268 VISIT TO A PACHA IN TREBIZOND. 



in Constantinople. I there visited the Prussian consul, 

 Herr von Herford, who was well known to me in Berlin. 

 He considered it proper that I should pay a visit to 

 the pacha of the place, who was entrusted with the 

 special commission of constructing a high road to 

 Persia. To my question, whether the pacha was in- 

 clined to receive us, the answer came, that he w r as 

 occupied at the moment in his harem inspecting female 

 slaves, who were offered for sale, he would however, 

 after the lapse of an hour, receive us in his riding- 

 ground. When the consul presented me to him there, 

 the slender fair-haired man, who was still in his prime 

 of life, seemed somewhat familiar to me. The pacha 

 must have had the like feeling: he scrutinized my 

 face for some time and then asked, if I had been 

 formerly a Prussian officer and in garrison in Magde- 

 burg. When I answered in the affirmative, he asked 

 if I remembered about twenty years ago having had 

 the order to inspect the lightning conductor of a powder 

 magazine placed in the fortifications: he had been the 

 pioneer-sergeant who conducted me there. I had only 

 a dim recollection of this, but could not help wondering 

 at the pacha's excellent memory for faces. When the 

 consul thereupon made mention of the great engineering 

 task, which the pacha had in hand, the latter proposed 

 our taking a ride w 7 ith him along the new road on some 

 Arab horses he had just purchased, a proposal to which 

 I assented with pleasure. It was a splendid ride that 

 we had on the noble animals at a rapid pace, first on 

 the sea-shore, then in a charming valley with luxuriant 



