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ANASTASIUS, 
 
 OR, 
 
 MEMOIRS OF A GREEK; 
 
 WRITTEN AT THE CLOSE OF 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. n. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 ' LONDON: 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET. 
 
 1820. 
 

 ANASTASIUS, 
 
 OE 
 
 MEMOIRS OF A GREEK. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FROM the brilliant descriptions given me of the 
 celebrated Masr, ^ of the kalish ~ that runs through 
 its centre, and of the birkets^ that adorn its out- 
 skirts, I expected, if not an earthly, at least an 
 aquatic paradise. On first reaching this vaunted 
 city, I saw nothing but filth and ruins on the out- 
 side, and filth and misery within. " So much !" 
 exclaimed I, — thinking of Aly Tshawoosh, — " for 
 travellers'* tales !" 
 
 " So, too, said I,'* echoed my companion the 
 Caireen, somewhat nettled, " on first entering Stam- 
 bool." The retort startled me in my turn. — " Hea- 
 vens and -earth V was my answer, — " would you 
 compare Cairo with Constantinople ? Where can you 
 find the least resemblance ? Is it between the vile 
 
 VOL. II. B 
 
2 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 offensive swamps that here have confounded the river 
 with its banks, and the verdant hills which there rise 
 from the very margin of the sea ? between the yellow 
 muddy stream here treasured up for refreshment in 
 half baked pitchers, and the crystal rills there gushing 
 forth from golden fountains? or finally between 
 the smoke-dried men, tattooed women, and blear- 
 eyed bloated children of this over-grown beggarly 
 place, and our population of patriarchs, of houries, 
 and of cherubs ? In Constantinople the very ceme- 
 teries of the dead look like portions of elysium ; here 
 the habitations of the hving already seem "charnel- 
 houses." 
 
 *' With us each gem has its foil," observed my 
 friend drily ; " and we admire our beauties the more 
 from the relief, produced by that very circumstance. 
 Suspend your judgment on our comforts till you 
 see the palaces of our Beys." 
 
 This was not to be my destiny immediately. I 
 had observed the haughty looks and gorgeous ap- 
 parel of the meanest of the Mamlukes who conde- 
 scended to mix among the populace ; and I wished 
 to avoid the privileged cast, until I might vie in my 
 appearance at least with its inferior members. I there- 
 fore was content to sleep the first night at a khan ; 
 and the next morning prepared for presenting my 
 letters. Keeping my friend Aly before my eyes as 
 my model, I put on my gayest attire ; and, when 
 fully equipped for my visit, viewed myself in a 
 
ANASTASIUS. 3 
 
 looking-glass with such complacency, that I began 
 at last to apprehend the fate of Narcissus; and, 
 for fear of catching the evil eye from myself, tried 
 to spit in my own face : ^ — deeming an extraor- 
 dinary case to require an extraordinary remedy. 
 
 This exploit performed — not without some labour, 
 — I sallied forth, feeling quite secure as to what 
 might happen. A fellow in the street, himself 
 totally bhnd, showed me the way with the utmost 
 readiness to Suleiman's palace, on the lake Yusbe- 
 kieh.^ The grandeur of its portal, far from damping 
 my confidence, rather elevated my pride, by pro- 
 mising a theatre worthy of my ambition. Bounding 
 like a ball, I ascended its spacious stairs, paced the 
 long gallery, and entered the hall of audience. Per- 
 ceiving the Bey, seated in the angle of his sofa at the 
 upper end of the room, I boldly advanced, — retorting, 
 with equally haughty glances, the supercilious and 
 scrutinizing looks of the gay youths who lined the 
 passage, — and, when arrived near their patron, put 
 my hand to the groimd, to my forehead and my 
 lips, and presented my credentials with every pos- 
 sible grace. 
 
 Throughout the East, grandees, when first ad- 
 dressed, preserve an impenetrable countenance. 
 Their internal emotions lie concealed under a mask 
 of stone. Thus they avoid committing themselves, 
 as they must in some measure be liable to do? 
 were they even to express the reverse of what they 
 
 B 2 
 
4 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 feel. Still I fancied I could discern athwart the 
 Bey's immovable features, such an impression, pro- 
 duced by my first address, as I had no reason to 
 repine at. Once or twice, while one of his eyes 
 affected most diligently to run over the recom- 
 mendatory lines, I caught the other straying from 
 the paper, and stealing a sly survey of my person, 
 with an air of most encouraging approbation. 
 Having at last, — apparently with great toil, — com- 
 pleted the perusal of the long epistle, Suleiman 
 laid it by him on the sofa, wiped his face, and 
 bade me welcome. " My friend Othman Bey," 
 said he, — moving his little hands in unison with his 
 speech, — " describes you as possessed of valuable 
 talents, and I feel anxious to acquire a claim to 
 your services. Unfortunately," added he in a 
 lower tone, after beckoning to his attendants to 
 retire out of hearing, "our Mamlukes, with all 
 their excellent qualities, are somewhat addicted to 
 idleness, to deceit, and to treachery, and extremely 
 jealous of all whom they look upon as intruders : 
 nor dare we openly brave these little weaknesses, 
 or confer on a stranger what these our adopted 
 children consider as their rightful honours. Indeed, 
 the stranger himself would soon have cause to rue 
 the unavailing favour. I therefore do not imme- 
 diately give you in my house a definite ofiice. But 
 stay as a guest, a friend, a household counsellor ; 
 and in time the thing I wish may be managed. 
 
ANASTASIUS. ^ 5 
 
 God be praised, you are not at least a native Turk ! 
 Like us, you are an Islamite from choice." 
 
 After this little preamble the Bey proceeded to 
 try me on the nature and extent of my acquire- 
 ments; and, as he was not' sorry that his Mam- 
 lukes should have an opportunity, which occurred 
 but seldom, of witnessing his own vast erudition, 
 he made signs to them to return within hearing 
 distance, during the examination. An Italian mis- 
 sionary had once given him a dictionary, as a book 
 replete with short and pithy stories; and in its 
 sedulous perusal the Bey had contrived to pick up 
 a considerable assortment of technical terms of art 
 and science, which he employed as it pleased Pro- 
 vidence. Of the things themselves whose appella- 
 tions he had learnt, he seemed to have no more idea 
 than the huge Angora cat which sat purring by his 
 side ; and an elementary chaos of astronomy, tactics, 
 geography, mythology and medicine, all huddled 
 together at random in his brain, flowed in most 
 picturesque confusion from his lips. Extensive 
 therefore as certainly was the general outline of his 
 attainments, it still left me room to fill up a few 
 intervening blanks, in such a way as to give a very 
 favourable opinion of my own information, even 
 without presuming so far on its superiority as to tell 
 his highness point blank, for instance, that England 
 lay not contiguous to India, — as he had ima- 
 gined from their constant warfare ; or that Vol- 
 
6 ifNASTASIUS. 
 
 taire had never been Pope of Rome, — as he had 
 inferred from the frequent juxtaposition of these 
 personages in his missionary's anecdotes. With 
 all this forbearance, however, my course of practical 
 education at the arsenal, joined to the speculative 
 topics which I had heard discussed at Pera, still 
 enabled me to pass myself off in the meridian of 
 Cairo for a youth of no common accomplishments ; 
 and at every answer I gave to Suleiman's subtle 
 queries, he failed not to assume a profound look, 
 and, after some little apparent meditation, to ex- 
 claim in an emphatic tone " good, very good, ex- 
 cellent, admirable ! In time you will know as much 
 as I do 1" The only thing which seemed to give a 
 little offence was my affirming peremptorily that the 
 earth revolved round the sun, and not the sun round 
 the earth. At this bold assertion, so contrary to 
 my previous caution, the Bey looked as if he sus- 
 pected me of a design to play upon his credulity ; 
 and I could only get out of the difficulty into which 
 my pride of learning had led me, by assuring him 
 that it was among us a very common belief; which 
 he nevertheless still wondered that so sensible a 
 fellow as I seemed to be, should have adopted. 
 
 When satisfied with the exalted idea which he 
 doubted not he had given me of his own learning, 
 Suleiman by degrees descended to more familiar 
 topics ; and I now was surprised in my turn to find 
 a man, so utterly ignorant in matters of general in- 
 
ANASTASIUS. ^ 
 
 formation, at the same time so much at home in 
 all that concerned the immediate interests of his 
 country and station. But, like many other people, 
 the Bey prized his knowledge in proportion to its 
 rarity, and seemed to value most that of which he 
 possessed the least. He threw out all his questions 
 about the politics of the Porte in so careless a man- 
 ner, and seemed so little to heed my answers, that 
 an indifferent by-stander would have sworn, the most 
 vital subjects to Suleiman were just those which 
 weighed the least in his mind. 
 
 Having exhausted every topic of more immediate 
 importance to himself, — " You have been long at 
 Stambool,"'' said he at last, " and therefore cannot 
 fail to know all about Franguestan.^ What bone, 
 pray, are those Christian dogs now contending for? 
 Do they think they possess enough upon the earth : 
 or are they planning some expedition to the moon ? 
 Blind as they be, poor creatures ! they bustle about 
 as eagerly as those that can see !" I assured him that 
 this bhndness and this bustle had increased to such a 
 degree, that, from one end of Europe to the other, 
 every potentate was actually at the present moment 
 disposing of his neighbour's property, as if it had 
 been his own ! "^ 
 
 Book-learning and general politics might afford 
 a pretty pastime ; but, with a race like the Mam» 
 lukes, whose chiefs, as well as meanest individuals, 
 were always required to be on the alert, and ready 
 
8 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 alike for attack, for defence, and for retreat, skill in 
 the exercise of the carbine, the pistol, and the sabre, 
 were more essential , — indeed, were indispensable 
 qualifications in every candidate for preferment. 
 In respect of these military accomplishments also 
 Othman-Bey had in his letter mentioned me with 
 praise ; but I perceived in Suleiman a conviction, 
 that the same human being could not possess talents 
 so opposite and so varied. When therefore I begged 
 permission to join in the martial sports of his Mam- 
 lukes, appointed for the next day, he strongly tried 
 to dissuade me, lest I should only expose my want 
 of skill ; but my perseverance conquered. He at 
 last consented, though evidently concerned at my 
 obstinacy, and pitying my rashness. Not so his 
 young Mamlukes ! They were delighted with anti- 
 cipations of the sorry figure which the stranger was 
 expected to make ; and significant glances circulated 
 round every part of the room. The morrow was to 
 be a day of merriment. 
 
 At the appointed hour on that morrow I went to 
 the Bey's palace, and found the whole household 
 assembled in the court-yard, ready to sally forth. 
 We soon marched out in grand procession; but 
 when I inquired whither we were going, not a crea- 
 ture knew. The Beys are too fearful to trust their 
 followers with so important a secret. Not until the 
 whole party is turned adrift in the fields does the 
 serrah, or domestic charged with the camp appara- 
 
ANASTASIUS. 9 
 
 tus, receive intelligence of the destined halting-place. 
 Off he then sets, on his dromedary, to make his 
 preparations : the rest follow with loud clamour ; 
 and when the place of destination is reached, the 
 Mamlukes immediately dispose themselves in a spa- 
 cious ring round the ground. 
 
 The Koobbet-el-haue proved to be the spot se- 
 lected ; and I suspected the Bey of a secret wish 
 to verify his forebodings, when I understood it -to 
 be the most trying ground about Cairo for martial 
 exercises. In order to judge how it lay, and to 
 study the mode of play of the Mamlukes, I hung 
 back at first, as if not daring to enter the lists with 
 men so distinguished for their skill and address: 
 but of course, the less alacrity I showed, the more 
 I was pressed to expose myself. " The youngsters 
 knew, it was in sheer compassion upon their in- 
 feriority, that I did not choose to come forward. 
 But my backwardness would not serve me : I stood 
 engaged, and my modesty must be put to the blush." 
 
 As if only reluctantly urged on by these ironical 
 observations, I at last, in seeming trepidation, 
 snatched up a djereed. In order to render my in- 
 capacity the more palpable, the most indifferent 
 performer of the set was pitted against me. Off 
 went my adversary's staff! and after it every eye. 
 Spite of my indifferent steed, I avoided the blow, 
 and the harmless stick only raised a cloud of dust. 
 All wondered at my escape. In my turn I flung 
 
10 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 the wooden weapon, but not with similar effect. 
 It reached its destination, and most unequivocally 
 delivered its errand. The astonishment of the 
 spectators redoubled, and my antagonist limped in 
 rage out of the circle. The rest of his companions 
 now began to suspect that it was not a tyro's task 
 to contend with the new comer. The more skilful 
 players took their turn. They had little better 
 success ; and the first exclamations of surprise gra- 
 dually subsided in speechless disappointment and 
 dismay. Every voice was hushed, and every lip 
 bleeding with bites of vexation. 
 
 I had the good fortune to show equal dexterity 
 in the use of the pistol and the sabre. The jar 
 flew in pieces, and the felt ^ was cut through and 
 through. In the Koobbet-el-haue at Cairo I thus 
 first reaped the fruits of the exercises performed in 
 the Oc-Meidan of Constantinople, and the dejection 
 of spirits which led me to the one, prepared the 
 way for the triumph which I obtained in the other. 
 So high rose in an instant ray reputation, that the 
 Bey himself proposed to try his hand against me. 
 I had heard him described as an indifferent per- 
 former. I could have no doubt that, equal as my 
 skill appeared to that of Suleiman's ablest Mam- 
 lukes, I had little to fear from their master. Yet 
 did every person present seem to revive at the bare 
 proposal of the match. " How is this ?" thought 
 I : but a moment's reflection gave me the clue to the 
 
ANASTASIUS. 11 
 
 phenomenon. " Ah rogues !" I inwardly exclaimed : 
 " to see me victorious is now precisely what you 
 wish for, in order that I may irretrievably lose the 
 favour of the Bey. But take leave of your hopes ! 
 Selim not only knows when to play well, but also 
 when to play ill;" and in fact, I took such un- 
 common pains for this prudent purpose, that, on 
 quitting the field, Suleiman pronounced me by far 
 the best player next to himself he knew in Cairo, 
 and the one he liked most to engage with; and, 
 on returning home, definitively took me into his 
 service. Fearful, however, of putting me at once 
 on the footing of the favoured cast, he placed me 
 for the present among his scratches. ^ My salary 
 was trifling ; but who, among the followers of Beys 
 of Egypt, depended upon his wages for his emolu- 
 ment .'' 
 
 Suleiman possessed, in addition to the numerous 
 Mamluke sprigs, ingrafted upon the family tree, one 
 male, and sundry female suckers, directly sprung 
 from the stock. To his female offspring Suleiman 
 seemed attached : the male shoot no one could accuse 
 him of spoiling, at least by excess of fondness. He 
 considered the Bey-zade as a perfect cypher. Seldom 
 he deigned to inquire after his health : never to de- 
 mand his presence. " What interest," would he 
 say, " can I take in a plant on which all culture is 
 thrown away ? A^ hy cherish a reed, too feeble to 
 support my increasing age ? What I lay out on a 
 
12 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 conceited ideot, who forgets his deficiencies only to 
 remember his birth, I lay out to utter loss : I even 
 expend it without reaping empty thanks ! Are not 
 then my gifts more wisely bestowed on men whom 
 I cherish for their intrinsic merit, and who reward 
 me with their gratitude ?" To this mode of reason- 
 ing, I, for one, could not possibly object. 
 
 Various were the sorts of merit which, in the 
 eyes of my patron, took precedence of kindred. 
 Valour, capacity, zeal, each obtained their share of 
 superior esteem: but the quality rated above all 
 others was a pair of ruddy cheeks. Among many 
 other instances of their paramount influence, a young 
 fellow from Odesche, remarkable for his stupidity 
 and peevishness, had just superseded in the Bey^s 
 favour, and in the place of Tchibookdjee,^^ a Geor- 
 gian esteemed for his good qualities by all his com- 
 panions; and that, for no other earthly reason 
 which any one could discover, except that his face 
 looked like a ripe October peach. Suleiman himself 
 saw nothing singular in this fancy. " People," he 
 said, •' value a tulip, a shawl, a ruby, a canary-bird, 
 a horse, for the brightness of their hue : they dress 
 up their domestics in the gaudiest colours ! Why 
 then should they not be as particular about their 
 faces ? and choose their attendants by the same rule 
 as their flower-pots, — since both ahke are destined 
 to furnish their chamber ? For my part, it is my 
 delight, when I cast my eyes around, to view a long 
 
ANASTASIUS. 13 
 
 row of handsome busts; and I think I may be 
 permitted to be as fastidious about the hue of my 
 pages, as my neighbour Ayoob is about that of his 
 pipe-sticks !" 
 
 Fortunately, the new comer possessed not in his 
 complexion wherewithal to make any very valuable 
 addition to Suleiman's collection of youthful colours, 
 as it must have kept me at home much oftener than 
 I liked, for fear of disturbing'the set. So far from 
 my hues being any longer of a pure and primitive 
 description, they were rather become what painters 
 might call neutral tints, and such as could not, by 
 their absence, leave the smallest sensible gap in the 
 Bey''s prismatic scale. Scarce a day therefore passed 
 without my allowing myself — in company with some 
 of the younger Mamlukes of our house — time to 
 visit Maallim^i Ibrahim, MaaUim Yacoob, Maallim 
 Yoossef, or some other of the Maalhms, or writers 
 of the Coobtic persuasion, who lived round the 
 Yusbekieh. They assisted us in keeping up some 
 of our good old Christian customs ; for they never 
 would let us depart without reviving our spirits 
 with a few glasses of rakie : " in order," they said, 
 " to keep out of our stomachs all the water that 
 surrounded us." This good purpose, however, they 
 sometimes overshot ; for one evening my companion 
 and myself took so copious a dose of the antidote, 
 that on returning home, we no longer could di- 
 stinguish the path from the canal that ran alongside 
 
14, ANASTASIUS. 
 
 of it ; and so fell into the ditch, which was full to 
 the brink. My companion first pulled me in, and 
 I afterwards pulled him out ; and he felt so thank- 
 ful for this trifling compliment, that from that 
 moment we became sworn friends. Some of the 
 other Mamlukes, indeed, wished to sow the seeds 
 of discord between us ; but in vain they tried to 
 damp the ardour of an attachment begun in a 
 ditch. 
 
 Rashooan was my comrade's name: Gurgistan 
 his country. He possessed in an eminent degree all 
 the qualities in which Mamlukes excel. Equally 
 active and vigorous, he could break the most unruly 
 horse ; leaped a ditch (when sober) with the agility 
 of a deer ; brought his steed to a dead stand in the 
 midst of the swiftest race ; and wielded with equal 
 dexterity, the scimitar, the musket, and the pistol. 
 
 One day I found him describing in glowing terms 
 to a knot of his companions the glories of his native 
 soil. Its flowers, fruits, verdure, streamlets, men, 
 women, — its very tobacco-stoppers, — were, accord- 
 ing to his account, positively of a different nature 
 from those of every other country ; and could 
 he but once more behold this land of wonders, he 
 would resign his breath contented ! " I did not know, 
 Rashooan,*" said I, when the party separated, " that 
 you so grievously regretted your native country." 
 " Nor I neither/' was his answer ; — " and between 
 ourselves, I pray to God every morning that I may 
 
ANASTASIUS. 16 
 
 never see it again. A sad exchange for fine horses, 
 rich caparisons, costly armour, sumptuous apparel, 
 Egyptian grooms, and Negro slaves, would be that 
 of a life of mere hardships and poverty ; — and for 
 what purpose ? Only to find m3'self forgotten by my 
 parents, and recognized by nobody but a landlord, 
 who would sell me again, as he sold me before ! 
 I have lost my relish for simplicity, and am weaned 
 from mother nature. But it is not amiss, now 
 and then, to remind these pert coxcombs that they 
 are only savages, and that I am a Georgian." 
 
 Scarce had Rashooan uttered these words, when 
 two or three of Suleiman's younger Mamlukes 
 came running to us, and addressing m.y friend, 
 said in an animated tone : " Either something very 
 good, or very bad, is hanging over your head. We 
 have left Othman kiashef closeted v/ith the Bey, and 
 you seem to be the sole theme of their discourse. 
 Both repeated your name frequently, and with con- 
 siderable vehemence."" " Ah f answered Rashooan, 
 " if any thing extraordinary awaits me, it is sure to 
 be bad. I never was fortunate myself; nor ever 
 brought good fortune to others ! When a boy I 
 was sent among the Kabardahs. Kind people? 
 My host adopted me as his child ; his wife sealed 
 the act with the milk from her own breast ; and his 
 sons swore to treat me as a brother. What was the 
 consequence ? Tartars carried me off, my adopted 
 kinsmen fell in my defence, and I was sold to the 
 
16 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 Turks. I now am a slave by habit as well as from 
 necessity, and no longer wish to be free : the chance 
 therefore is that I am doomed to have my liberty.*" 
 
 Other Mamlukes now brought Rashooan word 
 that his presence was commanded. Sighing he 
 went, and in about half an hour returned to us 
 with a countenance clouded by sadness ; '*' Sehm," 
 said he, " I leave you : for ever I leave the house 
 of the noble Suleiman." 
 
 " What motive," cried I, " can induce the Bey 
 to part with a favourite ?" 
 
 " Listen,*' answered Rashooan. " Othman kiashef 
 had an elder brother in Georgia, settled at a distant 
 place. The kiashef has just discovered that I am 
 that brother's son. He has consequently requested 
 of Suleiman to purchase me. But, as you may 
 suppose, our patron did not think himself war- 
 ranted by any circumstance, however singular, to 
 listen to the proposal. * Such a disgrace,** cried 
 he, ' as that of bartering my Mamluke for money, 
 shall lie neither on his head nor on mine. Sulei- 
 man may inflict death on an undutiful son, but his 
 enemies shall never say ' he exchanged him for 
 
 gold r 
 
 *' Othman upon this looked exceedingly dejected, 
 and Suleiman for awhile seemed rather to enjoy his 
 distress. At last he proceeded thus : ' Since, how- 
 ever, Rashooan is your nephew, God forbid I 
 should keep him from his uncle's longing arms. 
 
ANASTASIUS. IT 
 
 Receive the young man as my gift, and let the 
 donor ever remain near your heart."* 
 
 " Othman," pursued the GeorgiaUj " would fain 
 have excused himself from accepting me in the 
 burthensome form of a present ; but, unable to 
 obtain his nephew on any odier terms, he submits. 
 I therefore leave you ; I leave all that is dear to 
 me ! Torn in my childhood from my natural 
 friends, I now in my youth am wrested from all 
 my adoptive brethren. But the will of God be 
 done !'' 
 
 We accompanied Rashcoan back to the palace, 
 where he took an affectionate leave of his patron 
 and his friends. All regretted the young Mamluke 
 sincerely ; and Suleiman himself appeared greatly 
 moved. Little did he foresee what luck his gift one 
 day would bring him ! 
 
 The removal of Rashooan left me fewer induce- 
 ments for rambling, and this was fortunate ; for 
 every day the Bey could less endure my absence. 
 I was his cyclopaedia, and whatever puzzled his 
 sagacious brain — whether a paragraph on Egypt 
 in an old Vienna gazette, or the site of Cairo in a 
 worn-out Nurnberg map ; w hether the arranging of 
 a microscope presented by a traveller, or the telling 
 of the weather by a barometer extorted from a Jew ; 
 whether the construction of a barge, or the design 
 of a keoschk — all was referred to me, as to the 
 oracle in chief: so that many a time, when there 
 
 VOL. II. c 
 
18 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 occurred what seemed inexplicable riddles to Mam- 
 luke intellects, I could only escape my part of 
 CEdipus, by my insufficient proficiency in the lan- 
 guage of the Egyptian sphynx ; and my ignorance 
 of the Arabic saved my credit for information on 
 many other subjects. The Bey, however, recom- 
 mended me to the tuition of a schaich, bred in the 
 college of El-Azhar,^- not doubting that, when 
 once taught all the refinements of the Caireen idiom, 
 I should no longer be at a loss for an answer on any 
 topic whatsoever. He thought me a positive abyss 
 of science ; and in truth it would have been diffi- 
 cult to discover on what bottomed my knowledge. 
 Whenever I feared that its wanf of solid foundation 
 might become palpable, I diverted the Bey's atten- 
 tion by some piece of flattery. Not that I ever 
 condescended to perform so inferior an office in the 
 endless departments of adulation, as that of ad- 
 ministering to Suleiman his daily dose of crude un- 
 modified incense, which, in common with all other 
 grandees, he had from long and inveterate habit 
 come to regard — like his daily pill of opium — as an 
 absolute necessary to his constitution; and there- 
 fore took as a thing he could not well dispense 
 with, but no longer either derived much exhilaration 
 from, or felt much gratitude for: — the task of 
 cramming him with this insipid sort of panegyric I 
 left to the vulgar herd of attendants. Mine was 
 the nicer office of stimulating the appetite, and of 
 
ANASTASIUS. 19 
 
 heightening the flavour of the draught, through 
 means of that little previous fermentation which gives 
 spirit to the flattest beverage. I therefore usually be- 
 gan by putting my patron, by some point blank con- 
 tradiction, into a violent rage. To yield afterwards 
 to the force and perspicuity of his arguments, was a 
 species of adulation perfectly irresistible : it gave 
 my patron all the pleasure of a complete surprise, 
 and me, all the appearance of a sturdy sincerity ! 
 
 Such pains to please deserved a 'recompense, 
 and the reward was hberally bestowed; but in a 
 mode nearly as circuitous as that in which it had 
 been earned. Suleiman naturally abhorred a direct 
 gift : what he usually granted to his favourites, was 
 an opportunity of grinding other favourites, already 
 provided for, — or of laying under contribution some 
 dependent or client. He would send me, for instance, 
 to inform some rich Jew protege that he had been 
 thinking of him all day, or some wealthy christian 
 tradesman that he had been dreaming of him 
 all night ; and truly I had never before experienced 
 such a solid way of thinking, or such golden 
 dreams ! As an additional favour, he introduced 
 me to all his most distinguished colleagues ; par- 
 ticularly to Ibraham-Bey Sogeir, to Moustapha-Bey 
 Skanderani, and to Ayoob-Bey the great. This 
 latter was pleased to express great regret that the 
 commander of the kirlangitsch should not have ad- 
 dressed me, at my outset, to himself 
 
 c2 
 
20 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 On first entering Suleiman's house, I had found 
 the envy of his Mamlukes entirely centred in the 
 Tchibookdjee. It was hard to digest so marked a 
 preference shown a native of Odesche, whatever 
 mio-ht be the colour of his cheeks. But when I, 
 who was not even a purchased slave, became the 
 Bey's right hand, only for practising a few foreign 
 juggling tricks, — as they were politely termed, — even 
 the favourite was thought aggrieved, and began to 
 be pitied. Accustomed to dissimulation, he how- 
 ever preserved with me an exterior of civility, tem- 
 pered only by a few cutting remarks, so expressed 
 as to seem to arise from sheer kindness; until a 
 favourable opportunity at last offered of letting 
 loose upon me all his long-suppressed malice. 
 
 Suleiman had been rather too eager one day in 
 exhibiting his prowess at the djereed. Over-heated 
 with an exercise too violent for his age, he returned 
 home greatly indisposed. His illness soon became 
 so violent a fever that hi& hfe was thought in 
 danger; and his hakem in ordinary, at his wits 
 ends, no longer knew what to do. All his Mam- 
 lukes stood aghast round their patrpn, expecting 
 every hour to be his last. I was looking on with 
 the rest, when all at once it occurred to me that I 
 need not remain an idle spectator. Eugenius, my 
 French instructor at Pera, whose strong mind lodged 
 in but a weakly sort of a body, had on occasions 
 derived relief from an English powder, which he 
 
ANASTASIUS. 21 
 
 always kept himself provided with. Of this panacea 
 he had at parting given me a few papers, as a 
 valuable present. But Anastasius in health never 
 remembered that Anastasius might fall ill, and the 
 medicine 'was abandoned to whoever chose to try 
 its efficacy : an occurrence the more frequent, as the 
 result of the experiment always was favourable. It 
 however now struck me that, possibly, among my 
 clothes, there might be some powders left which 
 might save the Bey's life, and make my own fortune. 
 Full of this idea, I broke through the circle, 
 burst out of the room, and ran, with a throbbing 
 heart, to my own chamber to look for the medicine. 
 But where to find it I knew not. Every corner of 
 my box was ransacked, every hole of my room was 
 searched, every article of my apparel was turned 
 over fifty times, without my being able to discover 
 the least symptom of the tiny blue papers for which 
 I was hunting. At last I gave over the search, con- 
 sidered the case as hopeless, and went down stairs 
 again, to resume my forlorn station in the sick 
 chamber, where even during my short absence 
 matters were grown worse. Scarce had I entered it, 
 than I recollected that in tumbling over my ward- 
 robe, I had perceived the blade of an old rusty 
 handjar — a keep-sake from Aly — thrust out of the 
 sheath, and had met with some resistance on trying 
 to push it home. In the flurry of my spirits, I had 
 
22 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 only curst the rusty weapon, but, on recurring to 
 the circumstance, a ghmpse of hope flashed upon 
 me. Aly had taken one of my powders after his 
 sea-sickness, and the handjar in question had been 
 his acknowledgment for the relief obtained. I ran 
 back to my chamber, probed the scabbard to the 
 bottom, and, from the inmost core of the implement 
 of death, drew forth the last dose of my restorative of 
 life and health, — ^probably thus stowed away in some 
 thoughtless moment. Wrapping up the precious 
 medicine in an embroidered handkerchief, I ran 
 down again to the Bey ; gave him — for fear the 
 simple truth should sound too homely in his ears — 
 a pompous account of the singular and superhuman 
 personage to whom I owed the gift ; expatiated on 
 the incalculable rarity and wonderful powers of the 
 medicine itself; and ended by imploring him to 
 take, perhaps, the last dose of this powder of life 
 existing on the whole terraqueous globe ! 
 
 Most ready was my patron to try its efficacy ; 
 but I had seen him swallow other medicine of less 
 vital importance with an ill grace, and spit out 
 three good quarters and a half. Fearful lest he 
 should serve in the same manner, what I considered 
 his sole remaining chance of existence, I went for 
 some palatable vehicle, in which to secure a safe 
 transit to the powder. 
 
 Though scarcely absent two minutes, I found, on 
 
ANASTASIUS. 23 
 
 my return, the face of affairs entirely changed. 
 The Tchibookdjee had employed the short period 
 of my absence to insinuate that the medicine pro- 
 bably was a poison, and the giver a rogue. Of late, 
 I had been much with Ayoob-Bey. Ayoob indeed 
 was Suleiman's most intimate friend ! But what 
 were Mamluke friendships ? And my evident con- 
 fusion, my wildness, and my running in and out, 
 clearly bespoke a guilty mind. When, full of 
 exultation and hope, I offered the draught, the Bey 
 pushed it aside, and, without giving any reason, 
 said he would take no more physic. This declara- 
 tion was in itself sufficiently stunning : but much 
 of the mischief it implied might depend upon its 
 particular author : — I cast my eye leisurely round 
 the Mamluke circle. The Tchibookdjee looked 
 away ; I guessed the truth, and trembled. 
 
 It now became necessary to insure my own 
 safety. I therefore said with firmness : " This 
 powder has some other virtues beside that of 
 expelling fever: it exposes calumny. Since my 
 patron rejects its healing powers, let it at least bear 
 witness to his Selim's heart ; — and may God forgive 
 the unfaithful servant who suffers the waste of what 
 might have saved his master's life !" 
 
 Saying this, I carried the cup to my lips. My 
 speech had restored to the Bey his former confidence. 
 With all the eagerness which his debihty permitted, 
 
M ANASTASIUS. 
 
 he interposed his trembling hand between the rim 
 and my mouth, wrested from me the draught, 
 and, whispering to the Tchibookdjee in a faltering 
 accent, " he cannot be a poisoner," at one gulp 
 poured down his throat the whole contents. 
 
 In my eagerness to do good, I certainly had not 
 sufficiently proportioned the dose to the weakness 
 of the patient. Instead of finding relief, he felt 
 greater oppression : and soon his constitution ap- 
 peared utterly unable to struggle with the medicine. 
 The Mamlukes, upon this, renewed all their former 
 surmises, and spoke their sentiments so loudly in 
 the Bey"'s hearing, that they seemed quite determined 
 to justify their imputations, cost what it might ; and 
 in default of real poison, to kill their patron through 
 the fear of it. My life seemed to hang by a thread ! — 
 Had I dared, I should have mounted my horse, 
 and rode away, without waiting the issue. But I 
 saw myself watched on all sides, and I knew that on 
 the smallest attempt to make my escape, I must 
 be cut down on the spot. Meantime a death-like 
 paleness overspread the Bey's countenance: his 
 features became fixed, and his breath ceased to be 
 perceptible. This was the critical moment. I gazed 
 on his countenance, like one whose own life depended 
 on its changes. At last a slight dew broke out 
 upon his forehead : — plentiful relief soon followed. 
 The system threw off the weight which oppressed 
 
ANASTASIUS. 25 
 
 it, and the fever abated! From that instant the 
 Bey's illness took a favourable turn. Every hour 
 showed an improvement on the preceding; and in 
 a short time after being to all appearance in the 
 agony of death, Suleiman was on his legs again, as 
 well as ever ; while, — as had been predicted at the 
 Fanar, — I fell upon mine at last, and stood pro- 
 claimed the saver of his life. 
 
^ ANASTASIUS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 On the occasion of his recovery, Suleiman took a 
 less circuitous mode than usual of showing his gra- 
 titude. He made me at once, by a direct grant, 
 Multezim or proprietor of a cluster of villages near 
 Djarrah; and Selim Aga thus became a" man of 
 substance. But this favour inflamed to such a 
 degree the jealousy and murmurings of the Bey's 
 Mamlukes, that he would at last, I believe, gladly 
 have seen me in the condition from which I rescued 
 him, and that, without the benefit of Eugenius's 
 powders. An urgent summons into his presence 
 was the consequence. The moment I appeared ; 
 " Selim," he cried, " you prescribed the other day 
 for me : I must now prescribe for you !"" 
 
 I thanked my patron, and assured him that the 
 pleasure of seeing his health restored, had put mine 
 beyond the reach of accident. 
 
 '' You mistake," resumed the Bey. " I see by 
 your face that you are ill, — very ill indeed ! The 
 air of Cairo disagrees with yoU. Take my advice, 
 and change it immediately for that t)f the healthier 
 province in which your property lies." 
 
ANASTASILS. 27 
 
 It was something to find that I was not expected 
 to swallow a positive dose, which I feared might cure 
 all my ailments too effectually. Still I considered 
 the prescription as indicating something critical in 
 my case, and exclaimed : " Say at once, Sir, that I 
 have lost your favour ; say at once that you banish 
 me your presence ; say that my enemies have pre- 
 vailed !" 
 
 '' To prove you mistaken,*" replied the Bey, '' to 
 prove that I lose not so soon all sense of gratitude, 
 I add to my former gift a new one ; I name you 
 Caimakam^ of Samanhood. It is a delightful 
 place, and your residence in your own district will 
 season you to the climate. On your return, you 
 will appear less a stranger among us." 
 
 Prom some lips, " I advise," implies " I com- 
 mand.'"* ]My only business therefore was to go where 
 bidden, as soon as invested with the insignia of my 
 office. 
 
 Meanwhile, behold me now become Selim-Cai- 
 makam ! and by the indefeasible privilege of always 
 rising one step at least above one's real rank, giving 
 myself by anticipation all the airs of Selim-Kiashef. 
 Not a single rayah of the inferior sort had the mis- 
 fortune to meet me in the street, whom my mok- 
 hadam- forced not to jump from off his long-eared 
 steed, and humbly to salute me in the mire. The 
 great fat Frank merchants, indeed, showed them- 
 selves as yet more firm in their seats, and these I 
 
as ANASTASIUS. 
 
 could thus far only indulge in the pleasure of be- 
 spattering from head to foot, en passant, while I 
 promised myself ampler satisfaction on their persons 
 at some later period. These were the follies of my 
 youth; — would that they had been the worst for 
 which my riper years have had to blush ! 
 
 Suleiman's regular bazirghian^ was the merchant, 
 on whom I chiefly conferred the honour of fitting 
 me out for my lieutenancy. 1 chose at his shop 
 broad-cloths, shawls, silks, muslins, armour, &c. 
 sufficient for the equipage of a Bey. These I paid 
 for in orders on my villages ; and as the term of 
 payment was distant, so was the price of the goods 
 proportionably high : I therefore felt very indig- 
 nant, when, alarmed at my increasing requisitions, 
 the wary trader at last swore — with great apparent 
 concern — that he had not a strip left of the articles 
 I wanted. A piece of information so little expected, 
 put me under the disagreeable necessity of secretly 
 watching the entrance of some customer of more 
 established credit into Zohrab's shop, when, gliding 
 in after him, and finding the whole counter covered 
 with the choicest specimens of the very goods which 
 I had in vain demanded, I congratulated the mer- 
 chant on his seasonable supply, swept away the 
 whole assortment, and resold what I could spare 
 from my own private use. 
 
 Spite of Suleiman's impatience to see me gone, I 
 was determined to witness at Cairo the opening of 
 
ANASTASIUS. 29 
 
 the Kalish. Rather than lose that festivity, I chose 
 to sprain my ancle, and limped to the show. Among 
 the valuable articles which I had bought to do ho- 
 nour to my government, shone pre-eminent a fine 
 samoor'^ pelisse. This costly fur I was dying to 
 display at the fete ; and caught a cold on purpose 
 to wrap myself in it, in the very midst of the dog- 
 days : nor did I stir a step except in my pelisse. 
 The very mob raved of its beauty ; and one youth 
 in particular eyed it with such intense adoration, 
 that, unable to possess himself of the whole, he cut 
 off the left sleeve, while it hung dangling at my 
 back; and bore the important appendage away as a 
 relic. It was mortifying to learn my loss, from 
 some persons behind me, in the very midst of my 
 happiness. The sleeve indeed might be replaced, 
 but the pelisse could no longer be worn that day, 
 and with a deep sigh I sent it home. Scarce, how- 
 ever, had its mangled body reached m^y door, than 
 after it M^alked in the severed limb. Dropped, in 
 the confusion of the place, by the thief, it had been 
 picked up by an honest fellow, who, by the greatest 
 good luck, happened to be a tailor into the bargain, 
 and offered to wield his needle with such diligence, 
 as in a trice to enable the signor Ca'imakam to re- 
 sume his robe of state. The honest fellow's services 
 were accepted: the cloak was given him, and he 
 retired to work in a little back chamber. 
 
 Unluckily this room — besides a door — also had a 
 
80 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 window — and, having come in at the one, my friend 
 chose, for variety, to go out at the other. On my 
 looking in to hasten the business, tailor, cloak, and 
 sleeve, had disappeared together, nor have they ever 
 since been heard of. I applied to the Schaich or 
 chief of the robbers at Cairo, who, for a certain 
 consideration, undertakes to restore stolen goods; 
 and during the sultriest season of the year had every 
 day fifty pelisses of cat and rabbit skin brought me 
 to examine ; but not one of samoor ! 
 
 Spite of my loss, I proceeded on my journey. 
 According to the custom of the country," I was ac- 
 companied by some of the Fellahs^ of my own estate, 
 to serve me as a sort of hostages for the good be- 
 haviour of my remaining serfs ; and, in addition to 
 these, had, by way of retinue, four black slaves for 
 the service of my person, three Hawarees or Bar- 
 baresque horsemen for the protection of my vassals, 
 half a dozen kawasses,^ to clear my way of canaille, 
 and four or five Sais, or grooms, to take care of my 
 stud. This latter consisted, besides the steeds we 
 mounted, of three or four fine led horses for show, 
 as many mules for use, and a dromedary for flight, 
 should circumstances render a retrograde movement 
 expedient. As to asses for incognito expeditions, 
 they were, thank God ! to be found every where. 
 This little assortment of bipeds and quadrupeds, — 
 extended on as long a line as possible, — formed a 
 very respectable procession, and quite sufficient to 
 
ANASTASIUS. 31 
 
 make passengers inquire, and have an opportunity 
 of learning, that it was Selim CaimaAam on his way 
 to his government. 
 
 I began my journey by land, and spite of the 
 humble entreaties of the Schaichs and Shehoods* of 
 the different places v/here I halted, preferred pitch- 
 ing my tents in the open air, to lodging in the close 
 and miserable hovels of the towns and vil]aa;es ; but 
 I took care that the inhabitants should lose nothino- 
 by the great man keeping aloof: and consoled them 
 by sending for as much provision of every sort as I 
 could manage to consume or carry. The Schaich-el- 
 belled of each district is obliged to supply the pubhc 
 officers on their route at the expense of the district ; 
 in consequence of which excellent regulation I should 
 never have given up the more economical way of 
 travelling by land, for the more expensive convey- 
 ance by water, had not some of the kiashefs on my 
 Vv'ay been most inconveniently engaged in hostility 
 with the neighbouring Arabs. This rendered part 
 of the road insecure ; and, as I had but an inade- 
 quate force, I resolved, after three or four days 
 march by land, to embark on the Nile ; myself in a 
 light khandgea,^ which went on before, and the 
 bulk of my equipage in a larger and heavier boat 
 behind. 
 
 In consequence of the adventure of my pelisse, 
 I had conceived the erroneous notion that the 
 thieves of Cairo far excelled in skill those of the 
 
3g ANASTASIUS. 
 
 provinces. This opinion, so injurious to the latter, 
 I had occasion to correct. One evening, advancing 
 with a fresh breeze pretty rapidly against the stream, 
 our ears were suddenly struck by the noise of a 
 heavy body, plumping into the waves ; and inex- 
 pressible was my surprise and concern when, running 
 to the stern of the boat, I beheld this body to be 
 that of my best mare; and when I saw her, whom 
 I thought I had left tied fast by the legs, swimming 
 away to the land with all her might. Unable to 
 guess the cause of this strange freak, I did all in 
 my power to entice the poor beast back. -In vain ! 
 —As if bewitched, the more I called the faster 
 she swam; so that at last I gave orders to tack and 
 row after hter with all possible speed. Noorshah 
 however reached the bank about fifty yards in ad- 
 vance of her old master, and no sooner had she 
 touched the shore, than out came the secret, in the 
 shape of a thief; who, to my inexpressible horror, 
 started up from behind the animal, cut the strings 
 that confined its legs, pressed its loins with his own 
 bandy shanks, and scampered off; By diving all 
 the way, the scoundrel had contrived unperceived 
 to reach the boat, had crept in by favour of the dusk, 
 and had slipped under the mare ; so as, by raising 
 his back under her belly, to tilt her over into the 
 water ; when, confined as were her extremities, it 
 becamxC an easy task to push her to the land. Un- 
 fortunately the boasted speed of the animal put out 
 
ANASTASIUS. 3S 
 
 of question all chance of successful pursuit; and 
 Noorshah was, in my memory, placed with the pelisse 
 among the things that had been. 
 
 At Mamfloot I again quitted the khandgea. 
 Only five or six days journey now separated me 
 from my new district, which bordered upon the 
 province of Djirdge; and the road bore a good 
 character. 
 
 On the third morning of my progress, however, 
 I began to doubt its claims. All the inhabitants, 
 young and old, of the first village we passed 
 through, were under arms ; some carrying clubs, 
 others stones, and, the most distinguished, a rusty 
 sword, or a worn-out matchlock. The enemy 
 against whom they marched, drawn out in the 
 most martial array on the brow of an eminence 
 hard by, were the inhabitants of the next village ; 
 and, inquiring into the cause of hostilities, all the 
 information I could get was, that nobody knew its 
 first beginning. The ori^n of the hereditary ani- 
 mosity between the two districts lay concealed in 
 the obscurity of ages ; but its virulence remained 
 not the less unimpaired : — it had been laudably 
 kept up by as many subsequent injuries and reta- 
 liations as other business permitted ; and to my great 
 edification I understood that, however completely 
 the first cause of the enmity might be forgotten, it 
 was only the more implacable on that account. 
 
 Though gratified by so praiseworthy a spirit, I 
 
 VOL. II. D 
 
34 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 judged nevertheless that it might admit of some 
 modification, and took the liberty to represent that, 
 even supposing the happiness of the community to 
 be quite beyond enduring, I still thought that certain 
 regular drawbacks, such as contributions to the Sul- 
 tan, taxes imposed by the Beys, provisions claimed by 
 travelling officers like myself, exactions of avaricious 
 landlords, depredations committed by wandering 
 Arabs, and yearly encroachments of the sand on the 
 cultivable soil, together with the incidental circum- 
 stances of locusts, plague, imperfect irrigation, mor- 
 tality and famine, might, upon the whole," qualify it 
 sufficiently, without the gratuitous addition of civil 
 warfare and bloodshed between neighbours, begun 
 without a cause, and carried on without an object ! 
 
 This civil remonstrance, I rejoiced to find, made 
 a great impression. Not a single objection was 
 preferred, and my speech was frequently inter- 
 jupted by cries of: " listen, listen !" The auditors 
 thanked me humbly for my good advice ; when I 
 departed, they remained for a considerable time 
 immoveable on the spot ; and only after I and mine 
 were quite out of sight, they proceeded on, and gave 
 their enemies (as I have since understood) the 
 bloodiest battle on record in their annals. 
 
 After nearly four weeks spent on the road, I 
 found myself at last, to my great satisfaction, ap- 
 proaching the conclusion of my tedious journey. In 
 the midst of a deep reverie, I was suddenly aroused 
 
ANASTASIUS. 85 
 
 by the loud shouts of my suite, at the sight of my 
 capital. Already delighted with these welcome 
 sounds, I expected to be soon still more so by the 
 appearance of my subjects, drawn out in due state 
 to meet their new governor, with drums beating and 
 colours flying. " How long they must have been 
 watching my arrival !"*' thought I, and spurred my 
 horse on, straining both eyes and ears to discover 
 some distant stir ; but no symptom of bustle being 
 yet discernible, I again slackened my pace, in order 
 to give leisure for the procession to advance. Vain 
 considerateness ! I might proceed as slow as I pleased, 
 not a creature appeared, early or late, to welcome 
 my arrival ; and I had to enter my capital un- 
 honoured with the smallest notice. Matters mended 
 not even, as I penetrated deeper into the town. 
 Every street or lane which I successively entered 
 looked peculiarly forlorn. Every door and window 
 was as empty as if the city had been visited by the 
 plague ; and the inhabitants, so far from impeding 
 my passage by their congratulations, seemed, on the 
 contrary, to have all fled from their homes at my 
 approach. Inconceivably mortified, I fell into a 
 state of such complete abstraction that — no longer 
 minding what I was about — I crossed my capital 
 (which, to say the truth, was not among the largest) 
 through and through, and again issued forth at the 
 opposite extremity from that at which I had entered, 
 so as to leave my destined residence wholly behind 
 
 D 2 
 
36 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 me, and to continue on in full march toward the 
 Said. In fact, I would have proceeded in this way 
 to the very end of the world, had not all at once a 
 prodigious clamour assailed my ears, a hundred yards 
 or two in my rear. It was that of no less than all 
 the Schaichs, Shehoods and notables of the place 
 collected, who, seeing me thus contemptuously 
 turn my back upon my new subjects, and run 
 away from my government, were in full cry at my 
 heels, to stop my progress. Unfortunately the 
 discord of their shouts had the contrary effect from 
 that which they intended. Imagining it in my ab- 
 straction to be some fray in which I had no concern, 
 I only spurred my horse on the faster, and the 
 more pertinaciously the procession pursued me, the 
 harder I galloped : until one of my own suite, 
 who had learnt the truth, at last got me to hear him, 
 and rectified my mistake. My subjects, poor crea- 
 tures! had only appeared remiss from an excess 
 of loyalty. Apprised that I drew near, they had, 
 early in the morning, taken their station where they 
 expected me to enter their city : — totally forgetting 
 a bad pass in the road, which compelled me to make 
 a circuit; and thereby obliged my subjects to run 
 after their governor, instead of advancing in due 
 state to meet him. Matters now were soon brought " 
 to an amicable understanding, and I turned back 
 without any other ill consequence arising from the 
 mistake, except that of the whole procession— go- 
 
ANASTASIUS. 37 
 
 vernor and governed — entering the town the wrong 
 end foremost. 
 
 It had been sheer modesty in me not to expect 
 a capital at least equal to liaschid or to Fooali :— 
 when, therefore, on looking round, I saw how little 
 the real dimensions of my residence agreed with 
 those assigned to it in my imagination, my first 
 impulse v/as to accuse Suleiman of having treated 
 me with disrespect. Time only inspired me with 
 more reasonable sentiments ; — time only taught me 
 that mine was a situation not of amusement but of 
 profit : but by degrees my docile intellect became 
 so thoroughly imbued with this principle, that, 
 through dint of unabating diligence, I was at last 
 able to tell to a fraction of a para what each feddan 
 of ground might yield, and each head of the subjects 
 be chargeable for, whether to the Multezim, the 
 lieutenant, the governor, or the miri 9, 
 
 After these severer studies, letting leases, imposing 
 contributions, levying fines, receiving presents, and 
 inflicting penalties, were only my pastimes. Indeed, 
 as the Egyptian fellah makes it a matter of conscience 
 never to pay his rent, until compelled by main force, 
 and wears the stripes he has incurred in his resistance 
 as badges of honour, my financial operations some- 
 times even afforded me a fair field for the exercise of 
 my warlike propensities : ^not but what my genius 
 —even in its fullest exertions in that line — still 
 shrunk into absolute insignificance before that of my 
 
38 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 Coobtic writer, who, with a salary of six medeens a 
 day, and a large family to maintain, had become, by 
 mere saving, as rich as a Sultan's seraf. It is true 
 that whenever he drew a para out of his vest, it was 
 as if he tore his very vitals out of his boson^. Once, 
 indeed, I tried to throw some hght upon the in- 
 tricacies of his accounts, but I might as soon have 
 attempted to find my way in the labyrinth of Crete. 
 AVhen I complained of the easy honesty of this 
 worthy personage to my confidential servant, I 
 found httle sympathy. Seyed shrugged up his shoul- 
 ders ; owned that certain things might be tiresome, 
 — but they were the regular practice. If the Coobd 
 cheated the Multezim, did not the Multezim in the 
 same way cheat the Caimakam, and the Caimakam 
 the Kiashef, and the Kiashef the Bey, and the Bey 
 the Schaich-el-belled, and the Schaich-el-belled the 
 Pasha, and the Pasha the Porte, and the Porte the 
 Sultan.? who, he was very sure, cheated Allah 
 himself, when he assumed the title of Kaliph of the 
 faithful. 
 
 The only thing I could see through tolerably 
 were the decisions of the Cadee, which I sometimes 
 went to witness at the mekkieme. In Egypt, as 
 ^ elsewhere, the conjugal union seemed to be in all its 
 various stages, the most universal source of discord, 
 and subject of litigation. One day, there appeared 
 a fair one, entitled thus far only to the blushing 
 honours of a bride, who,on being conducted in state to 
 
ANASTASIUS. 39 
 
 her bridegroom, had been refused admittance, and 
 had found herself compelled to return as she went. 
 Another day came a wife regularly installed : she, 
 poor woman ! had been dispossessed less openly, but 
 of rights already exercised, and now claimed her dues 
 with arrears of interest: and on another occasion 
 walked in an afflicted mourning widow ; who, still 
 as much in love with her dead husband as while he 
 was ahve, only demanded the empty gratification 
 of nightly visiting his grave, unimpeded by her 
 churlish relations. She was pretty ; her grief affected 
 me, and once or twice I went to the scene of her 
 affliction, to mix my tears with hers. 
 
 In Europe, the law, they say, demands a long 
 apprenticeship : it is not so among Mohammedans. 
 The Koran and its commentaries decide every case, 
 — from a point of faith to a right of gutter — in a 
 very few seconds. Thaform of trial is simple. Every 
 man pleads his own cause ; and wonderful is the 
 readiness of the Egyptiansin finding answers to every 
 interrogatory, excuses for every action, witnesses 
 to every fact, and sureties for every engagement. 
 I remember a poor fellow, who, called upon for his 
 respondents, and having none on earth, had recourse 
 to heaven. Imam Aly was the one he chose : nor 
 durst the other contracting party, albeit somewhat 
 startled, both at the distance of the saint's abode, 
 and at the difficulty of enforcing his appearance, 
 refuse so respectable a security. 
 
40 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 My stay was long enough in my lieutenancy to 
 find that peculiar subject of discourse the most 
 interesting, which I had once thought the most tire- 
 some ; I mean, the rise of the Nile. By degrees I 
 could think of no other. Yet was it this season 
 a source of no very cheering contemplation. The 
 river — as if in a trance — displayed such unusual 
 tardiness in rising, that soon every district trembled 
 lest its waters should fail of attaining the requisite 
 height. Nothing was heard but lamentations and 
 complaints. One came to tell me of canals, which 
 not a drop of m.oisture reached ; another, of such as 
 had been drained prematurely of their insufficient 
 contents. Here the legal period for cutting a dam 
 had been wholly disregarded; there a single field 
 had been made to engross the supply of a whole dis- 
 trict : every where it seemed as if the dread of a 
 scarcity had made man exert his utmost ingenuity 
 to render a famine unavoidable. 
 
 I now became haunted by the phantom of 
 drought, the most dreary that stalks over Egypt's 
 thirsty plains. My thoughts by day, and my dreams 
 by night, equally presented to me its ever extending, 
 blasting form, followed by the whole train of its 
 frightful offspring: unirrigated tracts, fields re- 
 maining fallow, insufficient crops, farmers unable to 
 pay their contributions, peasants abandoning their 
 villages, whole troops of fellahs leaving their pos- 
 sessions and their homes to till the land of the 
 
ANASTASIUS, 41 
 
 stranger, impositions to remit, short rents to receive 
 for the Bey ; and the Caimakam alone held account- 
 able for all the deficiencies of nature, and all the 
 waywardness of man. O ! how earnestly did I 
 now pray for some lucky incident, which might 
 release me from my stewardship and responsibility ! 
 But of such a piece of good fortune I entertained 
 no hopes. 
 
 It however came, and when it came, it failed of 
 its promised pleasure. One morning, as I sat 
 puzzhng over some of my writer's explanations, in 
 walked a smooth-spoken gentleman, who, followed 
 by a whole body of less engaging satellites, in a civil 
 tone informed me that he came to take my place ; 
 and, lest I should doubt his word, handed me an in- 
 junction from the Bey to return forthwith to Cairo. 
 This unlooked-for recall produced such a revolution 
 in my sentiments, that I now would gladly have 
 given just as much to retain, as I would have done 
 the instant before, to get rid of my trust. It is true 
 that to my concern for-^vhat I left, was to be added 
 my apprehension of what I might find. So sudden 
 a removal, so little accounted for, savoured of a 
 disgrace. I doubted not but my enemies had 
 improved my absence to undermine my favour. 
 The Tchibookdjee was evidently at the bottom of 
 the whole afiair ; and as I had already vowed the 
 insidious pipe-bearer an eternal hatred, I could now 
 only add the vow of a speedy revenge. 
 
42 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 Absorbed in my meditations on the best mode of 
 executing what, but for the consequences, was 
 feasible a thousand ways, I one day, on my home- 
 ward journey, rode on so fast as to get entirely out 
 of sight of my suite, when suddenly I found myself 
 breast to breast with a troop of Bedoween Arabs, 
 whose low dusky tents, pitched behind a sand-hill, 
 had remained concealed from my view, till I almost 
 stumbled over their inclosure. The same instant the 
 chief of the tribe, followed by half a dozen of its 
 ragged members, advanced upon me with couched 
 spears, demanding either a hundred sequiift for my 
 passage, or all I possessed. Neither of these proposals 
 suited me ; but my retinue amounted not to one 
 fourth of that of the Arabs, and it seemed quite 
 certain that if it came to blows, we must have the 
 worst of the fray : — wherefore — without advancing, 
 but without either answering the summons, I turned 
 round to the foremost men of my escort, who by this 
 time had approached within reach, and bid them fill 
 a basket with ball and cartriL«ge. This ammunition I 
 sent the Bedoweens : telling them at the same time it 
 was the only coin in which I paid impositions ; but, 
 if not content with the quantit}^, they might, as soon 
 as my army came up, have more of it, — and that, 
 sent by the speediest conveyance possible. This 
 rodomontade took effect. The Schaich received the 
 gift with thanks, filled the basket in return with 
 super-excellent dates, and bade me pass on, with the 
 
ANASTASIUS. 43 
 
 salutation of peace. This civility I most readily 
 returned ; nor waited until my army should be in 
 sight, to hurry with all possible speed out of that of 
 the Arabs. 
 
 Brooding all the way to Cairo over the cause of 
 my recall, I could scarce avoid, on my entrance 
 into the capital, reading in every countenance the 
 confirmation of my disgrace. This idea made me 
 conceal my own features in my shawl, till I reached 
 the palace. There, meeting at the gate an old and 
 confidential comrade, I gave vent for the first time 
 to my apprehensions, and by way of obtaining, with- 
 out asking it, more explicit information respecting 
 the manoeuvres of the Tchibookdjee, cried out: 
 " I was come to look after Osman." — ^' God forbid !" 
 was the only answer I received. 
 
 But these few words, with the addition of an 
 ominous smile, sufficed to complete the subversion 
 of my senses. — I rushed up stairs, flew into the Bey's 
 apartment, and hardly allowing myself time to per- 
 form a respectful salutation : " Sir," cried I, in scarce 
 articulate sounds, " Osman, I know, will never 
 cease his machinations, until he has entirely ruined 
 me in your esteem !" 
 
 " If so," coolly answered the Bey, " your 
 knowledge far exceeds in its reach even what I 
 imagined ; nor did I think poor Osman still conti- 
 nued to disturb your repose, after being himself laid 
 at rest for ever." 
 
44 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 " How !" cried I, — more bewildered than before — 
 " is Osman dead ?'' '^ And what else,'* replied the 
 Bey, " do you think could have made me send for 
 you in such haste? What but the -means of now 
 
 conferring upon you without any obstacle ? 
 
 but you are too much agitated to listen. I must 
 wait till to-morrow to unfold my designs. Mean- 
 while, go, and compose yourself." 
 
 I went, but whether I obeyed the sequel of the 
 injunction, I need scarcely add. My imagination, 
 always ardent enough, had been set in a complete 
 blaze ; and, burning with impatience to learn my 
 new destinies, I only felt my agitation changed in 
 its object, without being in the least diminished in 
 its intensity. The whole night I kept racking my 
 brain to clothe into some definite shape the Bey's 
 vague and desultory hints ; and in my anxious wish 
 for the day that was to clear up the mystery, 1 began to 
 think night had overslept herself, and the morning, 
 pregnant with my future fate, would never arrive. 
 
 At last it duly shone upon the world, and I was 
 summoned to my patron's chamber. Left with him 
 in much-portending tete-a-tete, he looked at me, 
 smiled to see the impatience depicted in my coun- 
 tenance, hemmed twice or thrice for no purpose but 
 to increase the fever of my spirits, and, having asked 
 me some trifling questions, which I answered with- 
 out well knowing what they were, — at last began ' 
 his discourse. 
 
ANASTASIUS. 45 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 "Selim," — said Suleiman, in all the solemnity of 
 a set speech, — " you have seen our two leaders, and 
 seldom, I should think, can have observed two 
 personages more unlike both in mind and in body. 
 The short spare form, the mild countenance, the 
 insinuating address, the cautious calculating turn 
 of the Schaich -el-belled could not find a greater 
 contrast than in the ferocious features, the colossal 
 frame, the voice of thunder, the violent temper, the 
 fearlessness of danger, the impatience of control, 
 and the prodigality of disposition of his blustering 
 colleague. Little of union might be expected be- 
 tween qualities so dissimilar; and, in fact, the 
 public at large, which sees Ibrahim ever prefer 
 artifice to force and negotiation to war, while 
 Mourad openly professes to hold in his sword his 
 only instrument of persuasion, regards these two 
 chiefs as constantly on the eve of a rupture, and 
 about to hoist the standard of interminable enmity. 
 But we who observe more closely, have lost all 
 hopes on that head. — We can only, when Ibrahim 
 and Mourad affect to be at vanance, view in their 
 reciprocal strictures upon each other, studied sallies 
 
^ ANASTASIUS. 
 
 carefully rehearsed beforehand by the performers, 
 with the view to mask their schemes, and to mis- 
 lead their rivals. Each appreciates in his heart 
 at its true value, that difference of disposition 
 from the other, which gives him in his associate 
 precisely all he wants in himself, and makes Mourad 
 cut asunder the knot which Ibrahim cannot untie, 
 as it again enables Ibrahim to cure by his manage- 
 ment, the wounds which Mourad has inflicted by 
 his rashness. Thus it is that the dissimilar qualities 
 of the two chiefs, — like the gold and the steel of a 
 Damascus blade — only form a closer amaigam, and 
 leave less hopes of those chasms and fissures in their 
 union, at which competitors insinuate themselves to 
 divide a party, to drive its members asunder, and 
 to rise on its ruins ! 
 
 " Some of us therefore, — Ibrahim Bey Sogeir, 
 Osman-Bey Tcherkavi, Moustapha-Bey Skanderani, 
 Ayoob-Bey the lesser, and myself, — ^have at last 
 agreed upon uniting our strength, in order to bring 
 these all-grasping leaders to a more equal division 
 of the spoil ; and even Ayoob-Bey Kebir, Yous- 
 soof Bey, and Ismail Bey Sogeir, though they still 
 seem to waver, only do so, in order that they may sell 
 their co-operation at a higher price. Their irresolute 
 and doubtful conduct, however, would have made 
 us put off^ the execution of our design until it had 
 had time to acquire greater consistency, did not the 
 present juncture offer advantages which perhaps 
 
.ANASTASIUS. 47 
 
 may never hereafter recur. Ismail and Hassan, 
 after their long sleep at Es-souan, are at last roused, 
 and prepare for a descent to Cairo. Aware how 
 little our assistance is to be depended on, should 
 the capital be made the field of battle, the leaders 
 have thought it advisable to hush the storm, if 
 possible, in its cradle, and Mourad is going to 
 march to the Said, while Ibrahim stays to awe us 
 at Cairo. Thus separated from his colleague, and 
 deprived of half his strength, the Schaich-el-belled 
 must, if attacked with vigour, yield to our united 
 force : and in order to be in readiness for the day 
 of trial, we are all busy in recalling, with the least 
 possible show, our adherents from the different 
 provinces. This made me summon you from your 
 government with that abruptness^ from which you 
 drew such unfounded conclusions. You now know 
 the great secret for which your presence was wanted ; 
 and all that I have to add is the strongest recom- 
 mendation that it may never pass your lips.*" 
 
 Here my patron, — rising from his seat, — marked 
 the end of his discourse. The conclusion fell some- 
 what short of my expectations. Great undoubtedly 
 to one like me was the satisfaction of learning that 
 all the world was going to unsheath sword and dag- 
 ger ; but still I had looked forward to the disclosure 
 of some more directly personal advantage. It how- 
 ever occurred to me that whatever new favour 
 Suleiman might destine his servant, was probably 
 
4B ANASTASIUS. 
 
 deferred to a later conference, on very purpose lest 
 it should appear the consequence only of his neces- 
 sities; which circumstance being made due allowance 
 for, I humbly thanked him for his expenditure of 
 breath, made every requisite profession of attach- 
 ment, fidelity, and zeal ; and respectfully retired. 
 
 A slave of Aycob's had been waiting for my ap- 
 pearance near the gate of the palace. The moment 
 I went forth, he came up to me, and, rather in a 
 mysterious manner, whispered an invitation to his 
 master's palace, which I obeyed with alacrity. 
 
 As soon as Ayoob saw me : " Signor Cafmakam," 
 cried he in his eager way, wholly unlike that of his 
 brethren, — true volcanos wrapt in snow, — " a most 
 extraordinary occurrence has happened. It is still 
 a secret to all, save the parties concerned ; and you 
 are the first stranger destined to learn the wonder- 
 ful event!" 
 
 " You know," continued he, after a short pause 
 to fetch breath, "that, since I cannot have my 
 Mamlukes of my own blood, I at least spare neither 
 money nor pains to have them of my own country — 
 my beloved Gurgistan. Doomed to live and- to die 
 in this distant region, whoever comes from the land 
 of my birth seems to me a relation. Not many 
 days ago my harem was enriched with a new bud 
 reared in the parent soil. In order to save the 
 maiden from the rapacity of her landlord, her 
 friends were going to place her under the protection 
 
ANASTASIUS. , 49 
 
 of a husband, at the tender age of eleven: but 
 ah'eady they had deferred their purpose too long. 
 Her wedding-day was fixed, when an armed troop 
 swept the district, and made her a slave ere she 
 was become a wife. 
 
 " Brought hither to adorn my garden, this lovely 
 rose of the East became my favourite flower : yet 
 had I the forbearance, ere with eager hand I placed 
 it in my bosom, to observe our sacred custom, — to 
 inquire on what stem it had grown, and what walls 
 had sheltered its infancy from the rough blasts of 
 heaven, and the rude touch of man ? Selim^would 
 you believe it ? In my slave, I found a sister ! 
 
 " The virgin blushing before me, was my own 
 father''s daughter : was a young and solitary shoot, 
 which, long after the elder branches had been 
 severed from the parent stock, seemed springing 
 up for the sole purpose of shading, with fresh and 
 tender foliage, its bare and withering top. For 
 the first time during my twenty years sojourn in 
 Egypt, I heard the voice of kindred, and felt the 
 ties of blood. 
 
 " But what is this to you ? Listen ! and you 
 shall hear." 
 
 Here Ayoob gave me nearly the same sketch of 
 the state of affairs, and of the views of the party, as 
 Suleiman had done before: except that he spoke 
 of himself as more decided in his sentiments than 
 he had been represented by my patron. I began 
 
 VOL. II. E 
 
50 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 to fear that I had twice in one day been inveigled 
 by a hope of personal advantage, into listening 
 to a long detail of other people's concerns. But 
 mark the sequel 1 
 
 " At a moment so critical" — continued Ayoob — 
 " I naturally feel anxious to surround myself with 
 men, who, to such bravery as depends not on the 
 fumes of hashish, ^ add such intelligence and skill 
 a& may render that courage useful. Of men of 
 this description, small, alas ! is the number; but you 
 are one, and I may now freely urge your devoting 
 your future existence to my house, sinc» it affords 
 me— God be praised! — the means of rewarding 
 your services. 
 
