod, represented to be a cruel tyrant, who, attempting to

martyr Abraham, was slain by a mosquito--sent to eat into his brain for

the general purpose of pointing many a somnific Oriental moral."

[9] "_Hikmat_, philosophy, science, political cunning, king-craft,

etc., a favourite word for head work in Central Asia."

APPENDIX D.

VISIT TO THE VILLAGE OF MEER IBRAHIM KHAN TALPUR

A BELOCH CHIEF.

_Another specimen of Richard's fresh writings in Scinde._

"Enter Mr. Hari Chand, a portly pulpy Hindoo, the very type of his

unamiable race, with a cat-like gait, a bow of exquisite finish; a

habit of sweetly smiling under every emotion, whether the produce of a

bribe or a kick; a softly murmuring voice, with a tendency to sinking;

and a glance which seldom meets yours, and when it does, seems not

quite to enjoy the meeting. How timidly he appears at the door! How

deferentially he slides in, salaams, looks deprecating, and at last is

induced to sit down! Above all things, how he listens! Might he not be

mistaken for a novel kind of automaton, into which you can transfer

your mind and thoughts--a curious piece of human mechanism in the shape

of a creature endowed with all things but a self?

"You would start could you read his thoughts at the very moment that

you are forming such opinions of him.

"'Well, Hari Chand' (after the usual salutations), 'and pray what

manner of man may be this Meer Ibrahim Khan.--Talpur, is he not?'

"'Wah! wah! What a Chieftain! What a very Nushirawan[1] for all-shading

equity! a Hátim for overflowing generosity--a Rustam--

"'That is to say, always considering that he is a Beloch,' says Hari

Chand, perceiving by the expression of _my_ face that _his_ opinion

requires modifying.

"'For a Beloch! The Sahab's exalted intelligence has of course

comprehended the extra fact that they are all dolts, asses, fools. But

this Ibrahim Khan, saving the Sahab's presence, is not one of them.

Quite the contrary.'

"'You mean he is a rogue!'

"'The Sahab has the penetration of an arrow--a rogue of the first water!

"'A rogue of the first water. He has won the wealth of Bokhara and

Samarcand by the sunshine of the countenance of the Honourable

Company, to whom he sells camels at six pounds a head, after compelling

his subjects to receive two pounds for them. Ah! well said the poet--

"I would rather be a companion of devils

Than the ryot of an unjust king."

"'He has almost doubled the size and resources of his jagir (feof), by

the friendship of certain Sahabs who--' (here we must stop Hari Chand's

tongue with a look). 'And when the Valiant Company allows him twenty

thousand rupees to excavate his canals and improve his land, he--the

Lord bless him!--expends half, and lays by the other moiety in his

coffers.

"'But,' pursues Hari Chand, delighted that we allow him a reasonably

free use of his subject, 'has not the Sahab seen with his own eyes what

a prodigious thief he is? Did not the poor Scindian complain yesterday

that his camel had been stolen from him? and the peasants, that they

were starving? and the Hindoos, that they were ruined? Every man, to be

sure, may cut off his own dog's tail! It were well, however, if nothing

worse could be said about this Ibrahim.'

"Now Mr. Hari Chand's countenance assumes that deep mysterious

expression which courts the operation of 'pumping.' After which,

chuckling internally at having secured for himself the acute

gratification of being able to tear a man's reputation to shreds, he

resumes in a low soft tone of voice, as if the tent walls had ears--

"'He murdered his elder brother! Yes, Sahab, before the battle of

Meeanee, Ibrahim was a poor sorry fellow, a cadet who was not even

allowed to sit in the presence of the great. But

"The world is a water-wheel, and men the pots upon it;

Now their heads are beneath the stones, now they are raised high

to heaven."

"'At the battle of Meeanee a matchlock ball pierced the occiput of

Ibrahim's brother, and the clan, when they saw their Chief bite the

dust, ran away like sheep, headed by Ibrahim Khan, the leader of

the flock, who ran a little faster than the rest to show the line

of direction. When the Fort of Hyderabad surrendered, one of the

first persons that gave up his dangerous sword to the General Sahab,

was Ibrahim Khan, who had the address to oust his nephew from the

inheritance, and by plentiful foxplay took all the carcase from the

tiger.

"'And now,' continues Hari Chand, anxious to improve each fleeting

minute, 'Ibrahim, who five years ago was not allowed to show his mouth

at Court, sits on a chair before the Collector and pays visits to the

Madams--the ladies of the English. He has ventured to boast that one

of them is desperately enamoured of him.' ('This,' says Hari Chand

to himself, 'will irritate the fools'--ourselves, Mr. Bull--'beyond

measure.') 'He drinks curaçoa and brandy like a Sahab. He has become

proud. Yesterday, for instance, instead of coming out for miles and

miles to meet the Sawari----

"'The Sahab is a servant of the Honourable Company--long be its

prosperity! Whose dog is Ibrahimoo,[2] that he should treat the "lords

of the sword and pen"[3] in this disgraceful way? that he should send

that owl[4] of a nephew to greet them with his hootings, and venture

to be absent when they arrive at his grave?[5] Had Smith Sahab the

Collector' ('now I have that red-coated infidel on the hip,' thinks

Hari Chand) 'been coming with his writers, and his scribes, and his

secretaries, and his guards, and all his retinue, Ibrahim would have

been present to kiss his feet. And why? Because Smith Sahab is a--good

easy man, who allows the bandit to do what he pleases. Ah, well said

Nizami--[6]

"The joys of this world!--donkeys have engrossed them.

Would to Allah, Nizami had been a donkey!"

"'But perhaps,' continues Hari Chand during a short pause, in which

time his mind had been almost preternaturally active, 'it is not so

much Ibrahim's crime as that of Kakoo Mall.'

"'And who may Kakoo Mall be?'

"'Kakoo Mall? The Sahab does not know who Kakoo Mall is? Ibrahim's head

moonshee, a Khudabadi Banyan of a fellow' (our man, Mr. Bull, is a

Sehwani, a Green instead of a Brown), 'and one of the most unscrupulous

ruffians that ever carried inkstand in his belt.'

"Thereupon a fierce worrying of Kakoo Mall's character. In common

charity I would draw our man off, only that most probably Kakoo Mall is

about this time abusing us and Hari Chand to Ibrahim, just as violently

as Hari Chand abuses Ibrahim and Kakoo Mall to us.

"'He will, I would swear, do his best that your honours may not be

treated with the courtesy due to your rank, and that I, your humble

servant, may be insulted.'

"'Very well, moonshee, we will look after him. You may go. At eleven we

start for our visit. Be ready to accompany us; and don't be afraid of

Kakoo Mall.'

"'Under the shadow of your eagle wings,' replies Hari Chand, with a

lovely bow, 'what have I to fear from the puny talons of the carrion

crow?'

* * * * *

"We mount our horses, still in native costume, and cross the village,

our moonshee ambling by our side, and a few ferocious Afghan servants

bringing up the rear, much to the astonishment and quite to the

admiration of its inhabitants.

"We reach the courtyard gate of the Talpur's dwelling. Three ragged

rascals, with sheathed swords in their hands and daggers in their

belts, headed by another nephew, rush up to us as if their intention

were to begin by cutting our throats. The young Chief, seizing our

hands, chatters forth a thousand congratulations, salutations, and

messages, nearly tears us from our saddles, and demands concerning our

happiness, in tones which rise high above the whooping and yelling

of his followers. One fellow rushes away to pass the word, 'They

come.' And out pours a whole rout to witness the event, and, by their

presence, to communicate to it all possible importance.

"After jostling and being jostled through half a dozen narrow gateways,

we arrive opposite the verandah, under which stands Meer Ibrahim

Khan Talpur. I see this reception is to be a poor attempt at court

ceremonial.

"We dismount--twenty men pressing forward to hold our stirrups, the

whole party yelling 'Bismillah!' (in the name of Allah) as our feet

touch the ground. Then Ibrahim Khan, pressing forward, seizes our

hands, wrings our arms in their sockets, and--oh, compliment with which

we might readily have dispensed!--precipitates himself upon our bosoms,

clasping us firmly to a 'corporation,' and applying a rough-bearded

chin to the upper portions of both our shoulder-blades consecutively.

"We are led in with our slippers on. Our host has not removed his,

consequently we will continue to wear ours. Another volley of inquiries

and another series of huggings, as we are led up to the silken ottoman,

upon which he, the Chief, and his eldest nephew are to sit, a motley

crowd of relations, friends, acquaintances, dependants, and any one

who happened to be passing the house at the time, pressing in, looking

curiously at us and fearfully at our retainers. All arrange themselves

with the noise of a troop of ravens upon the floor.

"Observe, Mr. John Bull, in the corner of the room Hari Chand and Kakoo

Mall, almost weeping with joy, throw themselves upon each other, and

murmur _mezzo-voce_ thanks to that Heaven which hath thus permitted the

tree of hope to put forth green leaves and to bear sweet fruit.

"Charming this choice blossom of true civilization, blooming amid the

desert of barbarism around it! Had a violet or a forget-me-not appeared

to us in the centre of Ibrahim Khan's courtyard, the sight would

scarcely have been more suggestive. What memories it revives! One of

them--

"When the fascinating Lady F. Macarthy, an authoress and a _femme

d'esprit_, had sketched with a pencil, stolen from Wit, the character

of her bosom friend, Miss Anne Clotworthy Crawley, and published the

same, the English world laughed, but Dublin joyed with double joy.

"Dublin joyed thus: firstly, at seeing the picture; secondly,

at foreseeing the scene it would occasion when the sketcher and

the sketched met for the first time in public. There was much of

anticipation, much of vague and happy expectation, in this idea.

"Was it disappointed?

"No! At the next ball, Lady Florence, unwilling to show Miss Crawley

that she could not use as well as abuse a friend, and Miss Crawley, as

unwilling to show Lady Florence her consciousness of having been abused

as she deserved, both with one impulse at the same moment clave the

crowd, and--they had been parted at least five days--kissed each other

with all the ardour of feminine friendship.

"'And faith,' said every Irishman of the hundred who witnessed the

scene--'and 'faith, I disp'hised them both!'

"Kiss on, Kakoo Mall and Hari Chand!

* * * * *

"At the end of the time the host motions away his pipe, and prepares

himself to converse and hor! hor! with renewed vigour.

"'Were you at Nasir Khan's fight?'--so the battle of Meeanee is called

by the Scindians, as opposed to Sher Mohammed's fight, the battle of

Dubbah.

"We reply in the negative, and suspect that we are in for one of our

noble host's stock stories.

"'Hor! hor! that _was_ an affair. O Allah, Allah Akbar! was ever the

like of it before?'

"'Then you were present, Meer Sahab?'[7]

"'I--yes, indeed I was. I went out with all the vassals of my poor

brother' (a broad grin), 'whom you killed. Look at his son, my nephew

there' (pointing to the lean scowler sitting by his side). 'Well, you

killed his poor father. And, hor! hor! you would have killed me,'

pursues Ibrahim, highly amused by the idea, 'but I was a little too

sharp even for the Frank.'

"We stimulate him by an inquiry.

"'How?' he vociferates. 'Why, when we went out of the tent to attack

you we started to hunt the deer. Some carried swords, others spears,

and many sticks, because we wanted to thrash you soundly for your

impudence--not to kill you, poor things. My brother--now Allah illumine

his grave!--was a simple-minded man, who said, "What can the iron of

the Angreez[8] do against the steel of the Beloch?"

"'We drew up in a heap, eager for the onslaught. Presently some guns of

yours appeared; they unlimbered: they began to fire. So did ours; but

somehow or other we shot over you, you shot into us. I was on the other

part of the field, so of course I didn't care much for that. But, a few

minutes afterwards, what did we see?--a long red line, with flashing

spikes, come sweeping over the plain towards us like a simoom.

