The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pacha of Many Tales, by Frederick Marryat

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Title: The Pacha of Many Tales

Author: Frederick Marryat

Release Date: May 22, 2007 [EBook #21571]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PACHA OF MANY TALES ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

The Pacha of Many Tales, by Captain Marryat.

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Captain Frederick Marryat was born July 10 1792, and died August 8 1848.
He retired from the British navy in 1828 in order to devote himself to
writing. In the following 20 years he wrote 26 books, many of which are
among the very best of English literature, and some of which are still
in print.

Marryat had an extraordinary gift for the invention of episodes in his
stories. He says somewhere that when he sat down for the day's work, he
never knew what he was going to write. He certainly was a literary
genius.

"The Pacha of Many Tales" was published in 1835, the sixth book to flow
from Marryat's pen. It is designedly reminiscent of "The Arabian
Nights". Marryat has let his genius for inventing delightful little
stories and episodes run riot in this unusual book.

This e-text was transcribed in 1998 by Nick Hodson, and was reformatted
in 2003, and again in 2005.

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THE PACHA OF MANY TALES, BY CAPTAIN FREDERICK MARRYAT.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER ONE.

Every one acquainted with the manners and customs of the East must be
aware that there is no situation of eminence more unstable, or more
dangerous to its possessor, than that of a pacha. Nothing, perhaps,
affords us more convincing proof of the risk which men will incur, to
obtain a temporary authority over their fellow-creatures, than the
avidity with which this office is accepted from the sultan who, within
the memory of the new occupant, has consigned scores of his predecessors
to the bow-string. It would almost appear, as if the despot but
elevated a head from the crowd, that he might obtain a more fair and
uninterrupted sweep for his scimitar, when he cut