In vain they had brought him over
the seas in early boyhood; in vain had he suffered captivity,
conversion, circumcision; in vain they had passed him through fire
in their Arabian campaigns, they could not cut away or burn out
poor Osman's inborn love of all that was Scotch; in vain men called
him Effendi; in vain he swept along in eastern robes; in vain the
rival wives adorned his harem: the joy of his heart still plainly
lay in this, that he had three shelves of books, and that the books
were thoroughbred Scotch - the Edinburgh this, the Edinburgh that,
and above all, I recollect, he prided himself upon the "Edinburgh
Cabinet Library."
The fear of the plague is its forerunner. It is likely enough that
at the time of my seeing poor Osman the deadly taint was beginning
to creep through his veins, but it was not till after I had left
Cairo that he was visibly stricken. He died.
As soon as I had seen all that I wanted to see in Cairo and in the
neighbourhood I wished to make my escape from a city that lay under
the terrible curse of the plague, but Mysseri fell ill, in
consequence, I believe, of the hardships which he had been
suffering in my service.