"'Allah, Allah! what are these dogs doing? They are not running away?

All my poor brother's men put the same question.

"'Then bang went the great guns, phit the little guns; the Franks

prayed aloud to the Shaitan with a loud, horrible voice; we to Allah.

What a mosque full of mullahs it was, to be sure![9] Who could fight?

We howled defiance against them. Still they came on. We stood and

looked at them. Still they came on. We rushed and slashed at them, like

Rustams. Still they came on--the white fiends.[10] And, by Allah, when

we ran away, still they came after us. It was useless to encounter this

kind of magic; the head magician sitting all the time on the back of

a little bay horse, waving his hat in circles, and using words which

those that heard them sounded like the language of devils. I waited

till my poor brother fell dead. Then I cried to the vassals, "Ye

base-born, will you see your chieftain perish unavenged?" And, having

done my best to fight like a soldier, I thought I had a right to run

like one--hor! hor!

"'But now tell me--you are an Englishman--is there any chance of the

Ameer's ever returning from captivity?'

"The assembly, after being convulsed with laughter during the Chief's

account of his prowess at the battle of Meeanee--there are 'toadies' in

Scinde as elsewhere--was breathless whilst he awaited our answer to his

question.

"'No, Meer Sahab, there is none. The morning of prosperity has at

length dawned upon Scinde. It leads to a day that knows no return of

night!'

"'Allah Tuhar--the Lord be thy preserver!' There was no laugh as

Ibrahim Khan uttered this short prayer.

"We rise; so does every man in the room. Vehemently are we pressed to

stay. Vehemently do we refuse. Then there is a rushing to the doors,

a whooping for horses, an appearance of the animals, madly kicking

and plunging because ten hands are holding each bridle. The Chief

accompanies us as far as the main gate of his palace, shaking hands,

laughing violently, and catechizing us about our healths and brains;

he repeats his delight at having made friendship with us, and, as

a conclusion, again clasps us to that development which would not

disgrace the fat fame of a Falstaff.

* * * * *

[What can be more true or witty, more picturesque and characteristic,

than this picture of a Beloch dinner and tea party?--I. B.]

"'A tea-party! 'What horrible goblins of the past are conjured up by

these three syllables!

* * * * *

"The first object that meets our glance, as we near the tents, is a

line of Belochies drawn up behind a row of earthen pots, in shape and

hue by no means unlike monstrous turnips. These--the turnips--are a

present of choice confectionery; material, coarse sugar, rice, flour,

spices, and clarified butter--always sent in token of friendship or

favour. There are ten pots full for you, the 'great gentleman,' eight

for me, the thinner man, one for our moonshee, who looks a profound

disgust at not having received two, and the rest for the servants.

The latter will obtain, although they cannot claim, possession of the

whole, and the result will be a general indigestion, which nothing but

a certain preparation of tartar can remove. Half a pound of the foul

mixture would place our lives in imminent peril. Another uncomfortable

effect of the ceremony is, that in this case, as on all occasions

where an Oriental sends you a present, a return is expected, and the

amount of the return is supposed exactly to show at what rate you value

yourself. We must give vails to all the fellows, otherwise we shall

be called 'fly-suckers,' _i.e._ skinflints--a reputation which you,

in your own country and in these days, seem rather to court than to

avoid, Mr. Bull; but what the East is not yet sufficiently enlightened

to appreciate. We must also send a 'token' to the noble giver of the

sweetmeats. If we withhold it, he will not be too shamefaced to apply

for it in person. I remarked that, during the visit, he repeatedly

admired your ring--a bloodstone with the family crest, a lion rampant,

upon it. Send it to him, with an epigrammatic compliment, which I will

impromptu for you, and you will earn, as the natives say, a 'great

name.'

* * * * *

"'Well, Hari Chand, how progresses the Ameer?'

"'The Ameer? Your exalted intelligence will understand most

prosperously, only he has robbed his ryots of all their camels, and now

he is quarrelling with the neighbouring jagirdars (country gentlemen)

in order to get theirs to cheat the Company with; he has depopulated

the land of small birds to feed his twenty hawks; he has been to

Hyderabad and has returned stark-staring mad, swearing that he drank

two sahibs under the table, and made love to every madam[11] in the

place' (Hari Chand is determined to excite our _ghairat_, or jealousy,

on that point by perpetually hammering at it); 'he has married another

wife, although people say he has five[12] already; the new one being

a devil, fights with all the old ones, who try to poison her; and

his eldest daughter, when on a visit to the capital, ran away with a

mounted policeman. Wah! wah! Verily, it is a noble family, as the poet

said of the people of Cabul--

"A most distinguished race are they;

The men can't say 'Yes,' the women can't say 'No.'"'[13]

"'And Kakoo Mall?'

"'Oh, Kakoo Mall! He is making a fortune by sedulously practising

all kinds of iniquities. Praised be Allah! what a scoundrel he is!

It would take hours to sketch out his villanies even for the exalted

intelligence of your honours to comprehend them. But one of these days

Kakoo must and will come to a bad end, a very bad end, which may be a

warning to mankind.'

"This prediction, Mr. Bull, is simply the result of envy on the part

of Hari Chand, who would give one of his eyes for the unlimited powers

of doing evil, that good (to himself) might come of it, which he

represents Kakoo Mall to enjoy. Of course he alludes piously to the

vengeance of the gods, but the reference is an habitual one; the heart

knows nothing about what the tongue speaks.

"'Ut sit magna, tamen certe lenta ira decrum est,' is a sentiment which

misleads the Eastern as well as the Western would-be criminal. These

people theoretically own the idea of retribution in this certain life;

practically, they act as if sure to evade it. An unseen, an uncertain

punishment has so little effect when threatened from afar! Offended

Heaven may so easily be propitiated by vain oblations, and equally vain

repentance. And, after all, celestial vengeance so often comes too

late--a man may enjoy himself so many years before the blow descends!

So they never neglect to threaten one another with the _ira deorum_,

and always sit in the teeth of it themselves.

* * * * *

"Here is the Sawári, the retinue. Meer Ibrahim Khan, all crimson and

gold, alights from his steed, a handsome Beloch mare, whose bridle and

head-gear are covered with grotesque silver ornaments, and stands a

moment patting her, to show off her points and equipments. The saddle

is richly mounted--though far inferior to those used by some of the

petty Indian princes, whose led horses are decked in harness plated

with precious metals studded with diamonds--and there is no deficiency,

at the same time no particular attraction, in the abundance of girth,

housing, martingale and crupper, with which a gentleman's animal in

this part of the world must be lumbered.

"Ibrahim Khan prepares for dinner by dismissing all his attendants

but one, Kakoo Mall, who remains to 'toady' his highness, to swear

the truth of every falsehood the great man tells, to supply him with

an idea or a word whenever conversation does not flow glibly, and to

be insulted, 'chaffed' and derided, _tour à tour_, as the ill-humour

or joviality of his Chief prevail. The Ameer's quick glance has

detected that we have nought but ale and cognac to offer him; that

point settled, he assures his mind by feeling the smooth insides of

our wine-glasses, by taking up the spoons, avoiding their handles,

by producing brown facsimiles of his thumbs upon the white surface

of the salt, by converting the mustard-pot into a scent-bottle, and

by correcting any little irritation of the epidermis with our only

corkscrews.

"'Will you take a glass of the water of life, Meer Sahab?'

"Perhaps, Mr. Bull, you expect our visitor to drink a few drops of

brandy, as the French take _un petit verre d'absinthe pour ouvrir

l'appetit_. If so, a quarter of an hour will convince you of your

mistake.

"Ibrahim Khan hands his gold-hilted sabre to the Afghan servant--who

receives it at a distance, as if it bit, with a sneering smile, for

which he shall presently receive well-merited correction--sees it

deposited in the corner of the tent, and then seating himself heavily

upon the edge of the cot of honour opposite the dinner-table, he

clutches a tumbler, blows warmly into it, polishes the damp interior

with his pocket-handkerchief, and prepares to attack the liquid part of

his meal.

"We must join him if you please. In Scinde men drink before, in England

after, dinner. At home, the object, we say, is to pass time pleasantly

over a glass of wine; here, they honestly avow, they drink to get

drunk, and wonder what makes you do the same, disclaiming all intention

of doing it. The Eastern practice is admirable for securing the object

proposed to itself; every one knows that half a bottle upon an empty

stomach does the duty of two emptied under converse circumstances.

Moreover, the Scindians declare that alcohol before meals whets the

appetite, enlivens the spirits, and facilitates digestion. Habit is

everything. I should advise you, Mr. John Bull, to follow the Meer's

example at humble distance; otherwise a portly old gentleman in a

state of roaring intoxication, singing and speechifying, excited

combativeness and general benevolence, may be the concluding scene of

this feast of unreason.

"The dinner passes off rapidly. Ibrahim Khan eats quite as much as

he drinks. Not contented with scooping up masses of boiled rice,

hard eggs, and unctuous stews, in his palm, now and then stripping

a kabab-stick[14] with his fingers, and holding up a large bone to

his mouth with both hands, he proposes after our example to practise

the knife and fork. With these articles, the former in the left, the

latter in the right fist, he attempts to dissect a roast fowl, which

dances away from him, as if it had vitality, over the damask, to the

tune of loud hor! hors! Again he tries--again he fails, although he

prefaced the second attempt by a Bismillah: 'Heathen dog' (to Kakoo

Mall), 'is the soul of thy father in this bit of carrion?' for which

gross insult[15] the Hindoo mentally fines his lord a thousand rupees,

to be cheated the first opportunity. At last, desperate by the failure

of many efforts, he throws away the fork, transfers the knife to his

right hand, and grasping with his left the animal's limbs, he tears it

piecemeal with a facility which calls for a loud explosion of mirth.

"I never yet saw an Oriental laugh at himself so readily. Generally

speaking, childlike, they are nervously and uncomfortably sensitive

to ridicule of all kinds. Nothing offends them more lastingly than a

caricature, be it the most good-natured. A writer of satire in Persia

rarely dies an easy death; and the present race must be numbered

amongst things that were, before a man could edit, at Teheran, a number

of _Punch_ and live through the day.

"Scindian cookery is, like the country and its native, a link between

the Iranian and the Indian systems. Central Asia is pre-eminently the

land of good living and of masterly _artistes_, men as truly great in

their exquisite art as Paris or Naples ever produced: it teems with

enjoyment to the philosophic _bon vivant_, who will apply his mind

to naturalizing his palate. Amongst the Hindoos, the _matériel_ of

the _cuisine_ is too limited, consequently there is a monotony in the

succession of rice-dishes and vegetables: moreover, the bilious ghee

enters into almost every preparation, the sweets are cloying, and the

profuse spices annoying to the tasteful palate. In Scinde there are

dawnings of culinary light, which would in a happier moral clime usher

in a brilliant day. You have seldom eaten anything better--I will

answer for the fact, Mr. Bull--than a _salmi_ of black partridge, with

a garnishing of stewed _bengans_, or egg-plants.

"The repast ends more abruptly than it began. The Scindian, as the

boa-constrictor, is always torpid after his ample meal, and he holds to

the apothegm of the Salernitan school--

'Post prandium est dormiendum.'

You may observe our guest's fat heavy eyelids winking and drooping

with progressive somnolency as the time for his _siesta_ draws nigh.

He calls for a cup of lukewarm milk--the invariable and offensive

conclusion to dinner here; apologizes for leaving us--he must go to his

prayers and attend to his guest-house[16]--promises a return to tea in

the evening, calls for his horse, mounts it and retires.

