would occasionally advance and peep in, as if
to hint at his convenient proximity, in case
the Bey should desire to cut the throats of
the Giaours. These men were his own
countrymen, and his most favoured retainers.
They encamped close around him; some ot
them followed him when he rode out; and
they formed a devoted body-guard in action.
He was—and justly—proud of them.

The only things in the tent calculated
to divert attention from the host and his
truculent-looking servants, were, in the first
place, some curious weapons, rich with
barbaric ornament; in the second, hanging
head downward, a mounted lithograph
of her most gracious majesty.
Remembering a certain farmer in Wiltshire
who, after the repeal of the Corn Laws,
thus treated the portrait of Sir Robert Peel,
I took exception to the position of my
sovereign lady, and requested that it might be
reversed. Sifley Bey was profuse in his
apologies and thanks, turned the picture
(which he seemed to value highly, and to
regard as a forerunner of the decoration),
and had only, I afterwards found, been labouring
under a delusion very common among
Mussulmen. Ninety-nine Turks out of a
hundred will always look at a picture upside
down—why, I am at a loss to conjecture.
Perhaps, being forbidden to depict living
creatures, this curious fancy arises from
defective cultivation of the artistic faculty;
perhaps it may throw light on the philosophy
of inverted vision; I recommend
the fact to the consideration of savans. I
can affirm that I had a picture which represented
a group of dead birds lying on their
backs at the foot of a tree; and every Turk
who saw this picture, rejecting alike the
position which placed the birds on their feet,
and the position which made the tree grow
upward, eventually elected to hold one or
other of the sides uppermost, the dead birds
standing erect upon their heads or tails, and
the tree proceeding to the left or right, as
might be. The portrait of the queen was
presented to Sifley Bey by some English
naval officers, to comfort him after a cruel
check to his pride, which befel through
their instrumentality. He told them that
he could cut a sheep in two by a single
sword-stroke; and, instead of believing him,
they offered a bet that he could not. A stout
middle-aged gentleman, after twelve years of
imprisonment and compulsory peacefulness,
was hardly likely to succeed in such an
undertaking; the Bey failed most
signally. It was an unfortunate piece of boasting,
and the more so as, in the few
opportunities he had, he sustained his youthful
reputation as a brave man and a good
leader.

The corps at Eupatoria, chiefly collected
by the exertions of Sifley Bey, Bou Maza,
and their agents, had in its composition,
together with men of other nationalities, a
very large preponderance of the Syrian and
pure Arab elements. Perhaps a fourth part
of the men were Bedouins. Conspicuous in
white burnouse, or in striped mantle, with
sabres slung by a crimson cord, passing from
the right shoulder to the left hip; with their
heads covered with a crimson and yellow
shawl, bound round their temples by a rope
of worsted, and with its corners hanging
over the shoulders and back; with their
belts bristling with innumerable weapons
and warlike appendages; they shouldered
their way through the streets and the
bazaars, keeping the crown of the causeway,
and haughtily pushing Turks or Tartars to
the wall or the kennel. In the evening
they might be seen exercising their horses, and
careering wildly over the sands beyond the
town. The Syrians, although less striking
in appearance than their Bedouin cousins,
bore some resemblance to them in manners
and costume, and tried, more or less
successfully, to imitate their stately bearing.
The Asiatic Turks had the appearance of
men whom their Pasha had been accustomed
to rob at his good pleasure, and to beat when
they complained. They were the mauvais
sujets of the little band, and differed from their
fellows in sinning against the picturesque. In
addition to their indescribably villanous
countenances,  they possessed and wore the ugliest
of costumes—round jackets and enormous
baggy trousers of dust-coloured cloth, faced
by tortuous patterns in dark blue braid. An
Albanian proprietor, who had brought thirty
followers to the standard, and thereby obtained
the rank of captain, was gorgeous in
crimson vestments, enriched with gold
embroidery,  his tall fez drooping to his shoulder,
borne down by the weight of its monstrous
tassel. His men wore jackets and kilts, neat
shoes and stockings, and fezzes like that of
their leader. In contrast to these dandies,
a few coal-black Abyssinians went grinning
about, showing their white teeth in negro-like
merriment, and with their nakedness
barely concealed by rags of any fashion.
There were two Circassians, one in clothes
of camel-cloth, braided with silver, the other
in a complete suit of chain armour. Nor did
these several races exhaust the variety; for,
one night, riding with the Bashi-Bazouks
upon a reconnoisance, I was hindered from
sleeping during a halt by a swarthy man,
who squatted over against me upon the
ground, and there, on the plains of the
Crimea, talked of Burra Sahibs, of Calcutta,
and of Benares.

The officers of this motley group, with the
exception of the Albanian, were accustomed
to wear Turkish uniform on ordinary
occasions, and all of them on actual service
were dressed like their men. The
transformation thus effected was wonderful. Sifley
Bey, with his keen eyes glittering from
beneath the crimson shawl and his figure
concealed by the loose Arab mantle, was