len in with a fact, unaccompanied by _doubts_, and every year
adds to my belief, that there are few genuine facts in existence. So
interwoven in my frame is doubt, that I sometimes am unwilling to admit,
as a fact, that I exist. I believe it to be the case, but I feel that I
have no right to assert it, until I know what death is, and may from
thence draw an inference, which may lead me to a just conclusion.

My name is Hudusi. Of my parents I can say little. My father asserted
that he was the bravest janissary in the sultan's employ, and had
greatly distinguished himself. He was always talking of Rustam, as being
a fool compared to him; of the number of battles he had fought, and of
the wounds which he had received in leading his corps on all desperate
occasions; but as my father often bathed before me, and the only wound I
could ever perceive was one in his rear, when he spoke of his bravery, I
_very much doubted the fact_.

My mother fondled and made much of me, declared that I was the image of
my father, a sweet pledge of their affections, a blessing sent by Heaven
upon their marriage; but, as my father's nose was aquiline, and mine is
a snub, or aquiline reversed; his mouth large, and mine small; his eyes
red and ferrety, and mine projecting; and, moreover, as she was a very
handsome woman, and used to pay frequent visits to the cave of a sainted
man in high repute, of whom I was the image, when she talked of the
janissary's paternity, I _very much doubted the fact_.

An old mollah taught me to read and write and repeat the verses of the
Koran--and I was as much advanced as any boy under his charge--but he
disliked me very much for reasons which I never could understand, and
was eternally giving me the slipper. He declared that I was a reprobate,
an unbeliever, a son of Jehanum, who would be impaled before I was much
older; but here I am, without a stake through my body at the age of
forty-five; and your highness must acknowledge that when he railed all
this in my ears, I was justified in _very much doubting the fact_.

When I was grown up, my father wanted me to enrol myself in the corps of
janissaries, and become a lion-killer like himself; I remonstrated, but
in vain; he applied, and I was accepted, and received the mark on my
arm, which constituted me a janissary. I put on the dress, swaggered and
bullied with many other young men of my acquaintance, who were all
ready, as they swore, to eat their enemies aliv