hand on his shoulder, "you'll come out covered
——and the place is a nest of fever. Here,
you fellows (in Turkish), let the man be brought
down! I say, do you hear? Look alive! Let
the man be brought down! Who's going up
there?"

Half a dozen cowed murderers ran to do the
doctor's errand. The bolder, more selfish and
more shameless, stayed to see the fun.

"Here's the Bulgarian, by George!" cried
the doctor, shading his eyes with his hand to
enable him to penetrate the deep, dark gloom of
the stable, and to see the sick man and his
supporters advance.

And, by George! as the doctor said, there he
was. Oh, that I had the pen of Sterne and the
heart of my best friend, to enable me to describe
the horrors of that sight! How pale, how wan,
how wobegone, how many fathoms below the
last glimpse of hope, was that wretched creature's
face, as they led him, like a Lazarus from the
cave, towards the blessed light that flows like a
visible blessing through God's world! Poor
Lazarus! Had the knife of instant death been
in our hands, could he have looked more sadly
and beseechingly at us? He was wrapped in a
thick, dirty capote, and bloody bandages of a
dull red were round his brow and jaws. He
could not stand unsupported, but leaned groaning
in the arms of two stalwart smiling thieves,
who seemed rather pleased at the important
part they had to play in the day's performances.

By means of an interpreter—also in for
"nothing"— the doctor asked his patient his
symptoms; the poor fellow was so weak, he could
hardly put out his tongue; he feebly groaned
out the statement of his case.

"Take him back," said the doctor,
professionally (only) hardened; "he won't live; it is
only weakness, nothing but weakness. I can't do
anything for that man." Then, appealingly to the
galley slaves: "How can I do anything for that
man? He's dying; take him back and leave him
alone—quiet!"

Grimani, who shouldered back the mob, and
looked rather grand and dragomanish—which is
worse even than donnish—shouldered his heavy
hippopotamus whip.

"Now, let us take you to see the great
Smyrniote robber, Yeni Katergee," said Grimani,
ploughing a way to the further building, whose
black door we entered.

The robber stood unflinching, chained to the post
of one of the stalls which divided a long stable
into separate sleeping bins. He was short and
thick-set, and seemed totally indifferent to his
fate; he smiled as we entered, and bowed to
Grimani. That stalwart, indomitable man, was
Katergee, the robber chief of Smyrna, the idol
of the Greeks of Asia Minor, who looked upon
him as a sort of Robin Hood patriot, hostile
only to Turks. He was originally a courier,
which in the East means postman, carrier, agent,
and commercial traveller. He had a train ol
horses, and was entrusted with piles of piastres
and sacks of purses. He had had some education,
and was always honest and trustworthy, but
some pasha robbed him; he became poor and
an outcast; from want and revenge he took to
the road, hoping, perhaps, to collect ransoms
enough from Smyrniote merchants dragged up
to the mountains, to escape to Greece, and there
live as a country gentleman. He must have
collected large sums, for his contemporary,
Simos, used to ask five hundred pounds (six
thousand piastres) for the release of a prisoner.
Katergee surrendered at last, on the clear
understanding that he should be made an officer
in the Turkish army: an employment which, no
doubt, he would have bravely and honestly
performed. Of course, this act of injustice and
treachery will for years prevent any robber chief
oming down from the Smyrna mountains to
surrender himself. There, Prometheus-like, chained
to that post at the entrance of the dirty stall,
fenced off from the next, he stood, with
unbroken spirit, sending messages to Ismail Pasha,
and other old enemies of his, that he will one
day escape, and that the first thing he will look
after, will be their heads. The Turks fear him,
for, though chained, he is the king of the Bagnio.

"You have looked long enough at that thick-
set, smiling ruffian, who shrugs his shoulders
when I tell him he is here for life," said Grimani,
suddenly snapping round at me. "I will tell
you the sort of men we have here; there is a
coffee-house-keeper from Smyrna among that
horrible crowd of wretches; he and his waiter
were suspected of murdering a money-changer
who lived opposite to his shop. The pasha (a
Greek by birth) determined to discover the
crime, and went to work with relish. All that
could be learnt from the waiter was, that he
had seen his master with two bags of gold.
The pasha said nothing, but sent one evening
to the prison to borrow an antique signet-
ring of the cafigee to compare with one
of his own. This ring, sent to the cafigee's
wife, induced her to give up the specified gold.
Next day the pasha shows the cafigee the
gold, and tells him that the waiter has confessed
everything. The cafigee, outwitted, becomes
enraged with the servant, and tells all. He
confesses that the money-changer had been, like
several others, murdered, and buried under the
coffee-house floor. The two men were not
executed, because the dead man's heirs accepted
the price of blood; but they were sent to the
Bagnio—to be released probably as soon as they
can bribe some pasha."

No man is put to death in Turkey unless he has
been seen to commit the capital crime. The men
I stood among were, literally, men condemned
to death, but imprisoned only. Yet, physically, the
wretches are not ill-treated; they need not even
work unless they like. The court is small, and
so is the two-storied stable where they sleep
on the earth; but then these are men who
perhaps never got between sheets, nor lay on a bed
in their lives. They may talk what they like,
and when they like. They have a mosque, a Greek
chapel, and a Roman Catholic chapel. They
can have coffee and tobacco, and if they work,
they are supposed to be paid for it. There is no