Here I met again an old Cretan friend, Server Pasha, sent to try the
same silly, futile tactics which so failed in Crete, i.e. offering the
insurgents elaborate paper reforms in exchange for actual submission.
He reminded me of the reply of the local commandant of the army at
Mostar when one of the consuls remonstrated at the authorities having
taken no action in a case of peculiarly brutal assassination in the
city of Mostar, the author of which had not even been arrested. The
Colonel Bey replied, astonished, to the indignant consul, "Why,
haven't we made a report?" The case was rather a peculiar one: a young
Mussulman, having received a present of a new rifle, went out into the
suburbs, and, seeing a Christian boy gathering the grapes from his
mother's vineyard, took a pot shot at him and shot him through the
body. The young assassin was carried in triumph about the town on the
shoulders of his playmates, and was never in any way punished for the
crime. I had the story from the surgeon who attended the Christian
boy, and from Mr. Holmes. I took a keen delight in illuminating the
intelligent mind of Server Pasha as to the true condition of the
country, telling him what I had seen and reported to the "Times;" and,
as he knew me well, and that I was trustworthy in my reports,--for he
knew how A'ali Pasha had regarded me,--he was in a curious state of
mental distress.
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