He was now introduced to Mohammed Bey. Two large sofas, furnished with cushions, took up a great part of a spacious saloon. These cushions were of the richest crimson and gold, excepting a small yellow and gold one like a pillow, upon which the bey was leaning, supporting his head with his left hand, and sitting in the corner of the two sofas. Though it was late, he was in full dress; his girdle, turban, and the handle of his dagger all shining with the finest brilliants, and a magnificent sprig of diamonds was in his turban. "The rooms," says Bruce, "were light as day with a number of wax torches or candles. I found myself humbled at the sight of so much greatness and affluence. My bare feet were so dirty, I had a scruple to set them upon the rich Persian carpets with which the whole floor was covered; and the pain that walking at all occasioned gave me altogether so crouching and cringing a look, that the bey, upon seeing me come in, cried out, 'What's that? Who is that? From whence is he come?' His secretary told him, and immediately upon that I said to him in Arabic, with a low bow, 'Mohammed Bey, I am Yagoube, an Englishman; very unfit to appear before you in the condition I am in, having been forced out of my bed by your soldiers in the middle of the only sound sleep I have had for many years.'" After a short conversation, Bruce showed the bey the dreadful state of his feet: the effect, he told him, of passing the desert. He immediately desired him to sit down on the cushion. "It is the coldness of the night and hanging upon the ass," said Bruce, "which occasions this; the pain will be over presently." Bruce soon left, and was accompanied by a slave, who presented to him a basket of oranges, which he said were given by order of the bey. "In that country," says Bruce, "it is not the value of the present, but the character and power of the person that sends it, that creates the value; twenty thousand men that slept in Cairo that night would have thought the day on which the bey gave them, at an audience, the worst orange in that basket, the happiest one in their life. It is a mark of friendship and protection, and the best of all assurances. Well accustomed to ceremonies of this kind, I took a single orange, bowing low to the man that gave it me, who whispered me, 'Put your hand to the bottom, the best fruit is there; the whole is for you: it is from the bey.' A purse was exceedingly visible. I lifted it out; there were a considerable number of sequins in it; I put it in my mouth, kissed it, and said to the young man, 'This is, indeed the best fruit--at least commonly thought so--but it is forbidden fruit for me. The bey's protection and favour are more agreeable to me than a thousand such purses would be.'"