The Press.
London, England, 1854-04-29 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

396

ABDUL-MEDJID WAITING FOR ASSISTANCE.

(AFTER TENNYSON.)
" Mariana in the Moated Grange."—Measure for Measure.
With " notes " the floor of the Divan
Was thickly scattered—false and true—
More brought each post that daily ran,
But nought the writers seemed to do.
The broken hope felt sad and strange,
Unlined lay the Russian's gage,
All stale the simulated rage
Throughout the blue books' tiresome range.
The Sultan said, " I am a-weary,"
Where is this Scot ? " he said.
He said, " In help he is so dreary,
He'll wait till I am sped ! "
He looked for red-coats morn and even ;
Long since they might have thither hied ;
Malgre the fetes in Paris given,
He hoped to see them every tide.
After the English gave so quick
The money, made so hard to pay,
By Gladstone's mess and Cobden's bray,
The hope deferred had made him sick.
The Sultan said, " I feel quite skeerey ;'
They'll never come," he said.
" The Czar will call to see me, ere he
Can get from out his bed."

All in the middle of the talk
Hopeful, he heard the boasting crow
That Clarendon sang out to balk
Those who the truth desired to know.
But ah ! there came that voice forlorn
That Aberdeen " would deeply mourn"
If he to blows must ever go.
The Sultan said, " It's very queer, he
Can't know his mind," he said.
" If thus he must for ever veer, he
Had better keep his aid."

And ever as new couriers came,
With sad despatches day by day,
He wondered how that giaour could frame
Excuses for the strange delay.
How Sinope was thought so meet
(To say no word of raging Greece)
To make him " ready to repeat "
That still he hoped for craven peace.
The Sultan said, " I am a-weary
Of this bad faith," he said.
He said, " In sooth it would appear he
At length has lost his head."
And ever as the boom came on
Of cannon from the Danube's shore,
He asked where England's pride was gone,
Her world-renowned faith of yore.
But ever, as the flashes shone
Of guns in each succeeding fray,
He felt that he must fight alone,
That faith of Whips was slender stay.
The Sultan said, " My men, be cheery,
I'm still a king," he said.
" Old England is already weary
Of such a headless head."

From SLASHUM EBN HASHUM, residing in
London, to his friend KABOB EFFENDI, residing near
Thatladi-Kapoussi, on the Sea of Marmora, Constantinople.
MY first letter, 0 Kabob ! friend of my soul, was written as soon after
I had reached this unrighteous city as my miseries would allow. It
might have been written from under the shadow of a tombstone, for I
could get no charcoal fur my narghile, and, though the infidels made
me some sherbet, in their ignorant kindness they had put rum into it,
whereby your friend's head ached as if all the demons in Jehanum
were turned into whirling dervishes therein. Thanks be to Allah, I
am better now, and comfortably lodged in the house of a tolerant un-
believer, who utters no complaint at my insisting on civilised customs.
what in the jargon of the Franks is
in charge the negotiation of some
importance ; but these, 0 Kabob, are
and the curiosity of the impertinent.
)mmand of my patron, Ramshak Bey,
d the Government of our Lord the
ma to see that in these troubled times
chance in Turkey who knows most of
I am not a spy, 0 Kabob, I am very
like one. For, in the first place, lam to become acquainted with the
great men of this country, and to furnish Ramshak Bey with such in.

