out of the house. I saw them give him some vicious bumps against the
walls as they went out of the door into the village, where they dropped
him into the first pool of mud, which represented the village horse-pond.
By-and-by Omar Beg came down to dine with us. We all sat round on the
ground and ate of several dishes, chiefly a kid stuffed with rice and
pistachios. After dinner we reported to Omar Beg the conduct of his
_sous-officier_, and he said that we had done very well, and he was
glad of the opportunity of making an example of him, for he was a bad
lot; and a Turkish soldier when he is bad is bad indeed. He had
committed a gross insult against us, and it is always best in the
East to resent an insult at once.

Our next day was a pleasant, lazy day, during which we inspected
Karyatayn at our leisure. We rested, read, and wrote, and made a few
extra preparations for the march. I went to call on the wife of Omar
Beg, who was the daughter of the well-known German _savant_ Herr
Mordtmann. She was living with her husband quite contentedly in this
desolate place, in a mud hut, and her only companions were a hyena and
a lynx, which slept on her bed. The hyena greeted me at the gate; and
though I was not prepared for it, I innocently did the right thing. It
came and sniffed at my hands, and then jumped up and put its paws on my
shoulder and smelt my face. "Oh," I thought, "if it takes a bit out of
my cheek, what shall I do?" But I stood as still as a statue, and tried
not to breathe, looking steadily in its eyes all the while. At last it
made up its mind to be friendly, jumped down, and ran before me into the
house. Here I found the lynx on the divan, which sprang at me, mewed,
and lashed its tail till Madame Omar came. She was a charming German
lady; but her husband kept her secluded in the harim like a Moslem woman.
She told me I had done quite the right thing with the hyena. If people
began to scream, it took a pleasure in frightening them. I found this