 *' The husband my sister lost in Gurgistan, she 
 must not a second time be deprived of at Cairo :— 
 yet, what man can I find, among my own Mam- 
 lukes, worthy of the honour of so great an alli- 
 ance; and able at the same time to requite it 
 by undivided attention ? The elder individuals of 
 my household are already established; and the 
 younger have not yet accomplished their probation. 
 To you therefore I offer Zelidah's youthful hand ; 
 to you, who may become my own support as well as 
 my sister's solace ! Let me however add, that I never 
 should have made the proposal, while Suleiman 
 your old patron continued faithful to his promise : 
 but since — for what reason I know not— he resigns 
 his claims upon you, I may, without scruple, offer 
 
ANASTASIUS. 51 
 
 you all I can bestow, — an alliance with my blood, a 
 share in my honours, and a home in my house." 
 
 At this overture, I felt utterly confounded. It 
 filled me with pleasure, but at the same time with 
 anxiety. I knew not how to choose between the 
 brilliant offer which came unexpectedly, and the 
 expected favours as yet unbestowed. I dared not 
 hope that Suleiman's thus far undisclosed designs 
 would ever gratify my ambition beyond Ayoob's 
 avowed intentions ; but then again, I saw no means 
 of attaching myself to Ay cob, without setting at 
 nought the debt of gratitude, and the duties of the 
 allegiance which I owed to Suleiman. In this di- 
 lemma between the certain and the promised boon, 
 I magnanimously determined to make the proposals 
 of the strange Bey, in the first instance, instru- 
 mental only in bringing to the test the munificence 
 of my own patron, — reserving their final acceptance 
 or refusal for a later period ; and, in a speech brim- 
 ful of those high-flown nothings called thanks, 
 begged Ayoob's permission to ask Suleiman's con- 
 sent, ere I changed my allegiance : — observing that 
 so far from my favour at home being on the decline, 
 it stood higher than ever ; and, in order to confirm 
 this assertion, representing, by a little transposition 
 of the future to the past, those honours which I still 
 expected, as already come to pass, and only for 
 political purposes kept as yet unpublished. 
 
 Ayoob seemed not much to rehsh the idea of 
 
 E 2 
 
52 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 having his splendid offers only accepted condition- 
 ally, or his liberality submitted to the discussion of 
 a rival ; and swore, by his beard, he thought it very 
 strange : but seeing me immoveable on this point, 
 " Then go," said he at last, " since you will be so 
 obstinate; but remind Suleiman that if he stops 
 the current of my intended bounty, his own should 
 make you unbounded amends ; and above all, stay 
 not long. An hour is the utmost I can bear to be 
 left, with my richest gifts thus hanging unaccepted 
 on my hands." 
 
 I promised to return in much less time; and 
 flew home as on the wings of lightning, to commu- 
 nicate to my patron the substance of the interview 
 with his colleague. On hearing of Ayoob's offers, 
 Suleiman reddened, and seemed offended. *' By 
 the head of our holy prophet," he cried in a tone of 
 bitterness, " my brother the Georgian uses me ill: 
 but these are times in which we must hush our re- 
 sentments ; and tJiis Ayoob knows. You, Selim, I 
 cannot blame : the offers of my insidious colleague 
 took you by surprise, and you could not stop your 
 ears. I however feel happy that, ere my rival 
 made his proposal, I hinted the new favours with 
 which I myself purposed to crown your zeal. You 
 might otherwise suspect me of only acting from 
 the fear of being out-bidden. Now mark me. My 
 oldest Kiashef, Mooktar, is married, as you know, 
 to my first born daughter. My second Kiashef to 
 
ANASTASIUS. 53 
 
 her sister next in age. My other children, already 
 sent forth into the world, are provided for in dif- 
 ferent ways adequate to their deserts. Thank God I 
 I have been able to make all my freedmen lords. 
 My Haznadars, — first in rank of those still under 
 my roof — I cannot yet afford to part with, and I do 
 not msh to conceal from you that had Osman lived, 
 his name would have graced the nuptial song, sung 
 in honour of my youngest girl. But Providence has 
 called him away, and none of his comrades are yet 
 entitled to an alliance with their patron's blood. I 
 may therefore indulge the suggestions of my heart, 
 by giving you my only remaining daughter. It is 
 true, the man she marries must hold a high sta- 
 tion : but this also I confer. I name you Kiashef, 
 Remember, however, that as my favours are great, 
 so will your duties be arduous. — Of our intended 
 plan of insurrection, the success may depend in a 
 great measure upon your devotion, your skill, and 
 your activity i^ 
 
 To this hour I value rank : it is reverenced by 
 fools; and fools form the major number. In the 
 first aspirings of youth, so vast an accession of ho- 
 nours as that offered me by Suleiman almost over- 
 powered my senses. It scarce left me able to 
 make my patron the proper acknowledgment for 
 his Uberahty, ere I retbed out of his sight, to 
 give vent to my emotions. 
 
 " I shall then see myself a Kiashef!" exclaimed 
 I aloud, whirling round like a top, in an ecstacy 
 
54 -ANASTASIUS. 
 
 of joy ; " I shall then, every time I stir out, behold 
 dancing before me those dear damasked spears 
 which I so often have coveted ! I shall appear 
 abroad only with a handsome retinue, and at home 
 possess my own separate establishment and harem ! 
 No longer a mere graft on a strange tree, I shall 
 cast my own roots in the soil, and on my own inde- 
 pendent stem bear my own separate fruits. This 
 chin of mine shall henceforth cease to be kept 
 close mown, and shall put forth unrestrained its 
 most luxuriant crops ^i" And immediately, with 
 the anxiety of the husbandman, eager to "ascertain 
 whether in his field the budding blade comes up close 
 and strong, I ran to a glass to see whether my broad 
 jaw promised to bear a thick and handsome beard ; 
 already began to coax and to perfume, by anti- 
 cipation, the still sleek unclothed skin ; traced in 
 imagination the symmetric outline of its future 
 jetty fringe, and wondered how the new appendage 
 would become the remainder of my manly features ! 
 My raptures lasted some time, ere I remembered 
 that I had promised Ayoob an immediate answer ; 
 and as soon as my memory returned, my ima^ 
 gination began to wander; — I became suddenly 
 seized with a romantic fit. The substantial ad- 
 vantages were nearly balanced in the rival offers ; 
 but as honour threw its additional weight into the 
 scale of my patron, I took it into my foolish head, 
 that beauty must preponderate in that of Ayoob. 
 In short, I persuaded myself that Zehdah — ^by birth 
 
ANASTASIUS. 55 
 
 a Georgian, and by condition a slave— must be as 
 superior in personal charms to Khadidge, a daughter 
 of Egypt, and a descendant of rulers, as the fairest 
 lily is to the dusky bulrush ; and determined, at 
 every risk, to see AyooVs sister, ere I decided. 
 
 A Jewess of my acquaintance was the chief pur- 
 veyor of female finery for Ayoob's harem. I went 
 straight to this usefyl person,-and made her instantly 
 collect some of the richest stuffs she could find : — 
 then put on the blue shift and chequered veil 
 of the Egyptian women of the lower order ; and, 
 in Sarah's unassuming suite, loaded with all her 
 heaviest packages, proceeded to Ayoob's palace — 
 now and then sharply reproved by the way, for my 
 long strides and strapping gait. 
 
 Zelidah, when we arrived, was unfortunately in the 
 bath, and signora Sarah had to wait. In order to be 
 less conspicuous the while, I squatted myself down 
 on the floor, in the darkest part of the room. Even 
 this had too much light to conceal me from Ayoob, 
 who, whether informed of the entrance of a suspicious 
 figure, or from some oilier cause, himself unexpect- 
 edly made his appearance, as if to see his sister. 
 The moment his eye fell upon the bundle into 
 which. I had transformed my person, his counte- 
 nance changed, his brow became contracted, and he 
 rushed out again, muttering to himself some words 
 of ungracious import, and not at all complimentary 
 to somebody's mother. * At this ill-boding symptom^ 
 
56 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 the Jewess turned pale, and striking her breast : " I 
 have brought,"" cried she, "the thing I should not, 
 and have left behind what I meant to have brought ! 
 Go, Dalla; run home; fetch the tissue we were 
 talking of; and return not without it." 
 
 Scarce had the words been uttered, when heavy 
 footsteps were heard to approach the place. Active 
 as she was, Dalla had but just time to make her 
 escape, and to reach the outer gate without hin- 
 drance. Running home as fast as possible, I cast 
 off my disguise, and immediately hastened back to 
 Ayoob, in my proper form and character. 
 
 With many apologies for the unavoidable delay, I 
 now solemnly declined the Bey's offers, but in terms 
 full of regret, of gratitude, and of protestations. The 
 answer was in the same strain, though, as I thought, 
 delivered somewhat coolly, and in a ruffled manner : 
 and I afterwards understood from the Jewess, who 
 had bravely remained at her post, that, in less than 
 half a minute after I had made my exit, Ayoob re- 
 appeared in the harem followed by a host of black 
 eunuchs, and looking blacker than any of his suite. 
 He again cast round an inquiring eye; and in 
 seeming disappointment asked what was become of 
 the Egyptian woman. Sarah told off-hand some just 
 possible story, and, expressing a shrewd doubt of 
 her servant's finding the stuff she wanted, went home 
 herself, too happy at encountering no impediment. 
 Thus, ended my courtship with the fair Zelidah ! 
 
ANASTASIUS. 57 
 
 The instant Suleiman's intentions in my behalf 
 became known, the greatest discontent showed 
 itself among his Mamlukes. " Their patron," they 
 asserted, " had no right to give his daughters to 
 any but Mamlukes, or to make Mamlukes any 
 but purchased slaves. Othman-Bey Aboo-seif and 
 Achmet-Eey el Sukari, Turks by nature, and Beys 
 by the favour of Ibrahim Kehaya, though pre- 
 cedents, were not examples. The oftener such 
 abuses occurred, the more they ought to be re- 
 sisted." At last, losing my temper at these re- 
 peated murmurings, I went hot with passion to 
 complain to my patron. " Sir," cried I, " your 
 Mamlukes judge me unworthy of your favours. 
 Permit me to make them repent of their insolence — 
 equally insulting to yourself and to your servant, 
 — or suffer me to renounce your kindness, and bid 
 Egypt farewell." 
 
 At these words the Bey only stared full in my 
 face, and set up a loud laugh ; but perceiving that 
 I joined not in his mirth, and continued immove- 
 ably grave, he too, by degrees, dropped his assumed 
 gaiety, and in a serious tone replied, " If, Selim^ 
 you really feel desirous to leave me, go ! Why should 
 I detain your person, when I cannot prevent the 
 estrangement of your mind ? But," continued he, 
 raising his voice till it sounded like thunder, while 
 he darted looks fierce as lightning round the Mam- 
 luke circle, " I acknowledge not yet my slaves as 
 
58 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 my masters. Let them harmlessly sharpen with 
 kohl/ the soft glances of their eyes, but let them 
 repress the more offensive sallies of their tongues. 
 Too soon may the voice of this presumptuous cast 
 cease to be heard in Cairo 1 Too soon may we 
 be too happy to replenish our thinning ranks with 
 men, not worthy to wield the sword of him, whom 
 these young fools abuse !"" 
 
 This speech — supported by a letter from Sulei- 
 ■man''s kehaya at Constantinople, read aloud to the 
 bystanders, in which the trusty agent actually com- 
 plained that the slave market was empty, T:hat the 
 Russian she-emperor had, out of mere spite, made 
 the Padishah,^ renounce the living tribute, yearly 
 claimed from the Crimea ; and that it was feared the 
 whole world meant soon to be at peace, — gave me 
 some comfort, and my enemies more discretion. 
 
 My marriage being fixed, the wedding-day was 
 soon announced : — meanwhile, every hour inter- 
 vening seemed an age. I longed to possess a wife 
 who, if she could not be an object of love, must be 
 an earnest of promotion ; and I was dying to have, 
 in a harem of my own, a sanctuary, where, even 
 though my person should be proscribed, my wealth 
 still must remain inviolate, and my dear sequins 
 undisturbed ! 
 
 All things being ready for my nuptials, the cere- 
 mony began. My bride was conducted to the bath 
 in state, lest the world should remain in ignorance 
 
ANASTASIUS. 59 
 
 of her cleanliness. Properly steamed, stretched out, 
 and pumiced, she next went through the labours 
 of a toilet so exquisite, that on its completion not 
 one among her beauties remained nat urea's own. 
 Several hours were employed in twisting her hair 
 into the semblance of whipcord; in adding two 
 hundred and fifty false plaits to the hundred and 
 fifty which grew from her head ; and in forming 
 the joint mass into an edifice so ponderous, that a 
 second head, merely for use, would have been very 
 acceptable. A pair of eyebrows, sufficiently notable 
 in themselves, were only dismissed the artificer's 
 hands, after being shaped into two exact semicircles : 
 and a pair of eyes, expressive enough without foreign 
 assistance, were not deemed to possess all their re- 
 quisite powers, until framed in two black cases of 
 surmeh.'^ Henna, s the symbol of joy, and already 
 most profusely lavished upon the epistles which 
 communicated my marriage to my patron's nu- 
 merous clients, but bestowed in still greater pro- 
 fusion on my bride's own plump and lustrous 
 person, made it emulate the colour, which I sup- 
 pose Isis displayed, when doomed to roam through 
 Egypt's plains in the undignified shape of a red cow. 
 After all these pains, taken for the sake of beauty, 
 the lady was, on the score of modesty, wrapped up 
 in so many veils impervious to the eye, as scarce to 
 escape suffocation ; but the most celebrated awalis 
 of the capital took care to inform the assistants in 
 
60 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 their epithalamiums, of the vastness of the charms 
 and of the splendor of the jewels, wliich were not 
 allowed to gratify their sight. 
 
 I do not know how, at the nuptial feast, with the 
 prospect of all these attractions before me, and in the 
 midst of all the bustle of the dance, all the din of 
 music, and all the glare of the lights, I insensibly 
 fell into a reverie, composed of at least as many 
 gloomy as cheerful thoughts ; — but so it was 1 
 
 " Here,"" said my wandering mind, " am I, the 
 youngest son of a petty Drogueman in an island 
 of the Archipelago ; I, at one time fallen so much 
 beneath the level of my own legitimate pretensions, 
 as in vain to seek the situation of a menial, become 
 the master of a host of slaves, the son to a Bey of 
 Egypt, and the governor of a province ; — in other 
 words, already occupying a station far beyond 
 what once my most sanguine dreams durst have 
 promised me ; and yet, regarding that elevation only 
 as a stepping-stone to a station infinitely more 
 exalted, — to that of Bey; nay, who knows; — of 
 Schaich-el-belled itself! 
 
 " But by what a series of toils, and sacrifices, and 
 perils I may be doomed to purchase these honours, 
 who also can tell ? Alas ! do I not on the very 
 threshold of a career, strewed with as many thorns 
 as roses, begin by yielding up my person, perhaps 
 to an unseemly female, and my freedom, to a 
 domestic tyrant ? For v/ell I know the condition of 
 
ANASTASIUS. 61 
 
 inarrying a patron's daughter ! And what labours, 
 wliat snares, what treachery may be the offspring 
 of this splendid union, may accompany every step 
 in the road of my advancement, I know not yet. 
 But the die is cast ; and I must wait the issue of 
 the game !" 
 
 A shake, prolonged by the chief of the singing 
 damsels with the most consummate skill, through 
 every note of the gamut, until it drew forth a 
 thunder of applause or taibs, which lasted full five 
 minutes, roused me from my unseasonable medi- 
 tations, and brought back my mind to where sat my 
 body. A pretty Alme,^ presenting her tamboureen 
 for my liberality, completed the reconveyance of my 
 thoughts into the proper channel. I now became 
 impatient for the moment that was to disclose to my 
 sight the partner of my future life; and in this 
 disposition obeyed with eagerness the damsel who, 
 delivering me from these tiresome amusements, 
 summoned me away from the noisy hall of mirth, 
 to the silent sanctuary of Hymen. With awe and 
 anxiety I passed its threshold, and was ushered 
 into the presence of her, on whose qualities of 
 person and of mind must depend so great a portion 
 of ray future fate. The mysterious veil which till 
 then had concealed her, — face, form and all — from 
 my inquisitive eye, fell at her feet ; and I saw. . . 
 
 " What .^'" — wonders perhaps the curious reader. 
 *' An angel of light, sent from the highest heavens, 
 
62 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 on purpose to make ray earthly dwelling a para- 
 dise ?'' 
 
 " Oh no ! that would have been too unreason- 
 able an addition to my good fortune." 
 
 " An ugly little monster, then ; sufficient, were 
 this earth a heaven, to convert it into a hell ? — A 
 being calculated to stamp on each endearment all 
 the merit of martyrdom ?" 
 
 Alas ! is it then decreed that the human mind 
 must always, from one extreme, run straight into 
 the other ? like the ball whose recoil is ever pro^ 
 portioned to the violence which projectesjt! And 
 are there not a sufficient number of individuals in 
 the world neither handsome nor ugly ? 
 
 Of my spouse at least I do not know what else 
 could have been said, with due adherence to truth. 
 Her face was neither of a description to excite, in 
 defiance of reason, a very extravagant passion ; 
 nor yet of a species to damp, in despite of duty, 
 a more legitimate ardour. Like other plants kept 
 carefully secluded from the beneficial aspect of the 
 sun, this prisoner of the harem certainly had a 
 sickly pallid hue. Bounded by its sable locks, her 
 wan colourless face might aptly be compared to the 
 moon, surrounded by dark conglomerate clouds: 
 but then again from the midst of this unvaried 
 hue, her large languishing black eyes shot forth 
 glances, like lightning in a lurid sky ; and, as virtue 
 is its own reward, the assurances of unbounded de- 
 
ANASTASIUS. 69 
 
 votion which my situation called for, tarried not to 
 diffuse over Khadidge's countenance some of that 
 animation which alone seemed wanting to class her, 
 if not with the Helenas, and the Cleopatras of two 
 thousand years ago, at least with the prettiest of the 
 mongrel race, which at present grace the land of 
 Egypt. 
 
 But ere, from the hour when I first beheld my 
 spouse, the sun had completed a single one of its 
 daily revolutions, not a doubt remained on my mind, 
 that I had obtained, instead of a mistress, a master. 
 I had only changed ray allegiance from the father 
 to the daughter, and from a lord's dependant, 
 was become a lady's slave. Nor was even the 
 general rule, apphcable to whatever Mamluke mar- 
 ried his patron's offspring, modified by the peculiar 
 disposition of the lady Khadidge. Quite the reverse ! 
 Within a most delicate frame the young lady con- 
 cealed a most unbending mind. The least breath 
 of air seemed capable of annihilating her person, 
 but no breath of man had any power to influence 
 her v/ill. Already in the first coyness of the bride, 
 there lurked more of pride than of timidity ; and 
 in the subsequent altered conduct of the wife, there 
 shone forth an exaction of dues, rather than a sur- 
 render of affections. Jealousy indeed Khadidge 
 felt, and in all its force ; but it was of that con- 
 tracted sort which fears the loss of a tangible pro- 
 perty, rather than that of a mental tenure;— of 
 
64 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 that sort which in a man rests satisfied, when he has 
 locked up his wife. As Khadidge could not, con- 
 sistent with custom, in the same way lock up her 
 husband, she took care not only to let me have no 
 female retinue of my own, but to keep concealed 
 from my view all the nymphs of her own suite, 
 who might divert my feelings from their legitimate 
 current. The instant my footsteps were heard near 
 the gynecaeum, all its inmates short of sixty used to 
 hide themselves or fly, leaving me with my lady 
 in awful tete-a-tete. In one instance indeed the 
 anxiety of the attendants to obey their instructions 
 defeated its own purpose. A young and pretty 
 slave, unable to get away in time, took the de- 
 sperate resolution of creeping under a clothes basket 
 in the very middle of the room through which I had 
 to pass. In the dark I fell headlong over the awk- 
 wardly placed utensil, and in my rage grasped with 
 such violence the bundle which had caused my 
 downfall, that, ere I recognised its nature, my ever 
 watchful spouse found her fair slave in my arms. 
 In vain I pleaded ignorance of what I thus had 
 grasped. The pretty Zuleika, — never more be- 
 held, — seemed to have dissolved in air. 
 
 " And Anastasius the impatient of control," here 
 exclaims no doubt my reader, " submitted tamely 
 to such egregious tyranny !" 
 
 Alas ! already had the climate of Egypt begun to 
 exert over my energies its enervating influence; 
 
ANASTASIUS. G5 
 
 already had I imbibed all the languor with which 
 its humid exhalations by degrees affect foreigners : 
 already was I, in point of listlessness and apathy, a 
 perfect match for my indolent helpmate. While she 
 lay all day long motionless on her sofa at one end 
 of the house, I lay all day long, equally motionless, 
 in my recess at the other end; and if she could 
 scarce accomphsh the labour of clapping her hands ^^ 
 for a slave, to hold a rose or jessamine up to her 
 nose, I could hardly go through the exertion of 
 calling an attendant, to sprinkle some sweet scent 
 over my beard. Hour after hour I used to sit, 
 inaccessible to visitors, in a sort of trelliced bird- 
 cage suspended over the kalish, puffing clouds of 
 perfume through a pipe cooled in rose water ; and 
 deeming an anteree thin as a cobweb too heavy 
 clothing for m.y delicate person. 
 
 I felt the more anxious to enjoy the moments of 
 repose still within my reach, as I considered the 
 days of toil to be at hand. The rumour of Ismail and 
 Hassan's impending descent acquired new strength 
 every day; and the preparations of Mourad for 
 a southward march every day became more active. 
 But the whole was a bubble, and it burst at last. 
 Misunderstandings arose between the exiles in the 
 Said, and the Arab Schaichs on whose alliance they 
 depended. The quarrel rose at last to such a height 
 that the Bedoween troops, already with the Beys, 
 again retired into the desert. The expedition to 
 
 VOL. n. F 
 
66 
 
 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 Cairo therefore was given up; and with the plot 
 fell the counter plot. On all sides affairs seemed to 
 assume, for a season at least, an aspect more calm 
 and serene. 
 
 Meanwhile I had secured my Kiasheflik as well 
 as my spouse ; and finding that for some time to 
 come no personal service would be required, I felt 
 it incumbent upon me to act like other governors, 
 who annually visit their provinces, and spend a few 
 weeks in the agreeable occupation of inspecting the 
 morals, and regulating the expenditure of their 
 subjects. For the purpose of appearing in my go- 
 vernment with proper eclat, I mortgaged one year's 
 income of my estate, took an affectionate leave of 
 my patron, sighed with my wife over the duties 
 of my station, and set out to riot in the luxury of 
 receiving presents, and imposing avaniahs. 
 
AXASTASIUS. 67 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 According to custom, I journeyed slowly. The 
 tent from which I set out in the morning was, by my 
 more diligent attendant?, pitched before my arrival, 
 where I had settled to stop in the evening. Fre- 
 quently, during my march, I assumed some disguise. 
 Sometimes it was tliat of a traveling Syrian, some- 
 times of a Barbaresque, and sometimes of an Arab, 
 enveloped in his abbah'. — Thus fearless of observa- 
 tion, and aloof from my suite, I amused myself in 
 prowhng about the country, and peeping into the 
 peasant's hovels. My servants, indeed, discouraged 
 this mode of travelling: they never ceased to ex- 
 press their uneasiness at their lord's thus exposing 
 his precious person ; but the more good reasons 
 they gave for my staging with my retinue, the fur- 
 ther I extended my rambles. I wanted to see all 
 that passed ; and if the master's eye be the best, the 
 master's garb I knew to be the worst for making 
 discoveries. My trouble seldom went unrewarded. 
 In one place, the village Schaichs, mistaking me 
 for the Kiashef 's caterer, offered bribes of fattened 
 fowls, to make me swear by the Prophet to an 
 absolute famine. In another, the town folks, in- 
 
C8 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 vesting me with the office of the great man's steward, 
 promised me ten paras in the piastre, on whatever 
 sums I disbursed for his account ; and in a third, 
 where I passed for an entire stranger to the travel- 
 hng officer, they proposed a joint concern in plun- 
 dering his equipage. Here an Arab, who was 
 abusing a fellah for preferring the service of the 
 Mamluke to the freedom of the desert, appealed to 
 me as to a brother Arab, for the justice of his re- 
 proach ; and there a peasant, who was describing to 
 a townsman the rapacity of the KiashePs people, 
 referred to me as to a fellow peasant, for the truth 
 of his assertion. 
 
 One day in my solitary rambles I met on its way 
 to the river, a family of villagers consisting of three 
 generations and upwards : for, besides grandfather, 
 father and sons, several of the daughters seemed 
 burthened with more than the babes which they 
 bore on their backs. An ihram in rags, an old mat 
 torn to pieces, and an assortment of pitchers worthy 
 of an antiquarian's collection, were the travelling 
 relics of the deserted home. A few head of con- 
 sumptive cattle formed the van of the procession, 
 and a plough all in pieces closed its rear. 
 
 " Whence come you, good people r" cried I ; ad- 
 dressing the patriarch of the family. — " From the 
 Feyoom," was his answer. 
 
 " And you leave the native soil, to seek the bread 
 of strangers ?" 
 
ANASTASIUS. 69 
 
 '' Soon I shall be called away, and my son will 
 not be able to redeem his inheritance. Must he 
 wait to be driven from the land his father tilled ?" 
 
 " Whence arises your distress ?'' 
 
 " From God and man, in conjunction. Every 
 year the waters of the Nile make less way in our 
 kalish ; and every year the sands of the desert creep 
 further over our fields. Egypt's soil, instead of 
 crops, will soon only bear corpses ! Can we then 
 fly too soon ?" 
 
 " And let those that stay behind bear the bur- 
 then of the absent ?"" 
 
 '' Those we leave to-day would have left us to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "Who is your lord.?" 
 
 " Even that we scarce can tell. One day it is 
 the Sultan, in whose name we are taxed ; another, 
 the Beys who are employed to tax us, or the de- 
 legates of those Beys throughout all their number- 
 less subdivisions and stages ; another, the Multezim 
 or owner who accounts with the Beys ; another, the 
 Arab Schaich who rents the land of the owner. 
 All call themselves our masters, while we can pay 
 them tribute; all deny their being so, when we 
 want their protection !*" 
 
 My retinue now came in sight, " Hark ye,-' 
 added I therefore, in haste, " Servants should not 
 betray servants; but here come the masters. Take 
 
70 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 thk therefore, and go;"' and hereupon I gave the 
 party to the amount of a piastre; begging they 
 might vnot huzza, lest the lord should hear the 
 noise. 
 
 Scarce had I, at the ensuing halting-place, sat 
 down to my welcome supper, when in burst a fellah, 
 dragging by the sleeve another of the same class. 
 *' This rogue,*" said the first, " is the man who last 
 year stole your lordship's mare."" Of course the 
 heavy charge was most solemnly denied ; but not 
 minding what I considered as a thing of course; 
 ^' Scoundrel," said I to the accused, " had you 
 been content at least with only talking my black 
 mare : — but to rob me of my white one !" " The 
 white one !" exclaimed th6 man — " As Allah is my 
 witness, I never once came near her." " No more 
 you did," was my reply, " for there she stands : but 
 the black one you stole, I find; and for her you 
 shall swing." 
 
 I was still exulting in my ingenuity, when, pass- 
 ing by a Latin hospice on the out-skirts of the 
 town, my ear was assailed by most piteous groans ; 
 and looking through a latticed window, I discerned 
 their cause in the shape of a flagellation, which a 
 lusty friar was inflicting with his knotty girdle, not 
 on his own sturdy back, but on the much less able 
 shoulders of a little yellow Coobd, whom he forcibly 
 held down on the ground, before him. Doubting 
 
ANASTASIUS. 71 
 
 the efficacy of this mode of instilling a doctrine, I 
 interposed, and inquired of the missionary the rea- 
 son of this paternal correction. 
 
 " While we distributed rice," replied the friar, 
 ^' this fellow chose to become a Catholic ; now that 
 supplies grow scarce, and that we hardly have 
 enough for ourselves, he brings me back his chap- 
 let, and has the face to cry, 'no pilaff, no pope!'" 
 
 The conduct of the little Coobd I certainly could 
 not approve ; but it reminded me of my own to- 
 ward padre Ambrogio. I conceived a fellow-feel- 
 ing for the defenceless sufferer, and released him 
 from the clutches of his ghostly corrector. Thus 
 I amused myself with acting the knight-errant; 
 and, in my own mind, became another Antar. 
 
 Knight-errantry, however, was entirely set aside 
 as soon as I reached the pale of my own juris- 
 diction :— though perhaps it might there have been 
 texerted to the best purpose. Nothing could give me 
 a more indifferent opinion of the condition of my 
 vassals, than the first hovel within my domain which 
 I entered. In the mud of the door- way lay welterr- 
 ing — affected in various degrees with the rheum 
 that was to end in total blindness — five or six 
 bloated brats, quite naked, and fighting for a bit of 
 mouldy millet cake, of the size of my little finger. 
 Further on in the cabin sat, over a heap of buffalo's 
 dung, and quite enveloped in its offensive smoke, 
 a female spectre, mother of these gaunt abortions. 
 
72 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 who, on seeing a stranger, tore off the only rag 
 which protected her body, to use it as a cover to 
 her face ; and at the most distant extremity of the 
 hovel stood the head of the dismal family, burying 
 the single bag of rice left for its support, in the 
 earth that formed the floor. One more spade-full, 
 thrown over the store, would have completed its 
 concealment, when I made my appearance. At the 
 awful sight of a Mamluke the spade dropped out 
 of the peasant's hands, and the rag he called his 
 turban rose a full inch from his head. 
 
 " Be composed, my friend,"" cried I ; . " it is 
 not the enemy that is coming, it is your own 
 governor." 
 
 "Alas !" replied the man, " will not the Kiashef 
 devour my rice; — and can the Bedoween do more ? 
 But since you have seen the heap, take half, and 
 mention not the other, or we must all perish 1" 
 
 " Come," rejoined I, " for once keep the whole; 
 but when my writer calls for my tribute, remember 
 I know your hiding-place, and think not your ho- 
 nour engaged in letting yourself be cut in stripes, 
 €re you pay the rent you owe." 
 
 At the words I departed; leaving the fellah 
 motionless with astonishment at having seen his 
 Kiashef, without paying for the sight. 
 
 " And this, then," thought I, " is the land which 
 its infatuated natives think the finest on the sur- . 
 face of earth ; where they would rather die of 
 
ANASTASIUS. 73 
 
 •v^^ant, than live in plenty elsewhere. That it has a 
 hidden charm, I needs must believe, since all obey 
 its attraction; but where the spell lies, I cannot 
 yet discover. I am now in the very heart of that 
 Feyoom so famous for its roses, and all that yet 
 has struck my senses is the smell of its cow-dung !" 
 Arrived at the place of my residence, I im- 
 mediately set about receiving with all proper dig- 
 nity the homage and the presents of my subjects. 
 My writer took special care that none of my vassals 
 should have to complain of my forgetfulness. To 
 each he sent a summons to v/elcome their lord ; and 
 his invitations were addressed not only to the sta- 
 tionary tillers of the soil, but also to the Arab 
 Schaichs, who occasionally here and there rented a 
 district. The liberality of these latter on this oc- 
 casion exhibited various shades of difference. The 
 first of my Bedawee^ tenants who attended my 
 summons gave me, over and above the tribute due, 
 two camels, a dromedary, and fifty fat sheep, with 
 fleeces white as snow. "This begins well," thought 
 I. The second produced for my acceptance a pre- 
 sent of a different hue: — two jolly Abyssinian 
 damsels as black as jet : observing " that even 
 ivory looked insipid, unless contrasted with ebony."" 
 — The third only presented his landlord with a 
 lean steed; but then the very four-footed animal 
 was of noble blood, and its pedigree so long, that 
 .it would have reached to Cairo. " Even this 
 
74r ANASTASIUS. 
 
 is not mucli amiss," said I to myself. A fourth 
 Arab chief now made his appearance, who gave me 
 not a single para beyond the stipulated rent ; and 
 to him I onl}^ grew somewhat reconciled, when there 
 came a fifth, who raised such a commotion, that I 
 ■would willingly have remitted all he owed me, and 
 have added a handsome consideration into the bar- 
 gain, to see a hundred leagues of imperviable desert 
 separate our respective jurisdictions. 
 
 I had left the lady Khadidge, my wife, fully oc- 
 cupied in collecting every species of amulet and 
 charm, and recommending herself to the efficacy of 
 every form of devout orison and practice in vogue 
 either among Moslemen or Christians, for the pur- 
 pose of getting rid, on my return, of the perverse slim- 
 ness of her waist : but, excepting the doubts I might 
 entertain as to the result of these pious endeavours, 
 I felt with regard to my faithful spouse in the most 
 happy security, when, unexpectedly, an express 
 arrived from Cairo, with the sad tidings that she 
 had not only been seized with a sudden illness, but 
 was actually considered as in imminent danger. 
 As however the sapient Moslem Esculapius, called 
 in on the occasion, had decided upon the case with- 
 out seeing the patient, on the shallow evidence of a 
 mere bit of silk thread tied round her wrist, I chose 
 not implicitly to trust to his report, and immediately 
 set off myself with all speed for the capital; — re- 
 solved that some Frank physician should, if pos- 
 
ANASTASIUS. 75 
 
 «lble, cure my wife, even at the risk of seeing lier^ 
 and only puzzled how to bring about, in the very 
 teeth of islamism, so desperate a measure. 
 
 Alas! It was written that I myself should be- 
 hold my Khadidge no more. Just before the last 
 stage of my journey, the breath of life had forsaken 
 her youthful frame for ever. My speed only brought 
 me home in time to hear the dismal bowlings that 
 were raised on her decease. At my first alighting in 
 the court yard of the house of mourning, a fresh peal 
 of woolHah-woos, louder than any former, went forth 
 from every window, by way of an appropriate greet- 
 ing ; and, without much preparation, gave me the 
 first notice of my heavy loss. I was next dragged by 
 force of arms to the place where lay an insensible 
 corpse, she whom my last parting look had left elate 
 in all the pride of youth, of health and of power. 
 Dazzling tissues hung suspended from the bier, 
 plates of gold encircled the coffin, and flowers of 
 every hue, filling the air with their fragrance, em- 
 bowered the glittering chest, as if to mock or to 
 render more dismal by the contrast of their gaudi- 
 ness, the foul corruption already busy within. " O 
 Khadidge," cried I, at the appalling sight, " too soon 
 has thy tale been told : too soon hast thou glided by 
 like a noon-day shadow; too soon has the rough 
 wind of death swept away the just expanding blos- 
 som of thy existence !" and was hereupon going to 
 perform some demonstration of respectful regret : — 
 
76 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 but already the attendants bad begun to chide me, 
 that I thus rudely kept the black and blue angels 
 of the tomb, waiting for their new guest. I there- 
 fore let the funeral proceed without further inter- 
 ruption, lest Azrail and his host should render me 
 accountable for the delay. 
 
 My myrtles now faded — my only remaining shade 
 now depending on the mournful cypress, I went and 
 deposited my grief at Suleiman's feet. A good deal 
 afflicted himself, he yet preserved his wonted pla- 
 cidity of manner, and assured me that his sentiments 
 in my behalf would ever remain unchanged. I 
 thanked him for saying so ; but felt that I had lost 
 the surest pledge to his favour, and was tempted to 
 apply the Greek saying : " Welcome this misfor- 
 tune, so it come but single !'' 
 
 A Mamluke seldom finds much leisure for mourn- 
 ing. Scarce had I composed myself for the purpose, 
 when my retirement was invaded by a rumour that 
 the expedition against the Beys of Upper Egypt, a 
 few months before unexpectedly abandoned, had been 
 as unexpectedly resumed. It soon was followed by 
 a strange report that Mourad had actually set out on 
 his march for Es-souan. This event would only 
 have afforded us a subject for rejoicing, had not 
 the signor Mourad, — whether with the view of re- 
 serving for his own adherents all the profits of the 
 campaign, or in the idea of leaving Ibrahim provided 
 in his absence with sufficient means of defence,— 
 
ANASTASIUS. 77 
 
 contented himself with only taking on this occasion 
 his own troops, instead of all those at Cairo which 
 belonged to his party ; whence the Schaich-el-belled 
 retained a larger force at his disposal than was de- 
 sirable for the success of our plan. Still, despairing 
 of a more favourable opportunity, we determined to 
 put the scheme forthwith into execution; and a 
 meeting of all the principal confederates was con- 
 vened at Ayoob's palace, to determine upon the 
 best mode of proceeding. 
 
 When it came to my turn to give my opinion, 
 I proposed rushing at once with all our host upon 
 the Schaich-el-belled, surprising him in his palace, 
 ere any assistance could reach him from the citadel, 
 and running every hazard in order to secure his 
 person. No hint whatever was to be given him of 
 the least dissatisfaction lurking in our breasts ; above 
 all, no proposal of any sort was to be made, 
 nor any step to be taken that could put the wily 
 chief in any way upon his guard, ere this purpose 
 was accomplished. When once fairly in our power, 
 Ibrahim must submit to whatever terms, and grant 
 whatever securities we chose to prescribe. 
 
 Several of the party, and among others Suleiman 
 my patron, felt the expediency of this decisive 
 conduct ; and supported my proposal with all their 
 influence : but Ayoob as strenuously opposed it. 
 He would not hear of proceeding, as he called it, to 
 the last extremities with the head of the corps, till 
 
78 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 less galling measures had been tried ; and when I 
 reproached him with faint-heartedness, he looked 
 significantly, first at me, then at the further comer 
 of the room, and at last cried out in an angry tone, 
 " that at least he never yet had fled from any place 
 in women's clothes." 
 
 Encouraged by the sentiments of this leading per- 
 sonage, some of the lesser members of our party now 
 in their turn opposed my scheme with all the reso- 
 lution of cowardice ; and the boldest measure which 
 could obtain the assent of the majority was that of 
 marching out of Cairo, collecting all our forces in 
 the Koobbet-cl-hauc, and from our camp sending 
 Ibrahim the option of compliance with our terms, or 
 immediate and interminable warfare. On this poor 
 and spiritless conclusion of the meeting, Suleiman 
 in his wrath rent his garment I shrugged up my 
 shoulders, and the few that had common sense con- 
 sidered our affairs as lost. 
 
 According to the plan resolved upon, as soon 
 as Mourad was supposed to be sufficiently advanced 
 on his way to the Said, we bravely rushed out of 
 the capital, pitched our camp under the city walls, 
 and deputed Saleh, the ablest of Ayoob's Kiashefs, 
 to lay before Ibrahim our long list of grievances. 
 On the first blush of the business, the Schaich-el- 
 belled appeared more frightened and more disposed 
 to grant redress, than I durst have hoped. He 
 seemed ready to accede to any terms; — and only 
 
ANASTASIUS- 79 
 
 wanted, — he assured us, — clearly to understand 
 what were our wishes. Those who had insisted on 
 gentle measures now looked all exultation. In the 
 course of the negotiation, it is true, their confidence 
 in their sagacity abated a little. The first panic of 
 the chief seemed gradually to subside : he showed 
 symptoms of returning resolution ; and contrived to 
 make the affair drag on a long while after the period 
 fixed for his decisive answer, ere he came to a con- 
 clusion. At length, however, he agreed to our de- 
 mands ; the treaty was put into writing, and emis- 
 saries went out in every direction to collect such of 
 the Schaich-el-belled's creatures as were to be our 
 securities. We only waited for the hostages, tri- 
 umphantly to enter the city, and take possession of 
 the government. 
 
 All at once a most appalling report spread through 
 the camp ! While we'were quietly drawn up under 
 one extremity of the city, Mourad, it was said, had 
 with all his forces re-entered its precincts at the other. 
 Informed on* his march of our insurrection, — which 
 perhaps its only object had been to bring to a prema- 
 ture disclosure, — he had re-descended the left bank 
 of the river, crossed over at Djizeh, and resumed his 
 post at Cairo, ere the enormous circuit of that city 
 had permitted our receiving the least intimation of 
 his precipitate return ; and the very messenger who 
 was to have brought us the pledges for the fulfilment 
 of the treaty, brought the first authentic intelligence 
 
80 .ANASTASIUS. 
 
 that all negotiation was at an end ! " Tell my 
 friends without the gates," were the last words ad- 
 dressed to this personage by Ibrahim, " that since 
 they have taken the trouble to quit Cairo of their 
 own accord, they have nothing to do now but to make 
 the best of their way to Upper Egypt. Mourad, my 
 colleague, is less enduring than I am.*" 
 
 We looked aghast ; but followed the Schaich-el- 
 belled^s advice. Raising our camp without a mo- 
 ment's delay, we glided in haste behind Mount 
 Mokhadem, and during four days marched without 
 interruption along the back of the rugged ridge of 
 which it forms the extremity. Then crossing its 
 uneven width, we on the fifth morning gained the 
 river. This too we passed, and soon, on its western 
 bank, reached the town of Minieh. 
 
 Here we fixed our head quarters. Our position 
 afforded us every convenience for what was next in 
 our wishes to ruling at Cairo, — namely, starving the 
 capital by intercepting its supplies. To contribute 
 to this laudable purpose as effectually as possible, [ 
 stationed my own little troop in the vicinity of Ash- 
 Moonin, where I had opportunities of making good 
 captures, and of manifesting a laudable impartiality. 
 The times in truth admitted not of nice distinctions 
 between friends and foes : besides which there lurked 
 about me, I know not why, a presentiment, that my 
 sojourn in Egypt was drawing to a close. I there- 
 fore determined to make the most of my time while 
 
ANASTASIUS. 81 
 
 I staid. Summer insects sting sharpest in autumn, 
 when they begin to grow weak. 
 
 Still it was my study that the little offerings of my 
 friends should appear the sole result of their own 
 liberality. Receiving intelligence one day that a 
 rich Coobd of Cairo was to be on the road, I took 
 special care to greet him on his passage. '^ I knew 
 your intention, my worthy friend,'* said I, "of tra- 
 velling this way with all your money and jewels ; and 
 for old friendship's sake immediately scoured the 
 country, that you might meet no extortion." Da- 
 vood was all thanks. " Set bounds to your grati- 
 tude," resumed I ; " the two hundred sequins you 
 destine me for my trouble I positively wiJl not take. 
 All I can consent to is to accept an hundred.'' Da- 
 vood began to remonstrate. " No words,*" cried I, 
 " but the sequins ; for the robbers still are near !" 
 So thought Davood, and paid the money. 
 
 VOL. IT. 
 
82 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Hunger, they say, drives the wolf out of the 
 forest : it certainly in the year eighty-four drove 
 the Schaieh-el-helled out of Cairo — but with a full 
 determination to clear the banks of the Nile, of 
 which we entirely impeded the navigation. Some 
 surprise indeed was created by thus seeing the two 
 leaders exchange offices and characters : for while 
 Ibrahim sallied forth in warlike trim to attack the 
 enemy, Mourad remained in the capital a tranquil 
 spectator of the fray. The conclusion, however, 
 showed that for once Mourad had foiled Ibrahim 
 with his own weapons. During the march of the 
 Schaich-el-belled, his colleague negotiated so suc- 
 cessfully with the Sultan*'s Pasha, that he induced 
 the Visier to invest two of his Mamlukes — Osman 
 Kiashef surnamed Tamboordji, and Mohammed 
 Kiashef called the Elfi — with the rank of Beys. 
 
 This proceeding of Mourad's appeared so sus- 
 picious to Ibrahim, that he began to fear lest his 
 colleague might be meditating the same game 
 which he himself had played before ; and having 
 drawn him out of Cairo, might shut its gates 
 
ANASTASIUS. 82 
 
 against his re-entrance, as he had shut them against 
 ours. He therefore changed his plan, or at least 
 seemed to do so ; and made this occurrence the pre- 
 text for sparing us the battle which he probably 
 never had intended to give. Instead of waging 
 savage war, he proposed terms of peace. Our 
 leaders judged it prudent to meet his advances; 
 and in October of the same year Ibrahim reinstated 
 our whole party in Cairo. 
 
 Mourad now in his turn sullenly marched out : 
 but we at first heeded not much his pettishness ; — 
 it beinff far from a rare occurrence for the rulers 
 of Egypt to agree most amicably upon a rupture. 
 The apparently impending hostilities afford each 
 party a pretence for imposing on its adherents and 
 clients extraordinary contributions ; and when the 
 last para for the warlike preparations is paid, lo 
 and behold ! the world is gladdened with the news 
 of a reconciliation. 
 
 On this occasion, however, Mourad protracted the 
 show of warfare somewhat longer than usual ; and 
 indeed acted his part with such truth of imitation, 
 as almost to impress us with the idea of the reality : 
 for not only he actually retired into the Said, but 
 there continued with such earnestness the task 
 which we had undertaken of destroying the supplies 
 of the capital in their very sources, that Ibrahim 
 at last began to think the joke too serious, and, in 
 order to appease his rival, agam sent us fresh notice 
 
84 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 to quit the capital. It was unpleasant to be thus 
 bandied to and fro; but at this juncture braving 
 Ibrahim would have been braving the whole force 
 in the citadel, ready to move at his command. 
 Thus deprived of every hope of successful resist- 
 ance, we agreed to obey ; but only with the view 
 of executing a scheme proposed many times and 
 as often rejected, of coalescing in the Said mth 
 Ismail and Hassan. 
 
 I was at my own home when the i-esolution of 
 our Beys to quit Cairo reached me. Immediately 
 on receiving it I collected all that was most valuable 
 in my harem, and, while the beasts of burthen were 
 loading, walked over the various apartments of my 
 abode, as one who bestows a last look on friends he 
 leaves for ever. " Happen what may,"" exclaimed 
 I, " here I have at least enjoyed a few moments of 
 ease and quiet, the existence of which fate has no 
 power to expunge from the records of time ! Should, 
 while I live, no other hours of repose fall to my lot, 
 my mind will revert to these with a grateful recollec- 
 tion !'' All now being ready, I joined my patron, 
 and with the rest of our party marched out of the 
 city. 
 
 In the full confidence that Ibrahim must make 
 the peace offering required of him, Mourad had re- 
 descended from the Said along the eastern banks of 
 the Nile, and had returned to the vicinity of Cairo. 
 From the heights of the Mokhadcm he saw our 
 
ANASTASIUS. 85 
 
 troop wind along the plain. He had the vantage 
 ground, and thought the moment propitious for 
 exterminating our hostile body at a blow. 
 
 To rush down the hill with all his force, and 
 spring upon us like a lion on an unsuspecting prey, 
 was the work of an instant. Fortunately his supe- 
 rior numbers were exhausted by a long march, while 
 our fewer men all were fresh. We therefore received 
 the first shock of his onset without giving way, and 
 a bloody combat immediately ensued. 
 
 As usual, the Mamlukes of each different house at 
 first remained in close order round their chiefs ; and 
 I therefore fought next my patron, till, wounded 
 in the shoulder, he was carried to the rear ; when I 
 acquired greater latitude of movements. Spying 
 in the thickest of the fight a son of Osman — my 
 oldest, bitterest enemy, — I took aim at him while 
 firing his carbine, and lodged a ball in his side, 
 which made him bite the dust. One of Elfi's hair- 
 brained children instantly sprung forward to revenge 
 Mahmood^s death, and made a thrust at his slayer. 
 — Him also a stroke of my yatagan sent reeling out 
 of the field. He scarce had gone fifty yards, ere he 
 fainted and fell. Another myrmidon of Mourad's 
 now advanced : Assad was his name. Proud of his 
 size and strength, he used to boast of victory before 
 he fought ; and in order to give greater splendour 
 to his triumph, prefaced his assault with the most 
 insulting language. The clash of swords soon fol- 
 
86 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 lowed ; and here again proved mine the better blade. 
 ]\Iy adversary's sabre was shivered in his hand, and 
 his huge person unhorsed. Maddened by his pre- 
 vious taunts, I was going to despatch him as he lay 
 in the dust ; but he begged mercy so meanly, that 
 for very contempt I forbore to take his life. Scarce 
 had I turned my head to call to my people, when 
 the miscreant fired at me with deliberate aim ! The 
 ball grazed my cheek. I now dismounted to pierce 
 the scoundrel's heart ; but in the very act of lifting 
 my poniard, a bullet struck my hand, and paralysed 
 my fingers. 1 dropped my handjar ; and Assad — 
 tearing himself away — darted afresh amid the com- 
 batants, and soon slunk out of sight. 
 
 Grievously disappointed, I vaulted back into my 
 saddle, but, from the uselessness of my left hand, 
 was unable either to hold my reins or to meld my 
 fire-arms. Soon therefore my horse, unsupported 
 by his rider, and sorely wounded, came down. 
 Thrown off and lamed by the fall, I was obliged 
 for some time to ward off a hostile Mamluke with 
 one knee to the ground. While in this posture 
 my yatagan feebly parried his repeated blows, an- 
 other of his party spurred on his courser to trample 
 me to death. The more generous steed refused to 
 obey his rider, and my own horse, exhausted with 
 loss of blood, falling dead by my side, now served 
 me as a rampart. Yet still must I in my helpless 
 state soon have been despatched, but for one of my 
 
ANASTASIUS. 87 
 
 •own Mamlukes, who dashed through the adverse 
 current, and came to my assistance. Shot by 
 him in the loins, my adversary was pulled off his 
 horse, and I mounted in his stead. I could how- 
 ever only hold my reins with my teeth, and guide 
 my new courser with my sword, while, raging with 
 the thirst of vengeance, I flew from rank to rank, 
 to seek the traitor Assad. 
 
 Already had impending darkness begun to baffle 
 every act of personal animosity, and only to permit 
 random blows and general slaughter. My search 
 therefore was fruitless. Ere yet, however, the 
 closing night had wholly dropped its sable curtain, 
 a colossal form, soaring like the spirit of evil, caught 
 my searching eye. Instantly I threw myself down, 
 stooped close to the ground, penetrated through the 
 surrounding phalanx, and, while the haughty chief 
 was giving a signal, struck at his face one single 
 furious blow. A second must, from the unavoid- 
 able retort of all around him, have wrought my own 
 death. Quick as lightning, therefore, I made my 
 escape : while a long protracted shout of terror an- 
 nounced to all his men that Mourad was wounded. 
 — His hated blood, drawn by me, formed the last 
 event of the expiring battle. 
 
 Our principal apprehension had been all along 
 lest Ibrahim, apprised of the engagement, should 
 sally forth, and support his colleague with the troops 
 from the citadel. Probably he wished not to render 
 
88 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 his rivars success too complete ; and Mourad him- 
 self, now having had enough of fighting, no longer 
 opposed our retreat. He entered the city, while 
 we, gathering up our most distinguished dead, to 
 be consigned to earth wherever the safety of the 
 living permitted, continued our march uninter- 
 ruptedly all night. Suleiman, who suffered much 
 from his wound, was carried in a litter, and I, 
 with my hand in a sling, and my leg bandaged up, 
 figured on a jaded hack. I regretted the richly ca- 
 parisoned steed of my enemy Assad, which I for one 
 moment had regarded as mine ; I still more griev- 
 ously regretted the home-thrust of my dagger, 
 which I hoped to have made his : but my success- 
 ful aim at Mourad himself, the ugly gash imprinted 
 on his rugged jaw, and the streams of blood gush- 
 ing from his hateful face, though sights which I had 
 not had leisure to enjoy in the reahty, were a rich 
 treat for my imagination ! 
 
 Several years had elapsed between the first com- 
 bat I witnessed, and this last engagement. In both 
 I was allowed to have shown some valour : but how 
 different were the sentiments which, on these dif- 
 ferent occasions, nerved my arm and directed my 
 blow ! In the fight against the Arnaoots, I only 
 obeyed a vague desire to gain applause, — I was 
 only driven on by the youthful ferment of my 
 blood. I fought the foe, as I would have hunted 
 the beast of prey, from mere wantonness : — no per- 
 
ANASTASIUS. 89 
 
 sonal rancour envenomed the wounds I dealt at 
 random. Here, on the contrary, every feeUng of 
 personal interest, animosity and revenge directed 
 my aim, and dwelt on my Wows. After hewing 
 down my enemy, I greedily watched his fall, and 
 contemplated my dagger, thrust up to the hilt in 
 his wound : my soul seemed to thirst after his blood 
 as after a refreshing stre.im; and, when the hot 
 spring gushed from IVfourad's own swelling veins, I 
 could have dared death itself to riot in the crimson 
 tide ! 
 
 Just at the period when the animosity between 
 the insurgents and the chiefs of Cairo was at its 
 height ; when both parties had sealed their enmity 
 with their blood ; when all chance of reconciliation 
 seemed for ever at an end, arose that never-failing 
 healer of internal feuds, the fear of an external 
 enemy. A report, bearing the stamp of undoubted 
 authority, suddenly spread itself through Cairo, 
 that Hassan was making immense preparations at 
 Constantinople for re-instating Ismail. Immediately 
 the terrified leaders sent after our fugitive troop pro- 
 posals of mutual forgiveness. The bearers, entrusted 
 with no less credentials than jMourad's own ring and 
 chaplet, reached us the sixth day of our march, in 
 the midst of the mountains. The sole indispensable 
 condition of the reconciliation which they offered, 
 was a sacrifice of a few of our Beys"* trustiest fol- 
 lowers, whose spoil was wanted to feed the rapacity 
 
90 ANA8TA81US. 
 
 of their own Mamlukes. It is true, the interests 
 of these very adherents had been the ostensible pre- 
 text of the rupture : but they were readily given 
 up as a peace offering, when deemed the only ob- 
 stacle to renewed harmony. 
 
 Among the appointments to be ceded was mine. 
 Suleiman indeed proposed a commutation; but 
 whether Mourad knew the author of his wound, or 
 from whatever other cause, he would hear of no 
 exchange. My father-in-law therefore ended, like 
 other politicians, by yielding to circumstances. He 
 declared himself unable alone to resist the importu- 
 nities of all the other Beys, and I was summoned to 
 give up my possessions. Thus were realized the 
 eTects which I apprehended from the loss of my 
 ^vife. 
 
 My patron had only yielded, he said, to superior 
 force; I thought it fair to follow his example. 
 When therefore the storm burst forth, I gathered 
 together my trustiest followers, and, instead of re- 
 turning to Cairo, and expressing my readiness to be 
 stripped, — as I was expected, in deference to higher 
 interests, to do, — struck across the country, passed 
 the river, and reached my Kiasheflik. There, in- 
 trenched in the best manner I was able, I bade my 
 antagonists take into their own hands the trouble of 
 turning me out. 
 
 During a whole month they seemed averse from 
 the task, until at last I thought myself forgotten : 
 
ANASTASIUS. 91 
 
 but on the fifth week after my arrival, I received 
 intelligence that my successor was coming. A force 
 so very superior to what I could muster accom- 
 panied this personage, that I gave up the Kiasheflik 
 for lost, and only resolved to make the new Kiashef 
 pay a handsome admission fee. Collecting all my 
 cash, jewels, and other valuables, I loaded with them 
 half a dozen camels and dromedaries, freed my 
 slaves, gave away my fixtures, and, followed by my 
 small troop of faithful Mamlukes, posted myself in 
 ambush a few leagues from the town, in a place 
 where 1 knew that the enemy must pass. It was an 
 elevated plain, advantageously situated for my pur- 
 pose. In front rose a hillock covered with ruined 
 koobbehs, ^ cactus hedges and date trees, which 
 screened us completely, while behind' lay an open 
 country, and a kalish, with a bridge of boats and 
 boards, which secured our retreat. 
 
 After a whole night of tedious expectation, we 
 heard at the early dawn the tramp of horsemen, and 
 presently the enemy came in sight. By his loose and 
 straggling order of march, it appeared evident that 
 no suspicion was entertained of our design. Soon 
 the troop approached so near our masked battery, that 
 every individual of the party might easily be recog- 
 nised. Heavens ! how my heart bounded when in 
 the chief, — in him who came to dispossess me, — I 
 beheld the identical Assad who had sought my life, 
 as my reward for saving his own. I immediately 
 
92 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 made a signal to my followers to leave to myself 
 the soothing task of just revenge; took the best aim 
 I was able, and fired. A general discharge instanta- 
 neously followed : but I had the inexpressible sa- 
 tisfaction of seeing Assad 'fall first, though several 
 of his troop soon bit the dust around him. The 
 remainder, unable to guess the force of their invisible 
 assailants, immediately took flight, and dispersed in 
 all directions. 
 
 Save the place which my men occupied, there 
 Avas not a spot in sight where the fugitives could 
 halt and rally. The rout of those that remained 
 sound, therefore, enabled me to approach the 
 wounded. Assad, though weltering in his blood, 
 was still alive : but already the angel of death 
 flapped his dark wings over the traitor's brow. 
 Hearing footsteps advance, he made an effort to 
 raise his head, probably in hopes of approaching 
 succour : but beholding, but recognising only me, 
 he felt that no hopes remained, and gave a groan of 
 despair. Life w^as flowing out so fast, that I had 
 only to stand still, — my arms folded in each other, 
 — and with a stedfast eye to watch its departure. 
 One instant I saw my vanquished foe, agitated by 
 a convulsive tremor, open his eyes and dart at me a 
 glance of impotent rage : but soon he averted them 
 again, then gnashed his teeth, clenched his fist, and 
 expired. 
 
 Wishing for nothing more now that I could 
 
ANASTASIUS. 98 
 
 obtain, I only sought the speediest retreat, fell back 
 in all haste, and got to the westward of the beaten 
 track, into the boundless desert. Several of my 
 camels were intercepted by the Arabs, and my men 
 suifered much from missing a well : but falling in 
 soon after with the Nubian caravan, our distress 
 was relieved, though at the expense of half my re- 
 maining treasure. At last, after performing a pro- 
 digious circuit, during which we experienced incre- 
 dible hardships, we contrived to reach Es-souan, and 
 joined the exiled Beys, Ismail and Hassan. 
 
 Never had the insurgents, even when acting in 
 most open hostility to the chiefs of Cairo, formed 
 a common cause with the party in the Said. Too 
 deeply rooted a jealousy divided the houses of 
 Mohammed and of Aly. The first and only attempt 
 at an union of interests was that which followed the 
 battle of the Mokhadem, and was foiled by the re- 
 concihation of which I became the victim. At 
 enmity now with every party in the capital, I was 
 well received by the Eeys of Upper Egypt. I con- 
 firmed to them the welcome intelligence of the 
 Capi tan-Pasha's preparations, and engaged soon 
 to return with Ismail to Cairo. Meantime, appre- 
 hending that I might, in spite of appearances, be 
 deemed a spy only upon the ex-Schaich-el-belled, I 
 made over to him my few remaining Marfilukes, and, 
 rid of this burthen, determined to withdraw from 
 Egypt, until the Grand Admiral should actually be 
 
94 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 on his way. Having however still some goods and 
 valuables, I kept my design a secret, lest my kind 
 friends should make my property a keep-sake. After 
 a few short rambles, to wean them by degrees from 
 the pleasure of seeing me, I at last undertook a 
 longer flight. On a fine star-light night, of which 
 there is no lack near the Cataracts, accompanied 
 only by two trusty servants, mounted like myself on 
 dromedaries, we slipped away, and again plunged 
 in the desert. 
 
 By a forced march I reached Gieneh. Its 
 Kiashef had been formerly my friend, and what 
 deserves to be recorded, still showed himself my 
 well-wisher. He gave me letters for his lieutenant 
 at Ai'dab. I travelled across the sands to this sea- 
 port, by the Franks called Cosseir ; and found its 
 road full of zaims- from Djedda, freighted for Suez, 
 but which had lost the season. One of them I 
 engaged to carry me across the Red Sea ; and 
 bidding Egypt's plagues as well as blessings, — its 
 mud and misery, as well as its perfumed rice and 
 purple dates, its golden grapes and azure nileh,-^ 
 — a long and reluctant adieu, with heavy heart 
 embarked. 
 
 The vessel was wretched, and the passage stormy ; 
 but after expecting to founder on every coral reef 
 in our way, we at last providentially ran safe into 
 Djedda harbour. On pressing the Arab shore, after 
 perils so vast and various, I could not help ex- 
 
ANASTASIUS. 95. 
 
 claiming : " My native land has renounced me :" 
 the country of my adoption has cast me off: be 
 thou, O strange soil, the wanderer's less fickle 
 friend !^' 
 
 I had left a storm gathering in Egypt, of which I 
 since have thanked God I witnessed not the bursting. 
 Already previous to my departure, the consequence 
 of the scarcity had begun to appear partially in 
 many places : but it was only after I left the coun- 
 try that the famine attained its full force ; and such 
 was, in spite of every expedient of human wisdom, 
 or appeal to Divine mercy, the progressive fury of 
 the dreadful scourge, that at last the Schaichs and 
 other regular ministers of worship, — supposing the 
 Deity to have become deaf to their entreaties, or 
 incensed at their presumption, — no longer ventured 
 themselves to implore offended Heaven, but hence- 
 forth only addressed the Almighty through the 
 voices of tender infants; in hopes that, though 
 pleased with the sufferings of corrupt man, Pro- 
 vidence might still pity the pangs of untainted child- 
 hood, and grant to the innocent prayers of babes, 
 what it denied to the agonising cry of their expiring 
 parents. Led by the Imams to the tops of the 
 highest minarets, little creatures from five to ten 
 years of age there raised to heaven their pure hands 
 and timid looks ; and, while all the countless myriads 
 of Cairo, collected round the foot of these lofty 
 
96 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 structures, observed a profound and mournful silence, 
 the feeble voice of spotless infancy was alone heard 
 to lisp from their summits entreaties for Divine 
 mercy. Nor did even these feeble supplicants con- 
 tinue to implore a fertility, which no longer could 
 save the thousands of starving wretches, already 
 in the fangs of death. They only begged that 
 a general pestilence might speedily deliver them 
 from their lingering and painful agony : and when, 
 from the gilded spires, throughout every district of 
 the immense Masr, thousands of infantine voices w^ent 
 forth at the same instant to implore the same sad 
 boon, the whole vast population below, in hoarse 
 and half extinguished sounds, jointly answered, " so 
 be it !" 
 
 So humble a petition was not offered up in vain : 
 the plague followed the scarcity, and the contagion 
 completed what the famine had begun. The hu- 
 man form was swept away from the surface of the 
 land, like the shadows of darkness which the dawn 
 puts to flight. Towns, and villages, and hamlets 
 innumerable were bereft of their tenants to a man. 
 The living became too few to bury the dead. Their 
 own houses remained their cemeteries. Where long 
 strings of coffins at first had issued forth, not a so- 
 litary funeral any longer appeared. Hundreds of 
 families, who had fled from famine to Syria, were 
 overtaken by the plague in the midst of their jour- 
 
ANASTASIUS. 97 
 
 ney, and with their dead bodies marked their route 
 through the desert. Egypt, smitten by the twofold 
 visitation, almost ceased to appear inhabited ; and 
 both plagues at last disappeared, for want of further 
 victims to slay. 
 
 VOL. ir. It 
 
98 ANASTASirS. 
 
 CHAPTER \ L 
 
 I WAS near the Holy Citj^and had all my time at 
 my disposal. Could it be better employed than in 
 seizing so favourable an opportunity of acquiring 
 — without the trouble of a journey on purpose — 
 the title and the prerogatives of a hadjee ?^ I there- 
 fore determined to perform, in its utmost strictness^ 
 the pilgrimage imposed on all true believers ; and 
 no sooner had set foot on the shore of Djedda, than 
 I immediately proceeded onwards, and soon arrived 
 at Mekkah, where I achieved in solitude my first 
 round of devotions at the Kaaba." It is true that, 
 as on this globe at least the holiest places are not 
 always the most agreeable, I tarried not in this 
 epitome of paradise bvyond the time prescribed by 
 the law, but hied with equal expedition back to Djed- 
 da. This, however, was only to wait in that seaport 
 until the Coorban bayram ^ should bring together at 
 Mekkah the whole body of hadjees, when I purposed 
 to revisit the corner-stone of Lslamism, and to perform- 
 under its shadowrites more solemn and more public. 
 
 Even in the busier seaport of Djedda itself, it must 
 be owned, my pursuits scarce soared above the 
 amusements of a paltry coffee-house, where I went 
 
ANASTASIUS. 99 
 
 every morning to smoke my pipe, drink my cup of 
 kishr,^ and play my game of chess with a famous 
 hand from Surat ; always hoping — but in vain ! — to 
 retaliate my adversary"'s infallible checkmate. These 
 harmless pastimes were varied, alternately by a turn 
 on the quay, to see the unlading of goods and mon- 
 sters from the Red Sea, and by the tales of a poor 
 Schaich of the neighbourhood, who possessed the 
 true art of breaking off his story in the midst of the 
 most interesting occurrence, leaving his audience all 
 agape till he resumed his narrative, and never dis- 
 missing his hero, or winding up his plot. 
 
 An accidental rencontre with an inhabitant of 
 Djedda, Sidi Malek, for whom I had recovered at 
 Cairo some property, purloined by Hassan's people 
 on their visit to his city, promised me a little change 
 of pastime. Our first meeting was in the bazar. 
 " I knew,"" exclaimed Malek on seeing me, " that 
 this would be a day of rejoicing ! The word "Allah,''* 
 heard the first thing in the morning, never fails 
 to bring good fortune. I shall not, however, think 
 mine complete until you leave your okkal, and take 
 up your abode under my roof." So easy a mode 
 of making my friend happy I could not in conscience 
 decline. I collected my chattels, and followed Malek 
 to his habitation. 
 
