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Long accustomed, as Redclyffe had been, to the hardy and rude accommodations, if so they were to be called, of log huts and hasty, mud-built houses in the Western States of America, life, its daily habits, its passing accommodations, seemed to assume an importance, under these aspects, which it had not worn before; those deep downy beds, those antique chairs, the heavy carpet, the tester and curtains, the stateliness of the old room, they had a charm as compared with the thin preparation of a forester's bedchamber, such as Redclyffe had chiefly known them, in the ruder parts of the country, that really seemed to give a more substantial value to life; so much pains had been taken with its modes and appliances, that it looked more solid than before.
In a moment, his brain seemed to clear all at once, and everything to grow plain as day before him. He raised himself on one wasted elbow and gazed around him with profound awe. He saw it all now; he remembered everything, everything. He was alone, among savages in the far heart of Africa. He lay on his back, on a heap of fresh straw, in a close and filthy mud-built hut.
At such times, the father would creep sadly into his wretched mud-built hovel, and bury his face in his hands, so that he might not see his son trying to keep back the tears caused by hunger. The little fellow, however, now ten years of age, would comfort his father by saying: "Inshallah" if God wills "to-morrow you will sell more soap than you have done for weeks past."
Wherever there is a permanent supply of water, there also is certain to be found a mud-built village, with fields of wheat and barley, pomegranate orchards, and vineyards.
The fields and little clearings which, a few miles back, were devoted to the cultivation of wheat and rye, now become rice-fields overflowed from irrigating ditches, and in which bare-legged men and women are paddling about, over their knees in mud and water. Early in the evening we reach the city of Asterabad, which we find totally different from the sombre, mud-built cities of the interior.
When there is a load to ferry over, this platform is let loose from the shore, and the current carries it across, the rope keeping it from going down stream. The shores of Red River are almost bare; a few miserable poplars here and there, one or two small log-houses and mud-built huts from which wild, dirty Indians emerged to watch the boat pass, were all we saw upon them.
It is surrounded by a mud-built wall, and half hidden among the palms we could discern the mud-built cottages and mosque belonging to the Arab village. On the other side of our route we observed a forest of upright stones, rough and unhewn. This was the last resting-place of the people of the desert, and a sad and lonely sight an Arab burial-place is, dreary even amid the utter desolation around.
Escorted by these I went to another tent, rested there awhile, and then moved into a mud-built house. The priest I had come to visit was busy lighting a fire which would do nothing but smoke, and the room was soon full.
The next evening, his whole force set to work throwing up a battery, at the edge of the rising ground on which Fort Ontario stood, and, by daybreak, twenty heavy guns were in position, and at once opened fire. The grape and round shot swept the English position, smashing down the mud-built walls, crashing through the stockades, and carrying destruction among the troops.
Perhaps the swallows from their mud-built nests overhead twittered her a little lecture on the beauty of gentleness. However that might have been, she came out quite subdued, and carefully searched the orchard for a certain kind of early apple that Bess liked because it was sweet and small and rosy. Armed with this peace-offering, she approached the little Princess, and humbly presented it.
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