[p.74] desirable; yet I could not guess the Pasha’s intentions with respect to me. I was evidently considered in no other light than as a spy sent to this country by the English government, to ascertain its present state, and report upon it in the East Indies. This, I presume, was the Pasha’s own opinion: he knew me as an Englishman, a name which I assumed during my travels (I hope without any discredit to that country), whenever it seemed necessary to appear as an European; because at that time none but the subjects of England and France enjoyed in the East any real security: they were considered as too well protected, both by their governments at home and their ministers at Constantinople, to be trifled with by provincial governors. The Pasha, moreover, supposed me to be a man of some rank, for every Englishman travelling in the East is styled “My lord;” and he was the more convinced of this by a certain air of dignity which it was necessary for me to assume in a Turkish court, where modesty of behaviour and affability are quite out of place. Afraid as he then was of Great Britain, he probably thought it imprudent to treat me ill, though he did nothing whatever to forward my projects. As far as he knew, I could have only the five hundred piastres which he had ordered for me at Djidda, and which were not sufficient to pay my expenses for any length of time in the Hedjaz. Nothing was said to me either by him or Bosari of taking my bill upon Cairo, as I had requested him to do; but this favour I did not again solicit, having money enough for the present, and expecting a fresh supply from Egypt. To remain for any length of time at Tayf, in a sort of polite imprisonment, was little to my taste; yet I could not press my departure without increasing his suspicions. This was manifest after my first interview with the Pasha and the Kadhy, and I knew that the reports of Bosari might considerably influence the mind of Mohammed. Under these circumstances, I thought the best course was to make Bosari tired of me, and thus induce him