 My acceptance of the Sidi's hospitalities, however, 
 sooned turned out a greater burthen than I had 
 suspected. According to Derwish, the stargazer at 
 
100 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 Constantinople whom I left meditating how to un- 
 dermine the aqueduct, the most distinguished among 
 the heavenly bodies alone troubled themselves about 
 the fate of man : but in the opinion of Malek, every 
 stone, beast, and plant on the surface of the earth, 
 presumed most unwarrantably to meddle with our 
 destiny. Nothing animated or inanimate could be 
 named, which exerted not over our being a myste- 
 rious influence. From every occurrence, however 
 trivial, some omen might be extracted, if one only 
 knew the way; and that way my friend Malek was 
 determined to find out, cost what it might. Not 
 that, in the course of his research, he ever dreamt of 
 looking for such connexions between cause and effect 
 as must arise from the intrinsic nature of things, 
 and the palpable relationships between the objects 
 of the creation: such a course would have been 
 derogatory to the dignity of his pursuit. His science 
 only admitted what was totally out of the course of 
 nature, and beyond the reach of human under- 
 standing. The occult virtues which Malek sought 
 in objects, were always precisely those wliich com- 
 mon sense would never have guessed at. Every 
 secret agency was to have in it a something savouring 
 of a prodigy, which chance alone could disclose. 
 Accordingly, the less foundation there appeared 
 for a belief, the more strenuous the advocate it 
 found in Malek ; and while he looked upon men 
 of real science — astronomers, physicians, and ma- 
 
AXASTASIUS. 101 
 
 thematicians, — as paltry geniuses who could not 
 penetrate beyond the surface of things, he considered 
 soothsayers, jugglers, and conjurers, as the only 
 men of real and profound talents. To Aristotle 
 and Galen lie would probably have given but an 
 indifferent reception ; — to the most arrant fortune- 
 teller his door was open day and night. His house 
 seemed a sort of asylum for all decayed mounte- 
 banks. One party, out of gratitude for his kind- 
 ness, recommended another : and though, where 
 astrology interfered not, rather a strict Moham- 
 medan, Sidi Malek immediately made a favourite 
 of every dirty Jew, Gentile, or Christian, who had 
 the least pretensions to occult knowledge. "Because 
 weak man happens to err in one particular, can he 
 be right in no other ?" INlalek used to ask ; and on 
 the strength of this truth, he believed every lie, 
 ^nd trusted every impostor. 
 
 While merely theoretical, this system might have 
 been entertaining enough, but reduced into practice, 
 it rendered Malek's society very irksome. His own 
 conversation was incoherent, mysterious, and often 
 unintelligible ; and he took it much amiss when his 
 friends wished to converse on what they understood. 
 On the least appearance of incredulity with respect 
 to his favourite tenets his passion knew no bounds. 
 Always on the watch for every chance word or 
 gesture that might be construed into a prognostic 
 either good or bad, he was constantly floating be- 
 
102 ANA STASH" S. 
 
 tween idle hopes and silly fears, and conceived the 
 strangest predilections or the most unfounded anti- 
 pathies, ^ly nose unfortunately had a curve which 
 promised uncommon capabilities for astrology, if 
 but properly cultivated, and Malek determined that 
 So happy a disposition should no longer lie fallow^ 
 for want of any pains which he could bestow. 
 
 The Sidi's stationary oracle was a soothsayer of 
 established repute, residing in one of the remotest 
 suburbs of Djedda, and who seldom condescended 
 to go from home, but waited to be worshipped in his 
 own cave or temple. For the sake of peace, I pro- 
 mised not to neglect the opportunity of being en- 
 lightened, and only bargained to find my own way 
 to this celebrated personage, the odour of whose 
 fame, I was told, extended all the world over. It 
 might be so ; — for it affected me almost to suffoca^ 
 tion on entering his den: — a sanctuary which, to 
 say the truth, smelt more of things below than of 
 the stars above. I groped on nevertheless with 
 the most undaunted bravery, till I reached the 
 furthest end of the unsavouiy abode. 
 
 There the wizard sat in all his state. A stuffed 
 crocodile canopied his head ; a serpent's skin of large 
 dimensions was spread under his feet, and an old 
 clothes chest afforded support to the parts between. 
 Potent charms and powerful spells entirely covered 
 the wall. They had their names written over them 
 for the information of the beholder ; and hair of 
 
ANASTASIUS. 103 
 
 unborn Dives,'^ heart of maiden vipers, Kver of the 
 bird Roc,^ fat of dromedar_y's hunch, and bladders 
 filled with the wind Simoom' were among the least 
 rare and curious. Of the wizard's own features so 
 little was discernible, that I almost doubted whether 
 he had any. An immense pair of spectacles filled 
 up the whole space between his cloak and turban. 
 These spectacles veered incessantly, like a weather- 
 cock, from left to right and from right to left, be- 
 tw.een a celestial globe robbed of half its constella- 
 tions by the worms, and a Venice almanack despoiled 
 of half its pages by the wear and tear of fingers. Be- 
 fore the astrologer lay expanded his table of nativities. 
 Opposite the master shone — but only with a 
 -reflected light, — his little apprentice, crouched, like 
 a marmoset, on a low stool. The round sparkling 
 face of this youth — immoveably fixed on the face 
 of his principal, — seemed to watch all his gestures.; 
 and never did he stir from his station, except to 
 hand him his compasses, to turn his globe, or to 
 pick up his spectacles, which for want of the proper 
 support from underneath came off every moment 
 After each of these evolutions he immediately ran 
 back to his pedestal, and resumed his immoveable 
 attitude till the next call for his activity. So 
 complete a silence was maintained all the time on 
 both sides, that one would have sworn every motion 
 of this pantomime must have been preconcerted, 
 pearful of disturbing the inilvience of some planet. 
 
104 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 or confusing the calculations of some nativity, I 
 myself remained a while silent and motionless at the 
 entrance of the sanctuary ; but finding that I might 
 stay there till doomsday, if I waited for an invita- 
 tion to advance, I at last grew impatient, marched 
 up to the wizard, put my mouth to his ear, and 
 roared out as loud as I could : "I suppose I am 
 addressing the learned Schaich Aly." 
 
 Upon this, the astrologer gave a start, like one 
 suddenly roused from some profound meditation, 
 turned his head slowly round, as if moving by 
 clock-work, and, after first leisurely surveying me 
 several times from head to foot, and again from foot 
 to head, at last said in a snuffling but emphatic 
 tone, — drawling every word, in order to make what 
 in itself was not short longer still : — " If you mean 
 the celebrated Schaich Abou Salech^ Ibn- Moham- 
 med, Ibn-Aly el Djeddawee el Schafei,^ Schaich of 
 the flowery mosque, and the cream of the astro- 
 logers of the age, who holds familiar converse with 
 the stars, and to whom the moon herself imparts all 
 her secrets, I am he !'* 
 
 "And if you should happen to want the best 
 beloved of the pupils of this luminary of the world, 
 the young bud of the science of which he is the 
 full-blown pride, the nascent dawn of his meridian 
 splendour,*" added from his pedestal the little mar- 
 moset — " I am he !" 
 
 " Hail," answered I, " to the full-blown pride of 
 
AX ASTASI us. 105 
 
 astrology, and hail to its nascent bud ! May they 
 be pleased to inform me what I am, whence I come, 
 whither I am going, and whether or not I may 
 hope to recover what I have lately lost?" 
 
 " Young man," replied the wizard, '' you lump 
 together a heap of questions, each of which, singly, 
 would take a twelvemonth to answer at leng-th. 
 Besides, it is not in my own person that I disclose 
 such matters. You cannot be ignorant that the 
 voice of prophecy has ceased with the holy one of 
 Mekkah. I am but the humble interpreter of the 
 stars. It is true that my vust knowledge of these 
 celestial oracles enables me to understand their 
 language as clearly as my mother tongue ; and that 
 I thence know to a tittle all that was, and is, and is 
 to be. I may therefore forthwith, if you please, 
 ascertain from the chance opening of the holy book, 
 in what way the heavenly bodies choose — on this 
 occasion — to be addressed." 
 
 I agreed. The Doctor performed his ablutions, 
 and the dawn of his meridian splendour shook the 
 dust off his gown. Thus cleansed, at least exter- 
 nally, he mumbled a prayer or two, and then wdth 
 greatly solemnity opened the Koran. 
 
 " Child," said he, after having inspected the page 
 displayed before him, " the admirable and important 
 chapter on which Providence has willed the eye of 
 its servant to fall treats of the balance Wezn.^ 
 
106 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 This proves incontestably — but, ere I proceed fur- 
 ther, what do you mean to pay me ?" 
 
 " Two piastres," was my answer ; thinking this a 
 liberal remuneration. Not so the wizard : tlie most 
 grievous of insults could not have put him into a 
 greater rage. ** Two piastres !"" exclaimed he ; " why, 
 in the quietest of times, and when a man's fortune 
 miffht almost be told him blindfold, this would 
 scarce have been an aspre each adventure ; and now 
 that the world is all turned topsy turvy, that men 
 do not know whether they stand on their heads or 
 their heels ; now that M'omen wage war, kings turn 
 philosophers, and high priests stroll about the 
 country ; now that the Grand Lama of Tibet takes 
 a turn to Pekin, and the Pope of Rome travels post 
 to Vienna — to offer such a fee ! insolent, absurd, 
 preposterous !" 
 
 I let the astrologer's passion cool a little first, 
 and then resumed the negotiation. After a good 
 deal of altercation, it ended in Ibn-Mohammed, 
 Ibn-Aly el-Schafei undertaking to reveal my de- 
 stiny in two days, for the important sum of as many 
 sequins. 
 
 At the appointed time I returned, but found not 
 Schaich Aly, as before, in solitary meditation. He 
 stood surrounded by a whole circle of customers ; 
 and was abusing one poor fellow so tremendously 
 as to terrify all the rest, and make them tremble 
 
ANASTASIUS. 107 
 
 lest their own fortunes should fare the worse for 
 the incident. " Wretch !'"* he cried ; — " to apply 
 to me for charms to rid your house of vermin ; as 
 if I was in league with vipers and with scorpions ! 
 Go to the wandering Santons that ply in the cross 
 ways, and presume not again to appear in the 
 presence of one whom the very skies treat with 
 reverence." 
 
 The frightened peasant retired, and the remainder 
 received the devout and wonderful sentences, which 
 only required being kept carefully sealed up, to 
 procure the bearer every species of bliss. 
 
 The levee thus despatched, the wizard turned to 
 me. " I have completed your business," cried he, 
 handing me a dirty scrawl. " But it has been with 
 incredible toil. I cannot conceive what you have 
 done to the stars. At the bare mention of your 
 name they all began to laugh. It has cost me a 
 whole night's labour to bring them to their senses. 
 Instead of two sequins, I ought to have two dozen." 
 
 " Not one single aspre," replied I, glancing over 
 the paper, and throwing it in the wizard's face. 
 " The beginning informs me that I shall certainly 
 die young, provided I do not grow old, and cannot 
 fail to marry, unless I die single; and as to the end, 
 it has no meaning at all !" 
 
 " It has a great deal of meaning," replied the 
 now infuriated star-gazer ; " for it means that you 
 certainly will be hanged." 
 
108 ANASIASIIS. 
 
 '« It then also means/"' replied I, " that 1 need 
 not pay a farthing ; for, if I am not hanged, you 
 have written a parcel of lies undeserving of a fee ; 
 and, if I am equally to swing, whether I pay or not, 
 I may as well save my money, and give you a drub- 
 bing to boot." So saying, I laid on ; and the young 
 bud of science, who tried to protect his master, 
 came in for his share of my bounty. All intercourse 
 with the constellations now being broken off, I 
 walked away, alternately threatened with the justice 
 of the stars, and with that of the Cadee.' 
 
 My behaviour to his pet astrologer made Malek 
 think somewhat less favourably of my docility, and 
 our friendship, hereupon, cooled a little. Fortunately 
 the season of the festivals was at hand, and I re- 
 turned to Mekkah, to witness the arrival of the pil- 
 grims. 
 
 At Cairo I had viewed the departure of the 
 caravan from the Birket-el-hadj '^' as a species of 
 public rejoicing. The whole of the night which 
 preceded the raising of the tents, the camp, re- 
 splendent with the light of millions of lamps, and 
 re-echoing with the sound of thousands of musical 
 instruments, seemed the special abode of mirth and 
 pleasure; and the ensuing morning the pilgrims, 
 fresh, gay, full of ardour, and prancing along the 
 road, looked like a procession of the elect going to 
 take possession of Paradise. 
 
 Alas, how different was the appearance of this 
 
ANASTASIUS. 10^ 
 
 same caravan, after a long and fatiguing march 
 across the desert, on its arrival at Mekkah ! Wan, 
 pale, worn out "with fatigue and thirst, incrusted 
 with a thick coat of dust and perspiration, the had- 
 jees who composed it seemed scarce able to crawl to 
 the place of their destination. The end of their 
 journey looked like that of their earthly existence ; 
 or rather, one might have fancied their bodies 
 already smitten by the spirit of the desert, and 
 their ghosts come disembodied to accomplish their 
 vow. 
 
 Among the arrivals were some of my Egyptian 
 friends ; but their sufferings had so altered them, 
 that they were obliged to syllable their names, ere I 
 could bring their persons to my recollection. One 
 had almost lost his eyesight, another scarce pre- 
 served a remnant of his before slender intellect, and 
 a third was, in consequence of constant alarms, be- 
 come subject to such spasmodic movements, that he 
 believed himself obliged to hold his head fast by 
 the ears, lest it should turn round like a top on his 
 body. 
 
 The holy house of Mekkah offers nearly the same 
 difference from that of Loretto, which the Moslim 
 character does from that of the Franks. Every 
 body knows the Santa Casa to be a whirligig sort 
 of thing, which, in its roving disposition, changed 
 its abode half a dozen times before it could finally 
 settle. The Kaaba, on the contrary, is a steady 
 
110 ANASTASllS. 
 
 demure sort of an edifice, which, from the day the 
 angels placed it where it stands, never manifested 
 the least inclination to move. Accordingly, even 
 Alohammed dared not meddle with its well esta- 
 blished reputation. It stood its ground most 
 firmly in spite of his reform, and to this day re- 
 mains the chief object of the worship of his fol- 
 lowers. 
 
 Seven times I walked round the holy pile in full 
 procession, and seven times kissed the black stone, 
 which the Angel Gabriel brought from Paradise 
 (I did not inquire why) to figure in its south-west 
 corner. I next went to the valley of Menah to re- 
 nounce Satan and his works, by flinging a pebble 
 over my left shoulder ; nor did I fail to fill a 
 pitcher with the brackish water of the well Zem- 
 Zem, to quench the thirst of the soul. But what 
 I prized beyond all other things were the parings 
 of the besom that had swept the tabernacle, which 
 I purchased from the Shereef of Mekkah" to 
 cleanse the impurities of the heart, and which, if 
 mine were not all wiped away in consequence, failed 
 of doing its duty. 
 
 My spiritual concerns thus attended to, I turned 
 to my temporal affairs, and made an exchange of 
 some of the property which I brought from Egypt, 
 for other and more suitable articles ; for be it 
 known that the festivals of the holy house end in a 
 fair, held in the innumerable tents which surround 
 
ANASTASIUS. Ill 
 
 it like a zone, and bring together merchants and 
 goods from the most opposite extremities of the old 
 hemisphere, — very properly making even the wor- 
 ship of Mammon lend its support to the temple of 
 the Lord. 
 
 From IVfekkah I proceeded with tlie whole body 
 of the pilgrims to Medinah, a place somewhat less 
 hoi}', though infmitely more Q,greeable. There (still 
 intent on deeds of holiness) I bargained for a little 
 bit of the fringe which had adorned the Prophet's 
 tomb ; but found the unconscionable vender ask a 
 price which I scarce would have given for Moham* 
 med's own two front teeth, enshrined in the Sultan's 
 chapel at Constantinople. Fringeless, therefore, I 
 went on to Damascus, with the principal division of 
 the caravan, headed by the celebrated miscreant 
 Djezzar,^* Pasha of Acre. 
 
 No extraordinary events signalised that year the 
 homeward journey of the Hadj :^^ for I reckon not 
 as such the hundreds of camels that died every day 
 of fatigue on the road, to the great annoyance of 
 the Schaich of Sardieh who furnished them, and ta 
 the great dehght of his loyal subjects, who cut them 
 up and ate them ; and still less do I reckon as such 
 the thousands of pilgrims that gave up the ghost 
 from the same cause, to the annoyance, I fear, of no 
 one but themselves; and to the unspeakable satis- 
 faction of the conducting Pasha, to whom their pro- 
 perty devolves. 
 
112 ~ ANASTASIUS. 
 
 For my own part, as I observed mortality to be, 
 somehow, rifest among the richest pilgrims, and 
 was still possessed of some valuable luggage myself, 
 I continued during the whole of the journey par- 
 ticularly careful of my health. I ate no made 
 dishes, knowing them to be heating ; and abstained 
 from brewed beverage, as apt to attack the bowels : 
 but preferred the simplest fare, however coarse, 
 and drank plain water, though ever so muddy. 
 By means of this regimen I escaped — thank God ! 
 — all the bad effects of the journey. A more dif- 
 ficult task than that of avoiding the consequence of 
 the climate was, in my opinion, that of eluding the 
 overpowering attentions of the Bosniac guard ^^ of 
 the Emir Hadj. These gentlemen were paid for 
 protecting the property of the pilgrims, and it is but 
 doing them justice to say that they could scarcely 
 have acted otherwise than they did, if it had been 
 their own. A Deli-bash ^^ of the Pasha's in par- 
 ticular used to show such solicitude about my 
 equipage, that not one article of it would have 
 escaped his vigilance, or been suffered to remain 
 out of his keeping, had I not early in the business 
 bethought myself of recommending to him, as more 
 worthy his attention, the luggage of a wealthy 
 Turkish merchant, which, infinitely heavier, as- 
 suredly required more than mine being judiciously 
 lightened. 
 
 The only one of my companions whom I trusted 
 
ANASTASIUS. 113 
 
 was a Cypriote. Like myself a Greek by birth, he 
 had, like me, embraced Islamism from choice : but 
 with this difference, that love had led the way to my 
 apostasy, and revenge to that of my new associate. 
 He had turned Mohammedan for the sole purpose 
 of being qualified to return to another Moham- 
 medan, without breach of etiquette, the favour of 
 the bastinado. No sooner was he admitted into the 
 bosom of Islamism, than he ran to discharge the 
 debt ; and paid it with such ample interest, that his 
 creditor was never heard to utter a single syllable 
 of complaint. To do penance for this petulance, as 
 he said, — or rather, to withdraw from the scene of 
 this achievement, as I believe, he undertook the pil- 
 grimage. From Cyprus he embarked for Jaffa, 
 from Jaffa crossed over to Suez, and at Suez took 
 shipping with a flotilla of Hadjees bound for Djedda. 
 ** Huddled together so thick" — said he — " that we 
 found not room to lie down, in boats so rotten 
 that we expected to split on every coral reef, I 
 never expected to reach land again; and do not 
 know whether I owe my being saved from a watery 
 grave to Mohammed or to the Virgin ; as, for fear 
 of a mistake, I addressed my prayers to both. This 
 however I do know, that, having got once on 
 land again, I mean — please God! — never more to 
 trust myself on the water. I have conceived such 
 a horror of that element, that Mohammedan, and, 
 what is more, Hadjee as I now am, I can scarce 
 
 VOL. II. 1 
 
114 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 prevail upon myself to drink a drop of any thing 
 but wine." 
 
 My friend Mahmood, however, was destined 
 more justly to appreciate the comforts of travelling 
 on dry land, when a three weeks journey across the 
 sands of Arabia had killed off with fatigue and heat 
 about a fourth of our caravan. Almost become 
 transparent with loss of flesh, he now swore he would 
 rather a thousand times be swallowed up at once by 
 a wave, than be mummified by inches. 
 
 On entering the Pashalik of Damascus, the scene 
 changed completely. Each league, as we advanced, 
 now brought some improvement in our condition. 
 First came to meet us the supply of fresh provisions 
 from Trabloos ; next the convoy from Palestine ; 
 and when, soon after, we entered the fertile plains 
 of Hauran, I felt as if ushered at once from the 
 burning bowels of hell, into the flowery fields of 
 Elysium. Indeed, on first beholding from a small 
 eminence, after a month's wearisome march through 
 sands almost red hot, the glassy pool of Mardin 
 encircled by its verdant banks, such was the fit of 
 hydro — not phobia — but mania, which came upon 
 me, that, had I been within reach of the lovely pud- 
 dle, I would have plunged into it headlong, — dress, 
 armour and all ! 
 
 The privations of a pilgrimage are not necessary 
 to render Damascus a true Paradise. Groves of 
 orange and plum trees inbosom its walls, limpid 
 
ANASTASmS. 115 
 
 fountains sparkle in all its habitations ; and so much 
 did its beauties animate and inanimate, its ex- 
 quisite confectionary, and its cool sherbets delight 
 my eye and palate, that I purposed making it my 
 abode until I should hear further of the High 
 Admiral's motions. Purified by my pilgrimage, 
 I thought I could afford to run up a new score 
 of little peccadilloes ; and though in the course of 
 three' weeks I saw the forty thousand Hadjees with 
 whom I had entered Damascus again disappear al- 
 most to a man, I still continued without the smallest 
 intention of stirring, until I found that I had 
 reckoned without my host — I mean without Djezzar, 
 the eternal Pasha. 
 
 One Friday morning, after my devotions, just as 
 I stepped out of the mosque, my eye happened to 
 be caught by one of those celestial beings, found in 
 large cities, who, anticipating the office of the Houris 
 of Paradise, have no objection to cast a ray of bliss 
 on the existence of mortal man. Unfortunately my 
 eagerness to pursue this flitting form of brightness, 
 made me overlook some nearer but less attractive 
 objects which stood in my way. Foremost among 
 these happened to be a little man, who, walking 
 up the steps of the mosque just as I rushed down, 
 was so much below my line of sight, directed 
 straight forward, that I only perceived his proxi- 
 mity by the violence with which I came in contact 
 with his person, and occasioned his downfal. I 
 
 i2 
 
116 AN ASTASIAS. 
 
 should more properly have said, his fear of a down- 
 fal ; since I had the address to catch him in my arms, 
 and to twirl him round like a top, so as to break the 
 force of the shock, and only to lay him neatly down 
 on his seat upon the steps, without having received 
 the smallest injury. 
 
 Great as was my hurry, I felt loth to proceed 
 till I had looked round to see whom I had thus in- 
 voluntarily helped to si seat. I found it to be a per- 
 sonage dressed indeed after the Turkish fashion, 
 but evidently, from the very Christian hke manner 
 in which his Mohammedan apparel was huddled on, 
 a Frank in disguise. In short, I had run foul of an 
 inquisitive traveller, who, come to have a sly peep 
 at a mosque, noted in the empire for the care with 
 which it is kept sacred from the intrusion of infidels, 
 certainly expected not his curiosity to meet with so 
 providential a punishment. 
 
 I always piqued myself upon my good breeding, 
 especially to strangers who might report of me in 
 Franguestan. For which reason I turned back, and 
 laying hold of the short person of the traveller in the 
 readiest way for righting it — namely, by the ample 
 folds of his nether man, — I lifted him up like an oil 
 jar, and so set him on end again ; at the same time 
 reversing his position for the benefit of his curiosity, 
 and turning his face towards the entrance of the 
 mosque which he was come to view. 
 
 J do not know by what strange bias in his mind, 
 
ANASTASIUS. 117 
 
 to be pushed down should have appeared to him 
 a misfortune patiently to be endured, while to be 
 set on his legs again was taken for an indignity, 
 which called for every expression of the utmost re- 
 sentment : — but so it was ; and, instead of thanks, 
 I got nothing for my pains but abuse, the more 
 galling since my courtesy had made me lose sight 
 of the fair object of my pursuit. It is true that, as 
 strong passion is inimical to disguise, my traveller 
 had, in his wrath, resorted to his native tongue — the 
 German ; but I had heard enough of that language 
 with the Swedish baron at Pera, to understand every 
 term of commendation bestowed upon me on this 
 occasion. I therefore ran back, in order to undo what 
 I had obtained so little gratitude for doing, and 
 again gently laid the angry traveller down in the 
 very place from which I had raised him ; at the 
 same time begging his pardon for having presumed 
 to rectify his position. 
 
 There is, or was, at Damascus a Latin hospice, 
 tolerated by the pasha, solely, I believe, for the sake 
 of one of its friars. Padre Giacomo, a great favourite 
 with Djezzar for reasons connected by the Damas- 
 cenes with the magic art. This friar had accompanied 
 our stranger in his rambles through the city, as cice- 
 rone ; but had prudently kept aloof while the bolder 
 traveller made his attempt upon the Mosque. How- 
 ever, witnessing from afar the last act of my inter- 
 course with his guest, he took it into his thick skull 
 that I was ill-treating him, and in consequence came 
 
118 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 up, and began, on the strength of his influence with 
 the Pasha, to abuse me in his turn ; — not however, 
 like his more considerate friend, in an outlandish 
 language, in M'hich his impertinence might have 
 passed off for civility, but in very intelligible Arabic, 
 and to the great edification of all the bystanders. 
 
 In the midst of Damascus this was not to be 
 borne: " See,""* cried I therefore to the mob, *' what 
 it is to have an old woman for a Sultan, who grants 
 firmans ^^ to Christian dogs," (my pohteness had by 
 this time given way a little) " to come and spy dis- 
 guised in our own dress the nakedness of our 
 land ; in order that tlieir Crals ^^ may know how to 
 conquer it. — But glory be to tlie Prophet, and down 
 with the Yaoors !" 
 
 " Yes, down with the Yaoors ; and let us go and 
 drown them," answered the ready mob. 
 
 This proposal even exceeded my wishes. But 
 I had once saved a Jew from a watery grave, and I 
 thought I might have equal success with a brace 
 of Christians. " No, no,*" cried I, therefore ; '' the 
 Arabs would think that inhospitable. Let us only 
 disable these infidels from passing themselves off for 
 Mussulmen, by stripping them of their mustachios 
 and beard. They will look as ridiculous again when 
 shaved, as they would do merely drowned." So 
 thought the mob. My friends consequently w^ere 
 taken to the nearest barber, seated, lathered, shaved, 
 and dismissed. 
 
 But the bristles of tlie Capuchin's beard were fated 
 
ANASTASIUS. 119 
 
 to become thorns in my side. The Pasha took 
 up the affair. He could neither bear to be without 
 his friend the friar, nor to see him in his presence 
 with a beardless <:hin. I very soon got hints of the 
 unwholesomeness of the Damascus air ; and of all the 
 physicians in the world I wished least for Djezzar to 
 be my phlebotomist. Having picked up a good num- 
 ber of the country sword-blades, remarkable for their 
 fine temper, I resolved to convert my steel into gold 
 in the capital. There also I should be more in the 
 way of watching the Grand Admiral's motions ; and 
 I doubted not that an ex-Kiashef, hostile to Ibrahim 
 and Mourad, would easily obtain rank in the Sultan's 
 army. I therefore packed up my little property, and 
 the very evening after the warning slept at SaUeh. 
 
 The next morning I proceeded with a caravan 
 to Trabloos, and there embarked for Stambool on 
 board a vessel from Alexandria. The carsfo con- 
 sisted of black slaves. The richest article was a 
 little negro, who had been furnished with his pass- 
 port for the harem by an old Coobd in the Said, 
 purveyor to my patron Suleiman. Though the 
 only one of twenty who had escaped alive, poor little 
 blackie looked very unhappy. To console him, I 
 used to prognosticate his becoming some day Kis- 
 lar-Aga; when he would have all the beauties of 
 the Serafflio under his command ! " Alas !" answered 
 he, " of what use will it be to me .^" " Of what 
 use .^" I replied, *' Why to whi}) them, to be sure ; 
 and so to vent your spleen !"" 
 
120 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A CERTAIN number of years had now elapsed 
 since I left Mavroyeni ; and changes more potent 
 than even tliose which time effects had taken place 
 in my circumstances, since that period. I was not 
 only from a boy become a man, but from a Greek 
 a Mohammedan, and from a person of no note 
 whatever, an individual who had filled no incon- 
 siderable character in the world's varied drama. I 
 had acted a part both in negotiation and in warfare. 
 I no longer either thought myself an inferior to the 
 Drogueman of the Arsenal, or stood in need of his 
 protection. It was doubtless for the latter reason 
 that, when arrived at Constantinople, I no longer 
 felt any hesitation to call at his door. Little 
 acquainted, however, with the revolutions which 
 might have happened in a place so fertile in storms 
 as the Fanar, I thought it prudent, ere I ventured 
 upon my visit, to collect some information respecting 
 my old patron ; lest, seeking his abode too abruptly, 
 I should be conducted to a burying-ground or a 
 dungeon. 
 
ANASTASIUS. 121 
 
 " Friend,'* answered the old messmate to whom I 
 addressed my inquiries, " Mavroyeni is no longer 
 to be found at the Arsenal." 
 
 " I understand," replied I ; and motioned with 
 my hand, as if to say : " he is shortened by the part 
 above the neck." 
 
 " Not yet," resumed my informer, " but in a fair 
 way of being so. He is at present Hospodar of 
 Valachia." 
 
 " Hospodar of Valachia !*" exclaimed I, starting 
 back at least three paces. " What ! Nicolas Mav- 
 royeni, — a mere man of the islands, a rank taooshan ! 
 has he then at last been able to insinuate himself 
 into the fairest of the two Greek provinces; and 
 that, in the very teeth of every Ipsilandi, Morosi, 
 Callimacki and Souzzo whom the Fanar could muster 
 to oppose his invasion .^" 
 
 " He has ;" rejoined Notara. ^' After having been, 
 during fifteen years and upwards, regularly threat- 
 ened every day at the Terzhaneh by the Grand 
 Admiral with being kicked out of office, he has 
 only left the place of Drogueman of the fleet, to step 
 into the very highest situation which a Greek can 
 attain in the Turkish empire ; and that, without 
 any stipulation for the purchase of the principality, 
 without any compromise as to the length of his 
 tenure, without any restriction or engagement as 
 to the persons he was to promote. Fettered by no 
 clause or limitation whatsoever, he has distanced all 
 
122 ANASTASU'S. 
 
 his rivals, and swept away the whole stake single- 
 handed.'' 
 
 I begged my friend to inform me how this 
 miracle had been accomplished. 
 
 " You must remember," replied he, " that Russia 
 never acted with more hostility towards Turkey 
 than after the peace. But the Muscovites were 
 governed by a man in petticoats, and we, ruled by 
 old women in turbans. Haleel-Hamid Visier, and 
 after him Shaheen-Aly Visier, seemed determined 
 to abide every insult of the northern virago. At 
 last, however, the interview between Joseph and 
 Catherine opened the Sultan's eyes. Abd-ool- 
 Hameed felt that his sacrifices would not preserve 
 peace, and must diminish the chance of a successful 
 war. He dismissed the pacific Shaheen, and looked 
 about for a more enterprising and warlike Visier. 
 The only one in the whole empire that could be found 
 to suit his views was Youssoof, the water-carrier 
 of Smyrna, the caleondjee of the fleet, the coun- 
 sellor and right hand of the Capitan-Pasha, the 
 defender of the Boghaz against the Russians, the 
 Moohasseel of the Morea, and finally, the supreme 
 Visier of the Othoman empire. 
 
 " Youssoof in his turn felt the necessity of con- 
 fiding the government of a province so important 
 and so much exposed as Valachia to none but a 
 man of resolution and bravery. Such an one was 
 not to be found among the merchant-princes of the 
 
ANASTASIL'S. 12B 
 
 Fanar. But such an one he knew his old comrade 
 in the service of the Capitan-Pasha, Mavroyeni, 
 to be. He therefore proposed him. In vain did 
 all the Fanariotes for once cordially unite to pre- 
 vent his nomination. In vain did they put forward 
 their tool Petracki, the serafF^ of the mint. This 
 zealous agent might spend more money to prevent 
 an election to a principality, than ever had been 
 wasted to obtain one: it availed nothing. Mav- 
 royeni was invested ; and when, in the act of receiv- 
 ing at the hands of the supreme Visier the marks of 
 his dignity, he begged as the single favour which 
 was wanting to complete his bliss the head of the 
 seraff, that boon also was granted. On going out 
 of the audience chamber, — by way of a delicate 
 attention — Petracki's bleeding head was made to roll 
 at his feet. 
 
 " Mavroyeni is now gone in the fulness of his 
 glory to take possession of his principality. Per- 
 haps, however, what he regarded as the last testi- 
 monial of his elevation may prove the first step to 
 his downfal. It is secretly whispered that the late 
 Sultan Mustapha had confided several millions of 
 piastres to Petracki for the use of his son Selim, 
 during the reign of Abd-ool-haraeed his brother. 
 This deposit is necessarily involved in the general 
 fate of the seraff's confiscated property. But Selim 
 some day must come to the throne, and he will not 
 
124 ANASTASIIS. 
 
 fail to remember the loss he sustained througti 
 Mavroyeni.'" 
 
 On hearing all this, my first impulse was to pay 
 the patron of my youth a visit in his principahty : 
 but my second thoughts presented my stake in Egypt 
 as the one most worth following up. However, the 
 Gapitan-Pasha being as yet far from ready for his 
 expedition, I determined, in the meantime, to in- 
 dulge in the supreme pleasure of the Italians — the 
 far niente. 
 
 At Chio, an intimacy had long subsisted between 
 my father and another Greek merchant, by name 
 Mavrocordato. His extraction was honourable : 
 friends traced his pedigree to a younger branch of the 
 Imperial Palaeologi : history allowed him the latter 
 and more certain honour of being related to several of 
 the princes of Valachia, — the first of whom, invested 
 by the Porte, bore the same name. He was a man 
 of most respectable character : nay, while burthened 
 with so numerous a family that the most rigorous 
 parsimony could only ensure to each of its members 
 a very moderate provision, he even enjoyed the 
 reputation of being particularly liberal, and seemed 
 contented when the expenses of the twelvemonth 
 did not exceed the comings in of the year. But — 
 strange to tell ! — no sooner had he through a fatal 
 contagion lost all his children save one, in whom 
 consequently was to centre his whole inheritance, 
 
ANASTASIUS. 125 
 
 than a total revolution took place in his conduct. The 
 possibility of leaving this only heir extremely opulent 
 now for the first time seizing hold of his imagina- 
 tion, gave it a new bias, and bred a desire for riches, 
 before unfelt. He who while in moderate circum- 
 stances had been generous to a proverb, now all at 
 once, when he saw his hoard accumulate, became 
 saving, retrenched many of the innocent luxuries in 
 which he formerly indulged, and began to toil for 
 the acquirement of superfluous wealth with a devo- 
 tion often before sharply censured by himself, while 
 he only possessed a sufficiency. Still, however, he 
 was never suspected of increasing his gains by dis- 
 honourable means, nor could he be accused of sordid 
 avarice. He might be said to live below his income, 
 but he ranked not among those imbecile misers who, 
 during their lifetime, starve the very heir whom 
 they destine at their death to revel in their riches. 
 No expense was spared for the education of Spiri- 
 dion ; and even for the pleasures of this beloved son 
 ^lavrocordato would often outstep his own notions 
 of discretion. 
 
 The intimacy between Mavrocordato and my 
 father had produced an habitual intercourse between 
 Spiridion and myself. It could not be called friend- 
 ship ; it was scarce even entitled to the appellation 
 of companionship : for there existed betv/een us a 
 difference of two years — a prodigious one at our age, 
 —and sufficient to make me look upon the son of 
 
126 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 Mavrocordato as by no means fit to join in my 
 youthful sports. Our connexion might be described 
 as composed of protectorship on my part, and of 
 deference on that of Spiridion. I led him in my 
 train, spoke to him in a tone of authority, and gave 
 myself the airs of his tutor. The fag of the party 
 when I associated with boys of my own standing, my 
 protege was only allowed to contribute to my pas- 
 times when I found myself destitute of other re- 
 source. But, flattered by being admitted in any 
 form, under my auspices, to the diversions of my 
 older playmates, Spiridion asked not for more, con- 
 templated me with sentiments of veneration, felt 
 honoured by my commands, and executed all my 
 high behests with a zeal and promptitude savouring 
 of perfect devotion. To employ in my concerns any 
 other boy but him was on my part a sign of displea- 
 sure, and to himself a subject of mortification. It 
 was he who, whenever we went out on a marauding 
 expedition, was sent forward as a scout to explore 
 the ground ; who, when we stripped an orchard, 
 kept watch till we had secured the booty ; and who, 
 whatever exploit we engaged in, generally paid the 
 penalty while we carried off the fruits. But the 
 sufferings which he earned in our service he ever bore 
 most manfully, and his firmness in submitting to any 
 punishment rather than betray our confidence was 
 truly heroic. In return, I always sustained my part 
 as his protector, defended him against every other 
 
ANASTASIUS. 1^ 
 
 boy, allowed none of my comrades to assume over 
 him the least authority, and would have made 
 any one who in my presence had presumed to cor- 
 rect my little Spirro, long remember the castigation 
 which would have followed such an offence. 
 
 Still, however, spite of the public countenance 
 with which I honoured Mavrocordato's son, the 
 father would not have grieved to have seen us less 
 together. For a time he kept us as much asunder 
 as his own frequent intercourse with my own sire 
 would permit : but an event took place, which, in 
 the midst of all Mavrocordato's attempts to dissolve 
 it, riveted our friendship more closely than ever. 
 
 I had headed a large troop of my companions 
 in a swimming party, when one of the lesser boys 
 spying some way off a small boat upon the beach, 
 set it afloat, dragged Spiridion in after him, and 
 rowed out to a considerable distance. Suddenly 
 there arose a violent squall. The truants grew 
 frightened, they lost their presence of mind, mis- 
 managed the oars, and overset the boat. INluch 
 fatigued with a good hour's splashing in the water, 
 I had just finished putting on my clothes, when an 
 universal shout of terror made me raise my eyes, 
 and see th« two children struggling with the waves ! 
 
 SpiricUon's companion was a tolerable swimmer, 
 and rapidly approached the beach. No one felt the 
 least alarm for him : but Spiridion himself, only 
 supported by the oar to which he clung, seemed on 
 
128 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 the point of sinking. Already encumbered with my 
 clothes, I called out to my still naked companions 
 to jump in and save my charge. " Who dares ?" 
 was the only universal answer. 
 
 Dressed as I was, I now resolved to have recourse 
 only to my own exertions, plunged into the sea, swam 
 to Splridion, and succeeded in throwing to him one 
 end of my sash, while I held the other fast between 
 my teeth. Supporting the child in this way, I tried 
 to regain the beach. It was still a good way off 
 when some of my comrades, seeing me appear faint 
 and overwhelmed with my load, at last took courage, 
 and threw themselves into the water to swim to 
 my assistance. But I had got too far unassisted 
 to accept of their tardy succour, and resolved to 
 achieve ihe task alone, or perish in the attempt. 
 Collecting all my remaining strength, I pushed 
 away my officious playmates, and invoking my pro- 
 tecting Saints, strained every still obedient nerve 
 for a final exertion. It exceeded my powers : — held 
 back by the weight of Spiridion, I felt myself going 
 down. In this situation, was I, by a perseverance 
 which could do my friend no good, to share his un- 
 timely end ? or, by yielding to the suggestions of 
 prudence, at least to save my own life .'' — Reason, I 
 suppose, would have said : " Save yourself." 
 
 Luckily, the dilemma never struck me. I had 
 resigned myself to death, when an enormous billow, 
 which only seemed advancing to swallow us up, left 
 
ANASTASIUS. 129 
 
 nie upon a shoal barely covered at low water, of which 
 I had no knowledge. With one arm I clung to the 
 rock, while with the other I now grasped my poor 
 Spirro. Thus we remained afloat, until a boat, 
 which just before had put off to meet me, reached 
 the reef, took us in, and brought us on shore. 
 
 Mavrocordato happened to walk with ray father 
 on the quay when the accident took place. Apprised 
 of his son's danger, he liad arrived in sight half 
 frantic with terror, just as, floundering on the waves, 
 I threw out my sash to Spiridion. He had gone 
 through ail the agonies of every subsequent crisis, 
 until he saw us safely landed on the beach. Im- 
 mediately he ran, or rather flew to the spot, and even 
 before he noticed his child clasped me convulsively 
 in his arms, as the preserver both of the son and the 
 father. 
 
 These expressions died away on my ear. Ex- 
 hausted with fatigue, I had fainted, and lay for half 
 an hour bereft of all perception. But on recovering 
 my senses I still found Mavrocordato by my side, 
 ministering to my relief, while poor Spirro was 
 drenching my cold features with his tears. 
 
 As soon as his father saw me sufficiently collected, 
 he resumed his boundless thanks, only interrupting 
 them to lay on his son a most positive injunction, 
 ever to treat me as a brother ; and in the face of all 
 around, and of heaven itself, he took a solemn en- 
 gagement, strengthened by every most sacred oath, 
 
 VOL. II. K 
 
180 ANASTASILS. 
 
 henceforth to consider me as his other child. " Hap- 
 pen what may, Anastasius," he cried, sobbing with 
 emotion, " rest secure that I shall never abandon 
 you; that in me you will always find a second 
 father :" and indeed, from that day Mavrocordato 
 seemed to have no second object of solicitude (his 
 son always remaining the first) except to palliate my 
 frequent offences. Many a time he redeemed my sins 
 with the sums which he would have denied to his own 
 legitimate gratifications; and, had he been at home, 
 when the ripening effects of my imprudent con- 
 duct made me become a voluntary exile, I might not 
 perhaps have fied, as I did, from my natural parent 
 and from my adoptive sire. 
 
 Since my abandonment of home I had lost sight 
 of Mavrocordato and his son. When I wanted 
 assistance most at Constantinople, and might have 
 benefited most by their kind offices, Mavrocordato 
 happened to be gone on business to Trieste or to 
 Vienna, I did not know which ; and just before I 
 went to Chio, he had entirely quitted that island — a 
 theatre too confined for his extending concerns— 
 and had come to settle at Stambool. 
 
 In a capital of that description the love of riches 
 soon begets the love of sway. Mavrocordato, who 
 before only wished to leave his son distinguished 
 for wealth, now aspired at beholding him eminent 
 in rank and dignity. In short, he aimed at nothing 
 less than seeing him some day Bey of Valachia or 
 
ANASTASIUS. ISl 
 
 Moldavia, as several of his namesakes had been be- 
 fore him ; and all his endeavours now tended to 
 forming the requisite connexions at the Fanar. 
 Unfortunately he had not the lungs which ambition 
 requires. Accustomed to inhale the pure mountain 
 air of Chio, he found the confined atmosphere of 
 the capital agree ill with his health. Accordingly, 
 while he only retained at Constantinople a small 
 recess for business, he bought in the country, close 
 to the beautiful village of Kandilly, the villa of a 
 proscribed visier for his permanent residence. It 
 was there that, in one of my excursions, chance 
 again threw me in the way of my adoptive fatlier. 
 
 There were two things in this rencontre which 
 surprised me, and to many will appear incredible: 
 the first was that Mavrocordato had not toiled like 
 a galley-slave for his son, while a boy, only that he 
 might fall out with him the more outrageously, when 
 he was gro^^^l a man ; the other, that he did not 
 consider, because nine or ten years had elapsed since 
 I saved that son's life, the natural term of a father's 
 gratitude as wholly expired : nor did he even think 
 that all the promises made to a Christian must fall 
 away on the misguided wretch becoming a Moham- 
 medan. When indeed Mavrocordato leai'nt that, 
 for reasons good or bad, I had changed my religion, 
 he looked a little dismayed, but soon recovering: 
 " The will of God,"" he cried, " be done !" and invited 
 me not the less to his mansion as cordially as if I 
 
 K 2 
 
13^ ANASTASIUS. 
 
 could publicly have pledged liim in the wine of his 
 own growing. Perhaps a person who, in my situa- 
 tion, could raise himself to rank, and had found 
 means to save money, might not, to a mind of 
 Mavrocordato's prudent cast, appear after all wholly 
 destitute of some laudable points. At least my host 
 received me as if he had thought so ; and the very 
 day of our meeting wrote to my father, to acquaint 
 him with his rencontre, his pleasure and his grief. 
 
 Many letters between Stambool and Chio, I sus- 
 pect, are intercepted by the Tritons and the Ne- 
 reids, curious to know what passes above water; 
 but Mavrocordato's epistle was left by these sub- 
 marine gossips to take its course. There even 
 came as speedy an answer to it as the diligence of 
 man could indite, or the breath of a favourably dis- 
 posed servant of Eolus waft to its destination. 
 My host was conjured in the truly paternal epistle, 
 by every tie of ancient friendship, and every motive 
 of religion, to spare no pains in recalling a stray 
 sheep into the way of salvation. A postscript, 
 longer by half a page than the letter, stated that, 
 should my abjuration of my errors compel me to 
 quit the Turkish dominions, my wants would be 
 amply provided for in whatever nearest part of Chris- 
 tendom I might make my abode. These assurances 
 moved me to tears. " Blessed be my aged parent!" 
 cried I, — " When permitted by those that surround 
 him, he still feels anxious for the welfare of his 
 
ANASTASIUS. 133 
 
 Anastasius !" " And so do your brothers," whispered 
 to me Spiridion. " They had rather even that you 
 should return to your faith than that you should 
 revisit your island. So at least they write.'"* — At 
 this speech a dark cloud again overcast the transient 
 sunshine of my heart. 
 
 As to IVIavrocordato, he inquired not into the 
 motives, he only considered the merits of the re- 
 quest. At all times he had been religiously inclined : 
 but he had extended the sphere of his devotion, 
 since he had contracted that of his liberality. He 
 gave more to God as he gave less to man ; — no doubt 
 expecting the stake in heaven to bear the higher 
 interest. The arduous and delicate commission 
 entrusted to his prudence he undertook, not as a 
 mere act of duty toward a friend, but as an effectual 
 means of working^ his own eternal bliss. Had he 
 been offered the nursing of a visier's estate, instead 
 of the rekindling of a taooshan's extinguished faith, 
 he could not have engaged with more zeal in the 
 business. I believe he would even have paid me to 
 become once more a Christian, had I been in want 
 of money : but, finding that all I required was good 
 advice, he determined not to spare so cheap a drug, 
 and onl}^ considered how he might administer most 
 plentifully the unwelcome potion. Cunningly there- 
 fore he bethought himself of making his solicitude 
 for my temporal concerns the means of advancing 
 his spiritual aim ; and actually offered to manage 
 
134 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 my property for me to the best advantage, free both 
 from commission and from brokerage ! The thing 
 Avas in itself worth accepting, be what they might 
 the conditions annexed to it. I left my casket in 
 Mavrocordato's custody, empowered him to dispose 
 of its contents to the greatest profit, and even ac- 
 cepted, at his urgent request, of an apartment under 
 his own roof. 
 
 Still he at first only ventured upon the perform- 
 ance of the task, to which all this was preparatory, 
 with a very tender hand. He feared to excite my 
 impatience of control, or my jealousy of independ- 
 ence, and carefully abstained from all that might 
 savour of the tone of a pedagogue, or the authority 
 of a parent. My well-bred host contented himself 
 with throwing out, when opportunities offered, such 
 delicate hints, and such round-about insinuations, 
 as left it ^asy at my pleasure either to avoid their 
 hitting, to take off their point, or to let their whole 
 weight fall unnoticed beside me. 
 
 At last, however, Mavrocordato began to find 
 out that this over cautious way of proceeding did 
 not advance his purpose. Accordingly he resolved 
 upon a more open and undisguised mode of attack. 
 He now on all occasions enlarged upon the repre- 
 hensibleness of my conduct, and the danger of my 
 evil courses ; constantly represented me as standing 
 on the very brink of perdition, and never met me, 
 at home or abroad, without significantly shaking his 
 
ANASTASIUS. 135 
 
 head, uttering a deep groan, and inflicting upon me 
 so vehement a lecture, that, whatever he might say, 
 I could never think myself obliged to submit to 
 the penalty of listening. This new method, there- 
 fore, succeeded still worse than the former. In- 
 stead of not heeding my host, I now carefully 
 avoided his company. Though still nominally an in- 
 mate in his house at Kandilly, I was oftener to be 
 found at the furthest end of Constantinople : and, 
 always out in the morning before he came from his 
 office, and seldom returned at night ere he retired 
 to bed, it was but on very extraordinary occasions 
 that I indulged him with the sight of his very dis- 
 creet guest. 
 
 A third plan of operations was then resorted to. 
 In the idea that the son, from less disparity of age, 
 and greater means of watching m}^ behaviour, might 
 succeed in the scheme in which his father failed, 
 Mavrocordato now committed the whole labour of 
 my conversion to Spiridion. This, undoubtedly, 
 evinced a thorough confidence in the steadiness of 
 the youth. Even spotless purity might risk, un- 
 less composed of very hard and impenetrable stuff, 
 to contract in the office of cleansing such extreme 
 moral foulness as mine, a few unavoidable stains. 
 
 Independent even of the danger to which the 
 purpose of the father exposed the son, perhaps the 
 son was the person most unfit to forward the design 
 of the father. I do not mean on the score of insuf- 
 
130 AXASTASIUS. 
 
 ficient interest in my welfare. Far from it ! — In the 
 exuberance of life's early spring, friendship strikes 
 root too deeply in the soul, entwines itself too closely 
 round every fibre of the heart, to be enfeebled or 
 broken by the vicissitudes of later life. The in- 
 timacies of that happy epoch, as they precede, also 
 survive all the more interested connexions of a 
 maturer age ; and Spiridion's early devotion to the 
 companion of his childhood had not only kindled 
 up anew, but again glowed in his breast with all its 
 pristine ardour. Spite of my manifold failings, he 
 loved me at Constantinople as he had done at Chio : 
 only the greater scope of his understanding prevented 
 liis wishes for my weal from being exclusively di- 
 rected to the single narrow point, in which centered 
 all the views of his father. If he more tlian emulated 
 Mavrocordato in his solicitude to see me renounce 
 my old sins, he was far from feeling equal anxiety 
 for my abjuring my new worship. 
 
 Spiridion had received from nature an expansive 
 mind. It had resisted all the contracting powers 
 of a Greek education. In vain might its glance be 
 obstructed by the opaque blinds of ignorance, its 
 flights impeded by the'leaden trammels of prejudice: 
 it could see through the one, and soar above the 
 other. As greater efforts were made to hem in on all 
 sides his powerful faculties, they seemed only to 
 derive superior strength from their concentration, 
 and to break with greater force throuo^h their 
 
ANASTASIUS. 137 
 
 insufficient barriers. While with all his canvas 
 spread to the breeze of the passing hour, the father 
 sailed down the muddy tide of the Fanar, the son 
 would retire to his closet, there to imbibe long 
 draughts of wisdom at the pure spring of philosophy: 
 and as, in a society where literary discourse is 
 despised or prohibited, men do not peruse books 
 merely to quote sentences, he found more leisure to 
 ruminate upon his reading, and to digest his vo- 
 lumes. Hence his understanding rose far above the 
 level of his age and country : for in those days 
 modern Greece had not yet attained that miraculous 
 emancipation from the bondage of error and super- 
 stition, so vauntingly set forth, I am told, by the 
 P — 's and the K — 's of the present enlightened pe- 
 riod: and in the more than Cimmerian darkness 
 which surrounded him, Spiridion was almost the 
 only person I could have named, with whom morality 
 weighed more than dogma ; and who attached greater 
 importance to inward goodness than to outward 
 practices. 
 
 His behaviour and his exhortations wore the 
 stamp of this peculiar frame of mind. He did not 
 indeed say in explicit terms: '' Those articles of 
 faith, those forms of worship, which affect not the 
 heart, and influence not the conduct, are of little 
 importance;" — the deference he bore his father 
 forbade such a speech : but, vv^hile he more faintly 
 urged, and only in the tone of an irksome task, an 
 ostentatious abjuration of Islanjism, which might 
 
138 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 only rid the mosque of a bad Mosleniin, in order to 
 throw a worse Christian back upon the church ; — 
 while he deprecated with all his might the scandalous 
 spectacle of a man running backward and forward 
 between Mekkah and Jerusalem, between the Cross 
 and the Kaaba, — sometimes kneeling to the one, and 
 sometimes prostrate before the other ; — while he ven- 
 tured to believe that even a good Moslemin might 
 still enter heaven, though with different credentials 
 and at a different gate, he insisted with all the 
 strength of his faculties, and all the warmth of his 
 heart, upon those moral duties commanded by the 
 Koran as well as by the Gospel; he admitted of no 
 mode of compounding for those actions on which 
 depends not only our own happiness, but the good or 
 evil condition of our fellow creatures; he ceased 
 not to depict with all his eloquence, and to urge 
 with all his rhetoric, the beauty of rectitude and 
 the wisdom of goodness ; nay, he spoke of the 
 charm which purity of m.incl and dignity of man- 
 ners throw over our sublunary existence, with 
 such earnestness and such unction, as if he wished 
 me to adopt them, not from cold conviction but 
 from positive taste, and to regard myself as sacri- 
 ficing my terrestrial happiness, not in adopting but in 
 rejecting the restraints of decorum and of principle. 
 Whether with some real foundation for his opinion, 
 or only from the partial medium of friendship and 
 of gratitude through which he viewed my character, 
 he often would say he observed in me a singular 
 
ANASTASIUS. 139 
 
 and romantic turn of mind, capable of becoming as 
 enthusiastic in the cause of virtue, as it had been 
 unrestrained in the career of vice. He beheved 
 that the same energy and boldness which, while 
 wasted in fostering my evil passions, had made me 
 seek distinction in all that was profligate and base, 
 when employed to resist their sway, might render 
 me pre-eminent in all that was exalted and noble ; 
 and he therefore felt all that eagerness for inlisting 
 me in the cause of moral excellence which was 
 natural to one, who, himself wholly devoted to its 
 charms, wished to extend its empire by procuring it 
 a powerful new champion. It is true, the pro- 
 digious change in my disposition from the extreme 
 of ill to the extreme of good, was a transformation 
 which Spiridion rightly considered as attainable only 
 through immense efforts ; and he regarded the victory 
 over my thus far ungovernable temper, the triumph 
 over my hitherto irresistible passions, as an achieve- 
 ment no less arduous than it was desirable ; but that 
 very circumstance, by rendering the success as glo- 
 rious to the conqueror as it was beneficial to the con- 
 quered, added a new stimulus to my friend's exertions 
 in my behalf. It made him feel a pride on his own 
 account, as he felt an interest on mine, in the ac- 
 complishment of the task he had set himself: for 
 he too was of an ambitious mind, and more desirous 
 of success in proportion as success was more difficult. 
 The zeal which he felt from the first outset in his 
 
140 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 undertaking, still grew as he advanced in his la- 
 bours, — as tlie very obstacles which he met with, 
 forced him to devote his time, his attention and his 
 powers more exclusively to his favourite purpose, — 
 as, by keeping his mind more stedfastly fixed upon 
 this single object, he weaned it more entirely from all 
 other pursuits ; as in short, by the pains already 
 bestowed, he felt more committed not to cast them 
 away in a pusillanimous dereliction of his plan, ere 
 he reaped fruits worthy of his perseverance ; and 
 he toiled with indefatigable zeal, until at last all his 
 other views and occupations yielded to that of my 
 sole amendment ; until he devoted to my reforma- 
 tion alone all the faculties of his understanding, 
 and all the energies of his heart ; until he no longer 
 seemed placed by Providence on this globe for any 
 other purpose but that of making me a worthy 
 member of society ; and until — almost working him- 
 self up, in his honest enthusiasm, into a belief that 
 he had been appointed by the Almighty as my 
 guardian angel — he held himself responsible to his 
 Creator and to his conscience for my conduct, and 
 bound by the very gifts he possessed, to devote his 
 whole existence to the purpose of making mine a 
 blessing. To see me wise, to see me happy, and 
 that, through his exertions; nay, to sacrifice, if 
 necessary, his own repose and felicity on this globe 
 to mine, became the only bliss Spiridion aspired to 
 on this earth ! Indeed, so fully had he identified 
 
ANASTASIUS. 141 
 
 his fate with mine, or rather, so entirely had he re- 
 duced himself to the rank of tlie mere instrument 
 of my salvation, — not indeed by mere faith or even 
 insulated deeds of goodness, but by an entire re- 
 formation of my conduct, — that, had the irrevocable 
 decrees of fate destined one of us only to be accepted 
 among the host of heaven, I verily believe he would, 
 with all his ardour for excellence, have submitted to 
 stoop to the bitter fruits of sin, in order that Ana- 
 stasius might not be the one discarded from the 
 realms of bliss eternal ! 
 
112 AXA^^TASll S. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 With a temper such as mine, Spiridion was 
 perhaps, in spite of all his zeal, — and I may add, 
 all his abilities, the person worst calculated, not 
 only to succeed in the more contracted purpose 
 of his father, but even in his own more extensive 
 and more liberal design ; not only to obtain from 
 me a public and ostentatious return to my faith, 
 but even a more private, though more sincere, 
 relinquishment of my faihngs : — 
 
 For — in truth — up to the moment when my 
 young friend undertook my reformation, what was 
 I ? — A being of mere instinct ; a child over which 
 the cravings of the sense still reigned uncontrolled ; 
 and which, like all children, still acknowledged no 
 subjection save to superior strength ; still could be 
 made to obey the voice of reason, or even the dictates 
 of caution, by no other means but those of physical 
 compulsion ; still must, as it were, have his submis- 
 sion to the rules of society and the requisites of 
 order rendered a habit through dint of force, ere it 
 could become an act of choice ; but who, while thus 
 still weak in intellect, wholly matured in bodily 
 might, nay, possessing with the mental imbecility of 
 
ANASTASIUS. 143 
 
 childhood more than the ordinary corporeal endow- 
 ments of grown up man, required to find even more 
 than the ordinary gifts of body in other surrounding 
 individuals, ere he could be awed into an external 
 allegiance to social institutions ; and, though he 
 might, like other children, in some degree be allured 
 to good by the mere imitative bias impianted in our 
 natures, was only disposed to make those members 
 of society the models of his conduct, who had begun 
 by making themselves the masters of his imagina- 
 tion ; and to take counsel where he felt a previous 
 deference for the person of the counsellor. 
 
 And thus far, alas ! such had been the example 
 and the conduct of my chief associates, as only to 
 increase my natural aversion from the shackles 
 of civilization, and my repugnance to the mere 
 approach of those who bore them meekly. Gre- 
 garious indeed, though not sociable, I loved not 
 positively to prowl in solitary majesty through 
 the unreclaimed wilds of nature ; I felt that some 
 species of companionship was unavoidable, even for 
 the mere purpose of assuaging the cravings of the 
 sense ; but, like the rude tenants of the forest, not 
 yet themselves lured into subjection by civilized 
 man, I only loved to herd with other beings equally 
 wild, indocile, and unbridled ; I shunned every 
 fellow-creature already entrapped in the snares of 
 society ; and could only bear to appear linked by 
 choice with such as, ever prone like myself to 
 
144 ANASIASirS. 
 
 deride every symptom of order, and to despise 
 every outward sliow of decency, were not less anxi- 
 ously avoided by the sober and steady part of the 
 community than the untamed lion or the unbroken 
 colt. Call it effrontery or bashfulness — temerity 
 or cowardice — I only felt at ease, only thought 
 myself safe as it were from the infection of con- 
 tented slavery, with men who bade defiance alike 
 to the precepts of morality and the injunctions of 
 the law; and the more an individual showed him- 
 self broken into a ready compliance with all the re- 
 quisites of social institutions, and fearful to outstep 
 any of the rules founded on mere opinion, the more 
 I dreaded and avoided him on that very score as a 
 dangerous person, a confederate in the great plot 
 against my natural rights and liberties, and a ran- 
 corous though secret enemy, w^ho only coaxed and 
 caressed in order to betray me to his associates, and 
 to throw with more certainty the fatal noose round 
 my neck. 
 
 Add to this that, still wholly averse from the 
 most distant thoughts of quitting Islamism, still 
 elate with all the pride of the turban, I shrunk 
 from the idea of appearing guided in any degree 
 by one not like myself of the privileged cast, and 
 would sooner have seemed to take lesson or ex- 
 ample from a Turkish beggar than from a Greek 
 archon. 
 
 Now, of the quahfications which a disposition, 
 
AN ASTASIAS. 145 
 
 such as that of the worthy individual here depicted 
 required in his ghostly director, who possessed fewer, 
 and, on the contrary, of the attributes which must 
 disqualify their owner for the office of guiding a 
 pupil of that description, who reckoned more than 
 my friend Spiridion ? Even in point of person he 
 wanted some of the conditions most indispensable to 
 the success of his undertaking. His figure was 
 elegantly moulded indeed, but, far from possessing 
 the size and strength requisite either to support or 
 to repress insolence, it was rather under-sized ; and 
 the son of Mavrocordato appeared by my side like 
 the willow by the side of the cedar. Again : his 
 features were in as perfect a symmetry as Grecian 
 blood could bestow; but his countenance, un- 
 armed with that daring look which daunts the 
 brazen stare of audacity and defiance, habitually 
 only expressed gentleness, nay timidity: and if 
 bursts of indignation or of rapture would sometimes 
 impart to it an air so commanding and so lofty, as 
 to awe any being still under the influence of mind, 
 its purely intellectual power must nevertheless 
 remain unacknowledged, where — as in most of 
 my associates — all was mere unmixed matter. His 
 manners too were elecrant and refined : but the more 
 
 c5 
 
 they breathed that elevation and dignity calculated 
 to charm a well educated circle, the less they partook 
 of that coarse and vulgar assurance necessary to 
 please men of blunted feelings and a vitiated taste. 
 VOL. II. I* 
 
146 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 Reserved instead of forward, he never had a chance 
 of making the force of reason silence the force of 
 lungs ; and, too proud to be conceited, too conscious 
 of his worth to announce his claims to notice, he 
 was only, by people apt greatly to presume upon 
 nothinjr, and unable to understand a behaviour 
 wholly different, praised — if at all — for discreet and 
 becoming humility. 
 
 The sombre livery of Christianity too, by ren- 
 dering my friend a dark spot — almost a positive 
 blemish — in the brilliant circles of Islamism, in- 
 creased tenfold every difficulty of his arduous task : 
 for while his modest exterior could not prevent me, 
 who knew his inward excellence, from fearing his 
 watchful eye, and feeling restrained by his observing 
 presence, it emboldened low-bred wretches to treat 
 him with a rudeness, the pain of which I shared. 
 Hence, though I could not but venerate Spiridion*'s 
 character, I mostly felt averse to his company, 
 and, so far from meeting the advances of the too 
 unexceptionable youth, discouraged his assiduity. 
 Sometimes, when he pressed me to make him my 
 associate and my confident, I used only to answer 
 jestingly, and say: "how can I possibly live with 
 you, or introduce you to those with whom I live, — 
 you, who have not one idea in common with them ; 
 whose very language seems a different idiom, as 
 unintelligible to them as theirs is to you ; who stare 
 at every unguarded expression, shrink from every 
 
ANASTASIUS. 147 
 
 spirited proposal, and groan at every bolder frolic : 
 who stay at the door where others walk in, keep 
 watch where others slumber, and have the folly 
 to be wise where others have the wisdom to court 
 folly?" At other times I spoke more seriously, 
 and warned the youth in sober earnest against 
 wasting his valuable gifts in the fruitless attempt to 
 reform one, too long owned by sin to shake off his 
 allegiance. " How can you, Spiridion," would I 
 ask, " with your excellent understanding, expect 
 any good from a A^Tetch so thoroughly broken into 
 every species of evil, so suppled by long practice 
 into every form of vice, so loose in all his mental 
 hinges, so dislocated in all his moral joints, that all 
 his inclinations turn with equal facility toward wrong 
 as toward right ? The very transcendancy of your 
 merit, — my all good, all perfect friend, — leaves 3'ou 
 a far less chance of instilling in my corrupt mind 
 the smallest particle of righteousness, than might 
 have befallen a person of inferior worth, less proudly 
 soaring above my own level, and whom I could 
 have met half way. You and I are too far asunder 
 in the scale of beings, ever to come in contact 
 together, either in this world or the next.'"* And 
 hereupon 5 in order to prove my assertion by illus- 
 trations taken from facts, and to enjoy Spiridion's 
 surprise and horror, I would commence the brag- 
 gadocio of vice, and give my friend such details 
 of my iniquity, as made him raise meekly to heaven 
 
 l2 
 
148 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 his dark expressive eyes ; till, unable any longer to 
 bear the revolting tale, he would start up, run to 
 me, put his hand on my lips, and supplicate me to 
 spare at least him, if not myself. 
 
 It was not long, however, before even Spiridion 
 
 felt that nothing was so inimical to the success 
 
 of his scheme as a forbidding fastidiousness. He 
 
 therefore tried to repress his too evident disgust 
 
 at the tone and manner of my habitual associates, 
 
 and to bring himself (in appearance at least) more 
 
 nearly down to their level. In short, he gave up 
 
 his refined pursuits and his regular habits, for the 
 
 honour of holding in my esteem the same rank with 
 
 a set of blustering profligates. Upon the sublime 
 
 principle of seducing me to virtue, he became the 
 
 patient witness of all my vices. He followed me to 
 
 those temples where Aphrodite wears no veil, in 
 
 order to preach to me decency ; and more than 
 
 once in the orgies at which he assisted, narrowly 
 
 escaped being the reeling victim to his own laudable 
 
 fervour, for opening my eyes to the loathsomeness 
 
 of intoxication. 
 
 Even this effected not the wished-for purpose. 
 Libertinism, as well as refinement, requires its ap- 
 prenticeship. It is not the attainment of a single 
 day, and sits as awkwardly on the wearer as fasti- 
 diousness, where — only simulated by the lips — it 
 flows not from the heart. Wherever Spiridion 
 followed in my train, he failed alike to catch the 
 
ANASTASIUS. 149 
 
 spirit of the place, and the tone of the company. 
 His best attempts at extravagance only looked like 
 demureness run mad ; and if his endeavours to set 
 my gayer friends at their ease had any effect at all, 
 it was only that of making them, whilst he was 
 by, as constrained as himself. The moment his name 
 was announced, every countenance fell, and every 
 lip was sealed up. Adieu from that moment to 
 all that lightness of heart, all that flow of spirits, 
 without which vice itself, only pursued with the 
 dulness of a task, loses its seductive gloss, and, 
 for want of a brilliant exterior to dazzle the eye, 
 shows all its inward foulness. Instead of rendering 
 my associates pleased with him, Spiridion only con- 
 trived to put them out of conceit with themselves. 
 The genuine sons of mirth and revelry dreaded 
 the intrusion of this false brother. Abashed at 
 the mere sight of one to whose manners they were 
 strangers, and to whose behaviour they had no 
 clue, they insensibly felt in his company — with- 
 out themselves knowing why — their assurance and 
 boldness degenerate into a subdued and humble 
 manner. Not but that they strove to resist the 
 novel influence. Fearful lest in his presence they 
 should appear to have lost th^ir wonted tone, they 
 even talked louder than usual, were wittier, made 
 more jests, ironically wished me joy of my new 
 friend, and complained of his repartee as too much 
 
150 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 tor their dulness: but aside and by stealth, they 
 frowned at me for having brought an extinguisher 
 among their jovial troop; and I myself Avished 
 from the bottom of my heart that Spiridion had re- 
 mained a complete saint, rather than that he should 
 have become half a sinner, for no purpose but to 
 spoil all the sport of genuine honest rakes ! 
 
