A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

THE BASTINADO. 343
depart; a favourable wind having sprung up,
which it was important for us to profit by, as
we have been struggling against contrary ones
for the last few days, and making but slow pro-
gress. If we w^aited for the Pasha's audience,
we should not be able to leave E'Siout till after
four o'clock, when darkness would be coming on,
and the wind would in all probability abandon us
after night-fall. On the other hand, we were
anxious to make our personal acknowledgments
to Selim Pasha for his polite attentions, and
unwilling to depart Avithout seeing him. After
a little deliberation, we rode to the palace, in
the hope that we might be received by his Ex-
cellency before he went to mosque, and thus
contrive to obtain both the ends we had in view.
We w^ere ushered into the Pasha's divan, while
a slave proceeded to the hareem to ascertain
whether his master was visible, and while he
was gone, female curiosity prompted me to make
a circuit of the vast room. Nothing to be seen in
it but the eternal sofa lining three sides ! At
the
lower end of the room lay something upon a mat
in a corner; I took it up—it was the horrid
bastinado apparatus, the wooden bars all stained
with blood ! I let the instrument of torture fall
from my hands as though it had been red-hot