6 AFIilCAN WANUKKINGS.

here.* This office of inspector liad a salaiy of six purses, or 3000 piastres, j)er_rnensein , attaclied to it; and the Pacha was also to appoint Joseph liis own physician, and tliat of his harem, and give him from his own pocket a monthly gratification of 1000 piastres. I, who, as my old comrade had told him, Lad been a captain in the Greek wars of liberty, was to be at his side as Maiindes (engineer), have the rank of Bimbaschi (major), with five purses, free table, and ail I could wishIbr. On my reminding my friend Gand that I was nothing more than a lawyer, he laughed heartily, and replied, that in these lands a man must know everything ; tliat he himself (he had served under Napoleon) had filled here military and various other posts. Besides, he added, that it was the Pascha's wish, that agreeably to Turkish etiquette, I, a free Frank, should want nothing that would raise my greatness in their eyes.

Next morning we all three waited on the Pascha, who expressed himself highly pleased at our decision, and repeated himself to us the promises he had made through Dr. Gand, and gave orders to procure the sanction of his father-in-law, the Viceroy, to our appointments. After a time he even offered to make me a hgj-, if I would, as he said, turn Mussulman, not on his own account, for he was an unprejudiced Circassian, but to please the Turkish asses; I laughed, and he said no more about it. He asked our advice as to how he had better carry out his advance into Darfur, and he was Turk enough himself to select the time of the Chariff, or rainy season, for it ; and when I also represented to him that from the well-known sensibility of the troops to the effects of wet, one half of iiis army would give in, lie replied by a contemptuous " Malesch!" (It matters not!) I voted for the dry season, as water was to be had here and there, and for the establishment of wells under the protection of block-houses, thus to supply the army, when in the steppes, with the needful water. Such doings were beyond his comprehension ; and he boasted of his 700 dromedaries, each of which could, on an emergency, carry three soldiers.

* In Cliaitum, the B.iron, indeed, had used his poisons at the Pascha's desii-e, and in his service, and it is more than probal)lc that the latter, at an after period, caused the Baron to be poisoned by one of his wives, a Circassian, with \yhom he, Soliman Effcndi, lived on the worst terms of hate and discord.