 But what of all this ! — Be a man ever so sturdy 
 a hater of all that is good and wise, still, if fated 
 day after day to witness in another the most un- 
 abating solicitude for his reformation, the most 
 untiring efforts to allure him to virtue; and these 
 endeavours proceeding, not from interested motives, 
 nor even from a v.ish to display superiority, but 
 solely from a desire the most ardent to procure his 
 lasting welfare : if above all forced to own that the 
 symptoms of this solicitude, never shown in in- 
 trusive advice, irksome reproof, and acrimonious 
 censure, only appear in the keenest watchfulness, 
 the gentlest persuasion, the most exulting looks at 
 each instance of success, and the most evident de- 
 jection at every failure in the benevolent attempt, 
 — so as not even to leave him a pretence to feign 
 anger and to fly from his monitor ; he must have 
 in his composition materials even more compact 
 than mine, to remain wholly impenetrable to so 
 flattering a testimonial, lurking under reproof itself; 
 and to feel no wish, however transient, that it should 
 
ANASTASIUS. 151 
 
 cost him less to reward with an amendment in his 
 manners so deep a devotion: he will in spite of 
 himself repay such constant sacrifices, at least by 
 something more than cold and unprolific grati- 
 tude. 
 
 It is true, no person, wont to combine cause and 
 effect, could expect that in a vortex of unceasing 
 dissipation, and attracted by the voice of every siren, 
 my heart, volatile by nature, and by constant fric- 
 tion somewhat blunted in its feelings, should return 
 with equal intensity Spiridion's affection. My re- 
 gard necessarily must have inter mittences, display 
 fits and starts, and be interrupted by intervals of 
 forgetfulness, nay of coolness. In the pursuit of 
 pleasure I would shun the sight of the young Greek ; 
 in the intoxication of enjoyment I would neglect 
 his society; in the phrensy of passion I would hide 
 myself from his view as from that of an unwelcome 
 monitor : but still did his daily converse here and 
 there drop a seed of tenderness and compunction 
 in my bosom ; and this seed — often unheeded at 
 first, and resembling the corn which, in order to 
 germinate, must for a while be screened from the 
 rays of that sun, indispensable to its subsequent 
 development, — failed not to spring up, when his 
 immediate presence no longer obstructed the more 
 general survey of his noble conduct, and beneficent 
 precepts. In the midst of the raillery at Spiridion's 
 
152 AN ASTASIAS. 
 
 expense with which I tried to keep up the uncon- 
 cern and independence of my mind, I conceived 
 for him a real and deep-rooted attachment; and, 
 though we rarely associated together in my hours 
 of joy, the moment I felt the least grief or disap- 
 pointment — the moment the faithlessness of a mis- 
 tress, the treachery of a companion, or the super- 
 ciliousness of a grandee, cast the least cloud over my 
 happiness, — I darted past all my ephemeral friends, 
 to pour my feelings and my sorrows into the bosom 
 of their sole legitimate depositary. From his lips 
 alone I expected the balm of consolation; and 
 though long and distant were my flights, still would 
 I ever ultimately return to Spiridion's arms, as the 
 stork, from the furthermost regions of the globe, 
 returns constant to her wonted nest. 
 
 My growing regard for Spiridion, and my ad- 
 miration of his worth, awoke in my breast the first 
 cry of conscience, and the first risings of shame. 
 In the presence of my friend I would sometimes 
 repress the rashness of my temper, and regret the 
 violence of my passions. I blushed for the vices 
 in which I had formerly exulted. For the first 
 time in my life I took pains to excuse ^my errors, 
 and laid down plans for rooting out my ill-propen- 
 sities. I went so far as actually to meditate a 
 general reform ; nor did I at any time put off the 
 execution to a very distant period. If I carried 
 
ANASTASIUS. 15S 
 
 not immediately my good intentions into effect, if 
 inveterate habit frequently made me relapse into 
 my evil doings, still did I no longer find in the 
 commission that zest, that unalloyed pleasure which 
 used to attend them. I felt the bitterness of re- 
 morse follow the sweets of indulgence. So great 
 was the revolution in my sentiments, that it often 
 made me contemplate with envy the calm dignity of 
 Spiridion's life and occupations, which before I had 
 treated with contempt. Looking over him, when 
 he would hurry the completion of some noble work, 
 or lay by the pursuit of some interesting study, 
 in compliance with my eagerness for some low or 
 trivial pastime, I often could not help repining at 
 the difference of our disposition. " Ah," said I, 
 " Spiridion ! Why was it not my fate to be 
 brought up like you ! — In me, too, nature had im- 
 planted many a rich and varied germ. Cultivation 
 might have made them expand into all that was 
 useful and beautiful. Fragrant blossoms might 
 have been grafted on my stock full of vigour and 
 sap, luxurious fruits might have adorned my 
 branches : but, alas ! I was born in a desert, I 
 grew up remote from the sunshine of civilization, 
 and I put forth only wild and fruitless boughs, dis- 
 torted by ceaseless storms, and casting wide around 
 them a drear and deadly shade r 
 
 Nor was this all ! Whenever Spiridion parted 
 from me to go into the presence of his God, to 
 
154 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 prostrate himself before his Maker, and to Hsten 
 -with devout attention to the loud hymns sung in 
 praise of his Saviour; whenever, in conjunction with 
 all his assembled countrymen, he addressed, through 
 the mediation of holy ministers, his supplications to 
 Heaven according to the forms of his forefathers, 
 and in that language which once had been mine ; 
 whenever, in his doubts and perplexities, he derived 
 comfort from performing the awful signs of his 
 creed, and attending the sacred rites of his ancient 
 religion, I panted to follow him to the place of my 
 old worship, to kneel down by his side before 
 the holy doors ^ of the sanctuary, and to join in 
 his ardent and heartfelt devotions at the altar of 
 Christ. I repined at the solace he was receiving, 
 and of which I had deprived myself; regretted 
 that change which only permitted me an open, a 
 public, and a solemn approach to my Creator and 
 my Judge, in a strange house, under a spurious 
 garb, and in an idiom not my own ; loathed the 
 Moslem rites, which, converting every act of devo- 
 tion I panted to perform into a solemn mummery, 
 bereft my appeal of its earnestness, my prayers of 
 their unction, and my worship of its sanctity ; and 
 secretly vowed, — should I not be able immediately 
 to re-enter the pale of the church I had abandoned, 
 — at least some day before my death to compel the 
 holy gates to open to my supplications, and again 
 to admit within the dread precincts — now closed 
 
ANASTASIUS. 155 
 
 against the renegade — my sighs of shame, of con- 
 trition and of penitence ! 
 
 Thus did the gentle timidity of Spiridion end by 
 making a deep impression on my obdurate heart, 
 and resemble the frequent falling drop, which by 
 slow degrees hollows out the hardest stone. That 
 empire over my will, which the young Greek never 
 would have obtained had he attempted to assume 
 the least authorit}^, he, by an almost unreserved 
 submission to my own caprice, now for many an 
 hour held undisputed. 
 
 It is however true, that the utmost actual amend- 
 ment in my v/ays still remained prodigiously short 
 of the quantity requisite to compose a particularly 
 valuable member of society. The effect of Spiri- 
 dion's exhortations rarely went beyond good resolu- 
 tions. Seldom did they ripen into actual realities ; 
 at least of such a nature as to claim peculiar praise. 
 The occasions on which I expressed the strongest 
 determination to become a new being, were often 
 those on which I relapsed into some old sin more 
 deeply than before. The very contrition, however, 
 which followed the misdeed, was already, in one 
 who before gloried in evil, a great step towards 
 good ; and the power in Spiridion to produce that 
 feeling, the sign of a vast hold obtained over my 
 wayward soul. 
 
 How great however was the toil, how constant 
 the watching ol' my friend, to retain that feeble 
 
156 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 sway over my furious passions, which he had with 
 sucli labour acquired ! What unceasing terror he 
 feh lest my perverse instinct should again recover 
 its noxious preponderance over my still weak and 
 giddy reason ! How he trembled lor fear of seeing 
 me, like a young tiger half tamed, resume, at the 
 faintest scent of blood or glimpse of the forest, all 
 my sanguinary yearnings, and all my roving in- 
 clinations, — break my fetters, recover my ferocity, 
 and forfeit all the fruits of my tedious education ! 
 
 And but too often still were all his sinister fore- 
 bodings on the point of being realised. But -^oo 
 often still would I sigh at the remembrance of those 
 days, when no monitor from within checked the 
 freedom of my will and actions; when, if the 
 voice of pleasure called, or the spur of instinct 
 urged, no second thought, no extraneous considera- 
 tion held me back ; when, above all, no subsequent 
 reflection, no dread of reproof embittered the image 
 of the joys I had snatched from the fleeting wing 
 of time, and had made mine ere age advanced 
 to scare away their very shadow. Often still would 
 I say to myself — " because a little Greek, who 
 is neither my relation nor my master, happens to 
 owe to me his life, is he entitled to rob me of 
 my liberty; or, because his mind is by nature's 
 own ordination so regulated as without effort or 
 sacrifice to pursue a steady course, must my soul, 
 which that same nature has been pleased to ren- 
 
ANASTASIUS. 157 
 
 der fiery, impetuous, and without rule or measure 
 be, through dint of the utmost violence, forced 
 into the same even pace?'' Often, from feehngs 
 of contrition for my offences, I relapsed into 
 feelings of indignation at the shackles imposed 
 upon my will. Railing at Spiridion for thwarting 
 my inclinations, and at myself, for submitting to 
 his yoke, I only saw in the influence which he had 
 gained over my mind an usurpation, and in the 
 restraint he put upon my passions a tyranny. The 
 fear I felt of his reproaches, and the care I took 
 to avoid his displeasure, no longer seemed to me 
 aught but a wanton surrender of my rightful inde- 
 pendence, a disgraceful prostration of my freedom, 
 which made me weep with anguish, or rather gnash 
 my teeth for very rage. " Is it I, is it Anastasius," 
 I exclaimed, '* who suffers the silly and minute 
 forms of society, like the small but numerous 
 threads and meshes of a net, to confine every limb, 
 and to impede every motion ? Is it I who have lost 
 all free agency, and like a puppet can only obey 
 the pleasure of another ?" And at these mortifying 
 thoughts, shame burned in my cheek, and anger 
 sat quivering on my lips. 
 
 I then resolved to tear asunder my slight yet heavy 
 trammels, to assert my ancient freedom, and afresh 
 to roam at liberty ; the p^issions, long restrained, 
 again broke loose with tenfold fury. The act. 
 
158 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 intended to manifest my recovered liberty, was 
 always some extravagance, far exceeding the most 
 outrageous of my former follies. 
 
 My friend, on these occasions, seemed lost in 
 despair. Breathless, except when now and then a 
 deep sigh forced its way from his inmost soul, — 
 hke the slow bubble, which rises from the very 
 bottom of the seemingly motionless pool, he hung 
 his head in gloomy silence, while, proud of my 
 feat, and like the steed turned loose in the mea- 
 dow, I snorted, shook my mane, and looked round 
 with taunting eye ; until, after a certain time, 
 the effervescence of my blood again subsiding, I re- 
 turned to a sense of my folly, felt contrition for my 
 excesses, and blushed at my bravado. Then again 
 I execrated my ungovernable temper, beat in an- 
 guish my throbbing breast, convulsively grasped my 
 friend's retiring hand, and, by confessing how little 
 I deserved it, in the end obtained his forgiveness. 
 Spiridion, who the moment before had renounced 
 all hopes of my reform, now again began with fresh 
 ardour to toil at his chimera. 
 
 The father's less pertinacious dream had meanwhile 
 wholly subsided. Spiridion might still expect some 
 day to bring me to the path of virtue ; Mavrocordato 
 clearly saw that he was not the person destined 
 to lead me back to the porch of the church. He 
 almost began to think it possible that, instead of his 
 
ANASTASIUS. 159 
 
 son's reclaiming me to Christianity, I might end by 
 seducing his son to Mohammedanism. At any rate, 
 he now deemed a familiar intercourse with a per- 
 sonage of my description as equally injurious to 
 the sober habits of his family, and to the com- 
 mercial credit of his house. He first endeavoured 
 to intimate this new opinion to me by a studied 
 coolness and reserve, totally different from his for- 
 mer cordiality. Unluckily, as I never had courted 
 his favour, I heeded not his change of manner, 
 nor considered the caprice of the sire, as a reason 
 for withdrawing my countenance from the unoffend- 
 ing son. Mavrocordato therefore was at last obliged 
 to be more explicit. 
 
 I had one evening mademyself rather conspicuous 
 at Kandilly. The next morning, as I was sitting 
 with Spiridion, in walked his father, who had staid 
 from his office on purpose. He inquired very civilly 
 after my health, hoped I had not caught cold, and 
 then apprized me in terms polite but peremptory, 
 that his occupations no longer permitted him to 
 manage my property, nor his views to cultivate my 
 society; returned me the remains of my deposit, 
 which my frequent draughts had greatly reduced ; 
 presented me with an exquisitely penned abstract of 
 my account, which he begged me to approve at my 
 leisure ; recommended to me to seek more com- 
 plying friends and a more convenient lodging; 
 
160 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 and, taking his leave, wished me all manner of 
 happiness. 
 
 However politely Mavrocordato's compliment 
 might be turned as to the form, I could not help 
 thinking it very rude as to the matter. His behaviour 
 seemed to me both unfair and unhandsome. In 
 fact, was I the one that had made the first advances 
 to this purse-proud merchant.? or had he, on the 
 contrary, first sought of me a renewal of intimacy ? 
 He misht have left me alone if he had chosen. I 
 asked not of him any attention, — I expected not any 
 civility : I should have been perfectly contented if 
 the accidental meeting had ended, as it had begun, 
 in the market-place. But to invite me to his house, 
 to press upon me his hospitalities, to admit of no 
 denial to his solicitations ! — and all this only in order 
 that he might end the farce by turning me out of his 
 surly door, at which I hardly ever had cared to 
 present myself; and that without the least prepara- 
 tion or warning ! — It was what I could not brook, 
 and what I promised myself some day to resent. 
 Meantime, I determined not to trespass another in- 
 stant on the forbearance of one so anxious to recall 
 his bounty, and, spite of all Spiridion's entreaties 
 that I should at least stay the night, and all his en- 
 deavours to convince me that his father could not 
 mean things as I understood them, I walked out : — 
 nor did I, until lanched into the very middle of the 
 
ANASTASIUS. IGl 
 
 street, stop to consider how I was to dispose of 
 my person and my casket. Then, indeed, I felt 
 a little at a loss, and could have liked to walk in 
 again. But this my pride forbade. 
 
 I had not ruminated half a minute before I won- 
 dered how I could have felt any embarrassment at all. 
 Within a stone's throw of Mavrocordato lived the 
 fittest person to succeed him as depositary of my 
 fortune, and director of my actions : namely his most 
 rancorous enemy ; — an Armenian, and a cashier, 
 who hated him with all the cordiality of one whose 
 commercial schemes had been less successful than 
 his own. There was no species of mischief which 
 the envious Aidin had not attempted to do his more 
 fortunate or more skilful neighbour. First, he had 
 endeavoured to ruin him by representing his wealth 
 as a mere fabrication. Unable to succeed this way, 
 he took the contrary method, accused him of being 
 too wealthy, and laid snares, no longer against his 
 credit, but against his life, by tracing his opulence to 
 a treasure of a beheaded Visier, found concealed in 
 his garden. But he was fated to be foiled alike in his 
 most opposite attempts at mischief. For when, in or- 
 der to circumstantiate his evidence, he showed the of- 
 ficers of the fisc the place in the Greek's garden, where 
 from his window he had with his own eyes seen him 
 dig out the ponderous chests, filled with gold and 
 jewels, something more ponderous was found still un- 
 
 VOI,. II. M 
 
162 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 removed ; namely, such an immense and continuous 
 stratum of solid rock, as, without being great mine- 
 ralogists, the very ministers of the hazne judged to 
 have lain there undisturbed since the flood. 
 
 Now the personage who had been at all these 
 pains to stamp himself a rogue, was the one whom I 
 sagaciously selected for the depositary of my money : 
 — Nor was my judgment less conspicuous in my 
 disposal of my person. 
 
ANASTASllS. U;3 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 My worldly affairs thus prudently arranged, I 
 attended to my spiritual concerns ; and, to compen- 
 sate for not eating caviar during the Greek Lent, 
 fasted with all becoming regularity during the Turk- 
 ish Ramadan. Every one knows how trying that 
 month is to the temper of the stanch Mohammedan. 
 As long as the sun lingers above the horizon, he 
 dares not refresh himself with the least morsel of 
 food, the least drop of liquor, or even the least 
 whiff of tobacco. His whole occupation consists 
 in counting his beads, and in contemplating the 
 slow moving hand of his timepiece, until the moment 
 when the luminary of the world is pleased to release 
 him from his abstinence, by withdrawing its irksome 
 orb from his sight. Sufficiently disagreeable as the 
 month of the Ramadan might appear for every pur- 
 pose of salvation, even when it falls in winter, its 
 unwelcome intrusion seems absolutely invented for 
 the destruction of the Moslemin species, when the 
 precession of the lunar months brings it round to 
 the longest and hottest days of summer. It is then 
 that the Christian, rising from a plenteous meal, if 
 
164. ANASTASIUS. 
 
 he has common prudence, avoids all intercourse 
 whatever with the fasting Turk, whose devout sto- 
 mach, void of all but sourness and bile, grumbles 
 loudly over each chance-medley of the sort, as over 
 malice prepense, rises in anger at the supposed 
 insult, and vents its acrimony in bitter invectives. 
 
 Sometimes a demure Moslemin may be seen 
 looking anxiously round on all sides, to ascertain 
 that he is not watched. The moment he thinks 
 himself unobserved, he turns the corner of some of 
 the Christian streets of Pera or Galata, and ascends 
 the infidel hill. ^ Led on as it were by mere listless- 
 ness from one turn to another, the gentleman still 
 advances, till perverse chance brings him just oppo- 
 site a confectioner's or a pastry-cook's shop. From 
 sheer absence of mind he indeed steps in, but he 
 buys nothing. Allah forbid ! He only from pure 
 curiosity examines the various eatables laid out on 
 the counter. He handles, he weighs them, he asks 
 their names, their price, and their ingredients. What 
 is this ? what do you call that ? Where does that 
 other come from ? What huge raisins these are ! 
 Thus discoursing to while away time, he by little 
 and little reaches the inner extremity of the shop ; 
 and finding himself at the entrance of the recess, in 
 which by mere accident happens to have been set 
 out — as if in readiness for some expected visitor — a 
 choice collection of all that can recruit an exhausted 
 stomach, he enters it from mere thoughtlessness, 
 
ANASTASILS. 165 
 
 and without the least intention. Without the least 
 intention also, the pastry-cook, the moment he sees 
 his customer slunk into the dainty closet, turns upon 
 him the key of the door, and slips it into his pocket. 
 Perhaps he even goes out on a message, and half 
 an hour or so elapses ere he remembers his un- 
 accountable act of forgetfulness. He however at 
 last recollects his prisoner, who all the while would 
 have made a furious outcry, but has abstained, lest 
 he should unjustly be suspected of having gone in for 
 the purpose of tasting the forbidden fruit. The Greek 
 unlocks the door with every expression of apology 
 and regret ; the Turk walks out in high dudgeon, 
 severely rebukes the vender of cakes, and returns 
 home weaker with inanition than ever. But when 
 the pastry-cook looks into his recess, to put things 
 in order, he finds, by a wonderful piece of magic, 
 the pies condensed into piastres, and the sugar- 
 plums transformed into sequins. 
 
 I suppose my new banker suspected me of some- 
 times dealing in this unlawful sorcery, and wished 
 to destroy the transmutations in their very source. 
 He disappeared with my casket. On the twentieth 
 day of the Ramadan, I found myself with a tre- 
 mendous appetite, five sequins in my pocket, and 
 not a farthing elsewhere. 
 
 Ever since my final exit from Mavrocordato's 
 house, Spiridion had kept completely aloof from 
 me, and I had not once seen my till then inseparable 
 friend. That he was a dutiful son, I knew ; that 
 
166 ANASTASICS. 
 
 he would not openly fly in the face of his father, I 
 had expected ; but I was not prepared to find that 
 where his friend was concerned, he would conform 
 to his parents orders with such rigid punctuality. 
 It mortified me ; and, as prompt as ever to value 
 things only when forbidden, I now began to long 
 for the youth's company: "After all, how prefer- 
 able," thought I, "was his society to any other! 
 What information he possessed, what knowledge 
 he imparted ! How full of resource was his mind, 
 and of variety his conversation ! How different 
 from the empty rattle of men whose ideas never 
 moved out of a single narrow circle, and whose 
 efforts at jocoseness absolutely sickened with re- 
 petition. How many more acute observations on 
 life at lai'ge he used to make, who only seemed 
 to view its storms and whirlwinds from a remote 
 estuary, than those who sailed down its fullest 
 tide. The very reflection of his excellence cast 
 a lustre upon those who were placed within its 
 influence. They felt greater self-esteem from being 
 in his company;'' — and I could not forgive myself 
 for so wantonly forfeiting what was so valuable in 
 itself, and yet so w^illingly bestowed ! 
 
 Still, if even prior to the loss of all that I pos- 
 sessed, I had felt too proud to seek one who shunned 
 me, it may well be supposed that since that event, I 
 should more than ever spurn all attempts at renew- 
 ing the intercoui'se. However great might be my 
 distress, I would rather have thrown myself upon 
 
ANASTASIUS. 167 
 
 the generosity of an absolute stranger than upon 
 the kindness of a forgetful friend. 
 
 Whatever I might have imagined, such a friend 
 the son of Mavrocordato was not born to be. 
 Two days had scarce elapsed since the retreat of the 
 Armenian, when, as I lay despondingly on my couch, 
 who should I see standing beside me, like a cheering 
 vision, but my still true Spiridion ! The disappear- 
 ance of the banker had soon been published, and 
 amply commented upon, in the commercial world. 
 Spiridion knew my little property to be in his hands. 
 He had immediately inquired into my circum- 
 stances ; and, apprised of my ruin, had come to my 
 relief. 
 
 His pecuniary offers he found me unwilling to 
 accept. *' Your friendship, Spiridion," cried I, 
 " is dearer to me than ever ; but away with your 
 purse ! It offends my eyes. I love you too well to 
 become your debtor." 
 
 " Selim," replied the son of Mavrocordato, " if 
 that which affection bestows demands a return of 
 gratitude, believe me, it is too late to escape the 
 irksome burthen. You are already too deeply in my 
 debt for all the anxiety you have cost me. In the scale 
 in which your reformation has outweighed all con- 
 sideration of my own repose, in which your welfare 
 has preponderated over all my worldly interests, a 
 handful of paltry gold is but a speck of dust, — an 
 atom void of weight !^' 
 
1C« vNNASTASILS. 
 
 I i'elt the trutli of this speech, bade my foolish 
 pride be silent, and accepted the money. " This gift,"* 
 exclaimed I, — clasping the purse uith both hands, 
 and placing it next my heart, — ^^ will enable me to 
 prove that your friendship has not been thrown 
 away ; that the seeds you tolled to sow, though slow 
 to rise, have sprung up at last: their fruits will 
 soon appear. Henceforth, Spiridion, I tear from 
 my bosom every root of evil ; henceforth I renounce 
 all the pleasures of vice ; henceforth I becom.e a new 
 man, thy boast, thy credit, and thy glory !" 
 
 These words, the first of the sort which my friend 
 had ever heard me utter, sounded in his ears hke mu- 
 sic from heaven. Tears of emotion started from his 
 eyes, he embraced me with convulsive rapture. 
 AVhat more could he wish for ? His long sought 
 triumph was complete ; and, like men on the morrow 
 of a victory which terminates a toilsome war, we had 
 only to sit down and discuss at leisure the new plan 
 of life, suitable to my nev/ resolutions. Upon this 
 we enlarged as upon a delightful dream — soon to be 
 realised, till, fearing to stay longer, Spiridion at last 
 rose to tear himself away from me. 
 
 Evening was stealing on, and darkness beginning 
 to let loose all the hounds of hell that shunned the 
 light of day. It \^as scarce safe for Spiridion to 
 return liome without some escort. " Stay, Spirro,"" 
 said I ; " this once let me be permitted to accom- 
 pany you. Even your father, just now, I am sure. 
 
ANASTASIUS. 169 
 
 would wish to know me by your side.**"* — Spiridion 
 consented. 
 
 Our way lay by a coiFee-house, the favourite re- 
 sort of those against whom more domestic doors 
 were shut. On the threshold stood lounging a boy 
 — the son of a Capidjee" of the Porte — with whom 
 I had already once or twice had a tift. Achmet 
 was his name, insolence his profession. His beha- 
 viour had made him the pest of the whole neighbour- 
 hood. As soon as he spied us : " What," cried he, 
 " the old inseparables again risen from the dead ! 
 See how the hound lugs the hog by the ears !'"* At 
 these insulting words I felt the blood rush in my 
 face ; rage convulsed my whole body : I grasped my 
 handjar; but at the same instant the remembrance 
 of my recent promise to my friend flashed across 
 my mind ; and, smothering my indignation, I si- 
 lently hurried on. 
 
 Spiridion, who had turned pale with anticipation 
 of the consequences that might arise from so grievous 
 an insult, observed the struggle in my bosom: 
 '' Anastasius," said he, " I see all, and I thank you. 
 But suffer me to pursue my way alone. In the land 
 where my ancestors held the sceptre, I am become 
 thy reproach." 
 
 " What, Spiridion," rephed I, " when you come 
 to save me, 1, leave you in danger ! I, leave you 
 exposed to the insult of the bigot, and the blows of 
 the ruffian ? Never !" — And spite of my friend's 
 
170 ANASTASILS. 
 
 entreaties, I continued by liis side until his own door 
 opened to afford him safety. 1 then pressed his hand, 
 bade him farewell, and returned my own way. 
 
 The lateness of the hour quickened my pace. In 
 the most lonely part of the road I overtook Achmet, 
 likewise on his way home, — and passed by the swag- 
 gering coxcomb. 
 
 His sagacity had construed into fear my pre- 
 ceding endurance. Accordingly, his insolence only 
 increased. " Coward," exclaimed he, "you run too 
 fast for me to take the pains of pursuing you : but I 
 depute this messenger to give you my errand ;" and 
 on my looking round to see what he meant, I felt 
 a huge stone graze my ear. But for the motion of 
 turning round my head, it must have broken my 
 jaw. 
 
 Human patience could endure no longer. I faced 
 the ruffian. Each lifted his hand, but mine was 
 the dagger which went first to the heart. My 
 antagonist fell without a groan. I paused a while,r— 
 but he had ceased to breathe ! Raising the lifeless 
 body, I threw it over a wall into an adjoining 
 cemetery, and walked off. 
 
 No mortal had beheld the conflict : but the prior 
 provocation had had all Kandilly for a witness. 
 What the darkness of the night awhile concealed, 
 the dawn of the next day could not fail to bring to 
 light ; and to no one but me would the deed be 
 imputed. Achmet indeed was abhorred, but his 
 
ANASTASIUS. 171 
 
 parents were respected. Having therefore much 
 to apprehend from the law, and httle means to 
 purchase justice, I determined not to try which 
 would carry the day. ^ 
 
 Still, however, before I abandoned for ever the 
 vicinity of my only friend, I determined to see him 
 once more. By another way, I ran back to his 
 house. For the first time since his door had been 
 shut against me, I knocked. He recognised my 
 hand. It was the signal I used to give, when, coming 
 in late from my evening rambles, I feared to dis- 
 turb his father. He himself opened to me. 
 
 " Spiridion," said I, "but an hour ago, I pledged 
 all I could pledge to make you witness in me an 
 entire reformation. Alas, it is no longer time ! I 
 only return so soon to bid you adieu for ever. 
 Forget me ; forget a wretch whom his ill fate pur- 
 sues; and thank heaven that you thus are rid of 
 one on whom misfortune has set its mark !"" 
 
 I then told him what had happened ; mentioned 
 where I meant to go ; and imploring the Almighty 
 to shower on my tender, my last, my only friend, 
 his choicest blessings, once more pressed to my 
 arms the companion of my childhood, and broke 
 away. 
 
 But little time was requisite to deliver over the 
 few articles I left behind me into the care of my 
 hostess, to saddle my horse, and to ride to Iskiudar,^ 
 
172 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 There I crossed the channel, entered Constantinople 
 just at the dawn of day, and traversing its long and 
 still empty streets from end to end, went out again 
 at the gate of Andrinople, across field and common 
 gained the western road, and about the middle of 
 the day, reached the town of Rodosto. 
 
 In this out of the way place 1 thought myself 
 safe, at least for a few hours ; and, feeling much 
 fatigued, went to a kind of coffee-house, asked for a 
 private room, and lay down on the floor to take 
 a little rest. 1 had scarce begun to doze, when 1 
 was suddenly roused by a loud knocking, and by a 
 sort of rumour immediately ensuing, of which I 
 seemed the object. 
 
 I listened, though without getting up, and for 
 some time could only confusedly make out inquiries 
 on one side, and answers on the other. At last 
 one sentence distinctly struck my ear, uttered by 
 some one of the party within — " He is up stairs 
 and alone i"" — it sufficed for my information. No- 
 thing could be more evident than that my exploit 
 had been discovered, and m j footsteps traced. The 
 only thing now left for me to do, was to sell my 
 devoted life as dear as possible. Already was the 
 posse hurrying up stairs, and approaching my door. 
 I drew my yatagan, and cried out with all my 
 might ; " Whoever enters, dies !"" — but such was 
 the noise outside, that my threat remained unheard : 
 
ANASTASIUS. ] 7g 
 
 at least it was not heeded. The door burst open : 
 in rushed my pursuer, and down fell my sword — . 
 upon my own Spiridion ! 
 
 The sight of my friend had not been able entirely 
 to stop my uplifted arm ; but it broke the force of 
 the blow. The weapon fell innocuous ; and Spiri- 
 dion, at first quite breathless, and unable to utter a 
 syllable, by degrees recovered his breath, sat down, 
 and spoke as follows. 
 
 " You are surprised, Anastasius, to see me again : 
 but listen. When last night, after your departure, 
 I lay down — amazed at what had happened — to 
 reflect upon your conduct and my duties, I per- 
 suaded myself that, among those contending in my 
 breast, the more recent obligations contracted to- 
 wards a friend ought to yield to the prior claims of 
 the parent ; and confirmed myself the more in this 
 idea, as all my wishes leaned the other way. The 
 struggle indeed between inclination and reason was 
 long and fierce : but at last I began to conceive 
 a hope that the impulse to follow you, at first 
 almost irresistible, had been entirely conquered. In 
 vain, however, I sought repose, — in vain tried to 
 close my eyes in sleep ! My mind found no rest, 
 and a feeling of inexpressible anguish invaded my 
 body. While I lay, oppressed by an insufferable 
 weight, but unable to stir and throw it off, my door 
 gently opened, and, without the least noise, a form 
 
174 ANASi'ASIUS. 
 
 glided in whicli approached my bedside. It was 
 that of my departed mother : — of her whom I loved, 
 and lost the first !" 
 
 " My son," it said, — looking sternly in my face, 
 and with an air of settled melancholy, which thrilled 
 me to the heart — " vows of gratitude are recorded 
 by angels, and only demons blot them out. He 
 who at this moment — ^breaking the solemn silence 
 of the night — with his horse's heavy hoof shakes 
 the ground over my head, saved thy life at the 
 risk of his own, in days that seem forgotten. For 
 the more daring act of saving it a second time, a 
 second time his own is threatened : — not by nature, 
 but by man. In return for his first deeds of love, 
 my son, thy very father already made thee promise 
 to regard him as a brother ; and thou wouldest, now 
 that their sum is doubled, leave that brother to 
 perish, as a lonely, friendless outcast V 
 
 "Here the dread shade ceased to speak. But 
 much as I tried to answer, I had not the power. 
 My jaw^ was of stone, and my tongue cleaved 
 to my palate. The vision disappeared. A loud 
 clap like thunder shook to dust my imaginary 
 fetters ; I started up, — and obeyed the voice from 
 heaven." 
 
 Spiridion said no more. I looked at him in 
 astonishment. " Is it you," I cried, "my friend ! — 
 till now so inaccessible to every form of superstition, 
 
ANASTASIUS. 175 
 
 — that canst mistake the dream of an agitated 
 mind, or the night-mare of a suffering frame, for a 
 voice from above ? Ah ! ere you give way to such 
 delusions, reflect but one moment on what may 
 be the consequence. Consider who you are, and 
 what destinies await you. Remember that on you 
 depends the happiness of an affectionate parent, 
 and the preservation of a noble family ; that for 
 you are reserved the respect of dependants, the 
 wealth of relations, and the honours of the world : 
 think that I, on the contrary, am a wretch, ruined 
 in fortune and in fame, long ago rejected by his 
 friends and family, now rennouced by his fellow-citi- 
 zens, and proscribed by the laws of his country : then 
 say yourself that between us no further society can 
 subsist, no common interests can be maintained ; that 
 far from offering to follow my fate, it is your business 
 to fly from my society as from a pestilence, and to 
 avoid the contagion of my breath, which must at 
 last involve all who remain within its reach. I 
 myself could not allow you to barter your advan- 
 tages against my wretchedness; could not permit 
 the sufferings of my friend to increase the sins 
 already on my head : I myself must implore you 
 to remember your now grieving father, and to for- 
 get for ever the lost, the miserable Anastasius." 
 
 " Cruel friend !" replied Spiridion, " talk not to 
 me of the world. Was I ever elate with its blan- 
 dishments, or solicitous for its distinctions? My 
 
176 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 father indeed but who more earnestly than 
 
 lie urged at all times my prior duty to my God? 
 Who ottener dwelt upon the paramount sacredness 
 of the enfrafjements contracted with heaven ? Let 
 then the vision I beheld have been real, or have 
 arisen only within my own heated brain ; still has it 
 spoken what I must accomplish; still dare I not 
 desert my brother. Since then heaven willy you to 
 go, I must not stay behind. Under Hassan's ban- 
 ners my friend purposes afresh in Egypt to pursue 
 the path of fame. Well ! — with him I may go ; 
 with him I too may run the race of glory ! We 
 shall fight side by side. Perhaps I may some day 
 save your life, as you once saved mine. Perhaps, 
 vouchsafed the bliss to shed my blood for my 
 friend, I may die on his bosom the death of the 
 brave ! Or, — if Providence should guard us both, 
 should permit both to live, — triumphant with thee, 
 I shall with thee return; and with thine lay my 
 laurels at my exulting father's feet ! Does not 
 Mavrocordato himself — prizing his son^s elevation 
 beyond that son's existence — destine me to those 
 high offices, whose approach is over daggers, and 
 whose end is the bow-string ? Thus already inured 
 to danger ere I enter my career, already armed 
 ■with martial renown ere I encounter my rivals, I 
 shall with greater confidence commence the struggle, 
 and with greater vigour contend for the prize, 
 — sought by a father''s ambition under a son's bor- 
 rowed name !"' 
 
ANASTASTUS. 1T7 
 
 " No, Spiridion,'' answered I, " it shall not be ! 
 In accompanying me, thou goest not to renown : 
 thou goest only to disgrace, perhaps to perdition. 
 Thou assumest the appearance of my accompUce. 
 Thou coverest with dishonour a thus far spotless 
 name. Thanks to my conduct, I am alone in the 
 world ; I belong to no one but myself; I am a 
 twig torn from its stem, that strikes no root, and 
 bears no blossom. My existence goes for nothing in 
 the sum of earthly things : my lonely fate involves 
 no other destiny ! The weed of my sterile existence 
 any one may pluck up, may tear, may cast upon a 
 dunghill — and no loss be felt, no regret expressed, 
 no cognisance taken of the deed; no tear, save by 
 thee, shed over my remains, nor any flower, save by 
 thee, planted on my lonely grave ! Of what im- 
 portance is it where I may v/ander, or what may 
 become of me.^^ But thou, to plunge headlong 
 from the summit of earthly blessings into the abyss 
 in which I already lie prostrate ; thou, to mix thy 
 fair name with the foulness of mine .... No, no, it 
 cannot, it shall not be !"" 
 
 Here the young Greek's tone and manner at 
 once entirely changed. " - Anastasius,'' cried he 
 with a rage so concentrated that it almost looked 
 like calmness ; " you may spurn me from your side, 
 you may proceed without me : but mark the con- 
 sequence. I return to Constantinople, I go before 
 the judge, and, in the face of tlie whole public, 
 
 VOL. ir. N 
 
178 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 I proclaim myself wlint I am, — the murderer of 
 Acbmet r 
 
 It now was evident that emotion and fatigue, act- 
 ing on a susceptible frame and a mind always ex- 
 alted, had produced in Spiridion that degree of 
 excitement which rendered further opposition dan- 
 gerous. I thought it best for the present to give 
 way; bowed, and submitted. 
 
 On my first arrival at Rodosto, I had desired my 
 liorse might be sold for me, and a boat hired to 
 continue my journey. In their excessive zeal for 
 my service, the good people of the house had parted 
 with my steed for half his value, and had taken a 
 barge at double the usual fare : but it was not a time 
 to mind minute miscalculations. The boatmen were 
 waiting ; I stepped in, and Spiridion followed. Be- 
 fore the sun had set, the wind, in conjunction with 
 the current, carried us out of the boghaz into the 
 open sea. 
 
 Just as we launched into the wide basin of the 
 Archipelago, the sun's brilliant disk was majestically 
 dropping behind the distant crags of Athos, whose 
 gigantic and insulated mass, alone dimly beheld 
 soaring above the silver wave, looked like the huge 
 spirit of the deep, emerged from its dark caverns to 
 survey its domain. With the last departing rays 
 of the orb of day also died away the breeze, leaving 
 the liquid plain as smooth as a mirror. 
 
 The monotonous stroke of the oar, falling upon 
 
ANASTASIUS. 17& 
 
 the waters in slow and steady cadence, now remained 
 the only sound which broke the universal silence, 
 and insensibly its solemn and regular return dis- 
 posed me to ruminate on my portion of life already 
 wound off. 
 
 " How whimsical a thing," thought I, " is man's 
 immutable destiny ! How variously seem contrasted 
 its most proximate vicissitudes, and yet, how inti- 
 mately are hnked its furthest incidents : by how many 
 anterior, minute, and hidden agencies is often irre- 
 sistibly produced the last and sole ostensible cause of 
 the weightiest events ! How entirely is the will that 
 seems spontaneously to urge us on, an unavoidable 
 offspring of circumstances wholly independent of 
 that will, since they are prior to the very existence 
 of the being whom it sways. A fair form arises in 
 Damascus; and this fonn, just caught by my eye 
 from a distance, as it flits away — this form, never 
 before or since beheld, makes me throw down a 
 Frank on_the steps of the mosque, crop a friar's 
 beard in a barber's shop, seek refuge from the go- 
 vernor of a province in the vortex of the capital, 
 incur in protecting an old friend the insolence of a 
 stranger, rid the world of a ruffian for threatening 
 my own life, and again abandon Stambool to fly 
 .... God only yet knows to what remote part of 
 this ill conditioned globe ! 
 
 " How fearfully above all blood begets blood ! 
 Had I not many vears before slain a Greek under 
 
1ftO ANASTASITJS. 
 
 tlie walls of the cnpitnl, I slunikl not have spilled 
 I\Iamhikc blood uikIct llie battlements of Cairo, 
 nor, by a recoil as distant as the first impulse, 
 again liavc shed Turkish blood in Constantinople*'s 
 suburbs. 
 
 " But stay ; — in this filiation of slaughter was I 
 entirely passive ? Had my own temper no share 
 in the sanguinary parentage? Did not the un- 
 towardness of my own disposition give fertility to 
 otherwise barren circumstances ? If at one time I 
 durst have owned a friend, at another could have 
 pardoned an enemy, at a third have lield in the 
 contempt which he deserved a silly coxcomb, had 
 not the treble generation of murders been stifled in 
 the birth, the causes that brought them forth re- 
 mained childless, and the black offspring wasted 
 away in the vast womb of time ? 
 
 " True indeed ! — But that if^ the indispensable 
 condition of the more favourable alternative ; what 
 prevented its growing into a reality ? What mixed 
 up with my temper those fiery, those comI>ustible 
 ingredients, always ready to explode, to silence my 
 reason, and to raise my hand ere my mind could 
 check the blow? — was it myself? Certainly not: 
 — for if, at my outset in life, the option had been 
 given me, how gladly would I have received, in- 
 stead of a bias to evil and its bitter fruits, an 
 inchnation to good, and its beneficial consequences ! 
 
 " But to whom," I exclaimed inwardly, " is such 
 
AXASTASIUS. 181 
 
 an option granted ? In whom does not the hiclination 
 preponderate either on tlie side of good or evil, 
 only according to the examples beheld, the lessons 
 taught, the circumstances experienced, the very con- 
 stitution inherited from parents, and the elements 
 imbibed from climate and from food, prior to the first 
 dawn of individual volition? However prone man may 
 be to think himself endowed v,ith free agency, as 
 soon as his actions correspond with his own wishes ; 
 however much he may forget that those very wishes 
 are not free ; however much he may regard his will 
 as spontaneous, from its being often so nicely poised 
 between agencies so numerous, so complex, so mi- 
 nute, so intimately connected with every prior cir- 
 cumstance, from the first origin of things, that it yields 
 irresistibly to many an impulse of which the pre- 
 cise period, and place, and boundary, and existence 
 even cannot be definitely recognised, it is not the 
 less true that — unpossessed of the smallest com- 
 ponent particle of body or of intellect, of will or of 
 knowledge, of sensation or of thought, which, if his 
 Maker be really the sole creator, upholder and mover 
 of the universe, is not an emanation from, a part of 
 that very Maker ; incapable of performing the most 
 trifling action or conceiving the most transient desire, 
 which, if there be a single first cause of all sensible 
 effects, does not proceed originally from the express 
 will of that first cause alone ; liable to no temptation 
 of which the first bceds have not been sown by that 
 
182 ANASIASIUS. 
 
 first cause itself"; and fraught by tliat llrst cause 
 alone witli the strength wliich resists, or the weakness 
 which yields to their blandishments — man is from 
 his first breatli unto his last, as entirely a passive 
 instrument in the hands of Providence as the insen- 
 tient plant, or the unorganised mineral ; conforms 
 as fully to its irresistible decrees in doing what 
 is blamed, as in performing what is praised ; be- 
 comes guilty of as flagrant an act of rebellion to 
 his ruler in attempting to decline the task of evil as 
 that of good set down for him ; — ^or rather, — where 
 he most fancies he rebels against, still most implicitly 
 obeys that ceaseless ruler ; and leaves heaven itself 
 as exclusively accountable for the mischiefs of the 
 moral world, as it is for those of tlie mere physical 
 creation, — for the destruction caused by conquerors 
 and statesmen, as for the havoc produced by earth- 
 quakes, floods, hurricanes, famine and pestilence. To 
 eat and be eaten by each other is the business assigned 
 us here below by our Maker himself: — and, much as 
 I m.ay regret the greatness of my appetite, how can 
 I more restrain it than the wolf or the vulture ?"*"* 
 
 At this somewhat disheartening period of my 
 reasoning, a new light flashed suddenly upon me. 
 It struck my sublime intellect that, if Omnipotence 
 had not merely permitted, but had itself positively 
 ordained, on this transient globe of wailing, good 
 still to be mixed with evil, production with de- 
 struction, knowledge with error, and happiness with 
 
ANASTASIUS. 183 
 
 suffering, lliis ordination was only a more palpable 
 effect of Almighty goodness than any other a]> 
 parently more desirable disposition could have been : 
 — that so far from this temporary conflict of interests 
 and passions being decreed for the cruel purpose of 
 punishing the man, who yields to temptations which 
 need not have assailed him, it was in reality only 
 with the benevolent design of teaching creatures ail 
 destined for ultimate felicity, through dint of a cer- 
 tain portion of previous suffering, that which a state 
 perfect from the beginning could not have taught, 
 — the eternal difference between evil and good, 
 ignorance and knowledge, misery and happiness; 
 in order that they might thus, through the unceasing 
 comparison between .the two^ more forcibly feel, 
 when attained, the ineffable bliss of that new exist- 
 ence where good is to be freed from evil, and joy 
 to reign unmixed with the alloy of pain. 
 
 But man will never be satisfied : — for even in this 
 arrangement (liberal as it seemed upon the whole) 
 I still perceived a clause at which to cavil. I still 
 thought that those ill-fated wretches, selected as it 
 were from their very birth, and wholly without 
 their consent, for the purpose of serving through 
 the mischiefs they were doomed to perform and the 
 miseries they were destined to suffer, as examples, 
 as w^arnings, as foils to the rest of mankind, might 
 have reason to complain of partiality in the decrees 
 of Providence, at kast during its present temporaiy 
 
184 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 dispensations; — unless indeed, as seemed fair, these 
 unfortunate evil-doers in this world were to be made 
 adequate amends in the next, by an additional share 
 of rewards and of glory : but, as I was not at all sure 
 of such a compensation being intended ; as, on the 
 contrary, I almost feared that there miglit still be in 
 store for these unfortunates, even hereafter, a sort of 
 fiery process, for the sole purpose of puritying and 
 bringing them to the precise standard of perfec- 
 tion, requisite to associate with the elect whose 
 metal had been pure from the first, I began to feel 
 wroth at being myself (as I suspected) among these 
 pitiable wretches, forced to perform all manner of 
 mischief for the general benefit ; repined at the 
 mortifying part allotted to me on this vilely got- 
 up stage, and wholly lost what Uttle patience I thus 
 far had evinced in following up my cue. — In short, 
 I determined no longer to forfeit the certain for 
 the uncertain, but immediately to throw off my 
 compulsory character, and — whatever punishment 
 I might incur for my disobedience, — forthwith to 
 become a very pattern of virtue, in spite of heaven 
 itself! 
 
 But alas ! I found there is no contending with the 
 powers above : I soon discovered that the scheme 
 which I was meditating is more easily planned than 
 executed. Spiridion, whom till that moment I had 
 looked upon as ray good demon — as the angel 
 appointed to guard me from evil, — was in reality 
 
ANASTASIUS. 185 
 
 the spirit destined to scare me from good. Per- 
 ceiving the strong labour in my mind, he set aside his 
 usual caution, and, in the mistaken idea of availing 
 himself of the propitious moment, commenced so 
 dark a picture of my vices, ere my virtuous resolves 
 were well matured, that my self-love — that infernal 
 and ever watchful sprite — suddenly felt alarmed, 
 flapped its raven wings, and took the field. At once 
 the current of the salutary reflections, spontaneously 
 sprung up in my breast, became totally stopped by 
 the fear lest my companion might think me subdued 
 by a sense of my forlorn situation. Angrily in- 
 terrupting his lecture — " I agreed," cried I, " to 
 the society of a friend, not to the admonitions of a 
 preceptor. It is unfair to get me into a small boat 
 out at sea, in order to pursue me with lectures from 
 which I cannot escape !" 
 
 This sally, though it madeSpiridion smile, still 
 left me ruffled ; and a little after, when my friend, 
 after spreading out our little provision, looked for a 
 knife to divide them, I offered him my handjar, still 
 crimsoned with Achmet's frothy blood. He said no- 
 thing, and only turned away his head : — but as he 
 leaned over the sides of the boat, I saw big tears drop 
 into the waves. Night, meanwhile, had stolen on, 
 and our Httle silent skiff*, filled with mourning, and 
 encompassed by darkness, looked like the barge which 
 carries to the regions of wailing the souls of the 
 damned. 
 
186 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 The hours of darkness passed without further dis- 
 course ; but early in the morning Spiridion, tliinking 
 me more cahu, ventured on what he called another 
 appeal to my reason. The very word deprived me 
 of what little I had left. " Appeal to my affections," 
 exclaimed I : " bid me do one thing or leave another 
 for the love I bear you, but talk not to me of reason. 
 I hold the cursed gift in abhorrence. It is the source 
 of all our errors, the mother of all our mischiefs. The 
 brute, who has only instinct to guide him, is sure to 
 act right : but human beings, with their miserable 
 treason, are always acting wrong, and acting wrong 
 through the persuasions of that reason itself. For, if 
 they are liable to evil passions of which brutes have 
 no conception ; if they experience avarice, and am- 
 bition, and pride — those feelings most fertile in crimes 
 and in havoc among the human species, — to what 
 do they owe this unfortunate distinction, but to the 
 -impulse of a reasoning faculty which happens to 
 mistake its way ? And if they have been able to ac- 
 complish mischief beyond what brutes could have 
 imagined ; if they have succeeded, for instance, 
 to double on this globe through such inventions as 
 printing, cookery, and gunpowder, the three evils of 
 infidelity, disease, and premature dissolution, what 
 again have they to thank for the advantage but 
 their inestimable reason ? It is no doubt in mercy to 
 the human species, that, of all its baneful faculties, 
 that of reaiion, on which it prides itself most, should 
 
ANx\STASIUS, 187 
 
 have been made to develope the last, and to slumber 
 the oftenest."" 
 
 " I suppose, then," said Spiridion, " it is only 
 for fear of appearing too reasonable, that you, who 
 do not think yourself accountable to heaven, and, 
 indeed, are not over nice how you act by your 
 neighbour, yet make your neighbour pay so dearly 
 for any injury he may attempt to do you ?**"* 
 
 " Listen," replied I, with becoming gravity. 
 " As to the duties between man and man ; if my 
 life or happiness depend upon the bread, or money, 
 or jewel which happen without my consent to be in 
 my neighbour's hands, assuredly I do not see why 
 I should so far prefer his interests to my own as 
 to leave them there, if I can do better for myself 
 Upon the same principle I defend against my neigh- 
 bours what I already have gotten ; and, as I ward 
 off impending injuries, so I retaliate injuries re- 
 ceived, in order to prevent a repetition ; but in all this 
 I feel no ill humour towards my neighbour, allow 
 him a complete reciprocity of rights against myself, 
 and, though I should even occasionally find it neces- 
 sary to kill, in order to settle whose right shall pre- 
 vail, I presume not to blame, and think myself not 
 entitled to punish." 
 
 "Indeed!" cried Spiridion archly; " and when 
 would you, pray, first think chastisement lawful ?'' 
 
 " As soon,'' answered I, " as, by an express, or 
 even tacit, but acknowledged agreement between cer- 
 
188 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 tain individuals, each had ceded to the rest his 
 natural indefinite right over their persons and pro- 
 perties, in return for other definite concessions at 
 once more restricted and more advantageous; and 
 had voluntarily submitted to certain penalties on in- 
 fringing this agreement." 
 
 " AVell said !'"* exclaimed my friend ; " you have 
 described the social compact, — the source of every 
 law, the cement of every state ; and, since you not 
 only have acknowledged its sacredness, but sub- 
 scribed to its terms, by claiming its support both as 
 subject and as ruler, what more have you to do, 
 but henceforth to abide, while this empire subsists, 
 by all its stipulations ?" 
 
 Here I rubbed my eyes. " Am I alive," cried 
 I, ** and awake ; and do I hear a Greek, and 
 under the yoke of the Turks, talk of a social 
 compact — of an agreement intended for mutual 
 benefit, support and protection, as of a thing actually 
 subsisting ; as of a thing that should regulate his 
 conduct to his masters ? Ah ! had I only discovered 
 the faintest trace of any such agreement between 
 Christianity and Islamism, and had I found, in those 
 for whose security it was framed, the least disposition 
 to enforce its terms, and to resist its infraction, who 
 would have been more proudthanmyself of remaining 
 a Greek, of standing by my oppressed countrymen, 
 and of maintaining the glorious struggle to the last 
 drop of my blood ! But it was because in these 
 
ANASTASIUS. 189 
 
 realms the contract, if ever it existed, had been per- 
 verted,— or railier, — liad been torn, rent asnnder, 
 cast away ! because my countrymen — as if fasci- 
 nated by the despot's crooked cipher — liad in their 
 own hearts preferred implicit submission to the 
 restoration of an obhterated text ; and, not content 
 with themselves going quietly to slaughter, when 
 I claimed their defence, only bade me do likewise, 
 that, no longer either benefited or bound by the 
 broken engagement, I left the community from 
 which I in vain expected support for that from 
 which I hoped for effectual protection, — until, 
 equally disgusted with the brutal stupidity of the 
 rulers, as with the servile apathy of the ruled, and 
 seeing in every system, whether of conquered or of 
 conquerors, equal disorganisation and ruin, I at last 
 resolved to resume my rights of nature, and the 
 primeval state of warfare against all worth attacking!'* 
 Here Spiridion looked, or pretended to look, as 
 if he thought he might be among those entitled to 
 that distinction, and would now gladly have rid 
 me of his company if he could. That being im- 
 possible, he vouchsafed to answer me. " Men," 
 he cried, " so violently enamoured of their natural 
 liberty, or rather license, should at once remove 
 themselves from the pale of civil society ; nor 
 disturb tliose who are satisfied with what thei^ 
 disapprove.'' 
 
190 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 '' Spirklion," I replied, " that is easily said ; but 
 is it as easily done ? Far as that society has spread 
 its insidious snares, has it so much as left a single 
 small spot on earth, where those yet unborn who 
 should dislike its partial regulations, may find room 
 to retire to the enjoyment of their birthright ? 
 Or, if there be any such asylum remaining in the 
 wilds of Tartary or the wastes of America, has not 
 society, at any rate, so monopolized all the means of 
 disentanglitig oneself from its mazes, as to render 
 the gaining these blissful abodes next to impossible ? 
 Must we not possess land caravans, or vessels, 
 licenses and passports, even to fly to the loneliness 
 of the desert, together with a strength of body and 
 of mind, of which the social institutions take care to 
 deprive us ere we suspect their dangerous power ? 
 They cut our claws, they clip our wings, and then 
 they cry out with a smile of derision : " poor 
 pinioned eagle, fly if thou list ! *' The man who is 
 not wealthy can only escape from society through 
 the gates of death. Nor does he every where, I am 
 told, dare to approach even these boldly and honestly. 
 He must, in some countries, smuggle himself out of 
 the world by stealth, and embark for his journey 
 under false colours, lest his body be made account- 
 able for the roving disposition of his soul !" 
 
 In this sort of conversation did we while away our 
 time in the boat. I knew tliat some of my argu- 
 
ANASTASIUS. 191 
 
 ments could not bear minute scrutiny ; but I felt 
 less solicitous to seek the shortest road to truth, as it 
 must abridge our discussions, and leave us to all the 
 irksomeness of a passage, which grew more tedious 
 in proportion as our sentiments became less dis- 
 cordant. 
 
192 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 After a coasting voyage of three or four days, 
 some ominous appearances in the sky made us veer 
 about, and enter that most beautiful of harbours. 
 Port C alone, on the island of Mitylene, where the 
 olive tree, growing almost out of the sea, again dips 
 its boughs in the tide which laves its roots. " Had it 
 not been written," exclaimed I, as we stepped ashore, 
 " that this brain of mine should be stewing under a 
 huge turban, instead of freely venting its superfluous 
 heat from under a slight skull-cap, what a fine 
 opportunity there would now be, midway as we are 
 between the three hundred rich friars of Nea-]V^oni,^ 
 and the three thousand poor friars of Agios-Oros, to 
 turn thrifty myself, and exchange the thoughtless 
 prodigality of the sinner who stakes eternal happi- 
 ness against a few years of jollity, for the calculating 
 conduct of the saint who inflicts upon himself just 
 enough of privation and torture in this life, to pur- 
 chase a perpetuity of bliss hereafter ; — or again, had 
 it been written that you should wear the turban as 
 well as myself, how profitably we might spend our 
 time in this boat slashing our arms and legs, in 
 order to mix our bloody and ever after to be bound 
 
ANASTASIUS. 193 
 
 to each other both in body and soul, and sure of 
 a companion in hell as in heaven. But I wrap 
 my brains in muslin, and you in sheep-skin ; and 
 so our souls must — whether they choose or not — 
 after their emancipation go miles asunder, and 
 while they remain in this earthly bondage we have 
 nothing to do — since we cannot pass our lives rowing 
 through the Archipelago — but to consider how we 
 may dispose of our persons to the best advantage, or 
 at least, where we may convey them with the smallest 
 inconvenience." 
 
 " All this," said Spiridion, " I suppose you are 
 already fully determined upon, in your own mind." 
 
 " I am," was my reply, — " but still I want your 
 advice. You must know that in my humble opi- 
 nion this eternal Capitan-Pasha, whom I am for 
 ever talking of and waiting for, may be longer 
 going to his new harvest- field than my poor old 
 father to his last home ; and therefore, as we are 
 approaching my native island, and the attraction 
 begins to operate, I should like, wind and weather 
 serving, with so many sins on my head and so many 
 enemies at my heels, to crave my sire's last forgive- 
 ness and blessing. It would lighten mj burthen, 
 and strengthen my soul, which sickens, and wants 
 such a cordial." 
 
 My motives for visiting the Jior di levante ^ si- 
 lenced all Spiridion's objections to going where he 
 himself still had so many connections. We agreed 
 
 VOL. II. o 
 
194 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 to cross the mountains which separated us from the 
 town of Mitylene, and there to hire a swifter vessel 
 for tlie remainder of our journey. Like Orestes I 
 was to wander about from place to place, trying 
 to expiate my guilt, while Spiridion — my Pylades, 
 had nothing to do but to watch me, in case I went 
 mad. 
 
 Arrived in the city, on the quay, the first figure 
 that struck me was a person — like myself going to 
 embark — of whose features my mind seemed to re- 
 tain a faint reminiscence. On closer examination I 
 found the gentleman to be an inhabitant of my 
 native town ; upon which I accosted him, and in- 
 quired the news of Chio. Eight or nine years had 
 altered my ieatures considerably more than his, of 
 which the already long fixed wrinkles had only 
 acquired a little more depth and sharpness. He 
 therefore answered me as a stranger. His account 
 was not the less minute ; but throughout the whole 
 narrative not a syllable was mentioned of the only 
 thing I cared about, namely, my own family, which 
 somehow I had expected would have figured fore- 
 most. At last, losing all patience : " And Dimitri 
 Sotiri," said I, " what may he be doing at this 
 time.?" 
 
 ^' You come from distant parts, sir,"" answered 
 the gentleman, smiling agreeably ; '' otherwise you 
 would know that signor Sotiri has been dead this 
 fortnight. I myself attended the funeral, and a 
 
ANASTASIUS. 195 
 
 noble one it was ; — more sweetmeats consumed than 
 at half a dozen weddings ! But you turn pale, sir ! 
 Is any thing the matter with you ?" 
 
 " Nothing, nothing," cried I, — trying to contain 
 myself, — " but a Httle giddiness to which I am sub- 
 ject ;" — and laying hold of a post for my support : 
 — " who," resumed I, " carried the body ?" 
 
 " His two sons, of course." 
 
 " There was a third." 
 
 " Ay, so there was ; — and, though absent in per- 
 son, present enough in name. Sotiri talked of no 
 one else during his illness !" 
 
 " What was it he said ?" 
 
 " Why, faith ! that is what nobody can tell. 
 Constantine and his brother maintained it was all 
 raving." 
 
 " Has that third brother been heard of?" 
 
 " Troth ! people talk differently. Some say he 
 is a great man, — a Bey of Egypt ; others, a posi- 
 tive beggar at Constantinople. An acquaintance of 
 mine, a man who seldom speaks any thing but the 
 truth, swears he met him the other day in one of 
 the streets of Galata, all in rags, and absolutely 
 begging charity. My friend was going to give it in 
 the shape of good advice, but the spark said that 
 was not what he wanted, and turned away. As to 
 his brothers, they report all that is bad of him. 
 Their father never could silence their tongues ; and 
 
 o2 
 
196 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 though it is likely enough that all they say is true, 
 yet every body cries ' shame'' to hear people talk in 
 that way of their own blood. It is what should be 
 left to strangers. With the mischief they have 
 made, it may be as much as his life is worth, for 
 signor Anastasius — or Selim, as they call him — to 
 show his face among us. The Turks' fingers itch 
 to throw the first stone at him, as much as those of 
 the Christians : although they say he is a Hadjee, 
 and has been to Mekkah. But none need fear his 
 trying to come to Chio. Til lay my life on it he is 
 dead long ago !'"* 
 
 " No,"" exclaimed I, — as if suddenly awaking 
 from a deep trance, and grasping the affrighted 
 talker by the wrist ; — " he is not ! and since you 
 are going to Chio, and may be glad to carry a piece 
 of news — tell them, Anastasius still lives ; tell 
 them they soon shall see him ; and tell them he 
 comes to resent his wrongs, and to claim his rightful 
 property f 
 
 Spiridion, alarmed at this sally, interrupted the 
 conversation. Taking the Chiote by the left hand, 
 while I still held him tight by the other, he pointed 
 to his boatmen, who were making signs of impatience 
 at his delay. Nothing he wished for so much him- 
 self as to be gone. Disentangling his hands hastily 
 from our grasp, he gave us an awkward half strangled 
 salutation, and sped to his barge. 
 
ANASTASIUS. 197 
 
 As soon as he was out of hearing : " Is this,'* 
 said Spiridion, shaking his head, " the way in which 
 a son should mourn for his father ?"" 
 
 I could only stammer out : " my brothers, my 
 brothers !" — Spiridion let the first emotion pass ; 
 and when he saw me more composed, spoke as 
 follows : 
 
 " I see, Anastasius, you still meditate some out- 
 rage ; of what nature I know not, nor wish to hear. 
 But of this I think it right to apprise you : — if, im- 
 pressed with a sense of all the forbearance you stand 
 in need of yourself, you show equal lenity to your 
 kindred ; if, forgetting every injury, you only appear 
 among them to speak words of peace ; if, above 
 all, you renounce every advantage bestowed by the 
 partial laws of Islamism, you have my friendship for 
 ever : I bind my fate to yours, until the hour of 
 death. But if, on the contrary, you only return to 
 your country to insult the ashes of your father, to 
 devour the little substance of your brothers, and to 
 justify the disgrace stamped in your birthplace on 
 your name, I stay here, I leave you to run your 
 race of shame alone, and I abandon for ever all 
 solicitude about your welfare !" 
 
 " Spiridion," answered I, " you know that covet- 
 ousness is not the vice of my heart ; but do you 
 blame just resentment; do you wish calumny to re- 
 main unpunished ?" 
 
 " And are you then so irreproachable,'" asked the 
 
198 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 son of Mavrocordato, " as to leave so much room 
 for injustice in the reports concerning you, and to 
 render every unfavourahle representation of your 
 proceedings an unbearable calumny ? — But be that - 
 as it may ; promise to do what I ask, or be content 
 to see me withdraw on the spot from the pain of 
 witnessing your future errors, and the disgrace of 
 sharing in your yet unborn crimes."" 
 
 " I will not,^ replied I, " bind myself by a 
 promise. I should appear to have taken the engage- 
 ment, unmindful of its weight, — and only to fulfil 
 reluctantly an irksome task, because I had un- 
 guardedly pledged my word to perform it. I wish 
 at least to acquire all the merit of acting right, by 
 retaining the power of acting wrong. Only go with 
 me as far as Chio. AVhen there, should my beha- 
 viour offend those whose notions of justice differ 
 from my own, it may not still be too late to leave 
 rae." 
 
 " Then once more go we on !" cried my friend, 
 in a tone half confident, half fearful ; " once more 
 be the day yours ; — but beware !" 
 
 I now strewed ashes on my turban, took the gloss 
 of newness off* my glittering vest, and put on the 
 signs of mourning. After this we engaged another 
 boat, and in a short time reached our destination. 
 
 There was no necessity in Chio to announce my 
 arrival. On my very first landing I found every 
 minor topic eclipsed by the more important subject 
 
ANASTASIUS. 199 
 
 of my speedy coming. Already had my brothers 
 found means to stir up the whole town against the 
 renegade : already was every inhabitant up in 
 arms, to prevent him from reducing his nearest 
 kindred to beggary. So loud was the cry of de- 
 fiance, that, on stepping ashore, I found it expedient 
 to go straight to the Mekkieme. Safe in the hall 
 of justice, I had my brothers summoned. 
 
 Spiridion did not know what to think of my pro- 
 ceeding. Questioned by his anxious looks, I made 
 signs for him to remain silent : but though he un- 
 closed not his lips, it was easy to see his heart trem- 
 bled between hope and fear. 
 
 For my part, without giving the least hint of 
 my intentions, without noticing the crowd collected 
 to survey my person and to watch my behaviour, 
 without satisfying the curiosity or correcting the 
 errors of the bystanders — who aloud, at my very 
 elbow, imparted to each other their surmises, — I 
 stood haughty, unmoved and silent, waiting the ap- 
 pearance of my Avorthy pair of brothers. 
 
 At last they made their entrance ; and never cer- 
 tainly did men take less trouble to conceal the ill- 
 humour they felt at seeing an unexpected relation. 
 Without deigning to address me even in the words 
 of anger, they went and took their station on one 
 side of the hall, while I stood on the opposite side. 
 There — pale, sullen, dejected, and now and then 
 casting upon me a lowering look of mingled rage 
 
200 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 and despair, — tlicy awaited, without uttering a 
 'vvoi;d, the legal injunction to surrender the paternal 
 estate. 
 
 I own that for some time I enjoyed their dismay. 
 It was the only pleasure which they could afford 
 me. Having indulged in it till its zest evaporated, 
 I at last broke the long protracted general silence. 
 " My brother s,'"* said I, " you are aware of my 
 claims upon you ; and you likewise are conscious of 
 your conduct to me. In your own minds, therefore, 
 you dare not cherish the smallest particle of hope, 
 that I should surrender in your favour any portion 
 of my right. Yet what you dare not expect, I of 
 my own accord perform. I here publicly relinquish 
 my privilege. Take each your third of the paternal 
 property ; and only leave me that portion which 
 would have belonged to me as a Christian, and which 
 I can but ill spare. That done, mourn for your 
 sins, and repent of your injustice."" 
 
