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Updated: June 3, 2025
Abdullah removed his stool to a distant spot among the ruins, whither the servant of the tavern carried two narghîlehs. He made his nephew sit and smoke with him, then asked: "What news?" "The best thanks to Allah," replied Iskender. "The Emîr has shown great love for me, and is having a grand new paint-box sent from the land of the English."
The pavement, huge shapeless blocks sloping to a central gutter; from this bare two-storied houses, sometimes plaster many coloured, sometimes rough-hewn marble, rise, dirty and ill-finished to straight, plain, flat roofs; shops guiltless of windows, with signs in Greek letters; dogs, Greeks in blue, baggy, Zouave breeches and a fez, a few narghilehs and a sprinkling of the ordinary continental shopboys. In the evening I tried one more walk in Syra with A-, but in vain endeavoured to amuse myself or to spend money; the first effort resulting in singing DOODAH to a passing Greek or two, the second in spending, no, in making A- spend, threepence on coffee for three.
I often think with regret of the strange scenes which became a second nature to me: of those dark, fierce men, in their gaudy, flowing costumes, lying about in various attitudes; of our encampments at night, the fire or the moonlight lighting them up, the divans and the pipes, the narghilehs and coffee; of their wild, mournful songs; of their war-dances; of their story-telling of love and war, which are the only themes.
The interminable lines of bazaars, with their atmospheres of spice and fruit and fragrant tobacco, the hushed tread of the slippered crowds; the plash of falling fountains and the bubbling of innumerable narghilehs; the picturesque merchants and their customers, no longer in the big trowsers of Egypt, but the long caftans and abas of Syria; the absence of Frank faces and dresses in all these there was the true spirit of the Orient, and so far, we were charmed with Damascus.
I used to order mine to be all of dark chocolate and gold, and to measure from four to six yards in length, and I never had less than twelve narghilehs in the house at once, one of which I kept for my own particular smoking, and a silver mouthpiece which I kept in my pocket for use when visiting. I cannot hope in a short space to exhaust the treasures of these gorgeous bazars.
They lodged in the aghas' odd palaces, large white windowless farmhouses, where they found, pell-mell, narghilehs and mahogany furniture, Smyrna carpets and moderator lamps, cedar coffers full of Turkish sequins, and French statuette-decked clocks in the Louis Philippe style.
The town when entered is quite Eastern. The streets are formed of open stalls under the first story, in which squat tailors, cooks, sherbet-vendors and the like, busy at their work or smoking narghilehs. Cloths stretched from house to house keep out the sun.
She looked splendid in Oriental dress. She was my most intimate friend, and she dictated to me the whole of her biography." Both ladies were inveterate smokers, and they, Burton, and Abd el Kadir spent many evenings on the terrace of the house with their narghilehs. Burton and his wife never forgot these delightsome causeries. Swiftly, indeed, flew the happy hours when they
They sit chatting with little bundles of sweets and narghilehs before them. An average Englishwoman would look like an houri amongst them; and their customs were beastly, to use the mildest term. The Hammam was entered by a large hall, lit by a skylight, with a huge marble tank in the centre and four little fountains, and all around raised divans covered with cushions.
The kawwasses, in full dress of scarlet and gold, kept guard by turns, and the servants were engaged incessantly in bringing up relays of narghilehs, chibouques, cigarettes, sweet-meats, sherbet, Turkish coffee and tea. My visitors sat on the divans, cross- legged or not, according to their nation, and smoked and chatted.
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