Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/169

Rh a, fat stuffy little man, a sort of Turkish alderman; very good-natured, fussy, and nervous, very anxious to oblige the English Consul, very much afraid of all responsibility; so he referred the matter to the Mejlis or municipal council; and to the Mejlis I went. As I have mentioned in a former letter, a Consul only goes to this council on great occasions. In ordinary matters he sends his dragoman, for fear that the Turks, by constantly holding intercourse Avith him, should discover that he is but a mere mortal like themselves, and so take to despising him. I found there present the whole family of the murdered man. This is the usual custom, according to Turldsh law. Wlien the firman, or death-warrant, has arrived from Constantinople, it is still invalid without the solemn assent of each member of the family of the murdered man, declared before the Governor and Mejlis; and even after this, at the place of execution, all the members of the family are asked once more if they give their consent; and any one of them can still pardon the condemned by dissenting from the rest. The family who appeared on this occasion before the court stood in a Hue at the end of the room, like a row of masked and muffled figures on the ancient Greek stage. They consisted of the old mother of the murdered man, his widow, a daughter and son, both grown up, and two younger children. They were all in deep mourning; the women wore black veils overshadowing their foreheads, and looked like the avenging furies who pursued Orestes. Each was asked in turn what their wish was, and each in turn uttered the fatal word, "blood." I never