It happened this year that some excesses had been committed by persons in a state of inebriation, and the Sultan having had cognizance of the fact, could find a remedy only in force. He ordered search to be made in all houses throughout the country for the utensils for making _merîsé_; directed that those who should be found in a state of intoxication should be capitally punished; and the women who made it should have their heads shaved, be fined severely, and exposed to all possible ignominy. The Furians had however been habituated to Merîsé before they had known their monarch, or the Islam. The severity of the order, therefore, and the numbers trespassing against it, defeated the Sultan’s purpose. It was indeed put in execution, and a few miserable women suffered unrelenting tonsure, and innumerable earthen jars were indignantly strewed piecemeal in the paths of the faithful; but the opulent, as is usual, escaped with impunity, and some were bold enough to say, that the eyes even of the Sultan’s women were still reddened with the voluptuous beverage, while priests and magistrates were bearing the fulminating edict from one extremity of the empire to the other. It is certain that, subsequent to this new law, the minds of the troops were much alienated from the monarch, and it is thought that no other cause than this was to be sought. The monarch who admits of no licence will never reign in the hearts of the soldiery; and he must give up the hope of their affections, who is disposed to become an impartial censor of the public morals. Innumerable reports had been propagated at different times, that the Jelabs would be allowed to depart. But none was well authenticated; nay, as afterwards appeared, all were false. It is probable they were artfully circulated by order of the Sultan, with a view to cajole the foreign merchants, who, having now collected the intended number of slaves, were at a heavy expense for their daily sustenance, and of course ill bore the unexplained delay, while his own merchandize was sold at a prodigious advance in Egypt. In effect, two small caravans found their way thither, between the time of my arrival at Fûr, and that of my departure; but they consisted only of the Sultan’s property, and that of one or two individuals, whom he particularly favoured. For a great quantity of merchandize having accumulated in his hands, he was determined to dispose of it to advantage, before the other merchants should be permitted to produce theirs for sale. They were therefore restrained by the strong arm of power, to favour the monarch’s pernicious monopoly; while the latter, with singular effrontery, gave out, that he had sent to negociate with the Beys the reception of the commodities of Soudân, on more advantageous terms than they had been before admitted.