Mahometan religion as by law established. Thus poor, dear, patient
Reason would have fought her slow battle against Asiatic prejudice,
and I am convinced that she would have established the possibility
(and perhaps even the propriety) of harnessing horses in a hundred
and fifty years; but in the meantime Mysseri, well seconded by our
Tatar, put a very quick end to the controversy by having the horses
put to.

It was a sore thing for me to see my poor comrade brought to this,
for young though he was, he was a veteran in travel. When scarcely
yet of age he had invaded India from the frontiers of Russia, and
that so swiftly, that measuring by the time of his flight the broad
dominions of the king of kings were shrivelled up to a dukedom and
now, poor fellow, he was to be poked into an araba: like a
Georgian girl! He suffered greatly, for there were no springs for
the carriage, and no road for the wheels; and so the concern jolted
on over the open country with such twists, and jerks, and jumps, as
might almost dislocate the supple tongue of Satan.

All day the patient kept himself shut up within the lattice-work of
the araba, and I could hardly know how he was faring until the end
of the day's journey, when I found that he was not worse, and was
buoyed up with the hope of some day reaching Constantinople.

I was always conning over my maps, and fancied that I knew pretty
well my line, but after Adrianople I had made more southing than I
knew for, and it was with unbelieving wonder, and delight, that I
came suddenly upon the shore of the sea. A little while, and its
gentle billows were flowing beneath the hoofs of my beast, but the
hearing of the ripple was not enough communion, and the seeing of