I Can Fancy The Place
Beginning To Wear The Fatal Vauxhall Look Of The Seraglio, And
Which Has Pursued Me Ever Since I Saw It:
The fountains of eternal
wine are beginning to run rather dry, and of a questionable liquor;
the ready-roasted-
Meat trees may cry, "Come eat me," every now and
then, in a faint voice, without any gravy in it - but the Faithful
begin to doubt about the quality of the victuals. Of nights you
may see the houris sitting sadly under them, darning their faded
muslins: Ali, Omar, and the Imaums are reconciled and have gloomy
consultations: and the Chief of the Faithful himself, the awful
camel-driver, the supernatural husband of Khadijah, sits alone in a
tumbledown kiosk, thinking moodily of the destiny that is impending
over him; and of the day when his gardens of bliss shall be as
vacant as the bankrupt Olympus.
All the town of Rhodes has this appearance of decay and ruin,
except a few consuls' houses planted on the sea-side, here and
there, with bright flags flaunting in the sun; fresh paint; English
crockery; shining mahogany, &c., - so many emblems of the new
prosperity of their trade, while the old inhabitants were going to
rack - the fine Church of St. John, converted into a mosque, is a
ruined church, with a ruined mosque inside; the fortifications are
mouldering away, as much as time will let them. There was
considerable bustle and stir about the little port; but it was the
bustle of people who looked for the most part to be beggars; and I
saw no shop in the bazaar that seemed to have the value of a
pedlar's pack.
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