SATURDAY,

formation regarding them that he may rise in the council and call his

colleagues the sons of she asses.
Having gold, and being, I may say, of a handsome presence and
affable manners (the rose-lipped Fatima was wont to compare your
friend's smile to the moon breaking from behind a cloud, and I am
often glad that I paid her the delicate attention of having her drowned
in water with the chill off, for, though faithless, she was discerning),
and being furnished with divers letters of introduction, I am already
very well received, and am asked to many assemblies. Of these, and
of the matrons and virgins I see thereat, I will write to you, please
Allah, at a future time ; but you may take this from your friend, 0
Kabob, the women here are scraggy. Nevertheless, truth is a diamond,
and I have seen some exceedingly fat, and proud thereof, to judge by
their haughty bearing. Moreover *•* * • But of this,
more in another letter.
I conceived that, in execution of my mission, I should do well to
see all the leaders of England together in council, and so your friend
has been placed several nights in a seat of honour in the lower of the
two assemblies which make the laws here. By my soul, Kabob, if
a gathering of our schoolboys showed no more gravity and good
manners, I would scourge the schoolmaster till a down cushion was
not soft enough for his case. No rules, no order, no attitude, but
every man doing that which was right in his own eyes. One made
unseemly jokes with his neighbour, one put up his legs and went
to sleep, and several, chiefly with bald heads and thin legs, came
and stood near me, and spoke of the dancing houris. To these,
indeed, I joined myself, and gained some applause for jokes of my
own, until the President, looking with pretended anger at us, roared
a command that we should hold our tongues, They told me, I think
that his name was Shah, and that he had a fever, but I saw no signs
of it, and he is the finest-looking man in the assembly, which was why
they chose him, and yet the head of the Government in that place is
one of the smallest of men, which shows the inconsistency of these
infidels. But without a rule of faith how should men go right ? Let
us be thankful that we have our Koran to guide us in the right way.
It is, 0 Kabob, neither at once, nor at twice, nor at thrice, that
I shall comprehend the way they do their business in their council.
Ido not think they have any order. But I observed that there were
certain men who sprang up, with vulgar haste and eagerness, to
speak, whatever might be the question. It was impossible that one
man could understand the number of subjects on which some of them
presumed to speak. Therefore, 0 Kabob, for your friend bath a brain
(the petulant Dudu was wont to say that my wit struck through
her soul like a silver arrow), and gathered that they had some other
object than the helping to make wise laws. In the confidence of
friendship, I whispered this to a man who sat near me. It seemed,
he told me, that he, too, had been chosen by the people to sit in that
house. But the night before his choice, one of his bitterest foes
visited, as from him, and without his knowledge, the wife of one of
his supporters—such is the indelicate custom here—and she talked
with him, bearing her child on her arm. He professed to love babies,—
an improbable lie, Kabob,—but it did not put the foolish mother on
her guard, and he petted the child's squabby face, and in the pre-
sence of a witness gave it a piece of sweetmeat they call toffee.
(It is beastly.) My friend was chosen, his foes complained, and he
was turned out for an offence they term treating by his agent. So
if ever I aspire to sit among them, Kabob, I will give no toffee
to babies.
To this man, who knew much, I confided my opinion, and he
broke out into such an unseemly laugh that another man who was
speaking flew into a rage, and accused innocent persons of having
laughed at him. And he told me that one of these men was a lawyer,
who had much impudence, and that he had determined to sit in the
private councils of the Queen, and would make himself a thorn in the
seat of the rulers until they made him one of them. But I said, "Is
he a wise man ?" " You hear him," said my friend; "he talks fast and
foolishly." "Ishe a good man ?" I said, for virtue is a fine thing in
kings' chambers." "Heis a knave in money matters, and a profligate
in morals," was the reply. "Ishe a rich man ?" I persisted, " for his
gold may aid his Sovereign in the hour of need." "So poor," said my
friend, " that he would be in a prison for his debts, but that we do not
imprison those who sit here." Then I said, in a loud voice, for I
waxed indignant (the gentle Leila used to say that your friend's angel
was like the lashing of a tiger's tail), " Why is he not poisoned out of
the way? Do you eat dirt? Is not his countenance blackened?
Strangle the slave, and defile the graves of his grandfathers. By
Allah ! I would let the broomstick of castigation descend upon the
head of impertinence, and no mistake—"
But at this crisis, 0 Kabob ! a thin man in black, with marvellous
thin legs, and a sword, rose from a chair, and ordered your friend to
leave the building. To hear was to obey, my friend said, or I might
get into a hideous dungeon, deep below the edifice, where patriots
from Ireland were incarcerated until they became so mad with hunger
that they were reduced to eat their own words. More, therefore,
0 Kabob ! in another letter, of what I heard, and of my private dis -
courses with the great men of England. BackallUm ; or, as the French
say it, 11ous verrons.

SLASHUM EBN HASHUM."!

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