“It was the sixth day after our arrival, and the 22d of September, when about noon I was sitting alone and rather melancholy, and trying to beguile the time with reading the incomparable Divan of Ebn-el-Farid, the favorite companion of my travels. Barakat had at my request betaken himself out of doors, less in hopes of success than to ‘go to and fro in the earth and walk up and down in it;’ nor did I now dare to expect that he would return any wiser than he had set forth. When lo! after a long two hours’ absence he came in with cheerful face, index of good tidings. “Good, indeed, they were, none better. Their bearer said, that after roaming awhile to no purport through the streets and market-place, he had bethought him of a visit to the Persian camp. There, while straying among the tents, ‘like a washerwoman’s dog,’ as a Hindoo would say, he noticed somewhat aloof from the crowd a small group of pilgrims seated near their baggage on the sand, while curls of smoke going up from amid the circle indicated the presence of a fire, which at that time of day could be for nothing else than coffee. Civilized though Barakat undoubtedly was, he was yet by blood and heart an Arab, and for an Arab to see coffee-making and not to put himself in the way of getting a share would be an act of self-restraint totally unheard of. So he approached the group, and was of course invited to sit down and drink. The party consisted of two wealthy Persians, accompanied by three or four of that class of men, half-servants, half-companions, who often hook on to travellers at Bagdad or its neighborhood, besides a mulatto of Arabo-negrine origin, and his master, this last being the leader of the band, and the giver of the aromatic entertainment. “Barakat’s whole attention was at once engrossed by this personage. A remarkably handsome face, of a type evidently not belonging to the Arab peninsula, long hair curling down to the shoulders, an over-dress of fine spun silk, somewhat soiled by travel, a colored handkerchief of Syrian manufacture on the head, a manner and look indicating an education much superior to that ordinary in his class and occupation, a camel-driver’s, were peculiarities sufficient of themselves to attract notice, and give rise to conjecture. But when these went along with a welcome and a salute in the forms and tone of Damascus or Aleppo, and a ready flow of that superabundant and overcharged politeness for which the Syrian subjects of the Turkish empire are renowned, Barakat could no longer doubt that he had a fellow-countryman, and one, too, of some note, before him.