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Updated: June 27, 2025
That is to say, its Moslem houses are heavy and dark, and as comfortless as so many tombs; its streets are crooked, rudely and roughly paved, and as narrow as an ordinary staircase; the streets uniformly carry a man to any other place than the one he wants to go to, and surprise him by landing him in the most unexpected localities; business is chiefly carried on in great covered bazaars, celled like a honeycomb with innumerable shops no larger than a common closet, and the whole hive cut up into a maze of alleys about wide enough to accommodate a laden camel, and well calculated to confuse a stranger and eventually lose him; every where there is dirt, every where there are fleas, every where there are lean, broken-hearted dogs; every alley is thronged with people; wherever you look, your eye rests upon a wild masquerade of extravagant costumes; the workshops are all open to the streets, and the workmen visible; all manner of sounds assail the ear, and over them all rings out the muezzin's cry from some tall minaret, calling the faithful vagabonds to prayer; and superior to the call to prayer, the noises in the streets, the interest of the costumes superior to every thing, and claiming the bulk of attention first, last, and all the time is a combination of Mohammedan stenches, to which the smell of even a Chinese quarter would be as pleasant as the roasting odors of the fatted calf to the nostrils of the returning Prodigal.
That is to say, its Moslem houses are heavy and dark, and as comfortless as so many tombs; its streets are crooked, rudely and roughly paved, and as narrow as an ordinary staircase; the streets uniformly carry a man to any other place than the one he wants to go to, and surprise him by landing him in the most unexpected localities; business is chiefly carried on in great covered bazaars, celled like a honeycomb with innumerable shops no larger than a common closet, and the whole hive cut up into a maze of alleys about wide enough to accommodate a laden camel, and well calculated to confuse a stranger and eventually lose him; every where there is dirt, every where there are fleas, every where there are lean, broken-hearted dogs; every alley is thronged with people; wherever you look, your eye rests upon a wild masquerade of extravagant costumes; the workshops are all open to the streets, and the workmen visible; all manner of sounds assail the ear, and over them all rings out the muezzin's cry from some tall minaret, calling the faithful vagabonds to prayer; and superior to the call to prayer, the noises in the streets, the interest of the costumes superior to every thing, and claiming the bulk of attention first, last, and all the time is a combination of Mohammedan stenches, to which the smell of even a Chinese quarter would be as pleasant as the roasting odors of the fatted calf to the nostrils of the returning Prodigal.
When Childe Harold was printed, he sent me a quarto copy before the publication; a favour and distinction I have always prized; and the copy which he gave me of The Bride of Abydos was one he had prepared for a new edition, and which contains, in his own writing, these six lines in no other copy: Bless'd as the Muezzin's strain from Mecca's wall To pilgrims pure and prostrate at his call, Soft as the melody of youthful days That steals the trembling tear of speechless praise, Sweet as his native song to exile's ears Shall sound each tone thy long-loved voice endears.
Like the Muezzin's call From some high minaret when day is done, Among the beeches tall Thy voice proclaims, "There is no God but one." And but one Beauty, too, Of whose sweet synthesis we ever fail: She flies if we pursue, Like thy swift wing down some dim intervale.
At early dawn of the proposed day of departure the whole party were summoned by the Muezzin's call to offer up prayers for their safe arrival at the "Dragon's Mouth," for the effectual cure of the young Abdoollah, and his happy return to his fond mother. The scabbard was of shagreen finely embroidered in gold.
The mosque is approached from an adjacent village by a viaduct of twenty arches; a propos of its peculiar surroundings, one might easily fancy the muezzin's call to prayer taking the appropriate form of, "Come where the water-lilies bloom," instead of the orthodox, "Allah-il-allah." Villages are now rows of shops lining the road on either side, sometimes as much as half a mile in length.
He was very tired after his long tramp in the hot streets, but he could not sleep. Angrily he tossed from side to side and closed his eyes tightly; but it was no good, sleep would not come. At midnight he heard a call to prayer chanted from the minaret of a tiny mosque in the neighbourhood. The muezzin's voice irritated him. He did not wish to pray, and he did want to sleep.
I tell you, my poor Monsieur Tartarin, you have to keep your peepers jolly well skinned in this deuce of a country, or be exposed to very disagreeable things. For a sample, there's the muezzin's game with you." "What game? Which muezzin?" "Why your'n, of course! The chap across the way who is making up to Baya.
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