The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3: Who was a sailor, a soldier, a merchant, a spy, a slave; among the moors...Sala, George Augustus
General
The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3: Who was a sailor, a soldier, a merchant, a spy, a slave; among the moors...
Sala, George Augustus
Adventure and adventurers -- Fiction
they smoke it much as we do our common Clay things; but there's another,
which they call a Nargilly, like the Hubble-bubble smoked by the proud
Planters in the Dutch East Indies. With the Nargilly, the Smoke passes
first through Rose-water, to purify it; and after passing through many
snake-like coils of silk and wire tubing, the Smoker gulps it down
bodily; so that it goes into his Lungs, and must make them as sooty as a
foul Chimney. Many of the Turks are so handy at this nasty trick, that
they can make the Smoke they have swallowed come out of their ears,
eyes, and nostrils; but I envy them not such Mountebankery, and when I
smoke my Pipe, am content to Blow a Cloud in a moderate and Christian
manner.
I have kept you so long describing this Eastern Lady's Dress, that you
must be growing impatient to know whether her Face matched in
handsomeness with her Apparel; but there was the Deuce of it; for while
I stood before her, staring and Wondering over her splendid Habiliments,
I could catch ne'er a glimpse of her Countenance, which was entirely
concealed from view by the Veil they call a _Formah_, which is made of
a very fine gauzy stuff, but painted in body-colour in a pattern so as
to make it Opaque, and so artfully disposed as to hide the Face without
shading any of the splendour of the Dress. And though I could not make
out so much as the tip of the Lady's Nose, I had a queer sensation that
she was looking at _me_, nay, even that her eyes were twinkling in a
merry manner under her Veil. And so I remained Dumbfoundered, quite
uncertain as to the kind of Adventure that had befallen me. Had some
Moorish or Turkish Dame designed only to Divert herself at the expense
of a poor Christian Slave? or was the Veiled Lady only some artful
Adventuress of the Jewish, Armenian, or Cophtic Nation, of whom there
were many here, affecting great magnificence in their Habits and Living?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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