 To describe the effect which these words produced 
 on the audience would be impossible. Those who be- 
 fore considered me as a devil incarnate, now of course 
 regarded me as an angel from heaven. The hall 
 resounded with loud applause. Nothing was heard 
 but praises of my generosiiy ; and my brothers them- 
 selves, stunned by so unexpected a turn in their 
 situation, were reluctantly forced to join in the 
 general cry. They thanked me, but in such a 
 way as made it doubtful whether they more re- 
 
ANASTASIUS. 201 
 
 joiced at recovering their property, or more regretted 
 retracting their abuse. 
 
 I took no notice of their coohiess, but, leaving 
 the Mekkieme, went straight to the paternal house. 
 My progress looked like a triumphal march : all that 
 had witnessed my behaviour in the hall of justice, 
 and all whom we met on the way, joined the pro- 
 cession. Having reached the steps of the mansion, 
 I turned round and saluted the company. In its 
 turn the assembly honoured me with fresh cheers, 
 intermixed with a few observations on my brothers, 
 which at least showed that they were not overlooked. 
 I expressed my unmixed gratitude, both in my own 
 name and in theirs; and retired to a private 
 chamber, where I was glad to sit down and rest 
 my wearied mind. 
 
 While every one else had been loud in praise of 
 my conduct, the son of Mavrocordato alone had not 
 uttered a syllable. As soon as we were by ourselves, 
 he threw his arms round my neck, and attempted 
 to speak : but in vain ! His emotion was too great 
 for utterance. He could only gaze on me with over- 
 flowing eyes. To see his Anastasius, who thus far 
 had caused him nothing but anguish, had afforded 
 him no employment but to conceal his errors, all at 
 once become the theme of universal admiration ; to 
 And his friendship thus justified, his perseverance 
 thus rewarded, — what a moment for his feelings .' 
 Even while speechless for want of breatli, his exult- 
 
202 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 ing look seemed to say, " Well, my friend, are you 
 sorry or ashamed now that you followed my advice ?" 
 
 If, however, Spiridion's first thoughts were for 
 his friend, his second were for his father. Till that 
 moment, a more urgent subject of anxiety had occu- 
 pied his mind. This being set at rest, he took up 
 the other. " Ah, my tender parent," exclaimed he, 
 " why cannot you witness my success, or rather 
 your own ! For I act in your name ; I but accom- 
 plish your vows. Alas ! while I triumph, you still 
 remain in anguish. Yet shall you not suffer longer 
 than a grateful son can help." 
 
 Hereupon, he proposed to go out, and inquire for 
 the means of sending a letter. Already he had de- 
 spatched a/ew lines from Rodosto, to make his father 
 easy respecting his disappearance. On my agreeing 
 to the thing, we went forth. As we crossed the 
 esplanade of the castle, I perceived a dark cloud 
 gather on my friend's brow. His eyes seemed to 
 dart out of his head, and to remain rivetted on the 
 quay. I turned mine the same way, but saw nothing 
 to account for Spiridion's perturbation. At last, 
 changing colour, and pressing my arm : ** we are 
 traced," he cried ; " see Marco coming towards us !" 
 This person was his father'^s steward — an old and 
 confidential servant. " Let us go," rejoined he, 
 *' and meet him. I have done nothing for which I 
 ought to blush." 
 
ANASTASIUS. 203 
 
 Marco saw his young master advancing. He 
 pressed on his feeble steps, and with a respectful 
 salutation, presented a letter which he took out of 
 his bosom. 
 
 Spiridion, with a trembling hand, broke the seal, 
 and read : then paused, ruminated, and read all 
 over again. At last, trying to speak with more 
 composure than he felt; " your instructions, Marco," 
 said he, " were to trace me, to follow me, and to 
 hand me this letter. Your commission is performed. 
 I have in great measure answered my father, by an- 
 ticipation, from Rodosto : what remains, I shall go 
 and complete. I now am able to convey the wel- 
 come information that the adopted brother whom 
 he committed to my care is become worthy of his 
 kindness, and, like me, only wants his prayers and 
 his blessings." 
 
 " Sir," answered Marco, in a firm but respectful 
 tone, "my instructions went further than you 
 state. I am bearer of letters to the despots,^ and 
 proestis of our different islands. They import 
 that I am to see you safe home. But even had I 
 not received express orders to that purpose, could 
 1 find the courage to reappear before your worthy pa- 
 rent, unaccompanied by the son for whom he grieves ? 
 Ah, sir, — ah, my dear young master! — already, 
 from the anguish he has suffered, his precious life 
 hangs by a mere thread. Seeing me return alone 
 would certainly break his heart !" 
 
204 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 " Hark ye, Marco," replied Spiridion, pacing 
 backward and forward in an agitation which almost 
 bordered upon phrcnsy : " my father gave me a 
 charge which he cannot recall at will. It was wit- 
 nessed by heaven, and was recorded by angels ! In 
 conformity with his solemn commands, and in com- 
 pliance with my sacred promise, I have toiled at my 
 task. God knows I have not spared myself. But 
 on the eve of completion, I cannot, must not, give 
 up my work unfinished. On my head would lie, to 
 the end of time, the sins of a brother unreclaimed. 
 If therefore you urge me no further, but quietly 
 return to Kandilly, I pledge my honour, nay, if you 
 wish it, I take a solemn oath, that all on my part 
 shall end to my Other's ultimate satisfaction. If 
 you refuse me, the soul I stand pledged for shall 
 not be lost alone; two shall plunge* together into 
 ruin everlasting. I run to the first mosque, and, 
 whatever be the consequence — may it fall upon 
 your head !" 
 
 " Sir,'"* replied Marco, " I grieve at this issue of 
 my commission ; but the will of God be done ! 
 Many years have I lived under your kind roof, 
 many an hour have I had you in my arms, as an 
 infant, as a child, as a boy. From the day on 
 which you first lisped the feelings of your affectionate 
 heart, to that on which you left your home, never 
 have I known your promise fail. The word of 
 Spiridion always was that of truth ! I therefore 
 
ANASTASIUS. 205 
 
 submit. I return alone : yet may I hope you will 
 deign to let me carry to your father a few lines of 
 comfort from your own beloved hands." 
 
 Spiridion, in running home to comply with the 
 request, only performed what he had already pro- 
 mised. I, meanwhile, remained alone with Marco, 
 and availed myself of the opportunity to question 
 him respecting the reports of Kandilly. They were 
 more satisfactory than I could have hoped. 
 
 When, on the morning after my departure, the 
 son of the Capidjee was found, already taking his 
 last sleep in the proper place — the public cemetery, 
 no one suspected me of being the public benefactor 
 who had introduced him to the silent, sedate sort 
 of company, in which he for the first time spent the 
 night : inasmuch as he was notorious for his out- 
 rageous conduct, and, at the time I met him, had 
 several other quarrels on his hands, much more 
 pubhc than the one for which he deservedly suf- 
 fered ; — but every body agreed that whoever had 
 taken the trouble of ridding the neighbourhood of 
 the nuisance, rather deserved thanks than blame. 
 As to my disappearance, a sufficient cause for it 
 was charitably found in the very natural wish of a 
 needy adventurer to fleece a wealthy heir. 
 
 These particulars left me an opening to return 
 to Constantinople, whenever I liked. I ran to 
 relate^ them to Spiridion, ere he concluded his 
 letter ; and they relieved his mind completely. He 
 
^06 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 pledged himself soon to bring back to his father 
 two sons instead of one ; and, on this assurance, 
 old Marco took his leave. I proceeded to settle 
 with my brothers respecting the succession. 
 
 Had I quietly stepped into an undisputed pro- 
 perty, and found nothing to do but to mourn to 
 my heart's content for the loss of a parent, I would 
 have fulfilled with the utmost punctuality all the 
 observances of grief. Sadness really possessed my 
 soul, and I had constantly before my eyes my poor 
 father, in his iUness wishing to see his Anastasius, 
 to forgive him, and to die in his arms — and per- 
 haps, in his last moments, and when I would have 
 gone to the world's end for his blessing, pierced to 
 the heart by exaggerated accounts of my unfeeling 
 and incorrigible profligacy. But, if mere business ac- 
 cords but ill with sorrow, nothing is so sure to drive 
 melancholy away altogether as strife and bickerings ; 
 and my brothers were much too considerate not to 
 afford me every distraction of this sort which they 
 could think of. Theirs was a malice which no 
 kindness of mine could assuage, nor no forgiveness 
 blunt ; and the moment my formal renunciation of 
 their portions made them conceive all cause either for 
 hope or fear on my score at an end, their ill-concealed 
 hatred broke out again in all its pristine virulence. 
 They not only cavilled about every most trifling 
 article of the property, they even tried to deprive 
 of every degree of merit the act by which it was 
 
ANASTASIUS. 207 
 
 restored to them: — they roundly asserted that I 
 had only been influenced by pusillanimity, and had 
 only sacrificed a part to make sure of the remainder. 
 Constantine was the Coryphaeus in every invective, 
 as well as the leader in every altercation. Eusta- 
 thius, more indolent, contented himself with giving 
 his unlimited approbation to whatever his brother 
 (and that meant Constantine alone) thought proper 
 to do. 
 
 Thus were all the ancient wounds, inflicted upon 
 me in my former visit to Chio, afresh torn open, 
 and made to fester. Spiridion tried in vain to 
 interpose. He only got for his trouble taunts from 
 his antagonists, and reproaches from me. " Why 
 had he meddled at all ; — why had he made it a 
 point with me to behave kindly to unnatural bro- 
 thers, whose injustice, but for his interference, 
 would have met with its deserts ?" 
 
 And yet, notwithstanding my murmurings, did I 
 to a certain degree restrain myself; not from any 
 real moderation, but from the wish that my assumed 
 forbearance might encourage my adversaries to so 
 extreme a pitch of ill conduct, as to render its pro- 
 vocations evident to all the world, and to justify- 
 any step prompted by my legitimate resentment. 
 Nor did this period seem far distant. Whether 
 from an idea that they had daunted me by their 
 haughty tone, or from an absolute intoxication of 
 brutaUty, they by degi'ees cast away all pretensions 
 
208 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 to decency. Tlic more I forced myself to appear 
 calm and composed, the more they increased in the 
 grossness of their insults. 
 
 All wondered at my patience ; all beheld me with 
 admiration. When my brothers allowed themselves 
 every license of language — almost every latitude of 
 gesture — all stared to see me content myself with 
 turning up my eyes to heaven like a saint cast 
 among savages. Even those least acquainted with 
 my irascible temper, cited me on this occasion 
 as a perfect model of meekness and forbearance. 
 He alone who with unwearied vigilance watched 
 each change of my countenance, and could pene- 
 trate each emotion of my heart, was not to be 
 deceived. One day, when Constantine even ex- 
 ceeded his usual insolence, and I, my customary 
 forbearance, I caught him expressing, by an almost 
 imperceptible shake of the head, his distrust of my 
 tranquillity. His suspicions were spoken too in- 
 telligibly for me to pass over. " What do you 
 fear .?" cried I, as soon as my brothers were out of 
 hearing. " Do you not see me laugh at their 
 meanness .?" " Ah !" replied Spiridion, fetching a 
 deep sigh : '^ you may laugh with your lips ; but 
 laughter reaches not your eyes, and fell resentment 
 rankles in your heart.'"' 
 
 My friend was right. Suppressed anger had 
 already curdled my blood, and clogged the whole 
 circulation of my humours. Ere yet he had done 
 
ANASTASIUS. 209 
 
 speaking, a sudden shivering rushed through my 
 frame, my teeth began to chatter, and my hmbs to 
 shake. In an instant all my strength seemed to 
 forsake me. 
 
 Since my sojourn at Chio, I had resumed my 
 old travelling custom of carrying my pistols, duly 
 loaded, in my belt. Many in Turkey always wear 
 them thus, when out of the capital. As they now 
 impeded my breathing, I took them out/ and laid 
 them on the sofa. Scarce was I disencumbered of 
 my weapons, when my knees began to tremble ; a 
 dark curtain seemed to drop over my eyes, — and I 
 fell senseless on the couch. 
 
 I continued some time bereft of all perception. 
 On its return I found myself stretched out at full 
 length where I had fallen, with all the accompani- 
 ments of one duly convicted of a decided and last- 
 ing illness. A regular physician of the place was 
 feeling my pulse, and going to pronounce on my 
 case; and as my first return to my senses was 
 marked by a fierce struggle with my Esculapius, 
 I was at once judged to be in a violent delirium, 
 and in imminent danger. Sentence was pronounced 
 accordingly, and every internal medicine and every 
 external application prescribed, which could torture 
 the human body and stomach. All the bystanders 
 conceived me to be in the agonies of death, and 
 civilly expressed their regret, at the short stay I 
 made among them. 
 
 VOL. II. P 
 
910 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 To myself these politenesses seemed premature. 
 The sudden transitions from heat to cold, the sup- 
 pressed perspiration, the fatigue of body and the 
 anxiety of mind during the journey, were quite 
 sufficient, in my own opinion, to bring on a strong 
 paroxysm of fever, without death being the neces- 
 sary consequence. I however deemed it expedient 
 to assent to all the doctor said, in order that he 
 might say no more. It afforded Spiridion an ex- 
 cuse for turning out the company, and procuring 
 me a little quiet. He alone stayed to nurse me. 
 
 " What a pity," muttered I to myself, when I 
 thought no one heard me, " that that last dose 
 of the English powders of mine should have been 
 wasted in Egypt on that traitor my father-in-law V 
 Spiridion lost not a syllable of the soliloquy. " There 
 are foreign vessels in the harbour," he cried: — 
 "possibly they may have some;" and he imme- 
 diately ran out to inquire. 
 
 Meanwhile my brothers had received from the 
 visitors departed the agreeable intelligence of my 
 - being at the last gasp. They hastened up to me 
 eager with curiosity and hope; and finding my 
 door ajar and unguarded, shpped in with the least 
 possible noise. I however had discerned their steps 
 on the stairs, and immediately — before they entered 
 the room — assumed the appearance of one in the 
 act of resigning his last breath. Constantine was 
 the first to approach. On tiptoe he came to my 
 
ANASTASIUS. 211 
 
 bedside, in order to ascertain whether his joy was 
 well founded, ere he gave it full scope. With that 
 laudable view he examined me most minutely from 
 head to foot, raised and let fall my arms and legs, 
 moved his hand before my eyes, put his ear to my 
 mouth, first addressed me in a low whisper, then 
 audibly, then shouting with all his might, as if he 
 suspected I might not be in earnest. 
 
 Most manfully did I stand the whole ordeal. 
 Nothing could make me wince or move a muscle ; 
 and my affectionate brother at last acquired the 
 grateful conviction, that, if not quite dead yet, I 
 had at least already lost all perception, and could 
 not fail soon to depart for ever. He no longer 
 delayed conveying the agreeable intelligence to the 
 discreet Eustathius, who, the hindmost on all other 
 occasions, on this also had not ventured beyond 
 the door, and there stood, in breathless expectation, 
 waiting the result of the scrutiny; and perhaps 
 also watching the condition of the outposts. 
 
 " Stathi,"" said Constantine, with a sort of sub- 
 dued exultation ; " there is some warmth still about 
 him, — but depend upon it he cannot last 1" 
 
 " Ah !" exclaimed the wary Stathi, shaking his 
 head, " worse than he, I fear, liave recovered !'"* and 
 he fetched a deep sigh at the thought ! 
 
 " True," answered Constantine ; " and as we are 
 alone, and have every presumption in our favour, 
 why not make sure work, and crush the snake at 
 
 p 2 
 
212 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 once !" And so saying, he laid his hands on my 
 throat, and attempted to strangle me. 
 
 This was doing things in a grand style ! Not 
 stopping at half measures. I conceived for my 
 brother a veneration unfelt before ; almost thought 
 it a pity to interrupt him in his spirited proceeding, 
 and would have let the farce go on, could I, at its 
 conclusion, -have revived at my own pleasure. That 
 not being the case, I was reluctantly forced to notice 
 the intended favour, and, weak as I felt, to defend 
 myself as well as I could against my two stout assail- 
 ants; for Stathi too had now advanced to lend a 
 hand : and it was evident that having once begun, 
 they would not, if they any way could help it, leave 
 their work unfinished. 
 
 My fire-arms lay concealed, but within reach. 
 With one hand I seized Constantine's wrist, and 
 with the other a pistol : " Ah brother ! ah fiend !" 
 I cried, — and fired. 
 
 Never yet had I missed my aim, even when I 
 held not my prey in my grasp. But at my first 
 sign of life Constantine had started, and, content to 
 leave his jubbee in my possession, had disengaged 
 his person. My hand, besides, trembled with the 
 effects of the fever, — perhaps even with some in- 
 stinctive sense of the dire office it was performing, 
 and — the miscreant only received the ball in his 
 shoulder. 
 
 Uttering a dreadful yell, he made a spring at the 
 
ANASTASIUS. 21S 
 
 door, and darted out. Ere I could find my other 
 pistol, Eustathius too had made good his retreat. 
 Both were out of sight in an instant, but not out of 
 hearing. My ears bore witness to Stathi's tum- 
 bling down stairs with such violence and outcry, as 
 to make me entertain hopes that neither of them 
 had entirely escaped the merited retribution. 
 
 As soon as, after a few dying murmurs, all was 
 again hushed in silence, — " now," thought I, " for 
 the tete-a-tete with Spiridion ! According to custom, 
 he will lay the whole blame on me. He will deem my 
 good brothers' intentions all very wise and proper ; 
 will see much sound reason in them, and will not be 
 content, I suppose, until I go to them with a halter 
 round my neck, beg pardon for my impatience in 
 stopping their proceedings, and humbly supplicate 
 them to put their design into execution 1" 
 
 Meanwhile, the report of the pistols had a second 
 time collected the whole neighbourhood round my 
 door. But, if pronounced delirious before, I now 
 was supposed to be under the influence of a phrensy 
 so outrageous, that no one durst step across my 
 threshold. The curious contented themselves with 
 forming a blockade outside the room, each holding 
 himself in readiness to fall back, and to shove his 
 neighbour in his place, should I make an unex- 
 pected sally. 
 
 This state of things continued till Spiridion's 
 return. His expedition had been unsuccessful 
 
214 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 When he appeared, so many officious friends sprung 
 forward to explain what had happened in his absence, 
 that it would have been utterly impossible for him to 
 understand a single word of the matter, supposing 
 even that the relaters themselves had known the truth. 
 But my brothers, to whom they were indebted for 
 all their information, had, in their hurry, dropped 
 the trifling circumstance of their attempt upon my 
 life, in which the affair began. Despairing, therefore, 
 to make any thing of the confused and contradictory 
 accounts with which he was stunned, Spiridion at 
 last pushed aside the crowd, and, to the utter 
 astonishment of all — entered my room undaunted 
 and alone I 
 
 He found me seated on the sofa, with my face in 
 my hands, and my elbows on my knees, over- 
 whelmed more with disappointment than with shame, 
 and incapable either of raising my eyes or of 
 unclosing my lips. Thus I remained, wholly un- 
 mindful of his entrance, until, after some time con» 
 templating me in silent earnestness, he at last took 
 a seat beside me, and spoke » 
 
 '* Selim,'' said he, " am I to believe these people ? 
 Are you really out of your mind ; or are you rather, 
 as I apprehend, perfectly in your senses .?" 
 
 " In my perfect senses,'' answered I, with all the 
 composure of which I was master. — *' My hand 
 was raised to punish demons. This time they have 
 escaped ! — But what is not yet, may be !" 
 
ANASTASIUS. 215 
 
 " Never, never," cried he, " while I have life. — 
 Rather than that you should hurt your brothers, 
 my breast shall interpose.**' 
 
 '' Then through your breast," I exclaimed, 
 " must I strike them." 
 
 Spiridion here rose. " Anastasius," said he, 
 calmly, " I feel but little wish to live : not how- 
 ever at thy hands must I receive my death-blow ! 
 My bosom may be pierced by thy speech, but let it 
 remain sacred from thy sword. The world must 
 not have it to say that thou couldst plunge thy 
 dagger into the heart of thy friend. The crime 
 would be as idle as it would appear heinous. If 
 my presence be a burthen to thee, say but the word, 
 and I go." 
 
 ** I never desired you to stay," cried I, in a sullen 
 tone. 
 
 " Very well," rejoined Spiridion. " You speak 
 plain. -Yet, ere I act accordingly, once more, and 
 for the last time, I appeal from Anastasius blinded 
 by passion to Anastasius restored to reason. In an 
 hour hence I return and repeat the same question. 
 If the answer be the same, — then farewell, and for 
 ever !" 
 
 At these words Spiridion went out, and tranquil- 
 lised the gentlemen drawn up in the passage, with 
 respect to my situation. On my friend's assurances 
 they all rushed in, and teased me with so many 
 questions, and with so much advice, that they almost 
 
216 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 made me lose the little wits I had left. Their an- 
 noyance still lasted, when, at the ex])iration of the 
 hour, Spiridion returned. Without seeking it, he 
 had gained so universal a sway by his dignified de- 
 meanour, that at his desire all retired. The room 
 being cleared of strangers, he took me by the hand, 
 and finding that the symptoms of bodily disorder 
 had subsided, he looked sternly in my face, and 
 spoke thus. 
 
 " This, Anastasius, is at last the moment which 
 must decide my resolution. The solemn vow is 
 irrevocably spoken ; and, according to what you 
 now answer, I may stay, or I must leave you for 
 ever. Do you swear by all that is holy to renounce 
 your impious revenge, or do you prefer to be re- 
 leased from my society ? — If the last, utter not, I 
 beseech you, the ungracious word. Only withdraw 
 your hand.*" 
 
 Undoubtedly this would have been the moment 
 thoroughly to explain the nature of the last con- 
 flict with my brothers, of which my friend knew 
 but half, and of which that half more than doubled 
 my guilt. Not aware that my own Hfe had been 
 attempted first, and ignorant that I acted in my 
 own defence, Spiridion considered my illness as a 
 pretence, or, at any rate, my firing as a premeditated 
 scheme. It would have been easy to remove his 
 error. — Had not my bare word sufficed, Constan- 
 tine's torn garment would have borne witness to the 
 
ANASTASIUS. S17 
 
 struggle. But after my solemn promise at Mity- 
 lene, I considered the bare suspicion as so injurious 
 to my honour, that my offended pride forbade my 
 undeceiving my friend, or clearing my character. 
 I pulled away my hand, and Spiridion walked out. 
 — Yet God knows that I did not wish to lose 
 him ! 
 
 As soon as he had left me, I paced up and down 
 the room with a hurried step. After a few turns I 
 went out to fetch breath on the quay. An hour's 
 air and exercise changed the current of my ideas. 
 I felt regret for my obstinacy, and fear of its con- 
 sequences. With the utmost speed I ran home, and 
 up to Spiridion's chamber. 
 
 He was closing his portmanteau. The things 
 about the floor had disappeared. All looked empty, 
 orderly, and desolate. 
 
 " What means this .^" cried I, affecting more sur- 
 prise than I felt. 
 
 " Only," replied Spiridion, " that what I said, 
 I do." 
 
 " Ah my friend, my real brother," exclaimed I, 
 " do you then, in sad earnest, purpose to leave me ? 
 Cursed be my tongue, which uttered what my heart 
 had no share in ; and cursed be my hand, which 
 confirmed the untruths of my tongue !" 
 
 " Anastasius," now said Spiridion, seating him- 
 self upon his little bundle, " fancy not your last 
 words and actions to have been the sole and pri- 
 
218 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 mary cause of a long formed, and long resisted, re- 
 solution. Its origin dates far higher. The unkind 
 speeches and gestures of this day only gave the 
 final impulse. 
 
 " From children we were brothers in love. When 
 you rescued me from death, the day that all our 
 companions stood palsied by fear, gratitude only 
 rivetted affection's prior links ; — and duty, I hoped, 
 had rendered them indissoluble, when my father 
 himself named you his second son. Many years 
 his commands of fraternal kindness to his Spiridion's 
 preserver remained without fruit, — you yourself 
 best know how. Yet was the deep-rooted attach- 
 ment of childhood never replaced by more recent 
 friendships ; and when I again beheld you at Con- 
 stantinople, my feelings for my Anastasius still pre- 
 served all their freshness unfaded. Evil inclinations 
 of no ordinary magnitude, indeed, I saw mixed 
 with your better qualities ; but I thought that, if 
 freed from their alloy, your virtue too would eclipse 
 ordinary virtue ; and I imagined that an unbounded 
 devotion might enable me to become the instrument 
 of so noble a reformation. I undertook the task. I 
 resolved to save from perdition your soul, as you 
 had saved my body ; and I prayed the Almighty 
 to bless the undertaking. Some return on myself 
 also, some selfish feelings, perhaps, were mixed with 
 my wishes for your welfare. I could not help 
 fancying that, regenerated through me, you would 
 
ANASTASIUS. 219 
 
 become my support and my consolation in the irk- 
 some race I am destined to run ; that in your turn, 
 you might assist me in the struggles and dan- 
 gers that strew the rugged path, through which I 
 am destined to journey to my fate. In short, I 
 hoped that, each blessed in the other, we should 
 toil through life together; and that, when shone 
 forth our last day, whichever of us was summoned 
 the first, should only die in the other's loved arms. 
 Great as were the pains you took to expose my 
 presumption and to dispel my foolish dream, long 
 did my soul firmly cling to its fond chimera ; long 
 did my heart hug its foolish vision, as a thing too 
 substantial and too precious to part with ! 
 
 " But there are lights that even strike the blind. 
 Reluctantly, though irresistibly, I have at last been 
 forced to see that no arguments, no persuasion, no 
 labour of mine have power to control the passions 
 which enslave you ; and that, however I may strive, 
 I still must leave you ungovernable, and you still 
 must leave me wretched as before. Much as I 
 tried to avert my eyes from the fatal truth, I have 
 at last yielded to the painful conviction that, sooner 
 or later, we still must be separated for ever ; and 
 that, by trying to put off the evil day, by struggling 
 for a short and transient respite, I can only at last 
 drink the parting cup with greater bitterness. I 
 therefore submit to the decrees of Heaven : I bow 
 to the will of Providence in flying from thee, as I 
 
220 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 erst hoped to fulfil its behests by following thy foot- 
 steps. In sadness I go ; but I go, and for ever ! 
 Far from thee I henceforth shall live ; and far from 
 thee it will be my fate to die ! Yet, Selim, thou 
 art young still. What the anxious warnings of 
 friendship could not perform, the leaden hand of 
 time may achieve. It may allay the ferment of thy 
 passions, clear away the impurities of thy heart, and, 
 — though I shall not witness the blissful change — 
 still make thee great and virtuous. Tliis happy 
 consummation God in his goodness grant !''* 
 
 " Ah, Spiridion," cried I, clasping my friend in 
 my arms, " you cannot, you shall not leave me 
 thus P"* But he — fearing his own weakness, — in order 
 to render a relapse impossible, " On my head be 
 God''s eternal curse, be that of my aged father !" 
 cried he, " if I do not immediately return to my 
 paternal roof!" 
 
 I now felt all remonstrance to be fruitless. " You 
 are right,"" replied I. " The game could not go on 
 between us. The stakes were not even. Loaded 
 with the gifts of Providence, and accountable to 
 your fellow creatures for their use, you may not 
 squander your ample means on a barren soil, nor 
 seek ruin with a reprobate whom you cannot save. 
 Yet, if once Anastasius did possess your love, and 
 still returns all your affection ; if that wretch, that 
 reprobate, in tlie midst of all his errors never 
 ceased to reverence your virtues ; if his spirit, un- 
 
ANASTASIUS. 221 
 
 daunted by all else, stooped to you, and worshipped 
 you alone, — Oh Spiridion, listen ! At present when, 
 bereft of all hope, indeed weaned of all wish, to hear 
 a sentence repealed on which depends your peace, 
 he for ever renounces the happiness of your society, 
 nay, urges you himself to fly his baneful presence, at 
 least grant this last and only request ; grant what 
 he, who never yet humbled himself before mortal 
 man, implores of you on his bended knee : tell hira 
 — lay this unction to his sickening soul to know 
 — that you do not hold him in utter detestation ; 
 that on leaving him, to return no more, you at least 
 feel a pang: and when, — all earthly things gone by 
 like unsubstantial shadows— comes the day of your 
 reward in heaven for the good deeds done on this 
 earth ; when, before the throne of Mercy, arrayed 
 in all your worth, you receive your well-earned 
 meed of ineffable joy, cast back one look of pity on 
 the wretch who, overwhelmed by the weight of his 
 guilt, sinks irretrievably while you rise to glory. 
 Speak for him to your Maker one poor word of 
 mtercession: and supplicate that he may not fall 
 so low in the abyss of wretchedness, but that from 
 an immeasurable distance he still may behold, and 
 be consoled by your bliss !*" 
 
 " Here or hereafter," cried Spiridion, "if I 
 forget you, may Heaven forsake me !" — and bending 
 down his head, he wept aloud. 
 
 After some time he rose up, and wiping away his 
 
222 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 tears : " I have," said he, " signed an engagement 
 to endure throughout eternity: — now, in your turn, 
 make me a promise to hold good only for a short 
 space of time." 
 
 *' Any promise you please,*" I answered. 
 
 " What a temptation that P" rejoined my friend. 
 — " But I shall not abuse your confidence. I shall 
 not ask what you cannot perform. It was only a 
 trifling favour which I wanted for the mutual miti- 
 gation of pain. Take this watch," he added, giving 
 me the one he wore; ''and count just twenty 
 minutes ere you stir from this spot." — Saying which, 
 he took up his parcel, and walked to the door. I 
 tried to remonstrate and to stop him ; but, gently 
 pushing me aside : " you have promised," he cried, 
 and instantly disappeared. 
 
 I ran after my friend as far as my pledged ho- 
 nour would permit — to the threshold of my room, 
 and there called him back with loud and repeated 
 cries : but in vain I Spell-bound by my promise, I 
 stood motionless on the utmost verge of my apart- 
 ment, with ears stretched out to catch each fleeting 
 sound, and eyes rivetted on the hands of my watch. 
 At first I perceived some commotion, some distant 
 bustle in the house, some running backward and 
 forward ; but very soon all these noises sunk away 
 in a dreary and lasting silence. Yet were there 
 several long minutes wanting of the point marked 
 on the inexorable dial for my release. Each of these 
 
ANASTASIUS. 223 
 
 appeared an entire age, composed of many lesser 
 periods of endless duration, and all the time I kept 
 my eyes straining on the figures, as if my bare 
 look could quicken by its motion the impulse of the 
 hands. At last they approached the goal, glided 
 over the last second, and attained the long wished- 
 for term ! — I now dart forward hke an arrow : I 
 run, I leap, I fly; first, through the house, from 
 room to room ; next, — on finding all deserted within, 
 — out into the street, and lastly to the quay. 
 
 There I perceive nothing but an indifferent and 
 gaping crowd, which my eyes in vain interrogate, 
 and which gives me no satisfactory answer. Where- 
 ever I look, no Spiridion appears ! 
 
 Fearfully I at last cast my eye on the wave; and, 
 after an anxious search among the shipping in the 
 road, spy, already far away, a small ca'ick, which, 
 with stress of sails and oars, seems steering towards 
 Tchesme. A young man, I was told, for whom the 
 caick lay waiting, had been seen to step in, with 
 his face wrapped in his shawl ; and immediately the 
 boat was pushed off, and cleft the billows with such 
 speed, as already to appear little more than a mere 
 speck. 
 
 The young man was Spiridion, — and my first im- 
 pulse, to go after him. I called for another barge ; 
 but while it was preparing, soberer thoughts drove 
 aw^ay my first design. 
 
 Why in fact follow a friend determined to fly 
 
224 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 from me ! — Was not his puqx)se irrevocably fixed ? 
 Went he not back to his father and his home? 
 Was lie not right in doing so? Did not the hap- 
 piness of his life depend upon this measure ? was I 
 to impede his progress, or to increase his parting 
 pangs, and that from a mere selfish feeling ? For 
 what now could he gain, by aught that I could say 
 or do ? 
 
 Immediately I gave up the short-lived project, 
 and having paid for the trouble I occasioned, walked 
 away, and sought on the beach a more retired 
 spot, in which to vent my sorrows. Distracted by 
 so many opposite feelings that I scarce seemed to 
 feel at all, I threw myself on the ground, and 
 -moistened with my tears the sand on which I lay. 
 "All now," cried I, "is to me at an end ; my abode 
 is become a desert, my life a scene of solitude, my 
 very existence a blot in the creation !" — and here- 
 upon I struck my breast, until, exhausted by my 
 grief, I grew somewhat more quiet, and began my 
 song of sorrow. 
 
 In the midst of my melancholy ditty I remem- 
 bered that, together with his watch, Spiridion had 
 slipped into my hands a pocket-book, which, not 
 knowing what to do with, I had thrust into my 
 bosom. I now pulled out the toy. It might con- 
 tain some farewell token, — some last and sacred 
 behest. 
 
 A few words had indeed been written on one of 
 
ANASTASIUS. . S25 
 
 the leaves, but had been rubbed out again. The 
 only uncancelled document I could find, and to 
 which the case seemed intended as a vehicle, was a 
 loose slip of paper, an order to the bearer — but to 
 what amount I know not : for, without looking at 
 the figures, I tore the draft to pieces, and scattered 
 the useless fragments in the wind. No sooner 
 however had I done so, than I regretted my pre- 
 cipitation. The sum was nothing ! I never meant 
 to claim it ; but the last signature of my friend in 
 my behalf, — what to me could be equally precious ? 
 As of many other things, however, of that also I 
 first felt the value when too late ! Already had the 
 surf washed away the last remnant of the paper. 
 
 I now pressed to my lips the empty book. "Last 
 remembrance," exclaimed I, " of a friend for ever 
 lost, be thou my sole unceasing companion. Lie ever 
 next my heart. Continue its aegis against all evil 
 passions. Preserve me henceforth, not from grief, 
 but from sin !" 
 
 This said, I started up, and left the lonely spot : 
 but as I returned among the bustling throng, my 
 sadness increased. Why did I tarry any longer in 
 my native land ? How could I face my country- 
 men, abandoned as I was by my friend ? '^ Ah !*" 
 ci-ied I, " since I have him no more to guide and to 
 support me, let me fly from Chio, as from the place 
 of my shame. Let me seek refuge in Egypt, at 
 Algiers, in France, — or wherever else men acquire 
 
 VOL. II. Ci 
 
226 ANASTASUS. 
 
 fame by destroying each other ! There let me 
 forget the silenced voice of friendship, in the savage 
 cry of war and the shout of defiance ; there pass 
 my days in strife, there conquer, or there die !" 
 
 Conformably to this resolution, I determined not 
 to stay for the completion of the settlement with 
 which had commenced my worst misfortune, but 
 left my full powers with a friend, or in other words, 
 sold my birth-right to a schemer, for an immediate 
 sum. The same act rid me of my troubles, and 
 began those of my brothers : — a circumstance which 
 they probably only learnt after my departure, as, 
 in consequence of their ill-fated attempt, both kept 
 their beds ; not entirely from choice, however, — 
 Constantine having got a broken arm in the con- 
 flict, and Eustathius a dislocated hip. These were 
 the only incidents which soothed my disappointment. 
 
 As for me, I took my passage to Cyprus, where 
 I thought I might join the Turkish fleet in its way 
 to Egypt ; and, in the act of embarking, called down 
 upon my head the utmost wrath of heaven, if ever 
 I set foot in my native land again. 
 
 Spiridion, by the way of Smyrna, speedily reached 
 his home, and his father's longing arms. Whether 
 from fatigue or from mere disappointment, he fell 
 into a state of languor, which long threatened a 
 fatal termination. But time and corporeal debility 
 at last blunted the sting of mental suffering. In- 
 sensibly health returned, and with health a calm 
 
ANASTASIUS. S2T 
 
 hilarity. The youth then resumed, never more to 
 abandon it, the regular mode of life which only for 
 my sake had been interrupted. In good time he 
 married a young lady of noble blood and dis- 
 tinguished beauty, and became the happy father of 
 a lovely family. 
 
 Mavrocordato, as observed before, had destined 
 his son to run the perilous race of ambition ; and, 
 had he never known what it was to fear the loss of 
 that darling son, would with difficulty have been 
 diverted from his vain-glorious purpose. But while 
 Spiridion's fate hung suspended between life and 
 death, his father too strongly felt the blessing of his 
 existence and the value of his happiness, any longer 
 to stake them against perilous honours, difficult to at- 
 tain, and unsubstantial when possessed. His desires 
 became sobered, and his views less aspiring: he 
 determined to prefer the certainty of his son's bliss, 
 to the probable misery of his grandeur; and vowed, 
 so heaven but left him his child, never more to abuse 
 a father's authority, by goading him on to dangerous 
 distinctions. Mavrocordato thus forfeited, indeed, 
 the advantage of boasting, like the Giccas, the Calli- 
 mackis and others, that their nearest of kin had 
 been bowstringed on a throne ; — but this misfortune 
 he bore with becoming resignation. As to Spi- 
 ridion, content to move in the sphere of a wealthy 
 merchant, he employed his daily growing riches 
 in diffusing around him happiness and prosperity. 
 
228 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 His life resembled the course of a majestic stream, 
 whose deep but tranquil waters, winding their 
 ample way through fertile plains and flowery meads, 
 as they advance still receive from new rills fresh 
 increase, while at each step also they bestow more 
 profusely all the fruits of industry, and all the bless- 
 ings of plenty. 
 
 Far different was the similitude borne by my roving 
 existence. Seeking my fortune in strife, not in 
 harmony ; making havock, not culture, the means 
 of my support ; and engaged, not in the steady 
 pursuit of a regular profession, but in a wild wan- 
 dering flight from one career to another; some- 
 times prosperous, and oftener unfortunate ; now 
 in unavailing plenty, and now again in pinching 
 want, I at best resembled the blustering mountain 
 torrent, which, only acquiring might and sub- 
 stance during the war of the elements, as soon as 
 their contest ends, again subsides in a mean rill ; 
 in times of serenity shows no trace of its passage, 
 save in the havock of darker days brought to hght ; 
 and so far from diffusing in its fulness more benefits 
 than in its penury, only effects greater mischief as it 
 receives ampler supplies. While still near its source 
 in the upper regions of the globe, this ill-favoured 
 offspring of the clouds — hurried over fell and preci- 
 pice — only presents a succession of fierce struggles, 
 furious falls and impracticable shallows ; when fur- 
 tlier advanced in its impetuous career, and rushing 
 
ANASTASIUS.- 2«9 
 
 with tremendous roar into the fertile plain below, 
 it seems indeed determined to seek a full recom- 
 pense for all former restraints; — it disregards all 
 rights, destroys all property, and levelling fence 
 and boundary, annihilates crops, habitations, and 
 life : but, throughout the whole of its wild uncertain 
 progress, ^rom where it first bubbles up near the 
 sky, to where it finally plunges into the vast abyss 
 of the deep, it equally remains a curse to the regions 
 it pervades ! 
 
230 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The paroxysm of fever which seized me at Chio 
 had, in the hurry of the strange and multifarious 
 events to which it gave rise, been entirely forgotten. 
 I was therefore surprised when, on board the ship, 
 a second more violent attack came on ; and was still 
 more mortified when it appeared that, so far from 
 being allowed to drop the acquaintance, I had 
 thenceforth to consider the unwelcome intruder as 
 my regular guest. Its visits were repeated with 
 most irksome punctuality, every third day, during 
 the whole of the passage ; and this passage seemed 
 to have no end. 
 
 Oh ! how long appeared those sleepless nights, 
 in which I felt no change of motion in the ship, but 
 what was caused by its rolling from side to side, or 
 pitching from end to end : in which every object 
 suspended round my narrow birth — my clothes, my 
 lamp, my person, and the very shadow thfey cast on 
 the wainscot — never ceased exhibiting the same 
 monotonous see-saw motion ; which found its equally 
 monotonous response in the periodical creaking of 
 the hulk, straining of the mast, swaying of the yards, 
 and flapping of the sails and tackle. How slowly 
 approached those mornings, which were neither 
 
ANASTASIUS. 281 
 
 announced by the crowing of the cock, nor hailed 
 by the twittering of the swallow ; and whose dead 
 and universal silence was only broken by our own 
 harsh discord, added to that of the howling winds 
 and roaring waves ! How often I anxiously looked 
 out at my narrow loop-hole, to see whether the stars 
 had yet lost their trembling radiance, and whether 
 the horizon yet reddened with the approaching 
 dawn ! i\Iy mind suffered with my body ; and, 
 during those tedious hours, the depression of disease 
 made me survey with deep contrition the errors of 
 days past, and form sincere resolutions for my future 
 life. They lasted with unremitting continuance— 
 until health and strength returned. 
 
 This happened at Cyprus. That island which 
 gives agues to so many, cured my tertian completely; 
 or perhaps only transferred it to some other luckless 
 wight, most opportunely in the way to catch the 
 disorder, on its getting tired of me. I was how- 
 ever only just convalescent, and had scarce left 
 my bed, when, from the heights above Larneca, 
 Hassan's armament was descried five or six leagues 
 out at sea, in full sail for Egypt. That fleet which 
 I had so long expected now cleft the wave almost 
 under my eyes, without its proximity enabling me 
 to join it. 
 
 Fortunately I had another string to my bow : — 
 but ere I proceed to tell by which way I returned 
 to the land of the Mamlukes, I must premise a few 
 
232 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 words concerning what happened there after my 
 departure. 
 
 I liave already mentioned, I think, that in Aly- 
 Bey's time an aUiance had been proposed between 
 Petersburg and Cairo. This project the Autocra- 
 trix c^ all the Russias failed not to resume, as soon 
 as she saw Ibrahim and Mourad in firm possession 
 of the supreme authority. Her wish was to obtain 
 from the Beys the port of Alexandria ; an object of 
 the greatest importance to her future maritime ope- 
 rations against the Turks. In return, she offered to 
 afford these turbulent leaders every assistance in 
 shaking off the yoke of the Sultan ; and the Russian 
 Consul-general at Alexandria, Thonus byname, was 
 entrusted with the negotiation. He had the facihty 
 of corresponding with the rulers of Cairo through the 
 medium of a personage, once a Russian subject, but 
 then a renegade, a Mamluke, and a Bey, under 
 the appellation of Khassim. On the other hand 
 he found indissoluby united against him the Consuls 
 of the other European powers in Egypt, who, 
 whether friendly to the Porte or not, were all alike 
 hostile to the plan of giving up to the Russians so 
 important a harbour as Alexandria. Thonus un- 
 dertook to defeat their opposition by the simple ex- 
 pedient of removing their persons. A petty quarrel 
 had arisen between Mourad and the commercial 
 diplomatists, respecting some trifling repairs to thie 
 Latin hospice at Alexandria. This slight spark of 
 
ANASTASIUS. 238 
 
 misunderstanding the crafty Livonian contrived to 
 fan into so furious a blaze, that the Consuls no 
 longer thought themselves safe on land, and de- 
 termined to take refuge at sea. Their intention was 
 to sail in a body to Constantinople ; and this design, 
 sedulously fostered by Thonus — who suffered not 
 the fears of his friends to relax ^ — would soon have 
 been fulfilled to that gentleman's utmost wish, had 
 not Ibrahim, alarmed at the consequences of the 
 dispute, sent a messenger to efface by his concessions 
 the outrages of his colleague. Already were the 
 Consuls on board, and in the act of weighing anchor, 
 when, stopped by this trusty agent, the exulting 
 Thonus had the mortification to see them return on 
 shore, and resume their situations. 
 
 Ibrahim's conciliatory measures, however, came 
 too late to prevent the interference of the Porte. 
 On the first blush of the business, the Consuls, ap- 
 prehensive of violence on the part of the Beys, had 
 despatched an express to Constantinople, to lay their 
 complaints before the Sultan ; and Abd-ool-Hameed 
 had determined to resent the insult offered by the 
 rulers of Egypt to the strangers under his special 
 protection, in an exemplary manner. Had it suited 
 the convenience of the Porte to remain at peace with 
 its vassals, the representatives of all the potentates 
 of Europe, flogged round Mourad's hall, would 
 have obtained no other redress than an exhortation 
 
234 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 to mutual forgiveness of injuries; but the Divan 
 wished to humble the rebelUous Beys, and it tliere- 
 fore expressed the utmost readiness to resent their 
 behaviour to tlie high offended personages. In vain 
 did these worthy individuals themselves, as soon as 
 they no longer entertained any apprehension for the 
 safety of their persons, try to undo wliat they had 
 done, and to prevent a rupture injurious to their 
 interests. In vain did they write to assure the 
 ministers that they had been premature in their 
 fright, and had forgiven their enemies, like true 
 Christians as they were : — Hassan Capitan-Pasha, 
 who was a Turk, and moreover had never yet found, 
 in his varied expeditions, an opportunity of ex- 
 ploring the fertile plains of Egypt, expected too 
 plentiful a harvest, if not of laurels, at least of piastres 
 from this business, to let the quarrel be hushed up ; 
 and, under Abdool-Hameed, the wishes of this 
 favourite were law. The Divan, therefore, in answer 
 to the pacific protestations of the consuls, only ob- 
 served that they were much too lenient, that the 
 offence could not be overlooked, and that they must 
 have satisfaction, Avhether they chose or not; and 
 hereupon proclaimed the Beys outlaws; and ordered 
 an armament to be fitted out against them. 
 
 A show of negotiation had, however, been kept up, 
 and, had to a certain degree succeeded in lulling 
 asleep the apprehensions of the Mamlukes, when, on 
 
ANASTASIUS. 235 
 
 the sixtli of July 1786, the squadron which I had be- 
 held with longing eyes from the coast of Cyprus ap- 
 peared before Alexandria. It consisted of six ships of 
 the line, four frigates, some gun-boats, and forty or 
 fifty kirlangitsches and other small craft capable of 
 going up the river to Cairo. These vessels carried six 
 hundred chosen Arnaootsfrom the interior of Epirus, 
 as brave as well armed, and about five thousand raw 
 recruits from every corner of the Archipelago, pos- 
 sessed of neither arms, courage nor discipline. To this 
 this small force the Grand- Admiral added at Alexan- 
 dria about three thousand Maugarbees, or Barbares- 
 ques, very lightly equipped. Of cavalry, the species 
 of troops most wanted against the Mamlukes, Has- 
 san's armament was entirely destitute ; but the Asi- 
 atic Pashas of Oorfa, of Haleb, of Trabloos and others, 
 had been ordered to bring with all expedition from 
 their respective governments more horse than were 
 wanted, toBelbeis, near the Syrian confines of Egypt, 
 there to wait the Grand Admiral's further orders. 
 
 These orders were indeed despatched the day that 
 the commander in chief reached Rosetta : but their 
 execution experienced some difficulty, inasmuch as 
 the Pasha of Oorfa was not yet arrived at the 
 place of rendezvous, and as all the others had, im- 
 mediately after Hassan's departure from Constan- 
 tinople, been entirely countermanded. The ministers 
 
236 AN ASTASIAS. 
 
 ters were in daily e:xpectation of a war in the North, 
 and felt unwilling to waste all their resources in the 
 South. 
 
 Hassan, thus disappointed, resolved to compensate 
 for want of numbers by celerity of movements, and 
 began to ascend the Nile on the last day of July. 
 The land troops marched along the banks of the 
 river, while the flotilla of gun-boats advanced by 
 their side on the stream. 
 
 When the intelligence of the Capitan-Pasha's 
 operations reached Cairo, the greatest unanimity 
 took place among the Beys as to their sense of dan- 
 ger, but the greatest diversity of opinions as to the 
 mode of repelhng it. Ibrahim was for submission, 
 Mourad for resistance ; and no medium being hit 
 upon between these two extremes, the former re- 
 tired into the Said to avoid the imputation of rebel- 
 lion, while the latter marched into Lower Egypt to 
 oppose force by force. 
 
 The fourth day of August witnessed the meeting 
 of the two armies near Mentoobes. Mourad with 
 his well-mounted Mamlukes, all mail without, and 
 all ardour within, felt secure of an easy victory over 
 the Grand-Admiral's ill equipped foot soldiers. He 
 had neither taken into his account the artillery by 
 which they were flanked on the stream, nor the 
 swamps he must wade through, to attack them on 
 its banks. Received, on his first onset, with a tre- 
 
ANASTASIUS. 2S7 
 
 mendous discharge of cannon from the boats, his 
 troops were immediately thrown into confusion. 
 Even the safety of flight was denied them. Sink- 
 ing, with the weight of their accoutrements, up to 
 their horses' beUies into the rice grounds that formed 
 the field of battle, they became motionless, and were 
 slaughtered at pleasure by Hassan''s naked infantry, 
 which might have walked on the wind. The few 
 Mamlukes that escaped, immediately fell back upon 
 Cairo ; but, finding the gates of the citadel shut 
 against them by the Sultan's Visier, they only tra- 
 versed the city, and joined Ibrahim in Upper Egypt; 
 
 Hassan entered without further opposition the 
 defenceless capital, and received the homage of the 
 country. He took up his abode in Ibrahim's palace 
 at Kasr-el-ai'ni, and conferred on the long exiled 
 Ismail, arrived from the Said to meet him, his long 
 vacated ofiice of Schaich-el-belled. Djeddawee's 
 more dubious loyalty was less splendidly rewarded ; 
 and Yeyen- Visier, the obsequious tool of every 
 party in power, was dismissed from his place : it 
 was reserved for the expected conductor of the 
 Asiatic troops. 
 
 This personage, Abdi by name, had been Pasha 
 of Haleb. Turned out of that city by its janis- 
 saries, — jealous of his Koordish body-guard,^ — 
 he had just been consoled for his loss by the go- 
 vernment of Oorfa, when he received orders to 
 
238 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 march with all the force he could collect from 
 Diarbekeer to Egypt. As nothing had been said 
 about provisions, he resolved to trust for his sup- 
 plies to the plunder of the districts through which 
 he had to pass ; and, as he only had to traverse 
 Syria from end to end, in its greatest length, he 
 only contrived to spend, for want of subsistence, 
 the whole summer on his march. 
 
 Nothing could have happened more conveniently 
 for a man who, like me, wished to go from Cyprus 
 to Egypt : it afforded the readiest means of making 
 up for the loss of my passage on board the fleet 
 on my right, by joining the army advancing on 
 my left. A boat conveyed me from Larneca to 
 Trabloos ; and thence forward I found the track 
 of Abdi's troops too distinctly marked by their 
 devastations to miss the way. I could however 
 only overtake the Pasha near Nabloos in Palestine, 
 where I reached him in the best possible disposition 
 for glory ; that is to say — not valuing life a straw. 
 Had I been inclined to fastidiousness, I might have 
 found some fault with the appearance of my com- 
 petitors for w^arlike fame. They pursued its career 
 unincumbered by superfluities. The best equipped 
 among the Pasha''s troops w ere his own body-guard 
 of Koordish horse, who, under the denomination of 
 Dellis,- still exercised their old trade of banditti, 
 and plundered every friend on their march to the 
 
ANASTASIUS. 239 
 
 enemy. To this body of about eight hundred men 
 was added another of about six hundred Spahees, in 
 very indifferent condition. The infantry was com- 
 posed of about five hundred Maugarbees, who 
 looked as if they could be led to victory by nothing 
 but famine. In fact, this ravenous horde only 
 resembled a swarm of locusts, who suddenly appear 
 in a region as if driven by an evil wind, fall on 
 whatever spot offers the most abundant harvest, 
 devour all its crops, and, when they find nothing 
 further to consume, rise again, only to lay waste the 
 fields next in succession. As long as there remained 
 in a place a single article to take away or to devour, 
 the Pasha thought not of stirring. The complete 
 denudation of all around him became the signal 
 for departure ; but the tents were again pitched in 
 whatever nearest district admitted of the same pro- 
 ceeding. The march was lengthened only when 
 such deserts intervened as offered neither provision 
 nor plunder. Every where, before the approaching 
 army, the inhabitants abandoned their villages, 
 carrying with them all that was moveable to the 
 mountains; so that every new region we came to 
 looked as if we had been there already, and left us 
 no means of marking our route but by the destruc- 
 tion of the fixtures ; and, from the elongated shape of 
 Syria, and the direction of the march, no district 
 escaped the devastating scourge. 
 
240 ANASTASirS. 
 
 Besides the general claim which my former rank 
 in Egypt gave me to the attention of a commander 
 in tlie pay of the Porte, I carried particular letters 
 to Abdi from the governor of Lamcca. Accord- 
 ingly, I was promised the reversion of whatever 
 eligible appointment might become vacant, and, 
 meanwhile;, stepped into the place of a captain of 
 Dellis, most fortunately killed the very morning of 
 my arrival, by some peasants, in an ambush. 
 
 On calling over the muster-roll of my corps, I 
 found not a single Ba'irak^ possessed of half its 
 complement of men. Each was a grand skeleton 
 composed of lesser skeletons ; and never did troops, 
 at the opening of a campaign, more strikingly re- 
 semble soldiers returning from the wars. Thisremark, 
 however, I kept to myself As a new comer, I took 
 it for granted that my predecessor knew what he 
 was about (except indeed when he got killed) ; 
 and resolved not to begin by breaking through 
 established ^ customs. Quietly, therefore, pocketing 
 the surplus pay, and selling the supernumerary 
 rations, I gained the love and esteem of all my 
 fellow-officers. We agreed that Hassan would not 
 give us more fighting than was necessary, and it 
 would be wrong to tempt liim to imprudences by 
 too martial an appearance. The only thing I took 
 care of was to be well mounted myself. But the 
 horses and accoutrements which I purchased having 
 
ANASTASIUS. 241 
 
 drained me of most of my remaining cash, I was 
 obliged to draw for my other expenses on the 
 present holder of my Kiashefiik, — whoever that 
 might be. 
 
 At Gaza we made our scanty provisions for the 
 great desert. Very ample ones were left in it for 
 the vultures. Belbe'is saw us arrive at last, not in 
 May indeed, but in September; and from that 
 place of general rendezvous, where not a soul met 
 us, we marched on to Cairo. 
 
 It was here that an edifying scene of mutual 
 astonishment took place, in Hassan, at the smallness 
 of our force, and in us, at the absolute nothingness 
 of his. In fact, we had never had many more 
 troops, while he had disbanded half the men which 
 he brought, to pocket their pay. 
 
 Nothing could equal the change of scene which 
 Cairo presented from what 1 had known it before. 
 I had left it a Mamluke city ; I found it a Turkish 
 camp. Every object indicated a change of masters 
 and of regulations. Turkish detachments patroled 
 the streets, Turkish picquets occupied the places; 
 and those porticoes of the grandees' palaces which 
 formerly witnessed the Mamlukes driving away 
 with their naboods the famished Egyptians, now 
 saw the Osmanlees treat the Mamlukes with scarce 
 more respect. My friend Aly-Tchawoosh, whom 
 I had the pleasure of finding with the Capitan- 
 Pasha — but somewhat impaired in flesh, in spirits, 
 
 VOL. II. E 
 
21-2 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 in brilliancy, and in boastfulness — took mc to the 
 house where I was billeted. "What?'" cried I, 
 on seeing it; " am I to lodge with my old acquaint- 
 ance Sidi-Emin, who used to rail so loudly against 
 usury, and, when a friend wanted money, would 
 oblige him by buying his old slippers at fifty sequins 
 down, so he only consented, in return, to buy 
 Emin's new ones at five hundred, payable in three 
 months ! — I shall be glad to shake hands with the 
 worthy man." " Ah !" cried Aly, " you will only 
 shake hands with his ghost. But that you may 
 make sure of. It stalks all night about its old 
 mansion.'* 
 
 And good reason it had for being disturbed. 
 The reader may remember the dreadful famine 
 which I left hanging over Egypt. Emin, on this 
 occasion, was one of the provident. During the 
 years of plenty he had laid by for those of want. 
 But, like the ant, he laboured for himself, and 
 cared not to share his savings with the idle. Though 
 his granaries could scarcely hold all his corn, he 
 saw unmoved the thousands of wretches who every 
 day perished with hunger under their very walls. 
 When the bodies of the sufferers choked up the 
 entrances of his store-houses, he still refused to un- 
 bar their surly gates, until grain had reached the 
 exorbitant price fixed by his avarice. This it at 
 last attained ; — and now, exulting at the thoughts 
 of the milhons he should make in a few hours. 
 
ANASTASIUS. 243 
 
 Emin took his keys, and opened his vaults. But 
 O horror, O dismay ! Instead of the mountains of 
 golden wheat which he had accumulated, he only 
 l)eheld heaps of nauseous rottenness. An avenging 
 v/orm had penetrated into the abodes fortified 
 affainst famished man ! A grub had fattened on the 
 food withheld from the starving wretch ! While 
 the clamour of despair resounded Avithout, a loath- 
 some insect had in silence achieved within the work 
 of justice. It had wrought Emin's punishment in 
 darkness, while his crimes shone in the light of 
 heaven. The miser's wealth was destroyed, tlie 
 monster's hopes were all blasted ! At the dire 
 spectacle he uttered not a word. He only for a 
 few minutes contemplated the infected mass with the 
 fixed eye of despair ; then fell, — fell flat on his face 
 upon the putrid heap. God had smitten him ! 
 On raising his prostrate body, life had fled. Like 
 his corn, his frame was become a mass of corruption ! 
 I had the pleasure to find Mavroyeni's former 
 place of Drogueman of the fleet occupied by his 
 nephew Stephan. This youth's character presented 
 a singularity among Greeks in public situations, 
 wondered at by all, and disapproved of by most : 
 — he was a perfectly honest man. His enemies 
 rejoiced at it, though his friends still kept hoping 
 that he was not too old to mend. Meanwhile the 
 acquaintance, begun between us in the Morea, 
 ripened at Cairo into a real mutual regard. I say 
 
 r2 
 
2U ANASTASIUa 
 
 mutual — for though Stephan did not always think 
 well of my conduct, he valued my sincerity. 
 
 The strongest proof of attachment, howevefy 
 which I received in Egypt, was from my quondam 
 Mamhikes, whom I had ceded to Ismail at Es-souan, 
 and now found established with the reinstated 
 Schaich-el-belled in the capital. At the time of 
 my flight, they seemed perfectly satisfied with the 
 transfer; and indeed, had they now thought it 
 incumbent upon them to leave the Schaich-el-belled, 
 and to return to their old patron, they must have 
 been great losers by the change. But so excessive 
 became, on seeing me again, their generous wrath 
 at thinking I had renounced their services, that 
 they could not even bear to remember that they 
 once had belonged to me. 
 
 As to the Capitan-Pasha himself, his memory 
 was more retentive. He not only recollected having 
 seen me in the Morea; he even remembered the 
 proposal he made me after the affair of Tripolizza. 
 When again presented to him : " you would have 
 acted more wisely," said he, " to have embraced 
 the true faith for the sake of a patron, than for the 
 love of a mistress; and perhaps you might have 
 found the service of the Sultan more profitable than 
 that of the Beys. You have lost much time, and 
 gained few friends. But you are young still, and 
 what is more, you are brave : if you would not let 
 me lay the foundation of your fortune, I still 
 
ANASTASIUS. 245 
 
 may raise the fabric by a few additional stories." 
 And so saying, he recommended me to his Kehaya; 
 who grinned a ghastly smile of obedience and of 
 spite. 
 
 The government of Egypt being completely 
 organised by the installation of Abdi Pasha in the 
 office of Visier, and all the forces having arrived 
 that could be looked for, Hassan at last began to 
 busy himself about the long talked of expedition to 
 Upper Egypt, in pursuit of the rebels. Resolved 
 himself not to stir from his commodious quarters, 
 he gave the supreme command to his Kehaya. The 
 troops destined for the expedition were to rendez- 
 vous at Atter-el-nebbi, a place on the Nile, half a 
 leao;ue above Cairo. As before, the land force was 
 to follow the banks of the river, and to be supported 
 by the flotilla. Hassan's favour enabled me to 
 exchange my ragged Koords for a fine body of 
 Arnaoots; and in honour of my new soldiers I 
 furbished up my old Epirote pedigree, and my 
 presumptive descent from Achilles and from Alex- 
 ander. The former indeed they knew little about, 
 but the latter all seemed acquainted with ; and only 
 maintained, in opposition to my doctrine, that he had 
 fought the Doge of Venice — which, in fact, he had.'* 
 Including the militia of the country, supplied by the 
 citadel of Cairo, our force might amount to six 
 thousand men ; and I could not help thinking that 
 Hassan rather over-rated our chance of success, 
 
246 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 when at parting lie recommended to us, in a speech 
 full of pathos, to bring back the days when the 
 Schaich-el-belled held the stirrup to the Aga of the 
 Janissaries, and when, in return, the Pasha of the 
 Porte hung up the Beys under the gate of the castle ; 
 — a wish at which Ismail, now surnamed Kbir, or the 
 Great, Aly-Bey-Defterdar, Mohammed-Bcy-Mab- 
 dool, Rodoan Bey the Bold, and several other Beys 
 present, I thought, winced a little. 
 
 As usual, our army depended for its subsistence 
 on the plunder of the provinces through which we 
 had to pass. This circumstance would alone have 
 retarded our coming up with Mourad ; but what 
 still more increased the difHculty of closing v/ith this 
 chief, was his own good management. He had pro- 
 fited by his discomfiture in the Delta. Instead of 
 advancing to give us battle, he this time, on the con- 
 trary, kept constantly retreating before us ; only now 
 and then just letting his rear appear in sight, to keep 
 up the ardour of the pursuit. We discovered his drift 
 — somewhat late however — when at Sioot we found 
 the waters too low to permit the further progress 
 of our flotilla, and thus were obliged to proceed, 
 deprived of the support of our floating battery. 
 With a diminished strength, we only reached the 
 rebels at Djirdge, where they had all the advan- 
 tage of the ground. Their position was admirable. 
 Backed by the walls and garrison of the city, they 
 had in front a long declivity of hard even ground. 
 
ANASTASIUS. 2\1 
 
 where their excellent horses and impenetrable coats 
 of mail gave them as great an advantage, as they 
 had caused them a disadvantage in the swamps of 
 the Delta. They rushed upon us like a torrent, and 
 it soon became evident on which side the scale 
 Would turn. Our rout began with the Asiatics. The 
 brave Arnaoots alone kept for a time the victory in 
 suspense. Unable, however, entirely to dismiss all 
 anxiety for the character of my former troops, the 
 Dellis, I set some Epirotes at their heels, and thus 
 got them wedged in between two fires. This con- 
 cern for the credit of others cost me dear. A pistol- 
 shot struck my hip, which certainly came not from 
 the enemy. It brought me not the less to the ground; 
 and I must have died from loss of blood, or have been 
 trampled under foot, had not by good fortune one of 
 my trusty Albanians thought me dead already. He 
 judged it a pity that my handsome armour should be- 
 come the spoil of rebels, and approached to strip me ; 
 when, to his great dismay, he found me still alive. For 
 a second or two he seemed to hesitate whether he 
 should not realize his surmise ; but my good stars 
 prevailed. Shrugging up his shoulders, as if to say, 
 " it was not his fault," he took me in his arms, carried 
 me off the field, bound up my wounds, and left me 
 in the care of two of his comrades, themselves dis- 
 abled fi'om continuing to support a more active part 
 in the engagement. 
 
 Meantime our commander, seeing the rout be- 
 
248 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 come general, sounded tlie retreat. Fortunately 
 the enemy had determined only to act on the 
 defensive, in order not to cut off all opening to a 
 reconciliation. Thanks to Mourad's moderation, 
 we experienced no annoyance in our flight except 
 from the fellahs, whose crops we had destroyed in 
 our progress. At Sioot we rejoined our flotilla; 
 and thence returned to Cairo in a plight, which even 
 those among the Mamlukes that had been rein- 
 stated by Hassan could view without breaking 
 their hearts. The assistance of a rival is seldom 
 forgiven. 
 
 After a certain period Mourad's Arab allies, tired 
 of the protracted war, as usual withdrew from the 
 contest ; and Mourad, deprived of half his strength, 
 no longer appeared averse to a negotiation. Of 
 this disposition Hassan availed himself to draw him 
 down to Djizeh, when he again sent his Kehaya in 
 pursuit of the Bey. Cured of my wound, I joined 
 the expedition, and on the eighth of January 1787, 
 we crossed the Nile. The flotilla was on this occa- 
 sion out of the question ; the river being at its 
 lowest, and the commander of the gun-boats dis- 
 missed, for an offence which Hassan seldom forgave 
 in his officers; namely, robbing without his par- 
 ticipation. 
 
 At the news of our approach, Mourad again fell 
 back ; but we came up with him at Sioot, where he 
 was forced to halt, to face about, and to receive us. 
 
ANASTASIUS. 249 
 
 His position was exactly the reverse of that which 
 he had held at Djirdge. Instead of occupying the 
 top of a long declivity, of which we filled the bottom, 
 his army was drawn out at the bottom of an extended 
 slope, of which we occupied the summit ; and in- 
 stead of having immediately in his rear a high wall 
 to cover his movements, he only had a deep ditch 
 to cut off his retreat. The consequence was, that 
 when we fell upon him as he had before done upon 
 us, with all the impetus of a downhill charge, we 
 almost hnmediately drove his troops backward into 
 the fosse, where, tumbling head over heels in the 
 mud, they left us no trouble but that of despatching 
 them at our leisure. 
 
 Of my old patron, who sided with the rebels, 
 I hitherto have made no mention. The edge of 
 the ravine, down whose slope the Mamlukes were 
 sliding with different degrees of speed, gave me 
 the first glimpse of his venerable figure. He was 
 curveting mid-way the long descent, surrounded 
 by his retinue. The sight roused all my dormant 
 feelings of relationship, and others not less warm ; 
 and I became most irresistibly anxious to join 
 my father-in-law, to lock him in my arms, nay, 
 to keep entire possession of his valuable person. 
 Calling to my best men, I showed them the Bey, 
 and proposed a bold push for so important a prize. 
 They fired at the thoughts, and off we set! I 
 was within ten yards of his person, and already 
 
950 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 in imagination hugging him most fervently, when 
 some of liis guards, perceiving our drift, gave 
 the alarm. Immediately his whole house closed 
 in upon him, and our purpose miscarried. I re- 
 tired not, however, empty handed. We had pe- 
 netrated so far into the Mamluke knot, that I 
 Hvas enabled to seize by the arm and to carry off, 
 what at the time was nearest Suleiman's heart, 
 his Tootoondjee.^ This young fellow I consigned 
 to some of my servants in the rear, and, having 
 seen him safe in their -custody, again returned to 
 business. 
 
