Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/131

Rh who, after having been educated in England, has had the benefit of two years' careful official training, under his father's eye, at Salonica. He is a very promising young man, and his arrival has greatly enlivened us here. He represents me in all ordinary cases at the Mejlis, where he has shown so much tact and address, that the Pasha, who has been trying to circumvent and thwart me ever since my arrival, is beginning to act in a more straightforward manner. Very soon after Blunt's arrival, he had to appear in court on behalf of an Ionian, who claimed a debt from a Rayah. The debtor pleaded that he had discharged the debt, and produced a receipt duly signed, which the creditor declared to be a forgery. The court was disposed to believe the Rayah, when Blunt very ingeniously pointed out that the receipt, which professed to have been written several years ago, was on stamped paper; whereas it was well known that stamps for receipts were not introduced by the Porte till the year subsequent to the date of the receipt. Of course the forgery was admitted after this. Such frauds constantly take place, and are never punished as crimes; but if detected, the perpetrator loses caste, not on account of his villany, but because of the clumsiness of his manœuvre.

After living in very inconvenient lodgings for many months, I have at length installed myself in my new house, which has been built for me by a rich Greek, with the agreement that I am to pay an annual rent of £32 for it as long as I reside in Mytilene. After duly concluding this agreement, and completing the