elves. After expressing my
commiseration for him, and my hopes of his recovery, we parted company;
and as I stood looking at the mule, staggering and slipping among the
loose atones and rocks in the steep descent, it quite made me wince to
think of the pain the unfortunate traveller must be enduring, with the
raw stumps of his two legs rubbing and bumping against the end of his
short box. I was sorry I had not asked why the robbers had cut off his
legs, because, if it was their usual system, it was certainly more than
I bargained for. I had pretty nearly made up my mind to be robbed, but
had no intention whatever to lose my legs; so I sat down upon a rock,
and began calculating probabilities, until my party came up, and I
mounted my horse, who gave me another look with his cunning eye. We
continued on Ali Pasha's broken road until we reached the summit of the
mountain, where we made a short halt, that our horses might regain their
wind; and then began our descent, stumbling, and sliding, and scrambling
down, until we arrived at the bottom, where there was a miserable khan.
In this royal hotel, which was a mere shed, there was nothing to be
found except mine host, who had it all to himself. At last he made us
some coffee; and while our horses were feeding on our own corn, we sat
under the shade of a walnut-tree by the road-side. Our host, having
nothing which could be eaten or drank except the coffee, did not know
how in the world he could manage to get up a satisfactory bill. I saw
this very plainly in his puzzled and thoughtful looks; but at last a
bright thought struck him, and he charged a good round sum for the shade
of the walnut-tree. Now although I admired his ingenuity, I demurred at
the charge, particularly as the walnut-tree did not belong to him. It
was a wild tree, which everybody threw stones at as he passed by, to
bring down the nuts:--

"Nux ego juncta vise quae sum due crimine vitae,
Attamen a cunctis saxibus usque petor."--Ovid.

Little did the unoffending walnut-tree think that its shade would be
brought forward as a cause of war; for then arose a fierce contest
between Greek oaths and Albanian maledictions, to which Arabic and
English lent their aid. Though there were no stones thrown, ten times as
many hard words were hurled backwards and forwards as there were walnuts
on the tree, showing a facility of expression and a redundance of
epithets which would have given a lesson to the most pra