"Now that he has gone, perhaps you also, sir, may have 'letters to

write.'

* * * * *

"'Ibrahimoo was so full of wine,' remarks Hari Chand, 'with these eyes

I saw him almost tumble over his animal. He go to pray! He went to

prepare for the evening's work. As for his guest-house, it is called by

all the poor around, "House of Hunger." Your honours, I hear, gave him

only beer and brandy. You will see him presently return with a donkey's

load of bottles. And I am told that he is going to bring his eldest

boy. Ah, your honours must button up your pouches now!'

* * * * *

"Here comes the Ameer with some additions to his former escort, Kakoo

Mall; a little brown boy five or six years old, a minstrel, and a

servant carrying many 'grey-beards.'

"In few parts of the world do you see prettier children than those of

the higher class in Scinde. Their features are delicate and harmonious;

the forehead is beautifully _bombé_; the full, rounded cheek shows

almost olive-coloured by the side of the silky black curls; and there

is an intelligence and a vivacity which you scarcely expect to see

in their large, long, lustrous black eyes. Their forms are equal to

their faces; for symmetry and finish they might serve as models to

the well-provided Murillo or Correggio. And the simplicity of their

dress--a skull-cap, a little silk frock like a night-gown, confined

with a waist-shawl in which sticks the tiniest of daggers, and a pair

of loose slippers--contrasts most advantageously with the dancing-dog

costumes with which your good lady, Mr. Bull, invests her younger

offspring, or the unsightly jackets and waistcoats conferred upon Billy

when breeched. If you like their dress you will also admire their

behaviour. The constant habit of society makes them companionable at

an age when your progeny is fit for nothing but confinement in a loose

box called a nursery. The boy here stands before his father, or sits

with him when ordered, more staidly than one of your adults would do.

He listens with uncommon gravity to the conversation of his seniors,

answers pithily and respectfully when addressed, and never requires to

be lectured upon the text, 'Little children are made to be seen and not

heard.' At eight years of age he is master of the _usages_; he will

receive you at the door in the absence of his progenitor, hand you to

your proper seat in the room, converse with you, compliment you, call

for pipes, offer you sweetmeats, invite you to dinner, and dismiss you

without failing in a single point. As a boy he is a little man, and

his sister in the harem is a little woman. This you may object to on

the score of taste; say that it robs childhood of its chief charm, the

natural, the innocent, and all that kind of thing. At any rate, you

must own that it also preserves us from the very troublesome displays

of the said charm in the form of pertness, selfishness, turbulence, and

all the unlovely details comprehended in your 'naughtiness'--the Irish

'boldness.'

"Our admiration of their children is reciprocated by the Orientals. I

have heard of a Chief travelling many miles to see the fair and flaxen

hair of a 'European baby;' and 'Beautiful as a white child' is almost

a proverb amongst the dark-skinned Maharattas.

"We must treat Master Ibrahim--I beg his pardon, Meer Jan Mohammed Khan

Talpur, as he sententiously names himself--with especial attention,

as a mark of politeness to his father. We insist upon his sitting

down--upon the highest seat, too--inquire with interest after his horse

and his hawk, look at his dagger, and slip in a hope that he may be as

brave a soldier as his father. But we must not tell him that he is a

pretty boy, or ask him his age, or say anything about his brothers and

sisters, otherwise we offend against the _convenances_. And when we

wish him to be sent home--that venerable maxim,

'Maxima debetur puero reverenda,'

is still venerated in the East--we give him a trifling _tohfeh_

(present), a pocket-pistol or a coloured print, and then he will feel

that the object of his mission has been fulfilled. In Central Asia a

child's visit is a mere present-trap.

"You admire the row of bottles displayed upon the table--a dozen at

least of champagne and sherry, curaçoa and noyau, brandy and gin,

soda-water and pale ale. You will wonder still more when you see

Ibrahim Khan disposing of their contents recklessly, mixing them (after

consumption) by tumblers full, intoxicating himself with each draught,

and in each twenty minutes' interval becoming, by dint of pushing

his cap off his brow, scratching his head, abusing his moonshee, and

concentrating all the energies of mind and body upon his pipe, sober as

judges are said to be.

"A faint 'twang-twang' draws your attention to the corner of the tent.

As in the ages preceding Darius, so since his time the _soirée_ of

Oriental Cæsar, or Chief, never ended without sweet music.

"Remark the appearance of the performer. He is a dark,

chocolate-coloured man with a ragged beard, an opium look, sharp,

thin features, and a skin that appears never to have known ablution.

A dirty, torn cloth wrapped round his temples acts as turban; the

rest of the attire, a long shirt of green cotton and blue drawers, is

in a state which may be designated 'disgusting.' In his hand is his

_surando_, the instrument of his craft, a rude form of the violin, with

four or five sheep-gut strings, which are made to discourse eloquent

music by a short crooked bow that contains half the tail of a horse.

He is preparing to perform, not in the attitude of a Paganini, but as

we see in old Raphaels, and occasionally in the byways of Italy--the

instrument resting upon his lap instead of his collar-bone. Before

the preliminary scraping ends, whilst the Meer is reviling Kakoo Mall

_sotto voce_, a word or two about the fellow and his race.

"The Langho, or, as he is politely and accurately termed, the

Manganhar, or 'asker'[17]--they are the most peremptory and persevering

of beggars--is a particular caste in Scindi. Anciently all the great

clans had their own minstrels, whose duty it was to preserve their

tradition for recital on festival occasions, and to attend the Chief in

battle, where they noted everything with an eagle's eye, praising those

that fought, and raining showers of curses, taunts, and invectives

upon those that fled. This part of their occupation is now gone. In

the present day they subsist principally by the charity of the people,

and by attending at the houses in which their professional services at

marriages and other ceremonies are required. They are idle as well as

fond of pleasure, dirty, immoral, and notoriously dishonest. _Largesse_

to a minstrel being a gentlemanly way of wasting one's substance in

Scinde, those that employ the 'asker' are provoked to liberality till

either the will or the way fail. In the mean time he spends every

pice, with all the recklessness of a Western _artiste_, in drinking,

gambling, and the silliest ostentation. He is not expected to live

long, and none knows what becomes of him in his old age.

"Our friend the Meer has, I am told by Hari Chand, suffered so much

from these men's sneering encomiums upon his valour and conduct in the

late war, that he once tried the experiment of paying them liberally

to avoid his palace. Finding that the revenues of Persia would be

inadequate to carry out the scheme, he has altered his tactics, and

now supports half a dozen of these, on the express condition that they

never allude to the battles of Meeanee or Dubbah in his presence.

"And now, as Ibrahim Khan looks tired of attempting to converse with

our surly Afghans, and of outraging the feelings of his moonshee, we

will lend an ear to Music--heavenly maid--as she springs upon us in

grimly guise from the head of Aludo, the minstrel.

"The singing will commence with a favourite rhapsod theme--the murder

of the great Lord Bahram, the ancestor of the Talpur Princess--by

order of Sarfaraz, the Kalhora; and with the deadliest accuracy will

it detail how an individual of lowly birth but brave, Shah Baharo, a

Scindian, when ordered by the despot to do the deed, refused, saying,

'I will fight the Beloch like a man.' How Sarfaraz made light of Shah

Baharo's chivalry and honour, asking, 'Where is Mohammed the Prophet

of Allah, and where is Musaylimah the liar?'[18] How Shah Baharo

responded with great temper and a prodigious quantity of good advice,

the major part of which was _à propos_ of everything; how Sarfaraz

cozened and flattered till he found a willing bravo in Ismail Mombiyani

the Scindian; how the said Ismail, being a one-handed man, cut down

the valiant Bahram from behind with a sword which he held in his left

hand, raised a little higher than usual, and drew down the murdered

chief's shoulder; how Ismail, after the assassination, cut off Bahram's

head; and, finally, how Sarfaraz looked at it, and gave utterance to

unchristianlike sentiments.

"All the terrible minuteness of a French novel of the day or an Italian

historical romance!

"The sounds that accompany are more remarkable than the words of the

song. Each fresh verse is ushered in by a loud howl so strikingly

discordant that your every nerve starts at it, and so prolonged that

anticipation wearies of looking forward to its close. To which follows

the _aria_, a collection of sharp shatterings, in a key strained at

least two notes above the _voce di petto_, which, nevertheless, must be

forced up to the mark, falsetto being unknown here. And, lastly, the

conclusion of the phrase--a descent into the regions of the _basso_

till the voice dies away, vaguely growling--lost, as it were, and

unable to merge from the depths into which it strayed. Then the howl,

the chatterings, the soprano scream, and the growl over again. Half an

hour of this work goes to the formation of a Scindian melody.

"Melody!

"Well, yes, melody! You see, sir, all around you are ecstatized,

consequently there must be something to attract admiration in the

performance. Of all the arts, Music is the most conventional. What do

you think Orpheus would have thought of Thalberg--Thalberg of Orpheus?

The tradition of all ancient people, Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Romans,

and others, tell of minstrels who worked miracles by the voice, the

guitar, the lute, and the lyre. The Music of the Greeks and Romans is

beyond our reach; that of the Hindoo and the Persian is still in its

old age,--much the same, I suppose, as it was when it began to exist.

Accustomed to his own system, the Indian cannot derive the least

pleasure from ours. The noisiness confuses him; his ear cannot detect

a phrase, and he is ignorant of its harmony as he would be insensible

to discord. He wonders greatly how it is that the European, so superior

to him in arms and arts, can be so far behind in this one science, and

he turns with eagerness to the strain familiar to his ear; not to the

'Hindostanee melodies,' which are occasionally composed in London, but

to an honest, downright bit of barbarism such as we have just now heard.

"After my description, you will be astonished to hear that I could do

anything but suffer during the endurance of the minstrel's song. At

first all was pure torture. Presently the ear, in its despair, began

to make friends with the least harsh sounds, as prisoners do with

spiders or jailors. Then, as a note or two became familiar, the utter

strangeness wore off, and a sensation of grotesque enjoyment, novel and

unexplainable, struggled into existence. At last, when a few years had

thoroughly broken my taste to bear what you have just heard, I could

listen to it not only without the horror you experience, but also with

something more like gratification than composure. Possibly I like it

better for the disgust it provoked at first. So the Highlander learns

to love his screaming, wheezing bagpipe, the German his putrescent

_Sauerkraut_, the Frenchman _haut-goût_ in game, the Italian his rancid

olives, and all the world their snuff and cigars--things which at first

they must, as they were human, have hated.

"The songs generally sung by these Eastern _jongleurs_ are legends,

ballads, certain erotic verses which are very much admired by every

class, and mystical effusions which the learned enjoy, and which the

unlearned, being utterly unable to comprehend them, listen to with the

acutest sensations of pleasure. The Homer of Scinde is one Sayyid Abd

el Latif, a saintly bard, whose Risalo, or collection of distichs upon

traditionary themes of the two passions, Love and War, has been set to

different musical modes, and is, by the consenting voice of society,

admitted to be a perfect _chef d'œuvre_, a bit of heaven on earth.

"I will translate one of the songs which Aludo sings--a short satirical

effusion, directed against the descendants of that celebrated man by

some Scindian poet, who appears fond of using the figure irony.

"AN ODE TO THE HOLY MEN OF BHIT.[19]

1.

"'Ye monks of Bhit, whose holy care

In fast and penance, wake and prayer!

Your lips and eyes bespeak a love

From low earth weaned to Heaven above!

Your hearts have rent all carnal ties,

Abjured all pomps and vanities!

Not mean will be your meed, I ken,

In Heaven's bright realms, ye rev'rend men!'

2.

