THE POWERS THAT BE 171
of authority. I reminded the mutineer of his bread and salt, but this was an unfortunate remark. " If I could only get the bread out of them/3 was his pointed rejoinder, " I wouldn't bother about salt.35 This closed the discussion, and the man remained master of the situation.
Later in the day I sat skinning the morning's cbag,5 when the culprit came up, salaamed, and apologized for his obduracy.
" Not my affair," I rejoined, " but if you shirk your duty with me you will hear about it. What kept you from going ? Sloth ? "
" Never," was his indignant reply, and then the truth came out. He was the son of one of those camel-owning Arabs, and was expected to use his influence to get the transport, which could not be paid for just then. " My people,55 he added, " disliked me joining the Zaptieh at all, for my father wanted me to stay with him, and help convey merchandise for folk up and down the road ; sooner would I be a one-eyed camel walking round an oil mill. The old man laughs at government employ. I'm not going down there to tell him that the c dowlah' wants camels, but can5t pay for them.55
There was trouble with those camel owners, during which some were knocked about, and the transport was snatched back into the foot-hills out of Ottoman reach.
The training of Zaptieh is theoretically sound, but in practice falls short of the standard originally set.
Every gendarme is supposed to have been through a course of training with his battalion at Sanaa, where battalion commanders, who are Turkish officers of rank, see to it that the men are trained. In actual practice only the leading sections in each company have been so