 The chase of a young Mamluke, whose showy 
 accoutrements caught my eye, had inadvertently 
 drawn me out to some distance from my men, 
 when another Mamluke of more advanced age and 
 greater powers — till then concealed behind a small 
 eminence — suddenly darted forward between us. 
 The contest now lay with the new comer ; and his 
 agility already rendered the issue somewhat doubt- 
 ful. But when a third Mamluke of colossal size—- 
 a Kiashef of my ancient patron's — found means by 
 a dexterous circuit to join his comrade, my situation 
 seemed indeed become desperate. It was plain that 
 a scheme had been concerted to entrap me ; — and, 
 unable sing-le-handed to contend with two such for- 
 midable antagonists, whom others were still ap- 
 proaching, I gave myself up for lost, and only re- 
 solved to sell my life as dear as possible. 
 
ANASTASIUS. S51 
 
 To my inexpressible surprise, just as I rushed 
 forward , to certain death as 1 thought, the new 
 comer made a signal for a truce, which his comrade 
 immediately obeying, I failed not to do the same. 
 I stopped short like my antagonists, still however 
 remaining on m}' guard, and watching every motion 
 of the two Mamlukes, in order to make my escape, 
 should an opportunity offer. The Kiashef perceived 
 my apprehensions. " Fear not,"" he cried : " your 
 life is indeed in our hands ; but we seek not your 
 death ; we want only your prisoner. Restore Sulei- 
 man's Tootoondjee, and in return take this handjar 
 studded with diamonds, this order on the Bey's 
 harem at Cairo for two thousand sequins, and this 
 signet of our patron's to corroborate his draft." 
 
 All this was vastly better than to be butchered at 
 Sioot : I accepted the offer. Meantime some of my 
 Arnaoots, whohad perceived my danger, were coming 
 up. I cried to them, as soon as within hearing, to 
 fetch back the prisoner. One went on the errand, 
 and the others waited at my signal. The Too- 
 toondjee was delivered over, and the ransom placed 
 in my hands. With this rich spoil, the thing which 
 I feared most was to return to my own men. For- 
 tunately they were full-handed themselves, and I 
 rejoined our troops safe and sound— just in time 
 to see the remnant of the enemy's force, which had 
 escaped the ditch, in full flight towards the Said. 
 
252 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 Our men were so exhausted, that we spent the 
 niglit where we Iiad won the day. The next morn- 
 ing, ere we marclied, I walked over the field of 
 battle. Beholdmg on all sides sturdy limbs locked 
 in death, which but the day before had turned 
 my blows with all the energies of life ; lips closed 
 in eternal silence, which had stunned me with 
 their clamour ; and eyeballs fixed in sightless glare, 
 which, when met by mine, had sent forth flashes of 
 lightning: — unable to avoid treading upon the 
 mangled bodies of some who often had attempted 
 to crush me with their very look, and now could 
 not keep away the already busy vultures — I felt a 
 strange delight ! I contemplated with a bitter sa- 
 tisfaction that unavoidable lot of all mankind, that 
 doom of mortality remitted to none, that preca- 
 riousness of life shared alike by king and beggar, 
 thanks to which, if I could not be sure of a single 
 instant before me, no more was the proudest of 
 my antagonists certain of not being the next mo- 
 ment a clod of clay, a mass of corruption, a feast 
 for worms ; thanks to which, if any rival obtained 
 over me a temporary advantage, it was, however 
 important, a trifle, an atom, a nothing, in the con- 
 templation of the common fate awaiting all that 
 breathe, and awaiting all too soon ; and thanks to 
 which, finally, if I could not reach the very top of 
 fortune's wheel, or for the present carry my head 
 
ANASTASIUS. 253 
 
 quite as high as some of my more successful oppo- 
 nents, I knew that theirs must ultimately lie as low, 
 and^bc as little regarded as mine ! 
 
 " Poor speechless ghastly object !" cried I, lift- 
 ing up by the ears one whose taunting language 
 had but the day before still tortured my own ; 
 '* thou art now not only below me — below the 
 meanest of my slaves ; thou art worse in estate 
 than the live dog that licks my hand, or the very 
 worm that hies to feast on thyself ; he harbours joy, 
 thou feelest not even my abuse and my scorn !" 
 
 Though we did not absolutely stay in the agree- 
 able spot which occasioned these reflections, we 
 seemed loth for a time to move beyond its influence. 
 Want of money to pay his troops prevented our 
 commander from proceeding in good earnest, in pur- 
 suit of the rebels, until the month of May. We then 
 made a sudden advance ; but as soon as we came 
 in sight of Mourad's men, they crossed the river, 
 and retreated into Nubia. Arrived at the Cataracts, 
 heat, want and disease stopped our further progress. 
 We admired the falls, wheeled about, and marched 
 back to Cairo. 
 
S54 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 By this time Hassan had, through penalties, con- 
 fiscations and other such lucrative processes, reaped 
 all the real fruits he expected from his expedition. 
 He knew the utter impossibility of exterminating a 
 set of men who always kept open a retreat where they 
 were secure from pursuit; and he now made the 
 approaching rupture between the Porte and Russia 
 a pretence for conveying his armament back to 
 Constantinople. On the twenty-fourth of July, 
 ITS?, therefore, he signed a treaty with the rebel 
 Beys, by which he left them in full possession of 
 the country from Barbieh to the frontiers of Nubia. 
 All below these limits was to be prohibited ground. 
 For the observance of this treaty his opponents con- 
 sented to give as hostages four of their party — my 
 old friend Ayoob-Bey, Osman-Bey-Tamboordgi, 
 and two other Beys of recent creation, Abderahman 
 and HusseVn. These important Mamlukes had 
 leave, however, to remain at Cairo, under the eyes 
 of the Visier. 
 
 The quartetto soon arrived, and I failed not to 
 call upon Ayoob. He had strongly reprobated at 
 
ANASTASIUS. ^55 
 
 the time Suleiman*s conduct in giving me up, and 
 assured me he wondered not to see a man of my 
 mettle, after such treatment, return to Egypt in so 
 different a character. I was g]ad in my turn to 
 find an opportunity of doing a chief, who formerly 
 had distinguished me in a most flattering manner, 
 a very signal piece of service. Some expressions, 
 dropped by the Capitan-Pasha, had made me sur- 
 mise that foul play was intended to the hostage 
 Beys. I need not say by what means I verified 
 my suspicion ; but I forthwith went and apprized 
 Ayoob of liis danger. His gratitude for this friendly 
 act led him to offer me a handsome present, wliich 
 I declined. 
 
 Meanwhile Hassan had got every thing in readi- 
 ness for his departure. He confirmed Abdi-Pasha 
 in his place of Visier, and Ismail Be}^ in his rank 
 as Schaich-el-belled. On his Kehaya, whose name 
 likewise was Ismail, he conferred the situation of 
 his wekil, or agent at Cairo. After these, and other 
 appointments, he assembled in the citadel a solemn 
 Divan ; gave, in a set speech, a pompous detail of 
 the incalculable benefits he had bestowed on Egypt ; 
 and terminated the sitting by inviting the four 
 hostage Beys, against the faith of treaties, to follow 
 him to Constantinople. Osman, Abderahman, and 
 Hussein, taken by surprise, were obhged to accept 
 his proffered hospitality. Ayoob, put upon his 
 guard by me, had taken his precautions, and pre- 
 pared his chief Mamlukes. The summons had 
 
^5G ANASTASIUS. 
 
 scarce dropped from Hassan's lips, ere he rushed 
 out, and, assisted by his suite, sought refuge in 
 Ibrahim'^s harem. Hassan durst not, in defiance of 
 his own solemn promise, drag the most respected 
 among the beys in disgrace from so revered a sanc- 
 tuary. He was left at Cairo in the enjoyment at 
 least of his outward honours. 
 
 Those which Hassan offered to my choice were, 
 to remain in the citadel of Cairo, commander of the 
 local Arnaoots, or to go back to Constantinople, 
 and obtain promotion in the expected war. Ad- 
 miring neither the Visier, the Schaich-el-belled, nor 
 the Wekil, and wishing much to try Valachia and 
 to rejoin Mavroyeni, I accepted the latter. The 
 ransom of Suleiman ""s Tootoondjce, duly paid on 
 presenting his order ; the well lined belt of a Mam- 
 luke whom I had disrobed at Sioot, and the liquida- 
 tion of certain old claims at Cairo, which I em- 
 ployed those ready accountants my Albanians to 
 settle, had gone a good way towards repairing my 
 shattered finances. The last evening of my stay at 
 Cairo added another figure to the balance of my 
 capital. As I passed through a narrow lane, an 
 ill-looking fellow suddenly stopped me, and drew 
 out a daffo-er. I started back : but instead of the 
 point he turned to me the hilt, left the handjar in 
 my hands, and disappeared. The weapon was 
 covered with emeralds, and of considerable value. 
 I had seen it before, on grand occasions, sparkle in 
 Ayoob's girdle. — -Hassan never saw it in mine. 
 
ANASTASIUS. 257 
 
 Nothing remarkable occurred on the journey 
 down the Nile. On the 21st of October we weighed 
 anchor from Alexandria. Our voyage was pro- 
 sperous, our reception at Constantinople indifferent . 
 The mob of the capital, it seems, had promised 
 itself the agreeable spectacle of the heads of the 
 Egyptian Beys stuck on the battlements of the Bab- 
 Humayoon, and cared little to see us only bring 
 back our own. To ourselves, however, this was a 
 source of some satisfaction ; and the more, as we 
 brought, besides, wherewithal to fortify our minds 
 against idle clamour. 
 
 Even after Spiridion and I had parted for ever, 
 my friend had not dismissed all solicitude in my 
 behalf. Fearing lest the obscurity which hung over 
 Achmet's death might not always succeed in pre- 
 venting its baneful influence over my fate, in case 
 of my return to Stambool, he had, during my cam- 
 paign in Egypt, negotiated with the family of the 
 deceased a legal renunciation of its vindictive rights. 
 At first indeed his proposal greatly shocked the 
 mourning parents. " What ! sell the life of a relation, 
 of a son, for money ! — No, never !'^ — Were the earth 
 to swallow them up on the spot, they must, they 
 would have blood for blood ! — At any rate, they 
 could only compound^ with the executioner^s axe 
 on the culprit's neck! By degrees, however, they 
 came round to more reasonable sentiments. The 
 event was nearly forgotten, the loss small, the chance 
 
 VOL. II. s 
 
258 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 of discovering the offender still less, and the sum 
 offered considerable. With many ifs and buts, they 
 at last signed so formal an act of forgiveness, that 
 I might, if I liked, have added to my other titles 
 that of slayer of Kara Achmet. 
 
 I needed not this new proof of kindness, to feel 
 ill at ease till I had embraced my friend. Fearful 
 however of taking him by surprise, perhaps at an 
 unseasonable moment, I sent to inquire whether my 
 visit would be acceptable. The precaution proved 
 a wise one. Just then was pending the negotiation 
 with the lady, who soon after bestowed upon Spiri- 
 dion her fair and faithful hand. Her parents only 
 objected his former intimacy with a notorious profli- 
 gate and a renegado. Had I shown myself at that 
 juncture, and taken advantage of Spiridion's friend- 
 ship to appear in his company, the match would 
 have been broken off. It was even requisite, I 
 understood, for the advancement of the business, 
 that the coolness grown between us should be openly 
 expressed. A hint of this circumstance having been 
 given me, I acted accordingly, and complained aloud 
 and in bitter terms of Spiridion's leaving me at 
 Chio ; but privately I sent him, as a token of 
 friendship, a fine Arabian, accompanied by a few 
 Hues of affection and of thanks. Unavowed pro- 
 ceedings always turn out ill, however well meant I 
 Whether the messenger thought the Jhorse would 
 betray the giver, or whether the horse ran away 
 
ANASTASIUS. 259 
 
 Avitli the messenger, neitlier they nor the letter 
 reached their destination ; and, long after, 1 heard 
 that Spiridion had felt hurt at my seeming neglect. 
 Returning one day from witnessing — with in- 
 finite satisfaction — to what degree the Franks, who 
 accuse the Greeks of meanness, can excel them in 
 that useful quahty ; how they can humble them- 
 selves, even in the persons of the representatives of 
 their sovereigns, before the paltriest of the Sultan's 
 officers; and how at their pubhc audiences these 
 phant envoys of European poAvers will put up with 
 any indignity from the lowest Turkish rabble, for 
 the sake of maintaining an intercourse with a nation 
 which returns their advances with contempt, — I hap- 
 pened to meet a face no longer young, which put 
 me in mind of an old vow, not the less sacred from 
 the lowly station of its object. It was that made 
 to the little grocer's wife, who in the days of my 
 first distress had come to my relief with conserve of 
 roses. In her own later career — poor soul! — bit- 
 ters had succeeded sweets. The new French style 
 of cookery, and the white sauces introduced with 
 the revolutionary principles among the Greeks of 
 fashion, had exploded the spice and comfits, staple 
 ingredients of the darker complexioned dishes, the 
 delight of their forefathers. The grocer conse- 
 quently was become a bankrupt, had died of grief 
 in the midst of his unsold dainties, and had left 
 his consort to struggle with misfortunes, which re- 
 
 s 2 
 
360 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 quired a species of consolation more solid and less 
 sentimental than that which I once administered to 
 a mourning widow in Egypt. 1 should not have 
 mentioned the visit which I paid for this purpose, 
 and the real pleasure I derived from the relief I 
 was able to afford, but that my friends, justly soli- 
 citous about my unsullied fame, might remark that 
 I had at an early period of my liistory recorded a 
 solemn engagement, and nowhere had mentioned 
 its fulfilment. 
 
 Let us return to matters of more importance. 
 Though from the first instant of his elevation, 
 Youssoof-Visier had been preparing underhand the 
 rupture with Russia, the war broke out without 
 any formal declaration. On the 18th of August, 
 1787, the Russian Ambassador found himself un- 
 expectedly complimented with a lodging at the Sul- 
 tan's expense in the Seven Towers,^ and the Turkish 
 troops stationed at Ockzakow made an attack upon 
 the fortress of Kinburn, when the garrison thought 
 itself in profound peace. The fullest success of these 
 petty manoeuvres could not have made amends for 
 the imputation of bad faith which they fixed upon 
 the Turks ; their failure only added disgrace to dis- 
 comfiture. They gave the Emperor of Austria a 
 plausible excuse for joining the Russians, and for 
 declaring war against the Porte, on the 9th Fe- 
 bruary, 1788. This event seemed to mark Valachia 
 for the seat of the ensuing campaign. It increased 
 
AxXASTASirS. 261 
 
 my wish to take a share in its hazards ; and I ob- 
 tained from Hassan-Pasha letters both for Youssoof 
 and for Mavroyeni. Encamped at Daood-Pasha, 
 the supreme Visier had ah-eady hoisted the standard 
 of the Prophet, and was collecting round the sacred 
 staft' the grand army of the faithful, for the defence 
 of the empire. I intended to visit the Commander 
 in chief on my way, but aware of my moderate 
 dimensions, and expecting to make a greater figure 
 on the smaller theatre of Valachia, I purposed to 
 tarry only M-ith Mavroyeni. 
 
 Neither personage, however, was to be favoured 
 with my company the very instant my credentials 
 were signed : such unnecessary diligence would have 
 bespoken an anxiety in their behalf somewhat too 
 flattering. With my letters in my pocket, I gave 
 three days more to the dissipation of the capital ; 
 and, satisfied with having, through dint of unex- 
 ampled diligence, compassed as much pleasure as 
 so short a period would allow, proceeded without 
 further delay on the less perilous road to open and 
 avowed warfare. My equipage was light. It con- 
 sisted of what articles my own horse could carry 
 in addition to my person ; for, unable to afford a 
 long string of attendants, I trusted more for safety 
 to a perfectly unobtrusive appearance, than to a 
 small and insufficient retinue. 
 
 Though I had seen camps before, that of the 
 
^()2 ANASTASirs. 
 
 Visier-Azein, with all its want of order, struck mc 
 as very magnificent. The central object, the tent 
 of the commander, — with its avenues of pillars and 
 standards, its gilding and its draperies, — looked 
 a most imposing mass : but its tenant disappointed 
 me. I had formerly known Youssoof as Hassan''s 
 Kehaya. He was then quoted for the erect majesty 
 of his mien, and for the jett}^ lustre of his ample 
 beard. The personage to whom I was introduced 
 at Daood-Pasha, on the contrary, had the grey 
 hairs of age and the stoop of infirmity. " Heavens !" 
 thought I, *' can this be the same man whom I 
 formerly admired ; can seven years so pull down 
 the sturdiest human frame ? would they make of 
 me so woful a ruin ?" — And it was a rehef to my 
 mind when I heard that Youssoof, in order to in- 
 crease the gravity of his appearance, used similar 
 arts for the purpose of looking old and infirm, to 
 those which others employ for that of appearing 
 young and active. 
 
 With the other attributes of age, Youssoof seemed 
 to have acquired its garrulity. I thought there never 
 would have been an end to his inquiries after Has- 
 san-Pasha. The Grand- Admiral's health, his looks, 
 his spirits, were each separately made the theme of 
 long and repeated expressions of solicitude : and at 
 each favourable reply, Youssoof blessed Allah for 
 the good news with such studied emphasis, that 1 
 
ANASTASIUS. 
 
 j udgecl the Visier's affection for his ancient patron, 
 and the Capitan-Pasha's regard for his overgrown 
 favourite, to have sunk nearly to the same level. 
 Base coin is always showy ! 
 
 As soon as Youssoof had added his contribution 
 to my letters for Mavroyeni, I proceeded on my 
 journey. The supreme Visier himself was soon to 
 break up his first station, and to halt successively at 
 divers other marked places, in order to give the 
 Zaims and Timariotes of all the different provinces 
 of Roumili an opportunity of reinforcing his army : 
 and I was unwilling, by unnecessary delay, to en- 
 counter on the road more than I could help of the 
 small detachments of true believers, expected soon to 
 obey from all quarters the invitation of Moham- 
 med's vicar ! " 
 
 From Daood-Pasha I met nothing in a ques- 
 tionable shape until I reached Erekli. There ap- 
 pearances became more terrific. On going out at 
 the gate of that city after dusk, and turning the 
 corner of the spacious burying-ground which ex- 
 tends close under its walls, my horse suddenly stop- 
 ped, and in defiance of whip and stirrup, stood 
 staring at the tombs, trembling like a leaf. " So !" 
 thought I, " the Gouls are abroad ; the spirits of 
 the dead hold their revels ; the living are unwelcome 
 here P** And in fact, I soon perceived, by the light 
 of the moon, a number of gigantic shadows glide 
 
26-t ANASTASH!-^. 
 
 along the marble gravestones. The spectres that 
 cast them seemed to be dancing hand in hand round 
 the cemetry ; sometimes separating, then again form- 
 ing clusters, then totally disappearing under ground. 
 Presently sounds too arose from the earth : confused 
 murmurs pervaded the place ; and at last a whole 
 swarm of ghastly figures sprung up close to my 
 horse, — no longer indeed unsubstantial phantoms, 
 but seeming, from their emaciated form and pallid 
 hue, the very corpses of the dead arisen from their 
 coffins. Immediately they encircled me with hideous 
 
 yell. 
 
 No sooner, however, was the frightful ring com- 
 pleted, than my apprehensions of the deceased 
 vanished in my fears of the living ; and I no longer 
 thought myself in the company of spectres, but in 
 that of banditti. Accordingly, clapping both stirrups 
 to my horse, I was going to break through the 
 threatening circle, when I perceived that none of the 
 party were armed, or at least had any weapon more 
 formidable than a stick, or a pair of crutches ; that 
 there were as many women and children in the ranks 
 as men ; and that more than two thirds of the troop 
 were halt, blind, or paralytic. 
 
 There is, gentle reader, a district in the Morea, 
 whose inhabitants are, to a man, beggars by profes- 
 sion. Every year, as soon as they have sown their 
 fields, these industrious members of society abandon 
 
ANASl'ASIUS. 265 
 
 their villages till harvest time, and sally forth, on 
 a mendicant circuit, through the different provinces 
 of Roumili. The elders and chiefs of the community 
 plan the route, divide the provinces, and allot to 
 each detachment its grovmd. They shorten or pro- 
 long their sojourn in the different places, according 
 as the mine of charity is rich, and has been more or 
 less explored. Through wastes where little is to 
 be gleaned large troops travel in close order ; but, 
 on approaeliiug fruitful districts, the swarms again 
 divide and spread. According to his peculiar talent, 
 each individual undertakes tlie heart-rending tale of 
 mental woe, or the disgusting display of bodily suf- 
 fering. " His wife and children died of hunger by 
 the road side, after having been burnt out of house 
 and home ;*" — or, " he has an incurable leprosy in 
 every joint ;" — or, " he is actually giving up the 
 ghost for want of a morsel of food !"' Old traders, 
 grown rich by their indigence, sell out to young 
 beginners ; and the children of the society remain 
 in common, so that each female may in turns be 
 provided with a pair of fatherless twins, to be duly 
 pinched to tears, and made to roar their lungs out, 
 whenever compassionate people are in sight. Un- 
 ceasing warfare is kept up with interlopers from 
 other quarters, who trespass on the domain of this 
 regularly organised band. Among its members a 
 dislocated limb, or a disgusting disease, are esteemed 
 peculiar blessings ; an hereditary complaint is a sort 
 
2(i() ANASTASIUS. 
 
 of an estate, and if conspicuous, and such as to re- 
 sist the officious remedies of the charitable, confers 
 rank, and may be called a badge of nobility. But 
 even those who have the misfortune to labour under 
 the most incurable state of health and vigour are 
 dexterous, if not radically to correct this perverse- 
 ness of nature, at least to remove its untoward ex- 
 ternal appearance. They excel in the manufacture 
 of counterfeit wounds and mock diseases ; and the 
 convulsions of a demoniac are graceful movements 
 to their spontaneous fits. 
 
 The troop with which I had the luck to fall in 
 had destined Erekli for the next day's scene of 
 action. Its worthy members were taking among the 
 tombs a comfortable night's rest, previous to the 
 morning's labours. Already had most of the party 
 sunk into soft slumbers on the pillows of the fresh 
 laid graves, when the tramp of my horse, resound- 
 ing among the hollow vaults, and reverberated by 
 the sculptured slabs, roused, and made them start 
 up and surround me, as has been seen. Their 
 clamour was only the eleemosynary ditty, which, 
 from long habit, they kept mumbling even in their 
 sleep. 
 
 Moved with compassion at the sight of so much 
 suffering, I determined at once to remove all these 
 accumulated ills, and, for this purpose, began to lay 
 lustily about me with my good long ox-hide whip. 
 It would have gladdened a feeling heart to bce whiU 
 
ANASTASILS. 267 
 
 a salutary and immediate effect followed this appli- 
 cation. At the very first flourish, the lame found the 
 use of their legs, the blind recovered their sight, and 
 the deaf and dumb a Stentorian voice. A poor de- 
 crepid creature, doubled with age and infirmity — 
 straightening as if by magic — became all at once as 
 nimble as a stag : a man, shaped like a dromedary, 
 slipped his hunch without missing it ; and a woman, 
 eighteen months at least gone with child, stumbling 
 over a gravestone, brought to light a truss of 
 straw ! 
 
 The fright of my friends, however, was not of 
 long duration. By degrees they began to fancy, 
 that, though I was armed and on horseback, and 
 they were unarmed and on foot, yet in the dark, 
 and among heaps of gravestones, thirty or forty 
 had a chance against one. In this notion they again 
 rallied, and soon sticks and stones whizzed about 
 my ears as thick as hail. I now found that I had 
 to deal with a set of ungrateful rogues, who, so far 
 from thanking me for the miraculous cure which I 
 had performed, only requited good with evil. It 
 therefore seemed time to leave them to their fat^, 
 and to scamper off; by which means I soon got out 
 of sight, and a very httle while after, out of hearing 
 of the vollies of abuse, which accompanied the re- 
 peated showers of stones. 
 
 The crossing of the Balkan — which rose in siglit 
 soon after — would, I suppose, have been a dclighlliil 
 
2()8 ANASTASirs. 
 
 treat to one who preferred the remains of a former 
 worn out world to the good things of the present 
 renovated globe, and a petrified oyster or cabbage 
 to fare of easier digestion. For my part, who felt 
 more anxious to know the end of things than their 
 origin, I was very glad when I found Mount Hemus 
 fairly left behind me, and still more so, when before 
 me I beheld winding in ample sweeps the \^dde waters 
 of the Danube. My raptures still increased on setting- 
 foot, after crossing the turbid stream, in the plains 
 of Valachia. 
 
 In order to profit as much as possible by the 
 benefits of Christendom, and to evince the estima- 
 tion in which I still held its institutions, I purposed 
 marking my entrance into its domain, by sleeping the 
 first night at a monastery. I had heard of one on 
 the road, where the Caloyers lived well, and could 
 spare a way-faring man a few crums from their 
 table, and a comer in their doranitory. On my 
 arrival I found my design forestalled. The convent 
 had been invaded, only an hour before, by a set of 
 Frank travellers, who carried a licence from the 
 provincial government, to inconvenience at their 
 pleasure every place on the road. 
 
 I say invaded : for between masters, servants, 
 interpreters, couriers, mikmandars'^ and jenissaries, 
 there were no less, I think, than twenty or thirty in 
 dividuals; and for many of the least important among 
 these gentry singly, the place appeared much too 
 
ANASTASIUS. 2G9 
 
 small. The very monks had been turned out oi 
 their cells to make room for the strangers. 
 
 At first I took for granted that so mighty a re- 
 moval of human bodies from the place of their birth 
 must have an adequate end ; and that the head of 
 the party could be no less than the ambassador of 
 some great Christian potentate, come to transact 
 affairs of the utmost importance with the Porte ; 
 and resigned myself in consequence to lay my own 
 diminished head where I could : but, on discreetly 
 seeking to have my surmises confirmed by a sort of 
 courier, half Swiss half Italian, who, in a gibberish 
 between both, was giving directions to the Greek 
 steward of the convent, who understood neither, I 
 could only discover that the pad7^one was a young 
 gentleman of great fortune, tired of having every 
 thing at home in the most comfortable style, for 
 nothing but the trouble of issuing his commands, 
 and who therefore wandered about the world, to 
 enjoy the variety of now and then going to bed with- 
 out his supper, or getting up without having gone 
 to bed. Constantinople was to be his first halting- 
 place on the journey ; but whether from thence he 
 w as to go by land to China, or by sea to Peru, was 
 not yet decided. 
 
 I now began to think it somewhat hard that in 
 the Sultan's own dominions, one of his own liege 
 subjects, travelling on real business, and who had 
 
270 ANASTASILS. 
 
 lived long enough not to like going to bed on an 
 empty stomach, or to think sleeping in the fields a 
 desirable variety, should be thus kept on the 'pavt 
 by strangers who only came to burthen us with their 
 ennui : and, accordingly, desired my informer to go 
 and remonstrate in my name with his master, re- 
 specting the unreasonable monopoly he was exer- 
 cising ; — fully determined, should the negotiation 
 prove inefficient, to resort to more energetic measures 
 for obtaining redress. I knew that, to whatever 
 extremities I might proceed, the Greeks would re- 
 main neutral ; and I feared not the Franks. All I 
 apprehended was, that the servant might not deliver 
 my message in terms sufficiently forcible; and I 
 therefore soon followed myself — highly incensed at 
 the supposed indignity I was suffering, — and bolted 
 into his excellency's dingy chamber, just as the 
 courier had concluded his speech. 
 
 To find all complacency, where one expects a de- 
 termined resistance, and is prepared only for using 
 proportionate force, occasions a shock in the brain 
 similar to that experienced by the body on sinking 
 into a down pillow, where movements had been 
 measured for meeting with a seat of impenetrable 
 stone ; and this sort of shock I experienced, when 
 received by a young man of the most prepossessing 
 appearance, only intent upon knowing how he could 
 most effectually accommodate myself and all my 
 
ANASTASIUS. 271 
 
 suite ; and ending by inviting me to partake of his 
 own indifferent supper, which — he added — his com- 
 panion had just stepped down to hasten. 
 
 Thus courteously addressed, my answer was made 
 to correspond ; and nothing ensued but a conflict of 
 civiUties. It was only interrupted by my going out 
 again to look after my said suite — namely, my horse ; 
 ere I gave myself up for the remainder of the 
 evening to the pleasure of conversing with so charm- 
 ing and wellbred an host. 
 
 His invitation to the strange traveller, meanwhile, 
 had gone abroad among his own retinue; and, 
 before I was able to return from my excursion, it 
 was my good fortune to overhear the impression it 
 produced on his companion, still engaged in bustling 
 below stairs. This somewhat Jess hospitable per- 
 sonage was pleased loudly to wonder what pleasure 
 Mr. T — could find in courting every adventurer^ 
 Turk or Christian, with whom he fell in on the 
 road ; and grievously moaned over the selfish vanity 
 which made a man of his sense unfeelingly put his 
 friends out of their way, merely to have his polite- 
 ness admired by utter strangers. 
 
 The remark fortunately affected not my appetite. 
 When the smoking evidences of the amiable com- 
 panion's industry appeared on the table, I paid 
 them not the less every compliment in my power ; 
 and was only the more intent upon diverting their 
 autlior from the nefarious purpose of being himself 
 the first again to destroy tlie various fruits of his 
 
272 ANASTASIL'S. 
 
 labour, by forcing upon liim a thousand little atten- 
 tions, for which, in his heart, he would have wished 
 to box my ears. Even this lengthened the meal but 
 little. I soon perceived that my host, — overcome 
 with the fatigue of the journey — though striving to 
 the utmost to entertain his guest, was scarce in a 
 condition to receive from that guest an adequate 
 return ; and therefore speedily proposed a separa- 
 tion, — in which proposal I was most warmly seconded 
 by his companion, who, sated at last, now saga- 
 ciously observed that, as they were to rise betimes, 
 they had better go to their rest. 
 
 As far as his own share was concerned, it is 
 but doing the gentleman in question justice to 
 state that he spared nothing to promote this laudable 
 object. He kept to himself a mattress which might 
 have accommodated three more of his fellow- 
 travellers, and left these — not friends, I suppose — 
 unceremoniously enough, to lie on the bare tiles : 
 but in spite of this precaution, the nimble tenants 
 of the place, whose supper was only just be- 
 ginning, kept il signor compagno awake. This 
 misfortune caused him to groan so loudly and so 
 incessantly all night, that no one else within hearing 
 was permitted to enjoy the repose which had for- 
 saken this important personage. I heartily regretted 
 his fine feelings, and wished he had had some of the 
 selfishness of his patron. 
 
 The moment the Frank party was off, the Ca- 
 loyers were released from the forced confinement in 
 
ANASTASIUS. S73 
 
 which all, except the superior, had been held during 
 their stay. I thought this black gentleman looked 
 at me distrustfully, for having displayed Prankish 
 freedoms under the Moslem turban, and feared 
 he might make some report at Bucharest to my 
 disadvantage. The impression was to be done 
 away. Taking him therefore aside, I honestly 
 confessed that I was not only a Greek — which my 
 speech confirmed — but a disguised emissary from 
 Russia, come to sound the disposition of the Greek 
 Papases in favour of Ekatharina!^ Hereupon his 
 heart opened : he expressed his admiration of the 
 Empress ; particularly commended her laudable 
 perseverance in the privations of widowhood ; and 
 earnestly intreated me to inform her by the first 
 opportunity what a stanch friend she had in father 
 Kyrilios; dwelling much all the while upon the 
 means of corresponding with the well affected to 
 that sovereign, throughout Valachia, afforded by 
 his convent, — a hint by no means lost upon me, 
 when afterwards I had troops to quarter, and con-» 
 tributions to levy, in that province. 
 
 Continuing my journey, absorbed in reflections 
 which were greatly favoured by my slow progress 
 through endless swamps, I scarce perceived a per- 
 sonage who came from whither I was going, till he 
 pulled up his steed to honour me with a more 
 minute survey. I returned him the comphment, 
 
 VOL, II. T 
 
274 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 though his equipage Httle deserved such an atten- 
 tion ; and '* Selim !" on his part, and " Condilly V^ 
 on mine, were roared out at the same instant. 
 
 This signor Condilly, originally a Roman Catho- 
 lic, had first married a sister of Mavroyeni's, and 
 consequently a Greek. On her demise he showed 
 his grief by embracing the Greek creed himself, 
 and marrying a Roman Catholic. Her he left to 
 go into a monastery ; and the convent he fled from 
 to take a third wife, younger than the two former. 
 He had treated his sovereigns as he had done his 
 consorts. When Venetian Consul at the Canea, 
 he sold the interests of the republic to the Turks ; 
 and when employed for the Turks at Zante, he 
 betrayed them to the Venetians. I had known him 
 at Constantinople, where he gave himself as much 
 airs as if he carried Jove's thunder in his sleeve, 
 and entertained his friends with stories so long and 
 tiresome, that they would have made the very moon 
 split her face with yawning. On Mavroyeni's ap- 
 pointment to the principality of Valachia, he sent 
 this worthy brother-in-law on before him to Bucha- 
 rest as his Caimakam ; and when he came himself, 
 he appointed Condilly his cupbearer: nor had I 
 heard, when we met, of any later change. 
 
 '< Whither bound, Georgacki," cried I ; — " for 
 the capital or for the army ?" 
 
 " For whatever place," was his reply, " I may 
 be invited to. You see me at large again !" 
 
ANASTASIUS. 275 
 
 "That misfortune," rejoined I, "you seem used 
 to ; but how happened this last speedy dismissal ?" 
 
 " Who can tell ?'' exclaimed Condilly, with a 
 shrug of the shoulders : " Not I, at least. — When a 
 man has his familiar sprite, with whom alone he 
 takes counsel, we poor mortals must be contented 
 to remain in ignorance. People do what they 
 please, when they act by inspiration. You must 
 have heard of the wealthy Vakareskolo, the Cresus 
 of Boyars/ — he who thought himself so secure from 
 being fleeced, by never appearing at court, and 
 declining all dangerous distinctions. Well!— has 
 not Mavroyeni, by means of his invisible counsellor, 
 at last hunted him out, and sent to him to say 
 that the humble should be exalted ; and that his 
 very disinterestedness made it necessary, for the 
 good of the country, that he should assume some 
 high and responsible office ?" 
 
 " The Bey found not the same reason, I pre- 
 sume, for securing the permanence of my worthy 
 informant's services ?''"' was my reply. 
 
 " His household Demon," rejoined Condilly, 
 " lately put it into his head that his Greek name 
 was a base corruption ; that he was descended from 
 the ancient Venetian family of Morosini : and its 
 Latin translation, Maurocenus, is now the name by 
 which he insists on being addressed. INIy tongue 
 once made an unlucky slip; I called him by the 
 name of his forefathers ; — and for this offence he 
 
276 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 condemned mo, his kinsman, his counsellor, and 
 his cupbearer — who tasted every drop of his wine- 
 to bread and water in the salt-mines ! Had I re- 
 mained there long, I must have become pickled 
 alivcj and so have died a vampire, even without 
 excommunication, and have sucked his blood, as he 
 does that of others. For that reason only, I sup- 
 pose, he let me out at last, on condition of leaving 
 Valachia. But, O how I shall talk, as soon as I 
 am past the frontier !"" 
 
 To me it seemed that signor Condilly waited not 
 till that period to execute his threat. Loth, however, 
 to lose time in conversation, where I was sure not to 
 hear a word of truth : " Hark ye, Georgacki,"' cried 
 I, " you, who are going, may be right to talk, but 
 I, who am comings would do wrong to listen. You 
 have been long enough in the world to know that 
 the atmosphere of one out of favour is infectious, 
 and cannot take it amiss if you are done by as you 
 would do by others. So adieu ; and fare ye well !" 
 
 At these words I pushed on. The cup-bearer 
 called after me, to say that for all the caution with 
 which I seemed to act, he would bespeak the horses 
 for my own return. I did not stop to retort, but 
 made what speed I could, and the same evening^ 
 reached Bucharest. 
 
ANASTASIUS. 277 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 From the first moment of the rupture with 
 Austria, Mavroyeni, expecting Valachia to become 
 the theatre of the war, had sent his useless princess 
 and her still more useless train back to Constanti- 
 nople; — a wise measure, I thought, wherereal clouds 
 were gathering ! In order to defray the expenses 
 requisite for the defence of the principality, he had 
 levied enormous contributions, not only on the laity, 
 but on the clergy, who, as ministers of peace, could 
 not conceive what they had to do with the war, and 
 thought their task fulfilled when they had prayed 
 for the safety of the country. He had moreover 
 banished to Turkey, or put in durance on the spot, 
 such of the Boyars and others — no matter what 
 their rank — whom he suspected of a secret under- 
 standing with Austria. Among the passes or ra- 
 vines which form the only communication athwart 
 the formidable barrier of mountains that separate 
 Transilvania from the land of the Roumooms,^ he 
 had distributed seven or eight thousand Seimen, or 
 provincial troops. Through his care, Bucharest, a 
 city of immense extent, lying in an almost dead flat, 
 for whose safety nature had done nothing, and art 
 
278 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 could do but little, bade as formidable a defence to an 
 enemy as its situation permitted. Each khan within 
 its circuit was become a battery, and each convent 
 a fortress. The very Archi-episcopal Palace, and 
 the Cathedral, situated on the only commanding 
 eminence, were, to the inexpressible horror of the 
 Valachians, transformed into a citadel. Soldiers 
 quartered where priests used to say mass, cannon- 
 balls heaped up where stood the cross, and muskets 
 and sabres piled where had been raised the host, 
 completed the dismay of the natives. 
 
 It was in the midst of all this bustle of warlike 
 preparations that I entered Bucharest. At its 
 gates nothing was seen but groups of weeping 
 families going out, and detachments of turbulent 
 soldiers marching in ; and wherever I stopped within 
 its precincts, no other discourse met my ear but 
 that of banishments, confiscations, fines, imprison- 
 ments, recruitings, fortifications, and plans of attack 
 and of defence. " Good !" said I to myself; " this 
 martial discord is music to my ears ! It promises 
 plenty of what I most want : dear delightful con- 
 fusion ! Born to live in troubled waters, again I 
 breathe, again I feel in my element :" — and every 
 officer of state whose favour seemed expiring, every 
 grandee of the court whose fall was announced, I 
 only considered as kindly making room for me. 
 My feelings somewhat resembled those of the saga- 
 cious birds called vultures, who, the moment the 
 
ANASTASIUS. 279 
 
 battle begins to rage, flap their wings, exult, and 
 already in imagination revel in their promised 
 feast I 
 
 When, however — the first tumult of the sense 
 allayed — I sat down quietly in my lodging, to 
 consider how I should best proceed, my reflec- 
 tions assumed a soberer hue, and my expectations 
 gradually fell to a less exalted pitch. " I am now," 
 thought I, " in a place where I possess not a friend, 
 nor even an acquaintance ; where all must consider 
 me as an intruder, against whom it is their business 
 to unite ; — and, in that place, at the mercy of a 
 single man, and that man, Mavroyeni ! — Mavroy- 
 eni, even in his first dependant state often uncon- 
 trollable, and ruled by caprice rather than by cool 
 reason, and who now, after so long thirsting in a 
 state of servility for the despotic sway he has at last 
 obtained, every hour drinks unto intoxication of the 
 sweet cup of power. It is true, I bear within my 
 own breast the qualities which his situation renders 
 most valuable, and I carry in my pocket the recom- 
 mendations which his interest obliges him most to 
 respect. The commands in my favour of the two 
 rulers of the state — by sea and by land — would, 
 with any other person in his place, leave me no fur- 
 ther trouble than that of announcing myself and 
 my wishes : and I moreover know Mavroyeni suf- 
 ficiently lenient in religious matters, not to regard my 
 apostacy as a great bar to my promotion, even in his 
 
280 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 Greek princi])ality : — but," added I, in order to re- 
 btrain the too sanguine hopes founded on these con- 
 siderations, " may lie not retain an unfavourable 
 impression of my youthful pranks, and my insolent 
 mode of quitting his service ? May he not with still 
 more probability feel hurt at my long estrangement 
 from his person, my long apparent disdain of his 
 protection, my long obstinacy in seeking my fortune 
 any where upon earth rather than under the shelter 
 of his wing ?"" — So often had his wayward temper 
 only turned the more restive for being more sharply 
 reined, that, in order to show bis independence, it 
 was likely he might make the very weight of my 
 recommendations a motive for treating me with 
 greater coolness. 
 
 I therefore, spite of my expectations, prepared 
 my mind for the possibility of an indifferent recep- 
 tion, and resolved only to advance in so cautious a 
 manner, as not to stand much committed should I 
 meet with a rebuff. 
 
 In this spirit, — so far from dressing for my first 
 audience of Mavroyeni as I had done for my first 
 interview with Suleiman; — so far from informing 
 every passenger as I went along, by the importance 
 of my looks, that I was going to court; from an- 
 nouncing in an authoritative tone, on my arrival at 
 the palace, that I carried letters from the Grand 
 Visier, the L<jrd High Admiral, and the Drogueman 
 ui' the navy,— 1 rather ran into the opposite extreme, 
 
ANASTASIUS. 281 
 
 and, by way of pitching my tone at the outset in such 
 a key as I might be sure not to have to lower after- 
 wards, went in so modest a dress, crept into the 
 audience chamber in so quiet a manner, and, having 
 dehvered my message in a scarce audible voice, 
 stood so demurely with my hands in my sleeves at 
 the lower end of the room, that I was scarce noticed 
 by a troop of gentlemen of far higher apparent pre- 
 tensions, who held their more conspicuous station in 
 the middle of the apartment, and bore such a pro- 
 digious air of self importance, that their very yawn- 
 ings (which were both frequent and loud) had in 
 them a something grand and imposing ; while their 
 conversation — chiefly intended, it should seem, for 
 the benefit of distant hearers — ran entirely upon the 
 last joke of the Ban of Crayova, the last remark 
 of the Cameraz, and the last witticism of the 
 Spatar i 
 
 I had heard that in some place or other the hum- 
 ble were to be exalted : but this certainly was not 
 in Mavroyeni's anti-room. Its familiars seemed of 
 a sort not disposed easily to give a stranger credit 
 for higher claims than he chose to divulge, but, on 
 the contrary, to indulge a man, desirous of remaining 
 in the back ground, to the utmost of his wishes in this 
 to them strange propensity. It is true, they vouch- 
 safed now and then to honour me with their attention, 
 so far as to eye me from head to foot, — but it was 
 with any thing but a look of invitation to join their 
 
282 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 noble group. This silent scrutiny was even carried 
 to such a length, that at last my patience forsook me^ 
 and I began, in my turn, to stare at the starerswith 
 such steadiness, as gradually to disconcert all their 
 petulance, and to make them fall from their haughty 
 self-sufficient look into an appearance of downright 
 constraint, — till at last one of the set, determined to 
 beat me out of the field, detached himself from the 
 group, came over to where I stood with a sort of 
 mock civility, and asked me in a simpering tone, 
 whether the company had the honour of my ap- 
 probation ? 
 
 I was going to answer " No," without circumlo- 
 cution, — when suddenly the door of the inner room 
 opened, and the party fell back to range themselves 
 round the room in a respectful circle, in the middle 
 of which the gentleman usher advanced, to select 
 whom he should first introduce to his Highness. 
 
 Each was striving to obtain that distinction, by 
 straining to protrude the upper part of his body 
 a few inches before that of his neighbour ; — for as 
 to me, I did not at that critical moment come into 
 consideration at all, and would have been entirely 
 forgotten, had I not informed the usher of my pre- 
 sence, by holding over the heads of those that 
 pressed before me certain talismanic papers, at the 
 sight of which the officer pushed the crowd aside to 
 let me pass. I now handed to him my credentials, 
 to be taken to the prince ; and, as 1 delivered my 
 
ANASTASIUS. 283 
 
 letters, amused myself with naming the writers one 
 by one. 
 
 Being, on the strength of so respectable an intro- 
 duction, immediately let in, I left my anti-room 
 friends nearly as composed as if a thunderbolt had 
 just exploded among them. One half looked pale 
 as ashes, the other red as crimson ; and every one 
 seemed intent only upon how he should repair his 
 imprudence, on the re-appearance of the great man 
 in disguise. 
 
 Though my call was speedy, my reception was 
 not the more promising. Mavroyeni, at first, 
 deigned not even to greet me with that look of 
 surprise with which I had laid my account, but 
 went on with the various occupations in which I 
 found him engaged, as if unaware of my presence ; 
 leaving me full leisure, in the mean time, to mark 
 the havock made by ambition more than by age, in 
 his originally hard and homely features. In fact, 
 the ruling passion seemed to have increased to such 
 a degree the obliquity which the natural dimness of 
 his right eye had produced in the motions of the 
 other, as to have rendered his a perfectly sinister 
 look, in every sense of the word. He always eyed 
 one askance ! Those to whom he stood opposite, his 
 eye glanced beside ; and, to fix his interlocutor, he 
 turned his face away from him. It is true that the 
 lower features of that same face made amends in 
 some measure for the defects of those above. His 
 
284 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 jet black beard and inustachios, of which he took 
 great care, encompassed lips whose smile was as 
 pleasing as the frown of his dark brow was terrific ; 
 and these lips in their turn disclosed, when he spoke, 
 two rows of teeth as white as snow, which no man 
 could be more ready to show on all occasions. 
 
 For some time after my entrance, however, they 
 were only uncased in the process of dictating a letter 
 of three pages to the Reis-EfFendee : and not until 
 he had finished this and all his other business — 
 pairing his nails included — with the utmost com- 
 posure, did he seem to perceive that I stood before 
 him, tired of watching his left eye, and of com- 
 mencing bows all stifled in the birth. At last, when 
 he had fairly exhausted his own occupations and my 
 patience, he cast a look my way, and appeared to 
 see me ; but it was only to ask in a gruff and snap- 
 pish manner — while pointing to my poor letters 
 flung unopened on the sofa — " Whether it was 1 
 who had brought that load of paper ?'' 
 
 I bowed again, and said it was, but only as the 
 person entrusted with its conveyance. " For well I 
 know,'^ added I, " that with your Highness neither 
 interest avails, nor even talent, when presumptuously 
 relying on its own merit, and unfriended by the sun- 
 shine of your spontaneous favour, heaven-directed 
 tow ards its possessor V 
 
 This compliment to the Bey's independence 
 smoothed the bristles round his heart. Hib fea- 
 
ANASTASIUS. 285 
 
 tures imlTiediately relaxed ; and I thought I could 
 clearly discern tlirough what they retained of out- 
 ward rigidity, an inward smile of approbation. At 
 last his satisfaction even broke out in words. 
 " Right," he cried, " my will alone is my law ! If 
 you were the Angel Gabriel, descended from the 
 highest heaven, you must hit my fancy ere you 
 obtain my favour — at least here in Valachia. But," 
 — added he, wholly unbending, " you know I always 
 liked you, in spite of your pranks ; nay, perhaps 
 even the better for them. You were clever as a 
 lad, and I trust years have given you discretion, 
 without blunting your spirit. Tell me, — for I 
 know you have been a Kiashef in Egypt, — how you 
 got that rank ; and how you contrived to lose it .^" 
 
 Thus invited, I gave the Bey a sketch of my 
 principal adventures, — not indeed drawn with the 
 entire unreserve of these memoirs ; but in whichy 
 without startling Mavroyeni's belief by an impro- 
 bable account of my excessive wisdom or virtue, I 
 yet only touched upon my follies and vices with the 
 tender hand of a friend, whose blame is less severe 
 than the praise of an enemy. The last occurrence 
 which I mentioned was the first of my entrance into 
 the Beys' dominions, the meeting with Condilly. 
 
 " He was going to Turkey," said I. — " Not so," 
 answered Mavroyeni ; "he was speeding to Vienna : 
 he only made a circuit to deceive me. It was not 
 worth the while. I ever knew him do more harm 
 
286 ANASTASllJS. 
 
 to his friends than to his enemies ; and so I ordered 
 that every pass might be opened to him. With you 
 I mean to do the reverse." 
 
 I assured the Bey I should remain a willing pri- 
 soner ; and finding that nothing more was wanting 
 of me for the present, made my bow and retired. 
 
 Meantime my seemingly interminable audience 
 had fully confirmed the idea of my importance among 
 the inmates of the anti-room. The mystery which 
 hung over my character only served, like the vapours 
 which envelope a mountain, to magnify my seeming 
 grandeur ; and when I stole back among my friends 
 in sheep-skin,- I found that during my absence 
 they had had high words about me, — each re- 
 proaching the rest for his own incivility. No 
 sooner did they perceive my return, than they all 
 dropped some incidental remark, intended to smooth 
 the way to a more direct address. The gentleman 
 who had the first turned a deaf ear to my saluta- 
 tion, had lost his hearing from a cold ; the one who 
 had laughed at me most openly, had been able 
 to think of nothing but a domestic misfortune 
 which quite distracted his senses; and as to the 
 one who attacked me in articulate speech, he always 
 made it a point, when he saw a stranger of quality 
 anxious to remain incognito, of doing something or 
 other to favour the scheme. 
 
 Having thus each dropped his little propitiatory 
 sentence, but without the smallest intention — poor 
 
ANASTASIUS. 287 
 
 innocent souls ! — of its being overheard, they now 
 all with the utmost surprise perceived me standing 
 before them, immediately bowed in the most gra- 
 cious manner, and, all speaking together, ventured 
 
 in the most obsequious terms to express 
 
 but what ? — is the thing I am unable to tell ; as, 
 without stopping to hear it, I left the cringing 
 circle to divide among them, according to the re- 
 spective claims of each member, a single supercilious 
 glance, cast upon the whole troop collectively, and 
 then, turning on my heel, very quietly walked off. 
 The next day I received from Mavroyeni a 
 summons to a pleasure-garden, formed by him 
 the year before, outside the city. " A good omen 
 this," thought I. — " His villa is the place where 
 he deposits his Beyship at the entrance gate ;" and 
 truly, among his tulips and ranunculuses, his 
 temper seemed, chameleon-like, to reflect a some- 
 what gayer hue. It was almost couleur de rose, 
 and not perhaps the less resembling the queen of 
 flowers, because it had a lurking thorn. Through 
 Mavroyeni's transient gaiety of manner and con- 
 versation might still be discerned the stationary 
 weight which oppressed his heart, as through the 
 fleeting waters of the stream are seen the rocks that 
 lie motionless underneath. The whole drift of the 
 Prince's apparently unpremeditated discourse tended 
 indirectly to find out how he was spoken of by the 
 world at large. " Nothing," he observed, " was 
 
288 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 so entertaining as to hear what people say of one : 
 and nobody had such opportunities of knowing as 
 a stranger who mixed in every set, and whom no 
 party yet mistrusted. Often an indifferent new 
 comer lieard sentiments drop by chance from the 
 lip, which the person most deeply interested could 
 not wrinfj from the heart.'' 
 
 " Sir," answered I with great gravity, " Suleiman 
 the Just," of glorious memory, when his subjects 
 disapproved of his measures, used to cut off not 
 only the tongues of the railers, but also the ears of 
 the listeners." 
 
 *' Sensible Suleiman !" exclaimed the Bey, sighing: 
 " but Ij whom am not a Sultan, may make it my 
 amusement to hear the various opinions on the 
 merits of my administration." 
 
 " What can your highness expect to hear," 
 answered I, — doubtful of the intensity of that plea- 
 sure, where every one of those opinions infallibly 
 ended in abuse, — "but that all who make your 
 actions the theme of their discourse, vie in expres- 
 sions of equal veneration ?"" 
 
 " Which of my virtues are dwelt upon most ;*' 
 resumed Mavroyeni ; — " my clemency, or my con- 
 tempt for money ?" 
 
 This was a home question : it sounded like wishing 
 to take flattery by storm ; but, thus abruptly as- 
 sailed from the most vulnerable quarter, it could 
 scarce avoid inflicting wounds, even with the utmost 
 
ANASTASIUS. ^89 
 
 wish to caress. I looked at Mavroyeni to find out 
 whether, perchance, he only intended the query 
 as a trap to catch the flatterer. — His countenance 
 gave me no clue; his features were immoveable. 
 
 " Sir/' said I therefore, "every one knows the 
 natural humanity of your disposition ; every one is 
 persuaded that, if in your conduct you depart 
 in the least from the dictates of clemency, your 
 tender soul regrets what your trying situation com- 
 mands." 
 
 " I see," rejoined IVIavroyeni with a shrug of 
 impatience, " I can extract nothing from you. Now 
 at least let me show you I can spare your informa- 
 tion. Let me tell you myself what people say. 
 
 They call me a monster of rapaciousness and 
 
 cruelty," 
 
 I looked surprised. 
 
 " Yes," repeated the Bey, raising his voice; 
 " they call me as covetous as hell, and as merciless 
 as Satan: and though you try to look astonished, 
 you know it full as well as I do. But what you 
 may not perhaps know quite so fully, is, that for 
 being what I am, I deserve public thanks." 
 
 Here my surprise became real, and i therefore 
 concealed it. 
 
 " Two things," rejoined INIavroyeni, " I assume, 
 which you will scarcely deny." 
 
 I was going to say : " Certainly not ;" but I 
 stopped myself in time. 
 
 " The first/' he continued, " is, that this pro. 
 
 VOL. II. u 
 
5890 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 vince must be defended ; and the second, that no 
 man in the empire is fit to defend it but myself." 
 
 I bowed assent. 
 
 " Now," added the Prince, '' liow am I to for- 
 tify my province against invasion, witliout money ; 
 and how, without money, am I to keep myself in 
 my province ? Without the sums necessary to raise 
 soldiers and batteries, the Austrian s march into 
 Bucharest next month ; and without the sums re- 
 quisite to fee the Capitan-Pasha, the Visier and the 
 Sultan, I am turned out of my principality next 
 year. Let then my avarice light on the heads of 
 my employers ! With them, my generosity would 
 be my only crime."" 
 
 " Again ;— as to cruelty," resumed he — having 
 paused awhile to breathe. " For what purpose, 
 do you think, has the Porte made, in my favour, 
 the hitherto unexampled exception to its rules of 
 joining the rank of a Turkish Seraskier ^ to the pre- 
 rogatives of a Greek Hospodar ? For what purpose 
 has the Porte allowed me to command in the field 
 several thousands of Moslem soldiers ? but for that 
 of enabling me to avert the extraordinary perils that 
 hang over this province, by extraordinary vigour ! 
 If I then find that from all the various peculiarities 
 in my situation, as a native of the Isles, as a 
 stranger to the leader of the Fanar, and as the Chris- 
 tian subject of a Mohammedan master, I have every 
 body against me, as well within the very heart of 
 my principality as beyond its boundaries ; if I see 
 
ANASTASIUS. ^91' 
 
 the Greek who hates me as an intruder, the Vala- 
 chian who prays for the success of the Austrians, 
 and the Mussuhnan who looks down upon me as a 
 Yaoor and a Rayah, all unite in wishing for my 
 subversion ; if I have to defend myself against the 
 jealousy of the first, the treachery of the second, 
 and the fanaticism of the last ; if I know that the 
 least lenity, considered as weakness, will only en- 
 courage the audacity of my enemies, and hasten 
 my ruin ; and if I also know that with me must 
 perish my trust, — is it not my duty to my sovereign 
 and my province, to steady by an extraordinary 
 pressure the jarring elements ready to fall asunder; 
 and must I not, neglecting the petty forms of the 
 law to do the speedier justice, wherever I can, pinion 
 the suspected, paralyse the traitor, and cut off the 
 criminal r" 
 
 Here Mavroyeni again stopped to draw breath, 
 and to see what effect his oratory produced; and 
 having established to his satisfaction the entire pro- 
 priety of picking pockets, and chopping off heads, 
 without waiting to ask the owner's leave, he passed 
 from his affairs to mine. 
 
 " You have much employetl my thoughts," said 
 he, " since your arrival. Unfortunately, by the 
 capitulation of these provinces, it is as difficult for 
 a Mohammedan to find pi'omotion in Valachia, as it 
 is elsewhere in Turkey for a Greek. Few are the 
 offices to which Turks may be appointed; and yet 
 
292 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 I should like to give you something good in itself, 
 and something too that might not remove you too 
 far from my person. To combine these conditions 
 is a purpose which I have turned every way in my 
 mind. In short, convinced that, with your talent, 
 it only depends on your will to succeed in any line, 
 I make you my Divan-Effendee.^ It is only ex- 
 changing the sword for the pen."" 
 
 A mere trifle, thought I. — The same turn 
 of the wrist will do to cut a flourish on paper and 
 on the face of an enemy ; and it would only be 
 fancying myself in the field, marshalling a parcel 
 of soldiers, when I sat in my closet symmetrising 
 a heap of words ; and that for the same purpose 
 too — namely, of defending ourselves, and of attack- 
 ing our enemies. The ministers of the Porte would 
 be delighted with their new correspondent, and my 
 epistles could not fail to be preserved as models of 
 a diplomatic style, for the use of future ages ! 
 
 Too well, however, I knew the Bey's fondness for 
 extraordinary measures to express my surprise at the 
 proposal. " Sir," said I, bowing respectfully, " your 
 Highness has performed so many other wonders, that 
 I consider the additional miracle of making me all at 
 once a sober steady secretary, squatted all day long 
 upon his heels, squaring lines and rounding periods, 
 as only to depend upon your will : and as my forte 
 in the Turkish language has hitherto been confined 
 lo the vulgar dialect, I mean this very minute to 
 
ANASTASIUS. 293 
 
 go and study the court phraseology, in order that 
 the grandees of the capital may have no fault to 
 find with our provincial despatches." 
 
 These suggestions made the Bey reflect a little. 
 As 1 prepared to take my leave: " Stop," cried he; 
 " on second thoughts, I may do better in making 
 you my Besh-lee Aga. You will have the com- 
 mand of my troop of jenissaries ; you will see the 
 orders of the Sultan carried to the different dis- 
 tricts ; you will provide escorts for the great officers 
 of the Porte; and all that, I know, you will 
 manage to perfection. It is true, you will also have 
 to preside in a sort of court of justice, and to 
 decide in all differences between Mohammedans 
 and Rayahs, according to the Mussulman code. 
 But what of that ! Where God gives an employ- 
 ment, he gives the requisite capacity. My Pos- 
 telnic makes an excellent secretary of state, — indeed, 
 all the better perhaps, — for not knowing how to 
 sign his name. I find no fault with my Vestiaris, 
 in his place of treasurer, though he never learnt the 
 rule of three ; and as to my Spatar, is he a worse 
 minister of police, I pray, for possessing practical 
 knowledge of how windows are broken at night, and 
 riots made in the streets ? You will do like all the 
 rest : provide yourself with a clerk who gets less pay, 
 and knows more of the business, than his principal ; 
 and in every doubtful case of law, always presume 
 
294- ANASTASIUS, 
 
 the Mobanimetlan to be in the right ; and give 
 verdict in liis favour." 
 
 I bowed as before. In truth, I hked the place 
 of Besh-lee Aga as little as that of Divan-EfFendee : 
 but I trusted to the Bey's own mutability of temper 
 ibr again changing his plan. I knew the only 
 certain way to make him persist in it was to re- 
 monstrate. I therefore silently retired. 
 
 The next day I was again summoned. The 
 wind meantime had, as I expected, shifted to an- 
 other quarter. " Skanavi,"^ — cried the Prince, as 
 soon as he saw me, " thinks you will make but an 
 indifferent judge after all. He is sure, he says, 
 you will never look grave enough in the hall, nor 
 consent to let your raustachios turn down instead of 
 up. I myself cannot conceive what made you so 
 anxious for the employment. Take my word for 
 it, the command of my Arnaoots will suit you much 
 better." 
 
 This happened to be so exactly what I thought 
 myself, that I now felt fain to argue the point, in 
 order to have the nail more securely clenched ; but, 
 as the mere act of revolving the expediency of this 
 measure in my mind gave me an appearance of 
 hesitating, it answered all the purpose. " No 
 words !" exclaimed the Bey. " I know what suits 
 you m^ueh better than you caa pretend to do your- 
 self. Here its your commissiaa made oat aJready. 
 
ANASTASIUS. 295 
 
 Take it; go home, and thank God and the bog- 
 fever which has left so fine a vacancy for you. 
 Your promotion will cause a few heart-burnings, — 
 but I soon depend upon a good dose of leaden 
 pills to cure them." 
 
 I now threw myself at the Bey's feet to thank 
 him for his favours, and went to assume the insignia, 
 and to perform the duties of my new station. Ac- 
 quaintance v.as soon made with the officers of my 
 corps; and obedience somewhat later enforced among 
 the privates. Many had been haidoots or banditti 
 before they became soldiers, and seemed likely to 
 end as they had begun ; but, though they at first 
 looked at me rather askance, we in time came, — 
 and without needing the court phraseology — to a 
 proper understanding. 
 
 Of one who like me expected to be but little 
 stationary, no great establishment was required. 
 Leaving to prince Brankovano to lie in state in gilt 
 keoschks, and to be fanned by female slaves with 
 tufts of white peacock's tails, I contented myself 
 with a firwood hut for my habitation, and a few 
 gypsies for my domestics. It is the fashion to abuse 
 that chattering, lying, thieving, nimble race, who, 
 invoking Mohammed among the Turks, and the 
 Holy Virgin among the Christians, make shift in 
 Valachia to extract gold with equal dexterity from 
 the filth of its cities, and from the pure crystal of 
 its mountain streams, and, if they were all to drive 
 
296 AXASTASIU?. 
 
 their waggons elsewhere, would leave the province 
 without singers, dancers, fiddlers, fortune-tellers, 
 tinkers, blacksmiths, or grooms. For my part, I 
 did not dislike their attendance. Too much despised 
 to be honest, but too timid to commit atrocious 
 crimes, I found them lively, entertaining, and sure 
 to succeed in whatever requires more address than 
 courage, and more dexterity than labour. 
 
 The disorganisation of the Othoman empire often 
 obliges the sovereign to enforce by stratagem that 
 absolute right over the lives of his immediate ser- 
 vants, which the constitution admits; and thence 
 the government of the Turks frequently presents 
 a strange contrast of apparent perfidy with real 
 good faith. Its scrupulous observance of treaties is 
 proverbial ; and has been most powerfully exempli- 
 fied in the Greek provinces of Valachia and Mol- 
 davia. When they surrendered to the Turkish 
 arms they stipulated the preservation of their Greek 
 worship and rulers ; nor has the letter of the capitu- 
 lation ever been violated. The governors may have 
 been changed from the nobles of the country to the 
 merchants of the Fanar ; from men entitled to the 
 situation by their descent, to individuals only in- 
 vested with the office in consideration of their 
 wealth ; but to this day in both provinces the 
 steeple soars above the minaret, and the worshippers 
 of Christ take precedence of the followers of Mo- 
 hammed : — I mean as far as the internal organisa- 
 
ANASTASIUS. '^97 
 
 tion is concerned ; for, with regard to external 
 allegiance, the Greek Hospodar holds his power of 
 his sovereign by the same tenure as the Turkish 
 Pasha. A despot in his province, he still remains 
 the slave of the Padi-shah ; and his head may at 
 any time be included among those with which the 
 Sultan sometimes adorns the outer gate of the se- 
 raglio, — a circumstance which, with some, might 
 be considered as a small drawback upon the felicity 
 of possessing a court, modelled in all its depart- 
 ments upon that of the Greek Emperors. 
 
 With each new Bey a whole new flight of officers 
 of state and courtiers comes from Constantinople. 
 They are generally the relations of their sovereign, 
 unto the twentieth degree. Mavroyeni, however, 
 — averring that these family leeches, the nearer their 
 own blood was, the harder they sucked, — had fewer 
 hanging about him than any of his predecessors. 
 My arrival therefore formed a desirable addition to 
 the intimate circle. Scarce a day passed that I was 
 not sent for by the prince, to contribute my share 
 to his entertainment. He distrusted the Greeks 
 and he feared the Turks. I was an amphibious 
 animal, which he considered as equally destitute of 
 the fins of the one and the fangs of the other. 
 " Selim," he used to say, " will neither bite me, 
 nor slip through my fingers." 
 
 This degree of favour, however, was not without 
 its inconveniences. Nothing could exceed the va- 
 
298 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 riableness of the Prince''s temper. Sometimes all 
 calm and sunshine, it was at others more stormy and 
 boisterous than the Black Sea in IVIarch. Its changes 
 chiefly depended on the news from Constantinople. 
 Whenever a messenger arrived from the Porte, I 
 used to keep out of the way, until the object of his 
 mission had transpired. One day I found the Bey 
 as desponding as if the old hag had come in person 
 to warn him. " See,'*'* cried he in a tone of despair, 
 " what I have got here !" — I expected to behold 
 nothing less than a hattee-shereef purporting his 
 recal. It was only a Vienna gazette; and the 
 whole misfortune consisted in an article dated from 
 Bucharest, in which, it must be owned, he was 
 somewhat roughly handled. " This ribaldry," ex- 
 claimed Mavroyeni, " composed in a garret on the 
 Danube, for the entertainment of a day, will be 
 preserved by the scribblers of Germany, in their 
 monthly, quarterly, and annual Journals ; will be; 
 by the writers of the rest of Europe, chronicled as 
 an authentic document, and will finally receive 
 endless durability in carefully written histories, 
 intended to go down to the latest posterity, as 
 accurate pictures of the present times. Strangers 
 mil defame my character to all future ages, and 
 not one of my countrymen will waste a drop of ink 
 in my vindication. Ah ! why was I cast among so 
 Tile a race ! why was I born in such a miserable 
 epoch ! I had some generosity, some honest pride, 
 
ANASTASILS. 299 
 
 some noble sentiments in my composition ; and it 
 was only when I found modesty confounded with 
 incapacity, and humility considered as meanness; 
 when I saw virtue excite more distrust than vice, 
 and successful vice usurp the praise of virtue, that 
 I cast off qualities which could only prove stumbling- 
 blocks in my way, and that, like the rest, I became 
 insidious, vindictive, and faithless : — but on others 
 fall the weight of my sins ; on others the responsi- 
 bility of my good dispositions depraved !" 
 