"'And yet, they say, those tuneful throats,

With prayers' stem chaunt, mix softer notes;

Those mouths will sometimes deign to sip

The honey-dew from maiden's lip;

And other juice than salt tear dyes

With purpling hues those heavy eyes.

Ah, ah! twice blest your lot, I ken,

Here and hereafter, rev'rend men!'

* * * * *

"You have a small musical snuff-box with you. Mr. John Bull; wind it

up, put it in your pocket, and try the effects of a polka or a waltz.

"All are silent in a moment. They start, stare, peer about the room,

and look very much scared by the strange sounds. In another minute

they will run away from us adepts in the black art. You see how many

miracles could be got out of a few such simple contrivances as a

grind-organ, an electrical machine, or a magic lantern. Now produce

the cause of astonishment whilst I attempt to explain the mechanism

of the invention. The sight of something soothes them; their minds

become, comparatively speaking, quiet; still they handle the box with

constraint, as if it had the power of stinging as well as singing.

All are vociferous in praise of the music, probably on account of the

curiosity of the thing, as a civilized audience applauds a sonata

upon one string, at which it would yawn if performed upon four. Even

the Minstrel declares with humble looks that the charm has fled his

_Surando_, that his voice is become like to the crows. This, however,

is his politeness, not his belief. In what part of the world, or at

what epoch of the creation, did a painter, a musician, or a poet, ever

own to himself that he is a dauber, a mar-music, or a poetaster?

"Ibrahim Khan will by no means refuse a 'dish a tea,' especially when

offered to him during a short account of the Chinese Empire: the

beardless state of the Celestials and the porcelain tower being topics

which will at once rivet his attention. Orientals in their cups love

to become inquisitive, scientific, theological, and metaphysical. But

he qualifies the thin potation with quite an equal quantity of brandy,

as in his heart of hearts he has compared the first sip to an infusion

of senna disguised by sugar and milk. The Belochies, unlike their

neighbours the Persians and Afghans, are not accustomed to the use of

_Chahi_.[20]

* * * * *

"'Meer Ibrahim Khan Talpur, listen! The meetings of this world are

in the street of separation. And truly said the poet that the sweet

draught of friendly union is ever followed by the bitter waters of

parting. To-morrow we wander forth from these pleasant abodes, to

return to Hyderabad. My friend, Jan Bool Sahib, is determined to feast

his eyes upon the Edens of Larkhana and to dare the Jehannums of

Shikarpur.'

"The Chief rises steadily, though intoxicated.

"'You are the King of the Franks. You are the best of the Nazarenes,

and, by the blessed Prophet, you almost deserve to be a Moslem! Swear

to me that you will presently return and gladden the glance of amity.

What is life without the faces of those we love? Wah! wah! I have

received you badly. There are no dancing-women in my villages. I would

have seized a dozen of the ryots' wives, but Kakoo Mall said--didn't

you, you scoundrel----?'

"'Certainly, great Chief!'

"'How can the Haiwans,[21] the Scindees, venture to show their

blackened[22] faces in the presence of those exalted lords? If I have

failed in anything, pardon me.'

"The tears stand in Ibrahim's eyes. No wonder. He has nearly finished

six bottles. He grasps our hands at every comma; at every full stop

vigorously embraces us. Yet he is not wholly maudlin. To water the

tree of friendship, as he phrases it, he stuffs my cheroot-case into

one pocket, and a wine-glass into the other. I must give him your

musical box, Mr. Bull, and as an equivalent--I don't wish him to go

home and laugh at our beards--I gently extract his best hunting-knife

from his waistband and transfer it to my own, declaring that with that

identical weapon will I cut the throat of a poetic image called Firak

or Separation.

"Now the adieus become general. The minstrel raises his voice in

fervent prayer; he has received five rupees and a bottle of bad gin.

All the followers put their heads into the tent to bless us, and to see

if we have anything more to give them. The Ameer, convinced that there

are no more presents to be distributed, prepares to depart, accompanied

by his secretary, when Hari Chand, determined upon a final scene,

raises the tent-fly and precipitates himself into Kakoo Mall's arms."

[1] "The just king of Persia."

[2] "A diminutive and decidedly disrespectful form of the proper name."

[3] "A high title in Persia, terribly prostituted in Scinde and India."

[4] "The bird of wisdom in Europe, in Asia becomes the symbol of

stupidity: _vice versâ_, the European goose is the Asiatic emblem of

sageness."

[5] "A metaphor, by no means complimentary, for his house and home."

[6] "A first-rate Persian poet infinitely celebrated and popular for

satire, morality, and gross indecency."

[7] "The polite address to one of the blood-royal."

[8] "An allusion to the boasted superiority of what is called Damascus

steel over our Sheffield cutlery."

[9] "As we should say, 'What a bear-garden!' Two mullahs in one mosque

are sure to fight."

[10] "One of the Rustam's great exploits was slaughtering the Divi

Sapid, or White Demon--a personage, say the Persians, clearly typical

of the modern Russians."

[11] "European ladies in general."

[12] "Four wives are allowed by law and religion, but if a man marries

half a dozen or so, it is considered a peccadillo, not a felony."

[13] "Which, by-the-by, is borrowed from the Arab saying concerning the

city of Wasit."

[14] "Bits of roast meat with onion between, fastened together with a

skewer."

[15] "Fowls are considered impure in the extreme by high-caste Hindoos."

[16] "The wealthy nobles in Scinde generally support an establishment

called Mehman-Khana (guest-house), in which they receive and entertain

poor travellers and strangers."

[17] "To call a man 'beggar' does not sound polite in English, but it

does in Scinde ears. An Oriental would generally prefer being under any

kind of obligation to his superiors than lack connection with them."

[18] "A false prophet, _i.e._ an unsuccessful one, contemporary with

Mohammed. The phrase is a classical one amongst the Moslems: it is much

used when drawing odious comparisons between man and man."

[19] "Bhit is a small town lying to the eastward of Hyderabad. The word

in Scinde literally means a 'heap,' and is applied to the place because

the holy Abd el Latif ordered his followers to throw up a mound of

earth as a foundation for the habitations of men. The holy subjects of

the Ode, although his descendants, have quite lost reputation amongst

the Bards, because they ungenerously appropriated the hoards entrusted

to their charge by the wife of the dethroned Kalhora prince. Perhaps,

being very wealthy, they are become, as might be expected, very

niggardly, and that is another cause of offence."

[20] "Tea."

[21] "In Arabic, 'anything that hath life'--popularly used to signify

a beast as opposed to a human being, or a human being that resembles a

beast."

[22] "Blackened, _bien entendu_, by certain unquenchable flames."

APPENDIX E.

POLITICS.

RICHARD'S VIEWS UPON THEM, AND WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE--A SUBJECT TO BE

CONTINUED IN THE FUTURE WORK, "LABOURS AND WISDOM OF RICHARD BURTON."

"And now for a serious bit of moralizing, from gay to grave. The

radical changes of the last five years in Paris deserve chronicling

and deep study. The War and the Commune have made a new world. '_La

nation la plus aimable la plus aimée et peut-être la moins aimante_,'

has been translated, 'The light and joyous character may lie below,

but there is a terrible hard upper crust of sulkiness and economy run

mad--rage for lucre, and lust _pour la revanche_.' There is only the

_ancienne noblesse_, the Faubourg St. Germain, the souls loyal to their

King and to their Faith, who remain pure. So far, the Parisians are

like the Irish Kelt,--a blathering, bumptious, bull-and-blunder loving

race. The former have been converted in half a century by politics

and polemics into a moping and melancholy brood. It is no longer the

fashion in France to speak without an introduction. Men will sit side

by side at _table d'hôte_ in dead silence for a month; they travel

twenty-four hours in the railway without opening the mouth; and if a

loud laugh be heard in public, it is sure to come from some _triste

Anglais_. Even the women, although they still fling the look of hate

at a pretty toilette, seem to have abdicated the supremacy of the

toilette. Once you never did, now you often see the absence of corsets

upon figures that can't stand it. They are badly painted, and it is a

sin to paint badly. They are _outrées_ in their dress, and the neglect

of these things is a bad sign in Paris. The middle and the lower

classes, who used to be _à quatre épingles_, are _mal coiffées_, with

their petticoats hanging below their dresses, as we were in the days of

_les Anglaises pour rire_. We have learnt many things from our French

friends, and amongst the _good_ things, how to dress; but dress never

made _our_ women's beauty--it did that of the French.

"The theatres are clearing 27,000,000 of francs (1875), when during

the palmiest days of the Empire they never exceeded 17,000,000. Except

at the new Opera, the scenery and decorations are those of our penny

gaffs. 'Les Italiens' bears the palm of dowdyism, and actors and

actresses seem to have decayed with the decorations. The _cuisine_,

except in special instances, has notably fallen off. The bottles are

all 'kick,' the famous bread and butter has lost caste. The _café au

lait_ is all chicory--maximum water, minimum beans. Mammonolatry is

rampant, and the great problem of manufacture and depôt, of store and

shop, is how to charge the most for the worst article. Economy has now

become a vice instead of a virtue, and 1,852,000 souls manage to pay

12,280,000 francs in taxes per annum.

"It is impossible to pass a day in Paris without hearing and speaking

politics. The French, I have said, are sulky, especially with the

'Perfidious,' because she has supplanted them in Egypt, where for so

many years England had by a tacit convention supplied the material and

France the personal. They question the wisdom of our last dodge. It is

the first move in the coming Kriegspiel. I hate half-measures, and I

would have bought the Canal wholly out and out, and put a fortress at

each end, and taken a mild nominal toll to show my right. I would annex

Egypt and protect Syria, occupy the Dardanelles, and after that let the

whole world wrangle as much as it pleased. What is the use of having

a Navy superior to all the united navies of the rest of the world, if

we can't do this? The world will never be still till Constantinople

returns to the old Byzantine kingdom; and we might put a Royalty there,

say the Duke of Edinburgh, who, being married to the Czar's daughter,

would unite the interests of Russia and England. Let the Turk live, but

retire into private life; he is a good fellow there, and we can respect

El Islam so long as he has nothing to butcher.

[Sidenote: _Central Europe_.]

"Let Austria become a mighty empire,--nineteen million Slavs, eight

million Germans, five million Hungarians. Let Italy be satisfied

with her Unity and Freedom and Progress, and Prussia repose upon her

Bismarck, and France keep quiet and look after her health. But as it

is, the three Emperors may say to us, 'Gentlemen, you have got what

you want; we will follow suit--look on, and don't spoil sport.' Taken

_per se_, this Suez Canal measure is a patch of tinsel gold plastered

upon the rags of foreign and continental policy which our ins and

outs have kept us up during the last decade, whilst under-authorities

are apparently told off to declare periodically that England has

lost none of her prestige abroad. Listen to the average politician

of the multitude.[1] I do not like the doings of my own party (I am

a Conservative); and what irritates me more is, that little as _he_

knows, there is sound truth in what he says.

"The fact is, that England has repudiated the grand old rule of

aristocracy which carried her safely through the Titan wars of

the early Buonaparte ages, whilst she has not accepted the strong

repulsive arm of Democracy, which enabled the Federal to beat down the

Confederate. She rejects equally the refined minority and the sturdy

majority; she is neither hot nor cold; she sits between two stools, and

we all know where that leads to.

"This Suez move would have been a homogeneous part of a strong

policy--that is, a policy backed by two millions of soldiers, by a

preponderating fleet of ironclads, and by a school of diplomatists,

which has not been broken in to 'effacing' themselves. Of our

politicians generally, the less said the soonest mended; but I have

unbounded confidence in our Premier,[2] in our Navy, and the good

heart, rough common sense, firmness, and _esprit de corps_ of our

British public. The next shake--and it will be heavy and soon--will

give us the Euphrates Valley Railway, despite the cleverness of an

Ignatieff. The first disaster will bring on a revival of the Militia

Law, and I should not be surprised if we live to see ourselves

revolve round again to a general conscription, and the 'do nothings'

will eventually go to the wall. It is a pity to tie the hands of so

long-sighted a Premier.

