Our entry into Aleppo was a fitting preliminary to our experiences during the five days we have spent here.  After passing a blackamoor, who acted as an advanced guard of the Custom House, at a ragged tent outside of the city, and bribing him with two piastres, we crossed the narrow line of gardens on the western side, and entered the streets.  There were many coffee-houses, filled with smokers, nearly all of whom accosted us in Turkish, though Arabic is the prevailing language here.  Ignorance made us discourteous, and we slighted every attempt to open a conversation.  Out of the narrow streets of the suburbs, we advanced to the bazaars, in order to find a khan where we could obtain lodgings.  All the best khans, however, were filled, and we were about to take a very inferior room, when a respectable individual came up to Francois and said:  “The house is ready for the travellers, and I will show you the way.”  We were a little surprised at this address, but followed him to a neat, quiet and pleasant street near the bazaars, where we were ushered into a spacious court-yard, with a row of apartments opening upon it, and told to make ourselves at home.

The place had evidently been recently inhabited, for the rooms were well furnished, with not only divans, but beds in the Frank style.  A lean kitten was scratching at one of the windows, to the great danger of overturning a pair of narghilehs, a tame sea-gull was walking about the court, and two sheep bleated in a stable at the further end.  In the kitchen we not only found a variety of utensils, but eggs, salt, pepper, and other condiments.  Our guide had left, and the only information we could get, from a dyeing establishment next door, was that the occupants had gone into the country.  “Take the good the gods provide thee,” is my rule in such cases, and as we were very hungry, we set Francois to work at preparing dinner.  We arranged a divan in the open air, had a table brought out, and by the aid of the bakers in the bazaar, and the stores which the kitchen supplied, soon rejoiced over a very palatable meal.  The romantic character of our reception made the dinner a merry one.  It was a chapter out of the Arabian Nights, and be he genie or afrite, caliph or merchant of Bassora, into whose hands we had fallen, we resolved to let the adventure take its course.  We were just finishing a nondescript pastry which Francois found at a baker’s, and which, for want of a better name, he called meringues a la Khorassan, when there was a loud knock at the street door.  We felt at first some little trepidation, but determined to maintain our places, and gravely invite the real master to join us.