His Beard Curls Nobly Over His Chest, His
Damascus Scimitar On His Thigh.
His red cap gives him a venerable
and Bey-like appearance.
There is no gewgaw or parade about him,
as in some of your dandified young Agas. I should say that he is a
Major-General of Engineers, or a grave officer of State. We and
the Turkified European, who found us at dinner, sat smoking in
solemn divan.
His dinners were excellent; they were cooked by a regular Egyptian
female cook. We had delicate cucumbers stuffed with forced-meats;
yellow smoking pilaffs, the pride of the Oriental cuisine; kid and
fowls a l'Aboukir and a la Pyramide: a number of little savoury
plates of legumes of the vegetable-marrow sort: kibobs with an
excellent sauce of plums and piquant herbs. We ended the repast
with ruby pomegranates, pulled to pieces, deliciously cool and
pleasant. For the meats, we certainly ate them with the Infidel
knife and fork; but for the fruit, we put our hands into the dish
and flicked them into our mouths in what cannot but be the true
Oriental manner. I asked for lamb and pistachio-nuts, and cream-
tarts au poivre; but J.'s cook did not furnish us with either of
those historic dishes. And for drink, we had water freshened in
the porous little pots of grey clay, at whose spout every traveller
in the East has sucked delighted. Also, it must be confessed, we
drank certain sherbets, prepared by the two great rivals, Hadji
Hodson and Bass Bey - the bitterest and most delicious of draughts!
O divine Hodson!
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