Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/130

 soldiers draughted from among them. For, under the pretext of sending off each recruit with a good kit and with a little money in his pocket, a benevolence tax was invented, the greatest part, of which, after the parings of the collectors, went to the Pasha’s treasury, and the half-naked recruit was left to take his chance. Oh! that a European soldier could see what these men are compelled to live on—how they sleep, how they are flogged—and how they are left to die!—and yet suicide is unknown among them.

The bastinado in Sayda was succeeded by mulcts. An order was published by the Pasha, that those whose sons had concealed themselves, or did not appear by a certain day, should be taxed collectively 1,300 purses, a sum more than enough to pay for substitutes. An appeal was made to Ibrahim Pasha to lessen the fine, but the result never came to my knowledge.

November 19.—I had taken to my house to read the book that Sir Gore Ouseley had sent Lady Hester Stanhope, and I related to her the anecdote of the old woman and the copper dish. This threw a gleam of satisfaction over her countenance. "Ah!" said she, and she made a sigh of pleasurable feeling, "these are the people I like; that’s my sort: but the people