6 AFRICAN AVANDEUINGS.

here.* This office of inspector liad a salary of six purses,

or 3000 piastres, per mensem, attached to it ; and the Pascha was also to appoint Joseph his own physician, and tliat of his

harem, and give him from his own pocket a monthly gratifi-

cation of 1000 piastres. I, who, as my old comrade had told

him, had been a captain in the Greek wars of liberty, was

to be at his side as Maendes (engineer), have the rank of

Bimbaschi (major), with five purses, free table, and all I could

wish for. On my reminding my friend Gand that I was no-

thing more than a lawyer, he laughed heartily, and replied, that

in these lands a man must know everything ; that 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 ap-

pointments. After a time he even offered to make me a bey, 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 curry 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 I'epresented to him that from

the well-known sensibility of the troops to the effects of wet, one

half of his army would give in, he 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 drome-

daries, each of which could, on an emergency, carry three soldiers.

* In Chartum, the Baron, indeed, had used liis poisons at the Pascha's desire, and in his service, and it is more than probable that the latter, at an after

period, caused the Baron to be poisoned by one of his wives, a Circassian, -with whom he, Soliman Effendi, lived on the worst terms of hate and discord.