Safar Nameh, Persian Pictures: A Book Of TravelBell, Gertrude Lowthian
Science
Safar Nameh, Persian Pictures: A Book Of Travel
Bell, Gertrude Lowthian
Iran -- Description and travel
The day was nearly over when we descended, the cypresses of Brusa
cast long shadows between the white domes--it was the magic moment
when the sun, like a second Midas, turns all he touches into gold. The
western sky was a sheet of pure gold, the broad plane-leaves hung in
golden patterns upon the boughs, the low light lay in a carpet of gold
upon the grass, the very air breathed incantations, and on the lowest
slope of the mountain we found Ganymede awaiting us. There he sat under
a tree by the roadside; he had clothed himself in the semblance of an
old Turkish beggar, and hidden his yellow curls beneath a scarlet fez,
and the nectar he offered us was only Turkish coffee; but we knew him,
in spite of his disguise, when he put one of the tiny cups into our
hands, for no coffee brewed by mortal could have tasted so ambrosial or
mingled so divine a fragrance with the sweet flowery smell of evening.
We sat down on the grass round the primitive brazier--a mere dishful
of charcoal set on a shaky iron tripod. The heavenly cup-bearer was
well versed in the arts of coffee-making; he kept half a dozen of his
little copper pots a-boiling on the tray of charcoal, which he blew to
a red glow round them, and when the coffee frothed up over the edges,
he poured it in the nick of time into the cups which we held out to
him. The sun flooded our Olympian hall of plane-trees with soft light;
we lay in grateful silence upon our couch of grass while the coffee
bubbled up over the charcoal fire and frothed steaming into our cups.
At length we rose, handed our Ganymede some Turkish coins, at which he
must have chuckled in his Greek heart, and rode away in the twilight
through the streets of Brusa.
_SHOPS AND SHOPKEEPERS_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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