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After confectionery which had been prepared by nuns, and strong waters which had been distilled by the hands of priors, the chieftains praised God, and rose, and took their seats on the divan, when immediately advanced a crowd of slaves, each bearing a nargileh, which they presented to the guests. Then gradually the conversation commenced.
But while gathering up my effects, one heroic individual ventures to approach part way and open up a shouting inquiry; my answers, though unintelligible to him in the main, satisfy him that I am at all events a human being; there are six of them, and in a few minutes after the ignominious flight of the driver, they are all gathered around me, as much interested and nonplussed at the appearance of myself and bicycle as a party of Nebraska homesteaders might be had they, under similar circumstances, discovered a turbaned old Turk complacently enjoying a nargileh.
His baffled brain whirled with wild and impracticable combinations, till, at length, frightened and exhausted, he called for his nargileh, and sought, as was his custom, serenity from its magic tube.
The Talhook and the Abdel-Malek could not be jealous of the Habeish and the Eldadah. He kissed the hand of Bishop Nicodemus, but then he sent his own nargileh to the Emir Ahmet Raslan, who was Caimacam of the Druses. In this strange and splendid scene, Tancred, dressed in a velvet shooting-jacket built in St.
Then the Emir begged permission to pay him a visit, which was to have lasted only a quarter of an hour; but when Fakredeen had once established himself in the divan with his nargileh, he never quitted it. It would have been difficult for Tancred to have found a more interesting companion; impossible to have made an acquaintance more singularly unreserved. His frankness was startling.
In this chamber some half dozen persons were seated in the Eastern fashion, and smoking either the choice tobaccoes of Syria through the cherry-wood or jasmine tube of a Turkish or Egyptian chibouque, or inhaling through rose-water the more artificial flavour of the nargileh, which is the hookah of the Levant.
There was no sign of anger in the man as he sat tranquilly upon the cushions, the amber mouthpiece of the nargileh between his lips; no sound of wrath in the gentle voice which bid the Ethiopian eunuch to remain prostrated upon the floor, until the arrival of the other slaves, who could be heard pelting through the house from every direction in answer to the summons of the gong.
As the new comer entered the hall, he shuffled off his slippers at the threshold, and then advancing, and pressing a hand to his brow, his mouth and his heart, a salutation which signifies that in thought, speech, and feeling he was faithful to his host, and which salutation was immediately returned, he took his seat upon the divan, and the master of the house, letting the flexible tube of his nargileh fall on one of the cushions, and clapping his hands, a page immediately brought a pipe to the new guest.
Then one of the girls, leaving the apartment for a moment, returned with a nargileh of crystal, set by the most cunning artists of Damascus in a framework of golden filigree crusted with precious stones.
Presently he opened his lips and began to sing: "The love of women is like a date that is golden in the sun, That is golden The love of women is like a gazelle that comes to drink To drink at the water springs The love of women is like the nargileh, and like the dust of the keef That is mingled with tobacco and with honey. Put the reed between thy lips, O loving man!
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