Since the Turks went away a more humane method has been adopted. The criminal condemned to death is fed on the best that the city contains for a month previous to the execution of the sentence of the law. On the fatal day he is allowed as much spirit as he chooses to drink, and in this condition he is taken to a valley outside of the town. There the death warrant is read, and as its last words are pronounced there is a report of a couple of pistols and the man falls dead, shot through the heart. Just before my visit two men were thus executed; they went to their death in a hilarious condition, and were singing and shouting as they marched through the town.
CHAPTER IV--NEARING THE ORIENT--“BACKSHEESH!”
_Among the Fleas--The Mystery of the Bedclothes--A Cool Explanation--Under the Spray--What became of the Dragon--A Queer Story about Flies--What is an “Araba?”--Conversation without Words--Changing Shirts in Public--The Iron Gate--Scene at the Custom House--Official Obstinacy--The “Sick Man”--Scenes in the Orient--The Mysteries of the Quarantine--How We Dodged the Turks--The Turk and his Rosary--Pity the Poor Israelite!--Why an Unlucky Jewess was Whipped--The Secret of the Turkish Loan--How the Money is Spent--Ten Million Dollars Gone!--What is “Backsheesh?”_
THEN continuing our journey down the river, we took passage on board a local boat, which proved to be far less cleanly than the “accelerated steamer.”
The table was not good, and the cots had each but a single sheet; the deficiency in bedding, and its inability to keep one warm, were met by a large and assorted lot of fleas that made things lively through the night, and brought our bodies into a condition resembling that of a lobster recovering from a case of measles.
The Judge snored happily through all surrounding troubles, and the “Doubter” was inclined to disbelieve the existence of the industrious insects until, when morning came, he looked at himself in the glass. Even then he continued sceptical, and attributed the red spots on his skin to the claret at Belgrade, and possibly to a bad cigar which he smoked the day before.
As a general thing, you cannot induce a hotel or steamboat servant to admit the existence of anything disagreeable about the scene of his labors; but we found it different on board the Basiasch has nothing attractive; it consists of a railway station, a hotel, and a heap of coal. Before we tied up to the wharf, its population was much larger than five minutes later, when the passengers from the railway had come on board.