Presently, When They All Departed For A
Time, The Boy Mohammed Raised, By Request, My Green Box Of Medicines,
And Deposited It Upon The Mastabah; Thus Defining, As It Were, A Line
Of Demarcation, And Asserting My Privilege To It Before The Turks.
Most
of these men were of one party, headed by a colonel of Nizam, whom they
called a Bey.
My acquaintance with them began roughly enough, but
afterwards, with some exceptions, who were gruff as an English butcher
when accosted by a lean foreigner, they proved to be kind-hearted and
not unsociable men. It often happens to the traveller, as the charming
Mrs. Malaprop observes, to find intercourse all the better by beginning
with a little aversion.
In the evening, accompanied by the boy Mohammed, and followed by Shaykh
Nur, who carried a lantern and a praying-rug, I again repaired to the
“Navel of the World[FN#15]; this time aesthetically, to enjoy the
delights of the hour after the “gaudy, babbling, and remorseful day.” The
moon, now approaching the full, tipped the brow of Abu Kubays, and lit
up the spectacle with a more solemn light. In the midst stood the huge
bier-like erection,—
“Black as the wings
Which some spirit of ill o’er a sepulchre flings,”—
[p.173] except where the moonbeams streaked it like jets of silver
falling upon the darkest marble. It formed the point of rest for the
eye; the little pagoda-like buildings and domes around it, with all
their gilding and fretwork, vanished.
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