Alexander William Kinglake

“ These foreigners are always fancying that we have nothing but ships, and railways, and East India Companies; do just tell the Pasha that our rural districts deserve his attention, and that even within the last two hundred years, there has been an evident improvement in the culture of the turnip, and if he does not take any interest about that, at all events you can explain that we have our virtues in the country—that the British yeoman is still, thank God! ”

“ No—all these our loved ones lay safely stowed in the boat, and we were ready to follow them to the ends of the earth. Now, therefore, we shook hands with our Semlin friends, who immediately retreated for three or four paces, so as to leave us in the centre of a space between them and the "compromised" officer; the latter then advanced, and asking once more if we had done with the civilized world, held forth his hand—I met it with mine, and there was an end to Christendom for many a day to come. ”

“ Traveller (to his Dragoman) .—What on earth have you been saying about London? The Pasha will be taking me for a mere cockney. Have not I told you always to say that I am from a branch of the family of Mudcombe Park, and that I am to be a magistrate for the county of Bedfordshire, only I've not qualified, and that I should have been a Deputy-Lieutenant, if it had not been for the extraordinary conduct of Lord Mountpromise, and that I was a candidate for Goldborough at the last election, and that I should have won easy, if my committee had not been bought. ”

“ Pasha (after hearing the Dragoman) .—It is true, it is true:—through all Feringhistan the English are foremost and best; for the Russians are drilled swine, and the Germans are sleeping babes, and the Italians are the servants of Songs, and the French are the sons of Newspapers, and the Greeks they are weavers of lies, but the English and the Osmanlees are brothers together in righteousness; for the Osmanlees believe in one only God, and cleave to the Koran, and destroy idols ”

“ The truth is, that most of the men in authority have risen from their humble stations by the arts of the courtier, and they preserve in their high estate, those gentle powers of fascination to which they owe their success. ”

“ The shawl enclosed a whole bundle of weapons; no man bore less than one brace of immensely long pistols, and a yataghan (or cutlass) , with a dagger or two, of various shapes and sizes; most of these arms were inlaid with silver, and highly burnished, so that they contrasted shiningly with the decayed grandeur of the garments to which they were attached (this carefulness of his arms is a point of honor with the Osmanlee, who never allows his bright yataghan to suffer from his own adversity) ”

“ But presently there issued from the postern, a group of human beings,—beings with immortal souls, and possibly some reasoning faculties, but to me the grand point was this, that they had real, substantial, and incontrovertible turbans; they made for the point towards which we were steering, and when at last I sprang upon the shore, I heard, and saw myself now first surrounded by men of Asiatic race; I have since ridden through the land of the Osmanlees, from the Servian Border to the Golden Horn,—from the gulph of Satalieh to the tomb of Achilles ”

“ Dragoman.—The Pasha wishes your Excellency a pleasant journey.
So ends the visit.
↑ A "compromised" person is one who has been in contact with people or things supposed to be capable of conveying infection. As a general rule the whole Ottoman empire lies constantly under this terrible ban. ”