112 TKAVEL, ADVENTUEE, AND SPORT. 



were quite aware of the fact, that throughout the 

 kingdom khans are provided for the accommodation 

 of travellers. What we had seen in this way was 

 very undesirable, being little more than what might 

 serve to minister to the comfort of the horses. In 

 some places the subsiding stream of travellers has left 

 them bare and ruined ; in others Smyrna, to wit 

 there is so ready entertainment elsewhere, that the 

 Mian has become little more than a public stable- 

 yard. And here, any time of the day, you may see 

 tethered a collection of donkeys that would set up 

 all the costermongers in London, and drivers who 

 would surely make fortunes by their lessons, if their 

 brethren of Hampstead possessed ambition and grati- 

 tude. The vulgar argument of the stick may be 

 occasionally exhibited, but it is by the magic of a 

 single word that the energies of the donkey are 

 usually aroused. And the mystery of the training 

 is this, that neither words nor blows are effective, 

 except from the initiated. Often it will happen, 

 that after long trial of coaxing, the meekest rider 

 will be betrayed into the experiment of cudgelling. 

 It will then certainly happen that, after having 

 cudgelled his full, he will yield the victory to the 

 impassible brute, and be reduced to hope that when 

 he has had thistles enough, he may be induced to 

 move on. Suddenly there sounds behind him the 

 exclamation of Dedh ! Dedh ! and the donkey starts 

 into a dislocating trot. This is your true driver's 



