O Pips!" Sings The Vendor Of
Parched Grains, Rattling The Unsavoury Load In His Basket.
"Out of the
way, and say, ‘There is one God,'" pants the industrious water-carrier,
laden with a skin, fit burden for a buffalo.
"Sweet-water, and gladden
thy soul, O lemonade!" pipes the seller of that luxury, clanging his
brass cups together. Then come the beggars, intensely Oriental. "My
supper is in Allah's hands, my supper is in Allah's hands! whatever
thou givest, that will go with thee!" chaunts the old vagrant, whose
wallet perhaps contains more provision than the basket of many a
respectable shopkeeper.
[p.83]"Na'al abuk[FN#17]-rucse thy father-O brother of a naughty
sister!" is the response of some petulant Greek to the touch of the old
man's staff. "The grave is darkness, and good deeds are its lamp!" sing
the blind women, rapping two sticks together: "upon Allah! upon Allah!
O daughter!" cry the bystanders, when the obstinate "bint"[FN#18]
(daughter) of sixty years seizes their hands, and will not let go
without extorting a farthing. "Bring the sweet" (i.e. fire), "and take
the full,"[FN#19] (i.e., empty cup), euphuistically cry the
long-moustached, fierce-browed Arnauts to the coffee-house keeper, who
stands by them charmed by the rhyming repartee that flows so readily
from their lips.
"Hanien," may it be pleasant to thee![FN#20] is the signal for
encounter.
[p.84]"Thou drinkest for ten," replies the other, instead of returning
the usual religious salutation.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 112 of 571
Words from 31230 to 31486
of 157964
