NOVEL SHIP-BUILDER. 205 



one of the bystanders smoked, so we were obliged 

 to follow the fashion. 



I should have liked to see better carriages and 

 tumbrils for the beautiful brass guns they ma- 

 noeuvred with, but I was altogether a good deal 

 surprised at the appearance of this body of men, 

 who went through their exercise far better than I 

 could have expected. 



In Turkey they have, it would seem, a most 

 extraordinary mode of selecting persons to per- 

 form the duties that may be required. This colonel 

 of artillery having shewn himself to be a zealous, 

 hard-working artillery officer, received one day, 

 considerably to his own astonishment, an order 

 from Constantinople to huild a gun-boat. I sup- 

 pose it was needless for him to remonstrate, and 

 explain that he knew nothing about ship-building ; 

 it appeared never to have entered the heads of 

 those who sent him the order whether he was 

 qualified to execute it or not, sufficient it was that 

 he had got the order and must obey ; so, like a 

 true Moslem, he submitted to his fate and became 

 a ship-builder. I went to see this gun-vessel, of 

 which Mussago Bey seemed very proud, and, as 

 far as I was able to judge, I should say, that 



