[p.8]rejoiced to see that by dint of a beard and a shaven head I had succeeded, like the Lord of Geesh, in “misleading the inquisitive spirit of the populace.”  The mingled herd of spectators before whom we passed in review on the landing-place, hearing an audible “Alhamdolillah"[FN#9] whispered “Muslim!” The infant population spared me the compliments usually addressed to hatted heads; and when a little boy, presuming that the occasion might possibly open the hand of generosity, looked in my face and exclaimed “Bakhshish,"[FN#10] he obtained in reply a “Mafish;"[FN#11] which convinced the bystanders that the sheep-skin covered a real sheep.  We then mounted a carriage, fought our way through the donkeys, and in half an hour found ourselves, chibuk in mouth and coffee-cup in hand, seated on the diwan of my friend Larking’s hospitable home.

Wonderful was the contrast between the steamer and that villa on the Mahmudiyah canal!  Startling the sudden change from presto to adagio life!  In thirteen days we had passed from the clammy grey fog, that atmosphere

[p.9]of industry which kept us at anchor off the Isle of Wight, through the loveliest air of the Inland Sea, whose sparkling blue and purple haze spread charms even on N. Africa’s beldame features, and now we are sitting silent and still, listening to the monotonous melody of the East-the soft night-breeze wandering through starlit skies and tufted trees, with a voice of melancholy meaning.

And this is the Arab’s Kayf.  The savouring of animal existence; the passive enjoyment of mere sense; the pleasant languor, the dreamy tranquillity, the airy castle-building, which in Asia stand in lieu of the vigorous, intensive, passionate life of Europe.  It is the result of a lively, impressible, excitable nature, and exquisite sensibility of nerve; it argues a facility for voluptuousness unknown to northern regions, where happiness is placed in the exertion of mental and physical powers; where Ernst ist das Leben; where niggard earth commands ceaseless sweat of face, and damp chill air demands perpetual excitement, exercise, or change, or adventure, or dissipation, for want of something better.  In the East, man wants but rest and shade:  upon the banks of a bubbling stream, or under the cool shelter of a perfumed tree, he is perfectly happy, smoking a pipe, or sipping a cup of coffee, or drinking a glass of sherbet, but above all things deranging body and mind as little as possible; the trouble of conversations, the displeasures of memory, and the vanity of thought being the most unpleasant interruptions to his Kayf.  No wonder that “Kayf” is a word untranslatable in our mother-tongue![FN#12]

“Laudabunt alii claram Rhodon aut Mytelenen.”

Let others describe the once famous Capital of