saw it then, by torch-light, with the groups
about it, made a pleasant scene. It was an
upper story reared on columns, or say rather
piles, some of wood, some of stone, some of
brick; there was a ladder up to the front
door, and under and about the house, lighted
by torches and the rising moon, were
scattered bales of goods, baggage, and merchandise
of all sorts landed there or there awaiting
embarkation. The ground was occupied too
by the horses and the mules that brought the
bales or that were to carry them away; there
were small heaps of fodder that the cattle
were to eat, and on the heaps of fodder there
lay ragged boys asleep, set there to watch
the property. Their sleeping brought no
loss upon the animals, who kept guard for
themselves over their provender. Those
Eastern horses use their teeth upon the slightest
provocation, and their heels too, with
considerable energy. I shall never forget how I
was once seized about the ribs and bitten into
by an Arab steed, as though he were a
schoolboy biting at an apple; and on that
night, as we threaded our way to the ladder,
among watchful quadrupeds, one of my military
friends was laid low by a kick, from the
effects of which he suffered throughout the
remainder of our journey. When we had
mounted to the door and got into the building,
there was a great noise of talking
suddenly hushed, and under a cloud of the smoke
that had risen, and was then rising from a
hundred and fifty to two hundred pipes, we
saw that number of Albanian muleteers and
countrymen, in picturesque attire, all stopping
in their talk to look at us. They were
not all in one room, but every door being
open, there was a quaint vista made,
extremely pleasant to the eye; the only sense,
let me say, that received gratification. The
men resumed their chattering in groups of
six, ten, twelve, or sometimes twenty; the
noise was bewildering, and the air was thick
with the stench of garlic, onions, and tobacco.
We were conducted by the custom-house
chief into his private office, where he showed
us a spare corner which he placed at our
disposal. Here, presently, we supped upon a
fish that we had just seen taken from the sea,
and a hen that had been fetched out of her
first nap to grill upon a fire that we could
see flaring on a patch of brickwork in the
midst of an adjoining room.

After supper we decamped, for we had
made up our minds that it was better to
sleep in our boat, under the summer
moonlight, than lie under cover to be tortured.
Every man of us was having his flesh torn
by a thousand pincers. I had come prepared
to put up with a moderate amount of suffering
from vermin, but I had not expected that
only six hours after leaving Corfu, I should
already be in danger of having my bones
picked alive. We put our boat a little way
from shore, and in the dusk of the night
took off our clothes and shook them well
over the sea. In that way we got rid of
some of the tormentors that had clung to
us, but there remained enough to make us
wretched.

One of our party being too tall to sleep
comfortably, as the fourth man in the boat,
bethought himself that he should lie more
easily upon the deck of a large cutter that
we saw by the moonlight anchored near us.
We drew our boat under its stern, he got on
board and lay down, then more at his ease,
among the sleeping sailors. Our friend's
heels, armed with adjutant's spurs, into
which, anticipating trouble from the vicious
horses of Albania, he had fitted some enormous
rowels, came often in contact with the
bare legs of his neighbours. Some, well
accustomed to nocturnal torture, winced in
their sleep and thought no more of it, but
two or three got up, rubbing their legs, to
see whom they had got for a bedfellow. Our
friend still shifting his position restlessly, was
fast asleep and unconscious of the disturbance
he was causing, till a sailor seeing one
of his long spurs glittering near him in the
moonlight, and too sleepy to distinguish
what it was, laid hold of it and immediately
began, thoroughly aroused, to roar out lustily.
Expecting nothing less than a ducking for
our friend, I shouted out in explanation that
he was an English officer who had not sleeping
room on board our boat. An answer
came to me from somebody who addressed
me by name, asked after my wife and children,
and told me that my friend should
have a wide berth given him and welcome.
The cutter belonged to the Turkish government.
Who was my friend? He would
not say; he went under a feigned name.
On the next day, however, I should see and
know him.

Before dawn we were aroused by the sound
of horses' bells and the voice of our courier—
we had inflicted on ourselves such an
incumbrance—calling us to come and make our
bargains. Then followed a scene of hurry
and confusion, I, as a civilian, not clever in
horseflesh, accepted the most vicious and
ungainly of the horses; nevertheless, it turned
out the most surefooted and trusty beast in
our whole cavalcade. I used the basta, or
pack-saddle of the country; my friends had
brought saddles of their own. That I had
not done, because I knew that muleteers
object to the strange saddles, partly because
they consider them likely to hurt the backs
of their animals, and chiefly because at the
journey's end the animals are left bare-
backed; and if they wish to go home with a
return load they must purchase a new basta.
Such considerations were all very well, but
after my first experience of an Albanian
saddle, I felt that I owed mercy to myself as
well as to the muleteers. While packing upon
my horse such things as would immediately
be needed, my mysterious friend from the
cutter touched my arm. He proved to be a