66s Chateaubriand's Travels In Greece^ Palestine, Kc. 
an almost independent governor: he may 
do with impunity all the mischief he 
pleases, if he be not afterwards called to 
account for it hy the pacha. It is well 
known that, in Turkey, every superior 
has a right to delegate his authority to an 
inferior; and this authority extends both 
to property and life. For a few purses 
a janissary may become a petty Aga, and 
this Aga may, at his good pleasure, 
either take away your life or permit you 
to redeem it. Thus executioners are 
multiplied in every town of Judea. The 
only thing ever heard in this country, the 
only justice ever thought of, is — T.et him 
“pay ten, twenty, thirty, purses — Give him. 
^five hundred strokes of the bastinado — Cut 
off his head. One act of injustice renders 
it necessary to commit a still greater. If 
one of these petty tyrants plunders a 
peasant, he is absolutely obliged to plun¬ 
der his neighbour also; for, to escape the 
hypocritical integrity of the pacha, he 
must procure, by a second crime, suffi¬ 
cient to purchase impunity for the first. 
It may perhaps be imagined that the 
pacha, when he visits his government, 
corrects these evils and avenges the 
wrongs of the people. So far from this, 
however, tlii- pacha is himself the greatest 
scourge of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 
His coming is dreaded like that of a 
hostile chief. The shops are snut up ; 
the people conceal themselves in cellars; 
they feign to be at the point of death on 
their mats, or withdraw to the moun¬ 
tains. 
The truth of these facts I am able to 
attest, since I happened to be at Jeru¬ 
salem at the time of the pacha’s visit. 
Abdallah is sordidly avaricious, like al¬ 
most all the Mussulmans r in the capacity 
of commander of the caravan of Mecca, 
and under the pretext of raising money 
for the better protection of the pilgrims, 
he thinks that he has a right to multiply 
his extortions; and he is always devising 
new ways of fleecing the people. One 
of the methods which he most frequently 
employs is, to fix a very low maximum 
for all kinds of provisions. The people 
are delighted, hut the dealers shut up 
their shops. A scarcity commences ; the 
pacha enters into a secret negociation 
with the shop-keepers, and, for a certain 
number of purses, grants them permis¬ 
sion to sell at any price they please. 
These men are of course desirous to 
recover the sums which they have given 
the pacha: they raise, the price of ne¬ 
cessaries to an extraordinary height, and 
the people, dying a second time for 
want, are obliged to part with their last 
rag to keep themselves front^starving. 
I have seen this same Abdallah prac¬ 
tise a still more ingenious vexation. I 
have observed that he sent his cavalry to 
pillage the Arabian farmers beyond the 
Jordan. These poor people, who had 
paid the miri, and who knew that they 
were not at war, w'ere surprised in the 
midst of their tents and of their flocks. 
They were robbed of two tliousand two 
hundred sheep and goats, ninety-four 
calves, a thousand asses, and six mares 
of the purest blood : the camels alone 
escaped, having followed a shiek who 
called them at a distance. These faith¬ 
ful children of the desert carried their 
milk to tlieir masters in the mountains, 
as if they hild known that these masters 
were bereft of every other species of 
nourishment. 
All European could scarcely guess 
what the pacha did with his booty. He 
put more than twice as high a price upon 
each animal as it was worth, rating each 
goat and sheep at twenty piastres, and 
each calf at eighty. The beasts, thus 
appraised, were sent to the butchers and 
different persons in Jerusalem, and to 
the chiefs of the neighbouring villages, 
who were obliged to take them and pay 
for them at the pacha’s price, upon pain 
of death. I must confess that, had I 
not been an eye-witness of this double 
iniquity, I should have thouglit it absor 
lutely incredible. As to the asses and 
horses, they became the property of the 
soldiers; for, according to a singular con¬ 
vention between these robbers, all the 
beasts with a cloven hoof taken in such 
expeditions belong to the pacha, and all 
the other animals fall to the share of the 
troops. 
Having exhausted Jerusalem, the pacha 
departs; but, in order to save the pay of 
the city guards, and to strengthen the 
escort of the caravan of Mecca, he takes 
the soldiers along, with him. The go¬ 
vernor is left behind with about a dozen 
men, who are insufficient for the police 
of the city, much less for that of the ad¬ 
jacent country. The year before my 
visit, he was obliged to conceal himself 
in his house, to escape the pursuit of a 
band of robbers who entered Jerusalem, 
and were on the point of plundering the 
city. 
No sooner is the pacha gone, than an¬ 
other evil, the consequence of bis op¬ 
pression, begins to be felt. Insurrections 
lake place in the plundered villages ; they 
attack each other, mutually intent on 
wreaking 
