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30th of April. I saw neither spoils heaped up nor treasures displayed,
nor any of those things which one expects to find at the headquarters of
a band of robbers. Hadgi-Stavros makes it his business to have the booty
sold; every man receives his pay in money, and employs it as he chooses.
Some make investments in commerce, others take mortgages on houses in
Athens, others buy land in their villages; no one squanders the products
of robbery. Our arrival interrupted the breakfast of twenty-five or
thirty men, who flocked around us with their bread and cheese. The chief
supports his soldiers; there is distributed to them every day one ration
of bread, oil, wine, cheese, caviare, allspice, bitter olives, and meat
when their religion permits it. The epicures who wish to eat mallows or
other herbs are at liberty to gather delicacies in the mountains.

The office of the King was as much like an office as the camp of the
robbers was like a camp. Neither tables nor chairs nor movables of any
sort were to be seen there. Hadgi-Stavros was seated cross-legged on a
square carpet in the shade of a fir-tree. Four secretaries and two
servants were grouped around him. A boy of sixteen or eighteen was
occupied incessantly in filling, lighting, and cleaning the chibouk of
his master. He carried in his belt a tobacco-pouch, embroidered with
gold and fine mother-of-pearl, and a pair of silver pincers intended for
taking up coals. Another servant passed the day in preparing cups of
coffee, glasses of water, and sweetmeats to refresh the royal mouth. The
secretaries, seated on the bare rock, wrote on their knees, with pens
made of reeds. Each of them had at hand a long copper box containing
reeds, penknife, and inkhorn. Some tin cylinders, like those in which
our soldiers roll up their discharges, served as a depository for the
archives. The paper was not of native manufacture, and for a good
reason, Every leaf bore the word BATH in capital letters.

The King was a fine old man, marvelously well preserved, straight, slim,
supple as a spring, spruce and shining as a new sabre. His long white
moustachios hung under his chin like two marble stalactites. The rest of
his face was carefully shaved, the skull bare even to the occiput, where
a long tress of white hair was rolled up under his hat. The expression
of his features appeared to me calm and thoughtful. A pair of small,
clear blue eyes and a square chin announced an indomitable will. His