A person who was appointed Mohtes′ib shortly after my former visit to this country (Mustaf′a Káshif, a Kurd) exercised his power in a most brutal manner, clipping men’s ears (that is, cutting off the lobe, or ear-lap), not only for the most trifling transgression, but often for no offence whatever. He once met an old man, driving along several asses laden with water-melons, and pointing to one of the largest of these fruits, asked its price. The old man put his finger and thumb to his ear-lap, and said, “Cut it, Sir.” He was asked again and again, and gave the same answer. The Mohtes′ib, angry, but unable to refrain from laughing, said, “Fellow, are you mad or deaf?” “No,” replied the old man, “I am neither mad nor deaf; but I know that, if I were to say the price of the melon is ten faddahs, you would say, ‘Clip his ear’; and if I said _five_ faddahs, or _one_ faddah, you would say, ‘Clip his ear’; therefore clip it at once, and let me pass on.” His humour saved him.—Clipping ears was the usual punishment inflicted by this Mohtes′ib; but sometimes he tortured in a different manner. A butcher, who had sold some meat wanting two ounces of its due weight, he punished by cutting off two ounces of flesh from his back. A seller of “kunáfeh” (a kind of paste resembling vermicelli) having made his customers pay a trifle more than was just, he caused him to be stripped, and seated upon the round copper tray on which the kunáfeh was baked, and kept so until he was dreadfully burnt. He generally punished dishonest butchers by putting a hook through their nose, and hanging a piece of meat to it. Meeting, one day, a man carrying a large crate full of earthen water-bottles from Semennood, which he offered for sale as made at Kinë, he caused his attendants to break each bottle separately against the vendor’s head. Mustaf’a Káshif also exercised his tyranny in other cases than those which properly fell under his jurisdiction. He once took a fancy to send one of his horses to a bath, and desired the keeper of a bath in his neighbourhood to prepare for receiving it, and to wash it well, and make its coat very smooth. The bath-keeper, annoyed at so extraordinary a command, ventured to suggest that, as the pavements of the bath were of marble, the horse might slip, and fall; and also, that it might take cold on going out; and that it would, therefore, be better for him to convey to the stable the contents of the cistern of the bath in buckets, and there to perform the operation. Mustaf′a Káshif said, “I see how it is; you do not like that my horse should go into your bath.” He desired some of his servants to throw him down, and beat him with staves until he should tell them to stop. They did so; and beat the poor man till he died.