"Revenge is still the dream of Paris, and the dream is not of the wise.

The three Emperors love the three Empires, and hate one another; the

Government and the Lieges are blinded by jealousy; each wishes to be

the first in the race, and to see the other two distanced. All are

mounted upon a war footing _au piéd de guerre_; which means that they

intend fighting, and Germany especially must fight or she is lost; to

her peace is more ruinous than war. France is cutting her way up with

the purse instead of the sword. The great Triad might alter the map of

Europe. 'The sons of Hermann' would absorb Belgium and Holland; the

Muscovite swallow Constantinople with its neighbouring appendages,

and Austria _convey_ ('the wise call it') the remainder of Turkey's

Slavonic provinces. But they will do nothing of the kind. Germany has

proved herself the natural guardian of the Eastern frontier of Europe.

"A Franco-Russian alliance is now, in 1876, in everybody's mouth.

France is for the moment safely republican, with a chance of M. Thiers,

the kingmaker, succeeding to the Presidency.[3] She casts the blame of

the Communal excesses upon the Buonapartists, because she fears them;

but she has clean forgotten Legitimists and Orleanists. As regards the

Franco-Russian alliance, opinions follow two courses. The sensible and

far-seeing, which (like councils of war) never fights, would unite with

Russia and temporarily keep the peace. The majority of hot heads and

Hotspurs would use it for another '_À Berlin!_' to attack Prussia from

the east as well as the west.

"Yet, if the truth be told, France is far less ready for war than

England. She can hardly raise 400,000 men to defend her own frontiers.

We assisted at various reviews, and inspected many of the camps; we

saw artillery, cavalry, and infantry equally unfit to face an educated

enemy. Every order given by an officer was answered or questioned by

a private, 'Mais, ce n'est pas cela du tout, mon Capitaine.' Guns,

horses, and men were equally inefficient. True, the chassepot is being

changed for the fusil Gras, the sword-bayonet is being supplanted by

a neat triangular weapon unfit to cut cabbages and wood, and the six

arms manufacturers of France are not wasting an hour. But after seeing

the skirmishes and advances in line, one cannot help feeling certain

that at this rate half a century will elapse before the Frenchman is

ready to fight the Prussian. Meanwhile, every head of man, woman, and

child here pay half a franc (fivepence sterling) per diem, and the

municipality of Paris spends, I am told, an income inferior only to the

six great Powers of Europe.

"The part of the Regal-Republican, Imperial-Republican Capital

showing least change is that Conservative quarter which may be called

'Anglo-American Paris.' This 'West End' is bounded north by the

Boulevards des Italiens and the Madeleine; south by the Rue Rivoli

and the river (a mere ditch, but not so dirty as father Thames);

east by the Rue Richelieu, the Palais Royal, and Véfour; west by the

Embassy and the Chapel, with the Vendôme Column as a landmark. Here

the northern and western barbarians have their King Plenipo, and

their Consul, their chaplain and physician, their pet hotels, English

(Meurice's), their club and library (Galignani's), their tavern

(Byron's, famed for beer), their dentist, their pharmacies, and their

shops labelled, 'English (or American) spoken here,'--which generally

means, 'I'm a thief, you're a fool.' We can tell a compatriot a mile

off--the men by their billycock hats and tweed suits, their open

mouths, hats well at back of head, and red guide-books; the women by

their wondrous dress and hats--for which there are special shops--their

turned-up toes and noses, their manly strides, their taking men's arms,

one on each side; and the glum faces of both sexes on the Sabbath,

when the guide-book is exchanged for the Common Prayer-book and the

Bible. In this region, where the snuffle of the Yankee mixes with the

_h_aspirations of the Cockney, the really Parisianized Englishman is

never seen, and if compelled to pass through it he hurries with muffled

face in trembling haste, like Mahomet rushing down the demon-haunted

defiles of El Hidjr.

"Milan is bravely raising a monument to Napoleon III., whilst the

popular feeling of young Italy runs strong against the French. The

main reasons appear to be the abstraction of Nice, and the domineering

tone assumed by the late Empire. Moreover, 'the _peoples_' (Kossuth

still lives at Turin) do not readily pardon their benefactors. Witness

the aversion of Spain and Portugal for England since the Peninsular

War. In the next campaign the general voice of the younger and more

fiery sort, and of that solid power, the Left Centre, will compel

the constitutional Government of Victor Emmanuel, despite all his

prepossessions and prejudices, to side with Germany against France.

This was written years ago, but it is, methinks, still true.

"I was astonished to find the Italianissimo feeling so rampant in

Upper Italy, and the people so excited upon the subject, when their

Government have set them an example of calmness, common sense,

moderation, and constitutional spirit of compromise, which go far to

redeem the character of the Latin race, even in this, the darkest day

of its history. Because Dante made the Quarnero Gulf finish Italy,

and because Petrarch established the Alps as the surroundings of his

fair land, their new geographical politicians would absorb Trieste and

Istria; and when Jove shall wax wroth, he will probably grant them

their silly prayer.

"Trieste has a mixed population. North of Ponte Rosso is Germania,

composed of the authorities, the employés, and a few wealthy merchants.

They have a maniacal idea of Germanizing their little world, a mania

which secures for them abundant trouble and ill-will, for eight

millions cannot denationalize thirty-two millions. There are twelve

thousand Italians at Trieste who speak a corrupted Venetian; eleven

thousand of these are more or less poor, one thousand are perhaps too

rich. However, their civilization is all Roman, and they take a pride

in it, whilst the _exaltés_ and the Italianissimi hate their rulers

like poison. In this they are joined by the mass of the wealthy and

influential Israelites, who divide the commerce with the Greeks. The

former subscribe handsomely to every Italian charity or movement; and

periodically and anonymously memorialize the King of Italy. The lower

class take a delight in throwing large squibs, here called by courtesy

'torpedoes,' amongst the unpatriotic petticoats who dare to throng

the Austrian balls. The immediate suburbs, country, and villages are

Slav, and even in the City some can barely speak Italian. This people

detests all its fellow-citizens with an instinctive odium of race, and

with a dim consciousness that it has been ousted from its own. Thus

the population may be said to be triple. Politics are lively, and the

Italianissimi thrive because the constitutional Government, which has

taken the place of the old patriarchal despotism, is weak, acting as

if it feared them. Austria of to-day is feeble and gentlemanly, and as

such is scarcely a match for the actual Italy. Let us lay out a little

map of politics immediately around our small corner of the world.

"Being devoted Austrians, we have many anxieties concerning the

political health of this admirable country. Austria, once so famed

for the astute management, the 'Politiké,' which kept in order the

most heterogeneous of households between Bohemia and Dalmatia, and

from Hungary to the Milanese, is suffering from a complication of

complaints. The first is the economic: her deficit for 1877 is already

laid at twenty-six millions of florins; she lives on paper, and she

habitually outruns the constable. Secondly, are the _modus vivendi_

with Hungary, the Convention, the Bank, and half a dozen other

troubles, which result from the 'chilling dualism' of Count Beust

(1867). The inevitable rivalry of a twofold instead of a threefold

empire is now deepening to downright hostility. The Slavs complain

that the crown of the Empire is being dragged through the mire by the

'Magyarists;' and on December 9th, the Vienna Chamber of Deputies heard

for the first time a proposal to substitute Trialism for Dualism.

Third, and last, is the Eastern Question, in which the poor invalid is

distracted by three physicians proposing three several cures. Doctor

Hungary wants only the integrity (!) of Turkey: alliance with England,

war with Russia. Doctor Germany, backed by the Archduke Albert,

and aided by the army, looks to alliance with Russia, and to the

annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina when Turkey falls to pieces.

Lastly, Doctor Progressist, with the club of the Left, advocates the

cold-water treatment, absolute passivity: no annexation, no occupation,

no intervention. The triad division seems inveterate: even the

Constitutionalist party must split into three--a Centrum, a Left, and

a _Fortschritts partei_. Hence Prince Gortschakoff, not without truth,

characterized this mosaic without coherence as 'no longer a State, but

only a Government.'

"Austria, like England, is suffering from the manifold disorders and

troubles that accompany a change of life. At home we have thrown

over for ever the rule of Aristocracy; and we have not yet resigned

ourselves to what must inevitably come--Democracy pure and simple.

Accordingly, we sit between two stools, with the usual proverbial

result. Austria, in 1848, sent to the Limbo of past things the

respectable 'paternal government,' with its _carcere_, its _carcere

duro_, and its _carcere durissimo_; and threatened to make sausage-meat

of M. Ochsenhausen von Metternich. Constitutionalism, adopted by

automatism, found the Austrians utterly unfit for freedom; and the

last thirty years have only proved that constitutionalism may be more

despotic than despotism. Austria has ever been the prey of minorities,

German and Magyar. Her _Beamter_ class has adopted the worst form of

Latin _Bureaucratie_. Her Press has one great object in life, that

of 'Germanizing' unwilling Slavs. Her fleet has lost Tegetthoff and

Archduke Max. Her army, once the best drilled in Europe, and second

to none in the _ingens magnitudo corporum_, has been reduced by

short service to a host of beardless boys; and the marvels of the

Uchatius gun will not prevent half the regiments being knocked up by a

fortnight's work. But these are the inevitable evils of a transition

system, and if Austria can only tide over her change of life, she will

still enjoy a long, hearty, and happy old age.

"Hence Austro-Hungary is freely denounced as 'disturbing the European

Areopagus.' Hence Paskievich declared in 1854 that the road to Stamboul

leads through Vienna. Hence Fadajeff, the Panslavist, significantly

points out that Europe contains forty millions of Slavs who are _not_

under the White Czar. These ancient Scythians have hitherto shown very

little wisdom. Instead of cultivating some general language,--for

instance, the old Slavonic, which would have represented Latin,--they

are elaborating half a dozen different local dialogues; and, at the

last Slav Congress, the Pan-Slav Deputies, greatly to the delight of

the Pan-Germanists, were obliged to harangue one another in German. If

'Trialism' be carried out in the teeth of Hungary, what and where can

be the capital of the Jugo-Slavs--the Southern and Latin, as opposed

to the Pravo-Slavs or orthodox? Where shall be the seat of its Houses?

Prague is purely Czech, utterly distasteful to Slavonia, Croatia, and

Dalmatia. Laibach in Krain is the only place comparatively central;

but that means that all would combine to reject Laibach. Meanwhile the

Slavs declare that they are treated as Helots, and that they will stand

this treatment no longer.

"Austria will hardly declare war against Russia even at the bidding of

the Turko-Hungarian alliance--even if menaced with her pet bugbear, the

formation of a strong Slav kingdom, or kingdoms, on her south-eastern

frontier. She is thoroughly awake to the danger threatened by her

friends, that of falling into her four component parts, each obeying

the law of gravitation--Styria, Upper and Lower, absorbing herself in

Germany, and Dalmatia and Istria merging into Italy. She has made all

her preparations for occupying Bosnia, which the Turks are abandoning,

and for which it is generally believed they will not fight. Count

Andrassy, the rebel of 1848, the Premier of 1876-78, will keep his

own counsel and carry out his own plans. He has been unjustly charged

with a vacillating and uncertain policy; as if a man who is being

frantically pulled diametrically in four opposite directions were not

obliged to stoop at times in order to conquer.

"Italy has of late made strong representations at Vienna against the

possible occupation of Bosnia by Austria. She knows that the step

would for ever debar her from the possessions of Dalmatia; and that

the old kingdom, the mother of Emperors, will never rest satisfied

till her extensive seaboard is subtended by a proportionate interior.

