not
repeated, and Tolbunin himself was given a magnificent funeral.

Yet, except for the Caspian caviar toss, the Golden Judge was obeyed as
unquestioningly as the Voice from Sinai, and perhaps more so. And if it
could be used only in what some called "minor" disputes, it was
surprising to see, once these were settled, how really few "major" ones
remained. It is impossible here, of course, to list more than a few of
General O'Reilly's tosses, but he flew to nearly every spot on earth, a
beloved world figure.

He flew to Ethiopia--and caught malaria there--to settle an old quarrel
between that country and the Sudan over a one-square-mile Sudanese
enclave named Gambela, well inside Ethiopia. A relic of the times when
Britain controlled the Sudan, Gambela had long been a thorn in the side
of the Conquering Lion of Judah. Although the Negus lost, he accepted
the verdict as uncomplainingly as earlier disputants, some three
thousand years before, had once accepted the awards of his putative
ancestor, King Solomon.

General O'Reilly ended a tiny but poisonous quarrel of many years'
standing as to whether British Honduras should become a part of the
Republic of Honduras. Britain won.

* * * * *

In an epic tour in 1973 that left the world gasping with admiration,
General O'Reilly spread lasting balm on many sores in the Middle East.
The Golden Judge settled--in favor of Pakistan--her friction with
Afghanistan over the long-disputed Pathan territory. Saudi Arabia won
from Britain two small and completely worthless oases on the undefined
border between Saudi Arabia and Trucial Oman. These oases had, over the
years, produced many hot and vain notes, and desultory shooting, but the
Lord of Saudi Arabia was subsequently much disappointed that they never
produced oil. He was further dismayed when the Golden Judge awarded to
Iraq a "neutral zone" between the two countries, on which they had never
been able to agree, and this zone did, in fact, produce tremendous
amounts of oil. However, he complained only to Allah.

Syria and Turkey resorted to the toss to decide about the Sanjak of
Alexandretta (Iskanderun) which Turkey had been given by France back in
the Thirties, when France ran Syria. Turkey won. Damascus sighed but
smiled, and reopened diplomatic relations with Ankara that had been
severed for more than twenty years.

But on a golden January day in 1975, in Malaga, Spain, General
O'Reilly's aide-de