376 
RUINS OF BABYLON. 
his new encampment, to request an escort adequate to my in¬ 
tended expedition on the same side of the river. The usual 
state ceremonies over, I set forth, attended by a troop of Turkish 
horsemen, supported by a pretty strong party of Arab cavaliers 
belonging to my old friend Sheik Mahmoud Bassam; and on my 
way I became acquainted with a transaction, at which my yet 
untutored experience in Ottoman faith and honour, made me 
stand in amazement. It seems, that nothing but a system of 
petty warfare had been going on between the pasha’s troops and 
the insurgent Arabs, since the kiahya’s arrival on the Euphrates; 
the wary commander, vigilantly watching within his tent some 
opportunity of seizing an advantage over his enemy, by surprise 
or stratagem ; and an opening for the latter, in the form of 
negociation, presented itself. Terms of honourable arrangement 
<{ in the redress of grievances,” were held out to the refractory 
tribes; and the venerable Mahmoud Bassam, always anxious to 
keep peace between his restless brethren and his friend the 
pasha, found means to obtain an interview with some of the 
desert chiefs; when, by persuasion, and pledging his own faith 
on that of the Turkish commander, he prevailed on the great 
leaders of the tribes to consent to a conference with the Kiahya 
in his tent. To assure them still more certainly of their perfect 
safety in this signal act of confidence, the kiahya dispatched to 
them his sealed attested oath taken on the Koran , that their persons 
should be held sacredly inviolable, and that all existing differ¬ 
ences between them and the Porte should be speedily settled to 
their complete content. 
Thus pledged, twelve chiefs, attended by six or eight servants 
each, arrived at the Turkish camp, and were received with every 
mark of good-will and respect. The kiahya, unbending from his 
