Page:The Burton Holmes lectures; (IA burtonholmeslect04holm).pdf/107

 *travaganza. Indeed the life of the master of this palace was a long, cruel extravaganza, until turned into somber tragedy by the arrival of the conquering French. The story of the building of this pile gives us a key to the character of Ahmed bey.

WHERE VULTURES CIRCLE

Returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca, he resolved to make himself a palace more luxurious than those of the Oriental princes he had visited. To obtain the necessary space he dispossessed his neighbors; to obtain material he robbed his subjects right and left. If a column or a carving in the house of some rich man pleased him, down came the house of the unhappy owner. From Italy came cargoes of fine marbles, tiles and carven wood, paid for by taxes wrung from a suffering people. More space was needed. Down came the neighboring houses without apology or payment, for the bey was master absolute of Constantine. Those who murmured were sentenced to be bastinadoed; those who protested were sent to offer their protests to the jagged rocks in the ravine five hundred feet below. As for the mural decorations, we are told that a Christian slave who had