‘If you want to go with the army,’ said his Highness, ‘’tis I who am the person to speak to. They know nothing about those things up there’ (meaning the citadel). I answered his Highness that I had attended the divan merely as a matter of ceremony, and that I had not interchanged a word with the Grand Pasha on the subject of the expedition. ‘I suppose you talked with Boghaz?’ said Ibrahim. Boghaz was the favourite of Mehemet Ali. ‘Neither with Boghaz nor any one else. Your Highness having once graciously promised me that I should attend you, I should have thought it both impertinent and unnecessary to apply to any other person whatever.’ ‘Tahib!’ exclaimed his Highness, which meant that he was satisfied. ‘After all, I do not know whether the army will march at all. You have been in Syria?’ I answered, in the affirmative, a question which had often been addressed to me. ‘Do you think I could march as far as Gaza?’ inquired Ibrahim, with a smile. This was a question of mockery. It was like asking whether the Life Guards could take Windsor. I therefore only returned the smile, and said that I did not doubt the enemy would agree to settle affairs upon that condition. ‘Tahib! Well I think I can march as far as they speak Arabic!’ This was a favourite phrase of his Highness. I answered that I hoped, if I had the honour of attending his Highness, the army would march till we could see another ocean. ‘It is all talk up there,’ replied Ibrahim; ‘but my life is a life of deeds.’ ‘Words are very good things sometimes,’ I replied; ‘that is, if we keep marching at the same time.’ ‘God is great!’ exclaimed Ibrahim; and looking round to his officers, ‘the Effendi speaks truth; and thus it was that Redchid beat the beys.’ Ibrahim alluded to the Albanian campaign of the preceding year, when the energy of the grand vizier crushed the rebellious beys of the ancient Epirus. ‘What do you think of Redchid?’ he inquired. ‘I think he is worthy of being your Highness’s rival.’ ‘He has always been victorious,’ said Ibrahim; ‘but I think his sabre is made of gold. That will not do with me.’ ‘It’s a pity,’ I observed, ‘that if your Highness find time to march into Syria, you had not acted simultaneously with the Albanians, or with the Pasha of Scutari.’ ‘May I kill my mother but it is true; but up there, they will watch, and watch, and watch, till they fall asleep.’