Italy would prefer to occupy Bosnia _in propriâ personâ_; but, that

being hardly possible, she would leave it occupied, or, worst of all,

occupied by the Turks. Italy is the deadliest enemy of Austria, and

wears the dangerous aspect of a friend. Such is the present standpoint

of the Empire,[4] and you see she is still, as she has been for years,

a 'political necessity.' We, her well-wishers, can only say to her, in

olden phrase, _Tu, felix Austria, nube,_--'Yea, marry, and take unto

thyself the broad and fertile lands lying behind the Dinaric Alps.'

"Meanwhile, Italy, the rival sister of France, the recipient of many

favours from her, and, _par consequence_, her bitterest foe, bides

her time, remains quiet as a church mouse, and, like the Scotchman's

owl, thinks hard. She is at present the last, the only hope of

Latinism. She has shown, since 1870, a prudence, a moderation, an

amount of common sense, comparatively speaking, which have surprised

the world. Ethnologists, who scoffed at 'Panlatinism,' were overhasty

in determining that the game of the Latin race was 'up;' and that the

three progressive families of the future are the English (including the

German and the Anglo-American), the Slav, and the sons of the Flowery

Land. The present standpoint of Italy is this. She has a treaty with

Russia which makes her a spectator. She has returned an overwhelming

majority of the progressists, who aim at converting her into a

Republic; and Italy, classical and mediæval, has never attained her

full development except under Republican rule. Meanwhile, her 'citizens

and patriots' look forward to recovering Nice, where, in 1860, some

26,000 votes against 160 were polled in favour of annexation to France.

She wants an Algeria, and would like to find it at Tunis, with Carthage

for capital. And finally, she would fain round off her possessions

by annexing from Austria the Trentine, the county of Gorizia, the

peninsula of Istria, including the chief emporium, Trieste, and even

the kingdom of Dalmatia.

"It was not a little amusing to note the expression of simple amazement

with which the general Press of England acknowledged the discovery that

Italy 'actually contemplates' this extension of territory. Would they

be surprised to hear that such has been her object for the last six

hundred years; that in her darkest hour she has never abandoned her

claim; that during the last half-century she has urged it with all her

might, and that at the present moment she is steadily labouring to the

same end? We, who derive experience from the pages of history, firmly

believe that the prize would even now be in her hands were it not for

Prussia, who calculates upon the gravitation of the Austro-German

race, and who already speaks of Trieste as 'our future seaport.' But

why, we ask, cannot Italy rest contented with Venice, which, after a

century of neglect, might by liberal measures again become one of the

principal commercial centres of Europe?

"Under Augustus the whole of Istria was annexed to the tenth region of

Italy; the south-eastern limits being the Flumen Arsæ, the modern Arsa,

that great gash in the Eastern flank beyond which began Liburnia. Hence

Dante sang ('Inferno,' ix. 113-115)--

'Si come a Pola presso del Quarnaro

_Che Italia chiude e i suoi termini bagna,_

Fanno i sepolcri tutto 'l loco varo.'

Hence Petrarch (Sonnet cxiv.) declares of his Laura, whose praises he

cannot waft all the world over--

'----udralo il bel paese,

Ch' Apennin parte, e 'l mar circonda e 'l Alpe.'

And who can forget the glorious verse of Alfieri, the first to discern

Italy in the 'geographical expression' of the eighteenth century?--

'Giorno verrà, tornerà giorno in cui

Redivivi ornai gli Itali staranno,

In campo armati,' etc., etc., etc.

"Italy bases her claim to the larger limit, upon geography, ethnology,

and sentiment, as well as upon history. Only the most modest of

patriots contend that the Isonzo river, the present boundary of

Austria, was a capricious creation of Napoleon I. The more ambitious

spirits demand the whole southern watershed of the Julian Alps; nor are

they wanting who, by 'Alps' understanding the Dinaric chain, would thus

include the whole kingdom of Dalmatia inherited from the Romans.

"Ethnologically, again, Istria declares herself Italian, not Austrian.

Her 290,000 souls (round number) consist of 166,000 Latins to 109,000

Slavs, the latter a mongrel breed that emigrated between A.D. 800 and

1657; and a small residue of foreigners, especially Austro-German

officials. The Italians are, it is true, confined to the inner towns

and to the cities of the seaboard; still, these scattered centres

cannot forget that to their noble blood Istria has owed all her

civilization, all her progress, and all her glories in arts and arms.

Lastly, 'sentiment,' as a factor of unknown power in the great sum

of what constitutes 'politics,' is undervalued only by the ignorant

vulgus. The Istrians are more Italian than the Italians. Since the

first constitution of 1848, they have little to complain of the

Government in theory, much in practice. Austria, after the fashion of

Prussia, unwisely attempts to 'Germanize' her Italian subjects, who

in Istria outnumber the Teutons by five to one. The true policy of

Austria would be to Italianize the Italians, to Slavonize the Slavs,

and to Magyarize the Hungarians; in other words, to elicit the good

qualities of her four component races, instead of attempting to unrace

them. And her first practical step should be to abolish all idea of

'Germanizing.' If she did not try for it, it might settle itself.

"The chief danger of Italy, at present, is wishing to go too fast.

She would run before she can walk steadily: she forgets the past:

she ignores that her independence and unity were won for, and not by,

her; that each defeat was to her a conquest. She had the greatest

statesman in Europe, Cavour; who so disposed his game, opening it in

1854 with the Crimean War, and following it up with a seat for Piedmont

amongst the Great Powers in the Congress of Paris, that it led by a

mathematical certainty to Solferino in 1859, and to securing Rome for a

capital in 1870. But 'milor Camillo' is dead, and Prince Bismarck, who

rules in his stead, bluntly says, 'No one can doubt, even beyond the

Alps, that an attack upon Trieste and Istria would meet the point of a

sword which is not Austrian.' Italy must put her house in order before

she can aspire to extend her grounds. Her income is insufficient for

her expenses; her gold is paper; her currency is forced, and her heavy

taxes breed general discontent. She has a noble estate for agriculture,

but her peasants prefer the stocking to the stocks, the Funds, or the

Bank. Her Civil Service is half paid, and compelled to pay itself.

Her Custom-house duties are a scandal to a civilized power, and her

post-office is a farce. Her army cannot compare, in fighting qualities,

with that of Prussia, Austria, or even France. Her sailors are not

tailors, but she cannot afford a first-rate armour-clad fleet; she was

beaten at Lissa, and her seaboard would easily be blockaded by a great

maritime power. Moreover, she has that dual Government at Rome, and a

terrible skeleton in the cupboard,--her treatment of the Pope.

"The Liberal press and the 'indignation meetings' of Italy have been

alternatively severe and sarcastic upon _entente cordiale_ between the

Vatican and the Seraglio. But the Papal logic is clear and sound. It

says, 'The reverence of Constantine for the Keys transferred the seat

of civil empire to the Byzantium, whereas Anti-Christ Russia founded

the pseudo-throne of Saint Peter in the far north. We fought against

the Moslem when he was an aggressor. Innocent XI., not to mention the

crusader-Popes, preached the liberation of Vienna. Pius I. worked up to

the Battle of Lepanto. But things are now changed. You, Bulgarian and

Bosnian Catholics, have religious liberty, and you will have political

liberty when you deserve it! Meanwhile, obey the Sultan, who has

nothing to do with Christianity, and shun Anti-Christ--the Czar.' Good

logic, I say, cold and clear-drawn; but powerless to purge away the

sentiments, the prejudices, and the passions of mankind.

"Italy drives the coach too fast. Patriotic Italians declare that

England has no right to hold Malta. Cyprus was under Venice; _ergo_,

they think it should be under Italy. The Trentine, the Southern Tyrol,

Istria, and Dalmatia, are in the same conditions. The Latin kingdom has

achieved a great position in Japan. She sends her travellers to explore

New Guinea. She aims at being the most favoured nation in Egypt,

where she lately received a severe _schiaffo_. The Italian national

expedition landed in the dominions of the Khedive without having had

the decency to call upon him in Cairo. You know how the Egyptian

noticed the affront. Finally, she talks of herself as one of the

Powers, ready to occupy the insurgent districts which the Porte cannot

reduce. Such is the actual standpoint of United Italy.

"I will now sketch the state of Hungary, whose ambition threatens to

make her aggressive, entitled, by the press of England, the 'backbone

of the Austrian monarchy;' and praised for the 'superior political

organization' with which she has crushed her Slav rivals.

"Since the days, now forgotten, when Prince Esterhazy first flashed,

in London society, his diamond jacket upon the dazzled eyes of the

'upper ten thousand,' the name of Hungarian has been a passport to

favour amongst us. We meet him in the shape of a Kinsky, an Erdŏdy, or

a Hunyadi,--well born, well clad, and somewhat unlearned, except in the

matter of modern languages. But he is a good rider, a keen sportsman,

and a cool player for high stakes--qualities in one point (only) much

resembling Charity. He looks like a gentleman in a drawing-room and in

the hunting-field; he is quite at home at a fancy ball; he wears his

frogged jacket, his tights and his tall boots, his silks, satins, and

furs, with an air; his manners are courteous, cordial, and pleasant;

in money matters he has none of the closeness of the cantankerous

Prussian, none of the meanness of the Italian; and, lastly, he makes

no secret of his sympathy with England, with the English, and with

all their constitution-manias. What can you want more? You pronounce

him a nice fellow, and all, woman especially, re-echo your words,

'He is _such_ a gentleman!' and--he received the Prince of Wales so

enthusiastically!

"But there is another side (politically speaking) to this fair

point of view. The Hungarian is a Tartar with a coat of veneer and

varnish. Hungary is, as regards civilization, simply the most backward

country in Europe. Buda-Pest is almost purely German, the work of the

Teutons, who, at the capital, do all the work; you hardly ever hear

in the streets a word of Magyar, and the Magyars have only managed

to raise its prices and its death-rate to somewhat double those of

London. The cities, like historic Gran on the Danube, have attempts at

public buildings and streets; in the country towns and villages the

thoroughfares are left to Nature; the houses and huts, the rookeries

and doggeries are planted higgledy-piggledy, wherever the tenants

please; and they are filthier than any shanty in Galway or Cork, in

Carinthia or Krain. The Ugrian or Ogre prairies have no roads, or

rather they are all road; and the driver takes you across country when

and where he wills. The peasantry are 'men on horseback,'--in this

matter preserving the customs of their Hun and Tartar ancestors. They

speak a tongue of Turkish affinity, all their sympathies are with their

blood-kinsmen the Turks, and they have toiled to deserve the savage

title of 'white Turks,' lately conferred upon them by Europe.

"Fiume, the only seaport of Hungary, is a study of Hungarian

nationality. The town is neatly built, well paved, and kept tolerably

clean by Slav and Italian labour, the former doing the coarse, the

latter the fine work. The port is, or rather is to be, bran-new.

Because Austria chooses to provide a worse than useless, and

frightfully expensive--in fact, ruinous--harbour for Trieste, whose

anchoring roads were some of the best in Europe, therefore (admire the

consequence) Hungary demands a similar folly for her emporium, Fiume,

whose anchoring roads are still better. After throwing a few million

of florins into the water, the works are committed to the charge of

the usual half-dozen men and boys; moreover, as the port is supposed

to improve, so its shipping and its business fall off in far quicker

ratio. Commerce cannot thrive amongst these reckless, feckless people.