 It may be inferred from this speech, that one of 
 Mavroyeni's great weaknesses was a desire to make 
 a figure in history; and many were the things which 
 he did with no other view but that of their being 
 recorded. jVIany also were those which on that 
 account he enjoyed, though, abstractedly, they had 
 nothing else very enjoyable in them. When an 
 earthquake happened, or an inundation, or a fire 
 which laid waste half the capital, he would rub his 
 hands and cry out with evident marks of glee ; 
 " Materials for the annals of my reign ! Posterity 
 will say — this happened in the days of Prince 
 Maurocenus ;''' — and in order that posterity might 
 say this, he would himself, I believe, like Nero, 
 have set fire to his capital. This thirst for post- 
 humous notoriety gave all his actions a sort of 
 theatrical turn, which appeared quite an anomaly 
 in a Hospodar of Valachia, and made him do things 
 which in Christendom would have been cried up 
 
•'^OO ANASTASIUS. 
 
 to the skies, and here made him pass for insane. 
 Nothing frightened him so much as an anonymous 
 threat of being turned into ridicule, or mentioned 
 in a slighting manner in some Frank publication : 
 and I know of two or three heads that were left on 
 their shoulders, not in consideration of what the 
 owners might feel, but of what the journalists might 
 write. Sometimes he thought of imitating Prince 
 Kondemir, and composing the history of his time 
 himself, in order to make sure of appearing in it as 
 he wished ; but for this he had not leisure yet, and 
 put it off till after the war. At other times he 
 talked of dubbing me his historiographer ; but then 
 I was not serious enough, and might make my 
 readers laugh. At other times he had thoughts of 
 sending for some French savant ; but their heads 
 seemed all turned by the revolution in their country, 
 and they might raise the cry of liberty in Turkey. 
 Meanwhile he never failed to distinguish by his 
 attentions whomsoever he thought likely to give 
 him celebrity in verse or prose. Bucharest would 
 have become a nest of writers of odes and sonnets, 
 had not sometimes the Bey's fancy been difficult to 
 hit. For, occasionally, amidst the most lavish praise, 
 a single word would provoke his wrath ; and that 
 word the author would be sent to correct in the 
 salt-mines. This place was a great damper to 
 poetic ardour, and nipped many a bright effusion 
 in the bud. Nothing, however, under ground or 
 
ANASTASIUS. SOI 
 
 above, could daunt the courage of a little hunch- 
 back poet, who conceived himself destined to restore 
 in modern Greece the pure Hellenic taste. This wry- 
 necked son of Apollo was admitted to present to the 
 Bey an ode, composed in his honour on the Pin- 
 daric plan. In conformity to his model he had 
 despatched the Prince's praise in half a dozen words, 
 and had then passed over to the Lisbon earthquake, 
 and the fall of Babylon, which served to eke out 
 the remainder of his performance with as many 
 rumbling sentences as he wanted. This, however, 
 suited not exactly Mavroyeni's less classical ideas ; 
 and the poet, finding he did not make the impres- 
 sion he expected, begged of the Bey to expunge 
 what he disliked ; whereupon the Bey tore all away, 
 save his name ; observing, that that alone would 
 say more than any rhymer could express. 
 
 The author united in his single person all the 
 irascibility of a poet and a hunchback. He said 
 nothing; — ^but he sold his habitation, disposed of 
 his moveables, and retired to the Austrian states. 
 As soon as safe out of Mavroyeni's reach, he wrote 
 the prince a letter, to state that he had intended to 
 make him the hero of an epic poem ; — but that, 
 since his verses were disliked, he should content 
 himself with only writing in prose the history of the 
 war, for which he had contracted with a Leipsic 
 bookseller; and in which nothing was to be left 
 out, but himself and his proceedings ! 
 
302 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 Meanwhile apprehensions of a very different sort 
 from those in which the Muses had any share 
 began to appal the stont heart of Mavroyeni. The 
 northern frontier of his principality, immediately 
 bordering on the Austrian states, gave him little 
 uneasiness. This, nature had sufficiently fortified 
 by a barrier of mountains, only interrupted by a 
 few narrow defiles scarcely less inexpugnable than 
 the heights on either side. The vulnerable part of 
 Valachia consisted in its eastern boundary, which 
 lav open to the neighbouring province of Moldavia, 
 occupied by the Russians. Almost at the outset of 
 the war these barbarians had entered that prin- 
 cipality, had taken Yassi its capital, and had made 
 prisoner Ipsilanti its Hospodar ; and, though they 
 had been since driven back upon Chotim, they 
 threatened every day to recover the lost ground, 
 and to advance to where only a small rivulet, running 
 through a dead flat, separated the confines of Mol- 
 davia from those of Valachia. 
 
 To defend this line of frontier most immediately 
 threatened, Mavroyeni had early fixed, for the ren- 
 dezvous of his chief forces^ upon the plain of 
 Fockshan, which took its name from an open place 
 on the borders of the two principaHties, belonging 
 half to the one and half to the other. Thither were 
 ordered in April, from Bucharest, the Arnacots, of 
 which I commanded the principal division^ together 
 
ANASTASIUS. 30S 
 
 with as many Se'imen and provincial jenissaries as 
 could be mustered. At the same time were marched 
 thither from Sophia, where the Visier had now 
 estabUshed his head quarters, several divisions of 
 infantry and cavalry from the grand army, — the 
 stipendiary jenissaries under the command of their 
 Sangeaks or generals by promotion, and the feudal 
 Spahees under that of their Agas by descent. 
 When all were arrived, the collective force at Fock- 
 shan might amount to twelve or thirteen thousand 
 men. Of these various troops, however, none were 
 to be depended upon save the Albanians, brave by 
 nature, and only deficient in tactics and in disci- 
 pline. Most of the jenissaries, or infantry, came 
 from Anadoly.^ They were men engaged in the 
 professions of peace, forcibly torn from their wives 
 and famihes, and who only marched on foot when 
 they could not afford a horse. The Spahees, or 
 horse soldiers, on the contrary, often only holding 
 their Zeeameth or Timar^ from some grandee as 
 the wages of domestic service, or sent as substitutes 
 by the real fieffee, a woman or a child, scarce knew 
 for the most part how to sit on horseback, and 
 would have looked better on foot. Obliged to 
 furnish their own equipment and to find their own 
 provisions, they were only occupied in calculating 
 the length of their journey and the hour of their 
 return ; only stayed while the pillage of friends or 
 
304 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 foes afforded them a subsistence, and, as soon as this 
 mode of supply failed, considered themselves free 
 to depart, and without asking leave, hurried back 
 to their homes. The provisions supplied by go- 
 vernment, and contracted for by the commanders, 
 were, as usual, partly from neglect, and partly from 
 fraud, at once so insufficient and so bad, that it was 
 difficult to say which was calculated to produce the 
 speediest mortality, their abundance, or their failure. 
 Destitute of all regular magazines, the troops must 
 have been, if not poisoned, at least famished, but 
 for the immense train of volunteer Tellals, or re- 
 tailers, who always follow a Turkish camp, impede 
 the progress of the army, and obstruct its retreat. 
 When the pay of the soldiers runs short, these 
 accommodating gentry take in exchange for the 
 necessaries with which they supply them, their 
 arms, their accoutrements, and their horses. 
 Thence, on a sudden emergency, half the Turkish 
 infantry appear disarmed, and half the cavalry dis- 
 mounted. 
 
 These disorders Mavroyeni saw, but could not 
 cure. A part only of the forces at Fockshan were 
 furnished from his principality, and he durst not 
 remind the remainder, by unwelcome innovations, 
 that the man who had been raised over the heads 
 of so many Turks and Moslemen was a Yaoor and 
 a Greek. When, however, on joining the camp, his 
 
ANASTASIUS. 805 
 
 own eyes were struck with the unwieldy and dis- 
 jointed force brought together, he felt dismayed, and 
 trembled for the issue. One day, going round with 
 me to ascertain the observance of some new regu- 
 lations, which he found wholly neglected, he could 
 not help bursting out. — " You know, Selim,*" cried 
 he, " that I am not a coward ; I have sometimes 
 given proof of bravery, even while prudence might 
 still have seemed the virtue best suited to my sta- 
 tion ; and if at this juncture nothing but valour was 
 required to insure victory, I should feel little fear of 
 a defeat : but to what can one look forward with such 
 a motley assemblage; and on what quahty, pre- 
 eminent on our side, can one found the least hope 
 of advantage in the conflict?" "On that," an- 
 swered I, trying to cheer the prince, " which the 
 hireling member of those admirably drilled corps of 
 Christendom — fighting for a cause he understands 
 not, and for interests to which he is a stranger — 
 wholly wants ; on that which alone, in the undis- 
 ciplined gatherings of the Turks, often compen- 
 sates for every absence of order, tactics, and sub- 
 ordination ; on that which has often made the bands, 
 led on by its powerful stimulus, defeat double their 
 numbers — on fanaticism ! on the enthusiastic intre- 
 pidity with which the Moslim soldier contemns, nay 
 courts in battle a death, which he regards as the 
 sure passport to eternal bliss !" 
 
 Somewhat revived by this speech : " It is sin- 
 
 VOL. II. X 
 
806 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 gular," replied Mavroyeni smiling, " that a Greek 
 should be the person most desirous not to see 
 Turkish fanaticism abate ; most anxious not to let 
 the fair-headed hordes from the North afresh plant 
 the cross on the banks of the Bosphorus : — ^but so 
 my strange fate ordains; and this blessing I can 
 only pray heaven in its goodness to grant !" 
 
ANASTASIUS. 807 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 For such a length of time had the Supreme Visier 
 remained stationary at Sophia, that Constantinople 
 began loudly to murmur at his inactivity. In order 
 to restore the capital to good humour, Youssoof re- 
 solved to sacrifice a part of his army. The Bannat 
 of Temeswar was the theatre chosen for this farce 
 — or rather, tragedy. The attention of the few 
 Austrian forces left in that province was, however, 
 first to be diverted. For that purpose the com- 
 mander in chief directed Mavroyeni to attack suc- 
 cessively all the passes between Valachia and Tran- 
 silvania, and sent him a reinforcement of about 
 four thousand fresh troops, half foot and half 
 cavalry. With these, and what other troops he 
 could afford to draw from the camp at Fockshan, 
 the Bey successively tried his strength, in con- 
 formity with his instructions, against the passes 
 of Terzburg, of Vulcan, and of Rothenturm ; but 
 the expeditions against these formidable defiles all 
 ended alike in failures, and Mavroyeni now wished 
 to give up the destructive and hopeless attempt. 
 The Visier was not so easily to be satisfied. Having 
 crossed the Danube at VViddin, and skirted with 
 
 X 2 
 
308 /VNASTASIUS. 
 
 his army tlie western borders of Valachia, he re- 
 newed his orders to the Prince to make a more 
 vigorous assault on the still untried passes in the 
 vicinity of Cronstadt — a rich and commercial town, 
 whither the fugitive Boyars had sent all their trea- 
 sures for safety. The Bey hereupon formed at 
 Valeni a fresh force, consisting of about three thou- 
 sand Spahees, already broken in to the business by 
 the attack of the former passes, and of about two 
 thousand five hundred Arnaoots and Jenissaries, 
 drawn fresh from the camp at Fockshan, and con- 
 sequently new in this species of warfare. Some Ger- 
 man deserters from the different passes, well ac- 
 quainted with their intricacies and defence, were to 
 serve as guides ; and the pass of Bozan was the first 
 to be attacked. 
 
 To me had been confided the conduct of the ex- 
 pedition : mine was to be the glory or the disgrace 
 of the result ; and accordingly I determined that 
 nothing should be wanting which skill or vigilance 
 (I do not mention courage) could effect to ensure 
 complete success. 
 
 On the ninth of August I sent on from Valeni 
 six hundred Spahees, who the same day reached 
 the vicinity of the Austrians, and threw themselves 
 into an abandoned intrenchment opposite their lines. 
 On the tenth I led on the principal division, com- 
 posed of eight hundred Arnaoots and twelve hun- 
 dred more Spahees. We halted within three 
 
ANASTASIUS. 309 
 
 leagues of our advanced guard, and were joined 
 a few hours later by the remainder of the cavalry, 
 and by all the infantry. Early on the eleventh our 
 whole collective force arrived under the heights of 
 Poru-llke, the first object of contention. 
 
 To secure this commanding eminence was a point 
 both essential and difficult. Gently sloping towards 
 the Austrian lines, it would, on the first intimation 
 of such a design, immediately have been occupied 
 by a troop of horse stationed in observation on their 
 right flank. For the purpose of deceiving this 
 corps I made our Spahees and Jenissaries advance 
 leisurely under the hill, as if with the intention only 
 to wind round its base ; and while their lengthened 
 column engaged the attention of the Austrians, our 
 Arnaoots contrived in the most practicable part of 
 the ascent, on the reverse of the eminence, to drag 
 our artillery up to its top ; only halting within a 
 few yards of the brow and of the enemy's line 
 of sight. This manoeuvre happily achieved, I gave 
 the signal for all the troops still advancing in the 
 hollow, to wheel to the right, and to scramble 
 up the hill ; and the moment the Austrian cavalry 
 set forward in hopes to gain its summit the first, 
 every inch of its level appeared, as if by magic, 
 covered with our Arnaoots, who, sending forth loud 
 shouts of defiance, straightway opened their fire. 
 
 At this unexpected sight the Austrians, already 
 in full gallop, again suddenly stopped ; for a mo- 
 ment looked in unutterable consternation alternately 
 
310 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 at our Albanians above, whom they dared not ap- 
 proach, and at our Spahees below, who already 
 baffled their pursuit; and at last again wheeled 
 about, and, in utter despair, resumed their original 
 position. 
 
 It was a fine thing to behold the troops, till then 
 marching silently in the hollow defile, all at once, 
 under the cheers of their comrades perched on the 
 impending hill, rush at full speed up its steep and 
 rugged sides, cut their way through copse and briar, 
 scale heights that seemed inaccessible, leap like goats 
 from crag to crag, stumble, fall, rise again, help 
 or push each other on — the foremost serving as 
 stepping stones to those behind, who, in their turn, 
 hauled up the clusters over whose backs they had 
 vaulted ; and this amidst the thunder of the enemy's 
 incessant fire, which our troops tried to drown in 
 their wild and protracted shouts. 
 
 At last, with incredible labour, my left division 
 overcame every obstacle, reached the summit of the 
 hill, and there joined and shook hands with their 
 comrades on the right, already in full possession of 
 the height. 
 
 In this eligible position, commanding the Aus- 
 trian lines in front, and screened in the rear by a 
 curtain of close woven brushwood, which left the 
 enemy equally unable to guess our numbers, and to 
 effect our dislodgement, we spent the night. While 
 darkness lasted the atmosphere was clear, and the 
 stars twinkled like diamonds in the firmament ; but 
 
ANASTASIUS. 311 
 
 with the sun rose so dense a fog, that it seemed to 
 spread an impenetrable veil before every object, and 
 things became less visible in the morning than they 
 had been during the night. Determined to avail 
 myself of the impalpable screen which surrounded 
 us, I sent our foremost Spahees — still watching as 
 well as watched from their intrench men t — to charge 
 the Austrian horse, again immoveably fixed on the 
 flank of the lines. 
 
 Attacked on a side on which they thought them- 
 selves secure, and prevented by the fog from discern- 
 ing the number of their assailants, these heroes were 
 seized with a sudden panic, took to flight at the first 
 fire, and yielded up to my Spahees their advantageous 
 position. 
 
 Meantime I led the main body of my troops 
 down the hill. The right side of its declivity was 
 screened by the continuation of the copse through 
 which my Arnaoots had penetrated, the left side by 
 ihat of the precipice which my Jenissaries had 
 scaled, and in front hung the mist, which equally 
 prevented our seeing, or being seen, at ten yards 
 distance. 
 
 A pretended Austrian deserter had engaged to 
 point out to us the most practicable mode of turn- 
 ing the enemy's intrenchments. The fellow was 
 riding by my side, but something suspicious in his 
 manner induced me closely to watch his motions. 
 Suddenly I saw him waver, pull up his horse, pre- 
 tend to turn aside for some frivolous purpose, and, 
 
313 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 thinking the moment was his, dart forward, rush by 
 me, and run away at full speed. 
 
 Our approach, our numbers, and our disposition 
 would, thanks to his agility, have been announced to 
 the enemy just at the critical moment. I immediately 
 pursued my fugitive, and fired both my pistols at 
 him : but the fog prevented my taking aim, or even 
 seeing where the traitor went. He soon vanished out 
 of sight. 
 
 Little however did his deceit avail him. I scarce 
 had proceeded fifty yards, ere I heard a heavy 
 tumble down the precipice, from the bottom of 
 Avhich, as I advanced, arose dismal groans. They 
 told me the fate of the double deserter. The fog 
 had only saved him from being shot, to make him 
 break his neck. 
 
 In pursuing the scoundrel, however, I had got on 
 some way in front of my men ; and, on doubling a 
 projecting crag, I all at once found myself in the 
 midst of a cluster of Austrian hussars. They had 
 come out from their lines to reconnoitre, and had 
 been attracted in our direction by the firing of my 
 pistols — the only warhke sound which had broken 
 the silence of our march ; but, screened by the 
 jutting rocks, they had not dared to advance beyond 
 their protecting base. 
 
 At this rencontre I gave myself up for lost. 
 Still I determined to make some little attempt at an 
 escape, ere I surrendered at discretion. " Friends," 
 I therefore cried, to the troop, in Italian, " so you 
 
ANASTASIUS. 813 
 
 heard my signal ! — Assist a flying Christian, rid me 
 of my turban, and let me have a hat." 
 
 At this address all cheered me with loud huzzas. 
 Every cap was waved in air ; — but while by that 
 means every arm was engaged, I seized my time. 
 Already the tramp of our horse shook the ground. 
 Suddenly I wheeled about, and quick as lightning 
 galloped back to my column. A volley of musketry, 
 it is true, followed, to slacken my speed ; but the 
 balls only whizzed about my ears : none hit my per- 
 son ; and the hussars, not liking to fight in a fog, 
 immediately sheered off. 
 
 We had scarcely advanced a hundred yards 
 further, when the mist all at once cleared up, the 
 hidden landscape became visible, and, within a 
 pistol shot of our column, rose in full sight before 
 us the whole extent of the Austrian lines. A 
 tremendous fire from every battery immediately 
 saluted me. I only answered the compliment by 
 giving the signal for the assault ; and while the 
 body of Spahees who had dislodged the enemy's 
 cavalry fell upon their lines in flank, we stormed 
 them in front. 
 
 Our Arnaoots scrambled, with the help of their 
 sabres, up the steep sides of the batteries, and our 
 Jenissaries extracted with their teeth the matches 
 from the guns. The palisades were broken down, and 
 the chevaux-de-frize filled up with the slain : — for 
 many were the brave that fell between the first assault 
 and the forcing of the hnes. At last the enemy's 
 
314 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 fire began to slacken, and their numbers diminished. 
 A breacli was made, and from all sides our troops 
 poured in like a resistless toiTent. But, though we 
 beheld heaps of killed, we found nothing alive. 
 The Austrians had fled with such precipitation, as 
 not even to spike the guns which they could not 
 carry off. 
 
 On advancing to the Custom-house and other 
 buildings which lay behind the now mastered forti- 
 fications, they too appeared abandoned. From the 
 high ground which these edifices occupied, the Aus- 
 trians might distinctly be discerned, already at a 
 considerable distance, trying to gain the narrow part 
 of the defile which separated us from the frontier 
 town of Cronstadt. 
 
 Harassed as we were, I still wished the pursuit 
 to suffer no interruption. We therefore continued 
 to press close upon the heels of the fugitives. It is 
 true that in the ravine which we were entering, 
 three hundred men in close order might with ease 
 have arrested a whole army; but, seized with a panic 
 which grew as they advanced, every man among the 
 Austrians was flying singly. One troop indeed of 
 about thirty had kept together, and tried for a mo- 
 ment to check our progress. It only succeeded to 
 increase the bloodshed, and was soon entirely cut 
 to pieces. 
 
 Presently, on turning some projecting ground, we 
 beheld at a distance the outlet of the defile ; and at 
 the now almost undoubted certainty of pushing on to 
 
ANASTASIUS. 315 
 
 Cronstadt without interruption, a general shout of 
 joy arose among our men. 
 
 The only thing in the prospect which we did not 
 much like was a fancied appearance of some of the 
 enemy, till now in full retreat, slackening their pace 
 soon after, to halt and face about. At first indeed 
 we doubted the accuracy of our optics, but pre- 
 sentl}^ we no longer could help yielding to the evi- 
 dence of our senses. 
 
 On the first intelligence which had readied Cron- 
 stadt of the danger that had threatened the pass of 
 Bozan, three thousand men, — nearly all the place 
 contained, — had been despatched to strengthen this 
 important outpost. Early on its march the first 
 division of these troops met the foremost of the fugi- 
 tives, and learning from them that the lines had 
 been evacuated, pressed on, in hopes to stop our 
 progress ere we had cleared the defile. All their 
 comrades whom they fell in with, were forced to 
 turn back with them : only they were placed in the 
 rear of the new comers, in order that our exhausted 
 strength might have chiefly to contend with their 
 own still undiminislied vigour. 
 
 Little indeed were we in a condition to resist a 
 charge of fresh cavalry, when, from the distant 
 eminence on whose brow these new troops first 
 rose in sight, they bore down upon us with all the 
 advantage of a continued declivity. Still I resolved 
 to make a stand, thinking the corps a small one ; but 
 
816 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 when, just as we had engaged with this first di- 
 vision, a second, till then concealed in a hollow, ap- 
 peared on the hill, I felt the game was up, and 
 not a moment must be lost in making good our 
 retreat. 
 
 On the first symptoms of the enemy's rallying, I 
 had judged my harassed men in need of some ex- 
 traordinary support. With this view I infused into 
 them copious draughts of courage in a liquid shape. 
 It did its office ; speedily reached the heart, and 
 mounted to the brain. A small party became so in- 
 flamed by its inspiration with the wish to gain heaven 
 the nearest way, that, not content to be quietly 
 killed on the spot, they even climbed up a ledge of 
 rocks overhanging the road, whence they contrived, 
 by means of trees, stones, &c. hurled down the 
 precipice, to retard the progress of the Austrians, 
 while the rest of our troops effected in tolerable 
 order their retrograde motion ; so that, after setting 
 on fire the Contumace,^ and abandoning the dearly 
 purchased intrenchments, we were enabled, with 
 little additional loss, to regain the Valachian territory. 
 
 Seeing that the impending night prevented the 
 enemy from pursuing us on our own ground, we 
 now slackened our pace, and in a more leisurely 
 manner proceeded back to Valeni. 
 
 One thing very sensibly affected my troops: it 
 was the losing in the retreat most of the prisoners 
 which they had made in the pursuit. The stoutest 
 
ANASTASIUS. S17 
 
 and most active had found means to recover their 
 hberty in the first confusion of our flight : the wound- 
 ed and the disabled alone had remained in our 
 hands ; but these only impeded our march. Half 
 of them, however, had the discretion soon to die of 
 their own accord by the way ; and those that seemed 
 perversely determined to live on, for no other pur- 
 pose but to give us trouble, found their proceeding 
 of little advantage to themselves. They were mostly 
 submitted to the operation of having their upper 
 extremities severed from the remainder of their 
 bodies, in order that the latter might encumber their 
 captors no longer, and the former only be saved for 
 the sake of the reward. I tried, indeed, to keep a 
 few of the best looking heads fast on their shoulders ; 
 but it was a business in which my men felt extremely 
 jealous of my interference. " They liked," they 
 said, " to settle it their own way." 
 
 We were marching on pell-mell in the dark, when, 
 arrived at a somewhat uneven pass, we found a 
 saddle horse tied to a tree. My Arnaoots recognised 
 the animal as the steed of one of their comrades, 
 who had gone on before with a Hungarian officer 
 badly wounded, whom he wished to preserve — not 
 so much from excess of humanity, as for the sake of 
 his ransom. A few yards farther on, we stumbled 
 upon a man lying in the road. Him I first supposed 
 to be the Hungarian, who, unable to keep body and 
 soul together on so rough a journey, had given up 
 
318 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 the ghost, and had been left in that place, as un- 
 worthy of further conveyance. On examining more 
 closely, it proved to our utter astonishment to be the 
 Amaoot himself, quite dead, and with a deep gash in 
 his side. As to the officer, no trace of him appeared. 
 The only idea which naturally suggested itself to 
 my mind was that some of my Albanians had them- 
 selves despatched their companion, for the sake of 
 his envied prize : but this surmise I did not think 
 it expedient to publish. The party around me all 
 were, or pretended to be convinced, that Kara Mus- 
 tapha must have been murdered by his own prisoner ; 
 and I was forced at last to grant that nothing seemed 
 so likely to put a fellow of Kara Mustapha's size 
 and strength off his guard, as a man half dead, 
 bound hands and feet, and flung like a clothes-bag 
 across his horse''s shoulders. — " Nay, so proud," 
 added I, " does the culprit seem to have been of his 
 achievement, that he has not even taken the mur- 
 dered man's horse to assist him in his flight, but has 
 walked away on foot, leaving the animal secured, on 
 purpose to tell the tale of his prowess !"" 
 
 My Arnaoots paid little attention to this remark ; 
 but, hearing something stir among the bushes, all ran 
 to the spot, and found the Hungarian, whom they 
 had supposed far away, lying behind a tuft of trees, 
 with his clothes half torn off"; and, what seemed 
 more surprising, they found not my suspicions but 
 their own confirmed ! — the officer himself, when 
 
ANASTASIUS, 819 
 
 accused of having killed his captor, scorning to deny 
 the charge, and looking with a sort of complacency 
 at the ensanguined blade of the knife with which he 
 had done the deed, and which he still held firmly 
 grasped in his hand. 
 
 " Wretch," now cried I, indignantly, in Italian, 
 " what could induce you to murder the preserver of 
 your life ?" 
 
 " Its cold-blooded destroyer, rather call him," 
 answered the officer, in a voice almost extinct. — 
 "^ Finding that I encumbered his horse, and could 
 not go on foot, the miscreant wanted to strip and 
 then to kill me. A cutlass still lay concealed along 
 my thigh. My hands being untied to take off my 
 jacket, I drew out the knife unperceived, and, while 
 the ruffian leaned over me to unclasp my belt, buried 
 the trusty blade in his heart ; then raised myself, 
 and tried to mount his horse. The task exceeded 
 my strength : feeling I could not accomplish it, I 
 crept to these bushes, to die among them unper- 
 ceived. Alas ! even this, I find, is denied me !" 
 
 Fast as the officer'^s life seemed fleeting away, yet 
 were the Arnaoots, in their thirst to revenge one of 
 their own body, still going to hasten its departure, 
 when I interposed, and, clasping their intended 
 victim in my arms, tried to avert their sullen rage. 
 During his narration, I had imagined I recognised 
 in the dying man'*s disfigured countenance that of 
 an old acquaintance,^ — I may say, a sort of bene^ 
 
8S0 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 factor. I remembered in the days of my cicerone- 
 ship at Pera a young gentleman from Hermanstadt, 
 attached to the imperial mission, who had shown me 
 much kindness. He was then, from his extraor- 
 dinary beauty, called the Hungarian Apollo ; and 
 indeed was one of the finest youths I had ever be- 
 held ; nor less brave than handsome, or less amiable 
 than brave. As a faithful biographer of other 
 people's lives as well as my own, I am indeed forced 
 to acknowledge that, where a fine eye shot forth 
 its keenest darts, the heart of my Hungarian was a 
 little too vulnerable ; that too many of the prema- 
 ture fruits which happened to ripen on the Bos- 
 phorus were laid at his door ; that the infant son of 
 an embassadress of the highest rank — a child beau- 
 tiful as an angel — bore to the son of Herman much 
 too great a resemblance ; and that he was even sup- 
 posed to have behaved in a way far from respectful 
 to the venerable Pasha of Erzerum, one day that, 
 suddenly seized at Boyookdere ~ in the midst of all 
 the diplomatic beaux and belles, by a troop of 
 bostandjees — ^bhndfolded, whipped into a close araba, 
 and whirled no one knew whither, he was in fact 
 conveyed to the summer palace of this worthy 
 Pasha's truant spouse ; a lady of the imperial blood, 
 and less tender of her distant husband's feelings 
 than she ought to have been : — but, in many 
 of these instances, Miazinsky, as it were, only 
 yielded to positive violence ; was often the first to 
 
ANASTASIUS. 8^1 
 
 deplore his personal attractions ; went no further 
 than was necessary to prevent a parcel of angels 
 from exposing themselves in public; and, far 
 from confining his charitable exertions to young 
 and handsome females, showed such general bene- 
 volence, that scarce an act of humanity of any de- 
 scription, came to light at Pera, which might not be 
 brought home to the blushing Hungarian: — though, 
 from equal solicitude to conceal his kind-hearted 
 exertions of the latter as of the former species, his 
 stolen marches often obtained the full praise of gal- 
 lantry, when, in fact, they only deserved credit for . 
 vulgar goodness. 
 
 While, however, the youth's discretion continued 
 unimpeached, — insomuch as even to offend the 
 vanity rather than excite the apprehensions of certain 
 of his fair friends, — his courage seemed on one 
 occasion entirely to forsake him. It was at a gay 
 supper with various foreigners. Another jeune de 
 langue^ — envious of his more favourable reception 
 in a quarter where both had been candidates for 
 sweet smiles, — insulted him very grievously, and 
 even went so far as to add to opprobrious language, 
 contemptuous and threatening gestures. Every 
 person looked aghast, expecting to see weapons of 
 death drawn across the very supper table, and the 
 yet untouched dainties deluged in blood: but to 
 the amazement of all beholders, the Hungarian, 
 
 VOL. II. Y 
 
822 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 though redtlcnlng up to the eyes, continued other- 
 wise unmoved, and made no signs of demanding 
 satisfaction. I alone, who happened to be leaning 
 over the back of a chair next to his own, knew 
 what to think : for when a neighbour asked him in 
 a whisper, how he could put up with such be- 
 haviour, I heard him answer in a suppressed tone,. 
 " Why disturb the short pleasure of so many cheer- 
 ful guests ? first let us finish this good supper, and 
 then cut each others throats !" 
 
 And so in fact it was arranged. Never did Mia- 
 zlnsky''s antagonist digest the good cheer of that 
 night. Ere the dawn arose, Miazinsky most reli- 
 giously killed him, begged — ere he expired — his 
 pardon for so doing and then threw himself at his 
 Embassador's feet, to relate to him the necessity he 
 had been under of removing his colleague. The 
 Baron advised the youth not to wait for his answer, — 
 a hint which he took : but as he was a favourite 
 with all the family, the daughters included, and 
 had the concurring testimony of the whole supper 
 table to his unimpeachable behaviour, the single 
 life which he had taken was excused in favour of the. 
 many he had saved or bestowed ; and his pardon 
 was, through dint of great interest, at last obtained. 
 Still was he obliged to relinquish the diplomatic ca- 
 reer for which he seemed little qualified ; but, having 
 shown greater aptitude for the mihtary profession,, 
 
ANASTASTUS. 3^^ 
 
 he failed not, in consequence of his high character 
 and good conduct, as soon as the aifair blew over, 
 to obtain rapid promotion in the army. 
 
 Not only all these circumstances, but the person 
 to whom they related, were still most distinctly 
 impressed upon my memory. I still saw the youth 
 at Pera, as he entered the Internuncio's draw- 
 ing-room — his fine athletic figure set off to the 
 greatest advantage by his close Hungarian dress — 
 striking every person present with the grace and 
 elegance of his appearance, and causing every fan 
 to flutter, and every female feature to glow. I even 
 remembered that, httle as I was apt to envy others 
 for their looks, I had once run to a large mirror, in 
 order to compare notes with the dazzling stranger ; 
 and, though the poor creature now lying naked at 
 my feet, encrusted with clotted blood and dust, — 
 his eyes half closed, and his pallid features all in- 
 dented with scars, — differed most wofully in many 
 respects from the brilliant image imprinted in my 
 mind, yet did I discern in a few others such strong 
 marks of identity, that I could only satisfy myself 
 by asking at once, whether I beheld the Count Mia- 
 zinsky, formerly in the Austrian mission at Pera. 
 
 At these words the dying officer again opened his 
 languid eyes, and looking at me earnestly, as if in his 
 turn to find out who could thus recognize him in 
 his present miserable condition, faintly answered, 
 
 Y 2 
 
mil ANASTASIUS. 
 
 " I am he indeed : but you, who ask the question, 
 may I know who you are ?" 
 
 " One,'' I rephed, " whom, in the number of 
 those you were eager to serve, you may not recol- 
 lect; but one who cannot forget you, and would 
 wish to do for your comfort what little this dreary 
 place may leave in his power !" 
 
 Then turning to my Arnaoots, who grinned with 
 impatience at the constraint imposed upon their 
 fury : " The Prophet,"" exclaimed I, " has given 
 the faithful the choice of making their enemies 
 captives, or of killing them on the spot; but he 
 allows not his followers to begin with the one, and 
 to end with the other. To this officer his poor 
 remnant of life had been granted. It could not be 
 retaken from him. In defending it against his 
 aggressor, he has only made use of his undoubted 
 right. He had therefore reconquered his freedom, 
 when again I seized upon his person. — He now is 
 mine alone; and whoever shall at present dare to 
 attempt his life, robs me of my property, and shall 
 have me to account with for the deed !" 
 
 The assertion was true, and the tone caused its 
 truth to be respected. Proceeding to do for the 
 officer what little the untoward circumstances of the 
 hour and place permitted, I made him swallow a 
 few drops of the wine we had found in the house of 
 Contumace. On its wetting his lips, he seemed for 
 
ANASTASIUS. 895 
 
 an instant to revive, and exclaimed : " Alas ! it is 
 my own IVIenesh you are giving me ; that to which 
 I used to treat my most valued comrades. I may 
 now drink it myself. Never more shall 1 behold a 
 friend to make welcome to this cordial !" — and in 
 truth, the transient spark of seeming amendment 
 which enlivened the strans^er*'s countenance was 
 only a last gleam of the expiring lamp. 
 
 I wished to have tarried with him on the spot till 
 daylight, or to have had him conveyed on in a litter 
 to where we meant to halt; but the proposal to 
 carry an infidel on Islamite shoulders, even though 
 I offered to take my turn with the rest, was received 
 by my proud Moslemen with such haughtiness, that 
 I durst not insist. All I could do for the poor 
 Hungarian was to have him laid across a baggage- 
 mule, and to walk by his side; trying with one 
 hand to steady his body, while with the other I 
 supported his head. 
 
 In this position I saw him, as we marched on, 
 by degrees grow fainter and fainter. At last, on 
 some inward anxiety appearing to agitate his mind, 
 I again stopped ; and — in order that he might be 
 relieved of what made his fleeting soul depart in 
 such sadnessj^-conjured him to confide to me his 
 utmost thoughts and wishes. 
 
 ** Then would you, ' said he at last, after some 
 hesitation, and collecting all his remaining strength 
 to speak more intelligibly, — "would you do a dying 
 
326 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 man one last great favour, which God and your 
 own heart alone can repay ?"" 
 
 " Any thing in my power ;" I eagerly answered. 
 
 " God bless you !" replied he. — " Observe ; my 
 mother's address there is not time to give you. 
 But knowing me, you will easily discover it. Send, 
 oh ! send her, — with a son's last duty, love, and 
 gratitude — the account of my death, and a lock of 
 my hair; and beg of her to divide that last token, — 
 too well she knows where, and with whom I*" 
 
 This request I pledged myself punctually to 
 perform : then tried to administer the only con- 
 solation, in my power — that of sympathy. Pressing 
 the youth in my arms : ^^ I feel,"" exclaimed I, 
 " how hard it is to quit life in a strange land, far 
 away from the endearments of parents and of 
 friends." 
 
 " Of these," answered the Hungarian, " I might 
 have been deprived even dying nearer home ; and 
 it then would have been with greater bitterness. 
 Here, at least, I can fancy all I miss, — and the idea 
 soothes my soul during the few yet remaining 
 minutes, after which it no longer will signify where 
 Miazinsky ceased to be !" 
 
 Tears started from my eyes : they fell on the 
 officer s wan cheek. A slight pressure of his hand 
 told me he felt their value, and thanked the giver 
 for them. Soon however his breath almost became 
 imperceptible. At last a sort of convulsive tremor 
 
ANASTASIUS. 32T 
 
 tan through all his limbs, and again vanished. I 
 examined his countenance. The moon, which had 
 just risen in her full splendor, cast a bright gleam 
 over his features. I saw him again open his eyes, 
 and fix them upon me with an expression of grati- 
 tude, which his palsied lips no longer could confirm. 
 He however seized the hand I held clasped round 
 his waist, made a sort of feeble effort to bring- it 
 to his mouth, once more uttered a faint siffh, 
 stretched out his limbs, and died ! — Eternal bliss 
 attend his departed spirit i 
 
 His poor remains I wished to have preserved 
 entire, in order to honour their funeral with decent 
 rites ; but on that subject my Arnaoots were in- 
 tractable. Forced, therefore, to content myself with 
 the ample braids of the youth's raven hair, which 
 I claimed for the purpose he had specified, I let my 
 Albanians dispose as they chose of the remainder 
 of his person. 
 
 After marching almost the whole night without 
 interruption, we stopped just before daybreak to 
 take a little rest. Having thus somewhat refreshed 
 ourselves, we again proceeded, and towards the 
 evening re-entered Valeni ; — little thanked for lau- 
 rels which, though we certainly reaped, we could 
 not carry home ; and only loaded with a few heads, 
 which I would have felt little sure of not being 
 those of my own slain Arnaoots, bagged by their 
 
328 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 greedy companions, were it not that Moslem warriors 
 prudently shave their polls. Should my reader 
 feel disposed to quarrel Avith my very minute ac- 
 count of this expedition, let him remember that I 
 write principally for my own amusement; and to 
 me, what event of the war could be so interesting as 
 the affair of Bozan, of which I was the hero ? 
 
 At Valenij Ave soon received intelligence that not 
 only that defile, but all the other passes into Tran- 
 silvania were fortified in such a way as to preclude 
 all further chance of retrieving our disappointment. 
 The scheme of forcing them was therefore given up, 
 and soon I received orders to march all the troops 
 back to Fockshan, where from all quarters fresh 
 clouds seemed to be gathering. 
 
ANASTASIUS. ^^ 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Russians under Romanzow had early in the 
 season retaken Yassi. The Austrians under Coburg 
 had advanced to Adjood. So far from heeding a 
 Bimbashee,^ with about eighteen hundred men, 
 whom Mavroyeni sent about the middle of October 
 to dislodge from that place their out-posts, they 
 still pushed on, and at last took possession of the 
 town of Fockshan. Valachia now seemed in the 
 utmost danger : the approaching winter alone sus- 
 pended its fate. The combined armies, considering 
 the entire occupation of Moldavia as progress suf- 
 ficient for that year, went into quarters. Yassi became 
 the resting-place of the Russians ; Coburg staid at 
 Romano ; while we remained, not entirely at eascj 
 in our camp near Fockshan. 
 
 On the other side of Valachia things wore not a 
 more favourable aspect. Youssoof Visier had, by 
 his irruption in the Bannat of Temeswar, successively 
 elated the empire to the highest pitch of joy, and 
 plunged it into the deepest affliction. So sudden 
 had been the reduction of the province, and so 
 great the terror spread by the Visier's success, that 
 
330 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 Buda, nay the Austrian capital itself, already 
 fancied the Turks at its gates: — hut a mightier 
 hand than that of man marked Mehadieh as the 
 utmost point of Youssoof 's progress. Under the 
 •walls of that fortress the pestilential influence of a 
 low marshy country, doubly envenomed by a season 
 unusually wet, carried off his men in such numbers, 
 that, in order to preserve a few, he was obliged 
 abruptly to abandon his conquests. With the same 
 speed with which he had led into the Bannat a 
 numerous and exulting army, he led out of it a 
 handful of troops enfeebled by disease; and was 
 compelled, at the close of the year, to conclude 
 with the Austrians for the three first months of 
 that ensuing, a mortifying armistice. 
 
 The confidence of the Turks in their naval 
 commander had experienced an equally complete 
 revulsion. When, early in the spring of 1788, 
 Hassan Capitan-Pasha, with eighteen ships of the 
 line, twenty frigates, and gun-boats innumerable, 
 sailed up the Euxine to seek the Russian squadron 
 near Kinburn, the whole empire augured from his 
 valour and his force the most brilliant success. But 
 when, as month succeeded month, defeat followed 
 defeat ; — when first Hassan's gun-boats were de- 
 stroyed by Nassau in the Liman ; when, next, his 
 fleet was repulsed with considerable loss by Paul 
 Jones at Gluboka; and when, lastly, his entire 
 armament was annihilated by these two commanders 
 
ANASTASIUS. 331 
 
 united off Kinburn, — terror and dismay gradually 
 filled each Moslim heart, all clothed themselves in 
 sackcloth and ashes, and all saw the hand of Pro- 
 vidence raised against the breakers of the peace. 
 
 What then became the consternation of the 
 faithful, when, on the seventeenth of December, 
 Potemkin took the important fortress of Ockzakow ! 
 The shock produced by this event baffles all powers 
 of description, — and, after a year marked by the 
 imminent danger of Valachia, the loss of Moldavia, 
 the destruction of the Turkish army, the annihi- 
 lation of the Othoman fleet, an inglorious armistice 
 concluded with Austria, and a bulwark of the 
 empire lost to the Russians, calamities seemed 
 destined not to cease until the race of Othman had 
 been driven out of Europe. The populace of 
 Constantinople, whose discontent at these distant 
 defeats was still inflamed by the detachments from 
 the Visier's army, which daily under their own eyes 
 repassed the Bosphorus in the most shattered con- 
 dition, now with as loud a clamour demanded 
 Youssoof 's head, as before they had demanded his 
 appointment. 
 
 Meanwhile, renouncing all further schemes of 
 ofi'ensive warfare, the Visier determined to concen- 
 trate his forces as much as possible for the defence 
 of the empire itself He sent Mavroyeni five 
 thousand additional men, which, distributed between 
 Ardgis, Rimnik, Brankovano, Valeni, and Kimpina, 
 
fJ93 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 seemed to render secure the frontier of the princi- 
 pality ; and himself, during the suspension of hos- 
 tilities, marched into Bessarabia. 
 
 Already was he lifting his hand, to strike from 
 this new point a blow in Moldavia, which promised 
 us not only a return of security, but a renewal of 
 success, when an event took place which damped 
 all our hopes, and paralysed all our strength. 
 
 This was the demise — unannounced by any pre- 
 vious warning — of the Sultan Abd-ool-Hameed, 
 and the accession of his nephew Selim. Without 
 the smallest preparation for so great a change, this 
 prince suddenly passed, on the 7th of April, 1789, 
 from the confinement of the harem, to the throne 
 of the Turkish despots. 
 
 Like all young men, Selim the Third was eager 
 to undo all that his predecessor had done; and 
 scarce had his beard attained a fortnight's growth,^ 
 when the two chief favourites of his uncle, Yous- 
 soof and Hassan, were suddenly removed from 
 their exalted situations. Some dificrence, however, 
 marked the manner. Hassan's age, his long services, 
 and his former successes, still inspired for the veteran 
 hero a sort of habitual veneration, which the new 
 monarch durst not wholly disregard. His disgrace 
 was disguised under the semblance of a new favour. 
 While the Capitana Bey,"^ Geretlu Hussein, stepped 
 into his place of High Admiral, he rose to that of 
 Beglier-bey of Roumili : but, not only was he re- 
 
ANASTASIUS. 883 
 
 moved from what seemed his proper element ; he 
 was commanded to march as Seraskier of the army 
 of Bessarabia, and to recover the lost fortress of 
 Ockzakow, Youssoof, less rooted in the affections 
 of the nation, received a more unqualified dismissal. 
 From the rank of supreme Visier he was degraded 
 to that of Pasha of Widdin ; while, the more to 
 envenom the sting, the governor of that city, his 
 inveterate enemy, was raised in his place to the 
 supreme Visirate. This new commander in chief 
 bore the sirname of Djenaze, or the dead, from the 
 state which his extreme ill health made him seem 
 fast approaching. 
 
 As to Mavroyeni, he experienced not any imme- 
 diate change In his situation. While danger was 
 rife and energy required, he could not be spared ; 
 but the fall of his patron let loose all the forked 
 tongues of envy, and a store of accusations was laid 
 in, to be preferred against him at the first favourable 
 opportunity. In fact, there was not a crime or an 
 error which his enemies did not lay to his cliarge. 
 He had mismanaged matters of which ministers 
 never gave him the direction, embezzled sums 
 which the treasury never sent, and cut off heads, 
 not even for a moment absent from the shoulders 
 of their legitimate owners. Indeed, if truth lies 
 between the two extremes, he might be proved to 
 have been a perfect character, from labouring at 
 the same time under the most opposite and incom- 
 
334 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 patible charges : for he was at once rapacious and 
 profuse, timid and foolhardy, precipitate and dila- 
 ^ tory, too lenient and too severe, a bigot and an 
 infidel. But if, therefore, it seemed not so easy to 
 determine in what precisely consisted his guilt, it 
 was not the less evident that the punishment was 
 inevitable, and would be inflicted as soon as the 
 sentence, already pronounced in petto, could safely 
 be executed. Of this circumstance Mavroyeni him- 
 self appeared fully sensible : and as in every Greek 
 who departed from Bucharest he beheld an informer 
 going to give fresh evidence against him, so, in 
 every Turk who arrived in the place, he saw only a 
 messenger of his disgrace. 
 
 Thus situated, — knowing that, the instant his 
 principality was lost, he too must fall ; and yet 
 hopeless of assistance from the new Visier, rather 
 anxious for his discomfiture than eager for his suc- 
 cess, he exhausted all his private treasure in raising 
 at his own expense a fresh body of troops, and, 
 with what more men and ammunition he was able 
 to withdraw from the force at Fockshan, marched 
 to Bimnik, there to organise an attack to be made 
 the same day on all the passes into Transilvania : 
 hoping that, distracted by the multiplicity of points 
 to defend, the enemy might in some one or other 
 prove vulnerable. He himself undertook to con- 
 duct the expedition against the pass of Temesch : 
 but whether the Austrians were informed of his 
 
ANASTASIUS. 8S5 
 
 approach or only suspected his design, they met it 
 by so vigorous a sally from their lines, that, before 
 he could issue the final orders for a general attack, 
 he was repulsed and forced back with considerable 
 loss upon Gloyest. The scheme thus defeated ere 
 time had been given it to ripen, Mavroyeni recalled 
 his troops from the Hungarian confines, and returned 
 much dispirited to Rimnik, which henceforth he 
 made his head-quartei^s. 
 
 At the very outset of the affair of Temesch I had 
 been wounded in the thigh, by a ball, nearly spent, 
 which, grazing the bone, by degrees produced a 
 painful exfoliation. Thus disabled for some time 
 from serving, I left Rimnik, and returned to Bucha- 
 rest, whither the Bey'*s own surgeon, — the only 
 carver of human limbs in the principality who knew 
 a shin bone from a drum-stick, — was sent once or 
 twice to forward my cure. 
 
 In what way, soon after the minor events here 
 described, Coburg and the Austrians, twice threat- 
 ened by the Turks with annihilation, were twice 
 saved by the unexampled diligence of Suwarrow, 
 who completely beat the Turks, first at Fockshan, 
 next at Rimnik, are events preserved from oblivion 
 in the imperishable annals of general history, and 
 which therefore I need not detail. Such at Rimnik 
 was the route of the Turks, notwithstanding Djenaze 
 the commander — too ill to sit on horseback — held 
 up the Koran from his carriage, and ordered the 
 
8S6 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 cannon to be fired on such of his own troops as 
 should be seen to retreat, that the whole Othoman 
 camp fell into the hands of the enemy, while the 
 very course of the Danube became obstructed by 
 the number of waggons and corpses, drowned in 
 the Visier's flight across its ensanguined tide. 
 
 For a considerable time before this decisive event, 
 Bucharest had been in that hopeless state — not 
 devoid perhaps of its peculiar luxury — under whose 
 influence people, regardless of a future which they 
 may never witness, yield without further restraint 
 to every wildest suggestion of the present moment, 
 and, induced by the contemplation of inevitable 
 ruin, rush with premeditated thoughtlessness into 
 all the bold merriment of despair. Men and women 
 who never before had dared to throw off the tram- 
 mels of public opinion, and had measured every 
 movement, studied every gesture, and settled every 
 look, until it was become impossible any longer to 
 tell how nature had first moulded them, now re- 
 sumed their original air, and carriage, and tone ; 
 and now for the first time cast away the irksome 
 shackles of society, to display the genuine bent of 
 their character. No longer listening to prudential 
 considerations, which no longer could repay the 
 sacrifices they cost, the irascible now yielded to 
 their temper, the coarse to their brutality, the ma- 
 lignant to their spite, the covetous to their love of 
 rapine, nay even the prudes to their longing for 
 
ANASTASIU?. S(37 
 
 open and unconstrained gallantry. I remember in 
 particular one lady, who, besieged by a numerous 
 troop of admirers, seemed, at the first opening of 
 the campaign, to defy every form of blockade or of 
 storm ; but whose virtue exactly kept pace with the 
 events of the war. At every check our forces met 
 with, her severity was seen to relax. Each battle 
 lost removed some former scruple ; and the bulletins 
 from the army were the billet-doux in which her 
 lovers might read their chance of success. Unap- 
 proachable while Youssoof ""s irruption in the Bannat 
 was the theme of every conversation ; cold as ice 
 during the attack upon the Transilvanian passes, 
 she began to relent after the affair of Temesch: 
 after the battle of Fockshan she bade her lovers 
 hope ; and the defeat of Rimnik became the signal 
 for her unconditional surrender — '' She had not the 
 presumption," she said, ^' to think that, on the loss 
 of a province, that of her poor virtue could be of 
 any consequence !*" 
 
 Equally modest were, on the score of their cha- 
 racter, most of Mavroyeni*'s courtiers : they deemed 
 their reputation full as little worth preserving as 
 the lady. The most straight forward conduct in 
 that respect was that of the Bey's own nephews, his 
 Grammaticus and his Cameraz. These two youths 
 agreed in conceiving that, on their employments 
 leaving them, they might leave their employer. 
 The only difference was in their mode of doing 
 
 VOL. II. z 
 
S88 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 it. When affairs began to look unpromising the 
 Grammaticus begged to resign his office ; the Ca- 
 meraz, on the contrary, swore that he would never 
 ask to quit his benefactor. Nor did he : — for he 
 went without leave. If, however, some public 
 personages deserted the capital before the Prince 
 thought of moving, others, by way of compensation, 
 staid very quietly when he went away. I mistake : 
 as he went out at one gate of the city to retire to 
 Turkey, his Boyars went out at the other, to meet 
 and to welcome the Austrians, who immediately 
 after the battle of Rimnik marched to his capital. 
 
 For my part, though I do not desire to boast of 
 my fidelity, and might have pleaded, for staying, 
 the bad grace with which — owing to my still fester- 
 ing wound — I must limp in the Bey's suite, I stu- 
 pidly followed my patron. My great fear was that 
 of seeing him miserably dejected, on quitting a 
 sovereignty which he had laboured so hard to 
 obtain: but in this I was agreeably disappointed. 
 After the depression produced by his successive 
 defeats, the bustle and excitement of the journey 
 rather caused in his spirits a sort of exhilaration. — 
 '* Who ever ascended a throne,'"' cried he, as we 
 went out at the gates, " to sit at his ease ? Who, 
 that feared for his head, ever accepted a Sultan's 
 favours ? — Come death when it may, I have lived 
 to be a Prince !'' 
 
 This temper lasted till we reached the Danube. 
 
ANASTASIUS. 339 
 
 Arrived in sight of that noble stream, which a few 
 years before he had crossed in the first bloom of his 
 grandeur, and which now again he was to cross in 
 the decline of his fortunes, stripped of all his dearly 
 purchased honours, a fugitive and a presumptive 
 criminal, Mavroyeni — prince as he had lived to be — 
 paused, cast back a wistful look, and, unable to tear 
 himself away at once from the object of his life''s 
 long cherished schemes, refused to proceed further, 
 until informed that Coburg had actually entered 
 his capital. Bad news has wings : he soon heard 
 how the victors had been hailed by the nobles of 
 the country ; then bade his principality adieu for 
 ever, and stepped into the boat. 
 
 Out of evil sometimes comes good. Djenaze, 
 witli the battle of Rimnik, also lost the Visirate : 
 but, being called the dead already, Selim probably 
 thought it not worth while to take his life. Having, 
 however, in consequence of his lieutenant's reverses 
 and those of his other commanders, conceived a 
 surfeit of the war, the Sultan now conferred the 
 high office vacated on Hassan, our old Capitan-Pasha, 
 whose pacific dispositions suited his sovereign's 
 change of sentiments. Immediately on his appoint- 
 ment the new visier proceeded to the head-quarters 
 at Schumlah, whither, with reviving hopes and 
 spirits, now likewise went Mavroyeni, to meet his 
 ancient master. 
 
 It would have delighted a stoic to see these two 
 
 z2 
 
340 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 old personages, who so well understood each other, 
 greet, and wag tlicir beards together. Such, it is 
 said, was tlicir emotion on first embracing, as abso- 
 lutely to force from their features of brass a few 
 iron tears. None however remain to confirm the 
 assertion. In fact, the Prince and the Pasha were 
 all in all to each other." To Hassan, the assistance 
 of Mavroyeni seemed the pledge of diplomatic 
 success ; while to Mavroyeni, the support of Hassan 
 seemed positively as essential as physical existence. 
 But short, alas, was the joy ! Hassan, like Moses, 
 had been destined to view from afar only the ob- 
 ject of all his wishes, the end of all his toils, — the 
 long sought, and at last remotely glimmering peace. 
 Fate had ordained that he should not witness its 
 consummation. After a whole winter spent in 
 arduous and tiresome negotiations, an armistice was 
 only just agreed upon, when, on the twentieth of 
 March, 1790, Ghazi Hassan, after a few hours ill- 
 ness, ended, as others do, his long and brilliant 
 career. His enemies were accused of having short- 
 ened his life ; — but he was ninety when he died. 
 
 Of Hassan nothing now remains save his me- 
 mory. This however will endure in all its splendor 
 while the Turkish empire lasts. The single cloud * 
 which dims the setting sun cannot produce forget- 
 fulness of the many hours during which it shed its 
 undiminished radiance ! As a youth, I witnessed- 
 Hassan's expedition to the Morea. More matured. 
 
ANASTASIUS. 341 
 
 I followed him in that to Egypt. His history, 
 his achievements ^exerted over my destinies that 
 remote but unceasing influence which the luminary 
 of the world exerts alike over all the living things 
 of the earth, whether he directly gladdens them 
 with his aspect, or whether, lighting up other 
 regions, he be hidden from their view. As I be- 
 held the meridian glory, so I beheld the last reful- 
 .gence of his dazzling career; and not only while 
 Hassan lived did my fate remain indirectly linked 
 to his fortunes, but even at his death did the 
 mournful chill which pervaded the empire extend 
 its benumbing influence to my remote and narrow 
 orbit. Of the brightness which he poured forth in 
 his zenith, a few beams had been reflected upon my 
 humble person, and the long shadow he left at his 
 .decline, involved my fate likewise in its wide ex- 
 tending darkness. 
 
 His demise again raised the hopes and views of 
 the party inclined for the war. A simple Aga of 
 'Rustchook was appointed his successor, merely 
 because, many years before, this turbulent Mosle- 
 min had contrived to raise a quarrel with Prince 
 Repnin, when that nobleman passed through his 
 town as messenger of peace. Private animosity 
 was considered the pledge of military skill. I need 
 scarcely add, that in proportion as Hassan had been 
 a friend to Mavroyeni, Hassan's successor thought 
 himself bound to be his rancorous enemy : but 
 
Si2 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 Mavroyeni liad a secret enemy, not in the least 
 distrusted by him, far more dangerous than all 
 tliat stood confessed, — and this was himself. 
 
 The ever present foe in question — whose coun- 
 cils uniformly prevailed over those of all his friends, 
 — ^had contrived by degrees wholly to estrange him 
 from his nephew Stephan, the then Drogueman of 
 the fleet : and not without reason ; inasmuch as 
 the said Stephanos,^-one of those anomalous beings, 
 who prefer the lower niches of office where unas- 
 suming industry plods on unmolested, to its higher 
 pinnacles where ambition sits rocking in the lap of 
 danger, — in order the better to watch the course, and 
 to counteract the consequences, of the intrigues 
 carried on against his uncle, had with unheard-of 
 obstinacy wholly abstained from intriguing himself; 
 and neither exhausted his strength in idle clamour, 
 nor exasperated his enemies by useless invective. 
 
 A behaviour so different from his own could not 
 but appear suspicious to that sagacious uncle : — he 
 determined that it should not avail his too moderate 
 nephew ; and the man who, never above nor ever 
 below the duties of his office, had seen Ghazi Hassan 
 succeeded in the command of the navy by Hassan of 
 Crete, and Hassan of Crete by Hussein the Georgian; 
 and had still, under the minion of the Sultan as under 
 the idol of the people, preserved unimpaired and 
 unimpeached his fidelity towards his principals, as 
 well as his devotion to his kindred, was by his 
 
ANASTASIUS. 343 
 
 infatuated relation, in consideration of all his good 
 qualities and in return for all his great services, 
 devoted to feel the last eifects of his now almost 
 powerless animosity. What little wealth and in- 
 fluence Mavroyeni still possessed, was destined by 
 him to purchase his nephew's disgrace — and, if 
 necessary, his death. 
 
 Frightened at this resolution, the execution of 
 which must render inevitable the ruin of the 
 Prince and of all his adherents, I went to him, and 
 without much circumlocution set forth all the con- 
 sequences of his rash design. But, soured by dis- 
 appointment, the Prince was become incapable of 
 dispassionate reasoning. He was like one who, 
 while ascending a precipice and only looking up- 
 wards, has proceeded on with a collected mind and 
 a firm and steady pace, but who, when again de- 
 scending he sees the whole abyss before him, grows 
 giddy, and from the very apprehension of danger, 
 plunges headlong into destruction. Offended at 
 my boldness, but unable to refute my arguments, 
 he only involved me in the ill-founded mistrust 
 which his faithful agent had incurred, and answered 
 my remonstrances with abuse. " You are all vil- 
 lains alike f' cried he, foaming with rage. — "All 
 engaged in the same plot ; all leagued against my 
 life; all watching open-mouthed for my expected 
 spoil !" 
 
 My breath was not wasted in useless refutations 
 
344 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 of so unmerited a reproach. I only stated that if 
 the prince persisted in obliging his enemies, by 
 removing tlie last prop of his house, his friends 
 must provide for their own safety; — and left him 
 to profit by the warning. 
 
 But to no purpose ! — for he persisted in demand- 
 ing the dismissal of his nephew ; and as the favour 
 lie solicited was precisely of that description which 
 his bitterest enemies were the most anxious to see 
 realised, he soon obtained his wdsh. Stephan, his 
 relation and his friend, was dismissed, and, in order 
 that the change might be more sensibly felt, Hand- 
 gerly, who had pursued him with the most inveterate 
 hatred, was appointed in his nephew's place. 
 
 I would now have been fully justified in re- 
 tiring immediately; but two motives still ope- 
 rated to prolong my stay: — some silly remains 
 of attachment for an old though unjust patron, 
 and some reluctance to resign my commission, just 
 as the cure of my wounds allowed me to resume 
 my duty. 
 
 It is true my services seemed httle likely to be 
 wanted any longer. The pacific influence which for 
 an instant was seen to hover over the Turkish coun- 
 cils, had winged its way northward, and had settled 
 permanently on those of Austria. Joseph the second, 
 the author of the war — who, through his ill judged 
 mode of enforcing designs salutary in themselves, 
 had driven to open rebellion all his dominions from 
 
ANASTASIUS. 345 
 
 the Danube to the Scheld — Joseph the second was 
 no more ! After quenching the flame he had raised, 
 by cancelhng at one stroke on his death-bed all the 
 toilsome reforms of his whole life, he had resigned 
 his breath under the pressure of every public cala- 
 mity and private distress, which could embitter 
 the last moments of a man replete at once with 
 pride and feeling ; and Leopold, his brother and 
 his successor, reluctantly transferred from the peace- 
 ful banks of the Amo to all the storms that raged 
 round the Imperial throne, had already infused 
 among the Austrian troops a spirit so different, 
 that, during the whole of the summer, they con- 
 tented themselves with quietly looking at the Turks 
 across the Danube ; when, unluckily, the Pacha of 
 Widdin — the ever restless Youssoof — mistook this 
 desire of tranquillity for a proof of weakness, and 
 determined with his own forces and those of Ma- 
 vroyeni, to dislodge the enemy from his neighbour- 
 hood. He summoned the Bey to join him with his 
 remaining troops ; and the Bey came at his call. 
 
 On the fourteenth of August, Youssoof ordered 
 Mavroyeni's division to pass the river ; intending — 
 as soon as this detachment should be sufficiently 
 intrenched near the village of Kalafath, by which 
 it was covered — to follow with the remainder of his 
 army, higher up the stream ; so as to place the enemy 
 between two fires. But the uncourteous enemy 
 suffered not this scheme to ripen ; and; advancing 
 unperceived in the night, attacked us on the twenty- 
 
'34f6 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 sixth of the month, at dawn of clay, with very 
 superior numbers. It is true that, by availing my- 
 self of some high ground wliich we commanded, to 
 turn the flank of the Austrians and to fall upon 
 their rear, I made them believe for a moment that 
 our plan had succeeded, and that Youssoof himself 
 was giving them chase : but this diversion came too 
 late, and was too trifling to save us. Already were 
 the Austrians in full possession of our lines. 
 
 Amid the scene of carnage which ensued, 
 dare I introduce the fate of a flesh-pot, which, 
 humble as seems the object, yet, by the vicissi- 
 tudes it experienced, forms a remarkable episode 
 in the general picture ? Time out of mind this 
 capacious utensil had been the solace, the rally- 
 ing point, the support of a most respectable oda^ 
 of Jenissarics. The members of this division were 
 trailing away the ample vessel with all the celerity 
 which its unwieldy size and little pliant form per- 
 mitted, when, as it majestically retreated in all its 
 unbending sturdiness before the advancing enpmy, 
 surrounded by its whole troop of ministers and 
 satellites, from the Astshee-bashee or head-cook of 
 the orta down to the lowest regimental scullery-boy, 
 it happened to be spied by a knot of Austrian hus- 
 sars. With them to see was to covet. Immediately 
 they determined to effect its conquest; while the 
 regiment Avhich boasted its property showed equal 
 determination to defend to the last drop of its blood, 
 what so often had sustained the life and renovated 
 
ANASTASIUS. 347 
 
 the vigour of its members. The conflict therefore 
 was long and sanguinary : at one time the Austrians 
 seemed victors, at another the Turks again re- 
 covered the highly prized utensil ; and not until the 
 unresisting victim of the fierce contest, now hauled 
 one way, now pulled the other, had witnessed the 
 fall of all its Moslem defenders, did it pass from 
 the hands of the faithful into those of the infidels ; 
 but with a face as round, and sleek, and smooth as 
 ever ; unmindful of the streams of blood s{>ilt in its 
 behalf, and little seeming to care itself who filled its 
 ample belly, or kindled the accustomed fire under 
 its enormous base. 
 
 Ye who value words more than things, look not 
 with contempt upon this scene of what may pass in 
 your minds for misapplied heroism ! Learn that the 
 very fundamental organisation of the Jenissaries 
 renders the vessel, in which are cooked their daily 
 rations, the rallying point of each regiment — the 
 token whose loss casts a lasting dishonour upon 
 those to whom it belonged : and that, provided the 
 common soldier has a something of which he con- 
 nects the defence with his individual fame, it signi- 
 fies little whether it be a copper vessel, or a piece 
 of painted silk ; an eagle or a flesh-pot ! 
 
 My division had suffered the least in our defeat. 
 I therefore led it back round the village, to protect 
 the re-embarking of the other troops ; but could not 
 prevent a scene of indescribable confusion. Hun- 
 
348 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 dreds of wretches, unable to reach the craft collected 
 on the river, plunged headlong into the stream, and 
 there found the death they had escaped in the in- 
 trenchmcnts. The number of the drowned exceeded 
 that of the slain. Several boats full of soldiers were 
 sunk on the passage ; a cannon-ball went right 
 through the barge which conveyed the prince; and, 
 had it struck the frail skiff half a second sooner, must 
 have ended his fate in the Danube : but Mavroyeni 
 was not born to be drowned ! 
 
 Having with a handful of Arnaoots remained the 
 very last on the hostile side of the river, I expected 
 to be completely cut off for want of conveyance, 
 and to have drunk the sherbet of Martyrdom^ little 
 as it was to my taste ; — when at some distance I per- 
 ceived a raft moored among some rushes, which thus 
 far had escaped all observation. I pointed it out to 
 three or four of my best men, and with them jumped 
 on board and pushed it off. Paddling towards the 
 Turkish shore we soon became a conspicuous mark, 
 and were treated accordingly. Luckily the current 
 quickly carried us a good way down the stream, and, 
 though many balls whizzed over our heads, none 
 entered very deep into our bodies. The worst remem- 
 brances they left me to carry back to Turkey were a 
 couple of flesh wounds. Even these, it is true, I could 
 wilhngly have dispensed with, in spite of the delicious 
 odour which the Koran asserts to exhale from wounds 
 produced by infidel weapons : and particularly. 
 
ANASTASIUS. &4f9 
 
 as the Turks show themselves too resigned to the 
 will of Providence, to bring in the suite of their 
 armies men so hostile to the awards of fate as sur- 
 geons. 
 
