ting, into various apartments.

"The zabtie, in zouave uniform, at the door, would have me wait
standing in the corridor outside; for his Excellency is at dinner. And
Excellency, as affable as his zabtie, hearing the parley without,
growls behind the scene and orders me gruffly to go to the court.
'This is not the place to make a complaint,' he adds. But the
stranger at thy door, O gracious Excellency, complains not against
any one in this world; and if he did, assure thee, he would not
complain to the authorities of this world. This, or some such
plainness of distemper, the zouave communicates to his superior
behind the cotton sheeting, who presently comes out, his anger
somewhat abated, and, taking me for a monk--my jubbah is responsible
for the deception--invites me to the sitting-room in the enormous
loophole of the citadel. He himself was beginning to complain of the
litigants who pester him at his home, and apologise for his ill
humour, when suddenly, disabused on seeing my trousers beneath my
jubbah, he subjects me to the usual cross-examination. I could not
refrain from thinking that, not being of the cowled gentry, he
regretted having honoured me with an apology.

"But after knowing somewhat of the pilgrim stranger, especially that
he had been in America, Excellency tempers the severity of his
expression and evinces an agreeable curiosity. He would know many
things of that distant country; especially about a Gold-Mining
Syndicate, or Gold-Mining Fake, in which he invested a few hundred
pounds of his fortune. And I make reply, 'I know nothing about Gold
Mines and Syndicates, Excellency: but methinks if there be gold in
such schemes, the grubbing, grabbing Americans would not let it
come to Syria.' 'Indeed, so,' he murmurs, musing; 'indeed, so.' And
clapping for the serving-zabtie--the mudirs and kaiemkams of the
Lebanon make these zabties, whose duty is to serve papers, serve,
too, in their homes--he orders for me a cup of coffee. And further
complaining to me, he curses America for robbing the country of
its men and labourers.--'We can no more find tenants for our
estates, despite the fact that they get more of the income than
we do. The shreek (partner), or tenant, is rightly called so. For the
owner of an estate that yields fifty pounds, for instance, barely
gets half of it; while the shreek, he who tills and cultivates the
land, gets away with the other half, sniffing and grumbling
withal. Of a truth, lan