There is no spirit of enterprise, no union to make force, no public

spirit; the dead cities of the Zuyder Zee are bustling New England

centres in comparison with Fiume; and the latter, which might have

become the emporium of the whole Dalmatian coast, and a dangerous rival

to Trieste, is allowing her golden opportunity to pass away never to

return. For when Dalmatia shall have been vitalized by the addition of

Bosnia and the Herzegovina, her glorious natural basins--harbours that

can hold all the navies of the world--will leave Fiume mighty little to

do except what she does now, look pretty and sit in the sun.

"All Englishmen who have lived long amongst Hungarians remark the

similarity of the Magyar and the southern Irish Catholic. Both are

imaginative and poetical, rather in talk than in books; neither race

ever yet composed poetry of the highest class. Both delight in music;

but, as the 'Irish Melodies' are mostly Old English, so the favourites

of Hungary are gypsy songs. Both have the 'gift of the gab' to any

extent, while their eloquence is notably more flowery than fruity.

Both are sharp and intelligent, affectionate and warm-hearted; easily

angered and appeased, delighted with wit, and to be managed by a

_bon mot_; superficial, indolent, sensitive, punctilious, jealous,

quarrelsome, passionate, and full of fight. Both are ardent patriots,

with an occasional notable exception of treachery; both are brilliant

soldiers; the Hungarians, who formerly were only cavalry men, now

form whole regiments of the Austrian Line. They are officered by the

Germans, who will not learn the language, justly remarking, 'If we

speak Magyar, we shall be condemned for ever to Magyar corps, and

when the inevitable split takes place, where shall we then be?' Both

are bold and skilful riders; and, as the expatriated Irish Catholic

was declared by Louis Le Grand--an excellent authority upon such

matters--to be 'one of the best gentlemen in Europe,' so Europe says

the same of the Hungarian _haute volée_.

"As regards politics and finance, Buda-Pest is simply a modern and

eastern copy of Dublin. The Hungarian magnate still lives like the

Squireen and Buckeen of the late Mr. Charles Lever's 'earliest style;'

he keeps open house, he is plundered by all hands, and no Galway

landowner of the last generation was less fitted by nature and nurture

to manage his own affairs. Hence he is drowned in debt, and the Jew

usurer is virtually the owner of all those broad acres which bear so

little. An 'Encumbered Estates Bill' would tell strange tales; but the

sabre is readily drawn in Hungary, and the 'chosen people,' sensibly

enough, content themselves with the meat of the oyster, leaving the

shells to the owner.

"This riotous, rollicking style of private life finds its way into

public affairs; and as a model of 'passionate politics,' the Hungarian

is simply perfect. He has made himself hateful to the sober-sided

German and to the dull Slav; both are dead sick of his _outrecuidance_;

the former would be delighted to get rid of the selfish and

short-sighted irrepressibles, who are ever bullying and threatening

secession about a custom tax, or a bank, or a question of union. They

are scandalized by seeing the academical youth, the _jeunesse dorée_

of Magyar universities, sympathizing with Turkish atrocities, declaring

Turkey to be the defender of European civilization, _fackelzuging_ the

Turkish Consul, insulting the Russians, and sending a memorial sabre

to a Sirdar Ekrem (Commander-in-Chief), whose line of march was marked

by the fire-blackened walls of Giaour villages, and by the corpses of

murdered Christians, men and women and babes. Could the Austro-Germans

only shake off the bugbear of Panslavism, they would cut the cable,

allow the ne'er-do-well Hungarian craft to drift away water-logged into

hypostatic union with that big ironclad the Turk; they would absorb the

whole of Bosnia, the Herzegovina, and Albania; they would cultivate the

Slav nationality, and they would rely upon racial difference of dialect

and religion to protect them against the real or imaginary designs of

Russia. Prince Eugène of Savoy, in the last century, a man of wit, was

of that opinion, and so are we.

"Hungary, indeed, is a tinder-box like Montenegro, and much more

dangerous, because her supply of combustible is on a larger scale.

The last bit of puerile folly has been to press for an Austrian

military occupation of Servia; and why? Because an Austrian monitor,

being in a part of the river where 'No thoroughfare' is put up, was

fired upon with ball cartridges by a _schildwache_ (sentinel) from

the fort walls, and exploded, bungler that she was, one of her own

shells. The Hungarians had been raving at the idea of 'occupation'

in Bulgaria, but the moment they saw an opportunity of breaking the

Treaty of Paris, they proposed doing so at once. By-the-by, now that

Prince Wrede, a _personâ ingratâ_, is removed from Belgrade, you will

hear no more of Servian outrages against Austria. To the 'Magyarists'

we may trace most of the calumnies against the brave and unfortunate

Servian soldiery--lies of the darkest dye, so eagerly swallowed by the

philo-Turk members of the English Press, and danger of Hungary and her

politics of passion. Russians and Turks might be safely put into the

ring together, like 'Down-Easters' in a darkened room, and be allowed

to fight it out till one cried, 'Enough!'

"If these views of Hungary and the Hungarians be true--and they are

our views--you will considerably discount the valuation set upon them

by the Turcophile Press. They were once a barrier against Tartar

savagery, a Finnish race, invited by the Byzantine Emperors to act as

a buffer against Mohammedanism. The three orders of Magyars--Magnates,

Moderates, and Miserables--hate Russia for the sensible and far-seeing

part which she played in 1848-49; all excitement is apt to spread; even

so in a street dog-fight, every cur thinks itself bound to assist, and

to bite and wrangle something or other, no matter what. And where, we

may ask, is the power that can muzzle these Eastern ban-dogs? who shall

take away the shillelaghs of these Oriental Paddies?

"A taste of Hungarian quality has been given by M. Vambéry in the

columns of the _Daily Telegraph_. M. Vambéry was born in Hungary, of

Israelitish German parents. Like the sons of Israel generally, he hates

Russia, and he loves England, and probably he has good and weighty

reasons both for his hate and for his love. He was daring enough to

tell us, in his first book of travels, that after dinner with the

Turkish Minister at Teheran--and a very good dinner it was--he just

disguised himself as a dervish, and travelled perfectly _incog._ for

months and months under Russian eyes, partly through Russian territory.

The Russians must have known every step taken by M. Vambéry. He saw

only what he was allowed to do; and thus Mr. Schuyler, whose name

has, we regret to say, been altered by the irreverent Turcophile to

'Squealer,' roundly declares that he never visited the places which he

has so well described. You will therefore regard M. Vambéry's opinions

upon the subject of Turkey with suspicion, and reserve all your respect

for his invaluable publications upon the Turanian dialects, his

_spécialité_. Lieutenant Payer's book will disappoint you; its main

merit is that of having been written by a Magyar.

"Do not believe these Ugrians to be 'the backbone of the Austrian

Empire,' whatever they may be to its element of weakness, the Monarchy.

And if you are driven to own that the Hungarians 'play the leading part

in the events of Southern Europe,' understand that the chief end and

aim of Magyarist policy is to ruin the Slavs. I am a strong Austrian,

with a great admiration for the Hungarians, who are to me, personally

and individually, most attractive; but this does not blind me to the

disadvantages they, _en masse_, bring to Austria. _I believe the Slav

to be the future race of Europe, even as I hold the Chinese to be the

future race of the East._ In writing politics and history which may

live after one is long forgotten, one must speak the truth, and bury

repulsions and attractions.

"Were I Emperor of Austria, I should have the police organized on

English principles. I should punish with death the first two or three

cases of brutal crime. The people are excellent. It speaks highly for

the independent Triestines that, with weak laws, and authorities that

act as though they dreaded them, the worst crimes are only stabbing

when drunk, and suicide; and the latter is entirely owing to the

excitability of the climate and the utter throwing off of religion,

whilst all moral disgrace or dread is removed by the applause conferred

on the suicide, and sympathy with the surviving family--which last is

good and noble. I have seen thousands accompanying a _felo de se_ to

the grave, with verses and laurel leaves and a band of music, as if he

had done something gallant and brave. Indeed, one was considered very

narrow-minded for not joining in his eulogy.

"They say that forty years ago Trieste was a charming place to live in;

but that, with increase of trade, luxury and money flowed in and faith

flowed out. Let us say that the population is 150,000, with suburbs;

20,000 are practical Catholics, 30,000 are freethinkers, and 90,000

are utterly indifferent. In fact, the national religion is dying out;

and when that is so in a Catholic land, there is nothing to replace

it except Socialism. After repeated outrages and torpedo-throwing,

the Habeas Corpus would have been at once suspended in free England,

and the French would have placed the City under martial law. The

Empire-Kingdom does not, however, disfranchise the turbulent City by

suppressing the local Diet till such time as the public expression of

disloyal feeling shall have disappeared. A more manly policy would suit

better. Trieste is also allowed to retain peculiar privileges. She is

still a free port; her _octrois_ are left to her for squandering and

pillage, and are so heavy that till lately the adjoining villages

consumed sugar which came _viâ_ Holland all round and through Europe.

Trieste has three towns, as well as three races. The oldest is the

Citta Vecchia, which dates before the days of Strabo. Filthy in the

extreme, it is a focus of infection. Smallpox is rarely absent from it,

and it swells the rate of mortality to the indecent figure of 40 to

50 per 1000 per annum; London being 22, and Madras 36. The climate is

peculiar. It has three winds--the _Bora_ (Boreas), the Baltic current,

the winter wind, cold, dry, highly electrical, very exciting, and so

violent that sometimes the quays have been roped, and some of the walls

have iron rails let in to prevent people from being blown into the sea.

And there have been some terrible accidents in my time. An English

engineer has been blown from the quay into the hold of a ship (thirty

feet). I saw him in the hospital, a mere jelly, but nothing more; he is

well and at work. A cab and horse have been upset, and also a train.

The summer wind is the Scirocco, straight from Africa, wet, warm, and

debilitating; whilst the _contraste_ means the two blowing together,

and against each other, with all the disadvantages of both.

"Trieste is a political and coy personage, hotly wooed by Italy and

by Germany. The latter openly declares that she is part of the new

Teutonic Empire, and that the eight millions or so of Austro-Germans

ought to belong body and soul to the Fatherland. Meanwhile she is

enjoyed by the Empire-Kingdom, greatly against the grain. A powerful

rival is rising a few miles to the south, in the person of Croatian

Fiume, which has long ago repented her of having cast her lot with

Hungary. The Flanatic Bay of the ancients is magnificent, almost

equalling the scenery of Naples. A French company is building a port,

which will avoid much of the expense and some of the errors fatal

to Trieste; and but for the inveterate backwardness of the people,

the utter ignorance of what progress means, and the miserable local

jealousies, Fiume, connected by a railway with Agram or Zagabria, might

already have risen upon the decline of Trieste; but Fiume does not see

her advantage, and we retain our supremacy.

"Beyond the Sinus Flanaticus begins the kingdom of Dalmatia, with a

line of natural harbours between Zara and the Bocche di Cattaro, which

are perhaps the finest in the European world. Unhappily, at present

these ports have nothing to export or import. After long and careful

consideration of the question, based upon the impartial hearing of both

sides discussed, we have come to the conclusion, firstly, that the

dualism of 1867 has not been successful; secondly, that Austria should

have been a _Triregno_; thirdly, that H.I.M. Franz Josef might still

be crowned King of Bohemia as well, and thus establish a nucleus about

which the divided families of Slavs, especially the estimable Slovenes,

the Wends who founded Venice, could and would group themselves. I am

essentially Austrian by sympathy; but I do not like the Germans to

chuckle when they tell me that the last great Slavonic Congress, which

met in 1845, was compelled, after various failures, to make speeches in

German; because the laughers ignore the fact that Panslavism is still

rampant in Austria, and the clergy puff up the patriotic movement with

all their might, and that schools and colleges are teaching the rising

generation its rights as well as its wrongs. None but an inveterate

theorist, who holds that the Slav race is not to be the race of

the future, would neglect the importance of a people constituting

nearly half the total of Austro-Hungary--nineteen millions out of the

thirty-four which remained after the cession of Venice in 1866.

