He had no occasion to demand more from the people than they had been used to pay to the beys; and he lightened the impost by introducing as far as he could the fairness and exactness of a civilised power in the method of levying it.

He laboured to make the laws respected, and this so earnestly and rigidly, that no small wonder was excited among all classes of a population so long accustomed to the licence of a barbarian horde of spoilers.

On one occasion one of the Ulemahs could not help smiling at the zeal which he manifested for tracing home the murder of an obscure peasant to the perpetrator.

The Mussulman asked if the dead man were anywise related to the blood of the Sultan Kebir?
"No," answered Napoleon, sternly--"but he was more than that--he was one of a people whose government it has pleased Providence to place in my hands." The measures which he took for the protection of travellers to Mecca were especially acceptable to the heads of the Moslem establishment, and produced from them a proclamation, (in direct contradiction to the Koran,) signifying that it was right and lawful to pay tribute to the French.

The virtuosi and artists in his train, meanwhile, pursued with indefatigable energy their scientific researches; they ransacked the monuments of Egypt, and laid the foundation, at least, of all the wonderful discoveries, which have since been made concerning the knowledge, arts, polity (and even language) of the ancient nation.