Eothen By A. W. Kingslake

































 -   It is likely enough that they might have given
themselves the trouble of putting the Admiral to death, for the - Page 36
Eothen By A. W. Kingslake - Page 36 of 170 - First - Home

Enter page number    Previous Next

Number of Words to Display Per Page: 250 500 1000

It Is Likely Enough That They Might Have Given Themselves The Trouble Of Putting "The Admiral" To Death, For The Purpose Of Simplifying Their Claim To The Vessel And Preventing Litigation, But The Notion Of Their Cannibalism Was Of Course Utterly Unfounded.

Nicolou's terror had, however, so graven the idea on his mind, that he could never afterwards dismiss it. Having

Once determined the character of his expectant hosts, the Admiral naturally thought that it would he better to keep their dinner waiting any length of time than to attend their feast in the character of a roasted Greek, so he put about his vessel, and tempted the deep once more. After a further cruise the lonely commander ran his vessel upon some rocks at another part of the coast, where she was lost with all her treasures, and Nicolou was but too glad to scramble ashore, though without one dollar in his girdle. These adventures seem flat enough as I repeat them, but the hero expressed his terrors by such odd terms of speech, and such strangely humorous gestures, that the story came from his lips with an unfailing zest, so that the crew, who had heard the tale so often, could still enjoy to their hearts' content the rich fright of the Admiral, and still shuddered with unabated horror when he came to the loss of the dollars.

The power of listening to long stories (for which, by-the-bye, I am giving you large credit) is common, I fancy, to most sailors, and the Greeks have it to a high degree, for they can be perfectly patient under a narrative of two or three hours' duration. These long stories are mostly founded upon Oriental topics, and in one of them I recognised with some alteration an old friend of the "Arabian Nights." I inquired as to the source from which the story had been derived, and the crew all agreed that it had been handed down unwritten from Greek to Greek. Their account of the matter does not, perhaps, go very far towards showing the real origin of the tale; but when I afterwards took up the "Arabian Nights," I became strongly impressed with a notion that they must have sprung from the brain of a Greek. It seems to me that these stories, whilst they disclose a complete and habitual KNOWLEDGE of things Asiatic, have about them so much of freshness and life, so much of the stirring and volatile European character, that they cannot have owed their conception to a mere Oriental, who for creative purposes is a thing dead and dry - a mental mummy, that may have been a live king just after the Flood, but has since lain balmed in spice. At the time of the Caliphat the Greek race was familiar enough to Baghdad: they were the merchants, the pedlars, the barbers, and intriguers-general of south-western Asia, and therefore the Oriental materials with which the Arabian tales were wrought must have been completely at the command of the inventive people to whom I would attribute their origin.

Enter page number   Previous Next
Page 36 of 170
Words from 18787 to 19303 of 89094


Previous 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 Next

More links: First 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 Last

Display Words Per Page: 250 500 1000

 
Africa (29)
Asia (27)
Europe (59)
North America (58)
Oceania (24)
South America (8)
 

List of Travel Books RSS Feeds

Africa Travel Books RSS Feed

Asia Travel Books RSS Feed

Europe Travel Books RSS Feed

North America Travel Books RSS Feed

Oceania Travel Books RSS Feed

South America Travel Books RSS Feed

Copyright © 2005 - 2022 Travel Books Online