"The evil action of this unfair dualism is now causing profound

discontent. Dalmatia is the narrowest kingdom in Europe--300 miles

long by 0 to 15 miles broad, the cypher representing the two spots

where Turkey touches the sea. She is a face without a head; the latter

would be Bosnia and the Herzegovina. She has a profusion of ports

which have nothing to port, and a fine seafaring population ready for,

and capable of, any amount of carrying trade, but condemned to be

professors, custom-house officers, and fishers of sardines. Bosnia,

with her unworked mines and forests, her unimproved flocks and herds,

and her hundred other sources of neglected wealth, is the complement

of, a political necessity to, Dalmatia. Some day she must become

Dalmatian, and the sooner she connects herself with Austro-Hungary by

a _plébiscite_, or some such civilized instrument, the better it will

be for both. The only drawback to this movement in the far west of the

Ottoman Empire is that it appears to be somewhat premature. Russia has

her hands full in Eastern Asia, and Austria has for some time a hole in

her pocket. No one knows how sick the famous Sick Man really is since

his last attack of Russomania, following his chronic Russophobia[5]--an

attack brought on by our own disgraceful (Liberal) abandonment of the

Black Sea Treaties. None know, save those who have sat by his bedside,

looked at his tongue, and have felt his pulse. He was breaking fast

when he determined to risk a national bankruptcy. Finding the so-called

'tax of blood' too heavy, he was already talking of a Christian

recruitment, which would have been the beginning of the end; and the

paroxysm induced by sending a few thousand troops to ravage and lay

waste his discontented outlying estates, has reduced him to the last

gasp. For the rebellion, although premature, is a reality--it will not

be put down by paper; it means to last till next spring, and when the

fighting season comes it will call for the armed intervention of Europe.

"The integrity of the Ottoman Empire has been, since the days of

Chatham, a fortieth article of faith to English statesmen; although

since the publication of Macfarlane's 'Turkey and her Destiny,' every

traveller from Mostar to Bussorah, from Candia to Circassia, has shown

up the miserable misrule which oppresses those fair and fruitful

regions. The British Cabinet till now has not opened its eyes to ask

'How long?' or has had originality enough or irreverence sufficient

to pull down the old idol, and to propose a remedy for the present

condition of things. The official mind was made up; there was no more

to be said upon the subject. A Government that preferred peace and

present prosperity to the discharge of an arduous and distasteful

duty, laid down its law, determined to let sleeping dogs lie, till

that little matter of the Turkish debt, the neatest thing done by the

arch-enemy of the Ottoman, came like a thunderbolt and 'roused the

spirit of the British Lion.'

"Meanwhile the action of Austria has been sadly trammelled by the

Dualism which she has brought upon herself. The German population of

the Empire naturally dislikes being swamped by the new influx of Slavs,

but it has not proved itself unpatriotic. The contrary is the case with

the kingdom of Hungary--the five millions of Magyar who, strengthened

by the position and the character of Count Andrassy, have opposed

themselves with all their might to the development of Dalmatia. This

is a mistake, because sooner or later Dalmatia will develop herself

without them. The reason that Austro-German officers joining Hungarian

regiments avoid as much as possible studying the language is that they

fear not being allowed to exchange, and they do not see their way in

case of a separation between the Empire and the Kingdom.

"The British philo-Turk, if any there be now, would characterize the

absorption of Bosnia and Herzegovina--I would even add Montenegro

and Albania, with the frontier of Greece--as a spoliation of Turkey.

Let him prove that it is not a just and right retaliation for

the centuries of injury which she has inflicted, which she still

inflicts, and which she will ever inflict, upon the sacred causes of

civilization and progress. If any casuist declare that the misrule of

a Government, as in the case of Oude, does not justify the annexation

by Powers professing faith in the development of man, in the religion

of humanity; if he put forward that old saw, that 'the end does not

justify the means,' let him be answered that Europe has duties which

she owes to herself; that the first rule of conduct is her own safety,

and that the second is the support of her co-religionists in Europe and

Asia, throughout the Ottoman Empire. The Christian population equals,

if not exceeds, the Mohammedan, and the evident hope with which it

looks forward to emancipation from Islamism deserves the most careful

consideration.

"For the last ten years the relations of Great Britain with Turkey

have been peculiar and unsatisfactory. The Ottoman voice has openly

said, 'The last Englishman who cared for us was Lord Palmerston. You

will assist us if it be to your interest, no matter how we treat you,

well or ill. You do not fight for an idea, like France. You will not

fight for love of us, as in the days of Silistria and Eupatoria. We

prefer an open enemy to a false friend. Go to! We have had enough of

you.' And they showed their especial contempt by their treatment of

English subjects in Turkey; the debts owed to them by the Turk remain

unpaid, and in Syria our fellow-countrymen were the last to receive the

compensation for the destruction of their property in the massacre of

1860.

"Again, the present is, if any, the moment for us to act, or to

encourage action in others. The stride of the young Colossus is

temporarily, not lastingly, stayed. In future times[6] _quien sabe?_

(but God avert it!) we may be so hampered by civil disturbances between

Capital and Labour, so trammelled by intestine troubles in Ireland, or

so engaged in external war, that moral force only will not suffice to

give our voice any weight in the European world. And the effect would

be allowing Russia, a vigilant enemy of overpowering resolution, to

annex Turkey in Europe without any attempt to preserve the last rag of

balance of power by strengthening the hands of Austria.

"Again, there are thousands of our fellow-countrymen scattered over

the surface of Turkey, and were England known to be incapacitated

from using arms, yet having arms and money, it is to be feared that

the first Russian gun fired from Constantinople would be the signal

of a miserable butchery. But it will be said that the Sultan has

begun the task of reform; his last rescript has been more favourable

to the Rayyahs than anything ever issued by Turkey. I reply, it is

easy to have dust thrown in our eyes provided we open them for the

purpose. What have all the Hatts Shereef or Humayoun yet done for the

Christian Turk? We must be made, after the image of David Urquhart, to

believe in such pie-crust promises. Grant we that H.I.M. the Sultan

is sincere, yet he cannot act himself, and there is no one to act for

him. The Turkish official, and, for the matter of that, the unofficial,

society is much like her army. The private is an excellent man, sober,

honest, truthful, brave, and docile to a degree. Promote him, and he

runs through the several grades of bad comparison, not _repenté_,

but with an agility which surprises the slow northern mind. As a

non-commissioned officer he is bad; higher he is worse; and command

makes him worst. The same with the French peasant; give him a small

_emploi_, a bit of gold lace, and he falls from an angel to a demon in

a week, without stopping to look round.

"Now back to _notre premier amour_, Trieste. I associate with

politicians and clever men all day, with open eyes and ears; and an

occasional peep at a despatch makes one learn a great deal, and form

strong opinions. I am neither philo-Turk nor Russ. I am John Bull to

the backbone, with personal Austrian sympathies, and a strong leaning

to all that is of Arab blood.

"This port was once a favourite with the British bird of passage,

especially when embarking with the Austro-Hungarian Lloyd for

Alexandria. But the Northerner did not approve of the line. He liked

his beef and mutton in huge joints, not in slices and cutlets; he

preferred his potatoes in their jackets to _pommes de terre à la

maître d'hôtel_; in fact, he grumbled about everything, and at Suez he

transferred himself on board the P. and O. like one that had found a

home. The stranger has also been put to flight by the hotel-managers.

This city is one of the dearest in Europe. The shilling, the lira,

and the franc have become the florin; but these gentlemen gild

refined gold, and charge highly for the operation. There are three

establishments which call themselves first-rate, and which Englishmen

would consider decently comfortable. Unhappily, they belong to

companies, not individuals, and they are farmed out to managers, who

squeeze you as the tax-gatherer does the Rayyah. There are no tables

of charges hung up in the rooms, so you pay according to length of

purse, real or supposed. Thus the late Lord Dalling had a bill of £45

for two days, during which he never dined in the house, and the present

Prince Ypsilante was plundered at the same time of 950 florins. It is

said that he sent for the manager, and, after settling his account,

warmly complimented him upon being the greatest rascal he had ever had

to do with. So the late Lord Hertford, when paying off his Parisian

architect, politely regretted that he had never had _le déplaisir de sa

connaissance_.

"All the world here is reading M. Charles Yriarte. That popular writer,

the Ipsilon of the _Revue des deux Mondes_, who spent the winter of

1873-4 in Istria and Dalmatia, Montenegro and Herzegovina, published

his trip in the illustrated journal, the _Tour du Monde_; and, the

time being propitious, it was translated into Italian at Milan, with

a variety of notes, taking the Italianissimo view of the matter,

and converting a delightful tale of travel into a rabid wrangle of

politics. The Austrian Government has shown a want of knowledge of

human nature, put the book _à l'index_, confiscating every copy found

in the libraries; consequently we are all devouring it _en cachette_."

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _Red Sea_.]

[Here we change from Central Europe to the massacre at Jeddah in 1858

(the source of the official wigging), and the cause of cholera.]

"In 1858 there was a cruel, cowardly massacre of the few Europeans

and Christians, including the English and French Consuls, which was

revenged by the French with two bombardments and a fine of 2,241,016

francs. It arose from our suppression of the slave-trade, and jealousy

at finding that the Europeans, whose exports and imports are worth

about £3,000,000, were absorbing the commerce; moreover, these two

feelings still exist. Our present Vice-Consul, Mr. Wylde, is a man

well fitted to the post, which is anything but a pleasant one. His

open-hearted, straightforward, and fearless ways of dealing with the

natives succeed perfectly. He knows what the native disposition is,

and how to treat it, whilst he is of a joyous temperament and quite

insensible to any danger. Still (as he laughingly remarked to me

one day) it would doubtless be much more comfortable if the morning

and evening _shell_ (instead of gun) were fired into the town; and,

joking apart, every passing Man-of-war ought to have orders to look

in _en passant_, just to call on the authorities, and to see what the

delightful natives have been up to since the last ship passed. Some

day the Wali Pasha of the Hejaz may be a fanatical hater of Europeans,

the Kaimmakám of Jeddah may be a weak-minded good-intentioned man who

cannot keep things in order, or intestine troubles may draw away the

troops; and these visits are more necessary in places where perpetual

orders from home necessitate an interference with the slave-trade,

which the Arabs are ever ready to resist. There ought to be cruisers

perpetually visiting and reporting upon the condition of all the

outlying little ports, where at present British subjects are unfairly

left to take care of themselves.

"HOW CHOLERA SPREADS--THE JEDDAH MASSACRE OF 1858.

"One must read 'Une Mission au Hedjaz Arabie,' par Dr. Buez (Paris:

Masson, 1873, Académie de Médecine), which treats of the epidemics

which the Hajj engenders,--the focus of infection for Egypt, the

Mediterranean, and consequently for Europe. At any rate, one may note

the nine conclusions.

"1. Arabia, and especially El Hejaz, with its pure air, does not

originated the morbid elements which express themselves in dysentery

and typhus, cholera and plague. Small-pox, however, in certain places

is always to be dreaded.

"2. Cholera is at present the special genesis of India.

"3. Steamers, though on the whole beneficial to the general health

of the pilgrims, produce new sanitary conditions, and aid greatly in

propagating the choleraic element, thus becoming a permanent and, at

times, a real danger to Europe. The same is the case with railroads,

but to a much less extent.

"4. All the great outbreaks in the Hejaz, notably that of 1865, when

five hundred _per diem_ died at Mecca during the Hajj, were imported,

indirectly or directly, from India, and then spread over the civilized

world.