Mina, and to summon all present in this vehicle to testify to his words." This speech stopped Georges' narrative all the more surely, because at this moment the coucou reached the guard-house of a brigade of gendarmerie,--the white flag floating, as the orthodox saying is, upon the breeze. "You have too many decorations to do such a dastardly thing," said Oscar. "Never mind; we'll catch up with him soon," whispered Georges in the lad's ear. "Colonel," cried Leger, who was a good deal disturbed by the count's outburst, and wanted to change the conversation, "in all these countries where you have been, what sort of farming do they do? How do they vary the crops?" "Well, in the first place, my good fellow, you must understand, they are too busy cropping off each others' heads to think much of cropping the ground." The count couldn't help smiling; and that smile reassured the narrator. "They have a way of cultivating which you will think very queer. They don't cultivate at all; that's their style of farming. The Turks and the Greeks, they eat onions or rise. They get opium from poppies, and it gives them a fine revenue. Then they have tobacco, which grows of itself, famous latakiah! and dates! and all kinds of sweet things that don't need cultivation. It is a country full of resources and commerce. They make fine rugs at Smyrna, and not dear." "But," persisted Leger, "if the rugs are made of wool they must come from sheep; and to have sheep you must have fields, farms, culture--" "Well, there may be something of that sort," replied Georges. "But their chief crop, rice, grows in the water. As for me, I have only been along the coasts and seen the parts that are devastated by war. Besides, I have the deepest aversion to statistics." "How about the taxes?" asked the farmer. "Oh! the taxes are heavy; they take all a man has, and leave him the rest. The pacha of Egypt was so struck with the advantages of that system, that, when I came away he was on the point of organizing his own administration on that footing--" "But," said Leger, who no longer understood a single word, "how?"