But Put Him In His
Stirrups, And Then Is The Tatar Himself Again:
There he lives at
his pleasure, reposing in the tranquillity of that true home (the
home of his ancestors)
Which the saddle seems to afford him, and
drawing from his pipe the calm pleasures of his "own fireside," or
else dashing sudden over the earth, as though for a moment he felt
the mouth of a Turcoman steed, and saw his own Scythian plains
lying boundless and open before him.
It was not till his subordinates had nearly completed their
preparations for their march that our Tatar, "commanding the
forces," arrived; he came sleek and fresh from the bath (for so is
the custom of the Ottomans when they start upon a journey), and was
carefully accoutred at every point. From his thigh to his throat
he was loaded with arms and other implements of a campaigning life.
There is no scarcity of water along the whole road from Belgrade to
Stamboul, but the habits of our Tatar were formed by his ancestors
and not by himself, so he took good care to see that his leathern
water-flask was amply charged and properly strapped to the saddle,
along with his blessed tchibouque. And now at last he has cursed
the Suridgees in all proper figures of speech, and is ready for a
ride of a thousand miles; but before he comforts his soul in the
marble baths of Stamboul he will be another and a lesser man; his
sense of responsibility, his too strict abstemiousness, and his
restless energy, disdainful of sleep, will have worn him down to a
fraction of the sleek Moostapha that now leads out our party from
the gates of Belgrade.
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