ld have told you that the
sympathetic line on the palm of his hand was so little prominent as to
be scarcely visible, whereas on Tepelenti's palm there was such an
abundant concourse of sympathetic lines that they even ran over on to
the back of the hand. In those days the Mussulmans frequently diverted
themselves with such superstitious games as palmistry.

As to his figure--well, Gaskho Bey might have stood for a perfect
model of the Farnese Hercules; his huge shoulders were almost out of
proportion with the rest of his body. He could stop the wing of a
windmill with one hand; on the birthday of the Sultan's heir he
hoisted a six-pound cannon on his shoulders and fired it off, and he
could break a hard piastre in two when he was in a good humor.

It could not be said that he had hitherto used this terrible strength
to injure any one; on the contrary, he was universally known as the
most forbearing of men. The pages of the court, whom he taught to
fence, would sometimes in the midst of a lesson, as if by accident,
but really from sheer petulance, batter him with their blunt swords
till they rang again, and Gaskho Bey would always reprimand them, not
for striking him but for striking so clumsily. He had never gone to
war, and those who did not send him thither flattered themselves not a
little on their humanity, for if it came to a serious tussle there was
really no knowing what damage he might not do.

At home he was the gentlest paterfamilias conceivable. You would
frequently find him on all-fours, with his little four-year-old son,
Sidali, riding on his back, and persecuting his father with all sorts
of barbarities. He did nothing all day but teach the pages of the
Seraglio games and exercises, and at home he made paper birds for his
own little boy, flew kites for and played blind man's buff with him.
Whatever time he could spare from these occupations he would spend in
leaning out of the window of the Summer Palace overlooking the
Goekk-sue, or Sweet Waters, and looking about him a bit with a pipe in
his mouth, the stem of which reached to the ground, and if any one had
asked him while so engaged what he was looking at, he would assuredly
have answered, "Nothing at all."

Now there were always the liveliest goings-on in the Goekk-sue Park of
an evening. The harems of the beys and pashas who dwelt on its banks
took the air there under the plantain-trees, and swung and danced and
sang; the wandering Persian juggle