I called upon a relation of the Pacha at Sivas. He was a stout, middle-aged man, and at that time ill in bed. I was shown into his room. During my conversation with him, an Italian doctor came to see the patient. The medical gentleman was the only European in Erzingan, he had been there half a century; his age, according to himself, being ninety-two years. The old man's appearance belied his assertion. He at once commenced talking with me in his native tongue.
"What is the matter with the invalid?" I inquired.
"Drink, my good sir, drink!" said the old gentleman. "He is forty, and I am over ninety, but, please God, as the Turks say, I shall outlive him. If the upper classes of Mohammedans were only sober, they would live for ever in this delightful climate. But what with their women, and what with their wine, they shorten their existence by at least thirty years. This man would have been dead ten years ago if he had lived in Constantinople."
"Why so?"
"Because of the climate. He would have drunk himself into a dropsy."
"What are you talking about?" said the sick man.
"I was saying, Bey Effendi," said the doctor, "how very popular you are in the neighbourhood, and how much every one loves you!"
The sick man smiled benignantly, and the old gentleman continued,—
"I should have been sorry if he had divined the topic of our conversation. He would never have employed me again, and might have called in the Turkish practitioner, an ignorant ass, who does not know so much about anatomy as a butcher in the market, and who treats cases of inflammation by firing his patient."