[P.255] The Reader Must Now Be As Tired Of “Pious Visitations” As I Was.

Before leaving Meccah I was urgently invited to dine by old Ali bin Ya Sin, the Zemzemi; a proof that he entertained inordinate expectations, excited, it appeared, by the boy Mohammed, for the simple purpose of exalting his own dignity.

One day we were hurriedly summoned about three P.M. to the senior’s house, a large building in the Zukak al-Hajar. We found it full of pilgrims, amongst whom we had no trouble to recognise our fellow-travellers, the quarrelsome old Arnaut and his impudent slave-boy. Ali met us upon the staircase, and conducted us into an upper room, where we sat upon diwans, and with pipes and coffee prepared for dinner. Presently the semicircle arose to receive a eunuch, who lodged somewhere in the house. He was a person of importance, being the guardian of some dames of high degree at Cairo and Constantinople: the highest place and

[p.256] the best pipe were unhesitatingly offered to and accepted by him. He sat down with dignity, answered diplomatically certain mysterious questions about the dames, and applied his blubber lips to a handsome mouthpiece of lemon-coloured amber. It was a fair lesson of humility for a man to find himself ranked beneath this high-shouldered, spindle-shanked, beardless bit of neutrality; and as such I took it duly to heart.

The dinner was served up in a Sini, a plated copper tray about six feet in circumference, and handsomely ornamented with arabesques and inscriptions.

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