After a year or so I had to go to a higher school, where there were hundreds of boys, several teachers, and a headmaster of ruthless disposition. In those days flogging was the principal punishment for all offences of schoolboys. I have never seen or heard of any master who carried out his duty of not sparing the rod more conscientiously, more unbendingly, and with more self-satisfaction than that headmaster. Personally, however, I came off more easily than most, as during the two years of my attendance in the school I was only beaten three times. The beating took the usual form of bastinado, and in my three experiences I received fifty strokes on the soles of my feet, twenty of them for my ill-behaviour, fifteen for my stupidity, and fifteen for my incapacity to learn arithmetic. I had on several occasions played mischievous schoolboy tricks, which would have brought upon me many a flogging had I not been careful enough to hoodwink the watchful eyes of the headmaster and his attendants. But on the occasion when I received my twenty strokes, I was detected while rather irreverently playing pranks during prayer-time. It was the custom for the headmaster to take all the boys every afternoon to a special hall for prayer, and to conduct the service personally. In our places of worship people prostrate themselves by laying their foreheads on the floor, while they repeat again and again the name of Allah; everyone should then disengage his thoughts from all earthly things and fix them "on heaven." The whole service does not last more than fifteen minutes, and one prostration only lasts about a minute. One day, when the whole congregation were prostrate, I quickly got up and collected the fezzes of the boys who were near me, piled them in a heap, and at once re-prostrated myself. When the service was over, it was observed that several boys were bareheaded. The master was informed of the crime that had been committed, for a Mussulman always prays with covered head, and a searching inquiry began. One of the boys, who was a friend of mine, while going before the master to be interrogated, could not refrain from laughing at the remembrance of the fun. The master at once ordered his attendants to pull the boy down to be beaten. Seeing that my friend was crying, I went to the master and swore that the boy was innocent "How do you know?" he asked me. "Because he was next to me during the service; I should have observed him," said I. Then several boys got up and told the master that the boy was not at my side during the service, thus contradicting me unanimously. Whereupon two attendants were ordered to pull me down and hold my legs tightly. The master then gave me twenty fierce blows on my feet, which made me lame for several days. This was the last flogging I had in the school.