Europe -- Description and travel; Middle East -- Description and travel; Voyages and travels
The blank, unornamented coop had nothing about it of that oriental
voluptuousness one reads of so much. It was more suggestive of the
county hospital than any thing else. The skinny servitor brought a
narghili, and I got him to take it out again without wasting any time
about it. Then he brought the world-renowned Turkish coffee that poets
have sung so rapturously for many generations, and I seized upon it as
the last hope that was left of my old dreams of Eastern luxury. It was
another fraud. Of all the unchristian beverages that ever passed my
lips, Turkish coffee is the worst. The cup is small, it is smeared with
grounds; the coffee is black, thick, unsavory of smell, and execrable in
taste. The bottom of the cup has a muddy sediment in it half an inch
deep. This goes down your throat, and portions of it lodge by the way,
and produce a tickling aggravation that keeps you barking and coughing
for an hour.
Here endeth my experience of the celebrated Turkish bath, and here also
endeth my dream of the bliss the mortal revels in who passes through it.
It is a malignant swindle. The man who enjoys it is qualified to enjoy
any thing that is repulsive to sight or sense, and he that can invest it
with a charm of poetry is able to do the same with any thing else in the
world that is tedious, and wretched, and dismal, and nasty.
CHAPTER XXXV.
We left a dozen passengers in Constantinople, and sailed through the
beautiful Bosporus and far up into the Black Sea. We left them in the
clutches of the celebrated Turkish guide, "FAR-AWAY MOSES," who will
seduce them into buying a ship-load of ottar of roses, splendid Turkish
vestments, and ail manner of curious things they can never have any use
for. Murray's invaluable guide-books have mentioned 'Far-away Moses'
name, and he is a made man. He rejoices daily in the fact that he is a
recognized celebrity. However, we can not alter our established customs
to please the whims of guides; we can not show partialities this late in
the day. Therefore, ignoring this fellow's brilliant fame, and ignoring
the fanciful name he takes such pride in, we called him Ferguson, just as
we had done with all other guides. It has kept him in a state of
smothered exasperation all the time. Yet we meant him no harm. After he
has gotten himself up regardless of expense, in showy, baggy trowsers,
yellow, pointed slippers, fiery fez, silken jacket of blue, voluminous
waist-sash of fancy Persian stuff filled with a battery of silver-mounted
horse-pistols, and has strapped on his terrible scimitar, he considers it
an unspeakable humiliation to be called Ferguson. It can not be helped.
All guides are Fergusons to us. We can not master their dreadful foreign
names.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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