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The two largest caravanserais in Western China are in Hsiakwan, and I do not exaggerate when I say that a regiment of British cavalry could be quartered in either of them. At a restaurant near the cross-road we had rice and a cup of tea, and a bowl of the vermicelli soup known as mien, the muleteer and his son sitting down with my men.
These magnificent caravanserais cast far into the shade the best managed establishments of London, Paris, or Vienna, simply because luxuries enough to satiate any moderate desires, are furnished at fixed prices that need not alarm the most economical traveler. The cuisine at the New York Hotel is really artistic, and the attendance quite perfect.
Entering the bedroom with Jules, whose hands were bound, he told the commissionaire to remain outside the door. Jules' bedroom was quite an ordinary apartment, though perhaps slightly superior to the usual accommodation provided for servants in the caravanserais of the West End. It was about fourteen by twelve.
There is in the atmosphere of the Hotel of the Vieux Doelen at The Hague something as old-world, as quiet and peaceful, as there is in the very name of this historic house. The stairs are softly carpeted; the great rooms are hung with tapestry, and otherwise decorated in a massive and somewhat gloomy style, little affected in the newer caravanserais.
On a pinch one can usually borrow a frying-pan or kettle of some kind, and in such first-class caravanserais as YengImam there is sometimes one furnished room, carpeted and provided with bedding", reserved for the accommodation of travellers of importance.
I must have lost consciousness for a few seconds for I do not remember entering or mounting the stairs. I found myself at the bureau asking for Hamdi Effendi. No, he had not left. They thought he was in the hotel. A page despatched in search of him departed with my card, bawling a number. I hate these big caravanserais where one is a mere number, as in a gaol.
Here the old town has tortuous streets, houses of mud and clay, bazaars of poor appearance, caravanserais built of bricks dried in the sun, a few mosques, and schools as numerous as if the czar had decreed by ukase that everything French should be imitated. It is true that the scholars are wanting, but there is no want of schools.
Nor is it only palaces which Marco Polo describes, for he tells of the great canal and inland river trade of China, the exports and imports at its harbours, the paper money, the system of posts and caravanserais, which linked it together.
Then miles of unsightly caravanserais high walls, pompous villas, and Parisian grandes rues crushed out every trace of Italy, of history, and pictorial charm." So writes Mr. Travel had then still some of the elements of romance. Rapidity has changed all that.
There is no regular post-road between Shiráz and Bushire, or rather Sheif, the landing-place, eight miles from the latter city. The journey is performed by mule-caravan, resting by night at the caravanserais. Under the guidance of Mr. F , I therefore set about procuring animals and "chalvadars," or muleteers.
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