8 Bedoidii Tribes of the Euphrates, [ch. xvi. 



small in Turkey, that it was mere common j^rudence 

 to say nothing which might offend. 



AVe turned the conversation, instead, on the prac- 

 tical liberty, which undoubtedly exists in Turkey, 

 and on which we could with sincerity be eloquent. 

 Wilfrid told the story of a conversation we had 

 once had with a zaptieh in Asia Minor, which, as it 

 contains a moral, may be worth relating here. This 

 zaptieh had been complaining to us of certain offi- 

 cial malpractices which, although he was himself an 

 agent of the law, had struck him as needing reform 

 in his own country, and mentioned the report cur- 

 rent among his fellows that England was the land 

 of liberty. " Every one there," he said, " we know 

 is free and happy, and honest men may do all they 

 like, without interference from any one." " It is 

 true," we answered, ''that things with us are not 

 as they are with you. You, Mohammed, for in- 

 stance, would not be allowed to take this plough- 

 share, which you have found in the field, to make 

 your fire with or turn your horse into this standing 

 corn to graze ; but all countries are not equally 

 favoured, and there is liberty and liberty. What 

 should you say for instance of a land, where a poor 

 man, travelling along the high road, might not col- 

 lect a few dry sticks to make a fire at all, or let his 

 donkey graze on so much as the grass by the way- 

 side, or even lie down himself to sleep under a 

 hedge, without being seized by the zaptiehs, dragged 

 before the cadi, and left to spend the night in 



