EGYPT, AND SYRIA. 197 
declining it, and defiring them to begin. When they were fa- 
tiated, and they lofe no time in eating, a great number of 
foolifh queflions were afked me about Europe, fome of which 
I waved, and fatisfied them as to others in the beft manner I 
was able. 
One of the principal queflions was, whether the Englifli paid 
the Jizie to the Othman Emperor ? This, as is well known, is 
a capitation tax, paid by the Greeks and others, for liberty to 
worfhip after their own manner. I replied, that England was 
fo remote from the Imperial dominions, that no war between 
the two countries could well have place, till all the reft of Eu- 
rope fhould have fubmitted to the Mohammedan arms, which 
had not hitherto come to pafs : but that, for the purpofes of 
trade, the inhabitants of the one country frequented the other,^ 
and by mutual agreement were confidered as perfonally fecure ; 
that prefents were occafionally made by the Britifh King to the 
Emperor, in token of amity, but not as a mark of fubjedion ; 
and that the latter, on his part, as it did not appear that the de- 
crees of the Almighty had fixed this as the moment of general 
converfion to the true faith, in virtue of his difpenfmg power, 
and fwayed by the general law of hofpitality to ftrangers, fanc- 
tioned by the authority of the Prophet, judged it lawful, and 
even a matter of political expediency, to tolerate fuch Euro- 
peans as conduded themfelves InofFenfively in his dominions, 
though they did not pay the Jizie. I thought it neceffary to 
enter into this explanation of the terms on which I conceived 
myfelf to ftand in relation to them, having by this time learned 
how rigidly they were difpofed to adhere to the letter of the 
Prophet's 