 Youssoof had set his heart on his long planned 
 coup de main. The failure of our preparatory- 
 movements did not prevent him from attempting it 
 two days after ; and the only use he made of our 
 defeat was to excuse his own. The whole blame of 
 YoussooFs discomfiture fell upon Mavroyeni, and a 
 long list of complaints against the Prince reached the 
 Porte from the frontier, just as Handgerly had been 
 raking up in the capital the old story of the seraiF 
 Petracki, and representing Mavroyeni as possessed 
 of all the treasure lost to the Sultan by the execution 
 of his cashier. Blows so dire, struck in such rapid 
 succession, seemed to render the Prince's ruin 
 inevitable. Each effort he had made to recover his 
 lost ground had only caused him to fall another 
 step ; and it appeared as if fate had been intent only 
 to lead him from one misfortune to another so gra- 
 dually, as, without breaking his proud spirit at 
 once, to bend it by httle and little completely to the 
 ground. 
 
 Unequivocal signs of the utmost depression of 
 mind showed themselves more and more every day, 
 amidst all his unsuccessful attempts to keep up his 
 lofty manner. The supernatural informer with 
 
350 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 whom, in more prosperous days, he used to threaten 
 others, he had himself begun to believe in, nay, to 
 dread : for, from a good genius, the familiar spirit 
 seemed by degrees to have grown into an avenging 
 demon, who pursued his own employer by day and 
 by night. Fixing his haggard eyes on vacancy, the 
 Prince would sometimes, as in a fit of raving, address 
 the invisible fiend, beg a truce to his fancied persecu- 
 tions, or enter into a regular defence of the conduct 
 he had held in his government : and once, in the 
 middle of a numerous circle, as he was giving way 
 to the transient somnolency which of late frequently 
 overpowered his senses, and afforded a short respite 
 from the goadings of his mind, I experienced the 
 unspeakable horror of seeing him — after some time 
 moving his lips like one engaged in secret converse — 
 at last start up convulsively from his seat, wildly open 
 his eyes, and exclaim in a voice of thunder : " Hell- 
 ish spirit, you lie ! It is not I who did it : — it is not 
 I who burnt the empty barn, feigned to have been full 
 of corn : nor I who charged pay for the deserters, 
 never estranged from their sovereign : nor I who 
 buried in a bean field the military chest, captured in 
 my despatches by a troop of Hulans : nor I who 
 
 poisoned the cup "" 
 
 Here my outstretched hand, laid on my patron's 
 lips, at last succeeded to stop the frightful current 
 of his words. I dragged him forcibly out of the 
 
ANASTASIUS. 351 
 
 room ; and might perhaps have succeeded by degrees 
 to quiet him, but for his ghostly director, who, main- 
 tained in general for show more than use, unfortu- 
 nately determined this once to assert his office, and 
 recommended to the Prince to say his prayers. The 
 moment was ill chosen : " Cursed priest," cried the 
 Bey, " how can my words hope to rise, when you 
 see the vampire wings, that flap to beat them down 
 
 The day after this scene I was sent for to the 
 Prince's closet : he seemed then quite composed. 
 " Selim," said he, "my hour of fate approaches. 
 It would be foolish to suppose that I could much 
 longer avert the evil day. I therefore wish you to 
 tell me with your accustomed candour which you 
 think most for my glory : to take the business into 
 my own hands, and by a death that may seem the 
 result of my own choice, to balk my persecutors of 
 their expected triumph ; or, with a calmness and 
 fortitude perhaps more difficult than a precipitate 
 suicide, to await the executioner ?" 
 
 '* Sir," answered I gravely, " we all know that 
 a king, a general, a statesman may, without the 
 smallest scruple, sacrifice to a mistaken piece of 
 policy, a foolish pique, or a silly point of honour, as 
 many unwilling victims as the magnitude of the ob- 
 ject shall require. In the like manner we are told 
 that even a private gentleman may part with a 
 fraction of his own body — an arm, a leg, or both, — 
 
352 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 provided it be to secure greater durability to the 
 parts preserved. We are even assured by grave 
 divines, tliat both potentates and private individuals 
 may make themselves defunct on earth to every 
 social duty, by becoming monks or anchorets — and 
 be highly praised for the deed : but, however trouble- 
 some a man's existence may be to himself and to 
 others ; however greatly his voluntary removal might 
 oblige all the world ; however much his death would 
 be a private and a public benefit, none dare dispose 
 of their sum total of life, or remove their entire being 
 from a worse to a better world. This act, which 
 might do the performer much good, and could 
 injure no one else, is of all crimes the most heinous."" 
 
 " Pshaw," cried Mavroyeni, " I did not call you 
 in for the purpose of retailing to me the common- 
 place cant either of Christians or of Mohammedans, 
 • — which latter perhaps would have added that, as the 
 hour of death is written on our foreheads, we are not 
 able to hasten it. I sent to consult you, as a man 
 who, being neither the one nor the other, would 
 honestly tell me which of the two steps left for me to 
 choose between, was likely to figure most handsomely 
 in history. Ancient heroes have been praised 
 for dying without the least necessity; modern 
 worthies for resigning themselves to live without the 
 smallest hopes : and I cannot make up my mind to 
 which will look best in the eyes of the world !" 
 
 " To live, beyond all doubt !" cried I.—" The 
 
ANASTASIUS. 353 
 
 living every where figure better than the dead ! 
 Besides, it is the fashion of the country, which n,') 
 one should despise. People will only suspect some 
 low born rascal or some low bred disease of having 
 envied you the honour of the Sultan's bowstring ; 
 and the witnesses of your heroism may only be 
 hanged as the authors of your death !" 
 
 Mavroyeni still preserved a lurking love for life. 
 Not only he resigned himself to the remnant left 
 him; but, in order to render that remnant more 
 secure, he even determined to remove it out of Yous- 
 sooPs reach. 
 
 Again was I going to trudge after my patron. 
 He had indeed forfeited all claims upon the loyalty 
 of his adherents, by his wanton perverseness in in- 
 creasing their dangers ; but still it went against me 
 to leave him in his fallen state. So far, however, 
 from appearing thankful for this devotion, he now, 
 to my utter astonishment, began to consider it as an 
 importunity : "He had seen me,'' he said, " much 
 distinguished by Youssoof: he knew I was the Pasha's 
 spy ; and the last and only service I still could render 
 a once kind and indulgent master — to whom I still 
 owed some obedience, — was to withdraw for ever 
 from his presence !"" 
 
 The wished-for opportunity of distinguishing my- 
 self once more, and of earning among men an 
 honourable name, ere I left the prince and the army 
 
 VOL. 11, A A 
 
354 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 for ever, I bad found at Kalafath. When, there- 
 fore, I found the reproaclics for not departing accord- 
 ing to my promise daily repeated, I resolved at last 
 to go. Watching a moment of comparative serenity 
 in Mavroyeni's temper, I entered his chamber, kissed 
 his hand, and begged his commands for the capital. 
 
 At these words he turned pale ; and looked as 
 much aghast as if there never had been any question 
 of my leaving him. 
 
 " Sir," said I, " did you not yourself, only yester- 
 day, upbraid me for staying ?" 
 
 " Ah,"*" cried he, " could you then take at his 
 word, one maddened by the misfortunes heaped 
 upon him !" Then, rising from his seat, and wildly 
 pacing the room : — " My affairs must be desperate 
 indeed," continued he, " since it is come to this !" — 
 but again sitting down, as if ashamed of betraying 
 so much weakness, " No !" exclaimed he in a calmer 
 tone, " the Sultan knows all that I have done for 
 the empire ; he cannot desire my annihilation !"" 
 
 I tried to confirm the Bey in this more soothing 
 idea, and fancied he had recovered some tranquillity, 
 when again he broke out with more violence than 
 before. " It is useless," he cried, '' any longer to 
 conceal from you my state. A dreadful gloom op- 
 presses my soul. Spectres of all descriptions un- 
 ceasingly hover around my steps : they assume every 
 most frightful shape. At this very moment one — 
 
ANASTASIUS. S55 
 
 two — three — a whole host, whisper in my ear every 
 dire and dreadful presage !"''' 
 
 " And is there among them no angel of light,"" 
 cried I, "to tell your highness, that, by speeding to 
 the capital, I may perhaps retrieve your fortunes ? 
 You know, sir, my ancient intimacy with young 
 Mavrocordato ; his influence with his father ; the 
 relationship of that father with Handgerly ; the 
 connexion of the latter with the Souzzos ; — as well 
 as the riches, the ambition, the sway of Mavrocor- 
 dato the elder. Long has he aspired at the prin- 
 cipality; and some compromise might be made by 
 which his interest and his fortune should be employed 
 to secure your life, on condition of your ceding to 
 him, on the return of peace, all your still subsisting 
 claims upon Valachia.*" 
 
 This expedient was but a straw : the falling Prince 
 caught at it greedily ; and now pressed me himself 
 to go, in order to put the scheme into execution. After 
 sending for me but the week before, in order to dis- 
 cuss the propriety of seeking death by his own hands, 
 he now conjured me to do all I could to save his life. 
 
 Yet, when I came to bid him farewell, he hardly 
 would permit me to depart. Laying on my hand 
 his cold and clammy palm, " Selim, Selim !" cried 
 he, as if oppressed with anguish, " you, who have 
 known me from your youth ; who have ever found 
 me indulgent and kind, save when you rejected my 
 kindness ; over whom I ever kept a watchful eye, 
 
 A A 2- 
 
356 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 even when you tl'.oii^lit I had justly abandoned you ; 
 henceforth make me the only return in your power : 
 allow not those thin^rs to be imputed to my weak- 
 ness, which were only the result of my necessities. 
 When my conduct in my principality is canvassed, 
 recall to mind my means. What I have done, say 
 with what I did it : and, when the rest of the world 
 shall unite to condemn me, remember your ancient 
 patron, and dare to defend his memory." 
 
 1 felt moved, and was on the point of giving up 
 the journey. But what good could my stay produce ? 
 I therefore gently disembarrassed my hand from the 
 Bey's almost convulsive grasp, and said, " I was sure 
 I still should see him triumph over all his enemies." 
 
 "It shall be," replied he, a little calmer, " as 
 Heaven ordains. To myself my warning spirit 
 whispers — my days draw to their close. Go tliou and 
 prosper !" 
 
 I went ; — but prospered not ! 
 
 Mavroyeni, though he immediately quitted the 
 vicinity of Widdin, removed not to a great distance. 
 His first station was Arvanito-chori, a mean village : 
 but, constantly shifting his quarters from one place 
 to another, as if to elude pursuit, he still kept hover- 
 ing over the borders of his principality, like the 
 moth, which with wings already singed still flies 
 around the candle ; but at every circle narrows more 
 and more its orbit, until it pitches on the spot 
 marked for its final fate. 
 
ANASTASIUS. 357 
 
 To Mavroyeni this spot was Bella. There it was 
 that suddenly appeared before the Bey, no longer a 
 mere airy phantom, but the Capidjee of flesh and 
 blood, commissioned to confer upon him the palm of 
 martyrdom.^ Mavroyeni had kept in reserve, when 
 all other means should fail, an expedient on which 
 he placed implicit reliance. " My firm conviction," 
 said he to the sultan's messenger, " has always been 
 that a good Christian must be a bad subject. For 
 how can he show zeal for his sovereign and his coun- 
 try, whose religion enjoins entire detachment from 
 this nether world ? I therefore have long inwardly 
 bowed to the truth of Islamism ; and now only wish 
 publicly to embrace its holy law, and to be numbered 
 among the faithful." 
 
 Upon this the Prince took from his bosom a small 
 Koran, which he carried on purpose, kissed it de- 
 voutly, and desired to make his profession of faith. 
 Such a request even a Capidjee durst not deny him : 
 he was suffered to perform at his full leisure his 
 orisons, his genuflections, and his ablutions ; and not 
 until all was concluded did the Capidjee express his 
 satisfaction at being now enabled to send to Heaven 
 so sincere a believer. 
 
 What could be done ? No enthusiastic mob here 
 pressed around to take under its protection a young 
 and pitied neophyte. Before the hoary sinner stood 
 no one but his cold-blooded executioner, intent only 
 u}X)n the performance of his office. Seeing all further 
 
5f38 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 subterfuge therefore useless, Mavroyeni at last armed 
 himself with becoming resolution, and determined 
 quietly to submit to his fate. Yet could he not, as 
 he knelt down, help exclaiming : " I deserved other 
 thanks, at least from my sovereign ! May he, in his 
 wide extended realms, find a Greek more faithful !" 
 He said no more, uncovered his neck, suffered the 
 fatal bowstring to be fastened round his throat ; — 
 and fell a corpse. 
 
ANASTASIUS. 359 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 If my destinies never enabled me to shine forth 
 like the rarer suns of the creation, with any inherent 
 splendor of my own ; if my vagrant disposition never 
 allowed me even to reflect with steadiness the bor- 
 rowed lustre of a regular satellite ; if at all times I 
 rather resembled in my desultory rambles the erratic 
 comet, either so near some nobler orb as to be lost in 
 its blaze, or so remote from every star in the firma- 
 ment as to be abandoned to its own native ob- 
 scurity, still had I thus far in my career shone at 
 intervals, with some little radiance derived from 
 the reflection of loftier names: but this resource 
 now ceases; this passport to public notice hence- 
 forth is denied me. Hassan and Mavroyeni already 
 are no more ; and if Youssoof, by concluding the 
 war which he kindled, still claims a page in history's 
 weightier volume, he no longer comes within the 
 compass of this desultory sketch. Nor will other 
 luminaries arise to succeed these setting stars. 
 Whatever instruments of great changes or workers 
 of great mischief may still appear, will move in an 
 orbit so distant from my reader's view, as scarcely to 
 
3G0 ANASTA31US. 
 
 preserve in liis eyes any impressive size. Hence- 
 fortli I sliall constantly have to thrust my own in* 
 si"-nificant person foremost on the stage ; and to draw 
 from my own lowly thougli sad vicissitudes alone, 
 all my means of interesting or attaching my readers. 
 Nor is the want of great names, in whose radiance 
 to walk, and on whose loftiness to raise my httle sta- 
 ture, the only growing disadvantage of these pages. 
 The humbler person on whom henceforth exclu- 
 sively devolves the task of occupying the reader^s 
 attention, must even be resigned to lose, as the 
 work advances, what little brilliancy might thus far 
 radiate from himself, as w^ell as the brighter light 
 which he was enabled to cast around him by reflec- 
 tion, lie no longer can expect to retain that power 
 of exciting the interest, or of obtainuig the favour or 
 the forgiveness of the world, which might have been 
 hoped for in the earlier chapters of this confession. 
 In those the discourse was concerning a raw strip- 
 ling, — a youth hurried away by the restlessness of 
 his incipient being: and the immaturity of ado- 
 lescence, as it enhances the merit of what is good, 
 so it engages to view with indulgence what is repre- 
 hensible. Of the faults of a boy, the greater num- 
 ber are ascribed to his newness in the world, to his 
 not yet being initiated in its manifold mysteries, to 
 his not yet distrusting its older and warier tenants. 
 The graces of youth secure the forgiveness of more 
 advanced age : but that happy era, that period of 
 
ANASTASIUS. 361 
 
 delightful dreams once gone by, no more mercy must 
 be looked for. Every action is considered as the re- 
 sult of a character formed, of a deliberate will. It 
 is scanned with minuteness, and it is judged with 
 severity. If it betray the smallest error, not only 
 the deed is condemned, but the author is pursued 
 by man's implacable hatred. '' Of one so confirmed 
 in evil, an example is all that can be made ;" ex- 
 claims an unsympathising world : and where the Ana- 
 stasius of sixteen might have obtained a full and un- 
 qualified pardon for his transgressions, the Ana- 
 stasius of twenty-eight must expect to meet with all 
 the rigour of unmitigated justice. 
 
 If therefore I only wrote for others, here is the 
 place where I should lay dov/n my pen : but I write 
 for myself — and I proceed ! The very incidents 
 which, more confined to my own individual self may 
 have less merit in the eyes of strangers, are those 
 which m.y mind oftener recalls, and dwells upon 
 with most pleasure. 
 
 " The more haste, the less speed," says the 
 proverb ; and the proverb speaks true. So anxious 
 was Ij on leaving Widdin, to get to Stambool, that 
 my hurry forced me to stop short in the middle of my 
 race. Still weak on setting out, and unprovided with 
 Mohammed's angel wings to screen me from the 
 scorching sun, I was overcome by heat and fatigue 
 early on the journe}^, and fell ill at Boorgas. What 
 I hated more than Jews do purk or gunpowder, — at- 
 
36JZ ANAS'i'ASlUS. 
 
 tendants and gairi}X)ts, — now again beset me. Wholly 
 defenceless, I was assailed by half a dozen physicians 
 and nurses at once. They took forcible possession 
 of my apartment, and waged over my body as fierce 
 a contest as ever did the Greeks and the Trojans 
 over that of Patroclus. In truth, this was lucky ; for 
 my safety only lay in numbers. The sons of ^scu- 
 lapius and the daughters of Hygeia neutralized each 
 others sinister intentions; and I escaped, like a 
 small district wedged in between greater powers, 
 which owes its preservation to their unceasing rival- 
 ship. In the midst of the first tranquil slumber which 
 I had enjoyed since my malady, I was awakened by 
 the stray blows that fell from the hands of the two 
 trusty persons hired to watch by my bed, as they 
 were engaged across my pillow in a scuffle for my 
 purse. Each tried to gloss over his own conduct, by 
 accusing the other of having come to murder me. 
 
 Fresh from witnessing events of some importance, 
 it was during my convalescence that I first bethought 
 myself of relieving its tedium by writing my me- 
 moirs. " They must,"" — thought I, — " if consonant 
 to truth, speak too ill of their author, not to be sure 
 of finding readers ;" and, though I did not execute 
 my intention at the time, that idea has chiefly en- 
 couraged me to do so at the present period. I am not 
 even certain whether, — though wishing never to de- 
 viate from the most scrupulous veracity, — I have not 
 sometimes, out of respect for the public taste, made 
 
ANASTASIUS. S6'^ 
 
 myself somewhat worse than the world gave me 
 credit for being. If any of my readers should enter- 
 tain a suspicion of that sort, I leave it to his own 
 discretion to adopt or to reject it : — I shall quarrel 
 with him for neither. 
 
 When sufficiently recovered, I proceeded to the 
 capital and visited the Fanar ; but no longer, as I 
 had intended, to make interest for Mavroyeni. His 
 cares in this world were over ere I quitted Boorgas ; 
 and I had no other object but to afford my friends 
 and well-wishers an opportunity of realizing the 
 warm professions lavished upon me at my departure 
 for Valachia. It would be unfair to say they were 
 wholly denied or forgotten. One person, whom I 
 reminded of his promises, observed that he had 
 pledged himself in much stronger terms than those 
 which I quoted : — but to whom ? To one going to join 
 Mavroyeni in the plenitude of his power. " Now, 
 prove yourself at this present speaking to be that 
 man," he added, " and yon shall find me stanch to 
 my word." I applauded the frankness of this answer. 
 There was a delicacy in not wishing to wheedle me 
 by empty words out of an esteem, which there was 
 a firm determination not to deserve by friendly 
 actions. 
 
 The filth of the Fanar now displayed to me all its 
 lustre : it was like the contents of a sewer, when, 
 through a chink in the vault, the sun darts its beams 
 full upon their unsightly stream ; and much did the 
 
'304 ANAgTASlLS. 
 
 nauseous spectacle increase my veneration lor the 
 M'isdom of the Turks ! " Sensible, sagacious, pro- 
 found people, '^ thouglit I, " how much your judg- 
 ment is to be admired, in simplifying, as you do, all 
 your dealings with the Greeks ! Powerful as you 
 may fancy your grasp, still, if after catching those 
 your serpents you only allowed them to writhe in 
 your hands, they would infallibly shp through your 
 fingers, dart back into their native shme, and elude 
 your sharpest search. AVere you to employ with 
 that deceitful race the slow and circumspect mode of 
 judicial proceeding to which the squeamishness of 
 Christendom attaches such importance, your indo- 
 lence — ^your credulity — your 5a?i7i07wi^, if Imay call 
 it so — would never get the better of their artifice 
 and subterfuges : you would never be able to follow 
 and to lay hold of them in their endless turnings and 
 windings; and, with the moral certainty of being im- 
 posed upon by every individual of that wily nation, 
 you must submit contentedly to be cheated out of 
 every para of your property, and every inch of 
 your estates. But, wise and judicious people i 
 far more securely do you go to work. In your fiscal 
 administration you scorn those innumerable offices, 
 and checks, and verifications, which, in each empire 
 in Christendom, for every ten individuals directly 
 engaged in collecting the revenue, employ twenty 
 others to watch those ten, and thus consume half the 
 income of the state in the collecting oi' the other half. 
 
ANASTASIUS. 365 
 
 In the same way in your judicial proceedings you 
 wave thoseendless forms, and ministers, and tribunals; 
 those interminable interrogatories, and scrutinies, 
 and confrontations, which, in each state in Europe, 
 busy half the population about the rights and mis- 
 demeanours of the other half, let nine offenders out 
 of ten escape, and often inflict on the tenth only a 
 tardy and inadequate punishment. Sometimes, in- 
 deed, through your peremptory mode of proceeding 
 you mistake the innocent for the guilty : — but what 
 of that ! — You are always sure at least of attaining 
 the greatest aim of all penal justice, that of striking 
 the mind with a salutary terror !" 
 
 " Nor should You, in this my humble panegyric, 
 lack your proper share of praise, wise and noble Sul- 
 tan, holy vicar of the prophet, Imperial Man- 
 slayer ! ^ entitled every day to cut off lawfully four- 
 teen heads, without assigning any reason for their 
 fall : — you, who, by making an implicit obedience to 
 your will the express condition of every public em 
 ployment throughout your vast empire, have se 
 cured yourself against losing the smallest part of 
 your prerogative, through any delay, however great, 
 in its exercise. Regarding each officer of the state 
 only in the light of one of the smaller and more 
 numerous reservoirs, distributed on more distant 
 points of your domain, to collect at first hand the 
 produce of dews, and drip, and rills, ere the collect 
 ive mass be poured into the single greater central 
 
3GG ANASTASIUS. 
 
 basin of your all absorbing treasury, you give your- 
 self no trouble to check the dishonesty, or to prevent 
 the peculations of your agents. You rather for 
 a while connive at, and favour, and lend your own 
 authority to his exactions, which will enable you, 
 when afterwards you squeeze him out, to pombine 
 greater gain with a more signal show of justice. In 
 permitting a temporary defalcation from your trea- 
 sury, you consider yourselves as only lending out 
 your capital at more usurious interest. Nine long- 
 years, while your work is done for you gratuitously, 
 you feign to sleep, and the tenth you awake from 
 your deceitful trance ; like the roused lion you look 
 round where grazes the fattest prey, stretch your 
 ample claw, crush your devoted victim, and make 
 every drop of his blood, so long withheld from your 
 appetite, at last flow into the capacious bowels of your 
 insatiable hazne !" 
 
 But the more I admired the system, as a mere 
 indifferent spectator, the less I felt inclined to 
 illustrate its principles by my own example. Having 
 already with such infinite toil and danger — at the 
 cost of my repose and my health — devoted so great 
 a portion of that life that fleets away so fast, to 
 climbing the rugged and slippery path of distinction, 
 in order, every time I thought 1 had attained a cer- 
 tain height, only again to slide back to the point 
 from whence I first started, I determined no longer 
 to sacrifice to the same thankless task what still might 
 
ANASTASIUS. 367 
 
 remain mine of health and of vigour. Instead of the 
 vain sound of titles, and the unsubstantial advan- 
 tages of rank, I determined to seek the more lasting 
 and more tangible prerogatives of a well filled purse, 
 and, by the laudable appetite for solid gold, to drive 
 out of my mind the depraved thirst for mere unsub- 
 stantial fame. " The way to honours,"" cried I in 
 my new species of enthusiasm, "is a steep and nar- 
 row path, where few can ascend abreast, and those that 
 follow only try to push down and to pass by the fore- 
 most. It is a path which can only be pursued by 
 arduous and abrupt leaps ; while at every higher 
 step the risk of stumbling and being dashed to 
 pieces increases in a tenfold ratio. It is a path where 
 distances ever deceive ; and what from below ap- 
 peared the highest summit, when attained, only is 
 found the base of still loftier crags, bearing fruits 
 still more empty and bitter to the taste ! But the 
 way to wealth," exclaimed I, " is a wide acclivity, 
 accessible to all, without danger or fatigue : it is a road 
 along which you may to a nicety calculate the pro- 
 gress made, and the chance of further advancement ; 
 where success depends not on the caprice and favour 
 of patrons, but on the exertions of the wayfarer him- 
 self; where, as his way proceeds, he rests on a wider 
 and more solid foundation, finds greater helps still 
 to rise on, and yet needs them less ; it is a road, in 
 fine, along which such fruits only are gathered, as 
 
SC8 ANASTASIU?. 
 
 purchase or comprehend all the tangible blessings 
 which man values here below !" 
 
 In this new view of things, I soon laid down my 
 plan of future conduct. While in Valachia Mav- 
 royeni made his hai-i^est, I had been gleaning in his 
 suite. Formerly, in my soberest moods, I would 
 have hastened to get rid at least of half my ready 
 cash, and contented myself with leaving the other 
 half slowly to beget a puny progeny. But this 
 suited not my present temper. Each of my thou- 
 sands was in time to grow to a million ; and with mil- 
 lions in question, the difference of one half seemed 
 too great an object to trifle with. 
 
 Now therefore behold Selim — the gay, the ex- 
 travagant, the dissipated Selim — all at once trans- 
 formed into a plodding financier ; as much on the 
 watch to turn a para, as formerly he had been 
 on the alert for every means to spend his purses ; 
 carefully calculating the interest of each incoming 
 piastre, and deeply groaning after each outgoing 
 aspre: no longer only seeking to dispose of his 
 capital in the way which should give the least trouble, 
 but racking his brains to place his funds in the mode 
 best fitted to secure that grand desideratum — that 
 sort of philosopher's stone — perfect security, com- 
 bined with exorbitant interest : no longer inquiring, 
 when introduced to a stranger, whether he was a 
 pleasant companion, but whether he passed for a man 
 
ANASTASIUS. 369 
 
 of substance, orderly in his affairs and punctual in 
 his payments : lamenting the insecurity of invest- 
 ments, the badness of the times, and the high price of 
 provisions; voting servants a pest; looking with pity 
 on the extravagant youths of the age, who preferred 
 gold lace on their backs to gold pieces in their 
 girdle ; lending them money at fifty per cent out of 
 pure charity ; wondering how any body could seek, 
 in his attire and equipage, the short lived merits of 
 novelty and fashion, rather than the lasting recom- 
 mendations of costing little, and wearing well, and — 
 strange to tell — as proud of a cautious demure look, 
 a smug jacket without binding, and a single half- 
 starved waiting-boy, as ever he had been of a giddy 
 hare-brained manner, clothes stiff with embroidery, 
 a^d insolent pampered servants, more supercilious 
 than their master. 
 
 In a cool, sedate, reflective person, so entire a 
 change of tastes and of behaviour, 1 suppose, could 
 not have taken place so suddenly. It could only 
 have been the work of time, and would have dis- 
 ])layed a graduated progress. But I possessed not 
 that even temperature of mind which steers clear of 
 extremes : I never could do any thing in modera- 
 tion. However different might become the object 
 of pursuit, the ardour of the chase with me still 
 remained the same; and the greater the impetus 
 with which I had rushed on in any direction, the 
 stronger, when I met with a check, became the 
 
 VOL. IT. u B 
 
370 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 recoil in tjjc opjxjsite direction. My soul fired at the 
 recent instances I had witnessed in Mavrocordato 
 and others, of immense fortunes made in trade ; and, 
 already in love with wealth on its own account, I 
 doubly reverenced it in view of the power obtainable 
 through its influence: for ambition would never leave 
 me entirely quiet ; but, when it was turned out of 
 doors, stole in at the window, and added its persua- 
 sions to the other motives which had determined me 
 before to become a first-rate merchant. So fast 
 galloped my imagination, that already I saw myself 
 standing with one leg in Cashmere, and with the other 
 in St. Domingo ; with the right hand loading hemp 
 at St. Petersburg, and with the left gold and negroes 
 on the Guinea coast ; and covering with my vessels at 
 once the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, the Euxi^ie 
 and the South Sea. — I had genius; I could, if I 
 chose, force perseverance ; and the only trifles wanted 
 were capital, credit, and correspondents. 
 
 Providence had just kept in store for me the only 
 person, ready to hold all these desiderata at my dis- 
 posal on the shortest notice. I found every thing 
 needful in an old Moslemin, grown enormously rich 
 through nothing but his undeviating perseverance 
 to do all that, by common calculation, ought to have 
 reduced him to beggary. In the true spirit of pre- 
 destination, Welid maintained that no mode of con- 
 duct begot ill-luck so infallibly as caution. " It mani- 
 fested mistrust," he said, '^ in the ways of Pro- 
 
ANASTASIUS. 371 
 
 videiice ; and one single pious ejaculation at the out- 
 set of an enterprise was worth all the calculations of 
 worldly wisdom." Indeed, Welid might quote his 
 whole life in proof of this doctrine. 
 
 But, — to go no further back in the recapitulation 
 than the instances of the last twelvemonth : — the 
 Porte had sent away for riotous behaviour the Scla- 
 vonians who do the garden work about Constan- 
 tinople, just at that period of the spring when the 
 setting fruits require constant irrigation. All Welid's 
 neighbours strained every nerve to supply the de- 
 ficiency, while Welid alone saw the pining of his 
 oranges, his citrons and his pumpkins with perfect 
 apathy, and only exclaimed, " God is great !" — 
 What was the consequence ? The sky, usually of 
 brass in that season, all at once opened its sluices, and 
 made Welid's agrumi, on the very brink of anni- 
 hilation, yield a double crop. 
 
 Again : the unusual rains, in the hottest month 
 of the year, liad produced a dreadful plague. Most 
 of Welid's friends took some precautions against the 
 infection, while Welid alone seemed by preference to 
 go where the malady was rifest, and only repeated, 
 " God is great!" — What ensued.^ Not a finger of 
 "Welid's ached all the time ; but he became heir to 
 every one of his relations who had evinced more 
 prudence. 
 
 And again: the dampness of the summer was 
 followed by an autumn so dry, that every nigli 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 saw Constantinople disturbed by some dreadful con- 
 flagration. Several of Welid'^s acquaintance there- 
 fore watched their premises, while Welid heard the 
 cry of yanguen-var " in his very yard, without say- 
 ing any thing but '' God is great !" — How did the 
 business end ? Welid's house indeed was burnt to 
 the ground : but the falling walls discovered a de- 
 posit of gold and jewels sufficient to build a score of 
 palaces. 
 
 What therefore could be more' natural than for 
 Welid to infer, that the more imprudences he com- 
 mitted, the less he could fail to prosper? Nor did 
 he lack examples of the mischiefs arising from a more 
 wary conduct ; for — not to mention his own brother, 
 who, with a sincere ^and heart-felt wish for wealth, 
 had, from the mere apprehension of making a bad 
 hit, never made a good one ; nor his nephew, who, 
 grudging a servant's wages, had, in his loneliness, 
 been murdered by a band of robbers ; nor his cou- 
 sin, who, to save his old vessel a scouring, had sold 
 his gold for brass,— what but Emin's resorting to 
 medicine in a malady from which he might have re- 
 covered, had made him take a deadly poison ? What 
 but Talib''s fear of a pursuing foe had caused him to 
 fall into a torrent, and be drowned ? And what but 
 Nasser's inventing a most ingenious trap for thieves, 
 had kept him confined by the leg in his own fetters, 
 until he died of hunger amidst all his dearly pur- 
 chased treasure? 
 
ANASTASIUS. 373 
 
 The vast fortune which Wehd had, by his impru- 
 dence, acquired, I advised him to employ in some 
 grand speculation, and to make me his partner in the 
 concern. Others might not have thought me the 
 fittest person for a commercial associate, but I re- 
 peated AUah-kierim^ until Welid committed all his 
 affairs to my management. We went, he, his son, 
 and myself, to Smyrna ; there freighted a vessel 
 with cotton, and resolved to carry our merchandize 
 to Marseilles, where we could not fail to find a good 
 market. As I contributed but little toward the 
 purchase, my portion was to be but small in the 
 profits : this however remained a tacit clause be- 
 tween us, too well understood to be expressed. No 
 regular account, no legal vouchers, no written memo- 
 randum whatever was drawn up of our respective 
 shares. Welid was not a man to trouble himself 
 about such formalities. " Each knew his own," he 
 said, "and that was enough."" 
 
 In one respect, however, he showed an invincible 
 obstinacy. He had taken it into his head that it 
 would be manifesting his trust in Providence, to 
 hire the first vessel he should meet with. This 
 happened to be precisely the oldest and craziest 
 concern in the harbour ; a thing on the eve of being 
 broken up, as unfit for service. The circumstance, 
 however, so far from deterring, only confirmed 
 Welid in his purpose. He thought it a most for- 
 tunate opportunity of signalizing his reliance on 
 
374 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 heaven, and no entreaty or remonstrance could 
 make him desist from freighting this miserable 
 wreck, in preference to a dozen stout vessels dis- 
 enorased. He would not even insure. It was 
 flying in the face of Providence, and almost as bad 
 as atheism or blasphemy ; so that, unable to per 
 suade my partner, I had insurance made in my own 
 name on the whole cargo. 
 
 We now set sail. Hardly had we got into the 
 latitude of Chio, when Welid's son, — as hale a boy 
 to all appearance as ever was seen, — suddenly fell 
 ill, and died. Our crew, chiefly Provencals, doubted 
 not his being a victim to the plague, which had 
 begun to spread in Smyrna; and became almost 
 petrified with terror. Welid himself, though he 
 had appeared fond of his child while alive, shed not 
 a tear on his death, bore his loss with his inherent 
 apathy, and only as usual exclaimed, " God is 
 great !" I felt so angry with him for his insensi- 
 bility, that I longed to see him go to the shades 
 after his boy. 
 
 There was nothing to hinder me from realising 
 that wish myself The sailors only wondered that so 
 infirm an old man as Welid, — after having sat open- 
 mouthed, as it were, to inhale the contagion which 
 had felled a robust youth, — should still continue 
 to breathe : and my putting an end to a thing so out 
 of all rule as my partner's escaping what seemed 
 his inevitable fate, might only be deemed a just 
 
ANASTASIUS. 375 
 
 return for his having exposed my life — with a 
 dozaii others probably more deserving — in a rotten 
 vessel. Indeed, it was a proceeding which, in my 
 situation, few of my former acquaintances would 
 have considered as more than a fair retaliation, 
 or would have hesitated to accompKsh forthwith; 
 even though it must have entailed upon them all 
 the encumbrance of remaining sole possessors of 
 the joint cargo. Yet, unaccountable as it may 
 seem, and scarcely justifiable in the eyes of many, 
 I did nothing to get rid of old Welid ; but suffered 
 him to live on unmolested. It is true that scarcely 
 had his son breathed his last, than there arose 
 a storm, of which the very first blast shivered 
 our bark to splinters. It sent twelve fine young 
 sailors and their captain to the bottom, but kindly 
 spared Wehd and me ; and, as the cargo was now 
 lost at all events, I determined to atone for what- 
 ever evil thoughts might, without my leave, have 
 risen in my breast, by doing my utmost to save my 
 partner. I lugged liim after me on a floating hen- 
 coop; and, as it had not required an out of the 
 way rough sea to make an end of our crazy skiff, 
 this vehicle supported its load, until the wind 
 and current carried us ashore on the neighbouring 
 coast of Samos. 
 
 Welid, who had only suffered himself to be 
 saved, like one of his bales of cotton or bags of 
 corn, without making a positive resistance, ex- 
 
376 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 pcrienced on this rather trying occasion so little 
 extraordinary wear and tear of body or mind, that, 
 weak and old as he was, he still brought ashore 
 strength enough to cry out with great satisfaction 
 on the loss of his cargo, as he had done on that of 
 his child : " God is great !" While I, on whom 
 had fallen all the weight of exertion, could scarce 
 articulate from exhaustion. 
 
 Our shipwreck close to the land in broad day- 
 light had collected round us a number of fishermen, 
 all impressed with becoming gratitude towards 
 Providence, not so much for having spared our 
 lives, as for having destroyed our vessel on their 
 shore. Too late however to push our persons back 
 into the waves from which we had just emerged, 
 they exerted themselves the other way ; and helped 
 us on, lest we should witness their proceedings in 
 regard to the wreck. The little money we had in 
 our pockets was employed in getting ourselves 
 conveyed, as soon as the storm subsided, to Koosha- 
 dasi on the mainland of Anadoly ; but this short 
 voyage completely exhausted our finances, and on 
 our arrival we had not a para left. 
 
 Nor were \<'e, for the present, in want of a para. 
 The Turk, where bigotry interferes not with his 
 better feelings, is as charitable as he is confiding. 
 He neither attributes good fortune entirely to man's 
 own sagacity, nor ill-luck solely to his imprudence ; 
 and neither is apt to listen with suspicion to the tale 
 
ANASTASIUS. 377 
 
 of the indigent, nor to cast blame on the conduct 
 of the unfortunate. Looking upon adversity as 
 proceeding from the same high source from whence 
 flows prosperity — feehng as httle degraded by the 
 pressure of God's hand upon him, as elated by its 
 support — he confers charity without pride, as he 
 asks it without meanness. We therefore, who came 
 as supplicants, in need of every thing, found every 
 thing we needed. Every inhabitant vied with the 
 rest in supplying our necessities, and providing for 
 our comforts. Hence Welid, who wanted repose, 
 resolved to avail himself for a few days of the 
 hospitality so handsomely tendered; Avhile I only 
 requested a horse and a guide, to take me on to 
 Smyrna. The two animals soon were found, and I 
 set off. 
 
 Our halting-place, the first night, was a mean- 
 looking hamlet, situated in a narrow defile. The 
 next day, after leaning a httle more to the right than 
 appeared our due course, we arrived early in the 
 afternoon at a place of some note in the plain. As 
 we were to stop till the next morning, I established 
 myself in a coffee-house, while Dimitracki the guide 
 went to look after my horse. Scarce had I hghted 
 my pipe, and begun to sip my coffee, when a Tcha- 
 woosh, followed by two or three peasants, walked 
 in, and summoned me before the Soo-bashee.* 
 
 Where bullying seems to be the thing intended, 
 the best way is to bully the first. Many a man con- 
 
378 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 tlnues troublesome only because he has begun to be 
 so, and knows not how to end. " I have no business 
 with your Soo-bashee," said I therefore to the 
 messenger — " If he wants me, here I sit''' — and 
 immediately I squared myself a little more than 
 I had done before. Accordingly the Tchawoosh 
 went away, and the Soo-bashee came, followed by 
 a posse of blackguards of all colours and sizes. 
 My own guide Dimitracki, the greatest of all, 
 brought up the rear, and stood peeping between 
 the elbows of those before him. 
 
 I gave the magistrate a nod between civil and 
 familiar. He gave me nothing in return, but, 
 gravely squatting himself down at the other end of 
 the ragged sofa, bade my guide draw near. Dimi- 
 tracki advanced, hanging his head, and afraid to 
 meet my eyes. " So this man,"" cried the Soo- 
 bashee, addressing him, but eying me, "you say is 
 a Russian spy ?"*'' 
 
 " Nothing can be more certain," answered my 
 guide, clearing his windpipe, and trying to look 
 resolute. '' Let him but speak, and you will soon 
 know the Greek by his accent. He is the very 
 man who betrayed Ockzakow to the Russians. 
 There was Stavros, and Mavros, and Kokinos, and 
 Proto, and Psaro, and Georgio, and Marcacki, and 
 Michaclacki, and Manolacki, and I don*t know how 
 many more of us, who witnessed the whole pro- 
 ceeding. I know him as I do my father." 
 
ANASTASIUS. 379 
 
 A wag here observing that the example chosen 
 disproved the assertion, Dimitracki grew angry, 
 corroborated his statement by the most violent 
 oaths, and called upon anotlier Greek of the name 
 of Petracki to vouch for his veracity. 
 
 Petracki of course confirmed all that Diniitracki 
 had asserted : he even went further. *•' Indeed, 
 your worship,'' cried he, " there is no end to this 
 man's iniquities. For, besides betraying both Ock- 
 zakow and Bender, it is he — and I have it from the 
 best authority — who assisted the enemy in inter- 
 cepting, near Hissar, your worship's own boat-load 
 of corn." 
 
 The affair of Ockzakow and Bender the Soo- 
 bashee might perhaps have overlooked, as not 
 within his province; but the corn was too much. 
 Almost choked with passion : " Ah ! wretch," cried 
 he ; " I could stab you with my own hands. But 
 I respect the law : I shall therefore only send you, 
 bound hands and feet, to Tireh ; where the Moot- 
 sellim, who is my friend, will be sure to see you 
 hanged." 
 
 " No, no !" cried a parcel of fanatical Osmanlees, 
 " we have stones enough for him here !" 
 
 I pledged myself to prove my innocence at 
 Smyrna; but I scarce was listened to. "Any 
 traitor," observed the party, " was sure of protection 
 in that nest of infidelity, among the Frank consuls ;" 
 and the Soo-bashee himself began to be abused for 
 
380 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 not seeing me disposed of on the spot. Either 
 frightened or pretending to be so, he called Heaven 
 to witness that he had no share in what might 
 happen ; and then bade me be handed over to the 
 mob, whom he told to act as they thought proper. 
 
 So they seemed full)' resolved to do; for all were 
 drawing their cutlasses. A flourish was all I had 
 left for it. Spiridion's pocket-book still kept its 
 place in my bosom. Solemnly pulling it out : '' By 
 tlie dread seal of our sovereign, inclosed in this 
 case,*" exclaimed I emphatically, " I command you, 
 slaves, to disperse. Tremble to impede my pro- 
 gress ! For each hair of my head a life shall 
 answer." 
 
 At this lofty speech, uttered in a suitable tone, 
 the audience looked aghast, the rioters slunk away, 
 and the Aga begged to provide me with a suitable 
 escort. " I want none," I replied ; " an invisible 
 guardian watches over my safety. The wretch who 
 brought me here, shall alone go onward with me." 
 
 That was exactly what Dimitracki felt least 
 inclined to do. His little scheme had been to 
 purloin my steed : and, in order to obviate any op- 
 position on my part, he had hit upon the expedient of 
 swearing away my life. He now became so fright- 
 ened that he fell upon his knees, and confessed all 
 his untruths. "He had told them out of sheer 
 loyalty, and, in reality, I ought to feel much obliged 
 to him ; but all he asked for, was to go with me no 
 
ANASTASIUS. 381 
 
 farther." I protested I could not give up his com- 
 pany, and had him closely watched, while I conde- 
 scendingly accepted a lodging for the night under 
 the Aga's roof. 
 
 At sunrise I again set off, ordering Dimitracki 
 to take the lead. I destined him a remembrance that 
 should benefit other travellers : but I soon found it 
 was easier to lodge a musket-ball in his side than 
 to bestow a milder correction on his back. The 
 fellow looked as strong as Hercules ; and, though 
 pacing on before me in gloomy silence, with his 
 head stuck in his stomach and his eyes cast on the 
 ground, he seemed so constantly on the alert, that 
 it was quite impossible to take him by surprise. 
 Even when we halted to take a little rest, he no 
 longer lay down, as formerly, behind the bushes, but 
 squatted himself with his back against a tree, and 
 his face turned to me, so that I could not stir a step 
 unperceived ; and, though he pretended to sleep, it 
 was only with one eye. Every time I approached him, 
 he jumped upon his legs, to ask me what I wanted. 
 
 At last we came to a pass in the mountains 
 which looked propitious to my scheme. Here, 
 having succeeded through dint of management to 
 knock the fellow down, and to confine his hands and 
 feet, I gave him the destined drubbing with un- 
 sparing liberality; which done, I fastened him to 
 a tree, there to ruminate at his leisure upon the 
 
38^ ANASTASIUS. 
 
 wholesome lesson. Ismir''s gulf was in sight, and 
 fortunately I wanted a guide no longer. 
 
 IVIy first care on arriving was to recover the 
 insurance on the shipwrecked cargo. After some 
 delay, occasioned by legal inquiries, affidavits, &c. I 
 got indemnified for every bale of cotton put on board. 
 Welid, who in the mean time had also re-appeared, 
 declined to share in the recovery, as he had refused 
 to join in the insurance. It was only by stratagem 
 I could make him accept a small part of the pro- 
 duce. No way cured, however, by his loss, of his 
 blind confidence in his destiny, he continued to 
 commit fresh imprudences, until from the condition 
 of a wealthy merchant he became reduced to that 
 of a poor basket-maker ; but whenever we met, he 
 still would lay aside his osier twigs to point to 
 heaven, and to cry out, " God is great I" 
 
 While following up the recovery of my insurance, 
 I fell in with a curious personage, — a Turk who 
 had sought the protection of the French consulate 
 at Smyrna. Descended from a Sultana, Isaac-Bey 
 had in his boyhood been selected as playmate to 
 the present Sultan. Soon, however, his fickle dis- 
 position made him quit the seclusion of the seraglio 
 for the command of a galley. His jovial humour 
 and his freedom from Turkish prejudices caused 
 him to be much courted in the different sea-ports 
 by the Frank merchants; and their conversation 
 
ANASTASIUS. 383 
 
 inspired him with a wish to behold Christendom. 
 All at once Isaac- Bey disappeared from his station, 
 and the next news of the truant came from Naples. 
 Some said his escape had the sanction of his master, 
 desirous through his old confidant to explore the 
 arts of Europe, and to learn what infidel improve- 
 ments might be transplanted with success to the 
 Turkish dominions; nor was Isaac-Bey at any 
 pains to contradict the report. Statesmen, there- 
 fore, courted in him the favourite of his future 
 sovereign, as the fair did the favourite of nature. 
 The genteel Turk became the fashion in Christen- 
 dom, and every body w^anted to see a Frenchified 
 Moslemin, who eat an omelette au lard, drank cham- 
 paign, and wore a portrait of his Circassian mistress. 
 It was entertaining enough to hear Isaac give 
 an account of his journey. " Unaccustomed," 
 said he, " as I was, to the shocking sight of men 
 and women mixing in public, or posture-making 
 exhibited otherwise than for hire, how did I stare, 
 when, on my arrival in Christendom, 1 was taken 
 to a ball at the house of a Bey. I thought little of 
 the dancing. None of the females knew how to 
 shake their hips; but their faces I liked, spite of 
 their plastered heads. I went up to the one that 
 led off, and w^atching my opportunity, slipped a 
 purse into her hand. I thought she would have 
 boxed my ears, and every body turned up their 
 eyes in astonishment — the lady being wife to the 
 
381' . 7VNASTASIUS. 
 
 first Visier. In my own mind tlie impro])riety 
 rested witli herself: but the adventure made me 
 cautious how I spoke. Before the unsuccessful 
 overture, I had secretly destined three or four of 
 the damsels present an apartment in my harem on 
 the channel ; unfortunately, one was the daughter 
 of the Reis-Effendi, the other the wife of the Cazi- 
 Asker,^ and the third the Spanish embassadress : 
 so that all I durst offer them was a pinch of rappee. 
 
 " At Rome I went to see the grand Mufti of 
 the Christians, who bears the same title with our 
 Greek papases. He appeared a very modest, well 
 behaved, quiet gentleman. His suite made more 
 fuss about him than he did about himself They 
 dressed and undressed him a dozen times in the 
 middle of the church, changed his caps, fed him, 
 kneeled to him, and sang to him. As I stood a good 
 way from the table, which was richly decked out with 
 gold cups and candlesticks, I took the performers 
 in this show, with their sleek faces, their laced 
 petticoats, and their long trains, for his wives ; — they 
 were only his Cardinals. In fact, he is not allowed 
 to marry, though — like our Sultan — he has his 
 troop of Medjboobs.^ These however he keeps, 
 not to guard his harem, but to sing in his chapel ; 
 and so dismally do they squall with their shrill 
 pipes, that it is called a miserere. Finding Rome 
 a very ruinous place, I was glad to leave it.'" 
 
 " From Italy," continued the Bey, " where I 
 
ANASTASIUS. 385 
 
 saw nothing but priests and cavaliei'-serientts^ 1 
 went to France, where I was pestered by petit- 
 maitres and philosophers : but they so often ex- 
 changed characters, that I never could tell which 
 was which. Strangely was my poor Turkish brain 
 puzzled on discovering the favourite pastime of a 
 nation, reckoned the merriest in the world. It 
 consisted in a thing called tragedies, whose only 
 purpose is to make you cry your eyes out. Should 
 the performance raise a single smile, the author is 
 undone. Much however as I was bidden to weep, I 
 could not help roaring out with laughter, when I saw 
 a princess in a hoop three yards wide, stick a huge 
 pasteboard sword in her whale-bone stays, for love of 
 a prince with his cheeks painted all over : but my 
 bad taste excited great contempt. One day they 
 took me to a representation of Turks ; — as if I had 
 not seen real ones enough. Luckily I did not find 
 them out ; as I must otherwise have knocked down 
 a fellow in a feathered nightcap, for daring to 
 travestie our holy Prophet. The place called the 
 Opera, with its fine show of dancing-girls, pleased 
 me the most of any. The first time indeed of my 
 going there, on seeing a superb palace crumble to 
 pieces, I thought there was an earthquake, and ran 
 out as fast as possible, expecting the whole house 
 to come down about my ears : but by degrees I got 
 used to those accidents, and, though I could never 
 tliink the show before the scenes otherwise than 
 VOL. i;. c c 
 
386 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 very tiresome, I often thought that behind the cur- 
 tain exceedingly pleasant. 
 
 '' The French are all prodigious talkers ; but 
 those who never ceased were a sect called economists. 
 They were for making the country produce nothing 
 but what might be put into the stomach : forgetting 
 that men have eyes as well as palates, and that if the 
 former find nothing to feed upon, the latter will con- 
 sume double quantities, — were it only to kill time, 
 — and thus turn economy into waste. This I ven- 
 tured to observe: but they shrugged up their 
 shoulders, and said I was a Turk ! 
 
 '' Being so near England, I had a mind to visit 
 London. My French friends — I mean of the female 
 sex — strongly opposed the idea. ' It would ruin all 
 my newly acquired French good-breeding : — besides,' 
 added Madame de Mirian, ' those islanders are so 
 proud of their salt water ditch, that life is scarce 
 long enough to thaw the icy coldness of their first 
 reception. They will indeed tell you, as they did 
 me, that if your lungs can but stand their smoke a 
 dozen years, you may be admitted to the honour of 
 stirring their fire, — that is to say, — of finding your- 
 self at home in their chimney corner ; but, in the 
 mean time, if you dress like themselves, you will be 
 left to your own meditations, and if you vary from 
 them, were it only in the width of your shoe-straps, 
 you will be stifled with impertinent curiosity : to 
 say nothing of their churlishness in not admitting 
 
ANASTASIUS. 387 
 
 strangers otherwise than by sea — and prohibiting all 
 French articles !"* 
 
 '' These last instances of ill breeding persuaded 
 me : and, as I had a little French article, which I 
 did not like to leave, I staid at Paris till the acces- 
 sion of my Imperial master made me return home, 
 and console myself for the pleasures I quitted by the 
 honours which awaited me. 
 
 " The first which I received was an order for my 
 exile at Lemnos : but this was not the last. My 
 enemies accused me of having, in my rambles, not 
 only ridiculed the laws of the Prophet, but com- 
 mitted the dignity of the Sultan. So great a crime 
 required an adequate punishment. Sitting mourn- 
 fully in the boat in which I fancied myself going to 
 the place of my banishment, my eye caught the 
 looking-glass at the prow, and, in that too faithful 
 mirror, the reflection of my conductor, seated be- 
 hind me, just as he was showing the boatmen how 
 in half an hour my head would be bouncing at my 
 feet. Judge of my situation. A French tragedy 
 was nothing to it. At Paris I had got quite out of 
 the habit of such transactions. 
 
 "Arrived at the Dardanelles, I was stowed in 
 the dungeon of the castle, while my guardians 
 loaded the great gun that was to announce to the 
 world my happy exit, by the inestimable honour of 
 the Padishah's own commands. Just at that moment, 
 Seid-Aly, returned from blockading the Russians 
 
 cc2 
 
388 ANASTASIUS. 
 
 in the Black-Sea, was passing with his squadron 
 full sail through the straits. He failed not to 
 claim the ancient privilege of the fleet to liberate a 
 prisoner in the castle. But what was his delight to 
 find himself by that means — spite of every opposi- 
 tion — the preserver of his old friend. My sudden 
 translation from a dark underground dungeon filled 
 with fierce executioners, to a brilliant state cabin 
 skimming the waves, in which each face showed a 
 friend, had such an effect on my senses, that at first 
 I thought the whole business a dream, and kept 
 feeling myself all over — and especially my neck — 
 before I could believe it to be a reality. 
 
 " Se'id was giving chase to the pirate Lambro. 
 Ere he proceeded, he deposited me in this place, 
 under the safeguard of the French flag. I have 
 been here some time, but now no longer regret my 
 disgrace, since it procures me the inestimable feli- 
 city of your acquaintance." 
 
 At this extravagant compliment I burst out 
 laughing, — told Isaac-Bey I was glad to see how 
 much he had profited by his travels, and made him 
 laugh too. We however became friends in earnest ; 
 and while I remained at Smyrna, scarce a day passed 
 without our drinking together — hidden behind the 
 tri-coloured flag newly hoisted — a glass of muscadel 
 to the health of the little French article, saved from 
 the English custom-house. 
 

 1. 
 1. 
 
 Masr : 
 Kalish 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Note 
 
 1. p. 
 
 2. p. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Cairo. 
 ; Canal or cut, co 
 
 the Nile. That which runs through Cairo, 
 and feeds its different birkets or lakes, is 
 opened every year with great solemnity, 
 when the Nile has attained the requisite 
 height. 
 
 3. ip. I. Birkets : excavated ground in and about 
 
 Cairo, transformed, after the rise of the 
 Nile, into tanks, on which the inhabitants 
 go in boats. 
 
 4. p. 3. Tried to spit in my otvn face : see vol. i. 
 
 chapter 13, note 2. 
 
 5. p. 3. The lake Yusbekieh : one of the principal bir- 
 
 kets : surrounded by a number of the most 
 considerable mansions of Cairo. 
 
 6. p. 7. Franguestan : land of the Franks; name 
 
 given by the Mohammedans to Europe. 
 
 7. p. 7. As if it had been his own : Anastasius can 
 
 only allude to such trifles as the partition 
 of Poland; nothing like the Congress of 
 Vienna having yet been witnessed at that 
 period. 
 
390 NOTES. 
 
 Note 
 
 8. p. 10. The felt: which the Mamlukes practise to 
 
 cleave at a single stroke with their sabres. 
 
 9. p. 11. Scratches : domestics of the Beys, who are 
 
 not slaves. 
 
 10. p. 12. Tchibookdjee: pipe-bearer ; from Thchibook, 
 
 pipe. 
 
 11. p. 13. Maallim: master; Arabic form of address 
 
 to gentry of an inferior description. 
 
 12. p. 18. ElAzhar: one of the great rehgious founda- 
 
 tions at Cairo for the promotion of science; 
 but where, of course, all science which is 
 considered as any way militating against 
 the interests of the foundation^, is utterly 
 discouraged. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 1. p. 27. Cdimaham: lieutenant or official repre- 
 
 sentative of a public personage. The 
 Grand Visier, when he takes the com- 
 mand of the Turkish army, leaves his 
 Caimakam at Constantinople. 
 
 2. p. 27. Mokhadam : servant who, in Egypt, pre- 
 
 cedes public officers with a staff called 
 Nabood, to drive away the mob. 
 
 3. p. 28. Bazirghian : merchant or purveyor of a 
 
 man in office, by whom he is paid in drafts 
 on his estates or government. 
 4". p. 29. Samoor : spotted fur much esteemed in the 
 Levant. 
 
NOTES. 391 
 
 Note 
 
 5. p. 30. Fellahs : peasants ; who in Egypt are all of 
 
 Arabic extraction, and hold the land ac- 
 cording to different tenures ; though con- 
 sidered in general as serfs. 
 
 6. p. 30. Katvasses : servants who follow their mas- 
 
 ters on foot. 
 
 7. p. 31. Shehoods : notables of a village or district. 
 
 8. p. 31. Khandgea : boat for passengers, used on 
 
 the Nile. 
 
 9. p. 37. Miri: territorial imposition of Egypt. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 1 . p. 50. Hashish : an intoxicating drug. 
 
 2. p. 53. Haznadar ; treasurer, — from haznc, trea- 
 
 sury. 
 
 3. p. 54-. Xwoji^Waw^ crops .* among the Mohammedans 
 
 slaves are not suffered to let their beards 
 grow : this appendage therefore is always 
 a sign of freedom ; and generally marks 
 official dignity, or at least gravity of de- 
 portment. Having been once suffered to 
 grow, it is thought indecorous, and almost 
 profane, again to shave it. 
 
 4. p. 55. Somebody's mother: allusive to an exclama- 
 
 tion of anger, much in use among the 
 Turks. 
 
 5. p. 58. Kohl : a black and almost impalpable pow- 
 
 der, used to tinge the eyelids, and sup- 
 posed to strengthen the sight. 
 
39'J NOTES. 
 
 Note 
 
 6. p. 58. The Padishah : the emperor : title given 
 
 to the Sultan, 
 
 7. p. 59. Surmeh : another name for Kohl, 
 
 8. p. 59. Henna : a red juice, extracted from a plant, 
 
 with which the Egyptians dye their wo- 
 men's toes and fingers, and the Persians 
 their horses' tails. 
 
 9. p. 61. Alme : the singular of Awali or singers. 
 10. p. 65. Clapping her hands : which in the East, 
 
 where servants are always in waiting in 
 the room, stands in lieu of ringing the 
 bell. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1. p. 67. Abbah: Arab cloak. 
 
 2. p. 73. Bedaivee : or Bedoween. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1. p. 91. Koobbees: sepulchral chapels. 
 
 2. p. 94'. Za'ims: vessels which navigate the Red Sea. 
 
 3. p. 94-. Nileh : indigo. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1. p. 98. Hadjee : 0. T^Wgnva. ; from hadj, pilgrimage: 
 all Mohammedans are enjoined by the 
 Prophet to perform that to Mekkah, in 
 person, or at least by proxy. 
 
NOTES. 393 
 
 Note 
 
 2. p. 98. Kaaba : the holy house of Mekkah, ori- 
 
 ginally built by the angels in Paradise : 
 in its wall is inserted the black stone, 
 probably of atmospheric origin, already 
 worshipped by the Arabs previous to 
 Mohammed, who found the superstition 
 in its favour too deeply rooted to contend 
 with. 
 
 3. p. 98. Coorban Bayram : festival which takes 
 
 place forty days after that of the Bay- 
 ram. 
 
 4. p. 99. Kishr : a beverage much used in Arabia. 
 
 5. p. 103. Dives : celebrated magicians. 
 
 6. p. 103. The bird Roc: a fabulous bird of prodi- 
 
 gious size. 
 
 7. p. 103. Simoom : the poisonous wind of the de- 
 
 sert, 
 
 8. p. 104?. It is customary with men of letters in Ara- 
 
 bia to assume a number of surnames, 
 borrowed from different circumstances, 
 
 9. p. 105. The balance Wezn: in wliich, according to 
 
 the Koran, are weighed man's good and 
 evil actions. 
 
 10. p. 108. Birhet-el-hadj : the lake near Cairo, on 
 
 whose banks the pilgrims bound for 
 Mekkah assemble. 
 
 11. p. 110. The ShereeJ' of Mekkah : the prince or 
 
 sovereign of the country. 
 
 12. p. 111. Djezzar : whom it fell to our lot to defend 
 
 against Bonaparte. 
 
394 NOTES. 
 
 Note 
 
 13. p. 111. The Hadj : or caravan of pilgrims. 
 
 14. p. 112. Bosniac guard: some of the Turkish 
 
 Pashas or governors of provinces have 
 Bosniac soldiers for their body guards, 
 as others have Albanians, and others 
 Koords or Turkmen. 
 
 15. p. 112. Deli-bash: or officer of Delis. 
 
 16. p. 1 18. Firmans: passports from the Grand Signior. 
 
 17. p. 118. Crals : petty sovereigns of Christendom. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 1. p. 123. Seraff: cashier, banker. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 1. p. 154. Before the holy doors. According to the 
 ritual of the Greek church the priest- 
 hood alone enters the sanctuary, which 
 is divided from the nave by a screen, the 
 doors of which are called the holy doors. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 1. p. 164. The infidel hill: on which stands Pera, the 
 
 quarter of the Franks. 
 
 2. p. 169. Capidjee: gentleman usher of the Grand 
 
 Signior. The Capidjees are wont to 
 carry to the governors of provinces the 
 commands, favours, and bowstrings of 
 the Sultan. 
 
NOTES. 395 
 
 Note 
 3. p. 171. Ishiudar: Scutari; situated opposite Con- 
 stantinople, on the Asiatic shore. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 1. p. 192. Nea-Moni: rich monastery in the island 
 
 of Chio. 
 
 2. p. 193. FiorcfiXerawfg.* emphatic epithet of praise 
 
 given by the Greek islanders to Chio. 
 
 3. p. 203. Despots : title given to the Greek bishops. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 1. p. 237. His Koordiah body-guard: The Koords 
 
 and Turkmen are mountaineers of Ana- 
 doly, who often carry their tents to a 
 great distance from their native pro- 
 vinces, combine a predatory with a 
 pastoral life, and form the body-guard 
 of the Asiatic Pashas, as the moun- 
 taineers of Albania form that of the go- 
 vernors of Turkey in Europe. 
 
 2. p. 238. Dellis : properly madmen : species of 
 
 troops who in the Turkish army act as 
 the forlorn hope. 
 
 3. p. 240. Bairah : company. 
 
 4. p. 245. Which in fact he had : namely Alexander 
 
 — or Iskander— bey; commonly called 
 by the Franks Scanderbeg. 
 
 5. p. 250. Tootoondjee : officer who carries the to- 
 
 bacco-pouch of a great man. . 
 
'^^ NOTES. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Note 
 
 1. p. 260. The seven tovoers : state prison of Constan- 
 
 tinople, in which the Porte shuts up the 
 ministers of hostile powers who are di- 
 latory in taking their departure, under 
 pretence of protecting them from the 
 insults of the mob. 
 
 2. p. 263» Mohammed's vicar: namely the Sultan — 
 
 in his capacity as heir to the Kaliphate; 
 and who therefore, in his wars with 
 the Christian powers, hoists the sacred 
 standard of the Prophet, as if only going 
 to war for the defence of Islamism. 
 
 3. p. 268. Mikmandars : officer who in Turkey ac- 
 
 companies embassadors and other dis- 
 tinguished travellers as purveyor. 
 
 4. p. 273. jE^c^Aanwa, pronounced Yekatharina: equi- 
 
 valent among the Russians to Evkatha- 
 rina ; the great or good Katharina. 
 
 5. p. 275. Boyars: the indigenous nobles of Valachia 
 
 and Moldavia. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 1. p. 277. Roumooms : name which the Valachians 
 
 give themselves. 
 
 2. p. 288. Suleiman the Just : whom we call the mag- 
 
 nijicent. 
 
NOTES. 397 
 
 Note 
 3. p. 290. Seraskier : Hospodar : the first means 
 
 a Turkish general of division; the latter 
 
 is the title given to the Greek governors 
 
 of Valachia and Moldavia. 
 4f. p. 292. Divan Effendee : Turkish secretary of the 
 
 Hospodar*s divan. 
 
 5. p. 303. Anadoly : or Anatolia, — as it is marked in 
 
 our maps, — is the name given by the 
 Turks to Asia Minor. 
 
 6. p. 303. Zeeameth or Timar : feudal fiefs, which 
 
 only differ in the number of men pro- 
 perly mounted, whom the holders are 
 obliged to furnish in war. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 1. p. 316. The Contumace: name given by the Aus- 
 
 trians to the custom-houses of the Hun- 
 garian passes. 
 
 2. p. 320. Boyookdere: beautiful village on the shores 
 
 of the Bosphorus, chiefly inhabited by 
 Frank embassadors and their suite. 
 
 3. p. 321. Jeu7ie de langue : appellation given to 
 
 young gentlemen admitted in the dif- 
 ferent diplomatic missions at Constan- 
 tinople, for the purpose of learning the 
 eastern languages. 
 
398 NOTES. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Note 
 
 1. p. 329. BinrSashee : Turkish colonel. 
 
 2. p. 332. A fortnight's growth : a new Sultan only- 
 
 lets his beard grow from the day of his 
 accession. 
 
 3. p. 332. Capitana-bez/ : first in command in the 
 
 Turkish navy after the Capitan Pasha. 
 
 4. p. 340. The single cloud : alluding, I suppose, to 
 
 Hassan's defeat at Tobak. 
 
 5. p. 346. Oda or Orta: Turkish regiment : those of 
 
 the Jenissaries attach great importance 
 to the preservation of the vessel in which 
 they cook their pilau ; and the officers 
 of their kitchen possess, from the head 
 cook down to the lowest regimental 
 scullery boy, their regular rank in the 
 army. 
 
 6. p. 357. The palm of Martyrdom : according to the 
 
 Mohammedan prejudice, the favour of 
 the bowstring conferred by the Kaliph 
 of the Faithful, or his representative, 
 ensures in the next world all the rewards 
 of martyrdom. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 1. p. 365. Imperial manslayer: one of the titles as- 
 sumed by his gracious Majesty the 
 Grand Sign i or. 
 
NOTES. 399 
 
 Note 
 
 2. p. 372. Yan-guen-var : the cry of fire in the streets 
 
 of Constantinople. 
 
 3. p. 373. Allah-Jcierim : God is great ! the usual ex- 
 
 clamation of devotion, or surprise, or 
 resignation among the Mohammedans. 
 
 4. p. 377. The Soo-bashee : inferior officer, com- 
 
 manding a village or small district. 
 
 5. p. 384. The Cazi-Asher : title of the chief magi- 
 
 strate among the Turks, and therefore 
 probably applied by Isaac-Bey to the 
 Lord Chancellor; as the appellation of 
 Reis Eifendee seems to be to a secretary 
 of state ; and that of grand Mufti of the 
 Christians, to his holiness the Pope. 
 
 6. p. 384. Medjboobs : persons qualified to act as 
 
 guardians of the harem. 
 
 END OF VOL. II. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PRFNTED nv THOMAS DAVISOX, ■\VHITEFRIARS.