A band now surrounded us, which rendered our position intolerable. It was not a band of thieves; it was worse. The Greeks carry upon their persons a whole menagerie of little animals, agile, capricious, not seizable, who cling to them night and day, give them occupation even when asleep, and by their jumps and their stings, accelerate the action of the mind, and the circulation of the blood. The fleas of the brigands, of which I can show some specimens in my Entomological collection, are very much larger, stronger and more agile than their city cousins; the open country air possesses virtue so powerful! I soon perceived that they were not content with their lot, and that they found more to their taste, the fine skin of a young German than the tough hide of their masters. An emigrating army settled upon me. I felt, at first, an uneasy sensation around the ankles: it was the declaration of war. Two minutes later, an advance guard threw itself upon the calf of my right leg; it reached my knee. I was out-flanked, and all resistance became useless. If I had been alone, I might have been more successful in the combat. I dared neither complain nor defend myself; I heroically hid my sorrows and did not raise my eyes. At last, at the end of my patience, and determined to escape, by flight, from the pests, I demanded to be taken before the King. This recalled our guides to their duty. They asked the whereabouts of Hadgi-Stavros. The reply was that he was at work in his offices. "At last," said Mrs. Simons, "I can seat myself in an easy chair." She took my arm, offered hers to her daughter, and walked, with a deliberate step, in the direction in which the crowd conducted us. The offices were not far from the camp, and we reached them in five minutes. The offices of the King resembled other offices, as the bandits' camp was like to other camps. There were neither tables, chairs nor furniture of any sort. Hadgi-Stavros was seated, tailor-fashion, upon a square of carpet, under the shade of a fir tree. Four secretaries and two servants sat around him. A young boy of sixteen or eighteen, was incessantly occupied in filling, lighting and cleaning his master's chibouk. He wore at his belt a tobacco bag, embroidered with gold and fine pearls, and a pair of silver tongs, used for taking out coals. Another servant passed his days preparing cups of coffee, glasses of water and syrup, destined for the royal mouth. The secretaries, seated on the bare rock, wrote with cut reeds, upon their knees. Each of them had a long copper box containing reeds, a knife and an inkstand. Some tin cylinders, like those in which soldiers keep their papers, served as a place of safety for their archives. The paper was not poor, for the reason that each sheet bore in capitals the word "Bath."