All The Other Travellers (Said The Lion With Perfect Reason) Have
Good Horses And Are Gone; The Russians Have Got Horses, The
Spaniards Have Horses, The English Have Horses, But We, We Vizirs
In Our Country, Coming With Letters Of Halil Pasha, Are Laughed At,
Spit Upon!
Are Halil Pasha's letters dirt, that you attend to them
in this way?
Are British lions dogs that you treat them so? - and
so on. This speech with many variations was made on our side for a
quarter of an hour; and we finally swore that unless the horses
were forthcoming we would write to Halil Pasha the next morning,
and to His Excellency the English Minister at the Sublime Porte.
Then you should have heard the chorus of Turks in reply: a dozen
voices rose up from the divan, shouting, screaming, ejaculating,
expectorating (the Arabic spoken language seems to require a great
employment of the two latter oratorical methods), and uttering what
the meek interpreter did not translate to us, but what I dare say
were by no means complimentary phrases towards us and our nation.
Finally, the palaver concluded by the cadi declaring that by the
will of Heaven horses should be forthcoming at three o'clock in the
morning; and that if not, why, then, we might write to Halil Pasha.
This posed us, and we rose up and haughtily took leave. I should
like to know that fellow's real opinion of us lions very much: and
especially to have had the translation of the speeches of a huge-
breeched turbaned roaring infidel, who looked and spoke as if he
would have liked to fling us all into the sea, which was hoarsely
murmuring under our windows an accompaniment to the concert within.
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