“Channels

“Channels,” he said, “are necessary that we may all jump them. They are necessary, moreover, for the crops. Let there be many wheels and sound channels — and much good barley.”
“Without money,” replied an aged Sheikh, “there are no waterwheels.”
“I will lend the money,” said the Governor.
“At what interest, O Our Excellency?”
“Take you two of May Queen’s puppies to bring up in your village in such a manner that they do not eat filth, nor lose their hair, nor catch fever from lying in the sun, but become wise hounds.”
“Like Ray-yal — not like Bigglebai?” (Already it was an insult along the River to compare a man to the shifty anthropophagous blue-mottled harrier.)
“Certainly, like Ray-yal — not in the least like Bigglebai. That shall be the interest on the loan. Let the puppies thrive and the waterwheel be built, and I shall be content,” said the Governor.
“The wheel shall be built, but, O Our Excellency, if by God’s favour the pups grow to be well-smelters, not filth-eaters, not unaccustomed to their names, not lawless, who will do them and me justice at the time of judging the young dogs?”
“Hounds, man, hounds! Ha-wands, O Sheikh, we call them in their manhood.”
“The ha-wands when they are judged at the Sha-ho. I have unfriends down the river to whom Our Excellency has also entrusted ha-wands to bring up.”
“Puppies, man! Pah-peaz we call them, O Sheikh, in their childhood.”
“Pah-peat. My enemies may judge my pah-peaz unjustly at the Sha-ho. This must be thought of.”
“I see the obstacle. Hear now! If the new waterwheel is built in a month without oppression, thou, O Sheikh, shalt be named one of the judges to judge the pah-peaz at the Sha-ho. Is it understood?”
“Understood. We will build the wheel. I and my seed are responsible for the repayment of the loan. Where are my pah-peaz? If they eat fowls, must they on any account eat the feathers?”
“On no account must they eat the feathers. Farag in the barge will tell thee how they are to live.”
There is no instance of any default on the Governor’s personal and unauthorized loans, for which they called him the Father of Waterwheels. But the first puppyshow at the capital needed enormous tact and the presence of a black battalion ostentatiously drilling in the barrack square to prevent trouble after the prize-giving.
But who can chronicle the glories of the Gihon Hunt — or their shames? Who remembers the kill in the market-place, when the Governor bade the assembled sheikhs and warriors observe how the hounds would instantly devour the body of Abu Hussein; but how, when he had scientifically broken it up, the weary pack turned from it in loathing, and Farag wept because he said the world’s face had been blackened? What men who have not yet ridden beyond the sound of any horn recall the midnight run which ended — Beagleboy leading — among tombs; the hasty whip-off, and the oath, taken Abo e bones, to forget the worry? The desert run, when Abu Hussein forsook the cultivation, and made a six-mile point to earth in a desolate khor — when strange armed riders on camels swooped out of a ravine, and instead of giving battle, offered to take the tired hounds home on their beasts. Which they did, and vanished.