When The Prince's Conversation Was Thus Interrupted A Second Time,
His Royal Patience And Clemency Were At An End.
"Man," said he,
"once before I bade thee not to pester me with thy clamour, and lo!
you have
Disobeyed me, - take the consequences of disobedience to a
Prince, and thy blood be upon thine own head." So saying, he drew
out a pistol and blew out the brains of that fellah, so that he
never bawled out for justice any more.
The Reverend Mr. MacWhirter was astonished at this sudden mode of
proceeding: "Gracious Prince," said he, "we do not shoot an
undergraduate at Cambridge even for walking over a college grass-
plot. - Let me suggest to your Royal Highness that this method of
ridding yourself of a poor devil's importunities is such as we
should consider abrupt and almost cruel in Europe. Let me beg you
to moderate your Royal impetuosity for the future; and, as your
Highness's tutor, entreat you to be a little less prodigal of your
powder and shot."
"O Mollah!" said His Highness, here interrupting his governor's
affectionate appeal, - "you are good to talk about Trumpington and
the Pons Asinorum, but if you interfere with the course of justice
in any way, or prevent me from shooting any dog of an Arab who
snarls at my heels, I have another pistol; and, by the beard of the
Prophet! a bullet for you too." So saying he pulled out the
weapon, with such a terrific and significant glance at the Reverend
Mr. MacWhirter, that that gentleman wished himself back in his
Combination Room again; and is by this time, let us hope, safely
housed there.
Another facetious anecdote, the last of those I had from a well-
informed gentleman residing at Cairo, whose name (as many copies of
this book that is to be will be in the circulating libraries there)
I cannot, for obvious reasons, mention. The revenues of the
country come into the august treasury through the means of farmers,
to whom the districts are let out, and who are personally
answerable for their quota of the taxation. This practice involves
an intolerable deal of tyranny and extortion on the part of those
engaged to levy the taxes, and creates a corresponding duplicity
among the fellahs, who are not only wretchedly poor among
themselves, but whose object is to appear still more poor, and
guard their money from their rapacious overseers. Thus the Orient
is much maligned; but everybody cheats there: that is a melancholy
fact. The Pasha robs and cheats the merchants; knows that the
overseer robs him, and bides his time, until he makes him disgorge
by the application of the tremendous bastinado; the overseer robs
and squeezes the labourer; and the poverty-stricken devil cheats
and robs in return; and so the government moves in a happy cycle of
roguery.
Deputations from the fellahs and peasants come perpetually before
the august presence, to complain of the cruelty and exactions of
the chiefs set over them:
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