GRAND CAIRO. 117 
and less composure than usually characterizes 
Turks in their deportment. The matter, how- 
ever, did not end here. Watching- the oppor- 
tunity when our good Reis was again left alone 
to the guardianship of his cljerm, they bound 
him hand and foot, and carried him to a house 
in the neighbourhood, where they bastinadoed 
him most unmercifully, by way of wreaking 
their vengeance upon us, for the indignity they 
had experienced ; nor could we ever bring the 
offenders to justice, or obtain, for the person 
they had thus injured, the slightest redress. 
Such was the state of affairs in Grand Cairo, at 
the time the English were in possession of the 
city. It may be easily imagined, therefore, what 
the situation of its Christian inhabitants must 
be, when all things are left to the discretion of 
its Mohammedan masters. 
The extortions practised upon the inhabitants Extortions. 
exceed all credibility. The French, at one time, 
levied a contribution of ten millions of piastres; 
and of this sum a single merchant paid fifty 
thousand dollars. The same person, upon the 
subsequent arrival of the Grand Vizir with his 
army, was compelled to pay the enormous sum 
of three hundred and sixty thousand dollars. 
