the flat of his weapon; and it was
with difficulty I pacified him at last, by saying, 'Pasha!' several
times, and pointing forward; giving him to understand that if he did not
behave himself, I should complain to the Pasha as soon as we arrived."

"And then," said K----, "you must always battle with them for your
halting-place, if they do not happen to fancy it. If you want to go
ahead, the horses are tired; and if you want to stop, there's sure to be
some better place farther on."

I joined in the vote against subjecting ourselves to tutelage.

"But these fellows do something else besides showing the way--they
interpret. Isn't that rather a floorer for us?"

"Not a bit of it," said S----. "I'll be the [Greek: hegemon], for I've
been the road once before; and K---- there talks a little Turkish."

"Yes, I know the numbers, and can say '_Kateh saket_,' which means, 'how
many hours,' or 'how far to?'"

"That will do capitally; for if you say, '_Kateh saket_ Magnesia?' any
blockhead will know that you mean 'How far to Magnesia?' Besides, we all
can say, '_Salam Aleikum_,' so can do the polite as well as the
interrogative."

Reader, this was a mistake. A Mussulman loves not to hear this
salutation at the mouth of a Christian; it is the expression of a
religious wish; and when uttered by one who receives not the Koran, it
falls on the ear of a Turk as a profanation. The correct thing to say
by way of being civil is, "_A-oorahah_!"

Thus slender was the stock of language with which we started; but
perhaps we were not much worse off than we should have been had we known
a good deal more. It is all very well with our European dialects to have
a certain smattering of grammar and principle; but the hopeless
languages of the East come under a different category. Any knowledge of
their theory short of actual accuracy is nearly useless; perhaps worse
than useless, because, by beguiling the unhappy smatterer into ambitious
attempts, it cheats him of the little power he may have of rendering
himself intelligible. A man who is content with the attainment of a
certain vocabulary of substantives, in whose pronunciation he is
perfect, has much the best chance, because he can eke out the other
parts of speech by gesture. But the _attache_ of legation, who has been
poring over their orthography, and hammering at principle, often proves
the uselessness of his acquisitions for colloquial purposes. However, we
might have done very wel